USA > Michigan > Allegan County > A twentieth century history of Allegan County, Michigan > Part 44
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Following his return to Allegan county Mr. Ellinger was for two years engaged in business with his brother Daniel in the conduct of a clothing store. In 1857 he had purchased an eighty-acre tract of wild land, and in September, 1867, he located thercon in order to start a farm.
During a furlough he had been married at Grand Rapids on the 8th of April, 1863, to Miss Matilda Schute, who was born in Hamburg, Germany, and became a resident of New York in 1849. Eight years later she went to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where her father was engaged in business as a cutter and tailor, making officers' clothing during the period of the war.
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Mr. and Mrs. Ellinger had become acquainted while she was visiting in Allegan in 1860, and were engaged when he enlisted for the war, so that on his return to the north on a furlough the wedding was celebrated.
As before stated, they took up their abode upon the farm in September. 1867. A small clearing had been made by Mr. Ellinger prior to the war and he built thereon a house. Two years later he sold that farm and bought one hundred and sixty acres adjoining, with forty acres cleared and a log cabin. There he lived for thirty-three years, or until about three years ago. during which time he placed one hundred and twenty acres of land under cultivation. He also erected good buildings upon the place and a bank barn, making altogether a fine farm, which is pleasantly and conveniently situated a mile and a half north of Hopkins. About three years ago he bought back forty acres of his original eighty-acre tract. since which time he has also built a good residence and substantial outbuildings. He has since sold his old place of one hundred and sixty acres to his two sons. Louis and Benjamin, while he operates the home place of forty acres situated in Hopkins township.
Unto Mr. and Mrs. Ellinger have been born ten children, of whom nine are yet living : Henry, a resident farmer of Hopkins township : Emma. the wife of Charles Gertz, a contractor of Grand Rapids: Bertha, the wife of George Blakely, an undertaker of Grand Rapids: Fred, who is a farmer of Hopkins township but lives at home; Charlie, who is employed in a furniture factory in Grand Rapids: Louis, who is still on the old homestead and who served as a member of Company B, Thirty-fifth Michigan Infantry. during the Cuban war: Julia, the wife of Fred Krug. a ranchman of Mon- tana : Benjamin, who is also living on the old homestead : and George, a ranchman of Montana. They lost their eldest child in infancy.
Mr. Ellinger has always been a stalwart Republican and has been promi- nent in local affairs, serving for fifteen years as a school officer and in other positions of public trust. He belongs to the Methodist church and has lived a life in harmony with his professions, commanding the respect and confi- dence of his fellow men by reason of his business activity and probity. There is no more loyal citizen of America than this adopted son, who proved his fidelity by long and arduous service on the southern battlefields and who is continually manifesting his public spirit by his devotion to the welfare of the community in which he resides.
MCKINNON BROTHERS .- The firm of Mckinnon Brothers, composed of John D. and Will J. Mckinnon, have for ten years handled practically all of the stock shipped from Hopkins, in which connection they are well known business men, controlling a trade that brings to them a good annual income. Both are natives of Barry county, Michigan, and came to Allegan county in 1878. The father. Roderick Mckinnon, was proprietor of a store in Hopkins for several years. He had come from a farm in Barry county but was born on the Island of Tyree. Argyleshire, Scotland. January 22. 1832. He crossed the Atlantic to Canada in 1847 and in 1849 became a resident of New York. For a number of years he was a sailor on the ocean, rising to the rank of mate. and for three years he sailed on the Great Lakes. Removing to Michigan he followed farming for a consider- able period in Barry county and in 1885 became a resident of Hopkins.
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While in New York he was married to Margaret M. Forrest, the ceremony being performed in York in 1862.
Reared under the parental roof and educated in the public schools, John D. and Will J. Mckinnon joined forces in a business partnership, which for ten years has made them the leading stock dealers of this part of the county. For a decade they have handled and shipped stock at Hop- kins, buying and selling horses, cattle, slicep and hogs. They buy stock which they place upon their farmi and when in fit condition make shipments. They ship from one to five carloads of hogs cach week and often a carload of cattle. Their business has given farmers a regular market, so that at any time they can sell. During a year the firm pay out about seventy-five thousand dollars for stock. They make Hopkins their central point of shipment and in addition to their operations here they also own and conduct a farm of one hundred and eighty acres. Their attention, however, is principally given to the purchase and sale of stock. Their land is a part of the old Hoffmaster farm. It adjoins the corporation limits and a part of it has been platted, whereon each of the brothers have erected a home. They are also agents for the International Harvester Company, which con- nection has been maintained for four years. Their business is now exten- sive and profitable and is of much benefit to the community as well as a source of annual income.
Both brothers have been married. John D. McKinnon wedded Floy G. Hoffmaster, who died three months later. William wedded Mary Hull, and they have four children-Kenneth, Ethel, Forrest and Keith. The brothers are Republicans in their political support and are well informed, intelligent men, who keep in touch with the spirit of modern progress and thought.
AMOS B. WAIT .- No history of Allegan county would be complete without mention of Amos B. Wait, who has been identified with its interests from an carly period in its development. He is numbered among those who aided in clearing away the forest and he has experienced the hardships and privations of frontier life incident to the development of a home in a new country. Born in Portage county, Ohio, on the 2d of October, 1834, he is a son of Jonathan and Abigail (Belden) Wait, both of whom were natives of Massachusetts and settled on the western reserve in Ohio at all carly day. The son Amos remained under the parental roof until twenty- one years of age, and in the spring of 1856 came to Michigan. The fall before Dr. E. H. Wait had visited Allegan county and purchased large tracts of land. Both came in the spring of 1856 and several other families from Ohio also made the journey to this county at that time. The Waits settled at Hopkinsburg, three miles cast of Hopkins, and Dr. Wait and R. A. Baird built a sawmill there in order to cut the pine timber from their own land. Amos Wait worked in the mill through the summer and in the fall of that year returned to Ohio, but in the spring following again came to Allegan county and once more worked for his brother and his partner. Mr. Baird. The doctor also conducted a large store at Hopkinsburg and purchased great quantities of maple sugar, dealing extensively in that com- modity. He finally returned to Ohio, however, and died there in 1871.
Amos B. Wait returned to Ohio the second winter and was married
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there to Miss Eliza Parker. He afterward operated his father's farm for one year and then came again to Allegan county, where he purchased eighty acres of wild land one mile south of the present site of Hilliard. He then went into the woods, cutting beach and maple, and he sold some timber, including black cherry. The log house which he built, sixteen by twenty- four feet, is still standing and is one of the old landmarks of the com- munity, a mute witness of the many changes that have occurred in the intervening years. He paid four dollars per acre for his land, which was all covered with the forest growth, the value of which was little appreciated by the settlers at that time, who, anxious to get rid of the trees that prevented them from tilling the soil, burned much of the timber. In order to obtain ready money he worked out by the day, chopping and clearing, and he cleared his own land when he could get no work from others. Thus he placed sixty acres under cultivation and in the course of time the fields became very rich and productive, yielding large harvests. He built a good barn about the time that the Lake Shore Railroad was built through his farm and about six years ago he erected a new and attractive residence. His soil was rich and productive and in addition to its cultivation in later years he conducted a dairy and was also a stockholder in the Hilliard creamery. He continued upon the farm until April. 1906, and after a residence there of forty-seven years he rented the place and took up his abode in the village of Hopkins, where he now has a nice home.
Mr. Wait lost his first wife on the 14th of September, 1871, and in November. 1872, he married Mrs. Charlotte Eavs, nee Benedict, who at the time of their marriage was residing at Summit. She was born in Summit county, Ohio, and by her first marriage had one son, Myron Eavs, who was five years of age at the time of her second marriage, and he lived with Mr. and Mrs. Wait until his own marriage. He is now a resident of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Mr. Wait by his first marriage had three children : Etta, the wife of Burt Parmalee, of Hopkins township; Minnie, the wife of William Tanner, of Dorr township ; and Cora, the wife of Samuel Plumb, of Portage county, Ohio. By the present marriage there are two children : Grace, the wife of Charles Hoffmaster, and Katic, the wife of Harvey Hoffmaster. The two gentlemen are brothers, and both families reside in Kalamazoo.
Mr. Wait gives his political allegiance to the Republican party and is thoroughly in sympathy with its principles. For a half century he has resided in this county and has not only been a witness of its changes, but has been a participant in much of the work that has wrought its present development and progress. In years passed he killed many deer in this section of the state and shot many other kinds of wild animals. He has known and met the experiences and hardships of the lumber camp, per- forming the arduous task of clearing and developing a new farm and has carried on his work with a persistency of purpose that has in the course of years brought him a measure of success that now enables him to live retired.
THE BAIRD FAMILY has long been widely and prominently known in Allegan county, the name being inseparably interwoven with the history of this part of the state. Three brothers, Robert A., John A. and Philander O.
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Baird, all of whom were then married, came from Twinsburg, Summit county, Ohio, to Allegan county in 1856. They were sons of Robert Hunter Baird, a representative of an old family of Massachusetts, who removed from New England to Ohio in 1841. In the family in addition to the three brothers were two sisters, who lived in Allegan county, namely: Hannah, the wife of Dr. Wait, a physician and merchant at Hopkinsburg ; and Olive, who married Newell Upson.
Robert A. Baird, the eldest of the brothers, became a miller at Hopkins- burg, where his widow still resides. John A. and Philander O. Baird settled on adjoining farms, but John A. lived for two years in Hopkinsburg before taking up his abode on his farm. He then gave his attention to the cultivation of the soil through the summer months, while in the winter season he bought logs for his brother, who operated a sawmill. His farm lay two miles north of Hopkinsburg and he placed some sixty acres under cultivation. Ilis first home was a log cabin, which he occupied until the present residence was erected by him about thirty years ago. Ilis time and energies were devoted to general agricultural pursuits until within five years of his death, which occurred September 22, 1905, when he was in his seventy-eighth year.
Philander (). Baird worked at the mill for two years before coming to the farm. He also retained his residence upon his farm until he was called to his final rest April 12, 1903, in his seventieth year. On the 4th of February, 1862, just before going to Michigan, he was married to Miss Aurelia Tooker, a sister of P. W. Tooker, who is mentioned elsewhere in this volume. She survived until March 5, 1906, and passed away at the age of sixty-seven years. Mr. Baird returned to Ohio for his bride and fol- lowing the marriage ceremony brought her to his log cabin in the midst of the forest. This remained their home until it was replaced by the present resi- cence that now stands on the farm, which was built in 1873. Philander O. Baird was a Republican in his political views and both he and his wife were members of the Congregational church at Hopkinsburg. Their family numbered a son and daughter, Kendall O. and Lottie, but the latter died in her seventeenth year.
Upon the old homestead farm belonging to his parents Kendall O. Baird was born September 24. 1864. He was reared to habits of industry and economy and remained under the parental roof until twenty-one years of age. He has spent his entire life upon the farm save for four seasons, which were devoted to the manufacture of cheese. He worked with his father until five years prior to the latter's death, when he assumed the entire management of the business, owing to the fact that his father had suffered a stroke of paralysis. He has carried on mixed farming, also raising cows and hogs. He usually keeps from ten to seventeen cows, selling the milk to the cheese factory. He uses the Guernsey stock and has some high grade animals. In all of his work he is progressive and accom- plishes what he undertakes, carrying forward his business along lines of enterprise and activity that result in bringing him gratifying and' well merited success.
On the 5th of January, 1895, Kendall O. Baird was married to Miss Lonnie Rumery, a daughter of J. L. and Hattie K. (Buck) Rumery. The Rumery family has also been identified with the county from pioneer days.
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Salsbury B. Rumery, a pioneer of Monterey township, located there in 1843, while J. L. Rumery arrived in 1844. He married Hattie Buek,, of St. Lawrence county, New York. Mr. and Mrs. Rumery are still living. their home being near Ohio Corners, in Hopkins township, and Mrs. Rumery's mother, who bore the maiden name of Jane Emily Butler, is also with them at the age of eighty-two years. Mrs. Baird was born in Monterey township, afterward spent five years with her parents in Allegan and then removed to Hopkins township, where she was living at the time of her marriage, when she was twenty-one years of age. Her father was born in Monterey township sixty-two years ago and was also married there.
Mr. Baird is a Republican but without aspiration for office. His entire time and attention has been devoted to his business affairs and he is a worthy representative of a pioneer family that from an early day has taken an active and helpful part in the work of progress and improvement.
HENRY F. BUSKIRK, a member of the state board of agriculture and a former representative of his district in the general assembly, is a distin- guished resident of Allegan county and one who has wielded a wide and beneficial influence in public affairs. He is not a politician in the ordinary sense of the term. With him the public welfare is ever paramount to per- sonal aggrandizement and the general good of greater interest than party progress. The duties which have been entrusted to him have been faithfully performed and he has made caeh task a close and earnest study in order to seeure the best possible results. He has beeome widely known throughout Michigan as one whose labors have been of direct benefit to the state at large and at the same time he looks beyond the exigencies of the moment to the possibilities of the future. His home is in Wayland and in addition to his residenee there he owns a good farm property in Hopkins township, upon which he spends the summer months.
Mr. Buskirk was born on the old farm homestead in Hopkins township. November 26, 1856, his parents being William and Sophia ( Sadler ) Buskirk. The paternal grandfather, Abram Buskirk, was married in New York, his native state, to Miss Naney Garrison and removed from Ovid. New York. to Dover, Ohio. In 1853 he became a resident of Michigan, where his sons, John. Abram, Peter and William, all of whom were heads of families at that time, had previously settled, living in the same neighborhood. William Buskirk and his wife had arrived in Allegan county in 1854. John Buskirk remained but a short period, after which he returned to Ohio. Others. however, continued in Allegan county and eleared and developed farms. Of these brothers William and Peter are yet residents of the county, while Abram Buskirk, Jr .. eleared and improved a farm upon which he spent his remaining days, dying in this county at the age of seventy-seven years. His widow still resides upon the old homestead. The younger members of the family who came with their father. Abram Buskirk. Sr .. were Allen, Isaac. Daniel, Jane and Eliphelet. Of these Allen, Daniel and Eliphelet married three sisters, Louisa. Ellen and Catherine Van Tassel, daughters of M. W. Van Tassel. a prominent pioneer lumberman of Wayland. Allen, who for many years followed farming, about 1872 went north to the lumber woods and died at Big Rapids. Daniel Buskirk, who lost his wife here about thirty-eight years ago, is now a carpenter. Eliphelet, the youngest son.
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resided upon the old homestead until three years ago, when he sold the property, and is now engaged in farming in Wayland township. Jane, the only daughter, became the wife of Herman F. White, who died recently, and she is now living on the old homestead farm. The father of this family, Abram Buskirk, Sr., died in his eighty-seventh year, while his wife, Nancy, passed away when but sixty-two years of age.
William Buskirk, father of our subject, was married at Dover, Ohio, to Miss Sophia Sadler, on the 23d of July, 1847. They are both now in the eighty-first year of their age and have been married for fifty-nine years. On coming to Michigan in 1854 they had one son, Thomas. William Bus- kirk secured a farm of one hundred and twenty acres near liis father's place and carried on the work himself until about ten years ago. He has never served in office save in connection with the schools, but since the organization of the party has been a stalwart advocate of Republican prin- ciples. He lias always been a great Bible student and a strict observer of the Sabbath. Wherever known he is valued and respected, and he and his wife are one of the most venerable and esteemed couples of Allegan county. In their family were four sons and two daughters: Thomas C., who is now engaged in the practice of medicine in Portland, Michigan; Alva L., a farmer of Wayland; Henry F .; Elizabeth, the wife of J. Crabb, a farmer of Hopkins ; Clara, the wife of Almon N. Baker, in this vicinity ; and John D., a practicing physician at Shelby, Michigan.
Henry F. Buskirk supplemented his preliminary education by study in the high school at Otsego and afterward engaged in teaching at Wayland. In 1875 he entered the Agricultural College, from which he graduated with the class of 1878. He devoted the winter seasons for seven years to the profession of teaching, and following the completion of his collegiate course he began farming on his own account. He was married January 28, 1881, to Miss Lillian E. Hoyt, a daughter of I. N. Hoyt, of Wayland. Mr. Buskirk then engaged in the lumber business in connection with his father-in-law at Wayland for eight years, interrupted, however, by an interval of three years spent upon the farm. His summer months were devoted to the care and cultivation of his land and his agricultural pursuits were crowned with a goodly measure of success. As the years passed by Mr. Buskirk added to his possessions until at one time he owned three hundred acres of land, a part of which he rented and part of which he operated. He has recently sold his farm of one hundred and sixty acres and in fact has disposed of all his farming property save about forty acres. He lives in the village of Wayland, spending only the summer months on the farm. He has erected there good buildings, has drained and tiled much of the land and is now devoting his attention to the growing of onions, sugar beets and cabbages, which are successfully raised and constitute a marketable commodity. Active and energetic in his business life and carefully con- trolling his interests, Mr. Buskirk has met with a measure of prosperity which numbers him among the successful residents of Allegan county. The home was blessed with two children, but they lost their only son in child- hood. The daughter, Bessie, was graduated from the Agricultural College just twenty-five years after her father's graduation, and for three years was engaged in teaching in the city schools of Grand Rapids, where she won
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advancement, but preferring to remain at home, she is now with her parents in Wayland.
Mr. Buskirk, while leading an active and useful life in connection with his business interests, has also found time and opportunity to perform much valuable public service. Early in life he filled various township offices and has occupied various positions in the village of Wayland. In 1897 he was elected to represent his district in the state legislature and served as a member of various important committees. He was also chairman of the Northern Asylum for the Insane at Traverse City. In 1899 he was made chairman of the committee of the Agricultural College and a member of the committee on fisheries and game. This committee was instrumental in securing an appropriation of one hundred thousand dollars for the erection of the woman's building to the Agricultural College. His services during the Pingree administration at the beginning of the adoption of the special tax legislation and an amendment to the constitution resulted in the creation of a tax commission. When he began his work in that direction the railroads paid less than one million dollars taxes but now pay four million dollars. His term in the general assembly having expired he then retired, not desiring to again become a candidate. He is a member of the state board of agriculture, having first been appointed by Governor Warner. This is a very important board, but no salary is attached. The board constitutes seven members, having charge of the expenditure of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars per annum. All experiment stations are under the super- vision of the board. The board also has entire supervision of the Agricul- tural College, the erection of new buildings and other work connected there- with. The office of the board is located at the Agricultural College. the secretary residing there. His public spirit is manifest by his work in connec- tion with an office which pays no salary and which is of the utmost benefit to the state along lines of agricultural progress and development. Local advancement and national progress are both causes dear to his heart and in working toward ideals he uses practical methods which produce results quickly and that are of a most substantial character.
PLINY H. TOOKER .- The farming interests of Hopkins township are well represented by Pliny H. Tooker, a wide-awake, alert and enterprising business man, who in the management of his property interests displays excellent executive ability. He was born in Twinsburg, Summit county, Ohio, May 17, 1836, and was a young man of twenty-three years when, in 1859. he came to Michigan, settling in Ionia county, where he lived until 1862. During that period he worked at the mason's trade and also at plastering. In 1862, however, he left Michigan and went to Wheatland, Iowa, where he was employed for a brief period. He then, however, put aside business considerations and personal interests in order to respond to the country's call for aid and enlisted on the 19th of August, 1862, in company with boys he had formerly known in Ohio. They were assigned to duty with Company L, of the First Iowa Cavalry. The regiment had been in the field for a year and Mr. Tooker's enlistment was for the unexpired term of the regiment. The authorities tried to hold him, however, for three years, but on the 21st of February, 1865, he secured his discharge,
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after two years and six months in the service. The regiment was in Mis- souri when he joined it and he was largely engaged in duty in that state and in Arkansas, participating in the battle at Prairie Grove, Arkansas, and in all of the military actions and engagements in that state. He went to Little Rock with Steele and was largely engaged in fighting bushwhackers. For a time he was quartermaster sergeant, also commissary and wagon master. He participated in many raids and never missed a roll-call, so that he was in constant service. His position was often a hazardous one, for frequently greater dangers are incurred in such warfare rather than in the regular pitched battles.
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