A twentieth century history of Berrien County, Michigan, Part 94

Author: Coolidge, Orville W
Publication date: 1906
Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1314

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now owns an extensive and well equipped store. The first year he did business in his barn and in the open air. The next year he built a small place on a back street and remained there for six years. He then re- moved the entire business to Benton Har- bor, where he remained for a time, when he sold out and went to Coloma. He then purchased an interest in a hardware store there, taking a former clerk into partner- ship but after a brief period he bought out his partner and also started a plant on his present location. He built the first fall in Millburg and continued to manage both stores until 1897, when he brought the Co- loma stock to Millburg, built an addition to the store here and combined the two busi- nesses. His efforts were appreciated by the people and his patronage soon . increased. However, his stock of goods was destroyed the same night as the Chicago theatre fire with a loss of several thousand dollars, the amount being five thousand over all insur- ance. However, with characteristic energy he immediately rebuilt and his present stock of goods occupies every inch of the building. The building is fifty-four by eighty feet and is divided into three stores. He now carries a stock valued at ten thousand dol- lars and his annual sales reach twenty-five thousand dollars. The first year his sales, however, did not exceed five hundred dol- lars.

Mr. Witbeck has worked his way up- ward from small beginnings. He started out on his own account without a dollar to clerk in a hardware store in early life and when he began business on his own account he traded his gold watch for a silver watch and with the cash difference and a horse and buggy he began business. Grass grew in the streets of the town and in fact there was no inducement in Millburg but his energy and push, his judicious advertising and his recognition of possibilities have pro- duced results. He has given close, personal attention to the business and he now carries a very extensive and well selected stock of hardware, farm implements, wagons, bug- gies and wire fencing. He employs five

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men by the year, one hauling goods from Benton Harbor, while one salesman is on the road selling goods.

In addition to this property Mr. Wit- beck has a thirty-acre farm at the village and he is a stockholder in the creamery. For two years he advocated the establish- ment of such an enterprise but could not get encouragement from the farmers, but he took up the work, creating an interest and invited seventy-five men to attend a meet- ing. He had an expert to speak upon the business and show what might be done, af- ter which he sold stock and has helped to make the enterprise a very successful one. Millburg is a village about five miles from Benton Harbor and off the railroad. At the time he moved here there seemed to be little inducement for anybody to wish to locate here and especially establish a busi- ness. Mr. Witbeck had the necessary force and determination and time has proven the wisdom of his choice.

At Millburg, on the 14th of May, 1887, occurred the marriage of Mr. Witbeck and Miss Minnie R. Gifford, a daughter of one of the leading residents of the county, Henry L. Gifford, who was a pioneer farmer of Millburg and died here when his, daughter, Mrs. Witbeck, was a young girl. Her mother, Mrs. R. C. Gifford, still survives and is now living with her daughter, Mrs. Witbeck, who was only seventeen years of age at the time of her marriage. They have become the parents of two children: Ray, aged fifteen years; and Erma, who died at the age of three years.

Mr. Witbeck is a Republican but is not active in party work. He belongs to Puritan Lodge, No. 17, K. P., of Benton Harbor, to the Woodmen of the World, of Millburg, to the Knights of the Maccabees at Bain- bridge, and to the Michigan Knights of the Grip. He is president of the Working Men's Mutual Protective Association of Benton Harbor and is its executive officer. He is also one of the state board of Agricultural Implement Dealers' Association. In busi- ness affairs he is energetic, prompt and notably reliable. His chief characteristics are tireless energy, his keen perception, his

honest purpose and his genius for devising and executing the right thing at the right time. While he has achieved success he also belongs to that class of representative Amer- ican citizens who promote the general pros- perity while advancing individual interests.

A. J. SCOFIELD. Among the enter- prising and wide-awake business men of Berrien county now conducting a general mercantile establishment in Millburg, where he has a well equipped store and is enjoying a constantly increasing trade is numbered A. J. Scofield, who is a native of New York and the years of his boyhood and youth were passed without event of special importance. In early life, however, he became connected with railroad interests, securing a position in his boyhood on the New York Central. For twenty-eight years he was on the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad. He began in the humble capacity of a brake- man but worked his way upward and for fourteen years ran a passenger train between Chicago and Elkhart.

Leaving the road, Mr. Scofield. turned his attention to mercantile interests and in March, 1896, established his present busi- ness in Millburg. The trade has increased each year and he has met with gratifying success. He started with a stock valued at only five hundred dollars but the sales the first year amounted to twenty-five hundred dollars. He now has a store twenty by seventy feet, which he erected and with this enlarged capacity his store is now crowded, while his sales amounted to fifteen thousand dollars in 1905. He carries a large and well selected line of general merchandise and his brother, Frank Scofield, has been associated with him since he began the business. His success has been most gratifying, for on coming to Millburg he had no expectations of obtaining so soon so large an increase in business. His trade extends into Benton Harbor, for he receives many orders from that city over the phone and he keeps a de- livery wagon constantly on the road. Close and unremitting attention is given to the trade by Mr. Scofield, whose business abil- ity and executive force are widely acknowl-

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edged. He is watchful of every opportunity pointing to success and has so utilized his op- portunities that he is now a prosperous mer- chant. He believes in doing a straight busi- ness and is thoroughly reliable at all times, his integrity standing as an unquestioned fact in his career.

Mr. Scofield's removal to the middle west was not a premeditated affair. In fact he came to Berrien county on a visit but was so well pleased with the district that he de- cided to remain. In the year 1863 he and his wife made their way from New York to Elkhart, Indiana, but in a few months re- turned to Syracuse, New York. It was not long, however, before both were desirous of going back to the west and their removal followed and was attended with a feeling of entire satisfaction. Mr. Scofield lost his wife about thirteen years ago. He is a Knight Templar Mason and has also at- tained the thirty-second degree of the Scot- tish rite. His life has been one of activity and industry, resulting in very desirable suc- cess and his business interests are now prof- itable and are continually growing.

MRS. FANNY BERRY, living in Ben- ton township, has a wide and favorable ac- quaintance in Berrien county. She was born in Sheboygan county, Wisconsin, March 31, 1848. Her father, Christian de la Porte, was a descendant of a prominent French family and a native of Germany. His father was a French refugee, who fled from France at the time of the revocation of the edict of Nantes, who belonged to the nobility, and the name signifies before the door. The family was wealthy prior to the troubles which led them to leave their na- tive country. Christian de la Porte married Augusta D'odzauer and in 1845 or 1846 crossed the Atlantic to New York, where he remained for six weeks, after which he re- moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was a highly educated man of superior mentality and energy and served as pastor of the Re- formed Lutheran church and as a teacher in the Reformed Lutheran school in Mil- waukee. He also secured a position as a teacher in the parochial schools but after

devoting some time to educational work re- moved to a claim in Sheboygan county for the benefit of his health. It was upon that farm that his daughter, Mrs. Berry, was born and when she was six years of age the father removed with his family to the city of Sheboygan. There he lived on a small farm but resumed teaching and preaching as such demands were made upon his time and ener- gies along those lines. When his daughter, Mrs. Berry, was sixteen years of age the family removed to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where her father again took up the work of teaching which he followed in public and private schools. He also taught music for five years, at the end of which time he re- turned to Plymouth, Wisconsin, where he lived retired until his death. His last years were passed among his flowers, in which he took great delight. He lived with his chil- dren and departed this life at the venerable age of seventy-eight years, leaving his fam- ily the priceless heritage of an untarnished name and the memory of many noble deeds and good works.

Mrs. Berry acquired her education in the schools taught by her father. She was mar- ried at the age of twenty-one years to Nich- olas Berry, who was born in Fishkill, Dutchess county New York. He was a farmer by occupation and after their mar- riage engaged in farming for three years,. when he removed to Berlin, Wisconsin. Subsequently he went to Manistee, Michi- gan, where he worked in sawmills and in December, 1891, removed to Benton Har- bor. Mrs. Berry had read of this county being a great fruit section and urged by her mother, who lived with her and her daugh- ter Augusta, who was at that time a student in Benton Harbor College, having been di- rected to the college by a friend, Alice Reed, formerly of Benton Harbor, but then of Manistee. Mrs. Berry decided to remove to Berrien county. At that time she was doing janitor work in the Congregational church and also the Baptist church, to which Mrs. Reed belonged and while Mrs. Berry's daughter Augusta was a member of the choir of the latter church.

After reaching Benton Harbor the fam --

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ily secured some rooms, in which they be- gan keeping house, Mr. Berry working for Mr. Rose in laying the tramway to Peter's lumberyard. They soon began to do gard- ening on a small scale, raising cucumbers and strawberries and after a short time they secured a home, rented a larger tract of land and Mrs. Berry began keeping summer boarders. They rented the Bronson farm on Colfax avenue and while the work of general farming was carried on Mrs. Berry continued to keep boarders there for two years. About that time her son Ottmar became ill of typhoid fever and required her constant attention for seven weeks. Her mother also died while they lived on the Bronson place. The first land which they had was five acres of bottom land on the Lake Shore drive across the Paw Paw river. Mrs. Berry superintended the farming of this place for several years, engaged in garden- ing, also conducted a dairy business and kept summer boarders. In the meantime she built the present house and barn. Here she made money through the production of veg- etables, which she sold in Benton Harbor and St. Joseph. Two years ago she rented the Henry Minor farm of one hundred acres two miles south of St. Joseph. There she kept from seven to sixteen cows and in ad- dition to carrying on the dairy business she also continued to engage in gardening on a more extensive scale than ever before. Af- ter living upon the Minor farm for two years in the spring of 1906, she rented the Mur- ray Stewart farm three miles southeast of Benton Harbor and comprising one hundred and fifty-eight acres of land, which she leased for five years. She keeps about thirty cows for dairy purposes and is operating fifteen acres of land or more in gardening, while the remainder is devoted to general farming and to fruit-raising.

The family numbers two children: Au- gusta, who has remained with her mother and is acting as housekeeper; and Ottmar, now a man of twenty-eight years, who is his mother's main dependence, managing the active work of the fields and orchards. While it was the fruit-raising interests that induced the family to come to this county and all have enjoyed the seasons of blossom-

ing and of harvest and are pleased with the climate here, the fruit-growing has not pre- dominated in their business, for their atten- tion has been given more largely to garden- ing and dairying. Mrs. Berry sends to the St. Joseph creamery route the products of her dairy and also the Twin City creamery. She and her daughter are members of the Congregational church. The latter, Miss Augusta, keeps up her music and has taught music to some extent. She was also a school teacher in Mason county for two years, act- ing as a governess in Manistee. For five weeks recently Mrs. Berry lay in the hospi- tal, having a tumor removed and it was this operation that encouraged the building of a new hospital. She agitated the subject and her influence carried considerable weight in securing the new institution. She is a lady of excellent business qualifications, of keen discernment and unfaltering enterprise, and certainly deserves much credit for what she has accomplished in a business way.

BERNARD THEODORE SELLS. Berrien county is one of the chief fruit pro- ducing centers of the great Mississippi val- ley and gives excellent opportunity to those who desire to engage in horticultural pur- suits. Mr. Sells is the owner of some of the fine orchards of this part of the state, hav- ing about eighteen acres in peaches, eight acres in grapes, pears and cherries and five acres in apples. He also raises berries and his methods have been so practical and pro- gressive that he is regarded as one of the leading horticulturists of Berrien county, his home being in Benton township. He was born in Hanover, Germany, May 11, 1842, and in the year 1858 came to the United States just before he was old enough to enter the army or be liable for military ser- vice. He remained in Washington, D. C., from 1860 until 1865 and was in the govern- ment service. He afterward went with Cap- tain J. M. Moore and Miss Clara Barton, of the Red Cross Society to act as cook for the company that was engaged in preparing a government cemetery. He afterward spent two years near Chambersburg, Pennsyl- vania, and later went to Chicago, Illinois, where he met Captain Nelson Napier. He

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there left the boat on which he was em- ployed in order to work on the captain's fruit farm and later he poined the survey- ing party on the West Michigan Railroad, now the Pere Marquette, in the survey of the line between St. Joseph and New Buf- falo. He also helped lay the rails between St. Joseph and Nunica. Subsequently he gave his attention to the conduct of a saloon and he remained in St. Joseph until he es- tablished a dairy business with only two cows. He began to deliver the milk in St. Joseph and there built up a good business and continually added to his herd until he owned thirty cows. He at first delivered milk by hand for two and a half years. He paid twenty-five dollars for his first horse and eleven dollars for his first wagon. He gave undivided attention to. his business affairs . and thereby made steady progress. He fin- ally traded his dairy for thirty acres of land two and a half miles east of Benton Harbor and devoted the succeeding years to fruit- raising.

On the expiration of that period Mr. Sells sold his property and bought his pres- ent place in Benton township, comprising sixty-seven and a half acres on Territorial road, three miles east of Benton Harbor, for which he paid fifty-five hundred dollars. Thus it will be seen that within sixteen years after he embarked in the dairy business with only two cows he had so prospered that he was enabled to pay fifty-five hundred dol- lars for a farm. He then started in the dairy business here with fifteen cows. The farm had been rented and was much run down and he resumed the dairy business mainly in order to give time to build up the land and prepare it for cultivation. He con- ducted the dairy for nine years, selling its products in Benton Harbor and he also increased the number of cows to thirty. During this period he transformed his land into a very fertile tract, which he set out to peaches and that he has prospered in his un- dertakings as a horticulturist is shown by the fact that in 1905 his crop amounted to three thousand bushels of peaches. He has about eighteen acres planted to peaches and eight acres to grapes, pears and cherries. He also has an apple orchard of five acres

and raises all kinds of berries. His sales for 1905 amounted to twenty-five hundred dollars.

Mr. Sells was married in St. Joseph to Miss Amelia Johnson, a Swedish girl, who has indeed been a faithful companion and helpmate to him on life's journey. They have become the parents of seven children : Sarah, who is the wife of Jesse Martindale, a resident of Breckenridge, Michigan; Belle, the wife of Frank Peters, who is liv- ing at Fruitport, Michigan; Jessie, who is in the silk mill at Belding, this state; Arthur, at home; May, also in the silk mill at Belding; and Harry and Clarence, at home, assisting their father in the work of the farm. In his political affiliation Mr. Sells is a Democrat and as every true American citizen should do, keeps well informed on the questions and issues of the day, but he does not seek office, preferring to give his un- divided attention to his business affairs and his life record proves what can be accom- plished by strong determination and unfal- tering industry. He certainly deserves much credit, for he has worked his way steadily upward to a prominent position among the horticulturists of the county.

G. F. MULLIKEN, was born in Belvi- dere, Illinois, January 13, 1867, a son of John B. and Emma A. (Batcheldor) Mulli- ken. The father was born in New York in 1837 and died in Detroit, Michigan, in 1892. The mother, a native of Vermont, was also born in 1837 and now makes her home in Detroit.

1 G. F. Mulliken began his education in the public schools of Detroit and in 1886 entered the Michigan Military Academy, where he spent two years, becoming a stu- dent in the University of Michigan in 1888. He was graduated therefrom in 1892 with the degree of Bachelor of Arts and in Jan- uary, 1893, came to St. Joseph, where he en- tered the employ of Cooper, Wells & Com- pany. He is one of the stockholders and since October, 1894, has been treasurer. This is the leading industrial concern of Ber- rien county and a prominent factor in the manufacturing interests of southwestern Michigan. The extent and importance of

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the enterprise is too well known to need further comment here and the fact of its success indicates that its officers are men of superior business ability, keen insight and executive force.

In December, 1893, Mr. Mulliken was married to Miss Lyda B. Procter, of St. Joseph, and unto them have been born two children. Harold P. and Lilian. In his political views Mr. Mulliken is a Republican, interested in the growth and success of the party and from 1903 until 1905 was a mem- ber of the city council of St. Joseph, while at the present writing he is a member of the board of public works. He stands as a high type of the American citizen, alert and en- terprising, with ready recognition of busi- ness conditions and opportunities and with a capacity for successful management that enables him to use and improve the advant- ages which are open to all in the commercial world.

ISAAC J. HOAG, now deceased, was at one time an enterprising farmer of Berrien county. He was born in the state of New York in 1824 and died in 1874, at the age of fifty years. He lost his father when he was very young and largely depended upon his own resources from that time. He be- came a well read man, working his own way through school. While attending high school he served as janitor and he continued his course therein until he had completed the high school work by graduation. He came to Michigan in an early day and settled in the vicinity of Millburg, where he became a pioneer business man and also taught school for a time. He conducted a nursery, hand- ling all kinds of trees, but making a specialty of peach trees, for the climate and soil of Michigan is peculiarly adapted to the culti- vation of that fruit. He had previously lived in Battle Creek, Michigan, for a few years and then came to Berrien county. Through- out the period of his residence here he was engaged in the nursery business and his labors resulted in the acquirement of a com- fortable competence.

In 1858 Mr. Hoag was united in mar- riage to Miss Elizabeth Meech, whose peo-

ple were of Puritan descent. Her mother in the paternal line came from ancestors who crossed the Atlantic on the Mayflower in 1620. Mrs. Hoag's great-great-grandfather came over on the Mayflower. Her parents were Braddock and Elizabeth ( Hutchinson) Meech. Unto Mr. and Mrs. Hoag were born three children : Samuel, who died at the age of forty-four years ; Alice, the wife of Adolph Reickle, who is employed by the Graham & Morton steamship line; and Lillian S., de- ceased.

In connection with his other business in- terests Mr. Hoag dealt in real estate, mak- ing some very judicious purchases and profitable sales. In politics he was a Re- publican, recognized as a stalwart supporter of the party, and for a number of years he served as supervisor. He also acted as school officer and was earnest in his ad- vocacy of all measures for the general good. In 1874 he was called to his final rest, his death being deeply regretted by many friends as well as his immediate family. His widow still survives him and is now the owner of one hundred acres of land near Millburg, constituting a finely improved property, upon which are good buildings and all the accessories of a model farm.

THEODORE LITTLESON, residing in Benton township, where he is engaged in fruit-growing, was born in Sweden on the 24th of November, 1861. His father, Richard Littleson, was an Englishman by birth and spent some time in Australia. He was married in Melbourne to Miss Kath- erine Swanson, a Swedish girl. There was a cholera epidemic in that country and he started back with his young wife but after leaving Australia became ill of cholera and died. Mrs. Littleson continued on her way to Sweden and a few weeks after reaching her home her son Theodore was born. When he was about ten years of age his mother and her second husband crossed the Atlantic to America and became residents of Chi- cago, where she still resides, being about seventy-five years of age.

Theodore Littleson remained in Chicago through the period of his boyhood and

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youth and entered upon his business career as an errand boy in a grocery store. He afterward became a salesman and gradually he worked his way upward until as the re- sult of his industry and economy he was en- abled in 1883 to engage in business on his own account. He opened a grocery store in Chicago and continued in that line for seventeen years, meeting with very desirable success. He started out in life with limited capital but his energy, close application and laudable ambition enabled him to steadily work his way upward. In 1893 in company with a partner, John C. Rice, of Chicago, he purchased forty acres of land about two and a half miles east of Benton Harbor and in 1900 he decided to make this place his home. He then bought his present farm on Blue Creek, two and three-quarter miles east of Benton Harbor on the Watervliet road. This is the old Calkins farm and con- tains thirty-two acres. It is all devoted to fruit-raising, including peaches, pears, plums and apples and most of the trees were set out by Mr. Littleson. He secures well selected nursery stock and is growing some fine fruit. He has erected on his farm a very commodious and pleasant residence and made other improvements. His is one of the neatest homes along the entire road and he is now devoting his attention largely to his farm. His labors have resulted in making the land very productive, although it was in a run down condition when it came into his possession. He finds that the coun- ty comes up to his expectation as a fruit pro- ducing center and he is fully identified with its horticultural interests. In fact he has in- duced others to come from Chicago, through his efforts, several men who are now prom- inent as horticulturists having been led to establish homes here. Among these is Vic- tor Faulkenau, formerly a Chicago con- tractor, who is his nearest neighbor and was an old customer of Mr. Littleson's in Chi- cago.

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A twentieth century history of Berrien County, Michigan, Part 94

Author: Coolidge, Orville W Publication date: 1906 Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 1314

Author: Coolidge, Orville W
Publication date: 1906
Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1314