USA > Michigan > Gratiot County > Biographical memoirs of Gratiot County, Michigan : compendium of biography of celebrated Americans > Part 11
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age. They had six children, and of this family Mrs. Welling was the fourth child. She was reared in St. Louis, Michigan, where she was educated in the common schools. Mrs. Welling is a woman of many personal charms, and enjoys the friendship of many who love her many estimable traits of character. These children have been born to her and her husband: Clarence S., Eu- gene J., Lottie B. and Francis B.
After marriage Mr. and Mrs. Welling located on his farm in Wheeler township, where they have since resided. He owns eighty acres of good land, sixty acres of which are cultivated, and his farm is im- proved with a good set of buildings. Mr. Welling has held the office of highway com- missioner and school treasurer, and is a pub- lic spirited citizen, taking an earnest interest in all that pertains to the development of the community. He is a member of the Maccabees.
N TELSON G. FOX, one of the well known citizens and extensive farmers of North Star township, Gratiot county, Michigan, where he owns a fine farm of 240 acres, was born May 14, 1844, at Bristol, Ontario county, New York, son of John W. and Martha P. (Hatch) Fox.
John W. Fox was born in Connecticut and died in Kent county, Michigan, aged sixty-six years. His wife was born in New York and died in Essex township, Clinton county, Michigan, in 1885, aged seventy- seven years. Both John W. Fox and his brother Henry served in the war of 1812.
Nelson G. Fox was the fifth in a family of eight children, the others being as fol- lows: Christopher C. is a carpenter resid- ing in Steuben county, New York; Freelove
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A. married Frank Lee and lives in Bristol, New York; Esther Ann, deceased, married William Miller; Abbie is the wife of Isaac F. Donaldson, a farmer of Essex, Michi- gan ; George W. is a prominent farmer living at Maple Rapids, Michigan; Marilla P., de- ceased, married L. H. Pees, who served with her brother Nelson G. in the army ; and Allie J. is Mrs. Isaac Warren, her husband being a farmer and resident of Maple Rapids, Michigan.
Nelson G. Fox passed his boyhood in Ontario county, New York, and was sixteen years old when he accompanied his parents to Grattan, Kent county, Michigan, in the fall of 1860. The change was not bene- ficial to his father, the latter dying March 6, 1861. After the death of the father the mother decided to return to her friends in Ontario county, and Nelson G., then a youth of seventeen, accompanied her; but he im- mediately returned to Kent county, and in the fall of 1861 enlisted in Company C, Thirteenth Michigan Volunteer Infantry, and served from October until April, 1862, when he was discharged for disability. By the following fall he had regained his nor- mal health, and, re-enlisting in Company M, Sixth Michigan Volunteer Cavalry, he served until July 9, 1865, when he was honorably discharged at Leavenworth, Kan- sas. Mr. Fox returned to Kent county, Michigan, where he and his mother, who had returned to that State, lived on a farm for two years, his health being delicate during all that period. On complete recovery he was employed at farm work for a time, and then as a clerk at Greenville. In the fall of 1872 he removed to Clinton county, Michi- gan, where he purchased a farm of eighty acres in Essex township, remaining there
until March, 1893, when he sold the prop- erty and came to Gratiot county. He pur- chased 240 acres in North Star township and has resided on this farm ever since, de- voting his time to its development and im- provement.
Mr. Fox was married February 22, 1874, in Clinton county, to Miss Hattie A. Eld- ridge, born May 27, 1855, in Essex town- ship, a daughter of Rodney and Henrietta (Nearing) Eldridge. Rodney Eldridge was a soldier in the Union army during the Civil war, a member of Company A, Twenty- third Michigan Volunteer Infantry, and was killed at Stone Mountain, Tennessee, in September, 1864, while engaged on a forag- ing expedition. Mrs. Fox was the eldest of his four children.
Mr. and Mrs. Fox have had four chil- dren, namely : Martha L. is the wife of Edward E. Unger; they live on part of the present homestead, and are the parents of two children, Ethel M. and Hattie L. Cora A. is the wife of John R. Allen, residing on an adjoining farm, and they have two daugh- ters, Elsa M. and Jennie B. Dora A. mar- ried Henry Hull, who has a harness shop at Ashley, Michigan. Leon A. died in in- fancy.
Mr. Fox has always affiliated with the Republican party. He is a member of Charles E. Grison Post, G. A. R., of St. John's, Michigan. Since taking up his residence in the county he has served as school inspector and has been identified with all movements looking to the welfare of his section. He has been connected, as collector and solici- tor, with the Farmers Mutual Fire Insur- ance Company of Gratiot and Clinton coun- ties, and has been a notary public since Jan- uary, 1905.
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C ARIS BROWN, senior member of the well-known firm of Brown & Sartor, publishers of the Alma Journal, is a very prominent and enterprising citizen of Alma, Michigan, and was born July 25, 1869, in Eagle township, Clinton county, Michigan, the only child of Henry and Car- rie A. (Roberts) Brown. The early years of his life were passed in Clinton county, and in Portland, Michigan, where he at- tended school and assisted his father on the farm. At the age of nineteen years he lo- cated at Alma and commenced work as "printer's devil" in the office of the Alma Record, of which C. F. Brown was proprie- tor. He learned the printing business and remained in the employ of Mr. Brown until the latter disposed of the paper, in 1903. Caris Brown had, in the meanwhile, become local editor and manager, and he remained as such until June, 1904, when he resigned to form a partnership with Joseph F. Sar- tor, Jr., and purchased the Alma Journal from I. J. Goodenow & Son. The Journal is a strictly Republican paper, and under Mr. Brown's management has become one of the most influential organs in that sec- tion of the State, having well-written edi- torials and reliable news gathered from all over the world. It has a circulation of over twelve hundred, and it is the aim of the pro- prietors to make the publication a necessity in every household, there being every rea- son to believe that their efforts will prove entirely successful.
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Mr. Brown was appointed the agent of the Pacific Express Company in June, 1904. He has also served as township clerk in Arcada township, being elected in the spring of 1904. Fraternally he is . a member of Fitz James Lodge. No.
95, Knights of Pythias, in which he has held most of the offices, and he is past chancellor of the local organiza- tion. It was through Mr. Brown's efforts that a company of the Uniformed Rank of the Knights was organized in Alma. He remained its captain until the spring of 1905, when, on account of other duties of a pressing nature, he was obliged to refuse another term. Politically Mr. Brown has always acted with the Republican party, being a strong adherent to its principles, and contributing in no small measure to its local success.
Caris Brown was married in Riverdale, Gratiot county, June 7, 1902, to Miss Flor- ence Strong, born in Seville township, that county, August 31, 1880, a daughter of W. D. and Ola (Adams) Strong.
LLIS A. POTTER, the able supervisor ot Sumner township, Gratiot county, and one of its best known citizens, owns a fine farm of 160 acres, in Section II, and was born in Cortland county, New York, March 17, 1854, son of Jonathan and Betsy (Pierce) Potter, both of whom died in New York State. The father passed away in September, 1865, at the age of sixty-two, and the mother in 1902, aged eighty-seven years. They were both identified with the Christian Church. Besides Ellis A., the children of Jonathan Potter and his wife, were as follows: George H., deceased ; Orrin, a farmer of Cortland county, New York; Lucinda, deceased wife of Cortland Clapp of Kalamazoo, Michigan; Reuben, an agriculturist of Tioga county, New York; Mary Ann, Mrs. Wallace Norwood, living in Cortland county, New York; Stephen, engaged in the hotel business at Mt. Pleas-
Caris Braun
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ant, Michigan; and Lindon, a gardener re- siding at Waverly, Pennsylvania.
Ellis A. Potter was the youngest in the family, and he received his education in the common schools of his native place. He remained at home until 1871 when he located in St. Louis, Michigan, where for one year he was employed by his brother as clerk in his hotel, passing the same length of time in his brother's Mt. Pleasant hostelry, and then removing to Alma. There he remained one year and returned to Mt. Pleasant, later purchasing forty acres of land in Section II, Sumner township, upon which he has since resided, and which he has improved with commodious barns and out-build- ings.
Mr. Potter was married April 4, 1875, in St. Louis, Michigan, to Miss Nettie Townsend, daughter of Homer L. and Ruby (Pierson) Townsend. Mrs. Potter was born in Sumner township, July 14, 1859, and her parents were among the pioneers of Gratiot county, her father being the first sheriff thereof. Mr. and Mrs. Potter have had two children : a daughter that died in in- fancy ; and Myron A., a farmer of Sumner township, who married Lotta Woodard. Mr. Potter has held the office of justice of the peace for fifteen years. He has also filled the position of township treasurer for two years. He was appointed supervisor of Sumner township in December, 1902, and elected in the spring of 1903, 1904 and 1905. As a man of means and good judgment, he is prominent in all the public matters of his township, and may always be found casting his influence in favor of progressive move- ments which promise to be of permanent benefit to his locality. Fraternally he affil-
iates with Alma Lodge, No. 238, Indepen- dent Order of Odd Fellows, and with Pio- neer Grange, Patrons of Husbandry.
JAMES SHAVER. Among the self- made men of Gratiot county, who have won their way in the world through their tireless energy and force of character, may be mentioned James Shaver, the owner of an eighty-acre farm in Emerson township. He was born March 17, 1855, in County Middlesex, Ontario, son of Robert and Anna (Riddle) Shaver. Robert Shaver was born in County Middlesex, and died there, while his wife, who was born in Scotland, still survives. They had twelve children, of which family our subject was the fourth member.
Mr. Shaver was reared on his father's farm in County Middlesex and lived there until twenty-five years of age, when he lo- cated in Gratiot county, Michigan, at the time being the possessor of but twenty-five cents. He found employment at farm labor, at which he worked for about two years. On September 15, 1880, he was united in marriage with Miss Nancy J. Pepple, born March 13, 1861, in Hancock county, Ohio, daughter of Jesse and Ellen ( Bibler) Pep- ple, natives of Pennsylvania. Of a family of three children Mrs. Shaver was the sec- ond child.
After marriage Mr. and Mrs. Shaver located on his present eighty-acre farm, which he has now nearly all improved. He has put up fine buildings, and is classed among the good, practical, hustling farmers of Gratiot county. These children have been born to him and his wife: Anna E., the wife of Robert Gamble; Susie I., the
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wife of John Stahl; Mary E .; Maggie J .; Robert J .; Archie W. and Ella M. Frater- nally Mr. Shaver is connected with Emerson Lodge, No. 375, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and Peterman Tent, No. 290, Knights of the Modern Maccabees.
T THEODORE SNYDER, who is engaged in carrying on agricultural operations on his farm of sixty acres in Lafayette township, Gratiot county, was born Au- gust 27, 1844, in Cattaraugus county, New York, son of Lorenzo and Julia Ann (Brown) Snyder, the former of whom died aged fifty years, while the latter survives at an advanced age. They had six children, of which our subject was the third.
When he was two years old Theodore Snyder was brought by his parents from Cattaraugus county, New York, to Calhoun county, Michigan, where he grew to man- hood, and engaged in farming. He was married in Calhoun county, January I, 1863, to Anthunett Vanness, born in Orleans county, New York, September 5, 1842, and to this union these chil- dren were born : Merion, the wife of Wendell Worth; Daniel; George; Viola, the wife of John Eastman, and Adel- bert. Mrs. Snyder is the daughter of William Henry and Nancy Maria (Pease) Vanness, the former of whom died aged sixty-five years, in Eaton county, Mich- igan, while the latter died aged seventy- three years, at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Snyder, in Lafayette township. They had eight children, and of this family Mrs. Snyder was the second child.
In February, 1885, Theodore Snyder came to Gratiot county, and settled on Sec- tion 2, where he bought eighty acres of land.
He now owns sixty acres, which he has im- proved with substantial buildings. Mr. Sny- der has held the office of justice of the peace for three terms, and takes a great deal of interest in the affairs of his township. He is a member of Breckenridge Lodge No. 406, Free and Accepted Masons. Mr. Snyder has devoted his whole life to agricultural pursuits, and is considered one of the pro- gressive farmers of Gratiot county, his prac- tical methods having been productive of ex- cellent results. He enjoys an enviable repu- tation as a man of integrity and reliability.
A1 DAM JOHNSTONE, the progressive and enterprising proprietor of a mer- cantile business, and supervisor of Wheeling township, a position he has held since 1900, was born in County Leeds, Ontario, May 22, 1862, son of Adam and Ann (Moran) John- stone, natives, respectively, of Scotland and Canada, the family being of Scotch-Irish extraction. The father died in Caro, Tus- cola county, Michigan, in the year 1881, at the age of seventy-one years ; the mother still resides there aged seventy-two. Mr. John- stone was a Presbyterian; his widow is a stanch Methodist. These children were born to their union : James, a miner at Dawson City, Alaska; John, a blacksmith of Cripple Creek, Colorado; Grace, who married Rob- ert Oliver, and died at the age of thirty; Adam; and Marguerita, Mrs. Frank B. Ransford, of Tuscola, Michigan.
Adam Johnstone was brought to Michi- gan when an infant of two years, his father conducting a blacksmithing business in Tus- cola county. He was reared in Caro, that county, until he reached the age of eighteen years, and received a common school edu- cation. After leaving Caro he located in
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Kansas City, Missouri, where he opened a blacksmith shop, having learned the trade with his father. He remained in Kansas City only one year, leaving there for Wheeler township, Gratiot county, Michigan, where he was employed in a stave-mill for six years. In 1887 he engaged in a mercantile business in Wheeler township, in which he has since continued. For four years Mr. Johnstone was connected with the Brecken- ridge Milling Co. He has also been en- gaged in the hay and grain business, and owns and cultivates 200 acres of improved land, of which forty acres are in Wheeler township, and 160 acres in Mason county, Michigan.
In the spring of 1900 Mr. Johnstone was elected supervisor of Wheeler township, and still holds that office. He was township clerk for seven years and township treasurer for one year, and has always been identified with the Democratic party in this section. Fraternally he is associated with the Ma- sonic order (Chapter and Council) and the Knights of the Modern Maccabees. His agricultural interests connect him with the Ancient Order of Gleaners.
Mr. Johnstone was married in Wheeler township, January 1, 1888, to Mrs. Lois J. Blackman, widow of Orrin Blackman, and has one son, Harold A. Mr. Johnstone is a business man of the highest rank, and is pronounced by his friends and associates an able and honest citizen.
S AMUEL BARNES, one of the leading
farmers of North Star township, Grat- iot county, owns a fine farm of 160 acres in Section 20, which he has improved with at- tractive buildings of modern architecture and substantial character. Mr. Barnes was
born May 19, 1854, near Jackson, Jackson county, Michigan, son of William and Sus- anna (Bates) Barnes, natives of England, who came to the United States, settling in Pennsylvania, where they lived for two years before coming to Gratiot county. William Barnes died at the age of forty-five years, while his wife was one year younger at the time of her demise. They were the parents of eleven children, of whom our subject was the next to the youngest.
Samuel Barnes was reared in North Star township. He grew up on a farm and has been an agriculturist all his life. His parents having both died when he was twelve years of age, Mr. Barnes started out in life for himself working by the month and year at farm labor until his twenty-second year. At the end of that time he married and set- tled on forty acres of land, which had been left him by his father, on Section 19, North Star township. After four years Mr. Barnes sold this farm, and purchased eighty acres in Section 20, which his perseverance, taste and industry have converted into one of the most attractive and valuable homes in the township.
Mr. Barnes was married May 5, 1877, to Miss Sophronie Barnes, born in England, daughter of John and Susan (Watson) Barnes, and one child has been born to this union, Hazel. Of Mr. Barnes' 160 acres, about 130 are under a fine state of cultiva- tion. He is one of the responsible men of his locality, one whom his fellow citizens admire and trust. He has filled a number of the township offices with much credit. Mr. Barnes is well known throughout North Star township and justly bears a reputation which a life of integrity and public usefulness has given him. The appreciation shown him by
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his fellow citizens is grateful to him, as it is to anyone who has done his full duty. He is one of North Star township's representa- tive men.
JONATHAN NICHOLSON McCALL was born on the 28th of September, 1857, in Nelson, Portage county, Ohio. His father was William Wallace McCall, a farmer, and his mother, Mary A. McCall. His grandfather, Joseph McCall, came from Middletown, Connecticut, in 1820, and set- tled in Nelson township, where he resided until the time of his death. His grand- father on his mother's side, James Knowlton, came with his parents from Blandford, Massachusetts, and settled in the same town- ship. The McCalls were descendants of Scotch ancestry, who came to the New England States in an early day, a branch of the family subsequently settling in New York.
The subject of this sketch obtained his elementary education in the public schools of his native township. Subsequently he at- tended Nelson Academy and Garrettsville High School, and in 1875 entered Mount Union College, at Alliance, Ohio, in which institution, with the exception of the first two terms, he bore the entire expense of his own education, which he did by teaching school winters and working on the farm in the summer. After four years of collegiate instruction he graduated with the class of 188I, of which he was valedictorian. In his Senior year he was managing editor of the class publication, the "Unonian" and during part of his college course he acted as a tutor. Immediately after graduation, he was en- gaged as principal of the Northfield schools; the following year accepted a position as
superintendent of the schools at Windham, Ohio, and the next year was elected super- intendent at Newton Falls, Ohio, which posi- tion he held until the spring of 1885, when he was elected superintendent of the schools at Ithaca, Michigan, where he has ever since resided. He continued to hold this position until the spring of 1892, when he resigned to enter the newspaper field, and purchased the Gratiot County Herald. This was a Demo- cratic paper, which he transformed into an independent paper, and so continued it until September 14, 1894, when it became a stanch Republican organ, in conformity with the lifelong principles of its editor. Two years later, the Gratiot County Journal, for many years the Republican paper of the county, espoused the cause of Bryan, and re- nounced its former Republicanism, thus leaving the Herald the only Republican pa- per in Gratiot county, located at the county seat. With the field thus open to him, by persistent application to business, wide ac- quaintance and systematic effort, Mr. Mc- Call has succeeded in constantly increasing the circulation of the Herald, until from hav- ing one thousand subscribers when he took the paper, in 1892, it now has four thous- and, and is recognized not only as the lead- ing newspaper of Gratiot county, but one of the largest and most influential county weeklies in the State.
Mr. McCall has repeatedly been a dele- gate to county and State Republican con- ventions, and was alternate delegate at large from the State of Michigan to the national convention at Philadelphia in 1900. He has taken part in every political campaign in the discussion of political questions in his own county, and for the last ten years has been employed by the State Central Com-
J. N. McCALL.
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mittee as one of the State speakers. He has served for ten years as a member of the County Republican Committee, during a part of which time he was its secretary. He was a delegate to the Eleventh District Con- gressional Convention in 1900, and pre- sented to the Convention the name of Hon. A. B. Darragh, the successful candidate. In 1904 he was again chairman of the delega- tion to the Congressional convention, and again nominated Mr. Darragh, and succeed- ed for the first time in the history of the dis- trict in breaking the two-term rule. He is at present chairman of the Congressional committee. In the winter of 1905 he was chairman of the delegation to the Twenty- ninth Judicial Convention, and presented the name of Kelly S. Searl, the successful can- didate, to this convention. He is chairman of the Judicial committee.
For ten years Mr. McCall has been a member of the Republican Newspaper Asso- ciation of Michigan, of which organization he has been vice-president, and for several years a member of the Executive committee. Since entering the newspaper profession, fourteen years ago, he has been a member of the Michigan Press Association, of which organization he was president in 1900, and has been continuously a member of the Executive committee for many years. In the spring of 1900 he was a delegate from the State Press Association to the National Press Association at New Orleans; in the summer of 1905 Mr. McCall and his son, Webb, took the celebrated trip to Halifax with this association. He has never sought election to any political office, but has served as a member of the school board ; as a mem- ber of the village council ; as president of the village, and is greatly interested in all edu-
cational enterprises and undertakings which tend to build up his home town. On March 3, 1903, he became postmaster of Ithaca, receiving his commission from President Roosevelt.
Mr. McCall is a member of Ithaca Lodge No. 123, Free and Accepted Masons, in which he has held all the offices, including that of Master. He is also a member of Ithaca Chapter, No. 70, Royal Arch Masons, of which he has been high priest. He is a past chancellor of Ithaca Knights of Pyth- ias Lodge; a member of the Odd Fellows, belonging to Rising Star Lodge; of Ithaca Tent, Knights of the Modern Maccabees ; the Loyal Guards; and the Modern Wood- men of America.
On August 24, 1882, Mr. McCall was married (first) to Margaret Frances Webb at Tallmadge, Ohio. She died on March 31, 1893, the mother of one child, Wallace Webb McCall, who was born August 20, 1890, and still survives. On November 13, 1894, Mr. McCall was again married, to Harriet Watson Richardson, from which union there have resulted six children : Har- riet Irene, born August 22, 1895; Thelma Margaret, born December 25, 1896; Jona- than Watson, born September 28, 1898; Romayne, born August 8, 1900; George, born July 13, 1902, and Genevieve, born October 3, 1904.
E RNEST JAMES McCALL, business manager of the Gratiot County Herald, residing at Ithaca, was for several years in the teaching profession before he entered the field of journalism. He is the. youngest son of William Wallace and Mary A. McCall, and was born in Nelson, Ohio, August 30, 1873.
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BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF GRATIOT COUNTY.
Mr. McCall's youthful years were spent on his father's farm and in attending the country school near his home. In the fall of 1886 he entered the Nelson high school, from which he was graduated with the class of 1890. In the following autumn he en- tered Mount Union College, at Alliance, Ohio, where he completed his school work. Soon after his father's death in May, 1893, Mr. McCall, accompanied by his mother, came to Gratiot county, they making their home with his brother, J. N. McCall, of Ithaca. For a short time he was in the em- ploy of the latter, who was publisher of the Gratiot County Herald. During the winter of 1893-94 Mr. McCall was a teacher in the North Shade center school, but was a stud- ent at Mount Union College during the sum- mer and fall terms. Returning to Gratiot he taught the Washington center school in the spring of 1894-95, and then assumed the principalship of the Breckenridge schools for two years. On August 4, 1898, Mr. McCall was united in marriage to Miss Luella M. Watson, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. C. S. Watson, of Breckenridge. They have one child, Almon Watson, born on Jan- uary 29, 1905.
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