USA > Michigan > Gratiot County > Biographical memoirs of Gratiot County, Michigan : compendium of biography of celebrated Americans > Part 8
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BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF GRATIOT COUNTY.
front Mr. Curtis had but ten acres of his land cleared of timber, while now he has 160 acres cleared and improved. He is the own- er of 320 acres in Emerson and Bethany townships, and his farms are highly im- proved and furnished with modern substan- tial buildings.
Albro Curtis was married in Emerson township June 29, 1876, to Miss Lucy L. Woodward, daughter of the late Allen Woodward, a native of New York State, and a survivor of the Civil War. In 1861 Mr. Woodward had located in Washtenaw county, Michigan, and in June, 1861, after the death of his wife, Almira (Lewis), at the age of thirty-seven, he returned to New York, settling in Erie county, whence he en- listed in the Tenth New York Cavalry. Af- ter serving three years he returned to his home in Erie county, thence removing to Ionia county, Michigan. In April, 1874, Allen Woodward came with his family to Gratiot county, Michigan, and settled in Sec- tion 2, Emerson township, where he died March 5, 1884, aged seventy-three years. He and his wife were the parents of five chil- dren, of whom Mrs. Curtis was the fourth, named as follows: Augusta C., deceased, Mrs. Neal D. Ford; Christina E., deceased, Mrs. Asher Williams; Alice R., deceased, wife of Frank Cronkite; Lucy L., Mrs. Al- bro Curtis; and Francis A., who died in in- fancy. Mr. Woodward married as his sec- ond wife Miss Elizabeth Cronkite, who re- sides in Emerson township at the age of seventy-five. Of this union there was one son, Jesse J., a farmer of the township named. Mr. and Mrs. Albro Curtis are the parents of three children : Blanche A .; Roy W., who married Fanny A. Jarvis, and has
one daughter, Helen O. (he is an Emerson township farmer) ; and Grace A.
For a number of years Mr. Curtis has been a justice of the peace in Emerson town- ship, and he has also served as school director and treasurer. In his political sympathies he is a Republican. Mr. Curtis and his es- timable wife belong to the First Baptist Church of Emerson township. He is a mem- ber of Billy Cruson Post, No. 347, G. A. R.
C LIFTON J. CHAMBERS, county clerk of Gratiot county, resident at Ithaca, Michigan, is a leading Republican of wide experience in public affairs, as well as a man of thorough education, of practi- cal ability and of clear ideas and sound judg- ment. He was born in Crawford county, Ohio, September 23, 1864, son of Aaron J. and Harriet (McKee) Chambers. His parents were natives of the Buckeye State, where they were married and remained un- til the year 1878, when they removed to North Shade township, Gratiot county, Michigan, and soon after their arrival pur- chased a farm on Section 3, upon which they resided with their family for two years. Later they moved to New Haven town- ship, where they still live, and where they witnessed the growth to maturity of a fam- ily of three children, viz. : Carrie, now Mrs. B. J. Saxton, of Grand Rapids, Michigan ; Birdella, unmarried and a resident of Car- son City, Michigan, and Clifton J., the subject of this sketch.
Aaron J. Chambers, the father, is an industrious, prosperous farmer, and has al- ways been alive to the best interests of the community in which he has lived. He was retained by his constituents as supervisor of
Granted.
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his township for the perior of seven years, and has held other township and school of- fices in the gift of the people. He was born in Crawford county, Ohio, on December 9, 1840. Mrs. Chambers, his wife, is two years his junior, and was brought up and educated in Crawford county, Ohio. For the last twenty-five years she has been an invalid and a constant sufferer from rheuma- tism, yet she has never complained of her lot but has directed and managed the affairs of the household, forgetting her own affliction in her eagerness to make her home a pleas- ant one.
Clifton J. Chambers remained with his parents until his marriage. Until he was seventeen years of age he assisted his father in the usual occupations pertaining to a farmer's life. But being of a mechanical turn of mind, he learned the carpenter's trade and found ready employment until there came to him a desire to acquire a more contplete education than was afforded by the district schools of his locality. After pursuing a course in the Valparaiso (Indi- ana) Normal School, he commenced to teach during the winter months and worked at his trade in the summer. At about this time he also purchased a piece of wild land on Section 27, in New Haven township, which he afterward transformed into a homestead, and upon which he resided and still owns.
On October 8, 1890, Mr. Chambers was united in marriage to Miss Emma A. Mc- Williams, a member of an old and respected Ohio family. She was born in Morrow county, that State, and her parents, Ga- briel and Susanna (Sampsell) McWilliams, were also natives of the Commonwealth named. Mr. McWilliams was a farmer.
Both he and his wife died in Gratiot county. Emma was the eighth in a family of nine children, eight of who are now living. She was reared and educated under the watchful care of fond and loving parents. Possessed of a mind capable of rapid cultivation, and a large amount of energy and determination, she soon attained a point in her studies which qualified her to enter upon the duties of a teacher. Commencing at the age of seventeen, she taught continuously to the time of her marriage to Mr. Chambers, ex- cept during the year of her attendance at the Baldwin University, Berea, Ohio. Two children, Carlton D. and Helen M., have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Chambers.
For a number of years after his marriage Mr. Chambers continued to teach school in the winter and to work at his trade during the summer, but in 1894 his political asso- ciates and the citizens generally recognized his honesty and ability by electing him treas- urer of New Haven township, from which time his energies were directed toward the duties devolving upon him as a servant of the people and the improvement of his home- stead. So satisfactorily did he perform the duties of the office that, in 1895 and 1896, he served as supervisor. In the fall of the latter year he received the Republican nomination for register of deeds, but he went down with the landslide which buried all the candidates on the ticket. Desiring to devote more time to the improvement of his farm, Mr. Chambers refused the nomination for supervisor the next year, but in the spring of 1898 he was again elected to that position, and continued to hold it until the fall of 1902, when he resigned and moved to Ithaca, he having been elected county clerk that year. Mr. Chambers was re-
4
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elected in 1904 for another term of two years, and has given such prompt and effi- cient service to the county that his tenure of office seems to depend upon his own pleasure largely. He is a member of the M. E. Church, his ability and honesty as a man being grounded upon firm religious convictions.
T THOMAS HOLTON, a prominent resi- dent of Bethany township, is deserving of special mention in this volume not only be- cause of his high standing as a citizen but for his honorable record as a soldier in the Civil War. He was born in Buckingham- shire, England, September 28, 1846, son of Joseph Holton.
Joseph Holton married in England Miss Elizabeth Barnes, and they came to the United States in the early winter of 1848. They settled in Jackson county, Michigan, and lived there for many years before com- ing to Gratiot county, in the spring of 1866. After that year they made their home in Bethany township, and there Mr. Holton .died in 1882, at the age of sixty-six years. His wife died about ten years later, aged seventy. They had a family of eleven chil- ·dren.
Thomas Holton was the third child and his boyhood and early youth were passed in Jackson county. When the Civil War broke out he was filled with patriotic fervor and in October, 1862, although only six- teen years old, he enlisted in Company E, Eighth Michigan Volunteer Infantry, and served three years. He was with his regi- ment in the battles of Fredericksburg, Vir- ginia, and at Jackson, Mississippi. At the expiration of his term of enlistment he was mustered out, and returning to Jackson coun-
ty was engaged there in farm labor for near- ly eight years. In March, 1874, he came to Gratiot county and settled in Bethany town- ship, Section 10, on land which he had pre- viously purchased. Originally he bought seventy-six acres, and this tract he increased to 238 acres. He remained upon this home- stead from 1874 until the spring of 1892, when he sold it and came to his present farm in Section 24, in the same township, then purchasing 103 acres which is now all under cultivation. His farm has a number of sub- stantial buildings and is in fine working con- dition.
In 1874 Mr. Holton abandoned the ranks of bachelorhood, on March 5th being mar- ried to Miss Mary Lewis, a native of Jack- son county, of English parentage. To this union have come nine children, of whom the following six are living : Richard, William, James R., Nellie, Anna B. and Emma I. A son, John R., died in Bethany township, in his twenty-first year; an infant son, Frank E., was scalded to death when eighteen months old; and a daughter, Mary May, died when only sixteen years old, in Colo- rado Springs, Colorado, whither she had gone on account of her failing health. Mrs. Mary Holton ended her earthly pilgrimage in Bethany township, where she died No- vember 20, 1893, in the forty-first year of her age. Five years later, in the spring of 1899, Mr. Holton married again, his second wife being Miss Rachel Taylor Burgess.
Mr. Holton is among those citizens of Gratiot county who do not shirk their mu- nicipal duties, but take their part in the local government. He has held the office of jus- tice of the peace for several years, filling the position with an ability and efficiency which have fully demonstrated his natural fitness
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for such responsibilities. He is also a mem- ber of the township committee. As an old soldier Mr. Holton is naturally a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, connected with Billy Cruson Post, No. 347, and his popularity with his old comrades is shown by the fact that he has been chosen its com- mander. He also belongs to Monitor Grange No. 555. One of the old settlers, he has long been prominent in his locality by rea- son of his many worthy traits and his abid- ing interest in all that affects the public wel- fare.
L AFAYETTE CHURCH, a leading ag-
riculturist of Section 2, Arcada town- ship, was born in July, 1816, in Wayne county, New York, son of Willard and Sal- ly (Davis) Church. Willard Church, who was descended from the old Puritan 'stock, served through the Revolutionary war and his cousin, Captain Church, was one of the leaders on the side of the Colonists in King Philip's war. Our subject's mother was of English parentage, her family coming from the other side of the water some time later than the Churches.
All of the nine children of the parents of our subject grew to maturity, were mar- ried and had families around them. Lafay- ette was the youngest of this family, and his educational advantages were decidedly lim- ited, he beginning work on the home farm at an early age. He left the parental roof when sixteen years of age to seek a living, and was first employed in a drug store at Providence, Rhode Island, for about three years, during which time he attended school to a certain extent, and being ambitious put in his spare time in study, acquiring thereby the education that had been previously de-
nied him. He returned home for one year, and in 1836 came to Michigan, spending the following winter in Oakland county. The next spring he went to Ionia, which was then a mere village of a hundred inhabi- tants, and was afterward employed in Clin- ton county, and again in Ionia.
Mr. Church was married January 29, 1840, at Lyons, Ionia county, to Sophronia, daughter of Nathan and Chloe (Tyler) Ben- jamin, both of whom were born in New York, of English and Irish extraction. Mrs. Church was born October 26, 1823, in Wayne county, Ohio, and came with her parents to Oakland county, Michigan, when. a year and a half old. From Oakland county the Benjamins removed to Ionia county, where Mrs. Church resided until her marriage. Mr. Benjamin drove the first wagon over East Plains, and the first wagon into Maple Rapids. Our subject and his wife lived at Lyons for a period of seven years, and from there went to Wheatland township, Hillsdale county, remaining there until 1854, in the winter of which year they came to Gratiot county, purchasing land from the Government. This eighty-acre tract was located in what is now Arcada township. Since that time Mr. Church has added 120 acres to this farm, but having divided it up among his family, now owns sixty acres, which is finely cultivated.
Lafayette Church assisted to start the town of Ithaca, building a house and saw and grist mill with Francis Nelson and John Jef- frey. Mr. Church was chosen county treas- urer at the first general election held in Gra- tiot county, and this position he held for four years, also being the first treasurer of Arcada township. He organized the first Sunday- school started in Gratiot county, in May,
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BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF GRATIOT COUNTY.
1855, meeting at the home of F. Way, mid- way between Alma and St. Louis. He re- ceived a commission from the Governor of the State, July 19, 1862, as second lieuten- ant, with authority to raise a company of volunteers, and when a sufficient number had been raised they were mustered in as Com- pany D, Twenty-sixth Michigan Volunteer Infantry, Lieutenant Church being imme- diately made captain of the company. He held that rank for eighteen months, and on recommendation of the principal officers of the regiment, was then commissioned regi- mental chaplain. He continued to hold that position until the surrender of Lee, which historical event our subject witnessed. He distinguished himself on numerous occasions and was at the head of his company at Mine Run. His son, Nathan, held the rank of first lieutenant in the same company, the two remaining together until June, 1865, when they were honorably discharged. Since the war Captain Church has lived a quiet and retired life at his home in Arcada town- ship, highly respected by his numerous friends. His long residence and gallant ser- vices have won him a place in the front rank of Gratiot county's representative citi- zens. In his political sympathies he is a Re- publican, and has always been influential in local matters.
Mr. and Mrs: Church had ten children, two of whom are now deceased. Those who still survive are as follows: Nathan, born November 22, 1840; Susan, August 22, 1849; Marie E., October 9, 1851; Avolin, December 22, 1853; Julia, September 7, 1856; Flora, March 25, 1860; Willard, May 19, 1861; and Fred, June 2, 1863. S. Cor- nelia was born August 3, 1842, and died
March 23, 1878, and Frances A., born Au- gust 5, 1844, died September 17, 1865.
At the present writing Mr. and Mrs. Church have been married sixty-six years, and Mr. Church, although he is approaching the age of the patriarchs, is still an alert citi- zen, with all his faculties unimpaired, and apparently in the full enjoyment of mental and physical life.
S TILES KENNEDY, M. D., a promi- nent and influential citizen of St. Louis, Michigan, and a skilled physician and surgeon-the oldest practitioner of the city engaged in active professional work- was born April 1, 1838, in Lebanon, Ken- tucky, son of Rev. George W. and Ellen (Jennings) Kennedy.
Rev. George W. Kennedy was born in 1805, in New London, Pennsylvania, and received his education at Princeton College, from which institution he was graduated with honor. Selecting the preaching of the Gospel as his life work, he studied theology and entered the ministry of the Presbyterian Church, in whose interests he labored chiefly in Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware. On the paternal side Dr. Kennedy is descended from Scotch-Irish stock, inheriting from his ancestors both perseverance and bril- liancy. Accompanied by two brothers, his grandfather emigrated to America just be- fore the American Revolution, and all three engaged in the war, one of them holding the rank of major. After the war the three settled at New London, Pennsylvania, founding the Academy at that place, and continued its management for a number of years. On his mother's side the Doctor is a lineal descendant of John Jennings, Duke
Alice Kennedy M.
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BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS OF GRATIOT COUNTY.
of Ghent, the historic John of Gaunt. Hum- phrey Jennings, son of the Lancastrian an- cestor, resided in Birmingham, England, and was the father of five sons and two daughters. Three of these sons-Daniel, Augustin and William-emigrated to America. The daughters (Sarah, the wife of the Duke of Marlborough, and Frances, Duchess of Tyrconnel) were women of world-renowned beauty. Daniel Jennings was born in 1690, in Suffolkshire, England. In 1722 he sold his estate and became a resi- dent of the United States, first settling in Maryland, and later in Virginia. His sons, Daniel and James, served in the Colonial army throughout the Revolution. The for- mer was born October 3, 1737, in Fair- fax, Virginia, and died in 1783, and James was born in 1735 and died in 1811. Daniel Jennings (III) was born in Virginia in 1769, was married in 1799 and died at Leb- anon, Kentucky, in 1846. He married Sarah Jennings, a descandant from a collat- eral branch of the same family, who was born in Virginia in 1776 and died in 1852. Their daughter, whose full name was Mary Elinor Foster Jennings, was the mother of Dr. Kennedy. She was born in Virginia in 1808, and died in Lebanon, Kentucky, in 1840.
In his boyhood Dr. Kennedy accom- panied his parents to Delaware, and soon became a pupil at the Milford Academy, where he was a student until his seventeenth year. He commenced the study of medi- cine with Dr. Alexander Hardcastle, of Denton, Maryland, with whom he remained three years, at the same time attending lec- tures in the University of Pennsylvania and being graduated from its medical depart- ment in 1859. He then spent two years in
prospecting through the West and South- west, after which he settled in the Shenan- doah Valley, Virginia, where he engaged in practice about one year, when he was ap- pointed surgeon in the Confederate army, in the corps of Stonewall Jackson. He was afterward assigned to the command of Beauregard, and later to that of Gen. Rob- ert E. Lee. At Newbern, North Carolina, in 1864, he was taken prisoner, was con- fiened at Washington for about one month, and after the war returned to his private practice in Newark, Delaware. That Dr. Kennedy was considered a competent sur- geon is shown by the fact that, after the bat- tle of Antietam, under a flag of truce he was sent to Frederick City, Maryland, by Gen- eral Lee, with a corps of surgeons, to co- operate with the surgeons of the Federal army in relieving the wounded of both armies. The special order of General Lee prescribed that all bills created by Dr. Ken- nedy, in the line of his official duty, should be paid in gold by the secretary of the Con- federate treasury at Richmond. He was at Frederick six weeks, and on his return, as as mark of appreciation of his services, was appointed inspector of hospitals.
Dr. Kennedy came to St. Louis in 1871. He has taken a conspicuous part in the es- tablishment of all public improvements, and is a member of the county and State medical societies and the American Medical Asso- ciation. He is prominent in local politics, and for several years was chairman of the Democratic County Committee. He is ex- aminer for such life insurance companies as the New York Life, the Equitable, the Phoenix, the Connecticut Life and the Penn Mutual, with some of which he has been connected for over thirty years. In
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public affairs Dr. Kennedy is considered one of the most public-spirited men in central Michigan, being one of the originators of the Lansing & St. Louis Electric railway, as well as an energetic promoter of the munic- ipal water-works, electric lighting plant and sewerage system. He was one of the earliest promoters of the St. Louis sugar factory and the St. Louis chemical works- two of the largest and most successful in- dustrial concerns in the State.
Dr. Kennedy has also rendered valuable service to the cause of medical literature, his first noteworthy contributions being a series of papers in the Medical and Surgical Re- porter of Philadelphia on "Mistakes in Sur- gical Diagnosis," published in 1866-67. In 1869 he published a statement of his ex- perience in treating scarlet fever by means of the cool regime, which met with much criticism then, but which in these days would be generally upheld by the foremost practi- tioners. The "Mineral Springs of Michi- gan," an unpretentious and valuable work of 1872, and contributions to periodical liter- ature of a later date, such as "The Direct Abstraction of Heat in the Treatment of Typhoid Fever," and the "Philosophical Treatment of Diphtheria," have established his standing as a clear thinker and a skilled diagnostician. Fraternally Dr. Kennedy is a member of the A. F. & A. M., having taken the eighteenth degree. As an Odd Fellow he has filled all the chairs including noble grand, being now a past grand.
Dr. Stiles Kennedy was married Janu- ary 22, 1872, in Delaware, to Miss Mary Reybold, daughter of William Reybold. The Reybolds have long been known for their energy, enterprise, integrity and. wealth. She died at St. Louis March 22,
1878, leaving three children : William, born May 28, 1873, who married Harriet Hastings of St. Louis, Michigan; George, born May 23, 1876; and Mary, born March 17, 1878, who died in 1895. Dr. Kennedy married (second) October 16, 1883, at Ghent, Kentucky, Amanda Froman, daugh- ter of Hon. Hiram Froman, one of the most honorable, enterprising and successful agri- culturists in the Ohio Valley. Mrs. Ken- nedy was born in 1859, in Kentucky. By this marriage there are three children : Stiles C., Daniel J. and Alice Amanda.
SCAR OAKES, a prominent and sub-
stantial farmer and highly esteemed resident of Wheeler township, was born on a farm in Aurelius, Ingham county, Michi- gan, September, September 30, 184I, son of Darius and Maria P. (Royston) Oakes.
Darius Oakes was born in Vermont, while his wife was born in New Jersey. They were married at Seneca Falls, New York, whence they came to Ingham county, and settled on wild land, where Mr. Oakes died in October, 1860, aged about forty-six years. His widow survived until her eighty- first year, and died at the home of her son Oscar, February 21, 1894. This good cou- ple were the parents of four children, and of this family Oscar was the eldest; Robert W., deceased, was the second born; George A. resides with Oscar; and Sarah E., deceased, was the wife of George Battley.
Oscar Oakes was reared on his father's farm and received a thorough education. At the outbreak of the war he enlisted in Com- pany B, Second Regiment, Berdan's Sharp- shooters, his enlistment papers bearing date of September 20, 1861. After spending six months and two days in the service, Mr.
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Oakes was honorably discharged on account of disability, and returned to the farm in Ingham county. In 1863 he removed to Minnesota and in August, 1864, again en- listed, joining Company K, Eleventh Minne- sota Volunteer Infantry, and served until the close of the war. Mr. Oakes returned to Winona county, Minnesota, and engaged in farming for about four years, at the end of which period he returned to Ingham coun- ty, purchasing the old homestead upon which he was born. There he lived until 1876, in that year selling the property and removing to Mitchell county, Kansas, where he pur- chased a farm and operated it for four and one-half years. He then sold this farm and returned to Michigan, and, after living near Lansing for one and one-half years, in June, 1885, came to Gratiot county, purchasing forty acres of woodland which he has since cleared and improved. He has added to the original purchase. now owning eighty acres, forty acres of which are cultivated.
Mr. Oakes has been twice married. His first marriage was to Miss Maretta Sifert, at Eaton Rapids, Michigan, September 24, 1861, and by her he had one son-Frank E., living at home. Mr. Oakes's second union was in Aurelius township, Ingham county, December 17, 1874, when he was married to Miss Emma E. Springer, who was born in Aurelius, Michigan, August 4, 1859, daugh- ter of Abraham and Lura (Collins) Spring- er, natives of New York, who died in Ing- ham county, Michigan. Mrs. Springer was the youngest of five children. To her and her husband have been born: Olive I., wife of W. F. Smith, of Lafayette township, Gra- tiot county, and the mother of three chil- dren, Zelma E., Elmer O. and Clarence W .. and D. Martin, who married Della M. East-
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