Chronography of notable events in the history of the Northwest territory and Wayne County, Part 41

Author: Carlisle, Fred. (Frederick), 1828-1906; Wayne County Historical and Pioneer Society (Mich.)
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Detroit : O.S. Gulley, Borman & Co., Printers
Number of Pages: 504


USA > Michigan > Wayne County > Chronography of notable events in the history of the Northwest territory and Wayne County > Part 41


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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49


At the age of twenty Mr. Carter became a clerk of the steamer Forest City. L. A. Pierce was its first commander. In 1852, follow- ing, on the St. Louis (Captain Hopkins), Sam Ward (M. H. Easter- brook), Cleveland (J. R. Howe), May Queen (R. G. Evans), Ocean (C. C. Blodgett), City of Cleveland (J. M. Lundy), Morning Star (E. R. Viger), R. N. Rice (William McKay), Northwest (E. R. Viger). The last named took the place of the Morning Star which was lost in a collision on Lake Erie June 20th, 1868. The regular vessels in the line at the organization of the present company were the steamers R. N. Rice and Northwest. In 1877 the Saginaw took the place of the R. N. Rice. In 1878 the City of Detroit was built of iron at a cost of $175,000, taking the place of the Saginaw. Her first commander was Wm. McKay. In 1881 the City of Cleveland was built of iron, costing $175,000, went into the Lake Superior trade and was commanded by Albert Stewart. In 1883 the iron steamer Mackinaw, costing $160,000, was built and placed on the Mackinaw route. The City of Cleveland in 1886 cost $300,000. In 1888 the new City of Detroit, costing $350,000, was built and placed on the Cleveland route in 1889. The company now build the hull only of steel and iron, and side wheels with "feathering paddles." The City of Cleveland and Mackinaw average 50,000 miles each, during the seven months, between Detroit and Mackinaw. Messrs. John Owen and David Carter


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have been associated, the former as president and treasurer and the latter as secretary and manager, since 1868. Prior to that date Mr. Owen was the practical owner of the steamers composing the line, and from 1851 Mr. Carter has been the practical manager during the thirty-seven years in which Mr. Carter has been identified with this line in the capacity of clerk and manager. The losses in property have been the sinking of the Morning Star by collision, in 1868, and the partial destruction of the R. N. Rice by fire at her wharf in 1867.


On Christmas in 1856 Mr. Carter married Miss Fannie J. Leonard, the daughter of the Rev. R. H. Leonard, of Cleveland, Ohio. They have had four children, of whom two are living.


Personally, Mr. Carter is a genial, courteous gentleman, and is pro- verbially kind to the unfortunate, rarely withholding his purse or his sympathy when appealed to. He has been an attendant of the Duffield Presbyterian church and is now chairman of the building committee on the new church.


In all the educational, moral and charitable enterprises of the day his name is found to be one active in promoting their success.


As a citizen he is public spirited and earnest in his advocacy of all measures tending to improve the city of his adoption, either in beauty or material growth.


In politics he is Republican, but has never sought or held a public position, is not bigoted, and while he does not intrude his opinions upon others, he is ever independent and firm in maintaining them when attacked.


WILLIAM DUPONT.


William Dupont is a native of Detroit, and was born on Franklin street in 1842. The year of his advent was when John Tyler was President by reason of the death of William Henry Harrison. John J. Barry was Governor of the State, and Douglass Houghton was Mayor of the city.


The population of Detroit was but 7,480, and there were but thirty miles of railway in operation in the entire State.


Mr. Dupont began his business life as clerk with H. and L. Simoneau, under the Exchange Block, on Jefferson avenue. Subse- quently he was engaged in the business at Kalamazoo for a few months, but in 1867 returned to Detroit, and established on the corner of Mich- igan avenue and Second street, his present location.


Mr. Dupont is now recognized by the pharmaceutical fraternity of the State, as being authority on all questions pertaining to the profes-


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sion, and by the citizens of his native town, as an enterprising, honest and intelligent man. Mr. Dupont married Miss Kate Southard in 1862. They have five children, Richard S. Dupont, who is twenty-two years of age, Josephine, twenty-one, Walter S., nineteen, Kate S., sixteen, and Elise, nine.


Although Mr. Dupont has been active in promoting the success of the Republican party, he is not an office-seeker, except to see that good men for official positions are selected, and is regarded by both parties in his ward as being competent to choose those who will best subserve the public interests.


JOSEPH BERTHELET MOORE.


Humanity, as taught by the great Teacher, and which should be practised by all who recognize His right to instruct, is the exercise of a just discrimination in all that we do, connected with our relations to society and our fellows.


We start first with our own family, and do our duty to them; second, we have a succession of employees, we should be their friend, sharing their troubles and commiserating their misfortunes; third, we may have tenants, consequently occupying subordinate or dependent positions, we should try to look at life from their standpoint of view.


The exercise of such discrimination would serve as a cure to bridge over the breach between the rich and poor, and entitles such as practice it to the cognomen-to distinguish them as "God Almighty's gentlemen."


While it would be akin to fulsomeness to claim for the subject of this sketch all that the sentiment of the foregoing expresses, yet having lived in Detroit since birth, he must have exhibited and been mindful of many of the precepts taught by it, for otherwise, he could not have inspired the confidence among business men, and the esteem and respect of all who know him, which has enabled him to attain the enviable position he at present holds in his native city.


Joseph Berthelet Moore, was born in the city of Detroit, September 15, 1846. He is the only son of the Hon. J. Wilkie Moore and Margaret Berthelet Moore, a sketch of whose life will be found else- where in this volume. He is descended on the paternal side from > Scotch and English ancestry, and on the maternal, from French.


Mr. Moore has enjoyed and improved the advantages afforded by the schools of Detroit in acquiring a good business education, and is a graduate of the High School, and of Detroit Commercial College.


Soon after graduating from the latter, he accepted a situation in


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the First National Bank of Milwaukee. After remaining there two years, he returned to Detroit, and was appointed discount clerk in the First National Bank of Detroit, resigning this position in ISSo, to accept that of Secretary and Treasurer of the Michigan Carbon Works. He withdrew from this position in 1887 (though still a director and one of the largest stock holders) to take that of Cashier of the Peninsular Savings Bank, which position he holds at present. He is also Presi- dent and one of the original corporators of the Commercial Electric Company, Director and Treasurer of the Detroit Electric Light and Power Company, and occupies the same relation in the Detroit Sani- tary Works, is Treasurer and Director of the Phoenix Accident and Aid Association, is President of the Mt. Elliott Cemetery Association, and of the Detroit Catholic Club.


He has been all his life a member of the Republican party, and is recognized not only in Detroit but throughout the State, as one of the most active advisers and promotors of party success.


For a number of years he has filled the position as Chairman of both the County and City Republican Committee. Among the public positions held by Mr. Moore is that of Alderman. He has been a member of the City Poor Commission since 1882, and is now holding his third appointment as such, and also one of the Board of County Superintendents of the Poor, having charge of the County Poor House and Insane Asylum.


Such are some of the results indicating the manner of his life thus far, which could not have been reached except by the guidance and acceptance of the precepts given by the great Teacher of humanity.


·In 1878, Mr. Moore married Miss Elizabeth W. O'Hara, of Cin- cinnati, the granddaughter of the venerable Col. James W. Knaggs, whose sketch will be found in this volume.


FUDGE WILLIAM JENNISON.


Judge William Jennison was born December 10th, 1826, in the city of Boston, Mass.


His paternal ancestors were from England, as it is recorded that William Jennison came with Winthrop in the good ship Arabella, in the year 1630, and the Judge is a direct descendant of William, whose christian name he bears. It is also a matter of history that his grand- father was an officer in the Revolutionary War, and was wounded at the battle of Bunker Hill. He died in Boston in 1843. His name appears on the records as a member of the class of 1774, Harvard.


Judge Jennison's mother was the daughter of Col. Richard Fowler


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of the English army. At the age of seven he was placed in charge of Dr. Prime, at Sing Sing, N. Y. At seventeen he was prepared to enter the sophomore class at Princeton, N. J., but severe illness prevented his taking the collegiate course. On recovering from this illness he turned his attention to mining for a period of four years, devoting his leisure time to general reading, writing and the practice of oral discusssion, of questions relating to the scientific subjects which he had made a study. Owing to an accident causing a disability to continue his mining work, he entered the Harvard Law School, Cambridge, and graduated with the degree of LL. B., in 1852. In 1853 he came to Detroit, read for a year with the Hon. Alexander D. Frazer, counsellor at law, and began the practice of law in Detroit, which he has continued since. He has published five volumes of Supreme Court Reports. He resigned the office of United States Assistant District Attorney in 1870, was a member of the Board of Education, 1872-3, and chairman of the Public Library Committee. In 1880 he published a work on "Chancery Practice." For six years prior to 1888 he was Circuit Judge of Wayne county.


As a lawyer he is recognized as the peer of any member of the bar, and his administration of the law while on the bench has classed him with the eminent jurists of the State.


In 1854 Judge Jennison married Miss Eunice A. Whipple, daughter of the late Hon. Charles W. Whipple, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Michigan (whose biography appears elsewhere in this book).


Judge Jennison has three brothers and two sisters. Charles E., in the real estate and lumber business at Bay City; Rev. Joseph F., and J. Morgan, lawyer; Miss Miriam W. and Mrs. Maria Antoinette, widow of the late General Burney, of the United States Army.


DR. C. C. YEMANS.


It is providential that the world is made up of peoples, diverse in mind and characteristics, otherwise it would be monotonous and unen- durable. Some possess marked characteristics which so individualize them, that on the mere naming of certain qualities we at once deter- mine who is their possessor.


From our observation and acquaintance the following from Dryden will apply to the subject of this sketch :


" Composed in suffering and in joy sedate,


Good without praise-without pretentions, great."


Dr. C. C. Yemans came to Detroit in 1847 as porter on the screw steamer Boston. He was then but thirteen years of age, and judging from the circumstances under which he made his advent into Michigan,


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he must have been self-dependent at that early age. That he accepted the situation from necessity, and not because of inclination, is appar- ent from what we learn from his after life and the eminent position attained and held by him at the present time. How he overcame obstacles and reached his present state of prominence in the city and State will be appreciated, and afford an index to the character of the man of to-day, and furnish an example to others, who at like age are compelled to submit to similar adverse circumstances.


Dr. Yemans, soon after landing at Detroit, sought some employ- ment which would enable him to pay for food and clothing and give him an opportunity to gratify his desire for an education. This he was successful in. Availing himself of them, he prepared himself for college, entering first the normal school of the State, at Ypsilanti, and meanwhile teaching. Among other school houses and school grounds which to-day bear evidence of his forethought and care is that in the village of Dearborn. The thrifty maple trees which surround the building and grounds were planted by him and his pupils thirty years ago and now afford shelter from the sun to the scholars of to-day, and serve to gratify the eye of the citizen and stranger.


The instincts of the Doctor to serve his fellows (after the com- pletion of his literary education) inclined him to the ministry and he applied himself to the study of theology. After two years thus spent, he was recognized by the conference of the Methodist Episcopal church of Eastern Michigan as a member. Meanwhile the election of Abra- ham Lincoln furnished the disaffected and hot-headed Southerners an excuse to attempt dissolution and thereby precipitated the late civil war. The Doctor at once abandoned his studies and civil prospects and enlisted in the Twenty-fourth Michigan Infantry. We find that he was appointed Second Lieutenant July 2d, 1862, that he subsequently served on the staff of General Meredith commanding the Iron Brigade, so called, until ill health compelled him to retire from the army in 1864; that on returning and regaining his health he resumed his connection with the conference and for a time was active in the discharge of his ministerial duties.


His army experience and the physical suffering he witnessed created a desire to obtain the knowledge necessary to alleviate bodily ills, and with his usual determination to know what there was to learn, he began the study of medicine, and at the end of three years received his diploma of M. D., A. M. Thus, through his own efforts, unaided by the wealthy or influential, he has achieved a position ranking as the peer of the most noted of his brethren in the medical profession.


At the bedside of the sick he is cool, calm but sympathetic. His manner is such as to inspire courage and cheerfulness to his patients, and confidence in the skill of their physician.


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The Doctor has filled the following positions in the line of his profession : President Wayne County Medical Society, 1885-6-7, presi- dent Detroit Academy of Medicine, 1887-8, surgeon of Detroit House of Correction, 1872-81 inclusive, professor of Dermatology in Michigan College of Medicine, 1882-7 inclusive, lecturer in Chemistry in Detroit Medical College, 1873-7 inclusive.


Dr. Yemans was born at Massena Springs, State of New York, in 1834. In 1856 he married Mary Chamberlain, of Brownstown, Wayne county, Michigan, where she was born in 1835. Mrs. Yemans died at Shaftsburg, Mich., April 22d, 1889.


Mrs. Yemans was devoted to her husband and her children. She was a woman of more than ordinary refinement and culture, and during the struggles of the Doctor she greatly promoted his success by her cheering words and wise counsel. She left to sorrow for her departure three children, Dr. H. W. Yemans, of San Diego, Cal .; Mrs. Robert Henkle, of Detroit, and C. C. Yemans, Jr., also of Detroit, and a large circle of devoted friends.


William Yemans, the Doctor's father, was born in 1810 at Norwich, Vt. He died in 1886. The mother, whose maiden name was Nancy Lockwood, was born at Massena Springs, N. Y., in 1807. She died in 1846. William and Nancy Yemans left two children, the Doctor and Mrs. C. S. Packard, of Milwaukee, Wis.


RICHARD HAWLEY.


Richard Hawley was of English birth, born at Shrewsbury, Eng., December 10th, 1815. His ancestry dates back to the days of Roger de Corbet, and Cause Castle, near Westbury, was a part of the family estate, and until 1870 belonged to Thomas Hawley, of Germantown, Pa., since deceased.


His father, owing to financial reverses, decided to emigrate to the United States, bringing Richard with him, then three years of age, and was able to give him a good common school education.


Mr. Hawley was of a literary inclination, but pecuniary circumstances prevented him from gratifying his desires, and he commenced business at the age of 17 as a brewer at Cleveland, Ohio, on his own account. The panic of 1837 proved disastrous for him, as with many others, and all that he had acquired up to that period was lost. He then removed to Erie, Pa., and began life anew, and was, through his success, enabled to pay all past indebtedness in full. In 1843 he came to Detroit, and established the business subsequently known as the house of Richard Hawley & Son, Malsters. He retired from the business in 1873, and was succeeded by his son, Thomas D.


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Mr. Hawley was at this time so circumstanced as to be able to gratify his early inclination for literary pursuits, making the study of political economy a speciality. That he was regarded as an authority by his fellow citizens on all questions relating to the laws governing trade, or exchange between nations, is evidenced by his having been repeatedly chosen to represent the Detroit Board of Trade in the National and Dominion Boards of Trade. He was a member of the State Legislature in 1864, and again in 1877, and has served on the Board of Estimates and as Alderman.


Mr. Hawley was a Whig until 1854, since that time he has acted with the Independent Democrats.


He married in 1839, Miss Evangelia Gardner, daughter of Col. John Gardner, of East Cleveland. They have eight children, of whom three sons and two daughters were living at his decease. The workingmen are indebted to Mr. Hawley for the wholesome law reforms in their interest, which were passed in 1877 through his instru- mentality; and the unfortunate are also under great obligations to Mrs Hawley, for her earnest efforts in the establishment of a Woman's Hos- pital and Foundling's Home in our city.


He died July 7th, 1884, but leaves a record which should be pre- served for the good of the future, to imitate.


JAMES FANNING NOYES.


" Those plain and legible lines of duty requiring us to demean our- selves to God, humbly and devoutly; to our government, obediently; to our neighbors, justly; and to ourselves, soberly and temperately; " would seem to have been the axiom governing the conduct and life of the subject of this sketch.


James Fanning Noyes, Physician and Surgeon, was born in South Kingstown, Rhode Island, August 2, 1817. He is the fifth son of Robert Fanning Noyes, born at Stonington, Connecticut, in 1770, and Sarah Arnold, born in 1780, in North Kingstown, R. I. They were married in 1800. Thirteen children were born to them, eight survived, five sons and three daughters, all reared on a farm. He descended from Rev. James Noyes, who drew up the famous Saybrook platform, and was Corporator of Yale College. He was born March II, 1640, at Newburyport, and graduated at Harvard in 1659, at the age of seventeen. He preached and died at Stonington in 1719. He was the son of Rev. James Noyes, who was born at Cholderton, Wiltshire, England, in 1608; whose father, Rev. William Noyes, a Nonconformist, Cotton Mather says, was a very learned man. He was bred at Brazen Nose College, Oxford, and in 1654, with his brother, Rev. Nicholas,


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and his cousin, Rev. Thomas Parker, emigrated to America in the ship Mary and John, from London,-that staunch boat, which brought so many Puritans to America that it ought to have been christened the Puritan. They were Puritans and Nonconformists, and had suffered persecution on account of their religious opinions. They settled finally in Newbery, in 1635, now Newburyport, Massachusetts, where Rev. James Noyes and Rev. Thomas Parker were associated as teacher and pastor over the first church established there, and where the Rev. James Noyes erected, in 1647, the Noyes House, in which he and his colleague lived and died, and which has been occupied by his descend- ants to the present time.


The name of Noyes is of Norman-French origin, anglicised, his- tory shows, as early as the twelfth century by dropping the "De La " from Noyer or Noy, denoting the title of nobility. Delano and Noyes were in French, it is believed, originally the same. It is to be observed that the name Noyes is found spelled in four different ways, viz .: Noyes, Noris, Noise and Noy. Noy, Sir William, in ancestral line, was a celebrated English lawyer, born in 1577, attorney to Charles I. He wrote several legal works, viz .: the " Complete Lawyer," a treatise on the rights of the crown, and an ancient law book called "Legal Maxims," a book containing good law to-day. The name Noyes is met with also in German biography and literature as early as the tenth century. The Noyes ancestors were, history relates, among the Huguenots who fled from France into England for safety in the trying times of the Reformation.


In the sixteenth century the family owned vast landed estates in Wiltshire and Hampshire, including the parish and living of the Rec- tory of Cholderton, which was originally attached to the Priory of St. Neats, and the grant confirmed by Pope Alexander III. The Parish Register there records that Rev. William Noyes was instituted Rector in 1601. He married the daughter of Rev. Thomas Parker, the learned and celebrated Nonconformist, whose family were driven to Holland on account of their heterodoxy. The Noyes family became also Nonconformists.


The Noyes' original coat-of-arms granted to William Noyes, whose son, William Noyes, was Attorney-General to Charles I., has been handed down in the family. The crest at the top of the shield " which is a cap of maintenance," was rarely granted to a lower rank than earl (Burk's Heraldry). The three crosses on the shield were cross crosslets entire. It appears from heraldry that crosses upon escutcheon signified that the family commemorated their participation in the Crusades, "Fidei Coticula Crux." The cross is the test of faith and would seem to prove that assertion true. The motto, "Nuncia Pavis Oliva," has direct reference to the crest, which is a "Cap of Mainten-


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ance," surmounted by a dove with an olive branch, or as one author- ity says, " a falcon close, with a branch of laurel," but the motto would seem to indicate that the bird was a dove rather than falcon.


Sarah Arnold, mother of the subject of this sketch, was a daughter of Samuel and Mary (Nicholas) descended from William Arnold, of Welch origin, born in Leamington, England, in 1587, emigrated to America. Persecuted and driven from Massachusetts, he finally settled in Providence, R. I., in 1636, and was the ancestor of the Arnolds of Rhode Island and Connecticut. He was a friend and contemporary of Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, and was associated with him as one of the fifty-four proprietors of the first settlement of the little Commonwealth. His son Benedict succeeded him as President of the colony, and for several years from 1663 was Governor. He was buried in 1678, near what he calls in his will " My stone-built windmill," in Newport, R. I.


Sarah Fanning, his paternal grandmother, born in Groton, Conn., in 1743, descended from Edmund Fanning, of Irish descent, who emi- grated to America from Dublin, Ireland, in 1641, at the time of the great Irish massacre of the Protestants, and settled in New London, Conn.


The Noyes' ancestors, history shows, took an active part and held important positions in the early history of our country, and the Fan- nings and Arnolds figure prominently in the battles on sea and land in American history. Nat Fanning, a descendant from Edmund, was a brave officer on the "Le Bonhomme Richard " at the time of John Paul Jones' victory in 1779 over the British in the Serapis. He led his men, history relates, across the yards, while the ships were interlocked in battle, and captured the enemy.


James Fanning Noyes, M. D., the subject of this biographical sketch, received his earliest education from his oldest sister, of blessed memory, who kept a Kindergarten School in the summer season for the small children of the neighborhood, and later on, from his father, who taught a private school on the farm in the winter. From him he received his first instruction in mathematics, geometry and practical surveying. Many of his scholars came to the school from farms three miles away. At an early day his father had been a noted and popular school teacher, and conducted a school in Narragansett, and later was Town Surveyor. In the year 1800, and earlier, he kept a school at Tower Hill, north, and near Narragansett Pier, the now famous sea- side resort. Among his pupils notably worthy of mention was Oliver Hazard Perry, who became the hero of the battle of Lake Erie, Sep- tember 10, 1813, and his brother Alexander. Mathew, another brother, in 1852, commanded the expedition to Japan, and opened that closed country to the world. In politics, his father was an Abolitionist, a


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staunch life-long Democrat and Anti-Mason. Upon the strength of the latter party in 1834 he was elected to the State Senate, and served the State two terms. Dr. Noyes received his academic education at King- ston Academy. His eldest brother, Azael, and Christopher Comstock, in the English, and Hon. Thomas B. Church, now of Grand Rapids, Michigan, in the Classical Department, were his teachers. He was fitted for College (Colby University) at Rev. Thomas Vernor's Latin School for boys at Kingston; but was obliged to abandon a collegiate education on account of ill health.




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