USA > Michigan > Hillsdale County > Compendium of history and biography of Hillsdale County, Michigan > Part 63
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After the war he dealt in cattle, buying and driving them to the Philadelphia markets, and also kept a store and was engaged in various other occupations until 1838, when he married and moved to Hillsdale county, Mich., entering the north half of section 2 in Reading township, on which he built one of the first framed houses in the county. Some little time after this, early in the forties, he built the more pretentious dwelling which is now occupied by his son Edward. One of the rooms of this house was papered with wall-paper manufactured in 1814. the design rep- resenting a Swiss scene. This paper still hangs on the wall and is in an excellent state of preser- vation. The scenic display is true to life and is very picturesque. In the early part of the Civil War the old gentleman organized a com- pany of Silver Grays, composed of veterans of the earlier wars, which met frequently for drill
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and kept itself in readiness for service in the field. The company offered its services to the President, but was never called into action. Mr. Archer Galloway died some time in 1864.
His son, James C. Galloway, the father of Edward, accompanied his parents to Hillsdale county in 1838, and entered 160 acres of land adjoining his father's place, but just over the line in Allen township. A few years later he came into possession of the homestead in Read- ing township, where he lived until consumption ended his life, in 1866, in the prime of his activ- ity and usefulness. His wife lived until No- vember 19, 1901, and died at the age of sixty-five years. Her father, Stephen Reeves, was an early settler at Pontiac, Mich., and for fourteen years he was the probate judge of Oakland county. Their offspring numbered but two, one of them died in infancy, leaving Edward as their only child. He grew to manhood on the homestead, and was educated at the neighboring district schools. As soon as he was old enough he took charge of the farm and he has since remained in the control and the active management of it. In politics he is a Republican and has made his force and influence felt in the councils of his party. He is now serving his second term as justice of the peace, and during the last nine years he has been on the board of trustees of Hillsdale College.
With the paternal homestead of 120 acres and a farm of forty acres in Allen township, all in an excellent state of cultivation and provided with good buildings and all necessary appliances for the most advanced agricultural work, Mr. Galloway is finely situated financially, and, with the people of the township holding him in high regard and good will, he can feel that the ele- vated character of manhood and citizenship which he has shown is fully appreciated. He belongs to the Knights of the Maccabees, with membership in the tent of the order at Reading. On January 1, 1876, he united in marriage with Miss Wealthy J. Archer, of Allen township, where she was born and reared, being the only child of Jonathan and Caroline (Balcom) Arch- er, natives of New York and pioneers of Hills-
dale county. Garner Archer, the father of Jon- athan, came to the county in 1837 and took up the south half of section 2 in Reading township on which he lived a number of years, but died in Cambria township at the age of ninety-four. Jonathan Archer came with his parents to this county and married liere. He and his wife have since lived in Allen township, and are now well advanced in life.
Mr. and Mrs. Edward Galloway have four children : Ella M., wife of Glenn Cowell, an at- torney at Quincy, Mich. ; Carrie C., wife of Scott E. McEwen, a farmer of Reading township; Edward F., a resident of Mojave Valley, Ariz., where he is interested in extensive real estate and irrigation enterprises ; and an infant named Niel A. Galloway.
For three generations the Galloway family of this line has resided in Hillsdale county, aid- ing in the development of its resources, building up its interests, adding to its moral and educa- tional forces and helping to administer its public affairs. In all of its history no member has brought reproach upon its good name, either by open wrong or by indifference to any public or private duty. And the escutcheon which has thus been in the public eye so long and ever un- tarnished is safe, and its brightness is well main- tained by its present representative, who has the confidence and esteem of his fellow citizens and is worthy of every commendation his manhood and usefulness have received.
GEORGE F. GARDNER.
This pioneer hardware merchant and manu- facturer of Hillsdale is a native of Jackson, Mich., born in 1847, the son of George F. and Emeline (Wallace) Gardner, the former a na- tive of Vermont and the latter of New York. He was the only son of his parents who reached years of maturity. The parents came to Jackson, Mich., about 1836, where they were afterward married. The father engaged in merchandising, and later was a wholesale - grocer at Detroit. Both are now deceased. The father was prom- inent in Masonic circles, serving as grand lectur-
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er for the state, and being the first incumbent of that office. The grandfather was George Gard- ner, who lived in the East. Mr. Gardner passed his early days in Jackson and received his edu- cation in the schools of that city and at the Uni- versity of Notre Dame at South Bend, Ind.
In 1864 he came to Hillsdale and here began clerking in the hardware store of Hammond & Co., continuing this employment afterward with Bunt & Lawrence. In 1878 he started in the hardware business for himself and in this he is still engaged. He is also interested largely in the Hillsdale Wheel. Co. and took an active part in organizing the Scowden & Blanchard Shoe Co. From 1870 to 1874 he was engaged in the manu- facture of grain cradles and scythe snaths. In all matters of public improvement and in enter- prises of every kind for the benefit and advance- ment of the community, he has always taken an active, intelligent and serviceable interest. He was among the first to agitate the question of water works for Hillsdale city, and it is probably due more to him than to any other that a plant for the purpose was installed at that time. He got up a petition for an appropriation of $150 by the city for employing the services of an ex- . pert to look over the ground and advise as to methods of procedure. In this he was ably as- sisted by the late Dr. A. F. Whelan. He orig- inated the idea and was the first to call the atten- tion of the railroad company to the advantage of having the Ypsilanti & Fort Wayne railroads built into the city, and their general offices lo- cated at Hillsdale after the purchase of those roads by the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern. And while this enterprise was heartily supported by the citizens generally it was doubtless his preliminary work and the inspiration he gave to the movement that resulted in its success.
Although a man of decided convictions, Mr. Gardner has never taken any active interest in party politics, and has refused to accept public office. In fraternal relations he is a Freemason. belonging to lodge, chapter and commandery, taking a cordial interest in the workings of each. He married in 1880 with Miss Jennie Chamber- lin, a native of Monroe, in this state. For a quar-
ter of a century he has been connected with the business interests of Hillsdale, being a gentle- man of elevated character and progressive views, and is regarded as one of the leading commercial and industrial agencies of this community and one of its most representative citizens.
SAMUEL GILMORE.
Samuel Gilmore, of Hillsdale, is one of the venerated pioneers of the county, of whom but a few are left, but their work in settling and civil- izing this region will ever be held in the loving and admiring remembrance of their descendants, and of the people generally, who are now enjoy- ing its benefits. For they were men of heroic mold, well fitted by nature and attainments to carve a commonwealth out of the wilderness and to properly start it on the highway to greatness, prosperity and commanding influence. With ad- mirable breadth of view and common sense they laid its foundations broad and deep, and builded in their day for a long and glorious future.
Mr. Gilmore was born in Cayuga county, N. Y., on January 17, 1814, the son of Samuel and Judah (Yarns) Gilmore, the former being a native of Ireland, who came to the United States when a young man, settling at Utica, N. Y., where he married his wife, who was a native of Stonington, Conn., and migrated with her par- ents to New York in her childhood. Her father was an artilleryman in the War of the Revolt .. tion under General Washington's special com- mand. He had a brother killed in that war and also other relatives who were engaged in it. Mr. Gilmore's parents were farmers and lived and died in Cayuga county. Their family consisted of thirteen children, and they were among the earliest of the pioneers of that county.
Samuel Gilmore, their son, was reared on the home farm and received a limited education in the primitive schools of the time and locality, re- maining at home until 1836, when, true to the traditions and customs of his forefathers, he also became a pioneer, coming with his brother, John, to Michigan and settling in Hillsdale county on 300 acres of land, which they took up together
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and owned jointly. It was on section 36 of what was then Fayette, but is now a part of Hillsdale township. They were bachelors and lived alone, Samuel doing the cooking and housekeeping aft- er they had a house, which they built in the fall of that year soon after their arrival, it being a log shanty 12×12 fect in size, roofed with boards sawed at the mill near Jonesville owned by Ran- som Gardner. Their land was all heavily tim- bered and their first work was to make a clearing and get a small portion of it ready for cultivation. There were no roads or other such conveniences in the section and they were obliged to make their way slowly through great difficulties, and to en- dure many hardships and privations of which the centers of civilization scarcely dreamed.
Even their journey to their new home was one of trial and required patience. They trav- eled by canal from Montezuma to Buffalo, from there on the old steamer North America to De- troit, which they found a veritable mudhole and only a small hamlet, occupying three days in their journey between the two cities. From De- troit they came by wagon to Jonesville, and this was by no means the least tedious and trying part of the journey. After their arrival, through the long years of their occupancy, by faithful and persistent industry they got their farm into a good state of cultivation, comfortable with good buildings. Here, in 1876, Mr. Gilmore's brother, John, who never married, died, and seven years later, Samuel purchased a home in Hillsdale and moved thither, dividing the farm between his two married daughters, Margaret, the wife of L. S. Ranney, and Ann Eliza, the wife of John F. Fitzsimmons, all of Hillsdale. He was mar- ried on April 7, 1842, to Miss Mary U. Swift, a native of Seneca county, N. Y., a daughter of Thompson and Lydia (Hastings) Swift, the former having been born and reared in Vermont and the latter at Hartford, Conn. He came to Seneca county, N. Y., when a young man and there married. There also he died, about 1828, while still a young man. His widow came to. Michigan to live with her children in 1838, and died in this state in 1855.
Both Mr. Gilmore and his brother were orig- inally Democrats, but, on the organization of the Republican party, they joined it, they being pro- nounced Abolitionists, and ever remained loyal to their new alliance from its formation. John served as supervisor of Fayette township for a number of years, and after the formation of Hillsdale township, he was the supervisor of that for some time. Samuel seldom held or desired office of any kind, yet has not been indifferent to the welfare of his portion of the state and he has given substantial aid to every undertaking for its promotion. He has lived quietly and unosten- tatiously in this county, performing his duties in every way with industry and fidelity, and yield- ing to no man in the uprightness of his character or the fairness of his dealings with his fellow men. He is one of the most highly respected of the county's pioneers, and, even at his ad- vanced age, disabled as he has been for a num- ber of years by persistent rheumatism, he is carnestly and intelligently interested in what- ever pertains to the good of his state or to the advantage of its people.
DR. FRANK M. GIER.
Having practiced his profession in Hillsdale county for a period of twenty years and been eminently successful and attained distinction in it, winning golden opinions from the people and also from his professional brethren, it was learned with regret that Dr. Frank M. Gier had decided to retire from medical practice in this county and devote himself to a different line of activity, notwithstanding the work in which he is engaged is a beneficent one also, full of prom- ise of advantage to suffering humanity. Doctor Gier disposed of his practice and the good will of his office to Dr. S. B. Frankhauser in Febru- ary, 1902, and at once gave his whole attention to the management of the Abilene Mineral Water Co., of Abilene, Kans., of which he is the presi- dent. The company has a capital of $250.000 and its purpose is to introduce the valuable medicinal mineral waters which it controls into the hos- pitals of the country for general use.
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Doctor Gier is a native of Hillsdale county, born in Ransom township on January 8, 1859. His parents are Henry W. and Lydia A. (Hal- leck) Gier, the former a native of Ohio and the latter of New York, her father being a cousin to Gen. Henry W: Halleck, of Civil War renown. The Doctor's father was by trade a carpenter and joiner, and came to Hillsdale county about 1835, settling in Ransom township. He enlisted in 1863, in Co. I, Eleventh Michigan Infantry, but served less than a year, being discharged on ac- count of a disability, which made him an invalid for life. He was in the Army of the Cumber- land and participated in some of its most noted engagements. His wife's people came from New York to this county in 1850 and here passed the rest of their days. The Doctor has three broth- ers and one sister, two of his brothers being resi- dents of Hillsdale. . Their grandfather, Henry Gier, was a native of Philadelphia and his par- ents came from Germany.
Doctor Gier passed his early school days In the county, and, after leaving school was en- gaged for a number of years in successful teach- ing. In 1880 he entered the medical department of the University of Michigan, and in 1884 he graduated therefrom with the degree of M. D., he having worked his way through college by various occupations. He began practicing at Ransom Center in association with Dr. Wilfred Bates, and after a some time residence at this place he went to Waldron, where he remained only four months. In 1885 he located at Pitts- ford, there remaining until 1900, when he came to Hillsdale, which has since been his home and the center of his large and representative prac- tice. In politics he has always been a zealous and active Republican, and for thirteen years he was a member of the pension board for this coun- ty. He has also served as the mayor of the city, his term covering the year 1899, he having been an alderman from 1897 to that year; for four years he was health officer and for six he was county physician.
In the organizations belonging to his profes- sion he has taken a warm and helpful interest, holding memberships in the State Medical Soci-
ety, the Tri-State Medical Society and the Amer- ican Medical Association, and also serving eight years as secretary of the Tri-State Society and as its president for one term. He is an active work- ing Freemason, having held high offices in all branches of the order up to and through the com- mandery, of which he is now (1903) eminent commander. He also belongs to the Sons of Vet- erans, and was for a time colonel of the Michigan division and later was made the surgeon-general of the organization for the United States. In 1894 he was married to Miss Harriet G. Ricaby, a native of this county and daughter of the late Col. Richard W. Ricaby, a prominent attorney of Chicago, where he died. They have one child, their daughter, Frances H. Mrs. Gier's father was the colonel of the Seventeenth Michigan In- fantry in the Civil War.
CHEENEY W. HALL.
Cheeney W. Hall, the first white boy born in Camden township in Hillsdale county, came into being there on March 26, 1837, the son of James Wesley and Deborah (Caldwell) Hall, the form- er a native of Connecticut and the latter of Rhode Island. When they were children they re- moved with their parents to Seneca county, N. Y., where they were reared and married. In the spring of 1835 they came with the two chil- dren they then had to Michigan and settled on the bank of Devil's Lake in Lenawee county. In April, 1836, they moved to Hillsdale county, lo- cating in Camden township, being the fourth family there to settle. The father entered forty acres of government land, on which he built a home for his family and started to improve and cultivate the soil, clearing the forest off of it for the purpose. On August 24, 1843, he died on this farm, his being the first death of a white man in the township. His wife survived him a num- ber of years and married a second husband. Her death occurred in Reading on April 7, 1887.
Cheeney W. Hall, their son, was reared in his native township, and after the death of his fa- ther and subsequent to his mother's second mar- riage, he was obliged to make his own way in
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the world by hard labor. His opportunities for schooling were few and irregular, as he was com- pelled to work on farms in the neighborhood for a livelihood from an early age.
On August 19, 1862, he enlisted in the Union army as a member of Battery 1, First Michigan Light Artillery. He served to the end of the war, being mustered out at Detroit on July 14, 1865. His first year and a part of his second in the service was passed in the Army of the Potomac. In the fall of 1863 his command was transferred to the Army of the Cumberland, and it was six- teen days in going by rail and boat from Wash- ington to Nashville. The battery to which he be- longed saw hard service, taking part in many of the hottest fights of the war, among them Aldee, Va., Gettysburg, where it was under terrible fire on the left of Cemetery Ridge, Resaca, Buzzard's Roost, Marietta, Kenesaw Mountain, all the bat- tles of the Atlanta campaign, it being among the first of the Federal troops to enter Atlanta after its capture. This campaign lasted four months and Battery I was constantly engaged and almost continually under fire. After the victory at At- lanta it was ordered to Chattanooga, where it remained to the close of the war. Mr. Hall was never wounded or taken prisoner during the contest, but his older brother, Seth Hall, a mem- ber of the Twenty-second New York Cavalry, was captured at the battle of the Wilderness and confined in Libby and Salisbury, N. C., prisons, where he actually died of starvation. He was married just before entering the service, and a diary that he kept while in prison was recovered and sent to his wife. It is a succession of blood- curdling recitals of the terrible ordeal through which the prisoners were compelled to pass. An- other brother, Daniel Hall, made several efforts to enlist, but was always rejected by reason of disabilities. He was, however, successful in get- ting into the department of construction, and worked for a time in Tennessee and Georgia.
After the war Mr. Hall returned to Hillsdale county and engaged in farming, purchasing a small place in Camden township on which he lived about five years. He then sold that and during the next five years lived in Berrien coun-
ty. At the end of that period he came back to Hillsdale county and bought a farm of forty acres east of the village of Camden on which he remained five years. Selling this, after a short residence at Montgomery, he went into Crawford county, this state, and took up 160 acres as a homestead and occupied it about four years and a half. While living there he was elected and in office as highway commissioner one year and township treasurer two years. In 1886 he moved into Hillsdale county once more, and bought the farm of sixty acres on which he now lives. His farm is well improved and diligently and skill- fully cultivated. It is regarded as one of the best in the township and plainly attests his breadth of view and success as a progressive and enter- prising farmer. In political affiliation he has al- ways been a Republican, and has given his party years of active and intelligent service.
In fraternal relations he belongs to the Ma- sonic order with membership in the lodge at Camden, and also to the Grand Army of the Re- public and the Patrons of Husbandry. On Sep- tember 2, 1866, he was married to Miss Louisa Trim, a native of Camden township and a daugh- ter of Richard and Fannie (Parmalee) Trim, pioneers of the township, both now deceased. Mr. and Mrs. Hall have had five children, two of whom, Martha O. and an infant named Ellis. have died. Those living are Fannie, the wife of Frank DeForest, of Camden township; Ella, the wife of William Auten, of Jonesville ; and John J. Hall, a resident of Albion, in this state. The parents are active members of the Methodist Episcopal church at Montgomery, and Mr. Hall has been one of its board of trustees during tlie last three years.
HON. WILLIAM MERCER.
The life story of this interesting subject re- cords the course of a career of unusual service to his fellows, of unusual success in many lines of active and profitable industry. As a leading farm- er of Somerset township in this county for more than sixty-five years, as the incumbent of many local offices of importance to the section, as super-
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visor of the township for more than twenty years, as associate judge of the Circuit Court and as county judge, as a promoter of all commendable undertakings for the improvement of the county, and as a social force of benignity and courtliness, he was a potential factor in every phase of the life, enterprise and productiveness of this portion of the state and an illustrious example of its best citizenship. He was born on October 6, 1811, in County Donegal, Ireland, where his forefathers on both sides of the house had long been resident.
When he was eight years old his parents, Samuel and Hannah (Culbert) Mercer, emigrated to the United States and settled in Livingston county, New York, where they purchased a farm and lived for sixteen years. They then came to Michigan, reaching Hillsdale county in October, 1835, here they took up a tract of 320 acres of government land in Somerset township, built a log house of modest dimensions and began the arduous work of hewing out a home in this western wilderness. In this log house, which was the scenes of his trials and his triumphs, the place of his domestic shrine and the center of all his earthly joys, the father's death occurred in 1852 when he was sixty-seven years old. The house has recently yielded to the all-consuming tooth of time and disappeared. Samuel Mercer was a man of great industry and energy and became thoroughly identified with the interests of his adopted country. Almost from the day of his advent into the county he was numbered among its most useful and valued citizens, and, in the services rendered to the community in which he lived, in many ways he fully justified this esti- mate. The mother was also Irish by nativity and born in County Donegal, where she was reared, educated, married and became the mother of two children. Seven more were added to the nutise- hold after their arrival in America, all of the nine being now deceased but two of the daughters, Margaret and Isabelle, who reside in tnis county. She survived her husband thirteen years and died at the home of her son, the Judge.
Judge Mercer remained at home with his parents until he was thirty-four years of age, having reached the age of twenty-four in New
York, and received his education in the schools of that state, supplementing its limited extent by studious and reflective reading after leaving school. When he was thirty-three he was united in marriage with Miss Sarah Gamble, a native of New York and a daughter of David and Rebecca (Carroll) Gamble, the former a native of Ireland, who came to the United States in early manhood and settled in Livingston county, New York, where, in 1862, he died at the age of eighty years. His wife, a Pennsylvanian by birth, died at their New York home in 1832, a young woman. She was one of twelve children all of whom are deceased but one son, living in New York, and one daughter, who lives in Hillsdale county.
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