USA > Michigan > Hillsdale County > Compendium of history and biography of Hillsdale County, Michigan > Part 70
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
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 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77
Mr. Burt was always an energetic, indus- trious man, and by his labor and business ca- pacity accumulated a comfortable fortune. He was actively connected with the best interests of his town and county, holding at different times the various local offices in the gift of his fellowtownsmen. He was prominent in helping to organize the county agricultural society, and was an earnest supporter of the cause of public education. In politics he was a Democrat until the Kansas troubles made him a Republican, and from that time he was ever loyal to his new par- ty allegiance. He died on February , 14, 1880, aged nearly seventy-five, and his wife on Feb- ruary 10, 1895, aged nearly ninety-two. Their family consisted of eight children, all of whom are living in Hillsdale county, except Matthew, who is a resident of Lenawee county, and James, who lives in Gentry county, Mo. James, Ed- ward and Matthew served in the Union army during the Civil War, the last named running away from home to enlist.
THOMAS BURT, Junior, as he has long been called, was the second son and child of Thomas Burt, Sr., and his wife, Sarah (Bartlett) Burt, and was born on October 12, 1833, at Wey- mouth, Dorsetshire, England. He was but three years old when the family arrived . at Toledo, and but four when they settled in Hillsdale coun- ty. From his childhood, hterefore, he was in- ured to the hardships and privations of fron- tier life, and to the exacting toil incident to the task .of opening up of a new country and mak- ing it habitable. He was literally brought up in the woods, having only Indian boys as his play- mates, and he learned their language and spoke it fluently. He is the oldest living settler who has had a continuous residence in Ransom town- ship, and his history is co-extensive with its own. He saw the section when first the foot of the white man trod its virgin soil for conquest and civilization, and he has witnessed its growth and development to its present condition of fruitful- ness and advancement. And among the evi-
dences of progress it shows, one of the most grat- ifying and attractive is his own home of 135 try and skill, as applied to the land for many years, but typifies the progress of the county it- self from a state of savage wilderness to the home of a great, prosperous and enterprising people.
On August 22, 1859, Mr. Burt was married to Miss Lydia E. Bugbee, daughter of Danforth and Margaret (Saunders) Bugbee, a native of Jefferson township, this county, born on Decem- ber 27, 1841. They have had four children, Cary D., James E., Burton T. and Verna M. James E. and Verna M. died of diphtheria in the au-' tumn of 1881. The other two are living, carry- ing on good farms in this township. In politics Mr. Burt has always been a Republican, while in religious affiliation he is a communicant of the United Brethren church.
JAMES C. COOPER.
The career of James C. Cooper, of Ransom township, one of the honored pioneers of Hills- dale county, who helped to lay the foundations of her prosperity and greatness deep and broad, and to build on them a superstructure creditable alike to her founders and the subsequent masters of her destiny, is full of interest to the thoughtful mind, and forms a striking lesson to the strug- gling and to the ambitious, being rich in sugges- tions of the opportunities ever open in American manhood to those who have eyes to see and skill to use them. Mr. Cooper is a native of Seneca county, N. Y., born on September 4, 1831, a son of John C. and Mary (Servend) Cooper, both na- tives of the Empire state, where the father died at the town of Tyre on August 24, 1874, and the mother in Junius township, Seneca county, in May, 1892. The paternal grandfather, James Cooper, was a gentleman of English birth and an- cestry, a cousin of the late Peter Cooper, the great New York philanthropist, whose name and career are familiar to all the intelligent people of this continent.
James C. Cooper was the fifth child of his father's household, and remained on the New
416
HILLSDALE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
York farm until he reached the age of seventeen. Then, wishing to see something more of the world than he had opportunity for at home, and desiring to work out his own destiny in accord- ance with his own tastes and aspirations, he en- gaged in boating on the Erie canal and for two years followed this occupation. In 1851 he be- came a resident of southern Michigan, arriving in Hillsdale county about September I. He was unmarried at this time, and his only capital was his good health and his willing hands. He soon secured employment at Wheatland at a compen- sation of fifty cents a day. In December of that year, having completed the job on which he had been engaged, he repaired to Ransom in search of another, but found nothing available except splitting rails at fifty cents a hundred. He was not an adept at the work, and found difficulty in doing enough of it to pay for his board. So in company with another man he opened a sugar camp on land belonging to speculators. Here the two kept bachelor's hall and worked at the sugar industry, but with only a moderate success. Soon after their venture was begun Mr. Cooper was offered work on a farm, and he at once left the sugar-making business and entered the em- ploy of Thomas Burt, in which he continued until late in the autumn of the following year.
In November, 1852, he made a visit to his old home in the East, and remained with his parents until March, 1854. Then returning to this coun- try, he bought eighty acres of land, being a part of his present farm. It was all covered with heavy timber, and, not having the capital to de- vote his time wholly to clearing and cultivating it, he once more went to New York and spent the ensuing summer. In December, 1854, he came again to Hillsdale county, and a second time en- tered the service of Mr. Burt, with whom he re- mained until spring, when he went to work on a farm in Wright township for a Mr. Whitbeck. In the fall of 1855 he began operating a sawmill on shares, and was thus occupied until the next June. In the meantime he purchased twenty acres of land in section 12 of Ransom township, and, taking up his residence in the solitary cabin with which the tract was provided, lived there un-
til March, 1857, when he moved to his first pur- chase on which he had built a log house. Prior to this time, however, he had been married on December 1, 1855, to Miss Miranda Crommer, who shared his humble cabin on section 12 until their better and more commodious dwelling was made ready for occupancy. Since the spring of 1857 they have been continuous occupants of their present farm, which now embraces 243 acres and is one of the best in the township.
Mrs. Cooper is a daughter of John and Roba (Hoard) Crommer, former residents of the town- ship and pioneers of the county, who died in Cali- fornia, the father in January, 1873, and the moth- er in January, 1877. For further details of Crom- mer family see sketch of David Crommer, else- where in this volume. Mrs. Cooper was born on June 11, 1835, on the Geauga.county, Ohio, farm, near Burton. Mr. and Mrs. Cooper have had four children, three of whom are living. They are Mary F., wife of Hon. William H. H. Pettit, a sketch of whom will be found elsewhere in this work; Darley Brooks, a Congregational clergyman at Perry, Oklahoma; John C., who married Miss Martha A. Stump, and is farming in this township. The second child, Jasper, died in the sixth year of his age.
Mr. Cooper has ever been a devoted patriot and ardent lover of his country; and in the Civil War he enlisted on August 22, 1862, in Battery I, First Michigan Light Artillery, in which he served until obliged to accept his discharge on account of disability in February, 1864, having been transferred in December, 1863, to the Vet- eran Reserve Corps. He objected to the trans- fer, as he said he had gone to the war to fight, and, if he was considered unable to continue with his regiment, he had business at home to at- tend to. He had been ill in a hospital for a num- ber of weeks, and his weakened condition was given as the reason for the transfer. He was in active service about a year before being taken' ill, driving the team for gun No. I. At Gettys- burg he faced Pickett's magnificent charge, and, the battery being short of gunners, he served as a cannoneer. Prior to that time, in the spring of 1863, he had been on reconnoitering duty and
417
HILLSDALE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
was in a number of skirmishes, among them those at Aldee and Raccoon Ford, most of the time chasing Mosby. In politics he was originally a Democrat, but became a Republican when the party was organized, and voted for its first presi- dential candidate, General Fremont. He belongs to the Grand Army of the Republic at Ransom, and for twenty years he was a school director.
DAVID CROMMER.
Starting in life with nothing but his own nat- ural endowments of energy, capacity, self-confi- dence and a determination to succeed and get on in the world in spite of adverse circumstances and the frowns of Fortune, David Crommer, of Ran- som township, in this county, has won his way fairly to competency in worldly wealth and a high and secure place in the regard of his fellow men who have witnessed his struggles along with their own and have felt the influence of his manly character, unyielding enterprise, breadth of view and worldly wisdom. He was born in Steuben county, New York, on February 6, 1830, and is the son of John and Roba (Hoard) Crommer, natives of that county and pioneers in three states. John Crommer was left an orphan at an early age, and was thrown on his own resources long before "manhood had darkened on his downy cheeks." He was independent and self-reliant, however, and always found opportunity for work.
When he reached years of maturity he was married to the daughter of Daniel and Esther Hoard, and, in 1833, accompanied by his wife and children he emigrated to Ohio, traveling by way of the canal and lake to Cleveland, and from there overland to Geauga county in the wilder- ness, where he contracted for a farm. The fam- ily was very poor, their facilities for work on the farm were few and primitive, and the times were hard, the opportunities for. success to persons in their situation being few and difficult to use. So in 1840 he abandoned the struggle on which he had entered, and, leaving his farm in Ohio to its fate, he brought his household to Hillsdale coun- ty and located in Pittsford township, where he believed he could do better. In the following
February he settled on eighty acres of land in Ransom township in the wild forest with its savage denizens in full force and vigor all around him, while the conditions of life were by no means comfortable or free from actual hardship. Mr. Crommer built a log cabin with a shake roof and constructed the chimney of clay and sticks. The mother, having no stove, did her cooking in the fireplace ; she also spun wool and flax, and wove most of the cloth used by the household for cloth- ing. In 1872 the father set out for California, and his family never saw him again, as he died in that state in the following January. His wife, who accompanied him thither, also died in that state, passing away on January 24, 1877, four years after his decease.
When the family located in Ransom township the son, David Crommer, was eleven years old, and had seen already much of frontier life and imbibed its spirit of independence and freedom, and its air of self-reliance and readiness for ev- ery emergency. This township has ever since been his home. On its soil he grew to manhood, in its primitive schools he had what educational advantages were attainable, and, although he was often obliged to leave the section for work, he ever regarded it as the center of his hopes and the seat of his future activities. While his opportunities for schooling were meager and crude, his mind was strong and active, and by reading and observation, as well as in the effec- tive school of experience, he acquired a goodly store of worldly wisdom and general information, and became a very useful man in all places of his residence. He remained at home until he reached man's estate and aided in clearing his father's land and paying for it, working at times by the month on neighboring farms. By frugality and thrift he saved the sum of $100 for himself and with this made the first payment on a tract of eighty acres of timber land which he purchased. and on which he located with nothing left but a few clothes and a good ax. He built a small frame dwelling, 18x24, and, when it was finished. married and moved his young wife into it. They began at the beginning as their parents had done. cleared their land, made the best of the difficul-
418
HILLSDALE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
ties they encountered, and gradually rose to con- sequence, prosperity and substantial comfort. As soon as he was able he bought forty acres of land adjoining his first purchase, and recently he has added twenty acres more. All of this land is in an excellent state of cultivation and the improve- ments he has made on it are an ornament to the region and well worthy of the effort and labor they cost him.
On February 18, 1857, Mr. Crommer was united in marriage with Miss Fannie Hammond. a native of Cortland county, N. Y., the daughter of John and Parmelia (Dickerson) Hammond. who cmigrated from their native state of New York to Michigan among the early settlers, and, after living a few years in Lenawee county, moved in the spring of 1841 to Ransom township, in this county, where they ended their days. Mr. and Mrs. Crommer were the parents of one child. their daughter, Edna M., the wife of A. Z. Nich- ols, a veterinary surgeon, having an active prac- tice in the county. Mrs. Crommer died in Janu- ary, 1892, and in November, 1893, Mr. Crommer married with Miss Sarah Densmore, a native of the township in which he has passed the greater part of his life, and the daughter of George W. and Betsey (Hammond) Densmore, both now deceased. There are no children of the second marriage. In politics Mr. Crommer has been a Republican from the formation of the party. He has ever been active in public local affairs, giving earnest and effective support to the promotion of the general weal of the community, taking his part cheerfully in the duties incumbent on good citizenship. He served his township as highway commissioner for six years, and, for a long time, he has been an influential member of the Ransom grange of the Patrons of Husbandry.
SANFORD LEONARDSON.
This enterprising and progressive farmer of Jefferson township is a native of the section of the county in which his useful life has peacefully pro- gressed to this period, and he enjoys in a marked degree the confidence and esteem of its people. He was born in this township on January 23,
1851, the son of James and Lucinda ( Hilts) Leon- ardson, natives of Montgomery county, New York, a sketch of whom is published elsewhere in this volume. Only seven years and four monthis prior to his birth, his parents came from their former home in the Empire state to this county, where they settled on eighty acres of the land which he now owns and successfully farms, being confronted with all of the arduous exactions of frontier life in a heavily wooded country, but with characteristic energy, they went to work to clear up a farm and build a home in the wilderness. They were energetic and capable and the inroads they made upon the forest were decided and per- manent. Nevertheless the carly years of their son, Sanford, the only member of the family now living, were replete with the peculiar experiences of the pioneers, his facilities for education in the schools being meager and primitive. He realized in his budding youth that no one, in a new coun- try yet full of nature's wild conditions, can escape a destiny of toil and danger, so he entered reso- lutely upon the work involved in his situation, aiding in the labors of the farm, sharing in the privations of pioneer life and bravely confronting its perils.
The family consisted of three children, a daughter who died in childhood, a son, Warren D. Leonardson, who died after reaching years of maturity, and Sanford. His slender opportuni- ties for schooling were supplementedby judicious and reflective reading in the intervals between the labors on the farm and amid these elevating and tranquilising pursuits his life so far has been passed. He has greatly prospered in his industry and has honestly won his success by his energy, capacity and well applied and skillful work. He owns 500 acres of land, the greater portion of which is located in the township, and the home place is provided with every requisite for the com- fort and convenience of its occupants, every need- ed appliance for the proper management of its business, and is adorned and beautified with nu- merous evidences of good taste and refinement. While building his material fortunes, Mr. Leon- ardson has been studious of the general weal of the community, giving freely of his time, his en-
Saufort Leonardsow
Helen Ms Neal Leonardson
419
HILLSDALE COUNTY, MICHIGAN ..
ergy and his substance in support of every good enterprise for the advancement of the township and the improvement of its people. And thus, through two of the most approved and productive channels of honest and persistent effort, he has reached a high place in the public regard and been able to exert a wholesome influence on the public life of the community.
In politics Mr. Leonardson has been a life- long Republican, active and serviceable in behalf of his party and its candidates. He has also filled important local offices, serving as township treasurer and school inspector. He belongs to the Masonic order in blue lodge and chapter, and for long years has been a devoted and active crafts- man. His industrious and beneficial life of more than half a century in the township has given him opportunity to observe, with pleasure and deepening interest, its progress and transforma- tion from a waste of wild woodland to what it is now, and to aid materially in bringing about the change. The story of what he has seen accom- plished by persistent and intelligent diligence is an oft-told tale in American history, but it never loses interest, and ever presents its suggestive les- sons for the observing mind and for the student of human life, showing the inevitable trials and triumphs on every field of action. Mr. Leonard- son was married on October 1, 1871, to Miss Hel- en McNeal, a native of New York, a daughter of Milo and Sarah (Playter) McNeal, who came to this state in 1860 and, later, settled in Jefferson township, where the father died some years ago and the mother is still living, at the age of ninety- five years. Four children have blessed their un- ion, Sara L., Fred, Watson R. and Anna R. On May 7, 1900, Fred married with Miss Myrtle Derthick, of this township, and they are engaged in farming on their own account. The rest of the children are living at the parental home.
EDWARD H. CUNNINGHAM.
Edward H. Cunningham, of Hillsdale, for a long time one of the influential and leading fac- tors in the commercial prosperity and activity of the county, is now living a retired life of peace 27
and comfort amid the scenes of his most impor- tant achievements, secure in the confidence and cordial regard of the people who have known him from his early manhood. He is' a native of On- ondaga county, N. Y., born on January 17, 1850. His parents, Alexander and Adaline (House) Cunningham, who were natives of New York, removed with all of their family to Michi- gan in 1868, and continued in Calhoun county in this state the active farming operations they had formerly carried on in their native state. After a residence of some years on the farm they moved to Homer, where the father died on April 21, 1902, and where the mother is still living. Three of their four sons reside in Michigan and one is a citizen of Dakota. They were also the parents of three daughters, of whom two are living. .
Edward H. Cunningham was the fourth son in the order of birth, and reached the age of eighteen years in New York and received his education in the public schools. For four years after his arrival in this state he lived on the farm with his parents, and during most of this time was actively engaged in the lumber business. In 1892 he took up his residence at. Hillsdale, hav- ing purchased the coal business of Henry Keefer. To this he gave an earnest attention, building it up in every way, enlarging its trade, raising its standard of excellence and conducting its opera- tions with marked success until April 1, 1902, when he sold out, and since then he has been re- tired from active business pursuits. He still has, however, important and valuable interests in a number of industrial and manufacturing enter- prises, among them the Motor Vehicle Co., of Chi- cago, in which he owns a large block of stock, and he has a considerable body of rich and pro- ductive farming land in this county. He belongs to the Masonic fraternity and gives serviceable attention to the affairs of his lodge; although a Republican in politics, loyal to the principles and candidates of his party, he takes no interest in an active working way in party matters.
Mr. Cunningham was married in 1872 to Miss Ada Dunakin, a native of Michigan, where the marriage occurred. They have one child, their daughter, Mabel. Mrs. Cunningham, who is one
420
HILLSDALE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
of the most estimable ladies of the county, active in all good works for the benefit of its people, is a daughter of Daniel and Eliza (Cook) Duna- kin, New Yorkers by nativity, who came to this state in 1836, and settled on a good farm in Cal- houn county four miles north of Homer, where both parents died, the father in 1877 and the mother in 1883. Mrs. Cunningham was one of nine children, all of whom are dead except her- self and one sister, Mrs. George Lay, of LaPorte, Indiana. Their father was a prosperous farmer and a man of great public spirit. He served as a member of the Michigan Legislature, being also one of the founders and among the most active supporters of Hillsdale College, at his death be- queathing the institution a substantial sum of money. He was also one of the founders of the First National Bank of Albion, one of its orig- inal stockholders and directors. He was a zealous member of the Baptist church, standing in the front rank of its most useful workers. He died at a ripe age, well respected, having accomplished a life of usefulness.
HON. WARREN MCCUTCHEON.
The late Hon. Warren Mccutcheon, of Ran- som township, who for twenty-two years was a resident of Hillsdale county, and an active par- ticipant in every phase of its political and social life, serving the people well and wisely in vari- ous official positions, exemplifying in his daily life the most elevated spirit of patriotic citizen- ship, was born at Epsom, in Merrimack county, N. H., on September 17, 1815, and the son of James and Hannah (Tripp) Mccutcheon, na- tives of that state. His father was a Free Will Baptist minister, and also a lumberman, and, for his time and section was well-to-do. The son. Warren, was reared in his native county and there received a common school education. When nineteen years old he started for the West and during the winter of 1834-5 he taught school at Republic in Seneca county, Ohio. He then worked on an Ohio farm one season and after that returned to his Eastern home, going soon afterward to Boston, where he was employed in
the construction of the Bunker Hill monument.
While working on this structure he injured his back, and for a number of years thereafter he was unable to perform hard or heavy labor. He then came again to Ohio and went on to Michi- gan, traveling in a wagon with two or three ac- quaintances through portions of the two states. He then learned the trade of a shoemaker, and for two or three years wrought at it at Republic, Ohio. In 1845 he journeyed with his wife and one daughter in a covered ox-cart to Fulton county, in the same state, and there bought a farm of sixty acres, on which he lived for nine or ten years, developing and improving the estate, making it valuable with comfortable buildings and rich in agricultural productiveness. In Au- gust, 1854, he moved to Hillsdale county and pur- chased 120 acres of undeveloped land in Ransom township, on which he settled permanently and became prosperous and influential.
He was originally a Whig in politics, and also an intense Abolitionist. During his residence at Republic, Ohio, he was actively connected with the workings of the historic underground rail- road, so extensively used in aiding negro slaves to freedom. On the organization of the Republi- can party he joined its forces ardently, casting his vote for Fremont for president, and through life he remained a firm and loyal adherent of the party and an earnest advocate of its principles. After coming to Hillsdale county he became very prominent in local affairs, serving ten years as a supervisor of Ransom township, a portion of his tenure of this office being during the Civil War, and he was known far and wide for the vigor of his administration which gave him the name of the "war supervisor." He also served as an en- rolling officer during the Civil War, and, in 1867, he was a member of the lower house of the State Legislature. In this body he was very active and serviceable, having membership on important committees, giving the work of the session his most careful and conscientious attention. He was loyal to his duty there every hour, and was present to vote on all measures without dodging or evasion.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.