USA > Michigan > Hillsdale County > Compendium of history and biography of Hillsdale County, Michigan > Part 74
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DR. WILLIAM B. HAWKINS.
One of the leading physicians of the state of Michigan, now deceased, was Dr. William B. Hawkins, formerly a resident of Jonesville, in Hillsdale county. He was a native of England. born in Cornwall, on August 25, 1819, the father being a representative citizen of that picturesque portion of England. In 1828 he disposed of his property interests in England, and, with his fam- ily, came to America to establish a new home. Upon his arrival in America, he settled at Sand- wich, in the province of Ontario, Dominion of Canada, where he engaged in farming and stock- raising. For many years he continued in this pursuit with considerable success, and up to the time of death. His wife also died in Canada, and both husband and wife are buried there.
Doctor Hawkins grew to man's estate in the Dominion of Canada, and thero received his ele- metary education. Later he attended school in the city of Detroit, Mich., and- subsequently en- tered Hope College at Geneva, N. Y., and pur- sued a complete course in the study of medicine. Previous to this time he had studied medicine at Wilkinsburg, Pa. While a resident of the latter place his interest in historical matters had induced him to go to the city of Buffalo, N. Y. and there to purchase the stationery, ink-stands, etc., used by the members of the constitutional convention which had met at Detroit for the pur- pose of framing a constitution for the new state of Michigan. He was graduated in medicine about 1846, and first hegan the practice of his
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profession in Bloomsburg, Pa. Here he re- mained engaged actively in medical work up to the year 1852, when, owing to failing health, he removed to Jonesville, Michigan.
As early as 1835 he had travelled through this section, and was therefore familiar with the general character of the country and with its re- sources and advantages. After establishing his home at Jonesville he engaged in an active medi- cal practice and met with marked success, his practice being the most general and extensive in Hillsdale county. In addition to his duties as a practitioner, he was a regular and able contribu- tor to the medical journals of New York city and other places, and was generally recognized throughout the country as one of the leading minds of the medical profession. His death in the year 1896 was a distinct loss to the profes- sion, not only of the state of Michigan, which had been the scene of his labors for so many years, but of the entire country.
At Bloomsburg, Pa., Doctor Hawkins was united in marriage with Miss Ellen Robinson, a native of Pennsylvania, whose parents were well known and highly respected citizens of that state. To their union were born five children, among whom are: W. Barton, now the vice- president of the Detroit Folding Cart Co. and a resident of that city, and Victor, residing at Jonesville, who is one of the leading attorneys of Hillsdale county. Doctor Hawkins always declined to take an active part in partisan poli- tics, although he was an active and powerful fac- tor in all matters affecting the advancement of the community or the promotion of the public welfare. In his religious views he was broad and liberal, entertaining no narrow prejudices. and in every sense was one of the leading citi- zens of the community in which he maintained his home, honored in both his private and profes- sional life.
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Victor Hawkins, his son, is now the only rep- resentative of the family residing in Jonesville, and is a prominent lawyer of that city. He there grew to manhood, receiving his early education in the public schools of Hillsdale county. Sub- sequently he entered the State University at Ann
Arbor and pursued a complete course of study at that great institution of learning. After com- pleting a course in the law department he was admitted to the bar at Ann Arbor in 1889. Re- turning to his old home at Jonesville he at once there began the practice of the law, in which he has met with uniform success. In addition to his other business and professional interests he is a large stockholder in the Omega Cement Co., and is also interested in other successful enterprises. Politically, he is identified with the Republican party, and is one of its trusted leaders in that sec- tion of the state. He has filled several local of- fices, among them that of assessor of Jonesville, but he is in no sense an office seeker. Frater- nally he is affiliated with several fraternal soci- eties, among the the Masonic order, in which he serving as master of the local lodge of Knights of Pythias. In 1897 Mr. Hawkins was united in marriage with Miss Jennie Eckler, a native of Jackson. They have two children, Edwin R. and Ellen J.
J. W. LICKLY.
J. W. Lickly, of Hillsdale county, the largest taxpayer and one of the most extensive farmers in Wright township, came to the county when he was ten years old, and has since been con- tinuously a resident of it, living on the farm which he now occupies for fifty-two years, except during a short time which he passed at Waldron. He began life here with nothing, and what he has he has accumulated by his energy and thrift, by working hard and living frugally during the period of his active efforts, and never yielding to the glamor of political honors or the blandish- ments of social life. He is a fine representative of the sturdy farmers which have made our coun- try the wonder of the world in its progress and in its unexampled prosperity. Mr. Lickly was born on August 22, 1827, in Putnam county, N. Y., where his parents, Michael and Lois (Denny) Lickly, were also native. The Lickly's are of Scotch and the Denny's of Holland ancestry. Michael Lickly was an industrious stone mason in New York, and came with his family to Hills-
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dale county in 1837, settling in Wright township, where he entered government land, on which he and his estimable wife passed as farmers the re- mainder of their days. They were the parents of nine children, of whom J. W. was the first born, and only he and another are now living, his brother, George, now residing on the old · homestead in Wright.
In 1837 J. W. Lickly accompanied his parents to Wright township, and he there remained with them, working on the farm, sharing the hard- ships and privations of frontier life, and attend- ing the crude country school for a few months in the year 'until he became twenty-one years of age. He then traded a yoke of oxen to his father for forty acres of land, and his father gave him another forty. This was the nucleus of his pres- ent estate, and, to a man less resolute and deter- mined than he was, and less inured to the condi- tions of the life around him and before him, an unpromising outlook his would have been. For his land was nearly all in heavy timber, much of it being wet and swampy. It had to be cleared and dried before it could be tilled, and the labor of preparing it for the first crop was prodigious. The first duty was the erection of a dwelling wherein he could house himself and his prospec- tive bride, but this was soon accomplished, and a new home of hope and promise, 18x22 feet in di- mensions, rose on the virgin soil, ensuring a com- fortable welcome to its future occupants. It was crude and small, built or logs and chinked with basswood and mud, but it is doubtful if ever the more comely and commodious residence which has succeeded it has afforded the family a keener pleasure or a feeling of greater confidence in the battle of life against whose storms it was the first shelter. When this habitation was ready for occupancy, Mr. Lickly married the lady of his choice and they took up their residence under its roof. The marriage occurred on May 23, 1852, and was with Miss Ruth A. Barclay, a daughter of the Rev. Robert and Amy Barclay, natives of New York of English ancestry, who was born in Ellington, Chautauqua county, N. Y. The parents came to Hillsdale county in 1843 with their young family, and purchased land in
Jefferson township, where the father died after many years of usefulness in developing the sec- tion, the mother dying afterward in Lenawee county. They had a family of twelve children, of whom only two are now living, Mrs. Lickly and her brother, Robinson, who is a resident of Allen, this county.
The young couple began the struggle for su- premacy in their humble shack, with ten acres of their land cleared up and fifteen all topped, and equipped with a team of horses and two cows. The husband and George Kemp, a neighbor, also owned a threshing outfit, which they operated throughout a large extent of the surrounding country every fall for about ten years in order to get a little of the scarcest article in the whole section, money for pressing needs. By 1886 Mr. Lickly had made such progress in his business that he was able to erect his present residence, which, although put up nearly forty years ago, is one of the best in this part of the township. In 1858 he bought eighty acres of land adjoining his former tract on the east, and later another tract of thirty-eight acres, so that he now owns 198 acres all in one body, and fifty-two acres in Pittsford township. Nearly all of his land is in a good state of cultivation, well drained, fully equipped for the most advanced and productive husbandry. He also owns a business block and a dwelling in Waldron, with property of valuc elsewhere. For a number of years he has been a money-lender to those in need of help, always lending his own money. He and his wife, who have lived together fifty-one years, a greater length of time than any other couple of the town- ship, have had seven children, five of whom are living : Theron D., living in Nebraska; Emma J., at the parental home : Jesse J., a dentist at Morris, Ill. : Susan, the wife of C. K. Davies, of Columbus, Neb. : Michael, also a resident of Ne- braska. Two are deceased, an infant son, and Sarah A., who was the wife of Alden Barber.
Mrs. Lickly has been a member of the Meth- odist Episcopal church since she was eighteen years of age, and her husband has ever been a lib- eral contributor to its beneficent activities. She and his parents were always active workers in
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church affairs, and held in high esteem where field in Monroe county, not far from Kidd's they held their membership. The daughter, Emma, became a popular teacher when she was but fifteen years old, and she is still following this occupation, having been engaged in it for about thirty years. She was graduated from the State Normal School in 1898, and is now teaching at Litchfield. She has taught country schools with more than seventy pupils on the rolls.
Mr. and Mrs. Lickly are now in the autumn of life, he having fulfilled seventy-six and she sev- enty-four years. He is still active and superintends all the operations of his large farm and other bus- iness ; and she has enjoyed excellent health until 1903 when she suffered a stroke of paralysis. In their early married life she spun and wove most of the cloth for the family use, as did Mr. Lick- ly's mother for her family. In politics he was formerly a Democrat, but for a number of years he has affiliated with the Republican party, but he has never sought public office. This worthy couple had their share of the privations of fron- tier life in the early times. On one occasion, when there was no wheat in their neighborhood, Mr. Lickly made a trip all the way to Tecumseh to get some; and when he obtained it he was obliged to help to thresh it out with a flail, then take it to a mill and have it ground. He was gone nine days on this trip, and, during a part of the time of his absence the family lived on pota- toes roasted in buttermilk. About ten years ago he contributed $500 to the construction of the C. & N. Railroad and in other public enterprises and private charities he has aided.
JAMES FOWLE.
The first settlement within the present limits of Camden township in Hillsdale county, was made by James Fowle on 480 acres of land in sections 28, 29, 32 and 33, near Long Lake. Mr. Fowle was a native of Monroe county, N. Y., who, at the age of twenty-four years, married with Miss Mary Ann McKnight, of the adjoining county of Livingston, and brought her at once to Michigan to find a home on its cheap lands. They settled first on the River Raisin, at Bliss-
Grove postoffice. In 1835 Mr. Fowle left his family at Kidd's Grove, and, taking an ox team and a wagon, started out to look up a farm in the new country to the west. He was obliged to cut his own road through the woods in the latter part of his journey, and, finding a location that pleased him, he at once entered it, the record be- ing made on December 31, 1835. Through the winter months he remained on his land, living in a shanty he had erected and clearing as much as he could for spring planting. In the spring he returned to Kidd's Grove, and with the help of his brother, Charles Fowle, he moved his family to his new location, making the trip by way of Jonesville to Clear Lake, then skirting the shores of that body of water and Long Lake, until they reached their destination in the wilderness of woods far from human homes.
During her first year's residence in the town- ship, Mrs. Fowle did not see a white woman. "Land-lookers," as men in search of farms were called, were plentiful, nearly every night some found shelter at her house. Indians often came to the cabin and squaws were frequent visitors. There was no other white woman in the neigh- borhood, and it was not until new settlers came, in the spring of 1837, that she had the pleasure of seeing and conversing with a person of her own race and sex. In that year a post route was established between Toledo and Lima, Indiana. and a post road was cut through the woods pass- ing through the southern part of the township. A postoffice was established near their home, with Mr. Fowle as postmaster, which was called Craw- brooke, after the place in England from which the Fowle family emigrated to America. Mr. Fowle continued to serve as postmaster until aft- er the election of Polk to the Presidency, when he was removed.
Mr. Fowle had very much to do with the gov- ernnient of the township in its early history. He was its first supervisor and was also elected jus- tice of the peace for a full term at the first town meeting, and at the end of his first term he was reelected. He also served three terms as a repre- sentative in the Michigan legislature. He was a
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volunteer in both the Black Hawk and Toledo wars, and in his later years received a pension on account of his services in these contests. His family consisted of eight children: Cordelia, who married Melvin Tillotson, and died at Fremont, Indiana ; Martha L., who married Frederick Ches- ter, and lives at Camden ; Elizabeth, who mar- ried George Clark, and is living at Reading ; Lou- isa, who was the first white child born in Cam- den, her birth occurring in October, 1837, and who married Erastus Farnham, and makes her home at Chicago, Illinois ; and Western, Foster, Mary Ann and Luella, all of whom died in Candden in childhood. Mr. Fowle's first wife died on September 17, 1856, and he subsequently married Miss Mary Youngs, by whom he had one child, a son named Elcho, who is living in California. His mother died in 1868. Mr. Fowle departed this life on May 18, 1865, at the age of fifty-eight years leaving an excellent name.
WILLIAM GLASGOW. .
On November 24, 1897, death closed the long, eventful and useful career of William Glasgow. one of the honored pioneers of this county, who was also one of the most active of its builders and makers, whose good work was a valuable contri- bution to all of its institutions of learning and its commercial and industrial enterprises. He was for many years prominent as a representative farmer, for he brought to the line of productive labor in which he was engaged the benefits of a. wide acquaintance with its progressive features, giving to its local needs and conditions a close observation and an excellent judgment in the ap- plication of the lessons thus learned. By this studious and discriminating diligence he made out of the wild woodland on which he settled when he came to the county a model farm in a comparatively short time, by his example stimu- lating others to the same kind of effort, so that his influence for good on the agricultural interests of the county was potential and effective, felt and acknowledged throughout his township and far beyond its borders.
He early became a man of capital, and this he freely used in generous loans to the frugal and
industrious, thus enlarging the productive ener- gies of the section. He helped many a worthy man to a good start in life which resulted in the acquisition of a competence. In the matter of public improvements, either for the commercial and industrial development of the township and county, or for the educational and moral advance- ment of his people, he was most active and bene- ficial. He assisted materially in building the Fort Wayne Railroad. He was one of the founders of Hillsdale College, being one of its main supporters in its early history. He remained loyal to its in- terests and devoted to its welfare until his death. In religious faith he was a Presbyterian, long serving the church to which he belonged as an elder. He was largely instrumental in building the first Presbyterian church edifice in the town and others of the same faith elsewhere, and he was liberal in his contributions to those of other denominations ..
Mr. Glasgow was born, like many of his an- cestors, in County Tyrone, Ireland, where his life began on February 11, 1811. He remained at work on the farm in his native county until he was of age. When he reached man's estate he came to the United States on a sailing vessel, which took six weeks for the voyage, soon after his arrival finding employment on a farm near Auburn, N. Y. Here he passed ten years in farm life, part of the time being foreman of a large es- tate adjacent to the city. In 1837 he made a trip to Michigan, purchased eighty acres of land in Fayette township, and, in 1842, accompanied by his wife, one child and his brother, John, he came hither to live on his eighty acres of land, having been married, August 4, 1836, at Auburn, N. Y .. with a Miss Eliza Glasgow. Awaiting him in his new home he found the struggles and difficul- ties, the dangers and privations incident to pio- neer life, but he yielded not an inch to opposition, and resolutely persevered in clearing his land and building his home. He added to his acreage. from time to time, until his farm comprised 400 acres, all highly improved and well cultivated, though he had disposed of his original eighty, and began operations on a new tract in the same township. His family consisted of six children,
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four of whom reached years of maturity. Wes- New Yorkers by birth, the father being a native ley C., the eldest, died on October 26, 1881. The others are Silas W., now living retired at Jones- ville, see his separate sketch in this volume; Julia A., wife of William Howlett, of Trinidad, Colo .; Cassius L., a prosperous merchant at Nashville, this state, and the present State Senator from the Fifteenth Senatorial District. Mrs. Glasgow died at her Allen township home on February 4, 1887. She was born in County Tyrone, Ireland, on Au- gust 28, 1814, and came to America when she was eighteen, in company with two brothers and her future husband. She was highly esteemed as a lady possessed of many amiable and admirable qualities and as a devoted member of the Pres- byterian church.
SILAS W. GLASGOW, son of William Glasgow, is one of the prominent, progressive and success- ful farmers of Allen township. Like his father, in political faith he is a staunch Republican, and, as the candidate and the representative of that party he has filled many important local offices, serving as a member of the village council, as president of the village, as justice of the peace for several terms, as school trustee for six years, holding that office at the present writing, being also superintendent of schools for a number of years, and a frequent delegate to county and state conventions. He and his wife are zealous mem- bers of the Presbyterian church, while he has been the popular superintendent of the Sabbath-school for many years. He was born in Fayette town- ship, this county, on October 2, 1843, and was reared on his father's farm, securing his educa- tion at the district and union schools of Jonesville, finishing with a course at Hillsdale College. After leaving college he went to work again on the farm, and was for some years a partner with his father in the farming industry, and in a loan business, which the latter had inaugurated. From the beginning he showed excellent business quali- fications and was successful.
At Jonesville, on September 7. 1870, Silas W. Glasgow was united in marriage with Miss Em- ma L. Mitchell, a native of Aurora, Erie county, N. Y., born on June 22, 1851, the daughter of Jonas F. and Cordelia (Rowley). Mitchell, also
of Erie county and the mother of Wyoming. Her parents lived at Aurora, Erie county, until 1865, then removed to Delaware county, Ohio. In De- cember, 1861, they came to Hillsdale county and to Jonesville. A few months later, however, they removed to a farm which the father had pur- chased, two and one-half miles west of Jones- ville. After directing the operations of this farm for a few years, the father's health failed and he abandoned active labor, again making the family home at Jonesville, where he died, and where his widow is yet living. Mrs. Glasgow is their only surviving child, her brother, George M. Mitchell, having died at Jonesville, on July 5, 1877, when he was a very promising young man of twenty- two years. Mrs. Glasgow received an excellent education and for three years was a popular teacher in the union school at Jonesville. They have three children, Amarette J., Eva L. and Wil- liam M. Mr. Glasgow belongs to the Masonic fraternity, being an enthusiastic Freemason.
HON. ORVILLE B. LANE. .
Hon. Orville B. Lane, the esteemed and faith- ful representative of Hillsdale county in the State Legislature of Michigan, is a native of Geneva, Ashtabula county, Ohio, where he was born on October 13, 1850, the son of Henry and Clotilda C. (Sawyer) Lane, a sketch of whom will be found on another page. He remained in his na- tive state until he reached the age of fifteen years, and attended the district schools near his home there, beginning in them a solid and practical education which he finished in those of this coun- ty, in the meantime, as soon as he was able, as- sisting in the work of the farm, and in the useful and stimulating labors of agricultural life, gain- ing the breadth of view, independence of thought and action and strong self-reliance for which he · has been noted through life and which have won for him the lasting confidence and respect of his fellow men wherever he is known.
He remained at home until he was twenty- one, working on the farm, and then bought the tract of 130 acres of land on which he now lives
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in Pittsford township, and at once began farm- ing for himself. He has since then purchased an additional tract of fifty-three acres, located about a mile east of his home place. On this land he has expended the necessary effort and intelli- gence in husbandry, and the good taste and prac- tical common sense in improvements that have made them models of thrift, foresight, thorough knowledge and its faithful and skillful applica- tion, silent but eloquent preachers of the benefit to a community of the wisdom typified by the man who understands his business and is true to himself in attending to it. He, like all other pro- gressive and public spirited men, takes an active interest in public affairs, and gives to every com- mendable enterprise in which the welfare of his community and county is essentially involved an earnest and helpful support. In politics he is a firm and loyal Republican, and has rendered his party active and zealous as well as intelligent and productive service, and has given to the peo- ple of his county and state honest, capable, faith- ful and highly appreciated care of their interests in several important official stations. For fifteen years he was supervisor of Pittsford township, andi for seven years he has held the positions of president and treasurer of the Farmers' Mutual Fire Insurance Co., which he is now filling with so much credit to himself and benefit to the pat- rons of the company. ·
In the fall of 1902 Mr. Lane was chosen to represent the county in the lower house of the State Legislature, and in the ensuing session of the body took a prominent part in the procced- dings and won reputation as a wise and far-see- ing law-maker, of especial diligence and capac- ity in promoting judicious and preventing hurt- ful legislation. His honesty, conservatism, ex- cellent judgment and long habit of thinking and acting for himself, his knowledge of men and of the needs of the state were conspicuous in this forum, and his services were correspondingly valuable both for local and for general interests. He married March 16, 1872, with Miss Ellen Palmer, a native of Hudson township in Lena- wee county, a daughter of Silas and Adelia Palmer, New Yorkers by birth and early pioneers
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