USA > Michigan > Kalamazoo County > Compendium of history and biography of Kalamazoo County, Mich. > Part 25
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parents, and remained with his father until the family came to this country, and soon after their arrival was bound out to David Ford, with whom he remained until he reached the age of twenty- six. coming with him to Michigan soon after the beginning of his service. On December 5, 1847, he was married at Galesburg, this county. to Miss Julia Ann Aldrich, the oldest child of Fay and Lura (Johnson) Aldrich. Her parents died a number of years ago in Alamo township, this county, and their remains were buried at Otsego. Mr. and Mrs. Jickling became the parents of eleven children, eight of whom are living: Ade- line, wife of Frederick Shay ( see sketch on an- other page) : Marquis, a prosperous farmer of Richland township: Lura, wife of Joseph Newell, of Portage township : Mary, wife of Gor- don B. Brigham, of Richland township ; Ella, wife of Sabin B. Nichols, of Kalamazoo : Albert, con- nected with the North & Coon Lumber Company, of Kalamazoo : Walter W., formerly on the home- stead in Comstock, and Howard B., in business in Kalamazoo. The four deceased are Sarah, who was the wife of Henry Tolhurst at the time of her death, on May 9, 1888: Emma, who died on May 22. 1889: Clara E. wife of the Rev. John Humphreys, who died in October. 1894, and Rob- ert. who died on October 24. 1904. Their mother was born six miles from the town of Angelica in Allegany county. N. Y., and was brought by her parents to Michigan when she was but four years old. The journey was made with an ox team, and led through the famous Maumee swamp. The family was among the first to settle in Charleston township. Her parents were natives of New York state, as was her paternal grandfather, Abram Aldrich, who was also an early settler in this county, locating here in 1833 on government land. Mr. Jickling (lied on October 24. 1904, and Mrs. Jickling now makes her home with her daughter. Mrs. Frederick Shay, of Richland township. Soon after his marriage he located on the farm which was the scene of his useful labors for so many years, and which he bought of his former employer, Mr. Ford. There were no im- provements on the place at the time. except a small log house eighteen by twenty feet in dimen-
sions, and the roof covered with shakes. He and his wife lived in that humble abode nine years, their furniture, when they set up housekeeping, being barely sufficient for their absolute wants,- a primitive cook-stove, a chest that served for a table as well, and a few other indispensable ar- ticles. The country around them was a wilder- ness ; there were no roads or other evidences of civilization near them. Their early years werehere passed in hard work, with many privations and difficulties, but they persevered in their enterprise, and in time had the land in a condition of ad- vanced cultivation, and improved with good build- ings and all the appliances necessary for vigorous and successful farming. The farm comprised one hundred and ninety-two acres, all of it under cul- tivation but about twenty acres, and one hundred and forty of it cleared by the enterprising owner. His industry and worth, his energy in the matter of public improvements, his high character and broad-minded citizenship, soon secured him a name and place in the township second to that of no other man, and the regard which he won in his young manhood but broadened and deepened as age drew near him. In political relations he was a Republican, but never an active partisan. The cause of public education had his zealous at- tention from the start and he rendered it good ser- vice in his long tenure of the office of school direc- tor. When he passed the three score and ten years fixed by the psalmist as the ordinary term of mortal life, he lived retired from active work and passed the evening of his life in peace and com- fort after many trials, and was blessed with abundant proofs of the confidence and esteem of his fellow men.
NATHANIEL H. STEWART.
Perhaps no man in the county is more repre- sentative of progress than is Nathaniel H. Stew- art, of the city of Kalamazoo. His whole life is the living testimony of the splendid results that an indomitable will, backed up by tireless energy and indefatigable perseverance, can accomplish. Mr. Stewart, who belongs to an ancient and time-honored race, and can trace his ancestry
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back to the time of Henry VIII, was born on July 20, 1847, at Johnstown, N. Y. He attended school and worked in his father's shops until 1868 when he, like Benjamin Franklin, left his native town with only thirty dollars in his pocket, and came to the then village of Kalamazoo, arriving there with but seven dollars. Soon afterward he entered the law office of ex-Senator Charles E. Stuart, Edwards & May. His great physical strength, as well as his mental and moral power, aided him in enduring the privations he had to undergo, such as sleeping all night on the bare floor of what is now his private office. At this time he made the resolution that has been in a great measure the cause of his splendid success in the business world-to pay as he went, and never to be any one's debtor. When he received little, he spent less, always paying cash for every thing. Throughout his life he has always ad- hered to the rules of self-respect, industry and economy. In 1869 he went to Plainwell, where he worked for one year in an elevator and prod- uce house, receiving a salary of seventy-five dol- lars a month. By strict economy he was able to save enough out of his earnings to enable him to return to Kalamazoo and again take up the study of his beloved profession with the same law firm. which had changed to Edwards & Sherwood. This firm, appreciating Mr. Stewart's fine busi- ness ability, keen insight, and general aptitude for the profession, made a contract with him for three years. In March, 1872, he was admitted to the bar on his first examination. When the firm of Edwards & Sherwood dissolved, Mr. Edwards requested Mr. Stewart to join him in his chosen profession, which he did. On December 14, 1875. he married Miss Emily Frances Gates, a daughter of Chauncey and Jane Gates, who came to Kala- mazoo from New York in 1868. Mr. and Mrs. Stewart have two sons, both grown to manhood -Donald Argyle and Gordon L. In politics Mr. Stewart is a Democrat, and he has given liberally of his time and means to advance in every pos- sible way the principles of Democracy. He is one of the most successful lawyers, and is a pub- lic speaker of great eloquence and force. In 1882 he was chairman and congressional manager of
the campaign, when by his shrewdness and skill- ful manipulation a Democrat overcame a Repub- lican majority of five thousand in the district. When he ran the entire campaign in 1883, all the Democratic candidates for supreme judges and two regents of the State University were elected. He has served on all the executive committees of the Democratic party, and has aided this party greatly in various ways. Mr. Stewart, aside from being a politician of the highest order, is a lover of all that is beautiful in art, literature, and na- ture, being extremely fond of paintings, poetry and flowers. As he prefers those poets that ap- peal to the heart and the sympathies, his favorite among them all is "Bobby" Burns, the Scottish poet. His great fondness for poetry and his wonderful memory are shown by his having com- mitted to memory the entire poem of the Rubai- yat of Omar Khayam, the Persian poet. This poem, which Fitzgerald has translated, consists of one hundred quatrains, all of which Mr. Stewart can repeat. He. has entertained his friends for hours and hours at a time by reciting in a style peculiarly his own and one that never fails to please, selections from his favorite poets. Mr. Stewart is a man of great capabilities and of strong convictions. With all his positiveness and force in leadership, he has a vein of gentleness and innate culture that is shown most beautifully in his everyday family life. To all who know him, and his friends are many from all walks of life, he stands as a splendid example of a self- made man of the highest honor and integrity.
DANIEL HARRIGAN.
Although he had reached the age of sixty-five at the time of his death, on June 24, 1903, the late Daniel Harrigan, the first and at the time of his death the largest coal and wood dealer in Kalamazoo, and one of the leading business men of the city, was in full vigor and gave promise of many more years of usefulness in commercial circles and as a citizen. He was a native of county Tipperary, Ireland, born on December 15, 1838, and the son of John and Ann (Donohue) Harrigan, who were natives of the same county
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as himself. They were farmers and died when their son Daniel was a child. Of their six chil- (Iren two sons and two daughters came to the United States. Both of these sons are now dead. The daughters are living in Michigan. Daniel Harrigan was about fourteen when he became a resident of the United States. Although so young he had resolution and determination of spirit and made the voyage across the fretful Atlantic and the trip over one-third of this continent alone, at Ann Arbor joining his brother John, who had emigrated hither some years earlier. He had at- tended school to a limited extent in his native land, and by studious and judicious reading be- came a very well informed man. After a resi- dence of two years at Ann Arbor, he came to Kalamazoo and for a time worked for D. S. Wal- bridge, a miller, for whom he drove team and packed flour. Later he bought wool and grain for Dudgeon & Coob. In 1880 he started a wood and coal business, which was the first in the city, and is still carried on by his son. He was first married about 1859 to Miss Ellen Milan, a na- tive of Ireland. They had four children, of whom one son and one daughter are living and reside in California, Frederick J. and Emily. Their mother died in 1872, and the next year the father was married to Miss Hannah Kelley, a daughter of John Kelley, born in Cork, Ireland. Her fa- ther brought his family to Kalamazoo in 1845. He was employed in building the Michigan Cen- tral Railroad between' Detroit and Niles, this state, and was popularly known as "Boss Kelley." He died in Kalamazoo in 1847. By his second marriage Mr. Harrigan became the father of five children. Of these, four are living, Ellen M., wife of Marcus S. Harlowe, of San Luis Obispo county, Calif .; and Alice, Blanch and Leo B., who live at home, the son having charge of the coal and wood business left by their father. All the members of the family belong to the Catholic church. Frederick, the son of the first marriage, living in California, has four children, John H., Philip F., Laura and Clarence. The father was a member of the order of Elks and the Catholic Mutual Benefit Association, a church society. Hc came to this country a poor boy, but died in very
comfortable circumstances and possessed of an excellent business, all the result of his thrift, en- terprise and business sagacity.
THE PURITAN CORSET COMPANY.
The Puritan Corset Company, of Kalamazoo, is a stock company, organized in January, 1900, with a capital stock of seventy-five thousand dol- lars, the first officers being William L. Brownell, president ; C. H. Williams, vice-president ; A. H. Shellmier, secretary, and C. A. Peck, treasurer, all of whom are still serving, except that C. A. Blancy has succeeded Mr. Shellmier as secretary. The company manufactures a general line of corsets and uses the Puritan clasp, which was invented and patented by Mr. Williams and Mr. Brownell, of this company. Seventy-five to one lun- dren persons are employed by the com- pany. They have the capacity for turn- ing out one hundred and fifty dozen corsets a day, their product being sold by mail,-voluntary or- ders-no salesmen employed. The goods are sold in the central, western and southern states, and the business is constantly on the increase. W. 1 .. Brownell, president of the company, is a na- tive of Kalamazoo, born in 1856, and the son of Thomas C. and Matilda ( Parker) Brownell, the former born in the state of New York and the latter in Michigan. The father came to Kala- mazoo in the early days and bought a tract of land adjoining the city limits at that time, and here he was engaged extensively in the manufac- ture of brick for more than twenty years, and during all of that period he was superintendent of the county poor. He made the brick used in the asylum and many other important struc- tures, and had a high reputation for the quality of his product and the care with which his work was done. He died in 1879. having been during the whole of his residence here prominent in pub- lic affairs and having filled a number of differ- ent local offices. His son. W. I. Brownell, after receiving a common and high-school education, began business as a clerk, and at the age of twenty-two opened a grocery for himself, in which he conducted a flourishing wholesale and retail
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trade for more than twenty years. He served as secretary of the Kalamazoo Corset Company one year, but from the organization of the Puritan Company he has been its president and manager. He is a Knight Templar Free Mason and a Noble of the Mystic Shrine, and the fraternal life of the community receives inspiration from his interest and active work in the order, as the business in- terests of the city do from his zeal and capacity in commercial and industrial lines. It is largely due to his shrewdness, influence and fine business ability that the enterprise of which he is the head has grown to such magnitude and won so ex- tensive a trade. He knows through practical ex- perience and close observation every detail of his industry from start to finish, and gives all phases and elements of the business his personal atten- tion. While "it is not in mortals to command suc- cess," and they are enjoined to "deserve it," which is doing more, Mr. Brownell has done both with conspicuous ability and steadiness.
DEWING & SONS.
The business of this energetic, progressive and far-reaching firm, the manufacture of sash, blinds and kindred products, is one of the oldest industrial undertakings in Kalamazoo, and one of the earliest and most extensive of its kind in this part of the country. It was founded by Wil- liam G. Dewing, a native of county Norfolk, Eng -. land, where he was born on May 17, 1809. Mr. Dewing was one of eleven children, and was brought up under the most assiduous and con- siderate domestic care, in a home circle abun- dantly supplied with the comforts of life. After being well educated in France and becoming master of the French language, which he spoke with the accuracy of a native, he insisted on fol- lowing the sea for which he had long had a de- sire. His father determined that if the son would be a sailor he should know his business from the beginning, and apprenticed him so that he would thoroughly learn the sea-faring life. The change from the tenderness of nurture to which he had been accustomed to the hardships he was now called upon to endure did not change his deter-
mination, and he followed the sea for ten years, rising to the rank of first officer. In his life at sea he visited all parts of the globe, and had many thrilling and unusual adventures. He set- tled in the United States early in the '30s, locating in the state of New York not far from the city of the same name, where he remained until 1836, when he came to Kalamazoo, bringing his family and worldly. effects from Detroit by teams. The journey was one of hardship and privation, full of toil and difficulty, but this fact rather stimu- lated than dampened his enterprise. After his arrival here he and his brother Frederick, who came to this country with him, kept a store for five years. At the end of that time Frederick withdrew from the firm, and thereafter Mr. Dew- ing conducted the business alone, changing its nature several times and meeting with alternat- ing successes and reverses, until at length he turned to the present line, the manufacture of sash, blinds, doors, etc. For a time Mr. Scudder was interested in the establishment. He was suc- ceeded by Mr. Kemt, who was one of its active spirits for a number of years. Then William S. Dewing, the oldest son of the proprietor, became a partner, and later the other sons, Charles A. and James H., entered the firm. It was then re- organized and assumed the name it now bears. the firm of Dewing & Sons. The father remained in the business and gave it his personal atten- tion until within five years of his death in April, 1884, at the age of seventy-five years. Since his departure the sons have carried its interests for- ward along the lines of liberality and progres- siveness marked out by him, expanding the trade of the establishment, increasing its output and enlarging its usefulness to the business world of the city and surrounding country. In 1887, or the next year, large tracts of land were purchased in West Virginia and mills for sawing the lumber on them were erected there. This proceeding was done in the northern part of this state in 1875, with frequent orders from many far more distant points, as its reputation for excellence in products and fairness in methods is well known all over this country and portions of Canada. The elder Dewing was a man of large commercial
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spirit and fully awake to the opportunities for his own trade and the other mercantile and indus- trial possibilities of the region in which he had cast his lot. He was connected with various lines of commercial activity in Kalamazoo, notably an extensive hardware business. In the public affairs of the community he took an earnest and service- able part. While never desirous of public office for himself, he was zealous in aiding in the se- lection of good men for positions of importance. and for the general good of the city now and then accepted membership in the city council. In national politics he was a Republican, but in lo- cal matters his genuine public spirit overbore all party considerations. In his nature he was es- sentially and practically benevolent, being one of the foremost men in Michigan in charitable mat- ters, and one of the prominent figures in all con- ventions in his part of the state for the promotion of benevolent purposes. Even in England, while vet a young man, he was widely known for his earnest efforts to promote charitable and philan- thropic institutions. In this county his philan- thropy, although unostentatious, was wide-spread and abounding. One of his greatest pleasures was in helping the poor to get a foothold and homes for themselves, and the number of his beneficiaries in this respect was legion. In church affiliation he was an Episcopalian, and a member of the first vestry of St. Luke's church ; but he was ever generous in helping other churches. He was practically the founder of the Industrial School for Children in Kalamazoo and of the Children's Home, and the city has no institutions in which he took a deeper interest. He was also the originator and one of the most zealous sup- porters of the Kalamazoo County Pioneer Asso- ciation. His life was a calm, full current of ac- tive goodness, and his name was more dear to many people in humble circumstances than that of any other citizen of the county, and he was more esteemed by all friends of humanity and effective charity. He was married in Vermont to Miss Jane Tuttle, a native of that state. They had five sons and one daughter, of whom three of the sons are living. William S., Charles A. and James H.
CHARLES A: DEWING, of the firm, was born in Jersey City, N. J., and came to Kalama- 200 with his parents when he was a boy. He was reared and educated in his new home, attending the common and high schools and Olivette Col- lege. On leaving school he at once entered the establishment to which he has contributed so much of enterprise and capacity : and he has been connected with it in a leading way ever since. He is also a stockholder and the treasurer of the Kalamazoo Stove Company, and holds stock in the Puritan Corset Company, the Sugar Factory, the Chicago, Kalamazoo & Saginaw Railroad Company, and other enterprises of importance and value in the commercial and industrial life of the city. He is one of the most widely known and highly esteemed citizens of the county, and one of its best business representatives.
PELICK STEVENS.
The late Pelick Stevens, of Kalamazoo, who died in the city in 1881. at the age of sixty-eight. was a pioneer in two states of the Middle West and embraced in his career a scope of country lying between the Atlantic and the Mississippi and extending from one to the other. He was born at Worcester, Mass., on March 15, 1813, and was the son of Rhoads and Abigail ( Kimbell) Stevens, the former a native of England and the latter of Scotland. They emigrated to the United States early in their life and settled in Massachussets, and there they lived until death ended their labors. The father was a farmer and also kept an inn. Both lived to ripe old ages and died highly respected in the community which had so long known them. Sixteen children were born in the household, all of whom are now dead. One of them was the late John C. Stevens, founder of the New York Yacht Club, and its first com- modore, and as such his name is familiar to all Americans. The interesting subject of this review was reared to the age of seventeen in his native city and there received a common-school educa- tion. At the age mentioned. in company with one of his brothers, he made a trip from Worcester to White Pigeon, Mich., on horseback, and in
PELICK STEVENS.
MRS. LYDIA STEVENS.
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KALAMAZOO COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
this new section they bought a tract of land on the prairie near what was then known as Ed- wardsburg. Mr. Stevens made some improve- ments on the land, then sold it and returned to Massachusetts. Soon afterward he came west again and located on a wild piece of land which he bought adjoining the village of Schoolcraft. This also he improved and sold, after which he cleared another new farm on which he lived for more than thirty years. In 1862 he moved to Kala- mazoo, purchasing a home on West Main street, where his widow now resides. While living in the city he devoted his attention to building houses, putting up a number of brick structures for dwelling and business purposes, and at the time of his death owned extensive and valuable interests in real estate. He was a Republican in politics, but not an active partisan and never de- sired public office of any kind, but did consent to serve a number of years on the school board. He was married on January 31, 1836, to Miss Lydia Alexander, a native of Lyons, Wayne county, N. Y., where she was born on Feb- ruary 23, 1818. She is the daughter of George A. and Margaret (Shaver) Alexander, the father born in Philadelphia and the mother in New Jer- sey. Mrs. Stevens came to Michigan alone at the age of fifteen years, making the journey overland by stage to Schoolcraft or Prairie Ronde. She has lived in this county ever since and is now probably one of its oldest living settlers. She saw the country in this section almost as it came from the hands of its Maker, luxuriant in its unpruned growth of ages and all unknown to the systematic productiveness, the domestic comforts and the moral agencies of cultivated life. And she has lived to see it in its present state of high development, intense industrial activity, flowing commercial wealth and advanced moral and so- cial greatness, to all of which she has contributed her due proportion of energy in production and satisfaction in enjoyment. Her life spans the period between the dawn of its history to its noon- day splendor, and the achievements involved would, without experience. be deemed scarcely possible within the scope of a single human life. She and her husband were the parents of six
children, all of whom she has survived but two, their son Henry A., who makes his home with her, and their daughter, Emma J., widow of the late Loren Shear. Mrs. Stevens has in her pos- session two pictures of historic value in this section, one of the first county court held in the county and one of the first house, a log structure, built in Kalamazoo.
PETER F. ALEXANDER, a brother of Mrs. Stevens, was also an early settler in Kalamazoo county, arriving here on October 26, 1832. He was born at Lyons, Wayne county, N. Y., on July 6, 1816. the sixth child in a family of nine born to his parents, George and Margaret (Shaver) Alexander, the American progenitor of the family being his grandfather, who was born in Scotland in 1744. This worthy gentleman. when he was seventeen years of age, after hav- ing served some time as apprentice to a weaver in Dublin, Ireland, determined to come to the United States, and being without the necessary means to pay his passage across the ocean, stole on board a vessel bound for Philadelphia and hid among the freight, keeping himself concealed un- til he was several days at sea. On his arrival in the Quaker City he was sold to a weaver for a term of three years to pay his passage money. At the completion of his term of service he entered the Continental army, in which he served through the Revolutionary war. Soon after its close he married with Miss Mary Rumage and settled in Pennsylvania, where he become a prosperous farmer and acquired a competency. He was a man of decided ability and took an active part in political matters. He died in 1826, at the age of eighty-two years. When Peter's father was a boy the family moved to Tompkins county, N. Y., where he was reared to manhood and was married. About 1810 he moved his family to Lyons, Wayne county, where he died in 1830, at the age of forty-eight. Peter was at this time four- teen years old. Three years later he was thrown on his resources. By industry and frugality he earned and saved twelve dollars, and with this meager sum started for Michigan, a distance of seven hundred miles. Through the kindness of friends he accomplished his undertaking, arriv-
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