USA > Michigan > Kalamazoo County > Compendium of history and biography of Kalamazoo County, Mich. > Part 33
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THE CITIZENS' MUTUAL FIRE INSUR- ANCE COMPANY.
This admirably managed and well supported company, which has been one of the bulwarks of the commercial and industrial interests of Kala- mazoo, and has saved the homes of hosts of the citizens for them, is now thirty years old, having been organized on January 26, 1874, and started business with one hundred thousand dollars of insurance already in force. Its original promo- ters and organizers were F. W. Curtenius, Rob- ert S. Babcock, Homer O. Hitchcock, Martin Wilson, E. O. Humphrey, L. C. Chapin, Ben- jamin M. Austin, Hezekiah G. Wells, Henry Bishop, J. B. Wyckoff, James B. Cobb and Moses
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Kingsley. The first officers were R. S. Babcock, president, and Moses Kingsley, secretary and treasurer. Mr. Babcock served as president until 1878, when he was succeeded by Homer G. Wells, who served several years. He was fol- lowed in the office by E. O. Humphrey, and at his death D. O. Roberts became president and served a short time, being succeeded by James B. Cobb. who continued as president until his death, and was succeeded by Otto Ihling, who is now filling the position, A. M. Stearns being the present vice-president. Mr. Kingsley served as secretary and treasurer until 1886, except the year 1884, D. T. Allen serving as secretary that year, when Mr. Kingsley was succeeded by the present incumbent of the office, George E. Curtiss.
The company has over one million, four hun- dred thousand dollars insurance in force, and has paid many thousands of dollars in losses to pol- icyholders. It carries policies both in this county and in Van Buren county, its patrons being resi- dents in all parts of each, and has been able to carry all risks at a rate of eighteen cents per hun- dred dollars. George E. Curtiss, the capable and obliging secretary and treasurer, was born in Liv- ingston county, N. Y., on May 26, 1831, and came to this state in 1836 with his parents, Me- dad and Miranda C. (Thayer) Curtiss, who were natives of Connecticut. The father was a con- tractor and builder and followed his craft in his native state until 1836, when the family moved to Michigan, making the trip by way of the Erie canal to Buffalo, thence by steamer to Detroit. and from there with ox teams to Ypsilanti, con- suming two days in the journey from Detroit. For some years the parents were engaged in farming in Washtenaw county, then moved to Ypsilanti, where they died. Their son George reached manhood in Ypsilanti, and was educated there, attending the public schools and Ypsilanti Seminary. He learned the trade of a tinner, and . for a short time was in business there as such. He then moved to Niles, this state, and entered the employ of the Michigan Central Railroad, in the freight department. After some years of faithful service there he was made freight agent at Lake Station, serving two years and a half,
being transferred to Kalamazoo in the same ca- pacity in 1864. Here he was in charge of the station fór some time and was then made di- vision superintendent of the South Haven branch, a position which he held for a number of years. After leaving the railroad service he was in the bakery business in Kalamazoo until 1886, when he was elected to the position he now holds, as secretary and treasurer of this company. Mr. Curtiss was married at Rochester, N. Y., in 1854, to Miss Lydia C. Thompkins, a native of that state. They have two daughters and one son. As a Republican, Mr. Curtiss has taken an active part in public affairs, serving as supervisor eight years in the third ward. He belongs to the Ma- sonic order and the National Union, and is a member of the Baptist church.
DR. HARRIS B. OSBORN.
Dr. Harris B. Osborn, the leading physician of Kalamazoo and one of the most eminent in this part of the country, has seen active service in his profession amid the trying scenes of the Civil war, where "Carnage replenished her garner- house profound." and also amid the peaceful pur- suits of productive labor after the awful ordeal of sectional strife was over, and thus through practical experience has acquired the skill and wide professional learning for which he is noted. He was born at Sherman, Chautauqua county, N. Y., on August 11, 1841 ; and while a man of peace himself, came of military ancestry on both sides of his family. He is the son of Platt S. and Mary A. (Platt) Osborn, both natives of New York state, as their progenitors were for several generations before them, they being born in Washington county, that state. The father was a country merchant and tanner, and was the son of David and Lucretia ( Harris) Osborn, the former a merchant and a Revolutionary soldier, as was his father, David Osborn, who married Miss Mary Hunting in 1757. In the struggle for independence father and son served in a New York regiment, meeting the glittering steel and scarlet uniform of Great Britain's veteran sol- diery on many a hard-fought field, but escaping
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KALAMAZOO COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
without wounds or other disaster except the hard- ships and privations incident to service in a hard- worked and ill-fed army, whose very existence was at times at stake. The Doctor's maternal grandfather, Joshua Harris, was also a soldier in the Revolution, and had previously fought in the French and Indian war. The father of the Doc- tor, following the example of his father and his grandfather, promptly enlisted in defense of his country in the war of 1812, but the contest was ended before his company was called into active service in the field. He died in western New York, where he settled in 1805. He and his wife were the parents of ten children. The Doctor received his early education in the district schools of his. native county, and about the year 1855 moved to Kane county, Ill., where he continued his attend- ance at school and also sold goods on the road until 1860. He then entered the medical depart- ment of the University of Michigan, having pre- viously read medicine for a time under the direc- tion of Dr. Samuel McNair. He remained at the university until the spring of 1862, then enlisted in the Union army as a member of the One Hun- dred and Thirteenth Illinois Infantry, Company G, entering the service as a private soldier. His first active service was in Sherman's corps in the Army of Tennessee. He took part in the battles at Arkansas Post, Haines' Bluff, and those on the Deer Creek expedition ; the battles of Grand Gulf, Champion Hills, Big Black and the campaigns around Vicksburg. On May 19, 1863, he was commissioned assistant surgeon and the next year post surgeon at Vicksburg, remaining in the service until 1866, and came out with the rank of major. At Chickasaw Bayou he was wounded by a shot that passed through his leg. The year 1867 was passed by him at Bellevue Hospital in New York, where he received a degree, and in 1875 he was graduated from the College of Phy- sicians and Surgeons in that city. During the next fourteen years he practiced in New York, and in 1881 he came to Kalamazoo, where he has since resided and been in active general practice. At the same time he has mingled freely in the commercial activities of the city and county and had an influential connection with their educa-
tional and eleemosynary institutions. He is a di- rector of the Kalamazoo National Bank and a trustee of the Insane Asylum, appointed first by Governor Rich and re-appointed by Governor Bliss. In the organizations formed' for the benefit of his profession and the increase of its useful- ness he takes a zealous and helpful interest, being an active member of the Kalamazoo Medical Academy, the County, State and American Med- ical Societies and the Association of American Railway Surgeons. He is the surgeon at Kala- mazoo of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad, and in fact, wherever his profession has an important bearing on the city's interests he is to be found in a position of commanding prominence and influence. Politically the Doctor is a Republican, fraternally he is a devoted Free- mason, and in church affiliation is connected with the Congregational denomination. In 1878 he married with Miss Annette Ames, a native of Rutland, Vt. Professionally, politically, socially and in a business way meeting his obligations with all fidelity and with capacity and cheerful- ness, he is an ornament to the city of his adop- tion and an honor to American citizenship.
DR. ALBERT B. CORNELL.
Having been in the active practice of medicine and surgery in Kalamazoo for a period of thirty- five years, Dr. Albert B. Cornell is one of the old- est practitioners in the city, and he has been one of the most energetic and successful. He is a na- tive of the city, born on June 22, 1843. His par- ents were Joseph R. and Content M. (Babcock) Cornell, the former born in Boston, Mass., and the latter at South New Berlin, N. Y. The father was born in 1800, and received his early education in the schools of his native city. In his young manhood he removed to Brattleboro, Vt., where he read medicine and attended a medical college. After his graduation he began practicing at Clinton, N. Y., where he re- mained until 1841, then came to Kalamazoo, be- ing the fifth physician to arrive and locate in the city. Here he was diligent and constant in his practice until 1867, riding through this and ad-
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joining counties in all sorts of weather and at all times of the day and night. The life was full of toil and hardship, as is that of every active phy- sician in a new country, yet he gained from it vigor of body and elevation of spirit, and with all its drawbacks found a great deal of enjoyment in it. He rose to the first rank in his profession here and was held in the highest regard by all classes of the people. He had six sons who grew to manhood, Albert B. being the only one who be- came a physician. The grandfather, Nathaniel Cornell, was a sea captain, and after a long life of adventure in which he saw many countries and sailed all seas, he died in Massachusetts, his na- tive state. Dr. Albert Cornell secured his aca- demic education in the public schools and at Kala- mazoo College. He read medicine with Dr. Joseph Sill for a while, then entered Bellevue Hospital, New York, in 1867 and was graduated in 1869 from the Hahnemann Medical College of Chicago. IFe at once began the practice of his profession at Kalamazoo and in the offices formerly occupied by his father ; and since then he has been continuously and energetically engaged in the practice, enlarging his operations until they cover a large extent of the country, and maintain- ing by his studious attention to the advanced thought of the profession and his skill in applying the results of his study and observation every foot of ground he gained by his close attention to busi- ncss and his genial and obliging disposition. He is president of the Southwestern Homeopathic As- sociation and holds valued membership in the State Medical Society and the American Institute of Homeopathy. He has served the city two terms as health officer, and in the discharge of his official duties improved the sanitary conditions of large districts in the municipality. He is also surgeon for the Michigan Traction Company for Kalama- z.00. In 1877 he was married to Mrs. Sarah E. Mabce, a native of New York state. In church affiliation they are Presbyterians, and the Doctor is a zealous member of the Masonic order. In professional, in official and in private life he has borne himself in a worthy and manly manner and has won and holds the respect and regard of the entire community.
WALTER HOEK.
Our land of liberty, which has aptly been called the great charity of God to the human race, has furnished an asylum for many races and peo- ples, who have fled from the heavy hand of re- ligious persecution on their native soil, and among them no company of settlers who have sought freedom to worship God according to the clictates of their own consciences under our be- nign institutions, is entitled to a higher regard than the colony that came from Holland to Kala- mazoo in 1850. In this colony was the interest- ing subject of this review, who was then a boy of fourteen, having been born in southern Hol- land on October 25, 1836. He came to this coun- try with his parents, John and Martha (Hou- macter) Hock, who were also natives of southern Holland, where the father was a dyke builder. There he was associated for years with Paulis Den Bleyker (see sketch on another page) as his overseer, and also served in the same company with him in the war between Holland and Bel- gium. In this short, sharp and decisive contest he saw much active service, but escaped without disaster. In 1850 he became one of the colonists that determined to leave their native land and seek the promised asylum from persecution in the United States. They numbered twenty-seven persons, men, women and children, and left Am- sterdam on August 15, 1850, in a sailing vessel for New York. Their passage across the Atlan- tic consumed thirty-six days, but was uneventful except for its length and tediousness. The colo- nists arrived at Kalamazoo on October Ist, and within a week thereafter a number of them died of the cholera, among the number being the fa- ther of Mr. Hoek. His death left his widow with four small children, Walter, aged thirteen, being the oldest. She was resolute and resource- ful, and found a way to provide a home for her- self and family and rear her children to useful- ness and credit. Her life ended in Kalamazoo, August 23, 1887. Walter began, as soon as he was able, to assist his mother in supporting the family. At an early age he was apprenticed to the trade of a wagonmaker, and for forty-five
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KALAMAZOO COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
years after completing his apprenticeship worked at the trade. Prior to entering upon his appren- ticeship, he wrought in various places in the city at different occupations, and in the surrounding country clearing up land for cultivation. He was employed for years by David Burrell and by Bur- rell Brothers, and passed some time in business for himself. Being versatile, as well as persever- ing and industrious, he was successful from the start, and being long-headed, as well as handy, he turned his attention to various lines of busi- ness activity and profit. He plotted Hoek's ad- dition to the city and sold a large number of lots for homes. Accepting with cheerfulness his des- tiny of toil and privation in his youth, he entered upon its requirements with alacrity, and met them with manliness, and made them subservient to his lasting good and substantial advancement. In 1858 he was married to Miss Alice Vreg, like himself a native of Holland. She came to Kala- mazoo in 1849. They have had six children, of whom a daughter named Martha died and Anna M., Nellie, John, Margaret and Harry are liv- ing. In political faith Mr. Hoek is a pronounced Democrat and as such has served two terms as alderman from his ward. He was nominated for the legislature in 1904, but the entire ticket was defeated. He belongs to the Christian Reformed church, of which he has been an elder during the past twenty years. During the last twenty-five years he has been superintendent of its Sunday school. The high character and usefulness of his citizenship is universally conceded, and on all sides he is held in the highest esteem.
MARTIN BACON
After being actively engaged in farming in this county for a period of nearly fifty years, in which he aided in clearing the paternal home- stead and bringing it to a high state of cultiva- tion, and then pushed his operations forward on a widening plane of progress and improvement, Martin Bacon, one of the esteemed pioneers of the county, is living quietly in Kalamazoo, at his attractive and valuable home on Portage street, enjoying the calm and peaceful sunset of his life amid the hosts of friends who hold him in high appreciation for his integrity of character, his
cheerfulness of disposition and his past useful- ness in this portion of the state. Mr. Bacon was born on February 28, 1826, in Lincolnshire, Eng- land, where his parents, John and Sarah (Crook- ston) Bacon, also first saw the light of this world. The father was a farmer and followed this occupation in his native land until April, 1851, when he brought his family, consisting of his wife and two sons, Martin and William, the lat- ter of whom is now deceased, to this country. After a residence of two years at Medina, Or- leans county, N. Y., they all came to Kalamazoo, making the journey by way of the Erie Canal to Buffalo, thence by steamer over Lake Erie to Detroit, and from there to Kalamazoo by way of the Michigan Central Railroad. They bought a tract of unbroken land in section 13, Portage township, comprising eighty acres, and this they cleared and cultivated many years, the mother dying on it in July, 1866, and the father on Au- gust 8, 1886. Their son Martin reached the age of twenty-five in his native land, and after leav- ing school worked as a shepherd on a farm there until leaving for the United States. He aided his father in clearing the new patrimony in this wil- derness, as it was when they came hither, and this valuable farm, which represents so much of his toil and trial through his earlier manhood, he still owns. But he had added to its dimensions until his place now embraces three hundred acres, nearly all of which is under advanced and vigor- ous cultivation. The farm is now worked and managed by his son David. Mr. Bacon was mar- ried in March, 1861, to Miss Luetina Harris, a native of this state. They had three children, two of whom are living, their sons Ellsworth M. and David H. Their mother died in 1885, and in 1886 the father was married to Miss Lydia J. Snow, a native of Champaign county, Ohio. Her parents were early settlers at Kalamazoo. Mrs. Bacon died March 21, 1905. Mr. Bacon has been a Republican from the foundation of the party, having voted for its first presidential candidate, General Fremont, and for every one since him, but he has never consented to accept a political office of any kind. He belongs to the Methodist Episcopal church, of which he is a regular at- tendant and a liberal supporter.
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CONRAD MILLER.
Since 1882 this prominent and progressive business man has been closely connected with the commercial interests of Kalamazoo, and during all of the time has occupied an honored position among its citizens. He has conducted one of the leading wood and coal trades of the city, and has so conducted it as to win and hold the regard of the business world by his uprightness, fore- thought, progressive methods, and the high ideal which he has had ever before him as a business man and a citizen. He was the founder and is the president of the Miller. Ryder & Winterburn Company, a corporation organized in 1901 with a capital stock of fifteen thousand dollars. He was its first president. W. J. Ryder was vice-president and C. L. Miller was secretary and treasurer. Mr. Ryder retired from the company in 1903. at which time W. F. Winterburn was elected vice- president. The company conducts an extensive trade in wood, coal, flour and feed, and also runs a grist mill in connection with the establishment. Mr. Miller was born near Hamilton in the prov- ince of Ontario, Canada. in 1848. The family moved to New York state in his childhood, and in 1862 settled in Allegan county, this state, where the parents were engaged in farming until the end of their lives. Their son Conrad grew to manhood in Michigan, and was educated in its public schools. He began life as a farmer in Van Buren county, clearing a good farin of one hu11- dred and sixty acres, which he still owns. He continued farming on this land until 1882, when he came to Kalamazoo and became a dealer in wood, the next year adding coal to his stock in trade, for a number of years carrying on the busi- ness alone. He then formed a partnership with W. F. Winterburn in the feed business, and later one with W. J. Ryder in the wood and coal trade. Then in 1901 the stock company was formed which includes both of these firms. This busi- ness has prospered and increased greatly, and the company stands in the first ranks of Kalama- zoo's commercial enterprises. Mr. Miller is also a stockholder in the Kalamazoo Corset Company and the South Side Land Improvement Company.
.Although he has the interests of his city, county and state deep at heart, political contentions have never claimed his attention, his business inter- ests and his domestic life completely satisfying him. He was married in 1871 to Miss Grace Ma- son, a daughter of Cornelius Mason, and grand- daughter of Edwin Mason, one of the carly set- thers in this county.
WILLIAM H. KESTER.
Although born in this county, William H. Kester, of Richland township. was reared from childhood to manhood in the state of New York in the home of an uncle, and was trained for life's (luties in an atmosphere somewhat different from that in which he was destined to live thereafter. But this fact did not make him less adaptable to a change of conditions. It rather broadened his vision and rendered his functions more flexible, and was therein of advantage to him and the peo- ple around him. His life began in Richland town- ship on March 14, 1857. His parents were Henry and Harriet (Bears) Kester, natives of Onon- (laga county. N. Y .. who moved to Kalamazoo county soon after their marriage, when all their hopes and aspirations pointed to a career of use- fulness and credit, and they wisely chose a new country in which to develop them. Here the con- ditions of life were crude and unartificial. A sparse population throws every person on his own resources, and the habit of supplying his own needs educates the body to wonderful per- formances and widens the mind to unsuspected possibilities. Moreover, close and continued com- munion with nature, undisturbed by the exactions and restraints of social life and its conventional claims. is in 'itself a fountain of inspiration and strength. And here in the wilderness Mr. Kes- ter's parents grew and flourished by their own efforts, winning a home from the waste and help- ing to build the region into fruitfulness and beauty. On their arrival in the county they bought a partially improved tract of land in Rich- land township which they developed into a good farm, and when their life's work was done they surrendered their trust on the place, which was at
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KALAMAZOO COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
once their product and their sustenance, the mother dying in 1862 and the father in 1864. Their son, who was their only child, was taken to their former home in New York and grew to manhood in the family and under the care of an uncle. After receiving his education and reaching his legal majority there, he returned to his native place and bought a farm, on which he has lived ever since. It has been well improved by him and carefully cultivated, and stands forth now to his credit as a work of merit wrought out by his own industry and fidelity to duty. In 1882 he was married to Miss Mary A. Peak, a native of Richland township, and the daughter of honored pioneers of the county. Two children are the fruit of the union, their daughter Hazel P. and their son Fred H. The parents belong to the Presbyterian church, and in its circles and throughout the township generally, they are highly respected. The father is a Democrat in political faith, and loyally supports his party in state and national affairs. But he is not an office seeker, and takes interest in local matters as a citizen, without regard to political considerations.
DAVID R. CHANDLER.
It was from the hardy yoemanry of New York and New England that southern Michigan was mainly settled and populated in its earlier history, and on its prolific soil the bold adventurers, who left all the comforts and blandishments of civiliza- tion behind them, produced a development, a com- mercial and industrial activity and fruitfulness, a social culture and an educational system in all re- spects equal and in many superior to that which they had abandoned for the wilderness. They were men of the serene and lofty faith which endures the burden and privation of the present while standing on tiptoe looking over the tides of time to see the on-coming glory of the far future. The subject of this article, while not among the first, was one of the early arrivals in this county, and came hither with his parents at the age of fifteen years, his young life crowded with the beautiful hopes and aspirations of youth, believing all things, trusting all things, and ready with daring
courage to ascend "the ladder leaning on the clouds." . That his vision was soon depoetized and he was made to realize that life in his new home was exacting and trying to the last degree, hap- pened soon enough to lead him to vigorous and determined industry, and yet not so effectually as to destroy his confidence in ultimate results or dampen his ardor in the effort to reach them. He took his place in the working force of the com- munity, and having put on the harness of honest toil then, he has worn it worthily and serviceably until now. Mr. Chandler was born in Onondaga county, N. Y., on December 2, 1834, and is the son of Michael and Fannie (Shepard) Chan- dler, the former a native of New York state and the latter of Connecticut. They brought their family to this county and settled on a tract of wild land in Richland township in 1849. On that land, which had under his management assumed the comeliness of a cultivated farm and the com- forts of a good home, the father died during the Civil war. The mother survived him many years, dying on March 10, 1892, in Richland township at the home of her daughter, Mrs. William Si- mons, aged eighty years. Their son David grew to manhood on the paternal homestead and com- pleted in the country school in the neighborhood the education he had begun in his native state. He remained at home working with his father until the death of that worthy gentleman, and for a few years afterward managed the farm for his mother. On October 26, 1865, he united in mar- riage with Miss Adeline J. Peake, the daughter of Ira and Sarah (Miller) Peake, early settlers in this county, and four years later they located on the farm of two hundred acres in Richland town- ship which was the home of the family until 1900, when Mr. Chandler moved to the village of Richland, selling the farm in 1902. Mrs. Chandler died on June 28, 1881, leaving four children : Seth. P., Hull N., Ruby A., now the wife of E. J. Read, of Richland, and Fannie L., now a trained nurse in Chicago. In 1895 the father contracted a second marriage, uniting him with Miss Emma J. Stetson, a daughter of Dr. Ezra Stetson, who became a resident of Galesburg in 1836, and was probably the first physician to locate in the county.
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