USA > Michigan > Kalamazoo County > Compendium of history and biography of Kalamazoo County, Mich. > Part 41
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partnership with his son, George S. Harrington, the firm being G. W. Harrington & Company. This firm lasted until his death, in 1896. He was married in 1871 to Miss Frances E. Sherwood, who was born in New York state, the daughter of Thomas and Frances (Baker) Sherwood, who settled in this county in early days, arriving in 1865. He bought a farm of one hundred and sixty acres, two miles east of the city, on which he lived until November, 1874, when he moved to Kalamazoo and there lived retired until his death, on October 15, 1887. He was an enthu- siastic farmer, largely interested in agricultural associations, and although not an active partisan, was first a Whig and afterward a Republican. Mrs. Sherwood was born on "The Pinnacle," at Pompey Hill, N. Y. Her father, Samuel Baker, was a merchant there before Syracuse was started, and her grandfather, who was a native of Long Island, was one of the earliest settlers in that portion of the state. Her mother, Philena Hascall, was a native of Connecticut and the daughter of Joseph Hascall, a soldier in the war of 1812. A cousin of Mrs. Sherwood, Frank Stetson, was a law partner of President Cleveland. To Mr. and Mrs. Harrington were born five children, of whom three died in infancy, those living being George S. and Hascall S., the latter now living in Detroit. Fraternally Mr. Harrington was a mem- ber of the Grand Army of the Republic and the Order of Elks. His widow is still living. The business which he founded in connection with his son is now conducted by the latter, George S. Harrington, who is a native of Kalamazoo and was reared and educated in the city. Since leav- ing school he has given close and intelligent at- tention to his business, and as a preparation for the best work in his line he has taken courses of instruction and received diplomas at several embalming schools, and has also kept himself in touch with the most advanced thought and discov- eries in the business. He belongs to the Michi- gan Funeral Directors and Embalmers' Associa- tion and the United States Embalming Associa- tion. Fraternally he is connected with the Order of Elks, the Knights of Pythias and the Masonic order in the Knights Templar degree. He was
married in 1896 to Miss Fidelia E. Hardy, a daughter of Capt. R. B. Hardy, a prominent journalist of Kalamazoo, connected for many years with the Telegraph and later with the News and Gazette. Mr. and Mrs. George Har- rington have two children, their son Robert H. and their daughter Georgia M.
EDWIN W. VOSBURG.
Since he was but one year old the present capable and popular county clerk of Kalamazoo county, Edwin W. Vosburg, has been a resident of the county, and from his boyhood has mingled freely in its social life and taken an active part in its industries. He was born in Onondaga county, N. Y., on November 28, 1865, and is the son of William B. Vosburg, former sheriff of the county, a sketch of whom will be found elsewhere in this volume. In 1866 he was brought by his parents from their New York home to this county, and here he was reared and educated, attending the public schools and Parson's Business College. After leaving school he began life for himself as a farmer, and as such he has passed the whole of his subsequent life except the time devoted to offi- cial business, serving from 1893 to 1897 as under sheriff under his father, from the age of twenty- one to that of twenty-six as township clerk, and from the time of his election in 1904 in his present office. In connection with his farming operations he has given special attention to breeding high grades of Jersey cattle, Poland-China hogs and Plymouth Rock chickens. He has been signally successful in his business undertakings, by giving them his close and diligent attention, and applying to them wide-awake intelligence and foresight. In official life he has met all the requirements of an exacting public sentiment in a masterful way, and has won commendations from all classes of the people, and socially he has been one of the esteemed younger men of the county. On April 3, 1889, he was married to Miss Geneva R. Vail, a native of Plymouth, Ind. They have two chil- dren, Allen E. and Gladys M. Politically Mr. Vosburg is a Republican, and fraternally an Odd Fellow, an Elk and a Knight of the Maccabees ; his church relations are with the Presbyterians.
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KALAMAZOO COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
ASHLEY CLAPP.
The old Greek idea of a euthanasia, a peace- ful, painless death, least foreseen and soonest over, has. much in it to commend it to human reason, notwithstanding all that poets have sung and human sympathy has felt in favor of the presence at the last moment of "some fond breast" on which "the parting soul relies." And when such an end comes to close a record lustrious with triumph in the service of others, and a life of continued and unwavering fidelity to duty and the highest integrity, it must seem to the judicious as one of the kindnesses of fate. There is nothing in the past but what is com- mendable, and nothing in the future but what is promising, and the shorter the step over the chasm which divides them, the better for the de- parting soul. Such was the fate of the subject of this brief review, and such were the circum- stances attending his demise. Suddenly, without the slightest warning that the end was so near, Ashley Clapp, then county clerk of Kalamazoo county, passed away about II o'clock on the morning of November 14, 1904. At the time of his death he was seated in an easy chair in the public portion of his office, engaged in a pleasant conversation with friends, and had expressed himself as feeling unusually well. Suddenly he drew a quick breath, settled back in his chair, and peacefully passed away. He had been more or less unwell for several months, and it was with difficulty, at times, that he performed his official duties. But while it was known that he was of necessity careful of himself, those who were nearest to him and best knew his condition had no thought of immediate danger. Mr. Clapp was one of the most widely known and most highly respected citizens of the county. In fact his name was a household word in the country dis- tricts where his work for years called him in connection with the schools of the county. For, although he was the county clerk at the time of his death, he is most widely remembered as one of the best county school commissioners that ever served in Michigan. For twenty years he held this office to the undying credit of himself and
the great and lasting good of Kalamazoo county. Taking hold of the district schools in their for- mative state, he guided them through that dan- gerous period, with a hand that was kind as well as skillful, and when he resigned his office, seven years before his death, the fruits of his untiring labors were apparent in the fact that Kalamazoo had schools equal in merit and efficiency to those of any other county in the state, and superior to those of many. His success in this line of work was that by his kindly and helpful nature he always won the esteem and co-operation of those who worked under him. He was "long" on sys- tem and a firm believer in teaching the funda- mental principles of learning to all school chil- dren instead of much that is more of show than substance. His work in the school system took him out among the people, and made him a fa- miliar and welcome guest at almost every fire- side, and he sometimes laughingly asserted that he had slept and eaten in nearly every house in the rural districts, and that he knew every farmer and his family, old and young. So his memory will be cherished through his work as an edu- cator so long as the public school is the pillar of strength in the American Republic. His service of six years as county clerk also brought him high commendations and won him new friends, while it established him more firmly in the regard of the old ones. Mr. Clapp was born at Syra- cuse, N. Y., on September 1, 1844, and was thus a little over sixty years old when he died. In 1864 he enlisted in Company H, One Hundred and Eighty-fourth New York Infantry, and with his command he fought through the Virginia campaigns before Richmond. He was honorably discharged in 1865, and then located in Kala- mazoo county, where he worked for a year at his trade as a carpenter, and clerked in a store for another. In 1867 he began his work in the county schools, taking a position as teacher in Oshtemo district, where he taught six years, at the same time doing some special work at Kala- mazoo College. He then went to Vicksburg, where he lived six years, and acted as superin- tendent of the public schools there. In 1881 he was made county secretary of schools, a position
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he filled continuously twenty years, during the last ten his official designation being county school commissioner. He was elected county clerk in 1898, 1900 and again in 1902, as the Re- publican candidate, and received a large majority of the votes cast each time. In 1869 he was married to Miss Frances V. Drummond, of Osh- temo, and she and their three children survive him. The children are Mrs. Charles Eassom, Miss Leah Clapp and Wesley Clapp. One other son, Burt G., died September 2, 1899, aged twenty-seven years. Mr. Clapp was connected fraternally with the Masons, the Odd Fellows, the Elks, the Grand Army of the Republic and the Union Veterans' Union. In the last he was a member of the department staff.
BENJAMIN DRAKE, JR.
The late Benjamin Drake, Jr., who died while on a visit to Kalamazoo in 1880, and who had been many years before that time one of the best known and most esteemed business men of this county, was born in St. Clair county, Mich., in 1830. He was a son of Benjamin Drake, Sr., and Maria (Ogden) Drake, the former a native of New Jersey and the latter of Canada, accounts of whose lives will be found in the sketches of their sons, Francis and George N. Drake, on other pages of this work. The younger Benja- min grew to manhood in this county and received his education in the public schools. In 1850. under the impulse of the excitement over the dis- covery of gold in California, he joined a party in a trip to that state, and there he spent four years engaged in packing supplies to the mining camps. Returning then to Kalamazoo, he operated a livery barn for a number of years, then farmed in this county until 1870, when he went again to California, where he remained ten years. At the end of that period he made another visit to his old home and died while it was in progress in Kalamazoo. On May 27, 1857, he was united in marriage with Miss Soledad De La Vega, a step- daughter of Henry Breese, a well known pioneer of Schoolcraft, this county. She was a native of Matamoras, Mexico, her father having been
born in Spain and her mother in Stafford county, Va. They had four children, William H., Ella, wife of W. H. Brown, of Kalamazoo, Jane I., wife of M. M. Sessions, of Marietta, Ga., and Charles A., now of New York city. Mr. Drake was not an active partisan in politics. Frater- nally he belonged to the Masonic order.
FRANCIS DRAKE.
The late Francis Drake, a native of this county, who died in California in 1894, after a residence of more than forty-three years in that and adjoining states, was the son of Benjamin Drake, one of the honored pioneer farmers of . Kalamazoo county, where he lived on a fine farm three miles from the city of Kalamazoo. Ben- jamin Drake was born in Sussex county, N. J., on January 10, 1787, and on reaching his ma- jority started in life for himself. Going to the headwaters of the Delaware river, he engaged in lumbering and in the course of several years of active industry made what was estimated a for- tune in those days. Unfortunate speculation in land during and after the war of 1812 swept away his accumulations, and for a number of years thereafter he worked for other mnen for wages. Getting a new start by this means, he moved his family to Ohio and settled on one hundred and sixty acres of land ten miles from Sandusky, where the Sandusky plaster beds now are. The location was unhealthy and he sold out there and moved to Newport, St. Clair county, Mich., where he lived six years engaged in buy- ing and selling cattle and working a farm on shares. On September 1, 1830, he became a resi- dent of this county, locating on, section 13. Osh- temo township. The land on which he settled was not yet in the market and was still inhabited by Indians. The next year the government offered it for sale and he bought it, and with the aid of the Indians built a rude log cabin for his dwelling. The Indians were almost wholly friendly, but he occasionally had a little trouble with them and on one occasion was in great dan- ger of his life at the hands of two who had been offended by a white man and were determined
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KALAMAZOO COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
to be avenged on the first man of that color whom they met, and this happened to be Mr. Drake. He escaped, however, by the timely arrival and assistance of a Mr. Campeau, an Indian trader at Grand Rapids. His land was wholly wild and the country was unsettled, and it was only by the most persistent and systematic industry that he was enabled to redeem it from the wilderness and make it what it became before the close of his long life of usefulness in this county, one of the best farms in this part of the state. His son Francis grew to manhood in this county and was educated at a school established by his father. He assisted in clearing and cultivating the home farm, remaining with his parents until 1850, when he was married to Miss Mary Goodridge, a daughter of Isaiah and Susan Goodridge, also pioneers of Kalamazoo county. The next year Mr. Drake left his young family and went to California in quest of gold, making the trip across the plains with ox teams and suffering un- told hardships on the way. For a number of years he mined in California and Arizona with indifferent success, then went to packing sup- plies to Marysville and Placerville with two pack teams which he owned. In this venture he pros- pered, doing a profitable business. The last years of his life he passed as a private detective for the Wells-Fargo Express Company. He also served as sheriff of two California counties. He died in California in 1894 and his remains were buried in California, where he had lived. His wife died in 1853, two years after he went to California. One child was born to them, their daughter Mary F., who is living in Kalamazoo. The father was with General Crook in his In- dian campaigns and had a life of adventure well worthy of record.
JAMES PARKER.
The spirit of the American pioneer has ever been one of restless activity and insatiable de- sire for adventure and conquest. It frequently descended from sire to son, so that after one generation camped in the wilderness and re- mained there until a civilized community grew
up around it, the next found the conditions in- tolerable and took another flight in the wake of the setting sun, repeating on a farther western meridian the story of its ancestry on theirs. The congenial associates of this spirit have been the denizens of the untrodden wilds, its inspiration has been danger, privation and the companion- ship of nature in her untamed luxuriance, and its lust for conquest has found gratification only in opening new lands to settlement and bringing their undeveloped resources to the knowledge of mankind. It was this spirit that moved the par- ents of James Parker, of Kalamazoo township. this county, from their native Pennsylvania to the wilds of Ohio while yet the red man inhabited that now great state and much of its prolific soil . was virgin to the plow. And it was the same spirit that impelled him to seek a home for himself in his young manhood in the wilds of Michigan, where the same conditions then ob- tained. Mr. Parker was born in' Champaign county, Ohio, on February 10, 1810, and was the son of James and Elizabeth (McBride) Parker, who were born and reared in Pennsylvania and moved to that portion of Ohio about the year 1800. The father was a farmer and also a re- nowned hunter and Indian fighter, and he found the conditions of his new home entirely to his taste. They furnished a wide and fruitful field for his enterprise, and lived there until 1831, then with his son James, who had just reached his legal majority, sought relief from the insipidity to which he had helped to reduce life in Ohio. in the repetition of his early career in this county which was at that time in a state of almost pri- meval ยท wilderness. They journeyed hither by way of Toledo and the Black Swamp with teams and passed their first winter in what is now Port- age township. In the spring ensuing they settled on Grand Prairie, taking up a tract of school land on which they built a log cabin and then brought out the rest of the family. There were five sons and three daughters in the household, all of whom assisted in converting their wild do- main into a productive farm and comfortable home. The family lived on that tract until 1849, when they sold 'it to Mr. Fletcher and bought
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a tract adjoining the farm now owned by the elder Parker's grandsons. On the new purchase there was a saw mill which they operated for fifty years, it being the first steam mill in this county. On this farm the parents died, the mother in 1852, and the father in 1861. The fa- ther served in the war of 1812 in an Ohio regi- ment, and both before and after that contest saw much active service in fighting Indians. He was with General Harrison in the Maumee valley and elsewhere, and participated in all the trials and triumphs of that renowned warrior. He was a strong abolitionist and Union man, and made his faith manifest in active support of his convic- tions. All of his children are now deceased cx- cept his son Solomon, who lives in Cooper town- ship, this county. The son James, who is the im- mediate subject of this memoir, grew to manhood amid the usual conditions of the frontier, imbib- ing manly self-reliance and love of independence from nature and the habits incident to his situa- tion, and with but meager opportunities for edu- cation in the schools. After coming to Michigan with his father, he was married in / 1835 to Miss Eliza Coats, a daughter of Aquila Coats, who became a resident of Kalamazoo township in 1832, locating on the farm owned by Mr. Parker at the time of his death, in 1852. Mrs. Parker was an only child. and after her marriage she and her husband came to her old home to live, and in time inher- ited the place. Her father cleared this farm and enlarged his original entry until he owned two hundred and ten acres, on which he died in 1852. Mr. and Mrs. Parker had six children, Elizabeth, wife of Andrew Trisket, of Kalamazoo; Lydia, deceased; George, living on the home farm; Mattie, also resident there : James, still at home. and Moses, deceased. Their mother lived until 1901, when she died at the age of ninety years. The Parkers have been among the leading farm- ers and developers of this county, and have al- ways enjoyed in a high degree the respect and good will of its people. The old homestead is still in their possession, and each generation of them has maintained the position in public esteem held by its predecessor.
WILLIAM M. BURTT.
The late William M. Burtt, a prominent foundryman and iron manufacturer of this county, was a native of Connecticut, born on No- vember 13, 1820, and the son of William and Adele (Stephens) Burtt, also natives of that state. The father was a furnace man and anchorsmith and filled some very high and responsible posi- tions in his craft at Clintonville, N. Y., receiving for a number of years a compensation of three thousand dollars a year for his services. About the year 1854 he came to this state in company with his son, William M. Burtt, and started an iron industry which became a leading enterprise in Kalamazoo and the surrounding country and grew to large proportions. His history is told at some length in the sketch of his grandson, Frank Burtt, president of the Burtt Manufacturing Company of Kalamazoo, which appears on an- other page of this volume. He died during the Civil war, leaving two sons and three daughters all now dead but one daughter. His son William M. grew to manhood in New York and when about thirty-four years of age accompanied his father to Michigan and engaged in business with him, founding the first blast furnace and iron factory in this part of the state, in which both were interested until the death of the father. In 1861 Mr. Burtt bought a farm south of Kalama- zoo on which he passed the remainder of his life, dying there on September 16, 1895. His wife died in Kalamazoo in 1861. On January 13, 1847, he was married to Miss Martha L. Thorn, a native of Vermont, who bore him three sons and one daughter, all of whom are living. They are Charles T. Burtt, now living in Seattle, Wash., James M. Burtt, now living on the home farm, Frank Burtt, of Kalamazoo, and Helen Martha Burtt, who lives at the old home with her brother James. Politically the father was a Democrat, and in business and social circles he was well known and highly esteemed. He and his father opened up a new industry in this section, bring- ing forth out of the earth a vast amount of raw material and fashioning it into marketable com- modities, thus quickening and enlarging the cur-
WILLIAM M. BURTT.
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KALAMAZOO COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
rents of commercial life in this region and giving employment to a large number of persons. Their enterprise was successful and prosperous from the start, and turned out to be a source of great pros- perity and benefit to the city in which it was con- ducted. In all the relations of life both were true to the best traditions and models of American manhood, thus honoring the community in which they lived and stimulating by their examples the development of the same qualities in others. While they brought with them to Michigan a capital of twenty thousand dollars in gold and skill in their craft, this was not their best endowment for the work they undertook here. That was found in their sterling manhood, their commanding enter- prise and their accurate business knowledge and fine public spirit.
HULBERT SHERWOOD.
On June 19, 1900, ended the life of this es- timable citizen and enterprising farmer, sixty- seven years of which were passed in this state, and forty-eight of them on the farm in Cooper township on which he died and which he settled in 1852. He was born in Monroe county, N. Y., on February II, 1822, and remained there until he reached the age of eleven years. Then, in 1833, he came with his parents, Labearce and Sophia (Noble) Sherwood, also natives of New York, to Michigan, making the trip by water to Detroit. There ox teams were purchased and the journey was completed overland. Along this try- ing portion of the trip Indians and deer were fre- quently seen and the howl of the wolf often heard. Many miles of it was through the trackless wil- derness, and the little party was obliged to literally hew its way through. The family settled in Alle- gan county, where two years later the father died. This said event deprived the son of further op- portunity for schooling, and he was obliged to go on with almost no supplement in the way of edu- cation to the elementary training he had received in the common schools of his native state. He assisted his older brothers in clearing the home- stead until he was twenty-two, when he began farming for himself three and one-half miles west
of the village of Otsego, he having a few years before purchased there one hundred and twenty acres of wild land on which he built a log house. Here he remained until 1849, when he sold the place and moved to his final home in Cooper township, which he bought three years later. When he took up his residence on this land only ten acres of it had been cleared, but before his death he cleared all the rest and brought the whole tract under vigorous cultivation. He also replaced the old log cabin with a spacious and comfortable frame dwelling and surrounded it with all the necessary accessories of modern farm life, all built and arranged for comfort and con- venience and with good taste. In 1844 he was married to Miss Philena Drew, a native of Can- ada, who died three years later. He contracted a second marriage with Sarah Spencer, who died in the same year and in 1849 he married Miss Annie Crawford, of Canada, a daughter of Robert and Cynthia (Brown) Crawford, the former born in Massachu- setts and the latter in New York. Mr. Craw- ford, who was a farmer, located at an early day in Canada just over the border from Vermont. Afterward he moved to Lawrence, New York, and from there in 1849 to Michigan. He died when fifty years old and his wife passed away in Cooper township at the age of fifty-two. Only one of their nine children is now living. Mr. and Mrs. Sherwood were the parents of three children, Viola, wife of Charles Neivton, of South Haven ; Caliste, wife of John Travis, of Ann Ar- bor, and Kirk, who lives on the homestead. Po- litically Mr. Sherwood was a Democrat, but he was never an active partisan. He and his wife were attendants of the Congregational church at Cooper and prominently connected with the best social circles of the community. For thirty-three years he was an earnest and enthusiastic Mason.
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