USA > Michigan > Kalamazoo County > Compendium of history and biography of Kalamazoo County, Mich. > Part 45
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WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE.
William Shakespeare, one of the prominent men of Kalamazoo county, is a man who has been engaged in various activities and has been successful in all of them, a fact which bespeaks his perseverance and unusual business ability. He was born in Paris, Ohio, April 7, 1844, his par- ents settling in Kalamazoo county the following year. He attended the public schools of Kala- mazoo until he was twelve years old, when he en- tered the Telegraph printing office. Later he be- came an apprentice in the office of the Kalamazoo Gazette, at the same time devoting himself to the study of bookkeeping, which he completed at Barnard's Academy at Medina, Ohio. He gradu- ated from here in 1859, at the age of fifteen. He then clerked in a store for a short time, and was only seventeen when he enlisted in Company K, Second Michigan Infantry, on April 12, 1861, and was mustered into the United States service on May 25. After more than three years of hard service he was mustered out on account of wounds received in service. He was shot in the charge at Jackson, Miss., and both thighs were broken. Not until he reached the hospital at Cincin- nati, thirty-three days later, did these terrible wounds receive attention. Returning home after recuperation, he was clerk in the office of the pro- vost-marshal until the close of the war. At the
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youthful age of twenty-one he was editor and pro- prietor of the Kalamazoo Gazette. He entered into the mercantile business in 1867, but he had not yet found his right sphere-his ambition was to be a lawyer. He put in his spare time to the study of law with such good results that in 1878 he was admitted to the bar, and formed a partner- ship with one of Michigan's foremost lawyers, the Hon. N. A. Balch. In August, 1867, he was united in marriage with Miss Lydia A. Duel- Markham. Mr. and Mrs. Shakespeare are the parents of four children, Andrew, William, Jr., Mrs. Cora E. Leech and Edith, all of whom are living in Kalamazoo. The political world also held attractions for Mr. Shakespeare, and he re- ceived several nominations at the hands of his party. In 1881 he was appointed brigadier-gen- eral and quartermaster-general of the Michigan state troops. He is a prominent member of the Grand Army of the Republic, Orcutt Post, the Michigan Society of Political Science and the In- dependent Order of Odd Fellows. He served as department commander of the Grand Army of the Republic in 1896, and is at present serving as a member of the pension committee of its national encampment of that body. In May, 1896, he established the Central Bank of Kalamazoo, of which he was owner and president for a number of ycars. In the fall of 1899 he decided to re- tire from active practice of the law and gave his splendid law library of about thirteen hundred vol- umes to the Kalamazoo County Law Library. Mr. Shakespeare is also vice-president of the Kala- mazoo County Bar Association. He is also a part owner of the Shakespeare and Stier additions to the city of Kalamazoo on South West street. Now that he has retired from active business, he can look back on his life with the satisfaction that it has been well spent and that he availed himself of cvery opportunity. Mr. Shakespeare's parents, John L. and Lydia (Pennell) Shakespeare, na- tives of Pennsylvania, came to Kalamazoo county on May 5, 1845, and settled at Yorkville, where the father worked at his trade, that of a carpenter and joiner. He later came to Kalamazoo and died in 1847, the mother died about 1900. Thc paternal grandfather, William Shakespeare, was
a native of Pennsylvania and came to Kalamazoo in 1846. He was a blacksmith by trade, which he followed at Yorkville and Kalamazoo and died in this city. He served in the war of 1812 with a Pennsylvania regiment and was wounded at the battle of Plattsburg.
HON. JAMES M. DAVIS.
Since 1870 this distinguished citizen of Kala- mazoo county has been a regular resident of Michigan and during the greater part of the time one of the leading lights in his profession in this part of the country. He is a native of Lake county, Ind., born at Orchard Grove on Septem- ber II, 1844. His parents were Samuel C. and Margaret J. (McSperren) Davis, the former a native of Ohio and the latter of Pennsylvania. The father was a farmer, and made his way on foot from Ohio to Indiana in the carly days of its territorial history. He there entered govern- ment land, on which he and his wife lived until death ended their labors. His family was of Eng- lish origin, its American progenitors being early settlers of New York, whence members of the family moved to Pennsylvania, then to Ohio, and later to Indiana. Mr. Davis of this sketch was one of five sons born to his parents, three of whom are living, he being the only one resident in this state. He was educated in the public schools, at Crown Point Academy, Valparaiso College and Asbury (now De Pauw) University, being grad- uated from the latter in 1868. In 1869 and 1870 he attended the law department of the university at Ann Arbor, and in the year last named was admitted to the bar in Van Buren county, this state. He began the practice of his profession the same year in Kalamazoo, and has been engaged in it actively and successfully ever since except dur- ing portions of the time when he occupied offi- cial positions. He served three terms as a jus- tice of the peace, and then two terms as circuit court commissioner, and was appointed United State circuit court commissioner by Judge Withey, holding the position five or six years, then resigning it to accept the office of probate judge in 1889. This he filled eight years, and
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at the end of that period was elected to the lower house of the state legislature. In the session fol- lowing he was on the committees on the judiciary, rules, joint rules and the school of mines, and also on the special committee on the message of Governor Pingree on the general tax bill. Since then he has given his attention to his active gen- eral practice and to farming, owning one hundred and sixty acres of excellent land in Kalamazoo township, this county, which he devotes to general farming and dairy products. In 1867 the Judge was united in marriage with Miss Estella L. El- dred, a daughter of Thomas B. Eldred, one of the esteemed pioneers of Climax township. They have three children, Dora, Thomas E. and Percy L. The last two named are at home. The daugh- ter is vice-principal of the American Girls' School, at Lovetch, Bulgaria, a missionary school of the Methodist Episcopal church. In politics the Judge has been a life-long Republican, and a lead- ing worker in the affairs of his party. Frater- nally he is a Knight of Pythias and a member of the Phi Gamma Delta college fraternity, of which the late gifted General Lew Wallace was a-mem- ber. His church affiliation is with the Methodist Episcopal, and he holds his membership with the Daman congregation in the township of Kalamazoo.
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DR. ANDREW J. HOLMES.
This pioneer dentist of Kalamazoo, who is now retired from active professional work, is a native of Lake county, Ohio, born at Kirkland, on August 18, 1834. His parents, Ezra and Maria (Pelton) Holmes, were natives of the state of New York, where they were prosperous farmers, and from where they removed to Lake county, Ohio, and became early settlers in that then new country. There they had a family of sixteen children, seven of whom are living, and there ended their days, highly esteemed through- out the county they had helped materially to set- tle and civilize. The Doctor is the only one of their children residing in Michigan. His an- cestry was English, and he typifies strongly the sterling qualities of his race. He was reared and
educated in Ohio, finishing his academic course at Kirtland Academy. He followed farming un- til 1862, then entered the office of one of his brothers, a practicing dentist, and remained with him three years. At the same time he and his brother operated a flouring mill. He engaged in the oil business at Pithole, Pa., after quitting .the office of his brother, also running a refinery there, and was very successful in the venture for a time, but later lost all he had accumulated in drilling new wells. In 1867 he came to Michigan and lo- cated at Battle Creek, joining his brother, who was practicing dentistry there. After remaining there a year he removed to South Haven, and in 1870, a year and a half later, changed his resi- dence to Kalamazoo, where he was in active practice until 1904. In 1861 he enlisted in the Union army and passed two weeks at Cleveland, Ohio; but his command was never mustered into service. He, however, had two brothers in the army through that terrible war. In 1866 he was married in Ohio to Miss Victoria Wood, who died one year later. In 1868 the Doctor married a second wife, Miss Marian E. Webster, with whom he was wedded in Iowa. She was born in Lake county, Ohio. They have one child, their son Frank W., who is now practicing den- tistry in Chicago. The Doctor is a member of the West Michigan Dental Society and the State Dental Society. He belongs to the People's church, is widely known throughout the county, and everywhere is highly respected.
JOHN GILCHRIST.
More than half a century ago this respected pioneer set foot on the soil of this county, and although since then he has not continuously re- sided in it, no matter where he went or how long he remained away, he always looked upon this region as his permanent home, and in time re- turned to it, until he finally settled here to roam no more. He has been prominently connected with the history of the county much of the time since his first arrival here, and in all movements for the development of its resources and the advancement of its interests he has been an ardent and intelli-
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gent help. He is a native of Barnet, Caledonia county, Vt., born on April 28, 1835, and the son of John and Jane (Duncan) Gilchrist, na- tives of the same county as himself. The father was a lumberman with an extensive trade in both New Hampshire and Vermont, his sawmills being located on the boundary line between the two states. He died in New Hampshire in 1843, aged forty-seven years. In political contests he sup- ported the Whig party, but his local patriotism was beyond the control of party ties, as he valued the interests of his section above the claims of his party. The mother was a daughter of John and Betsey (Putman) Duncan, who were among the well known families of New Hampshire. The Duncans, like the Gilchrists, as the name suggests, had their origin in Scotland, but the branch of the family to which the Michigan Duncans be- longed migrated from their native land to London- derry, Ireland, whence George Duncan, the Amer- ican progenitor of the race, came to New England in 1742, and settled at Londonderry, N. H., a town named in honor of his native city across the sea. More extended mention of the family will be found in the sketch of Delamore Duncan on an- other page of this work. Mr. Gilchrist's grand- father was John Gilchrist, a native of Scotland, reared in Glasgow, and a weaver by trade. Hc came to America in 1796 and took up his resi- dence in Vermont, and from him the Gilchrist family in this country is descended. He died at McIndoe Falls, Vt., after working at his trade there many years. It should be stated, how- ever, that his father, James Gilchrist, was the first of the family to arrive in this country, com- ing to Vermont in 1773, and locating where his sons afterward settled, and being among the first settlers in that part of the state. Mr. Gilchrist of this sketch had two brothers. One of them is dead and the other, George Gilchrist, is a resi- dent of this county. John Gilchrist, the third, of whom these paragraphs are written more espe- cially, passed his early life in Vermont and New Hampshire, and was educated at the St. Johns- , burg Academy in the former state. In 1854 he came to Kalamazoo county and located in Prairie Ronde township. Three years later he went to
Missouri, where he remained until August, 1861. He then returned to this state, and in July, 1862, enlisted in the Union army as a member of Com- pany D, Twenty-fifth Michigan Volunteer In- fantry. His regiment was assigned to the Army of the Ohio and took part in many important en- gagements in the war, among them the battles of Tibbs' Bend, Ky .; Resaca and Buzzard's Roost, Ga .; the siege of Atlanta and all the engage- ments incident to Sherman's march to the sea. It then went to Nashville and did its part of the terrible fighting at and around that city, and in what followed in western Tennessee and castern North Carolina. Mr. Gilchrist was dis- charged from the service in July, 1865, with the rank of captain. He returned to Kalamazoo county and two years later moved to Allegan county, where he remained eight years, then lived two years at Big Rapids, Mecosta county, and twelve in northern Michigan, all the while en- gaged in the lumber trade. After passing a year in Louisiana he again returned to this county, and in 1891 took up his residence at Schoolcraft, where he has ever since lived. He was married at Muskegon, Mich .. in 1897, to Miss Olivia Bedell, a native of New Hampshire. In his long life of industry and frugality Mr. Gilchrist has acquired a large amount of valuable land, and he is now actively connected with some of the lead- ing industries of the county, being a stockholder in some of them. He is a zealous member of the Grand Army of the Republic, and full of loyalty to the cause and the memories it is designed to perpetuate.
LEROY NICHOLS.
Comfortably located on a fine and well im- proved farm of ninety acres in the township of Prairie Ronde, which he has acquired by his own assiduous industry and attention to business, Le- roy Nichols, one of the prosperous and progres- sive farmers of this county, can laugh a siege of adversity to scorn, and feel secure against the attacks of ill-fortune, having at the same time the satisfaction of knowing that as he has known how to win his way in the world he also knows how to maintain his place. He is a native oi
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his township, born there on July 19, 1852, and the son of Orson and Eliza (Felt) Nichols, who were born and reared in Madison county, N. Y. The father was a farmer and came to this county in 1846. Soon after his arrival he bought a quarter section of land which is now owned by Levi Luce. of Prairie Ronde township. On this land the elder Mr. Nichols lived until 1856, when he moved to Galesburg, Ill., and during the next seven or eight years kept a hotel there. He then went to California, making the trip overland in company with George Ferris, the father of the inventor of the great Ferris wheel, which was one of the leading attractions at the Columbian Exposition held in Chicago in 1893. Before go- ing to California, however, he enlisted in the Thirty-third Illinois Volunteer Infantry as a fife major, under Gen. John A. Logan, and served in the Civil war a year and a half, taking part in the capture of Fort Donelson, Fort Henry, Bel- mont and Shiloh, and several minor engage- ments. He remained in California about three years, then returned home by water, and after a short residence at Galesburg, came to Kalama- zoo county once more. But not having recovered fully from the attack of western fever, which had taken him to the Pacific coast, he again turned his face toward the setting sun and took up his residence in Kansas, where he remained until his death, in 1876. His wife died in this county in 1854. They had four children, three of them living, Leroy, Mrs. William Cobb, of School- craft, and Mrs. H. H. Willsie, of Galesburg, Ill. The father married for his second wife Miss Eu- nice Simmons, of Madison county, N. Y. She is dead, as is her one child. The father was a strong Republican, but although an active and serviceable party worker, he was never an office seeker. Leroy Nichols passed his boyhood and youth in this county, at Galesburg, Ill., and in Madison county, N. Y. He began life for him- self as a farmer, working some time by the month for other people, then bought a farm of his own, the one on which he now lives, and on this he has passed all of his subsequent life ex- cept seven years during which he lived at School- craft. His farm comprises ninety acres of first-
rate land, and is well improved and skillfully cultivated. He was married in 1875 to Miss Mary E. Franckboner, a daughter of William and a sister of George Franckboner. Mrs. Nich- ols died June 14, 1905. For more extended men- tion of the parents see sketch of George Franck- boner, on another page. Mr. and Mrs. Nichols have had three children, two of whom are living, their daughter Gertrude and their son Ben H. Like his father, Mr. Nichols is a Republican, but he has never desired office and has sought no political honors. Fraternally he is a member of the Knights of the Maccabees.
JEROME T. COBB.
Although for many years an active and pros- perous farmer in Schoolcraft township, this county, the late Jerome T. Cobb is best known and most widely esteemed throughout this state and others by his work in connection with the State Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry and his masterful editorship and management of its published organ, the Grange Visitor, of which he had charge for a period of fourteen years. Mr. Cobb was born at Goshen, Litchfield county, Conn., on December 29, 1821, the son of Nathan and Sally (Thompson) Cobb, natives of Connec- ticut, the Cobb ancestry in America being origi- nally from Wales. Jerome was a boy of nine when the family came to this country in the fall of 1830, and grew to manhood on the farm his father entered from the government, northeast of the village of Schoolcraft, in the township of the same name. There he had his home until he removed to Schoolcraft in 1865, where he lived until his death on November 15, 1893. He fol- lowed farming and also manufactured staves and headings to some extent until 1873, conducting the latter business in conjunction with his only son, William B. Cobb, under the style of J. T. Cobb & Son. His educational advantages were limited to the opportunities presented by a little country school taught by his oldest sister, Mary Ann Cobb, and two months' attendance at the old "Branch" in Kalamazoo. But he improved them so diligently and wisely that after leaving the
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"Branch" he taught successfully during the next four winters in the good old days of "boarding 'round." In February, 1873, he became a mem- ber of Schoolcraft Grange, Patrons of Husbandry, and in April following was elected secretary of the State Grange of the order. From then until 1890 he gave his attention wholly to the duties of this office in connection with the publication of the Grange Visitor, which was established in 1876, and which he edited and managed success- fully during the next fourteen years, building it up to a large circulation and influence, and through its columns doing excellent work for the cause of agriculture and the benefit of those en- gaged in it. He was also prominent and influen- tial in the public life of his village and county, serving in a number of important offices for a long time, being county superintendent of the poor for a period of twenty-five years, oil in- spector for four years, county agent for twelve years, and supervisor of Schoolcraft township several terms, besides occupying other local of- fices from time to time. In political affairs he always took an active part, but as an independent Republican. As a tribute to his worth and the valuable services he was rendering the state Grange, that organization, at its annual meeting in Lansing, in December, 1891, through ex-Gov- ernor Luce, presented him with a beautiful gold- headed cane, which he always afterward esteemed as among his most pleasing possessions. Mr. Cobb was first married in Dutchess county, N. Y., to Miss Julianne Benton, and they became the parents of two children, only one of whom is liv- ing, their son William B. Cobb. The mother died on September 20, 1850, and on April 22, 1852, the father married Miss Harriet Felt, a native of Chenango county, N. Y. She died on December 12, 1892.
WILLIAM B. COBB, the only son of Jerome T. Cobb, was born on the old home farm in School- craft township on December 1, 1847. He ob- tained his early education in the common schools, then attended the Schoolcraft high school and passed one year at the State Agricultural College, finishing his preparation for the business of life by a course of special training in the Poughkeep-
sie, (N. Y.) Business College, from which he was graduated in 1861. He then returned to this county, and for a time was associated with his father in the manufacture of staves and headings, until the explosion of the engine in the factory destroyed the property and killed the engineer. Since then he has steadfastly adhered to the work of farming, in which he has been eminently successful, and is now managing more than six hundred acres of excellent land. In connection with this he has been an extensive and progressive sheep grower and feeder, handling on an average one thousand to one thousand five hundred a year. On December 15, 1869, he united in mar- riage with Miss Louisa Nichols, a native of New York state and daughter of Orson Nichols, a well known pioneer of the township, who is now deceased. They have three children, Hattie, wife of Lewis F. Anderson, a professor in the State Normal School at Marquette; Della, wife of Dr. Carl Felt, of Philadelphia; and Roy J., who is living at home. The older daughter is a graduate of Oberlin College, Ohio, and the younger of the New England Conservatory of Fine Arts at Bos- ton, Mass. The son is a student at the State Agri- cultural College at Lansing. The father has been a life-long Republican, and has served sixteen consecutive years as supervisor of his township, a portion of the period as chairman of the board. He is a Freemason of the Knights Templar de- gree, with membership in the commandery at Three Rivers. Well and favorably known in all parts of the county, he is one of its leading citi- zens, an honor to the section and an example worthy of all emulation by its people of every class.
ORRIN SNOW.
This honored pioneer, who was well known and esteemed throughout the county and all the surrounding territory, came with his parents to Michigan in March, 1837, their journey hither being one of unusual features and uncommon in- terest. They came from Oswego county, N. Y .. traveling in sleighs to Detroit and from there to Jackson, where the sleighs were abandoned. Four weeks were consumed in the trip, and while it was
Orin Snow
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fraught with some hardships and danger, it was also full of incident and excitement. Mr. Snow was eight years old at the time, but he remembers the long ride with vivid clearness, and was wont to recount its many picturesque phases with en- thusiasm. He was born in Oswego county, N. Y., on September 27, 1829, and was the son of An- sel and Arbelia (Wilmouth) Snow, natives of Massachusetts, the former born in 1784 and the latter in 1795, and both of English ancestry. On their arrival in this county, they located on Grand Prairie, four miles northwest of Kalama- zoo, but two or three years afterward removed to Oshtemo township, where one of the daughters of the family had settled after her marriage a few months before. Their land was in the "Open- ings," about which James Fenimore Cooper has written in his "Oak Openings." When they took possession of this land, it was all wild and new. The father was an invalid, and the management of the farm devolved on the sons as soon as they were able to take charge of it, so that the oppor- tunities they had for attending school were few and irregular. They were, however, boys of na- tive force and strong spirit, and have never found themselves without a resource in the battle of life. Their father died on October 15, 1864, on the farm, and the mother in August, 1880, at the age of eighty-five years, passing away in Missouri, where she had removed to pass her remaining years with her sons, Orson and Orlie. The fam- ily comprised three sons and four daughters, who grew to maturity. The daughters are all dead. but the sons are all living, except Orrin, on whom the grim hand of death descended on the 9th of November, 1904. Orrin remained at home until he was twenty-four years old, and bought a farm west of the old home place, on which he lived until 1889, when he moved to Kalamazoo. Taking his land as nature gave it to him, he cleared it all and brought its fertile acres to an advanced state of cultivation, improving the place with attrac- tive buildings, and making it a productive and valuable farm. In the spring of 1901 he changed his residence to the village of Richland, where he lived until his death. Before beginning farm- ing for himself in this country he went to Cali-
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