USA > Michigan > Kalamazoo County > Compendium of history and biography of Kalamazoo County, Mich. > Part 57
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farm until his election as county treasurer in 1897. In 1899 he was re-elected, serving until 1901. His official record is one of the best, his clearness of vision, excellent judgment, pronounced fairness to all the interests involved, and general ability redounding greatly to his credit and being of de- cided benefit to the county. On October 9, 1883, he was married to Miss Mattie H. Oliver, a na- tive of this county and daughter of Thomas B. and Sarah (Haywood) Oliver, who located in Kalamazoo in 1853, and both of whom are now dead. Mr. and Mrs. Smith have had four chil- dren, three of whom are living, Albert F., Shep- ard H. and Clyde W. Mr. Smith has been a life- long Republican. In addition to being county treasurer he served a number of years as a jus- tice of the peace, and at different times in other local offices. He and all his family are members of the First Congregational church of Kalamazoo. He is one of the influential and representative citi- zens of the county, and is held in the highest esteem by its people.
·KALAMAZOO STOVE WORKS.
With a capital stock of three hundred and fif- teen thousand dollars, a very much alive and ener- getic directorate, a large body of influential stock- holders and a list of officers that understand their business in all its details, the Kalamazoo Stove Works is one of the leading and most important of the many industries that center in this part of the state and keep the wheels of industrial pro- duction in vigorous and fruitful motion. The company was organized in 1901 with Edward Woodbury as president, William Thompson as vice-president and general manager, Charles A. Dewing as treasurer, and A. H. Dane as secre- tary. The list of stockholders includes W. S. Dewing, James Dewing, Stephen G. Earl, Ben- jamin A. Bush, George Bardeen, of Otsego, George D. Cobb, of Schoolcraft, Charles L. Cobb and Hiram A. Delano, of Allegan, with others of equal prominence and business capacity. The plant was erected in 1891 and 1892, and has a capacity of sixty thousand stoves and ranges, covering all styles of cooking and heating stoves,
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which are sold direct to the users, and the com- pany is one of the pioneers in this line of manu- factures in this country. They sell their wares all over the United States and Canada, employing in their manufacture four hundred persons in addition to an office force of forty persons. Their products are first class in every respectand stand at the head of the market. The business is conducted. with the closest attention to every detail in con- struction and management, and no effort is omit- ted necessary to secure the best results in every way. William Thompson, the founder and gen- eral manager of the company, is a native of Louis- ville, Ky., where he began his business career as a boy in his uncle's foundry and store. In 1885 he left Louisville and came to Detroit, where he found employment for five years as a traveling salesman for the Detroit Stove Works. He then went to St. Louis as general superintendent of the Buck's Stove and Range Company, and was next associated with the Cribben & Sexton Com- pany of Chicago in the same capacity, remaining with that company two years. From Chicago he moved to Kalamazoo and organized the company with which he is now so prominently connected. For this company he has built up a large and in- creasing business, and at the same time has es- tablished himself as one of the most capable and successful business men in the city. They have enlarged the plant by the erection of a storeroom three hundred by two hundred and twenty-five feet, of brick, having track room from both the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern and the Kala- mazoo & Southern Railroads. They have also more than doubled the factory by erecting a building over seven hundred and sixty-four feet . in length by one hundred and twenty in width. He is a practical stove man, with a thorough knowledge of the enterprise in all its features, and is ever ready to seize and profitably employ any opportunity that may be offered to further his undertakings. In the general commercial life of the community he has taken an active and help- ful interest, and while without political ambition for public office, he has shown always a good citizen's activity in public affairs wherein the gen- eral welfare of the people is involved. No man
stands higher in Kalamazoo, and none is more worthy of the regard in which he is generally held.
LEANDER CANNON.
One of the revered pioneers of Brady town- ship. this county, now living near Vicksburg, Leander Cannon saw this region when it was al- most in its pristine wildness and was still inhab- ited by the savage denizens of the forest, man and beast, and he has rendered his full share of help in changing it to its present condition of high de- velopment, productiveness and industrial activity. He is a native of Venice, Cayuga county, N. Y .. born on August 8, 1830, and the son of Thomas J. and Amelia (Craft) Cannon, natives of New York. The grandfather, also named Thomas Can- non, was born in Ireland and emigrated to this country prior to the Revolution, in which he took an active part, serving more than seven years as a private soldier in the Continental army. After the close of the war he settled in Cayuga county. N. Y., where he died at a good old age after many years passed in successful farming. His son Thomas J. was also a farmer, and passed his life in his native county, where he died in 1834. He was married twice and had two children by each wife, by the second his son Leander and a daughter, Adaline, who married Thomas B. Fin- lay : she died February 12, 1899. After his death his widow was married to James Wilson, and in 1837 the family moved to Michigan and first lo- cated in Leroy township, Calhoun county, enter- ing government land on which they lived until the winter of 1842-3, when Mr. Wilson ex- changed the land for the farm now owned by Mr. Cannon, in Brady township, this county. The land was then covered with a dense growth of timber, and was wholly unimproved. The family, consisting of Mr. Wilson, his wife and her two children, moved on the place in the spring of 1843, making their home in a small log cabin which they built. The step-father died in Cali- fornia, but the mother passed away some years before on the farm. Mr. Cannon grew to man- hood on this farm, which he still owns, and cleared the whole of the place. The humble dwel-
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ling, which he erected in 1854, is still standing on the place, but in 1882 he built his present resi- dence on it, which is one of the best in the county. On February II, 1855, he was married to Miss Charlotte M. Boughton, a native of Genesee county, N. Y., and a daughter of Amos H. and Desire (Wolcott) Boughton, who came to Michi- gan in 1837 and located in this county, in Pavilion township, where Mrs. Cannon's grandfather, Erastus Wolcott, had settled five years before. Her parents lived and died in that township. Mr. and Mrs. Cannon have five children : May- belle, wife of E. D. Heeter, of Dayton, Ohio; Thomas E., who is married and has one child, a daughter; Warren B., of Kalamazoo ; Gertrude, wife of E. A. Edmunds, of Wisconsin; and Claud G., of Appleton, Wis. Politically Mr. Can- non has always adhered to the Democratic party, but he has never sought or desired public office. Fraternally he is a Freemason of long standing. The family stand high in the different sections of the county, being held in the highest respect by all classes of the people.
OZRO M. HALE.
Our world is one of expensive races, each liv- ing at the expense of others, and largely devoted to the survival of the fittest. Neither reason nor humanity can remove the conditions, yet the eye of a true discernment can see in all the plan the necessity for its operation and its wisdom. When our forefathers took possession of any new section of our country they found its savage inhabitants, man and beast and reptile, already in occupation and armed against them. And while the dis- possession of the aboriginal denizens looks harsh and-unjust to a superficial observation, it is seen to be, on closer inspection, an inevitable part of nature's great purpose to evolve the highest form of life and sustain it in its beneficent endeavors. To maintain the type and develop it to ultimate perfection is the scheme, and in the effort the de- struction of individuals, hostile tribes and races, and all other opposing forces, is one of the essen- tial methods, removing them out of the way of the march of progress and making , them even
ministers to its requirements. So, in the early days of the history of this county, that is, in 1844, when the parents of Ozro M. Hale settled on its soil, it was plainly their duty to make their ene- mies of field and steam and forest give way to their superior right and subserve their wants. The sunset of the red man was already approach- ing, and by the rule of the general advance of civilizing forces he was obliged to accept his des- tiny ; and the beasts, birds and reptiles of prey, 'which had so long lived on the land without im- proving it, were necessarily doomed to the ex- tinction in their turn which they had for ages practiced on other forms of life. But none the less did this fact entail hardships and arduous struggles upon the newcomers. But they, and others of their class, had come into the wilderness with a will to face any danger that lay in the path of duty, and make the most of the new conditions surrounding them. The present high develop- ment of the section, with all its wealth of material, intellectual and moral greatness, shows how well they did their part in the great purposes of human history. Ozro M. Hale was born on January 19, 1840, at Medina, Lenawee county, this state, and is the son of Ezekiel N. and Martha A. (Daniels) Hale, the former a native of Poultney, Vt., and the latter of Scipio, N. Y. The father was born on July 12, 1804, the son of David Hale, whose life began on September 4, 1780. The latter was a son of a Revolutionary soldier and a member of the celebrated New England family of the name who took an active and valiant part in the momen- tous struggle for independence, another member of which laid his life on the altar of his country, the renowned patriot, Captain Nathan Hale, who was executed for work in the secret service on Long Island, September 22, 1776, without even the form of a trial. David Hale, the grand- father of Ozro, was reared in his native state, and in his early manhood moved to Orleans county, N. Y., and in 1838 came from there with teams through the wilderness to Kalamazoo county and bought the farm in Comstock township on which the grandson now lives. After partially clearing this farm he moved to Galesburg, building one of the first houses in the village, which is still stand-
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ing, and in which he and his wife died. They were members of the Congregational church and earnest workers in its interest, helping to build for the sect its first church edifice in the county. Their son, Ezekiel Hale, grew to manhood in Vermont, and soon afterward moved to Medina, N. Y. Here he learned the trade of a carpenter and afterward made it his occupation through life, with an interval of a few years in which he was engaged in milling and merchandising at Me- dina, and in which his ventures were unsuccess- ful. In 1840 he came to Michigan, and four years later joined his father on the farm in this county. The country was in its pristine wildness when he took up his residence on the farm, and he at once became a vigorous worker in promoting its settlement and cultivation. Later in life he changed his residence to the city of Kalamazoo, where his wife died in 1870 and he in 1888. They had two sons and four daughters, all of whom are living but one daughter, and the sons and one daughter are residents of this county. The par- ents were members of the Baptist church and aided in founding the college and building the early houses of worship for the denomination of their choice. The father was a captain in the New York militia and otherwise a man of local promi- nence in New York and this state. The imme- diate subject of this sketch was but four years old when the family located on the Comstock farm, and his childhood, youth and carly man- hood were passed in a virgin country amid all its difficulties and dangers. His schooling at the country schools was neither extensive nor thor- ough, but he had ever the great book of nature open before him, and he found the words written there so plain and simple, and the lessons they taught so comprehensive that they largely made up for his academic deficiencies. At an early age he took charge of the farm, and he has de- voted his time to its improvement and cultivation ever since except during his military service in the Civil war. For this contest he enlisted in 1864 in Company E, Tenth Michigan Veteran Volunteer Infantry, and was soon after at the front in the Army of the Cumberland. He fought at the battle of Nashville and in other engage-
ments in Tennessee and the Carolinas, being at Goldsboro, N. C., when one of the last battles of the war was fought on March 10. 1865. He was afterward in the grand review at Washing- ton, D. C., and a short time later was mustered out of the service. Returning then to this county, he resumed his farming operations, in which he has been continuously engaged from then to the present time (1904). In 1866 he started the fruit-growing enterprise which he has developed to such large proportions and made so profitable. Hle first set out one thousand apple trees and has since added two thousand five hundred peach trees and one thousand of plums and other fruit. He is also extensively occupied in raising forest trees for fencing and railroad ties. In 1873 he was married, in Comstock township, to Miss Elmira Glidden, a native of Waverly, Van Buren county, a daughter of Stephen and Mary J. (Peabody) Glidden, who were born in New York and were early settlers in Van Buren county. Mr. and Mrs. Hale have had six children, Laura Viola, a graduate of Kalamazoo College and a teacher at Wanpauton, Wis .; Milton (deceased) ; Fred- erick S., Arthur B., May A., and Nellie P. Mr. Hale is a Republican but not an active partisan. His church affiliation is with the Baptists.
LUTHER BURROUGHS.
It is the iron law of fate which nature thun- ders at us in these northern climates that she requires each man to feed himself. If, happily, his fathers have left him no inheritance, he must go to work, and by making his wants less or his gains more, he must draw himself out of that state of pain and ignominy in which the beggar lies. She spreads her bounties before us and cordially invites us to partake of them, but fixes on each an inexorable price of toil and endurance that makes them worth the having but harder to get, and gives us no rest. starving, taunting and tormenting us, until each has fought his way to his own loaf. There is abundance for all, but cach must work his way to his own portion. And under this dispensation the acquisitions of a man are most often the gauge and indicates the trend
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of his power. Obliged from an early age to help in providing for his wants, the late Luther Bur- roughs, of Comstock township, this county, learned in his youth this valuable lesson, and its force never escaped him in after life. He was frugal and thrifty in all his history, and with diligence augmented by sharp necessity and a worthy ambition, he made steady progress in the struggle for advancement among men, yet not for a day did he forget his duty to his kind and their claims upon his consideration. Mr. Burroughs was born on December 12, 1828, in Monroe county, N. Y., and there his parents, Daniel and Sarah (Schofield) Burroughs, also were born and reared. The father was a cooper, but fol- lowed farming during the latter years of his life. The mother died in their New York home in 1841. and the next year the father came alone to Kala- mazoo county, leaving his orphan children in the care of friends in their native state. He took up his residence in Cooper township and wrought at his trade, also doing considerable hunting and trapping. Later he moved to the village of Com- stock, and some little time afterward bought a tract of land in the township and turned his at- tention to farming. He died at the home of his son, Luther, on August 19, 1871. Of the four sons and two daughters in the family only one son is now living, Dr. O. F. Burroughs, of Gales- burg, this county. In political faith the father was first a Whig and afterward a Republican. and he was strong in advocacy of the principles of his party. Luther Burroughs grew to man- hood in his native state and was educated there. He passed one winter of his minority with his father in Michigan, and came here to live per- manently in 1849. Soon after his arrival he bought one hundred and sixty acres of govern- ment land in Comstock township, which was his home until his death, on March 25, 1899, at the age of seventy-one, having been a resident of the county a full fifty years. He took his land as nature gave it to him, without the touch of a civilizing hand, and accepting her conditions of toil and privation, danger and difficulty, gave his best energies to the work of clearing it and mak- ing it comely and productive. In this he suc-
ceeded well, and left it at his death well im- proved with all the comforts and supplied with all the needed equipments of an excellent farm. On February 27, 1857, he united in marriage with Miss Rebecca Smith, who was born in Hamp- shire, England, and came to the United States with her parents when she was but six months old. She grew to womanhood in the state of New York, and there her parents, Henry and Lydia (Nargate) Smith, died. She and Mr. Bur- roughs became the parents of seven children and four of them are living, Henry, a resident of Eaton county, Mich., and George E., Maggie and Albert L., of Comstock township, this county, the daughter making her home at Galesburg. The father was a Republican from the foundation of the party, but he was never an active partisan or aspired to public office. He was a devout mem- ber of the Methodist Episcopal church, and ac- tive in behalf of its every interest. Bearing a fam- ily name honored in many parts of this country, as well as in England, he ever bore it without re- proach, and made it wherever he was known a synonym for honesty of purpose, uprightness of life, enterprise and an elevated though not os- tentatious public spirit. His widow is now living at Galesburg, where she has a beautiful and hos- pitable home. In all her husband's aspirations and efforts for advancement she bore a helpful part, and by both counsel and earnest aid was of material assistance in his progress.
H. DALE ADAMS.
This well known citizen, prominent politician and industrious farmer of Kalamazoo county, who is now living at Galesburg, has been a resi- dent of the county for more than fifty years, and his father first looked upon its virgin prairies and mighty primeval forests seventy-two years ago, making a visit here for inspection in 1832, and in that year purchasing one hundred and sixty acres of wild land in Climax township, on which he settled twenty years later. Mr. Adams was born on September 18, 1828, at Hoosick, Rens- selaer county, N. Y., the son of Jervis D. and Bethany (Wyant) Adams, natives of that state
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also. and born in Saratoga county. The father's father died while he was yet an infant, and he was reared by his mother in his native county to the age of eight years, and then went to live with his uncle, Pelig Adams, who was renowned for his great strength. He had no educational advantages in the schools, but by his own endeav- ors in general reading and study became a well informed man. His early life was passed in the state of New York at various places, and last in Monroe county, from where he came to Michi- gan to reside permanently in 1852, locating then on the land of his early purchase. From De- troit to this county he made the journey on foot, sleeping unsheltered in the woods. His land in this county was in the Oak Openings, and on this he ended his days, dying on March 11, 1881. Be- fore he went hence he cleared much of his land and converted it into a good farm, being an in- defatigable worker and making every stroke of his energy tell to advantage. Four sons and four daughters of the children born in the household grew to maturity, and of these two sons and one daughter are now residents of this county and two other daughters are living elsewhere, the rest having died. The mother also has passed away, ending her life in 1895, at the age of eighty-nine years. Both parents were of Quaker parentage and they practiced through life the tenets of that faith and thereby won the lasting regard of all who knew them. Their son, H. Dale Adams, reached manhood in Monroe county, N. Y., and attended the common schools near his home, the Clover Street Seminary at Brighton and the Rochester Collegiate Institute, the last named being then in charge of Dr. Chester Dewey, a noted edu- cator of the period. In 1850 Mr. Adams migrated to Michigan and began the improvement of his father's land in Climax township, this county, clearing the first twenty acres and erecting the first buildings on it. He made his home on this farm until a year after the arrival of his parents, then, in 1853, returned to Rochester, N. Y., where he spent two years. His wife's maiden name was Eliza S. Judson, and she was a native of Ulster county, N. Y., the daughter of William and Johanna (Brinsmade) Judson, who became
residents of Kalamazoo county in 1836, locating at Schoolcraft. Mr. and Mrs Adams have four children, Fannie M., the wife of William Smith, Josiah J., a lumberman of northern Michigan, Bertha A., wife of Charles W. Wright, of Grand Rapids, and Dorr B., who is living in Oregon. After his return to this county in the '50s, Mr. Adams bought a farm in Comstock township, which he improved and lived on many years. In 1890 lie moved to Galesburg, where he has since resided. He has served as postmaster of this vil- lage, and has always taken active part in political affairs of the county as a leading Democrat.
HON. JESSE R. CROPSEY.
Occupying now a political office of command- ing influence in the public life of the state as state senator from this county, Hon. Jesse R. Crop- sey, of Vicksburg, is enjoying, in part at least, the reward for his long and valuable services to his party and the people of the county, and is thereby justly recognized as one of the leading and most able citizens of this part of the state. He was born in the county in Brady township, on April 27, 1866, and is the son of Alexander and Anna (Valentine) Cropsey, both natives of the state of New York, the father born at Pulaski on Sep- tember 24, 1844, and the mother at Nassua, Sep- tember 27. 1843. For many years the father has followed the peaceful and productive pursuit of farming ; but when the dark cloud of the Civil war overshadowed the country in 1861, he was among the first to go to the defense of the Union, enlisting in Company K, Nineteenth Michigan Volunteer Infantry, enlisting as a private on Au- gust 7, 1862, being later made corporal of Com- pany K. He served to the close of the awful con- test, being mustered out in 1865. His regiment was assigned to the Army of the Cumberland and took part in all the terrible fighting done by that branch of the service, among the battles in which Mr. Cropsey was engaged being those at Thomp- son's Station, Tenn., Resaca, Ga., Cassville, New- hope Church, Golgotha, Culp's Farm, Peachtree Creek, siege of Atlanta, siege of Savannah, Ga., Following that they moved into North Carolina
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JESSE R. CROPSEY.
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and were at Averasboro and Bentonville. They served through the Carolinas and in the Grand Review at Washington. Mr. Cropsey was pres- ent when the city of Atlanta was surrendered and was among the very first to enter after the surrender. At the battle of Thompson's Sta- tion, Tenn., he was taken prisoner and for thirty days thereafter he languished in Libby Prison and other points and suffered all the hardships of these unutterably loathsome places. He was then paroled and returned home, but again en- tered the service in 1863. Returning to Kalama- zoo county after the war, he accepted a position as foreman of a fence gang under the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad, and in this capacity superintended the building of many miles of fence. He then engaged in farming until 1889, when he moved to the village of Vicksburg, where he has since resided, being engaged in merchandising. He is a member of George Acker Post, Grand Army of the Republic, of Vicks- burg. He and his wife are the parents of three children, all sons, and all living but one who died January 8, 1905. The paternal grandfather, Robert Cropsey, who was born in New York state, came to this county about the year 1842. and died bere soon afterward. Senator Cropsey was reared in Brady township and educated in the public schools and the Vicksburg high school. Immediately on leaving school he began the study of law in the office of E. A. Crone, of Kalama- zoo, and in 1890 he was admitted to the bar. He then located at Vicksburg, and there has ever since lived and practiced his profession. Always active and influential in public affairs, he served three terms as township clerk, and two terms as circuit court commissioner. In the fall of 1904 the party to which he has rendered great service from the dawn of his manhood turned to him with great earnestness and unanimity to become its candidate for the exalted office of state sena- tor, and in the ensuing election he was successful by a large majority. He had previously been nominated as presidential elector, but when he received the senatorial nomination he withdrew from the other candidacy. Although the present is his first service in the legislature, he is not
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