USA > Michigan > Kalamazoo County > Compendium of history and biography of Kalamazoo County, Mich. > Part 69
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operations of the corporation were greatly in- creased and its revenues correspondingly aug- mented. The number of gas consumers in the city was raised from four hundred to fourteen hundred and twenty-six miles of new mains were laid. He resigned the active management of this company in 1892, but he has maintained his con- nection with the company as a stockholder and director. But his energetic and fertile mind could not be confined to one enterprise, interesting and engrossing as that may have been. He was alive with business zeal and sought opportunity for its employment in various channels. He assisted in organizing and starting on their course of pro- ductiveness a number of other manufacturing in- dustries, among them the Kalamazoo Corset Com- pany and the Comstock Manufacturing Company, in each of which he was a stockholder, the Amer- ican Playing Card Company, of which he became president, the Upjohn Pill Company, L. D. Cooley Harness Company and the Phelps & Bigelow Windmill Company, in each of which he was a director, and also had a large share in founding and starting the Iola (Kansas ) Cement Company. To all of these he gave for a number of years his personal attention and all of them were aided greatly by his clear insight, progressive spirit and business capacity. With most if not all of them he is still connected. In 1869 he was married to Miss Emma Woodbury, a daughter of J. P. Woodbury, of Kalamazoo (see sketch elsewhere in this work). They have two sons, Woodbury and Allen P. Mr. Ramson, although devotedly pa- triotic and deeply interested in the welfare of his country, has never taken any active part in party politics. But in fraternal life he has for years been an earnest and zealous Master Mason.
OMAR G. COOK.
This pioneer business man of Fulton, this county, is a native of Antwerp. Jefferson county, N. Y., where he was born on January 6, 1834. His parents, Benjamin and Lucinda (Foster) Cook, were also natives of the state of New York, where they died. The father was a farmer, mill- wright and surveyor. He was a soldier in the
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war of 1812, and during that short contest was on board a sloop of war and saw active service on the great lakes, afterward becoming captain of a rifle company in New York state. He taught the first school in Jefferson county, that state, and was in many ways a useful and influential citizen. The family comprised six sons and two daughters. Four of the sons and one of the daughters are living. Their grandfather, Miles Cook, was a native of New York and served three years as a drummer boy in a regiment of volunteers from his native state. He died in Jefferson county, N. Y. Omar G. Cook grew to manhood and secured his education in his native county, and taught school there six terms. He also farmed, worked at his trade as a carpenter and engaged in saw milling. In the fall of 1863 he came to Michigan and bought forty acres of land in Climax township, this county, which he improved, cultivated and lived on six years. In 1871 he sold his land and moved to the village of Fulton, where he bought a small grocery store, afterward adding drugs to his stock. He carried on this store until 1883, when it was destroyed by fire, and in that disaster he lost all he had. He was not dismayed, how- ever, but immediately began the erection of a brick business block, and as soon as it was com- pleted he opened the business again. Sometime afterward he disposed of his groceries and sub- stituted hardware in their place, also letting his son have the drug trade. He continued in busi- ness until 1900, and since then he has lived re- tired from active pursuits. In 1857 he was mar- ried in Jefferson county, N. Y., to Miss Maria Churchill, a native of Ontario, Canada, and the daughter of John and Anna Hewitt Churchill, the former born in New Hampshire and the latter in Vermont. Mr. and Mrs. Cook had two children, their sons Dell W. and Don J. The former is now conducting a drug business at Fulton. Hé mar- ried Miss Julia Mosgrove, of Wakeshma town- ship, and has one child, his daughter Maud. Dan- iel J. is also a resident of Fulton. He married Miss Jessie Hampton. They have three sons and one daughter. Mrs. Cook died in 1902. Mr. Cook is a Republican and has served three terms as township clerk, and also as township treasurer.
Fraternally he is a Freemason of long standing. He is the oldest business man now living at Ful- ton, and is everywhere highly respected.
BENJAMIN FLEISHER.
Born of old Pennsylvania stock and coming into being in the great hive of industry wherein his parents were native, this highly esteemed farmer of Climax township, this county, who is now living retired from active pursuits at Fulton, brought to the wilds of this county at the dawn of his manhood the habits of thrift and energy acquired in his old Pennsylvania home and still further developed and cultivated in a ten-years residence in Lagrange county, Ind., one of the most thriving and substantial sections of the Hoosier state. He was born in Erie county, Pa., on July 6, 1849, the son of Simeon and Mary (Hershey) Fleisher, who like himself were born in the Keystone state, and farmed there until about 1859, when they came to Michigan and lo- cated near Athens, Calhoun county. There they passed the remainder of their days, the father dying in 1881, and the mother in 1900. They were the parents of five sons and three daughters, of whom three of the sons and two of the daugh- ters are living, Benjamin being the only one resi- dent in this county. The parents were active and zealous members of the Methodist Episcopal church. Benjamin reached the age of eighteen in Indiana, then came to Michigan, where he has followed farming all of his subse- quent life. He was about twenty-four when he started out for himself, and in 1875 came to Kala- mazoo county and located on a farm which he bought in Climax township on which he has lived ever since one year ago, when he took up his residence at Fulton. He was married at Athens, in 1873, to Miss Clara B. Phelps, a native of Canandaigua, N. Y., and the daughter of Nathan and Mary J. Phelps, who came to Michigan in 1855 and located in Climax township, where they cleared up a good farm and improved it to con- siderable value. The father is still living there. Mr. and Mrs. Fleisher have three children, Rose H., the wife of Danicl F., Bartshe. Roy M., and
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Ira D. In politics Mr. Fleisher is an ardent Pro- hibitionist, and he and his wife are devoted mem- bers of the Methodist Episcopal church, in which he is a class leader. His life in this county has been a continual exhibition of devotion to duty and the best interests of the people, and it fur- nishes a stimulating example to younger men, in the peace of mind which it has brought him, the public esteem it has won for him, and the success which has attended all his efforts for progress and improvement.
THE LEE PAPER COMPANY.
This colossal enterprise, whose plant is one of the largest and most completely equipped of its kind in the country, is a stock company with a capital stock of one million dollars, one-half pre- ferred and the other common stock, and was or- ganized and incorporated under the laws of Mich- igan on July 16, 1903. The following are the offi- cers : President, Fred E. Lee, of Dowagiac ; first vice-president, George E. Bardeen, of Otsego; second vice-president, A. B. Gardner, of Dowa- giac; general counsel, William G. Howard, of Kalamazoo ; treasurer, E. S. Roos ; secretary, Nor- man Bardeen; superintendent, W. H. Good- enough ; and W. J. Ustick, general sales manager. These officers also constitute the board of di- rectors. After a careful examination of various proposed sites for the plant it was determined to locate it at Vicksburg on account of the excellence and abundance of the water supply and other nat- ural advantages, and the superior railroad facil- ities at that point ; and in order to secure the plant the village granted valuable concessions to the company. The erection of the buildings was be- gun in the spring of 1904 and they were com- pleted about January 1, 1905. They are from one to five stories high, of solid brick construction, and equipped with everything known to the art of paper making of the most modern and approved forms, and the plant will employ, when in full operation, not less that two hundred and fifty persons. The industry will be devoted to the manufacture of high grade writing, loft dried and ledger papers, this being one of the few mills in
this part of the country and the only one in Michi- gan equipped to make the higher grades. The company owns over thirty acres of ground in- cluding the water rights, and the buildings cover nearly six acres of space. They are located near the tracks of the Grand Rapids & Indiana and the Grand Trunk Western Railroads, with side track facilities to each. The mills are operated by steam as a motive power and have their own electric light plant. The stock is held principally by Michigan capitalists, and the men at the head of the enterprise are all specialists in their line, with an intimate knowledge of the industry drawn from technical study and practical experience.
Mr. Lee, the president of the company, is the head of the Round Oak Stove Works at Dowagiac, and an extensive owner of real estate in Chicago. Mr. Bardeen, the first vice-president, has long been known in this state and to the paper trade of the whole country. He is president of the Bar- deen Paper Company at Otsego, where he has three mills, and also of the Michigan Manufac- ' turers' Association, and is a director in several other companies located in Kalamazoo, Detroit . and Chicago. A. B. Gardner, the second vice- president, is assistant manager of the Round Oak Stove Works of Dowagiac, and a stockholder in several other Michigan corporations. Elbert S. Roos, the treasurer, is a stockholder in the Bar- deen and a director in the King Paper Mill, vice- president of the Kalamazoo Corset Company, and secretary and treasurer of the Kalamazoo Ice and Fuel Company. Norman Bardeen, of Otsego, the secretary, has been active in the management of the Bardeen Mills. Hon. William G. Howard, the general counsel, is one of the most prominent and successful lawyers in the state. He is vice- president of the Home Savings Bank of Kalama- zoo, and an officer and stockholder in a large num- ber of other successful Kalamazoo enterprises. W. H. Goodenough, the superintendent of the mills, is one of the most expert paper manufac- turers in the country. For eleven years he was superintendent of the American Writing Paper Company's mills at De Pere, Wis. He is assisted in operating the new plant by his son, Charles Goodenough, who has had superior technical
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training as an engineer. W. J. Ustick has had several years' experience as a paper salesman and is regarded as one of the very best in his line of business. The buildings were planned by Dan J. Albertson, the company's architect and en- gineer, who has had extensive experience in erect- ing paper mills of the best type. Several features of this great plant are worthy of special mention. Concrete floors and steel construction have been used in its erection, so that there isno danger from dampness. Elevated tracks for receiving raw ma- terials and coal have been built so as to insure the utmost economy in management. The build- ings were put up at a time when the cost of ma- terials was lower than for years before, and with the closest attention to every detail in construction so as to secure the best results at the lowest cost. under the fine business ability and accurate and extensive knowledge of the directorate, the suc- cess of the undertaking was assured in advance. It has largely increased the population of Vicks- burg and given an impetus to every branch of its business life, stimulating trade, making a better market for the staples of life. farm products and other commodities, and enlisting the permanent interest of some of the most progressive men in the state in the village and the welfare of its people.
THE KALAMAZOO CORSET COMPANY.
Among her many and important industries Kalamazoo has few if any that she points to with greater pride and plesure than the Kalamazoo Corset Company, which was organized in 1891 with a capital stock of seventy-five thousand dol- lars, and employed at the start but twenty-seven persons. At this time ( 1905) it has a paid-up cap- ital stock of five hundred thousand dollars and employs more than seven hundred persons, not including thirty traveling salesmen. It has an output of one hundred and fifty thousand dozen or over one million and a half corsets. These goods find a ready market in every village, town and city in the United States, and are rapidly gain- ing an extensive foothold in foreign countries, the company having a large trade in Canada, Mexico
and South Africa. This rapid growth of the busi- ness is due to both the efficient management of the company and the superior workmanship, style and material employed in the manufacture of its prod- uct. The city is indebted for this industry to James H. Hatfield, the president of the company, who was the prime mover in its organization and has ever since been its inspiration and controlling force. Mr. Hatfield is a native of South Bend, Ind., born on November 3. 1855, and the son of James H. and Susana ( Goodwin) Hatfield. He was reared and educated in his native city, and began life as a clerk in a general store at Three Oaks, where he remained for seven years. He then became a partner in the business, in which he continued for seven years. He then purchased ! interest in the Featherbone Company (as noted) and continued there until 1891. He was married in 1880 to Alice Chamberlain, a native of Three Oaks, and they have one son, James C., secretary and treasurer of the company. Mr. Hat- field is a director of the Kalamazoo Trust Com- pany, organized in 1904, also a director of the Robt. N. Bassett Company, manufacturer of cor- set steel, etc., of Derby, Conn. ; a director of the Standard Cloth Company of New York, manu- facturers of corset cloth. Prior to coming to Kal- amazoo Mr. Hatfield was largely interested as a stockholder and officer of the Featherbone Con- pany. of Three Oaks, this state. In 1891 he se- cured an option on that company's corset depart- ment, and he at once came to Kalamazoo and or- ganized the company alluded to in this article. This company bought the plant of the Three Oaks Company and moved it to Kalamazoo. Among the gentlemen interested with Mr. Hatfield in making this move and building up the trade of the new corporation may be named with honorable mention the late Fred Bush, of the firm of Bush & Patterson (see sketch elsewhere in this work ). also Joseph Speir, of Kalamazoo, James Monroe, Otto Ihling. E. S. Roos, now vice-president of the company, H. B. Kauffer. president of the Home Savings Bank, and H. B. Rick (deceased ). The company's present officers are James H. Hatfield, president and general man- ager, E. S. Roos, vice-president, and J. C. Hat-
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field, secretary and treasurer. In 1905 the com- pany erected a five-story addition to the old plant, one hundred seventeen by seventy feet in size. The elder Hatfield is also interested in a number of Kalamazoo's other enterprises of value, being a director of the Home Savings Bank, president of the Fidelity Building and Loan Association, a sketch of which will be found on another page, president of the Kalamazoo Paper Box and Card Company, and chairman of the Kalamazoo Sales- book Company, Limited. The last named is a new company recently organized for the manu- facture of a salesman's account book, and makes the entry book direct from the plain paper to the completed sales book by running it through one machine. Mr. Hatfield is a stockholder in other companies and has contributed very largely to the present prosperity and industrial importance of the city.
MILTON CHAMBERLIN.
This well known and esteemed pioneer of Kal- amazoo county was born in Niagara county, N. Y., on January 1, 1834, and came to this county with his parents when he was about one year old, so that almost the whole of his life has been passed here, and he has been a feature in the industrial and social life of the county for many years. His parents were Thomas and Miranda (Finch) Chamberlin, the former born in Vermont and the latter in the state of New York. They were farmers through life, leaving New York in 1835, and journeying with teams and wagons which conveyed them and their household effects over- land through the trackless wilderness, of alter- nating hill and vale, forest and swamp, long and perilous as the way was, to the wilds of Kalama- zoo county, and locating in Cooper township on a tract of one hundred and sixty acres which the father entered on section 6. They put up a little log cabin on this land the summer after their arrival, which some years later they replaced with a commodious and comfortable frame dwelling, and here they lived and labored until death sum- moned them to another sphere, the father dying on January 29, 1857, aged sixty-eight years, and the
mother on February 12, 1885. Their family com- prised six sons and three daughters. Of these their son Milton and two of his sisters are living. The father was a soldier in the war of 1812, and both belonged to the Congregational church and helped to build the first house of worship for that denomination at Cooper Center, the father serving for many years as one of the deacons of the con- gregation. Milton Chamberlin grew to man- hood in Cooper township, working on the farm, and attending the primitive schools of the time and locality when he had opportunity. In child- hood he played with the Indian children near his home, and later in life engaged with them in hunting the wild beasts of the forest which were still abundant, acquiring in this invigorating sport a thorough knowledge of woodcraft and making it subservient to the needs of the family larder. When he came of age he took charge of the home farm, which he managed for a period of twenty- five years in the interest of his parents. At the end of this period he became the owner of the farm, and he made his home on it until 1898. when he moved to Alamo township, where he now lives. In 1866 he was married, in Cooper town- ship, to Miss Phebe Andrews, a daughter of Theodore and Eliza (Shaw) Andrews, well known pioneers of that township. Three children have blessed the union, all of whom are living, Owen, a prosperous farmer of Cooper township. Lydia, the wife of Joshua Monroe, of Alamo, and Jay A., a resident of the city of Newaygo, Mich. The father has never had any political ambition or taken an active part in partisan contests, but he has resolutely given his best attention to the du- ties of citizenship and been of appreciated service to every commendable enterprise for the general welfare of the township and the improvement of its people. He belongs to the Masonic fraternity with membership in the lodge at Cooper.
JOSHUA MONROE, Mr. Chamberlin's son-in- law, was born at Gum Plains, Allegan county, Mich., on August 4, 1851, and was reared and ed- ucated there. In 1891 he united in marriage with Miss Lydia Chamberlin. They have one child, their daughter Bertis. Mr. Monroe has been a resident of this county twenty-three years, and
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(luring that time has taken an active and service- able part in the local affairs of the county, per- forming with fidelity and with lofty ideals the cluties of American citizenship, and contributing in every worthy way to the advancement of the region in which he has cast his lot. Like his father-in-law, he is well esteemed as an upright and useful man, and has the confidence and good will of all who know him.
HON. STEPHEN F. BROWN.
This prominent and influential citizen and venerated pioneer of Kalamazoo county, who was gathered to his fathers on June 2, 1893. at the age of seventy-three, after having lived in this county sixty-three years and bravely and serviceably borne his part in all the work of its development and improvement from a condition of howling wilderness to the noonday splendor of its present high advancement in all the elements of a pro- gressive Christian civilization, was born in Lou- doun county, Va., on December 31, 1819, and in 1830, when he was but eleven years old, accom- panied his parents. John and Nancy (McPherson) Brown, to Michigan from their home in the Old Dominion, where the family had long been domes- · ticated. After their arrival in this county the family settled in Schoolcraft township, where they soon became leading citizens and active in all the efforts to plant and people and fructify the wilder- ness. Stephen was the second born of the seven children of the household, and grew to manhood in this county, learning thoroughly under the in- struction of his father all the duties of progres- sive and discriminating husbandry, and the estate he left shows how wisely he applied in after life the lessons of his early training on his father's farm. He devoted all the years of his life to till- ing the soil, and acquired a large competence of worldly wealth in real estate, leaving all his land in a high state of cultivation, well improved with first-rate buildings and other necessary structures and provided with all that was most approved in farm machinery. On July 4, 1841, he was mar- ried in Oshtemo township to Miss Maria L. Pat- rick, whose parents, James and Harriet (Col-
grove) Patrick, died when she was young, her mother passing away when the daughter was but two years old and her father when she was in her fourteenth year, both dying in Oneida county, N. Y., where she was born on December 15, 1824, the youngest of five children. Mr. and Mrs. Brown had four children, Franklin M., Edgar D., Florence and Clarence. They are all living but Franklin, who died while on a visit to his old home from his place of business in Illinois, on January 11, 1876. He was a Union soldier in the Civil war. in Company L, Fifth Michigan Cavalry. Edgar D. is a lawyer at Nelson, Neb. He also was in the Union army during the sec- tional strife, being a member of Company C, Sixth Michigan Infantry, for a short time, until he was discharged on account of physicial disabil- ity, and then re-enlisting in Company L, Fifth Michigan Cavalry, from which he was later dis- charged on account of a wound received while on picket duty at Fairfax Courthouse, Va. Florence is the wife of Henry Rockwell; and Clarence lives on the home farm in Schoolcraft township and conducts its management, his mother making her home with him. The father, as has been noted, took an active and helpful interest in public af- fairs, and became a leading citizen of the county. In 1856 he was elected to the lower house of the state legislature, and in 1858 was re-elected. In 1860 he was chosen state senator, and this office he was again elected to in 1864 and in 1884. He was a gentleman of quick and comprehensive mental force, a great student of public questions and a logical and convincing reasoner, so that his equipment for these exalted positions of public trust in troublous times was unusually complete and resourceful. In early life he was a Henry Clay Whig, but on the organization of the Repub- lican party he joined it and ever afterward gave it his unwavering support in his franchise, by his influence and example and through his eloquence and force on the hustings. In church affiliation he was a Universalist, and in fraternal relations a leading member of the order of Patrons of Hus- bandry, in the latter being the first master of the State Grange, and for ten years its treasurer. At his death he was the owner of two hundred and
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KALAMAZOO COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
twelve acres of excellent land, so improved and adorned that the place is one of the most beautiful spots in the county, and cultivated with such skill and in so progressive a spirit that it is one of the most productive and valuable. He was president of the Pioneer Society of Kalamazoo county, and always manifested a zealous interest in its proceed- ings and its lasting welfare. In the summer of 1885 the state senate presented him with a gold- headed cane as a testimonial to his high character and his great and continued public services. In the senate he was a colleague of Hon. Jay A. Hubbell and other men who afterward rose to na- tional distinction in the congress of the United States, or in other positions of prominence. Now resting from his labors after a long life of useful- ness, which passed from youth to advanced old age without a stain in its record, he is held in lasting veneration by the people he served.
ZECHARIAH FLETCHER.
The youngest of eight sons and two daughters born to his parents, six of whom grew to ma- turity, the other four dying in one week of diph- theria, Zechariah Fletcher, of Schoolcraft, this county, is also the last survivor and only living member of the family. He was born in Hampshire county, Virginia, now West Virginia, on January 7, 1828, and was four years old when his parents came to this county, yet he well remembers the beautiful September day when the party left the old Virginia home for their long jaunt to the then distant wilderness. It comprised fifteen persons, including the family of his father's brother Ben- jamin. His mother made the trip on horseback, and the younger children in a· wagon loaded also with the family effects, and the journey required one month and one day. Benjamin Fletcher lo- cated eighty acres of government land on section IO, Prairie Ronde, on which he lived until 1854. He then sold this and moved to Iroquois county, Ill., where he lived until his death. His brother George, the father of Zechariah, first purchased a portion of section 23, Prairie Ronde township, but four years afterward he sold this farm and bought
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