USA > Michigan > Kalamazoo County > Compendium of history and biography of Kalamazoo County, Mich. > Part 70
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another on which he passed the remainder of his life. He was a native of Pennsylvania, born in 1783, and the son of Joseph Fletcher, whose father was also named Joseph. The American progenitor of the family was of Irish birth and Scotch parentage, and emigrated to the United States about the year 1743, bringing his family, which consisted of his wife, two daughters and one son. He settled near the site of the present city of Harrisburg, Pa., where George Fletcher was born. One of his daughters here married a Quaker by the name of Harris, and it is stated on good authority that the city of Harrisburg was named in his honor. He was a merchant and one of the leading citizens of the place. George Fletcher lived with his father until he reached the age of sixteen, and was then apprenticed to a blacksmith. His apprenticeship lasted seven years, and thereafter he wrought at his craft at intervals until his death. He received a common-school ed- ucation, and in 1804 was married to Miss Eliza- beth Millison, a native of New Hampshire and one year his junior. Of their six children who grew to maturity Elijah acquired his father's trade, and at the age of twenty-one went to Ohio, where he married for his second wife Miss Nancy Nuby, a Quakeress, his first wife having died shortly after marriage. In 1830 he moved to Schoolcraft in this county, and six years later returned to Ohio, where he died in 1837. The next son, Jonathan, married Miss Alice A. Farmer. He located at Schoolcraft in 1834 and died there in 1846. Elias migrated to Palmyra, Mo., and there engaged in merchandising and be- came one of the leading citizens of the place, dy- ing there in 1850. John M. was killed at the age of sixteen by an accident near his father's farm on Prairie Ronde. George W. was a farmer, and at the age of twenty-one married Miss Lydia Monroe. He died at the age of twenty-seven. The father was an exemplary man and a consistent Christian, carrying the precepts of his religion into all the transactions of life. He was extremely conscientious in all matters, and his integrity was never questioned. One of the founders of the first Methodist church in the county, he was one of its liberal supporters in all kinds of church work
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and also in substantial contributions of his means. A man of marked social qualities, his hospitality was proverbial, and he was universally beloved for his benevolence and kindness of heart. His first wife, the mother of his children, died in 1837. and about 1840 he married a second, Miss Han- nah Keyes, of Climax, whom he outlived five years. In politics he was originally a Democrat. but became a Republican upon the organization of the new party.
llis son Zechariah was reared on the parental homestead, and on attaining his majority assumed the management of his father's estate. In 1849 he was married to Miss Malansy Monroe, a daughter of Capt. Moses Monroe, of Van Buren county, a cousin of President Monroe, his wife bearing the same relationship to Hon. Benjamin Wade, of Ohio. Captain Monroe settled in Van Buren county, Mich., in 1836, and died there. Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher had five children, all of whom are living. Ora A. is the wife of George Harrison, a retired farmer now living at School- craft. Alice J. is the wife of Byron Carney, of Climax township. Harriet E. is the wife of Frank G. Taylor, of Schoolcraft. Walker E. also lives at Schoolcraft and is a prosperous carpenter. Clara M. is the wife of Lewis Johnson, a flourish- ing farmer of this county. Their mother died on the old farm on March 4, 1902, and the father soon afterward moved to Schoolcraft, where he has since resided. He has from the dawn of his manhood taken an active part in the public life of his township and county, and has an official record that is almost unique in the annals of American citizenship. He served forty years as a notary public, and during thirty-six years of that period was also a justice of the peace. He was also township clerk ten years, deputy sheriff four years, county coroner four years, constable five years, school inspector two years and town treasurer six years. In addition to these he filled a number of other local offices, sometimes having four at once. Counting the years of his service in each of his offices as units, they number one hundred and seven, and in all he discharged his duties with fidelity and ability, to the satisfaction of the people and the advantage of the community.
In fraternal circles he has long been prominent and zealous. He has been an Odd Fellow since 1861. and has seven times represented his lodge in the grand lodge of the state. In political faith he is an unwavering Republican.
JAMES WALLACE BURSON.
For almost three score years this well known and venerable pioneer of Schoolcraft township, Kalamazoo county, has lived on the farm which is now his home and on which he was born on November 23, 1846. Since his very advent into the world it has sheltered him from the storms of life, and from its soil he has drawn his stature and his strength. He is the son of Abner and Agnes (Smith) Burson, the former a native of Loudoun county. Va .. and the latter of Colum- biana county, Ohio. The father was born in 1803. and was a son of Aaron Burson, a leading mer- chant and planter of Loudoun county in the Old Dominion, who moved, about the year 1827, to Columbiana county, Ohio, where he operated a salt well and raised tobacco two or three years. In 1830 the whole family, consisting of the parents, four sons and a daughter, came to Kalamazoo county, making the trip by teams and locating on the south side of Prairie Ronde on October 1. Three of the sons took up government land on Prairie Ronde and the other one on Gourd Neck Prairie. The father, Aaron Burson, dealt ex- tensively in real estate, buying and selling par- tially improved farms. They built a small log house, in which they all lived the first winter of their stay in this county, and here the parents died, the father in 1844 and the mother in 1861. All the children of that generation are also now de- ceased. Aaron Burson was a leading Whig poli- tician in this section at the time and took an active part in public affairs. His son, Abner Burson, the father of James, was reared in his native county and there learned his trade as a wool carder and weaver. He remained with his parents long after reaching his majority and ac- companied them to Michigan. He entered land in this county, as has been noted, and also aided in breaking up the prairie of the parental homestead.
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as well as the farm now owned by his son James, and on the latter he maintained his home until his death in 1899. He was married in Columbiana county, Ohio, and had four sons and four daugh- ters, who grew to maturity. Of these, two of the sons and three of the daughters are living. He put up all the buildings on his farm and brought it to a high state of development and cultivation. When the Black Hawk Indian war broke out he enlisted for the con- test, but was never called into active serv- ice. In early life he was a Whig, afterward a Republican and still later a Democrat in politics, but he never sought office or became a very active partisan. He and his wife were attendants of the Methodist Episcopal church. James Wallace Burson, his son, was reared on the home farm and secured his education in the common schools. On this farm he has passed all of his life so far, be- coming the owner of it some years before his father's death. In 1878 he was married in Fulton county, Ohio, to Miss Ida M. Randels, a native of Columbiana county, that state. They have two children, their daughter Lottie E., now the wife of E. R. Smith, of Schoolcraft, and their son Abner R., who is living at home. The father is a Democrat in political faith, but he takes no active part in political contests. He and his wife are. members of the Methodist Episcopal church. They are now among the oldest residents of the town- ship and are respected and treated with consid- eration in accordance with the merits of their long and useful lives in the section which their citi- zenship adorns and has so faithfully served.
EBENEZER LAKIN BROWN.
Having reached the advanced age of ninety years, lacking only four days, and seen the fruits of his long and useful labors in abundant pro- duction around him, crowned with the veneration of his fellow citizens as a pioneer and one of the fathers of the state, and serene in the conscious- ness that he had never knowingly neglected a duty or wronged a fellow being, this honored patriarch surrendered his earthly trust on April 12, 1899, at the behest of the great Disposer of
human events, and was laid to rest in the soil he had helped to redeem from the wilderness and transform into comeliness and bountiful fertility. He was born on April 16, 1809, at Plymouth, Vt .. the son of Thomas and Sally ( Parker) Brown, of pure New England stock. His father was the fourth in descent from John Brown, of Hawk- den, Suffolk county, England, who, on April 24. 1655, married Esther Makepeace, of Boston, Lin- coln county, of the same country. Theyimmediate- ly sailed for America, and on their arrival in this country settled at Watertown, Mass. Mr. Brown's mother was born at Westford, that state. From her he inherited the scholarly tastes and love of books which were the joy of his life and the solace of his declining years. She was well edu- cated, and being naturally of a quick and strong mental organism, she improved her opportuni- ties to the utmost, becoming a well read and ac- complished lady according to the fashion of her day. She was very fond of the English classics, and was accustomed to repeat long passages from them to her children, and in this way the taste of her son was formed and his intellectual activity quickened. The father, on the other hand, was a man of great physical vigor, and was through- out his life from boyhood inured to hard labor with no opportunities for advanced education. In the character of the son the rugged virtues of his father and the fine sensibilities and sparkling in- telligence of his mother were duly and harmoni- ously commingled. And on this basis he builded a manhood and achieved a career admirable to all who had discriminating knowledge of them and to the people among whom he lived serviceable to an unusual degree. The family comprised eleven children, all of whom except a son named Joseph, who died at the age of ten years, grew to maturity and had families of their own. Eben- ezer was a slight and delicate youth, of nervous temperament, fond of books and study and keenly observant of all the products and the ways of nature. Although he did not take kindly to the arduous life on a rocky New England farm, he did his duty faithfully, according to his strength, of the paternal homestead, and there grew to man- hood amid the inspiring scenery of the Green
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Mountain region, alternating bis labors with read- ing and such recreations as the neighborhood af- forded in the way of hunting and fishing. When he reached man's estate, filled with ambition for an independent career, and in quest of broader fields of opportunity, he left the family rooftree and made his way to the wilds of Michigan. Be- ing well pleased with this section of the country, after a visit of a few weeks at the home of an uncle at Ann Arbor, he returned to Vermont for the winter and to make preparations for a change of residence to this state. The next year, which was 1831, he arrived at Schoolcraft in this county on November 5th, determined to make his perma- nent home there; and there for almost seventy years he resided, his life intimately interwoven with the growth of institutions, the development of the state and the progress of events. He had many and varied experiences on his way to his new home, and for years after his arrival he was confronted with all the perils and opposed by all the difficulties incident to the most strenuous and trying frontier life. For a long time he engaged in mercantile pursuits and in his business he had his share of troublés and difficulties, but his reso- lute spirit triumphed over them all and in time he became prosperous and substantially wealthy. He also took an active and leading part in public affairs in the primitive community, where men of force, breadth of view and culture were at a high premium of appreciation, and in 1837 he was elected a member of the board of county commis- sioners, following this service in 1840 by mem- bership in the state house of representatives, which at that time met at Detroit. He was then a Whig in politics, but with the organization of the Republican party, which embodied in its prin- ciples his most pronounced convictions on the subjects of negro slavery and the liquor traffic, he joined that organization, and in 1854 was elected to the state senate as its candidate. In this body he had as colleagues Mr. Conger, of St. Clair, and Austin Blair, of Jackson, but able and distinguished as they and other members of the senate were, he held his place abreast with them and ranked as their equal in intellectual power, breadth and force of character and knowl-
edge of public affairs. In the spring of 1857 he was elected regent of the State University for a term of six years, during which he rendered valuable service to the institution and through it to the people of the state. Again in 1878 he was chosen to the state senate, and with his service there he closed his public career, refusing to stand for another term; for dear as was the state of his adoption to him, and deeply interested as he was in all that pertained to its enduring wel- fare, he was strongly averse to political life and official station, declaring on one occasion, "there is so much that is mean and degrading in the methods employed to obtain office, that I abhor the whole thing." On January 5, 1837, he was married to Miss Amelia W. Scott. They had four children, of whom the only survivor is their daughter, Amelia Ada. Her mother died on October 9, 1848, and four years afterward he mar- ried Miss Mary Ann Miles, of Hineburg, Vt., who bore him three sons, Edward Miles, George Lakin and Addison Makepeace, the second of whom died in boyhood. Edward is professor of English literature in the University of Cincin- nati and Addison is secretary of the State Agri- cultural College at Lansing. The father was a man of fine literature culture, well tutored in the Latin classics, and had a delicate and beautiful fancy that found frequent expression in poetry of a high order, not written for publication, but often finding its way into print. After his death the state senate passed the following tribute of respect to his memory :
Whereas, The senate has learned with sorrow and deep regret, of the death of Hon. E. Lakin Brown, a former member of the senate, one of the pioneers of the state, and father of the present senator from the ninth senatorial district;
Born at Rutland, Vt., on April 16, 1809, de- ceased was one of the sturdy old New England stock that in the early 'forties entered the wilderness which is now this great state, and did so much to clear the way for its present great richness and pros- perity.
In 1840 Mr. Brown was elected to a seat in the Michigan legislature on the Whig ticket, but later he joined the Republican party, and in 1854 was elected to the state senate from the twenty-first dis- trict.
During this session he was active in securing the passage of a strong prohibitory liquor law, and a law concerning the return of fugitive slaves, the tenor of which was in accord with the advanced
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sentiment of the Republican party. In 1856 he was chosen a member of the board of regents of the Michigan State University, filling the position capa- bly for six years.
He had filled many positions of trust and honor in his county and village, and in all the official posi- tions that he filled, and throughout his career as a private citizen, he exemplified the Christian gentle- man, prudent and careful in the discharge of his du- ties, and manifested the integrity and sterling quali- ties of a long, honorableand successful business and private life. Therefore, be it
Resolved, That we deem it fitting to express the feeling of sorrow which is entertained at the death of the late E. Lakin Brown, and extend to his family our heartfelt sympathy.
Resolved further, That a copy of these resolu- tions be suitably engrossed and delivered to the fam- ily of the deceased, as a tribute of the senate to the deceased, and to his worth as an officer of the state and an honorable private citizen.
Adopted by the senate April 19, 1899.
R. B. LOOMIS, President pro tem. CHARLES S. PIERCE, Secretary.
EVANS MEREDITH.
The late Evans Meredith, who died in Kala- mazoo on February 9, 1904, was for more than fifty years a resident of this county, and from his boyhood was actively engaged in farming, first on the paternal homestead, which he helped to clear and improve, and later on a farm of his own, from which he retired in 1895 and took up his residence in Kalamazoo, where he passed the remainder of his life retired from active pursuits, dying at the age of sixty-eight. He was born at Alexander, Genesee county, N. Y., on November 25, 1836. His parents were David and Mary (Hawkins) Meredith, the former a native of Pennsylvania and the latter of New York. The father was a farmer in the state of New York from his early manhood until about 1843, when the family moved to Michigan and located in Pa- vilion township on a tract of wild land there on which they built a small log house and conducted farming operations with an ox team for a number of years. Sometime after settling on this land, and after improving it considerably, the father sold it and moved to one in Portage township where both the parents died at advanced ages and were buried in Maple Grove cemetery there. They had four sons and one daughter, all now deceased but two sons, Warren, who lives on the Portage township farm, and his twin brother, Walter, a resident of Allegan county. Mr. Meredith came
to this county with his parents when he was seven years old, and here he grew to manhood and re- ceived an elementary education in the primitive schools of his boyhood days. From an early age he aided in clearing the farm and its other labors, himself buying the first team of horses owned by the family, remaining at home until he reached the age of twenty-four. In 1865 he moved to Osh- temo township, buying there a farm on which he located. This he improved and lived on until 1895, when he retired from active work and made his home for the rest of his days in Kalamazoo. He was married in 1861 to Miss Lorinda Adams, a daughter of John and Rebecca (Lawrence) Adams, the former born in Connecticut and the latter in Vermont. Her parents came to this state in 1841, and died here after many years of pro- ductive industry on a farm which they developed and improved, each being eighty-two years of age at the time of death. Mr. and Mrs. Meredith had five children, David (deceased), Willis, of Kalamazoo, Mary, wife of George Hadley, Alice, wife of L. McDonald, of Kalamazoo, and Carrie, wife of R. Bell, of Kalamazoo, where their mother is now living.
NATHAN M. THOMAS, M. D.
If Columbus is justly honored as the man who awakened the American continent from her long sleep of ages and summoned her to her ca- reer of transcendent glory in the history of man- kind, and Leonard Calvert as the far-seeing and broad-minded colonist who first unfurled the banner of religious liberty among men, so in a smaller sphere, although a scarcely less important one, locally at least, the late Dr. Nathan M. Thomas, of Schoolcraft, is entitled to all rever- ence as the first practicing physician in Kalama- zoo county and the second in western Michigan. He was also one of the most indefatigable and faithful of this useful class of professional men, and adhered to his noble and self-sacrificing call- ing through difficulties and trials of every sort, and met its requirements with the determined persistency of a man wholly and religiously de- voted to his duty. He was born at Mount Pleas- ant, Jefferson county, Ohio, on January 2, 1803,
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the son of Jesse and Avis (Stanton) Thomas, who were devout members of the society of Friends. The Doctor's maternal ancestors were of that faith and from near the origin of the sect. They are traced back to Thomas Macy, the first settler on the island of Nantucket. The Doctor was a man of temperate habits, and under the teachings of Charles Osborn and Benjamin Lundy he became inbued with anti-slavery sentiments early in life. He studied medicine at his native place with Drs. Isaac Parker and William Pal- mer, and after attending the Medical College of Ohio at Cincinnati, he was examined in that city by the censors of the First District Medical So- ciety of the state, and licensed by them to prac- tice physic and surgery. He practiced nearly two years in Ohio, then came to Prairie Ronde, this county, and began practicing here in June, 1830. He became a member of the Medical Society of the territory, and took such other steps as enabled him to practice without violation of law. The country was sparsely settled and his practice took a wide range, covering a radius of thirty miles or more. In less than three months after he located in the county he had an attack of fever, and during its continuance he experienced all the privations of log-cabin life on the frontier. Under the treatment of another physician tem- porarily located at White Pigeon, some twenty miles distant, he speedily recovered and soon afterward resumed his work, although for two or three years, laborious as it was, it little more than paid his actual expenses of living. Soon, however, conditions so changed in the section that he worked rapidly into a lucrative business. In 1832 he bought ninety acres of prairie land for the sum of three hundred dollars, the most of the purchase money being borrowed, and the land, which had been held back for the use of the State University, being sold at a great advance over the original government price. By this time im- provements had begun at Schoolcraft, and the in- dications were that this village would be ere long the center of business for Big Prairie Ronde, Gourd Neck, and a large extent of the surround- ing country. He thereupon changed his resi- dence to that place, and his practice grew rapidly
to large proportions. He applied himself closely to business, during the first five years after he moved to Schoolcraft, never being twenty-four hours at a time out of the range of his work. For fourteen years he went about mostly on horse- back, and to this he attributed his continuous health and strength in spite of the great loss of sleep, long exposures to bad weather, and other hardships he was obliged to undergo. His brother, Dr. Jesse Thomas, who had studied with Dr. William Hamilton, of Mount Pleasant, Ohio, joined him and assisted in his practice in the summer of 1836. The brother attended a course of lectures at the Medical College of Ohio in the following winter, and again came to this county in the spring and resumed his place with the Doc- tor. This part of the country was very unhealthy for a few years after its first settlement, and the demands on the time and skill of doctors were continual and exacting, leaving them no oppor- tunity for other business, or even for the ordi- mary enjoyments of life. But as the sanitary conditions improved, and the improvement of his land and other business incident thereto began to claim more and more of his attention, the Doctor thought of gradually leaving his practice to his brother and seeking a well earned relief in other engagements which he deemed less exacting. But in the meantime his brother's attention was at- tracted to the growing importance and promise of a territory farther west, and in the summer of 1845 Dr. Jesse Thomas and Hiram Moore made an exploration of what is now Green Lake county, Wis., and the country adjacent thereto. This led to the removal of Dr. Jesse to the neighborhood of Green Lake in the spring of 1847. So Dr. Na- than was forced to continue in active practice awhile longer. But he invested his accumula- tions in land, and when he finally retired from professional duties he owned about two thousand acres, the greater part of which was, however, unimproved and yielded no income. He there- fore gradually sold the most of his land and placed the proceeds in more profitable investments. Throughout his residence in the county he was an ardent practical abolitionist, and as such in 1,840 helped to form the Liberal party. having pre-
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viously united with four hundred and twenty- one other male citizens of Prairie Ronde and Brady townships in petitioning the United States congress against the annexation of Texas to the United States because it was slave territory, their memorial being the first on the subject sent to congress from Michigan. The Doctor also united with others in petitioning congress from time to time to abolish slavery in the District of Colum- bia, and against the admission to the Union of any more slave states. In 1839 he joined a movement for the establishment of an anti-slavery paper in this state, the enterprise requiring of its promot- ers a vast amount of labor and considerable pecu- niary sacrifice. In 1845 he was the candidate of the Liberal party for the office of lieutenant gov- ernor of the state, and in 1848, when the Liberal party was merged into the Free-Soil party, he became a prominent member of the new organiza- tion, serving on the electoral ticket put up by it in 1852. In 1854 he was a member of the mass convention which organized the Republican party "under the oaks" at Jackson, being one of a com- mittee of sixteen delegated by the Free-Soilers to represent them in the organization then effected ; and he was also one of the nominating committee which selected the first state ticket of the new party. During the Civil war he cordially sup- ported the Union, and helped to urge congress to abolish slavery as a matter of right and a means of ending the war. For years before the war be- gan he was the Schoolcraft agent of the "Under- ground Railway," having been, in fact, one of its organizers. This enterprise was in active oper- ations more than twenty years, and during that period about fifteen hundred slaves escaped through this part of Michigan to Canada. On March 17, 1840, the Doctor was united in mar- riage with Miss Pamela S. Brown, a daughter of Thomas and Sally ( Parker) Brown, of Plymouth, Vt., and a sister of Hon. E. Lakin Brown, of Schoolcraft. Four children blessed the union, Avis, now deceased, the wife of John J. Hop- kins, Stanton, of Cassopolis, Ella and Malcolm. The Doctor died at his home at Schoolcraft on April 7, 1887, being at the time a stockholder in the First National Bank of that place. His wife is still living, aged eighty-nine years.
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