USA > Michigan > Wayne County > Detroit > Compendium of history and biography of the city of Detroit and Wayne County, Michigan > Part 104
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is an active worker in behalf of the cause of his political party and is one of the leaders in its local ranks. He is identified with various professional organizations, as well as those of fraternal and social order, and is a communi- cant of the Protestant Episcopal church, both he and his wife being members of St. Paul's church.
In 1891, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Chipman to Miss Rose C. Copeland, daughter of David Copeland, of Detroit, and they have three children,-Etole, Dorothy, and Helen.
It is scarcely necessary to state that Mr. Chipman has a wide acquaintanceship in his native city, where his popularity is of the most unqualified order, and no citizen views with greater pride and satisfaction the effective manipulation through which the advancement of the "Greater Detroit" is being promoted with so decisive assurance. In this connection there is almost prophetic wisdom in the words uttered by his honored father in a public ad- dress in this city a number of years ago, and these words merit reproduction here, as do they, indeed, in other contemporary publications which make note of the magnificent progress which the city is making: "There are many young men present in this hall to-day who are not aware of the fact that there is a Detroit ahead of them which they do not at present dream of. They have not given the future of this great city serious thought, and even if they had, but few are gifted with power to ap- preciate what she is destined to become. Time will be when Detroit will be one of the most populous cities in the country, favored in lo- cation, beautiful in architecture, and extensive in commerce."
FLOYD G. ARMS.
As one of the representative business men of the younger generation in Detroit, consid- eration is consistently given in this publication to Mr. Arms, who is secretary of the Hugh Wallace Company, of whose business a de- scription is given on other pages, so that a recapitulation is not here necessary ..
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Floyd G. Arms takes due satisfaction in claiming the fine old Wolverine state as the place of his nativity. He was born at South Lyon, Oakland county, Michigan, on the 28th of January, 1879, and is a son of Edwin I. and Alice M. (Gready) Arms, both likewise natives of this state and representatives of hon- ored pioneer families. The Arms family was founded in America in the early colonial epoch, by William Arms, who was a native of the Isle of Man and who immigrated to the new world in 1660, settling near Conway, Massa- chusetts, in which state the name has contin- ued to be one of prominence in the several succeeding generations. In the old Bay state to-day are numerous descendants of this co- lonial ancestor, and representatives of the name are also found in many other states of the Union. Israel Arms, who was a native of Conway, Massachusetts, was the founder of the family in Michigan. He came to this state in the early pioneer days and secured a tract of government land, on a portion of which the village of Webster is now located. He developed a considerable portion of his land, reclaiming the same from the forest wilds. and later removed to Brighton township, Liv- ingston county, where he continued in agri- cultural pursuits and also did a profitable busi- ness in the manufacturing of the old-time cradles, utilized in the harvesting of grain in the pioneer days. He died in 1856, one of the honored pioneers and influential citizens of the county to whose development and prog- ress he contributed most materially. His youngest son was Edwin I. Arms, father of the subject of this review.
Edwin I. Arms was born on the old home- stead in Livingston county, Michigan, in 1840, and was reared to the sturdy discipline of the farm, in whose work he early began to assist. His educational advantages were those afforded in the district schools of the locality and period. Upon the death of his honored father he became manager of the estate and the chief support of his mother and sisters. Later
he became a successful contractor, and in pur- suance of his business in this line he passed some time in the state of Illinois. In 1868 was solemnized his marriage to Miss Alice M. Gready, daughter of James Gready, who was a native of Bristol, England, and who settled in Wayne county, Michigan, in 1835,-about two years prior to the admission of the state to the Union. The section in which he then established his pioneer home is now included in Oakland county. Mr. Gready purchased a large tract of government land and reclaimed a valuable farm, to which he continued to give his supervision until his death, which occurred in 1869. His estate was then placed under the control and management of Edwin I. Arms, whose wife was the principal heir, and with the passing of years the property greatly ap- preciated in value, receiving the attention of Mr. Arms until he was summoned to the life eternal: his death occurred on the 21st of April, 1907. He was a man of forceful in- dividuality and sterling integrity, exerted much influence in his community and ever commanded the uniform confidence and es- teem of his fellow men. He is survived by his widow and their four children,-Anna V., wife of Lucius B. Rodger, of Detroit; Louise L., wife of Hugh Wallace, of Detroit; Nellie A., who remains with her widowed mother at their home in South Lyon; and Floyd G., who is the immediate subject of this sketch.
Floyd G. Arms secured his early education- al discipline in the public schools of his native village, where he completed a course in the high school, in which he was graduated as a member of the class of 1895. In the same year, at the age of sixteen years, he initiated his business career by assuming the position of shipping clerk in the establishment of the Acme Heating & Ventilating Company, of Detroit. This company was soon afterward succeeded by the Detroit Cold Storage Company, of whose plant Mr. Arms was superintendent from 1896 until 1898, inclusive. He then en- tered the Central high school in Detroit, in which he was graduated as a member of the
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class of 1899. After leaving the high school he became a traveling salesman for the West- ern Robe Company, of Detroit, and with this institution he has since been identified. In 1904 he became superintendent of the com- pany's plant, and in 1906 was elected secretary of the company, having shown much execu- tive ability and contributed materially to the advancement of the enterprise. In May, 1907, the business was incorporated under the pres- ent title,-the Hugh Wallace Company, and he has since continued incumbent of the office of secretary, whose duties receive careful and discriminating attention, while he also has gen- eral supervision of the manufacturing depart- ment and of the purchasing of supplies. Mr. Arms is an alert and progressive young busi- ness man and is loyal and public-spirited as a citizen. In politics he gives his support to the principles and policies for which the Republic- an party stands sponsor, and he and his wife are member of the Central Methodist Episco- pal church.
In April, 1905, Mr. Arms was united in marriage to Miss Henrietta G. Swan, daugh- ter of John Swan, who is a native of Scot- land and who is numbered among the repre- sentative citizens of Chatham, province of On- tario, Canada. Mr. and Mrs. Arms have two children,-Wallace Gilbert, born on the 10th of May, 1906, and Virginia, born January 24, 1908.
CHARLES B. WARREN.
As one who stands a splendid type of the progressive and loyal men of the younger gen- eration who have caused the city of Detroit to make such magnificent industrial and civic ad- vancement within the last decade, Mr. Warren is specially entitled to recognition in this work. He is one of the leading members of the Michi- gan bar, being engaged in the practice of his profession in the city of Detroit. His finan- cial interests are of wide scope and im- portance and enlist his services as an executive in a number of the great industrial and financial concerns of the city and state.
Mr. Warren was born in Bay City, Michi- gan, on the roth day of April, 1870, and is a son of Hon. Robert L. and Caroline (Beecher) Warren, both of whom were born in the state of Michigan. Robert L. Warren was reared and educated in Flint, and is a graduate.of the University of Michigan. He had much to do with the development and upbuilding of the Saginaw valley. He has attained distinction as a newspaper man in Michigan and as a citi- zen of great ability, wielding much influence in civic and political affairs. He was the founder of both the Bay City Journal and Sagi- naw Daily Enterprise, and was one of the first to publish a daily paper in the Saginaw valley. He was in the state legislature in the early days and has long been president of the board of trustees of the Michigan School for the Deaf, at Flint. He is now a resident of the city of Ann Arbor, and is editor of and controls the daily newspapers of Ann Arbor, all of which he has recently consolidated into one company. The Second district of Michigan selected him as one of its delegates to the national Repub- lican convention in 1908.
Charles B. Warren passed his boyhood and youth in Bay City and Albion, Michigan. He prepared for college at the preparatory school of Albion College, and continued his studies for a time in Albion College. He was president of his freshman class and was elected managing editor of the college paper in his sophomore year, but left Albion College and entered the junior class of the University of Michigan in 1889 and was graduated in 1891, receiving the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy. During his two years in Ann Arbor he gave especial at- tention to the study of history, philosophy and constitutional law. His class founded the lit- erary magazine of the University, "The In- lander," and Mr. Warren was elected by his class as the first editor-in-chief. After grad- uating he came to Detroit and entered the law office of Hon. Don M. Dickinson, under whose able preceptorship he continued his legal studies, being admitted to the bar of the state in 1893. To further fortify himself in the
Club Blanco
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learning of his chosen profession, he entered the Detroit Law School, then under the able management of Prof. Floyd Mechem, who later became one of the University of Michigan's most valuable law professors, in which school he was graduated as a member of the class of 1893, receiving his well earned degree of Bach- elor of Laws. He continued to be associated in practice with Mr. Dickinson until 1897, when he formed a closer relationship with the latter, being admitted to partnership as a mem- ber of the firm of Dickinson, Warren & War- ren, one of the strongest law firms in the state at that time. He remained thus associated until January, 1900, when the firm of Shaw, Warren & Cady was organized, his associates in the same being Messrs. John C. Shaw and William B. Cady and later Herbert K. Oakes. This professional alliance still obtains and the firm is one of the large, strong law firms of the state, doing a very extensive business.
In 1896 Mr. Warren was appointed associate counsel for the United States before the Joint High Commissioners who adjudicated the claims of Great Britain against the United States in the historic controversy involving the rights of the two nations in the Behring sea. This was a great honor and a most important work and immediately gave Mr. Warren a prominence in his profession and a standing in the front of the younger members of the Mich- igan bar. He is a member of the executive committee of the American Society of Inter- national Law, of which Hon. Elihu Root is president. The only other member from Mich- igan is Hon. James B. Angell, president of the University of Michigan. The calling of Mr. Warren to this position indicates the estimate placed upon his ability and his knowledge of the science of jurisprudence and of diplomatic procedure. For two years Mr. Warren served as counsel for the legal committee of the De- troit Board of Commerce, and his services are constantly sought as counsel by important busi- ness interests.
Notwithstanding the exactions of his large professional business, Mr. Warren is an active
factor in various important corporations in which he is financially interested, and he is ever ready to lend his aid and influence in the fur- therance of enterprises which tend to ad- vance the upbuilding and material and civic prosperity of his state and home city. He is a member of the directorate of the Old Detroit National Bank and that of the National Bank of Commerce. He was chairman of the committee that organized the latter bank, and is now its general counsel. He is a director and president of the Michigan Sugar Company, one of the largest industrial factors in Michi- gan, having a capital stock in excess of ten million dollars. This corporation is a consoli- dation of some of the largest beet-sugar manu- facturing plants in the state, owned by some of Michigan's strongest financial men, and Mr. Warren was the legal adviser in the organiza- tion and having been financially interested in one of the early companies, was elected the first president of the new corporation. He is interested in other local industrial corporations.
Though a staunch advocate of the principles and policies for which the Republican party stands sponsor, Mr. Warren has never sought political preferment. He was chosen one of Michigan's delegates-at-large to the Repub- lican national convention of 1908, which nomi- nated Hon. William H. Taft for the presidency. He is a member of the Detroit Club, the Coun- try Club of Detroit, the Yondotega Club, the University Club of New York city, the East Saginaw Club of Saginaw, the Huron Moun- tain Club, the Caledon Mountain Club, of Canada, and of various other social bodies in Detroit. He is also a valued member of the Detroit Board of Commerce. He was vice- president of the company which built the Outer Belt Line in Detroit, being associated in this enterprise with the late Joseph H. Berry and Colonel Hecker. He is vice-chairman of the alumni committee of the University of Michi- gan, which has charge of the erection of the beautiful memorial building on the University campus.
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On the 2d day of December, 1902, was sol- emnized the marriage of Mr. Warren to Miss Helen Wetmore, a daughter of Charles Wet- more, of Detroit, and a niece of Senator James McMillan. They have three sons,-Wetmore Warren, Charles B. Warren, Jr., and Robert Warren.
THOMAS E. CLARK.
In no field of industrial enterprise has there been so marvelous development and progress within the past two decades as in that of ap- plied electricity, and among those who have contributed in no insignificant way to this ad- vancement is numbered the subject of this sketch, who has long been identified with prac- tical and scientific electrical work, and who has invented and brought out a large number of important devices and improvements connected with the electric-lighting, storage battery and street-railway motor work. His research work and the inventions and patents he has brought out in the wireless telegraph and telephone field have won for him international reputa- tion. He is at the present time president and general manager of the Clark Electrical En- gineering Company and vice-president and di- recting engineer of the Clark Wireless Tele- graph & Telephone Company,-two of the im- portant industrial concerns which are contrib- uting to the prestige of the "Greater Detroit."
Mr. Clark was born in Tecumseh, Essex county, province of Ontario, Canada, on the Ioth of May, 1869, and is a son of Thomas and Mary (Mero) Clark, the former of whom was born in Detroit, of English parents, and the latter of whom was a daughter of Charles Mero, who was an honored early French set- tler and pioneer of Essex county, Ontario, where he was a prosperous farmer and influ- ential citizen. Thomas Clark was for thirty- eight years in the employ of the Grand Trunk Railway Company, having been roadmaster on the Great Western division of the system dur- ing the major portion of this long period. He and his wife are now living in Detroit, Michi- gan.
Thomas E. Clark, the immediate subject of this review, is indebted to the public schools of Essex county for his early educational training, and as a youth he learned the art of telegraphy in the Tecumseh & Belle River of- fice of the Grand Trunk Railway. In 1884, when but fifteen years of age, he worked in the position of night operator at several points on the Grand Trunk Railway, and in the autumn of the same year he took up a position in the employ of the Detroit Electrical Works, his object being to acquire a practical knowl- edge of the manufacturing of electrical instru- ments and appliances. In the spring of 1885, he went to the "Soo," Michigan, where he be- came connected with the managers of the West- ern Union Telegraph and assisted in the man- agement of the Bell telephone exchange. He remained there for a period of five years. Dur- ing the year 1888 he assisted in the electrical installation of the local plant of the Edison Electric Light Company. In 1889 Mr. Clark returned to Detroit, where he entered the em- ploy of the Detroit Light & Power Company, being identified with the equipment department until the autum of 1892, when he accepted a position as electrical engineer in the electric- launch department of the General Electric Company, for which he appeared as electrical engineer in charge of this department in the exhibit at the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, in the following year, having in his charge the largest collection of storage-battery boats ever assembled together up to that time. Mr. Clark followed up the electric-launch work with the Electric Launch Company. After the world's fair was over at Chicago, in 1893, he went to Tampa Bay, Florida, and installed a large electric power plant and eight electric launches in connection with the Tampa Bay hotel, in 1894, also installing the General Elec- tric Company's first charging stations and suc- cessful electric launches operated on the Erie canal at Schenectady, New York, placing charging stations and electric-lighting instal- lations (1894) at Haverhill, Massachusetts; Cleveland, Ohio; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Du-
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luth, Minnesota; Rockford, Illinois, and Pueb- lo, Colorado. In September, 1894, he severed his connection with the General Electric Com- pany at Schenectady and took up electrical en- gineering and superintending of construction for the Buffalo Electric Company, at Buffalo, New York, remaining at Buffalo until Sep- tember, 1897. During his stay at Buffalo Mr. Clark had charge of some of the largest elec- trical isolated-plant installations in that city, as well as the complete electrical work in some of the largest and most noted residences on Delaware avenue. In September, 1897, he again took up his residence in Detroit, in con- nection with the Clark Electric Company, at 176 Jefferson avenue, where he devoted him- self to developing a number of electrical patents and devices. In April, 1898, he severed his connection with the Clark Electric Company and took up special electrical-engineering work in the employ of the General Electric Launch Company, of Morris Heights, New York city. During the year 1898 he made some of the largest installations of electric-launch equip- ments that had ever been attempted up to that time, installing at Windsor, Connecticut ; Mamaroneck, Long Island, and charging sta- tions and electric-launch installations at points on Long Island Sound. Mr. Clark was the first to make successful installations of elec- tric launches on Lakes George and Champlain, as well as on Upper Saranac lake, in the Adi- rondack mountains, devoting the whole year to the installation of charging stations and electric launches for some of the wealthy, large-island owners in these vicinities.
While employed in this work Mr. Clark took up the study and investigation of high- frequency and high-tension alternating cur- rents, instituting many experiments along the line of wireless telegraph, or electrical-wave telegraph as it was then called. Mr. Clark was the first to show in New York city a small ap- paratus of this kind, in a lecture and talk given to the Electrical Society in New York city. In December, 1898, Mr. Clark again took up his residence in Detroit and engaged in busi-
hess for himself, opening an establishment at 166 Randolph street, under the title of the Electric Service & Appliance Company, and here carried on the manufacture of electrical devices, besides doing general elec- trical engineering and contract work. During the fall of 1899 and the spring of 1900 Mr. Clark brought out one of the first automobiles or electrical vehicles that ever operated suc- cessfully on the streets of Detroit,-the stor- age batteries, controllers and motors being all of his own design and manufactured by him- self. He tried to induce a number of the prom- inent men of the city to take up the automobile work but none of them at that time could see any future for the automobile business. In fact some of the men who have entered the field and made a success were approached at that time and predicted that the automobile would be of no commercial value. As the au- tomobile business developed in 1901, during that year and in the year 1902 Mr. Clark had the largest automobile garage in the city, in connection with his shop at 166 Randolph street, and took care of many of the first elec- tric vehicles that were brought to the city, in- stalling and manufacturing the charging ap- paratus and other equipments for such ve- hicles as were placed with customers here, be- sides having the care of these vehicles. While connected with the Electric Service & Appli- ance Company Mr. Clark made many large in- stallations of isolated electric-light plants, in- stalling all motors and generators as well as telephone systems, numbering among his cus- tomers some of the largest firms in Detroit and vicinity.
In October, 1903, he disposed of the Elec- tric Service & Appliance Company's business. During this period, i. e., from 1898 to 1901, Mr. Clark was continually engaged in experi- menting with and developing the wireless tele- graph, and in the spring of 1901 he began the manufacture of instruments for wireless tele- graph and telephone service, the same being principally for the use of universities, colleges and technical schools, and he was the first to
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manufacture such instruments for educational purposes. At the present time six hundred sets of his instruments are in use in educa- tional institutions of various grades. In 1903 he sold apparatus of this order, as models, to the Japanese government, and in the year 1904 he had a conference at Washington with Chief Signal Officer, General Greely, head of the United States signal corps, war department, through whose influence his instruments were secured for the use of the signal corps,-twelve complete sets being purchased immediately by the war department and installed on the forts and harbors surrounding New York; one of the principle installations was at Fort Han- cock, at Sandy Hook, New York. Later the United States navy purchased a number of the Clark wireless-telegraph equipments for use in Cuba and on the Pacific coast and on bat- tle ships.
The Clark Electric Engineering Company was organized and incorporated in 1903, with a capital stock of twenty thousand dollars, and of the same Mr. Clark has been president and manager from the start. In February, 1907, the Clark Wireless Telegraph & Telephone Company was incorporated under the laws of Arizona, with a capital of two and one-half million dollars, and this is the largest concern of the sort in the west. The officers of the company are here noted: Ruluff R. Sterling, president ; Thomas E. Clark, vice-president and directing engineer; N. A. Hawkins, sec- retary; and E. E. Collins, treasurer. These officers likewise constitute the board of direc- tors. More specific mention is made of this company on other pages of this work. The Clark Electric Engineering Company manu- factures electric specialties. This enterprise has become a large and substantial one.
Mr. Clark is an associate member of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and the National Electrical Contractors' As- sociation. He is a young man of marked en- ergy and business discrimination and his achievements in the domain of electrical science and especially in the wireless telegraph and
telephone field, have won for him an interna- tional reputation, as his work accomplished in 1908 on the wireless telephone is rapidly be- ing recognized throughout the world of elec- trical science. This is especially creditable to him in view of the fact that his knowledge and advancement have been the diametrical results of his own efforts. As an inventor he has a high reputation and is recognized as an author- ity in all branches of practical electrical work.
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