Compendium of history and biography of the city of Detroit and Wayne County, Michigan, Part 39

Author: Burton, Clarence Monroe, 1853-1932
Publication date: 1909
Publisher: Chicago H. Taylor & Co.
Number of Pages: 858

USA > Michigan > Wayne County > Detroit > Compendium of history and biography of the city of Detroit and Wayne County, Michigan > Part 39

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Alexander Lewis was born in Sandwich, province of Ontario, Canada, on the 24th of October, 1822, and was a son of Thomas and Jeanette (Velaire) Lewis, the former of whom was born at Three Rivers, Canada, and the lat- ter in the locality formerly known as Ottawa, part of which is now the city of Windsor, Ontario. In the agnatic line the ancestry is traced to pure Welsh stock, and the maternal ancestry was of high-class French derivation. The paternal grandfather of the subject of this memoir immigrated from Wales to America about the year 1760, and settled at Three Rivers, Canada, where he passed the residue of his life. Thomas Lewis took up his residence in Sandwich, Ontario, when a young man and there he became a large landholder and an ex- tensive farmer. He was held in unequivocal esteem in the community and exerted much in- fluence in local affairs. He and his wife con- tinued to reside in Sandwich until they were called to the life eternal, and both were devout communicants of the Catholic church. They became the parents of four sons and four daughters, of whom only one is now living, Charlotte P., who is the widow of Henry P. Bridge, of Detroit, where she still maintains

her home. The father was for a time in serv- ice as a soldier in the war of 1812.

Alexander Lewis was reared to the age of fourteen years at Sandwich, where his early educational training was secured under the able tutorship of Rev. William Johnson, who was a graduate of one of the colleges in Dublin, Ireland, and who was at the time rector of the Sandwich parish of the Church of England. On the Ist of May, 1837, when about fifteen years of age, Mr. Lewis came to Detroit and secured employment in the general store of E. W. Cole & Company, at the corner of Woodward avenue and Atwater street, in which connection he received in compensation for his services four dollars a month and his board. He remained with this concern about two years, and for the ensuing two years he was in the employ of G. & J. G. Hill, drug- gists, on Jefferson avenue. At the expiration of the time noted, in 1841, he removed to Pontiac, where he was employed as clerk in a mercantile establishment until 1843, when he returned to Detroit, where he ever after- ward continued to make his home. Here he entered the forwarding and commission ware- house of Gray & Lewis, the junior member of which firm was his elder brother, Samuel Lewis. In 1845 he engaged in the same line of enterprise independently, by associating him- self with the late Henry P. Bridge, under the firm name of Bridge & Lewis. Their original headquarters were at the foot of Bates street, whence they later removed to the foot of Randolph street. This firm continued opera- tions for nearly thirty years, and in the mean- while, in 1862, Mr. Lewis established himself in the flour and grain business, on West Wood- bridge street, where he continued in active business until 1884. He built up one of the largest enterprises of the sort in the city and in the meantime made judicious capitalistic in- vestments in other lines, so that when, in 1884, he finally retired from the commission trade he found ample demand upon his time and at- tention in the supervision of his other large and varied interests, though he lived virtually retired after the year noted. He was in his

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offices daily until within a very short time before his death, and he kept in close touch with the advances of the day, retaining a vital interest in men and affairs.

Mr. Lewis was a stockholder, and the oldest director at time of death, in the Old Detroit National Bank, one of the strongest in the mid- dle west, and was at one time a stockholder in the Detroit Savings Bank. He was long a valued member of the board of trade, of which he was president for some time. He was a member of the directorate of the Detroit Fire & Marine Insurance Company, was a stock- holder of the Detroit Trust Company, and for fifteen years he was president of the Detroit Gas Company. He was the owner of much valuable real estate in the city and was one of Detroit's substantial capitalists.

In politics Mr. Lewis was ever arrayed as a stanch supporter of the cause of the Demo- cratic party, and he rendered effective and val- uable service in various offices of local trust. He was a member of the board of police com- missioners from 1865 to 1875, and from 1881 to 1887 was a member of the board of com- missioners of the public library of Detroit. In 1876-7 he was mayor of the city, and no in- cumbent of this chief executive office has ever given a more loyal and careful administration. He was a man of distinctive independence and his opinions were always well fortified, as were his convictions invariably based on conscien- tious motives. Of his service as mayor the following pertinent statement has been pre- viously published : "Mr. Lewis was elected mayor of the city under circumstances of the highest possible honor. The distinct issue in the election was as to whether the laws should be observed, and especially whether the law providing for the proper observance of the Sabbath should be enforced. Mr. Lewis, as the candidate of those who favored law and order, was supported almost unanimously by the re- ligious and moral elements of the community, was triumphantly elected, and fully, squarely and repeatedly opposed the violation of law, successfully carrying out the ideas of those who elected him."

Mr. Lewis was a communicant of the Cath-

olic church, in whose faith he was reared, and the other members of his family are identified with the Protestant Episcopal church. When he was summoned to the life eternal there came from every side marks of appreciation and sor- row, but even to those nearest and dearest to him in his ideal domestic relations there must remain a large and perpetual measure of com- pensation and reconciliation in having so closely touched his beautiful and useful life, which was prolonged far beyond the span al- lotted by the psalmist. The following editorial appeared in the Detroit Free Press at the time of his death, and is but one of many similar utterances of appreciation : "The meager num- ber of Detroit ex-mayors is diminshed by one in the death, full of years, of Alexander Lewis. There was nothing in his entire career out of harmony with what one might expect in a man who had been elevated by his fellow citizens to the position of the first gentleman of the community. In varied activities he had touched success at many points, and this gen- eration knew him as one whose life exempli- fied a beautiful content with the many honors fate had bestowed upon him and whose char- acter exemplified a symmetrical development, in which culture and polish had not weakened qualities of strength and force. The social side of Mayor Lewis was unusually attractive. A natural graciousness in manner and mind marked his intercourse with his associates. The affection entertained for him was of marked warmth and sincerity. The public spirit that caused his designation for many of the highest municipal responsibilities showed slight diminution with length of years. What type can inspire a higher incentive for imita- tion in those of younger years than the success- ful, public-spirited, admirable, unusual type to which this excellent and universally respected old gentleman belonged?"

On the 10th of June, 1850, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Lewis to Miss Elizabeth J. Ingersoll, who was born in the state of New York, whence she came to Detroit with her. father, Justus Ingersoll, who became one of the influential business men of this city. Mrs. Lewis died on the 4th of January, 1894. She

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was a woman of gentle and gracious attributes and was beloved by all who came within the sphere of her influence. Of the thirteen child- ren of Mr. and Mrs. Lewis, seven are living. Edgar L. is now engaged in business in the city of Boston; Josephine is the wife of Clar- ence Carpenter and they reside at Colorado Springs, Colorado; Harriet I. is the wife of Cameron Currie, of Detroit; Henry B. is a representative business man of Detroit, and is individually mentioned on other pages of this publication; Julia Velaire is the wife of Spen- cer Penrose, of Colorado Springs; Marion Marie is the wife of W. Howie Muir, of De- troit ; and Alexander I. is secretary and treas- urer of the Newland Hat Company, of De- troit.

THE LEDYARD FAMILY.

The Ledyard family, which has had dis- tinguished representation and recognition in Detroit, is one of distinctively patrician lin- eage, both direct and collateral, and the name is one which has been prominent and honored in the annals of the nation.

HENRY LEDYARD, the first to become a cit- izen of Detroit, of which city he was one of the early mayors, was born in the city of New York, on the 5th of March, 1812, and was a son of Benjamin and Susan French (Livingston) Ledyard. His grandfather, who likewise bore the name of Benjamin Ledyard, was major of a New York infantry regiment in the war of the Revolution, in which he rendered yeoman service, and after the close of the great struggle for independence, he became one of the organizers of the New York body of the historic Society of the Cin- cinnati, composed of those who had served as officers in the Continental armies. His cousin, Colonel William Ledyard, likewise was a valiant soldier of the Revolution and was in command of Fort Griswold, at Groton, Con- necticut, at the time of the memorable mas- sacre of the garrison by the British, in 1781. There he met his death through the treachery of an English officer.

BENJAMIN LEDYARD (2d), father of Henry Ledyard, was a representative lawyer and in-

fluential citizen of New York city, where he continued to reside until his death, as did also his wife, who was a daughter of Brock- holst Livingston, a member of the distinguished New York family of that name. Brockholst Livingston was graduated in Princeton Col- lege in 1774, served as aide-de-camp to Gen- tral Schuyler and General Alexander Ham- lton, and in 1778 was commissioned lieutenant- colonel. After the close of the Revolution he was engaged in the practice of law in New York city until 1802, when he became one of the associate judges of the supreme court of the state. Of this office he remained incum- bent until 1807, when he was appointed an associate justice of the supreme court of the United States, and he remained a member of this distinguished tribunal until his death, in 1823. He was a son of William Livingston, third son of Philip Livingston, who was the second lord of the historic manor of Livings- ton and whose eldest son was the third and last lord of this manor, in the state of New York; the second son, Philip, was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. William Livingston was graduated in Yale College in 1741, became a member of the Mid- dle Temple, London, England, in the following year; in 1759 he was representative of the Livingston manor in the colonial assembly of New York; in 1772 he removed to New Jer- sey, which he represented in the colonial con- gress in 1774-5, being recalled from that body on June 5th of the latter year to take command of the New Jersey forces, as brig- adier-general. In 1776 he was made governor of New Jersey, and he retained this dignified incumbency with high honor and ability until his death, in 1790.

Henry Ledyard was afforded the best of educational advantages of a preliminary order and in 1830 was graduated in Columbia Col- lege, New York city. He soon afterward entered upon the practice of law in the national metropolis, and he continued in the work of his profession until General Lewis Cass, second governor of Michigan, was appointed minister to France, whither Mr. Ledyard accompanied him, as an attache of the legation. The cul- ture and genius of Mr. Ledyard made him

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specially eligible for diplomatic preferment, and in 1839 he became secretary of the lega- tion. In 1842 he was made incumbent of the office of charge d'affaires of the same lega- tion, and of this position he continued incum- bent for two years. On the 19th of September, 1839, was solemnized his marriage to Matilda Frances, daughter of General Cass.

In 1844 Mr. Ledyard returned to the United States and took up his residence in Detroit, where he continued to make his home for nearly a score of years and where he was a distinguished figure in civic and social affairs and public life. He was one of the founders of the State Bank, in 1845, and in the follow- ing year he became one of the promoters and first trustees of Elmwood cemetery, of whose governing body he was secretary for many years. In 1846-7 he was a member of the board of education, in which connection he ren- dered noteworthy service in improving the public-school system of the city. In 1848 he became one of the promoters and incorporators of the first plank-road company organized in the state, and for many years afterward he was a director of various corporations of kin- dred order,-all of which were effective agen- cies in providing better means of communica- tion between Detroit and the interior sections of the state. In 1849-50 he was a member of the board of aldermen, and he became a mem- ber of the first board of water commissioners, on which he served from 1853 to 1859. In 1855 his fellow citizens in Detroit gave him the highest honor offered by the municipal gov- ernment, since he was then elected mayor of the city, by a gratifying majority. In 1857 he was elected a member of the state senate. This position he resigned soon afterward for the purpose of accompanying General Cass to Washington, the latter having been appointed secretary of state under the administration of President Buchanan. Mr. Ledyard remained in the national capital until 1861, when he removed to Newport, Rhode Island, which con- tinued to be his home until his death. In 1880 he made a visit to Europe, where he remained for but a short time, as his death occurred, in the city of London, on the 7th of June, 1880.

Mr. Ledyard was a man of distinguished and

courtly presence, representing well the gracious old regime, and his ideals in all lines were of the most exalted order. He was the friend of humanity and did much to relieve distress and suffering and to support worthy objects of char- itable and benevolent order. In Newport, Rhode Island, he continued to give potent manifestation of the generous attributes of his character, and it was chiefly through his ef- forts that the fund was raised for the estab- lishment and maintenance of the Newport hospital. In a sketch of his career appearing in Farmer's History of Detroit and Mich- igan, a concluding paragraph offers the follow- ing pertinent statements: "Although a great sufferer during the later years of his life, his zeal for the welfare of others showed no abate- ment. No considerations of personal discom- fort or inconvenience deterred him from his active efforts of benevolence. He was a daily visitor at the hospital which he had established, and many a sufferer within its walls gained re- newed hope and life from his tender sympathy and cheerful words of encouragement. It was said of him that his presence in the hospital was felt as a benediction. A great lover of books and possessed of a fine and critical lit- erary taste, he was an earnest advocate of the usefulness of public libraries as a means of edu- cation for the people, and for many years he took an active interest in the management of that venerable institution in Newport, the Redwood library, of which he was at one time president. In works such as these the last twenty years of his life were passed."

Henry and Matilda Frances (Cass) Ledyard were the parents of five children, of whom four are living: Elizabeth Cass Ledyard was born in Paris, October 1, 1840, was married at Newport, Rhode Island, April 9, 1862, to Francis Wayland Goddard. The latter died, in Boston, May 16, 1889. Mrs. Goddard is now living in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Henry B. Ledyard, was born in Paris, Febru- ary 20, 1844. Susan Livingston Ledyard, born in Paris, February 20, 1844, was married August 20, 1872, to Hamilton Tompkins, of Newport, Rhode Island; she died in 1873. Lewis Cass Ledyard, of New York, senior member of the legal firm of Carter, Ledyard

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& Milburn, was born in Detroit, April 4, 1850. He married Gertrude Prince, of Boston, April II, 1878. Mrs. Ledyard died in 1905, and in 1906 Mr. L. C. Ledyard was married the second time, to Isabelle Henning Morris. Matilda Spencer Ledyard, born May 27, 1860, in Washington, is now living in London. Mrs. Ledyard died in London on the 16th of Novem- ber, 1898. Both she and her husband were zealous communicants of the Presybterian church.

HENRY BROCKHOLST LEDYARD, who has maintained his home in Detroit since 1872 and who has well upheld the prestige of the hon- ored name which he bears, was the second in order of birth of the children of Henry and Matilda Frances (Cass) Ledyard. Few names in the United States have been more conspic- uously and potently identified with the history of railroad building and operation than has that of Henry B. Ledyard, who retained the presidency of the Michigan Central Railroad Company for the long period of twenty-two years and who is now chairman of its board of directors.

Henry B. Ledyard was born in the city of Paris, France, on the 20th of February, 1844, at which time his father was secretary of the United States legation in the French capital. A few months after his birth his father re- turned to America and took up his abode in Detroit, where the son was reared to years of maturity, so that he naturally retains a deep affection for the fair city in which many years of his life have been passed. Here he was afforded the advantages of the excellent pre- paratory school of which the late Washington A. Bacon was the head, and in 1859 he was matriculated in Columbian College, Washing- ton, D. C., where he remained a student for two years, at the expiration of which he en- tered the United States Military Academy, at West Point, to which he had been appointed as a cadet at large, by President Buchanan. He entered the institution on the Ist of July, 1861, and was graduated on the 23d of June, 1865, having thus been in this institution dur- ing practically the entire period of the civil war. On the day of his graduation, by two dif- ferent commissions, he was appointed second

and then first lieutenant in the Nineteenth United States Infantry. His first assignment was to Fort Wayne, near Detroit, and thence he accompanied his regiment to Augusta, Georgia, with recruits. During October and November, 1865, he was in service at Newport Barracks, Kentucky. From November 20, 1865, to September 6th of the following year, he was quartermaster of his regiment, and he thereafter held the same office with the Third Battalion until the 2d of November. In March, 1866, he accompanied his command from Ken- tucky to Little Rock, Arkansas, where the regiment was engaged in frontier service until the following September, though in the mean- while he had been assigned to duty in charge of Confederate prisoners at Columbus, Ohio, from June 15th to July 10th. He then returned to Little Rock, and for a time he served as chief commissary of the Department of the Arkansas. From October, 1866, until the fol- lowing February he was at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, having been transferred to the Thirty- ninth Infantry, of which he served as quartermaster. February 25, 1867, he was transferred to the Fourth Artillery, and in this connection he served on General Hancock's staff, as acting chief commissary of subsistence of the Department of the Missouri, being ac- tively identified with an expedition against hostile Indians. In October, 1867, Mr. Led- yard was ordered to West Point as assistant professor of French, and in the following year he rejoined his battery, at Fort McHenry, Maryland.

When, in 1870, a reorganization of the army was made, he secured a six months' leave of absence, under the advice of General Sher- man, and then entered the engineering depart- ment of the Northern Pacific Railroad, which was then under construction. This change, prompted by the belief that his chances for promotion in the army were at that time very uncertain,-in which belief he was upheld by his former superior officers, General Reynolds and General Hancock,-led him into the field in which he has attained so much of prominence and success. James F. Joy, of Detroit, an old-time friend of his father, was at that time one of the foremost figures

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in the railroad world, being president of the Michigan Central, the Chicago, Burling- ton & Quincy, and several other railroads in the central and western states. To Mr. Joy Mr. Ledyard made application for a position, and he was given a subordinate position as one of the lower clerks in the office of the division superintendent of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, in Chicago, whose service he entered in July, 1870. In the following November he resigned his commission in the army and received his honorable discharge. In 1872 he was appointed assistant superintendent of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, and in the following year he became division superintendent of its Eastern division, with headquarters at Chicago. In October, 1874, at the request of Mr. W. B. Strong, who was then appointed general superintendent of the Michigan Central, Mr. Ledyard came to De- troit as assistant general superintendent of the Michigan Central, with headquarters in Detroit, and in the following spring assumed in addi- tion the duties of chief engineer. In 1876, upon Mr. Strong's resignation, he succeeded to the position of general superintendent, through the kindly appreciation of Mr. Joy, to whom he has ever ascribed much of his success and ad- vancement in his chosen field of endeavor. In 1877 Mr. Ledyard was made general man- ager of the Michigan Central, and in 1883, upon the retirement of William H. Vander- bilt, he was elected to the presidency of that great corporation. This office he retained con- tinuously until January, 1905, when, in view of the consolidation of the Michigan Central with other lines in what is known as the New York Central System, he felt justified in tendering his resignation, which was accepted, but the directors of the company were un- willing to give up his services and unanimously requested that he take the position of chairman of the company's board of directors, which he consented to do, and which position he still holds. The great system of the Michigan Cen- tral, a model in its facilities and service, owes its upbuilding to its present high efficiency to no one man in so great a degree as to Henry B. Ledyard, whose technical and administra- tive abilities were given to its work with un-

abating zeal and prolific energy. His record is a virtual history of the road during his con- nection therewith, and it is, as a matter of course, impossible to enter into details within the compass of a sketch of this province. In- cidentally, however, it should be stated that his efforts in this connection have had a great and significant influence in furthering the indus- trial and civic advancement of Detroit, which city owes to him a debt of perpetual gratitude and honor, though his own instinctive reserve and modesty would never claim aught in this direction. This personal reserve, a sign of distinctive power in his case, has not been such as to create antagonisms among his associates and subordinates in the operations of the great railway system of which he was so long the head. His loyalty has begotten the same, and stockholders, officials and employes of the Michigan Central have the warmest and most appreciative regard for the man as well as the executive.

Mr. Ledyard is also a member of the board of directors of the Pere Marquette Railroad, a director of The Peoples State Bank, of Detroit, and chairman of the board of direc- tors and of the executive committee of the Union Trust Company of Detroit, an office which he assumed in the spring of 1908, not- withstanding the exactions of his other heavy executive duties; he is also one of the trus- tees of Elmwood cemetery, an office held by his father over fifty years ago. In politics he is a supporter of the old Democratic party, and he is a communicant of the Episcopal church, being one of the wardens and also chairman of the finance committee of Christ church. A man of spotless business and per- sonal reputation, a loyal and public-spirited citizen, he is honored and admired in the city in which he has so long made his home.

On the 15th of October, 1867, he was mar- ried to Mary L'Hommedieu, of Cincinnati, daughter of the late Stephen L'Hommedieu, who for more than a quarter of a century was president of the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Day- ton Railway, of which he was the projector. Mrs. Ledyard died in Detroit, March 30, 1895, leaving four children surviving her: Matilda Cass Ledyard was married in 1897 to Baron

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Compendium of history and biography of the city of Detroit and Wayne County, Michigan, Part 39

Author: Burton, Clarence Monroe, 1853-1932 Publication date: 1909 Publisher: Chicago H. Taylor & Co. Number of Pages: 858

Author: Burton, Clarence Monroe, 1853-1932
Publication date: 1909
Publisher: Chicago H. Taylor & Co.
Number of Pages: 858