Compendium of history and biography of the city of Detroit and Wayne County, Michigan, Part 44

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

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"As a churchman Governor Baldwin was known and respected wherever the Episcopal church existed in this country, for all his long life he was most intimately connected with church work and had the confidence and per- sonal friendship of the bishops and clergymen of that faith. He was one of the fathers of the Episcopal church in Detroit, always active in her interests and always liberal-far beyond his means in some instances, for Governor Baldwin never was a millionaire-and when he donated the ground and later furnished most of the money for the beautiful St. John's church in Detroit, it was taken from his cap- ital. Over twenty years ago when he retired from active business, (he retired in 1861 but his name was retained in the business until 1878) he made a rule to spend all of his in- come each year, and a very large proportion of it went to aid struggling churches and in- digent church people. His aid was not con- fined to the church; to others he was liberal to a fault; as Burke said of Herbert, he 're- membered the forgotten.' He was a studious

man and read much. As a traveler he had visited nearly every land, and his reminiscences were very interesting." From the age of twenty-seven years until his death Governor Baldwin represented his parish in the diocesan conventions and was also a member of the standing committee. In 1844, at the age of thirty, he was elected a deputy to the general convention of the church, and he served in that capacity at every succeeding convention until he closed his long and distinguished service with that of 1892, the year of his death. In a tribute offered to his memory by Right Rev. Thomas F. Davies, bishop of the diocese of Michigan, appear these words: "There was something almost sublime in his fidelity to duty. Of slight figure and delicate constitution, he was often prostrated by severe illness and could never be called a strong or vigorous man. But his resolute will triumphed over the weakness of his body, and again and again he would sur- prise his friends by being at his post of duty when most men would have deemed it an im- possibility to make the exertion." Soon after his locating in Detroit Governor Baldwin be- came a vestryman and later became a warden of St. Paul's church, then representing the only local parish, and in 1858 he was the foremost in the founding of the new parish of St. John's, of which he was a warden thereafter until his death, loved and revered by all church folk in his home city and state. At the time of his demise the entire state mourned the loss of one of its most honored citizens, and the various organizations with which he had been or was at the time identified passed resolutions of me- morial tribute, while the people of his home city manifested a deep sense of personal be- reavement. A strong, true, noble man, it is certain that "his works do follow him."

Governor Baldwin was promiently identified with banking history in Detroit, and to his wisdom and administrative ability the financial stability of the city was largely due in many crucial periods. In all that made for the social, and civic advancement of Detroit he main- tained an abiding interest and his aid was given liberally to those enterprises representa- tive of the high civic ideals. Henry Porter

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Baldwin died on the 31st of December, 1892, and none better merited the "peace that passeth all understanding."

Governor Baldwin was twice married, his first union having been with Harriet M. Day, of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, whom he wedded about the year 1835 and whose death occurred in 1865. Of their several children only one attained to years of maturity, Percy Baldwin, who became the wife of Lieutenant George W. Rose, of the United States Army, and whose death occurred in 1896. In 1866 was solemn- ized the marriage of Governor Baldwin to Miss Sibyl Lambard, of Augusta, Maine, and they became the parents of one son and three daughters. The son is deceased, and the daughters are: Sibyl, who is the wife of Har- rison B. Wright, of Bala, Pennsylvania; Katharine, who is the wife of Walter P. Bliss, of New York city; and Mary L., who is the wife of Wyllys Terry, of New York. The only representative of the family in Detroit at the present time is the Governor's nephew and namesake, Henry P. Baldwin, with whom his relations were most intimate and paternal and who has assumed charge of many local in- terests formerly owned by the subject of this tribute. Of him individual mention is made on other pages of this work.

FREDERICK BUHL.

Within the pages of this publication will be found mention of those representative citizens who have been the founders and builders of Detroit, and among those meriting a place of distinction is the subject of this memoir, who was one of the pioneer merchants of the city and who was a citizen of sterling worth, hold- ing a commanding place in the esteem and con- fidence of the community in which were cen- tered for so long a period of years his various interests. He was a man of forceful individu- ality and played a large part in the business affairs of the Michigan metropolis, with whose annals the name is most conspicuously identi- fied, both through his life and labors and those of his brother, the late Christian H. Buhl, as well as by reason of the standing of the pres- under the title of F. Buhl & Company and the

ent generation in the civic and business life of the city.

Mr. Buhl was a native of the old Keystone state of the Union, having been born in Butler county, Pennsylvania, on the 27th of Novem- ber, 1806, and being the second son in a family of eleven children. His parents were of sturdy German ancestry and the Buhl family was founded in Pennsylvania in the colonial epoch. The parents were natives of the kingdom of Saxony, Germany, where they were reared to maturity and they immigrated to America prior to their marriage.

Owing to the conditions and exigencies of time and place, the subject of this review was afforded but meager educational advantages in his youth, but his strong natural mentality and his keen powers of observation and assimila- tion enabled him to effectually overcome this early handicap. At the age of sixteen years Mr. Buhl left his native county and went to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, for the purpose of learning the jeweler's trade, but his health be- came precarious and he did not long follow this vocation. In 1833 he came to Detroit, having first gone to Chicago, with which place he was not favorably impressed. In Detroit he entered into partnership with his brother, Christian H., of whom individual mention is made in this volume. They here engaged in the fur and hat business, building up a most flourishing enterprise, and the firm of F. & C. H. Buhl continued in existence for more than twenty years. Their operations in the handling of furs steadily broadened and strengthened and eventually covered the entire northwest. In 1842 they joined the successors of the American Fur Company in the purchasing of furs throughout Canada and the states border- ing on the Great Lakes, and they carried on a very extensive and profitable business under the original firm name until 1855, when Chris- tian H. Buhl retired, to enter the hardware business. Thereafter Frederick Buhl contin- ued the business in an individual way, becom- ing one of the largest shippers of furs in the country, as well as an importer and manufac- turer of furs. The enterprise was conducted

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concern gained a wide reputation for reliability and for the great scope of its operations. Mr. Buhl severed his active association with the business in February, 1887, when he sold his interest in the same to his son Walter, after which time the industry was conducted under the name of Walter Buhl & Company until 1898, when the business was sold to Edwin S. George.

Frederick Buhl was a man of great business sagacity and of most progressive ideas, and as a citizen he stood for all that was useful and loyal, taking an abiding interest in all that made for the advancement and material and civic prosperity of Detroit. He served his city as mayor in 1848, and the record of his admin- istration is one which lends perpetual honor to him and to the municipality. He was one of the original directors of the Merchants' Ex- change and Board of Trade, which was or- ganized in 1847, and was active in its work, as was he also in other organizations whose ob- ject was the promotion of the business and social interests of Detroit. He was a mem- ber of the directorate of the State Bank for a number of years, and was a director of the Second National Bank of Detroit at the time of his demise. He was prominently identified with the providing of street-railway facilities in the city and was for some time president of the Fort Wayne & Elmwood Railway Com- pany. He rendered valuable service as presi- dent of Harper Hospital, one of the noble in- stitutions of Detroit, and his contributions to the same were munificent. His political al- legiance was given to the Republican party and his religious faith was that of the Presbyterian church, of which he was a zealous and consist- ent member, having been for many years an elder in the Fort Street Presbyterian church. He was a man of clean mind, clean heart and consequently clean life, so that his influence was beneficent in whatever direction it was ex- erted. Mr. Buhl's death occurred on the 12th of May, 1890, and the record of his life and labors merits a place of honor in every publi- cation whose province is the consideration of those men who have been factors in the best business and social life of Detroit.

In 1836 was solemnized the marriage of Frederick Buhl to Miss Matilda Beatty, who, like himself, was a native of Butler county, Pennsylvania, and whose death occurred on the Ist of March, 1884. They became the par- ents of five children, concerning whom the fol- lowing brief record is given. Frederick A. en- listed at the inception of the civil war, became captain of his company in the First Michigan Volunteer Infantry, and served as such until he received the disabling wound which resulted in his death, at Annapolis, Maryland, Septem- ber 15, 1864: he was wounded in the groin at Gettysburg, was mortally wounded at Shep- ardstown and died at the age of twenty-one years. Walter Buhl is now living retired in Detroit. Frederica is the widow of James H. Ford, who was a representative business man of Detroit. Grace is the widow of Addison Moffat. Harry C. died, leaving two children.

JAMES McMILLAN.

In tracing the history of lives conspicuous for their achievements, the most interesting feature of the study is to find the key to the problem of their success. The more critically exact this study becomes, the more convincingly certain it is that the key is in the man himself. Usually men who achieve most, do it against the very obstacles before which other men suc- cumb. They gain it not more through special gifts than from the rallying of every gift and the full equipment of mind and body into the service of their purposes. The late Senator James McMillan, of Detroit, illus- trated in a very marked degree the power of concentrating the resources of the en- tire man and lifting them into the sphere of high achievement; of supplementing brilliant natural endowments by close application, im- pregnable integrity and marked tenacity of pur- pose. Along the manifold lines in which he directed his splendid energies and abilities,- as a business man, as a citizen and as a states- man,-he made of success not an accident but a logical result. Not yet have sufficient years elapsed since he was called from the scene of his fruitful labors, to enable us to gain a clear

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definition of the perspective of his life and thereby determine the full benefits of his serv- ices to the world. He was much to Michigan, even as Michigan was much to him, and in private life and exalted public office he was ever mindful of the claim of his home city and state. No work touching the lives of those who have been potent in connection with the upbuilding of Detroit can be consistent with itself without rendering a large measure of grateful recognition to him who is the subject of this brief memoir.

James McMillan was a scion of most sturdy Scottish lineage, and in his character exempli- fied many of the sterling characteristics of the race from which he was sprung. He was born in Hamilton, province of Ontario, Canada, on the 12th of May, 1838, and his death occurred in the city of Detroit on the 10th of August, 1902, at which time he was a member of the United States senate. He was a son of Will- iam and Grace McMillan, who were born and reared in Scotland, where their marriage was solemnized and where they continued to reside until 1836, when they immigrated to America, with the intention of establishing a home in the state of Illinois. En route, however, they vis- ited friends in Hamilton, Ontario, and finally decided to make permanent location in that city. Of the father of Senator McMillan the following has been written : "William McMil- lan was a man of exceptionally strong and sym- metrical character and of the highest integrity. His business interests were wide and his identi- fication with many important enterprises made his name well known throughout Ontario." He became specially interested in railway business, and from the inception of the Great Western Railway until his death, in 1877, he was con- nected with the same. He prospered in his business and was prominent in civic and church affairs. The McMillan home, if somewhat stern in discipline, after the fashion of those days, was one of comfort, intelligence and piety. The mother of Senator McMillan sur- vived her honored husband by several years and both were laid to rest in Hamilton.

James McMillan was afforded the advan- tages of the Hamilton Grammar School, a

preparatory institution maintained as a vir- tual adjunct of Toronto College, and in this school he was favored in having as an in- structor Dr. Tassie, an educator of marked ability and high reputation. The natural in- clinations of the youth, however, were in the direction of a business career, and after re- ceiving good practical training in the school mentioned, he voluntarily withdrew when but fourteen years of age, in order that he might initiate his business career. He secured em- ployment in a hardware establishment in his native city and there devoted four years to learning the details of the business.

In the year 1855 James McMillan, then sev- enteen years of age, came to Detroit from Hamilton, Ontario. Upon his arrival in the Michigan metropolis he presented letters of introduction to several of the influential mer- chants of the city, and with one of these he forthwith secured a place in the line of busi- ness to which he had been trained. Later, through the influence of his father, the young man became purchasing agent of the Detroit & Milwaukee Railroad. This place he gave up for a time, in order to accept a highly re- sponsible position with the railroad contractor who was finishing the western portion of that road. In 1864 his business ability led a firm of car builders in Detroit to seek him for a partner in their slender enterprise. The late John S. Newberry also joined in the partner- ship, and under Mr. McMillan's active and energetic supervision the Michigan Car Com- pany grew to be one of the great manufactur- ing concerns of the country, putting forth branches like the Detroit Car Wheel Com- pany, the Detroit Iron Furnace Company, the Baugh Steam Forge Company, and the De- troit Pipe & Foundry Company,-in all of which establishments between five and six thousand men were employed.

One success leading to another, vessel build- ing at the Detroit Dry Dock Company's works, passenger transportation between Cleveland, Detroit and Mackinac and further lake trans- portation by means of fast freighters, felt the controlling hand of Mr. McMillan. He was also the leading spirit in the semi-political

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railroad project to link the upper peninsula of Michigan to the lower by the road that is now the Duluth, South Shore & Atlantic; and it was his energy and money that carried the enterprise through, after death had removed several of his associates and when other ob- stacles seemed for a time insuperable. Of this road Mr. McMillan was president at the time he entered the United States senate, and he resigned the office shortly afterward. Always ready to take hold of new enterprises, like the introduction of the telephone in Michigan and natural gas in Detroit, there never was a time that Senator McMillan did not have leisure for social pleasures or money for charity and philanthropy. Extensive foreign travel aided in cultivating a naturally refined taste and led him to take a deep and intelligent interest in the Detroit Museum of Art, of which institu- tion he was president for several years.

Prompted by that appreciation and gener- osity which were a part of his very nature, Mr. McMillan gave to the University of Michigan a comprehensive Shakespeare library, and built for the Presbyterian students at that institu- tion a fine hall, to be used in connection with theological training. He also erected a large dormitory at the Mary Allen Seminary, an institution for the education of colored girls, at Crockett, Texas; and to Albion College, a Methodist Episcopal institution, at Albion, Michigan, he gave the splendid chemical labo- ratory building which bears his name. As the result of a careful consideration of the needs of his home city, he planned a free hospital for Detroit, and, in association with his part- ner, the late John S. Newberry, erected the Grace Hospital, on land set apart for such pur- pose by the late Amos Chaffee. The hospital was later amply endowed by Mr. McMillan and others, and he was its president at the time of his death. His private benevolences were large, but invariably discriminating and unostentatious, and his influence and aid were given most generously to all objects making for the progress and prosperity of Detroit.

Mr. McMillan ever gave an unqualified al- legiance to the Republican party and was an able exponent of its principles and policies.

His rare faculty of gaining and retaining the good will and esteem of men led Hon. Zacha- riah Chandler to secure his aid on the state central committee of the party, and years later, in 1886, when the party was very much in need of his services, he became chairman of that committee,-a position which he held almost continuously until he declined a re- election, in 1896. In recognition of these serv- ices, implying the successful maneuvering of forces in the various campaigns, the Republi- cans of the legislature in 1889 unanimously selected Mr. McMillan as United States sena- tor, and in 1895 he was re-elected to the sen- ate by a unanimous vote in the legislature, as a mark of the appreciation the state had for his effective work in this distinguished office. He was elected for a third term and was a member of the senate at the time of his death.

In the national senate Mr. McMillan's love of work and his ability to deal comprehensively with questions of detail, were of decided ad- vantage on the committees of commerce, post- offices and post-roads, naval affairs, and, es- pecially, on the District of Columbia com- mittee, in the chairmanship of which last he succeeded Senator Ingalls. At the same time his familiarity with the great industries of Michigan enabled him to be of service to his state, particularly when river and harbor mat- ters were under consideration. He continued in the harness until his death, and his term in the senate would have expired in 1907. His was a valiant soul, and the battle of life brought to him high honors worthily achieved. His was a strong character and one whose in- fluence is ever widening in the lives of those whom it touched.

Upon entering the senate Mr. McMillan relinquished the active management of much of his business to his elder sons, and there- after he gave his time and thought mainly to his senatorial work, though still maintaining his familiarity with and control over a very large group of enterprises. In Washington, as in Detroit, Senator and Mrs. McMillan be- came no inconsiderable portion of the city's social life, and their home in the national capi- tal became the center of a quiet but distin-

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guished hospitality. Since the death of her husband Mrs. McMillan has passed much of her time in Washington, where she still touches most graciously the social life of the capital, but she retains her affection and love for Detroit, a city endeared to her by the hal- lowed associations and memories of past years, and here she passes a portion of each year. In the year 1860 Mr. McMillan was united in marriage to Miss Mary L. Wetmore, daugh- ter of C. P. Wetmore, a representative citizen of Detroit, and of their six children three sons and one daughter survived their honored father. Since his demise one of these sons has been called to the life eternal. All of the sons were graduated in Yale University. Follow- ing are brief data concerning the children: William C. McMillan died February 21, 1997, leaving a widow and two children,-James T. McMillan and Doris McMillan. Grace (Mc- Millan) Jarvis died in 1888, leaving one daughter,-Grace McMillan Jarvis. James Howard McMillan died in 1902, leaving one daughter,-Gladys McMillan. Amy McMil- lan is now Lady Harrington, of England. The two surviving sons are Philip H. McMil- lan and Francis W. McMillan.

JACOB S. FARRAND.

He who serves is royal. We can not afford to hold in light esteem those who have wrought nobly in the past, nor fail to accord honor to those who have given an heritage of worthy thoughts and worthy deeds. Among those who have stood as distinguished types of the world's workers, none is more worthy of men- tion than Jacob S. Farrand, who wrote his name large upon the social and business his- tory of Detroit and the state of Michigan and whose life was characterized by signal purity of purpose and a high sense of his stewardship. He was a typical American citizen, thoroughly in harmony with the spirit of the republic, making the most of his own opportunities and working his way upward to success and to all that is desirable and ennobling in life.

Jacob S. Farrand was born in Mentz, Cayu- ga county, New York, on the 7th of May,

1815, and his death occurred at his home in Detroit, at five o'clock in the afternoon of April 3, 1891. He was a son of Bethuel Far- rand, who was a blacksmith and farmer in the old Empire state and who was of staunch French-Huguenot lineage. Bethuel Farrand came with his family to Detroit in 1825, more than a decade before Michigan was admitted to the Union, having secured the contract for in- stalling a primitive system of waterworks in this city, which was then a frontier town. The family arrived in Detroit in May and in the following autumn removed to Ann Arbor, where the father was eventually chosen the first probate judge of Washtenaw county. In Ann Arbor the subject of this memoir, who had previously attended the common schools whenever opportunity afforded, first became identified with that line of business in which it was his to rise to a position of prominence and great success. When but twelve years of age Mr. Farrand secured employment in a drug store in the little village of Ann Arbor, and the next year he carried the mail on the usually execrable roads between that place and Detroit, making the trips on horseback. It may be said that he was one of those men whose minds are certain to develop in breadth and strength, no matter how few the specific educational advantages, and he effectually made good the handicap of early years in this respect. Reading, observation and close asso- ciation with men and affairs brought to him a large and diversified fund of information, giv- ing him a most mature and symmetrical men- tality.

In 1830 Mr. Farrand took up his permanent residence in Detroit, where he became a clerk in the retail drug store of Rice & Bingham. Five years later, when but twenty-one years of age, he formed a partnership with Edward Bingham, of this firm, and engaged in the same line of enterprise. Within a short time thereafter he received appointment to the office of deputy collector of the port and district of Detroit, then including nearly all the United States shores of Lakes Huron and Michigan, and during the year 1841 he served as military secretary to the governor of Michigan, with

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the rank of major. In 1845 Mr. Farrand en- gaged in the drug business at No. 80 Wood- ward avenue, and in 1859 the late Alanson Sheley came into the firm, which adopted the title of Farrand, Sheley & Company the next year, upon the admission of William C. Will- iams to the firm. In 1871 the title became Farrand, Williams & Company, upon the ad- mission of Harvey C. Clark. In the mean- while the concern had become one of the largest wholesale drug houses in the west, and the buildings, at the corner of Larned and Bates streets, erected in 1872, were conceded for many years to be among the largest and best equipped of all occupied by similar estab- lishments in the entire Union. The annual business of the concern grew to be in excess of one million dollars, and Mr. Farrand con- tinued a strong directing force in his house, under various changes in partnership, until the time when he was attacked with the illness which eventuated in his death. He was senior member of the firm of Farrand, Williams & Clark at the time of his demise.

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Compendium of history and biography of the city of Detroit and Wayne County, Michigan, Part 44

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