USA > Michigan > Wayne County > Detroit > Compendium of history and biography of the city of Detroit and Wayne County, Michigan > Part 45
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Within the limits of a sketch of circum- scribed order, as must necessarily be the one at hand, it is impossible to do full justice to the life and services of so active and successful a man as was Jacob S. Farrand, but it will not be incompatible to mention the more prom- inent of his associations aside from that to which reference has already been made: He was a director and for fifteen years president of the Frst National Bank; was one of the incorporators and vice-president of the Wayne County Savings Bank; for nearly a score of years was president of the Michigan Mutual Life Insurance Company; was a director of the Detroit Fire & Marine Insurance Com- pany; treasurer of the Detroit Gaslight Com- pany ; for six years a member of the city board of education; member of the common council from 1860 to 1864, within which period he served one year as president of the body and for a short time as acting mayor ; for a quarter of a century he was a member of the city board of water commissioners, of which he was long president; for eight years he was a member and president of the board of police commis-
sioners ; was president of Harper Hospital, and Home and Day School governing boards, the Wayne County Bible Society and the Detroit Society for Sabbath Observance; trustee of the Eastern Asylum for the Insane, a state insti- tution; for thirty-five years an elder in the First Presbyterian church of Detroit; commis- sioner to the Presbyterian general assembly in 1863, 1869, and 1873, and to the Canadian assembly for the last mentioned year; the Pan- Presbyterian council, in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1877; and for many years he was receiving agent in Detroit for the American board of commissioners for foreign missions. These connections, even when thus briefly noted, in- dicate the activities of the man and the great scope and variety of his interests. He gave of his best in the furtherance of good govern- ment, of morality and the general uplifting of his fellow men. The generosity of a great heart animated him, and yet his judgment ever came into play in directing his benevo- lences.
At the time of his death memorial tributes from the various organizations with which he was identified were entered with every mark of appreciation, and to those permitted to know Mr. Farrand in a more personal and in- timate way came a most poignant sense of per- sonal bereavement when he was thus called from the scene of life's endeavors. His efforts in religious and charitable works were founded on deep convictions of duty, and, as has before been stated, he had a peculiarly high sense of his stewardship, especially after he had gained so large a measure of financial success. The causes of religion, temperance and general morality lay close to his heart, and he labored with all of zeal and enthusiasm to do good for others. It is needless to say that such a life was eminently characterized by unselfishness. As a citizen and business man he left an in- effaceable impress upon the history of his time, though ever modest in his attitude and toler- ant in his judgment.
From an editorial appearing in the Detroit Journal at the time of the death of Mr. Far- rand, are taken the following appreciative ex- tracts : "His name, prominent in a score of
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illustrious ways, was, in consequence of his long, upright and eminent business career, a household word in the state. In usefulness to the community he surpassed many another man who has filled loftier stations. Measured by the good he has accomplished, the evil he himself has forborne to do and has prevented others from doing, his life has been one of far more value than have the lives of men who have sought and obtained more prominent places and conspicuous honors. The lives of such men are public benefactions; their deaths public calamities. He deserves a public me- morial whose usefulness rather than whose ostentation shall preserve his deeds as an ex- ample and incentive to his fellow men."
On the 12th of August, 1841, was solemn- ized the marriage of Mr. Farrand to Miss Olive M. Coe, of Hudson, Ohio. Olive M. (Coe) Farrand was born at V'ernon, Ohio, April 12, 1821, a daughter of Rev. Harvey and Deborah (Eddy) Coe. On the maternal side she is descended from Samuel Eddy, son of Rev. William Eddy, of Cranbrook, Kent, England. Said Samuel Eddy was the first of the line to immigrate to America and his de- scendants figure prominently in colonial his- tory. One of these, Lawrence by name, served through the war of the Revolution and shared in the privations at Valley Forge. In the paternal line also Mrs. Farrand is descended from staunch Puritan stock, and among her more immediate forebears was her great-great- grandfather, Samuel Coe, who was a soldier in the Seventeenth Regiment, Continental line. He took part in the battles of Roxbury and Bunker Hill, and, being promoted to a ser- geancy in Captain Champion's company, Third Regiment, Connecticut line, he participated in the capture of West Point, in the battle of White Plains and in the storming of Stony Point. He was honorably discharged August 18, 1778, after three years' service, and was pensioned as a sergeant.
Rev. Harvey Coe, father of Mrs. Farrand, was a graduate of Williams College and was the second home missionary sent from Con- necticut to the Western Reserve. He was one of the founders of Western Reserve College,
formerly located at Hudson, Ohio, and now established in the city of Cleveland, and was one of its trustees as long as he lived. Of a scholarly temperament, and thoroughly equip- ped as to mental, moral and physical qualities, he was an important factor in the religious, educational and social development of Ohio. Inheriting the deep religious convictions of her ancestors and having a strong character and charming personality, Mrs. Farrand came to Detroit and to her new home admirably fitted for the responsibilities she was about to undertake. With her husband she united with the First Presbyterian church, gave it the lov- ing services of her best years, and is today the oldest member of the organization. Identi- fied with all of the many social, charitable and religious societies of the church for so long a period, and with the Protestant Orphan Asylum and other philanthropic institutions of the city, and holding a secure and positive place as the central figure of an ideally happy home, she won and has retained the admira- tion and confidence of all who have come within the sphere of her gentle and gracious influence.
Concerning the children of Mr. and Mrs. Farrand the following brief data are entered : William R. is one of the interested principals in the Farrand Company, of Detroit, and has other important capitalistic interests ; Jacob S., Jr., is an interested principal in the wholesale drug house of Farrand, William & Clark, and Olive C. is the wife of Richard P. Williams, likewise a representative business man of De- troit. An older daughter, Mary C., became the wife of Rev. James Lewis, a Presbyterian clergyman, and her death occurred December 3, 1889, at Joliet, Illinois.
LEWIS DAVENPORT.
The subject of this brief memoir was a pioneer business man and an important citizen of Detroit in the early days. He was famil- iarly known as Captain Davenport, owing to his prominent identification with local marine affairs.
A scion of a family founded in America in the early colonial days, Lewis Davenport him-
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self was a native of Petersham, Massachusetts, where he was born on the 20th of May, 1795, being a son of John and Eunice (Hawk) Davenport, both of whom were likewise born in Petersham.
The founder of the family in America was Thomas Davenport, who came from Wey- mouth, England, on the ship "Abigail," reach- ing Salem, Massachusetts, September 6, 1628. He became a large landholder in Dorchester, which is now the city of Boston, and was a man of influence in the community. He served as freeman in 1642 and as constable in 1670. His death occurred November 9, 1685. Of his nine children the next in order of direct descent to the subject of this memoir was Charles Davenport, who was born in Dorches- ter, Massachusetts, September 7, 1652, and who died February 1, 1720. Charles Daven- port married Waitstill Smith, and they became the parents of eight children. He served as selectman from 1700 to 1714, and held other offices of local trust, besides serving as an ensign. The next in order of direct descent was Charles Davenport, born in Dorchester, February 15, 1700. His son Thomas was born at Worcester, Massachusetts, April 19, 1736, and died in Petersham in March, 1818, that state. He was a minute man at the incep- tion of the Revolutionary war, serving eight days after the battle of Bunker Hill and later serving six months as a "coat man." His total term of service as a soldier in the struggle for independence extended from 1775 to 1778, and from July to September of the latter year he held the office of sergeant in his company.
His son John, the father of the subject of this memoir, was born July 31, 1761, in Peter- sham, and was reared to maturity in Massa- chusetts, whence he moved to the state of New York. In 1776 he served under General Bailey as one of the "Green Mountain Boys," at the inception of the war of the Revolution, and when he had attained to maturer years it was his to render valiant service as a soldier in the war of 1812, in which he was a member of Captain Pally's company in a command known as Forsythe's sharpshooters, from New York state. He removed from his native state
to Grand Island, Vermont, thence to Messena Springs, New York, and from the latter point to Green Springs, Ohio. He passed the clos- ing years of his life at Winamac, Indiana, where he died in 1838, at the age of seventy- eight years.
Lewis Davenport was reared in New York and Ohio and received such advantages as were afforded in the common schools of his day. As a young man he came to Detroit, where he engaged in mercantile pursuits, to which he devoted his attention for a number of years, eventually extending his interests into other fields of enterprise. He established the first steamboat ferry between Detroit and Windsor. He owned and placed in commis- sion for this service the vessel known as "The United," which was under command of Cap- tain Jim Forbes for many years. Captain Davenport continued to be identified with the operation of the ferry line until his death, which occurred at his home in Detroit, on the 8th day of September, 1848.
On the 26th day of January, 1826, Captain Davenport was united in marriage to Miss Sarah Horner, a daughter of Archibald and Elizabeth (Thorn) Horner, the former of whom was one of the pioneer merchants of Detroit. Mrs. Horner was a daughter of Cap- tain William Thorn, who commanded a British vessel on the Great Lakes during the war of 1812 and who died at Port Huron, Michigan, in 1842, at the patriarchal age of ninety-nine years. Mrs. Sarah (Horner) Davenport was born in the year 1810, and she survived her husband by three decades, her death occurring October 22, 1879. She was a woman of high character and many virtues. She lived a romantic life among the early settlers and the Indians, was married very young, and lived to occupy a conspicuous place among the noble Christian women of Detroit, with children and grand-children gathered about her.
A brief record of the children which grew to maturity of Lewis and Sarah (Horner) Davenport is as follows : Anna became the wife of Dr. George B. Russel, a distinguished phy- sician, and died June 8, 1888, (a memoir of Dr. Russel is published in this work) ; Lewis
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Davenport was a practicing physician, and died October 22, 1879, the same day as his mother; Sarah married Henry A. Wight, a prominent lumber merchant of Detroit, and died Septem- ber 6, 1901; Matilda C., who now resides in Detroit is the widow of General John A. King, United States Army, a soldier whose name is honored in the history of the state and nation.
CHARLES A. DUCHARME.
An enormous amount of vital strength has been used in the upbuilding of the city of Detroit, and this dynamic or energizing force has been the means through which the name and prestige of the city and the state have been carried to the furthermost corners of the world. The industrial growth of the Michigan metropolis has been on the whole one of some- what slow but substantial order, but within the past decade the advancement has been almost marvellous, though it stands as the diametrical result of the combined efforts and powers of its representative business men, among whom the subject of this sketch occu- pies a prominent and secure place, being second vice-president and secretary of the Michigan .Stove Company, the most gigantic concern of the sort in the world, throughout the most diverse sections of which its trade penetrates. Mr. Ducharme is a son of the late and honored pioneer of Detroit, Charles Ducharme, a tribute to whose life and services appears on other pages of this work, so that a further review of the family history is not demanded in connection with the present article.
Charles Albert Ducharme has well upheld the prestige of the name in his native city and here his capitalistic interests are of varied order and of distinctive importance, even aside from that represented by the company just mentioned. He was born in Detroit, on the 22d of September, 1858, and in addition to the beneficent influences and surroundings of a home of unequivocal culture and refinement, he early began to take advantage of the public schools, in which he secured his rudimentary educational discipline. This was supplemented by thorough study in Patterson's private
school, Detroit, in which excellent institution he remained during seven school years. Later he was for some time a student in the Michi- gan Military Academy, at Orchard Lake, and after leaving the same he was given the broad- ening advantages of nearly a year of travel in Europe.
On the 4th of August, 1879, he became a clerical employe in the offices of the Michigan Stove Company, of which his father had been one of the founders and the first president, and he has ever since been actively identified with the business. On the 28th of September, 1882, he was elected purchasing agent of the con- cern; on the 17th of January, 1887, was ad- vanced to the responsible position of secretary ; and on the 26th of January, 1903, while re- taining the office of secretary, he was also made second vice-president, of which two positions he has since continued the incum- bent. His influence in connection with the up- building of this giant industrial enterprise has been of no indefinite type and he has developed the most admirable powers of generalship and administrative finesse, so that he stands un- equivocally as one of Detroit's veritable cap- tains of industry, as well as one of her most loyal citizens. The "Greater Detroit" to Mr. Ducharme symbolizes what he knows is pos- sible of accomplishment and his aid and co- operation have been and continue to be given in the promotion of those measures and enter- prises which are conserving the advancement of the city to a still higher position as a com- mercial and industrial center. He is a member of the directorate of each the Union Trust Company, the People's State Bank, the Detroit Fire & Marine Insurance Company, and the Ireland & Matthews Manufacturing Company. He gained much by financial inheritance but has amplified and extended his interests through personal effort and executive force, having various other capitalistic investments in addition to those already mentioned and being the owner of valuable realty in his native city and elsewhere.
Though never a seeker of public office Mr. Ducharme has the fullest measure of civic pride and appreciation and in politics he gives allegiance to the Republican party. Socially,
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as in business, his position is a secure and admirable one, and he is identified with vari- ous local organizations of a representative character, including the Detroit Club, the Yondotega Club, the Country Club, the De- troit Automobile Club and the Huron Moun- tain Club, of which last he is a director. In a less localized way he is a member of the Society of Sons of the American Revolution and of the Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Michigan, of which latter he was one of the organizers, serving several years as its secretary.
On the 8th of June, 1881, Mr. Ducharme was united in marriage to Miss Caroline B. Philbrick, daughter of Elbridge G. and Mary (Packer) Philbrick, of Detroit, and the two children of this union are Charles B., who was born July 29, 1882, and Harold, who was born May 22, 1884.
DAVID WHITNEY, JR.
"He coveted success but scorned to attain it except through industry and honest means. He acquired wealth without fraud or deceit, and the results of his life are full of inspira- tion to the rising generation." These are sig- nificant words, and they were written concern- ing the subject of this memoir at the time of his death, which occurred on the 28th of No- vember, 1900. He was a dominating factor in connection with the material development and progress of the city of Detroit and the state of Michigan, and no shadow rests upon any portion of his career now that he has been called from the scenes and labors of this mor- tal life. His success, and it was great, was largely attained through his connection with the lumbering industry, and he was essentially the architect of his own fortune. He was re- served and reticent, never courting or desir- ing public notice, and evading the same by every legitimate and courteous means. But now that a perspective view of his career in its entirety may be gained, it is but consistent that at least a brief record of his life history be entered in a work of the province assigned to the one at hand.
David Whitney, Jr., was born at Westford,
Massachusetts, on the 23d of August, 1830, and his parents were likewise natives of the old Bay state, where the respective families were early founded. He bore the full patro- nymic of his father and retained the "junior" after his name ever after his father's death,- perhaps as a mark of perpetual honor to the latter. David Whitney, Sr., was a man of energy and resourcefulness, sturdy in the rec- titude of his character and endowed with that capacity for consecutive application which ever designates the true New England type. He was the owner of a good farm and was also interested in lumbering and brick-making on a small scale. He was a man of prominence and influence in his community.
The subject of this memoir was reared un- der the invigorating discipline of the farm, from whose fields and forests have come some of the strongest characters in our nation's his- tory, and his early educational training was secured in the common schools. From his boyhood he knew labor, and during the entire course of his life he never failed in appreciation of its dignity and value, realizing that skilled hands and industry constitute the master key of success and progress. Upon attaining to his legal majority Mr. Whitney left the farm and became clerk for a lumber firm which conducted a yard and box factory. He re- mained with this concern three years and within this period he gained considerable ex- perience which proved of value to him in his later business career. At the time of his resig- nation he was superintendent of the business, and after his retirement he instituted an inde- pendent career in connection with the lumber industry.
Mr. Whitney's success in these earlier years had not been of spectacular order but rested upon the firm foundation of energy, integrity and work. In 1857, at the age of twenty-nine, Mr. Whitney came to Detroit, and from the time of his arrival he was a member of the firms of C. & D. Whitney, Jr., and Skillings, Whitney Brothers & Barnes, in each of which concerns his brother Charles was an interested principal : the headquarters of the two firms were maintained in the east. He assumed per-
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sonal charge and management of their western business, which consisted principally in buying and shipping lumber and the purchase of pine lands and logs. For a time the two firms were numbered among the largest lumber dealers in the Union, and the subject of this sketch had charge of the extensive operations in Michi- gan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, while his part- ners supervised the interests in the greater por- tion of the east, including Canada. In the late '70s each of these firms dissolved partnership, and thereafter David Whitney, Jr., gave his attention more largely to investing in pine lands, principally in Michigan and Wisconsin. He had the prescience to determine how great must be the eventual appreciation in the value of such properties, and he grew to be one of the most extensive lumber operators in the two states mentioned. He was interested in the manufacturing of timber products and became the owner of large tracts of valuable timber land, from the development of which he gained his position as one of the millionaires of Michigan. The history of the great lumber industry of this state leaves record of his great and masterful operations.
Throughout the major portion of his busi- ness career in Michigan Mr. Whitney also had large investments in connection with lake- marine transportation, having owned a large fleet of steam barges and consorts. His fleet was utilized principally in the lumber trade, but it also came into effective requisition in the shipping of iron ore from the Lake Superior ports to manufacturing and distributing cen- ters on the lower lakes. He continued to be the holder of valuable timber tracts until his death, and also made large investments and improvements in Detroit realty. He was a stockholder and director in many banking in- stitutions, and was also numbered among the stockholders of a large number of important industrial corporations, and was the owner of manufacturing plants in connection with the lumber industry. Mr. Whitney did much for Detroit in the development and improvement of his real-estate holdings and was never lack- ing in loyalty and public spirit of a practical order. He was a staunch supporter of the
cause of the Republican party and was a con- sistent member of the Presbyterian church, to whose support he contributed in liberal meas- ure. In a thoroughly unostentatious way he also gave much to worthy charitable and benevolent objects and institutions, as well as to individual persons deserving of his aid and sympathy. His nature was strong and true, with perhaps a touch of austerity; he knew men at their real value and had no toleration of deceit or meanness in any of the relations of life. He did not come so largely to the at- tention of the public eye as did many of his contemporaries who accomplished less and who did less for the world, but he felt the responsi- bilities which wealth and success impose and ever endeavored to live up to those responsi- bilities, in the straightforward, undemonstra- tive way characteristic of the man. His name merits an enduring place on the roster of the honored and valued citizens of the state of Michigan.
ABRAHAM C. TRUAX.
The names and deeds of those who have wrought nobly in the past should not be al- lowed to perish, and it is in the making of perpetual record concerning such persons that a publication of this order exercises its su- preme function. The name Truax is one which is ineffaceably traced on the history of Detroit and the state of Michigan and which figures on the pages of our national history from the early colonial epoch to the present time. Strong men and true, gentle and gra- cious women, have represented the name as one generation has followed another upon the stage of life, and loyalty and patriotism have been in distinctive evidence, while the family escutcheon has ever been a symbol of integ- rity, honor and usefulness. In America there have been many distinguished citizens to upbear the prestige of the name, and not the least of these was Colonel Abraham Caleb Truax, the Michigan pioneer to whom this brief memoir is dedicated.
The Truax family in America is of French Huguenot extraction, and heraldic history shows that the family had been one of promi-
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nence and influence in France. So far as Maria Williamse Brouwer; and of Philippe du authentic data bear assurance, the first of the Trieux and Susanna de Scheene, or de Chiney. name in America was Philippe du Trieux, Abraham Caleb Truax was born at Schen- ectady, New York, February II, 1778. He was a cousin of Stephen Van Rensselaer, known as "the patron" of Albany, or Renssel- aerwick, whose possessions, forty-eight miles long, and twenty-four miles wide, extended over three counties. As a small boy Abraham C. Truax was left to the care of an uncle in Schenectady, where he was reared to maturity, having most meager educational advantages and early familiarizing himself with hard manual labor. His father was an ensign, or sergeant, in Colonel Abraham Wemple's regi- ment during the war of the Revolution, and this is shown on the muster rolls in the state department at Albany, New York, from No- vember 5, 1779, until October 29, 1781. whose name is found attached to a legal docu- ment recorded in "Dutch Manuscripts," vol- ume II, page 27, in the archives of the de- partment of the secretary of state of New York and bearing date of October 7, 1623. The name has undergone various changes in orthography and pronunciation during the long intervening years, and it is a singular fact that the descendants in the state of New York invariably spell the name Truax, while those of New Jersey usually designate the patrony- mic as Truex. The coat-of-arms of the family is preserved by the American branch and is most interesting in at least an heraldic sense. The motto is "Bien faire et ne rien craindre," and the summary of the device, as interpreted from the heraldic symbolism, is that a knight or warrior, known as Dutrieu de Terdonck, with the rank of a peer, represented with a stirrup suspended from his dexter hand, won victory while in the stirrup on the field of bat- tle, and was rewarded, at different times, by a gold star of six radiating points. On the escutcheon this star appears thrice, and the place of honor is held by another reproduction of a stirrup.
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