USA > Michigan > Wayne County > Detroit > Compendium of history and biography of the city of Detroit and Wayne County, Michigan > Part 47
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On the 2d of May, 1867, Mr. McMillan was united in marriage to Miss Ellen Dyar, whose death occurred on the 9th of February, 1894. They became the parents of three sons and one daughter: Gilbert N., Alice, Harold D. (deceased), and Maurice B. In 1899 Mr. McMillan contracted a second marriage, being then united to Miss Josephine Warfield, a na-
tive of Maryland, who survives him, as do also their two sons-Hugh, Jr., and William.
HON. JOHN S. NEWBERRY.
With the history of the city of Detroit the name of John S. Newberry was inseparably identified for a period of more than thirty years, and through all the days to come will there be accorded to him a tribute of honor as a man of high intellectuality, sterling in- tegrity and pronounced business and profes- sional acumen, and as one who contributed in no small measure to the progress and prosperity of the beautiful metropolis of Michigan. Many men excel in achievements along some given course, but to few is it permitted to fol- low several lines of endeavor and stand well to the front in each. In the subject of this memoir is given a striking illustration of such exceptional accomplishment. As a lawyer he won pronounced prestige, public recognition and endorsement ; as a business man and manu- facturer he produced results of most positive character; and as a public official he served his constituency with signal fidelity and unques- tionable ability.
John Stoughton Newberry was born at Waterville, Oneida county, New York, on the 18th of November, 1826, and his death oc- curred in the city of Detroit, on the 2d of January, 1887. He was a son of Elihu and Rhoda (Phelps) Newberry, both of whom were natives of Connecticut and representatives of families founded in New England in the early colonial epoch of our national history. Thomas Newberry, grandfather of Elihu, im- migrated from England to America in 1625, and settled in Dorchester, Massachusetts, whence members of the family later removed to the state of Connecticut. When the subject of this memoir had attained to the age of five years his parents removed to Michigan, and after a short stay in Detroit located at Romeo, Macomb county, where he attended the local schools of the period, thus gaining his rudi- mentary educational discipline. Later he con- tinued his studies at Ann Arbor, Michigan, and finally he was matriculated in the University of
ENGRAVED BY HENRY TAYLOR JR
CHICAGO
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Michigan, in the literary department of which he was graduated as valedictorian of the class of 1845, duly receiving the degree of Bachelor of Arts. In the meanwhile he had acquired a practical knowledge of civil engineering and surveying, and after his graduation he at- tached himself to the construction department of the Michigan Central Railroad, in which service he remained two years, after which he spent one year in traveling through the west- ern territories. Upon returning to Michigan Mr. Newberry located in Detroit, where he took up the study of law in the office and under the preceptorship of the well known firm of Van Dyke & Emmons. Here he applied himself with such industry and energy that he was admitted to practice in 1853, having shown marked capacity for the accumulation and assimilation of the science of jurispru- dence. In the practice of his chosen profes- sion he became associated with Messrs. Towle and Hunt, under the firm name of Towle, Hunt & Newberry, and after the dissolution of this professional alliance Mr. Newberry entered into a partnership with Ashley Pond, under the title of Pond & Newberry, and a little later the firm was augmented by the admission of Henry B. Brown, later associate justice of the United States supreme court. Subsequently Mr. Pond withdrew from the firm and Messrs. Newberry and Brown continued their associa- tion until 1863, when Mr. Newberry decided to abandon the practice of law. While in the active work of his profession he confined him- self almost exclusively to the trial of admiralty cases in the United States courts, and before his retirement from the bar he compiled a val- uable work on that particular class of cases,- a work that has since been recognized as a standard authority in its province.
In 1863, in company with Messrs. McMillan, Dean and Eaton, Mr. Newberry took a gov- ernment contract to build railway cars for army purposes, and this venture proved highly remunerative, with the result that, in the fol- lowing year, the Michigan Car Company was organized and incorporated, with Mr. New- berry as president and one of the largest stock- holders. From this enterprise have sprung
some of the most important manufacturing in- dustries of Detroit,-notably, the Baugh Steam Forge Company, the Detroit Car Wheel Com- pany, the Fulton Iron & Engine Works, and many kindred concerns, in each of which Mr. Newberry was president and had large finan- cial interests. Under his administration the several industries transacted an average vol- ume of business ranging from three to five million dollars annually, and gave employment to nearly three thousand persons. Mr. New- berry was also largely interested in car-build- ing enterprises in London, Ontario, and St. Louis, Missouri. At the time of his death he was a director in each the Detroit & Cleveland Steam Navigation Company; the Vulcan Fur- nace Company, at Newberry, Michigan, a vil- lage named in his honor; the Detroit National Bank; the Detroit, Bay City & Alpena Rail- road Company ; the great Detroit seed house of D. M. Ferry & Company ; the Detroit Railroad Elevator Company; and many other prominent corporations of Detroit and Michigan.
Mr. Newberry was distinctively a careful and conservative business man,-so much so, in fact, that his death caused no cessation of business in any of the corporations in which he was financially interested and which had felt the strength of his directing influence. He was a large investor in real estate during the latter years of his life, especially in centrally located business property in the city of his home, and wherever his money was so placed it has proved of metropolitan benefit.
Upon reaching his legal majority Mr. New- berry attached himself to the Whig party, and he continued to support its cause until the birth of the Republican party, when he transferred his allegiance to this newer and stronger can- didate for public favor and support. He was the first person to be appointed by President Lincoln as provost-marshal of Michigan, and he served in that capacity through 1862-3, with the rank of captain of cavalry. During this interval he had charge of the drafts for mili- tary service and personally attended to the forwarding of the drafted men and the sub- stitutes to the field. Mr. Newberry was elected to congress, in 1879, from the first congres-
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sional district of Michigan, and served during the sessions of 1879 and 1880, within which he accomplished a most splendid work in the advancement and protection of the commercial interests of the country, as a member of the committee on commerce. He also served on other important committees, to the labors of which he devoted himself with earnestness and ability.
Realizing that his personal business was suffering during his absence in the national capital, Mr. Newberry positively refused a re- nomination, and until the hour of his death he thereafter devoted his great energies toward the development of his vast business enter- prises. In early life Mr. Newberry was a member of the Congregational church, but upon locating in Detroit he united with the Jefferson Avenue Presbyterian church, upon whose services he was a regular attendant and to whose support he contributed with marked liberality. In the matter of contributions to charitable and philanthropic causes he has had few equals in the city of Detroit, and his crowning act in this direction came after his death, when it was found that he had be- queathed six hundred and fifty thousand dollars to charitable institutions. Within the last years of his life, in company with his business associate, the late Hon. James McMillan, he founded Grace Homoeopathic hospital, in De- troit, to the establishing of which he con- tributed more than one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Mr. Newberry's abiding interest in his alma mater, the University of Michigan, was shown in no uncertain way, and a perpetual monu- ment to this and to his memory is Newberry Hall, a magnificent modern structure erected at Ann Arbor by Mrs. Newberry, for the use of the Students' Christian Association and as a memorial to him. A second consistent memo- rial erected in honor of Mr. Newberry is the Newberry Memorial chapel, which was built by Mrs. Newberry in 1887, at a cost of about seventy thousand dollars, and which was pre- sented to the Jefferson Avenue Presbyterian church of Detroit. This unique edifice is lo- cated at the corner of Larned and Rivard
streets, and is used for prayer meetings and other church purposes.
In the year 1855 Mr. Newberry was united in marriage to Miss Harriet N. Robinson, of Buffalo, New York, and her death occurred early in the following year. She left one son, Harry R. Newberry, who is now one of the representative business men and capitalists of Detroit. On the 6th of October, 1859, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Newberry to Miss Helen P. Handy, daughter of the late Truman P. Handy, one of the pioneers and most honored and influential citizens of Cleve- land, Ohio, and she survives her honored hus- band and still maintains her home in Detroit, as do their three children,-Truman H., John S. and Helen H. The last mentioned is now the wife of Henry B. Joy, son of the late James F. Joy, of Detroit. Truman H. Newberry was assistant secretary of the United States navy, to which office he was appointed in 1905, by President Roosevelt, and in November, 1908, he was made Secretary of the Navy ; and John S., president and general manager of the De- troit Steel Castings Company, is individually mentioned on other pages of this volume.
JAMES V. CAMPBELL.
The strong, true men of a nation are its crown jewels, their deeds are their crystallized thoughts, and their influence for good extends in ever widening angle even after they them- selves have been called from the scene of life's endeavors. The history of jurisprudence in Michigan, dignified as it is by many exalted names, finds none whose powers and labors have been more beneficent, fruitful and cumu- lative than were those of the honored subject of this memoir, who was for nearly two score of years a judge of the supreme court of this commonwealth, having received appointment to the bench of this highest of the state courts at the time of its reorganization in 1857, and having continued in active service until the close of his long and signally useful life. Of him one of the leading members of the bar of the state has written, with all consistency, the following words: "He exercised more in- fluence in settling and fixing the jurisprudence
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of this state than any other man, and to him we are indebted more than to any one of his associates for the high reputation obtained by the Michigan supreme court." This is, indeed, high encomium, and its strength lies in its ab- solute truth. A man of prodigious learning in the law, especially that of constitutional or- der, peculiarly familiar with the minutiæ of the English law, on which is based the Ameri- can, he yet spared neither time nor labor in his legal investigations and discussed all rele- vant questions with marked clearness of illus- tration, strength of argument and fullness and variety of learning. Of exalted character, ap- preciative of the sources from which issue all human motives and actions, his was essentially and primarily a judicial mind, and fortunate it is for the state of Michigan that his services were enlisted on the bench of her supreme court for so long a period. He was engaged in the practice of his profession in Detroit for some time and had already gained a high reputa- tion among his compeers of an exceptionally brilliant bar, but he was not long permitted to remain in the private work of his profession, having been still a young man when he was called to the supreme bench, whose work there- after demanded his time and attention until he answered the final and inexorable summons of the one supreme Judge of all.
Through a long line of the historic clan of Campbell in Scotland is traced the lineage of James Valentine Campbell, and the founder of the immediate family in America, a man pos- sessing the sturdy integrity and other canny traits of the true Scotsman, was his great- grandfather, Duncan Campbell, who was an officer in a Highland regiment and who set- tled on the Hudson river in eastern New York.
Henry M. Campbell, grandson of Duncan and son of Thomas Campbell, was born in Ulster county, New York, on the 10th of Sep- tember, 1783, and in early manhood he re- moved to the city of Buffalo, which was then a mere village. At the inception of the war of 1812 he took up arms and was made cap- tain of an artillery company in the American army. In October, 1812, he married Lois Bushnell, a representative of an old and hon-
ored New England family. Captain Camp- bell left his young wife in Buffalo and was absent with his military command at the time when that city, in 1813, was burned by the British. His own home was destroyed and his wife and her relatives found refuge in the adjoining forests before the English troops arrived. After the war Captain Campbell be- came a successful business man in Buffalo, and he was a prominent and influential citizen, having been elected a judge of the Erie county court, a position to which laymen were then eligible. This honored patriot became one of the pioneers of Detroit, having taken up his residence in this city in 1826 and having here passed the residue of his days, as did also his devoted wife, a woman of noble character and gracious personality. Judge Campbell, as he was familiarly known, became a successful merchant in Detroit and later engaged in the real-estate business, in which likewise he was prosperous, though he eventually met with somewhat severe financial reverses. He was prominent in public affairs and held various offices of trust, including that of associate jus- tice of the county court, county supervisor, alderman, director of the poor, etc., and he was also president of one of the early banking institutions of the city. He was a communi- cant of the Protestant Episcopal church and was prominently identified with old St. Paul's parish, the first organized in Detroit. He did much for the promotion and support of the work of this church and soon after uniting with St. Paul's he became its senior warden, serving in this office until his death.
Of the children of Henry M. and Lois (Bushnell) Campbell six attained to maturity, and all were afforded excellent educational ad- vantages, while all remained faithful adherents of the Episcopal church. Two of the daugh- ters married lawyers who attained distinction at the Detroit bar and another daughter was for nearly a score of years at the head of a successful school for girls, in Detroit. The fourth daughter died, unmarried, at the age of twenty-five years, and Henry M., who was born in 1821, was drowned in the Detroit river, in 1836.
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James V. Campbell, to whom this sketch is dedicated, was born in Buffalo, New York, on the 25th of February, 1823, and was thus about three years of age at the time of the family removal to Detroit, which then had a population of about two thousand, a very con- siderable portion of which was of French ex- traction. His father died in 1842, leaving, as has been written, "little to his family save a name unimpeachable for integrity and public spirit." The mother survived until 1876. The subject of this memoir was afforded the ad- vantages of the best schools of the period in Detroit and then was sent to an Episcopalian institution at Flushing, Long Island, an insti- tution conducted by Rev. William A. Muhlen- burg, a distinguished clergyman and educator. The school was amplified into a college and Judge Campbell completed the collegiate or academic curriculum, being graduated as a member of the class of 1841.
After leaving school Judge Campbell re- turned to Detroit and forthwith began reading law under the preceptorship of the firm of Douglas & Walker, and in 1844 he was ad- mitted to the bar, at the age of twenty-one years. He was admitted to partnership with his preceptors, Samuel T. Douglas and Henry N. Walker, both of whom were eminent law- yers of the state. Douglas, who married a sister of Judge Campbell, was editor of the reports of the supreme court of the state from 1843 to 1847, and Walker reported the deci- sions of the court of chancery of the state from 1842 to 1845. About this time Mr. Campbell became secretary of the board of regents of the state university, a position which he re- tained for several years. Prior to his eleva- tion to the supreme bench he had been en- gaged in the active and successful practice of his profession for about thirteen years, had been retained in many important litigations in both the state and federal courts and had gained unmistakable prestige. In 1857 he was elected one of the four justices of the reorgan- ized supreme court of Michigan, thus being one of the first on this bench under the new judicial regime. His associates, Judges Mar- tin, Manning and Christiancy, were all many
years older than he, and all had been chosen by the Republican party, then but recently or- ganized. By successive re-elections Judge Campbell continued on the supreme bench until his death, which occurred on the 26th of March, 1890, without premonition or prior illness, since he fell dead, from heart syncope, while sitting in his library.
When the law department of the University of Michigan was established, in 1858, Judge Campbell was called to the Marshall profes- sorship in that department, an incumbency which he retained for a quarter of a century. A history of that department of the great uni- versity which is Michigan's pride must ever bear recognition of the large and powerful in- fluence exerted by Judge Campbell in building up the law school, maintaining it at the high- est standard, and imparting to students from his great fund of technical knowledge that wise admonition and information which could not but bear fruitage in their subsequent pro- fessional careers. In 1866 the honorary de- gree of Doctor of Laws was conferred upon Judge Campbell by the university-the first degree of this order granted by the institution. His interest in educational matters was insist- ent and unflagging, and he was a member of the board of education of Detroit from 1854 to 1858. One of the public schools in this city has consistently been named in his honor. In the early days he was a member of the Young Men's Society of Detroit, a forceful literary and social organization, of which he served as president in 1848. The nucleus of the present fine public library of Detroit was that estab- lished by this society. In 1880, when the pub- lic library was placed under the control of a board of commissioners, Judge Campbell was made president of the body.
Judge Campbell's life work, however, was that of a jurist, and upon his record on the bench rests no shadow of wrong or injus- tice. His opinions appear in the State Reports of the Supreme Court Decisions from the fifth to the seventy-ninth volumes, and his opinions there entered number about three thousand. A sketch of this order has no reason to touch specifically upon the details of this record,
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but the very record itself is an integral part of the history of one of the sovereign states of the Union and must bear to future generations of lawyers and citizens in general the evidence of the patient and conscientious efforts and labors of a noble man and honest and able jurist. From an appreciative sketch of Judge Campbell's career written by Hon. Charles A. Kent, of Detroit, who was long associated with him as a member of the fac- ulty of the law department of the university. and who long practiced before him in the su- preme court, the following extract is made : "Judge Campbell had great learning, not only in the American and English cases and text books, including admiralty law, but also in the history of our institutions, local as well as gen- eral. He knew much of Roman law and the law of nations and of early French customs and something of other continental law. He was remarkably free from political bias or fear of public opinion or subservience to any tem- porary wave of public passion. The trust in his absolute integrity of motive was justly per- fect. He was very independent in his opinions. He had a strong sense of the justice of a case, and was very reluctant to yield his views of justice to the opinions of his associates or to any precedents. He wished to decide every case as appeared to him to be right, but per- haps he never manifested that love of arbi- trary power, that disposition to have one's own way at all hazards, which is natural to almost all human beings and appears occasion- ally on the bench. He had great faith in the people and in popular institutions and in all the great maxims and traditions of the com- mon law, but he had not the slightest trace of the demagogue. He had some strong preju- dices, but they were generally good prejudices, of a kind necessary to stability of character in the best men. He had no subtle theories nor much refined abstruse reasoning. In all his opinions he appears to have had chiefly in view the effect of the decision on what he thought the merits of the case before him. I think he seldom made a decision likely to strike the av- erage mind as unjust." In conclusion of the same article appear the following words:
"Perhaps the largest bar meeting ever held in Detroit attested the shock at his sudden death and the universal feeling that a great and good man, a learned and upright judge had passed away. His memory is lovingly cherished by all who knew him. His fame as a judge will depend on the number and importance of the legal principles established in his opinions. His life is a worthy model for imitation by all law- yers who would be governed by the highest ideals in private and public life."
In 1876 Judge Campbell published a volume of several hundred pages and gave to the same the title of "Outlines of the Political History of Michigan." His other publications, not numerically great, were articles in law maga- zines and addresses on various public occasions.
Reared in the faith of the Protestant Epis- copal church, Judge Campbell ever remained a devout and zealous churchman, wielding much influence in parish and diocesan affairs and taking a lively interest in the work of the church at large. For many years prior to his demise he had served as a member of the ves- try of St. Paul's church, Detroit, and for more than thirty years he was secretary of the stand- ing committee of the diocese of Michigan. In this connection it may be recalled that his hon- ored father was a member of the first standing committee of this diocese and was senior war- den of St. Paul's church.
On the 8th of November, 1849, was sol- emnized the marriage of Judge Campbell to Miss Cornelia Hotchkiss, who was born at Oneida Castle, New York, August 17, 1823, of New England stock, and who died in De- troit on the 2d of May, 1888. Of the children of this union six grew to maturity and five are now living. Henry M. and Charles H., the two eldest sons, are individually mentioned on other pages of this work, being representative members of the Detroit bar. Concerning the other children the following brief data are en- tered :
James V. Campbell, Jr., was born in Detroit on the 8th of July, 1856, and in his native city was reared and educated. He became one of the successful stock brokers of Detroit and continued to be engaged in this line of busi-
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ness here until his death, which occurred in September, 1894. In 1887 he married Miss Ellen A. Platt, of Lyons, New York, who sur- vives him, as does also their only child, Lois B., who was born in 1894, the year of her father's death. Miss Cornelia Lois Campbell, eldest daughter of the subject of this memoir, remains at the old homestead in Detroit. Douglas H. Campbell, who was born on the 16th of December, 1859, was graduated in the University of Michigan in 1882, and in 1886 he secured from his alma mater the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. He passed two years in effective post-graduate work in leading uni- versities of Germany, and in 1888 he accepted the professorship of botany in the state univer- sity of Indiana. Since 1891 he has held a sim- ilar chair in Leland Stanford University, Cali- fornia. Edward D. Campbell, the youngest son, was born in Detroit, September 8, 1863, and was graduated in the state university in 1885, with the degree of Bachelor of Science. In 1891 he became a member of the faculty of the University of Michigan and he is now di- rector of the chemical laboratory in this uni- versity. In 1888 he married Miss Jennie Ives, of Cincinnati, Ohio, and they have six chil- dren-Cornelia H., Edward D., Jr., Mary Ives, Jane, James V. and Charles D.
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