USA > Michigan > Wayne County > Detroit > Compendium of history and biography of the city of Detroit and Wayne County, Michigan > Part 48
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FREDERIC B. SIBLEY.
The honored subject of this memoir, whose death occurred in Detroit on the 8th of April, 1907, was a scion of one of the oldest and most distinguished families not only of this city but also of the state of Michigan, with whose annals the name has been indissolubly linked for more than a century. He himself was a native of Detroit, where he was born more than a decade prior to the admission of the state to the Union,-a fact which bears its own significance.
The Sibley family traces its lineage back through sturdy English stock, where the line has been authentically followed to the year 1066. The original American progenitor was John Sibley, who came to the New World in 1629, in one of the vessels of Governor Win-
throp's fleet. One of his descendants held the rank of colonel in the Continental line during the war of the Revolution, in which other rep- resentatives of the family were likewise par- ticipants, not less than ten of the name having fought at Concord. The same definite loyalty has been shown in succeeding generations, for members of the family have been found as patriot soldiers in the various other wars in which the nation has been involved.
Solomon Sibley, father of the subject of this memorial, was born at Sutton, Massachu- setts, October 7, 1769, and he was reared in that state, having studied law in Boston after due preliminary educational work. He was graduated in Brown University, a noted insti- tution of learning in those days. In 1795 he took up his residence in Marietta, Ohio, whence he later removed to Cincinnati, where he was engaged in the practice of his profession in partnership of Judge Burnett, a prominent fig- ure in the history f Ohio. In 1796, soon after the English had retired from control of Detroit, Solomon Sibley came to this place, being then twenty-seven years of age, and within a short time he here took up his per- manent abode. In January, 1799, he was elected a member, from Wayne county, of the general assembly of the Northwest Territory, in which body he was largely instrumental in procuring the passage of the act incorporating the town of Detroit in 1802. For his services in this regard he was officially granted the freedom of the new corporation. After the second election he became chairman of the board of trustees of Detroit, and under the first city charter, of 1806, was made mayor of the city, by appointment of Governor Hull. He was auditor of the territory from 1814 to 1817; was United States attorney from 1815 to 1823; delegate to congress from Michigan from 1821 to 1823; and one of the judges of the supreme court of the territory from 1823 to 1837. He was one of the most conspicuous and honored figures in the early history of the state, as the facts already given well indicate, and his name will ever be enrolled high on the list of the worthiest and mose useful pioneers of Detroit and Michigan. He continued a resi-
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dent of Detroit until his death, on the 4th of April, 1846.
In October, 1802, Solomon Sibley was mar- ried, at Marietta, Ohio, to Miss Sarah Whip- ple Sproat, and they became the parents of eight children, concerning whom the following brief data are entered: Colonel Ebenezer Sproat Sibley, of the United States engineer- ing corps, died in 1884, having been a grad- uate of West Point and having done a large amount of important government work in ad- dition to his gallant service during the civil war. He served during the Seminole war, also in war with Mexico, being quartermaster general in the latter. Katherine Whipple Sib- ley became the wife of Charles C. Trowbridge, of Detroit. Henry Hastings Sibley was a dele- gate from Wisconsin to congress, became the first governor of Minnesota and extinguished the Sioux rebellion in that state during the civil war, having been a colonel in the United States army at the time. Augusta became the wife of James A. Armstrong, of Detroit. Mary married Charles S. Adams, of the same city. Alexander Hamilton Sibley was a pio- neer in the development of the mines of the Lake Superior district and also those of Cali- fornia. Sarah Alexandrine never married and still remains a resident of Detroit, at the ven- erable age of eighty-seven years. Frederic B., subject of this sketch, was the youngest of the children, and he likewise remained unmarried until his demise.
Frederic Baker Sibley, to whom this memoir is dedicated, was born in the old family home- stead, which then stood at the northeast cor- ner of Jefferson avenue and Randolph street, Detroit, on the 23d of September, 1824, and after a rudimentary discipline in the local schools he was sent to Flushing, Long Island, where he continued his studies under the di- rection of Dr. Augustus J. Muhlenberg, a cele- brated educator of his day. After thus gain- ing adequate academic training Mr. Sibley re- turned to Detroit, where he began the study of law in the office of the firm of Joy & Porter, whose members were the late James F. Joy and George F. Porter. It soon developed, how- ever, that Mr. Sibley had no natural predilec-
tion or taste for the law, as he demanded a more active life, both temperamentally and for the sake of physical wellbeing. He accord- ingly became a fur trader, operating through- out northern Michigan, Wisconsin and Minne- sota, in which last mentioned state his elder brother, Henry H., was a pioneer, as already noted in this context. Frederic B. Sibley did not, however, long remain in that region and upon the inception of the civil war he took up his residence in New York city, where he became a successful contractor in army sup- plies. After the war he returned to Detroit, with whose business and social affairs he thereafter continued prominently identified until he was called from the scene of life's endeavors.
Of his principal business activities here the following account has been given and is con- sistently reproduced in this article : "Solomon Sibley was an extensive dealer in lands in Detroit and Wayne county, as the records abundantly show. One of his important ac- quisitions, in 1824, by United States patent, was in partnership with David Cooper, an assignee for Austin E. Wing, and consisted of three hundred and twenty acres in Monguagon township, Wayne county, on the bank of the Detroit river. In this parcel is located a bed of valuable limestone, which extends across the Detroit river into Canada and forms the troublesome reef known as the Lime Kiln crossing. The price was probably one dollar and a quarter per acre. Subsequently David Cooper sold his half interest to Sibley for twelve thousand dollars. After the death of his father Frederic B. Sibley acquired, in 1856, the claims of his brothers and sisters to this property, and added to his holdings over four hundred acres of farming land adjoining. He quarried and sold the stone until 1905, when he sold the quarry property, consisting of six hundred and sixty acres, to the Sibley Quarry Company, and also disposed of several other properties. He retained possession, however, of his fine farm of over two hundred acres, adjoining the quarry property. The abstract consideration for the quarry property was four hundred thousand dollars."
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Mr. Sibley was a man whose spirit was never soiled by unfaithfulness or unkindness. His was not a vacillating character and he ever had the courage of his convictions, but he was tolerant in his judgment of his fellow men, de- voted to those allied to him by consanguinity, and in a most quiet and unostentatious way showed his charitable spirit in effective lines. He was of the "old-school regime," but never lost his interest in the questions and issues of the hour, though he would never appear as a candidate for public office. For thirty years he was a director in the Detroit Savings Bank and he had other capitalistic investments in his home city. A noble and gracious person- ality indicated the man, and his life was one worthy of the honored name which he bore. Of the immediate family the only other sur- vivor at the time of his death was his maiden sister, Miss Sarah A. Sibley.
DE WITT H. TAYLOR.
Elsewhere within this volume appears a memoir to the late Elisha Taylor, father of him whose name initiates this paragraph, and as the family history is outlined in said article it is unnecessary to repeat the data in this con- nection. It may be said, however, that Elisha Taylor was one of the honored pioneers of Detroit, a distinguished member of the bar of the state and a citizen of the loftiest integrity and honor.
DeWitt H. Taylor was born in the city of Detroit on the 12th of August, 1848, and like his honored father he has attained to promi- nence in the legal profession and as a substan- tial business man and influential citizen. He fully availed himself of the advantages of the public schools of his native city and was gradu- ated in the Detroit high school as a member of the class of 1867. In the autumn of the same year he was matriculated in the literary department of the University of Michigan, as a member of the class of 1871, and after prose- cuting his studies for one year in this depart- ment he transferred his enrollment to the class of 1870 in the law department, in which he was graduated in the spring of 1870, with the degree of Bachelor of Laws. Shortly after- ward he was admitted to practice in the courts
of the state and the United States district court for Michigan.
About this time there was made to him a flattering business proposition, which he ac- cepted, thus entering actively into connection with commercial affairs of importance. With this department of enterprise he continued to be identified most successfully for a period of three years, giving his entire time and energy to the administrative and detailed duties de- volving upon him. In the summer of 1874 Mr. Taylor went abroad, and was absent for fifteen months, within which time he traveled extensively through Europe and parts of Asia and Africa, visiting Greece, Turkey, Syria, Palestine and Egypt. On his return to De- troit, in the autumn of 1875, he associated him- self with his father in the practice of law and in the real-estate business, to which he has since given his attention in a consecutive way, holding prestige as one of the representative members of the bar of his native city and con- trolling large realty interests in Detroit and elsewhere in the state.
In politics Mr. Taylor is a leader in the local ranks of the Republican party, in whose cause he has long been an active worker. For six years he filled the office of treasurer of the Re- publican city committee and he served five terms, of two years each, as a member of the Detroit board of estimates, of which he was president for one year.
In addition to his large real-estate holdings Mr. Taylor is a director and executive officer in a number of the prominent manufacturing corporations of Detroit. He is a member of the Jefferson Avenue Presbyterian church and is chairman of its board of trustees. He holds membership in the Detroit Club, the Detroit Boat Club, the Country Club and the Old Club, at St. Clair Flats.
November 5, 1894, Mr. Taylor was united in marriage to Miss Alice Andrus, and they have two children, namely : Agnus Amelia and DeWitt Elisha.
DEXTER M. FERRY.
The glory of our great American republic is in the perpetuation of individuality and in the
ENGRAVED BY HENRY TAYLOR JR CHICAGO
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according of the utmost scope for individual accomplishment. Fostered under the most aus- picious of surroundings that can encompass one who has the will to dare and to do, our nation has, almost spontaneously, produced men of the finest mental caliber, of true virile strength and of vigorous purpose. The cradle has not ever been one of pampered luxury, but this modest couch of infancy has often rocked future greatness. American biography thus becomes, perhaps, one of more perfect indi- viduality, in the general as well as the specific sense, than does that of any other nation on the globe. The self-made man is a product of America, and the record of accomplishment in this individual sense is the record which the true and loyal American holds in deepest re- gard and highest honor. These statements are distinctively apropos of the life history of Dex- ter M. Ferry, who as a citizen and as a man of affairs wrote his name large upon the an- nals of his time. Not in an ephemeral way is his name associated with the word progress, with moving forward in industrial enterprise, with every movement toward civic betterment, and not the least of his accomplishments in the domain of practical business and commercial activity was the building up of the magnificent enterprise which perpetuates his name,-the great seed house of D. M. Ferry & Company, of Detroit, the largest of the kind in the world and one which bears to every town, hamlet and township in the United States and to a less degree, Canada, the reputation of Detroit as a distributing center, while at the same time causing foreign lands to be cognizant of the same fact. The reflex of so great an indus- try upon the commercial status of the city in which are maintained its headquarters can not be overestimated, and in the loyal and appreci- ative efforts of those who have conserved the development of the greater Detroit there is imperative necessity for giving a most gener- ous recognition to the subject of this brief sketch. The great enterprise of which he was for so many years the head, is saturated with his personality, with his energy, aggressive- ness and sterling integrity of purpose.
Dexter Mason Ferry was born in Lowville,
Lewis county, New York, on the 8th day of August, 1833, and was the son of Joseph N. and Lucy (Mason) Ferry. The genealogy of the family is traced to remote French extrac- tion, but from England came the first repre- sentative of the name in America. In 1678 there arrived from the "right little, tight little isle" one Charles Ferry, who settled at Spring- field, Massachusetts, and who figures as the founder of the American line. With the his- tory of the old Bay state the name became prominently identified in the various genera- tions, and the sturdy characteristics of the progenitor have been fortunately perpetuated and have made for useful and honorable citi- zenship, loyalty and patriotism. Dexter Ma- son, maternal grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was a man of influence in the Berkshire region of Massachusetts, and represented his county in the legislature on several occasions. He was a cousin of the late George N. Briggs, of Massachusetts. The paternal grandfather of Mr. Ferry removed from Massachusetts to the state of New York and established his home in Lowville, Lewis county, where he passed the residue of his life, having been iden- tified with agricultural pursuits and other lines of enterprise. There was born Joseph N. Ferry, and there he was reared to manhood, receiving a common-school education. He continued to reside there until his death, in 1836, and his principal vocation was that of wagonmaker. Dexter M. Ferry, as compari- son of dates indicate, was about three years of age at the time of his father's death, and shortly afterward his mother removed with the family to Penfield, Monroe county, New York, eight miles distant from the city of Rochester. In this little village the future Detroit "captain of industry" passed his boyhood days, being afforded the advantages of the local schools and making good use of these opportunities. At the age of sixteen he initiated his indepen- dent career by securing work on a neighboring farm, and in compensation for his services he received the princely "salary" of ten dollars a month. He passed two summers in this line of work and in the winter terms attended the district schools. He was ambitious to secure
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more advanced educational training, and with this end in view, in 1851, he entered the employ of Ezra M. Parsons, who resided in the im- mediate vicinity of Rochester, so that the young man was able to attend the city schools when his services were not demanded on the farm. A few months later Mr. Parsons secured for his young employe a position in the wholesale and retail book and stationery house of S. D. Elwood & Company, of Detroit, in which city he took up his residence in 1852. He was at first errand boy in the establishment mentioned, was later promoted to the position of salesman and finally became book-keeper.
Mr. Ferry's identification with the line of enterprise with which his name has been so long and conspicuously linked, dates from 1856, when he became one of the organizers of the firm of M. T. Gardner & Company, seedsmen, joining the same as one of its junior partners. Under these conditions the business was conducted until 1865, when Mr. Gardner's interest was purchased and Mr. Ferry became head of the firm, whose title was then changed to Ferry, Church & Company. Two years later the present title of D. M. Ferry & Com- pany was adopted, and in 1879 the business was incorporated under this name. Of the development of the enterprise into the greatest of the sort in the world the article descriptive of the concern gives ample information, and thus this sketch will proceed to touch, rather, upon the distinct phases of the further career of Mr. Ferry. Of this interposition, however, the following words, appearing in Farmer's History of Detroit and Michigan, are worthy of further reproduction :
The building up of this great industry, which is far reaching in its influence, and contributes not only to the prosperity of Detroit but also to an army of employes, is doubtless a more beneficent factor in commercial affairs through- out the country than almost any other estab- lishment in the west. In its management from the beginning Mr. Ferry has had a decisive in- fluence, and that its great success is largely at- tributable to his persistent energy, sagacity, in- tegrity, and rare talent for organization, is freely and readily acknowledged by those most conversant with its beginning, growth and de-
velopment. Through this extensive commer- cial enterprise his name and work have been made more widely known than those of almost any other merchant in the United States.
The peculiarly intimate, almost domestic, re- lationship which this enterprise bears to the average home is what makes the reputation of the house and of the name of Mr. Ferry so far known, for few homes there are in which seeds, either flower or vegetable, are not de- manded, and no other concern in the world can claim as ample and high-grade facilities.
Mr. Ferry was distinctively a man with ideas and ideals, and he did not narrow his mental horizon within the bounds of personal advance- ment and aggrandizement. He was essentially loyal and public-spirited as a citizen, but his mature judgment kept him from diverging from practical lines in public affairs and pri- vate benevolences, even as in his business. He knew men and placed upon each his legitimate valuation, so that he was not one who could be cajoled by flattery or made to alter tenable opinions based upon honest conviction. Self- respect and self-control indicated the man and made him strong as a man among men. Such a positive nature may at times provoke enmi- ties, but these enmities emanate from sources . which tend to elevate the man himself in the estimation of those who best know him and who realize his actuating motives. These state- ments are made to show that Mr. Ferry's pub- lic spirit was not one of mawkish sentiment and self-seeking, and the same is true of his chari- ties, which were numerous and unostentatious. He made for himself a place in the commercial and civic life of his home city and from his vantage ground nothing could work to dislodge him. He held the ground because he had won it and merited it.
Mr. Ferry had numerous other important and varied positions and responsibilities aside from the great business concern of D. M. Ferry & Company. He was, at the time of his death, president of the First National Bank, Detroit, Union Trust Company, American Harrow Company, National Pin Company, Standard Accident Insurance Company, and Michigan Fire & Marine Insurance Company. He was
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also identified with the Wayne County Savings Bank, being the last of the original charter members, and several other local and outside institutions and corporations. He was also the owner of a large amount of realty in De- troit, including the fine building occupied by the extensive dry-goods house, the Newcomb- Endicott Company, on Woodward avenue, which was the first large building on Wood- ward avenue.
In the midst of the exactions and cares of his many business connections, which would tax the strength of the strongest, Mr. Ferry yet found time to place himself on record as an active worker in behalf of his home city and also in support of his political party. He was unswerving in his allegiance to the "grand old party" which had its inception "under the oaks" at Jackson, Michigan, and continued to be a stalwart advocate of the principles of the Republican party, being well fortified in his opinions as to matters of public policy and having a broad understanding of the agencies which rule political destinies as well as those of a commercial nature. In 1877-8 Mr. Ferry served as a member of the Detroit board of estimates, and at the expiration of his term declined renomination. In 1884 he was ap- pointed a member of the board of park com- missioners, by Mayor Stephen B. Grummond, and in this office he led a valiant campaign against the sale of beer and other intoxicants on Belle Isle, the city's beautiful river park,- an action which gained for him the approval of the best element of the Detroit population. In 1900 he was one of the prominent candi- dates for nomination by his party to the gov- ernorship, but was defeated after a most spir- ited three-cornered contest in the nominating convention. He was chairman of the Repub- lican state central committee from 1896 to 1898, inclusive, and most effectively directed the forces of the party in Michigan through the free silver campaign. In 1892, and also in 1904, he was a delegate at large from the state to the national Republican conventions of those years, in Minneapolis and Chicago respectively. In 1868 Mr. Ferry became actively identified with the official management of Harper Hos-
pital, but later served as vice-president of the board of trustees of Grace Hospital. He was a trustee of Olivet College and of the Wood- ward Avenue Congregational church of De- troit, taking a deep interest in and contribut- ing liberally to all departments of the church work of this denomination.
On the Ist of October, 1867, Mr. Ferry was united in marriage to Miss Addie E. Miller, of Unadilla, Otsego county, New York, who died November 2, 1906. One son and two daugh- ters are living, viz. : Mr. D. M. Ferry, Jr., of Detroit, Blanche Ferry Hooker (Mrs. Elon H. Hooker), of Greenwich, Connecticut, and Queene Ferry Coonley (Mrs. Avery Coonley), of Riverside, Illinois. The son, Mr. D. M. Ferry, Jr., of 1040 Woodward avenue, Detroit, in addition to his own interests, was allied very closely with his father before his death and has now taken his father's place very generally in the various companies and banks. He was born in Detroit in 1873 and was married shortly before his father's death.
Mr. Ferry died November 10, 1907, in his seventy-fourth year, just a year after the death of his beloved wife, whose absence undoubt- edly hastened his end. He maintained his vigor and health throughout, and his sudden death, due from the inroads of old age, was a great shock to his family and the community at large. His body was borne to the grave by eight of his co-workers in D. M. Ferry & Company.
JOSEPH L. HUDSON.
The business career of Joseph L. Hudson has been significantly characterized by courage, confidence, progressiveness and impregnable integrity of purpose. None has a more secure status as a representative citizen and business man of Detroit and the state of Michigan, and in the metropolis of the Wolverine common- wealth his name is practically as familiar to its people as is that of the city itself. To offer in a work of the province prescribed for the one at hand an adequate resumé of the career of Mr. Hudson would be impossible, but, with others of those who have conserved the civic
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and commercial progress of Detroit, he may well find consideration in the noting the more salient points which have marked his life and labors. It may well be said that no citizen has shown more implicit trust in the development of the larger and greater Detroit, and his con- fidence in this respect has been one of action and definite accomplishment. Aside from be- ing the executive head of one of the greatest retail department stores in the Union and hav- ing other capitalistic interests of important or- der, he has been signally loyal and helpful as a public-spirited citizen and as one who has been a force in the field of philanthropy and general social uplift. To one as familiar with his career in Detroit as is the writer of this article there comes a feeling of deep apprecia- tion and a desire to offer an estimate which shall denote the man and the citizen.
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