USA > Michigan > Wayne County > Detroit > Compendium of history and biography of the city of Detroit and Wayne County, Michigan > Part 67
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forward with marked vigor and discrimination and soon assumed proportions of significant order. In 1897 Mr. Lewis purchased the in- terest of his associate, Mr. Whitehead, and continued the business under the title of the Detroit Metal & Heating Works. The busi- ness continued to develop under his effective direction and it became imperative to secure more ample quarters than the original plant, which was located at 39-41 East Atwater street. Accordingly he removed to the pres- ent location, at the foot of Joseph Campau avenue, in 1890, and at this time the title of the Henry B. Lewis Structural Iron Works was adopted. For the accommodation of this important industrial enterprise nearly an entire city block is utilized, and the plant is thor- oughly modern in its equipment and facilities. Among the more noteworthy contracts filled by the Henry B. Lewis Structural Iron Works are the fine aquarium in Belle Isle park, erected in 1902; the Morgan & Wright plant, at the foot of Bellevue avenue, erected in 1906; and the plant of the Pennsylvania Salt Manufac- turing Company, at Wyandotte, Michigan. It may be said incidentally that the above men- tioned plant of Morgan & Wright represented in its erection the largest contract ever taken by a local concern engaged in the structural- steel business : for steel alone one hundred and seven thousand dollars were expended. The Lewis structural steel works add materially to the industrial precedence of the city of Detroit, as operations are based on ample capital, cor- rect business methods and the best of technical and administrative co-operation. Mr. Lewis is an appreciative and valued member of the Detroit Board of Commerce, and is identified with the Detroit Club, the Detroit Country Club, the Detroit Boat Club, the Raquette Club, and the Old Club, at St. Clair Flats. Reared in a thoroughly patrician home and touching the best of social life from his youth up, Mr. Lewis shows in his gracious person- ality and his unmistakable popularity that he is "to the manner born." He and his wife are prominent in the social affairs of their native city, and he is well upholding the prestige of the honored name which he bears.
On the 24th of May, 1900, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Lewis to Miss Margie E. Croul, daughter of Jerome Croul, a prominent and influential citizen of Detroit. Mr. and Mrs. Lewis have one son, Alexander Jerome, who was born on the 25th of May, 1902.
JEREMIAH DWYER.
A most conspicuous figure in connection with the industrial supremacy justly claimed for the city of Detroit is Jeremiah Dwyer, who stands foremost among the captains of industry and who also has transcended this sphere to execute works of notable philanthropy and charity, thus showing his high appreciation of his stewardship and of the responsibilities which success and wealth impose upon one who has the broader recognition of the true meaning of human existence. It has been well said of Mr. Dwyer that he "stands as an individual character, with great executive ability, and as a true follower of the Golden Rule."
Mr. Dwyer was born in the city of Brook- lyn, New York, on the 22d of August, 1838, being the eldest of the three children-two sons and one daughter-of Michael and Mary (O'Donnell) Dwyer, both of whom were na- tives of the south of Ireland. The Dwyer family was founded in America in the colonial epoch of our national history, and in the vari- ous generations the name has stood as an ex- ponent of integrity and usefulness. The father of Mr. Dwyer was a contractor by vocation while in the old Empire state, and both he and his wife died in Wayne county, Michigan. James Dwyer, the younger of their two sons, is now manager of the Peninsular Stove Com- pany, of Detroit, and the only daughter, Mary, was the wife of Michael Nichols, of Utica, Michigan, where she and her husband owned and conducted a splendid farm.
In October, 1838, the Dwyer family came to Detroit, and soon after their arrival settled on a farm about four miles from the city, in the township of Springwells. Here the father devoted himself zealously to the reclamation and cultivation of his farmstead, continuing thus engaged until 1848, when he was thrown
Jemmiah Avoyer
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from a wagon and almost instantly killed, while driving a team of spirited horses. His death threw upon his widow and elder son the care and support of the family, the subject of this review having been then but eleven years of age.
While the farm was successfully conducted, the mother recognized that educational ad- vantages were essential to the future success and happiness of her children, to whom her devotion was inviolable, and she accordingly disposed of the farm and removed to Detroit, where she purchased a home, investing the residue of her funds in income property. She then gave her attention to directing the course of her sons in such a way as to prepare them to fill the high positions they now occupy in social and business life, while equal care and discrimination was bestowed in the training of the only daughter. The family income being limited, Jeremiah, subject of this review, sought to increase it by securing employment in the planing mill of Smith & Dwight, with Returning from his southern trip recuper- ated in health, Mr. Dwyer again became active in business affairs, and in the autumn of 1871 he effected the organization and incorporation of a new concern, under the title of the Michi- gan Stove Company. His associates in the incorporation were Messrs. Charles Du- Charme, Francis Palms, Richard H. Long, Merrill I. Mills, and George H. Barbour, and the original executive officers were as follows : Charles DuCharme, president; Jeremiah Dwyer, vice-president and manager; Merrill I. Mills, treasurer ; and George H. Barbour, sec- retary. At the death of Charles DuCharme, in January, 1873, Francis Palms succeeded him as president, which office he held continuously until the time of his death. The present offi- cers of the company are: Jeremiah Dwyer, president ; George H. Barbour, first vice-presi- dent and general manager; Merrill B. Mills whom he remained about one year, in the meanwhile having availed himself of the ad- vantages of the schools of Detroit and thus supplementing his previous discipline in this line. After leaving the employ of the firm mentioned he became an apprentice at the moulding trade, in the hydraulic iron works of Kellogg & Van Schoick. He devoted himself assiduously to the work in hand and in due course of time became thorough master of his trade. The first three years of his majority were passed in the eastern states, where he found employment in various foundries and thus even more perfectly fortified himself in the technical and practical knowledge of his craft. A too close application to work brought about an impairment of his health, and, having returned to Detroit, he found a change of oc- cupation by entering the employ of the Detroit, Grand Haven & Milwaukee . Railroad Com- . (son of Merrill I. Mills), treasurer; Charles pany, with which he held a position for one year.
In 1859 Mr. Dwyer accepted the position of foreman of the Geary & Russell foundry, in Detroit. In 1861, in company with his brother, James, and Thomas W. Misner, he organized
the firm of J. Dwyer & Company. Two years later Mr. Misner's interest was purchased by William H. Tefft, the firm name remaining the same as previously until 1864, when the con- cern again rose definitely on the ladder of success by its reorganization into a joint stock company, which then assumed the title of the Detroit Stove Works. The functions of the enterprise as originally founded were repre- sented in a general stove and foundry business, and from his connection with this modest con- cern Mr. Dwyer has practically rounded out the great industrial enterprise conducted under the title of the Detroit Stove Works. The in- crease of business under the new title and ad- vanced facilities necessitated the building of large extensions, in the superintendence of which Mr. Dwyer contracted a pulmonary dis- ease which forced him to a year's sojourn in the south, but before going he sold his interest in the Detroit Stove Works to his brother and Edwin S. Barbour.
A. DuCharme (son of Charles DuCharme), second vice-president and secretary ; Edwin S. Barbour, assistant treasurer; Harry B. Gilles- pie, corresponding secretary; R. L. Morley, western manager, Chicago; and William J. Keep, superintendent. It will thus be seen that
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the changes in the personnel of the principal stockholders has been very little in the long intervening years. Mr. Dwyer succeeded to the presidency upon the death of Francis Palms.
The buildings of the Michigan Stove Com- pany cover more than seven hundred and fifty thousand square feet of ground, and were built with a careful regard to the health, convenience and labor-saving facility of the employes, whose number is about fifteen hundred. The company has branch offices in New York city, Buffalo, and Chicago, and agencies in London, Paris, Berlin, Constantinople, Manila, Philip- pine Islands, and Honolulu. On other pages of this work is given more detailed record con- cerning this splendid industrial concern, in whose upbuilding Jeremiah Dwyer may justly be said to have been the dominating force and power.
Mr. Dwyer was also one of the founders of the People's Savings Bank of Detroit, and is a director at the present time, of its successor by consolidation,-The Peoples State Bank. He is also a member of the directorates of the Michigan Copper & Brass Company, and the Ideal Manufacturing Company, of Detroit, besides being a stockholder in many other im- portant industrial concerns.
The career of Mr. Dwyer is typical of the best there is in American life. From farmer boy to apprentice in a foundry, thence to the travel and experience through which the true mechanic strives to perfect himself in his trade, and then onward to be recognized as the master mind in a business of his own, and organizer and director in numerous industrial enterprises, to each of which his well grounded technique, his creditable reputation and unsullied charac- ter have been a veritable tower of strength in connection with their early development and successful management. Search the records of American manufacture and it is doubtful if there be found a more fitting representative of America's captains of industry than Jeremiah Dwyer, who carries into business life the de- portment and courtesy of the old-school gen- tleman, now rapidly fading to naught but a memory. He has been one of the world's noble
army of workers, and no man has a greater appreciation and respect for the dignity of honest toil than he. His helpfulness has been exerted in a personal way in thousands of in- stances, and his employes have profited by his wise counsel, his interest and ofttimes material assistance. His heart is attuned to generous motives and he has made numerous benefac- tions, without ostentation and with no thought that he was doing more than his duty. As a citizen he is liberal, broad-minded and public- spirited, keeping in touch with the interests and advances of the hour, and making his life count for good in all its relations. Much of intel- lectual force is his, and he has utilized it for both the direct and indirect benefit of his fel- low men. In politics he is a Democrat, and in religion a Catholic. He holds membership in the Detroit Club and the Country Club.
On the 22d of November, 1859, was solem- nized the marriage of Mr. Dwyer to Miss Mary L. Long, who was born in the state of Michi- gan, a daughter of John R. Long, and they have had seven sons and one daughter, whose names, in order of birth, are as follows : James W. Dwyer; John M. Dwyer; Elizabeth B. (Dwyer) Smith, of Cleveland, Ohio; William A. Dwyer; Francis T. Dwyer; Vincent R. Dwyer, deceased; Emmet Dwyer ; and Gratton L. Dwyer.
GILBERT W. LEE.
In the realm of retrospection and the per- spective of years Detroit stands in a compara- tive way as a venerable city, though one that "vaunteth not itself" on this score. Those who figured as the founders of the city and the promoters of its earlier commercial upbuild- ing wrought well and left an influence that continues to permeate the civic and industrial life. Through them the city was firmly estab- lished upon a strong and lasting basis and then ensued a slow and solid growth along the most conservative lines. But there came a time when the wellbeing of the city and its people demanded more strenuous methods that the Michigan metropolis might hold its own as an industrial and commercial center. This is an
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age bristling with activity and productive en- terprise, and that Detroit has had so remark- able a development within the last two decades is due to the timely and efficient labors and in- fluence of spirited and progressive men of a younger generation. With no lack of appre- ciation of efforts of those who preceded them, a due mede of recognition must be given to those who have been instrumental in the up- rearing of the larger and greater Detroit, and among this number the subject of this sketch occupies no inconspicuous place. Mr. Lee is executive head of the corporation of Lee, Cady & Smart, conducting one of the leading whole- sale-grocery enterprises of the middle west. He has shown distinctive initiative power and administrative ability, and the tangible evi- dences are offered in the status of the splendid business of the concern of which he is presi- dent, while his energies and support have also been enlisted in connection with other impor- tant business enterprises which have conserved the commercial prestige of Detroit and the state of Michigan.
Mr. Lee is a native son of Michigan and his loyalty to the state is of the most appreciative and unwavering order. He was born at Ro- meo, Macomb county, on the 28th of March, 1861, and was there reared and educated, being graduated in the local high school as a mem- ber of the class of 1879. His parents were both born in the state of New York. At the age of eighteen years Mr. Lee came to Detroit and assumed a position as clerk in the estab- lishment of George C. Wetherbee & Company, wholesale dealers in willow and wooden ware. In 1882 he secured an interest in the business, and in 1885 he became identified with the wholesale grocery concern of which he is now president.
The business controlled by Lee, Cady & Smart is one of the fine industrial enterprises which lend great precedence to Detroit as a commercial and distributing center, and the ramifications of its trade are of wide scope and importance. The business is incorporated under the laws of the state and the personnel
of its executive corps is as follows: Gilbert W. Lee, president; David D. Cady, vice-presi- dent; James S. Smart, treasurer; and George R. Treble, secretary. In addition to the finely equipped Detroit headquarters, at the junction of Fort street west and the lines of the Michi- gan Central Railroad, the company own and operate also under the following titles and in the designated locations : Lee & Cady, eastern- market branch, Detroit; Smart & Fox Com- pany, Saginaw; Bay City Grocer Company, Bay City; and Valley City Coffee & Spice Mills, Saginaw.
The business dates its inception from the year 1885, when Gilbert W. Lee formed a co- partnership with Ward Andrus and purchased the wholesale grocery business of D. D. Mal- lory & Company. The enterprise was con- tinued under the title of the D. D. Mallory Company until 1892, when the concern was succeded by that of Lee & Cady, under which title operations were continued until March I, 1907, when a stock company was organized, under the present name of Lee, Cady & Smart, and the same was incorporated with a capital of seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The new corporation succeded to the business of Lee & Cady and also that of Phelps, Brace & Company, another of the largest wholesale grocery houses of Detroit. The new concern at the time was still further amplified in its functions by the acquirement of the wholesale grocery business of the Smart & Fox Com- pany, of Saginaw, the Valley City Coffee & Spice Mills, of the same city, and the Bay City Grocer Company, of Bay City. Under the present conditions the corporation has un- rivaled facilities for the handling of its exten- sive trade throughout all sections of Michigan, and its business also extends into adjoining states.
The nucleus of the great business controlled by Lee, Cady & Smart was, as already stated, that previously conducted by D. D. Mallory & Company, which firm was founded many years prior to 1885 and which long held prestige as one of the foremost commercial concerns of the state. The house now gives employment to fifty salesmen in covering its trade territory,
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and in Detroit two establishments are operated, as noted in the preceding paragraph. In addi- tion to the traveling representatives, employ- ment is given to about one hundred and fifty persons. When it is recalled that the president of the company was but twenty-four years of age at the time when he assumed independent connection with the business, it will be under- stood that he had early developed that self- reliance and maturity of judgment which have been such dominating factors in his peculiarly successful career. Far-sighted and progres- sive his policy has been at all times, and he has so ordered his course as to retain the unquali- fied confidence and esteem of all with whom he has come in contact, while his advancement in the business world has been consecutive and methodical, representing the normal and legiti- mate application of his fine energies.
In 1898 Mr. Lee founded the Peninsular Sugar Refining Company, manufacturers of beet sugar, with factory located at Caro, Mich- igan. Of this company he continued to be president until 1906, when the plant and busi- ness were sold to the Michigan Sugar Com- pany, in which he remains a stockholder and director. He also has other important inter- ests, being a director of Hammond, Standish & Company, provision packers, and also a member of the directorate of the Commercial National Bank. For three years he served as president of the Michigan Wholesale Grocers' Association, and he is known as one of the state's alert, progressive and substantial busi- ness men and as one of the loyal and liberal citizens of Detroit. He is a member of the Yondotega Club, the Detroit Club, the Country Club, the St. Clair Fishing Club and other social and civic organizations of prominence. His political support is given to the Republican party.
On the 16th of June, 1885, Mr. Lee married Miss Sara Hammond, daughter of the late George H. Hammond, of Detroit. Her death occurred on the 7th of October, 1892, and she is survived by one son, George Hammond Lee, who was born September 17, 1887. On the 26th of January, 1896, Mr. Lee wedded Miss
Harriet Norton, daughter of the late John D. Norton, of Pontiac, Michigan, and they have one son, Norton D. Lee, who was born June 15, 1899.
RICHARD HAIGH, SR.
One of the strong, symmetrical characters eminently worthy of consideration in connec- tion with every history touching Wayne county was that of Richard Haigh, Sr., who here maintained his home for more than half a cen- tury and who is well entitled to remembrance as one of the honored pioneers of the county and state. In the township of Dearborn he developed one of the finest farmsteads of the state, and the major portion of this old home- stead is still in the possession of the family. Mr. Haigh was a man of impregnable integrity, of much intellectual strength and of intrinsic kindliness of spirit. He lived a sane, normal life, one duly prolific in worthy accomplish- ment and one prolonged to the patriarchal age of more than ninety years. No shadow rests on any portion of his life record, and in con- templating his career there are to be gained both lesson and incentive.
Richard Haigh, Sr., was born at Wakefield, Yorkshire, England, on the 4th of May, 1811, and his death occurred at his beautiful old homestead in Dearborn, Wayne county, Michi- gan, on the 5th of December, 1904. He was a mere boy at the time of his father's death, about 1822, and his mother was left to care for her large family of children, to whom her de- votion was of the most insistent type. She en- abled them to acquire at least the rudiments of education and to lay foundations for future usefulness in connection with the practical af- fairs of life. The subject of this memoir thus gained his fundamental education under the limited advantages of the school in his native village, and after coming to America he con- tinued his studies whenever and wherever op- portunity offered. During his later years he rounded out this earlier discipline by wide and intelligent reading. In 1825, when but four- teen years of age, Mr. Haigh severed the ties which bound him to home and native land and came to America, confident that here he could
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find superior opportunities for gaining for him- self a position of eventual independence. For somewhat more than a year after his arrival in New York city he was there employed by Joseph Harris, who had a small establishment for the refinishing of cloths. In 1827 he en- tered the employ of John Barrows & Sons, who were at that time extensive manufacturers of woolen cloths, in the national metropolis. He later removed to Glenham, New York, where he entered the service of Peter H. Schenck, who was engaged in the same line of enterprise. He was there employed in the finishing room, where he received in wages three dollars a week, which was considered a fair remuneration. For overtime work a shill- ing an hour was paid. Mr. Haigh had deter- mined to become an expert in the branch of business in which he had thus directed his en- ergies, and with this end in view he removed to Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1828, and there entered upon an apprenticeship in the "art and mystery of wool stapling," in the establishment of Thomas Williams & Sons. Here he served a full apprenticeship of six years' duration and became an expert workman in his craft. At the expiration of his apprenticeship he returned to Glenham and again entered the employ of Peter H. Schenck, in whose factory he was able to earn two dollars a day as a wool-sorter. In 1835 Mr. Haigh took up his residence in Rochester, New York, where he secured em- ployment as a wool-sorter in the mill of E. & H. Lyon. In 1837 the mill was destroyed by fire and he then entered into a contract with the Waterloo Woolen Mills, at Waterloo, New York, where he assumed charge of the buying and assorting of all the wool used in the mills. His contract proved to him a profitable one, and within five years he had accumulated a capital of about five thousand dollars. In 1842 he engaged in the manufacturing of linseed oil, at Waterloo, and in this enterprise he was successful until the repeal of the tariff protect- ing the industry, in 1846. During the ensuing five years he gave his attention mainly to the purchase and sale of wool and sheep pelts, and in the meanwhile established at Seneca Falls,
New York, a small tannery, for the handling of sheep-skins.
In 1853, at the solicitation of his brother, the late Henry Haigh, who was for more than fifty years engaged in the retail drug business in Detroit, the subject of this sketch came to this city, though his intention at the time was to make permanent location at some point farther in the west. He was so favorably im- pressed with Michigan that he decided to re- main here, and within the year last mentioned he effected the purchase of the place which has ever since been known as the Haigh homestead, in the village of Dearborn, where he continued to reside until he was summoned from the scene of mortal life, fifty-one years later. He developed his land into one of the best farms in the county and became an authority in the matter of successful agriculture and stock- growing. His original purchase comprised some three hundred acres, and of this entire tract he continued to be the owner until 1873, when he sold about two hundred acres to the Sisters of Charity, who there established the St. Joseph Retreat, one of the largest institu- tions of the kind in the United States. The major portion of the remainder of the farm is retained in the possession of his family. In 1901 the beautiful old homestead residence was totally destroyed by fire, but this was rebuilt before his death. The loss of the old home, in which his interests had centered for so many years, proved a source of much sadness to Mr. Haigh, but he found solace in the fact that the surroundings remained the same, so that he was not denied reminders of the hallowed and gracious associations of the past.
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