USA > Michigan > Wayne County > Detroit > Compendium of history and biography of the city of Detroit and Wayne County, Michigan > Part 78
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Soon after the termination of this celebrated trial Judge Frazer returned to Detroit, his professional reputation having been greatly heightened by his able services in the cause noted, and here he became associated in a professional partnership with Levi L. Barbour and Dwight C. Rexford, under the title of Frazer, Barbour & Rexford. This alliance obtained for some time and thereafter Judge Frazer continued in individual practice, being retained in many of the most important litiga- tions brought before the federal and state courts and having a clientage of representative order. After his retirement from the bench he continued in active practice and at the time of his death he was one of the veteran members of the Detroit bar, holding the confidence and unequivocal esteem of his professional con- freres and being known as a jurist whose rul- ings were ever made with true judicial acumen and discrimination; few of his opinions were reversed by the higher tribunals than that over which he presided with such marked strength and acceptability.
Judge Frazer never consented to accept any public office aside from those directly in line with the work of his chosen profession. While engaged in practice at Ann Arbor he served as city attorney for some time, also held the office of circuit-court commissioner, and for three terms was prosecuting attorney of Wash- tenaw county, making an excellent record as a public prosecutor. In 1894 Governor Rich appointed him judge of the circuit court for the Wayne circuit, and thereafter he was twice elected to this office, serving for a consecutive period of twelve years and three months and by his services enriching and dignifying the judicial history of the state.
In politics Judge Frazer was originally aligned as a supporter of the principles of the Democratic party, but, with the characteristic courage which he ever showed in maintaining his convictions, he arrayed himself in the ranks of the Republican party at the time of the campaign which placed General Garfield in the presidential chair, and he ever afterward gave his allegiance to this party, in whose cause he rendered effective assistance. While on the bench he inaugurated many reforms, syste- matizing the work so thoroughly as greatly to expedite court procedures, and the system which he thus formulated is that which has ever since been followed by the circuit judges of Wayne county. As a political speaker he gained a high and extended reputation, having taken an active part in numerous campaigns, and his services on the stump having been given in presidential campaign work in most diverse sections of the Union, including New York state and city, Maine, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, Penn- sylvania and other states, including his own. He was associated with Hon. James G. Blaine in the campaign work in the latter's native state. In the Republican national convention in 1888, at Chicago, he placed in nomination for the presidency the late and honored Gen- eral Russell A. Alger, of Detroit. His nomi- nating speech, made without notes or previous preparation, was a most remarkable one and
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was printed by leading newspapers in all sec- tions of the Union. Judge Frazer was identi- fied with the National Bar Association and also those of Michigan and Detroit, and was af- filiated with various social organizations in his home city. His religious faith was that of the Protestant Episcopal church.
Judge Frazer also gained no little influence and prestige in the commercial and industrial world. He was president of the Frazer Paint Company, which has well equipped plants both in Detroit and Bedford, Virginia, and he per- sonally discovered the process by which the mineral-paint products of these factories are turned out. The development of the large and successful business of this company was due almost entirely to his efforts. He also dis- covered and placed on the market a mineral paste which is used for remedial purposes and has met with the strong endorsement of the medical profession. This product is termed "Fermisal," and in the manufacturing of the same Judge Frazer was the owner of the busi- ness, conducted under the name of the Fer- misal Chemical Company. He also invented the locomotive-front cement, which is now used by fifteen different railways, and the Frazer non-corrosive pipe-joint paste, which is handled by the American Radiator Company.
On the 3d of August, 1863, at Ann Arbor, Michigan, was solemnized the marriage of Judge Frazer to Miss Abbie M. Saunders, who was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, and who survives him, as do also their three chil- dren,-Carrie W., who is now the wife of Walter Ruan, of Bedford, Virginia; Frances A., who remains with her widowed mother; and William R., who is paymaster of the Detroit United Railway.
In consistent conclusion of this brief tribute are entered the following extracts from the resolutions passed by the Detroit Bar Associ- ation at the time of the death of Judge Frazer :
Judge Frazer had a long and brilliant career, both at the bar and upon the bench of the state of Michigan. As a member of the bar his practice was never confined to the circuit
of his residence. His brilliant mind and pow- erful method of presenting his side of a case to a jury, called his services into demand in many parts of the state where trials of im- portance were in progress. This was par- ticularly true with reference to criminal mat- ters. As an advocate he was remarkably quick to grasp the weak points in his opponent's case, and equally strong in presenting the strong points in his own case; by emphasis of what was favorable to his contention he over- shadowed what was weak. During his active career at the bar he had and deserved the reputation of being one of the very strongest advocates in the state before a jury.
During his career on the bench, covering a period of nearly fourteen years, he built for himself a reputation for rugged honesty, which stands to-day perhaps as the brightest attribute of his character. He could grasp the exact point in controversy with almost unerring cer- tainty and, having grasped it, could define the issue with absolute clearness. With the issue defined, he went with an alertness and direct- ness to the solution, along lines of natural jus- tice, with the greatest celerity. He was not overawed by a principle simply because it was stated in a book, if it did not appeal to his own sense of justice and right. As one of the bench of six judges, his services were inval- uable. The qualities which made his worth as an individual jurist were highly accentuated in conference. His associates were wont to con- fer with him on all matters doubtful to them, and no conferences of this nature were fruit- less. He was always prepared to state his views frankly, and when those views were later compared with authority they were almost invariably found to be correct.
Aside from his prominence as an advocate and as a judicial officer, he had acquired a very wide reputation as a political speaker. His services were in demand in every cam- paign, because of his incisive wit and his elo- quent, forceful utterances. He was a man of peculiarly domestic character. His hours of leisure were spent entirely in his own home. Fond of nature, he obtained perhaps his chief enjoyment in life from his garden. His trees and his flowers were to him personal friends.
In the death of Robert Emmett Frazer the bar has lost a distinguished member and the state has lost a citizen whose influence was always for that which is best in civic life.
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GEORGE P. CODD.
That the scriptural statement, "A prophet is not without honor save in his own country," is not susceptible of application in the case of Mr. Codd, needs no further voucher than that offered by the fact that he has served as mayor of his native city of Detroit, justifying fully in his administration the confidence and suf- frages of the community in which he was born and reared. He is one of the representative members of the Detroit bar and is here en- gaged in the active practice of his profession.
Mr. Codd was born in the family home on Adelaide street, Detroit, December 7, 1869, and is a son of George C. and Eunice (Law- rence) Codd. George C. Codd came to De- troit in 1850 and became one of the well known, honored and influential citizens of the Michigan metropolis, where he continued to reside until his death, in 1904. He was made incumbent of local offices of distinctive trust, having served four years as sheriff of Wayne county and having been postmaster of Detroit under the administrations of Presidents Hayes and Arthur. He was a member of the city council for a number of years and was a loyal and public-spirited citizen. He was a leader in the local cohorts of the Republican party and did effective service in the cause of the same. His wife was summoned to the life eternal in 1903.
George P. Codd, the immediate subject of this sketch, secured his early educational discipline in the public schools and was gradu- ated in the Detroit high school, where he was prepared for collegiate work. In 1887 he was matriculated in the University of Michigan, in which he was graduated as a member of the class of 1891, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts.
Immediately after his graduation Mr. Codd began reading law, under the preceptorship of Alfred Russell, one of the leading members of the Detroit bar, and that he made rapid progress in his absorption and assimilation of the sci- ence of jurisprudence is evident when we re- vert to the fact that in 1892 he was admitted
to practice in the courts of his native state. Later he was admitted to practice in the fed- eral courts, including the supreme court of the United States. For some time Mr. Codd was associated in legal work with the firm of Griffin, Warner & Hunt, and in 1893 he re- ceived the appointment of assistant city attor- ney, in which office he served two and one-half years. He then became a member of the law firm of Warner, Codd & Warner, in which his confreres were Messrs. Carlos E. and Willard E. Warner. This alliance continued for a long period and the firm attained to marked prece- dence in the volume and character of its law business. Upon the death of the senior mem- ber, Carlos E. Warner, in 1901, the firm was dissolved, and thereafter Mr. Codd continued in an individual practice until 1906, when he formed a partnership with A. B. Hall, under the firm name of Codd & Hall. This alliance continued until 1908. Mr. Codd controls a large and representative practice and is known as a lawyer of splendid force and talent.
Mr. Codd has never faltered in his allegiance to the Republican party, of whose principles and policies he is an able exemplar. In 1902 he was elected to represent the first ward on the board of aldermen, being thus chosen to fill a vacancy, and in 1904 he was elected as his own successor, having proven one of the valu- able and loyal working members of the body. In the autumn of the same year (1904) still greater honor came to Mr. Codd in connection with the municipal government, since he was then elected mayor of his native city, an office of which he remained incumbent until January I, 1907. His administration was sane, pro- gressive and business-like, and his name will pass into the annals of the city as that of one of its excellent and popular chief executives.
Mr. Codd is an appreciative member of the time-honored Masonic fraternity, in which he has completed the circle of the York Rite, be- ing a member of Detroit Commandery, No. I, Knights Templar, and he has also become en- rolled as a member of Moslem Temple, An- cient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic
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Shrine, as well as of the Knights of Pythias, and Delta Kappa Epsilon college fraternity, with which he identified himself while an un- dergraduate in the University of Michigan. He is also a member of various local organiza- tions of a social and semi-business order.
In October, 1894, was solemnized the mar- riage of Mr. Codd to Miss Kathleen Warner, daughter of Carlos E. Warner, of Detroit, and they have three children,-John W., George C. and Kathleen.
GEORGE F. MOORE.
As one of the foremost representatives of the wholesale dry-goods trade in Detroit for a long period of years Mr. Moore was a con- spicuous figure in business affairs and he was also known as a citizen of unequivocal loyalty and integrity and as one whose public spirit led him outside the line of direct personal ad- vancement to do his part in the promotion of the general welfare of the community and the material upbuilding of the city with whose in- terests his own were so long and prominently identified. He was one of the founders of the great dry-goods house of Edson, Moore & Company, and he continued one of its inter- ested principals until his death, which occurred on the 25th of March, 1904.
Mr. Moore was born in picturesque old Berkshire county, Massachusetts, on the 10th of December, 1832, being one of the twelve children of John and Clara Moore, both rep- resentatives of old and honored families of New England. His paternal grandfather was a native of Holland and was numbered among the early settlers of Berkshire county. His descendants have left a record of worthy ac- complishment not only in New England but elsewhere in the Union. Mr. Moore's mother was of Scotch lineage, and her original Ameri- can ancestors settled in Massachusetts prior to the war of the Revolution. John Moore was a man of sturdy character and strong mentality, being influential in his community. He dealt largely in land, becoming the owner of large
tracts in Berkshire county, where he was also engaged in the coal and timber trade for a term of years. In 1847 he removed to Batavia, New York, where he and his wife passed the remainder of their lives, his death occurring in 1858.
The subject of this memoir was afforded the advantages of the common schools of Mas- sachusetts and New York, having been fifteen years of age at the time of the family removal to the latter state, where he was reared to ma- turity. At the age of eighteen years he became a salesman in the retail dry-goods store of Wells & Seymour, of Batavia, with whom he remained three years, after which he was simi- larly employed in the city of Buffalo for one year. He passed the winter of 1854 in the south and then returned to Buffalo, where he was again employed as a salesman, remaining three years.
In 1859 Mr. Moore made his advent in De- troit, and during the first six years of his resi- dence here he was employed in the old-time dry-goods store of Town & Shelden. At the expiration of that period he was admitted to partnership in the business, as was also the late James L. Edson, with whom he was so long associated in business. At the time of their admission to the firm the title was changed to Allan Shelden & Company, one of the in- terested parties in the concern having been the late Senator Zachariah Chandler. In 1872 Messrs. Moore & Edson retired from the firm and established the present wholesale dry-goods house of Edson, Moore & Company, of which further and adequate mention is made in the memoir dedicated to Mr. Edson and appearing on other pages of this volume.
Mr. Moore's close personal supervision of his extensive mercantile interests gave him but limited opportunity to direct his efforts in other directions, but no citizen showed in more sub- stantial ways his deep interest in all that per- tained to the good of Detroit. Progressive and public-spirited, his aid was never refused to any deserving projects. He was a man whose entire life was guided on the plane of loftiest
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integrity and honor and upon his name rests no shadow of wrong or suspicion of evil. He was a Republican in his political proclivities and was a zealous member of the First Pres- byterian church, with which he was actively identified for a long term of years prior to his demise.
In 1855 Mr. Moore was united in marriage to Miss Adela S. Mosher, daughter of Amasa A. and Susan Mosher, and they became the parents of five children, namely : Edward H., George F., Jr., Willis Howard, Harriet L., and Adela S. All of these are deceased excepting Adela S., who is the wife of J. Ledlie Hees, of New York city. The wife of Mr. Moore died in 1902.
WILLIAM A. JACKSON.
In the career of Mr. Jackson, whose name has been indissolubly connected with the de- velopment of the telephone industry in the state of Michigan, is shown that definite am- bition and persistence which are the mind's in- spiration in the surmounting of obstacles,-the vitalizing ideal that transforms dreams into deeds. After more than thirty years of active identification with the telephone business in this state, Mr. Jackson retired from adminis- trative and executive association with the same in April, 1908. In connection with the devel- opment of the industry from the day of small things to its present sphere of advanced use- fulness he made an admirable record of accom- plishment, and it is certainly consonant that in this publication recognition of his services be given, even though the article be but a brief outline.
William A. Jackson is a native of the old Empire state of the Union but practically his entire life has been passed in Michigan. He was born in the city of Ithaca, Tompkins county, New York, on the 9th of September, 1848, and is a son of Clark and Phoebe Jack- son, likewise natives of Tompkins county, New York. The father was engaged in farming in New York state until about 1857, when he re- moved with his family to Michigan, settling in
Branch county, where he turned his attention to the business of railroading. Later he re- moved to White Pigeon, St. Joseph county, where he and his wife continued to reside until their death. He died in 1874 and she passed to the life eternal in 1879. The subject of this sketch is their only surviving child.
William A. Jackson passed his youthful days in Bronson and White Pigeon, Michigan, in whose common schools he gained his early educational discipline, which has been effec- tively supplemented by the lessons acquired under the direction of that wisest of all head masters,-experience. At the age of eighteen years he entered the office of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad at White Pigeon, where he learned the art of telegraphy, becoming an expert operator. He entered the service of the Western Union Telegraph Com- pany in 1866, at Detroit, and he remained thus engaged until 1875, after which he was engaged in manufacturing electrical apparatus for about two years. At the expiration of this period, in 1877, he identified himself with the telephone business, which was then in its in- fancy, with very crude equipment as judged by the standards of the present day. Every stage of progress in this important field has been touched by him in a practical way, and it may safely be said that no man in Michigan has played a more active part in the work of tele- phonic development. The company with which he first connected himself was a purely local concern and its operations were conducted on a small scale. In 1878 these operations were extended to cover the larger towns of the southern part of the state, with Detroit as headquarters. Difficulties and obstacles were encountered on every side, but with the im- proving of the scientific apparatus employed the venture became more substantial in prac- tical results. Mr. Jackson was manager of the Michigan Telephone Company until 1885, after which he was engaged in street railway build- ing, etc., in Detroit until 1896, when he went to Chicago, where he became a director in the Chicago Telephone Company, in the practical
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management of whose business he became a potent factor. He and three others built and operated the first electric line in Michigan,- from Detroit to Highland Park. In the west- ern metropolis he gained distinctive prestige in connection with telephone development, and for some time he was president of the Central Union Telephone Company, which operated lines outside of Chicago. In 1904 he returned to Detroit and assisted in the organization of the Michigan State Telephone Company, with whose affairs he thereafter was actively con- cerned until his retirement from active busi- ness, in April, 1908, as noted in a preceding paragraph. Long ago Mr. Jackson gained a place as one of the representative citizens and business men of Detroit, where he has ever commanded unqualified confidence and esteem. He is a stockholder of the First National Bank of this city and also of the United Machine Company, whose plant is located at the corner of Thirteenth and Howard streets. He is also a stockholder of the Michigan State Telephone Company and has other capitalistic interests of important order.
Essentially a business man and one of the world's workers, Mr. Jackson has never had aught of inclination to enter into active politi- cal affairs, though he gives a staunch support to the cause of the Republican party. He is identified with leading social clubs in Detroit and also with the various bodies of the Masonic fraternity.
In the year 1873 was solemnized the mar- riage of Mr. Jackson to Miss Nellie Moore, of Three Rivers, Michigan, and they have one daughter, Louise, who is now the wife of Harry H. Robinson, of Chicago.
In concluding this sketch there is much of propriety in perpetuating an editorial which appeared in the Detroit News at the time of Mr. Jackson's retirement from the presidency of the Michigan State Telephone Company.
The announcement is made of the retire- ment from active participation in the telephone industry in this state of William A. Jackson, of this city, who has spent better than thirty years of his life in its development. The event of Mr. Jackson's giving over his active connec-
tion with the industry may well be made the occasion for the consideration of the tremen- dous influence which one modest man has had. in the development in Michigan of the most popular form of modern communication. When the Michigan rights to the use of Pro- fessor Bell's invention came, in 1877, into con- trol of James McMillan and George W. Balch, both now deceased, its development was in- trusted to Mr. Jackson, then a youthful teleg- rapher. The device at that time offered for public use was the simple magnetic telephone,- the receiving instrument commonly in use to- day. The carbon telephone, invented by Blake and later perfected by Berliner, which is the present transmitting instrument, had not then appeared for public use. The conditions for promotion and popularization were not the most attractive.
When one recalls that in 1888 there were less than three hundred telephones-of the kind they were-in all of Michigan, whereas there are to-day something like one hundred and fifty thousand of the Bell and other types in service, the character of the groundwork that was laid for the use of the new device can well be estimated. No Methodist circuit rider ever covered Michigan more assiduously than did this Mr. Jackson in his campaign for the installation of the telephone into our cities and villages. It is much easier to get a million to- day for such enterprises than it was to get ten thousand then, but somehow he found the money or charmed it out of his principals, and the first stage of telephone development saw an exchange established in every place of size in the state.
The stage of isolated local installations was followed by what was considered at the time to be Mr. Jackson's folly,-the construction of long lines from Detroit. Under the conditions prevalent at the time communication between Detroit and Wyandotte was none too good, yet an experiment was made upon one line to Am- herstburg and another to Port Huron. The most that was expected of them was that such service as it might be possible to render would be advantageous to marine interests, for the reporting of vessel movements. It developed that the lines would carry other kinds of con- versation than ship talk, and these two lines became the foundation of the immense network of long-distance telephone lines later installed in Michigan by the Bell Company and still
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later duplicated and supplemented by those of other telephone companies.
The growth from the magnetic telephone of thirty years ago to the perfection of system that obtains to-day, with the highest develop- ment of apparatus, the underground system, the metallic circuit, the central energy system and all other concomitants that make for sat- isfactory service; the market quotations at the farmer's home every morning; the sense of se- curity in the urban home and the disappearance of isolation in the rural farm house,-all these have come into Michigan since Mr. Jackson first exploited the telephone in Detroit. In taking leave of his life work, covering the time of a full generation, he may well say with the hero of the classic, "All of this have I seen, and much of it I have been."
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