USA > Michigan > Wayne County > Detroit > Compendium of history and biography of the city of Detroit and Wayne County, Michigan > Part 87
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As early as the year 1874 Mr. Shipman had established a coal agency in Detroit, but the same proved unsuccessful, through the inef- fective management of the local representative. In the following year, therefore, he personally came to Detroit, where he assumed charge of the business noted and where he continued thereafter to make his home until he was called from the scene of life's endeavors. His intimate relations with the operating coal com- pany and the exceptional shipping facilities which he was enabled to control through his interest in the Newark & Shawnee Railroad, made it possible for him to develop eventually the largest coal business in the state of Michi- gan, his annual sales attaining to an aggregate of more than one and one-half million of dol- lars,-which implied the handling of an aver- age of fully six hundred thousand tons of coal each year. He supplied several railroads and his trade ramified throughout Michigan and several western states, as well as into various sections of Canada. He gave strict attention to business and developed his enterprise to a point which won to him therefrom a substan- tial fortune. He continued the coal business in Detroit until his death and for several years prior thereto was the owner and operator of a coal mine in Athens county, Ohio. He had other capitalistic and industrial interests of an important order and was known as one of Detroit's most progressive, loyal and public- spirited business men. At the time of his de- mise he was president of the Frontier Iron & Brass Company, of this city, was a stockholder
of the Fire Proof Paint Company, of Chicago, and also held stock in the Commercial Na- tional and American National Banks of Detroit.
As a man among men, knowing the well- springs of human motive and action, he was affable, courteous and tolerant, and his sym- pathy was manifested in innumerable and prac- tical ways, with naught of ostentation. He remembered those in affliction and his kindli- ness was best shown in his quiet and timely acts of charity, his benefices being usually un- known to other than himself and the recipients. Instances of this order have since transpired, but to here enter record concerning the same would be inconsonant with the modest atti- tude which he himself ever held in such con- nections. Faithfulness and helpfulness re- mained with him as permanent guests, and to those who best knew the man is given the fullest appreciation of the true nobility and strength of his character. Though never a seeker of public office, Mr. Shipman accorded a staunch allegiance to the Republican party and always did all in his power to further good government and general prosperity and prog- ress. He attained to the thirty-third and last degree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry and was active for many years in the affairs of this time-honored fra- ternity. The home members of the supreme council passed appreciative resolutions of honor and regret at the time of his death, and these were signed by all members in Michigan at that time. In connection with the exquisite floral tribute tendered were expressed the fol- lowing sentiments : "We, the surviving friends and fraters of Sovereign Grand Inspector O. W. Shipman, 33°, unite in this expression of our admiration for him, in presenting on the occasion of his decease this floral tribute,-fit emblem of a beautiful life, fragrant with memories of real benevolence that fell upon the objects of his regard, as pure and silent as the beams of the morning upon an awakening world." Mr. Shipman was a communicant and devout member of the Protestant Epis-
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copal church, having long been one of the valued members of St. John's parish, of which he was a vestryman for several years,-until the time of his death.
On the 5th of June, 1856, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Shipman to Miss Emily L. Comstock, of Newark Valley, New York. She was born in Newark Valley and her death occurred in the city of Chicago, Illinois, on the 9th of March, 1895. She was a daughter of Sanford and Mary Elizabeth (Fuller) Com- stock. Mr. and Mrs. Shipman became the parents of three children, of whom two are living: Arthur William Shipman, the only son, died in infancy; Anne Evans is the wife of Frederic Beckwith Stevens, of Detroit; and Marietta Celia is the wife of Henry Southard Lewis, of Circleville, Ohio.
HENRY H. SANGER.
The efficient and popular cashier of the Na- tional Bank of Commerce of Detroit, of which mention is made in this work, is Henry H. Sanger, who was the chief promoter of the organization of the institution, which received its charter on the 24th of April, 1907, and opened for business on the Ist of the follow- ing June. He is a native son of Detroit and here has had ample experience in financial af- fairs, through his connection with which he has advanced to his present responsible execu- tive position.
continued to be identified with banking inter- ests in Detroit until his death, which occurred in 1863, and his name merits a place on the roll of the honored pioneers of Detroit and the state. His son Henry P., father of the subject of this sketch, was for some time pay- ing teller in the bank of which his father was cashier, and he is still a resident of Detroit, with whose history his name has been promi- nently and intimately identified.
After duly completing the curriculum of the public schools of Detroit Henry H. Sanger, whose name introduces this article, was matri- culated in Cornell University, New York, in which institution he was graduated as a mem- ber of the class of 1891, receiving the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He then returned to De- troit and in January of the following year he assumed a clerical position in the First Nation- al Bank, a lineal successor of that of which his grandfather was originally cashier, and in this institution he rose through various grades of promotion to a position of executive responsi- bility. He resigned his position in 1900 to accept that of auditor of the Commercial Na- tional Bank of Detroit, of which office he was incumbent one year, at the expiration of which he was made second assistant cashier, from which position he was advanced to that of first assistant cashier. In this capacity he served until March II, 1907, when he resigned, for the purpose of devoting his attention to the organization of the National Bank of Com- merce, of which he is cashier. Of the success of his work in this connection adequate infor- mation is given in the review of the history of the bank, on other pages of this work. He is also a director of the Hayes Manufacturing Company, representing one of the successful industrial concerns of Detroit. He is treas- urer and a director of the Detroit Club and holds membership in the Detroit Country Club, the Detroit Boat Club, the University Club and the local bankers' club, besides being identified with various fraternal organizations. His po- litical views are indicated in the allegiance
Mr. Sanger was born in Detroit on the 21st of September, 1866, and is a son of Henry P. and Frances H. (Hurlburt) Sanger, the for- mer of whom was born in the state of New York and the latter in the historic old city of St. Augustine, Florida. Henry P. Sanger was born at Utica, New York, in 1832, being a son of Henry K. Sanger, who came to De- troit in 1838, as cashier of the Bank of Michi- gan, one of the first of importance established after the admission of the state to the Union. Later he became incumbent of a similar office in the Michigan Insurance Bank, which was a United States government depository. He which he accords to the Republican party and
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his religious views are in harmony with the the control and practical ownership of the sub- tenets of the Protestant Episcopal church, in whose faith he was reared. He is one of the progressive and popular business men of that younger generation in Detroit which has done so much to further the advancement of the city and to upbuild the "Greater Detroit."
HENRY STEPHENS, JR.
Mr. Stephens is known as one of the repre- sentative business men of Detroit and from his youth to the present time has been identi- fied with industrial and business enterprises which have had bearing upon the progress and prosperity of the state of Michigan, with whose annals the family name has been linked in no insignificant way for a period of more than sixty years. On other pages of this publica- tion appears a memoir of Henry Stephens, Sr., father of the subject of this review, and ref- erence should be made to the same for family data and for information pertinent to the busi- ness career of him whose name initiates this article.
Henry Stephens, Jr., was born in the vil- lage of Romeo, Macomb county, Michigan, on the 20th of September, 1854, and there he was reared to maturity, being afforded the advantages of the public schools and early be- ginning to assist in his father's general store and later in his varied and extensive lumbering operations, in Lapeer and Roscommon coun- ties, Michigan. The father was the founder of the village of St. Helens, in the latter county, where he established a large plant for the manufacturing of lumber, and in that sec- tion he built up a lumbering business which was one of the most important in the state. In 1882 a stock company was organized, under the title of Henry Stephens & Company, and of this corporation Henry Stephens, Jr., and his brother Albert became interested princi- pals. Soon after the death of the honored father, in 1886, this concern was succeeded by the Stephens Lumber Company, and under this title the business has since been continued under
ject of this sketch. Mr. Stephens has gained recognition as one of the representative lum- ber operators of his native state and the busi- ness with which he is now identified in this line is of wide scope and importance. In the connection, as indicative of the extent of op- erations, reference should be made to the pre- viously mentioned sketch of the life of his father. The family home has been in Detroit since 1888, and here Mr. Stephens centers his varied capitalistic and industrial interests. He is a member of the directorate of the Old De- troit National Bank and also that of the De- troit United Bank, is vice-president of the Scotten-Dillon Company, the extensive manu- facturers of tobacco, in Detroit, and his prin- cipal lumbering operations at this time are in Otsego county, where he has valuable prop- erties. He is vice-president and half owner of the Detroit Journal.
In politics Mr. Stephens gives his allegiance to the Republican party, and he is identified with the Detroit Club, the Detroit Boat Club and the Detroit Athletic Club. He and his wife move in the leading social circles of the city and their attractive home is a center of generous and gracious hospitality.
In the year 1876 was solemnized the mar- riage of Mr. Stephens to Miss Sarah Millen, who was born and reared at Romeo, this state, being a daughter of the late Harvey Millen. Mr. and Mrs. Stephens have one son and two daughters, namely: Henry, Gail, Jacqueline.
HENRY A. HAIGH.
It has been the lot of the subject of this re- view to attain to distinction in the profession of law, to achieve priority and leadership in the political affairs of his native state, and to become a forceful figure in connection with the construction and operation of both steam and electric railways. Thus he is distinctively a man of affairs and he is known as one of the representative business men of Detroit, where he resides, though he passes a portion of his
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time in the village of Dearborn, Wayne county, in which attractive suburb of the Michigan metropolis he was born and reared. Not less by reason of his own worthy achievement than on the score of being a representative of one of the old and honored families of Wayne county is he particularly entitled to recognition in this publication, and it is a source of gratification to the publishers to here enter a succinct review of his career, and also to offer, on other pages, a memoir to his honored father, the late Rich- ard Haigh, who was a resident of Wayne county for more than half a century and who passed to his reward in the fulness of years and in the maturity of a strong and useful char- acter.
Henry Allyn Haigh was born in the old fam- ily homestead in Dearborn, Wayne county, Michigan, on the 13th of March, 1854, and is the youngest of the five children of Richard and Lucy B. (Allyn) Haigh. For detailed rec- ord concerning the family history reference should be made to the sketch of the life of the late Richard Haigh. Henry A. was accorded the advantages of the public schools of his na- tive village, and later continued his studies in Waterloo, New York. In 1871 he was matriculated in the Michigan State Agricul- tural College, at Lansing, and in this institution he was graduated as a member of the class of 1874, duly receiving the degree of Bachelor of Science. In 1876 Mr. Haigh entered the law department of the University of Michigan, and he was graduated in 1878, with the degree of Bachelor of Laws. Prior to this, in the winter of 1874-5 he had taught one term of school, in his home county, and in March of the lat- ter year he was appointed to a clerkship in the office of the Michigan state board of health, serving in this capacity, at Lansing, until Sep- tember of the following year. Shortly after his graduation in the law school he was ad- mitted to the bar of his native state, and he then set forth to seek a location for practice in some one of the western states. He finally decided, however, that Michigan offered super- ior attractions and he returned to Detroit,
where he initiated the active work of the pro- fession in which he attained to so much of pre- cedence and success. It is scarcely necessary to state that he has never regretted the impulse or judgment which led him to remain in Detroit instead of identifying himself with some west- ern community. In Detroit he became an of- fice associate of his former classmate in the university, Hon. William L. Carpenter, since chief justice of Michigan, and they soon gained marked prestige as able and reliable trial law- yers and counselors. In 1889 he and Mr. Car- penter associated themselves with the late Col- onel John Atkinson and Flavius L. Brooke in forming the law firm of Atkinson, Carpenter, Brooke & Haigh, which gained recognition as one of the strongest firms in the state, and which controlled a large and important prac- tice and had a representative clientage. In 1893 Judge Carpenter withdrew from the firm, to assume his position on the Wayne circuit bench, to which he had been elected in the fall of the preceding year. In 1892-3 Mr. Haigh was deeply concerned in and occupied with the affairs of the Michigan Republican Club, of which he was one of the founders and of which he was chosen the first secretary. In the fall of 1893 he became junior member of the firm of Atkinson & Haigh, and he continued to be as- sociated with Colonel Atkinson until 1896, after which he was engaged in an individual, and particularly successful, practice until 1899, since which time the exactions of his manifold and important business interests have en- grossed practically his entire time and atten- tion.
Reverting to his connection with active polit- ical work, it may be said that Mr. Haigh served as secretary of the Michigan Republican Club, of which he continued secretary from the time of its organization, in 1884, until the close of the year 1886. He was one of the chief pro- moters of this organization, which so long wielded a powerful influence in Michigan poli- tics, and in 1892 he was again elected secretary, in which office he continued to serve until 1894. He remained a director of the club during the
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entire period of its existence, and was presi- dent of the club in 1896. In 1887 Mr. Haigh was prominently concerned in the organization of the National Republican League. In 1892-3 he was the Michigan member of the executive committee. In 1896 he was elected president of the Mckinley Club of Detroit, which did ef- fective service in the campaign of that year. In the campaign of 1892 Mr. Haigh not only served as secretary of the Michigan Republi- can Club but was also elected presidential elec- tor from his state and was chosen by his col- leagues to bear the vote of Michigan to the national capital. He was an active factor in manœuvering forces in the spirited presiden- tial campaign of 1896, and was alternate dele- gate-at-large from Michigan to the Republican national convention of that year, in St. Louis. He was also the first secretary of the Michigan State Republican League, which was organized in 1888.
Apropos of and incidental to Mr. Haigh's professional work, it should be noted that in 1884 he published "Haigh's Manual of Law," a compilation of the laws applicable to farm life and rural districts. This work has had a large sale and is in general use by justices of the peace throughout the country. In 1888 he compiled and published a work entitled the "Labor Laws of America," and this also is an authoritative publication. He has also been an occasional contributor to newspapers and magazines,-chiefly on topics incidental to po- litical affairs, matters of public policy and pub- lic health.
In 1898 Mr. Haigh assisted Messrs. Samuel F. Angus and James D. Hawks in securing the right of way necessary to the completion of the Detroit, Ypsilanti & Ann Arbor Railway, an electric line. His success in this enterprise led to his further association with Mr. Angus, in the promotion of the Toledo, Fremont & Nor- walk Railway, in Ohio. Of the company formed for the carrying through of the project he was chosen treasurer and general counsel, and he was also very active in connection with the construction of the line, having effected the
organization of the Comstock-Haigh-Walker Company, in which the interested principals were Andrew W., William B. and William A. Comstock, of Alpena, Michigan; Frederick W. Walker, of New York, and himself. As the contractors for the work, this company con- pleted the line, and Mr. Haigh was treasurer of the company. The road thus completed, six- ty-five miles in length, was finally sold to the Everett syndicate, of Cleveland, and now forms an integral part of the Lake Shore Electric Railway.
In 1902 the Comstock-Haigh-Walker Com- pany began the construction of the Rochester & Eastern Railway, a high-grade electric sys- tem, connecting Rochester, Canandaigua and Geneva, New York. This road was completed and placed on a paying basis, and in 1905 the property was sold to the New York Central Railroad Company. The next venture of the company was the construction of the Milwau- kee Northern Railway, and this system, when completed, will connect five of the most pros- perous and important agricultural and manu- facturing counties in Wisconsin. The first di- vision, traversing a distance of fifty-six miles, between Milwaukee and Sheboygan, is now completed and is of the best type of electric railway construction. The second division, ex- tending to Fond du Lac, a distance of forty-two miles, will be completed before the close of the year 1909. Upon the death of William B. Com- stock, in 1906, Mr. Haigh succeeded him as president of the Comstock-Haigh-Walker Com- pany, and of this chief executive office he has since remained in tenure. He is also treasurer of the Milwaukee Northern Railway Company. In 1905 Mr. Haigh became vice-president and director of the Detroit, Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor & Jackson Railway, with which he was actively connected up to the time of its sale to the De- troit United Railway Company, in 1908. Up- on the death of Andrew W. Comstock, in April, 1908, Mr. Haigh was elected president and director of the Cincinnati, Georgetown & Portsmouth Railroad, a steam and electric rail- way running easterly from Cincinnati and com-
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prising some seventy miles of track; also of the Felicity & Bethel Railroad, an electric line in southern Ohio, in the supervision of both of which properties he is actively engaged. He is also director in the Alpena Power Company and is interested in various other industrial en- terprises. He was a member of the Michigan state board of health from 1901 to 1906, a mem- ber of the American Public Health Association, and was and still is a member of the Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society, and in 1906 was on its executive committee. The forego- ing data clearly indicate how wide and impor- tant have been the activities in which Mr. Haigh has been and is prominently concerned.
Mr. Haigh was one of the original sub- scribers to the stock of the Peninsular Savings Bank of Detroit, has served as a member of its board of directors since 1906 and at present is a member of the executive committee of that bank. He was also one of the organizers of the Continental Casualty Company, of Chi- cago, for a number of years was a member of its directorate, and is now its general counsel for Michigan. He is a member of the Detroit Board of Commerce, and in every respect is to be regarded as a loyal and public-spirited citi- zen. He is identified with the Detroit Club, the Country Club at Grosse Pointe, and Orien- tal Lodge, No. 240, Free and Accepted Masons. He and his wife are members of St. John's Protestant Episcopal church, Detroit, and he is a member of the vestry of Christ church, in Dearborn.
On the 16th of January, 1895, was solem- nized the marriage of Mr. Haigh to Miss Caro- line Comstock, daughter of the late Andrew W. Comstock, formerly lumberman and vessel owner of Alpena, and the children of this union are Andrew Comstock Haigh, and Richard Al- lyn Haigh.
ABRAHAM P. SHERRILL.
One who has attained to success and prom- inence in the commercial world through his consecutive application along well defined lines of enterprise is Mr. Sherrill, one of the in-
terested principals in the great wholesale dry- goods house of Edson, Moore & Company, with which he has been identified from his youth.
It is a cause of no little satisfaction to Mr. Sherrill to refer to the old Empire state of the Union as the place of his nativity. He was born in Wyoming county, New York, on the 19th of January, 1850, and is a son of Abraham and Elizabeth (Saxton) Sherrill, both of whom were born in East Hampton, Long Island, where the respective families were early founded. The Sherrill family is of sterling English extraction and is to-day represented in many of the states of the Union. Dr. E. S. Sherrill, one of the prominent physi- cians and surgeons of Detroit, is a brother of the subject of this review, and they are the only members of the immediate family in Michigan. The father became a successful merchant of Pike, New York, and was a citi- zen of prominence and influence in his com- munity. He was active in political affairs, having originally been an old-line Whig and having identified himself with the Republican party at the time of its organization. He served as township supervisor and in other local offices of trust, and was postmaster of his town under the administration of President Lincoln. Both he and his wife died in Wyo- ming county, New York, honored by all who knew them.
The subject of this review was reared to maturity in his native state, to whose public schools he is indebted for his early educational discipline. In 1868, at the age of eighteen years, Mr. Sherrill came to Michigan and lo- cated in Pontiac, where he secured a clerical position in the Second National Bank, in which he was advanced to the position of tell- er. He remained with this institution for a period of five years, at the expiration of which, in 1873, he came to Detroit, where, through the influence of Stephen Baldwin, who was then one of the principal stockholders in the concern, he secured the position of bookkeeper in the establishment of Edson, Moore & Com-
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pany. Through faithful and effective service he made for himself a secure place in the co:fi- dence and esteem of the members of the firm and from time to time he was advanced to positions of higher trust and responsibility. Upon the re-organization of the concern in 1892 he was admitted to partnership and he has since continued to do his part in upholding the high prestige of this old and popular house, an outline of whose history appears in the memoir of its founder, Mr. Edson, on other pages of this work. Mr. Sherrill is rec- ognized as one of the representative business men and loyal citizens of Detroit, though he has never sought or desired to come into the "great white light" of publicity, being essen- tially conservative in his attitude. He is a Republican in politics, a member of the Fort Street Presbyterian church, and is identified with the Detroit Club, the Detroit Boat Club and other local organizations. Mr. Sherrill is a bachelor.
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