USA > Michigan > Lenawee County > History and biographical record of Lenawee County, Michigan, Volume I > Part 11
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in Seneca county, New York, January 16th, 1822, and came to Michigan with her parents in 1837, and settled in Macon. Her father and mother were born in New Jersey, and died in Macon, this county.
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ON. WILLIAM H. OSBORN, was born in Ovid, Seneca county, New York, October 29th, 1814. His father, Thomas Osborn, was born in Loraine, Massachu- setts, in 1784, where he lived until he was a young man, when he moved to Seneca county, New York, and was among the earliest settlers of that county. He purchased a new farm in Ovid township, and lived there until about the year 1848, when he sold his farm of three hundred acres and came to Michigan and resided mostly, until his death, which occurred May 6th, 1854, with his son William H., in Macon. About 1802 he married Miss Mary Hogarth, of Ovid, New York, daughter of John and Jane Hogarth, by whom he had eleven children, William H. being the fifth child and oldest son. Mrs. Mary Osborn was born in Ireland in 1783 and came to this country with her parents, in 1790, and settled in Seneca county, New York. She died in
Franklin, this county, in 1850. William H. Osborn lived with his parents until he was about twenty-two. He was educated at Ovid academy, the Lima seminary and the Cazenovia seminary. He never studied for any profession, as he intended when a boy, to be a farmer. He went to school to learn what he could and profit himself by it. He taught school three winters in the State of New York, one winter in Maumee, Ohio, and one winter in Macon, this county. In 1830 his father came to Michigan and located the south half of section twenty, in Macon, this county, and in 1839 William H. Osborn took possession of this land, where he now resides. Since that time he has cleared and improved two hundred and twenty acres, and it is now all under a good state of cultivation. He has erected a large frame house, large and sufficient barns, besides two tenement houses. He also owns an improved farm on section twenty-one, in Macon. Since his residence in Macon he has served as town clerk, justice of the peace, school inspector, highway and ditch commissioner. In 1864 he was elected representative to the Michigan Legislature. He was re-elected to the same position in 1866, and served on several
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OF LENAWEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
important committees. He was an old anti-slavery man and took an active interest in the cause from the first. He attended the convention at Pittsburgh when John P. Hale was nominated for President. He was never ashamed to be called an " Abolitionist." He cast one of the first three abolition votes ever cast in Macon. He was afterwards a "Free-soiler," and finally a Republican, and that strong. He has been active in all the improvements. and advancements of his township, in all directions. He has been an active church and school worker, and has assisted in erecting all the churches within a radius of ten miles of his home. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church of Ridgeway. April 26th, 1836, he married Ann Hex Woodward, daughter of John and Sarah Woodward, of Hector, Tompkins county, New York, by whom he had one child : Mary Elizabeth, born in Ovid, New York, September 15th, 1839, now the wife of John F. Hicks, of Tecumseh. Mrs. Ann Hex Osborn was born in London, England, in 1820, and died in Macon, this county, December 24th, 1840. March 30th, 1842, he married Miss Mary Jane Foote, daughter of David and Mary Foote, of Ovid, New York, by whom he has had seven children, as follows: Anna Hex, born April 19th, 1843, now the wife of James J. Hagaman, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Sophia M., born April 10th, 1845, now the wife of George I. Graves, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin ; Thomas, born February 22d, 1847, resides on the home farm; Rebecca J., born June 29th, 1849, now the wife of Henry C. Lowe, of Detroit; Joseph W., born June 29th, 1849, a farmer of Macon; Irving S., born June 21st, 1851, now at home; William H. Jr., born October 16th, 1853, now of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. All of the children were born in Macon, Michigan. Mrs. Mary Jane Osborn was born in Schenectady, New York, May 12th, 1820. Her father and mother were born in Ireland, and came. to this country in 1798. Her father died in Ovid, Seneca county, New York, in 1855. Her mother died at the same place in 1851.
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ERLEY BILLS was born June 5th, 1810, in Wilmington, Vermont, a Green Mountain town, well up on the eastern slope of the Green Mountain range. His parents, Hiram and Virtue Bills, were born in Connecticut, and were among the
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HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
early settlers of that rough township, built largely with hill and rock. Their occupation, farming and lumbering; they died in 1840. Such was the labor of P. Bills until fifteen years of age. After that, his summers only, were spent on the farm. At nineteen he went to Honesdale, Pennsylvania, to embark in trade. Owing to the sickness of a Mr. Whiting, his more experienced partner, this was abandoned almost before it was begun, and he went to work at house-building for the summer, and in the winter following, engaged in teaching in a school at Canon Corners, ten miles out, after which he returned home and spent his last summer on the mountain farm. In the autumn following he went to Ohio and engaged in teaching, in Medina county, and in the spring following connected himself with a preparatory class at the Western Reserve college, paying his way by alternately laboring and studying, for two years. He then spent two years in a seminary, at Bennington, Vermont, as pupil and tutor. At the close of that time, 1835, he came west again, to Ohio, and entered the second year of Oberlin college, and after two years, (teaching a part of the time in an academy at Strongsville, Ohio,) he came to Michigan, and located at Tecumseh, in the spring of 1837. Here he conducted a school for a period of a little more than three years, embracing primary and advanced classes, fitting young men for college, or for other advanced stations in the activities of the new state. In 1842 he was admit- ted to the legal profession, in which he has been principally engaged until his impaired health compelled him to abandon his office business. In 1837 he was a delegate to the convention called at Marshall, known as the Young Men's State convention, to organize a Whig party. In 1854 he was elected to the State Senate. In 1857 he was re-elected. He was also elected by the Senate, as speaker pro tempore. In 1867 he was elected a member of the State Constitutional convention. He organized in the village of Tecumseh, the first primary school district, in 1838, and has been largely identified with the educational interests of the place since that time. He has been a member of the school board continuously for more than thirty years. In 1861 he engaged in banking business, under the firm name of "The Savings Bank of P. Bills & Co." In 1865 he became a director and vice president of the National Bank, of Tecumseh. In 1874 the National was closed, and he at once organized a bank under the firm name of "Bills, Lilly & Co.," and is now president of that institution. November 8th, 1838 he married Miss Caroline Brown, daughter of Isaac and Rebecca Brown, of Blackberry Prairie, Illinois, by whom he has had six children, three sons and three daughters, as follows : Frederick H., born July 8th, 1841, died at Tecumseh, April 17th,
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OF LENAWEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
1853 ; Oscar P., born June 22d, 1843, a graduate of the Michigan University, now of Ithaca, Gratiot county, Michigan ; Caroline M., born September 8th, 1845, wife of General Lemuel Saviers. of St. Louis, Michigan; Mary H., born May 17th, 1848, wife of Lieutenant Colonel Nathan Church, of Ithaca, Gratiot county, Michigan; Harriet V., born January 1st, 1851, a graduate of the Howland college, Cayuga county, New York, and of the medical department of the Michigan University, now a practicing physician of East Saginaw, Michigan ; Chandler D., born September 8th, 1857, now of Tecumseh. All of the children were born in Tecumseh, Michigan. Mrs. Caroline Bills was born in Charlemont, Berkshire county, Massachusetts, April 17th, 1817, and came to Michigan in 1837, and taught school in Tecumseh for one year, when she removed to Illinois, where she resided at the time of her marriage, since which time she has been a constant resident of Tecumseh, Michigan. Her parents came to Tecumseh from Illinois, (where they resided at the time of her marriage,) in 1848, where her mother died in 1867, and her father died in 1871.
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OCTOR PARLEY J. SPALDING, son of Parley and Abigail Spalding, was born in the town of Columbia, Herki- mer county, State of New York, on the 6th day of August, 1805, where he resided until the year 1825. He received his preparatory education at Hamilton, after which he went to Williamsville, Erie county, New York, where he studied medicine with his brother, Dr. Luther Spalding, and afterwards graduated at Fairfield Medical College, in the year 1829, commencing practice, in company with his brother, soon after at Williamsville, Erie county, N. Y. He continued in practice at that place until the year 1832. January 19th, 1832, in the village of Genoa, Cayuga county, New York, he was married to Miss Romanda Tefft, and the same year removed to Adrian, Michigan, where he formed a co-partnership with Dr. Caleb N. Ormsby, Adrian's first physician, which continued for one and a half years, when the partnership was dissolved, and the Doctor continued to practice alone until the year 1836, when a co-partnership was formed with Dr. A. Barnard, under the name of Spalding and Barnard, which
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continued until the death of Dr. Barnard, in the summer of 1864, making a continuous partnership of about twenty-eight years. After the death of Dr. Barnard, he continued the practice of his profession alone until the fall of 1871, when he sold out his office, books, instruments, fixtures, good will, etc., to Dr. George W. Voorhees, a young physician who was born and educated, in part, in the city of Adrian. Since that time the Doctor has, with the exception of consultation, almost wholly retired from the practice of medicine. During his long residence in Adrian he has filled many important places through the suffrages of the people. In the fall of 1836 he was elected Register of Deeds of Lenawee County, which office he held two years. In the spring of 1841 he was elected President of the village council of Adrian, and was re-elected in 1842, holding the office for two years. In 1844 he was elected one of the Presidential electors on the Democratic ticket, and chosen by the electors, messenger to carry the vote of the State to Washington. In the year 1853 he was elected Moderator of the Adrian Union School Board, and served in that capacity for three years. April, 1854, he was elected mayor of the city of Adrian, being the second mayor elected by the people, and in accordance with the charter of the city, he acted as a member of the Board of Supervisors of the county, and was chosen by that board as chairman, in which capacity he acted through that year. The Doctor has been frequently importuned to accept nominations for various and important legislative offices, always declining, except in the year 1851, by the unanimous request of the Lenawee County Democratic Convention, he permitted his name to be used, in his Congressional District, as a candidate for Representative in Congress, and after a series of balloting he was defeated by David A. Noble, of Monroe. The Doctor was never an office solicitor, but always believed in the office seeking the man. He, together with other prominent and active democrats, in the winter of 1832-3 organized the Democratic party in Lenawee county, to which he has ever since been strongly attached. In all enterprises in the growth, success, and prosperity of city, county and State, Doctor Spalding has always taken a prominent interest. November 26th, 1878, the Doctor lost his estimable wife, who was buried in Oakwood cemetery, since which, and up to the present writing, he has continued to reside with his adopted grand-daughter, in the old homestead where he has resided since the spring of 1834. His whole life has been one of usefulness, and he still lives-October, 1879-enjoying, in a marked degree, the confidence and esteem of a large and extensive acquaintance.
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OF LENAWEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
ON. WILLIAM L. GREENLY, son of Thomas and Nancy Greenly, was born at Hamilton, Madison county, New York, September 18th, 1813. He attended school at Hamilton academy until the age of fourteen, the nattended Union college, where he graduated at the age of eighteen. He commenced the study of law with Stower & Gridley, in Hamilton, where he remained three years. He was admitted to the bar at Albany, New York, in the fall of 1833; practiced law at Eaton, Madison county, until October 1836, when on the 20th of the same month, he came to Adrian, Michigan, and commenced the practice of law. In the fall of 1837 he was nominated for the Legislature to fill vacancy, and was defeated by James Fields. In the year 1838 he was nominated and elected State Senator in the district composed of Monroe, Lenawee and Hillsdale counties, by a large majority; re-elected in the fall of 1841, and served two years more. In 1846 he was nominated and elected Lieutenant Governor, and served as such until the 1st of March, 1847, when by the resignation of Governor Felch, he became acting Governor of the State of Michigan, which position he occupied until the first of January, 1848. He was afterwards elected three times justice of the peace, and held the office for twelve years. In 1858 he was elected mayor of the city of Adrian for one year. Governor Greenly has been married three times; his first wife was Miss Sarah A. Dascomb, whom he married at Hamilton, New York, December, 1834. His second wife was Miss Elizabeth W. Hubbard, married at Northampton, Massachusetts, June 11th, 1840, and he married for his third wife, Miss Maria Hart, of Adrian, October 25th, 1859. A son, Marshal H. Greenly, by his second wife, is the only child living. He is a conductor on the Lake Shore road, and resides at Elkhart, Indiana.
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AVID B. VAN TINE was born in Auburn, Cayuga county, New York, August 23d, 1812. His father, Jacob Van Tine, was a mill owner, of Auburn. He married Miss Alida Post, April 20th 1792, by whom he had ten children, David, the subject of this sketch, being the eighth child. David B. Van Tine lived with his father until he was about eighteen years old, when he learned the cabinet trade, at Seneca Falls, New York, where he worked until the fall of 1830, when he came to Michigan,
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and landed in Tecumseh, on the 10th day of November. He came in company with Mr. H. A. Adams, now a resident of Tecumseh. Mr. Adams immediately built a small shop, on the River bank, in " Brownville," and Mr. Van Tine worked for him several years. Finally, Mr. Van Tine and Mr. William Richard, still a resident of Tecumseh, formed a partnership, and purchased the shop, and run quite an extensive furniture business, for about fourteen years, when the partnership was dissolved, and Mr. Van Tine carried it on several years alone. He then formed a part- nership with George Smith, who came here from New York. They run the business about four years, when Mr. Van Tine sold out, and retired from active business. January 3d, 1839, he married Miss Marilla Hoag, daughter of Judge William Hoag, a pioneer of Tecumseh, by whom he has had four children, as follows : Alonzo, born July 5th, 1841, died October 5th, 1841 ; Lawrence M., born August 27th, 1843, a resident of Tecumseh ; Henry, born April 30th, 1846, died August 1st, 1846 ; Charles H., born May 19th, 1849, died April 1st, 1859. Mrs. Marilla Van Tine was born in Burlington, Otsego county, New York, August 29th, 1818, and came to Tecumseh with her parents, in the fall of 1824, and she is the only surviving member of her father's family. Her father, William Hoag, was born in Burlington, Otsego county, New York, January 12th, 1789, and died at his residence, in Tecumseh, in 1853. He was, for several years, Judge of the county. Her mother, Eleanor Hoag, was born in Burlington, December 20th, 1790, and died in Tecumseh, September 23d, 1844. Mr. Van Tine served as first lieutenant in Captain Litch Spofford's infantry company, through the " Black Hawk war." He was also in the " 'Toledo war," and was one of the posse, under General Brown, who captured the surveying party, on the State line. His commission is signed by Governor Stevens T. Mason. He has served several years as a member of the village council, and has always been an active and honorable citizen.
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ENERAL DANIEL D. SINCLAIR, son of Duncan and Christie Sinclair, was born at Broadalbin, Montgomery county, New York, April 16th, 1805. Of a family of ten children only three are now living, Daniel D., Duncan and James. Daniel D., the subject of this sketch, lived at home until twelve years of age. Leaving home, he went to Albany, New York, to
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OF LENAWEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
live with Duncan McKercher, a grocer, of that city, acting as clerk in his store for about eighteen months, when he apprenticed himself to a Mr. Tra Porter, a merchant tailor, living next door to Martin Van Buren, on State street, remaining with him two years, when Porter retired from business, but procured Daniel a situation at Schenectady, in the same business, where he remained until he was twenty years of age. In the mean time his father died, and he afterwards removed with his mother's family to Livingston county, New York, where he was engaged in the clothing business for some three years. In the year 1830 he removed to Albion, Orleans county, where he formed a co-partnership with Daniel Lazalere. under the firm name of Sinclair & Lazalere. In the fall of 1834 he dissolved partnership with his partner, and married his wife, Miss Elizabeth Hyde, of Brockport, New York, and on the 25th of October, the same year, left Buffalo for Detroit, afterwards going to Tremainsville, Ohio, where he spent the winter. About the 1st of April, 1835, he came to Adrian, where he has since resided. He soon engaged in the clothing business with Daniel S. Wilkinson, and continued with him until 1838, when he was elected justice of the peace. He was elected county treasurer, in the fall of 1838, and held the office for two years, and was re-elected in the fall of 1842, and held the same for four years. In the fall of 1848 he was elected State Senator, attending the first session of the Legislature held at Lansing. In the year 1849 he was commissioned, by Governor Ransom, Brigadier General. In the year 1850 he was in the employ of the Michigan Southern and Northern Indiana Railroad Company, in the capacity of assistant Superintendent, which place he held for eight years, under Superintendents William Ashley, William H. Moore, and James Moore. Leaving the employ of that company, he engaged with Allen Pinkerton, detective, of Chicago, until the fall of 1859. In the spring of 1860 he was elected supervisor of the Second and Third wards of the city of Adrian, and was re-elected supervisor for seventeen successive years. In September, 1867, he was elected a trustee of the public schools of Adrian, and held the position for three years. Mr. Sinclair's parents were born in the town of Glenlion, Perth Shire, Scotland, and removed to America in the year 1798, and located in Montgomery county, New York, the family consisting of ten children. Daniel D. Sinclair's family consists of his wife and six children, five of whom are still living. The eldest, Henry H., is now living in Adrian, employed as business manager of the Times and Expositor; Edward W., is principal clerk with Meyer Brothers and Company, wholesale druggists, of St. Louis, Missouri. His youngest son, Daniel C.,
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is engaged in the drug business at Troy, Doniphan county, Kansas. His eldest daughter, Mary Elizabeth, is the wife of General William Humphrey, now warden of the State's prison, at Jackson. His youngest, Harriet Maria, is the wife of Tom. S. Applegate, of the firm of Applegate and Fee, of the Adrian Times and Expositor.
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AVID HATCH was born in Picton, Nova Scotia, February 21st, 1806. His father William Hatch, was born in Massachusetts, in 1759, of Scotch-Irish parents. His mother was Elizabeth Keeler, and was born in Nova Scotia, of German parents. His father's mother was born in the Highlands of Scotland. When a young man, he followed the sea, and finally settled in Nova Scotia and run a blacksmith's shop for many years. He also owned a farm, and died there in 1859. He was twice married, and raised thirteen children by his second wife, and none by the first. David Hatch lived with his parents until he was about twenty-four, when he went into the lumber woods of New Brunswick, near the mouth of the St. Lawrence river. He remained there six years, and in 1836, went to Cumberland Island, on the Georgia coast, and came to Michigan in 1837. He arrived in Detroit on the 2d day of July, and remained there until after the 4th, where he witnessed a grand celebration. On the 5th he commenced work on the Michigan Central railroad and assisted in the construction of that great thoroughfare, and saw the first train pass over the road to Ann Arbor, with Governor and Mrs. Mason aboard. In the fall of 1839 he came to Macon, this county, and purchased the north-east one-half of the north- east one-quarter of section eight, where he has resided ever since. This was new land, but Mr. Hatch has lived to clear it up, and make a fine, productive farm of it, and has erected good buildings. Since that time he has added to his farm, until now he owns two hundred acres. April 6th, 1838, he married Miss Esther Bell, daughter of William and Jeanette Bell, of Nankin, Wayne county, Michigan, by whom he had four children, as follows : William B., born in Nankin, Wayne county, Michigan, January 16th, 1839. He was a soldier in Company D, 3d Michigan cavalry, in the war of the Rebellion, and died October 8th, 1862. James D., born in Macon, in December, 1840, a farmer of Macon ; Jeanette, born in
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OF LENAWEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
Macon, August 29th, 1842, now the wife of William Hastings, of Denver, Colorado ; Samuel, born in Macon, in September, 1844, now of Detroit. Mrs. Esther Hatch was born in Scotland, April 19th, 1819, and came to this country with her parents in 1834, and settled in Wayne county, Michigan. She died in Macon, December 20th, 1846. In September, 1856, he married Mrs. Caroline Ferguson, daughter of George and Eunice Shufflebotham, of Manchester, England. She was married to John Ferguson in 1839, by whom she had three children, as follows: Emma, wife of the late James M. Hoag, of Adrian. Maria, now the wife of Granville Mills, of Macon ; Frederick A., of Adrian, Michigan. John Ferguson died in Manchester, England, in April, 1844.
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ORENZO D. DEWEY was born in Hanover, New Hampshire, April 29th, 1808. His father, Simeon Dewey, was a mechanic and manufacturer of Concord, New Hamp- shire, and manufactured plows quite extensively, for those days. He lived in Concord until about the year 1825, when he moved to Buffalo, New York, where he kept a public house until the fall of 1829, when he came to Michigan and purchased six lots of land, the east line being one mile west of Tecumseh. In 1831 he built a frame house and kept "tavern" for the accommodation of immigrants then fast coming in. During this time he was actively engaged in clearing and improving his land, and about the first land broken up, west of the village, was forty acres done by Sumner Spofford and Daniel Waring, for Mr. Dewey. On the 7th of May, 1807, he married Miss Betsey Bigelow, of Hanover, New Hampshire, by whom he had six children, four sons and two daughters, all of whom were reared in this county, and three of whom now live here. Mr. Dewey died at Brest, Monroe county, and was buried at Tecumseh. Mrs. Dewey died at the home of her son Charles, in Cambridge. Lorenzo D. Dewey came to Tecumseh with his parents in November, 1829, and now lives on the farm he purchased that year, about one mile west of the village, on the Government road. In 1825-6 he was a medical student at Portsmouth college. In 1828 he went to Florida and was engaged as clerk in a store, for about one year. In the fall of 1832 he went to Detroit and became general manager of the stage office there. This office controlled all the stage lines radiating
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from that city, one line running to Lower Sandusky, Ohio, another to Pontiac, Michigan, and the great through route to Chicago and the west. Mr. Dewey held this important position for three years, when he was taken sick, and by the advice of his physician, Doctor Houghton, he was obliged to resign. He then returned to Tecumseh and lived on his farm, and in March, 1853, became interested in the hardware business in Tecumseh, in the firm of Sholes, Dewey & Company, and afterwards L. D. Dewey & Company. Mr. Dewey remained in this business for about ten years. October 3rd, 1833, he married Miss Maranda Olmstead, of Detroit, by whom he has had six children, three sons and three daughters, as follows: Alvener M., of Tecumseh; Antoneker M., wife of Robert Stretch, of Tecumseh; Lorenzo Jr., a farmer of Raisin; De Garmo J., a dentist of Washington, Iowa; Alfonzo, lives on the homestead; Elizabeth Z., wife of G. W. Marsden, of Tecumseh. Mrs. Dewey was on board the first steamboat that ever went above Detroit to the upper lakes. Mr. Dewey, when young, was a very active business man, and is, perhaps, more familiar with the old method of transportation by stages, than any man in this part of the country, and his recollections of those days of immigration and speculation are most interesting and vivid. In the year 1832-the time of the cholera-a quarantine was established about three miles east of Ypsilanti, to stop the stages and passengers coming from Detroit, and at a meeting of the citizens it was resolved that if "Bonaparte, Jesus Christ or General Jackson is aboard, we shall stop the stage to-morrow," but Mr. Dewey says the stages were put through every day, but not without some serious trouble for three days, when the quarantine was raised. About three years ago he was stricken with paralysis, since which time he has not been engaged in any business.
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