USA > Michigan > Calhoun County > History of Calhoun County, Michigan, a narrative account of its historical progress, its people, and its principal interests, Volume II > Part 44
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In 1900 Mr. Rundle was united in marriage with Miss Orpha Cook, daughter of Lymas Cook, formerly of Ingham county, Michigan, and now a resident of Olivet, Michigan. Mr. and Mrs. Rundle have had a family of three children, all of whom are living at home: Claude, Clell and Ruth. Mr. Rundle is a Democrat in his political views, and has served on the school board for a number of years, in addition to which he acted as township treasurer for two years. In 1912 he was elected a member of the board of township supervisors, a capacity in which he is serving at the present time. Fraternally, he is a popular member of the local lodge of the Modern Woodmen of America.
MYRON BOLLES. The only survivor of his family, that is his father's immediate household, and therefore having no one but himself to de- pend on, and having risen to his present estate of comfort in a worldly way and consequence among the people in reference to all the interests and activities of his township and county through great trials and over great obstacles, Myron Bolles of Marengo township is entitled to high
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credit for his success and strong admiration as a type of the self-reliant and resourceful American citizen, who laughs at fate and dares her do her worst, then wins in the unequal contest by reason of his force of character and adaptability to every requirement that may be laid upon him.
Mr. Bolles was born in the township in which he now lives on September 26, 1848, and is a son of Benjamin T. and Corlinda (Lattin) Bolles, the former born in the state of New York about 1800 and the latter in Vermont in 1824. She died in 1851 and the father in 1855. They were married in Michigan and became the parents of three children, of whom Myron, the last born, is the only one living. The other two were Stephen, who died many years ago; and Lucy, who became the wife of N. Jewell and whose death occurred in 1871.
The father, Benjamin T. Bolles, came to Michigan when a young man and was followed by his father and the rest of the family soon afterward. He was a son of Julius Bolles, and in company with his father took up a large tract of government land. They cleared this land and made it their home for a number of years, the son then locating at Marengo. There and at Marshall he worked at his trade as a tanner in connection with extensive farming operations. The grandfather of Myron Bolles on his mother's side was Daniel Lattin, a man of promi- nence and influence in the locality of his residence, or the several places in which he lived from time to time, for he was a man of great force of character and considerable intelligence.
Myron Bolles obtained his education in district schools, and obtained it under difficulties of pressing weight. His parents died when he was yet but a child, the mother when he was but three years old and the father four years later. By their death the home was entirely broken up and the orphan boy was obliged to make his home wherever he could find one, first with one family and then with another, working during the summers and attending school when he could be spared during the winter months.
When he had nearly attained his majority he began farming on his own account, and after a few years of patient industry in the employ of others and frugal living for himself, he was able to purchase forty acres of land in which his sister owned a one-half interest. To this he afterward added twenty acres and enlarged his operations as his pros- perity and facilities increased. In time he sold this farm and bought fifty acres of a better tract in Sheridan township, which he farmed for two years and then sold it. His next purchase was a tract of forty acres in Eaton county on which he lived three years, remaining until 1881, when he located on a farm belonging to his father-in-law, the one which he now owns and cultivates.
This farm he worked on shares five years, then bought it. It com- prises 160 acres, the greater part of which is under cultivation. On this farm, which has been the field of his operations ever since, and a source of great pride and solicitude to him, he has a fine brick dwelling and good barns and other necessary buildings. The barns have concrete floors in the stalls and other modern features which make them partic- ularly desirable and give him many conveniences for an extensive busi- ness in raising live stock, which he carries on with vigor and profit; but he does not raise thoroughbred stock, as he only caters to the markets which supply meat for food. His farming operations are general in their character and he makes them pay well by the enterprise and intelligence with which he conducts them. He is well qualified for specialties, but does not care for them, preferring to give his atten- tion to his farm as a whole, in the ordinary way, without a variety of requirements.
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Mr. Bolles was married on December 7, 1869, to Miss Anna McGhee, a daughter of James McGhee, a prominent farmer of Clarence town- ship, this county. She died in 1871, and on March 7, 1877, he contracted a second marriage. In this he was united with Miss Ella M. Carrier, a daughter of Edwin B. Carrier, who lived on the farm Mr. Bolles owns but is now living at Oconto Falls, Wis. Mr. and Mrs. Bolles are the parents of six children: Ethel, the widow of John Ovenshire; Cecil M., who married Louis L. Avery of Albion; Cornelia Florence, who is the wife of Harold Weeks of Albion; Olive Lucile, the wife of Aro Hotchkiss, professor of the Commercial College at Elgin, Illinois; Burt Glenn, a graduate of the polytechnical school in Peoria, Illinois, but now teaching manual training at Butte, Mont; and June Ray, who is also living with her parents, and is a student in the Albion high school.
In his political faith and allegiance Mr. Bolles is a Republican Pro- hibitionist, but he is not an active partisan in any way. He is now and has been for some years a member of the school board, but he was elected for this office and performs its duties without regard to political consideration. Mr. Bolles and family are regular attendants of the Methodist Protestant church, where they have been active workers for many years. The people of Calhoun county regard him as one of their most useful and representative citizens and esteem him accordingly.
MATTHEW C. THOMAS. Prominent among the well-known residents of the village of Partello, may be mentioned Matthew C. Thomas, who for about sixteen years has been living retired from active business life. He has built up for himself a lasting reputation as a man possess- ing most excellent personal traits of character, upright and honorable in his business transactions, and imbued with that generous public spirit that made him always ready to assist in whatever was calculated to promote the welfare of his community. During a long and honorable career he has been elected to various positions of trust and importance, in all of which he has demonstrated himself to be a public-spirited citizen who holds official office as a sacred trust. Matthew C. Thomas was born May 27, 1842, in Marengo township, Calhoun county, Mich- igan, and is a son of Clark and Abigail (Bunn) Thomas.
Clark Thomas was born in the state of New York, about the year 1808, and in 1836 came west, locating in Marengo township, where he was engaged in farming up to the time of his death, which occurred in 1843. He owned a property of forty acres in Marengo township, and another farm in Lee township, and although still a young man at the time of his death was known as one of Calhoun's rising business men. In politics he was a Democrat, but never cared for public office. His wife, also a native of the Empire state, was born about 1826, and died in 1887, having been the mother of two children: Azuba, who married a Mr. Woodmancy and resided in Cherokee, Oklahoma; and Matthew C.
Matthew C. Thomas was only about one year old at the time of his father's death, but managed to secure a good education in the district schools of Marengo township. He was engaged in work on the home farm until the outbreak of the Civil war, and in 1861 enlisted in Com- pany A, First Regiment, Michigan Volunteer Infantry, with which he served until May 3, 1862. In June of the same year, he veteranized by becoming a member of Company H, Seventeenth Regiment, Michigan Volunteer Infantry, and remained with that organization until the close of the war. With the army of the east he saw considerable hard fighting, and among his numerous battles were those of South Mountain and Antietam. He also became familiar with southern prisons, when
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he was captured and confined at Winchester, Virginia, but eventually paroled. On his return to Calhoun county, Mr. Thomas settled in Lee township, where he was married in 1865 to Armenia A. Murray, daughter of David W. Murray, of Lee township. Of the three children born to this union, only one survives, Arthur D., who is now living in Battle Creek, where he is in the employ of Kellogg's Toasted Corn Flakes Company. He married Florence Luff, and has three children.
Mr. Thomas, on his return to Calhoun county, engaged in farming in Lee township, where he owned a farm of something over eighty-seven acres, but two years later engaged in the mercantile ,business at Par- tello, where he remained two years. He again went in the mercantile business in 1878, but during the past sixteen years has not engaged in activities of a business nature. In political matters a Democrat, under President Cleveland he served as postmaster of Partello, and also served as deputy sheriff of Calhoun county for two years, and as constable for twenty-six years. Fraternally he holds membership in Olivet Lodge, F. & A. M., and the local lodge of the Knights of the Maccabees, and is also a valued comrade of the Grand Army of the Republic. He and his wife have numerous friends in Partello, and their comfortable mod- ern home is often the meeting place for those with whom they have been intimate during the long years of their residence here.
Mr. Thomas' half-brother, Lovinas A. Belding, reenlisted in '61 in the Civil war and served throughout the war; he returned to Calhoun county and remained till 1867 when he joined the regular army but nothing has been heard from him since 1888 while at Atlanta, Georgia.
CYRENIUS C. SMITH, M. D. Worthy of especial mention in a work of this character is Cyrenius C. Smith, M. D., who has been busily and successfully engaged in the practice of medicine at Bedford, Calhoun county, for upwards of a quarter of a century, during which time he has won an honored position in the community, not only as a skillful physician, but as an esteemed and highly respected citizen. A native of Illinois, he was born, April 22, 1860, in McHenry county.
His father, George Smith, was born and reared in New York state, where his parents were life-long residents. In 1856 he came with his young wife to Illinois, settling on a farm in McHenry county. Soon after the breaking out of the Civil war he enlisted in an Illinois regi- ment, and died while in the army. He married, in New York, Mary Gris- wold, a daughter of Johial Griswold, who spent his entire life in New York state. Shortly after the death of her husband, she moved with her family to Michigan, and was here a resident until her death, in 1910, at the venerable age of four score and four years.
A small child when brought by his mother to Michigan, Cyrenius C. Smith acquired his preliminary education in the public schools, afterwards continuing his studies for a year in the medical department of the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, for a year. Going then to Chicago, he was graduated from the Hahnemann Medical College with the class of 1884. Immediately locating at Bedford, Calhoun county, Dr. Smith has here built up a large and highly remunerative patronage, his practice extending many miles into the country in either direction. Left fatherless in early childhood, he has in truth been the architect of his own fortunes, being mainly self-educated and self-made. He is exceedingly prosperous, both as a physician and as a business man, owning a beautiful home, and other property of value, including the building in Bedford in which he was for a short time engaged in business as a general merchant. He devotes himself to the demands of
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his profession, and is an interested member of the American Medical Society.
Politically the Doctor is a loyal Republican, and although not an office seeker has served on the Bedford Board of Education, of which he is now a member. Fraternally Dr. Smith is a member of Bedford Lodge, No. 207, Free and Accepted Order of Masons; of Battle Creek Chapter, No. 16, Royal Arch Masons, and of Battle Creek Commandery, No. 33, Knights Templar.
Dr. Smith married, in 1897, Lydia Haynes, a daughter of James Haynes, of Canada. She was fitted for a professional career, and was caring for a patient as a trained nurse when the Doctor met her. Two children have been born to the union of Dr. and Mrs. Smith, namely : Geraldine and Lelahl, both now in school. The Doctor and his wife are both members of the Methodist Episcopal church.
JAMES COURT. The salient points in a sermon recently preached by Dr. Newell Dwight Hillis, of Brooklyn, New York, referred to heredity and environment as being but half truths, the part which they play in determining a man's career being as nothing compared with the influ- ence that he can himself exert if he so prepares himself that he is ready when opportunity knocks at his door. The life record of the late James Court, head of the firm of James Court & Son, of Marshall, shows that he was ever alert to take advantage of fortune's offers, at the same time furnishing a forcible example to the rising generation of the material success to be obtained by persevering industry, and a wise system of economy. A native of England, he was born, November 26, 1839, in Berkshire, being the only son of James and Typhosia (Crutch- field) Court. His father, a farmer, was accidentally killed in 1843, and his mother afterward married again.
Brought up in his English home, James Court, who was left father- less when but four years of age, had but limited educational advantages as a boy, his knowledge having been largely acquired by private study and extensive reading. In 1855, desirous of enlarging his scope of action, and becoming better acquainted with other parts of the great world than he could by the gathered reports of other people, he im- migrated to the United States, landing in New Orleans. Staying but a short time in that southern city, Mr. Court came north on a Mississippi river steamboat to Stillwater, Minnesota, and during the following year worked in a hotel at Marine Mills. In the fall of 1856 he made his first appearance in Marshall, Michigan, but his stay was then of short duration. Proceeding to Kalamazoo county, Mr. Court found remuner- ative employment in the lumber camps, chopping wood and logging. He took a contract for clearing three hundred and twenty acres of woodland for the Michigan Central Railroad Company, a work in which he had to hire twenty-five choppers, and employ thirteen teams. In- vesting in real estate, Mr. Court bought a tract of land in Kalamazoo county, but soon after traded it for property in Marshall.
In 1877 Mr. Court took up his residence in Marshall, and started in business for himself as a dealer in poultry, beginning operations on a modest scale. Meeting with encouraging success from the start, he enlarged his operations each year, dealing not only in poultry, but buy- ing and shipping eggs and butter, not only in the state but in more distant markets. His business subsequently assumed such large propor- tions that he erected, in Marshall, an immense plant for the handling of dressed poultry, and butter and eggs, and a little later admitted his son, Frank W. Court to partnership, the firm name becoming James Court & Son.
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In April, 1897, in order to facilitate his business, Mr. Court bought a tract of land in Allegan, this state, and having erected a large storage and packing house there built up a fine trade, which the firm has since continued, the plant being located on the line of the Michigan Central Railroad. Mr. Court also built a plant at Bellvue, Eaton county, and that and the two others were controlled exclusively by Mr. Court and his son, who also had a half interest in the plant at Homer, being at the head of the firm of Court & Hardy. In his business operations Mr. Court, with his partners, kept a number of men busy all of the time, the work of gathering the poultry, eggs and butter for the central plants requiring many hands and many teams.
In 1891 Mr. Court, who was ever on the alert to secure the best meth- ods and equipments for carrying on his business interests, erected a large poultry house, with a double refrigerator, the house at that time having been the largest and best of the kind in Michigan. He gained entrance to the leading markets of the east, and continued in active trade until his death, which occurred at his home in Marshall, March 20, 1902, his death being a cause of general regret in business, fraternal and social circles, he having been deservedly popular with all classes of people.
In his political affiliations Mr. Court supported the principles of the Republican party, and though not an aspirant for public office served as a member of the City Council two terms, during which time the elec- tric light plant and water works were taken over by the city. Fra- ternally he belonged to the Ancient Order of United Workmen. Mr. Court and his wife were both members of the Congregational church, but there having been no religious organization of that denomination in Marshall they were regular attendants of the Presbyterian church.
Mr. Court married, October 18, 1862, Salina Williams, who was born in Oxford, England, came to the United States when a young girl, and died in Marshall, Michigan, March 4, 1902. Of the six children born of their union, two died in infancy, James, Jr., died in early man- hood, and three are now living, namely: Frank W., of whom a brief sketch appears on another page of this volume; Kate; and Reuben, the latter has charge of the Litchfield plant.
FRANK W. COURT. One of the enterprising and progressive business men of the city of Marshall, and a worthy representative of the mer- cantile interests of Calhoun county, Frank W. Court is widely known as a wholesale and retail dealer in poultry, eggs and butter, his im- mense trade in this line of merchandise going to the leading markets of the east, his name being familiarly known to the leading commission merchants of New York and Boston. The business which he is so suc- cessfully conducting was started upwards of thirty years ago by his father, the late James Court, and has been continued without inter- ruption ever since, the firm name for the past few years having been James Court & Son.
Frank W. Court was born in Marshall, July 21, 1863, being the eldest son of James and Salina (Williams) Court, natives of England, the father's birth having occurred in Berkshire, and the mother's in Ox- ford. Both came to this country in early life, and were here married in 1862. Further parental and ancestral history may be found else- where in this biographical work in connection with the sketch of James Court.
Acquiring a practical education in the common and high schools of Marshall, Frank W. Court subsequently received an excellent training in business matters under the wise guidance of his father, who was a man of superior business ability and judgment, acquiring while yet a
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young man an experience and a knowledge of men, that has enabled him to direct his energies and efforts not only to his own advantage, but to the benefit of his employees. On being admitted to partnership with his father, he became junior member of the firm of James Court & Son, which has acquired a far more than local reputation for its en- terprise and stability, ranking with the leading mercantile concerns of the state. Since the death of his father, in March, 1902, Mr. Court has continued the business so advantageously started, pushing it and ex- tending it until it has assumed great magnitude. He has made valuable improvements to the Marshall plant of the company, it being now one hundred and twenty feet by one hundred and forty feet, two stories in height, with two large warehouses and a cold storage room. The Com- pany also has plants in Litchfield, Bellevue, Allegan, and Homer, these being under the management of local superintendents, but operated by the home plant. Mr. Court is also interested in everything pertaining to the welfare of his home city, and is a generous contributor to all enterprises conducive to the public good. One of his sons, George Court, is principal of the Battle Creek high school.
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Mr. Court married, in 1888, Miss Mary A. Lowe, of Marshall, a daughter of John Lowe, and to them four children have been born, namely : Frances May, George W., Richard E., and Hazel J.
Prominent in Masonic circles, Mr. Court is a member of Saint Al- bans Lodge, No. 20, Free and Accepted Order of Masons; of Lafayette Chapter, No. 4, Royal Arch Masons; and of Marshall Commandery, No. 17, Knights Templar. He also belongs to the Knights of Pythias.
J. E. CROSBY. One of our greatest modern statesmen has said : "Our civilization rests at bottom on the wholesomeness, the attractive- ness and the completeness, as well as the prosperity of life in the country. The men and women on the farms stand for what is fundamentally best and most needed in our American life." This fact is rapidly being recognized and scientific farming is assuming its rightful position among the leading commercial and professional occupations. One of Calhoun county's most highly respected and successful agriculturists is J. E. Crosby, whose splendid farm of two hundred and seventy-eight acres is located in Emmett township, in which section, in adjoining township, his honored father was one of the stalwart pioneers who laid the paths for coming civilization straight and clean. He is one of his township's leading Republicans and has held several important public offices with much credit, being now township supervisor.
Mr. Crosby was born on a farm in Battle Creek township February 28, 1833, the son of Peter Crosby, a native of Bath, Steuben county, New York. Peter Crosby, like so many of his neighbors, came to the northwest at an early date in quest of the opportunity presented by the newly opening country. His arrival within the boundaries of Mich- igan was as early as the year 1840, and he took up government land west of Battle Creek. He was married July 4, 1850, Mary Jane Webster, a native of Ohio, becoming his wife and helpmeet. Of the five children born to these worthy people, the subject was the second in order of birth. He and his sister are the only survivors. In the later years of his life, Peter Crosby moved into Battle Creek, where the respect of his fellow men attended him as in his previous surroundings. He was a Republican in politics. He passed to the Great Beyond on January 15, 1901, but his widow survives and makes her home in Battle Creek.
The early life of the subject was passed in Battle Creek and in the public schools of that city he received his general education. Fol- lowing that he took a commercial course in Battle Creek, but has for
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the most part devoted his energies to agriculture rather than to busi- ness. Afer his marriage in 1873, he engaged in farming in Berry county and after a period there, he removed to LeRoy, Osceola county, where for a number of years he engaged successfully in the shipping of lumber. Still retaining his connection with the lumber company he removed in its interests to Manistee. However, the pleasures of farm life did not diminish in attractiveness for him and in December, 1891, he secured his present splendid farm, which under his thrifty man- agement has developed into one of the county's model farms.
Mr. Crosby is of the proper caliber for public responsibility and he has made an enviable public record. At the present time he holds the office of township supervisor and when a resident of Osceola county, he held the office of treasurer of his township. He is school director and has ever demonstrated his sincere conviction that the best education pos- sible to secure for the young people is none too good. In truth, there is nothing of public import in his community in which he is not help- fully interested, and all measures which in his judgment promise benefit to any considerable number of his fellow citizens have his cordial advocacy and generous support. He and his wife and daughter are valued members of the Methodist Episcopal church. In politics he is one of the standard bearers of the Grand Old Party.
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