USA > Michigan > Wayne County > Detroit > History of Detroit and Wayne County and early Michigan: A Chronological Cyclopedia of the Past and Present, Vol. II > Part 15
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Under section 32 of the Act of Congress, ap- proved July 28, 1866, on a record of six wounds received in action, he was retired on the rank of Colonel United States Army. He risked his person, as an officer, in double as many engagements and actually commanded a regiment in more battles than the oldest regiment of the regular United States army ever participated in from the time of the original organization of the army in 1790. He received four out of six wounds while doing another officer's duty in battle. In 1873 he was appointed by Governor Bagley as Judge Advocate of Michi- gan. He was reduced to the rank of a Lieutenant- Colonel by the operation of the so-called " Craw- ford Act," of March 3, 1875, and unjustly remained for several years under the mortification of being reduced from a rank fairly won by conspicuous gal- lantry and a steady fidelity to duty which resulted in a permanent disability of the severest and most painful character.
His disability being fully proved by the testimony of the late Dr. D. O. Farrand, as well by other eminent surgeons, on a showing of the facts to Congress, that body very justly, by a special act on March 13, 1878, restored him to the rank of Colo- nel United States Army retired. It is eminently true that he possesses an army record that many a
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West Pointer might covet. In 1856, he married Sarah L. Lee, daughter of Peter Lee, of Detroit. She died in 1875, leaving one son and three daughters. In 1883 Colonel Pulford married Mrs. Emma Cady, daughter of Alexander Cady, a mer- chant of Rochester, New York. They have one son, John Pulford, Jr.
WILLIAM EMORY QUINBY was born in the town of Brewer, Maine, December 14, 1835. His father's name was Daniel Franklin Quinby and his mother's maiden name, Arazina Reed. They were married in 1834 and moved to Detroit in 1850, where he, in connection with J. K. Wellman, estab- lished a periodical known as Wellman's Literary Miscellany. Mr. Quinby had charge of the editor- ial department and secured a list of contributions that would be notable even in this day of greatly increased literary activity. In 1851 Mr. Quinby became one of the owners and in 1853 sole pro- prietor. The magazine was subsequently sold to other parties and finally discontinued.
These facts indicate a natural beginning of the literary tastes of William E. Quinby. Coming with his father, he attended the literary department in connection with Gregory's Commercial College, in the Odd Fellows' Hall on Woodward Avenue, and was also employed in the office of "The Miscel- lany." After his father sold the magazine he entered the University at Ann Arbor and graduated in the class of 1858. He then took up the study of law and the following year was admitted to the bar, and for part of two years practiced his profession. His inclinations, however, were towards literary work, and when in 1861 Wilbur F. Storey, then publisher of The Free Press, tendered him a position on the paper, he gladly accepted the offer and since then his connection with the paper has been con- tinuous.
In 1861 Henry N. Walker became proprietor and he made Mr. Quinby managing editor, and in 1863 Mr. Quinby purchased a quarter interest in the paper. In 1872 Mr Walker retired from the active business management and Mr. Quinby was chosen general manager. He soon purchased another quarter of the stock of the corporation and in January, 1875, bought a large part of the remain- ing stock, and since that date has been the chief owner and manager, and under his direction The Free Press has attained a circulation and influence enormously in advance of any previously possessed. His plans and management have made the paper and the city in which it is published a household name, not only in all parts of the United States, but in the British Isles as well, and indeed all over the world where there are any large number of English speaking people, and in this respect it is
without a rival in either England or America. The success attained by Mr. Quinby indicates the posses- sion of extraordinary executive ability, rare literary and commercial foresight, great comprehensiveness of detail, a fine sense of adaptation of means to an end, and a distinct and definite grasp of all the forces needed to insure success, and the paper of which he is the head. with its Detroit and London editions, has achieved a success that is without a parallel. Only clear, practical and well devised plans could have secured the result that has been obtained.
Personally Mr. Quinby is as modest as he is energetic. He seems destitute of self-assurance but is full of nerve and confidence ; is always suave, patient, methodical and at the helm. He is a warm friend, an agreeable companion, a graceful writer and reliable in judgment. He was married on April 4, 1860, to Adeline Frazer. They have six children, namely : Theodofe E., who is one of the editorial staff of the Free Press, Henry W., Wini- fred, Herbert, Florence and Evelyn.
JAMES E. SCRIPPS was born in London, England, March 19, 1835, and is the son of James Moggs and Ellen Mary (Saunders) Scripps. The records of Trinity parish, Ely, Cambridgeshire, Eng- land, as far back as 1609, contain the names of members of the family, who then spelled their name Crip and Crips, but as early as 1633 they began to spell it as it is now written. The father of J. E. Scripps was a bookbinder and emigrated to America with his family in 1844, settling in Rush- ville, Illinois, where, on November 26, 1844, he mar- ried, as his third wife, Julia Adeline Osborn, who was born at Ogdensburgh, New York. He pos- sessed great mechanical ingenuity, coupled with rare skill, a high order of intelligence, and was of irreproachable character ; he died at Rushville on May 12, 1873.
James E. Scripps came to Detroit from Chicago in 1859. In October, 1861, he, with M. Geiger and S. M. Holmes, became proprietors of the Daily Advertiser, and in July, 1862, Mr. Scripps was made general manager. In February, 1865, he purchased a large amount of additional stock, and under his management the paper was very successful. Be- lieving that he saw a favorable opening for a cheap evening paper, he retired from the Advertiser. and on August 23, 1873, issued the first number of the Detroit Evening News. The paper was almost immediately successful, and its circulation increased so enormously and constantly that he soon made an ample fortune, and his wealth is constantly increasing.
He is inclined to liberality, and has made large gifts to the Museum of Art, and in many ways has
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been a helpful factor in promoting the growth of the city. In addition to his regular literary work, he was one of the publishers in 1873 of a very complete State Gazetteer, and the same year issued an outline History of Michigan in pamphlet form.
His letters from Europe, printed in the Evening News during 1881, were republished in book form in 1882, under the title of "Five Months Abroad." He was married at Detroit on September 16, 1862, to Harriet Josephine Messinger. They have had five children, four of whom are now living. Their names are Ellen Warren, Anna Virginia, James Francis, and Grace Messinger Scripps.
JOHN P. SHELDON, founder of the Detroit Gazette, the first successful newspaper published in Detroit, was born in 1792, and came to the city from Rochester, New York, in 1817. Prior to his arrival here, he had served in the militia during the war of 1812, and in 1814 was working as a printer in Utica, removing from there to Rochester, and then to Detroit.
During Mr. Sheldon's management of the Gazette, he maintained a very independent attitude, and on one occasion, for certain strictures upon the Supreme Court of the Territory, he was fined, hut refusing to pay the fine he was arrested and confined in jail. The fine was subsequently paid by his friends, and he was released. While in jail he continued to edit his paper, and his connection with it was continuous until 1830, when the office of the paper was destroyed by fire, and the publication ceased. On June 2, 1831, within a month after it was first issued, Mr. Sheldon became editor of the Detroit Free Press, remaining about six months.
In 1833 he was appointed Superintendent of the lead mines west of the Mississippi, and removed to Willow Springs, Wisconsin. From 1835, to 1840 he served as Register of the United States Land Office, at Mineral Point, Wisconsin, and subse- quently for many years was a clerk in one of the departments in Washington, resigning in 1861.
During his residence at Detroit he held various public offices, serving as one of the Trustees of the city, in 1823, as one of the County Commissioners from 1822 to 1825, and as Alderman at Large in 1828. He died at the residence of his daughter, Mrs. Thomas Drummond, of Winfield, Illinois, on January 19, 1871.
MORSE STEWART, A. M., M. D., was born July 5, 1818, in Penn Yan, Yates County, New York. He is the third son of George Dorrance Stewart, a lineal descendant in the third generation of Robert Stuart, who came from the north of Scotland to Connecticut in 1725, with his wife, whose maiden name was Elizabeth Dixon. Their first and only
surviving child was Samuel Stewart, of New Lon- don, Connecticut, who married Elizabeth Ken- nedy. Of this marriage there were twenty-four children, eighteen of whom reached mature life, and ten lived to be over seventy-three years of age. Samuel Stewart was a man of liberal fortunes and godly life. He was hospitable and brave and lived upon his estate in the comfort and luxury of his time, and established well his many children around him, or on less stubborn soil. His second son, Samuel Stewart, Jr., with the enterprise that was in the blood, located in St. Lawrence County, New York, near Ogdensburgh, where nine children grew up about him. The eldest son, George Dorrance, having the true spirit of a pioneer, pushed west- ward into Yates County, New York, where he laid the foundation of a great fortune, in lands and busi- ness enterprises. He died at the age of forty-two years, leaving four sons and three daughters, the eldest but nine years of age.
Morse Stewart, when eleven years of age, was sent by his mother, Mrs. Harriet Benham Stewart, to the High School at Pittsfield, Massachusetts, an admirable and justly celebrated academy for boys, established by Rev. Chester Dewey, D. D., who had attained a wide reputation as a scientist. At the end of three years he passed from the hands of this gentleman into those of Professor David Malen, whose training fitted his pupil to enter Hamilton College at the age of sixteen. Four years later he made choice of the medical profession, and after some preliminary study with Dr. Samuel Foot, of Jamestown, New York, he attended two courses of lectures in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, of Western New York. His third course was taken at the Geneva Medical College. At the close of the session of 1840-41, he passed an examination for his degree of Doctor of Medicine, and soon after came to Detroit and spent some months in professional study under Dr. Zina Pitcher, returning to the Geneva Medical College in the autumn of the same year, and tak- ing a further partial course.
After this thorough preparation, on November 15, 1842, he left his home for Detroit, where he had decided to locate. Arriving here on the 19th, he found the late Wm. N. Carpenter on the dock waiting to welcome him, and the friendship which began at the time of his first visit continued until they were separated by Mr. Carpenter's death. At that early day the medical profession of Detroit was represented by a most distinguished looking body of men, all of them in their prime. . Under these circumstances 'it was not easy for the young physician with his painfully distant and cold man- ner to gain a foothold, but being in possession of means and indomitable perseverance, they carried
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him through seven years of waiting and then he stood secure.
During those first seven years his patients were almost exclusively the extremely poor, who often needed pecuniary assistance as well as medical attendance. Realizing to the full these needs of the poor, Dr. Stewart in 1848 was one of the prime movers in establishing the Young Men's Benevo- lent Society of Detroit, and for several years it accomplished great good among worthy emigrants who had stranded here during their first winter in America.
Upon his arrival in Detroit Dr. Stewart made the acquaintance and secured the friendship of the late Rev. George Duffield, D. D., became at once one of his parishioners, and in 1852 married his only daughter, Isabella Graham Duffield, who after thirty-six years of a notably useful life, having been instrumental in the establishment of many useful charities, and all through her life having been full of deeds of charity, on May 27, 1888, was called from earth. The year previous to his marriage Dr. Stewart had purchased a home on the corner of Congress and Brush Streets, and there five of his children were born. Morse Jr., George Duffield, Isabella Graham Bethune and Mary Bronson. A sixth child, Robert, was born after the removal of the family to the Stuart homestead, at No. 440 Jefferson Avenue.
On Congress Street Dr. Stewart's practice grew to very great proportions. It is said that every generation has its doctor, but in this case three generations have had the care of the same physi- cian. Dr. Stewart's cases for forty-five years show that many a mother, daughter, and granddaughter have known his skillful aid, and side by side with the record of new lives runs the sadder duty of closing forever the eyes of the aged, or speeding some parting soul with the breath of prayer. The minister or priest and the doctor went hand in hand through the cholera season of 1849 and 1854, and through the various epidemics of small-pox, conta- gious fevers, diphtheria, etc.
When Dr. Stewart came to Detroit there were no medical societies, and no protective legislation in Michigan for medical men, and therefore no means of ascertaining a man's fitness for, or worthiness of, fraternal relations. To meet this deficiency the profession came together and organized the Syden- ham Society. After its demise in 1848, the Wayne County Medical Society was organized. Of this society Dr Stewart was repeatedly president and continuously a member until 1876, when it dis- banded,
His political views like his religious convictions are the result of earnest thought and thorough principle. In his youth he saw manifested in the
church of which he was a member, the bitter and malignant spirit of abolitionism, and so cast his first vote and interest with the Whig party, and when the affiliation of the Whigs with the Aboli- tionists brought forth the Republican party, he enrolled himself as a member of the Democratic party, believing that it represented the only con- servatism in the country. He was one of the "sixty-nine " who, in 1856, publicly came out and declared and defined their separation. During the years from 1860 to 1870, the political intolerance of the party in power amounted almost to ostra- cism, but in those very years Dr. Stewart found the largest measure of success and usefulness.
In 1868 Dr. Pitcher waited upon Dr. Stewart and tendered him in the name of the truest men in the medical profession, an invitation to prepare and read an article on criminal abortion. It was a dis- tasteful subject and involved sharp definitions of right and wrong that were sure to prove offensive, but his paper met with the warmest encomiums from eminent medical men and journals, and placed him mentally, morally, and as a scientist, in the front rank of his brethren. His hard and increas- ing labors, however, left him no time for the literary work he was so well calculated by his experience and attainments to perform. A few monographs and addresses indicate what it might have been.
To him the advancement of scientific benevolence has always been an object of practical interest and desire. It was as the result of a suggestion made by him that the Rev. Dr. Duffield turned the con- tributions of Walter Harper from the channel of a trades' school for boys, to that of a Protestant hospital. Dr. Stewart also furnished the data for the medical requirements of a well conducted hos- pital, and they are embraced in the deed of trust. He also aided in inducing Mrs. Nancy Martin to bestow her gifts in the same direction.
Even when most occupied Dr. Stewart found time from 1860 to 1862 to act as a chairman of the Board of Trustees of the First Protestant Society (First Presbyterian Church). Assuming this duty when the church was in an unfinished state and the society in debt, at the end of his term of office he tendered his resignation with the building in perfect order and full provision made for the debt.
In 1874 the burden of work which had been car- ried day and night for thirty-three years, with scarcely a week's intermission, began to tell even upon his wiry and elastic constitution, and his medical advisers ordered a period of positive rest abroad. The year from the spring of 1875 to 1876 was therefore spent with his family in England and on the Continent. During this season of rest he studied the system and teaching of the medical
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universities of Wurtzburg and Heidelberg, and took a prolonged course of the water and baths of Kissengen. Wintering in Dresden, his tastes led him to a somewhat close observation of that admirable art gallery, which was supplemented during his stay in Paris_by an equal interest in the gallery of the Louvre. Returning home with en- tirely restored health, he has since been enabled to pursue his profession with undiminished vigor.
In 1874 he was largely instrumental in perfect- ing the organization of the Association of Charities, and has greatly furthered public interests on many occasions, but he has never sought personal honors, and such as he has received were pressed upon him. In 1880 an epidemic of small-pox having broken out in Detroit, Drs. Stewart, . Flinterman, and Foster were named by the Common Council as a tempor- ary Board of Health, and asked to look after the thorough vaccination of the city, as well as the management of the small-pox cases.
There being at that time no hospital for infec- tious diseases, one of tents was at once extempor- ized, which, with the nursing and care of the Sisters of Charity, gave very successful results. The suc- ceeding year the Mayor named Dr. Stewart as one of the three physicians constituting the permanent Board of Health. Here as elsewhere he has been faithful to his duty, and tenacious as to the rights and responsibilities of that Board, and has spared no pains or personal service to preserve the city from pestilence, and to establish sanitary regula- tions to prevent the introduction or spread of dis- ease.
Believing in the high and dignified value of the profession of medicine, he early determined to see it recognized and respected in his own city as both a science and an art, and knowing that men valued what they paid for, he led off in 1864 by increas- ing the standard of his own charges a hundred per cent., which example resulted in the adoption of a Fee Bill by the Wayne County Medical Society, which has continued to be the standard of charges.
Dr. Stewart began life as he will close it, with a nervous temperament, that has often made his words sharper than the thought behind them. Governed by a self-sacrificing singleness of pur- pose that demanded his own work to be honest, clear and thorough, he has been content with noth- ing less in others. Intolerant of shams, no trim- mer, fearless in maintaining what he believes to be the side of justice and truth, it is scarce to be won- dered that he has often found arrayed against him the influence of money and place. Integrity and truthfulness have been in all his transactions with his fellows, a high and scrupulous sense of honor governing every thought, as well as act. Success with such a character is achieved in spite of preju-
dice, and the many antagonisms it is sure to en- counter. Dr. Stewart stands secure in the esteem of his patients and of the public as well, because he has gone forward promptly, habitually, and con- scientiously during all the years to his daily duty, with an eye single towards God and towards man.
FRANCIS XAVIER SPRANGER, M. D., is the son of Lawrence and Mary (Schuster) Spranger and was born in the kingdom of Bavaria, Germany, on March 13, 1840. His parents emigrated to America when he was nine years old and soon after he entered the Benedictine College at Carroll- town, Pennsylvania. He then took a course in Latin and at seventeen years of age commenced the study of medicine under the direction of Dr. H. Hoffman, and afterward became the pupil of Dr. J. M. Parks, of Cincinnati, Ohio. In August, 1862, he graduated with the degree of M. D. at the Cleveland Homoeopathic College, and immediately established himself in Detroit, where he has since continued the practice of his profession. He was one of the organizers of the Detroit Homoeopathic College, and Professor of Pathology and Physical Diagnosis during its four terms, and President of the college during the last term. He believes that "similia similibus curantur" is an essential, but not the only law of cure, and also believes that no physician should adhere exclusively to one theory or mode of practice, but should be cosmopolitan in his profession, accepting all facts which experience furnishes, regardless of the source from which they emanate. Like other sincere physicians, he is con- scious of the fact that his first duty is to his patient, and that "pathics," " isms " and " ethics " are only of subordinate importance. Dr. Spranger has a very large practice, to which he devotes his entire time, and among his patrons he has a large number of the wealthiest and most influential citizens. His consulting practice is very large and possibly unrivalled in the city, and many patients come from distant places. He has always made a special study of diseases of the heart and lungs, and his large practice and many years of experience have furnished him sufficient material for the practical study of diseases to make him a diagnostician second to no other. He is a member of the American Institute of Homoeopathy, the State Medical Society, and the Detroit College of Physicians and Surgeons, and is connected with a number of benevolent, musical and social societies. An ardent lover of music, he introduced and made the zither popular in Detroit, and as an amateur performer on that instrument has few equals.
In social life he is of an affable, genial tempera- ment, and is sure to win the confidence, esteem and even warm regard of those who become acquainted
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with his abilities and character. He dislikes all sham and pretense, has never taken any promi- nent part in politics or sought for public position. In 1868 he was appointed one of the city physicians and held the office for six months, or until the term expired.
In 1854, in company with his parents, he visited Nicaragua, and was present at the bombardment of Greytown, on July 14 of that year. He was mar- ried in 1858, at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Miss Mary Sattig. They have had seven children, four of whom are living.
JOHN TRUMBULL, author of "McFingal," and the only son of a Congregational minister, was born April 24, 1750, at Watertown, Connec- ticut. He was an exceedingly precocious child, and at the age of seven years was qualified to enter Yale College, but on account of his youth did not enter until he was thirteen years old. He graduated, in 1767, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and for the three years following served as a tutor, turning his attention chiefly to polite litera- ture, and the Greek and Latin classics. He and Timothy Dwight were tutors at the same time, became intimate associates, and were lifelong friends.
In 1772 he published the first part of a poem entitled " The Progress of Dullness," but having determined to enter the legal profession, he was admitted to the bar in 1773. He then went to Boston and continued his legal studies under John Adams. While in Boston he wrote an "Elegy on the Times," in sixty-eight stanzas. It treated of the Boston Port Bill, the Non-importation Associations, and the strength and future glory of the country. In 1774 he went to New Haven, where he remained and practiced his profession until he moved to Hartford, where he became distinguished for his knowledge and ability as an advocate.
His "McFingal " was completed and published at Hartford in 1782. Mr. Trumbull was soon afterwards associated with Humphreys Barlow and Dr. Lemuel Hopkins in the production of a work which they styled "The Anarchiad." It contained bold satire, and exerted considerable influence on the popular taste.
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