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 43
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CHARLES NOBLE was born at Williamstown July 4, 1797. He was the son of Deodatus and Betsey (Bulkley) Noble, of Williamstown, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, and grandson of David Noble, who was a judge of the Court of Common Pleas of that county, and one of the early promoters of Williams College.
Charles Noble received his early education at Williamstown, entered Williams College in 1811, and graduated in 1815. He then studied law and was admitted to practice at Pittsfield, but almost immediately removed to the West, and in 1818 located at Monroe, Michigan, and entered zealously upon the practice of his profession. At various times he held the office of postmaster, was a mem- ber of the Legislative Council of the Territory of Michigan, a Justice of the Peace, Register of Pro- bate, Secretary of the Board of Commissioners which negotiated the Indian Treaty at St. Joseph's, Attorney-General of the United States for Michi- gan Territory, Presiding Judge of the County Court, and also held other minor offices. From 1851 to 1853 he was Surveyor-General of the United States for the District, composed of Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan, having been appointed to the office by President Fillmore, and continuing in it during his administration. He was a trustee of the Young Ladies' Seminary, and also one of the School In- spectors of Monroe. In the latter capacity he was active in the building up of the very successful Union School, on Washington Street. He was one of the parties who purchased the old Erie & Kala- mazoo Railroad from the State, and formed the company known as the Michigan Southern Rail- road, and served as its first president.
While in Monroe he attended and was a member of the Presbyterian Church, and during many of the latter years he spent there, was one of the elders. Upon his removal to Detroit he was made an elder of the First Presbyterian Church, and held the office at the time of his death. He was for many years President of the Monroe County Bible Society, and after his removal to Detroit was made President of the Wayne County Bible Society.
He removed to Detroit in 1867, and became a member of the firm of Geo. S. Frost & Company, dealers in pine lands. The firm was composed of himself, his son-in-law, Geo. S. Frost, and his son, Charles W. Noble:
Mr. Noble was married at Detroit in 1823, to Eliza Symmes Wing, daughter of Enoch Wing, and sister of Austin E. Wing and Warner Wing, well- known citizens of Michigan, and of Rev. Conway P.
Wing, D. D., of Pennsylvania, a highly esteemed minister. With the exception of Rev. Mason Noble, D. D., of Washington, D. C., all of Mr. Noble's brothers followed him to Michigan, David A., Daniel, and William Addison Noble, all finding homes in the State. His sister was the wife of Dr. George Landon, of Monroe, and well known and much respected.
Mr. Noble was a man of fine personal appear- ance, courteous manners, and a great reader. He was the friend of all institutions of learning and of everything that tended in his opinion to advance civilization or religion. He made strong friend- ships, was benevolent and generous, fond of society, and ready to do good to all as he had opportunity. The citizens of Monroe, where he lived so long, were all his friends, and though, owing to advancing age, his life in Detroit was not so much in public as it had been in Monroe, those who came within the circle of his acquaintance universally recognized his worth.
Mr. Noble was a Whig up to the time of the dis- solution of that party. After that he had generally a preference for the Republican party, though sometimes casting his vote with the Democracy.
He died on December 25, 1874. His wife sur- vived him eleven years. They had seven children, three of whom died in infancy. His daughter Elizabeth married Rev. Hannibal L. Stanley, and died in 1849. The children who survive Mr. Noble are : Charles W. Noble of Detroit ; Ellen N. Frost, wife of George S. Frost of Detroit, and Conway W. Noble of Cleveland, Ohio.
CHARLES WING NOBLE was born in Mon- roe, Michigan, February 13, 1828, and is a son of Charles and Eliza S. (Wing) Noble. His great- grandfather, David Noble, was at the time of his death, Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Berkshire County, Massachusetts. His grand- father, Deodatus Noble, removed from Williams- town to Monroe in 1832.
Charles Wing Noble was brought up at Monroe, where he prepared for college, and in 1843 entered the University of Michigan, and graduated in 1846. After graduating he taught school for a short time, served as clerk in the banking office of N. R. Has- kell & Company, at Monroe, for a brief period, and then began the study of the law in the office of Noble & Grosvenor. In 1848 he went to Cleve- land, and after studying law one year in the office of Hitchcock, Wilson & Wade, he was, in 1849, admitted to the bar, and immediately formed a law partnership with Halbert E. Payne, subsequently a general in the Union army, then a member of Con- gress from Milwaukee, and now practising law at Washington, D. C. The partnership continued
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yours truly Chax. 2 Ortmann.
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about one year, when Mr. Noble became a member of the law firm of Bishop, Backus & Noble. In 1855 Judge Bishop retired, and Judge Ranney be- came a member of the firm, the style being Ranney, Backus & Noble, and so continuing until 1864, when Judge Ranney entered upon his duties as Judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio. The firm was then changed to Backus & Noble, and so remained until 1865, when Mr. Noble, having engaged in certain oil ventures in Western Pennsylvania, dissolved his connection with Mr. Backus, and formed a part- nership for a short time with his brother, Conway W. Noble, now Judge of the Common Pleas at Cleveland. In 1865, in connection with Van Syckel & Olhen, he originated the first successful oil pipe line in the United States, extending from Pithole to Miller's Farm, in Pennsylvania. It is now owned by the Standard Oil Company.
In March, 1866, he went to Savannah, Georgia, with the design of remaining for the benefit of his wife's health, but after a few months he returned north, went to New York, was admitted to the bar in that city, and practised until 1867. He then came to Detroit and formed a partnership with George S. Frost and Charles Noble, for the pur- pose of buying and selling pine lands on commis- sion.
Mr. Noble has given his close attention to the business since it was organized, and the firm has been quite successful. He is clear-headed, with more than ordinary capacity, exact, and methodical, positive in his opinions, but withal socially very courteous and agreeable. He has traveled quite extensively in his own country, and in 1870, with his wife, visited the Old World. He is a member of the First Presbyterian Church, is liberal in his benefactions to worthy objects, and as a business man and citizen is held in high esteem.
He has been three times married. First to Julia F. Mygatt, daughter of George Mygatt, of Cleve- land, by whom he had one daughter, who died at Mrs. Willard's school, at Troy, New York, in 1867. Her mother died at Cleveland in 1852. His second wife was Caroline G. Van Buren, daughter of E. Van Buren, of Penn Yan, New York, afterwards Recorder at Chicago. She died in 1867, and in 1870 he married Frances Martine, daughter of Stephen A. Martine, of New York. They have three daughters, Frances, Eliza Wing, and Sarah Agnes. One son, Stephen Martine, died in 1883.
CHARLES L. ORTMANN was born at Vienna, Austria, September 12, 1830. His ancestors lived in the mountain town of Friesach, in the Province of Carinthia, and were prominent bee keepers. His grandfather moved in the eighteenth century to the town of Petersdorf, Austria, and in 1831 his
father was engaged in manufacturing in a small village near the city of Vienna. His mother died when he was seven years old. He received his early education in the village school, and when twelve years old was apprenticed to the mercantile business, with an uncle living in Vienna, and from that time earned his own living.
After the great revolution of 1848, he engaged as a provincial traveler in the produce and wood business, until 1856, when he married his first wife, Marie Elizabeth Bock, whose parents died a short time previously. In 1860 he engaged with other parties in manufacturing, but in 1862 sold out and went back into mercantile business. The same year he visited England, and the magnitude and manner of business and life in England impressed him so favorably that he concluded to emigrate. In 1864 he again visited England, and formed the acquaintance of a Mr. Shoemaker, of Baltimore, Maryland, who was then on his way to Germany, to visit his aged mother. . Mr. Shoemaker urged him to emigrate to America, and in the summer of that year Mr. Ortmann came to Detroit, and after an extensive trip through the Western States, and Canadian pineries of Georgian Bay, settled at East Saginaw, Michigan, and engaged in the logging and lumbering business. In 1866 he became a citizen of the United States. He joined the Ger- mania Society, and was elected Vice-President. He also became and still remains a member of the Workingmen's Aid Society. In the spring of 1871 he was elected the delegate of the German Ameri- can citizens of the Saginaw Valley to a great convention, held at Chicago, Illinois, for the purpose of collecting funds in aid of the widows and orphans of the fallen heroes of the Franco-German War, and as a result of the convention, over a million dollars was collected and forwarded from America for their benefit.
He helped in organizing the East Saginaw Sav- ings Bank, of which institution Dr. Henry C. Potter was elected President, and Mr. Ortmann Vice- President, the latter holding the position until he removed to Detroit. In 1872 he became a Chapter Mason, and during the year was elected Mayor of East Saginaw, on the Republican ticket, and the same year the Republican State Convention chose him as Presidential elector of the Eighth District of Michigan, and at the National election he ran six thousand votes ahead of his party on the State ticket.
In 1877 he lost his eldest son, Charles, and on account of the shattered health of his wife, he removed to Detroit. In 1879, on account of poor health, he retired from business, but after a year's rest again engaged in active life.
In November, 1882, his wife died, leaving him
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with a family of two sons and two daughters. In the spring of 1884 he married Marie A. Sohns, of Saginaw City, eldest daughter of Count Emick Sohns, Wieldenfels. They have one son.
In the spring of 1887 he was elected a director in the International Sulphite Fibre and Paper Com- pany, of Detroit, Michigan. It has a capital of one million dollars, and owns and controls the exclusive right to manufacture bi-sulphite fibre (cellulose wood fibre), under the patents of Prof. A. Mitscherlich, of Freiburg, Germany, for the United States and Canada. At the same time he, with some of his friends, organized the Detroit Sulphite Fibre Company, under the above mentioned patents, and is president of the company, which has erected a large establishment at Delray, on the River Rouge, five miles south of Detroit.
Mr. Ortmann is kind-hearted, and often favors others to his own detriment. He is an honest, upright, and shrewd business man, and in pros- perity or adversity, is always a pleasant and agree- able acquaintance and friend.
SAMUEL PITTS was born April 17, 1810, at Fort Preble, Portland Harbor, Maine. The family descent in America is from John Pitts, who was born in Lyme Regis, England, in 1668, came to Boston in 1694, and became a prominent merchant in that city. He married Elizabeth Lindall, of Dux- bury. James Pitts, the second son of John Pitts, was born in Boston in 1712, graduated at Harvard College in 1731, and in 1732 married Elizabeth Bowdoin, daughter of the Councilor James Bow- doin, and was himself a member of the King's Council from 1766 to 1775. He and his wife and their six sons took leading parts in the Revolution. Their house was a rendezvous for the Adamses and other patriots. His eldest son, John, born at Boston in 1738, was a selectman of Boston from 1773 to 1778, Representative from Boston in the second, third, and fourth Provincial Congresses, and Speaker of the House in 1778. Another son, Lendall Pitts, who was born in Boston in 1747, and died 1787, was the principal leader of the Boston Tea Party, December 16, 1773. Samuel Pitts, another son of James, who was born in Boston in 1745, and died 1805, was an extensive merchant and ship-owner in the West India trade. He mar- ried Joanna Davis in 1776, and with his father and brother acquired fame as a patriot in the Revolu- tion. He was an officer in the Hancock Cadets. In 1774 he was one of the committee to carry into execution the resolutions of the Continental Con- gress. Thomas Pitts, son of Samuel and Joanna (Davis) Pitts, and father of Samuel Pitts, of Detroit, · was born in Boston in 1779, and died at Cambridge in 1836. He commenced his life as a merchant in
Augusta, Maine, but entered the army, was com- missioned by President Jefferson as an officer in the United States Light Artillery in 1808, and by President Madison in 1809, serving with gallantry during the War of 1812. He spent the last years of his life at Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was In- spector of the Boston Custom House. In 1810, at the time of the birth of his son, Samuel, he was in command at Fort Preble, Portland Harbor, Maine.
His son, Samuel Pitts, was fitted for college in the Boys' Preparatory School at Cambridge, taught by Martin Valentine, and graduated at Harvard University in 1830, being a classmate and friend of Charles Sumner, Thos. C. Amory, John B. Ken, E. R. Potter, Franklin Sawyer, George W. Warren, and Samuel T. Worcester. Among other college mates was his kinsman, Robert C. Winthrop ; also George S. Hillard, C. C. Emerson, George T. Bigelow, James Freeman Clark, Oliver Wendell Holmes, J. Lothrop Motley, George T. Curtis, and George E. Ellis. Mr. Pitts studied law at Harvard and heard lectures from the celebrated Justice Story. He came to Detroit in 1831, entered the law office of General Charles Larned, and upon the death of the latter, became executor of his estate and succeeded to his law business. He devoted himself to his pro- fession, being at various times in partnership with Franklin Sawyer, John G. Atterbury, and Jacob M. Howard. Loss of health compelled him to aban- don the legal profession, and he engaged in the manufacture of lumber and in the purchase of pine lands in the Saginaw Valley, erected mills at De- troit, and later at Bay City, and in 1860 connected, with his lumber business at Bay City the manufac- ture of salt. In these enterprises he accumulated a large fortune. Charles D. Farlin was for a time a partner with him in the lumber business. In 1867 he formed a partnership with his son, Thomas Pitts, and his son-in-law, Thomas Cranage, Jr., which lasted until his death.
Mr. Pitts was originally a staunch Whig, but became a Republican upon the organization of that party, and steadfastly adhered to its principles. He was a member of the First Presbyterian Church, a liberal contributor to it and its various societies, and to the poor and needy of all races and colors. He was thoroughly educated, of fine personal ap- pearance, with a musical voice, and always spoke and wrote with great elegance and precision. He conversed easily in French or German, was an ex- cellent Latin scholar, and noted for his good stories and apt illustrations.
He died on April 26, 1868. Among the eulogis- tic notices that appeared after his death was one by Rev. Dr. George Duffield, published in the New York Independent on May 14, 1868, and one by Judge Daniel Goodwin, published in the Detroit
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Free Press, which are worthy of notice. Dr. Duf- field said : "He was an enlightened, consistent, faithful follower of Christ, a useful, public-spirited, and benevolent dispenser of his means for the bene- fit of the suffering poor and the cause of evangeli- cal piety. He loved to minister to the wants of the needy, who came in his way, but, averse to any- thing like display or show of charity, he let not his left hand know what his right hand did. Promi- nent among those who bore his remains to their last resting place were members and contempora- ries of the bar, with which profession his tastes, liberal culture, and social intercourse kept him identified to the time of his death." Judge Good- win said of him: "He possessed an intelligent mind, and was a good scholar. He was a man of high integrity and of exemplary character, was lib- eral in support of objects of public utility, and kind and generous to the poor, many of whom will, with grateful recollections, shed tears over his memory."
Mr. Pitts was married June 24, 1836, at New York City, to Sarah Merrill, daughter of Joshua Merrill (a son of General James Merrill, of Port- land) and of Elizabeth Bradford, daughter of Peter Bradford, son of Gamaliel Bradford, of the King's Council, whose father, Samuel Bradford, was the son of Major Wm. Bradford, and the grandson of Governor Wm. Bradford, of the May- flower. The following children of Samuel and Sarah (Merrill) Pitts are still living : Thomas Pitts, residing in Detroit; Julia Larned Pitts, wife of Thomas Cranage, of Bay City; Frances Pitts, wife of Henry M. Duffield ; Caroline Pitts, twin sister of Frances, wife of Judge Henry B. Brown and Isabella Duffield Pitts, wife of Daniel Goodwin, of Chicago.
JOHN EDWIN POTTS was born in Vittoria, Ontario, October 9, 1838, and is the son of Edwin S and Martha (Bell) Potts. His father was born in Vittoria, Ontario, in 1811, and his mother in To- ronto, Ontario, in 1807. He attended school near Guelph, and at the age of fifteen entered the gen- eral store of William Wilson, in his native town. Four years later, in 1857, in company with William Dawson, he established a general store at Port Rowan. They managed it with good success until 1865 ; Mr. Potts then sold his interest in the store, . and moved to Simcoe, where he embarked in the lumber trade, a business he has followed ever since.
Finding Michigan better territory to operate in, he left Simcoe in 1876, and moved to Au Sable, in this State, where he remained until 1881, when he came to Detroit. Being possessed of unusual push and enterprise, his business has gradually grown until it has become among the largest in the State. In 1884 Mr. Tisdale became a partner, and since then the
business has been conducted under the name of the J. E. Potts Salt and Lumber Company. The largest saw-mill in the world is owned by this company, and is located at Au Sable, and they have also a large mill at De Pere, in Wisconsin. In connection with the mill at Au Sable, they have built and own some fifty miles of railway, and they employ about seven hundred men during the skidding sea- son. In order to ship their lumber, they own and operate two barges, the Silana and the Cickands, and they are also forced to charter other vessels during most of the season.
Mr. Potts has been so engrossed in business that he has had very little time for politics, and has made but few acquaintances outside of this business, but those he has made are warm and appreciative.
He married Margaret Wilson on September II, 1861. She was born at Simcoe, Ontario, Novem- ber 6, 1842, and is the daughter of William and Maria (Loder) Wilson. Her father was born in Magria, Ontario, in 1792, and her mother at Ancaster, Ontario, in 1800. Mr. and Mrs. Potts have had six children, four of whom, Charles E., Marian B., Florence L., and Effa L., are living and at home.
HENRY PERRY PULLING was born at Amsterdam, New York, on November 3, 1814. His father, Abraham Pulling, was born in 1789; married Deborah Betts, a daughter of Isaiah and Hannah Betts, on February 3, 1814. He was a physician, and settled in Amsterdam, New York, about 1812, where he practised his profession about half a century, dying there in 1865, aged seventy- six years. The maternal grandfather of Henry P. Pulling, Isaiah Betts, was born in Connecticut in 1758, and was a Colonial Lieutenant in the War of the Revolution. He married Hannah Fitch, a granddaughter of Governor Fitch, of Connecticut, and after the Revolution settled in Galway, Sara- toga County, New York, where he died on June 30, 1844. His wife, Hannah (Fitch) Betts, was born on May 15, 1760, and died on September 30, 1848.
Henry P. Pulling is one of eight children, of whom he and two sisters are the only survivors. His sisters are Melissa, wife of James Stewart, and Sarah Pulling, both of Amsterdam, New York. His eldest sister, Maria, was the wife of John Tweddle, of Albany, New York, an old and well known citizen, who built and owned "Tweddle Hall." Mr. Pulling's boyhood was spent in Amster- dam, where he attended the village schools. When quite young he was sent to Johnstown Academy. After spending two years there, he entered the academy at Fairfield, New York, and finished the prescribed course preparatory to entering Union
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College. On returning home, however, his father persuaded him to study medicine, and accordingly he took a course of medical lectures at Fairfield, then the Western Department of the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons. After the close of the term, he attended a course of surgical lectures in the private school of Dr. Alden March, at Albany, New York, and in 1837, at the spring term of the Vermont Medical College, under Dr. March, who had long filled the chair of Surgical Lecturer in that institution, he received the degree of M. D.
Immediately after graduating he set out for Chi- cago, intending to make that his home. After practising there nearly a year he returned East, and on August 7, 1838, was married to Miss Joanna J. Bridgman, only daughter of Dr. William Bridgman, of Springfield, Massachusetts. After his marriage, Mr. Pulling, with his wife, started for Chicago, but on reaching his old home at Amsterdam, he found an unusual amount of sickness prevailing, on ac- count of the extensive working of the stone quarries for the locks on the Erie Canal, and the overtasked physicians urged him to stay and assist in taking care of the patients. He concluded to do so, and this circumstance so changed his purpose with reference to going West, that he soon after settled in Albany and engaged in the drug trade, and by strict attention to business, was on the way to prosperity. He had, however, hardly got started in business before the great fire of August 17, 1848, destroyed his whole stock, and with it nearly a quarter of the city. He was too energetic to be discouraged by this event, and within a week had bargained with George Russell, of State Street, for his stock of drugs, leased his store, and again estab- lished himself in trade. The next year he pur- chased the property, and afterwards remodeled it, until it was the most showy building on the street.
About 1856 he sold his stock to J. H. and A. Mc- Clure, and soon after became a partner in a syndi- cate formed to purchase a controlling interest in the Peninsular Bank of Detroit, which at one time was the most popular banking institution in Michi- gan. The panic of 1857, which was so disastrous to banks generally, severely crippled its resources. The directors then sought to obtain increased capi- tal from eastern stockholders; the charter was amended, and prospects favored their anticipations, but the panic of 1860-61 soon came, and their hopes were blasted. . The stockholders became discouraged and it was decided to close the bank. The responsibility of closing its affairs devolved upon Mr. Pulling, and all claims against it were paid in full, and the stockholders received twenty per cent. as a final dividend.
After closing up the business of the bank, Mr. Pull-
ing engaged in real estate business and building, but has spent his time largely in improving and working his large farm in Oakland County. He is a man of versatile talents, extensive information, and of upright and honorable character. In his business, domestic, and social relations, he is held in high esteem by all who know him. He is inter- ested in the Spur Iron Mining Company, of Lake Superior, and has been its president since the organization in 1881.
He has three daughters, viz. : Ada M., wife of Joseph Lathrop, M. D. of Detroit ; Emily B., widow of the late Thomas Spencer Lloyd, a well-known musical composer and teacher of Albany, New York ; and Marilla B., wife of Daniel Carmichael, a prominent manufacturer at Amsterdam, New York.
DAVID RIPLEY SHAW was born in Lisle, Broome County, New York, July 1, 1822. He is of New England descent, being a son of Truman and Nancy (Fay) Shaw, of Rutland, Vermont. In 1836 his parents moved to Almont, Lapeer County, Michigan, and about this time David made up his mind that he would like to go to college, but as his parents were unable to spare money for the purpose, he determined to earn the money him- self, and entered the general store of John W. Dyar, at Almont, and subsequently taught in sev- eral schools.
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