USA > Michigan > Genesee County > History of Genesee County, Michigan, Her People, Industries and Institutions, Volume I > Part 83
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"The next address was delivered by the Hon. W. W. Crapo, as fol- lows :
"There is nothing which more clearly marks the intellectual progress of Flint during the last fifty years than this edifice which today is dedicated to free public use. In it is represented the desire for broader knowledge, a more perfect mental culture, a closer acquaintance with the best thought of the past and present and a clearer insight into the investigations and achievements of modern science. To satisfy the hungry longings of the mind, this building has been erected in order that it may serve as the repository in which to store the intellectual treasures of the world and from which the people, old and young, can draw for their enjoyment, their enlightenment and their inspiration.
"Libraries have stimulated and aided and, to a certain degree, have measured the civilization of nations and the intelligence of communities. Where learning is repressed and books are denied, there is subjugation and superstition. Where education pre- vails and books are easily accessible, there will be found improved social order, a clearer conception of individual rights and duties, a higher standard of public responsibility and greater freedom. Every additional library creates a new center of intellectual life, working for the elevation of mankind to a higher plane.
"It has been mentioned that the residence across the way facing the library build- ing was the home of my father, a citizen of Flint respected and honored by his fellow townsmen. This circumstance in itself has little or no significance, but, Mr. Chairman, your kindly mention of him today prompts me to allude, perhaps not inappropriately on this occasion, to his early struggle for education and to contrast the present with the past. He was born on a rocky New England farm which, by insistent and unremitting hard work, with the practice of painstaking frugality, furnished a scanty livelihood. The prospect which opened up before the boy was one of toil and deprivation. He
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longed for better things and to rise above the narrow limitations of adverse surroundings. To accomplish this he must have education. His only hope for success in the outside world was through an outfit of mental equipment. I have heard him tell of his three months' schooling and the long walks through the snow to the distant school house. Denied the training of schools, it was for him to educate himself. Encouraged by a sympathizing mother, the few pennies that could be spared went for the purchase of school books, which were studied in the long hours of the night by the light of the home-made tallow candle. The few books in the houses of neighboring farms were borrowed and mentally devoured. If there had been granted to him the opportunities and privileges which this institution will afford to the youth of the present time. what a flood of sunshine would have cheered and brightened his boyhood days. At eighteen he was the teacher of a country school, and in teaching others he had better opportunity for teaching himself. This story is not an unusual or extraordinary one. It is the story of hundreds of New England farmer boys of one hundred years ago. To them there was no royal road to learning. The path was stony and beset with thorns and briars. The laggard, the incompetent, the indifferent who entered it stumbled and fell by the way, but those with determined purpose and unfaltering will reached the goal. At the age when the university student receives his diploma, those men of rugged training were employed in the activities of life. While they had not the polish of the university, they had acquired self-reliance, and in their hard experience had gained the capacity for sound judgment and power of clear and positive expression which placed them on fair terms with their more favored contemporaries. The ultimate test of men is found in the quality of their performance.
"In studying the lives and career of those men of a hundred years ago and noting what they accomplished, the query is sometimes raised whether the modern methods of learning made easy are in every way advisable, whether the system of instruction which puts a prop here and a lubricator there and pads the brain with esthetic culture tends to make strong men and strong women. The possession of much and varied infor- mation is useful, but still the question is at times presented whether the crowding of the brain with a miscellaneous assortment of learning, the parts of which have no relation to the whole, and whether the knowing of something about everything, and not knowing everything about something, whether the superficial rather than the solid reality of knowledge, can in every respect advantageously take the place of the training and discipline of the mind which wrought the mental toughness and fibre and brawn of the earlier days.
"I do not answer this question, nor do I enter upon its discussion. For me to attempt to do so in the presence of the able and distinguished educators who are with us today would be rank presumption.
"The library presents no such inquiry and is clouded with no such doubt. While the tendency, perhaps I should say the necessity, of the public school is to run all the children through one common mould, regardless of disposition or temperament, regard- less of hereditary influences-in short, regardless of the child and the life before it -. the library deals with the individual and meets the especial wants of the individual, whether in the department of literature or historical research, of philosophy or economics, or of science and arts. The library brings the student in close companionship with the best scholars and furnishes the inquirer and investigator with the searchlight that reveals the achievements of the world's ablest experts.
"There is no magical power in books. More than two hundred and fifty years ago, John Harvard, a young English clergyman, gave his private library and a small sum of money to establish a college in New England. It was a mere pittance, the merest trifle,
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when compared with the munificence of Johns Hopkins of Baltimore, or Leland Stanford in California, or John Rockefeller at Chicago, but it was the foundation of Harvard University, the pride and glory of Massachusetts. There lived in Harvard's time eminent statesmen and learned jurists and famous soldiers, some of whose names are now forgotten, or remembered only as found in biographies in the alcoves of libraries, but the name of John Harvard is known and honored and blessed throughout the civilized world, and his fame will endure as the ages roll on.
"Little more than two hundred years ago a few orthodox Connecticut clergymen met by appointment in Saybrook at the mouth of the Connecticut river. Each one of them brought with him a book, which he placed upon the table, and in that simple ceremony and in the dedication of that little pile of books to the uses of education was the beginning of the great Yale University. On the campus at New Haven stands the library building, constructed of brown stone, beautiful in its architecture, perfect in its proportions, and admirably adapted to the use for which it was intended. The students of fifty years ago gazed upon it with admiration, for it was then by far the finest of the college buildings, and he regarded its contents with reverence; but now the word has come to us that it is proposed to tear down this building, so dear to the hearts of thousands of men throughout the land, in order that upon its site a larger and grander and more magnificent building can be erected for the accommodation of the accumulating treasures of the university. What a marvelous growth from the little seed planted by these Connecticut clergymen.
"It was thus two hundred years ago that a collection of books, the nucleus of a library, was the primal source from which sprang each of the two older universities of this country, representing as they do so much of the intellectual force of this nation in its historical development.
"The donor of this building, in the centuries to come, will not be remembered as the successful iron and steel worker, or as the great captain of industry that he was, but for his enlightened liberality and colossal benefactions to the world in the diffusion of knowledge among men through the agency of books. I congratulate the people of Flint in their coming into the possession of this building of substantial construction and excellent design and which adds another to the attractive public buildings of which they are justly proud. It is evidence that what was once the little village of Grand Traverse has now become a city of importance, not merely in industrial activities and commercial transactions and social and political influences, but also in educational advantages. This building may not impress the thoughtless and frivolous who pass by without entering it, but those who come with serious purpose will find within its walls the gems and jewels that enrich the mind and give to life added pleasures. It is accessible to all and as free as is the highway to the traveler.
"Coming into this possession, new duties confront you. The library must be equipped and maintained. Let the work be done intelligently and liberally. A few generous and public-spirited women forty years or more ago started this movement and, in spite of ,many obstacles, carried it forward with unselfish and self-denying zeal. They deserve unstinted praise and lasting remembrance. The task now falls upon the men and may they exhibit the same willing spirit and fostering care. Remember that the public library is the crown of the public school in the development of higher education. Regard it as the essential adjunct for completing and perfecting the intellectual growth of the community. Cherish it as a precious asset and the city will find its reward in the enlightened mind and the grateful heart of its people.
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"Mr. Crapo's address was scholarly, thoughtful and stimulating, and received close attention and approval. Then followed two short congratu- latory talks by Hon. William C. Maybury, ex-mayor of Detroit, and the Hon. Francis A. Blades, controller of the same city, two gentlemen who are always given a hearty and cordial reception in the City of Flint.
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"One more ceremony of dedication remained, as part of the jubilee, namely, that of the county court house. This took place on the steps of the new building, and long before the hour set for the ceremony a great crowd had assembled in the same place where men had gathered the day before to listen to the army veterans. After an invocation and short address by the Mayor and by Judge C. H. Wisner, who had charge of the erection of the building, came the principal orator of the day, Justice Henry B. Brown of the United States supreme court. His address was largely in the nature of an historical review of that court of which he was a distinguished member, from its establishment down to the present day. A special interest was felt in the speaker, aside from his official position, on account of his being a Michigan man, and everyone who could get within the sound of his voice listened with close attention, well repaid by the value of the address and the inside views which it gave of the workings of the greatest court of justice of any nation.
"Justice Brown was followed by Chief Justice Moore, of the state supreme court, whose address consisted largely of reminiscences of the Genesee county bar, to which others added their quotas.
"Reminiscences had thus been pretty freely indulged in, in one form or another, at most of the jubilee meetings; but, on such occasions there is never enough until old times have been talked over from every point of view. Hence, for the lawyers there must be many more reminiscences at the banquet given that evening in honor of Justice Brown and the justices of the state supreme court, while for the rest a special reminiscent meeting was held at the Court Street Methodist church, at which an account was given of the origin and history of the different churches of the city, and a number of old residents of the city told of their experiences in early days. As most of these accounts are reproduced in this volume in one form or another, no attempt will be made to give them here. A single incident, however, which created some amusement, may be worth mentioning. It was an announcement with some solemnity, that a most valuable and inter- esting relic of the early days was to be presented to the audience, in the shape of the earliest Flint postoffice. It was explained that in some respects
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the earliest postoffice was in line with the latest improvements in that ser- vice, as it was moveable, going from place to place wherever its patrons were to be found. With much ceremony the relic was then uncovered, and proved to be an old stovepipe hat.
"While these old-time memories were being recalled at the various gath- erings, more spectacular entertainment had also been going on elsewhere.
"Early in the afternoon there were band concerts in various places, then later a baseball game, and at five o'clock an exhibition run by the fire department. As soon as it grew dark the electric display was resumed, there were more band concerts and, finally, as a grand wind-up, a display of fireworks from the Saginaw street bridge. The street in that vicinity was once more thronged to congestion, and as the light faded from the 'Good-night' set-piece with which the exhibition closed, the Golden Jubilee went out, as it began, in a blaze of glory."
Hon. C. H. Wisner, circuit judge, was chairman of the general com- mittee for the Flint Golden Jubilee and old Home Coming Reunion. Edwin O. Wood was chairman of the executive committee.
The surplus remaining from the Golden Jubilee fund was used to pre- pare and publish a book. Rev. C. A. Lippincott, D. D., was selected as editor.
It is worthy of note that in less than twelve years following the fif- tieth anniversary of Flint its population had increased during that time about five hundred per cent.
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CHAPTER XXIX.
GREATER FLINT.
The transformation of the city of Flint from a population of thirteen thousand in 1910 to a city having approximately, according to the data avail- able, eighty-five thousand people in 1916, all in a period of about sixteen years, is a story which merits especial mention: . Genesee county and the city of Flint are so much a part of each other that the history of one is necessarily a record of the progress of the other.
The industrial activities of Flint for the twelve years from 1904 to 1916, have been of such unusual proportions as to have engaged the atten- tion of the public and the press throughout the country.
The percentage of increase in population from 1900 to 1910, as shown by the United States census, and the percentage of growth from 1910 to the end of 1916, has made a new record in the history of the United States, and the townships which border on the city have also been the beneficiaries of the growth of the city.
In the early part of the nineteenth century, when the Indians roamed the forests of the Saginaw valley, Flint was a trading post. Among the first white men to visit the spot were two Catholic priests, who were soon followed by a Frenchman named Bolieu, but they did not remain long, pushing to the north. Later, Jacob Smith, who had been a captain at De- troit at the time of Hull's surrender, came to Genesee county. After the close of the War of 1812, he was employed by the government to visit the Chippewa Indians and, locating on the Flint river, he soon entered upon intimate terms with this tribe, his efforts facilitating the treaty made by General Cass at Saginaw a few years later. Jacob Smith, the founder and father of what is now the city of Flint, was a German by birth and a native of Quebec, and on a gentle, shaded slope in Glenwood cemetery there stands a tall black monument, its inscriptions dimmed with age, commemorating the early deeds of this first white settler, who died in 1825.
Flint was located on the only main road from Detroit to Saginaw, part of which was a rough highway cut through the forests from the Saginaw river to the Flint by two detachments of the Third United States Infantry, under Lieutenants Brooks and Bainbridge in 1822-23. It was little more than a bridle path. From the Flint river to Royal Oak the Indian trail was
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used, and from there to Detroit a corduroy road was built across the swamp and low land. Flint thus became a station of rest, as it were; so the his- toric tavern of John Todd was built for the accommodation of travelers journeying overland to Saginaw, the straits of Mackinac and Lake Superior. This building, constructed mainly of rough hewn logs, is said by old settlers to have stood near where the Wolverine Citizen building now stands. Mr. Todd also operated a primitive ferry immediately in the rear of his tavern, but a little later the government bridged this spot across the river, which then was much wider than it is at the present time. In 1828 a saw-mill was built upon the banks of the Thread river, which marked the beginning of the lumber industry which made fortunes for many Flint men. Little did its one-time proprietors, Rowland Perry and Harvey Spencer, dream that nearly a half century after the passing of this industry Flint was des- tined to grow to magnificent proportions, which might prove disquieting to even old "Uncle Ben" Pearson, who prophesied years ago that although Flint was a thriving place, he "hardly thought it would ever become a sea- port town."
The installation of a United States land office in 1836 added to the prestige of the little community, and later a grist-mill and a saw-mill were built to supply the needs of the settlers.
The Michigan Gazetteer, published in 1838, contains the first obtain- able semi-official information in regard to the village:
FLINT: A village, postoffice and seat of justice for Genesee county, situated on Flint river. It has a banking association, an edge tool factory, saw-mill, two dry goods stores, two groceries, two physicians, a lawyer and the land office for the Sagi- new land district. The United States road passes through it. There is a good supply of water power in and around it. The emigration to this place has been very great the past two years and still continues. The village is flourishing, and the country around it excellent. It is estimated to contain three hundred families. Distant from Detroit, 58 miles northwest, and from Washington City, 584 miles northwest.
In the early fifties, lumbering as a commercial enterprise was under- taken and about ten years later Flint became the center of the lumber in- dustry in Michigan, a large amount of the finest timber in the state being found along the Flint river and its tributaries. At the zenith of this in- dustry a million feet of lumber was being sawed annually by some of the larger lumbermen of the period. Along the Flint river were located the once famous mills of Governor Crapo, McFarlan & Company, William Busenbark, Hamilton, Smith & Carpenter; Hascall, Begole Fox & Company; J. B. Atwood & Company; Eddy, and a dozen others, not including mills in
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operation at Geneseeville and other points on the river and along the Kears- ley creek. The village of Flint in the fifties, which had a population of about two thousand, took on the general aspect of a typical lumber camp, the old McFarlan tavern on St. John street being the center about which the social life of the lumbermen revolved.
The lumber industry gave out in 1876, however, as the resources had become practically exhausted, and for a few years Flint, the county seat of Genesee, although growing slowly, had practically settled down to become the entrepot of a prosperous agricultural region. The men who had oper- ated the mills and the men who had worked in the mills either bought or leased the lands of the county and the latter had engaged in farming or gone into other lines of business, most of them remaining in the county.
In 1880 there were a few varied industries. William A. Paterson, a practical wagon-maker of Guelph, Ontario, who had come to Flint in 1869, had started a small carriage and repair shop and also manufactured farm wagons. The Begole Fox & Company lumber yard had become the site of the Flint Wagon Works, a small concern which later grew to large propor- tions and whose inception was presided over by James H. Whiting.
Flint in 1886 had a population of about eight thousand people. Its streets were wide and shady, its homes, some even pretentious, were homes of taste, set far back on green lawns and surrounded by stately elms and maples. It was the typical small American community of the middle West.
About this time there appeared on the horizon a young man destined to rock the cradle of an industry from which has emerged a colossus of en- terprise, that has made Michigan one of the most prosperous states in the Union and marked Flint as a city of achievement. On August 1, 1886, William C. Durant, the grandson of Governor Henry H. Crapo, then a young man of twenty-five, embarked in the road-cart industry in Flint, in company with J. Dallas Dort, who was at that time salesman for a local hardware concern. The total capital of these two young men was two thousand dollars, and the product which it aimed to manufacture and place upon the market was a two-wheeled road cart, on which a manufacturer at Coldwater, Michigan, had obtained a patent. It was claimed that the cart neutralized the motion of the horse and, as an inexpensive vehicle, was suited to the needs of the Western agriculturist.
Mr. Durant went to Coldwater and purchased patterns and machinery of the old Coldwater Cart Company, which had been partially damaged by fire, and established a small plant in Flint. The output of the new company for the first year was four thousand vehicles. The business increased rap-
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idly and the firm was soon sub-letting its manufacturing to other concerns, in order to keep up with the public demand. The company, foreseeing the great possibilities which would accrue from the manufacture of a general line of vehicles, developed the "Blue Ribbon" line of carriages, which, within a comparatively short time, reached annual sales of one hundred and fifty thousand, the evolution of this enterprise being sensational in the manu- facturing field of that time.
About this time Flint awoke to the consciousness that an industrial awakening was imminent, and became alive to its possibilities. W. A. Pat- terson, who had been building road carts for the Durant-Dort Company, in addition to the manufacture of his own line, embarked on an extensive scale in the manufacture of carriages, and the Flint Wagon Works, with J. H. Whiting, as general manager, expanded to greater proportions and was soon building many thousands of wagons and carriages annually. In the early days of this industry W. F. Stewart started the manufacture of carriage bodies and woodwork, the enterprise growing into one of the foremost rising industries of the city, and soon Flint became known as one of the largest centers of the vehicle industry in the United States.
In the year 1900 Flint was keeping step with the march of progress and with its vehicle factories and other industries had grown to be a community of about thirteen thousand people. It was a city equipped with all things conducive to ideal working conditions, coupled with comfortable homes and a most enjoyable environment.
About this time Thomas Buick, a practical engineer, was working on a gasoline engine upon which he had secured a patent, and was operating a small plant for its manufacture in Detroit. The Flint Wagon Works Company, seeing a market for stationary farm engines through their farm wagon agencies, purchased the business of Mr. Buick and removed it to Flint, building for the purpose a factory which now forms a part of the Mason Motor Company. Meanwhile Mr. Buick, with the assistance of Walter L. Marr, now chief engineer of the Buick Motor Company, built the first Buick automobile, which was practically the old "Model F" car. The officers of the Wagon Works Company brought the car to the atten- tion of Mr. Durant, who was one of the first manufacturers in the country to realize that the motor-driven vehicle was destined to displace the horse. He foresaw the possibilities of manufacturing automobiles in large quanti- ties and, in spite of the antagonism which prevailed among skeptical per- sons, entered the automobile field with the courage and determination born of his vision of an evolution to come in the means of transportation. In
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