USA > Michigan > Ionia County > History of Ionia County, Michigan : her people, industries and institutions, Volume II > Part 18
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WV. R. Tebbel was born on December 3, 1838, a son of John and Mary ( Comer ) Tebbel, natives of England, who had emigrated to Canada, where they made their home until 1865, in which year they came to Michi- gan, settling in St. Clair county, where the former died in 1881, his widow surviving him until 1894. W. R. Tebbel had come to this state a few years in advance of his parents, having come over the border in 1862 and located in St. Clair county. He had learned the miller's trade in Canada and upon coming to this state followed the same, being stationed at various places until in 1880, when he bought the old stone mill at Smyrna, this county, which at that time was being operated by a stock company. When Mr. Tebbel took over the old mill he practically reconstructed the same, putting in the new process for manufacturing "patent" flour, installing the Planifter roller system process of milling, and made the mill what it is today, soon becoming one of the best-known millers in this section of the state, and continued in charge of the mill until his death, on November 18. 1908. His widow, who still survives him, was born in Plymouth, this state, daughter of Louis and Charlotte ( Bartlett) Purdy. To W. R. Tebbel and wife six children were born, all of whom are still living, as follow: Jessie, wife of George Northway, of Lowell. Kent county. this state: George W.,
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Charlotte, wife of William E. Williams, of Lansing, this state: Nellie, who is at home; John, also at home, and Edna, wife of Fay E. Williams. of Lansing.
George W. Tebbel received his education in the common schools, com- pleting the course in the schools at Smyrna, he having been about eleven years old when his parents settled at that place. At the age of sixteen he entered the mill with his father and became thoroughly familiar with the milling business. Since the death of his father, in 1908, he and his brother, John, have been in practical charge of the mill and have made a fine success of the same.
On August 25. 1891, George W. Tebbel was united in marriage to Eliza MeNitt, daughter of D. H McNitt and wife, and to this union two children have been born, Winnie, who died in infancy, and William Arlo, born on October 18, 1906. Mr. Tebbel is a member of Belding Lodge No. 355. Free and Accepted Masons, and of the lodge of the Maccabees at Smyrna. John also is a Mason. George W. is a Republican and director of school district No. 2, Otisco township. He was always a great home man. He built the home and made many other improvements on the place.
T. J. BOUGHNER.
One of the general farmers and stock men of Danby township. lonia county, whose efforts have been rightly directed and have brought success all along the line, is T. J. Boughner, who was born in Snydertown, North- umberland county, Pennsylvania, October 28, 1849. He is a son of Isaac and Lavina ( Klase ) Boughner, both natives of the same locality in which the subject of this sketch was born. Sebastian Boughner, grandfather of our subject, was a soldier in the War of 1812. He spent his entire life in the state of Pennsylvania. For many years he was foreman of a gang of section hands on a railroad. His son. Isaac, grew up in his native comnu- nity and worked with the section gang until the spring of 1864 when he came to Michigan, locating in Macon township. Lenawee county, where he rented a farm which he worked for six years. He moved to Danby town- ship. lonia county, in 1870 and bought one hundred and one acres, where the subject of this sketch now lives. The death of Mrs. Lavina Boughner occurred in the spring of 1872. She was the mother of five children, namely : Mary Isabella is the wife of D. G. Kauder and they live in Clinton town-
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ship, Lenawee county; T. J., the subject of this sketch ; Henrietta, deceased. was the wife of Charles Morgan : Emma Clara is the wife of D. J. Guilford, of Ionia county, and George, deceased. Isaac Boughner was married three times. His second wife was Flora Marsh, who lived but a few years after their marriage, dying without issue. His third wife was Louise Barmes, who lived but a few years after her marriage, dying without issue, also.
T. J. Boughner grew up on the homestead and received a common school education, remaining under the parental roof-tree until his marriage on September 16, 1874. to Rose Towner, who was born August 26, 1853. and is a daughter of .Alfred and Harriet ( Beck ) Towner, natives of Brighton and Tiffon. England, respectively, and in that country they grew up, attended school and were married, shortly afterward immigrating to the United States and settling at Massillon, Ohio, their voyage across the Atlantic requiring eight weeks. After spending about two years in Ohio they removed to Danby township, Ionia county, Michigan, when Rose Towner was only six weeks old, and here they subsequently bought a farm on which Mr. Towner spent the rest of his life. Alfred Towner enlisted in 1851 in Company E. Twenty-seventh Regiment, Michigan Volunteer Infantry, in which he served until the close of the war. He was an efficient soldier and rose to the rank of sergeant-major. He took part in many of the great engagements of the war and was wounded in the battle of the Wilderness. His family consisted of nine children, namely: William C., who lives in Portland, Ionia county; Rose, wife of T. J. Boughner; Richard lives in Danby township; Louisa R. is the wife of Oscar Roselle, and they live in Portland, lonia county: Thomas lives in Danby township; Frederick lives in Danby township: Sarah is the wife of Sylvester Pryer and they live in the village of Portland: Alice is the wife of C. Crowley and they live near St. Johns, Michigan.
After his marriage. T. J. Boughner lived at home a year, then moved to Portland where he learned the trade of a moulder at which he worked three years, then bought a farm of one hundred and thirteen acres in sec- tion 16, Danby township, Tonia county, which land was unimproved, but he cleared and developed it into an excellent farm and has a good home. He has two children, namely: Clara is the wife of Urban Sanders, of Eagle township, Clinton county, and they have two children, Lucile Rose, born in November, 1910, and Etta Leone, born in July, 1913, and Glenn T .. who married Ethel Kelly and they have three children, Bertha, born on February 8, 1908, Helen, June 1, 1900, and Jean Irene, September 13, 1912. Politically, Mr. Boughner is a Republican. He was township clerk for
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three years and township supervisor for four years. He is a member of the Danby Grange; Portland Lodge No. 31, Free and Accepted Masons; Port- land Chapter No. 39, Royal Arch Masons, and the Royal Arcanum lodge at Portland.
MRS. ARMINDA MILLIMAN.
One of the best-known of the survivors of the pioneers in Ionia county is Mrs. Arminda Milliman, widow of the late Uriah Milliman, of Saranac, and who at the time of her marriage to Mr. Milliman was the widow of John H. English, a well-known farmer of this county, who died in 1874. Mrs. Milliman has lived in lonia county since the days of her young woman- hood and there are few, if any, persons in the southern part of the county who have a more accurate memory regarding incidents of pioneer living thereabout than has she.
Arminda Story was born in Livingston county, state of New York on December 21, 1827, daughter of Urias and Lucretia (Smith) Story, the former a native of New Hampshire and the latter of Connecticut, who were married in New York state, where they lived until 1848, in which year they came with their family to Michigan and located in Boston, lonia county. Urias Story bought a tract of three hundred and twenty acres, an even half section of land, in the southern part of Boston township and there he estab- lished his home, he and his wife spending the remainder of their lives there. Mr. Story was an excellent manager and prospered in his farming operations. He gave each of his four sons an eighty-acre farm and all did well. There also were five daughters in the family, of whom Mrs. Milliman is now the sole survivor. She was twenty-one years of age when the family located in this county and she took most ably her part in the work of creating proper conditions on the homestead, as well as doing all she could do to advance the general social and economic conditions of the pioneer community, thus prov- ing a most active factor in the development of the social life in that section of the county.
In September, 1852, Arminda Story was united in marriage to John 1l. English, a native of Tunbridge county, Vermont, who had come to Michigan when a young man. They settled on a farm in Boston township and there Mr. English spent the rest of his life, his death occurring in 1874. John HI. English was a good farmer and a man active in the general affairs of the community, long having been regarded as one of the most substantial and
..
JOHN H. ENGLISH.
MRS. ARMINDA MILLIMAN.
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influential residents of his home township. He was the organizer of the Grange in that locality, an organization in the affairs of which his wife also took a warm and active interest, and he also served for several terms as township clerk. To Mr. and Mrs. English no children were born, but their warm interest in children moved them to rear several orphaned chil- dren, who received as considerate care as if they had been their very own.
After the death of John H. English his widow continued to make her home on the farm, where she was very comfortably situated, and in 1890 she married Uriah Milliman, who had been previously married and who had a daughter. Ethelinda, by that first marriage, who died when she was eighteen years old. Mr. Milliman died in February, 1903, aged seventy-five years, and in 1905 Mrs. Milliman retired from the farm and moved to Saranac village, where she has a very pleasant home on Vosper street, and where she enjoys many evidences of the high esteem in which she is held by the entire community.
NATHAN B. SHERWOOD.
Nathan B. Sherwood, a well-known retired painter and decorator of Lyons, this county, an honored veteran of the Civil War, who has been a continuous resident of Lyons since the fall of 1866, is a native son of Mich- igan. born at Otsego, Allegan county, this state, August 21, 1838, son of Hull and Julia A. ( Crittenden ) Sherwood, both natives of Munroe county, New York, who came to Michigan after their marriage in the East and settled at Otsego, where Hull Sherwood was engaged in carpentering until the summer of 1848, when he moved back to his old home at West Brighton, in Monroe county, New York, where he spent the rest of his life, his death occurring on December 23, 1854. he then being forty-eight years of age. His widow survived him for forty years, her death occurring at Lyons, this county, on February 15, 1894.
Nathan B. Sherwood was but sixteen years of age when his father died and from that time until his enlistment in the Union army for service in the Civil War he was quite unsettled. moving about a good deal from place to place. following the trade of house painter and interior decorator, but finally came back to his native state and at Adrian, in September, 1864. enlisted in Company D, Fourth Regiment, Michigan Volunteer Infantry, for service during the continuance of the war. He was made a
(13a)
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corporal and was put on detached service; was assistant commissary serg- eant and afterward post commissary sergeant at San Antonio, Texas. Mr. Sherwood was in the service until June, 1866, and after he was mustered out in September of that year came to this county and located at Lyons. where he ever since has made his home. There he engaged in general house painting, decorating and paper-hanging, having become proficient in these trades in his youth at Rochester, New York, and for many years, or until his retirement from active labors, was thus engaged. Though now practically retired, his hand has not lost its old-time skill and at the age of seventy-four he re-decorated the interior of his home and did a very fine job of it, indeed. Though decorating has been his chief vocation, Mr. Sher- wood has not been continuously employed in that calling since locating at Lyons, for he was engaged in traveling for about ten years, as a general salesman for pumps, fanning-mills and agricultural implements.
In May, 1858, Nathan B. Sherwood was united in marriage. in Orleans county, New York, to Julietta Woods, who was born at Yates, in that county, a daughter of Jeptha and Eliza ( Putman ) Woods, and to this union three children have been born, Carrie, who married James II. Rose, of Lyons, and died in June, 1912, leaving four children, Mina, Bert, Robert and Carl: Winfield, well-known laundryman at Lyons, who married Eliza- beth Smith, of Pewamo, this county, and has one child, a daughter, Beatrice, and Leon D., engaged in the antomobile business at Lyons, who married Rose Ranger and has one child. a son. Leon Foster Sherwood. In 1908 Mr. and Mrs. Sherwood celebrated their golden wedding anniversary and they are still spared to each other and to their children. Mr. Sherwood is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic and takes a warm interest in the affairs of that patriotic organization.
ADELPHIN MOSS.
Adelphin Moss, one of the best-known residents of lonia county, a well-to-do retired farmer of North Plains township. now living in Muir, is an honored veteran of the Civil War, whose half century of residence in the Muir neighborhood has made him an authority on matters of local history thereabout. It was in the fall of 1866 that Mr. Moss arrived in Muir-fifty years ago-and there are hardly a half dozen men left in this town who were here at that time, N. B. Hayes being the only person living
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on the road past the old Moss home who was a resident of that section in that year. At that time Muir was a busy, bustling lumber town, boasting of four saw-mills, a shingle mill and a sash, blind and door factory running at full capacity, while the river was full of logs every spring; and Mr. Moss has been a witness of great changes in the population and industries of this section since those days. llis wife, who was a pioneer school teacher in that section, was born in the Muir neighborhood and is perhaps the best living authority on the local history of that part of the county, for she has witnessed the development of that region since the days when Indians and wild animals still were plentiful thereabout.
Adelphin Moss is a native of the great Empire state, born in Pompey township, Onondaga county, New York, May 10. 1845. son of James Burton and Deborah ( Bush ) Moss, both natives of that same state and well-to-do farming people. James B. Moss served as a Union soldier during the Civil War, a member of the Eighth New York Heavy Artillery, and as a result of exposure and privations suffered during his service was ever after an invalid, his death occurring in the seventies. Another of his sons besides the subject of this sketch was also a soldier in the Union army, James Moss now living at Port Byron, New York. In 1862. when seventeen years of age, Adelphin Moss enlisted for service in Company C. One Hundred and Twenty-second Regiment. New York Volunteer Infantry, and served until that regiment was mustered out in July, 1865, the war then being over. His service covered a period of twenty days less than three years and he was only twenty years old at the conclusion of his arduous military experi- ence, his regiment having taken part in the bitter campaigns pushed by the Army of the Potomac. After the battle of Antietam he suffered a severe attack of typhoid fever and after that was fit only for detached duty. doing provost or gnard duty ..
After he was mustered out Mr. Moss returned to the old home in New York and remained there a little more than a year, at the end of which time he came to Michigan, arriving at Muir on October 24, 1866. His uncle, William Bush, and the latter's brother-in-law owned a pinery near Sheridan and a farm in North Plains township, this county. Mr. Moss spent the first winter after coming here in his uncle's logging camp near Sheridan and in the spring of 1867 went to the farm in North Plains town- ship, where he worked that summer. In August of that year he married and he and his wife began housekeeping in North Plains township, where for five or six years he was engaged in working at the carpenter's trade. Ile then bought a farm over the line in Crystal township, Montcalm county,
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and there they made their home for eight or nine years, at the end of which time they sold the farm and returned to North Plains township, this county, and settled on Mrs. Moss's old home farm. Upon the death of her father the place was divided. Mrs. Moss receiving a share; Mr. Moss bought a portion of the remaining interests and his son, George, bought the remain- ing interests, the family thus now owning the whole of the original quarter section, comprising the old Mills homestead. When their home was burned on March 16, 1912, Mr. and Mrs. Moss retired from the farm and have since made their home in Muir, their son, George, continuing to operate the farm. George Moss, who is one of the best-known farmers in that section of the county, has been a member of the township board for several years. He married Mary Fisher and to that union five children have been born. Alta, Lora, Robert, Lois and Bessie, the latter of whom died in infancy. Alta Moss married Carl Hettler, of Muir, and has a daughter, Ardath. Another son. Charles Moss, now living at Detroit, married Minnie Troop and has two children, Duane and Glenn.
It was on August 29, 1867, that Adelphin Moss was united in mar- riage to Mary Jane Mills, who was born and reared on the farm where George Moss now lives, daughter of Major D. and Lucina ( Strickland) Mills, who had settled there in 1833. the fourth family to locate in that township. Major D. Mills was born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, but grew to manhood in New York state, where he married Lucina Strick- land, who was born in Steuben county, that state. and whose parents died in Ingham county, this state. After their marriage Major D. Mills and his wife came to Michigan and settled at Jackson, where Mr. Mills built the first frame house erected in that town. He established a tannery there and remained there until 1833, when he came to lonia county and homesteaded a quarter of a section of land in North Plains township, the farm now occupied by his grandson, George Moss, and there he spent the rest of his life, a useful and influential pioneer citizen. He died on June 12, 1886, and his widow died on October 9, following. On January 19, preceding, a son, George Mills, had died and on January 20, 1887, another son, Alson Mills, a crippled veteran of the Civil War, died, thus making four deaths in the family within a year and a day. Major D. Mills and wife were the parents of ten children, of whom Mrs. Moss is now the sole survivor. Joseph having died on August 23, 1873; Mrs. Sarah E. Helmer, May 15, 1905; William, March 19, 1907, and Joel B., June 21, 1907. George, William. Jole and Alson Mills were all veterans of the Civil War. William Mills
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was the first white child born at Jackson, this state. Mr. Moss formerly was an active member of the Grand Army of the Republic, one of the organ- izers of the post of that patriotic order at Crystal, and maintained his mem- bership in the same until it disbanded on account of failing numbers.
BROOKS FAMILY IN IONIA COUNTY.
The first ancestor of the Brooks family in America was Thomas Brooks, who came to America from Suffolk, England, about 1630, and settled first in Watertown, Massachusetts, then Concord. He became a furrier by trade, but held many offices by appointment of the court, one of which was to prevent drunkenness among the Indians. He seems also to have been inter- ested in land values, for there is recorded a purchase by him of four hundred acres in Medford, a town eleven miles from Boston, but now a part of the city. for which he paid four hundred and four pounds.
The descendants of Thomas Brooks for a generation or two lived mostly in Massachusetts, but later spread to all the New. England states, and from there to the West and South. They have been more or less eminent in all the walks of life, ecclesiastical, civil, commercial and indus- trial, specializing in ship-building and farming.
As heroes of the Colonial. Revolutionary and later wars they have ren- dered patriotic service. One, the Hon. Ebenezer Brooks, was a delegate to Boston in 1776 to form the Constitution of the United States, and again in 1788 to ratify the Constitution.
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The name Brooks first appears in Ionia County, Michigan, 1846, when one. William Brooks, born in 1802, came by ox team with his wife and nine children from St. Lawrence county, New York, locating in Ionia township, finally taking up two hundred and twenty acres, and devoting his life to farming. His eldest child was about twenty years of age and his youngest less than a year. He died in 1869, and his wife, Caroline ( Kent ) Brooks, born in 1805, whom he married in 1824. died in 1887, both being buried in Ionia.
The parents of Caroline Kent were Nathaniel Kent and Hannah ( Mead) Kent. Hannah Mead had first married Luther Dorwin, by whom eleven children were born. From the marriage to Nathaniel Kent one daughter, Caroline, was born. The Kents, like the Brooks, originally settled in Massa- chusetts and actively figured in the Colonial and Revolutionary wars, which
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the time demanded, Kent's Hill, Maine, being named after one, Nathaniel Kent.
The direct descendants of William and Caroline (Kent ) Brooks are, Caroline E., William, Jr., Minerva, Milton B., Nathaniel K., Curtis, Stephen, Erastus and Angelo.
The parents of William Brooks were Caleb Brooks and Hannah ( Ellis) Brooks, born in the Green Mountain state, but during the latter years of their lives resided in New York.
Caleb entered the Revolution at thirteen years of age. He also fought in the War of 1812. He made a visit to his son in Michigan in 1855 and died in Antwerp, New York, at the venerable age of ninety-seven years, and his wife died there after she had passed her one hundredth birthday.
The branch of the Brooks family with which this history especially deals is Nathaniel Kent Brooks, fifth child of William and Caroline ( Kent) Brooks, who was born at Gouverneur, New York, 1831, came to Ionia county about fifteen years of age, and was apprenticed as a miller by trade, but, preferring the open life, he early took up farming in Ronald township. Ionia county, where he bought and cleared one hundred and forty acres of land. He married. December 10, 1854, Emily A. Locke, whose first ances- tor in America was one William Locke, who came to America from England at the age of six years in 1828. Records show that his parents died before he embarked, and he came with a family by the name of Davies. He grew, prospered, and married. December 25, 1855. Mary Clark. He left nine children, and these scattered, some going North and some West. Emily A. Locke's father was Bezaleel, who came to Ionia county, Michigan, 1847. from Jefferson county, New York, where he lived twelve years, going there from Massachusetts. His father was Reuben, and his grandfather, Ebene- zer, and great-grandfather. William, and before him, William, Jr., then William, Sr.
The children of Nathaniel K. and Emily ( Locke) Brooks are as follow : Marion ( died young), Lillie F., Lida A. ( christened Eliza ) and Dwight Z.
Lillie married, November 9. 1881, James H. Tibbitts, of Berlin town- ship, Ionia county, moved to Washington, D. C., and was for many years in employ of government, later associated with Carnegie Endowment for Peace. He died, 1915, greatly respected and beloved for his kindly and beautiful life. To Lillie and James 11. Tibbitts were born Greeta Marion, 1884, and Russell D., born 1893 ( unmarried). Greeta married. June 3, 1909, at Washington, D. C., W. R Dear, surgeon in United States
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Army, and their children are, R. B. Dear, born 1911, and Florence, born 1914.
Lida (christened Eliza ) married. September 15, 1885, in Ronald, Ionia county, Michigan, Louis P. Miller, a noble and self-made man, whose father had been scalped by the Indians near Decatur, Texas, in 1867, while on a deed of mercy to a fellow man. Louis P. Miller, born January 17. 1855, of Berlin township, Ionia county, moved to Chicago, Illinois, and engaged in the publishing business. The husband dying in 1891, the wife carried on the business until 1908, when she retired from business.
Born to Lida ( Brooks) and Louis P. Miller, two sons: Stanley Nathaniel Miller. April 24. 1888, graduated Cornell University, 1912. T. Palmer Miller, born June 29, 1890, graduated Dartmouth, 1912, both unmarried at present time.
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