USA > Michigan > Monroe County > History of Monroe County, Michigan : a narrative account of its historical progress, its people, and its principal interests Volume II > Part 14
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Philip Zink died on October 15, 1910, and on November 18, the same year, his daughter followed him to the other world. Both had lived high in the regard of the people of the township, and when their final sum- mons came their demise was deeply lamented, although they had passed their lives in active and continued usefulness, bestowing generous hospi- tality in their home and energetic in behalf of all good agencies at work in their community for the benefit of its people.
Henry A. Zink is engaged in progressive general farming and raising live stock, his specialties in the latter branch of his industry being cattle and hogs. He conducts all his operations with intelligence and care,
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omitting no attention or effort necessary on his part to secure the best results in both the volume and the quality of his productions. He is studious of his business in all respects, and is well fixed for it, having a fine farm well arranged for his purposes, and highly improved and skillfully cultivated. He is also deeply and practically interested in the progress and improvement of his community and the enduring welfare of its residents. He is one of the best and most representative of its men.
JAMES L. MONORE. Although not a resident of Monroe county, James Monore, of Sumpter township, Wayne county, Michigan, has lived here so long that he is widely known throughout this section, where he holds prestige as the owner of one of the finest properties in his locality. He was born on the farm of his father, in Monroe county, and is a son of Sancomb and Elizabeth (Woodward) Monore, and a grandson of Andrew and Emma (Decussier) Monore, French-Canadians who settled in Mon- roe county at an early date.
Sancomb Monore was born in Frenchtown, Monroe county, on Lake Erie, and there became a boatman and fisherman. On May 7, 1863, he was married to Elizabeth Woodward, who was born March 22, 1844, in Monroe county, daughter of William and Elizabeth (Robinson) Wood- ward, natives of England. Mrs. Monore's parents had eight children, namely : William; Stephen, who is deceased; Elizabeth Monore; Mrs. Mary Wilson; Robert; Edwin, who is deceased; John, and Benjamin. After his marriage Mr. Monore settled in the woods of Monroe county, near the Wayne county line, where he cleared a small tract of land and erected a log cabin. There he continued to reside until his death, each year improving his property and adding to it until he had one of the finest farms in the locality. He and his wife had a family of twelve children, of whom two died in infancy, while the others were: Albert, living in Exeter township; Robert, of Carleton; Harvey, living in Wil- liamsburg, Iowa; James, of Sumpter township; George, living in Sump- ter township; Alvin, of Carleton; Lawrence; Burton, a Detroit police- man; Fannie, who married Justin Dewey, of Toledo, Ohio; and Mary, who is single and lives in Toledo. Mr. Monore was a man of genial manner, was hard-working and industrious, and left a handsome prop- erty to his children. He was reared in the Catholic faith, but was later converted to the Protestant faith, and became a member of the Evan- gelical church, as did also his wife, residing in Carleton, Michigan. Her mother had died when she was nine years of age, and her father three years later. Mr. Monore passed away in 1905, at the age of sixty-two years.
James Monore was educated in the district schools of his native locality, and his boyhood and youth were spent in the hard work of the home farm. On attaining his majority, he started out to work by the month, in order to obtain a start in the world, putting into practice the habits of industry and honesty that had been taught him by his parents. When he was twenty-six years of age, he was married to Miss Louise Helzemann, of Augusta, Michigan, a young woman of culture and refine- ment, who has proven an able helpmate. She is a daughter of Henry and Elizabeth Helzemann, well-known and highly-esteemed people of
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Augusta, who are now deceased, they having been the parents of four sons and five daughters. Mr. and Mrs. Monore have had three children : Ray R., who is fifteen years of age; Rhoda, who is twelve; and Harley. who is five years of age.
Mr. James L. Monore is an able and industrious agriculturist, and has developed one of the fine farms of Sumpter township, Wayne county, Michigan. He has a nice modern residence, of eight rooms, tastefully and comfortably furnished, with modern conveniences and appurte- nances. This property is well situated, being three and one-half miles from Carleton, and is devoted to the raising of grain and the breeding of livestock, in both of which lines Mr. Monore has been more than moderately successful. A Democrat in his political views, the high esteem in which he is held in his community has been made evident by his election to the position of member of the township school board, on which he has served for a number of years. He is highly regarded in the locality in which he has spent so many years, and has drawn around him a wide circle of warm personal friends.
Mr. and Mrs. Monore have greatly enhanced the value of their excel- lent farm, by erecting a beautiful modern residence, large commodious barns and outbuildings for housing their grains and stock from the rigorous winters. Mrs. Monore, like her husband, is cordial and genial, and she has performed nobly her part as a devoted wife and mother, and the portals of their comfortable home are ever open to their many friends.
LEVI E. WHITE. From the dawn of his manhood to the beginning of the Civil war this highly esteemed citizen of Oakville, London township, this county, was an industrious and skillful mechanic, working faith- fully at his trades as a carpenter and millwright, and dreaming of nothing less, perhaps, than military service or renown. He was engaged in the pursuits and multiplying the productions of peaceful industry, looking forward, no doubt to a comfortable establishment in life and a long career of useful labor in his lines of endeavor. But when the war cloud lowered, and armed resistance to the mandates of the government threatened the dismemberment of the Union, he promptly took his place in the ranks mustered for its defense and marched to the field, turning his back on all his previous plans, and hopes and aspirations.
The country here was yet in a state of almost total wildness and he was one of the small band of pioneers that had come to develop its resources and make its great natural wealth serviceable to mankind. He was interested in it and the task of improving it, but he felt that the first necessity was to save the Union, and on August 24, 1861, he enlisted for three years, or during the war in response to President Lincoln's call for a large body of volunteers for that indefinite term.
The regiment in which he was enrolled went into camp at White Pigeon, St. Joseph county, for a time, and he was then transferred to the Eleventh Volunteer Infantry, and was soon on his way to Louisville, Kentucky, where his regiment became a part of General Buell's army, and was later transferred to the command of General Rosecrans. It took part in the battle of Murfreesboro and the following engagements
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at Stone River and Chattanooga, Tennessee, in all of which there were terrible fighting and great slaughter.
About this time Mr. White was attacked by a serious affection of his eyes which disabled him for further service at the time. He had also received a wound in one of his legs by a fragment of a shell or a bullet at the battle of Stone River. The wound did not seem very serious at the time, but proved to be a disastrous one later. Years afterward a piece of one of the bones of the wounded limb came out near the heel of his foot. This compelled him to go on crutches for many months. In consequence of his wound and the failure of his eyesight he was honor- ably discharged from the service and returned to his Monroe county home.
While at home this valiant soldier and determined patriot regained his health, and on January 26, 1864, he again enlisted, this time, however, being enrolled in a regiment of heavy artillery, Company G, Sixth Infantry, from which he was honorably discharged at New Orleans, Louisiana, on August 20, 1865. On July 4 of that year he was in Vicks- burg, Mississippi, just two years after the capture of the city by General Grant. During his second term of service in the army he was present and took part in the capture of Fort Gaines, one of the defenses of Mobile harbor, the capture taking place several days before that of Fort Morgan, by Admiral Farragut. Mr. White's regiment also aided in the capture of the latter by firing shells from its heavy mortars into it and demolishing it in part.
After the capture of Fort Morgan, Mr. White, as he was a skillful carpenter, was made foreman on the mechanical work in the fort, and he served in that capacity many months. The troops and other persons in the fort were very short on rations, at times, being obliged to depend mainly on hard tack as their chief article of food. But the cause in which they were contending was nearing its final triumph, and they made the best of a bad situation in the hope that all the difficulties would soon be over, and it was not long before their commissariat became more generously supplied and their comfort considerably increased.
Levi I. White was born on March 2, 1830, in Potter county, Pennsyl- vania, the old Keystone state, near the boundary line between that state and New York. He is a son of John White, who was a soldier in the War of 1812, and a grandson of Enoch White, who was a soldier in the Revolutionary war. Enoch White, who was a New Englander, married Miss Nancy Sandy, who was also a New Englander by nativity, and their son John was born and reared in Vermont. John White's wife, the mother of Levi, was Mary Kennedy, a native of Pennsylvania and of Scotch ancestry. She and her husband both died in Pennsylvania.
They had six sons who were Union soldiers during the Civil war, and also two grandsons. Daniel was in the Eighty-fifth New York Infantry, and his two sons were also in the service. William, another brother of Levi, was taken prisoner and held in captivity nineteen months in Libby prison. Albert was chaplain of the One Hundred and Forty-fourth New York Infantry. And Martin was also in a New York regiment, and was killed at the battle of Chancellorsville. All six of the brothers were in General Sickles' brigade and three of them were in the battle of
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Gettysburg. Washington, like William, was taken prisoner and held in captivity many months. He died some time after the war in Elk county, Pennsylvania.
Levi E. White's military career, interesting as it is, does not include all that is interesting in his long and useful life. He was reared and educated in Pennsylvania, and there he learned the trades of carpenter and millwright. He had natural aptitude for mechanical work and became very skillful in both branches of his craft. In 1858 he moved to Michigan and located in Monroe county, and here he worked at his trade in London township, building many of the earlier houses in this part of the county. At the age of twenty-two, he was united to Miss Nancy J. Green, of Allegany county, New York, where the marriage was solemnized. Mrs. White was a daughter of Job and Sophia (Greene) Green, of the state of New York, and was born in 1824. She died on August 24, 1894, leaving one daughter, who is now Mrs. Amanda Bopp, of Detroit, Michigan. During her lifetime the mother was a devout and consistent member of the Baptist church.
On June 15, 1904, Mr. White contracted a second marriage in which he was united with Mrs. Elizabeth (Purtell) Dowling, of Toledo, Ohio, the widow of the late James Dowling of that city and a daughter of Anthony Purtell, who was born and reared in the "Emerald Isle" but was long a resident of Toledo, where Mrs. White was born, reared and educated. By her first marriage she became the mother of four children : Margaret ; Mrs. Mary Boshel, who lives in Toledo; John A., and Julia. The last named died at the age of twenty-three years, much esteemed in life and deeply mourned in death.
Mr. White has a good seven-room residence at Oakville, which is furnished for the comfort of its inmates and shows taste and refinement in what it contains. He also owns a store building which he rents to tenants. He served as a justice of the peace forty-five years, a longer time than any other man in the history of Monroe county, and filled the office with unusual ability and greatly to the satisfaction of the whole community. He is an ardent Republican in politics and was a hard worker for his party in his days of activity. He is now past four score, however, and does not engage in activities of any kind, but is resting after his long labors secure in the veneration and cordial regard of all classes of the people in Monroe county, for he is well and favorably known all over it.
Mrs. White is a lady of good family, intelligence and fine social culture. She is of Irish parents and proud of the fact. She has the wit, resourcefulness and good common sense characteristic of her race, but is unostentatious and modest withal, as genuine merit always is. She is, moreover, a lady of liberal hospitality, and her home is a popular resort for old and young alike, and persons of all ages and conditions find it a source of genial sunshine, warming and brightening all who come in con- tact with it.
IGNATZ HOFFMAN. A worthy representative of Monroe county's agri- culturists, whose long residence and progressive activities make him deserving of prominent mention in a work of this nature, is Ignatz
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Hoffman, the owner of a well-cultivated farm of sixty acres in Exeter township, also forty acres in London township. Mr. Hoffman was born in Monroe county, Michigan, May 19, 1857, and is a son of Daniel Hoff- man, an early settler of London township.
Daniel Hoffman was born in Germany, where he received his educa- tion, and was reared to the vocation of an agriculturist. As is customary with the young men of Germany, he entered the service of the German army, but was subsequently a participant in the Hungarian revolution, under General Louis Kossuth, and was compelled to flee to the United States for safety. He was a great admirer of Carl Schurz, the German patriot who later came to the United States and became a general in the Union army during the Civil war, and knew the famous statesman well. On coming to this country, in 1849, Mr. Hoffman located in Delaware county, Ohio, near Columbus, where for some time he worked in a brick yard. In 1853 he was married to Miss Fredericka Hoffman, also a native of Germany, and after their union they started for Monroe county, by sled and oxen, eventually locating in the woods of London township, where Mr. Hoffman erected a little log cabin. Subsequently he moved to Exeter township, where he improved 130 acres of land, and there his death occurred when he was an old man. During the Civil war he served as a member of the Thirteenth Michigan Volunteers, for thirteen months, but was then honorably discharged on account of dis- ability and returned to his home. He was a trustee and liberal supporter of old St. Joseph's church, and was highly esteemed throughout this section. In politics he was an ardent Democrat. He and his wife, who passed away in 1877, had three children: Ignatz; Catherine Bitz, of Monroe county ; and Louise Lefevre.
Ignatz Hoffman was reared on the home farm, where he was taught to respect the value of hard work and honesty, and received his education in the public schools. He then continued to engage in farm labor until his marriage, at the age of twenty-three years, to Miss Louise Bitz, of Exeter township, November 20, 1879. She was born, reared and edu- cated in Exeter township, and was a daughter of Ignatz and Rosa (Young) Bitz, natives of Germany, who were early settlers of this township. The father died at the age of sixty-eight years, on his fine farm adjoining that of Mr. Hoffman, leaving a family of six children, as follows : Emil, Daniel, George, Louise, Mary and Emma. After his marriage, Mr. Hoffman settled on a farm of thirty-seven acres, which he eventually sold, subsequently purchasing the land on which he now lives, and which he has developed into one of the finest properties in the township. Here he built a handsome twelve-room brick house, with porches, at a cost of $2,000, a barn 32 by 60 feet, and a granary, corn crib, hog house and other buildings. He has fine feed and pasture lands, productive grain fields and well graded meadows, and Catalpa Lawn Farm, as it has been named, reflects the thrift and industry of its owner in every particular. General farming has claimed the greater part of his attention, but he also devotes some time to the various other branches of farm work, and does some dairying and stock-raising. A Democrat in his political views, he takes an active interest in the affairs that pertain to the welfare of his township, but has not cared to enter the public
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arena as an office seeker, although he has served very efficiently as supervisor for four terms and township treasurer for two terms. During the past nine years he has acted as a member of the board of trustees of St. Joseph's parish, and also treasurer of the school board for fifteen years.
Mr. and Mrs. Hoffman have had a family of three sons and five daughters, as follows: Mrs. Rose Navarre; Mrs. Matilda Seal, a resident. of Toledo, Ohio; Mrs. Clara Hoffman; Adam; Augusta; Herman; Veronica ; and one child died in infancy. Both Mr. and Mrs. Hoffman are widely known throughout the township, where they have many warm personal friends.
CARLTON E. HAWKES. An enterprising, progressive, and therefore successful farmer, with energy in his industry and judgment in his management; an upright, straightforward and serviceable citizen, and a conscientious, careful and capable public official, Carlton E. Hawkes, justice of the peace in London township, this county, is well worthy of the high opinion the people have of him as a man in all the relations of life. He was elected to the office he now holds, in the spring of 1911 and re-elected in the spring of 1912, and is therefore filling his second term in it. In his first term he gave the public excellent service, and this was expected of him. For there was no element of chance in his selection for the position. He was born and reared in the county, Exeter town- ship, and has spent the whole of his life to the present time (1912) in this locality, and the people knew all about him when they first elected him.
Mr. Hawkes came into being forty-five years ago, on March 3, 1867, and is a son of old settlers in this region. His parents, Erastus and Susan (Lumkin) Hawkes, took part in the early history of Monroe county, the former coming here when a young man from his native state of New York, and the latter being a native of what is now Raisin township. She was a daughter of Ozial and Hannah (Herkimer) Lum- kin, both of New York antecedents, the father having been born in that state and the mother being a great-great-granddaughter of General Nicholas Herkimer, who led New York militia soldiers gallantly in the Revolutionary war and lost his life in that great and decisive contest for freedom.
Erastus Hawkes, the father of Carlton, was a valiant soldier for the Union during the Civil war, and after that momentous and sanguinary conflict was over, was connected with the lumber industry for many years as a head sawyer. He came to this state and county in his young man- hood, as has been stated, and is still living in the state, his present home being at Whittaker, in Washtenaw county. His wife died in October, 1911, at the age of seventy-three; and, although well advanced in years, with the end of her life necessarily near at hand, her death was deeply mourned, for she was universally beloved wherever she was known. She was the mother of four children : Lois, the wife of Albert W. Hardy, of Augusta, is deceased; Eleanor, the wife of Jehiel H; Davis, of Oakland county, Michigan; Carlton E., and Sheridan, who lives in Ypsilanti, Michigan. The father is a Republican in politics and devoted to his
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party. Fraternally he is a member of the Masonic order and the Grand Army of the Republic.
Carlton E. Hawkes grew to manhood on his father's farm in Exeter township and obtained his education in the common schools and the more severe but thorough one of experience. At the age of thirty-one he was united in marriage with Miss Hattie E. Smith, who was born, reared and educated in London township, this county, the locality in which her life ended in 1905. She was the daughter of Jerome and Rebecca (Worth) Smith, early settlers in the township and long highly respected residents among its people. Her daughters Velma and Fern were her only children, and they are still living here under the shelter of their father's roof.
In 1908, Mr. Hawkes married a second time, being united on this occasion with Mrs. Hattie (Lingo) Waite, the widow of the late Albert Waite of this township, and a daughter of Samuel Lingo, an honored veteran of the Civil war, serving in an Ohio regiment and making a good record for bravery and fidelity to duty in the conflict. Whether his call was to the long and exhaustive march or the lonely vigil of picket duty, the endurance of summer's heat or winter's cold, the shock of battle or frenzy of the charge, he was equally responsive in obeying the call and meeting the requirements to the best of his ability.
By his second marriage Mr. Hawkes has become the father of one child, Carlton, Jr., who was born in September, 1910. The family home is on a fine farm of sixty acres well improved with one house, 16 by 24 and an ell 11 by 24; two good barns, one 16 by 46 feet and the other 26 by 54; two silos, 10 by 32 and 12 by 36 feet in size, respectively, and other necessary structures. He carries an insurance of $3,000 on his buildings and their contents, as he is a prudent man and takes precaution against disaster.
His dwelling house contains eight rooms, frame dwelling and conven- iently arranged and well furnished. In addition, he has a $3,000 Welsh automobile, and "Model F" Buick at $600, one of the best in the town- ship. His farming operations are as extensive as his facilities will allow and are as successful as skill and good management can make them. He is also extensively engaged in the dairy business, and for service in this branch of his industry keeps a herd of fifteen superior cows of a good breed for the purpose.
Mr. Hawkes and his wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal church and he is an officer in the congregation to which they belong. He is a Republican in political faith and allegiance and always firm and energetic in the service of his party. In the administration of his office he is fair but firm, guided by his judgment of right and wrong, zealous for the good of the community, but considerate of the feelings of all who have business with him and judicious in weighing the rights of both sides in every controversy. He is one of London township's best and most popular citizens.
CHRISTOPHER RAPP. This fine, frank, genial and interesting gentle- man, who is one of the best known and most highly esteemed residents of London township, having lived in it for many years, his life before its
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people an open book without a stain on any of its pages, has had an eventful and somewhat spectacular career. He was born across the sea and reared to the age of eleven in a foreign land. In his boyhood, he, with his parents, braved the wintry bosom of the Atlantic, and was brought to a new world, among a strange people, with the scenes, associ- ations and institutions entirely different from those to which he had been accustomed.
He was brought to this country under the inspiration of the hope of better and more extensive opportunities than his own land seemed to afford, but at the dawn of his manhood he found the land of promise, to which hope had led his parents, in the throes of a terrible sectional Civil war, and he became a soldier in defense of the Union he had learned to love. He suffered the perils of the battlefield, a long siege of illness contracted in the service, the horrors of long confinement as a prisoner of war, and other hardships incident to the service. He has since been a successful farmer with steadily increasing prosperity; and he is now living at Maybee, practically retired from active pursuits, and resting peacefully in the reminiscences of his long, varied and useful career.
Mr. Rapp was born in Rothenburg, Germany, on December 24, 1840, the son of John and Catherine (Kapp) Rapp, farmers in the Fatherland. His parents came to the United States in 1852 and followed the tide of emigration westward to this state, locating in Monroe county, on a farm in the woods of London township. In time the father cleared his land, the son assisting in the work while attending the public school in the neighborhood to complete the education he had begun in his native land. By the time he was nearing his majority, the wild tract on which the family found a home on its arrival in the township had been transformed into a good farm and a comfortable abiding place.
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