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 49
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Ever loyal and progressive as a citizen, Mr. Cooke has done much to further the civic and material progress of his home city, and he served for some time as representative of its First ward on the board of alder- men. He has been identified with the Republican party from the time of its organization and has ever been an uncompromising advocate of its principles and policies. He has been for fifty years affiliated with Monroe Lodge No. 27, Free and Accepted Masons, in which he was raised to the degree of Master Mason, and both he and his wife are communi- cants in the Episcopal church. During his many years of service in government office Mr. Cooke has traveled extensively through Michi- gan and he has a wide acquaintanceship throughout the state, the while it may well be said that his circle of friends is limited only by that of his acquaintances. In the city of Monroe the Cooke homestead, on Elm street, is one of the most beautiful old places of the county, with spa- cious grounds on which are many fine old maple and elm trees. This attractive home has ever been a center of refined and gracious hospital-
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ity, and here Mr. and Mrs. Cooke, in the gentle evening of their lives, find pleasure in extending welcome to their hosts of friends.
On the 11th of June, 1857, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Cooke to Miss Sarah Grigg, who was born in England on the 27th of October, 1834, and who is a daughter of the late John Grigg, an honored pioneer of Monroe county. The wedded companionship of Mr. and Mrs. Cooke has covered a period of fifty-five years, and the home life has been one ideal in its every relation. To them were born seven children, namely : John, Hannah, William P., Arthur, Jane, Mary and Spencer. John is unmarried and has charge of the home farm. William P. is manager of the Monroe Furnace & Foundry Company. Arthur has a prominent place with the C. B. & Q. Railroad at Chicago, and Spencer is an elec- trical engineer in the employ of the Commonwealth Edison Company of Chicago. Jane is in the Congressional Library at Washington, and the other two daughters are at home.
DR. OLIN E. PARMELEE. It is always with a deep sense of apprecia- tion that a historian records the life of one who, by means of unflagging ambition, skillful planning, intelligent toil and dauntless patience has attained exceptional success. A son who was gifted with power in exert- ing these effective weapons in life's struggle for a higher usefulness, was born in Hillsdale county on November 19, 1873, to Erastus and Ellen (Tremain) Parmelee; he is well known today in Lambertville and its vicinity as Dr. Olin E. Parmelee. That a desire for development and a worthy place in life were family characteristics is evidenced by the fact that the other two children of Erastus Parmelee and his wife are both teachers, having formerly been students of the Petersburg high school. Miss Ruth Parmelee, who supplemented her high school education by attendance at the Michigan state normal school, is teach- ing at Chicago, Illinois, and Miss Alice pursues the same profession in Samaria, Michigan.
It is probable that even when a boy on his father's farm, Olin Parmelee had his first visions of future usefulness. His attendance at the country school was marked by conscientious application. Realizing the discouraging expense of a long and thorough medical course, he neither sacrificed his ambition to necessity nor risked a debt for himself or his family. Recognizing the demand for men nurses and seeing in this profession a possible pathway to that other so closely related to it, the young man became a nurse. Much of the training this work en- tailed coincided with the elementary training for the medical profession, and thus equipped, he presently began the study of medicine, mean- while making his expenses as a nurse. This required no little energy, for his occupation during the day made necessary his attendance on night classes for his medical course. In 1903 he entered the medical department of the University of Illinois. During the last two years of his course he gave his entire time to the study prescribed, realizing at that time the justification for his completing this preparation with the aid of a loan. His degree of M. D. was conferred in June, 1905. Be- fore locating for practice, he spent three months more in nursing, while waiting for returns from the state board of health of Illinois. In Decem-
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ber, 1905, he located in Chicago, Illinois, office at Wells and North ave- nue, also taking a special course in anæsthetics.
On March, 1906, he located in Lambertville. His practice in the town and vicinity has been very successful and is of gratifying extent. He is health officer of the township of Bedford and is a member of the Monroe Medical Society and the State Medical Association, American Medical Association and a non-resident member of the Academy of Medicine of Toledo and Lucas county, Ohio. As to socially fraternal con- nection Dr. Parmelee is a member and past grand of Lambertville Lodge No. 467, I. O. O. F., and member of the grand lodge of Michigan; also charter member and past chief patriarch of Arbor Vitæ Encampment No. 177 of the same order, and a member of the Ancient Order of Gleaners.
Dr. Parmelee's marriage occurred on November 11, 1905, to Miss Edith Kinney, a daughter of Amos B. Kinney. She was born and edu- cated in Monroe county, her studies being concluded in the Monroe high school. The children of Dr. and Mrs. Parmelee are Le Roy E., who is now five years of age, and Channing B., a babe of ten months. Both the doctor and his wife are regarded as valuable acquisitions in the personnel of the community. He is a Republican, but neither a narrow nor a violent partisan. Both politically and professionally he is ever interested in "the greatest good of the greatest number." May his life be long in Bedford township!
CHARLES W. PETERSON. One of the valuable and important indus- tries of the city of Monroe is represented by Mr. Peterson, who is the local manager of the Standard Fish Company of New York. He has had thirty years' experience in this line of business in different parts of the United States, and is probably one of the best authorities in the state of Michigan on the commercial productions of fish from the inland waters.
Through his offices and storage houses at Monroe Mr. Peterson col- lects and ships to eastern markets quantities of fish to an amount that is probably understood by few citizens of this county. Most of the fish are concentrated at this point from Lake Erie, Lake Michigan and the Canadian lakes, the small dealers about these lakes acting as local commission men for gathering this product. Frequently Mr. Peterson ships east three carloads of fish at a time, the largest shipments being made during the months of September and October. One very essen- tial department of this local business is the storage of large quantities of ice each season, which is a not unimportant industry by itself. In a large pond near Monroe the German carp collected at different sea- sons of the year, are kept and fattened for shipment. At certain seasons of the year there is a large demand in the eastern markets for this variety of fish. Seven hundred tons have several times represented the gross weight of the fish cargoes which leave the Monroe offices for the east. As purchasing agent and manager Mr. Peterson has handled this business for a number of years, and has a large acquaintance with the trade throughout the lakes region.
Charles W. Peterson is a native of Denmark, born in the city of
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Slagelse, February 18, 1863. His education in the common schools of his native country gave him a thorough equipment for a practical career, and after leaving school he became clerk in a general store. At the end of five years his services had brought him a high recommendation from his employer, and with this equipment and training he set out for the new world. He arrived at New York in 1882, and located at Port Clinton, Ohio, where his headquarters were up to 1898, being a road salesman during most of that period for the New York Fish Company. In 1902 he became purchasing agent for the Standard Fish Company, with headquarters at Monroe, and has since been closely identified with this city both as a business man and public-spirited citizen. A Repub- lican in polities, Mr. Peterson in 1910 was elected alderman from the Third ward, and is one of the influential and useful members of the municipal government. Fraternally he is affiliated with the Monroe Camp No. 8066, Modern Woodmen of America.
In 1886 Mr. Peterson was married to Miss Lovina Wright of Port Clinton, Ohio, where she was born and reared. They are the parents of the following children : John, who is agent for the Standard Fish Com- pany ; Carl G., clerk for R. M. Hall & Co., of Detroit; Marie A., in the Monroe high school; and James Monroe, Gertrude, and Lena. The family home is at 704 Third street.
BURTON PARKER. If those who claim that fortune has favored cer- tain individuals above others will but investigate the cause of success and failure, it will be found that the former is largely due to the im- provement of opportunity, the latter to the neglect of it. Fortunate environments encompass nearly every man at some stage of his career, but the strong man and the successful man is he who realizes that the proper moment has come, that the present and not the future holds his opportunity. The man who makes use of the Now and not the To Be is the one who passes on the highway of life others who started out ahead of him, and reaches the goal of prosperity in advance of them. It is this quality in Burton Parker that has won him an enviable name in legal and political circles in Monroe county, Michigan, where he has resided during the greater part of his lifetime thus far. At the pres- ent time, in 1912, he is special agent of the United States treasury de- partment in charge of the fourteenth special agency district, with headquarters at Detroit. His home, however, is in Monroe.
In the township of Dundee, Monroe county, Michigan, April 24, 1844, occurred the birth of Burton Parker, who is a son of Morgan and Rosetta C. (Breningstall) Parker, both of whom were born in Batavia, New York, the former on the 1st of January, 1820, and the latter on the 27th of September, 1824. Morgan Parker was a son of Joshua Parker, whose birth occurred in Connecticut on the 7th of November, 1770, and the latter was the son of another Joshua Parker who was a soldier in the Revolution. Joshua Parker II moved from Connecticut to Oneida county, New York, where he resided for a number of years. In 1825 he emigrated to the western part of Monroe county, Michigan, locating eighteen miles west of Monroe City, where he-entered a tract of 160 acres of government land which he cleared and cultivated. Morgan
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Parker was a farmer up to 1855, at which time he engaged in the lum- ber, milling and manufacturing business at Petersburg, Monroe county.
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The paternal grandmother of Burton Parker was Dr. Sina Parker, of Holland descent. She was the only practicing physician in western Monroe county for a number of years. Early settlers here remember her kindly as administering to the sick, traveling through swamps and over corduroy roads to reach their new homes in the wilderness. His maternal grandparents were likewise of Dutch descent and they emi- grated from New York to Dundee township, Monroe county, Michigan, in 1840.
Burton Parker received his preliminary educational training in the district schools of Dundee township and in the village of Petersburg. Before and after school he worked in his father's lumber mill during the summers, also during vacations; at times he was employed in the lumber woods, driving teams and running logs down the river. He was the eldest in a family of five children. As his parents had both been school teachers in their younger days they kept their children at their school books during all of their spare moments. In October, 1861, Burton and his father enlisted for service in the Union ranks of the Civil war. They became members of Company F, First Regiment of Engineers and Mechanics, the father being first sergeant of the com- pany. They were in the campaign of 1861 and 1862 in Kentucky, with Generals Buell and Thomas, and participated in the battle of Mill Springs, Kentucky, on the 19th of January, 1862, when the Confederate general, Zollicoffer, who was in command of the Confederate forces, was killed. Burton's father died while in service in Kentucky, his demise occurring on the 4th of April, 1862, as the result of typhoid fever. One year later, Burton was discharged on account of long and continued sickness. He immediately returned home and after recover- ing from his sick spell became a clerk in a dry goods store. Before he had reached his twenty-second year he was elected justice of the peace and began the study of law. He attended the University of Michigan, in the law department of which he was graduated as a member of the class of 1870, duly receiving his degree of Bachelor of Laws.
Mr. Parker initiated the active practice of his profession at Mon- roe, where he gradually built up a large and lucrative law clientage. He has always been a Republican in political matters, and in 1868 he cast his first vote for General Grant. In 1872 he was elected circuit court commissioner for Monroe county ; in 1881 he was elected mayor of Monroe by a majority of 246 and re-elected the following spring by a majority of 318. About the same time he was elected president of the school board of Monroe, the city at that time being over two hundred Democratic. In 1882 he was elected a member of the legislature in the Monroe city district by a majority of 240, the district at that time being likewise strongly Democratic. As a member of the legislature he was chairman of the committee on municipal corporations and assisted in the election of Thomas W. Palmer as United States senator. He was appointed Indian agent by President Arthur in the fall of 1884, at the Fort Peck Agency, Montana, and was removed by President Cleve- land in the winter of 1885-86. In 1890 he was appointed special agent
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of the United States treasury department and was removed twenty days after the inauguration of President Cleveland, but reinstated four years later under President Mckinley. In March, 1894, he was ap- pointed deputy land commissioner by Land Commissioner William A. reinstatement as special agent of the United States treasury depart- ment. On the 1st of October, 1903, he was appointed supervising spe- cial agent, in which position he served four years, during President Roosevelt's administration, being in charge of all special officers in the United States and foreign countries. At the present time, in 1912, he is special agent in charge of the Fourteenth Special Agency district, with headquarters at Detroit. For more than twenty-five years Mr. Parker has been active in political matters and during the course of various campaigns has made a tour of the state under the direction of the state central committee, addressing the people upon the political issues of the day. During his career as a lawyer he has been admitted to practice in all the courts in Michigan, Texas, Arizona, California and in the supreme court of the United States. Mr. Parker believes thor- oughly in the principles of brotherhood as set forth in the creed of the Masonic order and is a member of the commandery in Monroe as well as of the chapter.
Inasmuch as the splendid success achieved by Mr. Parker has been entirely the outcome of his own unaided efforts, it is the more gratify- ing to contemplate. As a young man, after the death of his father, he had to work hard in order to help support his mother and the younger children. When he decided to study law, he not only had to earn his own way through college but had a wife and two small children to support besides. During his vacation he was employed as a clerk in a dry goods store and he did various odd jobs in order to earn the money needed to supply the family with food and himself with tuition and books. He claims his success in life is largely due to the cheerful and encouraging words of a devoted and loving wife, who was ever ready with cheering words when the way looked dark and dreary. The fore- going summary of Mr. Parker's public service is ample proof of his deep and sincere interest in community affairs. He ever supported measures and enterprises projected for the good of the general public and has always been willing to lend a helping hand to those less for- tunately situated in life than himself. He is a citizen of whom any community might well be proud and he is accorded the unalloyed con- fidence and esteem of his fellow citizens of Monroe.
On the 8th of September, 1863, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Parker and Miss Frances C. Reynolds, of South Amherst, Lorain county, Ohio. Five children have been born to them, and three of these children are now living, all of them being practicing physicians of note. Dr. Hal M. Parker is located at Monroe, Michigan; Dr. Thad N. Parker practices his profession in Grand Junction, Colorado; and Dr. Dayton L. Parker is located in the city of Detroit. Dr. Dayton Parker, former police surgeon of Detroit, is Burton Parker's brother.
PHILIP W. GODFROY. Americans are beginning to realize the moral as well as the historical significance of genealogical foundations. A
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nation which relies upon the record of its homes for its national charac- ter cannot afford to ignore the value of genealogical investigation as one of the truest sources of patriotism. The love of home inspires the love of country. There is a wholesome influence in genealogical research that cannot be over-estimated. Moreover, there is a deep laid thread of human interest in it.
The emigrant ancestor of the Godfroy family in America was James J. Godfroy, great-great-grandfather of him whose name introduces this review. He was born and reared in France, where his son Gaberal was likewise born and whence they emigrated to America. Settlement was made in the city of Detroit, Michigan, and they became prominent among the pioneer French families of that place. James J. Godfroy, son of Gaberal Godfroy and father of Philip W. Godfroy, was born in Detroit in 1802, and he died in Monroe, Michigan, in 1847, at the age
of forty-five years. He married Victoria Navarre, who was born in Monroe county, Michigan, on January 2, 1800, and who died in 1879 at the venerable age of eighty years. They were the parents of eleven children, whose names are here entered in the respective order of their birth : John; Lewis C .; Frederick C .; Theo S .; Hillary; Philip W., of this sketch ; Augusta F .; Celestine, deceased; Alexandria, also deceased ; Victoria R .; and Mary Therese, the last named now being a resident of the city of Chicago.
Philip W. Godfroy received his educational training in the public schools of Monroe county, Michigan, where his birth occurred on De- cember 17, 1834. At the age of sixteen, having acquired a good knowl- edge of the common branches, he assumed the duties of teacher of a district school in Exeter township, this county, and for a number of terms he continued to teach. In the summer months he worked on his father's farm, and he was engaged in farm work at intervals up until he reached the age of thirty years. It was at that age that he enlisted in the Union ranks for service in the Civil war. On February 29, 1864, he became a member of the Ninth Michigan Volunteer Cavalry, in Company D, and was soon thereafter ordered to the front, where he saw much active service. He filled various positions in his company from private to orderly sergeant, and at one time had command of Company F. He participated in a number of the most important bat- tles and skirmishes that marked the progress of the long and unhappy struggle, and had many a thrilling experience. On one occasion a comrade named Peter Plumb, who was very much frightened, instead of shooting at the enemy, discharged his gun directly under Mr. God- froy's ear. This accidental shot greatly impaired Mr. Godfroy's hear- ing in later life. He served throughout the war with the utmost gal- lantry and faithfulness and received his honorable discharge from the army in July, 1865, when he returned to his mother's farm, in the city of Monroe, there engaging in diversified agriculture and the raising of high grade live stock. In 1866 he left the old Godfroy homestead in the city of Monroe, and for a time was engaged as clerk for the Bruckner Hardware Company in the city. In 1882 Mr. Godfroy became collector for the city and continued in that office until 1893, performing his duties in the most efficient and satisfactory manner. In more recent
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years he has lived virtually retired from active participation in busi- ness affairs, merely giving a general supervision to his own personal affairs.
On June 18, 1861, Mr. Godfroy married Miss Euphemia Cicotte, a daughter of Capt. John Baptiste Cicotte, who was an officer in the War of 1812 and was likewise of French descent. They became the parents of the following children: Ida, who is the wife of Philip D. Mann, of Chicago, Illinois; Victoria, who married Thomas Feely, now deceased, Joliet, Illinois; Dorothy C., who is a teacher in the eighth grade school in Monroe, Michigan; Alice S., statistician in the Univer- sity of Wisconsin ; Lola remains in the parental home; Isaac P., of the firm of Godfroy & Hoffman, tobacco merchants; Bernard T., who is employed as chief accountant for the Michigan Central Railroad Com- pany at Monroe, Michigan ; and Philip MacClellan, who is construction foreman for the Michigan State Telephone Company.
Mr. Godfroy is a stanch Republican in his politics, and has served his city in public office on more than one occasion, always proving him- self a citizen of the highest caliber and a man in whom any trust might be reposed. He retains a deep and sincere interest in his old comrades in arms and signifies the same by his membership in Joseph R. Smith Post, Grand Army of the Republic. He and his family are devout members of the Catholic church. Although seventy-eight years of age, Mr. Godfroy retains in their pristine vigor the splendid mental and physical faculties of the prime of his life, and he holds the enviable reputation of never having drunk intoxicating liquors, chewed or smoked tobacco, or used blasphemous language. He is a fine old man, kindly and genial in his relations with his fellow beings, and one who com- mands the unalloyed confidence and esteem of all men with whom he comes in contact.
ADDISON E. DUNBAR. It may consistently be said that in Monroe county not to know Judge Dunbar is virtually to argue oneself un- known, for he has been a prominent figure in public affairs during the course of many years, has served in various offices of distinctive trust, including that of judge of the probate court, and in all the relations of life he has so comported himself as to justify emphatically the unquali- fied esteem in which he is held in his native county. He was born in this county prior to the admission of Michigan as one of the sovereign commonwealths of the federal Union and is a scion of one of the honored pioneer families of this favored section of the Wolverine State. Now venerable in years, he remains a revered citizen of the county which has ever been his home, and, surrounded by hosts of friends, he finds in the gracious twilight of his life that his lines are indeed "cast in pleasant places." Long known as one of the loyal and representative citizens of Monroe county, he is eminently entitled to specific recogni- tion in this publication.
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Judge Addison Edwin Dunbar was born in Bedford township, Mon- roe county, Michigan, on the 9th of January, 1835, and is a son of Will- iam and Mercy (Aldrich) Dunbar, who came to Michigan from the state of Massachusetts and settled in Bedford township, this county, in the year 1832, about five years prior to the admission of the state to the
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Union. They were numbered among the early settlers of the township mentioned and there the father reclaimed from the wilderness a pro- ductive farm, the while he became a man of prominence and influence in the community. His character was the positive expression of a strong and noble nature and he was not only qualified for leadership in thought and action but was also one to whom came as a natural result the implicit confidence and esteem of those with whom he came in con- tact in the varied relations of life. He continued to maintain his home in Bedford township until he removed to Monroe township, where his death occurred when he was about sixty-four years of age, and his cher- ished and noble wife passed to eternal rest when about eighty-one years of age, she having been an earnest member of the Methodist Episcopal church. They were of stanch Scotch ancestry and both families were founded in America in the colonial days. William and Mercy A. Dunbar became the parents of four sons and three daughters, and of the number the subject of this review is now the only survivor. The parents contributed their quota to the civic and material develop- ment of Monroe county and their names merit enduring place on the roster of the honored pioneers of the state of Michigan.
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