USA > Michigan > Oakland County > History of Oakland County Michigan a narrative account of its historic progress, its people, its principal interests Volume II > Part 26
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Henry M. Jackson, the subject of this sketch, was born at Clinton in McComb county, Michigan, on December 22, 1840. At the age of eighteen he took up blacksmithing and followed this trade for thirty-six years. At the time he became interested in working in iron, like Tubal Cain, the learner did not merely pick up a smattering of details, but worked years to perfect his knowledge of iron craft. He became a master, and it was such an apprenticeship that Mr. Jackson served. He took a pride in his work, and there was no device nor implement of iron or steel that he could not contrive. Latterly he took up real estate, and
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all its departments, buying, selling and building, interested him equally. He has built a great many houses in Pontiac, and owns not a few him- self, among them half of a business block and four residences, includ- ing the comfortable home where he resides. Before he was married he bought a home on Pike street, then built a residence on Mt. Clemens street, where he now lives, retired. He is proud of the fact that he was gifted with contentment, and has never moved his domicile but once.
Mr. Jackson and Helen Scarritt were united in marriage on April 29, 1871. She was the baby of the family in the twelve children of Richard and Catharine Scarritt, both of whom were natives of Ireland, and who located in White Lake, Oakland county, on coming to America. Mr. and Mrs. Henry Jackson have four children: Thomas William is treasurer of the Pontiac Light Company; Harry J. is with a gas com- pany of Dallas, Texas, now having charge of their business in two states, Oklahoma and Arkansas; Richard S. is in the Commercial Bank, of Pontiac; and Carl R. graduated this year from the Pontiac high school.
Elected on the Citizens ticket as alderman from the Third ward, Mr. Jackson served two years in the city council. He has been on the board of trustees of the Methodist Episcopal church for twenty-six years and on the cemetery board for fifteen years. He has been a Master Mason for over forty years and on April 1, 1910, was voted a life membership by his brethren of the lodge. Politically he is a Republican.
AARON H. CROSS is a native of Oakland county, Michigan, the son of a father of heroic sturdiness and steadfastness to duty, and himself one of the industrious, frugal, upright and enterprising citizens of this part of the state. No duty has ever been too arduous for him to under- take, and no privation has been too severe for him to endure in the performance of what was laid out for him to do.
Mr. Cross was born on December 30, 1837, and is a son of Moses and Essie (Gallagher) Cross, the former born in England in 1815 and the latter in Ireland in 1820. The father died on March 29, 1875, and the mother is still living in Pontiac at the age of over ninety-two years. The father came to the United States in the early 'twenties, and during the first fifteen years of his residence in this country lived at Syracuse, New York. The great, unknown west had long had a persuasive voice for him, and at last it became too strong for him to resist. But he lacked the means of paying for the usual means of transportation, even in those days, and so he determined to brave a journey in the direction of his desires with the facilities he could command. With an ax on his shoulder he walked from Syracuse, New York, to Oakland county, this state, and immediately after his arrival here he found employment at his chosen occupation of clearing the forest.
After a residence of several years in this county he wrote back to his mother that he was coming home to spend the Christmas holidays with the family, and in the accomplishment of this purpose he retraced his steps to his old New York home, again making the journey on foot. He passed the holiday season with the home folks, and then returned to Michigan in the same way that he used in going home. Thus he traversed the wide expanse between his old home in New York and his new one in Michigan three times on foot, and by the route he was obliged to take the distance could not have been less than 500 or 600 miles each time.
By his industry and thrift while working in the woods he managed
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to become possessed of fifty-three acres of land, and on this he started farming. He kept adding to his land by successive purchases until at the time of his death he owned 160 acres, all under cultivation and all well improved. Sixty-nine acres of his holdings were in the southwest- ern part of Pontiac, and on this he had a fine dwelling and his home. His occupations were general farming and breeding and feeding live stock for the markets, and he was successful in both branches of his work. He and his wife were the parents of five children: Aaron H .; Benjamin, who has been dead for some years; Emeline, who is the wife of Edwin Gallagan, of Pontiac; and Ada and Elmer, who also have been dead for a number of years.
In the winter of 1856 Mr. Cross of this sketch worked in the woods in the lumber industry. After that he was employed for ten years in buying horses and cattle for the lumber camps. He then had seventy- two acres of land on which he lived and carried on farming and raising live stock. In 1900 he returned to his old home in Pontiac, where he is now living. He owns 160 acres of superior Oakland county farm- ing land, as good as any in the county, and as skillfully cultivated as any equal tract anywhere.
On January 1, 1861, Mr. Cross was united in wedlock with Miss Matilda Jones. They have had three children: Elizabeth, who is de- ceased; Anne, who is the wife of G. Selden, of Clarkston, this county ; and Charles, who is associated with his father in the management of the farm. The father is a Republican in political relations and a zealous member of his party. But he has never held or desired a political office of any kind, either by election or appointment. His own business is enough to fully occupy his time and energies, and he desires no other. But he is always attentive to the duties of citizenship in every way, and takes his part of the work of pushing forward the progress and im- provement of his city and county with alacrity. Fraternally he belongs to the Knights of the Maccabees and the Patrons of Husbandry. Mr. Cross and his wife are not members of any church, but contribute to the support of them. His mother belongs to the Catholic church. Both Mr. and Mrs. Cross are well thought of wherever they are known, and in Pontiac they are regarded as among the most sterling and serviceable citizens of the community.
PIERRE BUCKLEY. Both numerically and also as to individual posi- tion the family with which the late Pierre Buckley, of Pontiac, was al- lied has for decades been considered one of the distinctive relationships of the community. In politics, in business and in social affairs they have manifested an interest that was consistently genuine and wholesouled. Pierre was a native of Pontiac, born August 1, 1854, and died May 19, 1908. He was a son of Thomas and Catharine (Mulcahey) Buckley, both natives of county Tipperary, Ireland, who came to Oakland county in 1840.
Thomas Buckley was connected for forty years with the freight de- partment of the Detroit & Milwaukee Railroad. He was one of the best-known among the early residents, and was active in Democratic circles. He died in November, 1896, at the ripe old age of eighty-six. His wife passed away at the age of seventy-five. To their union the following children were born: Nellie, wife of John Burke, of Pontiac ;
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Sarah, wife of James Halfpenny, of Pontiac; and Pierre, the subject of this sketch.
The latter may be regarded as a thorough type of the self-made man. His education was confined to the schooling that the public schools of Pontiac afforded. He took up plumbing and steam-fitting for a trade, mastered their details thoroughly and followed this occupation with success for a number of years. He then allied himself with different enterprises, his ventures being rewarded with goodly profits, so that he speedily became one of the most substantial citizens of the community. He was president of the Pontiac Brewing Company, and for thirteen years occupied a seat in the city council as alderman from the first ward.
On September 2, 1886, Mr. Buckley was married to Miss Jennie Kile, a daughter of Robert and Jennie ( Ward) Kile, both of the latter being natives of New York, and both of whom are now deceased. Mr. Kile was a hotel man up to the time of his death. Twelve chil- dren constituted the family of Robert and Jennie Kile, they being : Clarissa, deceased; Etta, deceased, wife of H. E. Lewis, sheriff of Oakland county ; Alonzo, of Ortonville, Michigan; George, deceased ; Emory, of Pontiac; William, of Cass City; Rose, wife of C. G. Eding- ton, of South Dakota; Mary, wife of Fred Madison, of Fenton, Mich- igan ; Fred, of Pontiac; Frank, of Cass City, Michigan; Jennie, wife of the subject of this sketch; and the youngest child, who died in in- fancy. To the union of Mr. and Mrs. Buckley there were seven chil- dren born: Thomas Leo, born February 28, 1888, and died May 19, 1888; Basil P., of Poughkeepsie, New York, born June 22, 1889; Kath- leen Castener, born March 22, 1891; Rosalind Carolyn, born Novem- ber 1, 1893; Peter Harold and Paul Carroll, twins, born May 8, 1896; Edward Marcellies, born January 16, 1901.
The Democratic party enlisted the interest and the active support of Pierre Buckley, as it had that of his father before him. He was a member of the Catholic church, and in his social affiliations belonged to the Elks, the Knights of Equity and the Eagles.
JOSIAH EMERY, a well-known farmer, owning one hundred and forty- eight and a half acres of land in section 18, Waterford and White Lake townships, Oakland county, Michigan, can trace his ancestry back to 1635, when John Emery and his brother Anthony came from Romsey, Hants county, England, to settle in Newburyport, Massachusetts. From John Emery he is descended down through Jonathan, his son Edward, and in turn his son William to his great-grandfather, Josiah Emery. His son, the grandfather of the subject of the sketch, Colonel Josiah Emery, was a lieutenant in the War of 1812, and was later a colonel in the state militia of New York. His brother, Dr. John Cutler Emery, settled on a farm near Northville, Michigan, and was one of the first doctors in the county. The wife of Colonel Josiah Emery was Susannah Little, the daughter of Lieutenant Moses and Mary (Stevens) Little, of Goffs- town, New Hampshire. Lieutenant Moses, who descended from a Wil- liam Warren, who came to the United States in 1620 in the Mayflower, was a first lieutenant in Captain Samuel Richards' company, a part of Colonel John Stark's regiment, and served from April 23, 1775, to August 1, 1775. Later on he served twenty-six days in Colonel Jacob Gales' regiment during the month of August, 1778. Colonel Josiah Emery's son, John C. Emery, the father of the subject of the sketch,
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was born in Aurora, New York, December 1, 1817. He was married to Mary Yerkes, who was born in Cayuga county, New York, in 1823, and they became the parents of four children, one of whom died in in- fancy. Ellen Y., who later became the wife of a Mr. Holcomb, was born in Lyon township, Oakland county, Michigan, in 1843; Josiah was born in Lyon township, Oakland county, Michigan, December 26, 1844; Z. Taylor, the youngest child, was born in the same county in 1847.
Josiah Emery lived at home on his father's farm until in December, 1864, when, although still under twenty years of age, he enlisted in the Thirtieth Michigan Volunteer Infantry and served six months and seven- teen days, until the close of the war. When he returned home to North- ville he again took up his work on the farm. He went to Jewel county, Kansas, the fall of 1871 and took up a homestead when the township was organized and of which he was appointed trustee. In 1876 he sold his claim in Kansas and came to his present place in the spring of 1877. On August 18, 1867, he was married to Cordelia J. P. R. Bradley, the daughter of James B. Bradley, of Lyons township. Of their five children three are still living, the death of the third son, James B., who was born September 16, 1875, having occurred in June, 1891, and that of the second son, who was born December 16, 1872, on January 23, 1877. Clarence D. was born November 28, 1869, and William J., an automobile expert, now living at home, was born on December 19, 1879. Walter E., the youngest son, is a graduate of the University of Mich- igan and is now practicing law in Detroit.
Mr. Emery is a man of wide interests, and has always taken advant- age of every opportunity his surroundings allowed him for new activ- ities. He is a member of the Dick Richardson G. A. R. Post No. 147, and is besides an active supporter of the Presbyterian church. He has been an elder for fourteen years. In 1890 he was one of the enumer- ators for the government census. His sympathies are with the Repub- lican party.
E. D. SPOONER, of Oakland county, Michigan, is a well-known man in his community. Besides the farm of two hundred and ten acres in section 4, Waterford township, which he owns and works, he is one of the superintendents of Oakland county and also of the county farm, and at one time was supervisor of the township for three years.
The first appearance of Mr. Spooner's family in the United States was in the person of his grandfather, Ebenezer Spooner, who came from England and settled in New York state. After he had once settled in New York the wanderlust never struck him again and he remained there for the rest of his life. But his son, Harvey E. Spooner, after his marriage to Margaret France, at the age of twenty-five years, caught the western fever, like many young men of his time, and traveled as far as Michigan. He first rented a farm near Kalamazoo and stayed there a couple of years. This location did not suit him in all ways, however, and so he moved to Lenawee county. The farm which he bought there was covered with solid timber, which, however, it did not take him long to remove. For thirty-three years, or until he was sixty years old, he remained there. His next and final move then took him to Oakland county. He is now a man of ninety years, and remarkably active for his age. He and his wife were the parents of four children, all of whom are living: Minnie, the widow of Albert Barnes, now living
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in Lenawee county ; Addison Edgar, at present in Oklahoma; Mollie, the widow of Ernest Rumble, and now residing in Kansas City; Missouri ; and E. D.
E. D. Spooner was born in Seneca township, Lenawee county, on June 27, 1862. When he was twenty years old he went to Kansas, but came back after a year, to his father's farm, and has lived there ever since with the exception of about a year that he spent in traveling through the west. On March 29, 1883, he was married to Nellie Walter, the daughter of John and Elenora Walter, of Independence township. and they have had three children. Harvey died in the fall of 1909, a lad of thirteen years, but the other two children, Helen and Gladys, are in school. Helen, in Pontiac, and Gladys, in the district school. Politically Mr. Spooner is a Republican. He belongs to the fraternal order of Mac- cabees.
HELMER GEORGE. There is scarcely any department of applied science, when one thinks them all over, more wonderful than photography. Discarding at once the chisel of Phidas and the brush of Reynolds, it outdoes both by taking gentle hold of the rosy fingers of the light, and through them writing down, with absolute exactness, every feature of man and nature. It is the real "art preservative," and, when applied to portraiture, rescues from oblivion the thoughtful brow of Intellect, Beauty's winning grace, Childhood's witching smile and Manhood's ro- bust and stalwart proportions. It can even, to some extent at least, smooth away the ruggedness from the wrinkled brow of care. More- over, there is no department in which the strides of progress have been more rapid, more constant, more decided. Whether we look at the mechanism for its work or the work of its mechanism, the advance is alike marvelous.
This preservative, comprehensive and progressive art is well repre- sented in Pontiac by Helmer George, the leading photographer of the city, an artist of thorough training, fine artistic sense and great skill and capacity in technique, who has a complete mastery of his business and gives his patrons the benefit of all his knowledge in connection with it. His beautiful studio, one of the finest in this part of the country, is one of the show places of Pontiac, and is worthy of all the praise bestowed upon it by visitors from far and near who have the pleasure of seeing it.
Mr. George was born in Sweden, on September 29, 1882, and is a son of John and Amanda (Larson) George, also natives of Sweden. where the father is still living and the mother died in 1910. They had ten children, of whom Fritiof, the first born, and Anna, the fifth, have died, and Gerda, Agda, Esther, Effrain, Gunnar and Sture are still residents of Sweden. Helmer and his brother Samuel, who lives in Chicago, are the only members of the family residing in this country.
After receiving a fundamental education in the state schools, Helmer George attended a business college in his native land, entering the in- stitution at the age of twelve. When he had completed its course of instruction he joined the navy of his country, in which he served three years. He next took up photography, and after becoming familiar with its principles and mechanical requirements, practiced it three years in Sweden. In September, 1906, he came to the United States, landing in New York but removing soon afterward to Boston, where he passed a
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year and a half in an art school. He then returned to New York and se- cured employment as an artist with Sarony and Marceau, two of the greatest photographers of the Empire city, continuing to work for them two years.
At the end of that period he took charge of a photograph gallery for one of the most extensive operating firms in the business in this country. They sent him to Detroit to open a branch house in that city, and this he conducted for a year and a half, then came to Pontiac and opened the studio in which he now owns and conducts his business. It is one of the most completely equipped and ornately adorned in the state, and it would be difficult to find one anywhere to surpass it in a city of the size and rank of Pontiac, or even much larger.
Mr. George was married on April 8, 1910, to Miss Vilma Sundborg, a daughter of Oscar and Helene (Lawbon) Sundborg, residents of Stockholm for many years. The father died in 1896, and the mother is now living in Chicago, Illinois. They had six children: Stina, who is living in Sweden and is the wife of a colonel in the Swedish army ; Walborg, who is the wife of Captain C. Johnson of San Francisco, California ; Oscar, a resident of Vancouver, British Columbia, and editor of the Vancouver Post; Axel, whose home is in Chicago and who is an importer and agent for Scandinavian steamship lines; Ingeborg, who resides in Aledo, Illinois, and is the wife of T. H. Cobb, a druggist, a brother of the judge of the supreme court of the state; and Mrs. George. Mrs. George was, up to the time of her marriage, a well known actress and singer on the Swedish as well as on the American stage.
In politics Mr. George is a Republican and in church connection he is a Lutheran. He is a popular and admired man socially, an artist of high and widespread reputation, a citizen of public spirit and progres- siveness, and an earnestly loyal and devoted citizen, as ardently attached to the land of his adoption as he ever was to that of his birth, and as firm in supporting the institutions of the former as he ever could have been in defense of those of the latter. Throughout Oakland county, and wherever else he is known, he is held in the highest esteem.
ALBERT W. WILLSON. At this juncture in a volume devoted to the careers of representative citizens of Oakland county, Michigan, it is a pleasure to insert a brief history of Albert W. Willson, who has ever been on the alert to forward all measures and enterprises projected for the good of the general welfare and who has served his community in various positions of trust and responsibility. He has been clerk of Royal Oak township, has been township treasurer and president of the board of trustees of the village of Royal Oak. As a business man he is a contractor and builder and devotes considerable attention to his extensive real-estate holdings.
Albert W. Willson was born at Strawberry Point, Manchester county, Iowa, the date of his nativity being the 28th of September, 1869. He is a son of Samuel J. and Sarah E. (Shove) Willson, the former of whom died at Royal Oak in 1894 and the latter of whom is still living, her home being at Royal Oak. Samuel Willson was born in Cherry Valley, Otsego county, New York, and he was a son of James Willson. who was born in New York, of German parents. Sarah E. (Shove) Willson was born in Pennsylvania, a daughter of Daniel H. and Ann Gray (Gibson) Shove. The maternal great-grandfather of the subject
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of this review was born and reared in Ireland, whence to came to Amer- ica at an early age, settling in Pennsylvania. After his marriage, in 1835, Samuel Willson was engaged in farming in the vicinity of Ripley, New York, for several years. There three of his children were born. In 1864 the family removed to Indiana, whence they returned, after two or three years, to Ripley. In 1867 Mr. Willson again decided to go west and in that year located in Iowa, where the family home was maintained until 1874, when removal was made to Royal Oak township, in Oakland county, Michigan. Here he was engaged in agricultural pursuits until his demise, in 1894. Mr. and Mrs. Willson became the parents of seven children, three of whom are living, in 1912, namely,-Charles G., at Royal Oak; Mary, who is the widow of Warren Heavener, who died in 1896; and Albert W., the immediate subject of this review.
Mr. Willson, of this notice, was a child of but five years of age at the time of his parents' removal to Royal Oak township. Here he was reared to maturity and his educational training was obtained in the public schools and high school of Royal Oak. As a young man he became interested in the carpenter's trade and after thoroughly master- ing that line he launched out into business as a contractor and builder. He has erected some of the finest business buildings and residences in this section of the county and in addition to his work as a contractor he is deeply interested in the real-estate business, being the owner of con- siderable valuable property in the vicinity of Royal Oak.
In politics Mr. Willson accords an unswerving allegiance to the Republican party, which organization has elected him to several offices of local importance. He has been justice of the peace, township clerk and treasurer and president of the village board of trustees. For fifteen years he has been a director on the Royal Oak school board. In fra- ternal circles he is connected with the Independent Order of Foresters and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, being noble grand of the latter, in 1912. In their religious faith the Willson family are devout and zealous members of the Methodist Episcopal church.
In the year 1889 Mr. Willson married Miss Jennie A. Willson, daugh- ter of Albert W. and Mary (Whitney) Willson, the former of German and the latter of English descent. Of the six children born to Mr. and Mrs. Willson but two are living at the present time, namely,-James A., who was graduated in the Royal Oak high school, is now teaching school in Troy township; and Robert E., who remains at home. Mr. and Mrs. Willson are kindly, generous-hearted people and as such they hold a high place in the confidence and esteem of their fellow citizens, who honor them for their sterling integrity of character and exemplary lives.
CARL S. VOORHEIS, a farmer of section eight, White Lake township, belongs to a family who have been prominent in local affairs of Oakland county, Michigan, for many decades. Mr. Voorheis was born on the farm, the "Quiet Home Farm," where he still lives, and of which he is the owner, on March 29, 1872.
Peter Voorheis, the grandfather of Carl S., was a resident of New York state, although he was the owner of some Michigan land which he had purchased while on a trip west in ,1828. His son Sebring Voor- heis was born in Fayette, Seneca county, New York, January 7, 1815, and came west to Michigan in 1836, settling in Ypsilanti, Washtenaw
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county, for three years. He then returned to Steuben county, New York, and on September 11, 1839, was married to Sarah Beachman, by whom he had two children, Myron and Peter both now dead. He then left the east for Michigan, and for many years lived in a log house sixteen by twenty-four feet. In 1847 he built a brick house, which stood until nine years ago, when Carl S. built his present home. His wife died April 14, 1866, and he was married again, this time to Julia A. Yerkes, a native of Northville, Wayne county, Michigan, and the daughter of John and Elizabeth Yerkes, who were both born in Romulus, Seneca county, New York. They came into Michigan in 1826. Mr. Yerkes died February 14, 1877, at the age of seventy-eight years. By this second marriage Mr. Voorheis had one child, Carl S., the sub- ject of the sketch. A Republican in politics Mr. Voorheis was elected supervisor of White Lake many times, first holding office in 1843. In the fall of 1862 he was elected by his party as a representative to the state legislature and served one term. He and his wife became mem- bers of the White Lake Presbyterian church in 1840, and for many years he was an elder of the church. He died in 1882 and his wife in 1901.
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