USA > Michigan > Oakland County > History of Oakland County Michigan a narrative account of its historic progress, its people, its principal interests Volume II > Part 28
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COLONEL JUDSON E. RICE, now residing on a farm of twenty acres adjoining the village of South Lyon, Michigan, has lived a long and useful life, crowding into five years what most people took ten to ac- complish. He is a self-made man who has achieved the top of the financial ladder that his ambition started him climbing as a youth. Even as a young boy he was forced to make his own living, and has kept steadily on, each one of his positions and ventures being better than the last. He has always been liked by the people with whom he came in contact, and the trophy which he received from the employes of the Soldiers' Home at Grand Rapids, Michigan, July 19, 1911, is good evi- dence of the esteem in which they held him, and which is typical of the
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favor he has received during his whole lifetime. Governor Warner, of Michigan, had appointed him, May 1, 1909, commandant of the Home, and the gift was presented to him on his resignation from the charge two years later. The trophy is a silk standard attached to a handsome staff. The flag is four by six feet, with a set of resolutions of regret embossed upon it.
Colonel Rice was born in DeKalb, New York, October 9, 1844, the son of Anson and Rebecca Rice. His father was a farmer. Colonel Rice did not begin his schooling until after the family had moved to Russell, New York. When he was ten years old he left his father's home and went with a cousin's family to Canada, and remained there until he was fourteen, working on a farm and only attending school for three months in the winter. On his return to the United States he settled in Herman, New York, and continued his farm work, only inter- rupting it to attend school the three months in the winter.
At the age of seventeen he enlisted in the One Hundred and Forty- Second New York Infantry at Ogdensburg, New York, but he was rejected owing to his size and his age. He had two brothers, however, who were members of Company A of the regiment, another brother who was surgeon for the regiment and still another brother in Company D, Sixtieth New York, and he was determined to go with them. The Doctor finally took him with him as surgeon's poster. This was in August of 1862. In 1863 he returned to Herman and worked on a farm during the summer. In 1864 he again enlisted, this time in Company C, One Hundred and Sixth New York Infantry, a home company, and joined the regiment in the Shenandoah Valley just in time for the battles of Winchester and Fisher's Hill He was also in the battle of Cedar Creek and in Sheridan's memorable ride in the valley until in December of that year, when they were sent to Petersburg, replacing the Fifth Corps in the front. He was taken sick there and sent back to the hospital at City Point. When Lee surrendered he returned to his regiment and was discharged July 1, 1865, at Ogdensburg, New York. He returned to the farm in Herman and his first work was to mow by hand the hay in the fields of which he had sown the seed before he entered the army. During the late summer of this year he entered a select school in the village, and during that fall and winter taught in a school in Russell township. In the spring of 1866 he entered a general store at Herman as a clerk.
In October, 1866, he and Miss Amelia Fuller were married, and their two children are still living, Lindsey W. connected with a box factory in Ada, Michigan, and Nellie, the wife of John L. Boer, of Grand Rapids, who for six years was city clerk of Grand Rapids. Mrs. Rice, who was born at Stowe, Vermont, in September, 1846, the daugh- ter of Cyrus and Clarisy (Hale) Fuller, died in November, 1899.
In 1874 Colonel Rice came to Coopersville, Michigan, and opened a general store, remaining there for thirteen years. In 1887 he went to Grand Rapids to engage in the hotel business, continuing in that ca- pacity for the next twenty years. From 1895 to 1901 he was owner and manager of Sweets Hotel, a noted hostelry of Grand Rapids.
Colonel Rice's marriage to Miss Flora M. Hodgeman, of Grand Rapids, took place in November, 1904. Miss Hodgeman was born in Hamberg, Livingstone county, Michigan, the daughter of John and Sarah (Nash) Hodgeman. At that time her father was a farmer, but in 1872,
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when the family moved to South Lyon, he took up his trade of building and contracting. Miss Hodgeman had been a high school teacher for six years in South Lyon. Mrs. Rice is a member of the Eastern Star and attends the Methodist Episcopal church.
The farm where Colonel Rice is now living was purchased by him in 1908, after a few months' residence in South Lyon, had convinced him that it was the place he wanted to settle in permanently. During his long residence in Michigan Colonel Rice has been a member of the executive board of the Michigan State Fair for twelve years, and a member of the board of the Michigan Masonic Home for fourteen years. For a number of years he also held the position of president of the West Michigan Agricultural Society. He is now a member of the Nation Racing Association. He has been a Mason for years and has passed through the thirty-second degree. Politically he is a Republican.
DAVID M. GARNER. Especially fortunate in the character, enterprise and eminence of her citizens, Oakland county has no more honored or worthy name enrolled upon her list of representative men than that of David M. Garner, whose life of three-score and ten years was devoted not only to the advancement of the agricultural interests of the com- munity and to his own personal affairs, but also to the betterment of town and county and to the uplifting of mankind. Although a person- ality like Mr. Garner's is never wholly explained by his ancestral inheri- tance of character and his superior breeding, it is, nevertheless, worth while to glance briefly at the history of his ancestors in one or two generations. Both his father, George Garner, and his grandfather, Thomas Garner, lived modest lives that are worthy of note.
Thomas Garner, who came of Scotch-Irish blood, was a native of county Antrim, Ireland, the date of his birth being 1756. Soon after his marriage to Ann Crawford (1770-1861), he and his young wife immigrated to America, first settling in Sussex county, New Jersey. In 1825 they and their children removed to New York, locating in Steuben county. From there they came to Oakland county, Michigan, in 1833. There Thomas and Ann Garner spent the greater part of their re- maining years; it was there that he died, his body being laid to rest in White Lake cemetery. Ann Garner lived to the rich age of ninety- one years, spending her last days at White Lake, Michigan.
The fourth son of Thomas Garner and Ann Crawford Garner, his wife, was George Garner, who lived to become the father of David M. Garner, the subject of this sketch. Sussex county, New Jersey, was the birthplace of George Garner and the date of his birth was February 12, 1808. On March 19, 1829, he was united in marriage to Miss Margaret Speelman at Benton, Ontario county, New York. In 1836 he came with his wife to Michigan, whither other members of his father's family had preceded him. He made the trip from New York with a span of horses, bringing among his household goods a cook-stove which was said to be the first ever set up in Oakland county. Entering four hundred acres of land in Rose township, he began the clearing and improvement of the present homestead. For a number of seasons he and his family lived in a log house, but in 1847 he erected the residence which still stands upon the estate, hauling the lumber from Flint, Michi- gan. That was the second frame house built in the township and within its wall George Garner-ever a man of unreserved hospitality-shel-
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tered all passing strangers in need of entertainment. He and Margaret Garner, his wife, were charter members of the Presbyterian church at White Lake, five miles from the home, and they regularly attended its services for many years. They also supported a local church which was erected near their home and which subsequently became a Metho- dist Episcopal church. It is interesting to record that George and Mar- garet Garner lived to celebrate their golden wedding anniversary on March 19, 1879. He and his three brothers-Thomas, John and Rob- ert-all lived beyond the ripe age of ninety. The four venerable broth- ers left a touching souvenir of their revered old age in a photograph which was made at a time when their combined ages made an average of eighty-five years. George Garner died in the home farm on Decem- ber 30, 1897, at the age of ninety years. His wife survived him, passing away in the ninety-fourth year of her age. The children who during their long life together had been born and had gone forth to fulfill their noble life-purposes or to precede their parents into another world were the following : Levi, who before the Civil war was an eminent physician of Holly, Michigan, and who during the rebellion served as a surgeon in the Fifteenth Michigan Cavalry until his death in Louisville, Ken- tucky, in 1862, at the age of thirty years; Ann Maria Garner, a success- ful teacher, who died at the age of fifty years; Elizabeth, who was the first wife of Peter Carr and who died at the age of thirty; Nancy, who became the second wife of Peter Carr and who now lives in Denver, Colorado, aged seventy-six years and the only living representative of the parental household; David M., the special subject of this brief bio- graphical record; George M., who died in infancy; Mary, who became the wife of Dr. S. E. Wilkins and died at the age of twenty-five years; and Frances S., who died in childhood.
David M. Garner, to whom this review is dedicated, was the second son and sixth child of George and Margaret Garner and was born in Rose township, in Oakland county, Michigan, on December 30, 1841. Having acquired his early education in the public schools, the years of approaching maturity found him a young man of scholarly tastes and ambitions. He prepared for college at Corunna, in Shiawassee county, Michigan, under the tuition of his cousin, Professor Thomas Garner. His purpose was to enter the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor. But difficulty with his eyes and eventually the loss of the sight of one made it necessary that he change all his plans. Returning home, he secured title to eighty acres of the parental homestead, and in addition to operating his own farm assumed the management of the entire home- stead property, carrying on general farming on an extensive scale and being signally successful in all his undertakings. A progressive and enthusiastic agriculturist, Mr. Garner did much to advance the farming interests of town and county, assisting in the formation of the Davis- burg Grange of which he was master for twenty years, and being an active member of the State Association of Farmers' Clubs, of which he was director for many years.
As a young man Mr. Garner was recognized as an able, pleasant and forceful speaker, being an easy and ready debater on matters of general interest. He was especially interested in the cause of temperance, be- coming one of the leading members of the Good Templars, and later being an ardent Prohibitionist. Not only had he the misfortune to have lost the use of one eye when a student, but later in life the sight of the
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other was also denied him. His consequent lack of access to papers and books was met by a grateful compensation in the services of his scholarly wife, through whose offices he was able to keep in touch with the world of letters. He continued, however, to drive alone from place to place by himself. He was a facile writer, contributing frequently to papers, especially on agricultural subjects; he saw things, too, with a poet's mind and often expressed his thoughts in poetical lines.
An active member of the Methodist Episcopal church, Mr. Garner was prominent in religious work, serving as a member of the church board at Davisburg and acting as a lay delegate to the district confer- ence of the Methodist Episcopal church. He was for many years the superintendent of the Sunday school, his thorough knowledge of both the Old and New Testaments always assuring him the close interest of all his hearers. His interest in all church activities was unusually strong and his gift for verse was often turned to a tender expression of his attitude toward the holiness of his faith and his love for children. Mr. Garner's work as a temperance lecturer was particularly effective and his deep sense of its importance was expressed by him in the words: "The sin of the liquor traffic would rest on my soul if I did not do everything I could to antagonize it by vote and influence." His last ill- ness of typhoid fever, was contracted while he was acting as a delegate to the State Grange at Traverse City, and his body was laid to rest in the family burial plot in White Lake cemetery. He left a fine record for righteousness, temperance and progress and his career typifies the highest and best American manhood.
The treasured and revered companion of David Garner's life was before her marriage Miss Isa Bigelow, a daughter of Dr. Isaac Bigelow and his wife, Harriet Hamlin Bigelow, both lines being of Revolutionary and of Puritan stock. Mr. Garner met his destined wife during his student days and their marriage took place on August 22, 1866. Sur- viving her deeply esteemed husband, Mrs. Garner is still a notable force for good and is, to the many friends of both, nobly representative of his honored memory.
MRS. ISA BIGELOW GARNER, widow of the late David M. Garner of Rose township, Oakland county, Michigan, is a woman of culture, talent and high mental attainments. She has acquired not only state-wide but national note as a consistent and persistent worker in the cause of tem- perance and has accomplished no little good in other activities, including her lecturing and organizining in Farmers' Clubs and in local and County granges. Of Ohio birth and of scholarly New England ancestry, both the genealogy and the life-career of Mrs. Garner are of special interest. We herewith note briefly the most conspicuous details concerning her father, Isaac Bigelow, and her mother, Harriet Hamlin Bigelow.
A son of Revolutionary forefathers, Isaac Bigelow was born and reared in Massachusetts and was there educated as a physician, receiv- ing the degree of M. D. An uncompromising advocate of freedom from youth up, he was an ardent Abolitionist, and as a worker in that cause on the streets of Boston, in company with William Lloyd Garrison, he narrowly escaped being mobbed. Going to Ohio with his pockets filled with anti-slavery documents, he lectured in school-houses, in consequence of which he was three times besieged by a resentful mob. He succeeded, however, in converting the president of Hudson College to his views and
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was an active worker in the "underground railway" service, being one of its original agitators. Dr. Bigelow located in Oberlin, Ohio, and was there actively engaged in his profession for many years, being one of the leading physicians of the city.
Dr. Bigelow married Mrs. Harriet (Hamlin) Mather, the widow of Zelotus Mather, a man of note. She was a sister of the Reverend Leonidas L. Hamlin, a bishop of the Methodist Episcopal church. She was of superior New England ancestry, among her near kinsmen being the Honorable Hannibal Hamlin, who served as vice-president of the United States from 1861 until 1865. She also was of Revolutionary stock, her father having enlisted as a drummer when a mere boy, and afterwards having been promoted to higher rank. Harriet Bigelow was a noted singer and, like her husband, Dr. Bigelow, was an author and anti-slavery agitator. While living in Oberlin she produced "The Curse Entailed," a volume of six hundred pages, on slavery that was judged by critics as equal to "Uncle Tom's Cabin," although it never attracted so much attention.
Isa Bigelow, the daughter of Dr. Isaac Bigelow and Harriet Hamlin Bigelow, inherited to a marked degre the vigorous intellectual quality of her parents and began teaching school when a young miss of thirteen years. During her junior year at Oberlin college she began teaching at Corunna, Michigan, with her sister's husband, Professor Thomas C. Garner, under whom she taught for three years. While thus employed Miss Bigelow formed the acquaintance of the Professor's cousin, David M. Garner, to whom she was united in marriage on August 22, 1866.
Mr. and Mrs. Garner immediately took up their residence in Rose township, Oakland county, Michigan; and here Mrs. Garner has since spent her days, having learned to love farm life and to appreciate the close touch with nature and that consciousness of God in nature to which spiritual temperaments are ever sensitive. She soon became actively in- terested in all agricultural problems and her talents made her services as a public speaker greatly in demand. She served as vice-president of the State Association of Farmers' Clubs. She was, with her husband, a charter member of the Davisburg Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry, also serving with him among the first delegates from Oakland county to the State Grange.
Mrs. Garner was a no less enthusiastic worker for temperance than was Mr. Garner, and with him she did much to promote its cause. She was instrumental in organizing the Oakland County Woman's Christian Temperance Union, which she ably served as president during the first five years of its existence. She was likewise president for five years of the Sixth district organization of the same society. As a member of the state board of this body she was a delegate to the National Temperance Conventions held in Boston, Chicago, New York, Denver and Atlanta. In this capacity Mrs. Garner was brought in contact with the leading temperance workers of the last decade and was intimately acquainted with Frances E. Willard, the great temperance leader who devoted her entire gifted life to that reform. Mrs. Garner is a member of the State Suffrage Society, but has never identified herself with the public speak- ers of that body.
No children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Garner, but they adopted as a son. D. Dunlap Garner, who has been a true son to them in every respect. He was well educated and is a fine elocutionist. In 1898 he married Miss
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Ora Bird, of Hartland, Michigan; and now, with their children, they reside with Mrs. Garner on the homestead where David M. Garner died. Mr. Dunlap Garner is the superintendent of the Methodist Epis- copal Sunday-school, is a member of the district board of school direc- tors and is a man greatly respected in the community. His wife is an earnest worker in the church, teaching in the Sunday-school; she has also assisted her husband in canvassing for local option, being a woman of culture and greatly respected in the community.
The poetic gifts of both Mrs. Isa Garner and her husband were graciously used in connection with their deepest spiritual and emotional interests that were shared by those who knew them. Many of these were in celebration of local and special sentiments of church and com- munity life. Among Mrs. Garner's poems is one of such universal beauty of feeling that we cannot forbear to quote it here. It forms, indeed, a fitting conclusion to this glimpse of the life of one whose sym- pathies are so deep and so exquisite as to make singularly appealing her voicing of life's most profound emotion :
A MOTHER'S LOVE. BY ISA BIGELOW GARNER.
Woman supremely blessed, God's crowning work, When all created wonders were complete, He breathed into the new-found mother's heart A love more lasting, tender, pure and sweet, Than any other gift to mortal given, A love as sacred as the love of heaven- A mother's love.
Love! purest essence of Divinity ; Christ's love the holiest type the world has known, And next to Christ's with deep intensity, A mother's love, as centuries have flown, Has shown like some clear planet of the night, Eclipsing all the orbs of lesser light,- O! Wondrous love.
Christ died upon the cross in agony, To save an unrepentant world from death. Down in the valley of the shadow dark, The mother goes, to give her loved one breath. Scarce agony like hers the world has known, No joy so sweet, as when she clasps her own- Her precious love.
As some rare instrument of costly mold That sends forth harmonies both sweet and true, When touched by unskilled hands, or out of tune, Breathes only jarring discords, through and through, So, sometimes, mother love amid life's strain Breathes forth discordant notes, sad notes of pain- O, unkind love.
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But still there's mother love. Within the soul, The sweet, maternal melodies still roll, Though all the tender nerves of heart and brain Be jarred by discord, agony and pain, With but the earthly tenement in tune, The mother love would be like fragrant June- Bright, sunny love.
There is no human love, e'en love of Christ, But may be tarnished by the hand of sin And all the glorious attributes of soul By wrong's destructive influence gathered in. Dear Christ, have pity on the mother base,
Restore her to Thyself, by thine own grace, And mother love!
ROBERT G. ALLEN. Occupying a noteworthy position among the es- teemed and respected citizens of Bloomfield township, Oakland county, is Robert G. Allen, who follows his trade of a brick mason in connection with farming, in each branch of industry being successful. A son of the late Thomas Allen, he was born in Pontiac, Michigan, November 26, 1857
Thomas Allen was a native of Friskney, Lincolnshire, England, where he learned while young the brick layer's trade. He there married a fair maid of Lincolnshire, the maiden name of his wife having been Rosanna Chapman, and he continued his residence in his native land until after the birth of four of their children. One son died in Lincoln- shire, and later Mr. Allen, accompanied by his wife and three children, embarked on a sailing vessel for America. Cholera broke out on ship- board, and one of their children, a daughter, died and was buried at sea. With his wife and their two remaining children, Jane and William, he came direct to Michigan, and for a year lived and worked in Lapeer county. Coming then to Pontiac, Oakland county, he followed his trade of a brick mason for a few years, and then bought a tract of wild land in White Lake township and devoted his time to tilling the soil. Finally retiring from active pursuits, he removed to Pontiac, and both he and his wife spent the closing days of their lives in Springfield township, his death occuring there in 1899 and hers in 1896. Of the eleven chil- dren born of their union seven survive, as follows: William, of Pon- tiac ; Robert G., with whom this sketch is chiefly concerned; Alfred, living in AuGres, Arenac county ; Elmer, of West Bloomfield; John Thomas, of Byron, Shiawassee county; Frank, of Davisburg; and George, also of AuGres, Michigan.
Acquiring his early education in the public schools of Pontiac, Robert G. Allen learned the art of brick laying when young, and continued working with his father until he was twenty years old. Moving then to Bloomfield township, he has since been engaged in agricultural pur- suits on the farm where he now resides, and has also carried on a sub- stantial business as a brick mason, having done much of the brick lay- ing in his neighborhood for many years. Mr. Allen owns twenty-six acres of well cultivated land in section thirty. and in its management has met with excellent results. In his political relations he is a sound Demo- crat. He and his family are members of the Methodist Protestant church, and active workers in that organization.
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Mr. Allen married, June 8, 1881, Ermina H. Forman, a daughter of William and Harriet ( Thompson) Forman, who were born, reared and married in Friskney, Lincolnshire, England, from there coming to Oak- land county, Michigan, about the middle of the nineteenth century, and here spending their remaining years. Four children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Allen, namely : Joyce H., wife of Edwin M. Wood, of Detroit, has one son, Allen Al. Wood; lley E., wife of Arthur C. Berger, of Detroit ; Grace H., wife of William Cooney, of West Bloomfield town- ship, has one son, Wilmot A. Cooney; and Archibald R., the only son of the family, was graduated from the Pontiac high school, and is now attending the Michigan Agricultural College in Lansing.
Mr. Allen is of a reserved nature and a lover of dog and gun. When not actively employed at his trade, his greatest pleasure is hunting, fish- ing and kindred sports. Outside of his family, the lake and woods are his closest companions.
LEROY J. RUNDELL. Finding profit as well as pleasure in the inde- pendent and healthful occupation of an agriculturist, Leroy J. Rundell, proprietor of "Orchard Lawn Farm," is one of Rose township's most able, intelligent and successful tillers of the soil. A son of Chester E. Rundell, he was born November 6, 1874, in Holly, Oakland county, Michigan, and in this county has spent his entire life, the greater part of it having been passed on the farm he now owns and occupies.
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