USA > Michigan > St Joseph County > History of St. Joseph County, Michigan; Volume II > Part 21
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In 1856 Mr. Brown returned to White Pigeon, and feeling the disadvantages of his meager education began to attend school, though the most he learned was the rudiments of arithmetic, get- ting little farther than multiplication in this study. Soon after he embarked in the business of threshing, and lost the money he had made in the West. He then found it necessary to begin at the bottom, but kept his courage and ambition, and soon bettered his position, so that not long after he had become possessed of a comfortable fortune.
After Mr. Brown's marriage to Catherine Dale, he purchased of the other heirs the whole Dale estate, consisting of four hundred and forty acres of good land, and he still owns three hundred acres, three-quarters of a mile northeast of White Pigeon. Mr. Brown now devoted his time to feeding and buying sheep and hogs, and he was at one time the largest shipper of sheep in the state. He and W. B. Conley were engaged in feeding lambs the last winter, which they shipped at a good profit in the spring.
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For twenty-eight years Mr. Brown was occupied with threshing, summer and winter. He has worked hard from childhood, and well deserves his present success and good fortune. He was the first president of the Farmers' Savings Bank, of White Pigeon, and is an influential and prominent citizen. He is enterprising and industrious, and was the first man in the community to use an engine instead of horse power for the work of threshing. In political principles Mr. Brown is a Democrat, though not a sup- porter of W. J. Bryan.
Mr. Brown's wife died in 1890, and he married, August 29, 1896, Mrs. Thankful McBride, who was born March 10, 1841; they have no children. Mrs. Brown was reared on a farm, received her education in the district schools, and married (first) James McBride, who died in 1882. She has a comfortable fortune, and owns some property in White Pigeon. Mrs. Brown is a devout Christian, a member of the Baptist church, and lives in accordance with her beliefs, being a much esteemed, highly-respected, useful member of society.
By his first marriage Mr. Brown had five daughters, namely : Mary, wife of H. M. Rouse; Anna, wife of Edward Craig, of Howe, Indiana; Allie, widow of Albert Dale, of Lansing, Michigan; and Virna and Helen, single, living in Benton Harbor, Michigan. In 1908 Mr. Brown made each of his daughters a holiday present of a check for one thousand dollars.
FRED A. SPADE, D. V. M .- The professional interests of White Pigeon find a representative in Dr. Fred A. Spade, a veterinary surgeon. He was born in Steuben county, Indiana, September 8, 1878, a son of Cyrus W. and Sarah E. (Arnold) Spade. Cyrus W., the father, was born in Springfield county, Ohio, and is now a retired farmer living in Steuben county, Indiana.
Dr. Spade was reared as a farmer's son, receiving in his early life a district school education, and entering the Grand Rapids Veterinary College in 1905 he graduated with the class of 1907, and with the degree of D. V. M. Locating in the same year in White Pigeon, he took up the work that he had laid aside to enter college, for he had previously practiced in this city, and his well known ability in his profession has won for him a large patronage. He deserves great credit for the success he has achieved, for he has been distinctively the architect of his own fortunes. He is a member of the Wolverine Veterinary Associa-
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tion and of the State Veterinary Association, and stands high in the profession.
Dr. Spade married on April 13, 1897, Miss Margaret E. Immel, born in Stark county, Ohio, September 13, 1879, and educated in the common schools. They have three children : Oral, born July 4, 1898; Pauline, born January 4, 1899; and Wayne M., born September 11, 1908. The doctor is a member of White Pigeon Lodge No. 104, F. & A. M., and in politics he is allied with the Republicans. Both he and his wife are members of the Eastern Star, White Pigeon Lodge, No. 317.
THOMAS G. GREENE, one of the well known and highly hon- ored citizens of St. Joseph county, where he formerly served as county recorder of deeds, is a scion of a family whose name has been identified with the annals of the state of Michigan for nearly sixty years, and one that was founded in America in the early colonial epoch, as is evident when we state that Christopher Greene, grandfather of the subject of this review, was a second cousin of General Nathaniel Greene, who was a distinguished figure in the war of the Revolution.
In Cumberland township, Providence county, Rhode Island, Thomas G. Greene was born on the 2d of July, 1834, and is the eldest of a family of two sons and two daughters, born to William W. and Jane A. (Gray) Greene. Of the children only two are now living,-Thomas G. and Martha J., the latter of whom is the wife of Samuel Gibson, who is engaged in the banking business at Constantine and who is individually mentioned on other pages of this work. William W. Greene was born at Greenwich, Rhode Island, on the 20th of July, 1806, and he passed the closing days of his long and useful life in Cass county, Michigan, where he died at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Lillie Sooy, in January, 1892, at the venerable age of nearly eighty-six years. In his earlier life he was a sailor on the high seas, and in this connection he circumnavigated the globe, having visited many of the foreign ports and having on one occasion been becalmed for three months on the west coast of Africa. He was a man of strong mentality and of sterling character, and he ever commanded a secure place in the confidence and esteem of his fellow men. In 1840 he re- moved with his family to Ohio and located in Dover township, Cuyahoga county, near the city of Cleveland. There he purchased a small farm, upon which he continued to reside until about the year 1852, when he came to Michigan and bought a tract of land
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THOMAS G. GREENE
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near Millburg, Benton township, Berrien county, where he con- tinned to reside until 1872, when he sold the property and pur- chased another farm, in the vicinity of Bangor, Van Buren county. There he remained until 1884, after which year he resided in the home of his daughter, Mrs. Lillie Sooy, in Cass county, this state, until he was summoned to the life eternal. After the death of his first wife, he married Miss Betsey Taylor, who likewise preceded him to eternal rest and who is survived by one daughter, Lillie, the wife of Henry Sooy, a prosperous agriculturist in the state of Oklahoma. William W. Greene was a stanch Abolitionist, he being an implacable adversary of the institution of human slavery, and he united with the Republican party at the time of its or- ganization. He was an ardent admirer of Lincoln and gave every possible support to the cause of the Union during the climacteric period of the Civil war. While a resident of his native state he held membership in the old Roger Williams church, an historic in- stitution of Rhode Island. His devotion to principle was of the most impregnable order and he exemplified in all the relations of life the cardinal virtues of integrity and personal honor. His first wife, mother of the subject of this review, was a woman of singu- larly gentle and gracious character and endeared herself to all who came within the sphere of her influence. She was generous and kindly and the poor and needy ever found in her a sincere and helpful friend. She died at Dover, Ohio, where her remains were laid to rest.
Thomas G. Greene, whose name initiates this sketch, was but six years of age at the time of the family removal from Rhode Island to Ohio, and he was reared to the sturdy discipline of the pioneer farm. He was afforded the advantages of the primitive schools of the pioneer days, but his education, implying broad general information, has been gained principally through self- discipline and through instruction secured under that wisest of head-masters, experience. When but sixteen years of age Mr. Greene began learning the contracting business, with which he was identified, in the city of Cleveland, Ohio, for a period of three years, at the expiration of which he came to Michigan, where he followed the business of contracting and building until 1867. Upon coming to this state he took up his abode in St. Joseph county, having thus established his home in this county in 1854. Having become a resident of this county more than half a century ago, it has been the privilege of Mr. Greene to witness the mag- nificent development of this favored section of the old Wolverine
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state, and also to contribute in no slight measure to the civic and material progress and upbuilding of St. Joseph county. At the time when he established his home in the county, only one rail- road line, the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, entered its borders and he has witnessed the development of transportation systems throughout the county, while he recalls with satisfaction the great advantages engaged today in the matter of widely disseminated telephonic service and the installation of the effective rural free delivery of mail,-advantages which the pioneers could little have imagined as possible. When he came to the county, Three Rivers was its largest town, with Sturgis a close second, but both of these thriving cities were then mere villages.
In 1867 Mr. Greene and his two brothers-in-law purchased a sash, door and blind factory in Three Rivers, and the same was operated under the title of Schurtz, Greene & Company until 1872, when the partnership was dissolved. Mr. Greene then as- sumed the position of bookkeeper for Griffith & Dunham, millers and dealers in agricultural implements, with which firm he con- tinued to be thus identified until 1876, when he was elected register of deeds of St. Joseph county, on the Republican ticket. He gave a most effective administration of the duties of this im- portant office and was re-elected in 1878 and again in 1880, thus serving six consecutive years. Since his retirement from office he has been engaged in the abstract and real estate business, in which connection his operations have been of important order as touch- ing the development and progress of the county. He has main- tained his home in Centerville, the judicial center of the county, from the time of his election to the office of register of deeds and his long experience in this office enabled him to assemble and perfect his valuable sets of abstracts of titles, which cover the entire county and to which recourse is had by nearly all who make transfers of real estate in the county.
Mr. Greene has been aligned as a stalwart in the camp of the Republican party from the time of its organization and he has been an able exponent of its principles and policies. He cast his first presidential vote for the Republican party's first nominee for the presidency, General John C. Fremont, and he has voted for every presidential candidate of the party since that time. He finds pleasure in reverting to the fact that the state of Michigan was the birthplace of the Republican party, which was organized "under the oaks," at Jackson, this state. Mr. Greene has been a delegate to party conventions of the state and of his senatorial
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and congressional districts. He was president of the village council of Centerville for two years, for three years served as county superintendent of the poor and for two and a half years he was state oil inspector of this district. For four years he was treasurer of the Republican county committee of St. Joseph county, and for one year he served as chairman of this county. He is president of the St. Joseph county Village Fire Insurance Com- pany, of which office he has been incumbent since 1888, and since 1899 he has been a valued member of the state board of correction and charities.
Mr. Greene is a most appreciative member of the time-honored Masonic fraternity, with which he has been affiliated since 1859, when he became a member of Mount Hermon Lodge, No. 24, Free & Accepted Masons, at Centerville. He is also affiliated with Centerville Chapter, No. 11, Royal Arch Masons, and he received the council degrees in Three Rivers Council, No. 7, Royal & Select Masters, in 1867. On the 10th of February, 1871, he received the chivalric degrees in Columbia Commandery, No. 18, Knights Templars, at Sturgis, from which organization he subsequently withdrew and assisted in the organization of the Three Rivers Commandery, No. 29, of which he is now the only living charter member. He received the orders of high priesthood on the 4th of January, 1872, and in 1875 he was elected president of the order in the state, retaining this office one year. On the 15th of January, 1889, Mr. Greene had the distinction of being elected most illus- trious grand master of the Michigan Grand Council of Royal & Select Masters, an office of which likewise he remained incumbent for one year. He has served twenty-five years as master of his local lodge, for thirty-four years as high priest of the Centerville Chapter and of the Chapter at Three Rivers, and he has officiated at one hundred and ten Masonic funerals, besides which he has conferred the several Masonic degrees more than two thousand times. He served as master of the Three Rivers Council, Royal & Select Masters, for seven years and eminent commander of Three Rivers Commandery, No. 29, two years. He has been a delegate to the state conventions of the various Masonic bodies for a total of one hundred and forty times and he is well known to the fraternity in the state as a Mason who well exemplifies the high principles and precepts of the order. He is an earnest and consistent mem- ber of the First Presbyterian church of Centerville, and has long been active in the various departments of its work. He is recog- nized as one of the sterling citizens and representative business
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men of Centerville and in addition to his abstract business he con- ducts a successful real estate and loan business. His attractive cottage home is located on Burr Oak street and has long been known for its gracious and refined hospitality. A resident of St. Joseph county for more than one half a century, the career of Mr. Greene, both in private and social connections, has been an open book challenging the closest scrutiny, the while no blemish can be found upon his record, which has been such as to gain to him the inviolable confidence and esteem of his fellow men. No citizen is more worthy of consideration in this twentieth century history of St. Joseph county.
On the 13th of January, 1859, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Greene to Miss Julia A. Gibson, a sister of Samuel Gibson, in the sketch of whose career, on other pages of this work, is given due record concerning the family history. Mr. and Mrs. Greene became the parents of one daughter, Jennie A., who is now the wife of George J. Sadler, chief clerk in the ticket office of the Wabash Railroad, in the city of Detroit. Mrs. Sadler com- pleted the curriculum of the public schools of Three Rivers, in- cluding the high school, and later continued her studies at Mount Holyoke Seminary, in the city of Kalamazoo. Mrs. Sadler was for six years a successful and popular teacher in the public schools of St. Joseph county, having taught one year in Three Rivers and five years in the schools of Centerville. She is a fine musician, and has particular ability as a pianist. She holds membership in the First Presbyterian church of Detroit. Mrs. Greene was born at Milton, Northumberland county, Pennsylvania, on the 20th of May, 1839, and is a daughter of John S. and Elizabeth (De France) Gibson. Mrs. Greene was a girl at the time of the family removal to St. Joseph county and, having received excellent edu- cational advantages, she became a successful teacher in this county, continuing to follow the pedagogic profession for some time be- fore her marriage. A woman of most noble character, she endeared herself to all who came within the sphere of her gracious and gentle influence, and she was summoned to the life eternal on the 7th of November, 1909, her remains being interred at Riverside cemetery, at Centerville, where a beautiful stone marks her last resting place. Concerning her and her family the following pertinent statements are those that appeared in a Centerville paper at the time of her death, and they are well worthy of reproduction in the present article.
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"In 1848 there came to this county from Northumberland county, Pennsylvania, a family destined to play a very prominent part in the social, commercial, religious and political history of southern Michigan. They brought with them that sturdiness of character, indomitableness of purpose, reverence for all things righteous and uplifting, which are characteristic of Pennsylvanians and which win success everywhere. The family was that of John Gibson, and consisted of five daughters and two sons. They pur- chased the Gibson homestead near Constantine, which soon be- came, and has since remained, a center around which much local history has revolved. The sons, Samuel and William, now reside in Constantine and Battle Creek respectively. The daughters, Mrs. Daniels and Mrs. Arnold in Three Rivers, and Mrs. Schurtz in Kalamazoo. Mrs. Nancy Wolf and Mrs. Julia A. Greene have passed over to the other shore.
"In this remarkable family, Mrs. Greene was the fourth child. She was born in Northumberland county, Pennsylvania, May 20, 1839. On January 13, 1859, she was married to Thomas G. Greene. They established their home in Constantine and here their one daughter, Mrs. George J. Sadler, about whom their lives there- after centered, was born. In 1867 they removed to Three Rivers, where Mr. Greene was engaged in manufacturing.
"In 1876 Mr. Greene was elected register of deeds of this county and shortly thereafter they removed to Centerville. Their fiftieth anniversary occurred in January of this year. Arrange- ments had been made for celebrating the event, but Mrs. Greene's health prevented. The entire family joined the Presbyterian church in Three Rivers in 1874. Mr. and Mrs. Greene's member- ship was transferred to the Centerville church in 1908. A few weeks ago on communion Sabbath she desired to participate in that holy commemoration and was served by her pastor and four elders in her home. She participated with a zest and reverence indicative of her deep religious convictions.
"For over twenty-two years she has been an invalid and for eleven years has not taken a step, suffering untold agonies from rheumatism. For the past month she has been in a most pitiful condition with suffering so intense that when on Sunday evening, November 7, 1909, the end came peacefully and she 'fell asleep' to awake in the better world, free from pain, it seemed as though the shadow of her joy and peace rested on her features. She was seventy years, five months and seventeen days old.
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"The funeral occurred at the home on Tuesday, November 9th, and was conducted by her pastor, Rev. H. A. Simpson. The same elders who officiated so recently in the communion service, acted as honorary bearers-H. F. Major, H. S. Leinbach, James Yauney and Alex Sharp. The active bearers were J. R. Trucken- miller, William F. Meyer, George Weber and L. Reitz.
"The floral offerings clearly indicated the respectful affection entertained for the entire family. She was laid to rest in the Greene-Sadler space in our beautiful Riverside cemetery."
HENRY B. JONES is a member of one of the oldest families of St. Joseph county, and the name which he bears is indissolubly identified with the annals of White Pigeon township from almost the earliest epoch of its history. Lorenzo Jones, his father, born in Cambria, New York, May 27, 1811, came with his father, John Jones, to this community before the year of 1831. This John Jones was born in Maine, February 26, 1784, a son of Stephen Jones, and coming to Michigan he located on the south bank of Pine Lake, which is now known as Klinger Lake. He purchased land there of a Mr. Klinger, made for himself and family a good farm, and there he lived and labored during the remainder of his life. He was the father of fourteen children, of whom Lorenzo was the eldest, and his daughter Eliza A., was the first child born at Klinger Lake, born June 9, 1832, the year following his set- tlement there. Lorenzo Jones married Catherine Crounse, a mem- ber of another of the pioneer families of St. Joseph county. Her parents came originally from Germany to New York, and in 1835 they located a mile and a half from White Pigeon in White Pig- eon township, St. Joseph county, Michigan. Six children were born to Lorenzo and Catherine Jones, and the four now living are: Amelia, wife of Sylvester Noel; Mary, wife of Henry Kittel; Henry B .; and Jane, wife of David Kidd.
Henry B. Jones, born on his father's farm in White Pigeon township August 11, 1845, was there also reared, and he now owns and farms this old homestead of one hundred and fifty acres in section 11. He is prominently known as a farmer and stock raiser, and has been successful in his chosen vocation. He married Mary A. Ritz, who was born in Switzerland, October 10, 1849, and com- ing with her parents to the United States in 1852 they located at Hillsdale, Michigan, where she received a common school educa- tion. Nicholas Ritz, her father, was born in Switzerland in 1817, and made the journey to this country with his wife and six chil-
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dren in a sail boat, spending forty-four days on the ocean. He was then a comparatively poor man, by trade a carpenter, and in his later days he was a farmer. Six children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Jones, namely : Bertha, who was born December 29, 1877, and is the wife of Frank Morrow; John F., born September 3, 1882; May, born February 7, 1879, became the wife of Harold Lockhart of Texas, and she is now deceased; Hallie H., born Oc- tober 7, 1884; George W., born February 6, 1887; and Ray A., born March 3, 1889. Mrs. Jones is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church at Klinger.
LEMUEL S. HUFF is one of the representative business men of White Pigeon township, successful, progressive and well known. He was born near the city of White Pigeon on the 13th of July, 1856, a son of A. W. and Elizabeth (Sixbey) Huff, both of whom were born in the state of New York, the father in the county of Montgomery. They came to Michigan in the year of 1836, locat- ing near White Pigeon, and they were married there in 1847. In 1870 they moved to a farm south of Klinger Lake, and spent the remainder of their lives there. The following seven children were born into their home : Charles S., Ed N., Ida O., L. S., Anna, Hen- rietta and Almeda.
Lemuel S. Huff was the fourth born of this family of children, and he was reared as a farmer's son and received a district school education. After the death of his parents he left the old home- stead and bought the farm of eighty-four acres in sections 11 and 12 where he now lives and where he is extensively engaged in gen- eral agricultural, horticultural and apiarian pursuits. He has thirty-two colonies of Italian bees, and has an orchard of twenty acres devoted to apples, peaches and some small fruits, including strawberries. Mr. Huff is a well known business man in this sec- tion of St. Joseph county, known and honored for his honesty, up- rightness and true citizenship.
He married on January 1, 1893, Mary E. Timmis, who was born in Van Buren township, St. Joseph county, Michigan, Feb- ruary 9, 1868, and their children are: Ethel, born April 8, 1894; Sarah, born December 28, 1896; Andrew, April 11, 1898; Ruth, August 30, 1900; Henry, September 1, 1902; Mary, January 3, 1906, and Theodore Lemuel, February 22, 1910. In politics Mr. Huff has recently transferred his allegiance from the Republican to the Prohibition party, and he and his wife are active members of the Methodist Episcopal church at Klinger Lake, and he is its
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steward, trustee, class leader and the superintendent of its Sun- day school.
JAMES C. GRIMES .- Among the farmers and stock-raisers of White Pigeon township is recorded the names of James C. Grimes, who has spent the greater part of his life in St. Joseph county. He was born in Sandusky, Ohio, March 13, 1855, to the marriage union of Isaac and Margaret (Boor) Grimes, but when he was only eight weeks old the family home was established in St. Joseph county. After a time however they moved from here to Missouri, but returned after an absence in that state of two years. The son James when he became old enough worked on the home farm and attended the neighboring district school, and he remained with his parents until he was twenty-one. He now owns an es- tate of two hundred and forty-two and a half acres of highly im- proved land in sections 10 and 11, White Pigeon township, and is well known as a general farmer and stock-raiser.
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