USA > Michigan > Men of progress : embracing biographical sketches of representative Michigan men with an outline history of the state > Part 36
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September 20, 1877, Mr. Stewart married Miss Elizabeth M. Henry, daughter of Simon J. Henry, at Hillsdale, Michigan. He has three children, namely: Mabelle, Clifford A. and Waldron Stewart. The first named is attending Hillsdale College and the latter two the high school in that city. Mr. Stew- art was mayor of Hillsdale for one term and declined re-nomination. Has been alderman several terms and also city treasurer. Is a member of the board of control, State Public School, Coldwater, Michigan. Hc is presi- dent of the Omega Portland Cement Co., Jonesville, Michigan, a director in the Bu- channan Screen Co. and Hillsdale Grocery Co. He belongs to the F. and A. M., I. O. O. F. and B. P. O. E.
257
HISTORICAL SKETCHES.
CARTON, HON. JOHN JAY. John Jay Carton was born in Clayton township, Genesee . county, Michigan, November 8, 1856. He was one of a family of thirteen children and he commenced to look out for himself before he had reached his 'teens. The elder Carton was a farmer with no bank account, and hav- ing such a large family, it was necessary that every member of it should turn in and assist in the maintainence of the farm and its people. John, with his other brothers and sisters, worked to this end, in season and out. The boy obtained a fairly good start toward an education by attending the neighboring school during the winter months and when he reached the age of thirteen he determined to bid fare- well for a time to the paternal roof and en- deavor to make for himself a small place in the business world. He journeyed into the neighboring county of Shiawassee, where he found employment on a farm where he could do chores and attend school, being given his board in return for his work. Still desirous of bettering his condition he went to the vil- lage of Fhishing, where he worked in a drug store for one year. Ile then attended school in the village of Flushing and city of Flint for two years, supporting himself and paying his tuition by doing various kinds of work after school hours and on days when school was not in session. Tle was then competent to teach, and secured positions as school teacher in the district schools, following this profession for five terms and devoting his spare time to the study of law, borrowing his law books from his friends at Flint. In the spring of 1877 he returned to Flushing, where he accepted the first position that was offered to him, that of clerk in a drug store at $12.50 a month. He had to open up at 5 o'clock in the morning, but at the end of five months he had another offer, that of bookkeeper in the general mer- chandise firm of Niles & Cotcher. Here he remained until he was nominated for County Clerk on the Republican ticket in 1880 and elected to that office. He was renominated and again elected in 1882, leading his ticket in the number of votes cast for any candidate.
HON. JOHN JAY CARTON.
During his two terms as clerk he continued his law studies, and August 21, 1884, he was ad- mitted to the bar by Judge William Newton. Mr. Carton at once formed a partnership with Judge Durand and under the firm name of Durand & Carton comnienced practice. The firm still conducts an excellent law business at Flint.
Mr. Carton was elected to the Legislature of 1898-99 from the Flint district by a large majority. and was a candidate for speaker, be- ing defeated by one vote. He owns a fine farm of 200 acres in Clayton township, which includes the original farm owned by his father, and which as a boy he helped to clear up and work. He married, November 22, 1898, Mrs. Addie C. Pierson, daughter of Charles Wager, of Oakland county, Michigan, at Ukiah, California.
Mr. Carton is Past Master of Genesee Lodge, No. 174, F. & A. M., a member of Genesee Valley Commandery, Knights Tem- plar ; Michigan Sovereign Consistory, Scottish Rite: Moslem Temple, Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, Detroit: an Elk, Maccabee, Forester, Knight of Loval Gnard and was Grand Mas- ter of the Michigan Grand Lodge, F. & A. M., in 1896.
258
MEN OF PROGRESS.
LEWIS RANSOM FISKE, D. D., LL.D.
FISKE, LEWIS RANSOM, D. D., LL. D. Dr. Fiske is essentially a Michigan man and has made his impress upon the civil, moral and intellectual life of the state. His first American ancestry came from England in 1637, settling in Wenham, Massachusetts. His parents, James and Eleanor (Ransom) Fiske, were residents of Penfield, Monroe county, N. Y., where the son was born Decem- ber 24th, 1825. Removing to Coldwater, Mich., in 1835, they settled on a farm which is now within the corporate limits of the city. Passing over earlier studies, the younger Fiske spent the college year 1845-6 at the then Wesleyan Seminary and Collegiate Institute at Albion, since Albion College, of which, later on, he was the honored president for over twenty years, resigning in January, 1898. Af- ter four years in the University, he received his Bachelor's Degree in 1850. He had begun the study of law, which was his intended pur- suit, but in the fall of 1850 he accepted the position of professor of Natural Science at Al- bion, resigning in 1853 to accept a like position at the Normal School at Ypsilanti. In 1856 he was elected Professor of Chemistry in the State Agricultural College. His purposed pursuit
of the law gave away under his educational work, which he found congenial, and he de- cided to enter the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He filled pastorates at Jackson, Ann Arbor and Detroit, from 1863 to 1877, when he was elected President of Al- bion College. For five years from January, 1875, he was editor of the Michigan Christian Advocate. The degrees represented by the initial letters, D. D. and LL. D., were con- ferred upon him respectively by Albion Col- lege in 1873 and by the State University in 1879. Dr. Fiske has been six times elected delegate to the quadrennial general confer- ence of the M. E. Church, held respectively in Brooklyn, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Omaha and Cleveland. In 1891 he was a member of the ecumenical conference in Washington. For sixteen years he has been trustee of the board of education which super- vises all the educational work of the church. This board has its headquarters in New York City. In the year 1889 he was president of the State Teachers' Association. He has also been president of the College Presidents' Asso- ciation of the M. E. Church, is president of the Detroit Annual Conference (corporate), vice- president of the Michigan Publishing Com- pany of Detroit, of which company he was president before leaving Detroit.
In a business way he is a director in the Al- bion State Bank.
Dr. Fiske is a well known contributor to the standard literature of the country. In 1898 he published a most successful work entitled "Echos from College Platform." Another book, "Among the Professions," is just printed. He is now engaged in a third work, "Man Building." The ruling thought in pro- jecting and bringing out the three works has been the hope that they may be a guiding help to the rising generation, in the foundation of character, fitting them for usefulness in life. Dr. Fiske has been twice married, first in 1852 at Howell, Mich., to Miss Elizabeth Ross Spence, a lady of Scotch birth, who died in 1879, and in 1880, to Mrs. Helen M. Davis, of Detroit, who died in 1896. He has three sons, all men of mature years and men of af- fairs ; and one daughter, the wife of Otis A. Leonard, of Albion.
259
HISTORICAL SKETCHES.
LYON, FRANK A. The paternal ances- tors of Mr. Lyon were Scotch, his great-grand- father coming to this country in 1771, and locating at Wallworth, Wayne county, N. Y. His grandfather, Daniel Lyon, was a Baptist minister, and his father, Newton T., was a farmer, both of Wallworth, where Frank A. was born January 4th, 1855. The family removed to Michigan a year later, settling on a farm in the township of Quincy, Branch county. Frank A. attended the neighbor- hood schools until eighteen years of age. He then attended a winter and spring term at the High School in the village of Quiney, walking from his home to the school, a distance of four miles, in the morning and back again at night. He secured a teacher's certificate and taught a district school and in 1877 taught the graded school at Girard, Branch county. Later he attended the Northern Indiana Normal School at Valparaiso, Indiana. He learned the trade of a carpenter, and alternated his labors, whether of study or teaching, with farm or carpenter work, as occasion or convenience suggested. Having saved a little moncy, he began the study of law, with Hon. Charles Upson of Coldwater, and was admitted to the bar in February, 1880. Following his admis- sion, he served for a few months as clerk of the Winnebago Indian Agency in Nebraska. His first essay at active practice was in Mont- calm county, where he opened an office in November, 1880. Two years later he removed to Stanton, in the same county, and formed a co-partnership with M. C. Palmer, with whom he continued until 1886, when, by reason of poor health, he returned to Quincy, remaining there until July, 1891, when he removed his office to Hillsdale, succeeding A. B. St. John in the law practice, and has since resided there. He is also interested in mercantile business at Quincy and is a stockholder in the Quincy Knitting Works and in the Omega Portland
FRANK A. LYON.
Cement Company at Jonesville, being attor- ney for the latter.
While at Stanton Mr. Lyon served on the County Board of School Examiners for three years. He was elected Circuit Court Commis- sioner in Branch county for one term and was Village Attorney of Quiney for one year, de- elining a re-election in both cases. During his residence in Hillsdale, he has been fre- quently solicited to stand for election to official position, which he invariably declined, until, contrary to his wish, he was placed in nomina- tion by the Republicans as their candidate for the State Senate at the election in 1898, from the district comprising the counties of Hills- dale, Branch and St. Joseph. In the Senate he was chairman of the important committee on judiciary at the session of 1899. He is a member of the Masonie fraternity and of Eureka Commandery Knights Templar.
Mr. Lyon has been married twice. His first wife, to whom he was married in 1878, died in 1881. In 1885 Miss Emma Fink of Tonia became Mrs. Lyon. They have one child, Vivian E.
260
MEN OF PROGRESS.
CLAUDE WILLARD CASE.
CASE, CLAUDE WILLARD. Claude Willard Case, cashier of the Munising State Bank, Munising, Michigan, was born in Brighton, Mich., September 3rd, 1861. His father, Spaulding MI. Case, was a merchant in that village, and a member of the Michigan Legislature in 1851-52. Claude Willard di- vided his time during his early youth between attending the village school and working on a farm. His father died when the boy was but six years old, so at the age of fourteen he found himself obliged to start out in the world to make his own living. He found employment with W. C. Hawes, elerking at $3.00 per week in his dry goods store at Lansing. With a little assistance from his mother from time to time he managed to live and keep himself fairly well elad. His next position was more remu- nerative, that of bookkeeper for E. Bement & Sons, Lansing and later he was given the posi- tion of cashier with B. F. Simons, of the same city. The next year he engaged with James Nall & Co., of Detroit, as check and collection clerk, and in 1879 Ducharme, Fletcher & Co., wholesale hardware merchants, employed him as city entry clerk and later advanced him to county entry clerk. In the spring of 1880 his
health failed and he went to Kansas to re- euperate. That summer he herded cattle on a ranch near Atchison, Kansas, and regaining his health, the following fall, pending em- ployment in an office, elerked in the grocery store of John Perkins for a few weeks. He then found a position in the grain commission office of Halsey & Co., at Atehison, as book- keeper, and upon their failure, was employed as tracer clerk in the Missouri Pacifie freight office until offered a position with the Atehi- son Savings Bank as bookkeeper.
Later, he kept books for a bank in Billings, Montana, and from that position went into the employ of the Supply Company on the North- ern Pacifie road, where he remained until the spring of 1883. The following year was spent in the bank of Nelson Story, at Bozeman, after which he left the banking business to be- come a merchandise broker, selling to the hard- ware and grocery trade in Montana and Idaho. In September, 1884, he returned to the bank- ing business temporarily as bookkeeper in the First National Bank of Helena, Montana, coming thence, December, 1884, to Michigan to take position as bookkeeper for Newberry & McMillan, of Detroit, and on November 5th, 1890, removed to Newberry, Michigan, to take the management of the Newberry Fur- nace, which plant was largely owned and con- trolled by Newberry & MeMillan.
The property has since passed into the hands of P. H. Griffin, of Buffalo, and Mr. Case re- mains in charge.
Mr. Case is a Republican. In 1894 he was appointed a member of the Board of Building Commissioners of the Upper Peninsula Hos- pital for the Insane, at Newberry, which insti- tution he was largely instrumental in bringing to that place, and in 1895 was appointed one of the Trustees of the Hospital for the long term of six years. In 1894 he was president of the village of Newberry, and member of Board of Supervisors of Luce county. He was the or- ganizer of the Munising State Bank, which came into existence July, 1896. Mr. Case married Miss Lillie Belle Spencer at Howell, Michigan, in 1889. They have two children, Ruth Margaret and Dorothy Serena, aged re- speetively nine and five years. Mr. Case is a Mason, also belongs to the Elks, Oddfellows and Foresters. Mr. Case's mother (nee Serena Lawson) resides with him at Munising.
261
HISTORICAL SKETCHES.
CARROLL, THOMAS FRANCIS. The name of Carroll associates itself at once with Ireland, from which the father and mother of Thomas F., James and Mary (Kennedy) Car- roll, came in 1845. The Carrolls are of the same original stock as those of the same name who settled in Maryland in the seventeenth century, of which Charles Carroll, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and Archbishop Carroll, well known in Revo- lutionary history, were representatives. Thomas F. Carroll, senior in the law firm of Carroll, Turner & Kirwin, at Grand Rapids, was born at Chili Centre, N. Y., Nov. 23rd, 1854. His parents settled in the township of Arlington, Van Buren county, Michigan, when he was a small child, and where his father began chopping out a home. He re- ceived his education in the district school, and afterwards in the village school at Lawrence. At the age of seventeen he secured a teacher's certificate and began teaching a district school, serving a year at the compensation of thirty dollars a month, being the first money he could call his own. He taught in the village school at Lawrence during the years 1875, '76 and '77, working on a farm in summer. During these years he began reading law, having bought a second-hand copy of Blackstone. In the summer of 1876 he went to Grand Rapids and read law during his school vacation, but declined employment in the schools there for the year 1878, which was tendered him. Re- turning to Grand Rapids he continued his law studies in the office of Hughes, O'Brien & Smiley and was admitted to the bar in 1879. A law partnership with Charles M. McLaren was soon after formed, which existed until the fall of 1881, when he associated himself with Isaac M. Turner, this partnership continning until Mr. Turner's death in 1895. Joseph Kirwin then became a member of the firm, under the firm name of Carroll, Turner & Kir- win, Mr. Turner's name being continued as a mark of respect for the man.
Mr. Carroll had many early struggles, which, however, have been substantially re- warded, as is evident from the fact of his
THOMAS FRANCIS CARROLL.
being now a large holder of real estate and a director in the Fifth National Bank. Ile is also a member and director of the Grand Rapids Board of Trade, a member of the Peninsular Club of Grand Rapids, and of the Michigan Bar Association. He was Assistant Prosecu- ting Attorney of Kent County 1883-6; he was secretary of the Democratic State Central Committee in 1889-90, member of the execu- tive committee of the Democratic State Cen- tral Committee from 1890-94, chairman of the Democratic campaign committee for the Fifth Congressional District, 1892-4, Postmaster of Grand Rapids, 1894-8 under President Cleve- land, and in 1898 was elected chairman of the Kent County Democratic Committee. He stands high at the bar and as a business man. He is very popular with all classes and particu- larly with the labor element, as is evidenced by the fact that he was Labor Day orator in 1897 and 189S at Grand Rapids.
In 1880 Mr. Carroll married Miss Ella, daughter of William B. Remington, of Grand Rapids. After her death in 1882 he remained a widower until 1889, when Miss Julia A. Mead of Grand Rapids, only daughter of the late Major A. B. Watson, became Mrs. Car- roll. He has two children, Charles by the first marriage, and Katharine by the second.
262
MEN OF PROGRESS.
COLE, THOMAS FREDERICK. Gen- erations of the Cole family have followed the trade of miners, in this country and in their native land, England. Thomas Frederick Cole, of Ironwood, Michigan, is the general superintendent of the Oliver Iron Mining Company, which has properties in the Upper Peninsula and in Minnesota. He is in charge of the Norrie mine, the North Norrie mine, East Norrie mine and the Pabst mine, all sit- nated around Ironwood, and the Tilden mine at Bessemer, Michigan.
HIe was born at Cliff mine, Keweenaw County, Michigan, July 19, 1862. When he was but 6 years of age his father was killed by an explosion in the Phoenix mine, and so it became necessary when the lad was old enough to work, for him to help support the family. Ile obtained a few years' school- ing at Phoenix mine, and when 8 years old was put to work in the rock house of the Phoenix mine picking out the copper rock from the rock hoisted from the mine at 50 cents per day. The mother had a hard struggle to keep the little family together after the death of the father, and every penny brought into the house was expended to buy wood and provisions. For eighteen months the lit- tle fellow sorted rock, and then secured a place at $18 a month in the stamp mill of the Cliff mine and worked there for three years. He then found employment on the railroad operated by the Calumet & Hecla Mining Company, commencing as a track laborer, then becoming a switch tender, brakeman and finally yard man, remaining with the railroad for eight years. During
this time he attended the night school in Calumet and learned to write a plain business hand. Many nights during the long winter months he would have to go direct to school from his work, ofttimes without his supper, but he earned enough to pay his tuition and also support the family. He was then given a position in the general office of the Calmnet & Hecla as bookkeeper and as such he worked for two years, resigning in 1886 to accept a similar position at an increase of wages with the Chapin mine at Iron Moun- tain, Michigan. After three years' time in this office he was made superintendent of the Queen group of iron mines at Negaunee. Hle remained with the company until the fall of 1897 when the firm of Corrigan, Mc- Kinney & Co. secured control of these iron mines. In 1897 he was tendered the posi- tion of superintendent of the Norrie mines at Tronwood, which he accepted and later he was made general superintendent of the Oliver Iron Mining Company's interests in the Upper Peninsula and Minnesota, which position he now occupies. The Oliver Iron Min- ing Company's properties in Minnesota and Michigan consist of over thirty iron mines, and thousands of men are under Mr. Cole's direction. In the Upper Peninsula the Oliver Company is a rival of the Calumet & Hecla, only the latter company is in the copper while the Oliver is in the iron district. Mr. Cole married Miss Elcey Hoatson, dangh- ter of Thomas Hoatson, who has charge of the underground work of the Calumet & Hecla Mining Company at Calumet. They have two children.
263
HISTORICAL SKETCHES.
DANAHER, CORNELIUS DOUGLAS. One of the largest owners and operators of timber lands in the' State of Michigan is Cor- nelius Douglas Danaher, of Dollarville, Mich- igan. The firm of Danaher & Melendy is well known in the Upper Peninsula, and they own and control large tracts of valuable tim- ber country not only in this state but in Wis- consin as well. The firm also has an office and place of business in Ludington, Michigan. C. D. Danaher was born near Kenosha, Wisconsin, August 2, 1859. His father came from near Limerick, Ireland, where the family lived for many generations.
The boy was educated in the district school near his home, and until he was fourteen years of age his educational facilities were limited to those usually found in district schools at that period. His father owned a farm but as he had been a railroad and lumbering contractor in the past, he soon sold the farm and removed to the town of Kenosha, where for two years his children enjoyed the benefits of the city schools.
After two years' residence in Kenosha, the family decided to move to Michigan, where the father undertook a large lumbering con- tract near White Hall, Michigan, and at the complotion of it in 1871 removed to Luding- ton and engaged in the lumbering manufac- turing business on his own account.
The F. & P. M. railroad was then advanc- ing into Ludington, and as Cornelius was 16 years of age, he secured a job driving a sup- ply team for the construction gang at $2 a round trip. When he could make two trips a day he felt that he was making excellent
wages, and on his way to a comfortable com- petence. When he reached his seventeenth ycar he engaged in business on his own ac- count. He had saved a little money and he borrowed some at 8 per cent. from a friend in Chicago, Illinois, for which he also paid 22 per cent. commission, and he then com- menced "looking" timber lands, buying and selling tracts of pine and in less than three years, by dint of hard and constant work, he managed to save $17,000, clear profit, after repaying the loan.
In the meantime his father was in financial difficulties, as thic panic of 1873 had severely crippled the firm of Danaher & Melendy Co .; so Cornelius and his brother jointly con- tributed their savings to the company, and as- sumed charge of their father's interests under the same name, Danaher & Melendy Co. They devoted all their time and efforts to put- ting the enterprise on its financial legs again, and their youth and determination were suc- cessful. They commenced their operations at Newberry, in the Upper Peninsula, in 1895, and today their mill at that place is considered one of the most prosperous and modern equipped plants in Michigan.
Mr. Danaher married, on March 12, 1879, Lillie, daughter of Owen Taylor, one of the pioncer lumbermen on the Pere Marquette river. They have three children, Lillian, aged 19, attending the University at Chicago, and Margarette and Cornelia, at home. Mr. Danaher was appointed member of the Board of Control of the Upper Peninsula Hospital for the Insane at Newberry, January, 1897, and resigned June 16, 1899. He is a Roman Catholic and a member of the Elks.
264
MEN OF PROGRESS.
HON. WILLIAM HOLMES.
HOLMES, HON. WILLIAM. William Holmes, of Menominee, was born at Mirami- che, New Brunswick. April 16, 1830. His father was a farmer and humberman, who came to this country from Port Glasgow, Scotland, and settled in New Brunswick in 1804. In all, young Holmes received about eighteen months' schooling in a district school, and at 10 years of age he commenced work driving the supply team for the hunber camps. At 16 years of age he left home with $4 in his pocket, loaned him by his sister, and then started to walk to Bangor, Maine, a distance of over 350 miles. Hle worked four days in a hay field on the way down, at fifty cents a day, but the farmer had to drive twenty miles to Frederickstown in order to get money to pay the boy, and he charged him $1 for the trouble. Young Holmes re- sumed his tramp and landed in Old Town, Maine. He slept on a bench in the hotel office, earned a little money digging a cellar at Still- water, Maine, and reached Bangor. Here he borrowed $3 from a friend and went into the woods for the winter, chopping for a firm operating on the Fish river, Aroostook,
Maine. He worked two months for the firm of Jewett & March, then returned to his home in New Brunswick, and worked one year. Then, at the age of 21, he returned to Maine and worked two more years for Jewett & March, running camp the last year. In the winter of 1855 he ran a logging camp at Escanaba, Michigan, for N. Luding- ton & Company, then took charge of the camps at Rum River, Minnesota, for Jona- than Chase, returning to Escanaba and work- ing at Upper Mill and Flat Rock. In Feb- ruary he was summoned to Taylor Falls, Minn., by the death of a relative. It was before the day of railroads in that region, and the trip was made on the ice with an Indian mail train of dogs to Menominee, thence to Green Bay, and thence by various stages to St. Paul and Taylor Falls. He worked a her home to Bangor, Maine. He worked a while lumbering in Minnesota, and then re- turned to Escanaba. In 1857 he joined forces with Samuel M. Stephenson and took a con- tract getting out logs for N. Ludington & Co. There were only two camps in operation that winter, and Stephenson drove the ox team tot- ing supplies into camp, while Holmes looked after the men. The next year they operated at Menominee, and Stephenson bought an in- terest in the Kirby, Carpenter Company, lum- ber manufacturers, and the following year Mr. Holmes was put in charge of the logging interests of the company, and was superin- tendent of logging operations for thirty-eight years. In January, 1897, he built a logging road of seventy-five miles, and has been work- ing on logging contracts with great success ever since.
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