USA > Michigan > St Clair County > St. Clair County, Michigan, its history and its people; a narrative account of its historical progress and its principal interests, Vol. II > Part 21
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In quoting from the later paragraphs in the autobiography such para- phrase of minor order will be made as to bring the subject matter into harmonious relation with the general narrative here presented. Mr. Lee describes his birthplace as a little log house or shanty, with shake roof, open fireplace and chimney constructed of mud and sticks. This primi- tive domicile was situated in a clearing of less than twenty acres, from which the timber had been removed by his father, almost unaided, and the home was three miles distant from any other house, there having been at the time but nine families residing in the county, within whose borders there was not a store, hotel, church or school house.
Calvin Lee, grandfather of him whose name initiates this article, was born in Massachusetts, in the year 1800, a scion of staunch Puritan stock, the founders of the American branch of the Lee family having been three brothers of the name who came from England in the seventeenth century. The brother who settled in Massachusetts was the ancestor of the New England and New York branches; another of the brothers was the founder of the distinguished Virginia family of the name; and the third of the brothers was the founder of the South Carolina branch which is now extinct and of which General "White Horse Lee" of the Revolution, was a distinguished representative. Diadam (Seekles) Lee, paternal grandmother of William O. Lee, was born in Massachusetts in 1799 and her father, of English lineage, was engaged as shoemaker for General Washington and his forces at Valley Forge, a place ever to be remem- bered in connection with the history of the war of the Revolution.
Humphrey and Sarah (VanDuzee) McLean, maternal grandparents of Mr. Lee, were respectively natives of Scotland and Holland, and the former came to America when a young man, the latter having been a child at the time of the family immigration to the New World. Thus it will be seen that Mr. Lee, representing the purest and staunchest American stock, is of English, Scotch and Holland-Dutch lineage.
When Mr. Lee was about eighteen months old his parents removed to another pioneer farm in Tuscola county, the same having been located in Tuscola township, on the line of Saginaw county on the banks of Cass river. There he was reared to the age of sixteen years, and his memory forms an indissoluble link between the primitive pioneer days and the present period of opulent prosperity and progress. It may be further noted that Humphrey MeLean, maternal grandfather of Mr. Lee, was one of the early settlers of Michigan and that he held a government of- fice at Fort Saginaw.
Silas S. Lee lived a life of usefulness and honor and his active career was one of close identification with agriculture and lumbering, in con- nection with which he gained substantial prosperity. He resided at vari-
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ous times in different parts of Michigan and died while visiting a son in Detroit, being summoned to the life eternal on the 27th of April, 1903, his remains being interred in a cemetery at Flint. His first wife passed away on the 24th of March, 1857. and of their children the subject of this review was the first in order of birth. Myra, the eldest daughter, was born on the 12th of May, 1846, and is now the wife of Sylvester Die- trich, of Battle Creek, Michigan. They have one son and five daughters. Charles Vernon Lee, the second son, was born February 22, 1849, and died at the age of twenty-two months. Alice Lovisa was born April 26, 1854, and her death occurred January 31, 1877. She became the wife of James Norris, of Saginaw, and her only child survived her by about six months.
On the 16th of May, 1860, Silas S. Lee contracted a second marriage, Amelia Sheldon, of Willsborough, Essex county, New York, then becom- ing his wife. William O. Lee was about twelve years of age at the time of the death of his loved and devoted mother, but his memory of his step- mother is one of the most affectionate and reverent order, as is shown by his own words: "She was my mother not only by adoption but also in the realities of act and deed-my confidant, my truest and dearest friend to her dying day. (1909). This lovable woman came to me when I was fifteen years old, at a boy's most critical age, and made life for the boy worth living, so that her memory will ever be treasured most saeredly and with love by me." Of the second marriage were born two sons and three daughters, of whom two sons and one daughter are now living.
William O. Lee early gained practical and valuable discipline through his active connection with farm work and lumbering operations, and his rudimentary education was secured in the little village of Tuscola, where he pursued his studies in the first school house erected in Tuscola county, the same having also been used as a church. Afterward Mr. Lee attended school nearer his home, in primitive buildings of the type common to the pioneer days, and later he was afforded the advantages of the public schools at Vassar, in his native county, to which place his father removed for the purpose of affording the children better scholastic opportunities. He continued to attend this graded school during the year 1861 and the greater part of 1862, and in the meanwhile his youthful patriotism was roused when the integrity of the nation was thrown into jeopardy by armed rebellion. In August, 1862, Mr. Lee enlisted in Company E. Seventh Michigan Voluteer Infantry, but he was under military age and his parents prevented his being mustered in. In the winter of the next year he volunteered in the Third Michigan Cavalry, but parental objec- tions again thwarted his plans.
In November, 1862, Mr. Lee began teaching in a school at Bridge- port, Saginaw county, and he proved a most able and popular represen- tative of the pedagogical profession, to the work of which he thus de- voted his attention during a term of five months. He then utilized his earnings in completing a course in the Eastman Business College at Poughkeepsie, New York, in which institution he was graduated in September, 1863. After his graduation he returned to Michigan and became assistant bookkeeper and general office assistant for the hard- ware firm of Schmitz & Morley, of Saginaw, a concern from which was developed the great wholesale hardware business now conducted under the title of Morley Brothers. In December of the same year Mr. Lee
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became associated with the work and management of a lumber camp conducted by his father about fifteen miles above Midland. At last he was to realize his ambition and go forth in defense of the Union, and concerning his military career his own account is adequate, as shown by the following quotations, interpreted with somewhat of liber- ality of modification :
"In February, 1865, President Lincoln made a call for three hundred thousand more volunteers, and I left camp, went to Saginaw and enlisted in the Seventh Michigan Cavalry, withont consulting or asking permis- sion of my parents, as I was then of military age. After enlisting I went home and advised my father and mother of my action, and they inmediately put up a strong argument against my going, but to no avail, as I was determined to go and did go, reaching the front and my regiment on February 28th, at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, where I was assigned to Company M and was immediately ushered into active service.
WILLIAM O. LEE AS A SOLDIER.
I took part in the campaign operations from Harper's Ferry to Peters- burg, Richmond and Appomattox and the intervening points of active hostilities from Petersburg and Appomattox. May 1st I was com- missioned corporal of my company, acting as quartermaster sergeant, and on June 20th was commissioned quartermaster sergeant of my company, with which rank I was mustered out under my final discharge. "After the surrender of General Lee, on the 9th of April, 1865, my regiment, as a part of Custer's Michigan cavalry brigade, started for Washington, D. C., by detachments, assigned to reconstruction of the various Confederate soldiers who had not surrendered with general Lee. We accepted the surrender of such soldiers and paroled them, accord- ing to the terms of peace agreed upon by Generals Grant and Lee. We arrived at Alexandria, Virginia, Saturday evening, May 20th, where the various detachments of my regiment and brigade were once more united, including comrades from dismounted camps and making a united band of weather-beaten, ragged, muddy and dirty heroes of many a hard-
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fought battle and gloriously won victory, the men having lost hardly a day out of the saddle since February, under the leadership of General Merritt, the invincible Custer and the unconquered Sheridan."
Arriving in Washington with his command, Mr. Lee participated in the Grand Review of the victorious troops after which he went with his regiment to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. From that point most of the command started west over the trackless prairies of Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado, and into the Rocky Mountains, with assignments to the work of guarding the United States mails and travelers against hostile Indians from station to station. Mr. Lee continued in service in the west until December 17, 1865, when he was mustered out with his command at Fort Leavenworth, duly receiving his honorable discharge.
Mr. Lee arrived at his home in Tuscola, Michigan, on the 21st of December, and he was there employed as clerk in a general store until March, 1866, when he there engaged in the same line of enterprise on his own responsibility. He soon converted the place into a book, station- ery and drug store, and he conducted the same until July of the same year, when he sold the business and removed to AuSable, Iosco county, where he engaged in the grocery and provision trade, to which a drug department was added upon the admission of William A. Townsend to partnership, under the title of Lee & Townsend. In the meanwhile Mr. Lee had been appointed postmaster of the little town, which was becom- ing a thriving center for himbering and fishing enterprise, and held this position until 1871, when he resigned and disposed of his business inter- ests, the impaired health of his wife demanding a change of location. Thereafter he was for a short time in the employ of the Singer Sewing Machine Company, with headquarters at Lansing, and in the spring of 1872 he went to Missouri as representative of the Bleese Sewing Ma- chine Company of New York, for Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska, with headquarters at St. Joseph, Missouri. Soon afterward he entered the employ of the Howe Sewing Machine Company, of St. Louis, in the capacity of traveling salesman and appointing agent. He continued with this company until the spring of 1874 and later represented the Wheeler & Wilson Sewing Machine Company in the same capacity and territory, with headquarters at Mexico, Missouri. At that place he soon afterward engaged in the book, stationery, music and sewing-machine business, in which he continued until February, 1877, when he sold his interest to his partner. Thereafter Mr. Lee was associated with J. H. Fenton, of Indianapolis, Indiana, in the manufacture of roller skates and the condueting of roller-skating rinks until February, 1886, the while he maintained his home in the city of Detroit, Michigan, from June, 1877, until May, 1903. In February, 1886, Mr. Lee became a gen- eral salesman for the Penberthy Injector Company of Detroit, in the in- terests of which he did pioneer work throughout the United States, Can- ada. Mexico and the West Indies. He also represented the company at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. In May, 1897, Mr. Lee severed his connection with the Penberthy Injector Company and became instrumental in the organization of the Lee-Penberthy Manu- facturing Company, for the manufacturing of injectors, ejectors, etc. The use of the name Penberthy and of certain patents resulted in a prolonged litigation instituted by the Penberthy Injector Company, and this, with attending difficulties, finally compelled Mr. Lee to place his
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business in the hands of a receiver, in order to protect his injector patent and other interests. In the United States court of appeals at Cincinnati the case was finally decided in his favor, and he reorganized the business under the title of the Lee Injector Manufacturing Com- pany, with a capital stock of thirty thousand dollars. The business was continued at Detroit until May 1, 1903, when it was removed to Port Huron. Here Mr. Lee again encountered many difficulties and much financial loss, with a dissolution of the company. He then took his pat- terns, patents and samples to Detroit and began the manufacturing of his patent devices under association with the Baker-Churchill Company, the new enterprise being undertaken under the name of the Baker- Churchill-Lee Company. Mr. Lee assumed the position of sales man- ager and soon built up a most prosperous business. In July, 1909, he withdrew his line of products from the company and in November of the same year began the erection of his present fine plant in Port Huron, where he has full control of an industrial enterprise which has been made most substantial and profitable under his progressive and energetic management. His foundry and other buildings are of cement construc- tion and the plant is a model in design and equipment, with facilities adequate to meeting the ever increasing demands placed upon the same. Mr. Lee is the sole owner of the business and it is gratifying to note that his success has finally become assured, for he has well merited pros- perity and has been indefatigable in his work. His concern proves a val- uable industrial acquisition to Port Huron and he is held in unqualified esteem and confidence as one of the progressive business men and public- spirited citizens of the metropolis of St. Clair county.
In politics Mr. Lee has ever given uncompromising allegiance to the Republican party and he has given effective service in its cause. While a resident of AuSable he served as justice of the peace and also as county coroner, besides which he held the office of postmaster, as has already been noted. He has been active in the party ranks and has been a del- egate to various county and congressional conventions of the same. He became affiliated with the Masonic fraternity while a resident of AuSable and in the same he has received the chivalric degrees, holding member- ship in Port Huron Commandery, No. 7, Knight Templars, in Port Huron. He has ever retained a deep interest in his old comrades of the Civil war and manifests the same by his membership in the Grand Army of the Republic, to whose national convention he was a delegate in 1911. He is at the present time (1912) commander of William San- born Post, No. 98, Grand Army of the Republic, in his home city, and he was president of the Seventh Michigan Cavalry Association from 1900 to 1902, inclusive. He has served continuously as president of the Custer Michigan Cavalry Brigade Association since 1902 and was one of the most influential factors in securing the erection of the fine eques- trian monument of General Custer at the latter's old home in Monroe, Michigan.
At Northville, Michigan, on the 17th of September, 1868, Mr. Lee was united in marriage to Miss Maria Yerkes. who was born in Salem township, Washtenaw county, this state, on the 17th of November, 1842, and who was a daughter of Joseph D. and Mary (Dunlap) Yerkes, hon- ored pioneers of the county mentioned. Mrs. Lee was in most delicate health for a long period and her release came when she was summoned
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to the life eternal on the 16th of December, 1890. Concerning the chil- dren of this union the following brief data are given: Nora A. was born on the 29th of September, 1869, and died on the 18th of the following July ; Birdie D. who was born on the 23d of December, 1872, is now the wife of Charles II. Woodgrift, of Detroit, and they have one son and two daughters; Elmer Edward was born January 31, 1877, and died in the city of Detroit at the age of sixteen years and four months. Concerning the death of this promising son, who was about to be graduated in the Detroit high school, his father has written as follows: "Ile stood as one of the prominent pupils in his classes and was greatly loved by his class- mates and teachers, who closed the high school on the day of his funeral, which they attended in a body. His death blighted all the hopes and ambitions I had had for him and I have never felt reconciled to his loss."
On the 26th of February, 1893, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Lee to Miss Rose B. Vail, who was born and reared in Dayton, Ohio, the date of her nativity having been August 28, 1864. She is a daughter of George and Catherine ( Drumm) Vail, the former of whom was born in Loudoun county, Virginia, in 1831, and the latter in New York city, in 1835. Rita Mary, the first child of the second marriage of Mr. Lee, was born August 2, 1896, in Detroit, and is a member of the class of 1912 in the Port Huron high school, being one of the popular factors in the social activities of the younger folk in her home city. In October, 1902, Miss Rita May Lee had the distinction of being elected baby of her father's regiment, the Seventh Michigan Cavalry. Rosabel Vail Lee, the younger of the two children of Mr. and Mrs. Lee, was born in Port Huron on the 25th of July, 1903, and is now a student in the public schools of her native city. In 1905 Mr. Lee completed the erection of his present beautiful residence at South Park, a suburb of Port Huron, and the home is a eenter of most gracious and refined hospitality, a favored resort of the many friends of Mr. and Mrs. Lee and their two winsome daughters.
CAPTAIN' JOHN A. MILLER. Distinguished not only as a native-born citizen of Marine City, Saint Clair county, but for his long and honor- able record while sailing the Great Lakes as master of a vessel, Captain John A. Miller is eminently deserving of special mention in this bio- graphical volume. Ile was born November 18, 1854, in Marine City, coming on both sides of the house of Irish ancestry, his grandparents, both paternal and maternal, having immigrated from Ireland to Can- ada, bringing their families with them. His grandfather Miller was a staunch Presbyterian in religion, and finding no church of that denom- ination in Prescott, Ontario, where he located on coming to America, he erected a church building and sent to Ireland for a clergyman to fill its pulpit. The captain's parents, Joseph and Margaret (Brick) Miller. were young when they crossed the ocean. They married in Canada, and in 1844 settled at Marine City, Michigan, where the father found employment in the boat-building yards of Eben Ward.
John A. Miller was educated in Sombra, Ontario, Canada, where the family located on moving from Michigan in 1856. He attended school there regularly until twelve years old, when he began life on the lakes, sailing first as a galley boy. On August 18, 1877, he received his first papers as captain, and has continued to sail in that capacity ever since,
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in the time having had command of the largest freight tugs used on the lakes. Captain Miller has also won a record for bravery in regard to the number of rescues he has made, and for the services he has rendered to those in danger, having rescued from peril a greater number than any other lake captain.
Captain Miller's first boat was the "Kate Moffett," and he has since been master of the "John Owen," "Champion," "Sweepstakes," "Gladiator," "Crusader" and the "Baltz." The captain has also owned and sailed the "Salina," a lumber boat; the "Lucy Sigson;" the steamer "Reliable," which, in 1906, was the first to sail from De- troit to Port Huron, Captain Miller having opened up navigation with her that spring, when, at seven o'clock in the morning of March 27th, he sailed from Detroit and made such a record-breaking trip that at five o'clock in the afternoon he took his vessel into the Port Huron harbor. In 1911, in command of the steamer "Canisteo," the captain, who was searching for sand, dug up a keg of cider from the wreck of the boat "Red Jacket," which was sunk in Lake Saint Clair in 1844. During all of his years as master of a vessel the captain never had a man hurt or lost overboard, nor lost a ship. In 1888 he had the good fortune to rescue fourteen men from freezing to death on Gray's Reef, on Lake Michigan, his action was not brought to the notice of Congress owing to the unwillingness of Captain Miller. The captain is not connected by membership with any religions organization or with any secret society.
Captain Miller married, in 1878, Mary L. Knight, who was born in Sombra, Canada, a daughter of William and Margaret (Bury) Knight. Her father, who was a millwright by trade, took up a large tract of land in Canada, and at his death it was divided among his children. Eight children have been born to Captain and Mrs. Miller, namely: Burt John, born November 17, 1879, is mate on the steamer "Jolin Ericson;" Clara L., born June 25, 1882, is the wife of Ed F. Lafitte, a dentist in Atlanta, Georgia, and a noted baseball player, being a pitcher on a De- troit American team; Mary A., born September 17, 1884, is the wife of Frank C. Eaton, who is connected with the American Laundry Company, of Montreal, Canada; Allen, born October 22, 1886, is engaged in the auto supply business in Buffalo, New York ; John A., Jr., born November 22, 1895, sails with his father ; Rex K., born March 27, 1897 ; Erick Brick, born July 5, 1898, and Frank Hamilton, born September 28, 1902.
ORVILLE A. CHASE. Among the list of younger men who are promi- nently identified with the leading interests of St. Clair, Michigan, we find the name of Orville A. Chase, justice of the peace for the city of St. Clair. Mr. Chase is a scion of a pioneer Michigan family who set- tled in that section when it was still a territory and forests covered the greater part of its area. He was born on a farm near Nankin, Michigan, April 11, 1875, the son of Dr. Stephen and Nancy (Ganong) Chase, both of whom were also natives of Michigan, their parents in turn being natives of New York and the first of our subject's ancestry to settle in the then territory of Michigan.
Dr. Stephen Chase, father of Orville A. Chase, received his medical training at the Medical College of St. Louis, from which he received his degree when a young man. He is at present a prominent resident of Port Huron, Michigan. Dr. Chase moved with his family to Lansing,
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Michigan, in 1879, when Orville was a child of four years, and later was taken with the family to Flint, Michigan, where he began his school days in the public school of that city. The family later removed to Grand Rapids, where Dr. Stephen Chase began active medical practice. Subsequently the Doctor moved with his family to a Wayne county farm and it was while living there that the son Orville, completed his school- ing, he remaining with his grandparents on the farm when his father went to Detroit to become an active practitioner of the medical profes- sion.
After finishing his education in the Wayne schools Orville remained on the farm for a few years then decided that he would like to make a change of occupation and secured a position as clerk in a hotel at To- ledo. Later he accepted a position as clerk in the Taylor House at West Saginaw and occupied his time in this line of endeavor for some time. Deciding that he would prefer to learn a trade that would enable him to follow a line of business more remunerative, he made himself pro- ficient as a barber and had a successful business experience in that line for a considerable period in Detroit, Battle Creek and Kalamazoo. He later went to Chicago, where he remained until 1893, and then went to Denver and opened a barber shop there at the corner of Seventeenth and Wazu streets, but soon found that the climate did not agree with him and he sold out his business and went to San Francisco, California. He continued his trade of a barber there for five years and then sold his business. Deciding to again become a resident of his native state, Mich- igan, he went to Charlevoix county and joined his family in the pur- chase of a farm in that locality. In 1899 he became a resident of St. Clair and a year later was married to Miss Lillian Damm, of that city, her parents being Joseph and Phillis Damm. Her mother died in 1909. This union has been blessed in the birth of four children, Edward L. born November 14, 1901; Orville A., Jr., born September 21, 1903; Victor J., born May 24, 1906, and Lillian Grace, born September 21, 1910.
Mr. Chase takes an active interest in those social and public matters that tend to the best development and progress of the city in which he resides. Fraternally he is affiliated with the Foresters and Knights of Pythias lodges. Politically he is aligned with the Republican party, which in recognition of his value as a publie spirited citizen of distinct ability for its duties elected him to the office of justice of the peace of St. Clair in 1911.
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