USA > Michigan > Genesee County > Flint > The book of the golden jubilee of Flint, Michigan 1855-1905. Published under the auspices of the Executive committee of the golden jubilee and old homecoming reunion > Part 8
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reason of the decline in lumbering. The Thread Mill has been burned down, but the other two mills have changed their equipment to modern requirements and are in continuous operation. Their capacity is far beyond the local supply, and they ship in many cars of grain and distribute in all directions many cars of milling products. Not only was the grain marketing and milling active, but all farm products of the section were pouring into the food store houses of the world through the assembling point of Flint, and shipping increased rather than diminished from year to year. This is equally true to-day, and while not strictly to be classed as a manufac- turing interest, it would not be fair to withhold from agricul- ture its full share as a developing agency, hand in hand with the industrial contributions.
Men who had been employees in the mills became proprie- tors of their own business, be it what it might, for the atmos- phere of prosperity was here, and the spirit was buoyantly "Forward." They created avenues into which latent talent could turn, and were responsible for new lines of manufac- turing, which was assuming a diversified character instead of the one great interest, lumber. The agricultural prosperity naturally dictated a factory to supply farming tools, and for several years such an industry, including foundry, machine shop, wood working and finishing, was a prosperous and aggressive institution employing many operatives. Another result of agricultural expansion was a factory making cream- eries, and it was a power in educating the farmers into a proper appreciation of the value of their grazing lands and cows. A soap factory was another industry that was eminently pros- perous, and accumulated wealth. Unostentatiously this wealth was invested, and was steadily increased into an estate of gen- erous proportions. Through those years of accumulating the
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owner cherished a thought of returning to the city that gave him his home and competency a monument of his grateful- ness. Therefore, when James J. Hurley was called to his eternal rest it was found that he had generously endowed a hospital for the city of Flint. Pump factories added their use- fulness to the needs of the developing country and contributed to the aggregate of the city's manufacturing, until the more modern drive well largely replaced the wooden pump. Broom factories have been a part of the manufacturing interests for many years. The manufacturing of clothing, both for men and women, has at different times been of importance. A shoe factory was organized here at one time, hoping to develop a business along lines that have made other localities wealthy, but conditions were not favorable and after a year or two it was dismantled. A table factory was another institution that offered work to craftsmen in wood, and for several years did a large business, and drew generous earnings to the city. The receding of the lumber supply made operations too expensive, and its activities ceased. Before Begole-Fox & Co. suspended lumbering operations they had provided for utilizing their property for further manufacturing enterprises. The water power site was sold to F. R. Lewis, who organized a paper manufacturing industry, making a market for all the surplus straw of the farming community. His product was straw wrapping paper, and straw board. Eventually there was added a plant utilizing this straw board in making egg crates in large quantities. Cigars came to be manufactured in Flint in 1875 when Myer Ephraim started a little shop, and the same man is doing the same business in the same place and manner to-day, but around him are brick blocks that his indus- try has made his own. Others were attracted to the business and succeeded. Graduates from Ephraim's factory essayed
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a business career for themselves, or employees became employ- ers as a result of a quarrel with former employers. So new factories were created and they seemed invariably to fill a need and increased the aggregate of business. Gradually Flint has come to be a cigar manufacturing center with a dozen large factories and making and shipping thousands of dollars worth of manufactured tobacco annually, and distributing good earn- nings to the hundreds of skilled operatives. The travelling forces of these factories cover a wide territory, and a large clientele looks to Flint for their cigar stocks. It is to the credit of the industry that healthful conditions for work prevail in all of the factories, and that the profits have added not a little to home making in the city. "The only factory of its kind in the world," was the announcement of another institution started primarily to introduce a Flint invention: a novel revolving device for displaying hats. It is now a considerable plant, building store fixtures, and a modernized style of revolv- ing display apparatus.
But it so happened that the manufacture of vehicles has come to be the dominant, but by no means the sole interest of Industrial Flint, and around the word "Vehicle" are now unified all of life's phases for many individuals, families, societies and business interests of the city. In 1869, Mr. W. A. Paterson came to Flint, started a small carriage and repair shop, and therein was born the industry that has come to be Flint's pride. This business was for many years almost entirely local in character, and of exceedingly modest volume, but by the force of splendidly directed efforts it has advanced to a commanding commercial position. The Begole-Fox & Co. lumber yard became the site of the Flint Wagon Works, a great industry whose inception was presided over by Mr. J. H. Whiting, who is still its general manager.
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A TYPICAL ILLUSTRATION OF FLINT'S EARLY INDUSTRIES.
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INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT.
In 1886 Mr. W. C. Durant became owner of a patent on a road cart and invited Mr. J. D. Dort to join him in the manu- facturing venture which eventuated in the largest manufac- turing institution of the city, the Durant-Dort Carriage Com- pany and its allied interests. The real introduction of all three of these big factories to the markets of the world was through the road cart which enjoyed a wonderful wave of popularity from 1885 to 1895, and in the manufacture of which all three institutions were heavily involved during that period. Look- ing down upon this industry from the heights of present knowl- edge it almost seems as though advanced sheets of the book of futurity might have been spread out before those responsible for the management. It was not fortune, but business ability and business foresight that has given Flint this pre-eminence. As time passed along a fixed purpose formed and a steady ad- vance toward the attainment of that purpose has made Flint the Vehicle City. Also as the industry has advanced, men whose experience and training with the growing industry have made them valuable, have been drawn within the circle of adminis- tration ; have been admitted into councils ; have been assigned to executive positions, and by their experience and their genius have contributed their quota to Flint's industrial success. Around the home of the complete vehicle are clustered fac- tories for many of the component accessories, and with the very fact of manufacturing itself has come the idea of a manu- facturing district, equipped with everything conducive to ideal working conditions, coupled with homes and enjoyable envi- ronments readily accessible. The very nature of the coming of the present plants intimates the eventual coming of more.
Flint's manufacturing development was never character- ized by a scramble to take advantage of existing conditions, but came about in an orderly way; as needs were felt the
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response came upon that solid foundation which, with business judgment insures success. In the early days of the carriage industry Mr. W. F. Stewart commenced making buggy bodies and wood work. His experiences have been but those of the industry to which he was allied, and by thought, study and energy he has kept pace with its march of progress and is con- tributing a goodly proportion to the sum total of Flint's com- mercialism. So the Armstrong Spring Works came into existence and has justified its right to be by continued and increasing usefulness. So came the Imperial Wheel Co., an institution known all over vehicledom as the largest and best wheel plant in the world. Its equipment includes mills and forest areas in the South to supply its timber requirements. The history of the automobile industry would show that at about the beginning of the twentieth century it had passed all experimental stages and was a fixed element in the world's business. The management of the wheel plant perceiving the possibilities, promptly equipped its factory to supply automo- bile wheels, and to-day Flint furnishes the majority of these wheels for American cars. Attracted by the vehicle interests the Flint Axle Works established a plant in farm lands just outside the city limits, but the municipal boundaries were soon
expanded to insure it fire and police protection. The Flint Varnish Works soon followed into the same locality, known as Oak Park, where an ideal manufacturing center is being created. The Michigan Paint Company has a history like many other industries more or less allied to the vehicle inter- ests,-of a small beginning and expansion. The Flint Woolen Mills which were so important in early development are now turning their attention largely to carriage cloths. The Flint Specialty Co. makes the whipsockets of the world. A tannery was established to make carriage leathers and another factory
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furnishes buggy boots, aprons and cut leather necessities, This detail is not an exploitation but an exposition of the result of concentrating every fibre of business ability and thought into channels of progress along a specific line. Modern geog- raphies will tell you that Flint is noted as producing more vehicles than any other city in the world, and it is not par- ticularly surprising that accessory interests would ally them- selves with a locality that can offer such a market and attract such attention, and it is easy to comprehend what a wide pub- licity must result for Flint when such an output is being spread over the earth by the selling corps of all the factories. The permanent character of their equipment is the best comment on the question of their success, and their gradually increasing shipments to other vehicle centers is the evidence of their profitable operation and expansion.
Like the lumbering operations of earlier years these varied vehicle industries have attracted to the city mechanics and operatives of many kinds. Young people have grown up with the business and have attained to responsible positions in divers lines. They have been graduated from the college of expe- rience, and have gone as proprietors or managers elsewhere. Merit is recognized and appreciated while organized promo- tions develop both talent and loyalty. Their business or mechanical education is not all that the management has done to make conditions attractive to the great body of helpers and co-workers. The various vehicle and accessory companies have equipped a splendid club with reading, billiard, bowling, bath and gymnastic rooms. The operatives themselves main- tain it as well as a generous sick and accident benefit associa- tion. An organized effort for beautifying landscapes in resi- dent sections is another interesting element of this community idea.
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FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF FLINT.
1
It was a fitting celebration of the semi-centennial of Flint's history that this year should be memoralized by secur- ing two splendid additions to the manufacturing interests, and that the manufacturing district should see the foundations for two great and successful plants. It was largely the same energy that directs the vehicles interests which secured for Flint the splendid automobile plant of the Buick Motor Com- pany and their engine department is already in active operation. The same personality was able to induce the Weston-Mott Co. to locate here, manufacturing automobile parts. A brass fac- tory for automobile brasses and a foundry for automobile cast- ings are already in operation at the close of the Jubilee year, so that the horseless carriage is likely to surround itself with its accessory industries as did the horse-drawn vehicle.
So Flint comes to its Jubilee year, and brings forth not the buried talent wrapped in a napkin, but the full rich harvest from the seed of opportunity, and in that harvest field have been evolved the energy, the judicious methods, the thoughtful wisdom, the helpful co-operation and the managing capacity that have given Flint a manufacturing development of perma- nence with a positive impetus forward toward its century mile post. Dropping for a moment into retrospective mood, the past seems to say to the future, "There lies your way, where success has proved the correctness of our principles of prog- ress. Guard well the outposts toward oncoming time, with eye single to anticipate the changes or conditions ere they are upon you with forces the stronger for your unpreparedness. Back of these sentinels assemble your resources cemented to7 gether by loyalty, appreciation, the hand clasp of friendship, co- operation and judgment. Then move steadily forward to your own best reward, discovering, inventing, creating, doing. Fol- low those precepts and we are content to bequeath our accom- plishments into your keeping."
The Early Social Life of Flint.
By E. L. BANGS.
This topic is not as easy to write upon as a casual reader of it might suppose. The city of Flint has been out of her cradle a long time. To ask what her early social life was is very much like asking about the baby talk and school girl talk and young lady talk of a staid matron of mature years, who takes her grandchildren in her lap and tells them what funny and agreeable things she used to do when she was little and sat in a lap herself.
Social life is not a ready made affair like the clothing that is sold in our clothing stores. Neither is it a tailor made affair, cut by measure to fit the peculiarities and varied wants of human beings.
Social life is the result of one of the deepest cravings of human nature. There is a social instinct even in animals. The dog loves to frolic with another dog, and the graceful tumblings of two dogs on the green grass put the uncouth struggles of the foot-ball team to shame, they are so entirely in keeping with the nature of the animal that often sticks closer to a man than his own brother does.
The horse, along the roadside, will jump a fence that is "horse high, bull strong and pig tight" to get in with other horses in the pasture. He is lonesome as an outsider. Do animals talk with each other? Whence came our well known term "horse sense" if horses do not have ideas and communi- cate them to each other? At any rate the brute creation can
ci
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in some way do the agreeable to each other, and what is all that but a low form of social life?
We look at our social life to-day and we hardly stop to ask ourselves how it came to be what it is. It has grown up slowly and by almost imperceptible changes just as truly as our fine streets have grown up from the Indian trails in the woods, and later on from the cow-paths in the clearings.
It requires a vivid imagination to form in the mind's eye, a picture of the lands where our fair city now stands, as they were before the white man came. I have been told by an old inhabitant, who long ago passed away, that sturgeon have been caught, even in the little Thread River, that is hardly large enough to go through the eye of a darning needle. Wild game was abundant, where now the meat markets offer us varieties of meats that make our mouths water, and that also tempt us to utter heavily weighted words against the beef trust. The smoke arose from the tepees and the council fires of the Indians where now the black smoke pours forth in linen-soiling volumes from the chimneys of our factories.
In Lapeer, I have seen the trunk of a huge elm tree, the trunk still standing like a giant with his head cut off, and on the tree a plate conspicuously placed, tells the passer by that under this tree, Rodney Hart, the first white man who came to Lapeer County, camped out for a time, and that his son, R. H. Hart, who placed the tablet on the tree, in memory of his father, was the first white child born in Lapeer County.
Would that somewhere in our city we could put up a suitable "In Memoriam," to the very first white man who found a home here, and to the first white child that had the good fortune to see daylight, where the city with the hard name now stands.
So far as I am able to ascertain, the earliest white inhabi- tant of Flint, bore the name of Jacob Smith. He was a man of
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strongly marked character. He came from Detroit to Flint in the year 1819. He was an Indian trader, and to a great extent, adopted the dress, habits and language of the Indians.
Shall we not find in this man's life the very beginning of social life in our city? We are told that there was a bond of union between the Indian chiefs, and Mr. Smith, and that his relations to them were those of a brother. Long after he passed away, the remnants of the once powerful tribe cherished his memory with sincere affection.
It is interesting to know that Jacob Smith erected a log trading post in 1819 on the site of the First Baptist Church, a locality well known to us all. This was the pioneer struct- ure,-this was the first building erected for a white man's occupancy in the county of Genesee. Why should not that well known spot be graced with some permanent memorial that will perpetuate the memory of Flint's first white inhab- itant ?
Was there any social life for this man? Yes, for his half-breed friends, Francis Edouard Campau, George Lyons, and perhaps others, remained with him, and erected habitations on either side of the Grand Traverse, the point where the Indian trail from Detroit to Saginaw crossed the Flint River.
Game and fish were abundant then, and good cheer has always been an important element in social life. Whiskey and tobacco are usually at hand, wherever there is business to be transacted with Indians, and while there is noting in our early annals to show any excessive use of the fire-water by the pioneers, yet it is hardly to be supposed that their feast- ing and money making were conducted in strict accord with the principles of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.
Before the death of Jacob Smith, quite a tract of land was under cultivation. Up to 1830 the Grand Traverse had
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been termed the French Settlement. I mention this because whatever of social life was then in existence, probably bore the impress of the French character.
We must also take into account the fact that Mr. Smith was of German origin, and we shall then have, in the leisure hours when men sought relaxation and entertainment, a blending of the German gravity and the French vivacity and the wild abandon of the Indian pow-wow.
I admit we are looking after something not yet clearly defined, when we look for social life in the Grand Traverse.
Early in 1830 a new force came into the life of our incipi- ent city in the person of John Todd from Pontiac. He and his wife, with their family, became the first permanent resi- dents on the site of the present city of Flint. This gentleman with his wife, known by everybody in the early times as Aunt Polly Todd, opened a famous hostelry. "Todd's Tavern " was located on what afterwards became the site of the office of "The Wolverine Citizen."
I hardly think a tavern could have been opened under such conditions as prevailed in the early days, without giving an impulse to the social life of the place.
"Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?" said Falstaff. No reader of Shakespeare can fail to see that in those days the "Boar's Head Tavern" at Eastcheap, where Mrs. Quickly presided, was famous for good living, deep drinking and witty and agreeable, though perhaps somewhat boisterous talking.
Aunt Polly Todd, one of Flint's early celebrities, from what is said about her by a local historian, was abundantly able to shine in her sphere among white traders and half-breeds, and full blooded Indians, not of the Fenimore Cooper variety, quite as brilliantly as did Mistress Quickly, by her sea coal fire in her celebrated inn.
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The landlord of Todd's Tavern could very easily set a good table. Venison, wild turkey and fish were plentifully supplied by the Indians. A pint of whiskey would purchase a saddle of venison, and a quart of whiskey would buy a turkey weighing, (so the historian of Genesee county says) twenty- five pounds. Alas for us of these times! Now only a com- paratively rich man can afford turkey at all.
It is not to be supposed that talking, in a social way, in such a hostelry, when the day was over, was one of the lost arts. We may be sure that the good story was in abundant evidence, in this nucleus of social life, for human nature will assert it- self, and tongues will wag, even though the inspiration of woman's presence be lacking.
Early influences leave a lasting impression upon new com- munities. I cannot help recalling the contrast between the beginning of New England and the beginning of Flint, though it may seem a mere fancy to attach any great significance to this contrast. The first buildings for a public resort that our Puritan forefathers erected were the church and the school house. The first building for public resort that the pioneers of Flint erected was Todd's tavern.
In 1831 there was an event that partook so largely of a social character, that it may fairly be considered a social event, though the impulse that gave it being was a patriotic one.
It was a Fourth of July celebration, and it was largely a social affair, for under the shade of the trees on the north bank of the river, behind the Baptist church, tables were spread and good cheer was in abundant evidence.
The orator of the day was an Indian chief, and he spoke in the Indian dialect to a small audience, most of whom could understand what he said. Another chief sang in Indian. The
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American flag was there. The infernal giant fire-cracker in the hands of the everywhere present small boy, was not there, and the occasion was more than semi-social in its character, and helped to promote good fellowship as well as patriotism.
In 1831 I learn that the social waters of the settlement were stirred during the winter by a wedding reception. An event of that kind indicates considerable social progress.
This reception was given by Mr. and Mrs. Todd in honor of Mr. George Oliver and Miss Keziah Toby, both parties hav- ing been in the employ of their entertainers.
How different such a wedding reception must have been from the wedding reception of today. There was then neither gas nor electric lights to illuminate the rooms. Presumably tallow dips or perhaps mould candles gave their dim religious light on the occasion.
How did the guests get there? There were no hacks in those days, and if roads were scarcely visible by daylight, it must have been hard to find them in the darkness, for there was not a single lamp post for a gloriously happy man to lean up against, when he was tired. That was the era of the moon and the lantern, and the wedding guests with lanterns in their hands, must have been a weird sight, as they came from the few houses in the settlement, to see the happy two make a still more happy one.
Were there any wedding presents for the bridal pair? History does not inform us, but surely, could that bride and groom look down upon a present day display of cut-glass, solid silver and elegant furniture, with a bank check or certi- ficate of stock to give the newly wedded pair a start in life, they would be astonished. They were just as happy without any such display of expensive wedding gifts, and the wedding guests were also just as happy without giving them.
. .
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There is no record of any rice throwing on the occasion above referred to, and there was no special midnight train for the bride and groom to take. They managed, however, in some way to get along without a wedding trip.
There was very little of pomp and circumstance in their wedding ceremony, and yet the knot then tied by a justice of the peace held the parties together in peace.
Of some of the swell weddings in Flint, doubtless they would say "our wedding didn't cost as much as this one, but we had a good time and we ain't a bit sorry that we didn't have to wait until these fast times. We held together all right."
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