Product Description
Assembled for the Michigan Historical Commission, this collection of sketches ofsome 2,000 of Michigan's distinguished sons from the arenas of the legislature, the courts, andeducation was conceived as an expansion of the 1888 publication, Early History of Michiganwith Biographies of State Officers, Members of Congress, Judges and Legislators. What isperhaps most genealogically interesting about this assemblage of elected and appointed officialsis that even though Michigan achieved statehood as early as 1837, the overwhelming majority ofthe subjects of this volume were born in another state, with New York, Pennsylvania, the NewEngland states, and the Province of Ontario in the ascendancy. Thus the volume could just aseasily have been titled "Prominent Michiganders from Other Places."

While space does not permit us to name all of the personalities sketched here, it will serve somepurpose to convey an idea of the scope of the essays themselves. Most of them are nowhere asextensive as that of Lewis Cass, the one-time Michigan governor and U.S. presidential candidatefor the Democratic Party in 1848; nor as short as that of William Burke, about whom we learnonly that he held two offices during the 1830s. More typical is the following sketch of JeremiahClark: "Representative from Oakland County, Michigan, 1839 and 1841. Was born in the Stateof Vermont, Sept. 19, 1790. When young he removed with his father to Madison County, N.Y.As a young man he was interested in the manufacture of salt for several years in OnondagaCounty, then at Albany, filled contracts on public works for the State. He came to Detroit in1831, where he controlled a bakery and grocery for several years. He removed to a farm inIndependence, Oakland County. In 1838 he built a grist mill at Clarkston. He served asSupervisor, Justice, and County Judge. He died at Syracuse, N.Y., Aug. 29, 1847."

As the above sketch illustrates, Michigan Biographies is full of genealogical and biographicaldetails which will enable the researcher to trace the movements of several thousand Michigansubjects, while linking them to many thousands of persons, places and dates before theyachieved prominence in their adopted state. ... Read more