My Genealogy Hound

JOSEPH P. THRESHER was born at Tunbridge, Vt., March 16, 1831. His father, Dr. Leonard Thresher, was one of six sons, who, with three sisters, were children of Joseph and Polly (Smith) Thresher, both having been born at Stafford, Conn., the father February 22, 1766, and the mother July 17, 1767. The father was of Scotch-Welsh extraction and a son of one of three brothers who came to this country at a date unknown. The name “Thresher” is said to have originally been synonymous with that of “Thatcher,” and that Dr. Thatcher, the renowned theologian, about 1830 a resident of Boston, Mass., was a second cousin of Leonard Thresher.

Joseph Thresher and Polly Smith were married November 15, 1787, and soon after moved from Stafford, Conn., to Brookfield, Vt., where their children were all born and attained their majority, upon a large farm the father had purchased and improved from a native wilderness. The children were Stephen, born August 26, 1788; Alva, November 18, 1790; Thankful, September 10, 1792; Polly, August 15, 1794; Joseph, Jr., July 31, 1798; Leonard, April 9, 1800; Mehitable, December 9, 1803; Daniel, September 27, 1805; and Samuel Alden, January 16, 1809.

The mother of these children died on the old homestead September 13, 1813, honored and loved by all. The father married for his second wife Miss Melison Orcut, born in Somerset, Conn., May 21, 1767. The marriage took place at Brookfield, Vt., January 10, 1815, and after the death of her revered husband, March 11, 1833, she faithfully cared for the family, who greatly esteemed her. She died in 1835, at a date unknown to the writer.

All of these children grew up on the homestead, and were married and settled on land in the neighborhood, with the exception of Leonard, the fourth son, and the father of our subject. He was fond of reading books and did not take kindly to farming. So much did he fear, when a boy, to see animals slaughtered, that when such work was to be done, he was sent from home to some of the neighbors until the butchering was over. His education was that afforded by the district school, held in a log schoolhouse, and supplemented by excellent home instruction. His brother Alva was a proficient instructor for that period, and well versed in mathematics, and Leonard had his assistance.

Leonard took up the study of medicine when but nineteen, and was assisted in this by Dr. Carpenter. He married Maria Laribee, of Royalton, Vt., January 18, 1821. Her father had died when she was but five years old, and her mother subsequently married Alexander Edson, and later they moved to Standish, Canada East. Maria had two brothers, Hiram and Lewis, both married, and a maiden sister, Belinda. The family were of French-Canadian descent. Maria Laribee was regarded as a beautiful girl, and as a wife and mother was greatly beloved. She died at Lowell, Mass., August 18, 1845.

Early in life Leonard Thresher began what promised to be a very successful business career. He built a dam at Tunbridge, Vt., and utilized the water power it created by erecting woolen mills and other manufactories. He carried on a large business, but an unprecedented flood carried away the mills and dam, which, with other disasters, impelled him to resume his professional studies, which were prosecuted under Dr. Carpenter and also under Dr. Chandler, of Chelsea, Vt. He also read medicine with Dr. Warren, of Boston, where he completed his course, and for a time was physician at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston.

He published a small volume on medication, and after a long practice at Lowell, Mass., returned to his native State about 1862, then advanced in years, and was appointed physician during the Civil War to the Military Hospital at Montpelier. The arduous duties here told heavily upon him and, though long surviving them, they doubtless were the incipient cause of his death, which occurred at Northfield, Vt., July 31, 1886, he being at that time eighty-six years old. He was a man of refined feelings, active sympathies and more than ordinary intelligence, and was universally esteemed by those who were so fortunate as to know him.

There were born to Dr. Thresher and wife five children, namely: Harriet D., born at Tunbridge, Vt., January 17, 1824, and who married Nathaniel Houston, of Northfield, Vt., at which place she died in 1881; Julius M., born at Tunbridge, Vt., September 11, 1825, who, from being run over by a team in childhood, was deaf and dumb, and who in due time was sent to the school for mutes at Hartford, Conn., where he graduated, and who is a bachelor, still living; Mary, born at Tunbridge, February 1, 1826, and who died at the same place August 17, 1830; Joseph P., our subject, born at Tunbridge, March 16, 1831; and Emily, born at Brookfield, Vt., January 17, 1835, and who died October 28, 1839, at Cabbotsville, near Springfield, Mass., where the family resided during the time Julius was at Hartford.

The youngest son, Joseph P., remained at home during boyhood, a faithful student at the public schools, and for a time was under instruction at the Cabbotsville Academy, but, the family having moved to Lowell, Mass., he continued his studies there a short time and then entered into a business engagement with Samuel Hollis, a leading merchant and real-estate operator, and remained with him four years. His father had hoped to interest him in the medical profession, and urged him to enter the drug business he had purchased, but the young man could not form any liking for this field of activity. On his father’s removal to Boston, he went there and visited an intimate schoolfellow, who had become a machinist and worked at the Boston Locomotive Works, of Hinkley & Drury. There, by watching the perplexing trouble a workman had in boring flue sheets, young Thresher became interested, and finally produced a tool for doing the work that, had it been patented, would have yielded him a fortune. In a short time he made a contract for doing the work at three cents per hole for the iron sheets, and five cents for boring in copper, and for more than a year he daily earned $7 and $8 per diem for a few hours’ labor. The company found it necessary, however, to terminate the agreements, because the completed sheets were far in advance of any other class of work.

Mr. Thresher then visited his native State, through which the Central Vermont Road was being built, under the presidency of Ex-Gov. Charles Pain, and, though physically unqualified for so heavy work, in preference to farm labor, which had been recommended for his health’s sake, he bravely presented himself to the foreman of a set of track hands and asked for work. He received the contemptuous gaze of the “boss,” who, shrugging his shoulders, told the young man that he could try his hand if he thought he could handle a tamping-bar and tamp the broken stones under the ties, “as yez sees the rest of ‘em bys is doin’. Sure, and yez a broth uv a by, any ‘show.” The tamp-bar weighed fourteen pounds. It was a hot day in August, but the young man without hesitancy “shucked his store clothes” and went in to win. In an hour his hands were badly blistered, but he gave no sign of suffering. For some two or three days he kept pace with the Irishmen. Finally O. B. Reynolds, the road-master, came along, and, inquiring about the boy, directed him to report at the new station soon to be opened on the farm of Joseph Riford, with whom Thresher boarded. He did so, and the next morning he met there W. H. Cornwall, the Assistant Superintendent, who put him in charge of the place. These three men, Thresher, Reynolds and Cornwall; met for the first time, with no expectation that they would in later years become partners in a contract for heavy railway work, which, as will be seen, did occur. Nor did any of the Riford family anticipate they would in the far distant future unexpectedly meet Thresher as a neighbor in a Western town. But such was the fact. This same Joseph Riford was one of the survivors of the ill-fated “Hypocampus,” that foundered between Benton Harbor and Chicago in 1867, because over-loaded with peaches, and some forty persons were lost.

Mr. Thresher remained upon the Vermont Central nearly four years, at first being kept at new stations opened as the road was completed, till it reached Rouse’s Point, N. Y., when he was returned to Montpelier, the capital of the State, as agent for a time. Here J. W. Hobart, who subsequently was the General Manager for many years, was his clerk. Mr. Thresher was later promoted to be Assistant Master of Transportation, and on his resignation. President Pain volunteered to furnish him excellent letters of recommendation. It was on this road he first met the popular engineer, G. D. W. Hopkins, the brother of Miss Mary Hopkins, the lady he subsequently married. He resigned this last position in June, 1848.

For a time Mr. Thresher was Pay-Master for the contractors of the Great Western Railway, Canada, but he soon united his fortunes with his friends, Reynolds, Cornwall and Hopkins, as one of the firm, and with them engaged in constructing the Summit section of the Marietta & Cincinnati Railroad, now the Baltimore & Ohio, near Athens, Ohio, one of the most costly six miles of grading upon that expensively built road. It was here he first met Miss Hopkins, who had been visiting her brother’s contractors upon a more westerly division of the road, and came to visit her older brother, Garrett De Wall and his wife, a lady Mr. Thresher had known in Vermont in her girlhood. Believing he had good promise of a competency in his contract, he entered into marriage relations with Miss Hopkins, who he had found was an estimable and accomplished lady, the ceremony occurring May 30 1854. There were born to this union two sons and a daughter. George M., who was born at Chillicothe, Ohio, August 29, 1858, is married and lives in Chicago; Hattie D., born at Cincinnati Furnace, Ohio, July 4, 1860, married Porter D. Fitzgerald, and resides in Chicago; and Frank L. was born on the 6th of January, 1863, at Cincinnati Furnace, Ohio. The latter was married at Minneapolis, where he represented the Pioneer Press of St. Paul, and later on organized the Daily Times of Minneapolis, and was General Manager. George M. was the Chicago agent and correspondent of the Pharmaceutical Era, of Detroit.

Mrs. Thresher was of a family widely known and highly respected. Her father was familiarly known as “Uncle Tommy” and her mother as “Aunt Hannah.” They were long residents in Covert Township, near Trumansburg, N. Y., twelve miles north of Ithaca, and a couple of miles from Lake Canandaigua, where they owned one of the largest and best farms of central New York.

Thomas Hopkins was born in Putnam County, N. Y., and died at the old homestead June 11, 1870. His wife, Hannah, was a daughter of A. B. and Betsey Dickinson, of New York, and sister of Hon. Bray Dickinson, of Elmira and Hornby, N. Y., and prominent as a farmer and politician. He represented his district twice in the Legislature, and under Lincoln was United States Minister for eight years to Nicaragua, where he died. Mrs. Hopkins died at Trumansburg, N. Y., July 25, 1874. Their children were, Celia, born at Covert in 1819; George K., at Hornby, in 1821; Garrold De Wall, at Hornby, in 1823; Eliza D., at Ulysses, in 1825; Everett A., at Ulysses, and who died at Benton Harbor, in January, 1867; Jonathan, born at Ulysses in 1829; Mary Ann, born August 31, 1831, who married J. P. Thresher, and died at Benton Harbor May 6, 1877, at the homestead; Helen Jane, wife of Albert James, born at Ulysses in November, 1835; Louisa, wife of Rev. H. G. De Witt, born at Ulysses in 1837; and Annette, wife of Dr. John Bell, born at Ulysses in 1839. The children all seemed to develop, in a greater or less degree, consumption in one form or another. It was this dread disease that deprived Mr. Thresher of his life companion, one who possessed every attribute of a good wife, a loving mother and a faithful friend. The loss to husband and children, which was irreparable, had for its only compensation the knowledge of her virtues.

Mr. Thresher was subsequently twice married. The second marriage was celebrated June 6, 1880; the third August 3, 1892, at Chicago, at the home of the bride, then Mrs. Belle M. Himes, whose first husband, J. L. Himes, practiced law many years at Minneapolis, where he died August 2, 1881.

Her father, Hon. Levi Kline, the able and well-known attorney and banker of Lebanon, Pa., was intimately associated with that renowned states-man, Simon Cameron. His death occurred in 1863, at the age of fifty-one years. Her mother, who died at their Chicago home in 1889, aged seventy-one years, was a woman of more than usual attainments, greatly beloved by all, and who in the highest circles of society was esteemed for her eminent Christian virtues and gracious social characteristics.

Mrs. Thresher graduated after a six-years course at Madam Emma Willard’s Ladies’ Seminary, Troy, N. Y., as did her sister, Mrs. Lucius Colby, residing in Chicago, where two brothers, Lee and Ebert Kline, are established in business. A third brother, Col. Jacob Kline, is an officer of the United States army, formerly stationed at Leavenworth, Kan., but recently appointed to the command at Plattsburg, N. Y., where he is instructor of the post, and where his interesting family resides.

The confidence Mr. Thresher reposed in the business he had engaged in, that of railway construction, though well founded, was destined to be disappointing. Mr. Cornwall was called to aid as Assistant Superintendent his brother-in-law, James Moore, who was managing the Michigan Southern & Lake Shore Railway. Mr. Hopkins was called to attend the work undertaken by Hopkins Bros. & Ells, and Mr. Thresher was himself temporarily absent, he having gone to Cincinnati to buy supplies. At this juncture the railway directors, who had held the work under suspension for many months, as the funds were exhausted, inveigled Mr. Reynolds into a new contract, thereby abrogating the original one, and so cutting off the damages that, under the old contract, were justly due. Mr. Thresher on arriving home and learning the mistake of his friend and partner, surrendered his interest without charge, for he foresaw the disaster Mr. Reynolds had so unwisely provided, and later on personally experienced. In a day or two Mr. Thresher, with his young wife, was making a fifty-mile drive over a miserably muddy road, through a sparsely settled and mountainous country, to Chillicothe to accept a position in the general offices of the railway company. Under Supt. W. R. Arthur, Mr. Thresher was appointed General Passenger and Freight Agent, and subsequently, as the road was extended, became General Agent. Here he remained until 1857.

He invested in the stock of the Cincinnati Blast Furnace, and in 1858 became Secretary; but when he learned that, though owned by heavy capitalists, there was an outstanding debt of $131,000, he traded off his stock advantageously. The company failed and Mr. Thresher was appointed Receiver. Under license of the Court, and with the approval of both creditors and stockholders, he made radical changes in the works, by which the cost of smelting iron was greatly reduced, and in three years was able to deliver the plant into the hands of the stockholders.

In the mean time, business had called him to Chicago and Milwaukee, and thus he was afforded an opportunity to spend a day with relatives at Benton Harbor. His health was impaired, and a fruit farm seemed to be very inviting and to promise the change needed. So in the fall of 1863 he came to Benton Harbor, which was then comparatively unknown as a business center. He soon purchased of Elezia Morton and his son, the Hon. H. C. Morton, their fruit farm, one of the oldest and most desirable properties to be had. On other lands of these gentlemen near by was the famous “Cincinnati Peach Orchard,” planted by Smith & Howell, of Cincinnati, that in its time yielded two or three fortunes. Thresher received title to the purchase under date of January 1, 1864. Later, two more purchases of contiguous lands were made. On these grounds a residence was built, and the premises became the ideal home, admired by all, and where for nearly thirty years was found by the visitor a generous and enjoyable hospitality. The house was burned in the winter of 1890-91.

Benton Harbor, originally named Brunson Harbor after Stern Brunson, a pioneer promoter, was attempting to build a ship canal, and Martin Green and S. A. Willard, of Chicago, had taken the contract. In promoting this work Mr. Thresher was soon earnestly engaged. Indeed, from the first he devoted himself to the upbuilding of the town. By the united efforts of the few who began the work, including such men as Hon. H. C. Morton, Charles Hull, Brunson and his sons, the Hopkins brothers, and others not now recalled, the town from year to year became more and more active and of more importance. As a result, Mr. Thresher’s lands, as early as 1868, became of some value for residences and a portion was included in the first plat of the village. Every enterprise for promoting growth was fostered by Mr. Thresher, not only for Benton Harbor, but for her neighbor, St. Joseph. His first donation was $10 to help buy a bell for St. Joseph’s Congregational Church. The highway bridge and various interests of St. Joseph received his liberal donations.

It is not with any wish to boast of or to publish his generous deeds, but as a matter of record it may be stated that the accurate accounts of his business he long maintained showed that to aid others and promote the public weal he made donations from 1864 to 1870 amounting to over $3,600.

Before settling at Benton Harbor, he had assisted the Hopkins brothers to buy a portable steam sawmill, to be operated in the heavy timber standing near town. They were unsuccessful and called on Mr. Thresher to take the property and pay off the debts. He did so, and after paying every dollar and establishing a successful business, he returned the property to them. About this time the Baptist denomination began to build a small church at Heath’s Corners, near town, and later built on a lot purchased in St. Joseph a lecture room, where services were held, proposing, meantime, to add to the structure a fine brick church in the near future. Mr. Thresher opposed these efforts, on the ground that Benton Harbor was likely to become a more important business center, and should have the church, the numerical and financial strength being here. A resolution to this effect was hotly contested at a meeting in the dining-room of the village hotel, but it was carried by a majority of three, and as a result an elegant brick structure was built at Benton Harbor, to which he contributed $1,000 or more.

While managing the Hopkins’ Mill, Mr. Thresher found by his frequent trips to and from Niles, a distance of twenty-five miles, the inconvenience of being dependent solely on water transportation, and he determined to attempt to secure a railway. He wrote to the Chicago press the first articles as to the value of securing an extension to that city of the then Canada Grand Trunk, and opened correspondence with C. J. Bridges, the managing Director. Later he made a trip to Montreal alone, to confer with the Grand Trunk people, and still later, in company with I. W. Willard, of Paw Paw, and Hon. A. H. Morrison, of St. Joseph, he again visited the office of the managing Director at Montreal. Ultimately he organized the Chicago & Michigan Grand Trunk Railway Company, and was chosen its Secretary. After Mr. Shanley, Chief Engineer of the Grand Trunk System, had completed a survey of the Western Division, and $50,000 had been expended, through jealousy the road was lost to this locality, and a longer line by ten miles was built via South Bend.

Mr. Thresher at this time drew the bill authorizing the voting of a tax in aid of railway construction, and spent considerable time at Lansing securing its enactment into a statute. He also wrote part of the prospectus of the road, in conjunction with Mr. Bancroft, of Port Huron. Mr. Thresher at once took up the work of getting the Elkhart Road, organized a company, of which he was Secretary, and from which position he retired when President Frank Muzzy insisted upon wasting $15,000 at Benton Harbor in a vain attempt to build the line upon local resources, most of the loss falling upon Benton Harbor people. This was ten years prior to its final construction. Resuming his efforts when the late Hon. J. H. Wade, of Cleveland, purchased the Cincinnati, Wabash & Michigan Railroad, then completed to Goshen, Ind., Mr. Thresher wrote him in regard to facilities here for lake traffic, and organized the C. W. & L. M. R. R., and was chosen Secretary and Director. He labored hard to get this line, now known as the “Big Four,” and succeeded.

Meantime, Hon. A. H. Morrison, of St. Joseph, who, on finding he had lost the Grand Trunk, had built a local road from New Buffalo to St. Joseph, having secured funds from Boston through his friend, Hon. James F. Joy, President of the Michigan Central, commenced the extension of his line to Grand Rapids, and undertook to secure from Mr. Thresher ten acres of land owned by the Hopkins estate, and located across the Paw Paw River, a mile from the business center of the town. Here he proposed to establish a station, to which Mr. Thresher demurred, for the reason that the road could be reached from Benton Harbor as easily as at St. Joseph, without donating anything, and there would be no diversion of her business interests, as would ensue if a railway center were created on the land Mr. Morrison wanted. To this Mr. Morrison answered by ordering Mr. Conley, his engineer, to go ahead and build upon the Sand Hill route, near the lake shore. This left the little village of Benton Harbor out in the cold.

Mr. Thresher was then publishing the village paper, but, returning to his office, he made an all day and all night task of getting ready to leave home; and taking with him tabulated facts as to the business already centered in his village, hastened to catch the train at St. Joseph, his purposes and destination known to no one but himself. On reaching Detroit, he had audience with Mr. Joy, who was surprised at the statements, and said he had never been informed of the facts, but agreed to send someone, a stranger, to both St. Joseph and Benton Harbor to verify or disprove the statements. Ten days later he wired Mr. Thresher to come to Detroit, and at this meeting a contract was made that, notwithstanding the difficulty of changing the alignment upon which the bridge across the St. Joseph River was being built, the road should touch Benton Harbor. Mr. Joy’s proposition was that $16,000 be raised within one week’s time. Mr. Thresher returned and vigorously pushed the work, and at the last hour wired $15,800, to which came the answer: “You’ve done well; keep on.” The road was secured.

It will be seen from the foregoing that Mr. Thresher has had an active life. During all this time at Benton Harbor he carried on his fruit farm until the burning of his residence in the winter of 1890-91, since which time he has made his home at the Hotel Benton. The property is now held for residence purposes.

If evidence is still needed of his industry, it may be said that during the winter of 1863 and 1864 he purchased wheat, which he had milled, and sold the flour the next summer. Meantime he was building a home. In 1865, he traded in evergreen, fruit trees, etc., and established the Johnson Thresher barrel and fruit package manufactory. This was the first steam power in town, aside from Green’s sawmill and dredge. It was sold to Darch & Co., who lost it by fire. In 1867 he was elected Assistant Superintendent of the Chicago & Lake Michigan Transportation Company. In the summer of 1868 he was in the fruit commission business at Chicago with M. G. Lamport and Albert Thompson. In 1888 he became a partner with Capt. A. Robbins, and stocked the flour mill which Kirby & Sons had exhausted their ready means in building. In 1868, also, he purchased the Palladium of S. J. Merchant, who had been given a bonus to start the paper a short time previous. Under Mr. Thresher’s management it became the leading paper of the county. He sold it in 1872 to Alvin Sturtevant, formerly of the Ohio State Journal, Columbus, Ohio. In 1872, Mr. Thresher purchased of J. Stanley Morton his drug stock, and carried on the business until 1877. Meantime he was appointed Postmaster by President Grant, and served out the term with the highest credit.

In 1874 he was appointed Administrator for Michigan for the Hopkins estate. In 1867 he was Secretary of the St. Joseph Valley Railroad Company. In 1869 he made a contract with Mr. Joy and raised the required donation that gave Benton Harbor the Chicago & West Michigan Railroad, notwithstanding the opposition of the President and St. Joseph. From 1870 to 1880 he labored to get the Cincinnati, Wabash & Michigan Railroad and finally succeeded. From 1878 to 1880 he traveled in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, then for a year engaged in the real-estate business at No. 102 Washington Street, Chicago, the firm being Thresher, Young & Sheldon. In 1882 he again purchased the Palladium, which he published until 1886. In that year he organized the Benton Harbor Flour Purifier Company, and later organized the Benton Harbor Plow Company. In 1887 he was appointed to close up the business of the unfortunate Benton Harbor Church and Office Furniture Company. In 1890 he assisted to organize, and until 1892 was Assistant General Manager of the Benton Harbor Improvement Association. He united with the Baptist Church in 1867. Though an earnest and active Republican, he never held an elective office except that of Township Clerk for a short time.