William F. CALKINS. A native son of Michigan who has shown
distinctive initiative and executive ability, as well as broad technical
knowledge along mechanical lines, is William Fenelon CALKINS, who has been essentially the architect of his own fortunes
and who has risen to secure status as one of the representative captains of
industry in his native State. He has
been a resident of Traverse City since 1887 and is one of its honored and
influential citizens, with large interests in connection with a number of the
leading manufacturing enterprises which lend to the industrial precedence of
Grand Traverse county, as further data in this context will fully reveal. He has been dependent upon his own resources
from his boyhood days, and in his character and achievement he has signally
honored the State that gave him birth and to which he accords unfaltering
loyalty and appreciation.
Mr. CALKINS is a scion of a sterling
pioneer family of Michigan and was born at Battle Creek, this State, on the 26th
of November, 1855, the present fine metropolis of Calhoun county having been at
that time a mere village. He is a son
of Fenelon and Louise (PIERCE) CALKINS, both of whom were born and
reared in Wyoming county, New York, and he is a posthumous child, as his birth
occurred six months after the death of his father, the other child of this
union being Emma, who is the wife of Oscar F. WALRATH, of Glen Ellyn, Dupage county, Illinois. The mother finally contracted a second
marriage, becoming the wife of John C. DYKMAN,
and she continued her residence in Michigan until the time of her death. William F. CALKINS owing to the death of his father, early faced the battle of
life on his own responsibility, and while he thus had fellowing with toil and
adversity in his youth the discipline proved valuable in developing and
maturing a strong and resourceful nature and in prompting that ambition and
self reliance that have made him a successful man of affairs and a progressive
and useful citizen. He attended the
public schools until he had attained to the age of twelve years, and he then
went to the State of New York, where he remained for several years on the old
homestead farm of his paternal grandparents.
His broader education-and he is a man of large information and mature
judgment has been gained principally through self-application and through the
lessons received under the preceptorship of that wisest of all head-masters
experience.
At the
age of nineteen years Mr. CALKINS went
to California, where he was variously employed, but within a few years he
returned to Michigan and became actively identified with the great limbering
industry, which was then in its zenith.
He had already acquired a considerable amount of practical experience as
a millwright, and after passing three years at Big Rapids, in sawmill work; he
went to Muskegon, where he entered the employ of the firm of STIMPSON, FAY Company. He there remained as superintendent of the
sawmills of the firm for six years, and had supervision of the work of a corps
of eighty-five men. His early
experience at Muskegon and Traverse City included the supervision of the
manufacturing of more than two million feet of white-pine lumber, during the
twelve years of his connection with the firm mentioned. After the closing down of the mills of this
representative firm Mr. STIMPSON
earnestly importuned Mr. CALKINS to
join him in lumbering operations in the State of Oregon, where Mr. STIMPSON became a prominent and
successful operator in manufacturing of lumber. Mr. CALKINS was
tendered flattering overtures to assume the superintendency of the a STIMPSOM mills on the Pacific coast,
but he had promised to remain in Traverse City and has never had cause to
regret this promise, for here he has found ample opportunity for the achieving
of distinctive success.
In 1887
Mr. CALKINS went to Traverse City in
company with John J. FAY, with whom
he became associated in the operation of the saw mill at that time known as the
“Big Mill” of the firm of HANNAH &
LAY. The mill was later purchased by John F. OTT, who operated it until the business was closed down owing to
the lack of adequate supply resources, with the virtual exhaustion of the
timber of this section. After having
the management of this mill for a period of six years, during which he was
still in the employ of STIMPSON, FAY
& Company, Mr. CALKINS identified
himself with the Traverse City Iron Works, then operated by the late William HOLDSWORTH, who was succeeded by the
firm of THRILBY & JACKSON. Upon the retirement of Mr. JACKSON
his interest was purchased by the late Robert W. ROUND, and in 1894 Mr. CALKINS
himself became one of the interested principals, whereupon the title of the
firm was changed to THRILBY &
CALKINS. Under this firm name the
business was successfully continued until 1908, when its expansion in scope and
importance rendered expedient the incorporation the Traverse City Iron Company,
which bases it operation on a capital stock of $100,000 and the executive corps
of which is as here designated: William THRILBY,
president; William F. CALKINS, vice
president and treasurer; and George THRILBY,
secretary. Mr. CALKINS not only gives close attention to his executive duties as
vice president and treasurer but also has general superintendence of the plant,
as a man of fine technical ability and as an expert artisan. Concerning his association with this
enterprise the following pertinent statement has been made: “He is thoroughly conversant with every
branch of the business and is considered an authority on many subjects in
connection therewith. The plant builds
gas-producing engines of the highest grade, and a specialty is made of the
installing of heating plants, besides which the enterprise includes diverse
other lines of work common to industrial concerns of this order.” A more recent phase of enterprise taken up
by the company is in the erection and equipment of electric light and water
power plants, and the corporation has assumed large and important contract of
this kind in Midland, Barry, Missaukee and other counties of the State. In this special department of the large and
substantial business the company give employment to a force of thirty men.
Broad-minded and enterprising as a citizen, Mr. CALKINS has ever been ready to lend his influence and co-operation
in measures and under-takings projected for the general good of the community,
and while he is a staunch adherent of the Republican party and has had no
ambition for public office, his civic loyalty prompted him to accept the
position of member of the Traverse City board of public works, an office to
which he was elected in April 1897, and concerning his connection with which
the following estimate has been given:
“He served on this board for seven years, as its chairman during his
term of office, and within his regime was completed the first street paving in the
city, and it was largely through his efforts that the splendid work thus done
on Front street was ordered by the city council. He retired form office with an excellent record and much to the
regret of many representative citizens, who would have been glad to have him
remain in the position indefinitely.”
Mr. CALKINS is a stockholder and director
of the First National Bank of Traverse City and a stockholder in the People’s
Savings Bank. He is president of the BROWN Lumber Company and also of the
Potato Implement Company, which latter represents one of the important
industrial enterprises of Traverse City.
Of this corporation he was one of the organizers, and he has been its
president form the beginning, besides which he is president of the Traverse
City Brick Company, of which likewise he was one of the organizers. He has a wide acquaintanceship among the
representative figures in manufacturing circles in his native State and his
broad and intimate knowledge of mechanics makes his judgment virtually
authoritative, the while he has ordered his course upon a high plane of
integrity and honor and fully merits the unqualified esteem in which he is
uniformly held. A reader and student,
Mr. CALKINS has become a man of wide
mental ken, and well fortified views, and he has taken special pleasure in the
study of astronomy, besides delving into other scientific subjects. He is a member of the National Geographic
Society and a member of the Northwestern Bankers Club.
In the
city of Muskegon, on the 7th of November, 1882, was solemnized the
marriage of Mr. CALKINS to Miss
Annie C. ROYCE, who was born at
Pembroke, Renfrew county, Province of Ontario, Canada, and who is a daughter of
Isaac B. and Susan ROYCE, her father having been a pioneer fur dealer and later
becoming prominently identified with lumbering operations at Muskegon, this
state. Mrs. CALKINS is an influential and popular factor in social, church and
club affairs in her home city, where she is a zealous member of the Central
Methodist Episcopal Church, and prominent in its missionary work, as is she
also in leading social and literary clubs in Traverse City, where she is also
secretary of the board of trustees of the public library. Mr. and Mrs. CALKINS have one daughter, Lulu, who was born at Muskegon, in 1883,
and who is now the wife of Frederick A. NOTEWARE,
a member of the editorial staff of the Chicago Inter Ocean, now under the same
control as is the Chicago Herald. Mr.
and Mrs. NOTEWARE have a daughter,
Margaret, who was born in 1904.