History of Bay County

PROPRIETORS OF LOWER SAGINAW

Were James Fraser, James G. Birney and Dr. Daniel H. Fitzhugh, of whom we make the following biographical sketches.

THE PROJECTOR OF BAY CITY

James Fraser's business career is inseparably intertwined with all the important features of a history of Lower Saginaw and Bay City. The former he founded, and developing into the latter has become the monument of his sagacity and unfaltering courage. We shall attempt in this connection only an outline of his life, as the history of his business relations, and the results of his efforts, necessarily appear in other places in this work.

Mr. Fraser was born at Inverness, Scotland, February 5, 1803. his father in early life was a soldier in a British regiment, and in 1796, in the war with the French, lost a leg at the Island of St. Luce, and was afterwards a pensioner of the government. His mother spent the last year of her life in the family of her son James and with daughters at Lower Saginaw. Her death occurred in 1850.

When quite young Mr. Fraser engaged in business for himself, and accumulated several thousand dollars, which he brought with him to America. He had no advantages of early education or fortune, beyond what his own unaided energy secured. In the after years of his wealth he never forgot his origin or desired others to forget it. The contrasts of the different circumstances of his life he neither boasted of nor sought to conceal, though he often referred to the scenes of his youth, when he waded bare-legged through the snow to carry a message for a ha'penny, or his taking daily a brick of turf under his arm as a contribution to the fire of the village school. He emigrated to America in the year 1829, bringing with him the few thousands of dollars he had accumulated. His first business experience was temporarily disastrous, though, perhaps, ultimately profitable. In company with two or three of his fellow countrymen an attempt was made to build a saw mill near Rochester, in Oakland County. They spent the Winter in making preparations, paying exorbitant prices for material and supplies, and in the Spring their funds had run so low that the enterprise was abandoned. Mr. Fraser found his capital reduced to less than $100, and with this

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Remnant he went to Detroit. There he established a small grocery and made money rapidly. In 1832 he married Miss Elizabeth Busby, a young English lady of more than ordinary personal attractions, who, with her parents, had emigrated from London the year previous. In the Autumn of 1833 he determined to move to Saginaw, and occupy a tract of land he had previously purchased on the Tittabawassee River. All that time there was only an Indian trail between Flint and Saginaw; the usual mode of travel being on horseback. The distance was thirty-eight miles, and Mrs. Fraser having a young child must have some easier vehicle than the saddle. Mr. Fraser's resources were equal to emergency, and he had a rude ox sled made with a comfortable seat upon which Mrs. Fraser rode, while her father and mother accompanied Mr. Fraser on horseback to their new home.

Soon after getting his family settled, he returned to Detroit to purchase some cattle for his farm, and while driving in on foot, between Flint and Saginaw, his cattle got wild and would not keep the trail. He chased them until he got tired, when he took off his coat and after carrying it a while, and getting near the trail once more, as he supposed, he hung it on a tree in order to head off his coat and after carrying it a while, and getting near the trail once more, as he supposed, he hung it on a tree in order to head off the cattle. In doing so, he last the location where he left his coat and he could never find it. Mr. Fraser used to say in after years, when he was worth nearly a million, that "this was the greatest loss he ever had in his life, as his pocket contained $500; all the money he had in the world was in that coat pocket." There was great hunting for that coat, but it was never found. Undoubtedly the wolves pulled it down and destroyed it.

He cleared some land and planted an orchard that was afterwards noted as being the most flourishing in this part of the state. With true Scotch feeling, he was always averse to parting from that farm, and held it while he lived. In the division of his estate it went to Mrs. Paine, of Saginaw, in whose possession it still remains. Mr. Fraser soon found a more profitable occupation than farming, in locating and dealing in government lands. During the early part of 1836, he removed his family to Saginaw City, and never returned to his farm.

From this time on, his business operations outreach the limits of biography and are traceable through the general history of progress and development in the Saginaw Valley. During 1835 and 1836 land in favorable locations reached almost fabulous prices, and Mr. Fraser's sagacity enabled him to reap a golden harvest. In 1836 he was a leading spirit in the organization of the Saginaw Bay Company, which purchased the present site of Bay City. The financial crash of 1837 wrecked this company and most of the stockholders, Mr. Fraser being about the only one who survived. His business achievements from 1835 to 1838, including his successful issue from the great panic of 1837, must be regarded as among the most remarkable on record. He bought when lands were cheap, and was shrewd enough to sell when the advance would realize him a handsome profit. It was one of his rules to always keep on hand an amount of ready money, and by doing this he was not only prepared for a panic, but was ready to improve the best opportunities for making a good bargain. After the Saginaw Bay Company went down he associated with him James G. Birney and Dr. Daniel H. Fitzhugh, and they purchased considerable of the scrip, and became the proprietors of Lower Saginaw. In 1845 he built a water mill at Kawkawlin, and began the manufacture of lumber. During the next three years he was interested in the building and operation of two stream saw mills on the Saginaw River, and later in a stream mill on the Kawkawlin River. He succeeded Judge Riggs as Indian agent, and that was the only office with any emolument that he was ever induced to take. In 1848 Mrs. Fraser died, leaving a family of three sons and three daughters. October 28, 1850, he married Miss Susan Moulton, of Westport, Conn., a woman of beautiful character, whose spirit of Christian benevolence has made her life one of great usefulness. The union was one of mutual happiness and blessing. It was the law and custom of Connecticut in those days to "cry out the bans" in church, and to escape this publicity, they were married in New York City. The fruit of this marriage was one daughter. In 1857 they removed to Lower Saginaw, and here in his commodious mansion was dispensed a most liberal hospitality. Here his great energies were directed, not alone to his private enterprises, but to public improvement and the general development of the county. About the last enterprise of his life was the erection of the large brick block that now bears his name, "The Fraser House," at the corner of Center and Water Streets, but which he did not live to see completed and occupied. The church edifice on Washington Street, in which the Baptist Society first worshipped, was almost entirely a gift from him.

In 1864 he began to feel that he would like a more quiet life, and with his family went to Brooklyn for a few months and thence to Westport, Conn., where he continued to reside until his death, although much of his time was spent in Bay City. His last sickness commenced with an ordinary cold, which developed into typhoid pneumonia, and resulted in his death January 28, 1866. The announcement of his death produced a profound impression in Bay City, and the event received appropriate public recognition by the citizens of this place. His remains were buried at Westport. Of the children, only four are living: Mrs. William McEwan and Mrs. E. B. Denison, of Bay City; Mrs. A. B. Paine, of Saginaw, and Mrs. George T. Blackstock, of Toronto, Canada. Mrs. Fraser is now the wife of Hon William McMaster, a wealthy banker of Toronto and a member of the Dominion Parliament.

The life and character of Mr. Fraser were truly remarkable in energy, persistency and endurance, although in every respect he was a man of marked traits. It was, however, in his working faculties that he stood most conspicuously before his fellow men. It is safe to say that there are few men living capable of enduring even for a short time what he passed through as the daily routine of life. At a time when the saddle and canoe were almost the only means of communication, his business required his presence in almost every part of the valley, and often at the headquarters of the state in Detroit. He was then literally ubiquitous. He seemed entirely insensible to fatigue, heat or cold or anything which stood between him and the object at which he aimed. He more than once rode straight through from Saginaw City to Detroit by the light of a single sun,-a distance of about ninety-five miles,-on some occasions never changing his horse. But this was nothing; arriving at home at nightfall, after toils which most men would have considered a warrant for a long rest, and finding a letter or a message which required his presence elsewhere, with scarce a pause, he would spring again into the saddle, and no matter how dark, or wet or cold, he would plunge into the almost pathless forest with a seeming recklessness, but with an instinctive sagacity and force of will and power of endurance that always brought him through, and generally, "on time." With the land office at Detroit for the goal, a choice section of land for the prize, it is believed that there was never a man who could beat James Fraser in the race. Often in the dead of night, the solitary settler at the Cass Crossing would hear a horse thundering at full speed across the bridge, and would say the next morning that James Fraser had gone in or out, as the case might be. An acquaintance, speaking of Mr. Fraser, says:- "The first glimpse I ever had of him was in the trail between Flint and Cass in 1836. The mud was knee deep, and water was above the mud, but he passed through at speed with merely a shout. He was without a hat, and covered with mud, his head being bound with

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A handkerchief. On meeting him afterwards I learned that he had been all night in the woods, having lost his way, and afterwards his hat, but he was going to Detroit to enter some land at Lower Saginaw, and his errand brooked no delay."

In the Spring of 1850, his eldest son was sick at Detroit. Growing suddenly worse, his father's presence was desired as quickly as possible, and a messenger was dispatched to inform him. Mr. Fraser was in Saginaw when the intelligence reached him. Instanly ordering his famous horse "Fair Play," he was soon in the saddle and away. It was in the month of March, and the roads of those days were worse even than usual, if such a thing were possible. But a better pair never started upon a race for life, even under the graphic colorings of fiction, than James Fraser and his pet, "Fair Play;" and in eight hours and forty-five minutes from the time of starting, the distance of ninety-five miles had been traversed and Mr. Fraser was at the bedside of his dying son, having changed horses two or three times on the way.

Instances similar to the foregoing, of the feats performed by this man, are numerous enough to fill a volume. The horse, "Fair Play," was an animal of great beauty and endurance, and known throughout all this region. But horse and rider long since halted at the end of life's journey. The wilderness through which they plunged by day and night has disappeared; the trails they followed have become highways of mighty industries, and the stations at which they stopped are populous centers of activity and thrift.

In his intercourse with the world Mr. Fraser was one of the most genial and pleasant men. The fervor and enthusiasm of his social qualities are well remembered traits of his character. In his home he was truly hospitable, his house being for a long time headquarters for strangers who came to the valley.

It has been truly said of Mr. Fraser that as a business man he was a class by himself. For many years his head was his ledger and his hat was his safe, yet with a memory clear and tenacious, even to the smallest details, he transacted his affairs with the utmost exactness. When his affairs extended entirely beyond his capacious mental grasp, he was forced to employ the usual agencies for doing business, but even then he was inclined to continue his primitive methods to a certain extent; methods that had brought him a fortune of nearly or quite a million dollars.

Mr. Fraser was never a member of any church, but during the last years of his life gave his attention to religious matters and observances. He became an industrious student of the Bible and conducted family worship, and at the last met death calmly and peacefully.

Such is an imperfect outline of the character and career of the man whose might activity flashes across all the changing scenes through which Bay City has passed. One who knew him well says truly that the biographer who could have caught the combined the story of James Fraser's life as it frequently fell from his own lips in his own racy and graphic language during moments of free social intercourse, might have given the world a most amusing and instructive book. To the student of human nature it would have presented some new and interesting combinations of the threads and colors which enter into the warp and woof of human life.