clay. Its capital was small, and the works established at the corner of Atwater and Rivard streets, was very unpretentious. The firm so continued, doing a successful and growing business, until 1865, when Messrs. Cowie and Barclay retired, and the firm became Hodge & Christie. In 1870, Mr. Hodge bought the interest of Mr. Christie and continued the business individually.

In 1876, during the worst of the depression which followed the crash of 1873, Mr. Hodge built the extensive and commodious structure now occupied by S. F. Hodge & Company, one of the most convenient manufacturing establishments in Detroit, and equipped it with a plant second to none. His friends remonstrated with him for making so large an outlay at such a time, but he answered by saying that a time of financial depression is always the most economical time to buy or to build. A practical justification of this view is found in the fact that his building and equipment cost him less, by many thousands of dollars, than they would have done had the work been delayed even three years.

In 1883, desiring to withdraw to an extent from the care and responsibility of business life, Mr. Hodge organized a corporation under the name of "Samuel F. Hodge & Company," to which the business was transferred, he serving, however, a considerable share of the stock, and retaining the presidency of the company until his death, since which time his son, Harry S. Hodge, has held that office.

Mr. Hodge had neither time nor taste for active political work. He voted for Lincoln in 1860, but later became a moderate Democrat. He was a member of the water commission from 1871, when he succeeded A. D. Fraser, until 1879, when he in turn was succeeded by James Beatty. He never held an office of emolument, and, when urged to accept the nomination for mayor, firmly declined, announcing that he was fully satisfied with experience in the public service.

His money was for the most part, until the incorporation of the establishment, kept in his own business. He was not connected with other industrial interests, and his investments were usually of a permanent nature, though he at times bought and sold Lake Superior stocks to advantage. He died on the fourteenth day of April, 1884, leaving a handsome fortune and a share in the great establishment he had built up, to his wife, whose maiden name was Elizabeth Clark, and to his five children.

Such, in the briefest outline, was the life of Samuel F. Hodge; but there are some personal particulars yet to tell, that the full force of his success may be known. It has been told that he was a worker when yet little more than a child. He shared the lot of his Cornish neighbors-that of hard work, early and late-in all his youth and early manhood. He had little opportunity for education, none for amusement or elegant accomplishment, yet, when, at the age of twenty-seven years, he came to America he came a poor

It must be a man of no ordinary character who can come out from such an apprenticeship more than a mere mechanical drudge, yet he escaped this fate. In some way, in the intervals of his toilsome life, he succeeded in informing and developing his mind and taste. He showed independence of thought, breadth of idea and grasp of principle; he read and digested the work of good writers, and reasoned for himself with discrimination and acumen. His favorite reading was the mysterious Junius letters, with which comparatively few reading men of this day are familiar, and the trenchant force of these writings showed its influence in his own spoken and written words.

Though all his years until middle life were passed at the forge or in the shop, when he embarked in business for himself he showed a familiarity with the methods of business which would have become one educated in a counting room. His first letter-press copybook shows great method and neatness in correspondence, with the full capacity to express himself with force and

ease.

While he developed unusual ability in large affairs, much of his success is due to his familiarity with every detail of his business. His was, to the last, a familiar face among his own workmen, and he was fully competent to detect, and ready to reprove, carelessness or slovenliness of workmanship.

An interesting example of his practical sense, skill in controversy and mys

afforded during his connection with the business of the Lake Superior country. The miners and other operators of the region were many of them Cornish men, a race obstinately conservative and fanatically opposed to innovation. For the reduction of ore, old fashioned Cornish stamps, such as the men had been accustomed to in the old country, were at first used, and, when it was sought to introduce the "Ball stamp," working on the principle of the steam hammer, and an immense improvement, the change. was bitterly opposed by the men. An editor in the region came to the defense of the improvement, and a lively newspaper controversy followed, in which the editor was assailed by a legion of correspondents, who asked the use of his own columns to refute his position. Finding himself overmastered, by reason of his lack of technical knowledge, he appealed to Mr. Hodge for aid and the latter took the battle off his hands.

For a long time Mr. Hodge carried on this contest single-handed against the whole array of Cornish obstructionists. The editor weekly sent him the manuscript contributions, and his replies appeared in print side by side with them. Appreciating the moral force of numbers, he multiplied himself by adopting a number of nomes de plume, and maintaining his own incognito, carried the controversy to a complete victory. The letters are keen, logical and of literary excellence, and caused a sensation at the time of their appearance.

A short quotation from one of the communications written by Mr. Hodge, in

the course of this controversy, will not be amiss, as illustrating his trenchant style and his good literary form :

I cannot maintain my own position unless I prove that yours is wrong; this makes it a difficult task for me, when all your theories and deductions therefrom are founded upon wrong hypotheses. In your first letter you were guilty of an error in calculation, accidental or intentional; it was detected and I stated in my reply that it was so and that your deductions were erroneous. In your next you asserted you were right, as per experiment with the scale. I reiterated that you had again deceived yourself, and recommended to you a simple contrivance to thoroughly

test it. This it seems your prejudice would not admit of. I reiterate that you are wrong again, and further, that you have not, to date, given us the

first correct deduction from sound premises. If you

consider that style of talk personal, make the most of it.

You remark that you have finished tilting with a masked opponent; as you please, but one word before you leave. Remember that it was at your

Mr. Hodge was a man upon whose business and personal record there is no spot or shadow. He was punctiliously honest, in spirit as in deed; kind and generous, a good citizen, a true friend and a loving husband and father. He left a name more precious than his fortune and an example worthy of study and pursuit. Considering the starting point and the goal, his race was a wonderful one, but those who read this sketch will know that it was no miracle

only the work of a faithful, patient, honest man, whom the poorest and simplest may imitate.

W. B.

ONE of the most successful business men in Detroit and, in his own field, one of the most successful in the world, is Hervey C. Parke, the financial head of the firm of manufacturing chemists and pharmacists, Parke, Davis & Company. His fortune is purely the fruit of his own efforts and of a close and unsparing devotion to the duty of the hour. He began his career with no fortuitous advantages, and the story of his life is the better worth telling for that fact.

Mr. Parke's remote ancestors were English people and occupied positions of consequence in the ancient city of Bristol. Quite early in the Eighteenth century, one of them, Daniel Parke, the

great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, came to America and settled at Middle Haddam, Connecticut. Though living in the very heart of a Puritan community, this first American Parke was a staunch adherent of the church of England, as was his son after him.

John Parke, son of the first emigrant to America, was also a resident of Middle Haddam, and was extensively engaged in business as a ship builder and in the West India trade. He remained in Connecticut until about the year 1816, when he removed to Oneida county, New York, being accompanied by his children, among whom was his son Ezra S. Parke, the father of the