The Bridges moved to
Saginaw, Michigan initially to begin their married life. Work in the lumber industry would have been plentiful for an enterprising 27 year old with relevant experience and connections from out east. Within a few years, they moved a few miles up the Saginaw River to
Bay City which was rapidly becoming a major center of shipping for the Great Lakes.
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| Bay City, Michigan 1872 |
It was at this time that Bill became involved in the shipping business, and in the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s started and grew his own shipping business that ran lumber and later coal from the western tip of Lake Superior at Duluth, Minnesota to the eastern tip of Lake Erie at Buffalo, New York.
Bill and Nettie had their first child, Elizabeth Louise (Lizzie) in 1870. Their next 2 children, a daughter and a son, both died within a few days of birth in 1874 and 1880, and it wasn't until 1884 that Willard Allen (Bill) was born.
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| Bill Bridges, Bay City, 1888 |
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| Lizzie Bridges, Bay City, 1873 |
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| Bill Bridges' business letterhead with his family history |
During this time, Bill would have been away from home for many weeks at a time on his boats picking up lumber at towns along the Great Lakes and delivering them to mills and cities in the east.
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| Sault Ste. Marie August 28, 1902 The Barge Alleghany. This was WHB's last boat on the Great Lakes. He was master of this barge, then retired. He is standing atop the lumber at left. |
By the end of the century, Cleveland, Ohio on Lake Erie was becoming the center of the Great Lakes shipping business and the Captain and his family moved there in 1904. By his mid-60s, Bill had achieved a modest success in his shipping business and had become a pillar of Cleveland society. He was an active Republican and senior member of the Kinghts Templar masonic society.
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| WHB at South Bay, NY July 1923 |
In 1910, he finally retired from his business and when Nettie died in 1914, Bill moved to
Syracuse, New York to live with Lizzie, who ran a small hotel there. He lived in Syracuse until his own death in 1923 at the age of 82. He is buried with Nettie in Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio.
I love the last photo of our great-grandfather. It could so easily be a photo of Dad.
ReplyDeleteThat is wonderful Markie. Such vivid descriptions, such an evocative photo of Bay City Michigan. I love the pictures of Lizzie and Bill dressed up as kids. I agree: I thought the same about that last photo and the joshing stance. That these mannerisms can be passed down through the generations is somehow reassuring - from even before Dad was born!
ReplyDeleteLove the pics. And that one of little Bill shows that the prominent ears go back generations...
ReplyDeleteInteresting that you haven't come across any mention of The Captain having any involvement in the Civil War, given he was just the right age - 21 to 25 - to be drafted. Or have you?
I had wondered that myself (imagining perhaps he served in the Navy, thereby gaining his boating experience for later life). I went back to trusty Ancestry.com to look up war records and found the following interesting document from the 1863 Annual Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Maine: http://bit.ly/IcPV95
ReplyDeleteIt shows that Bill was drafted in 1863 but his father, Oren (misspelled Orra), went in his place. This was quite common through the middle of the war (explained here: http://anse.rs/IcRrrV). It appears that Oren made it through safely, but died some time before the 1870 census.
Oren was 44 when he substituted for 23 year old Bill. Perhaps, with shorter life expectancies, he felt that the best part of his life was over and younger Bill would be a safer bet to keep working the family farm. No doubt that it was a brave decision motivated out of the love of his son and family.