History of Michigan, / by Charles Moore. [Vol. 3]

HISTORY OF MICHIGAN

1419

Detroit, and later his son Jacob S. served with distinction as a member
of the Detroit board of water commissioners.
Jacob S. Farrand gained his rudimentary education in his native state
and was a lad of ten years at the time of the family removal to Michigan. At Ann Arbor he continued to attend school when opportunity
offered, and there first became identified with that line of enterprise
along which he was destined to achieve prominence and distinctive success. When but twelve years of age he was employed in a drug store in
the little village of Ann Arbor, but the next year was given the appointment to carry the mail between Ann Arbor and Detroit, the trips being
made on horseback and the roads usually in an execrable condition. In
1830 Mr. Farrand established his permanent residence in Detroit, and
became a clerk in the retail drug store of Rice & Bingham. Five years
later, when but twenty years of age, he formed a partnership with Edward Bingham of that firm, and thus began his independent career as a
druggist. Within a short time came his appointment as deputy revenue
collector for the port and district of Detroit, which district then included
all of the United States shores of Lakes Huron and Michigan. During
I841 Mr. Farrand served as military secretary to the governor of Michigan, with the rank of major.
In 1845 Mr. Farrand engaged in the drug business at 80 Woodward
avenue, and in 1859 Alanson Sheley became associated in the business.
In the following year, upon the admission of William C. Williams to
partnership, the title of the firm was changed to Farrand, Sheley & Company, and the enterprise was expanded to both wholesale and retail. In
I87I Harvey C. Clark became a member of the firm and the title was
then changed to Farrand, Williams & Company. The business was developed until it became the largest of the kind in Michigan and one of
the most important in the middle west. The annual volume of business
grew to exceed one million dollars, and Mr. Farrand continued a strong
directing force, under various changes in partnership, until attacked with
the illness that resulted in his death, at which time he was senior member
of Farrand, Williams & Clark.
His great business sagacity brought him other important interests in
Detroit. He was a director and for fifteen years president of the First
National Bank of Detroit; was one of the incorporators of the Wayne
County Savings Bank, and became its vice-president; for nearly a score
of years was president of the Michigan Mutual Life Insurance Company;
was a director of the Detroit Fire & Marine Insurance Company; was
treasurer of the Detroit Gas Light Company; and held other important
capitalistic interests. For six years Mr. Farrand served as a member of
the Detroit board of education, and from I86o to I864 he was a valued
member of the city council, having been its president for one year and
for a short time acting mayor of the city. For fully a quarter of a century he was a member of the city board of water commissioners, and its
president for a long period, besides which he served eight years as president of the board of police commissioners. His relations with religious,
educational and charitable organizations were equally useful. He served
as president of Harper Hospital Board of Trustees, and as president of
the governing board of the Detroit Home & Day School; was president
of the Wayne County Bible Society and the Detroit Society for Sabbath
Observance, and was a trustee of the Eastern Asylum for the Insane, a
state institution. For thirty-five years an elder of the First Presbyterian
church of Detroit, Mr. Farrand was a commissioner of the Presbyterian
general assemblies of I863, I869 and 1873, and in the last mentioned
year was likewise a commissioner to the Canadian assembly. In 1877
he was a delegate to the Pan-Presbyterian council, in Edinburgh, Scot