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

HISTORY OF MICHIGAN

1573

on both gentlemen. After the completion of the work, Mr. Marsh having
accepted a position in a western city, Mr. Mackay tendered for and secured the contract to pave Butler street from Huron avenue to the St.
Clair river. In this he met with a reverse which almost ruined him financially. He had purchased the cedar for the work at Anderson station
(now Applegate). The long to be remembered fire in the Thumb territory
in I88I destroyed all his cedar material, leaving him in an unenviable position, with obligations far exceeding his capital resources. With grim determination he faced the conditions manfully, and in due time succeeded
in completing the work and in such a way as to pass the strictest tests of
inspection. However, this creditable performance of contractual obligations had swallowed up all his means, leaving him in debt as well, which it
took him some years to liquidate. However, the work'so reflected to his
credit that Michael Fleming, banker, and Thomas Kenny, wholesale
grocer, commissioners appointed by the town of Sarnia, Ontario, to
secure the paving for the first time of Front street in their town, induced
Mr. Mackay to tender a bid for the work, which he succeeded in securing
in the summer of 1883, and this work he completed in a substantial manner and with profit to himself.
On December Io, 1884, at Ripley, Ontario, Mr. Mackay married Miss
Alma Jennie Bowers, daughter of John and Ann (Lynn) Bowers, natives
of the city of Exeter, England, from which place they emigrated to Canada
in the early fifties, locating first in the vicinity of Port Perry, Ontario,
later removing into the wilderness in Bruce county in the vicinity of Rip-, ley, where they died at a ripe age, the mother attaining the age of ninetytwo years. Mrs. Mackay was born at Port Perry on December 22, 1859.
Of their marriage came three children: Earle B. Mackay, born May 20,
I887, a graduate of the high school of his native city and of the University of Toronto, is a druggist by profession and at the head of the
drug firm of E. B. Mackay & Company, and in I9II married Florence,
a daughter of Ernest Akers, and an adopted daughter of her maternal
uncle, Edward Reynolds. Hazel Jeanette, the second child, born May 14,
1890, is also a graduate of the Port Huron high school. The youngest,
Kenneth John, born May 23, I895, is at this writing a student in the city
high school, and a member of the graduating class of June, I914.
In religion Mr. Mackay is, as might be expected, a Presbyterian, a
member and an elder of the First Presbyterian church, and also a member of its board of trustees, and for years has efficiently served the board
as secretary. Fraternally he belongs to the Ancient Order of Free and
Accepted Masons, having been raised in Pine Grove Lodge No. ii, June
23, 1873, and placed upon its Life Membership Roll in August, 1913.
Mr. Mackay is a member of the National Geographical Society, and much
interested in that field of science and well informed. Politically a Democrat, of the free-trade type, he is in full sympathy with the present administration and a great admirer and loyal supporter of the present secretary of state in his many campaigns for the presidency of the United
States. Himself, Mr. Mackay has never attained to any political honors,
contenting himself with doing his duty as an every-day citizen. Intellectually, and in those interests and attainments which are only casually known
to his circle of business and civic acquaintances, Mr. Mackay is possessed
of unusual resources. Well read, with a small library of well selected
books, he was in his youth a fine Latin and French scholar, and has always
kept up his interests and study of the ancient Gaelic, his mother tongue.
He possesses almost every book extant in the language, and is able to
read and write it fluently, and takes much delight in its reading.
PERRY R. L. CARL. Another of the native sons of Michigan who
has given admirable account of himself as one of the world's productive