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

HISTORY OF MICHIGAN

1653

William Peck when a boy of seventeen accompanied his parents to
Michigan, which state he has ever since continued as his permanent home.
What schooling he enjoyed he received before he was thirteen years of
age, and then began to earn his daily bread by picking up cobblestones at
four dollars a month. The first four years after his arrival in Michigan
were spent as a laborer on a farm at very low wages. In I863, when
twenty years of age, he went out to Kansas and was employed by the
United States government at Fort Leavenworth as a scout, a service which
took him along the western frontier throughout the states of Kansas,
Texas, Arkansas, and even into New Mexico. Many adventures and
many hair breadth escapes were in the record of his two years as a scout
and frontiersman.
In 1865 Mr. Peck returned to Michigan and was soon married to Miss
Jennie Beattie, who was born in Canada of Scotch ancestry. For two
years after his marriage Mr. Peck earned a living by tilling the soil in
Van Buren county, and later was employed in lumber camps in northern
Michigan. One year was spent in business at Dorr, in Allegan county.
1n the meantime, by study in spare moments, he had picked up a knowledge of telegraphy, and with that acquisition was employed as an
operator at Grand Junction. Later he found a place as conductor on the
C. & W. M. Railway running into Muskegon, and at the end of twelve
mnonths left the train service and took the management of the railroad
eating house at Grand Junction. That was his business for two years,
and after that for fifteen years he was connected with lumber manufac —
turing in various localities. This eventually brought him to Montague,
and in 1885 he established a hardware business in that village, starting
with a small stock, and developing rapidly, until his was the largest store
in the entire neighborhood. His business as 'a hardware merchant continued until I9OI, and his success was very generous and brought him
most of his present fortune. In I9OI Mr. Peck bought the Franklin House
block, and became proprietor and owner of this noted hotels, which is well
known throughout the United States.
To his marriage were born three children, as follows: Will M., who
is assistant superintendent of the McCord Manufacturing Company of
Detroit, and is married and has one child; Edna B., who married James B.
Farrell, a prosperous farmer in Oceana county; Edwin L., a sailor, who
has captain papers for the biggest boats on the lakes.
Mr. Peck is a Democrat in politics, and in the face of a strong Republican opposition was often elected to the responsible position of supervisor
in his town. He served as treasurer of the Democratic County Committee,
was for a year a justice of the peace, and for eighteen years council
man. For a number of years he was a member of the Democratic Central
Committee. His fraternal associations are with the Masonic Order, the
Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Knights of Pythias, the Royal
Arcanum, and the Knights of the Maccabees. He has passed all the
chairs in the Royal Arcanum, and was delegate to the Grand Lodge twice.
From 1893 to 1897, during the Cleveland administration, and part of
the McKinley administration, Mr. Peck served as postmaster of Montague. He has also been a member of the city council, and has given
twenty-seven years' service in behalf of public education, as a member
of the school board. He is one of the foremost citizens of Montague and
of Muskegon county.
ROBERT BRUCE ARMSTRONG, M. D. In adding the name of Dr. Robert
Bruce Armstrong to its citizenship in I894, Charlevoix was to profit by the
services of a man who possessed both the ambition and the ability to make
himself a factor of large professional usefulness. His career up to this