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

HISTORY OF MICHIGAN

1371

living. Anna married Cornelius Dupner, who is in the retail meat business at Muskegon. The parents were members of the Christian Reform
church, was one of the organizers of that church in Muskegon, it being
the second Dutch church in the city. In politics he was a Republican.
The name of the paternal grandfather was Renze Cooper.
Dr. John T. Cooper was six years of age when the family located at
Muskegon, and he attended the common schools and also the high
school of the city. When he started out he had only forty dollars to his
name, and entered upon his profession only after a long preliminary experience in business. With Detroit as his headquarters, he spent fourteen years on the road as a traveling salesman for the Warner Crockery
House. In the meantime his ambition has become set upon a professional
career, and he entered the Michigan College of Medicine and Surgery,
finally becoming a student in the Grand Rapids Medical College, where
he was graduated M. D. in I902. His first practice was at Grand Haven,
where he did well during the three years of his residence, and for two
years was city physician. In I905 he came to Muskegon, and here has
built up a very satisfactory patronage. In 1912 he was appointed county
physician, in which office he is giving capable service to the public. Dr.
Cooper is a member of the Muskegon county and the Michigan State
Medical Societies, and the American Medical Association. All his time
and energies are devoted to his practice.
In I886 Dr. Cooper married Jennie Tellman, a daughter of Henry
Tellman. Her father was a very well known citizen of Muskegon, served
as supervisor and city alderman, and for a long number of years was
connected with the lumber industry as a saw-filer. To the marriage of
Dr. Cooper and wife have been born six children, Mabel, who married
Dr. William Sigtenhort, who recently graduated from the Chicago Dental
College; Henry, chief inspector of the Motor Specialty Company; Margie,
who married Robert Harvey and lives in Muskegon; Theodore, a machinist in the Motor Specialty Company; Edna, in high school; and
Evelyn, in the grammar schools. The family attend church at the Houston
Avenue Reform Church. In politics he is a Republican, and for a number of years has taken much interest in politics and public life.
NEWELL AVERY. In the great lumbering industry which long constituted the basis of civic and material prosperity in Michigan, a strong,
resolute and resourceful figure in the pioneer days was the late Newell
Avery. A loyal, liberal and influential citizen of the state, not only through
his operations in the field of lumbering, but as a man of affairs and strong
personal character, he left a definite and worthy impress upon the history
of the state.
Newell Avery was born in Jefferson, Lincoln county, Maine, on the
12th of October, I817, and passed the closing years of his life in the city
of Detroit, where his death occurred on the I3th of March, I877. He was
a son of Enoch and Margaret (Shepherd) Avery, both of whom were
natives of Maine, but their parents were natives of Massachusetts and
representative of staunch old colonial families of that commonwealth,
whence they removed to the state of Maine before the war of the Revolution. The respective families settled in that part of ancient Pownalborough, now called Alna, in Lincoln county, Mlaine, and both became
worthily identified with the social and industrial development and progress
of that section of the old Pine Tree state. Newell Avery was a branch
of the staunchest of Puritan stock, a descendant of Edward Rossiter, one
of the assistants of Governor John Winthrop; of William Hilton, of the
Fortune, the second trip to Plymouth, in 1621; and of John Brown of
Pemaquid, whose deed of land from the Indians is the first recorded deed