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

1410

HISTORY OF MICHIGAN

practice, each member of the firm having a different and well defined
department of practice, so that the general prestige of the combination is
furthered.
Mr. Ross has been a valued and dominating factor in connection with
the manoeuvering of political forces in Michigan, as one of the representative exponents of the principles and policies of the Republican party.
He has been most aggressive and influential as a campaign speaker, and
in I9IO, he was made the nominee of his party for lieutenant governor of
the state, as the running mate of Hon. Chase Osborn. He made a
specially brilliant canvass and did much to make the ensuing victory in
the state election one of unequivocal order. He was elected by a gratifying majority, proved a most progressive and efficient executive officer and
most popular as the presiding officer of the state senate. He was reelected in I912. He was the first president of the West Michigan Development Bureau; is a member of and has been president of the Muskegon
Chamber of Commerce and has always been a worker for Muskegon and
has done much for this part of Michigan.
Mr. Ross, as may well be understood, is one of the progressive and
public-spirited citizens of Muskegon, and he has won to himself a very
wide circle of staunch friends in Michigan. In his home city he is an
interested principal in several business concerns, he is one of the successful and representative members of the bar of this section of the state, and
his advancement stands as the direct result of his own efforts, which have
been marked by high ideals and by impregnable integrity of purpose. Mr.
Ross is affiliated with the Benevolent & Protective Order of Elks and the
Knights of Pythias, in the latter of which he has served as vice-chancellor
commander.
In the year 900o was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Ross to Miss
Katherine B. Schwedler, who was born in Germany and who was two
years of age when she accompanied her widowed mother to America, her
father, William Schwedler having died in the Vaterland. Mr. and Mrs.
Ross have two children, Raymond F. and Florence A.
JAMES HARVEY GREGG. One of Detroit's leading business men is
James H. Gregg, secretary and general manager of the Gregg Hardware
Company, one of the large wholesale houses in that line in the state. Mr.
Gregg came from the farm when a boy, learned the hardware business
through wholesale channels, and from the subordinate grades of service
where he was one among hundreds who rose to the heavy responsibilities
of management and finally to independent action in his chosen field.
James Harvey Gregg was born at Browning, Lynn county, Missouri,
August 8, I866. A brief account of his family and its important moves
in the world is as follows: His parents were George and Mary (Steel)
Gregg. The Gregg family was founded in the United States three generations ago by John Gregg, a native of Germany, who came over with
his wife and settled near the city of Philadelphia, but later moved to Ohio,
and there bought land in Carroll county and developed a fine farm. That
old homestead, now many times more valuable than when first occupied,
is still in the possession of the Gregg family, and a brother of the Detroit
business man is its proprietor. George Gregg, the father, was born on
this old homestead in Carroll county and died there in I899. His wife
was born in the same county and is now living in her seventy-sixth year.
Her father, James Steel, was of Irish descent. George Gregg and wife
were married in Carroll county in I865, and during the same year
moved out to Missouri, locating in Lynn county, but at the end of some
five or six years, on account of repeated droughts in that section, conditions were such as to discourage farming and he returned to Carroll
county at or in the vicinity of his birthplace.