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

1474

HISTORY OF MICHIGAN

and the Detroit Boat Club. Dr. Jennings was married at Ann Arbor,
Michigan, on March I6, 1884, to Miss Helen Louise Felch, daughter
of the late United States Senator Alpheus Felch.
EDWIN 0. WOOD was born in Genesee county, Michigan, where his
family were pioneers. At this writing he is serving his second term as
member of the Democratic National Committee for Michigan, and is a
member of the Board of Mackinac Island State Park Commissioners,
and also a member of the Michigan Historical Commission.
He was born at Goodrich, Genesee county, Michigan, October 29,
I86I. His parents were Thomas Parmalee Wood and Paulina M.
(Hulbert) Wood. Thomas P. Wood was born at West Avon, Livingston
county, New York, June 5, 1822, and was a son of William Wood, Jr.,
who was born at Westboro, Massachusetts, and was the grandson of
William Wood, Sr., of Pomfret, Connecticut. William Wood, both
senior and junior, were soldiers of the Revolutionary war, participating in
many of the battles and campaigns to the end. The senior Wood fought
at Lexington and Bunker Hill, while his son was with Washington at
Valley Forge and Brandywine and from that time until the surrender
of Cornwallis.
Thomas P. Wood moved from New York to Michigan Territory in
1832, and settled in Genesee county, over which wilderness was still
king. In 1841 he went back to New York state and entered the Genesee
Seminary at Lima, where he completed the course of study and taught
school at Smithstown, Bloomfield and Arkwright, in Chautauqua county,
New York. Returning to Michigan, he spent the remainder of his life
in this state, his death occurring at Goodrich, December 28, I907, at the
age of eighty-five years.
On August I9, 1846, Thomas P, Wood married Miss Paulina M.
Hulbert, of West Bloomfield, Ontario county, New York. She was born
October 15, 1822, and died January 12, I908, having survived her husband
but a few days, their married life having been prolonged to a period of
more than sixty-one years.
Edwin O. Wood completed his education at Goodrich and Saginaw,
Michigan; was a clerk in a country store, then in a clothing store at Flint,
followed by five years as a commercial traveler for a Detroit wholesale
grocery house, and the succeeding five years as representative of a wholesale clothing manufacturing house of New York City. He had been
appointed a railway mail clerk in I885, but immediately resigned, preferring commercial lines. In I892 he was chairman of the Genesee County
Democratic Committee, and in March, 1893, one of President Cleveland's
first appointments was that of Mr. Wood as special agent of the United
States Treasury. He conducted a vigorous investigation and prosecution
of cases in the United States customs service, and his work in that connection gave his name national prominence. He was sent to the Pacific
Coast by Secretary of the Treasury John G. Carlisle to investigate conditions in the customs service on the Pacific Coast and the Northwest. In
May, 1893, before he had been in the service three months, he seized
the merchant steamship "Haytien Republic" in Puget Sound, on evidence
that the vessel had been employed for the illegal importation (smuggling)
of opium and Chinese laborers. The vessel was confiscated and sold by
the Government after the case had been appealed to the United States
Circuit Court of Appeals, and finally to the United States Supreme Court,
the original decree having been confirmed by both courts. Finally a grand
jury was called, at Portland, Oregon, at Mr. Wood's request, before
which, and at the succeeding trials in the Federal Court, it was established
that over fifteen hundred Chinese laborers had been admitted into the