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

HISTORY OF MICHIGAN

1521

igan, born on a farm in the township of Flint, Genesee county, September 5, I854, a son of Robert P. and Sarah J. (Johnson) Aitken.
The parents of Mr. Aitken came to Michigan in 1841 from New York
state, the father from a clerkship in a store in the metropolis and the
mother from a young ladies' seminary at Newburgh. Robert P. Aitken
was of Scotch descent, his ancestors having come from Scotland to New
York the second generation before his birth. He became a prominent
man of his day and locality, served for thirty-one consecutive years as a
supervisor of the township of Flint, and during I863 and 1864 was sent
to the state legislature. His death occurred in I9o6, when he had reached
the advanced age of eighty-seven years. Mr. Aitken married Sarah J.
Johnson, of Irish parentage, who was born and reared in the city of
New York. Her death antedated her husband's demise by fifteen years,
her health having been impaired by the early roughing of pioneers while
they were clearing up the farm on which they spent their remaining years.
Like her husband, Mrs. Aitken was widely known, and had the affection
of all with whom she came into contact.
David Demorest Aitken was educated in the district school which
was located one and one-half miles from his father's home farm. This
he attended during the winter months, while he helped his father during the rest of the year, and when he had completed the curriculum of
the country school became a student in the high school at Flint. This
completed his schooling, and he then faced life to make his own way in
the world. For some time he was employed as a bookkeeper, and later
as a salesman, and while thus engaged was married, in I879, to Miss Ada
E. Long, of Milburn, New Jersey. They have had no children. It had
long been Mr. Aitken's ambition to enter professional life, and with this
end in view he had applied himself to his legal studies faithfully and
assiduously. In 1883 he took the examination and was admitted to the
bar, and since that time has been in active practice, having made a specialty and concentrated the greater part of his energy to insurance law.
He has had very much to do with the shaping towards solvency of the
fraternal insurance associations of the country with which he has been
intimately identified, having been general counsel to two of the largest.
Mr. Aitken is a member of the Masonic order, and has attained the
Knight Templar and Shriner degrees. He has been twice elected to
Congress from the Sixth District of Michigan, in I892 and I894, and was
solicited to continue in that office, in which he could probably have served
indefinitely had he been so inclined. In I906 he was elected mayor of
Flint, and he has ever been actively engaged in matters of a public character, and has had much to do with municipal matters of the city, in
which he had taken a great deal of interest, having served as clerk and
attorney for a good many years during his early life.
Aside from his professional and public activities, Mr. Aitken has been
well known in financial and business circles of Flint. He assisted in
the organization of the Citizens' Commercial and Savings Bank and the
Industrial Savings Bank of Flint, and has been a director in both since
their inception. He is president of the Board of Commerce of the city of
Flint, president of the Imperial Wheel Company of Flint and of the Pine
Bluff Spoke Company, of Pine Bluff, Arkansas; a director in the Marvel
Carburetor Company and Standard Rule Company, and is president of
the Michigan State Fair, taking an active part in promoting the affairs
of the Michigan Agricultural Society.
In this latter connection it may be stated that Mr. Aitken is largely
interested in farming himself, and has what is declared by many to be
the best equipped dairy farm in the state. Here he has an excellent herd
of pure-bred Holstein cattle, to which he gives a large part of his at