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

1640

HISTORY OF MICHIGAN

agement of the concern, and carried it on with growing success until
his death in October, 19o9, when fifty-six years old. Mrs. Bertha Weber,
who grew up in Michigan is still living in Saginaw at the age of fifty
years. The only other child is Chester Weber, now a young Saginaw
business man.
Walter H. Weber grew up in his native city, attended the local
schools, and in preparation for the responsibilities which were to devolve upon him he entered the Wahl-Henius School of Fermentology
at Chicago, and completed a thorough course in the brewing art and its
kindred branches. Returning to Saginaw he took charge of the National
Brewery and since his father's death has had the entire management of
the plant. Twenty experts are employed in the manufacture of the
brew, which goes out under the National Brand, and the plant is modern in its equipment in every respect.
Mr. Weber is affiliated with the various Masonic bodies, is an Independent in political affairs, and has shown himself a very progressive
and public spirited man. On March I8, I9IO, in Saginaw, Mr. Weber
married Miss Mary E. Wynes, and they are the parents of one child,
Walter H. Weber, Jr.
BIRNIE J. MORGAN. The late Birnie James Morgan, who died at his
home in Traverse City on the 23d of July, I90o, was a representative of
one of the honored pioneer families of Grand Traverse county and was
a lad of about fifteen years when his father here established a home, in
the year I86I. He had his full quota of experience in connection with
pioneer life in Northern Michigan and here found opportunity for large
and worthy achievement. He became one of the prominent business men
and influential citizens of Traverse City was the founder and developer
of the Morgan Fruit Farm, recognized as one of'the finest in the State,
and he so ordered his course as to merit the unqualified esteem that
was uniformly accorded to him by all who knew him. At the time of
his death he was one of the representative citizens of the county that
was his home during virtually his entire life, and it is but consonant that
in this history be incorporated a tribute to his memory and a brief review of his earnest and upright life.
Mr. Morgan was born on a farm in Carroll county, Ohio, on the 24th
of September, I846, and his mother died in i85I. He acquired his early
education in the district schools of his native county and when about
fifteen years of age, as previously noted, he accompanied his father to
the wilds of Grand Traverse county, Michigan, where he was reared to
manhood under the conditions of the pioneer days. His father settled on
a tract of wild land in the vicinity of Silver Lake, and after devoting
several years of arduous labor to the reclaiming of the farm to cultivation he sold the property and returned to his old home in Ohio, where
he passed the residue of his life-a man of strong individuality and honest worth of character. Birnie James Morgan did not accompany his honored sire on the return to the old Buckeye State but in Traverse City,
which was then but a straggling village, he assumed the position of clerk
in the Gunton Hotel, then a prominent hotel of this section of the State.
In I869, when twenty-three years of age, he here engaged in the livery
business, and though he initiated operations on a modest scale he made
the enterprise so successful that he was soon enabled to engage extensively
in the buying and selling of horses. He gained wide reputation as an
authoritative judge of horses and his business grew to be one of wide
scope and importance, as shown by the fact that in his commodious sales
stables it was no unusual thing for him to have from fifty to one hun