GRANGER F. ANSON

    GRANGER F. ANSON is one of the best known and most highly esteemed citizens of the village of Bellevue, where he has maintained his home for many years, and where he has been agent for the National Express Company and manager of the citizens' Telephone Company until January 1, 1906, when he resigned. Mr. Anson is a native of the old Empire state of the Union, having been born in Canandaigua township, Ontario County, New York, March 26, 1837, and being a son of Daniel B. and Maria R. (Rumsey) Anson. His father was born in the state of New York and died in Bellevue, Michigan, in 1894, having been more than eighty years of age at the time of his demise; his wife likewise was born in the state of New York and passed the closing years of her life in Bellevue, Michigan, where she died in March, 1880.

    Daniel B. Anson was identified with agricultural pursuits in the state of New York until 1854, when he came to Michigan, locating in Bellevue township, Eaton county, in October of that year. Here he followed the trade of carpenter until within a few years of his death, having been a successful contractor and builder and having retired from active labor only when the results of an accident rendered him physically incapacitated. Of his five children the subject of this sketch was the first born; Anna died in childhood, prior to the removal of the family from New York; George R., who was a soldier in the eighty Michigan Cavalry in the civil war and who is now a resident of Dunsmuir, California, married Savilla Hallawell, and they have three daughters; James L., who is a resident of the village of Bellevue and who is a carpenter and builder by vocation, married Lellie Weatherbee, and they had two sons, --Daniel B., who has recently completed a service of three years in the United States army, having been stationed for some time in the Philippine Islands, and Benjamin H., who died in the summer of 1905, at the age of seventeen years; Alonzo B., the youngest of the children, died in early childhood. Granger F. Anson secured his preliminary education in the schools of Rochester and Irondequot, New York, and after the removal of the family to Michigan he continued his studies in the district school near his home. After leaving school he clerked in a general store and in the post office at Bellevue, and later went to Paw Paw, Van Buren County, where he was employed in a drug store for six months, at the expiration of which, in September 1864, he there enlisted in Company B, Twenty-eighth Michigan Volunteer Infantry, with which he proceeded to the front, taking part in the battle of Nashville, Tennessee, and in the engagement at Wise's Forks, North Carolina. He was taken ill and was confined in hospital at Morehead, North Carolina, until September 1865, when he received his honorable discharge, on account of his physician's certificate of his physical disability. After returning home he continued in impaired health for some time and was finally accorded appointment as assistant postmaster at Bellevue, while later he was appointed postmaster, retaining this incumbency thirteen years and resigning the office in 1884. the greater portion of the time since that he has been the Bellevue agent of the National Express Company. In 1894, however, he removed to Kalamazoo, where he remained four and one-half years, engaged in settling the estate of a relative. In 1898 he returned to Bellevue and in the following year he again took charge of the office of the National Express Company, in whose employ he has since continued, while he also ably managed the local affairs of the telephone company mentioned in the opening lines of this article, until his resignation. In politics Mr. Anson has been identified with the Republican Party from the time of attaining his legal majority, having cast his first presidential vote for Abraham Lincoln. He served two terms as a member of the board of trustees of the village of Bellevue. He is identified with the Grand Army of the Republic, the Knights of Pythias, and the lodge and encampment of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Both he and his wife are zealous and valued members of the local Methodist Episcopal church. December 31, 1865, Mr. Anson was united in marriage to Miss Nancy C. Walrath, who was born in Ohio and who died in Bellevue, in March, 1881, leaving no children. He later wedded Miss Maria Keys, who was born in Calhoun county, this state, and who died in Kalamazoo, May 19, 1897, without issue. In June 1898, Mr. Anson married Miss Emma F. Sears, who was born in the state of New York. They have no children.