FRANK A. DEAN

FRANK A. DEAN, of Charlotte, is known as one of the distinguished members of the bar of Michigan, as one of the most effective platform orators turned out by this commonwealth in many years, and he has won distinction in public life and in the domain of practical politics. Mr. Dean is a native of Eaton county and a scion of one of its most honored pioneer families, the more salient data concerning the family history being given in the personal sketch of his father, Jonathan Dean, on another page of this volume. Frank A. Dean was born in Kalamo township, this county, March 25, 1857. After due preliminary training in the public schools he entered Olivet College, at Olivet, this county, in which institution he was graduated as a member of the class of 1877, receiving the degree of Bachelor of Arts. In the autumn of this year he began reading law, having as his preceptor, Judge Frank A. Harker, of Charlotte, and he was admitted to the bar in 1890. He engaged in the practice of his profession in charlotte, and his reputation as an able trial lawyer and well fortified counselor grew apace. In the autumn of 1893 he was appointed United States consul to Naples, Italy, receiving this preferment at the hands of President Cleveland. He remained in Italy until 1897, when he returned to America and located in Lansing, capital of the state of Michigan, where he was associated in the practice of his profession with Harry Hooker for the ensuing three years, at the expiration of which, in 1900, he again took up his residence in the city of Charlotte, where he has since continued in the general practice of his profession, having a large and representative clientage and having been concerned in much important litigation in both the state and federal courts. He has been specially prominent as a campaign orator, being a stalwart advocate of the principles of the Democratic party. In 1890 his name was conspicuously brought forward in connection with the party nomination for governor of the state, but he failed to receive the nomination, being unanimously and by acclamation nominated for lieutenant governor but declining to assume the second place on the party ticket. In 1891 Mr. Dean made an extended trip abroad, visiting Ireland, England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Holland. while he was consul in Italy he was also enabled to make a series of interesting tours, visiting Morocco, Algeria and Egypt, as well as Spain. He has been much in demand as a platform orator. It has been his privilege and pleasure to meet many notable men, both abroad and in his own country, and he has never failed to profit by such encounters or by the varied experiences of his somewhat eventful life. At the queen's jubilee banquet held in Naples in June, 1897, he delivered a speech which was published in full by all the leading papers of France and England. He had charge of the return of the Vatican exhibits at the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, the same being transported on the steamer "Detroit" from the exposition to the proper headquarters in the city of Rome. Mr. Dean visited Pope Leo, who granted him an audience, and he has ever retained a great reverence for that celebrated pontiff. From his youth Mr. Dean has held a high reputation as an orator and as a close and able dialectician. During the first Cleveland campaign he received the highest pay of any speaker retained by the Democracy in the state of Michigan, having made addresses at that time in every city in the state. He is well known throughout Michigan and is a man of high intellectual and professional attainments, while through his services he has honored the commonwealth which gave him birth. Mr. Dean has two children, -- Fred M. and Hazel M., both fine linguists and educated abroad.