Lewis F. Burton

Lewis F. Burton, prominent as a dairyman of Cascade township, Kent county, was the first white boy born in the city of Grand Rapids, his nativity occurring on October 5, 1834. His parents Josiah and Elizabeth (Freeman) Burton, had come into Michigan some years before had operated a grocery store at Detroit, later had been unsuccessful in business at Ypsilanti, and in the year 1832 or 1833 came on farther west, settling in the city of Grand Rapids, where on South Division street, he bought a tract of land, and for some time was engaged at speculating in real estate. Later he erected a saw-mill on Plaster creek, became engaged in the lumber business, later built two more mills, and for sixteen years was connected with such industry, being located in Alpine township. He then moved to the city and speculated for the next ten years. His later days were spent with his son, Lewis F. Burton, with whom died at the age of seventy-eight years. Lewis F. Burton became the main support of the family at sixteen years of age, being the only male in the family of a mother, brother and sister. They lived in the city, where the son engaged in teaming. In his nineteenth year made a trip to California overland, where he spent three years herding stock and farming, thence returning with about $400 to the city of Grand Rapids, where he became a molder in the foundry, being employed as such until the year 1861. At this date he enlisted in the Michigan Engineers and Mechanics corps, served three years with his company, and was honorably discharged. At the termination of his army career, he began in the foundry worked for six years in the west part of the city, and then bought a 160-acre tract of wild land going $4,000 in debt. In June, 1871, he went about to improve the estate; he has seventy or eighty acres in a good state of cultivation, and is at present engaged extensively in the dairying industry, keeping about twenty-five cows and operation a machine for separating of cream. He now resides in and has been a resident of Grand Rapids for years since his acquisition of the estate, but attends personally to his business. In politics he is independent having been formerly a republican, but at the last campaign was an endorser of the Bryan policy, and the Chicago platform. Mr. Burton, was united in marriage, at the age of twenty-five, to Miss Jane Clark, a daughter of Daniel Clark, and had a family of four children, viz: Emily, who was the wife of Martin Gilbertson, and died at the age of thirty-four; Lois, the widow of James Jacques, M.D. and Arthur, operator of a creamery in Ada, in which Lewis F. Has an interest. Mr. Burton’s estate lies two miles southeast of Ada, on the D.& M. Railroad, extends along the south bank of Grand river upwards of half a mile and consists of rich meadows and fine upland pasturage. One of the finest flowing springs along Grand river sends forth, near the house, a stream of considerable volume of ice-cold water of crystal clearness.