Benn M. Corwin, attorney at law, at Grand Rapids, Mich., was born in the township of Georgetown, Ottawa county, Mich., September 20, 1865, and is a son of Milton Nelson Corwin, who was born in Cayuga county, in the state of New York and Mary (Spear) Corwin, born in the township of Charlotte, Chittenden county, Vt.. Mr. and Mrs. Corwin were married in Barry county, Mich. When Milton N. Corwin came to Michigan from New York, in 1838, he located in Ypsilanti, where he worked for ten years at his trade as a painter, he then removed to Barry county, Mich., and there engaged in farming until 1857, when he removed to the state of

Missouri, from which state he returned to Michigan in the spring of 1859, and located in the township of Georgetown, in Ottawa county, on a rented farm, where he lived until 1865. It was in a log house on this rented farm that the subject of this sketch was born, and when he was but six weeks old, his parents removed to a farm which his father had bought in the township of Blendon, in the same county. At that time the only way of reaching the new home was by means of a logging road, which wound through the woods for more than two miles from the nearest traveled public highway. Three years later, a school-house was built in the woods, a half mile from Mr. Corwin’s home, and Benn M. Corwin was one of the ten pupils whose names composed the enrollment for the first term of school. Benn Corwin was the sixth of a family of eight children. He continued to attend the district school in winter, and worked on his father’s farm in summer, until he was nineteen years of age, when he started out to make his own way in the world. He earned his first money cutting wood by the cord, and in March, 1885, attended the county teachers’ examination and obtained a certificate to teach school in Ottawa county. Not being successful in obtaining a school to teach that year, he continued to work on a farm until the following March, when he again passed the examination and obtained a teacher’s certificate, and taught his first school in his native township of Georgetown in the spring of 1886. He spent the months of July and August of that year at a summer normal school in Flint, Mich., and returning to Ottawa county, taught school in the township of Talmadge, the next winter. In the spring of 1887 he came to Grand Rapids, and during the summer clerked in a grocery store kept by P. Wendover at the head of Monroe street, the next winter he continued clerking in the store mornings and evenings and on Saturdays, to pay his board, and attended the Grand Rapids Business college, doing his studying at night, and graduating in June 1888. He next kept books for a year and a half, and then passed eight months in Milwaukee, Wis., as an advertising and soliciting agent. Returning to Grand Rapids in the month of August, 1890, he entered the law office of C. O. Smedley and commenced the study of law; he continued to work for Mr. Smedley, in the law business, and was admitted to practice in the circuit court, January 13, 1894, and in the supreme court, January 31^st of the same year. On May 28, 1897, he was admitted to practice in the United States district and circuit courts. He continued to practice law in the office of Mr. Smedley until the 1^st of January, 1897, when he appointed second assistant prosecuting attorney of Kent county by Mr. Rodgers, and formed a partnership under the firm name of Rodgers, McDonald & Corwin, which continued two years; when Mr. Smedley, with whom he had received his early legal training, made him an offer of a partnership, which he accepted, and resigned his position with the prosecuting attorney and went into private law practice with Mr. Smedley, under the firm name of Smedley & Corwin, with offices at 15, 16 and 17 New Houseman building. Mr. Corwin has been especially interested in the enforcement of the pure-food laws of the state of Michigan, and, as assistant prosecuting attorney, tried the cases brought to test the anti-color oleomargarine law, and the vinegar law, drawing the complaints, preparing the briefs, and presenting the cases at the hearing in the supreme court. Some of these briefs have been most favorably commented upon by leading attorneys, not only in Michigan, but in other states. Since resigning his position as assistant prosecuting attorney, the dairy and food commissioner of Michigan has Page 80

shown this confidence in Mr. Corwin’s ability by retaining him in all important matters relative to the enforcement of the pure-food laws. In 1898, he was elected a member of the board of education of the city of Grand Rapids; and in December, 1899, was elected a director of the Young Men’s Christian association of Grand Rapids, for the term of three years. In his private practice Mr. Corwin is making rapid strides toward the front rank in the legal fraternity of the city and county. Mr. Corwin was joined in wedlock, in Grand Rapids, July 4, 1891, with Miss Gertrude H. Comstock, who was born in Keene, N. H., October 21, 1868, a daughter of Dauphin W. and Frances J. (Hart) Comstock. They have lived in Grand Rapids continuously since their marriage, and this union has been blessed with two children—Howard D. , born July 29, 1892, and Harold B., born December 26, 1893. In religion, Mr. and Mrs. Corwin are Baptist; politically, Mr. Corwin is a republican.