The Milan News-Leader
A Heritage Newspaper
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After-school job launches Barnes' career
PUBLISHED: March 20, 2008
Thor Howe Barnes stopped off at a photographer's studio when he was married, and lucky for us, he recorded the event for future generations.
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He was married Feb. 15, 1915, in Azalia, to the lovely Josephine Musser. She was making a pretty good catch. Thanks to an after-school job he started when he was 15 years old, Barnes was set for life with an excellent career.
Barnes was born May 7, 1890, in London Township, the son of Dorr and Susan Barnes. Susan's maiden name was Howe, which explains how Thor got his middle name.
From ages 6 to 11, Barnes attended the Barnes School on the west side of Plank Road near Barnes Road. Back then, Barnes Road was called Bunce Road. The school was named after his grandfather, Eleazer Barnes, who sold the land for building the school.
As a student, it's possible the boy was treated a little bit special. His father ran for elected office in the township and served as an elected official. His grandfather had a reputation in the area also, serving repeatedly as London Township supervisor in the 1840s, 1850s and 1860s. He ran for the state Legislature and represented his district in 1850 and 1853.
The patriarch of the Barnes family was not born in Michigan. Eleazer Barnes was born in 1807 in Pittsford, Vt. He was 26 when he came to Michigan, purchasing 80 acres of land from Black Hawk Rankins. I suspect Rankins may have been a Native American who refused to relocate out West with the rest of his tribe. Significant numbers stayed behind and farmed right alongside the European settlers, blending into the American melting pot.
In 1835, Eleazer bought 80 more acres of land, and built one of the first homes in London Township. Soon he was ready to take a wife. He chose Calista Throop, a resident of the township, who was born in 1812. The wedding took place Feb. 28, 1836. The groom was 29 and the bride was 24.
The couple had four children, including Dorr. They had another son with an unusual name, Linn.
The Barnes name is not unusual. Milan had another famous person with that last name, Mel Barnes, who established the Farmers and Merchants Bank in 1882. He came to Milan from Quincy, near Coldwater, and eventually left town to follow Walter Stimpson in the scales business. He is no relation to the Barnes family of London Township.
The grandson, Thor, went to the rural schoolhouse until 1901, when he was 11 years old. His family moved into the village of Milan to enjoy urban conveniences. Something changed his life on July 10, 1905. That's the day Thor took a job with Wila Lamkin at the Milan electric generating plant. At age 15, the young man suddenly had a career.
Barnes worked after school every day from 4 to 9 p.m. He worked full time during school vacation, and worked Saturdays and Sundays. In June 1908, after completing the 10th grade, Barnes decided to make a choice between work and school. He chose work.
Barnes had a fantastic job. Wila Lamkin was in the process of selling his Milan electric business and stepping down for retirement. Barnes just kept making electricity.
"In 1911 Mr. R.W. Hemphil Magr. of the Eastern Mich. Edison Co. arranged the purchase of the Lamkin Electric Plant, with the agreement that I would be the Local Agent," Thor wrote proudly in his diary at the time.
I found out about the diary from Chris Kull at the Monroe Historical Library, who noticed my interest in the Barnes obituary file. She provided me with today's photo of her grandparents and her grandfather's diary.
Working for Lamkin was a whirlwind, as Barnes described it. He wired buildings, did line work, maintained street lights in the village, fired boilers, and operated steam engines and generators.
The Detroit Edison work also challenged him. Barnes traveled to the state of Washington for six months in 1911 to work his magic with the electricity there. Detroit Edison took over the Eastern Michigan Edison Co. and took Barnes along with the buildings and fixtures.
By 1915, when Barnes married Josephine, he was able to set up their first home in the Lamkin house, a huge home which still stands on the west side of Wabash Street across from Roy's Barbeque.
Barnes applied his electrical knowledge in different settings over his adult life. He was an electrician and contractor for Sanford Hardware in Milan for a time. He went to Macon to be an agent and run the substation. He transferred to Dundee and then Monroe as local agent for Detroit Edison.
Through all this success, Barnes always kept in mind that his family history was a little bit complicated. Just a few months after he started that after-school job at the Lamkin electric generating plant, his mother died at a mental hospital. Susan Barnes died Nov. 1, 1905, at the Dearborn Retreat and was buried in London cemetery, so she didn't have the pleasure of watching her son's career develop.
Susan's mother, Sarah Jane Howe, also battled with mental illness. This fact was not kept very secret at the time, being mentioned in the obituary. Maybe people were more open in those days.
"Jane," as she was known, died May 13, 1903, at an "insane asylum" in Pontiac. Thor was only 13 years old when he lost his grandmother Howe.
In his career with electrical generating plants, Barnes saw a transformation in the way people live. He watched the last run of the interurban Oct. 4, 1932, his diary states. The interurbans looked like train cars, but they ran on electricity. People could commute to work, take a quick trip into town, or visit a friend without any advance planning. Milan almost had tracks laid through town for the interubans, but the system died out, as Barnes noted in his journal.
Barnes lived until 1963. He was 73. His wife, Josephine, buried him at Roselawn Memorial Cemetery in Monroe.
Thanks to Chris Kull for making this column possible.
Martha Churchill is a member of the Milan Area Historical Society. She can be reached at 439-4055 or Milanhistory@yahoo.com.
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