EDWIN S. NOBLE    (brother of Henry Horbart Noble)
DEXTER & NOBLE COMPANY

The honored subject of this sketch is now engaged in the grocery business in the attractive little city of Elk Rapids, Antrim county, Mi.  where he has maintained his home for many years. He has been most prominently identified with industrial enterprises of great scope and importance and the name which lie bears has been one which has stood for progressiveness and magnificent enterprise ever since the early pioneer epoch in this section of the state, while he is a scion of one of Michigan's old and honored families. So important have been the business and industrial undertakings in which he has been concerned and so high is the confidence and esteem in which he is held in Antrim and surrounding counties, that it is imperative that he be accorded recognition in a publication of the province assigned to the one at hand.

Mr. Edwin S. Noble is a native of the Wolverine state, having been born in Dexter, Washtenaw county, Michigan, on the 21st of July, 1838, and being a son of Nathaniel and Harriet Lucretia (Stilsen) Noble, the former of whom was born in New York state and the latter in Vermont, while they resided at Geneva, New York, for some time after their marriage.

The original progenitor of the Noble family in America was Norman Noble, who came from England to the new world in 1653, his death occurring in Westfield, Massachusetts, in 1704. Nathaniel Noble, who was a surveyor by profession, came to Michigan in the territorial epoch, in company with Judge Samuel Wirt Dexter, whose name is prominently identified with the early annals of the state, the town of Dexter, Washtenaw county, having been named in his honor.

Mr. Noble did a considerable amount of surveying in the early days, and it is interesting to recall the fact that he filed entry on the land upon which the great University of Michigan is now located, at Ann Arbor. He later resigned this claim and secured another tract on the river bottoms of the same county. About one year later, however, he located in the embryonic village of Dexter, ten miles west of Ann Arbor, where Judge Dexter had already settled. The latter was the father of Wirt Dexter, who was long one of the most eminent members of the bar of the city of Chicago, while he was also a member of the firm of Dexter & Noble, whose operations in Antrim county were of magnificent scope, the firm continuing unchanged until his death.

This firm organized the Elk Rapids Iron Company, with Henry Horbart Noble in charge of the operative and executive affairs. Mr. Dexter became the owner of extensive landed and timber interests in northern Michigan, and in association with Henry Horbart. Noble established large sawmills and conducted extensive lumbering enterprises in Antrim and adjacent counties, while the firm also established a large general store in Elk Rapids, of which town they were numbered among the founders.

They also erected a gristmill in this place and promoted many other enterprises which aided materially in bringing about the growth and material advancement of this section. They were associated with the late Wilbur F. Storey, the well known founder of the Chicago Times, in the organization of the Elk Rapids Iron Company, whose furnaces here were erected in 1873, being the largest charcoal furnaces in the United States. This enterprise was inaugurated in order to utilize the hard wood timber in this section, where the pine timber had been practically exhausted. Mr. Story was later succeeded by N. K. Fairbank, another prominent citizen of Chicago, and Edwin S. Noble, the subject of this sketch. also sold his interest to Mr. N.K. Fairbank, in 1891.

Prior to this time our subject and his brother (Henry Hobart Noble) had full local management of the company's affairs, Edwin S.. having been secretary and treasurer. The Elk Rapids Iron Company finally absorbed all the Dexter & Noble interests in this locality, while Henry Hobart Noble continued as local manager until his death, which occurred on the 15th of February, 1897. The three interested principals in the iron company are now deceased, and the business is thus controlled by the estates of the Messrs. Dexter, Noble and Fairbank. 

Dexter and Noble were the pioneers of the whole series of enterprises, Henry Hobart Noble and Samuel Wirt Dexter having bought out all the interests of M. Craw & Company. Mr. Dexter and the Messrs. Noble had been boys together in Dexter, Michigan, and they continued warm friends until the relations were severed by death. This friendship led to Mr. Dexter's having become interested in the extensive lumbering and manufacturing enterprises in Elk Rapids.

Edwin S. Noble, whose name initiates this sketch, came to Elk Rapids in 1866 and was here employed by the firm of Noble & Dexter for two years on salary, having the management of the office and mercantile (departments. At the expiration of the period noted he purchased a quarter interest in the entire business conducted by the firm, His consideration being one hundred and twelve thousand dollars.

The firm had purchased large tracts of pine land and were at the time cutting an average of eight million feet of pine annually, while the mercantile business was also one of extensive scope, having transactions to the amount of three hundred and sixty thousand dollars in a single year. The store supplied the lumbering camps over a wide radius of country and was a general headquarters for supplies for all this region. The firm continued to buy pine lands, and when the supply of this sort of lumber began to wane the firm conceived the idea of establishing an iron furnace in order to utilize the hard wood which was to be had in large qualities.

ELK RAPIDS IRON WORKS:  The furnace was erected in 1873, and the financial panic operated two tugs and twenty barges on the lakes, while Dexter & Noble owned two steamboats, the "Leland" and the "Grand Traverse." So long as Mr. Dexter lived no contention ever arose in connection with the business affairs of the companies in which he was concerned, but upon his death other persons came in and the conditions of affairs finally led to the withdrawal of our subject, who sold his interests in 1896, since which time he has conducted a large and successful grocery business in Elk Rapids.

The entire interests of the firm of Dexter & Noble were not absorbed by the Elk Rapids Iron Company, and after the death of Henry Horbart Noble,  Mr. Dexter and members of the company organized the Dexter & Noble Land Company .which carried on operations most vigorously and successfully for a number of years, while the holdings of the company are not inconsiderable at the present time.

During all these years of extensive operations in the buying and selling of land, the firm of Dexter & Noble never foreclosed a mortgage, and the policy was ever liberal and progressive, while the principals never found it necessary to forget the obligations of humanity and exercised functions which aided others who were less fortunate.

Henry Horbart Noble, the honored brother of the subject, was born in Palmyra, New York, on the 25th of August, 1823, and accompanied his parents on their removal to Michigan, being reared to manhood in Washtenaw county.

In 1856, he came from Dexter, that county, to Antrim county, and identified himself with the founding and up building of Elk Rapids, where he began the manufacture of charcoal, pig iron etc., and also engaged in the general merchandise and lumbering business, as has been outlined in foregoing paragraphs. He was a man of lofty integrity and marked intellectuality, and he filled a large place in the civic and business annals of Antrim county during the long period of his residence here. His death occurred on the 14th of February, 1897, and the village and county lost one of their most valued and honored pioneers and generous and public-spirited citizens.

On the 27th of December, 1847, Henry. Horbart Noble married Miss Clarissa C. Sears, daughter of Dr. Thomas Sears, of Lima, Washtenaw county, and she died on the 4th of February, 1868.

On the 9th of June, 1870, he wedded Miss Margaret Ewing, who now resides in the city of Chicago. His eldest son, Thomas Horbart, is engaged in business in Gladstone, Michigan, and Charles E. and Edwin S. are residents of Chicago.

SEE:  Henry Horbart Noble and Samuel Wirt Dexter