Biography--Clare City, Clare Co. Edgar G. Welch Submitted for use by USGENWEB Clare County, Michigan October 2002 wilkinschw@aol.com MIGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed MIGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the MIGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. EDGAR G. WELCH, Biography / Clare County, Michigan Biographical History of Northern Michigan, B.F. Bowen & Company, 1905. EDGAR G. WELCH The gentleman to a brief review of whose life and characteristics the reader's attention is herewith respectfully invited, is numbered among the most progressive young business men and most popular citizens of Clare county, being at the time of this writing incumbent of the office of county commissioner of schools, while he is also senior member of the firm of Welch & Bennett, editors and publishers of the Clare Sentinel, one of the excellent weekly papers of the state. Mr. WELCH has been an active worker in the field of education and has met with marked success in the pedagogic profession, being a man of high intellectuality and much initiative and administrative ability, while his genial and kindly attributes have gained to him the highest degree of personal popularity. Mr. WELCH is a native of the old Empire state of the Union, having been born in Hammond, St. Lawrence county, New York, on the 22d of May, 1870, and being a son of RICHARD and ANNA (GILLERLAIN) WELCH. The father of the subject was a carpenter and contractor by vocation and was for a number of years prominently engaged in business along this line in Clare, where he died on the 25th of January, 1898. His widow survives and is now living with her daughter, Mrs. F.P. GRAY, in Los Angeles, California. Of the five children of their union four are living, the subject of this review having been the fifth in order of birth. EDGAR G. WELCH passed the first seven and one-half years of his life in his native town in New York, and there secured his first educational discipline. In 1877 his parents removed with their children to Michigan and located in Lapeer county where they continued to reside about three years, at the expiration of which, in 1881, they came to Clare, where our subject has ever since made his home. Here he continued his studies in the public schools, being graduated in the high school as a member of the class of 1890, and having taught his first term of school when eighteen years of age. His ambition for further educational discipline was insistent and unwavering, and in 1892 he was matriculated in the Michigan State Normal School at Ypsilanti, where he was graduated as a member of the class of 1897, having previously been engaged in teaching at intervals for a period of five years. After his graduation he was for one year principal of the public schools at Woodland, Barry county, where he did a most successful work, and in April, 1899, he purchased the Clare Sentinel and turned his attention to active and practical newspaper work. He conducted this enterprise individually until September, 1902, when he admitted PHILIP A. BENNETT to partnership, and they have since continued the publication of the Sentinel under the firm name of WELCH & BENNETT. The paper is a seven- column and finds its way into the majority of the homes in the territory in its province, while in letterpress and subject matter it is maintained at a high standard and is creditable alike to its publishers and to the city in which it is issued. The plant of the Sentinel is an excellent one and the job department is equipped for the turning out of first-class work. The political policy of the paper is Republican, but its prime function is to serve as an exponent of local interests, a function which it exercises in a most perfect way. In his political allegiance Mr. WELCH is a stalwart Republican, and he has in a local way been an active worker in the ranks of the "grand old party." In April, 1903, he was elected to his present office, that of county commissioner of schools, a position for which he is peculiarly eligible and one in which he is doing a most valuable work, harmonizing and systematizing the affairs of the schools in his jurisdiction and gaining the effective and hearty co-operation of the teachers and patrons. In religion Mr. WELCH is identified with the First Congregational church, being at present the chorister. His fraternal relations are with the Free and Accepted Masons and the state grange, Patrons of Husbandry. On the 2d of April, 1900, Mr. WELCH was united in marriage to Miss MINNIE M. PRESLEY, daughter of THOMAS PRESLEY, a well known and influential citizen of Clare, and of this union has been born one child, AILEEN, the date of whose nativitiy was April 5, 1903. Submitted for use by USGENWEB Clare County, Michigan October 2002 wilkinschw@aol.com