Genesee-Livingston County MI Archives Biographies.....Welch, John E. 1834 - 
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Author: Chapman Bros. (1892)

JOHN E. WELCH, a prominent and prosperous farmer of Fenton Township, Genesee
County, is a native of Yorkshire, England, and was born March 14, 1834. He is a
son of Edmond and Ellen (Johnson) Welch, both natives of England, where the
father was a farmer in his early life, but was occupied for many years as a tax
collector for a prominent London land company, owning large estates in England,
Scotland and Ireland.

  Our subject was brought up on a farm, and received but limited school
advantages, and in 1854, at the age of nineteen he decided to come to America.
The ocean voyage occupied twenty-six days and after landing in Quebec, the young
man came to Niagara, and crossing over to Youngstown, N. Y., spent two years in
attending school while he worked for his board. He afterward spent one term at
Wilson Academy, working for wages during the summers. In the fall of 1856 he
came Michigan and undertook work on a sawmill at Pine Run in the Northern part
of Genesee County, and during this time entering forty acres of Government land,
and preempted forty acres. His intention was to improve his land, but as he was
without necessary means he went to Kalamazoo, and attended college for awhile,
doing chores for one of the professors for his board and tuition. He then began
work on a farm in Hartland Township, Livingston County for the Rev. John Cosart,
for whom he had previously worked.

  This connection with the Rev. Mr. Cosart, proved mutually satisfactory, and
the young man became quite one of the family, and three years later was united
in marriage with Miss Nancy Cosart, a daughter of the minister, and he at once
prepared to locate on his land near Pine Run.

  After two years of hard work, clearing and improving the land, he exchanged it
for a farm near Milford, where he lived for about two years, and then sold that
property and purchased land in Gaines Township, Genesee County, upon which he
lived for ten years, and then purchased his present farm, to which he has added
much in the way of general improvement, and now has as fine a farm as can be
found in the township.

  The Rev. John Cosart, the father of Mrs. Welch, was a native of New York, and
became a pioneer Methodist preacher in Michigan, to which he came in the old
Territorial days. He traveled over a great portion of the State on horseback,
preaching and ministering to the pioneers in many localities, and when he died,
in 1878, he owned a farm in Shiawasssee County. His daughter, who is now Mrs.
Welch, began teaching at the age of fourteen, and taught for several terms. She
is a lady of unusual culture and refinement.

  Lawrence Welch, the oldest son of our subject, is married, and is now engaged
in a flourishing lumber business near the Straits of Mackinaw. Edmund and Ellen
arc deceased; and Emma, who is still at home, is highly appreciated for her work
as a teacher, which career she began at the age of seventeen, and in which she
has had genuine success. Mr. Welch is a stanch Republican in his political
views, and has been a Mason for thirty years. He has a pleasant home, and his
farm of one hundred acres is situated on section 18. Both he and his wife are
members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in which he was a Trustee and
prominently useful. He visited his native land, England, in 1883, and this trip
was a source of great pleasure to him, as he thus renewed old associations.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

Portrait and Biographical Record of Genesee, Lapeer and Tuscola Counties,
Michigan, Containing Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative
Citizens, Together with Biographies of all the Governors of the State, and of
the Presidents of the United States

Chicago:
Chapman Bros.
1892


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