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			AMBROSE AND HENRIETTA (WEEKS) ATWOOD

	Ambrose Atwood, a very prominent citizen of Montcalm County, died at Kendallville, in 
that county, Feb. 5, 1879, and the following extract is from a biographical sketch of him, read 
by Dr. Avery after his death: 
	"The death of a man like Ambrose Atwood deserves more than this passing notice.  He was 
in the prime of life.  He was engaged in active business that made large numbers dependent on him
for employment and support.  He leaves a young and interesting family, a devoted and exemplary 
wife, an aged father, and a large circle of personal and business friends to mourn his loss.
Probably the most eloquent tribute we can pay to his memory is a plain, truthful record of the 
prominent traits of his character, and of the leading events of his industrious life.  He was 
born in Alcaster, Canada West, October, 1830, and came to Michigan, when he was sixteen years of 
age, with his father, who settled in the township of Vergennes, Kent Co.  Ambrose remained on the 
farm until he was of age, when he started in life for himself, with only his hands, his brain, 
and his energy for his capital.  His education was limited to that furnished by the district 
schools of that early day.  Always a hard worker himself, he early developed the faculty of 
utilizing the labor of others: first, as the well-digger, employing from one to three men, and 
then as the lumberman, giving employment to from one hundred to three hundred men, and from fifty
to one hundred teams.
	"In 1857 he was married to Miss Henrietta Weeks,  daughter of the late Hiram Weeks, of 
Otisco, Ionia Co., Mich., to whom he leaves five children,--three girls and two boys, a son and a
daughter grown.  In 1859, partly with a view to get relief from a painful affliction from which 
he had suffered from his youth up,  he made an ocean trip to California.  Returning in 1869, he
engaged at once in lumbering, an has since made his home in the pine-woods of Michigan.  He has 
been one of the hardest workers of all that hard-working class whose mission it is to convert the 
forest to use of man.  In common with most men who have carried on extensive jobbing operations 
in lumbering, he has had his 'ups and downs;' but he has always paid his workmen, and no man has
ever questioned his downright honesty.  In 1872 he bought what was known as the Price & Kendall 
mill, together with a large tract of pine-land in the township of Pine, Montcalm Co.,  where he 
has since been engaged in business, and where he died.  And, though he has suffered heavy losses 
in the depreciation of property, in the burning of his mill last summer [1878], and in the 
failures of parties to whom he had sold lumber, he has struggled through these last years of 
business depression, preserved his credit, and is believed to have left a fair competency for the
support of his family.  The present winter he has delivered at Colwell, a distance of six miles 
from his mill, five million feet of lumber, and put into the lake at his mill for his next 
season's sawing seven million feet of logs.  A community has grown up around his mill of more 
than ordinary intelligence and thrift, and, while his mind has been engrossed in business, he has
not been unmindful of the wants of the little community he has called around him.  Largely by his
efforts and means, a neat school-house has been erected, and one of the best schools in Northern 
Michigan is steadily maintained.  The minister has followed the school-teacher, and religious 
services are regularly held,--all showing that he has not lived and labored for self alone, but 
has guarded with considerate care the interests of the little neighborhood of which he was the 
centre.
	"As an employer, while he was exacting, he was kind, thoughtful of the interests of, and 
thoroughly honest with, his men.  When he died, he had men in his employ who had been with him 
though all the years he had been engaged in lumbering.  As a business man, he was a believer in 
the scriptural injunction, 'Whatsoever thy hands find to do, do it with all thy might.'   As a 
friend, he was social and generous.  His home was always open to his friends, and an asylum for 
the unfortunate among his relatives.  He was a devoted husband and a kind and indulgent father.  
He was made a Mason while in California, and at the time of his death was a member of the Blue 
Lodge and Chapter in Greenville, of the Grand Rapids Commandery, and of the Detroit Consistory,
A. and A. R. , 320 . . . . He led an active, honorable business life.  He died in the midst of 
his activity and usefulness, and leaves a vacant place in the order of which he was so 
distinguished a member, in the business community, in the social circle, and in his family, not 
easily filled.  That he had faults argues his humanity.  His virtues and good works will live 
after him to encourage and instruct others.  We bow in silence to the providence which has 
removed him from among us."
	Resolutions of respect to his memory were unanimously adopted by Greenville Lodge, No. 
96, F. and A. M.  Since his death Mrs. Atwood has purchased a fine farm of one hundred and 
twenty acres in the township of Ronald, Ionia Co., where she is living, surrounded by her 
children, except her oldest son, who is tallyman for McPherson, Birkett & Co., lumberman, in the 
north part of the State.  Mr. Atwood's father makes his home with her.  The children of Mr. and 
Mrs.  Atwood are Llewellyn W., born Nov., 20, 1858; Ina M., born April 16, 1862; Eda M., born 
Oct. 16, 1866; Eva A., born Feb. 8, 1870; and Guy W., born Aug. 3, 1874.  In politics Mr. Atwood
was a Republican, and, although not an office-seeker, was always interested to a great extent in 
the Republican cause, and aided it in every way in his power, often taking his team and carrying 
his employees to the polling-place.  In his younger days he was a Baptist; at his death he was a 
member of no church, and was a Universalist in belief.  Mrs. Atwood is a native of Genesee Co., 
N. Y., where she was born, Feb. 17, 1840, being the oldest in a family of seven children.  Her 
parents removed to Michigan when she was but eight years of age, and settled in Otisco, Ionia 
Co.  Her father died at Greenville in 1872; her mother is still living in Otisco, Ionia Co.



This biography is taken from "HISTORY OF IONIA AND MONTCALM COUNTIES, MICHIGAN" 
by John S. Schenck. Philadelphia:  D. W. Ensign & Co., 1881.  Pages 485-486.  Pine.