COMMODORE
Treasurer, Wayne County, MI
**********
ALEXANDER I. McLEOD.
Few citizens of Detroit are better known or enjoy a higher measure of popularity than Alexander I. McLeod, who has here passed the major portion of his life and whose activities have touched and entered many different fields. He has been incumbent of offices of distinctive public trust, has been identified in a prominent way with newspaper work, has been concerned with lake-marine navigation, and has been especially conspicuous in yachting circles. His friends are in number as his acquaintances, and their loyalty is fortified by appreciation of the canny traits which are his as a scion of staunch old Scottish highland stock. He is a representative of the historic clan McLeod, and in a collateral way of those of Stuart and Cameron.
The fact that Mr. McLeod is a native of the smallest state of the American Union has not militated against his "bigness," of intellect and soul, as all who know him can well testify. He was born in the city of Providence, Rhode Island, on the 2d of August, 1852, and is a son of Alexander and Janet (Reid) McLeod. His father was born in the Highlands of Scotland, whence he came to America when a lad of sixteen years, having worked his passage on a sailing vessel and having first settled in Nova Scotia. There he learned the trades of ship carpenter and marine draftsman, and to these closely allied vocations he thereafter devoted his attention throughout his entire active business career, which was diversified by employment on land and sea. He made numerous voyages and incidental thereto visited many of the principal ports of the world. Finally he took up his residence in Providence, Rhode Island, where he became a successful shipbuilder. In the financial depression and panic of 1857 he met with severe losses, which greatly impaired the comfortable fortune which he had gained through energy and well directed efforts. Under these conditions he was moved to locate in the west, and in that year he came, with his family, to Michigan and took up his abode at Mount Clemens, Macomb county, where he engaged in shipbuilding on a modest scale. In 1859 he removed to Detroit, and here he was for many years superintendent of the shipyard of Campbell & Owen, which firm was succeeded by the Detroit Dry Dock Company, and the latter in turn' by the present Detroit Shipbuilding Company, which is a branch of the American Shipbuilding Company. He continued a resident of Detroit until his death, which occurred in 1875, and was a man of sterling integrity, ever commanding the confidence and respect of all who knew him. His wife, who was a native of Paisley, Scotland, died in 1865, and of their four children three are living.
Alexander I. McLeod was afforded the advantages of the excellent public schools of Detroit, where he was reared to maturity, having been seven years of age at the time of the family removal to this city. At the age of eighteen years he entered service as a sailor on the Great Lakes, having been fond of the water from his boyhood days and having never as yet abated his love for the ever varying attractions of our great inland seas. At the age of nineteen years he withdrew from his lake-marine vocation to enter upon one of radically different order,—one in which he was destined to achieve no mediocre success and prestige. He entered the employ of the old Detroit Advertiser and Tribune, and finally became a member of its reportorial force, in which connection he made so excellent a record that in 1872 he became a member of the editorial staff of the paper. This incumbency he retained until 1873 and he gained a reputation of being a forceful and vigorous writer, having a clear appreciation of news values and evincing distinctive and mature judgment as to matters of public and civic polity. In the year last mentioned Mr. McLeod received from Judge George S. Swift the appointment to the office of clerk of the recorder's court of Wayne county, and in this position he served until 1877, when he resigned to engage in business in an independent way. He became one of the organizers and incorporators of the Pierce Chemical Company, which engaged in the manufacturing of wood chemicals. The inventor of the processes utilized was Henry M. Pierce, who became president of the company, and Mr. McLeod was superintendent. He was identified with the enterprise about one year, at the expiration of which, in 1878, he became associated with Captain Augustus C. Donnelly in the operation of a line of packet steamers on the Ohio and Tennessee rivers. These boats plied between Cincinnati, Ohio, and Florence, Alabama, and Mr. McLeod was chief clerk on the "Ariadne," of Cincinnati, in which vessel he owned a one-fourth interest. From this enterprise he withdrew in 1882, in which year he returned to Detroit, where he entered the employ of the Evening News Company, and from 1885 to 1889 he was city editor of this popular daily. On the 1st of January, 1889, he became private secretary to Mayor Hazen S. Pingree, during whose excellent administration he continued incumbent of this position, from which he retired in 1895. In the autumn of the preceding year he had been elected treasurer of Wayne county, and that he ably handled the fiscal affairs entrusted to his supervision is best evidenced in the fact that he was chosen as his own successor in the election of 1896. He made many and effective improvements in the
system of handling the business of the treasurer's office (notably by the introduction of the Cashier System, which was adopted also by the water board and the receiver of taxes), and the plans which he thus formulated have since continued to be utilized by his successors in this responsible and exacting office. He retired from office in July, 1898. In politics Mr. McLeod is a stalwart in the local camp of the Republican party, and he has done effective service in its cause.
Mr. McLeod has been more or less intimately identified with lake-marine interests for many years, having been part owner of the composite steamer "John Owen," and of the steamer "Progress," in which latter connection he was vice-president of the Progress Transportation Company. In 1895 he became one of the organizers and incorporators of the Detroit Telephone Company, of which he was elected vice-president, besides being a member of its directorate. The successful work of this company is a matter of city and state history, and a review of its work and operations is not demanded in this connection, though it may be said that the subject of this sketch was a potent factor in building up the business of this important corporation. In 1897 he was concerned in the organization of the new State Telephone Company, of which he was vice-president up to the time of its consolidation with the Bell Telephone Company. In 1905 Mr. McLeod became one of the organizers and incorporators of the MaxwellBriscoe-McLeod Company, which is engaged in the sale of automobiles and whose territory covers Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. The enterprise has been most successful and Mr. McLeod has been president and general manager of the company since 1906. He is also president of the Detroit Reduction Company, manufacturers of fertilizers, a director of the Chicago Reduction Company, of the Seaboard Portland Cement Company and of the Central Savings Bank of Detroit.
For a long term of years Mr. McLeod has been one of the most prominent and enthusiastic figures in yachting circles on the Great Lakes, and the speedy boats with which he has been concerned have effectually trimmed the sails of many a worthy rival. In 1884 he served as vice-commodore of the Michigan Yacht Club, in 1898 as commodore of the Inter Lake Yachting Association, and for the year 1905 as commodore of the Detroit Yacht Club. He is the owner of the yawl "Frances A.," named in honor of his wife, and the same is a fine specimen of its type, being thirty-five feet in length and the winner of many races. In 1887 he was the head of the syndicate which built the "City of the Straits," constructed by the Detroit Dry Dock Company, from the design of Brady Wandell. This yacht has a long series of victories in hard fought struggles, with Commodore McLeod at the stick, the most notable of which was sailed in a snow storm, on Lake Erie, on November 21, 1888, and which resulted in a victory over the "Alice Enright," of Toledo, the then champion of the lakes of fifty-seven minutes over a thirty-mile course. Again in 1900, when the honor of Detroit seemed to be at stake, Commodore McLeod organized another syndicate, which built the famous forty-foot sloop "Detroit," which cleaned up everything in her class, finally going the long trip overland to San Diego, California, where she beat everything on the Pacific coast and won the trophy given by Sir Thomas Lipton. Mr. McLeod is one of the few surviving members of the old International Yacht Club, of which the late Kirk C. Barker was the commodore and leading spirit. In 1884 the subject of this review effected the organization of the Michigan Yacht Club, the immediate predecessor of the present Detroit Yacht Club, and largely through his efforts was secured from the board of park commissioners of Detroit the franchise and concession which made possible the erection of the club house on Belle Isle.
Mr. McLeod is a member of the Fellowcraft Club, the Bankers' Club, the Detroit Board of Commerce, the Detroit Motor Boat Club, and a life member of the Detroit Yacht Club, besides being identified with the InterLake Yachting Association. He holds membership in the Harmonie Society of Detroit and is affiliated with the various York and Scottish Rite bodies of the Masonic fraternity, in which he has attained to the thirty-second degree.
On the 28th of October, 1876, Mr. McLeod was united in marriage to Miss Frances A. Millington, daughter of John Millington, who was a leading architect in New York city, and they have one daughter, Frances Janet.
Source: History and Biography of the City of Detroit and Wayne County, Michigan, Henry Taylor & Co., Chicago, IL, 1909, pp 574-576
******
Buried in the Alex McLeod (d. 1875) family plot
There are two markers for Commodore Alex I. McLeod. The individual marker has no dates and the dates on the family marker are barely visible.
Treasurer, Wayne County, MI
**********
ALEXANDER I. McLEOD.
Few citizens of Detroit are better known or enjoy a higher measure of popularity than Alexander I. McLeod, who has here passed the major portion of his life and whose activities have touched and entered many different fields. He has been incumbent of offices of distinctive public trust, has been identified in a prominent way with newspaper work, has been concerned with lake-marine navigation, and has been especially conspicuous in yachting circles. His friends are in number as his acquaintances, and their loyalty is fortified by appreciation of the canny traits which are his as a scion of staunch old Scottish highland stock. He is a representative of the historic clan McLeod, and in a collateral way of those of Stuart and Cameron.
The fact that Mr. McLeod is a native of the smallest state of the American Union has not militated against his "bigness," of intellect and soul, as all who know him can well testify. He was born in the city of Providence, Rhode Island, on the 2d of August, 1852, and is a son of Alexander and Janet (Reid) McLeod. His father was born in the Highlands of Scotland, whence he came to America when a lad of sixteen years, having worked his passage on a sailing vessel and having first settled in Nova Scotia. There he learned the trades of ship carpenter and marine draftsman, and to these closely allied vocations he thereafter devoted his attention throughout his entire active business career, which was diversified by employment on land and sea. He made numerous voyages and incidental thereto visited many of the principal ports of the world. Finally he took up his residence in Providence, Rhode Island, where he became a successful shipbuilder. In the financial depression and panic of 1857 he met with severe losses, which greatly impaired the comfortable fortune which he had gained through energy and well directed efforts. Under these conditions he was moved to locate in the west, and in that year he came, with his family, to Michigan and took up his abode at Mount Clemens, Macomb county, where he engaged in shipbuilding on a modest scale. In 1859 he removed to Detroit, and here he was for many years superintendent of the shipyard of Campbell & Owen, which firm was succeeded by the Detroit Dry Dock Company, and the latter in turn' by the present Detroit Shipbuilding Company, which is a branch of the American Shipbuilding Company. He continued a resident of Detroit until his death, which occurred in 1875, and was a man of sterling integrity, ever commanding the confidence and respect of all who knew him. His wife, who was a native of Paisley, Scotland, died in 1865, and of their four children three are living.
Alexander I. McLeod was afforded the advantages of the excellent public schools of Detroit, where he was reared to maturity, having been seven years of age at the time of the family removal to this city. At the age of eighteen years he entered service as a sailor on the Great Lakes, having been fond of the water from his boyhood days and having never as yet abated his love for the ever varying attractions of our great inland seas. At the age of nineteen years he withdrew from his lake-marine vocation to enter upon one of radically different order,—one in which he was destined to achieve no mediocre success and prestige. He entered the employ of the old Detroit Advertiser and Tribune, and finally became a member of its reportorial force, in which connection he made so excellent a record that in 1872 he became a member of the editorial staff of the paper. This incumbency he retained until 1873 and he gained a reputation of being a forceful and vigorous writer, having a clear appreciation of news values and evincing distinctive and mature judgment as to matters of public and civic polity. In the year last mentioned Mr. McLeod received from Judge George S. Swift the appointment to the office of clerk of the recorder's court of Wayne county, and in this position he served until 1877, when he resigned to engage in business in an independent way. He became one of the organizers and incorporators of the Pierce Chemical Company, which engaged in the manufacturing of wood chemicals. The inventor of the processes utilized was Henry M. Pierce, who became president of the company, and Mr. McLeod was superintendent. He was identified with the enterprise about one year, at the expiration of which, in 1878, he became associated with Captain Augustus C. Donnelly in the operation of a line of packet steamers on the Ohio and Tennessee rivers. These boats plied between Cincinnati, Ohio, and Florence, Alabama, and Mr. McLeod was chief clerk on the "Ariadne," of Cincinnati, in which vessel he owned a one-fourth interest. From this enterprise he withdrew in 1882, in which year he returned to Detroit, where he entered the employ of the Evening News Company, and from 1885 to 1889 he was city editor of this popular daily. On the 1st of January, 1889, he became private secretary to Mayor Hazen S. Pingree, during whose excellent administration he continued incumbent of this position, from which he retired in 1895. In the autumn of the preceding year he had been elected treasurer of Wayne county, and that he ably handled the fiscal affairs entrusted to his supervision is best evidenced in the fact that he was chosen as his own successor in the election of 1896. He made many and effective improvements in the
system of handling the business of the treasurer's office (notably by the introduction of the Cashier System, which was adopted also by the water board and the receiver of taxes), and the plans which he thus formulated have since continued to be utilized by his successors in this responsible and exacting office. He retired from office in July, 1898. In politics Mr. McLeod is a stalwart in the local camp of the Republican party, and he has done effective service in its cause.
Mr. McLeod has been more or less intimately identified with lake-marine interests for many years, having been part owner of the composite steamer "John Owen," and of the steamer "Progress," in which latter connection he was vice-president of the Progress Transportation Company. In 1895 he became one of the organizers and incorporators of the Detroit Telephone Company, of which he was elected vice-president, besides being a member of its directorate. The successful work of this company is a matter of city and state history, and a review of its work and operations is not demanded in this connection, though it may be said that the subject of this sketch was a potent factor in building up the business of this important corporation. In 1897 he was concerned in the organization of the new State Telephone Company, of which he was vice-president up to the time of its consolidation with the Bell Telephone Company. In 1905 Mr. McLeod became one of the organizers and incorporators of the MaxwellBriscoe-McLeod Company, which is engaged in the sale of automobiles and whose territory covers Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. The enterprise has been most successful and Mr. McLeod has been president and general manager of the company since 1906. He is also president of the Detroit Reduction Company, manufacturers of fertilizers, a director of the Chicago Reduction Company, of the Seaboard Portland Cement Company and of the Central Savings Bank of Detroit.
For a long term of years Mr. McLeod has been one of the most prominent and enthusiastic figures in yachting circles on the Great Lakes, and the speedy boats with which he has been concerned have effectually trimmed the sails of many a worthy rival. In 1884 he served as vice-commodore of the Michigan Yacht Club, in 1898 as commodore of the Inter Lake Yachting Association, and for the year 1905 as commodore of the Detroit Yacht Club. He is the owner of the yawl "Frances A.," named in honor of his wife, and the same is a fine specimen of its type, being thirty-five feet in length and the winner of many races. In 1887 he was the head of the syndicate which built the "City of the Straits," constructed by the Detroit Dry Dock Company, from the design of Brady Wandell. This yacht has a long series of victories in hard fought struggles, with Commodore McLeod at the stick, the most notable of which was sailed in a snow storm, on Lake Erie, on November 21, 1888, and which resulted in a victory over the "Alice Enright," of Toledo, the then champion of the lakes of fifty-seven minutes over a thirty-mile course. Again in 1900, when the honor of Detroit seemed to be at stake, Commodore McLeod organized another syndicate, which built the famous forty-foot sloop "Detroit," which cleaned up everything in her class, finally going the long trip overland to San Diego, California, where she beat everything on the Pacific coast and won the trophy given by Sir Thomas Lipton. Mr. McLeod is one of the few surviving members of the old International Yacht Club, of which the late Kirk C. Barker was the commodore and leading spirit. In 1884 the subject of this review effected the organization of the Michigan Yacht Club, the immediate predecessor of the present Detroit Yacht Club, and largely through his efforts was secured from the board of park commissioners of Detroit the franchise and concession which made possible the erection of the club house on Belle Isle.
Mr. McLeod is a member of the Fellowcraft Club, the Bankers' Club, the Detroit Board of Commerce, the Detroit Motor Boat Club, and a life member of the Detroit Yacht Club, besides being identified with the InterLake Yachting Association. He holds membership in the Harmonie Society of Detroit and is affiliated with the various York and Scottish Rite bodies of the Masonic fraternity, in which he has attained to the thirty-second degree.
On the 28th of October, 1876, Mr. McLeod was united in marriage to Miss Frances A. Millington, daughter of John Millington, who was a leading architect in New York city, and they have one daughter, Frances Janet.
Source: History and Biography of the City of Detroit and Wayne County, Michigan, Henry Taylor & Co., Chicago, IL, 1909, pp 574-576
******
Buried in the Alex McLeod (d. 1875) family plot
There are two markers for Commodore Alex I. McLeod. The individual marker has no dates and the dates on the family marker are barely visible.
COMMODORE
Treasurer, Wayne County, MI
**********
ALEXANDER I. McLEOD.
Few citizens of Detroit are better known or enjoy a higher measure of popularity than Alexander I. McLeod, who has here passed the major portion of his life and whose activities have touched and entered many different fields. He has been incumbent of offices of distinctive public trust, has been identified in a prominent way with newspaper work, has been concerned with lake-marine navigation, and has been especially conspicuous in yachting circles. His friends are in number as his acquaintances, and their loyalty is fortified by appreciation of the canny traits which are his as a scion of staunch old Scottish highland stock. He is a representative of the historic clan McLeod, and in a collateral way of those of Stuart and Cameron.
The fact that Mr. McLeod is a native of the smallest state of the American Union has not militated against his "bigness," of intellect and soul, as all who know him can well testify. He was born in the city of Providence, Rhode Island, on the 2d of August, 1852, and is a son of Alexander and Janet (Reid) McLeod. His father was born in the Highlands of Scotland, whence he came to America when a lad of sixteen years, having worked his passage on a sailing vessel and having first settled in Nova Scotia. There he learned the trades of ship carpenter and marine draftsman, and to these closely allied vocations he thereafter devoted his attention throughout his entire active business career, which was diversified by employment on land and sea. He made numerous voyages and incidental thereto visited many of the principal ports of the world. Finally he took up his residence in Providence, Rhode Island, where he became a successful shipbuilder. In the financial depression and panic of 1857 he met with severe losses, which greatly impaired the comfortable fortune which he had gained through energy and well directed efforts. Under these conditions he was moved to locate in the west, and in that year he came, with his family, to Michigan and took up his abode at Mount Clemens, Macomb county, where he engaged in shipbuilding on a modest scale. In 1859 he removed to Detroit, and here he was for many years superintendent of the shipyard of Campbell & Owen, which firm was succeeded by the Detroit Dry Dock Company, and the latter in turn' by the present Detroit Shipbuilding Company, which is a branch of the American Shipbuilding Company. He continued a resident of Detroit until his death, which occurred in 1875, and was a man of sterling integrity, ever commanding the confidence and respect of all who knew him. His wife, who was a native of Paisley, Scotland, died in 1865, and of their four children three are living.
Alexander I. McLeod was afforded the advantages of the excellent public schools of Detroit, where he was reared to maturity, having been seven years of age at the time of the family removal to this city. At the age of eighteen years he entered service as a sailor on the Great Lakes, having been fond of the water from his boyhood days and having never as yet abated his love for the ever varying attractions of our great inland seas. At the age of nineteen years he withdrew from his lake-marine vocation to enter upon one of radically different order,—one in which he was destined to achieve no mediocre success and prestige. He entered the employ of the old Detroit Advertiser and Tribune, and finally became a member of its reportorial force, in which connection he made so excellent a record that in 1872 he became a member of the editorial staff of the paper. This incumbency he retained until 1873 and he gained a reputation of being a forceful and vigorous writer, having a clear appreciation of news values and evincing distinctive and mature judgment as to matters of public and civic polity. In the year last mentioned Mr. McLeod received from Judge George S. Swift the appointment to the office of clerk of the recorder's court of Wayne county, and in this position he served until 1877, when he resigned to engage in business in an independent way. He became one of the organizers and incorporators of the Pierce Chemical Company, which engaged in the manufacturing of wood chemicals. The inventor of the processes utilized was Henry M. Pierce, who became president of the company, and Mr. McLeod was superintendent. He was identified with the enterprise about one year, at the expiration of which, in 1878, he became associated with Captain Augustus C. Donnelly in the operation of a line of packet steamers on the Ohio and Tennessee rivers. These boats plied between Cincinnati, Ohio, and Florence, Alabama, and Mr. McLeod was chief clerk on the "Ariadne," of Cincinnati, in which vessel he owned a one-fourth interest. From this enterprise he withdrew in 1882, in which year he returned to Detroit, where he entered the employ of the Evening News Company, and from 1885 to 1889 he was city editor of this popular daily. On the 1st of January, 1889, he became private secretary to Mayor Hazen S. Pingree, during whose excellent administration he continued incumbent of this position, from which he retired in 1895. In the autumn of the preceding year he had been elected treasurer of Wayne county, and that he ably handled the fiscal affairs entrusted to his supervision is best evidenced in the fact that he was chosen as his own successor in the election of 1896. He made many and effective improvements in the
system of handling the business of the treasurer's office (notably by the introduction of the Cashier System, which was adopted also by the water board and the receiver of taxes), and the plans which he thus formulated have since continued to be utilized by his successors in this responsible and exacting office. He retired from office in July, 1898. In politics Mr. McLeod is a stalwart in the local camp of the Republican party, and he has done effective service in its cause.
Mr. McLeod has been more or less intimately identified with lake-marine interests for many years, having been part owner of the composite steamer "John Owen," and of the steamer "Progress," in which latter connection he was vice-president of the Progress Transportation Company. In 1895 he became one of the organizers and incorporators of the Detroit Telephone Company, of which he was elected vice-president, besides being a member of its directorate. The successful work of this company is a matter of city and state history, and a review of its work and operations is not demanded in this connection, though it may be said that the subject of this sketch was a potent factor in building up the business of this important corporation. In 1897 he was concerned in the organization of the new State Telephone Company, of which he was vice-president up to the time of its consolidation with the Bell Telephone Company. In 1905 Mr. McLeod became one of the organizers and incorporators of the MaxwellBriscoe-McLeod Company, which is engaged in the sale of automobiles and whose territory covers Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. The enterprise has been most successful and Mr. McLeod has been president and general manager of the company since 1906. He is also president of the Detroit Reduction Company, manufacturers of fertilizers, a director of the Chicago Reduction Company, of the Seaboard Portland Cement Company and of the Central Savings Bank of Detroit.
For a long term of years Mr. McLeod has been one of the most prominent and enthusiastic figures in yachting circles on the Great Lakes, and the speedy boats with which he has been concerned have effectually trimmed the sails of many a worthy rival. In 1884 he served as vice-commodore of the Michigan Yacht Club, in 1898 as commodore of the Inter Lake Yachting Association, and for the year 1905 as commodore of the Detroit Yacht Club. He is the owner of the yawl "Frances A.," named in honor of his wife, and the same is a fine specimen of its type, being thirty-five feet in length and the winner of many races. In 1887 he was the head of the syndicate which built the "City of the Straits," constructed by the Detroit Dry Dock Company, from the design of Brady Wandell. This yacht has a long series of victories in hard fought struggles, with Commodore McLeod at the stick, the most notable of which was sailed in a snow storm, on Lake Erie, on November 21, 1888, and which resulted in a victory over the "Alice Enright," of Toledo, the then champion of the lakes of fifty-seven minutes over a thirty-mile course. Again in 1900, when the honor of Detroit seemed to be at stake, Commodore McLeod organized another syndicate, which built the famous forty-foot sloop "Detroit," which cleaned up everything in her class, finally going the long trip overland to San Diego, California, where she beat everything on the Pacific coast and won the trophy given by Sir Thomas Lipton. Mr. McLeod is one of the few surviving members of the old International Yacht Club, of which the late Kirk C. Barker was the commodore and leading spirit. In 1884 the subject of this review effected the organization of the Michigan Yacht Club, the immediate predecessor of the present Detroit Yacht Club, and largely through his efforts was secured from the board of park commissioners of Detroit the franchise and concession which made possible the erection of the club house on Belle Isle.
Mr. McLeod is a member of the Fellowcraft Club, the Bankers' Club, the Detroit Board of Commerce, the Detroit Motor Boat Club, and a life member of the Detroit Yacht Club, besides being identified with the InterLake Yachting Association. He holds membership in the Harmonie Society of Detroit and is affiliated with the various York and Scottish Rite bodies of the Masonic fraternity, in which he has attained to the thirty-second degree.
On the 28th of October, 1876, Mr. McLeod was united in marriage to Miss Frances A. Millington, daughter of John Millington, who was a leading architect in New York city, and they have one daughter, Frances Janet.
Source: History and Biography of the City of Detroit and Wayne County, Michigan, Henry Taylor & Co., Chicago, IL, 1909, pp 574-576
******
Buried in the Alex McLeod (d. 1875) family plot
There are two markers for Commodore Alex I. McLeod. The individual marker has no dates and the dates on the family marker are barely visible.
Treasurer, Wayne County, MI
**********
ALEXANDER I. McLEOD.
Few citizens of Detroit are better known or enjoy a higher measure of popularity than Alexander I. McLeod, who has here passed the major portion of his life and whose activities have touched and entered many different fields. He has been incumbent of offices of distinctive public trust, has been identified in a prominent way with newspaper work, has been concerned with lake-marine navigation, and has been especially conspicuous in yachting circles. His friends are in number as his acquaintances, and their loyalty is fortified by appreciation of the canny traits which are his as a scion of staunch old Scottish highland stock. He is a representative of the historic clan McLeod, and in a collateral way of those of Stuart and Cameron.
The fact that Mr. McLeod is a native of the smallest state of the American Union has not militated against his "bigness," of intellect and soul, as all who know him can well testify. He was born in the city of Providence, Rhode Island, on the 2d of August, 1852, and is a son of Alexander and Janet (Reid) McLeod. His father was born in the Highlands of Scotland, whence he came to America when a lad of sixteen years, having worked his passage on a sailing vessel and having first settled in Nova Scotia. There he learned the trades of ship carpenter and marine draftsman, and to these closely allied vocations he thereafter devoted his attention throughout his entire active business career, which was diversified by employment on land and sea. He made numerous voyages and incidental thereto visited many of the principal ports of the world. Finally he took up his residence in Providence, Rhode Island, where he became a successful shipbuilder. In the financial depression and panic of 1857 he met with severe losses, which greatly impaired the comfortable fortune which he had gained through energy and well directed efforts. Under these conditions he was moved to locate in the west, and in that year he came, with his family, to Michigan and took up his abode at Mount Clemens, Macomb county, where he engaged in shipbuilding on a modest scale. In 1859 he removed to Detroit, and here he was for many years superintendent of the shipyard of Campbell & Owen, which firm was succeeded by the Detroit Dry Dock Company, and the latter in turn' by the present Detroit Shipbuilding Company, which is a branch of the American Shipbuilding Company. He continued a resident of Detroit until his death, which occurred in 1875, and was a man of sterling integrity, ever commanding the confidence and respect of all who knew him. His wife, who was a native of Paisley, Scotland, died in 1865, and of their four children three are living.
Alexander I. McLeod was afforded the advantages of the excellent public schools of Detroit, where he was reared to maturity, having been seven years of age at the time of the family removal to this city. At the age of eighteen years he entered service as a sailor on the Great Lakes, having been fond of the water from his boyhood days and having never as yet abated his love for the ever varying attractions of our great inland seas. At the age of nineteen years he withdrew from his lake-marine vocation to enter upon one of radically different order,—one in which he was destined to achieve no mediocre success and prestige. He entered the employ of the old Detroit Advertiser and Tribune, and finally became a member of its reportorial force, in which connection he made so excellent a record that in 1872 he became a member of the editorial staff of the paper. This incumbency he retained until 1873 and he gained a reputation of being a forceful and vigorous writer, having a clear appreciation of news values and evincing distinctive and mature judgment as to matters of public and civic polity. In the year last mentioned Mr. McLeod received from Judge George S. Swift the appointment to the office of clerk of the recorder's court of Wayne county, and in this position he served until 1877, when he resigned to engage in business in an independent way. He became one of the organizers and incorporators of the Pierce Chemical Company, which engaged in the manufacturing of wood chemicals. The inventor of the processes utilized was Henry M. Pierce, who became president of the company, and Mr. McLeod was superintendent. He was identified with the enterprise about one year, at the expiration of which, in 1878, he became associated with Captain Augustus C. Donnelly in the operation of a line of packet steamers on the Ohio and Tennessee rivers. These boats plied between Cincinnati, Ohio, and Florence, Alabama, and Mr. McLeod was chief clerk on the "Ariadne," of Cincinnati, in which vessel he owned a one-fourth interest. From this enterprise he withdrew in 1882, in which year he returned to Detroit, where he entered the employ of the Evening News Company, and from 1885 to 1889 he was city editor of this popular daily. On the 1st of January, 1889, he became private secretary to Mayor Hazen S. Pingree, during whose excellent administration he continued incumbent of this position, from which he retired in 1895. In the autumn of the preceding year he had been elected treasurer of Wayne county, and that he ably handled the fiscal affairs entrusted to his supervision is best evidenced in the fact that he was chosen as his own successor in the election of 1896. He made many and effective improvements in the
system of handling the business of the treasurer's office (notably by the introduction of the Cashier System, which was adopted also by the water board and the receiver of taxes), and the plans which he thus formulated have since continued to be utilized by his successors in this responsible and exacting office. He retired from office in July, 1898. In politics Mr. McLeod is a stalwart in the local camp of the Republican party, and he has done effective service in its cause.
Mr. McLeod has been more or less intimately identified with lake-marine interests for many years, having been part owner of the composite steamer "John Owen," and of the steamer "Progress," in which latter connection he was vice-president of the Progress Transportation Company. In 1895 he became one of the organizers and incorporators of the Detroit Telephone Company, of which he was elected vice-president, besides being a member of its directorate. The successful work of this company is a matter of city and state history, and a review of its work and operations is not demanded in this connection, though it may be said that the subject of this sketch was a potent factor in building up the business of this important corporation. In 1897 he was concerned in the organization of the new State Telephone Company, of which he was vice-president up to the time of its consolidation with the Bell Telephone Company. In 1905 Mr. McLeod became one of the organizers and incorporators of the MaxwellBriscoe-McLeod Company, which is engaged in the sale of automobiles and whose territory covers Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. The enterprise has been most successful and Mr. McLeod has been president and general manager of the company since 1906. He is also president of the Detroit Reduction Company, manufacturers of fertilizers, a director of the Chicago Reduction Company, of the Seaboard Portland Cement Company and of the Central Savings Bank of Detroit.
For a long term of years Mr. McLeod has been one of the most prominent and enthusiastic figures in yachting circles on the Great Lakes, and the speedy boats with which he has been concerned have effectually trimmed the sails of many a worthy rival. In 1884 he served as vice-commodore of the Michigan Yacht Club, in 1898 as commodore of the Inter Lake Yachting Association, and for the year 1905 as commodore of the Detroit Yacht Club. He is the owner of the yawl "Frances A.," named in honor of his wife, and the same is a fine specimen of its type, being thirty-five feet in length and the winner of many races. In 1887 he was the head of the syndicate which built the "City of the Straits," constructed by the Detroit Dry Dock Company, from the design of Brady Wandell. This yacht has a long series of victories in hard fought struggles, with Commodore McLeod at the stick, the most notable of which was sailed in a snow storm, on Lake Erie, on November 21, 1888, and which resulted in a victory over the "Alice Enright," of Toledo, the then champion of the lakes of fifty-seven minutes over a thirty-mile course. Again in 1900, when the honor of Detroit seemed to be at stake, Commodore McLeod organized another syndicate, which built the famous forty-foot sloop "Detroit," which cleaned up everything in her class, finally going the long trip overland to San Diego, California, where she beat everything on the Pacific coast and won the trophy given by Sir Thomas Lipton. Mr. McLeod is one of the few surviving members of the old International Yacht Club, of which the late Kirk C. Barker was the commodore and leading spirit. In 1884 the subject of this review effected the organization of the Michigan Yacht Club, the immediate predecessor of the present Detroit Yacht Club, and largely through his efforts was secured from the board of park commissioners of Detroit the franchise and concession which made possible the erection of the club house on Belle Isle.
Mr. McLeod is a member of the Fellowcraft Club, the Bankers' Club, the Detroit Board of Commerce, the Detroit Motor Boat Club, and a life member of the Detroit Yacht Club, besides being identified with the InterLake Yachting Association. He holds membership in the Harmonie Society of Detroit and is affiliated with the various York and Scottish Rite bodies of the Masonic fraternity, in which he has attained to the thirty-second degree.
On the 28th of October, 1876, Mr. McLeod was united in marriage to Miss Frances A. Millington, daughter of John Millington, who was a leading architect in New York city, and they have one daughter, Frances Janet.
Source: History and Biography of the City of Detroit and Wayne County, Michigan, Henry Taylor & Co., Chicago, IL, 1909, pp 574-576
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Buried in the Alex McLeod (d. 1875) family plot
There are two markers for Commodore Alex I. McLeod. The individual marker has no dates and the dates on the family marker are barely visible.
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