Hazen Stuart Pingree (August
30, 1840 – June 18, 1901) was a four-term Republican mayor of Detroit
(1889–1896)
and Governor of the U.S. state of Michigan
(1896–1901).
Early life in Maine and Massachusetts
Pingree
was born in Denmark,
Maine
, to Jasper Pingree and Adeline (Bryant) Pingree and
attended the common schools in Maine
.
At the age
of fourteen, he moved to Saco, Maine
, where he worked at a cotton factory.
Two years
later, he moved to Hopkinton, Massachusetts
, and worked several years as a cutter in
a
Civil War
In 1862, Pingree enlisted in the
Union
Army to serve in the
Civil
War with the 1st Massachusetts Heavy Artillery Regiment
(Company F).
He fought on the front line during General Pope’s Northern
Virginia Campaign
and the Second Battle of Bull Run
. The regiment he
fought with was then ordered to defend Washington, D.C.
until May 15, 1864, and then was sent to the front
again. He fought with the Second Brigade of Tyler’s
Division, Second Corps, which
participated in battles at Fredericksburg Road (May 18), Harris
Farm (May 19), and Spotsylvania Court House
(May 19-21).
His regiment was then assigned to the Second Corps, Third Division,
in the
Army of the Potomac and
fought at North Anna (May 24-25) where he and some other men were
captured by a detachment of
John S.
Mosby’s
partisan command.
Pingree was confined
in Confederate prisons at
Gordonsville
and Lynchburg, Virginia
, and at Salisbury, North Carolina
. He was then taken to Andersonville
prison
and, while General Sherman was on his march to
the sea, he was taken to Millen, Georgia
, where he later escaped by pretending to be someone
else during a roll call for a prisoner exchange in November
1864.
He
rejoined his regiment, fought in many more battles and was present
at Appomattox
Court House
when Robert E.
Lee surrendered on April 9, 1865. A
few months later, on August 15, his regiment was mustered
out.
Life in Michigan
Pingree was a cobbler by trade and, following the war, moved to
Detroit and briefly worked for H. P. Baldwin & Company. Then in
December 1866, with Charles H. Smith, he established the Pingree
and Smith Shoe Co. In 1883, Smith retired from the firm and J. B.
Howarth joined the partnership. In March 1887, a fire destroyed the
entire plant, yet they were able to recover. By the 1890s, the firm
had become the West's largest shoe manufacturer. When Pingree
became governor, the company branded one of its styles
"Governor."
In 1872, Pingree married Frances A.
Gilbert of Mount
Clemens, Michigan
. They had three children; Joe, Hazel, and
another daughter who died young.
Politics
Pingree was elected
mayor of
Detroit in 1889 on a platform of exposing and ending corruption
in city paving contracts, sewer contracts, and the school board. He
soon turned to fighting privately owned utility monopolies. He
challenged the electric and gas monopolies through
municipally-owned competitors. His largest struggle, however, was
with
Tom L. Johnson, president of the Detroit City
Railways, over lowering streetcar fares to three-cents. Pingree
again attempted to create a competing municipally-owned company,
but was barred from creating a railway by the
Michigan Constitution.
During the
depression of 1893,
Pingree expanded the public welfare programs, initiated public
works for the unemployed, built new schools, parks, and public
baths. He gained national recognition through his "potato patch
plan," a systematic use of vacant city land for gardens which would
produce food for the city's poor. He was also an advocate of
economist
Henry George's
single tax.
In 1896, Pingree was elected
Governor of Michigan. After taking
office on January 1, 1897, he intended to also fill the last year
of his term as mayor of Detroit, which would have lasted until
elections in November 1897.
However, his right to hold the two offices
simultaneously was contested, and after the Michigan
Supreme Court
ruled against him, Pingree resigned as mayor (see
Catlin p. 628). During his four years in office, the direct
election of U.S. senators was promoted; an eight-hour workday was
endorsed; a regulated income tax was supported; and railroad
taxation was advocated.
Retirement and death
In 1901,
Pingree had arrived in London, England
, whilst returning from an African safari with
his son and U.S. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt. He was stricken with
peritonitis and was unable to return to the U.S.
King Edward VII, Pingree’s famous
look-a-like, even sent his own physicians to London's Grand Hotel
to assist in his recovery.
Just before his wife and daughter embarked
from New
York
to visit him, they heard the news her husband had
died.
Pingree died at the age of sixty, just five months after leaving
office as governor. He was interred in Detroit and later reinterred
at the
Woodlawn
Cemetery in Detroit.
There is a statue of Pingree standing in the
Grand Circus
Park
in Detroit, commemorating him as "The Idol of the
People."
See also
References
Notes
- Willis F. Dunbar and George S. May. Michigan: A History of
the Wolverine State. 3rd Revised Ed., (Grand Rapids: William
B. Eerdmans, 1995), 414.
Additional reading
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