EDWIN J.YOUNGS. Superintendent
of the Castree-Mallory Manufacturing Company, and also a stockholder and
director of the same, was born in Fulton, Oswego County, N.Y., September
3, 1850. He is the son of Henry and the grandson of Hyatt Youngs,
both New Yorkers, and the grandfather was of Welsh descent and a soldier
in the War of 1812. The father learned the miller’s trade which he carried
on at Fulton, N.Y., for forty years, and was also foreman of mills for
some time at Genesee. He was for many years in the State Militia in New
York. He is inclined to Republican principles, but is independent in his
vote, and in his religious view is a Universalist.
The mother of our subject bore the
maiden name of Phoebe Youmans and was born in Coxsackie, Greene
County, N.Y. Her father, Abraham Youmans, was a farmer of English
descent. She died in Fulton, February 22, 1884, at the age of fifty-five
years. Of her thirteen children ten grew to maturity and nine are still
living. One son, Abraham, served during the late ware and was for seven
years in the regular army.
He of whom we write had good school
advantages in Fulton, N.Y. until he reached the age of ten years, when
he entered a planing mill, and at the age of fifteen has mastered the business,
so that he had charge of the establishment. He then was apprenticed to
a machinist, and he has developed a natural genius in that line, and at
the age of eighteen was an
accomplished workman. He is now
one of the finest machinists in Michigan and can devise or make anything
I iron, and is constantly making improvements upon the machinery in his
establishment.
In 1868 the young man started out
as a journeyman, traveling through New York, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois,
Missouri, Nebraska, Mississippi, and Louisiana, and made his experience
very valuable by way of gaining new ideas. He was a tone time Superintendent
of the works of the Eams Vacuum Brake Company at Watertown, N.Y., where
he married in 1876 Miss Rozelle E. Auranger, a native of Oswego
County, N.Y. He was also Superintendent of the machine shot in Fulton.
In 1880 he came to Linden, Genesee County, Mich., where he built carriage
shops for J. Broch & Sons, and superintended their
works while there. In 1883 he came
to Flint and engaged in business for himself as a machinist and engine
broker, after which he was solicited to become a partner with Messrs. Castree
& Mallory and bought a one-third interest in their works, of which
he is now superintendent.
In 1887 this business firm was incorporated
as the Castree-Mallory Company, and Mr. Youngs became a director and the
superintendent. The occupy over twenty thousand square feet of space, situated
on six floors, ad the machinery is run by a hundred horse power steam engine.
The output of the factory included land rollers, bob sleds, cultivators,
harrows, plows and general farming implements.
This talented machinist has invented
and patented various machines, including the Starr Fence machine, the Starr
bob sleigh, the Flexible Land Roller, the Starr lever cultivator and various
other machines and devices. He is constantly improving the machinery of
this company, and its extraordinary success is in a large measure, due
to his practical genius and untiring energy. This company carries on the
third largest manufactory of agricultural implements in Michigan, and they
take a just pride in their success. Mr. Youngs is a true-blue Republican
and a member of the orders of Masonry and the Knights of the Maccabees.
One child has cheered his home, to whom he has been given the name of Martin
P.