Nathaniel Noble, (father of Henry Horbart Noble and Edwin S. Noble) who was a surveyor by profession, came to Michigan in the territorial epoch, in company with Judge Samuel Wirt Dexter, whose name is prominently identified with the early annals of the state, the town of Dexter, Washtenaw county, having been named in his honor.
The latter was
the father of Wirt Dexter, who was long
one of the most eminent members of the
bar of the city of Chicago, while he was also
a member of the firm of Dexter & Noble,
whose operations in Antrim county were of
magnificent scope, the firm continuing unchanged until his
death.
This firm organized the Elk Rapids
Iron Company, with
Henry Horbart Noble in charge of the operative
and executive affairs. Mr. Dexter became
the owner of extensive landed and timber
interests in northern Michigan, and in association with Henry Hobart.
Noble established
large sawmills and conducted extensive lumbering enterprises in
Antrim and adjacent
counties, while the firm also established a
large general store in Elk Rapids,
of which
town they were numbered among the founders.
They also erected a
gristmill in this
place and promoted many other enterprises
which aided materially in bringing about
the growth and material advancement of this
section. They were associated with the late Wilbur F. Storey, the well known founder
of the Chicago Times, in the organization
of the Elk Rapids Iron Company,
whose
furnaces here were erected in 1873, being
the largest charcoal furnaces in the United
States. This enterprise was inaugurated in
order to utilize the hard wood timber in this
section, where the pine timber had been practically exhausted.
Mr. Story was later succeeded by N.K. Fairbank, another
prominent citizen of Chicago, and Edwin S. Noble also sold his
interest to Mr. Fairbank, in 1891.
SEE:
Henry Horbart Noble and
Edwin S. Noble