This is the text of the second in a series of four talks on historic Fort Street congregation members and their impact on the life of Detroit by Tim Moran.

Again, let me say that this series is made possible by a grant from Detroit 300 and is a formal part of the city's 300th birthday celebration. Fort Street itself is 152 years old this month, and the congregation has been worshipping at this corner since 1855.

Today we're going to discuss a series of names: The Scotten family, the two James Joys and Miss Sarah Grindley. What they wrought here was of lasting consequence and changed many lives, most for the better. And they were very interesting people.

Let's start with the Scottens. It is fitting to do so because the room we are in right now is a result of their success, their tragedy and generosity; this entire half of the building, the so-called "Church House," was a gift from Mary McGregor Scotten to the work of the church.

Mary was born in Scotland in 1855. She came to Detroit in 1873 from Guelph, Ontario, the bride of Oren Scotten, who at that time was 33 years old and a tobacco man. Tobacco, at that time, didn't have the negative connotations of today; its effects were actually considered a health benefit. It was an honest, if hotly competitive, business and Detroit at one time was considered the chewing tobacco capital of the west.

Oren, born in 1840, found his way to Detroit in 1859 at age 19: He was broke, jobless, and he dragged himself into the tobacco shop of his uncle, Daniel Scotten, to ask for a job at what was then Scotten, Granger & Lovett.

Daniel looked him up and down, then gruffly said "Take off your coat and work, then," and returned to what he had been doing. Oren knew nothing of the business. But he saw that the store was dirty, and he grabbed a broom and began by sweeping out the shop. The Detroit News, in 1906, wrote: "The fact that his name was Scotten did this much for him; it secured him the lowest position in his uncle's struggling tobacco factory, but that was all."

He worked his way up through almost every position until he reached management of the Hiawatha Tobacco Factory at Fort and Campau streets, and from that success Daniel took him on as a partner.

By the time the Scotten family joined Fort Street Church, in 1887 (some sources say 1893), both Oren and Daniel were millionaires - but both were "progressive" millionaires, with ideas about how the world should work. Their tobacco operation had branched out from making "plug," or pipe tobacco, and chewing tobacco, and was making cigars and cigarettes. The latter, though, were a strictly-controlled monopoly of "The Trust," also known as the American Tobacco Company. American came to the Scottens with an offer and a threat - sell out to us, they said, or we shut you down and drive you out of business. It was a sweet deal for the Scottens, and they signed; Oren alone was rumored to get a $1 million cash payment, as well as stock in the trust companies when the Scotten plants became part of the Continental Tobacco Company, a trust member.

Then the hammer came down. The trust was only interested in driving the Scotten business out of competition; their Detroit factories would be closed down, 1,200 workers put out of their jobs, and all operations would be moved to Kentucky. This was a devastating blow to the city's economy - and a personal one to the Scottens. A the News wrote later, "There are men in the ¬… shipping room today who helped Oren Scotten nail up boxes 29 years ago."

It was Oren whose shrewd financial and legal mind found the escape that let Daniel Scotten take back his business - even though it meant heavy short-term costs to the Scotten fortunes. But Oren was not one to sit by and see workers suffer.

Wrote the News: "His principle was not to keep men in fear of losing their employment, but to make them feel that they were as much a part of the business as he, as long as they desired to stay and do their part."

And Oren did more than that. He was a quiet, but personally involved benefactor. Said his close acquaintance Fred T. Moran (no relation to the writer): "Scotten gave away more stuff than half the business men of this city - shoes and stockings for the little folks and blankets for the beds. I never knew about this sphere of activity until I went to see him one time. He told me he was in a hurry and that I would have to talk to him in his rig. As we drove along, I found he was distributing goods to the poor folks himself - wouldn't trust it to anybody else."

At the Scotten plant, the same story of quiet, personal philanthropy was told. A journalist wrote that more than 300 workers had each been helped by the Scottens - and each of them was asked by Oren to keep it "a friendship secret between himself and them." It was only after his death, when workers compared their memories, that the full extent of Scotten's generosity became known

Scotten covered up his philanthropy with the image of being an enthusiast - he would have fit well into the "new economy" of today. First it was baseball, with Scotten recruiting an advertising team of tobacco workers that toured the nation, playing against the "crack teams" of other cities to tout Hiawatha products. After a number of years, the craze became chickens, and Scotten the amateur poultryman took over. Scotten took to yachting, as well, with an 80-foot boat known for its "calliope" steam whistle. Next, Progressive mayor Hazen Pingree appointed Scotten to the Fire Commission - and Scotten soon had alarm boxes fixed up in his stable, his home and his office. Whenever a fire call came in, day or night, Scotten's coachman was to have the carriage ready and waiting for the millionaire fireman to rush over and supervise the blaze - as long as it was West of Woodward.

For the Scotten family were firm west siders, and their mansion, at 1085 Fort Street, near Porter, was a local legend of hospitality. Nine children made it an active spot; observers said it was a "lively" scene when the Scotten's stately phaeton would pull up in front of the church and the children would swarm out.

Mary Scotten was the steady, common-sense side of the couple to counterbalance Oren's enthusiasms. It was she who decided the family would join Fort Street, despite its reputation as an unwelcoming congregation.

According to a newspaper interview, Mary Scotten said: "We were told that Fort Street was very cold and dignified, but I said it is more accessible to the children and besides, I am too busy with my home and children to stand around waiting for people to unbend and be cordial."

She began associating with Fort Street in September, 1887, and rapidly made herself part of the church's life. She taught a large class of young women, served as president of the women's association for years and was known as "a sure friend of all in need and distress."

How do you measure strength? Mary Scotten surely had it. On July 26, 1901, newspaper headlines blared "Oren Scotten, Junior, Is Dead." Mary's 13-year-old child had fallen ill on a Tuesday; by Thursday, appendicitis had claimed his life, despite an emergency operation and all that millions could do.

Five years later, in 1906, another Oren Scotten was in headlines - this time Mary's husband. Scotten's final enthusiasm, hunting, led him on a two-week rough camping trip in Nova Scotia. In a freak accident, Oren had fallen from a boat into freezing water. The shock and energy loss amplified an existing lung problem - cancer? Tuberculosis? Asthma? The medical diagnosis of the time was "inflammation of the lungs," and had little to offer - and Oren died in the hunting camp, on Sunday night, September 25.

Mourned a friend: "I don't know what the poor people of the west end are going to do if this is a cold winter. Oren Scotten was one of the biggest-hearted men that ever lived."

His heart was matched by Mary's courage. Look at the cornerstone date on this Church House. Mary Scotten donated $50,000, on October 17, 1906,- less than one month after Oren's death -- to build this spot on land donated by James Joy. You'll also notice that there is no plaque or monument labeling this building in Scotten's memory; Mary was firm that its utility would be memorial enough, and she practiced "tough love" on the congregation, as well, insisting that they match her grant with $26,000 of their own so that the church would truly own and feel responsible for its building.

But the tie to Oren Scotten's life was clear; consecration of this Church House was on September 25, 1908, the anniversary of his death. And Mary's generosity went on and on; funding hospitals for Lepers, Presbyterian missions and countless small charities, with far-reaching bequests after her death in 1948.

I mentioned James Joy - you'll find his portrait just outside this room, in the stairwell, near that of Mary Scotten.

There were two James Joys, and both of them were remarkable men.

James F. Joy, the senior, was a mighty force in Michigan and an early leader in this congregation. He promoted and built the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy railroad; rescued Michigan from debt by convincing Boston capitalists to buy, for cash, a state railroad that existed mostly as paper and promises; and organized the effort that built the first Soo Locks.

He was enormously successful in the legal end of the railroad business - equivalent, in its time, to the dot-com revolution we've recently experienced. James F. Joy was said to have built more than 6,000 miles of railway entering or connecting to lines leading to Detroit, making the city a transportation hub fit for the growth of the industrial revolution.

They built 'em tough in the old days; let me share one incident to illustrate James F. Joy's character. At a Michigan bar association cruise, Joy, then 84, missed his footing and fell from the ship's gangplank into the river. Another attorney, Colonel Dickenson, of Kentucky, jumped in to rescue him.

Said Joy, testily: "What are you doing here, sir!"

Said Dickenson: "I was trying to help you, sir!"

And Joy replied: "You should not be risking your life, sir! I could swim to Windsor and back!"

Time, today, does not permit enough detail to be offered on his influence, but it needs to be noted that it was James F. Joy, late in his career, who built the Union Depot at Fort and Third streets, literally just across the street from this church. He died on Sept. 24, 1896.

James Joy, the son, was born in 1847 in a Detroit house that later was home to Ulysses Grant. After graduating from Yale, James Joy became first secretary, then Vice President of the Detroit Union Railroad Station & Depot Company. The company, organized in 1881, managed buildings, docks, grain elevators and the railroad depot's operations on more than 40 acres of property. He was a well-known Detroit capitalist, and was half-brother of Henry B. Joy and Richard P. Joy, whose investments eventually led to the rise of the Packard company in automotive and electronic technology.

James Joy was a modest, self-effacing man. An unidentified news writer, in 1910, said of him: "He was truly pious without any assumption of pietism, and his wide charities were known only to his closest friends and benefactors."

Joy was active in the Detroit Presbyterian Alliance and the Detroit Presbytery, where he helped plan and support church growth and served as a quiet mediator between various factions during Detroit's swift population increase. At Fort Street, James Joy delighted in being the superintendent of the Sunday School and associating with children. And it was James Joy who, indirectly, moved the John C. Lodge Freeway and saved this church building.

Joy died of what appears to have been a massive stroke, suffered March 7, 1910, just outside his house at 50 Kirby Avenue West. The Detroit Free Press wrote that: "Mr. Joy was stricken a few steps from his house, on his way to board a car to his office at the Penobscot building."

But if Joy's death was unexpected, his will was certainly up-to-date and air-tight. The will shared Joy's fortune as an endowment, half to go to the Presbytery of Detroit and half to go to Fort Street Church - but a clause in the will stipulated that all of the funds would revert to the Presbytery if a Sunday School was not be maintained at Fort and Third streets in Detroit.

As early as 1940, church leaders heard of plans for a super-highway which would be built along the course of Third Street, then a major traffic artery. As an early part of those plans, Fort Street was to be demolished for the freeway to pass, in part because the railroad property west of Fort Street was being fiercely guarded against encroachment.

Joseph Grindley, skilled in real estate development and banking, took the Joy will to city planners and made it clear that the church could move, but the land costs would have to include full reimbursement for the Joy endowment fund and its future income. The freeway project was diverted to swoop south and west of the church and other businesses; ironically, the once-powerful railroad formed and empowered by the Joy family had less staying power than their family church. A Sunday School still exists at Fort and Third; the Union Depot has long since been replaced by Wayne County Community College.

Grindley - another progressive name in the community, and one that is recognized by generations of children whose summer camp or school camp experience has been at Camp Sarah Grindley, near Howell.

Miss Sarah Grindley is little remembered today - but in her time, she was a force for change and integration every bit as potent as the most prominent social activists of today.

Contemporary accounts differ over how Sarah Grindley got invited to open a Sunday School at old Fort Wayne. Soldiers returning from the Spanish American War were stationed at the fort with few creature comforts or diversions. The Detroit Free Press wrote that it was a sergeant, John Annis, who in 1901 asked for a Sunday School for his children to attend. Writer George Stark, interviewing Grindley in 1926, said it was a colonel of "the Fighting Seventh" who in 1899 asked Fort Street's pastor, Dr. John Reid, to do something for his men.

Wrote Stark: "He said that when they were in a heathen country we all expected them to be models of Christianity. But when they were at home, we gave them nothing but saloons and brothels. At the time, the old Delray district was a terrible place. Dr. Reid promised something would be done."

In any case, Reid sent Sarah Grindley to the fort to see what she could do. Grindley set up a school for children in the Fort Wayne Library, beginning with 23 students. By Christmas, the count had risen to 80 and the school had relocated to the larger hospital building; by the second year, average attendance was 335.

Grindley remembered: "Often three children had to sit on two chairs, or on a soap box with a plank on top of it."

The school grew so fast that Grindley found herself renting buildings along Cavalry and Dragoon streets, often buildings that had only recently been saloons. The Fort Street congregation was soon straining to meet the needs for teachers and classroom volunteers, and Grindley sent out a call to other churches to pitch in. Rev. James D. Jeffrey, pastor of the Scovel Memorial Presbyterian Church, embarrassed himself and surprised his congregation when he absentmindedly announced, one Sunday, that "Miss Grindley has opened another saloon and is in need of helpers."

It wasn't just the children of soldiers who benefited from Sarah Grindley's work, though. Southwest Detroit then, as now, was a tough neighborhood and home to a burgeoning immigrant population. At the time, it was hosting an influx of Hungarian and Armenian families who were venturing to Detroit for the factory jobs the city offered.

"While she was working in the Hungarian flock, Miss Grindley learned of a district of the city where typhoid fever and diptheria were rampant. She visited the neighborhood and found that hundreds of children were living between the railroad tracks and the River Rouge. Open sewers carried slime through the gutters and the ditches that served as streets. A public dump contributed its share of the disease to the neighborhood."

In fact, what Grindley found was a virtual squatter community located on a triangle of land surrounded by dangerous, active railroad tracks. Just to get to the local public school, children had to cross 18 sets of tracks. Few of the older children went to school, though; usually both parents had to work to gain just enough money to scrape by. The older children stayed home to tend the babies; those who did make it to school often went hungry.

Grindley wrote: "In one block of Keller Street there are 91 families living in 31 houses."

So she mobilized her own money, buying lots and moving buildings to them. She created the "Gershom Settlement House," first creating a nursery where babies could be lodged safely while their mothers worked.

Having freed the older children to go to school, Grindley next built a public school annex building for the Morley School on the residential side of the railroad tracks so that younger students wouldn't have to risk their lives to get to class. Next, she went to work to get the children fed, convincing industrialist John Dodge to provide money to subsidize "penny" school lunches.

The Free Press reported: "The appropriation made by the manufacturer was so generous that the work was extended to other schools by using the surplus, until now the system is in use in almost every school."

Soon, the Detroit Presbytery pitched in at the Gershom settlement, and the city, seeing the work in progress, decided to locate some of its own services there. A nurse from the board of health, a worker from the department of recreation and a small reading room were added at city expense.

With that program up and running, Grindley turned her attention to getting the underprivileged children some fresh air, instead of coal smoke and soot, and a chance to see more than dismal factory walls. In 1931, she bought 25 acres of land on Joslin Lake and conducted her own summer camp there; the camp, supported by her brother Joseph, became the Sarah Grindley Camp for Underprivileged Children.

Sarah Grindley wasn't done with her pioneering work. Her Sunday Schools grew into at least four church congregations and several community centers, and her "graduates" included a police chief, two doctors, lawyers, a state senator and army officers.

"Miss Grindley has an abiding belief that begging belittles God's work, and has spent approximately $25,000, sometimes facing criticism from her friends and always replying that she gets her money's worth every time she buys a house or a site for a new settlement venture in the district," wrote the newspapers.

Her example, and that of many other early members of Fort Street, challenges us to reexamine our own commitments today. Their contributions were not made in easy times or in easy situations.

And if there is any doubt about how leaders like Miss Grindley felt, let me remind you of where her "Gershom" settlement got its name. Watching her Sunday School students facing new challenges in a language foreign to them, she remembered her own brother, as a child, drawling a bible verse from Exodus as he tried to memorize it:

"And I will call his name Gershom, for I am a stranger in a strange land."

The Grindleys, the Joys and the Scottens were among those who took that strange land and made it a habitable place.

© 2001, Tim Moran

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