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NAVIGATION
Michigan
Histories
Kalamazoo County
Biographies
Online Biographies
Illinois
Histories
Also see [Railway Officials in America 1906]
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PRESTON J. McCREARY was born near Erie, Pa., Oct. 28, 1805. The family were originally from Scotland, but the
date of their emigration is not known. They settled in Lancaster, Pa., where William McCreary, our subject's father,
was born in 1771. He was a farmer, and reared a family of five children. After his marriage he removed to Erie
County, where he purchased land. In 1807 he removed to Allegany Co., N.Y., where he died in 1816. Preston received
a common school education, and was apprenticed to a tanner and currier. After the completion of his apprenticeship
he went into business in Washington, Pa., where he remained four years. He then decided to come to Michigan, which
was at that time considered the El Dorado of the West. Accordingly, in 1830, he came to Kalamazoo County, and settled
in Prairie Ronde, where he purchased, of Judge Harrison, eighly acres of land, near Harrison's Lake. In 1832 he
established a tannery, but the business not proving remunerative he abandoned it. In 1836 he married Christiana
Middleton, a native of Ohio, where she was born in 1807. Her parents were Quakers.
Mr. and Mrs. McCreary were blessed with five children, Samuel S., George, John, Adaline, and Springer, all of whom
are living but two. Mr. McCreary has been prominently connected with the development of Prairie Ronde. He has witnessed
its transition from a wilderness into one of the most productive and prosperous agricultural regions of the State,
and in his own person admirably typifies many of the agencies that have wrought these changes. He has been called
upon to fill many positions of trust, the duties of which he discharged with fidelity. He has been the representative
of Prairie Ronde upon the Board of Supervisors, and for eleven years has officiated as magistrate.
FROM:
History of Kalamazoo County, Michigan
With Illistrations and Biographical Sketches
of its Men and Pioneers.
Everts & Abbott., Philadelphia 1880
Press of J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia.
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