Carey Reed Daniells in the 1800s

 

Carey Reed Daniells, 1845-1912

Carey Reed Daniells

Carey Reed Daniells was born in West Bloomfield, Michigan.  He was a farmer, a general merchant, a miller, and a salesman.  He attended the University of Michigan for a time and roomed with Howard Ingersoll, the eldest of the Ingersoll brothers from Wacousta.  He married Catherine (Katie) Stowell in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  They had met at Fountain Street Baptist Church when he visited his sister, Mary Escott, in Grand Rapids.  

Prior to his marriage, he had purchased a farm in Wacousta.  There were no buildings on the farm, so he rented rooms from neighbors across the road.  That is where he took his bride and where his first child was born.  During the first year after his marriage he built a barn, and in the second year he built his house.  Sometime later he sold the farm and built a general store which he ran successfully for several years.  When the grist-mill owned by his uncle Nelson Daniells burned, he traded the store for the mill property.  Twenty-four hours after completing the transaction, the dam went out.  He repaired the dam at a cost of $16,000.  To make matters worse, it was at the time when the method of making flour was changing from the Stone to the Roller Process.  He did not have the capital to upgrade to the new technology.  He continued to run the mill for a time, but this venture was not very successful.  (The Daniels-Daniells Family, vol. 2, 263, 266)

Katie Lowden Stowell Daniells

In about 1900, he went to work as at traveling salesman, selling watches for Robert Ingersoll.  On one trip, he was impressed with Texas, so he sold his Michigan property and bought a Texas ranch, still continuing to sell watches.  In 1905 he was badly injured in a train wreck, and, although he went back to work after a year, he never fully recovered.  He and Katie died in 1912 and 1923, respectively.  Both are buried in Fort Worth Texas.

Carey and Katie had five children, Estee Stowell, Mary Anna, Allan Louis, Will Carleton (our ancestor), and Lucinda Augusta.