- OSCAR E. JANES. The first appointment to the civil service
made by the late President
- McKinley during his first term was to fill the office of
United States Pension Agent at Detroit Agency, and the appointee
was Colonel Oscar E. JANES, who still holds that office and is
one of the best known men in the city and state. Immediately
following the adjournment of the first cabinet meeting, March
8, 1897, President McKinley sent his nomination to the senate,
where it was at once referred to the committee in executive session.
Within five minutes and six seconds from the time it was received
a messenger was dispatched to the President to inform him that
the nomination had been confirmed.
- The office of United States Pension Agent at Detroit, for
which Colonel JANES is so admirably
- qualified, is one of the most important federal positions
in Michigan, and is conducted under the rules laid down by the
civil service commission. On June 30, 1911, the books of the
agency showed an enrollment of 36,917 pensioners, and an annual
disbursement of $6,746,023.14, making a total disbursement during
his incumbency of the office to November, 1911, of $98,986,211.19,
for every dollar of which the agent is accountable, though under
the civil service rules he is not allowed to name his subordinates,
upon whom he must necess arily rely for a correct handling of
this vast sum of money. Since he took charge of the office its
duties have been administered with signal ability. The quarterly
payments have been made in less than one-half the time heretofore
taken. With the Bureau of Pensions he has gained a record of
conducting one of the best agencies in promptness, accuracy and
neatness of reports.
- The appointment made by the President as the first act of
his administration was an honor fittingly
- bestowed upon a career that had already been marked by long
and distinguished service in the state of Michigan. The greater
part of his life Colonel JANES had spent in the city and county
of Hillsdale, but he was born at Johnstown, Rock county, Wisconsin,
July 6, 1843. His family before him has contained members of
prominence and interesting history.
- Of English ancestry, he is descended from William JANES,
who immigrated from England to
- America in 1637 and was a member of the colony of Rev. John
DAVENPORT. The colony crossed in the ship Hector, and after a
short stay in Boston journeyed south and founded the present
city of New Haven, Connecticut. Elijah JANES, the great-greatgrandfather
of Colonel Janes, was one of the minute-men of the colonial wars
and also served as lieutenant of dragoons during the war of the
Revolution.
- This branch of the family settled in Vermont, and in Grand
Isle, that state, was born John E.
- JANES, father of Colonel JANES. From Vermont his parents
moved to Wayne county, New York, and in 1838 he settled at Johnstown,
Rock county, Wisconsin, where he became a substantial farmer
and for many years was prominently identified with the growth
and development of that section of the state. He was a strong
abolitionist, and in the years preceding the outbreak of the
Civil war his house was one of the well-known stations on the
''Underground Railway.'' Here he harbored many runaway slaves,
and Colonel JANES, himself, when a boy, drove a carriage containing
black fugitives from his father's home to the next station. In
this way the runaways were helped, stage by stage, in their flight
from the south to Canada, where they were secure from pursuit.
At the same time bills were posted about the country offering
a thousand dollars reward for the detection of anyone harboring
or assisting the escaping slaves. Colonel JANES' mother was Esther
(BAGLEY) JANES.
- During his boyhood spent in Wisconsin, he devoted himself
to farm work during the summer and
- to attending district school in the winter. After finishing
at the Milton Academy, Wisconsin, he entered college at Hillsdale,
Michigan, in the class of 1863. After spending two months in
college he laid aside his books, and at a time when it was known
there was danger at the front and the services of every loyal
son were needed, he was mustered into the United States service
on November 15, 1863, as as a private in the Fourth Michigan
Infantry. His army record shows that in battle he was always
in the forefront, taking part in numerous engagements, among
which were the battles of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, North
Anna, Cold Harbor, Petersburg and Jerusalem Plank Road, Virginia.
At the last named engagement, just as the day was merging into
night on June 22, 1864, he received a wound which cost him his
arm and left him as dead on the field of battle. The next morning
the orderly sergeant and Sergeant DICKERSON of his company, going
out to seek him among the slain of the previous day, found and
buried what they believed to be his body, erecting over him a
headboard, to the memory of Oscar A. JANES. Furthermore, on the
muster roll of his regiment he was recorded among the "
Killed in Battle," and a letter Avas forwarded to his parents
in Wisconsin informing them of their supposed bereavement. In
the meantime the subject of these mortuary records had been picked
up by the ambulance corps, though nothing of this was known at
the front for several days, until it was announced in the New
York papers that he was then in Haddington Hospital, Philadelphia.
An incident connected with the supposed burial of Comrade JANES
occurred at a reunion of the veterans of the Fourth Michigan,
hold fit Hudson five years after the close of the war. Colonel
JANES met Sergeant DICKERSON, and, extending to him his only
remaining hand, said: "How are you, Dick?" The Sergeant
replied: "I am all right, but I don't seem to know you;
who are you, anyway?" "Why, I am JANES, of your company,
don't you know me?" To this astounding statement Sergeant
DICKERSON answered, saying: "My God, I buried you at Petersburg.''
- After being mustered out of service Colonel JANES returned
to Hillsdale College, from which he
- graduated in 1868. He at once began the study of law and
was admitted to the bar in 1871. In 1873 he married Miss Vinnie
E. HILL, of Hillsdale. Her death occurred two years later. In
1878 he was married to Miss Julia M. MEAD, of Hillsdale. This
union was blessed with three children: Marie E., Henry M. and
John F.
- In private life Colonel JANES is recognized as a cultured,
courteous gentleman, who cherishes
- friends and enjoys their companionship. In public affairs
his influence has always been large both in his home community
and the state. He possesses rare gifts as an orator, and has
the tact and integrity which are demanded in public life. His
title he received in 1885, while on the staff of Governor Russell
A. Alger. He served the Union Veterans' Union as its department
commander, and was department commander of the Grand Army of
the Republic of Michigan in 1883, and was inspector general of
the National Grand Army in 1887. He was for four years secretary
and treasurer of Hillsdale College, of which he has also been
trustee and auditor. He has held high rank in the orders of the
Knights of Pythias and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows,
the latter of which he served as grand master of the Grand Lodge
of Michigan and also as grand representativeof the Sovereign
Grand Lodge of the United States. He is also a member of the
Knights of the Maccabees; of Detroit Lodge, No. 34, B.P.O.E.;
of Detroit Post, No. 384, G.A.R.; and of the Michigan Society
of the Sons of the American Revolution.
- The citizens of Hillsdale city and county, where he so long
resided, have often honored him with
- positions of public trust, including the offices of city
clerk, city attorney, alderman, circuit court commissioner, judge
of probate eight years, and state senator. In politics Colonel
JANES has always been a Republican, casting his first presidential
vote for General Grant, and he has given to the party the advantages
of his fine oratorical gifts in the exposition of its principles.
He enjoys the distinction of having been chairman of the Michigan
Republican State Convention, which elected delegates to the National
Republican Convention at St. Louis, where McKinley was nominated
for the presidency. He has been many times a delegate to state
conventions.
- In the Michigan legislature of 1895-96 Colonel JANES, representing
the counties of Hillsdale,
- Branch and St. Joseph in the senate, served on a number of
its most important committees, including the committees on judiciary,
school of mines, constitutional amendments, and soldiers' home.
As chairman of the last he made a report which caused a special
investigation of the management to be made by the succeeding
legislature. Also in that session he was author of the Flag act,
which provides that during school hours the flag of our country
shall float over every public school building in the state; and
also of the joint resolution appropriating ten thousand dollars
for a statue of Michigan's war governor, Austin Blair. He also
made masterly efforts in opposition to the capital punishment
bill, which was finally defeated by a narrow margin of votes.
For his earnest and successful championship of the pure food
law he received the thanks of the farmers of his district in
a set of resolutions adopted by Pomona Grange of Hillsdale county.
- Seldom has a federal appointment been more felicitous and
in accordance with the highest test of
- merit than in the case of Colonel JANES to the office of
Pension Agent at Detroit. For half a century his career presents
an unblemished record of personal integrity and public service,
and among the living survivors of the great war for the Union
he is easily one of the most distinguished.
-
- [Taken from "History of Detroit, Vol. III" by
Paul Leake; (c)1912 Lewis Publishing Co., Chicago & New York;
pp. 965-968]
|