Henry P. Baldwin

01 / The Detroit story

The Detroit story

Henry P. Baldwin, a Rhode Islander who started clerking in a Pawtucket store at twelve, moved to Detroit in 1838 and founded a wholesale boot and shoe business that became one of the largest in the Midwest; after the Civil War a young cobbler named Hazen Pingree worked there before buying Baldwin's shoemaking machinery. Baldwin took part in the 1854 convention in Jackson that organized the Republican Party. A devout Episcopalian, he organized a new parish on what was then the northern edge of the city in 1858, donated the lot and paid for much of St. John's Episcopal Church on Woodward Avenue, serving as senior warden until his death. He directed the Michigan State Bank and presided over the Second National Bank and later the Detroit National Bank. As governor from 1869 to 1873 he pushed for state institutions and led relief after the great fires of 1871; he later served in the U.S. Senate in 1879–1881. He died in Detroit in 1892 and is buried at Elmwood.

Highlights

1. 15th governor of Michigan, 1869–1873
2. U.S. senator from Michigan, 1879–1881
3. Founder of St. John's Episcopal Church on Woodward Avenue (1858–1861)
4. President of the Second National Bank of Detroit, 1863–1887