My Genealogy Hound

ALFRED A. STARRING, a member of the well-known and enterprising firm known as the Silver Creek Step-Ladder company, is a son of Sylvanus S. and Grace A. (Stearns) Starring, and was born in Barry county, an agricultural region in southwest central Michigan, September 24, 1860. His father, Sylvanus S. Starring, is a native of Utica, Oneida county, this State. When a young man he followed the avocation of a sailor on the lakes for seven years, until he was wrecked on Lake Erie by the burning of the boat on which he was employed. He then started for the west, but fell in with a party expecting to work for the Detroit & Milwaukee railroad, then being constructed. He worked on the road-bed until it passed through Lowell, where he quit and, going five miles south, he cleared a farm from the wilderness in Barry county, Michigan, which he cultivated until 1861, and then enlisted in Co. D, 3d regiment, Michigan Infantry, serving until the close of the war, when he was honorably discharged, on June 3, 1865, at Washington, D. C. He was with Berdan’s Sharpshooters one and one-half years, and rose to the rank of captain, and while with them was wounded in front of Petersburg, Va. In 1866 he moved to Irving, this county, with his family, where he remained until 1879, engaged in the blacksmith’s business. In that year he came to Silver Creek and resumed the same trade, which he followed until 1884, and then organized the Silver Creek Step-Ladder company, which manufactured the Starring patent truss step-ladder, the shelf-lock and half- truss step-ladder, the folding wash-bench and wringer stand, and the standard ironing-table, in which business he is at present engaged. In politics he is a republican, and in 1890 was elected a coroner, which office he is now holding. In religion he is a Methodist, being a member and steward of the church of that denomination. He is a member of Lodge No. 757, F. & A. M. In 1856 he married Grace A. Stearns, a native of Bergen, Genesee county, this State, by whom he had five children. Three are deceased. Mrs. Starring is a member of the M. E. church, and is now in the forty-ninth year of her age.

Alfred A. Starring came to this county with his parents, was educated in the public schools, learned the trade of a blacksmith with his father and in 1880 became his father’s partner in that business. In the spring of 1885 he bought out his father’s interest and continued the business alone until 1888, when he bought a half-interest in the Silver Creek Step-Ladder company, the firm-name remaining the same. They have a large and rapidly-increasing trade, will double their capacity, and are now erecting new buildings for the purpose of manufacturing fine parlor furniture. They expect to have this plant in operation July 15, 1891, and will then employ fifteen additional men. They have a branch office in Baltimore. About fifteen men are employed. Mr. Starring is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, politically is a republican and takes an active part in politics.

Alfred A. Starring was married, on October 26, 1881, to Jennie M. Fuller, a daughter of Albert C. Fuller (deceased), of Silver Creek. To this marriage have been born four children, one son and three daughters: Albert, Beulah, Gertrude and Vera.