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Biography of Françoise-Léonide {Jeannes} Scribner, wife of John C. Scribner:
Françoise-Léonide Jeannes was born 1830 in Clinton River, Mount Clemons, Macomb County, Michigan, the daughter of Joseph Jeannes and Frances Moras. She married John C. Scribner 7 November 1849 in Utica, Sterling Township, Macomb County, Michigan. [The marriage record anglicized her name as "Frances John."] In January 1862, her husband John C. Scribner died, leaving her a widow. Frances supported her family working as a nurse. Frances served as a nurse with the 8th Michigan Calvary at Mt. Clemens, Michigan during the Civil War, traveling with them during her service per her supervisor's request. She served from November 15, 1862 until Mary 15, 1863 where she was honorably released in Covington, Kentucky. At age 60, on January 27, 1896, she applied for a pension based on her deafness and cataracts. She was rejected on the grounds that her service was not under "competent authority" due to the regulation prohibiting women from traveling with soldiers' units. Her actual service was irrelevant; she was precluded from being pensioned based on her gender because, although she had been pressured to serve, the request was technically unlawful.
Biography of Elbridge A. Scribner:
The 1870 Michigan census has an entry for Elbridge Scribner in Detroit,
Ward 4 ---. Per that entry, Elbridge is age 18 and works as a locksmith. It
also lists his birthplace as Michigan. The age is not exactly right, but
very close (should be 19 or 20). Elbridge operated a restaurant for a while.
In the 1880's, he ran a small hotel called "The Scribner House," located at
257 Jefferson Avenue in Detroit. He and brother Frank were partners in that
business, along with a wood yard and dealership, which Frank ran. By 1900,
Elbridge had changed careers and was operating a florist shop located at 604
Fort Street East. Elbridge and Selina had no children.
Eventually, he became the first superintendent of grounds at the Detroit
Water Works Park, and was the inventor of its famous floral clock.
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Click Here for a Link to a Detroit
News Photo and Article about Elbridge Scribner's Floral Clock:
Detroit's Water Works Park a gateway to the past, By Laurie J. Marzejka |
Excerpt from the article:
The first superintendent of grounds at Water Works Park and the inventor of the floral clock was Elbridge A. "Scrib" Scribner. Scrib was a man of great skill and imagination. He built a small greenhouse in the park and began to grow his own plants and flowers. In 1893, he began work on the clock, designing an intricate water-driven system using cup-shaped paddle wheels to run the mechanism.
He consulted with a Detroit jeweler and watchmaker named Fisher and worked out the gearing ratios: The clock kept accurate time.
The mechanism was placed on an 8-foot-high knoll just inside an entrance to the park. Flowers and greens were planted to form its face, and bordering edges, and its wood hands were festooned with flowers. In 1921, the clock was fenced in to deter children from swinging on the hands of this hillside wonder.
In 1934, the Water Board decided that waning public interest did not justify the cost of maintenance and repair. Destined for the junk heap, the floral clock was saved by Henry Ford, who had a tender regard for tokens of an older time and who had tinkered with timepieces in his youth.
Ford arranged to have the clock and the soil in which it rested removed to Greenfield Village, where it was restored - although the old water-driven mechanism was converted to run on electricity. It remained at Greenfield Village until sometime in the late 1980s.
The floral clock was not the only contribution Scribner made to Water Works Park. He also designed a floral cow in a field of corn; a floral tepee with smoke curling from the top; a calendar made entirely from plants and arranged so that he could change the date daily merely by transfering a few blooms and a tribute to members of the board of park commissioners spelling out their names in flowers.
The funds that made Scrib's labors of love possible came from a bequest of $250,000 from the estate of Chauncy Hurlbut, who for many years served as president of the Board of Water Commissioners. Hurlbut spent the last 11 years of his life improving the water works system and left almost all of his estate for maintenance of the grounds.
