Thomas Gunson was a fixture of the Michigan Agricultural College for nearly fifty years. How he got there is an interesting tale—and maybe one with a bit of beneficial intrigue.
Born near Moffat, Scotland, on July 4, 1858, he emigrated to Michigan in 1882 and found work on a farm near Saginaw. On April 5, 1884, Thomas married Annie Rose, a fellow Scot, at East Saginaw.
Annie Rose Gunson happened to be a friend of Sarah Abbot, the wife of retired M.A.C. President Theophilus C. Abbot. According to Gunson’s obituary in The Record, it was Mrs. Abbot who suggested to the Gunsons that they should visit the College. And so, sometime in early 1891 they traveled to Lansing, probably via the Michigan Central railroad.
At that time, the best way to travel from the capital to campus was to hire a “hack” or horse-drawn coach. On that journey, they shared the ride with Hannah Proud Beal, wife of William J. Beal, Professor of Botany. Naturally, a conversation ensued, and upon arrival, Mrs. Beal arranged an interview for Gunson with President Oscar Clute and Professor of Horticulture Levi Taft.
Clute and Taft hired him on the spot. On April 1, 1891, Thomas Gunson started his long career as Foreman of the Greenhouses, Superintendent of the Grounds, and Instructor in Horticulture.1
Gunson’s tenure at Michigan State is rich with stories—many of which I hope to explore in future articles. For now, I want to present a bit of speculation: Was there, for lack of a better term, a benign conspiracy to get him hired?
By way of background, it is important to note that William Beal held a combined chair as Professor of Botany and Horticulture for about ten years, starting in 1872. When the departments were split in November 1882 and a new Professor of Horticulture was appointed, it required several deliberate and specific actions by the Board of Agriculture to wean Beal from aspects of his role that were transferred to the new department—and to get him to relinquish an office in the Botany Laboratory for the new hire.2
Included among the responsibilities that fell from Beal’s hands were both the greenhouses and the campus grounds. Given that the greenhouses were, at least in part, producing plants for the Botanic Garden—Beal’s own creation—and the garden itself was considered part of the grounds, Beal may have been less than fully willing to cede control of those to the horticulture department. As Harold Lautner later wrote, “Beal was always a zealous promoter and defender of what he thought his professional area.”3
By 1891, M.A.C. was at a turning point. Beal’s laboratory had burned down the previous year, and Beal was locked in a contentious battle with Clute and the Board over the design and location of its replacement. Lautner sums up the difficulty of working with Beal: “In attempting to dictate the location of the second botanical laboratory, Beal exposed a willful, obstinate, cantankerous streak which must have made him difficult to work with.”4
In addition, several of the greenhouse foremen up to that point were M.A.C. alumni, most of whom had taken botany classes from Beal. I have no doubt that Beal would have treated these former students as his subordinates, even though after 1882 they were specifically under the supervision of the horticulture professor, rather than Beal.
In short, what M.A.C. needed in 1891 was a greenhouse foreman who was not only competent, but also strong-willed enough to stand up to William Beal while working in close cooperation with him.
Here is where the story begins to delve into speculation. Unless there exists, somewhere, an archive of personal correspondence between the Merrylees sisters, this theory will likely remain unproven—but I find it compelling nonetheless.
The Merrylees sisters, Sarah and Mary, were deeply connected to the College, each having been married to an M.A.C. president: Sarah to T. C. Abbot and Mary to Oscar Clute. They were strong supporters of their husbands and instrumental in their success at the College.
Mary Clute was likely well aware of her husband’s personnel issue, and it is safe to assume that she and Sarah kept in contact with each other through the mail. It is not much of a stretch of the imagination to suppose that Mary wrote to Sarah about the need for a new greenhouse foreman, and Sarah replied, in essence, “I know someone who might suit,” and urged the Gunsons to make their journey.
Furthermore, Hannah Beal’s presence on that hired coach remains unexplained. Was it mere coincidence? Or was she there deliberately to meet the Gunsons, assess Thomas, and introduce him to Clute and Taft? If the latter, she would have been an ideal advocate for Gunson’s hiring, knowing firsthand her husband’s “cantankerous streak.”
I believe these four women played a crucial role in bringing Thomas Gunson to M.A.C.: Annie Gunson, of course; Sarah Abbot, Annie’s friend, who encouraged their visit; Hannah Beal, who facilitated the interview; and Sarah’s sister, Mary Clute, who might have set the entire plan in motion.
If they did orchestrate his hiring, they were absolutely right: Thomas Gunson turned out to be perfect for the job.
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