• E. B. was about twenty-five or twenty-six years of age at the time of his marriage. His mother died early, and his father being poor, E. B. had come up roughly, largely among the French and Indians then inhabiting Michigan. He had been allowed his own way and being naturally egotistical, dishonest, brutal, avaricious, tyrannical, and of an immoral temperament, had but little respect for others’ rights and feelings.1643, p 17

• When his uncle died in 1855, combining the inheritance with his own investments brought him to the status of Detroit’s first millionaire.3284

• She [Clara Ward] was the daughter of the late Captain Eber Ward, the wealthiest man in Michigan, where he was known as “King of the Lakes.”3285

• She [Clara Ward] was the daughter of Eber B. Ward, a millionaire shipbuilder of Detroit, Mich.3286

• EBER B. WARD was born in Canada in 1811, his parents having fled into that country from Vermont, to escape the ravages consequent upon "the war of eighteen hundred and twelve." But he was not destined to remain long in the enemy’s country. As soon as the smoke had died away from the last battlefield, the family returned to their pleasant home in Rutland county, Vermont, where they remained until Mr. Ward was about six years old. At this period, the future of the American States being fixed, civilization again resumed its westward march. Vermont, among other New England states, contributed to the movement, and in 1817 many of the best families of the Green Mountain state were seeking a more lucrative inheritance in the boundless West and South. Mr. Ward’s parents were among the travelers. They had set out for Kentucky, but being delayed at Waterford, Pennsylvania, for some time, owing to a disarrangement in their plans for transportation, a sad dispensation of Providence interrupted their journey. Mr. Ward’s mother, after a severe illness, died, and was buried at this place. Changing there course, the father and son went into Ohio. Subsequently events led them westward until they were permanently located in Michigan.
Mr. Ward first landed in Detroit in 1821, when he was only nine years old. Then he was a poor boy, without even the prospect of fortune and success; but, observe the course he pursued, and the results that attended his efforts. Nature seems to have qualified him to battle the perils of pioneer life; and, as if to increase the hardships that apparent ill fortune had already visited upon him, at the age of twelve years he secured the humble position of cabin boy on a small schooner on the lakes. Thus was modestly inaugurated Captain Ward’s marine life. It is inexpedient to tax the reader with all the changing scenes that came over his life since this dedication of boyhood to the interests of navigation. It is enough to say that from these humble beginnings, by hard industry and timely enterprise, he has won success for lake navigation, and wealth for himself. His accumulations are said to exceed five millions, and may be summed up as follows: $1,000,000 in Chicago Rolling Mills stock, $500,000 in Milwaukee Rolling Mills stock, $500,000 in Wyandotte Rolling Mills stock, $500,000 in floating property, and over $2,000,000 in real estate.
Mr. E.B. Ward is now about sixty-two years of age, but is prosecuting his enormous business with all the vigor and exactness of his youth.3287

• CAPTAIN EBER B. WARD
While his parents were on their way from Vermont to the west, through Canada, they were compelled to delay at New Hamborough, upper Canada, where Captain Eber Brock Ward was born December 25, 1811. His parents brought him to Michigan and with them he bore the privations, trials and hardships incident to pioneer life.
At twenty-two years of age we find him at work on the farm of his uncle Samuel Ward, of St. Clair county. In the winter of 1835-6 he assisted his uncle in getting out ship timber, and in the spring of 1836 purchased of his uncle a quarter interest in a small schooner. Thus commenced a partnership which continued during the life of his uncle. In 1840 the firm built its first steamer, and in 1845 it owned and controlled a fleet of twenty steamers and sail vessels. In the latter year he ran two steamers on Lakes Michigan and Erie in connection with the Michigan Central railroad. This service he continued until that road had reached Chicago and the Great Western road was completed and connected with it at Detroit. The Ward vessels afterward a large general transportation business on Lakes Erie, Huron, Michigan, and Superior. During a portion of this period Capt. Ward became interested in the mines of Lake Superior, and also in the pine lands lying along the shores of Lakes Michigan and Huron, and soon afterward projected and saw completed the Flint and Pere Marquette railroad across the northern portion of the State. In 1864 he reduced his vessel interests somewhat, devoting his means to mining and manufacturing and in the course of a few years had rolling mills at Wyandotte, Chicago, and Milwaukee, and had established large manufacturing industries at Ludington, Toledo, Saginaw, and Flint.
Among the most remarkable characteristics of Capt. Ward was his wonderful business ability and his capacity for organizing industrial enterprises. Perhaps no single individual in the United States did so much to disseminate information on the subject of promoting home industries as Captain Ward.
As he has often repeated to the writer, he believed that the best philanthropy of the age was that which afforded the greatest amount of remunerative labor to the working men of the country. His heart was large, his charity abundant, his forethought and foresight wonderful his will power indomitable, and his physical and moral courage dauntless.3288

• There has been a remarkable success in business men who have begun operations here. E. B. Ward stands at the head of these, and is supposed by some to be worth $10,000,000. When I first became acquainted with E. B. Ward, forty years ago, I suppose his entire earthly inheritance would be put at less than $100. The inquiry has been made. Why the remarkable success of so heavy business men at Newport or Marine City? I think it originated mainly from old Capt. Samuel Ward.283, p 255

• This gave E. B. Ward, in addition, practically the franchises of the steamboat lake passenger and freight routes, as he largely monopolized these routes. These monopolized lake steamboat lake routes, fairly managed, were worth another million or two of dollars, as the passenger traffic to the West by lakes continued immense for some fifteen or twenty years afterwards.
After Uncle Samuel’s death, his willed estate, in addition to a considerable property possessed before by Eber B. Ward, mostly given him by Uncle Samuel before his death, constituted Eber B. Ward comparatively a wealthy man at about 1855, considering the poverty of then new West. Thus, at about 44 years of age, it came to pass, though he was largely so before that age, that E. B. Ward became an overbearing, ego, vainglorious, dishonest, tyrannical, vindictive, aggressive, energetic, selfish man, largely devoid of conscience. This tyrannical, envious, vain, selfish, grasping, energetic man soon spread out his then comparatively vast fortune in some legitimate investments, but mostly in illegitimate dishonest schemes, in view of showing his financial ability, power and consequence. His schemes were largely the grasping of others’ property, paying therefor little or no equivalent.
At the time of Uncle Samuel’s sickness and death, E. B. Ward placed sentinels at the outer doors of Uncle Samuel’s residence and would not permit any of Uncle Samuel’s brothers, sisters, or any other of the relations, except his own sister, Emily Ward, to enter the house, but himself and his lawyer who drew up the will he desired giving about all of Uncle Samuel’s property to E. B. Ward, leaving out entirely the sisters, brothers and other relatives of Uncle Samuel, some of whom were poor invalids unable to obtain the necessaries of life. Ever after these poor distressed relatives, who had thus been virtually robbed by E. B. Ward’s management of Uncle Samuel’s will, were followed by E. B. Ward and persecuted while they lived. Other relatives whom E. B. Ward envied, or was jealous of, he persecuted in the same way by all the power and influence he possessed. For some twenty years after the death of Uncle Samuel, E. B. Ward continued in the career above mentioned, dishonoring himself, the name of Ward and human nature, defying the laws of common decency, and at time defying and riding over the laws of his country. He raised a family of six children, four sons and two daughters. The sons followed largely in the footsteps of their father before and after the father’s death, so that all but one, and he is said to be now a renegade, soon disappeared from the face of the earth.
About 1862, among other crimes, E. B. W. got up a false accusation against his wife, who being a niece of “Aunt Betsey,” it largely assisted him in “scooping” Uncle Samuel’s property by his will, and who also raised his family of six children. By false swearing and bribery E. B. obtained a bill of divorce in order that he might marry a blooming young woman, a niece of Senator Wade’s, Kate Lyon, as she was called, with whom he lived some nine years, until his death in 1874.
A career filled with wrong doing and crime, energetically executed, usually results in financial ruin. This proved especially so with E. B. W., considering his wealth, and the royal opportunities he had in a new undeveloped country, containing large natural resources. Had he used his large monopolizing means in legitimate investments and business devoid of immorality, dishonesty, tyranny and crime, with his good health, energy and great physical power, the financial result should have been immense.
However, the result was that E. B. Ward’s administrators (though his will proclaimed to the world that he had millions) found after his death that his estate was virtually insolvent and not sufficient to pay his debts by some two hundred thousand dollars. Thus was squandered Uncle Samuel’s large estate, of some two millions of dollars at his death, and in addition the product of E. B. W.’s opportunities, equivalent in comparative value of from fifteen to thirty millions of dollars at this date of 1893.1643, pp 2-3

• Detroit’s first millionaire E.B. Ward is credited with being the first to use the Bessemer steel process in Michigan as well as being a key influence in the city’s industrial growth.
E.B. Ward was born on December 25, 1811 in New Hamborough Upper Canada during his parent’s move from Vermont to Michigan. In 1833, he moved to Newport, MI to work for his Uncle Samuel Ward who was a reputable businessman and shipbuilder. E.B. positioned himself to inherit his uncle’s property by marrying a niece of his uncle’s wife.
In 1840, E.B. was the captain of the Huron, the first steamship built by Samuel Ward’s shipyard. During this time, the westward migration through the Great Lakes was taking place and Samuel and E.B. were able to benefit from this using the routes they had set up. In the years prior to the railroad in Michigan, they ran monopolized travel and freight through the Great Lakes. One of the first steel–hulled boats to navigate the Great Lakes was in fact E.B.’s boat.
E.B. began to invest in large tracts of pineland for the lumber in the early 1850s. He constructed a mill, docks, warehouse and supply store in Forestville, MI but, before the town was officially named, he sold all of his holdings there and moved to Detroit.
When his uncle died in 1855, combining the inheritance with his own investments brought him to the status of Detroit’s first millionaire.
In 1855, E.B. built the Eureka Iron and Steel Co. along the Detroit River. It was here that he began to use the Bessemer Steel Process. While he controlled a portion of the patents essential to generate steel by this process, his competitors managed related patents. Due to this overlap, neither could assemble a state of the art steel facility without violating the others’ claim. Thus a merger of patents took place and the Bessemer Steel Association was created.
By 1868, E.B. had expanded his interests to other states, including a rolling mill in Wisconsin and what would become one of the big four silver mines in Utah. He was brilliant when it came to diversifying his investment and business interests. During the 1860s, he divorced his wife and remarried a much younger woman. When he died his children from both marriages clashed over his vast wealth.
Buried: Section A, Lot 86

• 1850 Census: Detroit, Wayne, Michigan. Age 37, b Canada. Steam Boat Dealer. $6000.3281
• 1860 Census: Detroit, Wayne, Michigan. Age 49, b Canada. Iron Manufacturer. $540,000; $467,000.3282
• 1870 Census: Detroit, Wayne, Michigan. Age 58, b Canada. Iron Manufacturer. $1,000,000; $500,000.3289