Mortimer elwyn cooley

Mechanical Engineering 1881-1928

MORTIMER ELWYN COOLEY was born at Canandaigua, New York, March 28, 1855, son of Albert Blake and Achsah (Griswold) Cooley. He is of English-Scotch ancestry. The records of the paternal family are in definite sequence as far back as Daniel Cooley, who settled in East Granville, Massachusetts, about 1650, and continued there until his death, occupying important official positions. One of Daniel's sons removed to Canandaigua, where Lyman Cooley, grandfather of the present subject, was born and spent his life. The grandson received his preparatory education in the district schools and the Canandaigua Academy; and at the age of nineteen he entered the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. Previous to graduation as a cadet engineer in 1878 he had made two practice cruises, - in the summer of 1875 on the United States ship "Alert," and in the summer of 1877 on the "Mayflower." During the year following graduation he was on a European cruise attached to the " Quinnebaug," and in 1879-1880 completed his sea duty on a North Atlantic cruise with the United States ship " Alliance." For one year he was connected with the Bureau of Steam Engineering in the Navy Department, and in 1881 was detailed by the department to teach Steam Engineering and Iron Ship-building at the University of Michigan. He was at once appointed Professor of Mechanical Engineering, and in 1885 resigned his commission in the Navy. In addition to his University work he has conducted a general practice as a mechanical engineer, has acted as consulting engineer for a number of our State institutions, and has been otherwise employed in the duties of military and civil offices. His official rank in military life is at present that of Passed Assistant Engineer of the Michigan State Naval Brigade. From April 1898, to February 1899, he was in the United States Naval Service, attached to the United States ship "Yosemite" and to the League Island Navy Yard. He has taken an active interest in the civil affairs of Ann Arbor, having served the city for three years, from 1890 to 1893, as president of the Common Council, and as president of the Board of Fire Commissioners in 1889-1890. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in which he was vice-president of Section D in 1898. He is also a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, of which he was vice-president in 1902; the Michigan Engineering Society, of which he was president in 1903; the Detroit Engineering Society, the United States Naval Institute, the United States Society of Naval Engineers, the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education, and the National Association of Stationary Engineers. In connection with the World's Fair at Chicago in 1893 he was a member of the Committee on Naval Engineering, a member of the committee having charge of the Educational Exhibit of the State of Michigan, and chairman of the Committee on the Exhibit of the University. He was a member of the Jury of Awards at the Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo, in 1901. He took part in the appraisal of the Detroit Street Railways in 1899; and in 1900-1901 he was employed by the Michigan Board of State Tax Commissioners in the appraisal of properties paying specific taxes (railroads, telegraphs, telephones, plank-roads, river improvements, and private car lines). He redetermined in 1903-1904 the physical values of the twenty-eight railroads bringing suit to enjoin the Auditor-General of the State from collecting taxes; and again in 1906 took part in the reappraisement of all the railroads in connection with the 1905 assessment. In 1902 he assisted the government in the appraisal of the mechanical equipment of the Newfoundland railways. In 1885 the Regents of the University conferred upon him the honorary degree of Mechanical Engineer. He was married December 25, 1879, to Carolyn Elizabeth Moseley, and they have four children: Lucy Alliance (Mrs. William 0. Houston), Hollis Moseley, Anna Elizabeth, and Margaret Achsah.

Burke A. Hinsdale and Isaac Newton Demmon, History of the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1906), pp., 263-264.

A Tribute to

MORTIMER E. COOLEY

The Michigan Technic, March 1935, Pages 103-105

By Hillard A. Sutin, ‘37e

March 28, 1855, was an important day in the history of the University of Michigan and its Engineering College. It was on this day that Mortimer E. Cooley, the “Grand Old Man” of the College of Engineering, first saw the light of day on a farm near Canandaigua, New York. His influence on the engineering college has been so profound that the college has expanded and progressed continuously under his careful direction, and under the principles he laid down. Dean Cooley and the college matured together. They are each a product of the other. The greatest of one has reflected itself on the other, until they have become so interlocked that it is hardly conceivable to think of them apart.

His list of accomplishments at Michigan hardly need be mentioned: they are obvious. He built the College of Engineering from a rough temporary shop with floor space amounting to 1720 sp. Ft., to three large excellently equipped buildings having at total of some 500,000 sp, ft. of floor space; from three to four courses taught by two instructors, to hundreds of courses taught by a staff of more then 160 professors, instructors, and assistants; from an enrollment of less than 30, to an enrollment of more than 1800.

These are but a few of the stories of progress, which indicate the energy, ability, and the devotion of the man at the helm. His administration, with unrivaled defiance, even threw a scare into the Literary College. Not only did the enrollment of the Engineering College pass that of the Medical and Law schools, but in addition, threatened the record of the Literary College. Professor Goulding, who was then secretary of the College of Engineering, relates how Cooley, with his characteristic chuckle, exclaimed, “By Jove Goulding, we’ll pass them yet.” And they almost did.

Cooley, after attending Canandaigua Academy, was a teacher in a rural school near home. At nineteen he took examinations for entrance to the United States navel Academy, and was admitted as a midshipman. Upon his first trip to Annapolis, to take the examinations, he met Ira N. Hollis, also taking them, and the two became friends – a friendship that was intimate and enduring for the many years until Dr. Hollis’s death. Dean Cooley’s only son, now a Captain in the U. S. Navy, is named Hollis Cooley.

After he was graduated from the Academy in 1878, Cooley shipped as Cadet Engineer, seeing considerable of the world, and gaining practical experience. In 1881 the Navy Department, authorized by law, detailed him as Ensign, USN, to the University of Michigan as Professor of Steam Engineering and Iron Shipbuilding. Cooley at this time was 26 years old, and has the distinction of being the youngest full professor in the history of Michigan education.

When Cooley came to Michigan, the field of Mechanical Engineering was new, so the whole development of this important field came under his personal direction. He was given a little shanty costing $1500 in which to display his wares, at that time consisting of Blacksmithing, Machine Shop, and Patternmaking. At the end of four years, the University invited him to stay, and the navy consented to accept his resignation.

In 1904, he became Dean of the College of Engineering and Architecture. His policy was conservative and thoughtful. He never adopted new measures rashly, but always weighed the ideas carefully to discern their true value. Naturally his work has been constructive. He founded the colleges firmly and logically.

The Alumni always turned to his office to be greeted by a genial smile, a cigar, and a chat in one of those easy chairs, which, with pictures, part of his famous Oriental rug collection, and the souvenirs of his travels, made the Dean’s large paneled office a place of beauty.

Dean Colley retired, in 1928, with the ultimate satisfaction of the University teacher warming the cockles of his heart: with the affection and loyalty of thousands of engineers, his pupils and friends all over the world. He has a further satisfaction in the knowledge that he has left a definite impress upon the whole development of engineering education during the past fifty years.

For many years as a Consulting Engineer, particularly in the appraisal of properties of public service corporations, Dean Cooley played an important part in the development of industry in the state and in the nation at large. The list of corporations, municipalities, and governmental departments that he has served is a long one. He was, from 1907 to 1912, Chairman of the Block Signal and Train Control Board of the Interstate Commerce Commission; he was a member of the Advisory Council of the Joint Commission on Postal Service. He has been called as an expert witness in innumerable important patent cases. His most recent notable valuation work was that of Neutral Arbitrator, by appointment of the Interstate Commerce Commission, in connection with the New York Central Railroad’s purchase of the Michigan Central Railroad Lines. Dean Cooley is, at eighty, still serving the Federal and State Governments. In August 1933, he was appointed State Engineer, in charge of the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works program for the State of Michigan. In this capacity he has added further laurels to an imposing record of service.

Among the distinctions that have come to Dean Cooley, was the national Presidency of engineering societies, including The American Society of Mechanical Engineers, The American Society of Civil Engineers, Federated American Engineering Societies (now the American Engineering Council), and others. He has also served as Mayor of Ann Arbor, and in 1924 was Democratic candidate for the United States Senate. During the Spanish-American War, Dean Cooley again served in the Navy, as Chief Engineer of the U.S.S. Yosemite, which was manned largely by graduates of the University. During the World War, he was Educational Director of the 7th District of Student Army Training Corps, which included the states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Illinois.

Dean Cooley has been honored by various colleges, including the degree of Mechanical Engineer from Michigan, 1895; L.L.D., from Michigan State College, 1907; Doctor of Engineering, University of Nebraska, 1911; Doctor of Science, University of Michigan, 1928. In 1930 he was the recipient of The Washington Award, given by the Western Society of Engineers upon the recommendation of all the national engineering societies, and generally conceded to be the outstanding recognition possible for an American Engineer. This year he received a medal, presented at a dinner at the Detroit Athletic Club on Lincoln’s Birthday, for fifty years of Service in The American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

During his lifetime, Cooley has been a strong advocate of conservation. From his experience, he saw that conservation and engineering were inter-related. It was this foresight that caused him to write and to campaign for conservation long before our more modern popular clamor for conservation was hears. He has long been of the opinion that there should be a six-year course in engineering – two years of which would be devoted to the teaching of cultural subjects. He has the feeling that the Engineering profession should require at least as much background and training as either Medicine or Law.

It was largely due to the efforts of Dean Cooley that the Engineering Exhibits have become so important a function of the College of Engineering. These exhibits have drawn thousands to Michigan, and have been most instrumental in popularizing the engineering college and the University. Moreover, they have given the students, who run the exhibits completely, an opportunity to express themselves. In line with their motto, “Ask us questions - that’s what we’re here for,” even Dean Cooley admits having been enlightened on certain subjects. Nobody has ever been able to determine what these subjects were!

In 1919, the Department of Engineering Research was suggested. Dean Cooley was quick to see the benefits to be derived from cooperation between the University and the industrial and technical interests of the State along scientific lines. He helped make the advantages of this Department clear. Since its start, it has increased the staff of the College of Engineering by bringing leading engineers and scientist from all have improved, and because of these very facts, it has greatly enhanced the opportunities for scientific study and research work on the part of undergraduate and graduate students.

A most remarkable tribute to the personality of Dean Cooley was paid at a Testimonial Dinner given him November 23, 1923, at the Hotel Statler in Detroit. Over five hundred former students and later friends gathered in Detroit. Among the guest were college presidents, deans, department heads, officers of railroads, bankers, attorneys, regents, presidents of national engineering societies, and friends dating from his earliest days at Michigan. Among the speakers was a former governor of Michigan, a Justice of the Supreme Court, and an Admiral of the United States Navy. Friends came from the Atlantic Coast, from west of the Mississippi, and from south of the Mason Dixon Line, to pay their tribute of admiration and affection. Acting Mayor Lodge extended the welcome of the City of Detroit to the guests who had come to pay honor to one who had rendered many important services to Detroit and its citizens, and to the guest of honor he presented the freedom of the City. Dr. Ira N. Hollis, life-long friend of Dean Cooley, and then President of Worchester Polytechnic Institute, told innumerable stories of the Navel Academy days when, as he said, Dean Cooley always got by with his smile. Hollis had been graduated first in their Class of 1878 at the Naval Academy; Dean Cooley was seventh.

Among other talks, P. N. Moore, of St. Louis, gave a brief outline of the work Dean Cooley had done as Societies, an organization of over 50,000 engineers dedicated to the service of the community, the State and the Nation. Dean Cooley succeeded Herbert Hoover as National President of this organization.

In preparing this article about Dean Cooley, we join in the sentiment of late President Burton, who spoke at this Testimonial Dinner. He expressed the hopelessness of condensing the many years of service into ten minutes of talk, and in closing his remarks, said, “You didn’t come here tonight because Dean Cooley is a scholar, or a teacher, or a great Engineer, but because he is a human being, and you love him because he stands as a living illustration of what America means – unstifled, individual initiative.”

Dean Cooley, through his long years of service, has come to be, in a very true sense, a representative of the whole University. His spirit and vitality are now conspicuous by his absence from Ann Arbor. His connections with the University cannot be explained merely by duties and responsibilities. His is an innate connection which can only be explained by love, and devotion to a task into which he flung all his energies.

The College of Engineering and the University of Michigan will stand forever as a living memorial to this man whose remarkable qualities caused even the older professors to label him “the best of the clan,” and the hundreds of students whom he has known, to speak of him always as “The Grand Old Man of Michigan.”

The Steeds of Time

The Steeds of Time course on. No flick of spurs.

Nor curb of bits, can change their rhythmic stride.

The silent hoofs of these staid voyageurs

Turn not aside upon their cosmic ride.

No mortal mind can think, nor tongue can say,

How long the Steeds of Time have trod the way;

Nor whence they came, nor where their quest may lie.

But hoof-prints in the sky point out their path

Along the Milky Way; past coal-sacks wrapt

In deepest mystery; through nebulae

So faint no human eye can classify

The dappled flecks as stars. And yet each speck

Is but a tally-mark of aeons lapsed

Since Chaos saw the Steeds of Time pass by.

M. E. Cooley

Ann Arbor, Michigan

January 1933

DEAN COOLEY

The Michigan Technic, 1904, Pages 9-15

By J. B. Davis, ‘68

At the January meeting of the Regents, Professor M. E. Cooley was selected as the Dean of the Department of Engineering, to succeed Professor C. E. Greene, who was the first Dean of this department.

An excellent appreciative account of Dean Cooley’s history was published in the 1889 TECHNIC. This is repeated here, and supplemented by additional facts relating to the period covered, as well as by a recital of subsequent events. The 1889 TECHNIC is out of print, and the account was written by ex-Regent S. S. Walker, a devoted personal friend of Professor Cooley:

Professor Mortimer Elwyn Cooley, the subject of the sketch, was born March 28, 1855, in the township of Canandaigua, Ontario County, N. Y., on a farm about four miles from the village of that name.

His early years were spent upon the farm, engaged in the usual avocations of farmers’ sons “doing the chores,” and as his strength increased performing more and more of the hard work of the farm. He attended the district school regularly for a few years, and then only winters, as his help became more valuable during the active summer season.

The winter he was sixteen years old he attended the Canandaigua Academy, hiring a room and boarding himself, and was expecting to do so the following winter, but contrary to his desires, he was informed by his father that he had engaged a school for him to teach, in the township of Hopenell, a not distant neighborhood.

With reluctance he entered upon his duties, and perhaps with but little interest in the profession that had been chosen for him. Interest, however, was soon awakened, and the fact that the school was usually considered a “hard One,” and one in which more experienced teachers had recently failed, acted as a stimulus. The row, not unusual under such circumstances, culminated about the fourth week in active hostilities, in which the youthful teacher was victorious.

The next Monday morning found his school doubled in size, and to the end of the term an interested and successful one was maintained.

Commencing the next fall term at the Academy, boarding at home, walking four miles to school in the morning and returning the same distance on foot at night, that portion of the year he was enabled to attend is now remembered by him as one of particularly good results. The long walk was not lost time, for it was his custom to study his Geometry lesson on the way; and the exercise was just sufficient to keep him in fine physical condition. The year was not to be entirely devoted to study, for during the winter term he was called upon to relieve the necessities of the trustees in the district adjoining his old home, by completing the term in teaching their school, returning to the Academy again at the close of those duties for the balance of the year. While considering the prospects of a college education, which were not altogether bright, an opening presented itself at the United States Navel Academy. And during the summer of 1874 he entered his name with the Navy Department for an appointment as Cadet Engineer, and was duly summoned to the Naval Academy at Annapolis for competitive examination in September, the savings from the winter earnings by his school teaching sufficing to equip him for the trip and to pay its expenses. The examination seemed very severe, and thinking he had not passed he returned to Canandaigua, engaging to teach in the Academy while continuing his studies. He was hardly settled in this position, when to his surprise he was summoned by telegraph to report at once for duty at the Naval Academy, the records showing that “of seventy-seven (77) candidates examined for appointment in September, 1874, and from whom twenty-seven (27) were appointed Cadet Engineers in the Navy, Mr. Cooley passed number seven (7) in order of general merit.” The official letter giving the Information adds, “and retained that number on the day of his graduation, June 20, 1878.”

Having completed his course at the Naval Academy, Sept. 11th, 1878, he was ordered to the “Quinnebaug,” and in November 1879, was transferred to the “Alliance,” both vessels being then on the European Station. In the “Quinnebaug” he made the usual European cruise, covering a part of 1878 and 1879, visiting Port Mahone, Malaga, Tangiers, Algiers, Tunis, Alexandria, Joppa, Smyrna, Constantinople, Athens, Trieste, Venice, Naples, Nice and the Barbary Coast. From Malaga he made a Week’s excursion to Grenada and the Alhambra, and from Tunis he visited the site of Ancient Carthage with his comrade engineer, W. C. Eaton, now and entertaining companionship made the trip one of peculiar interest and value. From Joppa, with a party of officers from his vessel, he made an excursion to Jerusalem, and from Naples, visited Pompeii and Herculaneum. Thus with many little excursions and incidents of the voyage, the cruise passed most pleasantly, making for Professor Cooley enthusiastic and enduring friends of his companions and giving him a great wealth of pleasant memories. The “Alliance” on her return to the United States was attached to the North Atlantic Squadron, and spent the summer of 1880 on the Newfoundland fishing banks, later in the season being ordered to the West Indies.

December 3rd, 1880, he was detached from the “Alliance” and placed on waiting orders. On March 29, 1881, he was ordered to special duty at Ann Arbor, Michigan, under the law of 1879, by which certain officers of the navy are detailed to certain Educational Institutions as Instructors in Steam Engineering and Ship Building. July 22nd, 1882, he was commissioned as Assistant Engineer, to rank from June 22nd, 1880; In August 1885, his resignation from the Navy was accepted, to date from January 1st, 1886.

While still a student at Canandaigua Academy, Professor Cooley met Miss Carrie E. Moseley, of Fairport, M. Y., then a student at Elmira College. The life of a Naval officer under strict orders from the department, and with long intervals of absence, is not always favorable to the accomplishment of those dreams of companionship and home that nature implants in mankind, but correspondence was possible, and visits were occasional. On December 25th, 1880, Miss Moseley became Mrs. Cooley, and it is not too much to infer that the charm of home-life and a most interesting family were not unheeded arguments in determining his resignation from the Navy.

The writer well remembers the advent of Professor Cooley at the University, the interest among some, at least, of the officers of the Institution, which his enthusiasm and ability at once enkindled, the most meager outfit that the Regents were able to supply to the new department, only a small temporary structure, 24 x 36 feet, to which afterwards were added an unused carpenter shop and an old engine, - and perhaps better than any one else, know of, and sympathized with the dreams of the Young Professor – dreams that have already become realities!

While the “Quinnebaug” was lying at Alexandria, the officers of the City Water Works requested assistance from her commander in regulating the pumping engines, which had been placed in their new system of water works. The task was delegated to Cadet Cooley, and after a few days’ study the work was satisfactorily accomplished, and a report made covering the whole subject: this was received with great appreciation, and the thanks of the company were extended to him.

The devotion of Professor Cooley to what he regards as his duty is illustrated by the fact, long known to the writer, that early in his service at the University he was approached to know, if he could not be induced to become interested in one of the largest manufacturing establishment of the country, in a position congenial to his taste, and at more than double the salary of a full Professor of the University – he was then receiving only the pay of an Assistant engineer from the Government. The overtures were declined, for his “could not consider such a thing in the then crude condition of the department he had engaged to serve, and his first duty was to establish the Department of Mechanical Engineering in the University of Michigan.”

A shipmate relates: “I remember a long series of watches we were obliged to stand in the engine room, three of us in three watches, four hours on and eight off, night and day. This may not seem arduous work to a landsman, but with the anxiety, trouble, and heat of the “Quinnebaug’s engine room, it was enough to break a man down in a very few weeks. One night, having come off watch at 4 P.M., I turned in after supper to get what sleep I could before my watch at midnight, and as I climbed into my bunk I exclaimed, ‘Oh! for a good sleep again, I am getting worn out with these continued watches.’ My first thought when called for my watch was – ‘How refreshed I feel; never before did six hours’ sleep seem so long; and on going to the engine room what was m surprise to find Cooley there to be relieved, when I knew he had come off his tiresome watch the evening previous at 8 P.M. or four hours later than I had, and also to find the time to be 4 A.M. instead of midnight. It was Cooley all over!” He adds: “This may seem a little thing to you, but I tell you it is a sort of thing we rarely find in the Navy, or anywhere else, and it served to illustrate Cooley’s generous nature and self-sacrifice for others. It was simply Cooley, and the Cooley of that night was the Cooley of all his life while I knew him.”

Circumstances have been most fortunate, hoped for, but unexpected possibilities have become realities, encouragement has been cordial, able assistance and counsel have been given by the other members of the Faculty, notably by President Angell, Dr. Freeze, and Professor Greene, Davis and Dennison, of the Engineering Department; but the greatest element in the success of the Department of Mechanical Engineering has been the enthusiastic devotion of Professor Cooley to the cause, and his ability to induce a like interest in others. Indeed, the most necessary qualification for a teacher of professor, more important even than high scholarship, in the ability to create and maintain an interest and enthusiasm in the student. This gift Professor Cooley possesses in an eminent degree, coupled with thorough equipment, and his success is not surprising.

Original research with the class, the studying out of new problems, and the proving them by actual results, is the best of discipline for the students, and this is one of the means by which he succeeds in maintaining their interest. Perhaps, however, we should not give Professor Cooley to much credit on this score, for the aptitude of mankind for hand work may have much to do with the attractiveness which laboratory and shop work seem to possess. Until very recently hand labor has not been properly appreciated as a factor in education, and has even been frowned upon as degrading in an educated man. In a recent work on the Aryan race, it is claimed that the people of that race are not as faithful workmen as those of some other races, “his energy being rather drafted off to the region of the brain,” and that this is more distinctly evinced, too, in the Anglo-Saxon than in any other of the divisions of this great race. If this is so, it is also a fact that the Anglo-Saxon has great adaptability to hand labor directed by the mind, and delights in those studies where skillful handiwork is a necessary requisite to the successful results sought by the brain. Hand labor, the manipulation of tools, from a jack-knife to an improved shaper or lathe, the handling of a pencil or graver, has natural attractions for our race, and there are few who, at least as a pastime, have not handled “tools,” or dreamed of time and circumstances, such that they might do so. This may be one of the reasons why laboratory work is so attractive, and why students of medicine look forward to the practical study of anatomy with keener relish than to any other portion of their course and why the tables of the Chemical and Microscopical Laboratories and the chairs of the Dental College are full, and engaged before there is a vacancy, and why from its inception, and with every increase of its facilities the Mechanical Laboratory has failed to accommodate more than a part of those desiring to engage in manipulating its tools and machinery, and why in those schools and institutions where drawing, designing, carving and modeling are taught, the estimates of facilities are always short of the actual demand.

As a youth of seventeen or eighteen, Mr. Cooley taught a district school to get the money to pay his tuition at the Canandaigua Academy. Thirty years afterward he is the official head of a school of engineering where two-thirds of the students depend, in some measure on themselves for the expenses of their college course. Many a one of them likewise taught a district school to get money to go to college with. Many a one of them find but little time for study. Good courage, lads, your Dean studied his lessons as he walked back and forth between his home and the Academy. You can find some way, he did. The real question is, “Do you want an education?” That was what he wanted. That was what took him to Annapolis. That was what made him find the hours to study during the busy times of summer work on a farm, so that he might be ready in September to take the examinations at the Naval Academy. That is what makes young men now, here, in this city, study day by day, as they work, or night by night, as they can, to be ready for the examinations next September for entrance to this school where he is Dean. From the book, which they hold in one hand they gain the knowledge to enter this school, while with the other hand they earn the money to keep them here. So did he. So will such men do till such men cease to be. They, like him, will come up to their examinations, with self-distrust and dread. Like him, also, they will be one of the twenty-five selected from the eighty, or more, who apply, and, like him, they may keep their place in the file, to their day of honorable graduation. Quite likely, too, they like him may return home after their examinations so confident of failure as to take up their duties again, as he did, believing his chance hopeless of entering Annapolis. Here is a picture of it all as he once gave it.

“It was with no little anxiety was not lessened when on his arrival he found eighty or more other aspirants for the twenty-five coveted appointments. The few days in Annapolis were trying ones. In one room on the top floor of the old Maryland Hotel, candidates from eight different states lived. They did not sleep. The proprietor attempted to turn them out every night, but as his guests grew accustomed to the racket, and found it did not avail to protest, the young men staid on. Mr. Cooley faithfully attended every examination, saying the full time and doing his level best.

“At the close of the examination he returned home, feeling he had failed, and accepted a place as teacher in the Canandaigua Academy. A couple of weeks later, a telegram was received at the Academy about noon, ordering him to report without delay at Annapolis. The three and one-half miles home were never traveled so fast, and that evening’s train took him away from home for good.

Imagine his surprise on arriving to learn that he had passed number seven, and this was his number also on graduation in June 1878.

From such youthful experiences came our Dean. The fall after he was nineteen in March, he left home for good. In four more years he was graduated from the Naval Academy. On Christmas Day of the next year he married. Three years from graduation he was detailed by the navy Department to teach marine engineering and iron ship building in the University to Michigan, in response to the first request for such a detail under the Act of Congress of 1879 authorizing them. This was in august 1881. At the end of the three years, which was the regular period for such assignments, the time was extended another year by special request of out Regents. The end of this year of extension, he resigned from the Navy, being invited by the President of the University and the Regents to accept the chair of Mechanical Engineering. This chair he accepted. So it was that this youth, who with trepidation, vent to Annapolis for his entrance examination in September 1874, in September 1885, had so proven his fitness for four years of efficient service as to be invited to become the head of Mechanical Engineering in a university. Four years of the eleven were spent in the Naval Academy. Four years more were spent here on detail. In sever years from graduation his life work had found him, and taken possession of him. To every student and teacher in the Department it can be said that our Dean knows our very lives by having lived such a life himself. To those fortunate enough to have to work hard for all they get, it can be said that our Dean is of that sort, - he is one with them, - by their token he has entered into every honor which has ever been bestowed upon him: Such men can afford to fail, having done their very best, but they seldom do. To him, and to them, come the real rewards of duties well done. For about twenty-three years has Mr. Cooley faithfully labored to assist in building up what has become our Department of Engineering, until, at the present time, not only is it receiving a large and commodious building from the Regents, accompanied by a very great increase in equipment, but as if in appreciation of what has been, and is being, done the attendance of students has doubled the present college year. To this prosperity Mr. Cooley has contributed his full share. Of him it may be said, that without his labors the condition of the Department could not be what it is, - far from it.

But since 1889, the date of his published history, above quoted, other events have been passing. In 1889, at the time that article was written; he had been here about seven and one-half years of the twenty-three of his residence in Ann Arbor.

In 1890 he was a member of the Board of Fire Commissioners of Ann Arbor In 1891 and 1892 he was President of the City Council. This is an elective office, and in 1892 his name was on all tickets but one, so that his election was without opposition at large. Of his fitness as a Fire Commissioner it is unnecessary to speak, and the results of his term of that board remain to this day.

He is a Vice-president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. He is a Fellow of the American Society for the Advancement of Science, and was vice-President of the Section on Engineering for one year. He is an active member of the American Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education. He is also a member of the United States Society of Naval Engineers, is a Past President of the Michigan Engineering Society, a member of the Detroit Engineering Society, and of the Engineering Society of the University of Michigan.

With these extended connections with the thinking and working men of his time, one may readily believe that his beneficent influence is very widely felt.

He has been enthusiastically welcomed to those more intimate associations open to such men, and has always exhibited such a hearty interest therein, as to win for himself a regard that ever increases in respect and devotion.

Not an author, in the literary sense, but a doer in the affairs of men, he has been the author of a wealth of designs, and of plans, that nor many men have achieved who devote all their time to such things, and are not engaged in preparing the foundation work of a school of engineering, as well as discharging the routine duties of a teacher in that school. College lectures, professional reports and papers, show the gift of authorship in an extraordinary degree. Addresses of many kinds, and upon many and various occasions, speak in the same terms. However, not in these directions has the work of his life lain. He has given himself to teaching, to college and other administration, and to professional practice. His practical experience as an engineer covers a wide field, both territorially and professionally. It is a long ways, professionally speaking, from the design and equipment of that modest little shop in which his shop work began here in 1881 and 1882 to the appraisal of the physical properties of all specific tax paying concerns in the State of Michigan, in 1900, - a work completed in six months’ time, and covering all the railroads and their steamships, all the telegraphs, telephones, plank roads, river improvements privately owned, express lines, an private car lines, within the state. The fieldwork was done in ninety days, and covered property valued at 240 millions of dollars. It is a long ways, territorially, from the states of the Middle West, to the colony of Newfoundland, and from Cuba to Canada, yet this region, ample in extent for the purposes of an empire, is within the field of his operations. Yet the line of his duties have been but barely touched upon. A mere category of his professional labors that was in any sense historical would fill more space than can be given to this article. Called to Detroit in the Street Railway Appraisal in 1899. Called to Newfoundland in 1902 to appraise the mechanical equipment of the government railways. Called to the service of his country in 1898, during the Spanish War, he was Chief Engineer of the Yosemite, - the rank he would have had if he had remained in the Navy instead of resigning in 1885, to serve this University with that distinction that has always characterized all his work. Called to receive a silver medal from his home city, Ann Arbor, a bronze medal from Detroit, the home city of most of his men, and another bronze medal from the State of Michigan in testimony of the appreciation in which his services in the Spanish War were held by his neighbors, his men and their relatives and neighbors, and by that great State which fosters the institution of learning where he is a Dean, and to the benefit of which he turns all his labors, duties, associations, and honors. Called to be Dean of the Department of Engineering in the University of Michigan by the students, the alumni, and the teachers of that Department, and elected thereto by the unanimous vote of the Regents. Called to be Dean of the Department of Engineering in the University of Michigan by the students, the alumni, and the teachers of that Department, and elected thereto by the unanimous vote of the Regents. Called to every position because an able, efficient, and loyal worker was needed, who also, could, and of times would, be a commander whom men would willingly obey. Able, gifted, and broad enough for the first rank, yet never concerned for his dignity, he is familiar with the details of his calling, both theoretical and practical, to an extent that enables him efficiently to perform the simple duties of a workman with tools, or organize, and command, a staff that can embrace a State or a Nation in its operations. Such is our Dean. Many, many more things ought to be said, but if these few jerky memoranda furnish us with field notes enough to map out the features referred to therein, it will be enough for now. Let us, then not disregard our impulses to honor and respect him, but rather let him know of our esteem while we are privileged to be with him, instead of waiting till perchance all we can do is to tell the world what a fine man he was.

MORTIMER E. COOLEY

AN APPRECIATION AND BIOGRAPHY

The Michigan Technic, December 1919, pages 233-237

Forty years ago, by congressional act, engineer officers of the Navy were detailed to various educational institutions for giving special instruction in steam engineering and shipbuilding. By good fortune, one of these young officers, one standing exceptionally high in order of merit, fresh from his overseas practice cruise, and full of old-world romance and the enthusiasm of a new-world builder, was detailed to one of the Middle West colleges – the University of Michigan, then an institution of broad vision, but sorely restricted in its equipment and financial resources.

It is unnecessary to recount the years of dogged, optimistic perseverance that wrought the ultimate transformation from the first meager equipment of the new department, housed in a small temporary structure 24 by 36 ft., to the great human laboratory for technical training of today, which now commands one-fourth of the 8000 seekers after knowledge at the big Ann Arbor institution, and has placed over 3000 men in active professional life.

Today, Mortimer Cooley, seasoned executive, diplomatist, arbitrator, leader of wise men, friend of youth, good fellow, fair fighter and idol of the thousands who have passed under the wholesome influence of his commanding personality, looks back through fragrant clouds from his reflective pipe and chuckles, and dreams of still greater achievements, greater institutions of learning, laboratories of human as well as industrial research, greater success in the service of his follows – in that deft compounding of human wisdom through intimate association with the minds of other men – so that the discordant notes sometimes sounded, now by labor, now by capital, may be merged in a greated understanding and a greater service.

As Cadet Cooley looked upon life with eager, happy eyes, so does the President of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers still look upon life; surveys the restless industrial field today, and plans and plans – that his honored profession may help to make the world safe for democratic institutions. Unconsciously, those who know him best rally to his support with heart and hand. For Mortimer Cooley never forgets a friendly deed, and demands in all justice, man to man, the same service, the same energy and the same devotion. He will not tolerate laggards in high or low places, especially among the parasitic class which seeks to bask in the light of other men’s labors, particularly of young men, but with infinite patience and good will, the instincts of the true leader of men guide him to give to his fellows freely of this store of wisdom – not only book knowledge, but o that vastly more important kind, unnamed, unmeasured, unclassified – call it diplomacy, personality, instinct, what you will.

Example: Junior college student, known as a “grind” or “crammer.” Studies a day ahead of his class so as to acquire additional luster of scholarship. Said “shark” is treading the dangerous byways of thermodynamics, and endeavors to “corner” the attention of the class by asking previous question. Without a moment’s hesitation, Professor replies with serious, worried countenance, deprecatingly: “Well now, Mr. blank, you have got me absolutely floored; but give me time and I will look it up.” Wisdom of the ancients! Said shark did not tumble for two days, until the class, in the orderly course of events, suddenly passed by his “piece de resistance” and blew up his ammunition dump. He nearly died from mortification, but it was a good lesson. The professor only winked.

Thus the name of Mortimer Cooley has become synonymous with a personality, strong, robust, virile, unwavering, but always kindly and helpful, magnetically cheerful and profoundly democratic, never brutal in his admonitions, tricky with his adversaries or to the slightest degree pompous in his success – in other words, the antithesis of the typical Prussian bureaucrat.

These essentially personal qualities of the individual have brought to Mortimer Cooley enviable positions of leadership, as the dean of a prominent engineering college, as the arbitrator in numerous cases of valuations of railroad and other properties aggregating more than a billion, mostly for the public but frequently also for corporations; as expert technical advisor in many court cases; deputized by the General Staff of the Army to oversee the important student army training activities in all Middle West colleges, and finally as the head of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, in the most important period of its existence – the period of flux - when radical and conservative, “fire eater” and “standpatter,” struggle for supremacy, while the world grinds on with its wonted complexity, waiting for the engineer to assume his place as the leader of men in those walks of life for which he is peculiarly fitted. To such a tack Mortimer Cooley has brought his fortunate gifts and devotion, and his selection was unanimous.

To add that he is a member of numerous societies of learning, such as the United States Navel Institute, the American Society of Naval Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, American Association for the Advancement of Science, etc., indicates what well-seasoned timber may be found in the ranks of these learned and technical societies.

Mortimer Cooley, born March 28, 1855, was the fifth member of a family of eight children, all reared on the farm in Canandaigua Township, Ontario County, New York. He is of the ninth generation of Cooleys in this country. Benjamin, the first of the name in this country, came from England and settled in Springfield Massachusetts, in 1642, where for many ears he was a selectman. Benjamin was an ensign in the Hampshire Regiment, commanded by Major John Pynchon, in the King Philip War. He was a weaver by trade and lived not far from Mill River. The Barney & Berry Skate Factory, overlooking the Connecticut River, is located on the rear end of the old Cooley homestead. Later a dozen or more Cooleys owned homes in Longmeadow, four or five miles south of Springfield, on the other side of Mill River. As the tribe multiplied some of them moved to Granville, Massachusetts, a beautiful and picturesque locality at the south end of the Green Mountains. The fourth generation was living in Granville prior to the Revolutionary War. Mortimer Cooley’s great-grandfather John was a cattle drover. His trips took him west as far as Ohio. Canandaigua, New York, must have appealed to him strongly as it did to a number of others who came there from Granville. John took up his home there soon after 1790.

To “grow up” on a farm is a great heritage. One learns how to “do the chores,” and thus to take a man’s real place in human society. Such book learning as one got was in the district schools supplemented, it might be, by a year or two in the fine old academies of those days. Seldom did a farmer’s son have the opportunity to go to college. He must indeed have been ambitious and persistent to get beyond the academy, and relatively few got even that far. Mortimer Cooley spent three terms in the old Canandaigua Academy. He boarded himself two winter terms and walked from his hoe, three and one-half miles away, one spring term, “doing the chores” morning and evening. That and taking care of the garden Saturdays were the conditions, which secured for him the unusual privilege of being excused from regular farm, work. For two winters he taught district school and in that way earned the money needed to pay his expenses at the Academy and to finance his next step towards an education.

It was in the summer of 1874 that Mortimer Cooley was able to realize the ambition of his life for a career on the high seas. The four-year course for cadet engineers had just been established at the U. S. navel Academy and appointments wee open to competition. Of some seventy candidates who tried the examination, twenty-five were appointed; Mortimer Cooley passed seventh and four years later graduated seventh in a class of fourteen. He took an active part in athletics, was captain of his class crew, and stood high with the foil and broadswords. There were no varsity teams in those days.

On graduating from the Naval Academy, Cadet Engineer Cooley was assigned to the U. S. S. Quinnebaug, which sailed in the fall of 1878 to the Mediterranean. He returned on the U. S. S. Alliance a year later and on Christmas day, 1879, was married to Carolyn Elizabeth Moseley, of Fairport, New York. The Alliance, after being over hauled at the Norfolk Navy Yard, cruised on the North Atlantic Station from Newfoundland to the West Indies. While the ship was at Port Royal, S. C., a telegram came to Cadet Engineer Cooley announcing the arrival of his first born. She being the first child of the class, his classmates took upon themselves the responsibility of naming her with appropriate navel ceremonies. She was duly christened Alliance, in the ship’s honor, and if the tales of rear admirals of today who were cadets in those days are to be believed, the occasion was a notable one in the annals of the Navy.

Cadet Engineer Cooley was forthwith detached and ordered home for a few weeks, then to the Bureau of Steam Engineering at the Navy Department. In June 1881 he was examined and promoted to Assistant Engineer and in August was ordered to the University of Michigan to teach steam engineering and iron shipbuilding. At the end of three years, on request of the Regents, his detail was continued a fourth year. Being then detached and ordered to the Pacific Station, the Regents conferred on Assistant Engineer Cooley the honorary degree of Mechanical Engineering. This he did, his resignation taking effect December 31, 1885. It was with a great deal of regret that he resigned, as he was in love with the Service. There was at the time no prospect for any great increase in the navel force, and it seemed to him the opportunity for real work afforded him at the University ought not to be declined.

Professor Cooley has given his entire life since he was twenty-six years of age to university work – thirty-eight years up to now. He has been Dean for fifteen years, having been appointed in February 1904. The Michigan Agriculture College conferred on him the degree of L.L.D. in 1907, and the University of Nebraska the degree of Eng. D. in 1911. When he came to the University there were but sixty or seventy engineering students out of a total of about thirteen hundred in the University, and the entire technical work in engineering was done in seven rooms at the south end of the main university building. The first engineering laboratory was built the winter after he came. It was a two-story brick veneer building 24 x 36 feet, costing $1500 and the equipment $a1000. In it Professor Cooley himself taught forging, pattern making and machine shop practice. It was styled by his colleagues “the Scientific Blacksmith Shop.” It was the beginning of an effort, now altogether general, to give to engineering students, while in college, some practical knowledge of the materials and processes used in the execution of engineering projects.

But Professor Cooley could not wean himself altogether from the naval service. He was from 1895 to 1911 the Chief Engineer officer of the Michigan State Naval Brigade and is now a retired officer in the Brigade. In 1898 he returned to the Navy as Chief Engineer during the Spanish War. He was attached to the U. S. S. Yosemite and later to the League Island Navy Yard, his period of service being altogether about ten months. His honorable discharge was handed him by the Commandant of the navy yard with words of commendation for his efficient work.

While on blockade duty off San Juan, P. R., the Yosemite engaged in a five-hour battle with the Spanish forts, gunboats and torpedo boats following the interception of the Antonio Lopez, a Spanish cruiser loaded with munitions, putting in the harbor. During the blockade a serious fire broke out in the coalbunkers of the Yosemite, which for a time threatened serious consequences. The fire was deep down and could not be reached. Chief Engineer Cooley, recalling the method of sinking piles on western rivers by means of a water pipe attached to the pile, had a hose and nozzle triced to a long slice-bar, with which, under fire pressure from the pumps, the fires were successfully quenched. The slice bar could be shoved down into the coal like a knife into soft butter.

Following his return to the University in 1899, Professor Cooley was invited by the Citizens’ Committee of Detroit, of which Governor Pingree was Chairman, to appraise the power plants, rolling stock and stores and supplies of the Detroit street railways, which the city was contemplating purchasing. It was a hurry job and was done in a hurry. The appointment was made on Friday, the staff organized Saturday and the report submitted the following Saturday covering $2,000,000 of property. The following year, 1900, at the request of Governor Pingree, the Board of State Tax commissioners, and the Board of State Auditors, Professor Cooley undertook to appraise the specific tax paying properties of the state of Michigan, which included the Steam Railroads, the Telegraphs, the Telephones, the Plank Roads and the River Improvements. This was late in August. The fieldwork was completed in ninety days and the results submitted at the end of December in time for the incoming Legislature. The work involved the inspection of 10,000 miles of track, thirty odd thousands of the freight cars, all the passenger and special equipments, all the locomotives, telegraph, and telephone lines, in short everything involved in the different kinds of properties. Some one hundred fifty men were employed. The total of the appraisal was about $240,000,000.

As a result of this work the Legislature enacted laws placing the railroads on an ad valorem tax basis, which increased their taxes threefold and more. When the assessment was made under the new law in 1903, the railroads brought suit to enjoin their collection. This made necessary another appraisal as at the date of the assessment in which the value found for the railroads was $240,000,000, an increase of $40,000,000, due largely to using 1903 prices for labor ad materials instead of the average from 1890 to 1900. The case was carried to the U. S. Supreme Court and being finally decided in favor of the State, brought into the state treasury twelve or fifteen millions in back taxes.

Michigan’s pioneer work in valuation of large public utility properties was soon followed by other states. First among them was Wisconsin in a valuation of her steam railroads. Substantially the same methods were employed as in Michigan. Professor Cooley was consulting engineer.

In the twenty years, which have elapsed since that first appraisal in Detroit, Professor Cooley has had charge of many hundreds of appraisals in various states and municipalities, in most of them employed by the public. In all of them he has stood consistently for correct results regardless of employer, “hewing to the line letting the chips fall where they may.” In the aggregate the value of property appraised under his direction lies somewhere between one and one-quarter and one and one-half billion dollars

Nor has Professor Cooley neglected opportunities to serve in other capacities. He was for a time chairman of the Board of Fire Commissioners, and President of the Common Council in Ann Arbor in 1890-91. He served on the Board of Awards for the World’s Fair in Chicago in 1893, and for the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo. He has for twenty-five years served as mechanical expert in patent cases, and testified many times on mechanical matters before juries and commissions. He was for five years (1907-1912) chairman of the Block Signal and Train Control Board of the Interstate Commerce Commission.

Professor Cooley is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, American Society of Civil Engineers, American Institute of Consulting Engineers, Franklin Institute, Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education, Society of Naval Engineering, Michigan Engineering Society, Detroit Engineering Society, Sigma Phi, Tau Beta Pi, Sigma Xi, the Army and Navy Clubs in Washington and in New York, the Detroit Club and Yondotega Club in Detroit.

Professor and Mrs. Mortimer Cooley have four children, three daughters and one son. All are married and seven grandchildren now keep them from growing old. The son is a Commander in the United States Navy.

Thus has Mortimer Cooley established his record of unusual accomplishment and honest devotion to his democratic ideals. And he is still “doing the chores.”

MORTIMER E. COOLEY

AN APPRECIATION AND BIOGRAPHY

The Michigan Technic, December 1919, pages 233-237

Cadet Engineer Cooley was forthwith detached and ordered home for a few weeks, then to the Bureau of Steam Engineering at the Navy Department. In June1881 he was examined and promoted to Assistant Engineer and in August was ordered to the University of Michigan to teach steam engineering and iron shipbuilding. At the end of three years, on request of the Regents, his detail was continued a fourth year. Being then detached and ordered to the Pacific Station, the Regents conferred on Assistant Engineer Cooley the honorary degree of Mechanical Engineering. This he did, his resignation taking effect December 31, 1885. It was with a great deal of regret that he resigned, as he was in love with the Service. There was at the time no prospect for any great increase in the navel force, and it seemed to him the opportunity for real work afforded him at the University ought not to be declined.

Professor Cooley has given his entire life since he was twenty-six years of age to university work – thirty-eight years up to now. He has been Dean for fifteen years, having been appointed in February 1904. The Michigan Agricultures College conferred on him the degree of L.L.D. in 1907, and the University of Nebraska the degree of Eng. D. in 1911. When he came to the University there were but sixty or seventy engineering students out of a total of about thirteen hundred in the University, and the entire technical work in engineering was done in seven rooms at the south end of the main university building. The first engineering laboratory was built the winter after he came. It was a two-story brick veneer building 24 x 36 feet, costing $1500 and the equipment $a1000. In it Professor Cooley himself taught forging, pattern making and machine shop practice. It was styled by his colleagues “the Scientific Blacksmith Shop.” It was the beginning of an effort, now altogether general, to give to engineering students, while in college, some practical knowledge of the materials and processes used in the execution of engineering projects.

Thus has Mortimer Cooley established his record of unusual accomplishment and honest devotion to his democratic ideals. And he is still “doing the chores.”

MORTIMER E. COOLEY

1855-1944

The Michigan Technic, October 1944, page 16

Dean Emeritus Mortimer E. Cooley, Michigan’s “Grand Old Man” and honorary member of the Engineering Society of Detroit, died in Ann Arbor on Friday, August 25, 1944, in his 89th year. He had been hospitalized for almost a year in order to provide the expert service and facilities need for his care. But though the frailties of his age inevitably cramped his movements, nothing ever dimmed his spirit, and up to the last his visitors found him sitting at ease in a big chair with a favorite cigar and all his great fund of stories ready on call. His room frequently resounded with hearty laughter as he and the medical staff traded keen repartee concerning the respective merits of engineering and medicine.

Dean Cooley entered Annapolis from his home in Canandaigua, N. Y., in 1874 as a cadet engineer, and graduated in 1878. In 1881 he was detailed by the Navy to join the University with the title of Professor of Steam Engineering and Iron Shipbuilding, which unique phrasing always pleased him immensely.

In his academic career Mortimer E. Cooley became Dean of the college of Engineering of the University of Michigan in 1903 and served as such until his retirement in 1928. Thus as a professor and administrator his services to the University covered a period of 47 years. During his administration four new departments were added in the College of Engineering, viz., Architecture and Architectural Engineering (established as a separate school in 1930), Aeronautical Engineering and Geodesy and Surveying. In this period the enrollment in the college increased from 823 under graduates and 7 graduate students to 1715 undergraduates and 81 graduates. The Dean insisted that engineers should be broadly trained, and he maintained a block of 16 hours in each curriculum devoted to non-technical courses. For many years this generally involved the students taking up to the fourth course in some one of the modern foreign languages. He also stressed the duty of the engineer as a citizen and strove to develop more active participation by engineers in public affairs and administration. As a teacher and counselor he created the “Cooley tradition” for thousands of Michigan men who came in contact with him. “Hew to the line,” said Dean, “let the chips fall where they may.”

Professionally the Dean was highly honored for his pioneer work in the appraisal of public utilities. Always active in professional organizations, he served as president to the American Engineering Council, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education, and the Michigan Engineering Society, and as Vice President of the American Society of Civil Engineers. He held membership in many other organizations. He has been specially honored with such awards as the navy Service Medal, the Sampson Medal and the Washington Award for distinguished service to the profession.

Notwithstanding his fellow engineers’ appreciation of his glorious record in all its versatility and attainment, Dean Colley lives in the hearts of Michigan men because of his great courtesy and kindness, the warmth of his smile and his supreme spirit of good fellowship. In the great changes taking place in Ann Arbor he was a constant factor and anchor for all returning graduates. The Dean could well say with Abou Ben Adhem, “Write me as one that loves his fellow men.”