Who is Molitor?

Molitor is the person responsible for separating Presque Isle County from Alpena County. Indirectly, he was also responsible for the incorporation of Alpena as a city. People in Alpena incorporated to protect themselves from Albert Molitor, who represented the territory of Presque Isle County on the Alpena County Board of Supervisors. One of only three members of that board, Molitor had allied himself with the supervisor from the Ossineke area and together they passed expenditures that cost residents of the village of Alpena a lot of money. Alpena incorporated, which gave them enough additional representation on the Board of Supervisors that they had a voting majority.

Molitor’s role in Presque Isle history

In Presque Isle County, political control bounced back and forth between the communities of Rogers and Crawford’s Quarry, which was located where the Calcite Plant is today. In 1870, the Crawford family and their supporters had wrested control away from Molitor and the residents of the Rogers. Molitor had developed relationships with a number of members of the State Legislature, however, and in 1871 he was able to get a bill passed that separated Presque Isle County from Alpena County. That action necessitated a new county election and when those votes were counted, Molitor and his cronies were back in charge.

Here is a photo of Albert Molitor himself.

Molitor and several of his fellow employees at the Lake Survey office in Detroit had decided to go into the timber business in Presque Isle County. They reportedly tried to purchase the Crawford property, but their offer was rejected. In November of 1869, William Rogers, an Army lieutenant assigned to the Lake Survey, purchased 96.8 acres of swampy land along the Lake Huron shore, just north of Crawford’s Quarry. In 1870, Rogers also provided the funds needed for construction of what would be known as the Rogers & Molitor’s Steam Saw Mill, to be operated by Albert Molitor.

In 1871, Rogers and Molitor filed a plat for a town centered on the property Rogers had purchased. The plat identified the town as “Rogers City,” although it was organized as a village, rather than a city. Eventually, they would be forced to drop “city” from the community’s name. William Rogers, the village’s namesake, donated a one-block parcel at the center of the plat as the site for a courthouse. Interestingly, Rogers is only known to have visited the community that bears his name on two or three occasions. Over the years, many people have questioned the wisdom of having named the town after him, but he was the largest property owner in the village and owner of the largest business.

In Rogers’ absence, Albert Molitor ran their timber business, the saw mill, and the company’s general store. His “business manager,” or right-hand man, was Frederic Denny Larke, another former employee of the Lake Survey.

Molitor’s mighty ego

A wide range of complaints soon began to mount about Molitor. It was rumored that he was the illegitimate son of King Wilhelm I of the German state of Wurttemberg, and he treated many local people as if he was a king himself, “the King of Presque Isle County.” It was said that he treated many people as if they were his serfs. A man he worked with at the Lake Survey simply said he “was the meanest man who ever breathed.” Among other things, Molitor was accused of misusing county and township funds, overcharging for work he did for the village, even altering election results to pass a $30,000 millage to build road, then misusing most of the money. He apparently also cheated his business partners, including William Rogers, who soon severed his relationship with Molitor. Another Lake Survey employee stepped in to replace Rogers, but he left within a couple years, claiming Molitor had taken him for more than $7,000.

Molitor soon developed a reputation as a womanizer. In 1862, his wife divorced him on grounds of “unfaithfulness.” A Detroit attorney described him a “licentious” and claimed that he “violated numerous maidens, who were the daughters of his dependents.” He supposedly talked one of his employees to arrange to bring his attractive sister to Rogers City to work as Molitor’s maid. Before long, she was pregnant and Molitor took her to Detroit and dumped her on a street corner. A well-known Detroit attorney befriended her and filed suit against Molitor for “bastardy,” obtaining a $10,000 judgment. Molitor had shielded himself from lawsuits by transferring all of his properties to his mother and sister.

In 1873, a German immigrant by the name of Hermann Hoeft came to Rogers City and opened a general store and saloon across from the courthouse on Third Street in direct competition with Molitor’s store. Hoeft, who had gained experience working for one of the largest wholesale grocers in Detroit made a slight miscalculation when he chose Rogers City to locate his store. There was no bank in Rogers in those days, which complicated business transactions. Molitor, by far the largest business owner in the area, paid his workers with scrip — privately printed money — or store credits in his store. The scrip and store credits were good at Molitor’s store but not at Hoeft’s. Hoeft asked Molitor to let him accept the scrip and get reimbursed for it, but Molitor refused. In desperation, Hoeft sued Molitor in hopes the court would order Molitor to reimburse him for any scrip he accepted. That suit was nearly over and word was that the court was likely to find for Molitor.

Molitor’s murder

On the night of August 23, 1875, Molitor’s sister-in-law Catherine, or Kate, was in the apartment over the Molitor general store when she heard loud gunfire, then she heard her brother-in-law call out, “Oh, God! Kate, Kate, Kate, I am dying!” Running downstairs, she found Molitor lying on the floor alongside his desk with several large wounds in this back and side. Edward Sullivan, his secretary, was sitting in a chair nearby. He had been shot through his jaw, amputating his tongue.

Sullivan was taken by boat to Alpena the next day, but he died before reaching there. Molitor was transferred to Detroit by boat. He died there three weeks later.

The local sheriff investigated the scene and found numerous footprints in the soil outside Molitor’s office. One unusual boot print matched a pair of boots belonging to Andrew Banks, a farmer and sometime preacher from nearby Moltke Township, but he had a rock-solid alibi for the time of the crime. There were many rumors about who had been involved, but nobody was ever charged with the crime. The sentiment seemed to have been that whoever did the shooting had just killed the most powerful man in the county, so maybe it was better to, as you might say, let the sleeping dog lie. And sleep it did … until one of the murderers confessed 16 years later. Not only did he confess to having been one of the shooters that night but he implicated 14 other residents from the area around Rogers in the crime, including Hermann Hoeft and Andrew Banks, the farmer and sometime preacher from Moltke.

About the book & author

The whole fascinating, and sometimes outrageous, tale is told in great detail in a new book released by the Presque Isle County Historical Museum in Rogers City.

“MOLITOR: The Murder of a Northern Michigan King,” was written by Mark Thompson, the museum’s executive director and curator for the past 14 years.It is the 11th book in the museum’s Local History Book Series that published its first volume in 2006, Thompson’s first year at the museum.

“This is the 16th book that I have written or edited,” said Thompson, “and it has definitely been the most difficult and time-consuming. I started doing research on the Molitor murder about four years ago, but I quickly ruled out doing a book about it because there were so many things that we didn’t know about it and the people that were involved. Over the past four or five years, I have had three different people come in with plans to write books about the murder. I was more than happy to let them do it and I tried to help out in every way I could. Unfortunately, all three apparently lost interest, so I finally concluded that a book really needed to be done and maybe I had better just get on with it.”

Thompson says that he is really surprised how much new information he was able to come up with, much of it from government or church sources in Europe.

“Julian Hoppe, a friend of mine who is a very serious amateur genealogist offered to help me,” Thompson noted. “He’s spent a lot of time researching German and Polish records in Europe and he put together a closed Facebook group of genealogists to help me out. All I had to do was post my questions and Julian, Christopher Paul, Tammy Szatkowski Reeves, and Brad Tadajewski would start looking for answers. It’s amazing how much new information they found, and how fast they found it.”

According to Thompson, Chris Paul’s mother, Lisa Paul, who was born in Germany, helped out by translating a lot of the material.

“We were able to find answers to lots of questions that were previously unanswered,” said Thompson. “There are still a lot of answers we don’t have, but I think we at least know what all the questions are.”

“MOLITOR” is available in the Presque Isle County Historical Museum’s gift shop in their Hoffman Annex in Rogers City, or it can be ordered through the museum’s website at www.thebradleyhouse.org.