Christopher Richards Mabley (1836–1885) was the founder of a chain of

department stores A department store is a retail establishment offering a wide range of consumer goods in different areas of the store under one roof, each area ("department") specializing in a product category. In modern major cities, the department store made ...

in United States. He was known as "The Merchant Prince". Mabley was born on Feb 22, 1836, in

St Minver St Minver () is the name of an ecclesiastical parish, a civil parish and a village in north Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The civil parish of St Minver is in Bodmin Registration District and is nominally divided into St Minver Highlands (t ...

Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

to William and Mary née Richards Mably. His first wife, Catherine, bore him at least 8 children of whom only two or three girls survived to adulthood. Around 1875 he married Katherine Morice Hull (with whom he had another 6 children) and in 1877 emigrated via Toronto (where his father set up as a silk merchant) to America. There he opened a chain of clothing stores (known as Mabley & Co) across

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

(Pontiac, Ionia, Flint, Detroit),

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...

and

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

(Toledo, Cleveland) which were so successful that he was soon able to commission the tallest building in

Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...

(14 floors) as his flagship store but died in 1885 before it could be completed. The building was renamed the Majestic Building by a new owner because of the many letter Ms (for Mabley) carved into the stonework. The final store, in

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...

, was named

Mabley and Carew Mabley & Carew was a prominent department store in Cincinnati, Ohio. History The store traced its roots to 1877, when Detroit merchants C. R. Mabley and Joseph T. Carew, en route to Memphis, were stranded in Cincinnati by a late train and wo ...

and was jointly owned with Joseph Carew. Joseph T. Carew had been one of Mabley's managers and later his business partner and managed the Cincinnati store. Mabley delighted in the out-door life, belonging to the old Detroit Boat Club and the St. Clair Pishing Club. In politics he was a Democrat, but was very broad in his views, voting for the best man regardless of party affiliations. He would never accept public office, although several times approached with a request to accept the nomination for mayor. He was a valued member of the Universalist church. After his early death on June 30, 1885, he was interred with his early children in the family vault in Oak Hill Cemetery, Pontiac which in 2002 was sadly vandalised by a local man using it as a lockup. His only surviving son Carleton Raymond Mabley co-founded the

Smith and Mabley Smith & Mabley was an American veteran era importer of European automobiles and produced the American C. G. V. automobile in 1902, and the S & M Simplex automobile from 1904 to 1907, in New York City. History A. D. Proctor Smith and his broth ...

auto manufacturing company of

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

References

Paul Leake, ''A History of Detroit'', Lewis Publishing Company, 1912

External links

Michigan History;the Majestic Building from the Detroit News Mabley genealogy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mabley, C. R. 1836 births 1885 deaths Businesspeople from Cornwall English emigrants to the United States American retail chief executives 19th-century American businesspeople