CHARLES JL> • FREER 
Charles Lang Freer was born at Kingston, New York, 
on February 25th, 1856, son of Jacob K. and Phoebe Jane 
(Townsend) Freer; of Freneh-Hugenot ancestry. His first 
American ancestor was one of the original patentees of New 
Paltz, New York. 
Mr. Freer, as a boy, worked for two summers on a 
farm not far from Kingston, and after a public school educa¬ 
tion he entered the employ of a cement manufacturing company 
near his home. At the age of sixteen he was a clerk in the 
general store of John Q,. Brodhead at Kingston, New York, in 
which building were, also, the offices of the New York, King¬ 
ston and Syracuse railroad, of which Frank J. Hecker was then 
Superintendent. in 1873 Mr. Hecker appointed Charles L. 
Freer to the office of paymaster of the railroad. in August, 
1876, Mr. Hecker accepted the offer of James F. Joy to become 
general superintendent of the Eel River railroad, with head¬ 
quarters at Logansport, Indiana, and Mr. Hecker selected Mr. 
Freer, alone of the Kingston force, to accompany him to Logans¬ 
port where he served, first as accountant for the company, and 
later as its treasurer. 
Upon the absorption of the Eel River railroad by the 
Wabash railroad, three years later, Mr. Freer and Mr. Hecker 
left the company and went to Detroit, Michigan, where Mr. Freer 
