The county of Eaton was created by an act of the legislative council of the territory of Michigan, passed October 29, 1829, which reads as follows: "That as much of the country as is included within the following limits, viz., north of the base line and south of the line between townships four and five north of the base line, and east of the line between ranges six and seven west of the meridian, and west of the line between ranges two and three west of the meridian, be and the same is set off into a separate county, and the name thereof shall be Eaton." The county was named in honor of Gen. John H. Eaton, secretary of war in the cabinet of President Andrew Jackson.
On November 4, 1829, the territorial council of Michigan enacted, "That the county of Eaton shall be attached to and compose a part of the county of St. Joseph."
The next day, November 5, 1829, the same council passed a law that the counties of Eaton, Branch and Calhoun, and all the country north attached to Eaton be set off into a township by the name of Eaton, and it was ordered that the first town meeting should be held at the house of Jabez Bronson, who lived on the site of the present village of Bronson in Branch county. This was no hardship, for there was not at that time a single white settler within the bounds of Eaton county.
On July 30, 1830, the territorial council attached Eaton to Kalamazoo county for judicial purposes. This attachment lasted for nearly five years, but on March 17, 1835, the territorial council enacted: "That the county of Eaton shall be a township of Belleville,' and the first township meeting shall be held at such place as the sheriff of Calhoun county shall appoint in said county of Eaton, and shall be attached to the county of Eaton for all judicial purposes."
The final act which gave Eaton county an independent existence was passed by the state legislature, December 29, 1837. It provided "that the county of Eaton be and the same is hereby organized, and the inhabitants thereof entitled to all the rights and privileges to which by law the inhabitants of other counties of this state are entitled."
While the name "Belleville" was given to the first organized township, including the whole county, it does not appear to have been used in any official documents. The second place where the name of the township is mentioned in a legislative enactment is in the session laws of 1837, March 17, where it appears under the name of "Bellevue." Official business has always been transacted under the latter name, and yet there is no known law showing that the name has ever been legally changed from "Belleville."
The first division of the town of Bellevue occurred March 11, 1837, when Eaton and Vermontville were organized. The four northwestern townships, now Vermontville, Chester, Roxand and Sunfield, were set off as a township and named Vermontville; while the four southeastern townships, now Eaton, Eaton Rapids, Hamlin, and Brookfield were organized as the township of Eaton.
This left the four northeastern towns, Benton, Oneida, Delta, and Windsor, and the four remaining towns, Bellevue, Kalamo, Carmel, and Walton, cornering at the geographical center of the county in a single organized township known as Bellevue. But on March 6, 1838, the northeast quarter of the county was detached from Bellevue and formed the town of Oneida.
As early as 1832, George W. Barnes, a surveyor, found the beautiful prairie near the center of Eaton county, on which the city of Charlotte is located, and bought the land of the government; and on March 21, 1833, before the county contained a single white settler, he made application to Governor George B. Porter for the appointment of commissioners to locate the seat of justice, making affidavit, "that in the month of may last he put up in three public places in the county of Kalamazoo notices that application would be made to the governor of the territory of Michigan to appoint commissioners to locate a seat of justice for Eaton County, agreeably to the law in such cases made and provided."
Thereupon on April 29, 1833, Charles C. Hascall, Stillman Blanchard, and John W. Strong were appointed such commissioners. On June 5, of the same year, they reported to Governor Porter that they met "at Prairie Round (Ronde) in the county of Kalamazoo on the 27th day of may, 1833, and on June 4, located the county seat on land which is owned by George W. Barnes;" and they added, "the point selected for the seat of justice in this county is on a beautiful prairie, about one mile square, near two and a half miles south of the center of the county, and about one mile north of the Battle creek, the nearest point to the center of the county where water can be obtained for hydraulic purposes.
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CHAPTER VII
LOCAL HISTORY - Early Settlements - Emigration of 1835-36 - A
Colonization Scheme
The first actual settlement in the county was made by Capt. Reuben Fitzgerald in July 1833, in what is now the township of Bellevue. His daughter, Sarah Fitzgerald, whose birth occurred November 12, 1834, was the first white child born in Eaton county. The first white male child born in the county was Isaac E. Crary Hickok, son of Capt. James Hickok. His birth occurred September 7, 1836. Captain Hickok was the first settler in the town of Walton, but his son was born in Bellevue. On December 26, 1855, Sarah Fitzgerald was married to John Spaulding by Rev. G. W. Hoag. The first birth of a white child in the east part of the county was probably that of Phoebe K. Sarles, daughter of Samuel Sarles, a pioneer of Charlotte. She was born August 7, 1836, and became the wife of Jacob W. Rogers. Her death occurred may 28, 1875.
The first death of a white person in the county, as stated by John T. Hayt in a historical sketch of Bellevue, written in 1869, was that of a man named Baker, who was killed by the caving in of the walls of a limestone pit that he was excavating. His death occurred in the summer of 1835.
It frequently occurred that settlers moving into one part of a township would live for years without knowing that there was any other family in another part. Sometimes their introduction to their neighbors came about through the straying of cattle in the woods. This was the experience of Samuel Sarles, of Sarles street, two miles northeast of the courthouse, and William Wall, five miles east of him, both in the town of Eaton. It is said that it was two years before they learned of each other's presence. Edward Foote gives the following facts in regard to the first settlers in the county: "There was a settlement in the northeast corner of Brookfield, commenced in 1837 by the Moes and Boodys called Moetown. During the same fall, Jesse Hart came into the northwest corner of the same township, built his log shanty and shingled it with bass-wood troughs, and lived a long while ignorant of the existence of Moetown. In Oneida the first settler was Solomon Russell, who came in the fall of 1836. Erastus Ingersoll found his way into Delta in the summer of the same year. In Roxand the first settlers were Orrin Rowland and Henry Clark, who located in December 1837. Andrew Nickle settled on the first day of January 1838, having previously entered his land. In what is now Windsor, the first settlers were Orange Towslee and his family, who found their way into the township, October 1, 1837. They were followed, October 6, by Oramel D., John D. and William P. Skinner. The first settler in Benton was Japhat Fisher, who, through a mistake, located his land six miles farther north than he intended, having calculated to settle on section 30 in the township of Eaton. He arrived in the town of Benton in February 1837, and built an eight-by-ten shanty. In Walton township the first settler was Capt. James W. Hickok, who came to the county in February 1836, and moved in with his family the same year. His residence was on section 19. Vermontville was settled in 1836 by a colony from western Vermont, who gave it the name it bears in honor of the Green Mountain state. Samuel S. Hoyt and Peter Kinne were the first settlers in the town of Sunfield, having come in the fall of 1836. The first house in the township of Chester was built in September 1836, by H. and O. Williams, but they did not occupy it until June 1837. Messrs. Wheaton and Fuller came in about October or November 1836, and were the first families that settled in the township. Mr. Bouton followed in March 1837. Two miles east of Eaton Rapids, on the county line, a settlement was made January 1, 1836, by John Montgomery, whose house was built in what is now Hamlin township, while his land lay in both Hamlin and Eaton Rapids townships. Mr. Montgomery claims to have been the first settler in the east part of the county, but by the statement of William Wall, of Eaton, and of the members of the Sarles family, it appears that Samuel Sarles settled on Sarles street, in the town of Eaton, in the fall of 1835. William Wall, of Wall's settlement, came to the same township, in company with James F. Pixley, in June 1836. In what is now Eaton Rapids township, the first settler was Johnson Montgomery (brother to John), who located on section 36, in September 1836. In Carmel township the first settlers were Platt Morey and Nathan Brooks, who came in the winter of 1837-38. The first actual resident of Kalamo was Martin Leech, in the fall of 1836. Very soon after came P. S. Spaulding and Daniel B. and Hiram Bowen."
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During these years there seemed to be a spontaneous and widespread migratory spirit developed throughout the western part of New England. This migration was to Michigan, Northern Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Edward W. Barber, who has given some thought and study to the subject, accounts for this movement as follows: "The Migration from New England to the middle west began before 1836, and culminated soon after that year. At an early day the Erie canal was contemptuously called "Clinton's Ditch." This was opened in 1825 from the Hudson to Lake Erie. This movement was to western New York, that began soon after the canal was opened. Two of my uncles moved from Benson or Orwell, Vt., before I can remember. In 1832 another uncle moved to northern Ohio, and another one to Illinois, and a year or two later, still another went to Illinois. In 1835 Rev. Sylvester Cochran came to Michigan and on his return to Vermont set about organizing the Vermontville colony, that purchased land in 1836. The history of the Barber family is similar to that of many others.
Soon after the opening of the canal, the survey of land in Michigan commenced. In 1829 the first settler came to Jackson from New York. The land there had at that time been surveyed. It was land that the early settlers wanted. It has been the habit of Americans to seek new land, exhaust its original fertility, and then move to newer regions. In Vermont the land was worn out, the Erie canal opened a cheap waterway to several states, many had large families, and the migratory spirit was active. Times were fairly good, money plenty, but the panic of 1837 came-caused, I think, by Jackson's war on the United States bank, and his specie circular. After 1837 times were hard, and after 1839 migration was small.
"The New England migration was largely from Vermont, western Massachusetts, Connecticut, and some from New Hampshire. Maine did not send its contingent until our pine forests were brought into market, and here and there a Rhode Islander came. Connecticut filled up northern Ohio. The principal motive was farm homes in a more fertile region than among the New England hills."
In 1836 the parents of the writer, in company with others, moved from Connecticut to northern Indiana. One of the characteristic features of that migration was that it was composed mostly of young married men, in the prime of life. In attending church or any large gathering of people one would seldom see a gray-haired person, and one when found was treated with very great veneration. Again, land was not specially desirable for men whose children were mostly daughters, and they did not generally migrate; but when the families were mostly boys, fathers could not afford to buy farms for them in New England, and came west where land was cheap. In the schools it was very noticeable that the boys outnumbered the girls nearly two to one. This inequality had a marked effect on the social relation of the sexes. The young women were exceedingly independent and almost scornful to the young men. On going to Ohio some years later, where the sexes were more equally balanced, the demeanor of the young women was in marked contrast to that of those further west. (The social effects are not best where one sex far outnumbered the young women, said: "The young women there were the sassiest he ever saw." It could not well be otherwise.)
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The decade between 1830 and 1840 was prolific in schemes by Christian men for settling the newer parts of our country by colonies of families of kindred religious sympathies, who should go prepared at once to organize churches and establish schools for the educational and religious welfare of their own families, and that of the neighboring settlers. It was in 1832 that Rev. John J. Shipherd and Philo P. Stewart conceived the plan of the Oberlin colony, manual labor school and college. In 1835 the Rev. George W. Gale started in Illinois the town and colony named in his honor, Galesburg, and Knox college is the result. College building seemed to be a light task, in 1836 the colony and college at Oberlin seemed to be so thoroughly established that the founder could pass on to establish other colleges.
From Leonard's history of Oberlin, and a historical paper prepared in 1869 by Erastus S. Ingersoll, and another paper in 1876 by Mrs. Ingersoll, of Delta, Michigan, the following facts are chiefly gleaned:
"In 1835 Father Shipherd was pastor of the church of Oberlin, and Rev. Elihu P. Ingersoll was professor of music in the college there, and also principal of its preparatory department; while an older brother, Erastus Ingersoll, who sympathized with the Oberlin experiment, and was living in Farmington, Oakland county, in Michigan, determined to push into the wilderness and make a new home. He thought that the time was not distant when the capital of the state would be moved from Detroit to a point nearer the center of the state. With the intention of locating near the future capital he purchased in the northeast corner of Eaton county, six contiguous eighty-acre lots of wild land, midway between Detroit and Lake Michigan. How well he judged, is shown by the fact that twelve years later the capital was located where it now is, six miles from his purchase. In the spring of 1836 he built a log house upon the land into which he moved his family, and thus he became the first settler in the township of Delta."
In April, 1836, George Whipple, a member of the first class of theology at Oberlin, but later a secretary of the American missionary association, was apparently prompted by some of the wealthy men in New York who had made large promised to Oberlin, to write to Mr. Shipherd a letter, which shows in detail how this colonizing business was to be managed and we here present a part of the letter:
"Three or four of the brethren will furnish the money needed to purchase a township six miles square containing 23,040 acres, whenever a suitable location can be selected. This tract will be divided into 36 sections, of which the central one, containing 640 acres, will be reserved for the college, to be used for building, houses for the professors, etc., as well as for the production of vegetables, small fruits, etc. Two roads, crossing each other at right angles, will cut this section into quarters, and at the point of meeting a park will be laid out, within which the colonial chapel will stand. Also further away, to the north, south, east and west, the college will possess four additional sections, upon which crass and the larger grains will be grown, making a total of 32,000 acres. The charge for the village lots will be $75 to $300, and for farms from $4 to $10 an acre, according to location. The total cash value of the township is figured at $185,035. Of this sum they are ready to donate $10,000 to Oberlin, of the first money received to help her out of her financial troubles, and $80,000 for the endowment of the Illinois institution. Cannot you (Mr. Shipherd) or somebody else, go soon to Illinois, and make choice of an eligible tract, or at least come here to get the details of the undertaking proposed? After that some one should proceed to sell the lots, either to such as will remove to the township, or to those who are willing by making a purchase, to aid in founding a seminary in the far West. A profit of two hundred per cent will accrue to the investors. The New York brethren do not propose to put a dollar in their own pockets, but as soon as the township is sold, will purchase another and another, continuing until the whole western country is supplied with the means of obtaining a good Christian education."
Is not this feasible? Is not this the way to secure a right influence in that great valley? Is not this the way in which God means to keep it out of the hands of The Man of Sin, and to convert it to the true faith? Will not this hope warrant you in coming here to mature the plan and then at once set about pushing it forward? The location should be fixed immediately, for the most desirable sections will soon be appropriated.' [We cannot learn that this attractive scheme was ever carried out in detail, but it shows the main features which the originators wished to emphasize.]
It is possible to tell how much influence this letter had upon Mr. Shipherd, but in June of that year he resigned the pastorate of the Oberlin church, giving as one reason, that he could do more good in supplying the church with 'effective laborers through the Oberlin institute and kindred seminaries, which under God he might aid in building.
Very soon after his resignation, apparently in company with Mr. Elihu P. Ingersoll and some gentlemen from Massachusetts, he visited the land purchased the preceding year by Mr. Erastus Ingersoll. Those who are familiar with frontier hospitality and the elastic properties of log houses, will not find it difficult to believe the statement of Mrs. Ingersoll, that during the visit of these gentlemen their log cabin furnished lodging and entertainment for twenty-six persons.
"Mr. Shipherd was much pleased with Mr. Ingersoll's purchase and proposed to establish there a manual labor school to be call "The Grand River Seminary." Accordingly Grand River city was platted, lying partly in Delta township in Eaton county, and partly in Watertown in Clinton county. About the middle of the track, and in Watertown, Mr. Ingersoll set apart forty acres known on the maps as "Franklin Square," for the use of the college. The first work to be done was to clear the square of the timber, and Mr. Shipherd tried to make arrangements to have this work begun at once, and Rev. E. P. Ingersoll went to the eastern states, and spent the fall of 1836 and the winter following in soliciting funds for the enterprise. He was received with so much favor in the form of subscriptions, 'that a large building for the accommodation of pupils was formally commenced.' In the early part of June, 1837, Dr. Isaac Jennings, of Oberlin, visited Grand River city, but the bare fact of the visit is all that is known of it. Franklin Square lies about six miles northwest of the capitol of Lansing, but Grand River city was surveyed and platted ten years before the capital of the State was located in the woods, where it now is. It appears to have been laid out somewhat in accord with the letter of Mr. Whipple. Various documents establish the fact that about three years were consumed by Rev. Ingersoll and Shipherd in securing a site for the seminar, and in a canvass for funds and settlers with which the foundations could be laid. Things went on swimmingly for about a year. More than $10,000 had been subscribed, but it was the intention to keep on until $30,000 were promised, and fifty families were ready to go as pioneers to occupy land already secured. Moreover, an indebtedness of $3,000 had been incurred, 'money advanced by friends to buy a part of Grand River City.' But the crash of 1837 came and checked the work; no more money could be had, though for a year longer, subscriptions, that is, promises to pay some time, were secured. By May, 1839, however all prospect of immediate success vanished. A circular was therefore published and sent to all subscribers, reporting what had been done, and explaining the existing situation. It bore the signatures of J. J. Shipherd, Isaac Jennings and E. P. Ingersoll, "executive committee of Grand River Seminary." The whole amount pledged was $10,488.91. The amount collected $3,779.77; "expended to pay our loan, $1,448.97" traveling expenses, $480.10; agent's salary for three years, $736.08; expended in improvements, $1,123.62; a total expenditure equal to the receipts. We wish our patrons distinctly to understand that we intend to resume operations just as soon as their ability and willingness will permit us to do so. The resumption, however, never took place, and "Grand River City" is now known as "Delta Mills." and besides the Mills has a Methodist and a Congregational church, a school house, two or three stores, and perhaps forty or fifty houses. The Vermontville settlement was the most thoroughly organized colony in the county and we reproduce at length the sketch of it from the pen of Mr. Edward Barber."
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GENESIS OF "THE UNION COLONY"
In the fall of 1835 Rev. Sylvester Cochrane, a Congregational minister of East Poultney, Vermont, came to Michigan with a view to making a permanent location. He was the father of Lyman Cochrane, a prominent attorney of Detroit and a valuable member of the legislature, who died a few years ago. Mr. Cochrane found settlements so few and the inhabitants so widely scattered that it was impossible for them, except when gathered in villages, to have schools and enjoy religious privileges. Education and religion were needed at the start as essential to the orderly development of civilized society. He returned to Vermont, thought out the plan of a colony and began preparations for the execution of his project. The prevalence of the "Michigan fever," easily increased by accounts of the great lakes in the heart of the continent, the oak openings, the beautiful prairies and the vast wilderness of the wonderful peninsula, where the wild Indians still had happy hunting grounds, made it an easy matter to arouse among enterprising Vermonters the hereditary tendency of members of the Aryan race to move westward. A strong and earnest man, full of missionary zeal, he visited different places in Vermont and met and conferred with those who desired to emigrate. Early in the winter of 1835-6 a meeting was held in East Poultney, which was attended by a number of persons who had caught the western fever. The plan proposed by Mr. Cochrane was discussed, approved and the initiatory steps taken to carry it into effect. Subsequent meetings were held in Castleton, Vermont, and on the 27th day of March, 1836, the constitution of "The Union colony" was formally adopted. This being an unusual and unique inception of a colony for the settlement of a Michigan village and town, the document is worthy of preservation. That it might not be lost to posterity it is recorded in the office of the register of deeds of Eaton county. This fundamental declaration of principles and polity, with religion, education and association as its leading ideas carefully drawn, is styled.
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RULES AND REGULATIONS OF UNION COLONY
"WHEREAS, The enjoyment of the ordinances and institutions of the Gospel is in a great measure unknown in many parts of the western country; and
"WHEREAS, We believe that a pious and devoted emigration is to be one of the most efficient means, in the hands of God, in removing the moral darkness which hangs over a great portion of the valley of the Mississippi; and
"WHEREAS, We believe that a removal to the west may be a means of promoting our temporal interest, and we trust be made subservient to the advancement of Christ's kingdom;
"We do therefore, Form ourselves into an association or colony with the design of removing into some parts of the western country which shall hereafter be designated, and agree to bind ourselves to observe the following rules:
"1. The association or colony shall be known by the appellation or name of "The Union Colony."
"2. The Colony shall consist of those only who shall be admitted through a committee appointed for that purpose, and will subscribe their names to the articles and compact adopted by the colony.
"3. We hereby agree to make our arrangements for a removal as soon as our circumstances will permit-if possible, some time during the summer or fall of the present year, 1836.
"4. We agree, when we have arrived in the western country, to locate ourselves, if possible, in the same neighborhood with each other, and to form ourselves into such a community as will enable us to enjoy the same social and religious privileges which we leave behind.
"5. In order to accomplish this object, we solemnly pledge ourselves to do all that is in our power to carry with us the institutions of the Gospel, to support them with the means which God has given us, and to hand them down to our children.
"6. We do also agree that, for the benefit of our children and the rising generation, we will endeavor, so far as possible, to carry with the perpetuate among us the same literary privileges that we are permitted here to enjoy.
"7. We do also pledge ourselves that we will strictly and rigidly observe the holy Sabbath, neither, laboring ourselves, nor permitting our children, or workmen, or beasts to desecrate this day of rest by any kind of labor or recreation.
"8. As ardent spirits have invariably proved the bane of every community into which they have been introduced, we solemnly pledge ourselves that we will neither buy, nor sell, nor use this article, except for medical purposes, and we will use all lawful means to keep it utterly out of the settlement.
"9. As we must necessarily endure many of those trials and privations which are incident to a settlement in a new country, we agree that we will do all in our power to befriend each other; we will esteem it not only a duty, but a privilege to sympathize with each other under all our trials, to do good and lend, hoping for nothing again, and to assist each other on all necessary occasions."
The above fundamental declarations, in the nature of a constitution, clearly set forth the secular and religious purposes of the Vermontville colonists, and they indicate the dominant New England ideas of sixty years ago. They are distinctively Puritan in character. Minister Cochrane was the leader of the flock into the western wilderness and, no doubt, they were drafted by him. But a plan of operations was needed to carry into effect these declarations, and hence a series of rules and regulations was adopted as a practical mode of procedure in purchasing and distributing the needed land among the colonists. This plan is set forth in a series of votes and resolutions herewith presented in full, which may be properly designated as a
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CODE OF LAWS FOR THE COLONY
"The following votes and resolutions have been passed at the regular meetings of the colony, and are binding upon its members:
"1. Voted, That a committee of two be appointed, whose duty it shall be to make inquiry concerning the character of individuals who may wish to unite with the colony, and no person shall be admitted without the consent of this committee. (S. Cochrane and I. C. Culver were appointed a committee for this purpose.)
"2. Voted, That three agents be appointed to go into the western country and select a suitable location for the use of the colony, and purchase the same. (Col. J. B. Scovill of Orwell, Deacon S. S. Church of Sudbury, and Wm. G. Henry of Bennington, were appointed a standing committee for this purpose.)
"3. Voted, That we hereby authorize our agents to purchase for the use of the colony three miles square, or 5,760 acres, and as much more as they may have funds to purchase.
"4. Voted, That the land, when purchased be laid out by the agents so as to conform as nearly as the location and other circumstances will permit to the schedule adopted by the colony.
"5. Voted, That no individual member of the colony shall be allowed to take more than one farm lot of 160 acres, and one village lot of ten acres, within the limits of the settlement.
"6. Voted, That the agents be authorized to take a duplicate or certificate of the purchased lands in the name of the committee for raising funds; and the said committee shall hold the said lands in their possession until the first Monday in October, 1836, at which time the land shall be distributed among the settlers, according to some plan on which they may then agree; the village lots, however, may be taken up by the settlers when they first arrive, each one taking his choice of the unoccupied lots.
"7. Voted, That each individual shall be obliged to settle the lot which he takes by the first of October, 1837, and in case of delinquency in this respect both the village and the farm lot may be sold to some other person, in which case the purchase money shall be refunded by the agents of the colony, with interest from the time it was paid.
"8. Voted, That each of the settlers, when he unites with the colony, shall advance $212.50, for which he shall be entitled to a farm lot of 160 acres and a village lot of ten acres, to be assigned to him according to the rules of the colony; and if any settler shall find himself unable to advance this sum, he may pay $106.25, for which he shall be entitled to a farm lot of eighty acres and one-half of a village lot; and in case no money is paid before the departure of the agents, those who are delinquent shall give a note to the committee for raising funds, payable on the 25th day of June next, with interest for three months.
"9. Voted, That each settler, when he receives a deed of his village lot, shall give a note to the agents of the colony, payable in two years from the first of September, 1836, for the sum of twenty-five dollars, and this sum shall be appropriated towards defraying the expenses of building a meeting-house for the use of the colony.
"10 Voted, That an eighty-acre lot be reserved for a parsonage, out of the purchase, to be selected by the agents.
"11. Voted, That our agents keep a regular bill of their necessary expenses, from the time they start until they have made a purchase and surveyed the village lots, and the colony pay one-half of said expenses.
"We, whose names are hereto annexed, do hereby pledge ourselves that we will willingly conform to all the articles and votes of the colony as contained above.
" The above and foregoing finally adopted March 28, 1836, at Castleton, Vermont."
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NAMES OF THE COLONISTS
The signatures of forty-two persons are affixed to the foregoing compact, but we give the names of only the twenty-two who became actual residents of the village and town of Vermontville, with the former residence and occupation of each when stated, in the order they appear. Except where otherwise noted they were citizens of Vermont, from Addison, Bennington and Rutland counties:
Rev. Sylvester Cochrane, Poultney, clergyman
Hiram J. Mears, Poultney, wheelwright
Levi Merrill, Jr., Poultney, farmer
Simon S. Church, Sudbury, farmer
Jacob Fuller, Bennington, cooper
Oren Dickinson, West haven, farmer
Elijah S. Mead, West Rutland, farmer
Wait J. Squier, New Haven, farmer
Stephen D. Scovell, Orwell, farmer
Simeon McCotter, Orwell, cabinet-maker
Walter S. Fairfield, Castleton, printer
Sidney B. Gates, Brandon, farmer
Daniel Barber, Benson, merchant
Jay Hawkins, Castleton, farmer
Martin S. Norton, Bennington, blacksmith
Dewey H. Robinson, Bennington, physician
Bazaleel Taft, Bennington, machinist
Roger W. Griswold, Benson, farmer
Edward H. Barber, Benson, farmer
Wells R. Martin, Bennington, surveyor
Charles Imus, Dorset, Vermont
Willard Davis, Bellevue, Michigan
George S. Browning, Bellevue, Michigan
Oliver J. Stiles, Bellevue, Michigan
Twelve different towns and eleven different trades or occupations are represented, but not a lawyer appears among them.
Of these pioneer settlers Dr. Oliver J. Stiles settled in the village, remained but a short time and removed to New York; Charles Imus settled on the farm now owned by Chauncey H. Dwight, four miles from the village, commenced an improvement, sold out in two or three years and moved away; Bazaleel Taft settled on his village lot, remained there about two years, then moved to a farm in the town of Kalamo, where he lived many years until his death; and Elijah S. Mead built a log house on his village lot and lived there a short time until his wife died in April, 1837, when he left never to return. The rest of those named became permanent settlers and were identified with the growth, progress and character of Vermontville.
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Among the miscellaneous papers preserved by S. S. Church and now in the possession of his son, E. P. Church, superintendent of the Michigan School for the Blind, is one which sets forth the" Considerations for locating a colony," probably prepared by Rev. Sylvester Cochrane. It also contains the names of thirty-two of the colonists and the sum contributed by each towards the purchase money of the land-in all $5,792.50.
At the outset of these "Considerations" the charge of Moses to the delegates from the twelve tribes of Israel who were sent to search the land of Canaan is referred to-Numbers 13, 17-20, namely:
"And Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, and said unto them, Get you up this way southward, and go up into the mountain:
"And see the land, what it is; and the people that dwelleth therein, whether they be strong or weak, few or many:
"And what the land is that they dwell in, whether it be good or bad; and what cities they be that they dwell in, whether in tents, or in strongholds:
"And what the land is, whether it be fat or lean, whether there be wood therein or not; and be ye of good courage, and bring of the fruit of the land."
Of course the Vermonters were not freebooters like the ancient Israelites referred to, as they had put up the money to buy the land they wanted, and their faces, like those of their Aryan ancestors for forty centuries, were directed westward instead of southward; but their agents were asked to have in view, in selecting a location-"first consideration, a healthy place, with good water, realizing that life depends upon this; second, a rich and fertile soil, well watered, interspersed with wood and prairie if practicable; third, to be located on or near a water fall is of great service to a colony; fourth, consider the country around-is there a prospect of its being speedily settled-is it capable of supporting a dense population-is it where produce can be got to market-is the soil qualified for various productions, not only for grain of different kinds and fruits, but for the mulberry, cattle, horses and sheep; fifth a situation where a canal or railroad may cross, or in the center of a county, will greatly increase the value of real estate; sixth, let it be near some navigable water, not compel one hundred and fifty souls to make a journey of one hundred and fifty miles through intolerable roads and get homesick before they see the place."
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April 2, 1836, S. S. Church and William G. Henry, members of the purchasing committee, left Vermont, met by appointment at Troy, New York, and started by stage for Michigan. Their first Sunday was spent in Auburn. In western New York, Wait J. Squier, one of the colonists, joined them. These three pioneers to spy out the land went to Lewiston, near the mouth of Niagara River, intending to go through Canada to Detroit, but were advised not to make the attempt on account of the badness of the roads. Accepting this advice they went to Buffalo with the intentions of taking a steamboat, but the harbor and lower end of Lake Erie being covered with ice, they continued their journey by stage to Erie, Pennsylvania. Arriving there they found the south shore of the lake was free from ice and that a boat would leave for Detroit in a day or two, on which they took passage. At Detroit they waited twenty-four hours for the stage to leave. It was an open wagon, the roads were horrible and besides paying fare, they worked their passage, carrying fence rails to pry the wagon out of the mud where the holes were deepest. The objective point was the United States land office at Kalamazoo. Mr. church stopped at Battle Creek, where his brothers-in-law, Judge Tolman W. and Moses Hall resided, for a much-needed rest. Soon afterwards the committee met at Kalamazoo and began their search for a contiguous body of government land that would answer the purpose of the colonists. Failing to find such a tract as was wanted, Mr. Church returned to Battle Creek, procured a guide, and with one or two other colonists who had arrived there, set out on an exploring tour; while Messrs. Squier and Henry went to Grand Rapids to look for a location in that part of the territory. The Church party explored Barry county as far as Middleville and from there passed up the Thornapple river some distance east of Hastings, without finding what they wanted, namely: a tract of government land of the quality and quantity needed in a solid body, unbroken by swamps or marshes and free from "catholes." The original intention to obtain a location in the oak openings was found to be impossible, as all the desirable land had been entered by settlers and speculators. In 1836 the fever of speculation in Michigan real estate was at its height, and dreams of rapidly acquired wealth by land-grabbers were abundant. The continued until the collapse of the bubble a year or two later. It was also the wild-cat money era. The outlook for the committee was discouraging. With the money of over thirty persons in their possession to be wisely invested, with the ideals of the colony uppermost and with each one of the investors interests in obtaining as good a quarter-section farm lot and ten-acre village lot as any of their fellow colonists, it is not surprising that the committee began to despair of success.
Returning again to Battle Creek, Mr. Church, who was already on the alert for information, met Col. Barnes of Gull Prairie, who had helped survey Eaton county and was one of the original proprietors of Charlotte. From him he learned that the amount of land needed, if not taken within a short time, might be found in town 3 north of range 6 west. The next day by appointment they met at the Kalamazoo land office and obtained a plat which showed that only one parcel had been purchased in the township. A letter from Messrs. Squier and Henry stated that they were prospecting in the southwest part of Ionia county, with headquarters at Middleville. They had not found a desirable location on government land. Events began to focus on Vermontville.
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The committee were faithful to the trust reposed in them. They knew what they wanted, but thus far had failed to find it. In a narrative of the further steps taken to locate the colony, written by Mr. Church and printed in the Charlotte Republican several years ago, he says: "I repaired to Middleville and our company came in. they examined my plat and we concluded to go to Eaton county. The next morning I made out an application for land enough to cover the amount we wanted, sent one of our number to the land office with my application, while the rest of us went to Battle Creek to make arrangements to explore the town. Here we found two or three more of the newly arrived colonists. We were nearly two days procuring an outfit and getting to our destination. The third day we explored the town, running nearly every section line. All were satisfied with the land. We then went to Kalamazoo and on the 27th of May, 1836, I took up the amount of the colony purchase, also about twenty lots over and above that for members of the colony and others. We then returned to the purchase and selected the south half of section 21 for the village. W. J. Squier had his surveying implements with him, so that we were enabled to lay out the village, which we did agreeably to instructions. Those of us who were present selected our village lots and marked them on our plat."
The village was platted one mile and forty rods long east and west by half a mile north and south and was sub-divided into thirty-six lots, fronting twenty rods in width on the east and west street, extending eighty rods north and south and containing ten acres each. The east and west street became the leading highway from Charlotte to Hastings, and later, after the location of the State capitol at Lansing, a part of the Lansing and Allegan State road. The farm lots were located around the village in all directions. By adopting this plan of settlement the colonists became near neighbors and enjoyed the benefits of society, school and religious meetings from the start. Among the colonists were a clergyman, two physicians and a blacksmith. West, in Castleton, just over the town line, a shoemaker, Joseph Rasey, had settled on a wild eighty acres, and to him with a side of sole leather and enough upper leather to shoe the family the boys would go every fall, after the frost had begun to bite, and have a pair of cowhide boots made for winter, going barefoot and enjoying an occasional stonebruise having been the summer custom; while north of the village three and a half miles, in the edge of Sunfield, lived O. M. Wells, a tailor, who brought his trade with him from New York, and to him the cloth for making Sunday clothes would be taken and cut into garments to be made up by a seamstress in the house. The nearest place to get a pound of saleratus or green tea was at Bellevue, also the post office, fourteen miles away, and most of the trading was done at Marshall, twenty-eight miles distant, C. P. Dibble & Co. being the favorite merchants. The nearest grist mill was at Bellevue and the nearest saw mill, owned by Oliver M. Hyde, afterwards a prominent citizen of Detroit and mayor of the city, was in Kalamo, seven miles distant. From there W. J. Squier drew the lumber to build the first frame house erected in the village or town in 1837-8.
While William G. Henry was a member of the committee that selected the location and was one of the original members of the colony, signing its constitution and by-laws at Castleton, Vermont, he did not settle in Vermontville, but in Grand Rapids, where he was for many years a prominent and highly esteemed citizen. He married Huldana Squier, sister of Wait J. Squier, who, as the record shows, was a leading colonist. Mr. and
Mrs. Henry's oldest daughter, Annette Henry, married Gen. Russell A. Alger, a prominent citizen of Detroit and of Michigan. As Mr. Henry was instrumental in locating the Vermontville colony, gave his counsel and advice to its organization, and selected a village lot, although not one of its pioneer settlers, he is justly entitled to special and honorable mention.
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THE VILLAGE PLAT
The Marshall and Ionia road passed through the center of the village from south to north and became the first weekly mail route from Bellevue to Ionia, through the western part of Eaton county. A post office was established in 1840 with Dr. Dewey H. Robinson as the first postmaster. From each of the four central village lots about an acre was taken and set apart for a public square. In the original conveyance from the trustees who located the land one-thirty-second part of this square was deeded to each colonist. By common consent the northwest quarter of the square was used as a site for the first log school house and a few years later for the academy building, the southwest quarter for the Congregational church, the northeast quarter for a Methodist church, and the southeast quarter was occupied for some years by hay scales and has been quite a place of resort for Canada thistles, which were introduced in 1837 in the Vermont rye straw used by W. J. Squier to pack his household goods for moving. With very few exceptions the original settlers have passed away, but the thistles still survive them.
The following diagram, with the names of the original selectors of village lots as of record in the office of the Eaton county register of deeds, gives a better idea of the plat then words can convey:
| East |
| 1. M. P. Squire |
Cochran 1. |
| 2. J. Scoville |
Colver 2. |
| 3. Warner-Bond |
Martin 3. |
| 4. Mears |
Scoville 4. |
| 5. Clark |
Mead 5. |
| 6. Robinson-Francher |
McCotter 6. |
| 7. Terrill |
Moffitt 7. |
| 8. Merrill |
Squire 8. |
|
| 10. Morse |
Square |
Warner 10. |
|
| 11. Fairfield |
Henry 11. |
| 12. Hawkins |
Church 12. |
| 13. Barber |
J. Fuller 13. |
| 14. Parker |
Norton-Warner 14. |
| 15. Joy |
Hoyt 15. |
| 16. Bascom |
Taft 16. |
| 17. Towslee |
Selden 17. |
| 18. C. Imus |
J. Hawkins 18. |
| West |
Thus the "Union Colony" was planted. The actual fell far short of the ideal. Youthful imagination was disillusionized when living in the woods and clearing away the forests commenced. But few of the pastoral "considerations" presented in imitation of the ancient Hebrew example were realized. Barring the indigenous ague and fever, it was a healthy place; the water was good, the soil was rich and fertile but covered with heavy hardwood timber; there was no waterfall, only the sluggish Thornapple and Scipio winding through broad and miry bottom lands, with suckers, red horse and pickerel; all the forests and no prairie; far away from the desired center of a county and from markets-fourteen miles from Charlotte, fourteen miles from Hastings, twenty-eight miles from Marshall and twenty-six miles from Ionia; no navigable water nearer than Lake Michigan and the surveyed Clinton and Kalamazoo canal was never materialized; never a mulberry, but wild grapes, plums and cranberries and the most horrible and roughest roads-roots, stumps, corduroys and mud of great depth and adhesiveness-that mortals ever traveled through this vale of tears. The panic of 1837 came; the Michigan fever abated; there was no sale for land at any price; and with a good deal of heroism these early settlers commenced the work making homes in the wilderness.
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THE FIRST BLOW STRUCK
Some of the colonists who went with the first prospecting party to spy out the land, among whom the names of W. J. Squier, W. S. Fairfield and Levi Merrill are mentioned, remained in the woods, and the latter part of may, 1836, went to work felling the forest trees, building log houses and shanties and clearing for crops a few acres of land. The first potatoes and corn were grown among the stumps and logs. Sometimes potatoes were cooked in the hot ashes of a burning log heap and green corn roasted by its live coals. No portion of southern Michigan was more heavily timbered, mostly beech and maple, with ash, oak, elm, cherry, basswood and black walnut interspersed. The winter of 1835-6 was the last one of centuries of savage solitude. Prior to the advent of these first settlers, except an occasional blow struck by some hunter, surveyor or nomadic Indian, no sound of a civilizing axe had disturbed the silence or awakened an echo in the forest. So in May, 1836, the work of transformation from an unknown and prehistoric past of wild animals and men to the known present and to a future, the nature of which none of us can guess, actually commenced. The era of the bark shanty and pole and brush wigwam of the Indian ended there and then. Log houses were built that summer by those who remained for themselves and their coming families, and a colony house was erected to shelter other settlers as they arrived. Log house raisings were frequent and all turned out to help each other without expecting or desiring pay for the labor. Each house raising was a thank offering to the new and always welcome settler.
During that summer, 1836, Bazaleel Taft came with his family and settled on his village lot, but he moved to the town of Kalamo in a year or two and resided there the remainder of his life. Reuben Sanford, having purchased eighty acres of land adjoining the colony, also moved in that summer with his wife and only child, a daughter, living for a while in an unoccupied shanty on the Colver village lot until his own log house was built, and though not a member of the colony, became the first permanent settler in the town. Soon after their arrival, while living in the shanty, a son, Henry Sanford, was born, and was the first white child born in Vermontville. Twenty-five years later, when the civil war came, he was one of the first of the Vermontville boys to enlist as a soldier, and he died in the service. During the fall Jacob Fuller and wife, Elijah S. Mead and wife, jay Hawkins and wife with one child, Horace Hawkins, who still resides on a farm his father located, and W. S. Fairfield, arrived. March 24, 1837,
Mrs. Elijah S. Mead died after a brief illness, at the age of 22 years, the first death in the colony. There was no physician to be had; womanly kindness and care did all that was possible for her, but in vain; and disheartened, Mr. Mead moved back to Vermont.
Besides these families, several of the men who belonged to the colony came that year to inspect the purchase and make up their minds about moving. On the first Monday of October, the third day of the month, a large number assembled at the colony house, and after a prayer by Rev. Mr. Cochrane, proceeded to distribute the farm lands by lot, agreeably to the plan set forth in the articles of association adopted at Castleton, Vermont, the previous March. To meet the expenses incurred by the agents for locating the land a committee was appointed to make an assessment upon the farm lots which, because of their location, were the most desirable. This was agreed to and the sum of $400 raised for that purpose. When it was voted to make the distribution by lot, and quoting S. S. Church again, "each one drew and was satisfied." In addition to the families already mentioned, several of the men who came in the fall remained, among them Oren Dickinson with two hired men, to make preparation for bringing their families the coming year. S. S. Church and W. J. Squier returned to Vermont that autumn for their families. About the middle of November, 1836, Mr. Church arrived in Battle Creek with his wife and six children, it having taken nine days to reach there from Detroit by wagon, and in January, 1837, they all moved to Vermontville and commenced housekeeping in the colony house. Mr. Squier returned with his family in April, 1837. In the fall of that year several colonists had arrived, and among them Rev. Sylvester Cochrane with his wife and two children-Lyman Cochrane and Sarah Cochrane.
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EARLY EXPERIENCE AND GROWTH
The work of founding a new colony in the wilderness was begun. Only those who have had experience of pioneer life know what it means. After a few acres of land were cleared by each settler there was always enough to eat. At first provisions were scarce, and there was no certainty as to where a supply could come from. R. W. Griswold, soon after his arrival, started out to find something to eat with the horse team and wagon owned by Oren Dickinson. He drove to Climax, Kalamazoo county, where he found and purchased a load of wheat, had it ground in a grist mill at Verona, a few miles northeast of Battle Creek, and after a week's absence returned to the colony with the first load of flour, shorts and bran for the anxious pioneers.
But the women and men of that early period did not live by bread alone. Physically they needed food, shelter and raiment, but mentally they were sustained by an earnest purpose. Intelligent, courageous and devoted, deprived of many familiar comforts, yet willing to endure privations and hardships for the sake of an idea and to make life better worth living for their children, still they belonged to their time, were firmly established in their inherited political and religious opinions, and did not think the thoughts that women and men think today. Transplanted to the west with its broader horizons, even they slowly yet steadily outgrew themselves and their New England prejudices. In after years, as they went back to make their old Vermont homes a visit, they lost all desire to return. The old life and environments they had forsaken seemed pinched and narrower to them. Thus the west has uniformly brought an expansion and liberalization of American ideas. Men cannot separate themselves wholly from the traditions of the past, but amid new surroundings these traditions grow weaker with the lapse of time. They were fully up to their time, but it was a slow-moving era, and thoughts ran in wagon ruts instead of along electric wires.
By wagon road, canal and lake, and such horrid highways as Michigan then afforded, guided through the woods by blazed trees, it took three weeks to make the journey from Vermont to Vermontville if no time was lost, now made in thirty hours, yet fewer making it now than then; the postage on a letter was twenty-five cents; telegraphs and telephones were not invented; railroads were just beginning to revolutionize industrial and social conditions; nevertheless life, for the sake of home, family, virtue, morality, intelligence, kindness and love, and the refining influence of society, was no less worth living then than it is now; although, knowing the present, humanity could find but little external satisfaction in the past of our immediate ancestors. Words cannot convey an accurate impression of the labor of the days that antedate reapers and mowers, when the sickle and the grain cradle, the scythe and the handrake were the implements of the harvest and hay fields-the days that antedate railroads, telegraphs and telephones, before stream and electricity became agencies for doing the world's work. To those of us who knew something of that early period it seems like a dream.
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GETTING IN AND OUT
Roads were horrible; sometimes impassable; when not raised eighteen inches to two feet above the surface by hauling logs across the driveway and rolling them close together, called corduroy, they were two feet below the surface in the mire, and even then not very solid. Often as " In the days of Shamgar, the son of Anath in the days of Jael, the highways were unoccupied, and the travelers walked through the bye-ways." From Bellevue, through the woods for fourteen miles to the nearest
post office, the road was of such a character as to make the last installment of the journey from New England to the colony the hardest part of the trip. It was merely underbrush, trees on each side blazed with an axe to guide the traveler, and passing over many low and wet places, they soon became quagmires by being cut up by passing teams. A mile an hour was good time over them. Some families, when moving in, were compelled to camp out in the woods over night, and to accommodate them a shanty was built near a brook for shelter. From this fact the stream got the name of Shanty Brook, by which it is still known. In October, 1839, when my father, Edward H. Barber, moved in, with his wife, four boys, an ox team, wagon and cow, we left Bellevue a clear and frosty morning, before the sun was up, stopped long enough in the woods to eat a lunch, feed the oxen and extract some milk from the brindle cow, and about nine o'clock in the evening arrived at the top of the hill in Vermontville, a rain storm having set in after dark at the close of the day and of Indian summer. The first log house at the top of the hill was owned by Sidney B. Gates, and he came out with an old-fashioned tin lantern and tallow dip to light and guide us to our destination, the house of Oren Dickinson, three quarters of a mile distant. For a mile or two north of Bellevue the road had been chopped out four rods wide, and also for half a mile or so south of Vermontville. The rest of the way the track was through the woods, and sometimes hard to find on account of the fallen leaves. But we made a mile an hour that last one of eight days from Detroit, and three weeks from Benson, Vermont, and reached our stumpy Canaan at last.
In the spring the Thornapple river about a mile south of the village overflowed its broad bottomland, rendering it impassable for teams. In April 1837, W. J. Squier arrived at the south bank of the river with his family just at night. The water was so high they could not cross. Learning of their arrival and knowing the situation, R. W. Griswold and W. S. Fairfield waded across with provisions and took them to an Indian wigwam not far away, where they stayed over night. The next morning Mr. Griswold ferried Mrs. Squier and their youngest child across in a small dugout, or log canoe, a distance of about eighty rods. During the day the team and household goods were got over. To go to Bellevue to mill and return always required two days.
Some incidents, not being able to make fourteen miles by daylight with a pair of horses and a wagon, show better than words can describe the character of the roads the first settlers traveled over. In a few years they were improved so that the trip to Marshall, where most of the settlers sold their products and did their trading, could be made comfortably in a day, going there one day and returning the next, though when goods were to be purchased for the winter outfit for the family the trip and trade would consume three days. While Michigan roads are not the best in the world all the year round, the soil being too good and the frost sinking too deep to permit making firm and solid roadbeds at a cost rural communities can stand, yet they have improved greatly and should be improved more. The first settlers did a great deal of gratuitous work on them in the way of chopping bees to cut down the timber for the four rods width of the highways and letting the sun in to dry out the soil. Even then the wagon track was for several years a line of curves to avoid big stumps. A vast amount of labor was involved in making them passable evidence of civilization, for, as Dr. Bushnell says: "The road is the physical sign or symbol by which you will best understand any age or people. If they have no roads they are savages, for the road is a creation of man and a type of civilization."
Almost every year during the spring freshets the low lands along the Thornapple were overflowed and impassable. The river channel ran close to the high bank on the south side and north of it to high land again, towards the village, was about eighty rods of bottom and in some places almost bottomless. Sometimes cattle would wade to the bridge and cross over to the south side to feed during the day, returning at night. One morning they went across, among them a cow belonging to W. S. Fairfield. Towards night they crossed the bridge, homeward bound, and commenced traveling in single file over the log causeway. The water had risen so much during the day that some of the logs were afloat. As the cattle stepped on them they were easily displaced and those in the rear found it difficult to make the passage. The last one was Fairfield's milch cow. She struggled along, plunging into the water, swimming in deep places and here and there finding logs that had not floated, succeeded in making slow progress, until she was nearly exhausted. About half way across were two big oak logs, nearly four feet in diameter, in the causeway, which were higher than the others and did float. The cow gained a position on these logs and would go no further. Poles were placed around her to keep her from falling off, feed and bedding were taken to her in a boat, she was milked twice a day and remained on these logs for several days until the water subsided.
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Although much isolated from the rest of the world, these
colonists had the advantage of good society and they provided themselves with
religious privileges and a school for their children from the start. In
February, 1837, a Congregational church with sixteen members was organized by
Rev. S. Cochrane, its first pastor, and his duties extended over a period of
five years. It would have been slim picking for the minister, no doubt, but for
his working the land as did all the rest and some aid from the Home Missionary
Society. we have an original subscription paper, dated September 24, 1838, which
says: "We, the subscribers, being desirous to sustain the preached gospel
in this place, agree to pay the several sums annexed to our names respectively,
to the support of the Rev'd S. Cochrane as our minister. Said sums to be paid in
labor in chopping or clearing off the land, in cash or produce, as may best suit
the subscribers, and as they may agree with the said Mr. Cochrane, two-thirds of
said subscription to be paid by the fifteenth day of May next, and the other
third by the first day of October, 1839."
The names, conditions of payment, and amounts on this paper are;
S. S. church, paid, $10; Warren Gray, in labor and team work, $6; H. J. Mears,
in labor, $6; Jay Hawkins, in labor with team, $6; Jacob Fuller, in labor or
cooperage, $5; Wait J. Squier in labor and team work, $10; S. D. Scovell, $10;
Reuben Sanford, in produce, $5; Alexander and William Clark, $5; Martin &
Robinson, in goods, $15; William P. Wilkinson, $1; M. S. Norton, $5; Sidney B.
Gates, $5; George S. Browning, $8; Oren Dickinson, $10; Levi Merrill, $5; Oliver
J. Stiles, $10; Samuel S. Hoyt, $5; Roger W. Griswold, $5; W. S. Fairfield, $5;
Charles Imus, in shoemaking, $5; F. Hawkins, $1; Peter Kinne, $1; E. O. Smith,
$1.
Of these subscribers Samuel S. Hoyt and E. O. Smith resided in
what afterwards became the town of Sunfield. Mr. Hoyt lived six miles north and
his nearest neighbors in 1837 were in Vermontville. S. S. Church, in a sketch of
the early settlements says: "During this season, Samuel S. Hoyt, who lived
six miles from any white inhabitant, and whose wife had not seen a white woman
for several months at a time, brought his wife on an ox-sled to the colony, and
after two or three weeks returned home, rejoicing in the possession of a fine
daughter to cheer the loneliness of his forest home. Nor was this an isolated
case. One from Chester occurred the same season, and not long after one from a
remote part of our town."
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THE SCHOOL AND ACADEMY
In the summer of 1838 the first school was taught in a private
house. In the fall of that year a log school house was erected on the northwest
quarter of the public square, in which schools were regularly taught and the
scholars uniformly whipped from three to four months in summer by a female
teacher, and for three months in the winter by a male teacher. A rate bill was
prepared by the teacher, and the wood was furnished pro rata by the patrons of
the school. the teacher boarded around at the homes of the pupils, the length of
time at each place determined by the number of scholars in the family. when
there were but two rooms in a log house, one down stairs and the other up
stairs, with hardly a spare corner, sleeping a teacher was more difficult than
feeding him or her. An aristocratic log house would have two rooms on the ground
floor, and that made matters pleasanter. However, all got along very well, and
the petty annoyances were soon forgotten.
In 1843 an academical association was formed, the money raised
by subscription and the materials procured to build an academy, the building to
answer the double purpose of a school and meeting house. finding it best to have
a legal existence, the Vermontville Academical association with W. U. Benedict,
Oren Dickinson, S. S. Church, Daniel Barber, W. J. Squier, M. S. Norton, D. H.
Robinson and Levi Merrill for the first board of trustees, was incorporated by
act of the State legislature April 28, 1846, and vested with "power to
establish at or near the village of Vermontville, in the county of Eaton, an
institution for the instruction and education of young persons." Nine
trustees were provided for and the capital stock of ten thousand dollars was
divided into one thousand shares of ten dollars each.
Prior to this act of incorporation, in the
fall of 1844, the upper story of the academy building was completed, and Rev. w.
U. Benedict, pastor of the church, taught for four months of the winter of
1844-5 the higher English branches and the languages. Mr. Benedict continued to
teach in the academy for several successive winters and gave general
satisfaction. the district school was also continued summer and winter until
both were merged into a union school with two departments. In 1870 the present
union school building was erected at a cost of about $12,000. The old academy
was a well conducted and popular institution while under charge of Mr. Benedict,
and scholars attended it from various parts of Eaton County and from battle
Creek for several winters.
A handbill for the winter term of 1849 has been preserved and is
worth reproducing entire: "VERMONTVILLE ACADEMY!!" --The Winter term
of this Institution will commence October 9th, 1849, and continue 20 weeks under
the superintendence of Rev. W. U. Benedict. Mr. B.'s success as Teacher
hitherto, and the location of this Institution, removed from everything that
tends to divert the student's mind and draw off his attention from his studies,
renders this a desirable Institution for those who wish to make
improvements.
The terms of tuition are:
Per Quarter
"For common English branches........$2.50
For Higher English branches............ 3.00
For Languages................................ 3.00
With a small charge for
incidental expenses. Board can be obtained at from $1.00 to $1.25 a week. by
order of the Trustees.
S. S. CHURCH, Clerk.
Vermontville, Aug. 10, '49."
In the winter of 1846-7
George N. Potter of the town of Benton, sheriff of the county for four years and
recently state senator, was one of the scholars, and he paid his board by
slashing down the timber on several acres of land just north of the academy for
W. S. Fairfield.
A full account of the
colony that settled Olivet will be found elsewhere. these three colonies, Delta,
Vermontville and Olivet are believed to be the only strictly colonizing efforts
that were made in the county; yet it frequently happened that several families
who were acquainted in the eastern states would settle near each other. this was
true at Dimondale, and may have been of other places.
In 1836, six or eight
young families, by the names of Nichols and Nixon, came into the state from near
London, in Canada, and settled in the southeastern corner of the township of
Oneida. They were soon followed by several other families from the same vicinity
in Canada, so that the settlement was soon called "The Canada
Settlement."
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Chapter
VIII
LOCAL HISTORY - "The Strenuous Life"
- Personal Reminiscences
Unless a man had had some experience in clearing up a new
country he cannot realize under what great disadvantage all work is done. when a
man has paid for his land, moved his family onto his lot, had secured a yoke of
oxen, a lumber wagon, a cow, a dog and a rifle, and had ten dollars in his
picket it might be thought that he was pretty well fixed to begin the world; but
he found that everything needed to be done, and done at once.
The cattle were turned loose to get their living in the woods,
but they were in a strange place and he could not tell where they would wander,
and when wanted he must spend half the forenoon wading through the wet grass and
weeds before he could find them.
The first necessities for cooking are fire and water, but the
wood must first be cut and the water brought from some spring or stream,
possibly half a mile or a mile away, and this must be done day after day until
his house or shanty was finished. for help in digging his well, he must change
work with some neighbor. by the time the house was built, his well dug, his
money has been used up for provisions, and he was obliged to go to the older
settlements and work several weeks in order to get a further supply of food. If
he secured grain, he must go twenty miles to mill, and the roads were so bad
that it took him three or four days. roads needed to be cut out and worked at
once; the heavy timber must be cut and burned before he could put in any crops,
and after the ground was cleared the fields must be fenced in order to save the
growing crops. When his first crop of wheat was raised it must be stacked
outside, for he has no barn in which to store it, and had to be threshed by
laying the sheaves on the ground and driving his cattle round-and-round upon it,
and then cleaned by the wind, and this was a very wasteful way of securing the
crop. Very likely by that time he had broken a chain or lost a bolt from his
wagon, and the nearest blacksmith who could repair the loss was eight or ten
miles away.
He might find the blacksmith ready to do his work but out
of iron—which occasioned further vexatious delay—for he had to go six or
eight miles in another direction to a country store that carried a small stock
of iron, to get ten cents’ worth of iron, and it took him a whole day to get
twenty-five cents’ worth or blacksmithing done.
Then there were hundreds of little things, that at the
old home were thought to be of so little value as not to be worth taking to
the new home, that were sorely missed.
In case of sickness the doctor was many miles away.
In the clearing up of every new country there is more or less of ague
to be encountered and few diseases are more vexatious and discouraging to the
pioneer than the ague which hangs on and on, week after week and month after
month. A man may be able to do a
little work one day and will be flat on his back the next, while his work is
of necessity neglected. In these
circumstances many men determined that as soon as they could they would sell
out and go back to the east; but after having “work out the ague” they
changed their conclusions.
It is an interesting inquiry what food the pioneers found ready to their
hand on coming into the woods. From
what has been said in regard to game it will be seen that if a many had a good
rifle he could provide for his family a fair supply of meat from the deer,
turkeys, squirrels, raccoons, bears and pigeons.
Fishes were also to be had in lakes and streams.
There was quite a variety of wild fruits, plums,
crab-apples, huckleberries, raspberries, and elderberries.
Thee was also a great variety of nuts, acorns, beechnuts, hazel-nuts,
butter-nuts, black walnuts and hickory-nuts.
Hogs would get quite fat on the nuts, and when fattened exclusively upon
them, the lard was so soft that it would scarcely harden in the coldest weather,
and was frequently used for lighting purposes, sometimes in lamps and at others
placed in a saucer with a wick laid over the edge and set on fire.
Occasionally a tree was found that contained a swarm of
bees, where they had worked for years and laid up quite a stock of honey.
But the chief source of sweetening was the sugar maple.
The Indians had obtained a great deal in this way, but were so untidy in
their habits that few white people wished to patronize them.
But the early settlers made very large troughs from the whitewood trees,
capable of holding several barrels of sap, and used them to store it in until it
could be boiled down. The sap as it
flowed from the trees was caught in smaller troughs, made from basswood or
whitewood trees about eighteen inches in diameter, cut into three-foot lengths,
then split and each half hollowed out to make the trough.
And when not in its legitimate use was frequently found to be a
convenient cradle for the baby. This
county abounded in sugar maples, and as long as cane sugar was sold at ten and
twelve cents a pound the manufacture of maple sugar was a profitable industry;
but since the best cane sugar is sold for five or six cents little maple sugar
is made, and the farms were cutting down their sugar bushes.
In 1874 a census was taken and it was found that 322 tons of maple sugar
had been manufactured in the county. This
was nearly twice as much as was manufactured in any other county in the state.
It was two or three years before the pioneer could raise
sufficient food for his family, and in addition there were family supplies
needed, such as clothing, boots and shoes.
About 1836 prices of all these things were quite high, wheat being $1.25
a bushel and pork a shilling a pound. Some
paid as high as two and three dollars a bushel for wheat and $40 per hundred for
pork.
Simon Darling, of Eaton, says:
“All fabrics for clothing were sold at high prices.
Prints, poorest kind, were eighteen cents per yard, and thin cotton cloth
eighteen or twenty cents. Six yards
of prints would make my wife a dress of ample proportions, but I think she did
not put on many flounces. We men
would buy buck-skins at the Indians and make them up into breeches.
They were very durable and would have given satisfaction, had it not been
for some peculiarities of the buckskin. To
illustrate: A good neighbor had a
pair and was working in the woods in a soft snow, when he found that his pants
had grown so long that they hindered him in his work.
To obviate the trouble he cut them off.
In the evening, as he was sitting before a blazing fire, they shrunk up
beyond all account, and his worthy helpmeet, upon learning the facts in the
case, made him go to the woods and find what he had cut off, and the pants were
spliced and once more gained their original length”
While all family supplies were very high there was but
little that the pioneer could sell for money.
There was no market for the fine timber that they were burning, and they
obtained only black salt that they made from the ashes; neither was there a
market for the maple sugar, and the hides and furs of the animals they killed.
In 1837-8, as they began to have some produce to sell, the hard times
came on and prices dropped. Wheat
would bring but forty to seventy-five cents a bushel, and a very peculiar scale
regulated the price of pork; if a hog weighed only a hundred pounds, it was sold
for a dollar a hundred; if it weighed 200 it brought $2.00 a hundred; if it
weighed 300 it brought $3.00 a hundred. What
rendered the situation more stringent was the fact that very many of the
settlers had borrowed money from friends in the east in order to get a start,
and as fast as any money was to be had it was sent east to pay these debts, so
there was scarcely any money left in the state.
Until nearly the breaking out of the civil war thee seemed to be very
little money in circulation in these parts.
In November and December men began to hoard up money to pay their taxes.
After the first of January it would ease up a little and if a farmer had
a fat cow to sell in midwinter he was thought to be very forehanded.
Those were indeed close times in money matters.
It was with the utmost difficulty that people met their case engagements.
They were ready to pay in work, or dicker in making terms, but money
absolutely out of the question. The
first years on a heavily timbered farm, with all the money paid on the land,
with nothing but an ox-team and as axe to work with, with no money to pay taxes,
and the greater portion of the family down with the ague, were years of close
economy and strenuous toil. Had it
not been for the black salts and maple sugar, it is difficult to tell how taxes
could have been paid. Five or ten
dollars in a man’s pocket in those days created a sensation.
Everybody knew of it and respected the possessor; there were various
schemes to borrow it for a few days; to sell him a watch or rifle, or get up a
trade which would bring a little boot-money.
Those were slow times—slow in building frame houses;
slower still in finishing them off and paying up; very slow in making money.
But there was neighborly sympathy and kindness and promptness in going to
the bedside of the sick. There were
strong and willing arms to roll up the logs for a newcomer’s shanty, and the
social life gathered about the welcome events of a wedding or a dance.
Back to the table of contents
In order that coming
generations may know something of the difficulties encountered by the pioneers
in making a beginning in the woods, we insert the experience of a few of the
earliest settlers as they were afterwards related by them and published in the
papers of the day. After one or two
families had settled in a town, it was much easier for those who came later, for
the well-known hospitality of the pioneers led them to shelter the new-comers
until they had time to erect houses or shanties for themselves.
Edward A. Foote, at the meeting of the Eaton county pioneer
society in 1877, presented the following sketch of the incoming of Jonathan and
Samuel Sarles, who found their way through from Bellevue in October, 1835.
They left Mrs. Samuel Sarles at Bellevue until they could cut a track
through for a team. They worked five days cutting this track, and then hired a
team to bring Mrs. Sarles and the household goods through. This track followed the Indian trail from Bellevue to the
Indian village in Walton, and then followed the ridge along the south side of
Battle Creek until it reached the section line running south from Charlotte.
This was for a long time the only passable route between here and
Bellevue. For one year after they
came Jonathan and Samuel had no team with which to work and by their own unaided
strength they had to cut and move the logs for Samuel Sarles’ house, and then
raise those logs to their places on the building.
When those two men rolled up those logs alone there was not another house
or family within eight miles. In
this house twelve or fifteen persons live at one time, after people began to
come in. But these two men worked
alone, bare-handed, laying the foundation of the city, until the first day of
February, 1837, when Japhet Fisher came in by the way of Bellevue, leaving his
trunk there, and hired out to Samuel and Jonathan Sarles and went to work
chopping for them. He was there at “Uncle Samuel’s” in June, when Ruth
Sarles, wife of Samuel, died of quick consumption, leaving an infant eight or
nine months old. But by that time
another family had come—Stephen Kinne and his wife and Amos, his brother, who
had come through on the first day of January, 1837, from Gull Prairie, by way of
Bellevue, following the track cut out in 1835 by the two Sarles.
The nearest house to this place was Mr. Shumway’s, in Walton, two miles
southwest of the ground where Olivet now stands.
Stephen and Amos Kinne built a log house sixteen-by-sixteen, about a mile
south of this point.
Mrs. Sarles died about sundown. No one was in the house when she breathed her last.
Japhet Fisher, little Isaac Parish (an adopted child), Jonathan, and
Samuel, the husband, were all out at work.
They came in and found that her spirit had fled.
Stephen Kinne and wife, crossing Battle Creek on a fallen tree, and going
northeast across what is now the fair ground, reached the house of mourning
about dark and remained there all night. As
no coffin was to be had there, the body had to be taken to Bellevue, sixteen or
eighteen miles away, for a decent burial. Before
daylight Japhet Fisher started for Bellevue to prepare for the funeral.
They put bedding into the box of the lumber wagon (or as some say of the
sled), upon which they laid the lifeless form, and Samuel and Jonathan, with
their oxen drawing it along the rough roads, and fording creeks, went on to
Bellevue, while Stephen Kinne and wife remained to take care of the children.
Samuel was very badly dressed for such an occasion.
He had worn out all his clothes, working hard to build a home for his
wife. His corduroy pants were in
tatters, his “wamus” was very ragged and a fragment of an old woolen cap was
on his head. But Japhet Fisher sent
his trunk of clothes by David Kinne, then on his route here, to meet Samuel on
the way. They met at the Indian
village in Walton, and Samuel dressed in a becoming manner for the funeral. The
hearts of the Bellevue people responded quickly to the call of Japhet Fisher.
They turned out to meet the ox-team.
The women took charge and laid the body tenderly in a coffin, and the
next day the last rites were performed.
Although Samuel had to take the young babe back to New
York, and although his home and hopes were blasted, he did not give up.
He brought back his sister Julia to keep house for him.
They had built a house for Jonathan farther west, on Sarles street (as
the Eaton Rapids road, on which the Sarles brothers lived, was then known).
Jonathan went east and brought back his wife, Sally Sarles, in November,
1837; on their way from Bellevue they staid over night at Captain Hickok’s, in
Walton.
It was this log house of Jonathan’s that became for a
time the headquarters of the county. They
held caucuses and conventions and county canvasses there.
They usually staid over night, and “Aunt Sally” served and waited on
them. She did the county cooking
for years. “We had a great deal
of men’s company in those days,” she said, “but we seldom saw a woman.”
The oldest building now standing in Charlotte, and the
first frame house erected in the place, is one which was built, in 1840, by
Simeon Harding, then county treasurer. It
is at present the wind on the boarding house of Mrs. Barr on Lawrence avenue, on
the corner west of the Congregational church.
In 1837 or 1838 a log house was built on the south side of the same
avenue, east of the Methodist church. This
was the first building erected on the prairie, as the house of Jonathan Sarles,
was built in the edge of the timber, at the southeast corner of the prairie.
In July, 1833, Reuben Fitzgerald moved into Bellevue and
built a bark shanty, or wigwam, living in his wagon while it was being built.
The bark used was claimed by the Indians, who were then encamped where
the village of Bellevue now stands, and they strenuously objected to having
their old wigwams turned into a white man’s residence.
In the fall of that year (2833, with lumber and material bought in
Marshall, Mr. Fitzgerald built on the site of the present residence of Hiram M.
Allen, the first frame house erected in Eaton county.
At the same time he built one for Mr. Hunsiker, who had taken up land at
the same time with him, but who did not move in until the following year. Mr. Fitzgerald had reached the new home with but little
means, and he built the house and broke up land for his more fortunate neighbor,
Mr. Hunsiker, to obtain money to buy material for his own land.
Mr. Fitzgerald moved into his house before it was completed.
Mrs. Fitzgerald was sick at the time, but they could not choose the time
of moving. A severe storm came on
before the roof was on, and Mr. Fitzgerald and another man held a buffalo robe
over the sick-bed of Mrs. Fitzgerald during the storm.
In the little house thus built he lived many years, adding to it from
time to time, as the increasing wants of his family required.
In October, 1836, Sylvester Day sold his farm in Orleans
county, in the state of New York, and with his wife moved into Bellevue, coming
all the way with an ox-team. They
at once erected a shanty, in which they slept the second night after their
arrival, though it had no cover, their bed being a couple of planks split out of
a log. The roof was made out of
troughs dug out of basswood, their floor of plank split out of the same wood.
In this shanty they lived eighteen months.
All hands turned in and began at once to clear the land.
The feed for their cattle the first winter was corn and browse.
The following spring was a very wet one, so that they found it impossible
to burn the logs, and the brush was cleared away and corn planted among the
logs. The crop which bade fair to
be a good one was cut off by an early frost while it was yet green, thus adding
to the hard times already felt. The next fall they sowed seven acres of wheat, which was a
good crop, and from that time life began to look brighter, and prosperous times
commenced.
Until the first wheat was
harvested times were very hard. Their
means were exhausted. Flour was
twenty-five dollars per barrel, and they often saw hunger and want staring them
in the face. His oldest son,
Sylvester, obtained the first flour for the family.
With a yoke of oxen he went to Marengo, in Calhoun county, a distance of
thirty miles, bought ten bushels of wheat, paying three dollars per bushel, and
took it to Marshall to be ground. He
asked the miller if he could have his wheat ground. The answer was: “Yes,
in about six weeks.” He said:
“What am I to do? I am twenty-five miles from home, and my family is entirely
out of bread.” The miller replied
that a great many said the same thing, and the best he could do was to let him
have a little flour he had on hand. In
six weeks Mr. Day returned for his flour, which was ready for him the next
morning, and he returned home rejoicing.
Linus Potter was the first settler on the land where
Potterville now stands. He lost his
property by financial reverses, in Saline, Washtenaw county, and instead of
giving up he with his family of seven children pushed boldly into the woods,
determined on making a new start. This,
by the way, is the history of some of our best pioneers and best blood.
From wealth and luxury they passed through poverty and affliction and
came here determined to work. Linus
Potter came in 1844; his son, George N. Potter, was then eighteen years of age.
They came in by way of the Pray settlement, in Windsor, from which they
cut a road through, four miles, to his location on section 23, the present site
of Potterville. They had but just
settled in their log house when all the seven children were taken severely sick
with the measles—all in one room, with no physician or near neighbors.
Eighteen months after moving in Linus Peter died, leaving his widow and
seven children (five boys and two girls) upon a wild one hundred and twenty
acres of heavily-timbered land. With
the well-known energy and courage of the Potter family, the boys went to work,
cleared up the land and brought success out of apparent disaster.
Jesse Hart, of Brookfield, thus relates his experience:
“I was born in the township of Springfield, Portage (now Summit)
county, Ohio, April 27, 1814, and lived there with my father until I was
twenty-three years of age. I then
married Rachel Richards, July 16, 1837, and about the tenth day of the next
October we started for Michigan with two yokes of oxen and one wagon.
We got along well until we got to what was called the ‘Black Swamp,’
then all the roads I ever saw or traveled over, that road through that
swamp was the worst. Suffice it to
say I worked hard for eight days to get thirty-two miles. We arrived at Joseph Bosworth’s on the sixty day of
November following; he lived then in what is now the town of Walton, in Eaton
county, Michigan. He had moved two
or three weeks before, and had built a shanty right in the woods.
My land was four miles northeast of there in what is now the town of
Brookfield. As Mr. Bosworth was the
nearest one to my land, I made arrangements to stay with him until I could build
a shanty and cut a road to it, and I got him to help me.
We got the body of the shanty up, three-fourths of the roof on, and the
door cut out, but had neither door nor floor; then we moved in.
It was here in this partly built shanty that, on the 12th day
of November, 1837, my wife and I first began keeping house.
It was four miles to the nearest neighbor, with no road but a crooked
track I had cut through the woods, and the whole county an almost unbroken
wilderness. The screech of the owl
and the howl of the wolf was our music by night, and the Indians our callers by
day. The first night we made our
bed on some split pieces of basswood in one corner of the shanty, built a fire
in another, hung up a blanket for a door and some on the walls around the bed,
and it seemed quite like home, and we had a good night’s rest.
I soon made a pole bedstead, hewed out and put down a puncheon floor,
built a stone back and stick chimney in one corner, made a clay hearth, and the
shanty was finished, without a nail, except what were in the door.
We lived in that shanty nearly two years—yes, the happiest two years of
my life were spent in that shanty. There
was something grand and romantic about it, which I very much enjoyed. The grand old forest yielded up for our support of its wild
fruits, its honey, and its venison. It
was in this shanty that our first child was born, cradled and rocked in a sap
trough.”
But among all the hardships there were some amusing
incidents. J. C. Sherman thus tells
the story of one: A wedding
occurred while Palmer Rose was justice of the peace, which occasioned no little
fun at the time, and is well remembered by some of the first settlers.
It seems that a man by the name of Wickware was cruelly wounded by one of
Cupid’s darts sent from the witching eyes of one Margaret Boody.
The bridegroom being destitute of hat, coat, or boots suitable for the
emergency, applied to Cyrenus Kintner for the load of a wedding garment; but
Kintner was, as we are informed, nearly as destitute as himself, and had nothing
to offer him but an old pair of slipshod shoes, and a dilapidated chip hat.
Wickware said he thought it was a poor town where a many could not borrow
clothes to get married in. However,
the matter was somehow arranged, and Esquire Rose was called upon to perform the
ceremony. At first he declined on
account of inexperience; but after some urging by his wife, who, like all good
wives, was anxious that her husband should make his mark in the world, he very
reluctantly consented, and at the appointed time was on the spot.
But little preparation was necessary to prepare the happy couple for
their nuptials, and they were very soon face to face with the bashful justice.
This being his first attempt at tying the nuptial knot, he found himself
in quite a dilemma; for however well he may have arranged the form in his own
mind, all idea of a suitable marriage ceremony had left him with the eventful
time had come, and he could only turn red, then pale, stammer a little, tremble
a good deal, and finally entirely breaking down he told the groom he could not
do it and he would have to get some one else.
But the undaunted bridegroom had no notion of giving up so, nor of
leaving his blushing bride to go in search of another justice; so he said he
would tell him what to say, and if he would repeat the ceremony after him it
would do just was well. This was
finally done, and so overjoyed was the bride at the favorable turn of events
that she threw her arms around the neck of the frightened justice and gave him a
good smack to pay as she said “for doing it so nicely.”
The first marriage in the town of Delta occurred in the
summer of 1838, when Addison Hayden and Miss Mary Chadwick were united in
matrimonial bonds at Grand River City, by Samuel Preston, Esquire, at the house
of the brides’ father. An
incident occurred in connection with this event that is worth preserving, and is
related by the wife of Esquire Preston, as follows:
“Mr. Hayden called and inquired for the ‘Squire.’
I told him he was gone to Mr. Nichols’.
By and by he came home and told me Mr. Hayden wanted him to marry him.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘you can’t go, for your clothes are too
ragged.’ But the boys came to the
rescue and brought out their clothes, and Mr. Preston tried them on. One could supply a coat, another pants, another vest, and the
outfit was complete excepting a hat. Jason
was a pretty spruce young man, and had a fur hat which he kindly loaned.
This put on the finishing touch. On
his way to the house Mr. Preston thought of another dilemma, worse than the
first. He was not a praying man,
and how could he perform the marriage ceremony without prayer?
After a time he hit upon a plan; he would invite E. S. Ingersoll to
assist in the services. All passed
off pleasantly, no one suspecting the perplexities the justice had labored
under.”
Erastus S. Ingersoll relates the following incidents in
connection with the early settlement in Delta:
“On the 27th day of February, 1837, I moved my own family to
Delta, having contracted to work for my father, Erastus Ingersoll.
We came in from Farmington by way of Shiawassee and De Witt with sleigh
and horses. We occupied the log
house, Mrs. Erastus S. Ingersoll being duly installed ‘mistress of the
mansion’ and maid of all work. Our
supplies were transported by ox-teams from Detroit.
The price of provisions necessarily ruled high, pork being worth forty
and flour fourteen dollars a hundred. We
were totally deprived of all vegetable supplies until the opening of the spring.
Fortunately for us a Mr. Butterfield came down the river in the early
spring with a boat load of potatoes. My
father bought both the boat and its cargo, paying forty dollars for the boat and
two dollars per bushel for the potatoes—seventy bushels in all.
“About the first of June, 1837, my father, his brother,
the Rev. E. P. Ingersoll, Dr. Jennings, of Oberlin, Ohio, two Messrs. Bradley,
their two sons, a Mr. Lyman and son from Massachusetts, and two hired men came
though from Howell, bringing with them two yokes of oxen and four cows.
In this journey of forty miles, through the dense forests, they cut their
own roads, built bridges, dug down hillsides, and removed numerous obstructions,
experiencing many embarrassments, and encountering many trying delays:
At the approach of Saturday night the party encamped on the bank of Cedar
river, spending the day as a day of rest and religious worship.
On the arrival of this party, Mr. Ingersoll’s family was increased to
eighteen in number.
“Two weeks after the arrival of the above named party,
myself and Edward Ingersoll, with two wagons, two yokes of oxen, and a span of
houses, freighted with the household goods of Thomas Chadwick, followed the
afore mentioned wining path from Howell to Delta. In our company were Samuel Chadwick, brother of Thomas and
Daniel Chadwick, Thomas Chadwick and wife, Sally Chadwick, afterwards the wife
of D. S. Ingersoll, and my brother Egbert.
Towards night of the first day after entering this new and tortuous route
we came to an open marsh, and, after having carefully examined the strength of
its turf, it was decided that the horses should be the first to try it.
But when a little more than half way over away went the treacherous
covering, and down went the horses in the mire.
By prompt and well applied efforts we at length released the sinking
animals from the wagon, when they went ashore on the opposite side of this
mischievous slough of despond. After
selecting a new route we put our good oxen on their trial for a crossing.
But before reaching even the middle of this soft meadow our second wagon
was resting on its axles squarely upon its unstable surface.
So, losing our oxen, they went also to the opposite shore, leaving both
wagons fully installed, far out in this untrodden sea of mire, with Mrs.
Chadwick, an aged lady of unusual lustiness, occupying the last one of our entrenched
vehicles. ‘Now,’
exclaimed this lady, ‘how am I to get ashore?’—a question we thought more
easily asked than answered. This
aged matron dared not trust her weight on the flimsy turf, and here we were,
surrounded by a dreary, inhospitable wilderness, deeply involved in an
implacable morass, and not a little puzzled with a dilemma which seemed likely
to be too much either for our patience, our ingenuity or our endurance.
Our sympathies for the good Mrs. Chadwick were at their highest pitch,
and we were not a little perplexed by our novel and distressing condition.
T length Edmund said: ‘Mother,
let me carry you ashore on my back.’ ‘All
right,’ said the old lady, ‘back up here, boy.’
No sooner said than done, and thereupon we had the ludicrous scene of
seeing what good service a strong and resolute young man could do for age and
helplessness. Trying as our
condition was we could not repress our mirth while watching our hero as he
staggered through the deep more, bearing his precious, ponderous charge safely
to the welcome shore. We soon had
evidence that this trial had not wholly dissipated the ready stock of Mother
Chadwick’s characteristic humor, exclaiming as she did on alighting from her
bearer’s back, ‘There, that is the first time I ever road a jackass.’
Having finished our laugh over Mother Chadwick’s comical ride, our
attention was brought to the more serious business of getting our wagons out of
the mire. Having carried everything
we could handle to the nearest shore, we cut several long poles, and having
fastened them together with ropes and chains and attached them to the end of
each wagon tongue, and with our teams drew them on to hard ground.
This long job lasted till dark and we were compelled to make our beds in
the presence of this loathsome slough, amid the roar of rollicking frogs and
marauding mosquitoes. The next day one of our horses gave out and we were compelled
to leave a portion of our load in the wilderness and drag along with impaired
teams as best we could, encamping for the second time on the banks of Cedar
river. While at dinner on this day
we were unexpectedly visited by John Stanley, of Canada settlement, looking for
lost oxen. By him we sent advice of
our necessity for more provisions, and were happy to find, through the
faithfulness of this kind messenger, a goodly supply of pork and beans sent on
the next day, brought through on the back of a man sent by Mrs. Ingersoll.
We got through to Delta Mills at night of the third day after leaving
Howell, and all found room to eat and to lie down in the spacious log house.
The log cabins of those days had a wonderful capacity for sheltering and
feeding hungry adventurers.
“Our family now numbered twenty-six persons, besides
occasional land-lookers and other rambling adventurers, and such as had decided
to make their homes in this new region. About
the 20th of March in this year, as our large family were at supper,
we were startled by the sound of several voices down at the river side, and soon
heard the call of some person at our door.
We hastened down to the shore in the twilight, and found here a company
of men, women, and children, with teams standing on the ice some distance from
the river bank, quite anxious about their perilous situation, as the ice had
melted away from the north shore of the river, and left an open space of deep
water about ten feet wide. So we
all went to work to build a bridge from the ice to the shore, and soon led the
teams across, and found by so doing we had rescued the persons and property of
two worthy emigrants, who had traveled from Eaton Rapids on the ice, and told us
of the many dangers they had encountered on the way down.
“One morning in April following we heard a loud call from
the south side of the river. A boat
was sent across and soon returned, bringing four young men who had remained all
night in the woods, without food, fire or covering, through a violent storm and
upon a heavy depth of snow. So
thoroughly drenched wee they that when they reached our fireside the water was
freely wrung from every part of their garments.”
Johnson Montgomery settled in Eaton Rapids in September,
1836, and says: “It is hardly
necessary to go through a long detail of events connected with the hardships and
discouragements of settling a new country, but briefly to say it is hard enough
cutting roads, building bridges across mire-holes, prying cattle out of the
mire, going sixty miles to mill, paying very high prices for provisions,
sometimes going several miles to help a neighbor raise a building, and cleaning
out our millpond, which we did with a very good will, expecting to reap benefit
from it at some future time—and which I did, for I got my wheat floured and
took it east to Troy, N.Y., several years, where I received a reasonable price;
here we could get only 44 cents per bushel, and not cash at that.
Corn was about 15 cents, buckwheat 12 1/2 cents, pork 1 ½ cents per
pound. This was mostly on account
of the falling off of emigration, and although the people had made improvements
and were raising a surplus, there was no home market.
It is well known that in plowing up a new country the decaying vegetable
substances produce sickness, and but very few were fortunate enough to escape
the fever and ague. We could
generally tell how long a man had been in the state; the second year he was
obliged to wear his best coat every day, and the third year he was obliged to
cut off his coat-tail to mend the sleeves.
It was often said the first settlers were themselves out to prepare the
way for corporate bodies, speculators and loungers.
At this time we found ourselves in a new country without any school
district or school house, so a few of us joined and built a small shanty and
supported a school without any public aid.
It was four or five years before we had a district organized and a school
house built. Our schools were then
mostly supported by rate bills, with the aid of a little public money, and
having a large family of children it cost me considerable.
My children all received a good common school education.”
In February, 1837, Samuel Preston, with two other men,
began cutting a road to his land in the township of Oneida, and Mr. Preston
gives his experience as follows: “Night
coming on we clustered ourselves in a cave dug in the snow, after giving our
team a supper of tree-tops. Here in
the depths of a snow bank, surrounded by almost interminable forests, we cooked,
ate, and finally retired to our beds. It
is easier to speak of the occupation of such a position as was ours than to
endure it. Cut loose from any
earthily home, dependent upon the capriciousness and uncertainty of
circumstances, reflections must and did arise of no very pleasant nature.
And now in these better years, it is difficult to realize how this, as
many of the succeeding trials of life in a new country, were so well endured.
About ten o’clock of the second day, from Mr. Fuller’s we reached the
site of which we were in quest and after clearing away the deep snow, some logs
and underbrush, began the work of building a log cabin.
To myself this was an entirely new experience, but with the skilful aid
of my kind new neighbor, I succeeded in putting up a fourteen-by-eighteen
habitation, which proved to be the second white man’s abode in the wilderness
of Oneida. After this feat, of
course, we had the honor its first occupation over night.
Some time during this eventful night it commenced snowing, and before two
o’clock the next day we had an additional of another foot of snow.
Judging it to be a matter of prudence to seek some safer asylum, and
leaving our implements in the newly made cabin, we began our retreat.
Mr. Fuller’s home was full seven miles distant and it was still
snowing. When within about two
miles of his place the snow rose so high above our floundering sled that we were
compelled to abandon it altogether, and trust to our weary legs for the rest of
the way, arriving at the house of my kind friend, Mr. Fuller, at night fall.’
As soon as the snow had settled, which took several days, by the help of
my good Chester neighbors, I completed my cabin, excepting those very essential
parts, floors, doors, windows and chimney.
In this unfinished condition we all went into it—self, wife, and a
brace of little ones—on the fourth day of March, 1837.
This event, though infinitely less notable, we deemed of far greater
importance to us than that parallel event then transpiring beneath the dome of
our national capitol. About one
year after our first settlement Mrs. Preston attended a funeral at the Canada
settlement, walking and carrying a young child in her arms, a distance of three
or four miles. On her return home
the next day she missed her way, taking a deer-trail, supposing it to be the
right path. Being myself out the
next day at about three o’clock P.M., for the purpose of driving in my cattle,
they took a sudden fright at some unusual object when about two miles from home,
and looking for the cause I saw my wandering wife, will bearing her babe in her
arms. Which party was the most
frightened—myself or the cattle—it would be difficult to say.”
The foregoing are only a few out of many of the trying
experiences of the pioneers in this county.
Back to the table of contents
CHAPTER
IX
PRIMITIVE ARCHITECTURE
- Log Shanties and Houses - Log Schoolhouses
The most primitive dwellings of the pioneers were
log shanties. They were eight by
ten or twelve feet square, made by piling up small logs, cob-house fashion,
notching them at the corners so the logs would come close together, and filing
up the spaces between them with split pieces of wood two or three feet long, and
plastering the outside with mud, unless the weather was so cold as to freeze the
mud. The fire-place was made in one
corner, by pounding in earth against the logs about a foot thick to make a
chimney back and keep the logs from burning.
The roof slanted in only one way, and was made of troughs from small
basswood trees. They were cut the
right length, split in the middle and hollowed out with the ax, and laid close
together; then other similar troughs were made and turned bottom up over the
edges of those already laid so as to make a fairly tight roof which protected
from rain; but was not proof against snow.
In this way a man could in a very few days, knock up a pretty comfortable
shelter, and so at once begin to live on his land, while making a small clearing
and putting up the more pretentious log house.
Back to the table of contents
The day is not far distant when a description of
the log houses and school houses, where the children of the early settlers lived
and where they received their education, will seem like a story from a foreign
land. Those of a later generation
may find the following description of them of interest.
They were of different sizes, but a common size about twenty by thirty
feet. Logs sufficient for the walls
of the house were cut and drawn to the spot selected for the house; neighbors,
if there were any, were then invited to the raising.
Two logs were laid parallel to each other and the rig
