USA > Michigan > Van Buren County > A History of Van Buren County, Michigan: A Narrative Account of Its Historical Progress, Its. > Part 44
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EDUCATIONAL STATISTICS
The first school teacher in Antwerp was Miss Ann Van Antwerp, and the first schoolhouse was the log cabin of Joshua Bangs, on section seven, in the second story of which Miss Van Antwerp taught a private school and had, perhaps, a dozen scholars. The next season a slab schoolhouse was built, near where the " Steeple" schoolhouse now stands, which did duty as a "temple of learning" for some considerable time. On May 4, 1837, the township was di- vided into four school districts and shortly afterward two additional districts were formed. On February 26, 1839, there was apportioned to the township the sum of $14.08, primary school money. The annual report of the board of school inspectors for that year showed that reports had been received from but two of the six districts in the town, and that the text books used were the Elementary Spell- ing Book, Smith's Grammar, Adams' Arithmetic, English Reader and Olney's Geography.
The official reports for the school year of 1910-11 show that there are six schools in the township, two of them graded schools: total number of persons of school age, 591; number of volumes in school
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libraries. 1,446; number of schoolhouses, seven; value of school property, $23,050; total district indebtedness, $2,500; number of qualified teachers employed, nineteen ; aggregate number of months of school taught, 143; amount paid for teachers' salaries, $7,555 during the past year; the township received from the state pri- mary school fund the sum of $4,372.50.
GLEN SPRINGS TROUT HATCHERY
There is one unique enterprise carried on in the township that should not be passed by without special notice, the Glen Springs Trout Hatchery, situated on the east side of section twenty-two, about three miles from Lawton, and conducted by Messrs. Bassett & Son of Paw Paw. The hatchery is located in a glen, encircled on three sides by high banks and groves, the fourth side being laved by the waters of the Paw Paw river. From under the bank flows a spring of cold water as clear as crystal, at the rate of about 2,000 gallons per minute, making it an ideal place for fish culture. The company have twenty tanks or ponds containing speckled trout (the only variety of fish bred by them) in all sizes. from the tiniest minnows up to fish of marketable size: about a million of them on hand at the present time. The season's yield of eggs, just closed, was about 4,000,000. Eggs and fry as well as fish of larger size are shipped to various parts of the country. It is the most complete hatchery of the kind in the state of Michigan. and one of the largest and best of any in the entire United States.
VILLAGE OF LAWTON
In 1849 Nathan Lawton of Watertown, New York, owned the land on which the business portion of the village of Lawton is situated. When the place was selected as a station on the line of the Michigan Central Railroad, Mr. Lawton laid out a village there. Ile gave ten acres of land for railroad depot buildings, which were erected in 1848. It was at first known as Paw Paw station and that name adorned the passenger house for a considerable num- ber of years. A post office was established there in 1851 and by Colonel Longstreet christened "Lawton," in honor of the proprie- tor of the town, and that became not only the name of the post office, but of the town as well; and the railroad eventually adopted it as the name of the station.
Andrew Longstreet was the first postmaster. His successors in the office have been Henry McNeil, Livingston Me Neil, Albert H. Thompson, Richard Finley, Napoleon B. Mckinney, Andrew Long- street (second appointment), William Harvey Smith, Otis Rider, James H. Hall, Al MeElheny, James H. Hall (second appointment),
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GLEN SPRINGS TROUT HATCHERY
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Pliny A. Hubbard, Milton F. Lawton, Elmer W. Hall, who died while holding the office, and Minnie Hall, the present incumbent, widow of Elmer W. Hall.
Nathan Lawton, himself, never became a resident of the village, but his two sons, George W. and Charles D., spent their lives there and became prominent, not only in the affairs of the village and township, but in county and state affairs as well. Major George W. Lawton was a veteran of the Civil war, wounded in action, and brevetted major, as the record says, "for gallant and meritorious conduct in action." He served the county as judge of probate for eight years, from 1868 to 1876, and also held various other official positions. He was one of the prominent attorneys of the county and was, at one time, the nominee of the Republican party for the office of circuit judge of the judicial circuit of which the county formed a part. but owing to party dissensions between the two counties composing the circuit-Van Buren and Kalamazoo-he was defeated and a candidate of the opposition party elected. Mr. Lawton owned a fine home in the village of Lawton, where his widow, Mrs. Isabella Lawton, yet resides. Judge Lawton died on the 7th day of February, 1887, in his fifty-fourth year.
Hon. Charles D. Lawton was a surveyor and civil engineer by profession. He was commissioner of mineral statistics for the state of Michigan from 1885 to 1891 and regent of the Michigan Univer- sity for a period of eight years, beginning January 1, 1898, and had also served two terms as county surveyor. The brothers were both ardent Republicans and were reckoned among the advisers and leaders of that party. Charles D. departed this life at Lawton on the 24th day of August, 1909. His widow, L. Lovina Lawton, still occupies the fine homestead in that village left her by her late husband.
When the Michigan Central Railroad was being constructed through what is now the village of Lawton, Henry McNeil opened a store in a log cabin on the west side of what is now Main street. He supplied the laborers with merchandise, such as they required, and, as was customary in those days, it is said that a considerable part of such merchandise . was "wet." He made quite a bit of money out of his venture and removed to Minnesota. While Me- Neil was still in the mercantile business, Andrew Longstreet. who had been living on a farm, moved into the embryo town and started a shoe-shop. About the same time Gilbert Johnson opened another store, calling it the "Farmers' Head Quarters." From these small beginnings the village began to show signs of improvement.
Horace Sebring erected a hotel where the "Hotel Giddings" now stands. Other business places were started and the town began to grow, but for a number of years such growth was very moderate.
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With the establishment of the Michigan Central Iron Company, in 1867, the town took a long stride in advance. This company con- tinued in business until 1875, during which period Lawton was experiencing its palmy days. When that institution went out of business there was a decided decrease of population and a falling off of business and for some years it looked as though the place would not be able to recover its lost prosperity, but with the advent of the grape industry throughout the region roundabout, the town again took on new life and at the present time is one of the pros- perous go-ahead towns of the county.
While it lasted the Iron Company did a large and profitable busi- ness. It had a capital stock of $150,000 and employed about 150 men. Among the stockholders were General U. S. Grant, Generals Gillmore, Barnard and Porter, and others in the military service. General Gillmore was the president of the company. The ore was shipped from the Lake Superior region by lake to Michigan City, thence to the works, by the Michigan Central Railroad. A de-
TOWN HALL, SOLDIERS' MONUMENT, MUNICIPAL PLANT, LAWTON
pression in the business of manufacturing iron caused a suspen- sion of the establishment and the work was never resumed.
The village of Lawton was first platted by Nathan Lawton, on the 6th of September, 1853. The original village embraced but a small plat of six blocks lying between the railroad and Union street and west of Main street. Since that time, however, there have been eleven additions to the town, almost any one of which is larger than the original plat, and the town is now nearly a mile in width from east to west and a little more than a mile from north to south. It was first incorporated by a resolution of the board of supervisors,
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on the 15th day of October, 1858. It was reincorporated by act of the legislature in 1869 (S. L. 1869, Vol. 2, p. 160). This act of incorporation was amended by the legislature 1893 (L. A. 1893, p. 393).
Lawton is well represented in the line of ladies and gentlemen of mystic signs, grips and passwords.
Lawton Lodge No. 216, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, was instituted January 19, 1867, with Grove C. Love as master, H. P. Robinson as senior warden and John Ihling as junior warden. It now has 101 members.
There is also a flourishing lodge of the Eastern Star.
Lawton Lodge No. 83, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, was instituted on the 14th day of February, 1861. It has had somewhat of checkered life, but at the present time has seventy-four members and is prospering. Its oldest member is David Powell, who united with the lodge in 1864.
Vineyard Rebekah Lodge, No. 305, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, was instituted September 8, 1909, and has a membership of sixty-four.
The Order of Maccabees is represented by Lodge No. 307, K. O. T. M., organized on the 6th day of June, 1890, with twenty-six charter members and which now has a membership of ninety. The ladies branch of the order is represented by Lawton Hive, No. 427, I. O. T. M., which was instituted November 9, 1893, and now has 120 members.
Lawton Lodge No. 256, Mystic Workers of the World, was or- ganized May 19, 1900, and now has seventy-four members. There are also more or less flourishing lodges of the Modern Woodmen of America and its ladies' branch, the Royal Neighbors, and also of the Knights of Pythias, the Grand Army of the Republic, and the Woman's Relief Corps.
The Isabella Club is an organization of the ladies of the place and is one of the prosperous, interesting and profitable institutions of the village. It is affiliated with the State Federation of Women's Clubs. Through the instrumentality of the ladies of this club the village has been for several years past, provided with a first class lecture course.
There are two incorporated companies in Lawton formed for the purpose of handling and marketing the immense fruit crop that is produced in the two townships of Antwerp and Porter-principally grapes. There are about 15,000 acres of vineyard in those two town- ships; the larger part of the fruit produced is marketed in the two villages of Lawton and Mattawan, although that grown in the northwest part of Antwerp is mostly marketed at Paw Paw.
The Southern Michigan Grape Association was organized in Vol. 1-27
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1897 by A. D. Benway, an experienced man in the marketing of fruit. The name has since been changed to the Southern Michigan Fruit Association. It was incorporated in the spring of 1899. For some years the company has been under the management of Carey Dunham of Lawton. The company loads grapes at Lawton, Matta- wan, Paw Paw and Decatur. During the past season it shipped 1,916 car-loads of grapes, approximately the equivalent of 5,750,000 eight-pound baskets.
The Michigan Fruit Exchange was organized in 1901 and in- corporated in 1904. This company has been under the management of A. D. Benway since its organization. During the season of 1911, it shipped 800 car-loads of grapes, the equivalent of 2,500,000 eight- pound baskets. The company loads at the same points as the South- ern Michigan Association.
During the season of 1911, there were shipped from Lawton 1,132 car-loads of grapes, the equivalent of nearly or quite 4,000,- 000 eight-pound baskets of that finest of fruit, besides large quan- tities of other fruits, such as cherries, pears, plums, berries, etc. In addition to this there were shipped numerous car-loads of po- tatoes, grain and live stock.
The village had, according to the census of 1910, a population of 1,042 people, being the fifth village in point of numbers, among the nine incorporated villages of the county. It has a fine brick school- house, valued at $13,000. The village district contains 228 persons of school age and has a school library of 925 volumes. The district has a bonded debt of $2,500. Eight teachers were employed dur- ing the past school year and an aggregate of sixty-three months school was taught. $3,862.88 were paid out for teachers' salaries.
There are two churches in Lawton, the Baptist and the Methodist Episcopal. The Baptist church was organized on the 11th day of November, 1865, by the late Rev. Edwin S. Dunham, with twelve members, viz: Rev. and Mrs. E. S. Dunham, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Barker, Mr. and Mrs. M. D. Williams, Mr. and Mrs. John Stearns, Mr and Mrs. Jonathan Baughman, Cynthia Smith and Helen M. Williams. The society has a good house of worship with a seating capacity of about 250. The present pastor is Rev. J. W. Pincombe.
The Methodist church is in a prosperous condition, has a com- modious house of worship, that will seat about 300 people. The spiritual welfare of this church is looked after by the Rev. F. M. Cosner, its present pastor.
The manufacturing plants of the village comprise a basket fac- tory putting out a million and one-half of fruit packages per year ; a vinegar plant, chemical works, flouring mill; grape juice factor- ies, which press from 400 to 500 tons of grapes for unfermented grape juice; saw-mill, two pickle processing establishments, and
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the Michigan Metal Works, the object of which is the manufacture of metal telephone tablets and other specialties.
The other industries of the village include a bank, clothing store, two drygoods store, two hardware stores, four groceries, two drug stores, two meat markets, two lumber-yards, variety store, furni- ture store, and an agricultural implement depot, three real estate dealers, two milliners, one newspaper and job printing office, three barber-shops, wagon repair shop, two blacksmith-shops, two physi- cians and one dental surgeon.
The Michigan Central Railroad maintains large ice houses at Lawton for the icing of refrigerator cars during the fruit shipping season, and the Standard Oil Company maintains a distributing station.
Accommodations for public meetings are excellent, there being a fine town hall that will accommodate 600 people, as well as a smaller hall owned by the Grand Army of the Republic, with a seating ca- pacity of 200.
There are two hotels in the town and one restaurant; the streets of the village are shaded with rows of beautiful maples and bor- dered with fine cement walks; there is a first class municipal elec- tric light plant and waterworks, and, taken all in all, the village is well supplied with the up-to-date improvements of modern, twen- tieth century life.
VILLAGE OF MATTAWAN
The first plat of the village of Mattawan was made on the 9th day of November, 1850, by Lyman Lawrence, and consisted of but four blocks on the north side of the Michigan Central Railroad. Since that time there have been five additions made to the town, to-wit : Scott's in 1855, twelve blocks; Kinne's in 1857, of nine blocks; Scott's 2nd, in 1870, one block ; Farr's in 1871, three blocks ; Sessions', in 1872, four blocks; so that now the little burg consists of thirty-three blocks. It is situated on sections thirteen and four- teen. It has never been incorporated.
While the Michigan Central Railway was in course of construc- tion, Nathaniel Chesebro, who was attorney for the railroad com- pany, purchased forty acres of land on which a part of the village of Mattawan is now situate. It is said that he laid out a town there and called it Mattawan, after a village of that name on the Hudson river in the state of New York. Be that as it may, if Mr. Chesebro ever platted the village, his plat was never placed on the records of the county. Mattawan is also a station on the "Fruit Belt" line.
In 1848, Charles Scott donated land to the company for depot
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purposes, on condition that Mattawan should be made a regular station and stopping place for trains. It is said that the company ignored this condition of the grant and that Scott tried, unsuc- cessfully to recover pay for the land. Whatever may have been the practice of the road as to stopping trains at the place in those early days, Mattawan has long been one of the recognized stations of the road at which all trains, except fast through trains, make regular stops.
The first building of importance in the place was a grocery store, put up by John Cronkhite in 1850. He sold the place to Rev. J. J. Bliss, a Canadian clergyman, who made his residence on the first floor and opened a store in the second story. Bliss also built a warehouse, which he sold to the late Morgan L. Fitch. He was a man of considerable versatility, a railroad switchman, a preacher as well as a trader, and occupied his time when not engaged in his railroad duties, in selling goods and preaching the gospel, at first as a Protestant Methodist, afterward as a Free-Will Baptist. He sold his business to Henry Fitch, whose successors were Morgan L. Fitch and C. D. Van Vechten.
The first hotel in the place was built on Front street, in 1855, by J. F. Parmenter, and was called the "Antwerp House," subse- quently the "Willard House." This building was destroyed by fire in 1873.
Previous to this Harry Durkee had built another hotel which was known as the "Union House." This was also burned, several years prior to the destruction of the "Willard." Durkee then put up an- other public house, which was kept by Chauncey Bonfoey.
A post office was established at Mattawan in 1850, and Rev. J. J. Bliss was appointed postmaster. His duties as a representative of "Uncle Sam" were not burdensome and a cigar box served him as a receptacle for the mail sent to his office. His successors have been John Smolk, James Murray, Raper Ward, Abel Brown, L. C. Fitch, S. S. Rascoe, Isaac Stewart, Miss Nina Goodrich, A. H. Campbell, Will C. Mosher and Miss Fannie Bockius, the present post-mistress.
At one time in the later sixties Mattawan enjoyed a brisk trade in lumber and shingles and other forest products, but the construc- tion of the Pere Marquette Railroad (it was then called the Chi- cago & West Michigan) and the Kalamazoo & South Haven (now a branch of the Michigan Central), which cross the county on the north and west, diverted this traffic to other points and interfered materially with the prosperity of the town. The subsequent devel- opment of the fruit interests have, however, restored to the place a degree of prosperity that is very gratifying. The town is sur- rounded by some of the finest vineyards to be found in the "grape
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belt" and is a lively place during the gathering and marketing of that delectable fruit.
As an indication of the progressive character of the citizens of Mattawan it should be stated that that village has the only school in the county, known as a consolidated school. The statutes of Michigan provide that when any two or more contiguous school districts have in the aggregate more than 100 pupils of school age- between the ages of five and twenty-they may, after complying with certain conditions, unite for the purpose of forming a graded school.
The preliminary steps for the formation of such a district were taken in the early summer of 1910, the result being that four rural
MATTAWAN'S CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL
districts united with the village district, combining them all into one district, instead of five, as theretofore. The scholars are taken to and from the school in comfortable covered vehicles by men who are bonded for the faithful performance of that duty. This is one of the desirable features of the plan, as it enables the pupils from a distance to easily reach the school and insures their early return to their homes. Under this new plan, instead of each school teach- ing simply the "three R's," with, perhaps a few occasional outside frills, the course embraces twelve grades, with instruction in music, manual training and ethics. Library, laboratory and class-room facilities are being added as rapidly as possible. In view of the fact that the students are drawn from so large an area, the school is a subject of interest to a good many people. The official report for the school year of 1910-1 shows that there were 219 scholars
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in the consolidated district, two schoolhouses, valued at $7,000, six teachers employed during the school year, an aggregate of forty- five and one-half of months of school taught, and $2,297 expended for teachers' wages.
During the past season, there were 461 carloads of grapes shipped from Mattawan, which would be equivalent to 1,383,000 eight- pound baskets. There is a grape juice factory located in the vil- lage that pressed 1,356 tons of grapes during the past season, mak- ing about 300,000 gallons of unfermented grape juice.
Other business places are three general stores, hardware store, meat-market, undertaking establishment and real estate dealer, blacksmith-shop, wood working shop, livery, two pickle processing factories, hotel, harness and shoe shop, large railroad ice houses for icing fruit cars and two railroad depots.
There are two churches in the village, the Congregational and the Methodist Episcopal, each of which have fine brick houses of worship, that will seat about 250 people.
The Congregational church was organized July 2, 1867, at the residence of J. J. Johnson. The following members were received on that occasion : Mr. and Mrs. J. J. Johnson, Mr. and Mrs. W. O. Elmore, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Kelsey, Mr. and Mrs. Josiah Hop- kins, Mr. and Mrs. William Ward, Mr. and Mrs. Oliver P. Morton, Luther J. Hopkins, Milo Ward, Samuel Ward, S. N. Mygatt, Louis Hitchcock, A. Kellogg, Mary A. Van Winkle and Stephen Morton. The present pastor is Rev. J. D. Perrin.
The Methodist church was organized about 1854, at the Fitch schoolhouse north of Mattawan, where worship was held for the first two years, when the meetings were transferred to Mattawan. At that time the class was a part of the church at Lawton. A house of worship was built by the society at Mattawan in 1866. The pul- pit of the church is at the present time supplied by the Rev. F. M. Cosner, pastor of the Lawton M. E. church.
Secret orders are represented in Mattawan by Mattawan Lodge No. 268, F. & A. M., which was instituted on the 13th day of Janu- ary, 1870, with Dr. Thos. H. Briggs, as master, C. D. Van Vechten as senior warden and Clinton Fitch as junior warden. The Macca- hees also have a lodge in the village.
RETROSPECT
Could those hardy, brave and courageous pioneers of the early thirties, who first set foot in the wilds of Antwerp, return to the scenes of their young manhood, they could not but be astonished beyond measure to see the changes that have been wrought. Or- chards have superceded the "openings," vineyards loaded with the
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most luscious of fruit in its season have taken the place of the grubs and brush that then covered the landscape; mansions, such as could hardly have existed even in the wildest dreams of the first settlers, have displaced the wigwams of the red men; domestic animals feed where once the wild beasts of the forest had their dens ; automobiles have succeeded the ox teams of the pioneer, and all is most wonderfully changed. The luxuries of yesterday have become the necessities of today, and yet pessimists sigh for the "good old times."
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CHAPTER XX
TOWNSHIP OF ARLINGTON
FIRST ELECTION-FIRST SETTLER ARRIVES-MAJOR HEATH, FIRST SUPERVISOR-THE DANGEROUS BRIGGS BROTHERS-OTHER NEW YORK MEN-THE HOGMIRE FAMILY -- RUGGED WORK OF THE PIONEERS-M. H. HOGMIRE ON PIONEER TIMES-NEW TIMES BET- TER THAN OLD.
When the county of Van Buren was first organized, the town- ship of Arlington constituted a part of Lawrence. It was set off from that townships and organized into a separate body by an act of the legislature of 1842. The name "Arlington" was suggested by one of the pioneers of the township, James Stevens, a Revolu- tionary soldier, in memory of his native town in the Green Moun- tain state. The township is centrally located in the county and is bounded on the north by the township of Columbia, east by Wa- verly, south by Lawrence and west by Bangor.
FIRST ELECTION
The first election in the township was held at the residence of Allen Briggs on the first Monday of April, 1842, at which the following officers were chosen: Supervisor, Major Heath; town- ship clerk, Emory O. Briggs; township treasurer, Allen Briggs ; highway commissioners, Alvinsy Harris, James T. Hard and Joseph Ives; assessors, Alvinsy Harris and William A. Taylor; justices of the peace, James T. Hard, Allen Briggs, William Dyckman and Major Heath ; constables, William A. Taylor and James G. Coch- rane.
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