USA > Michigan > Van Buren County > A History of Van Buren County, Michigan: A Narrative Account of Its Historical Progress, Its. > Part 51
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There had been some indications of a future village before it was platted. Hiram Lee purchased the first village lot in 1848. The construction of a road across the swamp south of the village, which was completed in the fall of 1849, opened communication with a considerable tract of country that had been theretofore practically inaccessible. This gave to the new village a decided im- petus. During the year 1849 C. S. Tucker opened a boarding house, and stores were established by A. H. Dixon, Goss & Dixon and Theodore E. Phelps. Before these business places were opened, trading was done either at Paw Paw or Kalamazoo.
In 1851, there were three general stores in the village, kept by the following named merchants : A. H. Dixon, Theodore E. Phelps and E. Ingalls. Henry Carroll had a drug store and the boarding house started by Mr. Tucker had been converted into a hotel, kept by L. R. Barker and called the Decatur House.
At that time Decatur was literally "in the woods," being sur- rounded by the forest on every side, in which various kinds of
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game abounded. A steam saw-mill was erected by Messrs. Beers & Sherwood in 1850, near the village. A distillery subsequently took its place, but it was short-lived.
During the first five years after its incorporation the village in- creased in growth moderately and at the expiration of that period there were about seventy-five buildings within its boundaries.
The first wedding that occurred in the village was that of L. T. Olds and Miss Mary Elliott, which was solemnized, May 18, 1850, by Justice George Sherwood.
Mr. Olds, who settled in the village in 1849, was its first carpen- ter and joiner.
The first village physician was Dr. George Bartholomew, who erected a small building in 1848 and occupied it as an office and drugstore. He subsequently became a resident of the township of Keeler where he died, September 20, 1887. Dr. John T. Keables located in Decatur in 1851, where he continued the practice of his profession until his death, about forty years later, November 1, 1891.
A couple of years after the platting of the village a postoffice was established. George Sherwood was the first postmaster. Sub- sequent incumbents of the office have been W. N. Pardee, Charles N. Poor and Theodore Phelps, who died while holding the office, his widow being appointed as his successor; following her, Eri Beebe, J. W. Rogers, John L. Harrison, Lyman A. Roberts, Ran- som Nutting, May F. Nicholson, Theodore Trowbridge, William H. . White and Arba N. Moulton, the present incumbent.
The village was first incorporated on the 11th day of October, 1859, by resolution of the county board of supervisors. It was re- incorporated by legislative action in 1861, and again by the legis- lature of 1883. This last act of incorporation is found in the Local Acts of that year on page 17. These last articles of incor- poration have been twice amended. (Local Acts of 1893, p. 154, and Local Acts of 1905, p. 297.)
The first officers of the village were E. Parker Hill, president ; Charles Shier, recorder; Hiram Cole, Myron Hinkley, J. H. Wal- lace, Carlton Wheeler, Charles N. Poor and John Tarbell, trus- tees.
The present officers are Malcolm S. Carney, president; Stephen O. Van Hise, clerk; William A. High, treasurer; Edwin L. Cady, assessor ; Milton E. Knoll, William P. Bope, Horace D. Crane, J. M. Altha and B. K. Durkee, trustees.
The first schoolhouse within the limits of the present village was built in 1848 and the first school was taught therein during the winter of 1848-9 by Miss Sarah Cook, whose pupils numbered twenty.
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The village is now possessed of one of the leading high schools of the county. At the last enumeration there were 420 persons of school age in the village district; forty-seven non-resident pupils attended the school during the school year of 1910-11; the dis- trict library contains 500 volumes; there are two modern school buildings in the district; ten teachers were employed during the school year; the aggregate number of months of school taught was ninety-five, and the sum paid for teachers' salaries was $3,924.64.
DECATUR HIGH SCHOOL
There are six churches in the village, to-wit: Methodist Episco- pal, Christian or Disciple. Presbyterian. Catholic, Universalist and Free Methodist.
The Methodist Episcopal church was organized in 1860, and its house of worship was erected in 1861. The building is a commodi- ous structure, with a seating capacity of 350. Its present pastor is Rev. F. W. Nickel. It has a membership of 150.
The Universalist church was organized in 1868. Their house of worship was built in 1881. It was afterward destroyed by fire and rebuilt in 1895. It is a brick structure capable of seating two hun- dred people. The church now has a membership of forty-eight, but at the present time has no pastor.
The Christian church is a large, commodious brick building and the society is one of the leading religious organizations of the place. Many of the foremost citizens of the village are and have been connected with this church, which has been among the leaders in religious matters. This church was organized in 1885, the pres-
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ent membership is about sixty ; the house of worship was built in 1887 and has a seating capacity of 350. The present pastor is Elder J. J. Terry.
The first Presbyterian church of Decatur was organized in 1852 by Rev. Mercus Harrison, with the following members : Lydia Har- rison, Mrs. Eli Rich and Joseph McClintock, three in all. Their house of worship was dedicated in 1856, the dedicatory sermon being preached by Rev. A. C. Tuttle of Paw Paw. It now has a fine frame church building, and the society ranks high in the re- ligious life of the town.
The Free Methodist have a house of worship, but the society is numerically rather small.
The Catholic church, known as the Church of the Holy Family, began about 1855, when Rev. Father Koopman of Marshall visited the place and arranged to hold services once in three months. Meetings were held in private houses or public halls for twenty years or more, when the society purchased the building that had formerly been occupied by the Universalists. There are at the present time about twenty-five families connected with the church. Rev. Father Geo. Clarson of Paw Paw, is the pastor.
There are numerous lodges and orders represented in the village. Decatur lodge, No. 99, Free & Accepted Masons, was instituted January 1, 1858, and at the present time has seventy-six members.
Star Chapter, No. 336, Order of the Eastern Star, has recently been instituted and has ninety members.
Burnside Post, No. 27, Grand Army of the Republic, was insti- tuted September 19, 1881, and now has twenty-seven members.
Decatur Lodge, No. 112, Knights of Pythias, was organized in 1890. It has a present membership of fifty.
Sprague Lodge, No. 113, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, was instituted on the 28th day of October, 1867, with five charter members. It now numbers 118 and the lodge owns its own hall.
Ellen A. Sprague Rebekah Lodge No. 6, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, was instituted February 22, 1879, and has a member- ship of eighty-eight.
Decatur Grange, No. 346, Patrons of Husbandry, was organized in June, 1875, with sixty members, and has been in continuous operation since that date.
The Modern Woodmen and the Order of Maccabees also have flourishing lodges.
A prosperous ladies' literary club, known as the Every Tuesday Club, is one of the institutions of the town.
The business places of the village consist of three drygoods and shoe stores, one general store, two clothing stores, two drug stores, two jewelry stores, one racket store, seven grocery stores, four
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meat markets, one exclusive shoe store, one wholesale bakery, two furniture stores, two banks, two millinery stores, one steam laun- dry, three restaurants and ice cream parlors, one garage, two agri- cultural implement stores, one grain, feed and produce store, two elevators, one cannery, one pickle factory, two coal yards, one lum- ber yard, one hoop and lumber mill; one measure factory, where wooden measures, candy and tobacco pails and crates are manufac- tured; one flouring mill, one saw-mill, two livery stables, and vari- ous smaller shops.
The public buildings are a town hall built at an expense of $12,000, a corporation building, water-works and electric lights combined.
The village owns its system of water-works and lights, which are modern and up-to-date. There are two schoolhouses in the place, the original one built many years ago, at an expense of $25,000 and a new one costing $12,000.
The yield of the peppermint crop, produced in the vicinity of the village and shipped from there during the season of 1911, was about 50,000 pounds of oil, which sold for $2.75 per pound.
Large shipments were made of celery produced on muck lands near the village. This was of a superior quality, not surpassed even by the far-famed Kalamazoo article. Celery culture is largely carried on by Hollanders, and the Dutch population of the place is increasing from year to year. The lands on which peppermint and celery are grown were formerly regarded as practically worth- less, consisting of swamp too low and wet for any kind of agricult- ural purposes, but by a judicious system of drainage they have been rendered available for use and are now among the most valu- able lands in the township, selling for from $85 to $150 per acre.
Following is a list of the carload shipments of various kinds of produce, via the Michigan Central Railroad for the year 1911: Potatoes, forty-eight carloads; beans, two; sugar beets, one; flour, two; onions, sixteen; canned fruit, eight; apples, nine; pickles, five; cider, one; celery, seventy-seven; grain, eighty; stock, 132; grapes, 290; making a total of 664 carloads for the year, a pretty fair business for a town of its size, and which bids fair to largely increase in the near future.
Decatur is entitled to take rank as one of the liveliest, hustling villages of its size anywhere along the line of the Michigan Central Railroad and is in the very forefront of the flourishing, prosperous villages of Van Buren county.
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RETROSPECT
But little more than three-score and ten years have elapsed since Dolphin Morris, the first white man to seek a home in Van Buren county, erected that little log cabin near the southern boundary of the county in the township of Decatur, but what wonderful, astonishing changes have taken place since that early day. Had Jean Nicolet, the first white man to set foot within the limits of the Peninsular state, returned to earth and visited Van Buren county one hundred and ninety years later he would have found no change; the land would still have been covered with the primeval forest tenanted by the untutored red man and by wild beasts, just as it had been for ages upon ages before. But from that time un- til the present the most vivid imagination could not have kept pace with the reality. Those once wild and uncultivated forests have been converted into a beautiful, fruitful, prosperous country ; into vineyards, farms and orchards, such as no man had ever dreamed of at that date. Within considerably less than a century the rail- roads have come; telegraphs and telephones, those marvels of the modern world, have been invented ; thriving villages almost within a stone's throw of each other; schoolhouses everywhere; churches with their spires pointing heavenward, in recognition of the Great Giver of all good; the automobile instead of the ox team; factories on every hand; flocks and herds dotting the hill sides; aerial navi- gation has become an accomplished fact; time and distance are almost annihilated; the howl of the wolf and the scream of the panther has given place to click of the reaper, the hum of the thresher, and the whir of machinery, and the rude wigwam of the red man has been supplanted by the palatial residence of his white brother. The people of the old world take just pride in the great things accomplished by their ancestors from the time of William the Conqueror to the reign of the kindly Queen Victoria. But here in our own Van Buren we have a country redeemed from a savage wilderness, transformed into ideal perfection, rich in the means of happiness and enjoyment, and abounding in advantages and privileges which were wholly unknown a century ago.
Improvements have been boundless, progress has been limitless, and still no man can foresee or imagine what lies beyond in the marvelous years of this wonderful twentieth century, which has but closed its first decade.
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CHAPTER XXVI
TOWNSHIP OF GENEVA
ROADS AND PHYSICAL FEATURES-POLITICAL AND EDUCATIONAL- PIONEERS OF THE TOWNSHIP-VILLAGE OF. LACOTA-VILLAGE OF KIBBIE-GENERAL TOWNSHIP PROGRESS.
Geneva is one of the northern tier of townships of the county and is officially designated as township number one south, of range number sixteen west. It is bounded on the north by Alle- gan county, on the east by the township of Columbia, south by the township of Bangor and west by the township of South Haven, of which latter township it formed a part from the organization of the county in 1837, until, in 1845, by act of the legislature, it was set off, together with township number one south of range num- ber fifteen west, and organized as the township of Columbia. Afterward, January 5, 1854, by resolution of the board of super- visors of the county, it was detached from Columbia and organ- ized as a township by itself under the name of Geneva.
The first town meeting thereafter was held on the first Monday of April, 1854, at the residence of Nathan Tubbs, at which twenty- two votes were polled and the following named officers were chosen : Supervisor, Nathan Tubbs; township treasurer, Philip M. Brooks; township clerk, Charles N. Hoag; justices of the peace, Eri Bennett, Leander J. Eastman, Jesse L. Lane and Philip Hoag; school inspectors, Hiram Simmons and Francis M. Jones; com- missioners of highways, Clark Pierce, Leander J. Eastman and Jesse L. Lane; directors of the poor, Eri Eaton and Clark Pierce.
The township is watered by the Black river and its tributaries. The river enters on section thirty-four and runs in a north- westerly direction across the township to its northwest cor- ner. Geneva differs somewhat from most of the townships of the county in not having the numerous small lakes, such as abound in other localities, the only one named being Moon lake, a small body of water on section thirteen.
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ROADS AND PHYSICAL FEATURES
The South Haven division of the Michigan Central Railroad crosses the northern tier of sections and this, in connection with its juxtaposition to the city of South Haven and the steamship line thence to Chicago, affords the citizens of the township excel- lent transportation facilities.
Like the other northern townships of the county, Geneva was originally covered with dense forests of heavy timber of various kinds. Its surface is generally level or slightly undulating, its soil is fertile and well adapted to the production of fruit, especi- ally to the culture of the peach, large quantities of which have been grown, and some of the finest peach orchards in the county have been located in the township.
The first laid-out highway in the township was the Monroe road, established in 1833 by Judge Jay R. Monroe and Charles U. Cross running from Paw Paw to South Haven, and which crossed sec- tions thirty and thirty-two. This highway is still one of the principal roads in the township. When Geneva was set off from Columbia, the records of that township showed the following roads as having been theretofore established: Murch road, surveyed June 29, 1839; Stearling road, surveyed June 22, 1846; Eaton's road, surveyed June 25, 1846; Pierce road, surveyed December 14, 1846; Tubbs road surveyed October 5, 1852.
POLITICAL AND EDUCATIONAL
The first general election held in the township after its organ- ization was on the 7th day of November, 1854, at which fourteen votes were cast, twelve Democratic and two Republican.
At the presidential election held two years later, November 4, 1856, the number of votes polled was thirty-three, twenty-six for John C. Fremont, and seven for James Buchanan.
At the last presidential election, November 3, 1911, 307 electors expressed their choice at the ballot box, as follows: 197 for Taft, Republican; ninety for Bryan, Democrat; fifteen for Chafin, Pro- hibitionist, and one for Hisgen, Independent.
The following named gentlemen have filled the office of super- visor of the township: Nathan Tubbs, O. H. Burrows, Jerome B. Watson, Abel Edgerton, Varnum H. Dilley, Gideon Hall, S. M. Trowbridge, William R. Tolles, Goodwin S. Tolles, Gilbert Mit- chell, James T. Tolles, Milton L. Decker, Ralph F. Watson, W. W. Wenban, Frank E. Warner and G. S. Tolles (present incumbent).
The following named gentlemen held the office for more than two years each : Watson, ten years; Mitchell, eight; Dilley, six ; Mitchell, J. T. Tolles and Warner, each four years.
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The first school in the township was taught by Mrs. Caroline Miner, about the year 1848, in her home. The only pupils were the Eaton, Eastman and Miner children. The next year, in the winter of 1849-50, Laura Rogers taught a school in Clark Pierce's log house. A schoolhouse was built by Marvin Hannah, at Hun- ter, better known as Jericho, but no school was taught there for considerable time afterward. Ellen Fish was the first teacher in that house. In the northeastern part of the township a school was taught in 1853 by Mrs. Orrin S. Hoag, in a rough shanty near Eri Eaton's place. Not long afterward a schoolhouse was built in what was afterward known as the Lull district. Mrs. Harriet Hoag and Miss Augusta Smith (subsequently Mrs. Benjamin Knowles), were among the early teachers there.
The first school district was formed soon after the organization of the township, and in the winter of 1855 a second district was created by dividing district No. 1. District No. 3 was organized about the same time, and in 1855 there were reported forty-six pupils of school age-at that time between the ages of four and eighteen-in the three districts.
Following is a list of those licensed to teach in the township for the earlier years after its organization :
1855-Fanny Kidder, Angeline Foster, Amvietta Blood, Helen M. Fish.
1856-William M. Welch, Israel P. Boles.
1857-Ruth Hunt, Mary E. Welch.
1858-Augusta Smith, Lucinda E. Young.
1859-Evaline Fellows, Sarah Shaver, Sarah Young.
1860-Henry C. Rowman, Francis M. Jones.
1861-Mary H. Briggs, Sarah Peacock, Amanda Rawen, Aldena Hoag, Aurelia Ellsworth, Helen Ailsworth, James Southard.
1862-Eliza Clark, Adaline Deming, Kate C. Peters, Martha E. Grover.
1863-Mary A. Rowland (then and now the wife of the compiler), Rebecca A. Burlingame, Emily A. Loomis, Helen M. Poole.
1864-Georgia Williams, Cordelia Worrallo, Hannah Cross, Laura Pierce, Aurelia Stilwell, Aristine E. Metcalf.
1865-Susan A. Cassidy, Janet Hurlbut, Gideon Hall, Carrie Longwell, Marion Balfour.
According to the official report for the year 1911, there were 304 persons of school age (between five and twenty) in the town- ship; 792 volumes in the district libraries; eight school houses, estimated value of school property, $10,900; district indebtedness, $120; eleven teachers employed during the year; aggregate num- ber of months' school, seventy-six; paid for teachers' salaries, $3,597.25. The township was apportioned, from the primary Vol. I-32
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school fund of the state, the sum of $3,270, very nearly a sufficient amount to pay all the teachers employed; and money so appor- tioned could be lawfully used for no other purpose.
PIONEERS OF THE TOWNSHIP
The territory embraced in the present township of Geneva was a wilderness long after settlements had been made in other parts of northern Van Buren county. Clark Pierce, an emigrant from the Green Mountain state, was the first to locate within the bound- aries of the township. He became a resident of Michigan in 1833 and for a considerable time lived at St. Clair. When Van Buren county was organized, in 1837, he came to South Haven, of which the township of Geneva was a part, and purchased a quarter sec- tion of land along the Monroe road on section thirty-two. Upon this land, he built a log cabin and kept "bachelor's hall" for a couple of years, his nearest neighbor being at Breedsville. In 1839 he and his brother, Daniel Pierce, rented a farm in School- craft, county of Kalamazoo, where they remained until 1842, when Clark having become a married man, he, with his wife, babe (now Almon J. Pierce, of South Dakota), and household goods, returned to his "log cabin home," where they passed two years as the sole residents, there being no other settler in the township until 1846.
In the meantime the lands where the present city of South Ha- ven is located, having passed into the possession of a company that proposed to build a mill and make other improvements at that place, Mr. Pierce was engaged to move there, open a boarding house and take charge of the property. In 1845 he took up his residence there with his family, which at that time consisted of his wife and two sons, the youngest of whom was Irving, the first white child born in the township. They remained there until June of the next year, when they returned to their Geneva farm. Irving, the son, still resides on the old homestead.
From 1837 till February, 1846, nobody but Mr. Pierce and fam- ily had settled in the township. At that date Eri Eaton and An- drew Miner came in and settled near the center of the town. Mr. Pierce afterward removed to Illinois, but returned to Geneva in 1858, where he spent the remainder of his life. He died March 30, 1900, in his eighty-sixth year.
Mr. Eaton and his son-in-law, Leander J. Eastman, settled on section fifteen and Mr. Miner on section three.
Messrs. Miner and Eaton both lived in the township until their decease. Mr. Miner died March 7, 1887, in his sixty-sixth year
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and Mr. Eaton followed him a couple of years later, April 4, 1887, aged eighty-five years.
Other somewhat early settlers of the township were: Philip Hoag, 1848; Nathan Tubbs (first supervisor of the township), 1849; Charles N. Hoag, a brother of Philip, 1851; James Bates, 1851; Charles Davey, winter of 1851-2; Moses Welch, 1852; James Kelly, 1852; Orrin G., another of the Hoag brothers, 1852; Philip Brooks, 1853; Benjamin Knowles, who came with his father to the township of Columbia in 1837, settled in Geneva in 1852; Samuel Lull, 1854; Charles Brott, 1855; Daniel and Mahlon Funk, 1856; William Miller and George Mckenzie, about the same time. Be- ginning with the early sixties the township began to settle up quite rapidly.
In 1847 Marvin Hannah as the name was spelled in those early days (it has since added a final "s"), of the village of Albion, Michigan, opened up a settlement on section eighteen, where he built a saw-mill, the first one in the township on the Black river, and also a boarding house, which he placed in charge of Henry Hogmire. The next year he built a large tannery, the locality be- ing peculiarly adapted to the tanning business on account of the great hemlock forests that covered no inconsiderable part of the township. The demands of the tannery for hemlock bark after- ward furnished employment to quite a good many laborers and when they had any spare time from their own matters, the set- tlers employed it in working for Mr. Hannahs. Bark peeling was a real help to the people at that time and "bark peelers" numer- ous. Mr. Hannahs, who was regarded by the settlers as a capi- talist, also built a schoolhouse and made other improvements, as an inducement for people to locate in the neighborhood. He placed Eri Bennett in charge as his foreman. Mr. Bennett afterward served as supervisor of the town.
Mr. Hannahs named the settlement "Hunter," but his em- ployes nicknamed it "Jericho." There are few people that re- member anything about Hunter, but even to this day the locality is known as Jericho although there is nothing remaining to indi- cate the business that was transacted there in those primitive days. Mr. Hannahs himself did not become a resident of the township, but remained in Albion. He had other large interests in the county, having at one time a grist-mill on the Paw Paw river at Lawrence, which for years was the only establishment of the kind between South Haven and Paw Paw and which did a very large business, as the compiler of this work knows by reason of having been em- ployed therein in his youthful days in connection with his father, Eber Rowland, who was a miller by trade, as was the son at that time. George, a son of Marvin Hannahs, subsequently settled at
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