USA > Michigan > Van Buren County > A History of Van Buren County, Michigan: A Narrative Account of Its Historical Progress, Its. > Part 55
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Of the three canning factories, the one known as the Traver factory is built of stone and is one of the largest and best equipped plants of the kind in the state of Michigan. From eighty to one hundred hands are employed for about six months in the year. What is known as the Traxler factory was built some time prior to the "Traver" and employs practically the same number of people during the same time. Arrangements have been made to run what is called the "Old Dunkley factory," the first cannery erected in the town, to its full capacity during the coming year. A large pickle factory is projected for 1912.
These canning factories not only put up many varieties of fruit, berries, peaches, plums, cherries, apples, pears, etc., but can large quantities of various kinds of vegetables. The proprietor of the Traxler factory reports that he did $90,000 worth of business last season, paid out $8,000 for help, and put up and shipped half a million cans of fruit, mostly in gallon cans, and the Traver fac- tory was equally busy. It can readily be seen that such a busi- ness is of immense advantage to the farmers and fruit growers of the surrounding country.
Another firm shipped forty-four carloads of apples, thirty-six of peaches, six of grapes, four of pears, besides local shipments of not less than five carloads of different varieties of fruit.
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One of the elevator firms reports twenty-five carloads of beans shipped out, fifty carloads of wheat and rye, sixty of grapes and other fruits, and shipped in, ten carloads of flour, seeds etc., seventy carloads of coal and thirty of fruit baskets.
The other elevator reports shipments out and in as follows : Shipped out, 175 carloads of grain and 500 bushels of clover seed ; shipped in, 3,000 tons of coal and fifteen carloads of fruit baskets.
At one lumber yard eighty-eight carloads of lumber and other building material were received and at the other forty-five cars of like material were delivered. Another buyer purchased last fall, 50,000 bushels of apples and shipped thirty-eight carloads of cider.
At one meat-market nearly a hundred head of beef cattle, fifty sheep, one hundred calves and over a thousand chickens were slaughtered for local consumption, and this was at only one of the three markets that supplied the people with meats of various kinds.
The foregoing brief resume of the business of the village serves to show the energy and push of its live business men and places the town in the foremost rank of the hustling, thriving towns of the county.
It seems but a few years, indeed it is not so very many, since all the business places in the town were inferior wooden struc- tures, and the houses of the people of the most ordinary character, but now its rows of fine brick business houses on either side of the principal streets, and its numerous modern, up-to-date dwellings that are to be seen in all parts of the thriving town, most forcibly impress the beholder with the immense progress that has been made within the last half century. None can even imagine what will be the developments and improvements of the next fifty years.
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CHAPTER XXIX
TOWNSHIP OF KEELER
LAKES AND RESORTS-CIVIL ORGANIZATION-FIRST SETTLERS OF TOWNSHIP-WOLCOTT H. KELLER-SETTLERS OF 1836-44-TAX- PAYERS, PROPERTY AND SCHOOLS-KEELER AND OTHER TOWNS- GENERAL VIEW.
Keeler is the southwestern corner township of Van Buren County and is designated by the United States survey as township four south, of range sixteen west. It is bounded on the north by the township of Hartford, on the east by the township of Hamil- ton, on the south by the township of Silver Creek in the county of Cass, and on the west by the township of Bainbridge in the county of Berrien.
The act of the legislature organizing the county of Van Buren, approved March 11, 1837, divided the county into seven town- ships, of which Covington comprised township four south, of ranges fifteen and sixteen west, being the present townships of Keeler and Hamilton. Two years later Covington was blotted from the map, the territory embraced within its limits being equally divided, the east half being called Alpena and the west half, together with township three south of range sixteen west being organized into a new township under the name of Keeler. The north half of Keeler as then organized is now the township of Hartford and had been theretofore a part of the township of Lawrence, as originally organized. The township was named in honor of Judge Wolcott H. Keeler, one of its earliest settlers and most prominent citizens. He was elected as one of the associate judges of the circuit court at the first election held in the county, March 18, 1837.
Keeler contains some of the very finest farming lands in the county, which have been brought to a very high degree of cultiva- tion. The surface is quite generally level and originally was tim- bered mostly with scattering oaks, constituting what was then known as the "oak openings." The soil is a peculiarly rich, sandy loam and is practically all under cultivation, there being no waste land in the township. For agricultural purposes Keeler is not sur- passed by any township in the county.
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LAKES AND RESORTS
There are no important streams in the township, but there are a number of handsome lakes, some of them unsurpassed for beauty. The principal ones of these are Round, Crooked and Magician lakes, the latter two lying partly in Keeler and partly in the town- ship of Silver Creek, in the county of Cass. Other lakes that have been deemed worthy of a name are Keeler, Brown, Sikes and Red. Round and Crooked lakes are usually spoken of as Sister lakes and they constitute one of the beauty spots of the county. The names of the lakes indicate their general outline. Round lake is about three-fourths of a mile across, while Crooked is double that distance from one end to the other. The two lakes approach with- in a few rods of each other; the ground between them is high and dry and covered with a beautiful grove. Between the two is lo- cated one of the popular pleasure places of the county known as Sister Lakes resort which is largely patronized during the resort season. Another resort is also platted on the opposite side of the lake called Hield's subdivision, and adjoining the original resort is a plat called Bowling's subdivision. On the north shore of Round lake is yet another platted resort called Benton Beach. All these places are so near each other that they might well be considered as one. They are located on sections thirty-one and thirty-two. A postoffice is located there called, after the name of the resort, "Sister Lakes." It is the only postoffice in the township.
Another resort on the north side of Magician lake on section thirty-four, called Gregory's addition to Magician Beach, is a popular place in summer time.
At the first township meeting held in the newly organized town- ship there were twenty-nine votes cast, and the following named officers were chosen: Supervisor, James Hill; township clerk, E. H. Keeler; justices of the peace, Lyman G. Hill, Benjamin F. Chadwick, Burrill A. Olney and Richard B. Everitt; collector, Thomas Conklin; highway commissioners, Wolcott H. Keeler, Richard B. Everitt and Tobias Byers.
CIVIL ORGANIZATION
In 1840 the legislature detached township three south, of range sixteen west and organized it into that of Hartford, leaving Keeler as it has remained, township four south, of range sixteen west.
At the town meeting held on the first Monday in April, 1840, the first one after Hartford and Keeler were separated, the officers elected were as follows: Supervisor, Benjamin F. Chadwick; township treasurer, James Hill; township clerk, E. H. Keeler; as- sessors, E. H. Keeler, S. C. Hill and Adam Manley; commissioners
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of highways, William Green, Benjamin Hungerford and W. H. Keeler; collector, William B. Green; school inspectors, George W. Springer, Wolcott H. Keeler and Stephen Hungerford ; constables, William B. Green, H. S. Wright, Andrew Harrison and Zenas Sikes.
The following named gentlemen have served the township in the office of supervisor : Benjamin F. Chadwick, Theodore E. Phelps, Lyman G. Hill, James A. Lee, Charles Duncombe, Albert E. Greg- ory, Charles G. George, Isaac J. Cox, William Tuttle, Jr., Orendo M. Sikes, John Baker, John V. Rosevelt, Henry S. Keith, Lucius E. Buck, John McAlpine, Fred H. Baker, Adolph Danneffel, Dwight Foster, George J. Danneffel and George Heagy. Of the foregoing those who served more that two years were Hill and Mc- Alpine, each three years; Phelps, four years; Duncombe, Foster and Adolph Danneffel, each six years; George Danneffel, seven years. George Heagy, the present incumbent, is serving his sec- ond term.
At the first general election after Keeler became a township by itself-the presidential election of 1840-thirty-two votes were polled, twenty-four Democratic and eight Whig. At the presi- dential election of 1908 the vote had increased to 227, divided as follows: Taft, Republican, 128; Bryan, Democrat, eighty-six ; Chafin, Prohibitionist, eight; Debs, Socialist, four; Hisgen, In- dependent, one.
The old Territorial road passed from east to west through the central part of the township, and prior to the completion of the Michigan Central Railroad a large traffic was carried on over that route between Detroit and St. Joseph, the latter city being only about thirteen miles from the west line of Keeler. In those early days the little village of Keelerville was a place of some import- ance.
Keeler is one of the three townships in Van Buren County that is untouched by a railroad. It was on the direct route of the Michigan Central, as that road was originally planned and sur- veyed and had the route of the road not been changed the history of the town would have been materially different from what it is.
FIRST SETTLERS OF TOWNSHIP
While the townships along the lake shore were visited at an early day by parties in search of eligible locations for the manu- facture of lumber, the shipment of wood, etc., and who were not intending to make any permanent settlement, the localities back from the coast were not even sparsely settled until some years later.
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About the years 1833-4 parties began to come from the east seeking locations in the then unbroken wilderness of western Michigan. The first white man to settle in the county, as has been heretofore related, was Dolphin Morris, who located in Decatur, the second township east of Keeler, in the spring of 1829. It was five years later that the first settlement was made in Keeler. The first white men to locate within its present boundaries were John and James Nesbitt, natives of the Emerald Isle, who entered one hundred and twenty acres of government land on section four- teen in the summer of 1834. Their dwelling place was of the rud- est and most primitive construction. It consisted simply of two crotched sticks driven into the ground, a pole across the top and other poles down the sides, tent-shaped, and the whole structure thickly covered with marsh grass. This shelter they occupied until the summer of 1835, when they sold their claim to Wolcott H. Keeler. John Nesbitt became a resident of Porter township, where he spent the remainder of his life, while James located in the adjoining township of Hamilton and was afterward found dead in the bottom of his well, under somewhat mysterious circum- stances that were never made clear.
The next settler in Keeler was Tobias Byers. He was a native of Pennsylvania, but when quite young had become a resident of Livingston county, New York. He left his eastern home late in the winter of 1835, and went to the state of Illinois, where he remained a few months when he came to what is now the town- ship of Keeler and, being favorably impressed with the outlook, went to the land office at Bronson-now Kalamazoo-and located one hundred and twenty acres of land on section nineteen and two hundred and forty acres on section thirteen. After locating his land he returned to New York, returning to Michigan in the fall of the same year. His brother, David, and Isaac De Long came with him on his return. David Byers afterward settled in the adjoining township of Bainbridge, Berrien county. For some fif- teen years Tobias was principally occupied in locating land for settlers and in clearing and breaking up land for other parties. He was married in 1856, to Jeannette Wilson. He spent the re- mainder of his life in Keeler, where he died on the 21st of Jan- uary, 1898, being at the time of his death within a few days of ninety years of age. He was a quaint, shrewd and somewhat ec- centric man, but greatly respected by all who knew him, of whom the writer was one. He was a man of influence in the community and was chosen to fill numerous important local offices.
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WOLCOTT H. KEELER
Wolcott H. Keeler came to the township that bears his name only one week later than Mr. Byers. He purchased the Nesbitt claim of forty acres on section fourteen and also eighty acres on section thirteen, and then went to Bronson and located three hundred and sixty acres on section twenty-four, thus becoming the owner of four hundred and eighty acres of government land. Mr. ยท Keeler was from the Green Mountain state, to which he returned soon after securing his claims. In the fall he came back to Michi- gan, bringing with him his son, Eleazer, and his daughter, Almina. They erected a log cabin on section thirteen, and after the house was completed Mr. Keeler again returned to Vermont. Another son, Simon, in the winter of 1835, drove through with a team and a load of household goods, from Vermont, and in the spring of 1836 Mr. Keeler and his wife, and another daughter, Ursula, journeyed around by way of the lakes to St. Joseph; thence, by way of the newly surveyed Territorial road, to their new wilderness home. Mr. Keeler, laid out a village under the name of Keeler- ville around his home and converted his house into a tavern. For a time the place bade fair to become a town, but it was such only on paper. The tavern was for a time a stopping place for the stages that traveled across the state along the Territorial road, but after Henry Coleman opened his tavern in the adjoining township of Hamilton the patronage of the Keeler place fell away to a con- siderable extent. A postoffice was established at the place in 1836 and Mr. Keeler was made the first postmaster. The office re- mained there until 1856, when it was removed to the village of Keeler, which is located a couple of miles farther west at the cen- ter of the township, where it remained until it was superseded by the rural free delivery. A store was opened by Mr. Keeler in 1836, and a blacksmith-shop was operated the next year by Harlow Wright. Mr. Keeler (Judge Keeler, as he was called by reason of having been elected to the office of associate judge of the circuit court in 1838) was a man of prominence and influence in the community.
SETTLERS OF 1836-44
James Hill and his family, consisting of his wife and four chil- dren, settled on section eleven in 1836. Mr. Hill was supervisor of the township for several years. His son, Justus Hill, came from Vermont in 1840 and settled on a part of his father's farm. As late as that date the place was practically a wilderness. In the north were Henry Hammond, Richard B. Everitt and Peter Williamson, their location being within the limits of the present township of
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Hartford. Theodore Phelps was living on section twenty-five and William Earle on section twenty-eight. On the south, beyond the center of the township and on to Cass county, the wilderness was unbroken and no settlements had been made.
Ira Foster, a New Yorker, with his wife and child and his brother Truman, settled on section fifteen in 1837.
The same year Benjamin Hungerford came from Livingston county, New York, with his wife and a large family of children, first occupying the cabin that had been built by Tobias Byers on section nineteen, which was used by other early settlers until such time as they could erect cabins of their own. Mr. Byers' resi- dence was on his other place on section thirteen. Hungerford bought six hundred and forty acres of land on sections seventeen, twenty and twenty-eight and occupied the premises with his wife and thirteen children for a considerable number of years. None of the family has resided in the township for more than thirty years.
Dr. Zenas Sikes located in Keeler in the summer of 1837. He entered lands on sections eighteen, nineteen and twenty. The Sikes family became prominent in township affairs. One of the sons, Orendo M. Sikes, was at one time supervisor of the town- ship.
Other settlers of the township in 1836-7 were Adrian Manley, Calvin Hathaway and Jeremiah Johnson.
In the winter of 1835-6 Matthew Fenton, a cousin of Judge Keeler, was killed by a falling tree. He was the first person buried in the township, although his was not the first death, which was that of a laborer engaged in breaking and clearing up the land along the line of the Territorial road, who was taken sick and died. He was buried at St. Joseph.
In 1838 Samuel Pletcher from eastern New York located on section nineteen. His wife was a sister of Tobias Byers. Mr. Pletcher died in 1845. His daughter married Dr. J. Elliott Sweet, late of Hartford.
Captain Marshall Lewis was another settler of 1838. He was a civil engineer and had been in charge of some of the most im- portant work of constructing the Erie canal. He also designed the plan for the locks of the Welland canal and was employed to superintend their construction. In 1837 he came to Lawrence and the next year removed to Keeler.
General Benjamin F. Chadwick, who was a somewhat noted man in the history of Van Buren county, was a native of Massachusetts, but went to the state of New York with his parents at an early age. When a young man of twenty-one years he went to Canada, where, in company with Captain Lewis, whose daughter he mar-
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ried, he erected a foundry. In 1836 he came to Michigan and lo- cated a tract of three hundred and twenty acres of land in what is now the township of Lawrence, and in April, 1837, with his family, accompanied by Captain Lewis, he arrived at the resi- dence of Judge Keeler at Keelerville. The next day they went to the lands they had entered in Lawrence, where they put up a shanty, cleared a small piece and lived there until the next fall when they sold their claim to Judge Broughton. Chadwick then purchased a tract of one hundred and sixty acres in Keeler, on section twenty-five. Captain Lewis and General Chadwick were residents of Keeler for about three years, when they traded their land with Theodore Phelps for mill property. Captain Lewis died in 1844. General Chadwick was appointed by President Pierce superintendent of public works at St. Joseph while the govern- ment was building and repairing the piers at that harbor. After he had been there two years he was appointed as keeper of the light house, a position which he held for six years. He subse- quently returned to Van Buren county where he spent the re- maining years of his life.
Palmer and William Earle settled in Keeler in 1839, Ira Gould in 1842, and an Englishman named John Duncombe about the same time. Palmer Earle and Duncombe located near Magician lake. Duncombe went to California in 1846, and died there soon after his arrival. Daniel J. Osborne settled on section seventeen about 1842. Marvin Palmer settled on section thirty-six, made some improvements, sold out and went to California, where he was fairly successful. He came back to Michigan and purchased a farm in Cass county, but again sold out and returned to California.
Other settlers in the early forties were Thomas Arner, Linus Warner, Ebenezer Lyon, Samuel Robinson, William Green, Thomas Green and James Lee. As late as 1844, the roads in the town- ship were the Territorial, running east and west, a diagonal road from the Sikes settlement southeasterly to Magician lake, and a mail road from Keelerville to Cassopolis, Cass county.
About 1844 the population of the township began to increase as the tide of immigration from the east became greater. Among those who came to Keeler about that date were Ormon Rosevelt, John and Lucius Buck, Samuel Gordon and Henry S. Keith.
Dr. George Bartholomew settled in the town in 1846 and after a residence of a couple of years went to Paw Paw, afterward to Decatur. After that he went to Central America where he spent five years in the employ of the Panama Railroad Company. He then returned to Keeler where he spent the remaining years of his life.
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In 1844 Moses Duncombe came from Canada and located lands that are now a part of the village site. Mrs. Duncombe, and Charles, Caroline, William and Stephen W. Duncombe, came later. Charles and Stephen W. became somewhat noted in political mat- ters, both being ardent Republicans after the organization of that party. Few men were more frequently consulted in reference to matters that concerned the welfare of their party then they were. Charles was a member of the constitutional convention in 1867, and Stephen W. was county treasurer for six years and register of deeds for four years.
TAX PAYERS, PROPERTY AND SCHOOLS
There were twenty-six resident taxpayers in the township at the first assessment taken after Keeler and Hartford were made sep- arate townships, viz: Marshall Lewis, Benjamin F. Chadwick, Samuel Pletcher, Tobias Byers, Zenas Sikes, Orendo M. Sikes, George Parrish, Benjamin Hungerford, Hiram Hungerford, Stephen Hungerford, H. S. Wright, Wolcott H. Keeler, James A. Lee, Ira Foster, Calvin Hathaway, L. G. Hill, W. S. Hill, James Hill, William Green, G. W. Springer, W. B. Green, John Palmon- teer, Thomas H. Green, James Spinnings, Adrian Manley and Eli Hill. Their total valuation, personal and real, was $12,979. The non-resident lands were valued at $16,291.50. The total tax levy was $449.
The valuation of the township at the assessment of 1911 was $772,830, ranking it as ninth in point of wealth. The total tax levied for the same year, not including a small amount of school tax not reported, was $12,690.49. The number of its inhabitants, as given by the census of 1910, was 1,037, making it the fifteenth township in point of population.
The first school in the township was taught about 1839 by Miss Woodman. In 1842, Mrs. Prudence Williamson taught a school in a house belonging to James Hill that had been previously oc- cupied by his brother, Lyman G. She had twelve pupils in at- tendance. An annual report made by school inspectors, David Foster and Orendo M. Sikes, in 1845, shows that at that time there were five school districts in the township. Reports were made by only three of the five. In those three there were seventy-four chil- dren of school age. Three qualified teachers were employed and an aggregate of nineteen months school was taught. There were one hundred and twenty-nine volumes in the township library and twenty-five dollars was raised for library purposes. A list of the school books in use will be of interest, especially to the older in- habitants of the county. They were as follows: Webster's El-
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ementary Spelling-book, English Reader, Hale's History of the United States, Olney's Geography, Kirkham's Grammar, Daboll's and Adams' Arithmetics. The following teachers were granted license to teach in 1846: Mary A. Bragg, Harriet McKein, and Charles A. Bush.
The official school reports for the school year of 1910-11 give the following figures: Number of persons of school age, 326; volumes in district libraries, 1,729; number of schoolhouses, ten ; value of school property, $7,900; district indebtedness, $80; quali- fied teachers employed, ten; aggregate number of months taught, seventy-five; paid for teachers' salaries, $3,538.50. The township received from the state primary school fund the sum of $2,295.
While the township of Keeler was a great grain producing re- gion and its citizens, at first, were largely engaged in that branch of agriculture, of late years they have turned their attention quite largely to fruit growing. Its proximity to Lake Michigan and its fertile soil make it well adapted to peach culture as well as such other fruits, as apples, pears, grapes and small fruits which are all produced abundantly.
KEELER AND OTHER TOWNS
Secret orders are represented in the little village of Keeler by the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Keeler Lodge, No. 204, with a membership of sixty-five; Keeler Rebekah Lodge, No. 349, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, with some twenty-five or thirty members; Knights of Maccabees with twenty-two members; and the Modern Woodmen with a membership of fifty-two. The orders all own their own halls. There is also a Ladies' club that has twenty-eight members.
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