USA > Michigan > Van Buren County > A history of Van Buren County, Michigan a narrative account of its historical progress, its people, and its principal interests Volume I > Part 35
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Over one hundred staple products of farm, orchard, garden and forest have been raised in Van Buren county with remarkable regularity for many years, a considerable number of them for fifty or sixty years. The leading crops are thus summarized and classified in a late official report :
Fruit Products: Apples, peaches, pears, plums, cherries, other tree fruits, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, currants, goose- berries, other fruit and grapes.
General farm products: Hay, corn, wheat, oats, barley, rye, buckwheat, clover seed, grass seed, potatoes, beans, peas, other crops, maple sugar, maple syrup, sugar beets, other roots, cabbage, toma- toes, sweet corn, onions, cucumbers, celery, melons, poultry sold, eggs sold, honey and wax, flowers, vegetable seeds, nursery prod- ucts, wood, logs and other timber products.
The state census of 1904, the latest official figures yet available, gave some interesting statistics about some of the crops that might
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be deemed of minor importance. For instance, on six and one- quarter acres of flowers and foliage plants, there was produced in the year preceding, the value of $8,091, or at the rate of $1,293 per acre. The "busy bees" with 1,544 swarms, valued at $6,187, produced in honey and was $6,379. To this every fruit grower would add a very liberal percentage for their services in aiding the fertilization of the fruit blossoms. Poultry valued at $72,801, produced eggs worth $136,360, and poultry sold amounted to $105,- 654, or the total product worth nearly three and one-third times the value of the "producing plant."
SEMI-AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES
Indicative of how largely Van Buren county is devoted to agri- cultural pursuits, the state census of 1904, above mentioned, con- tains no statistics of any manufacturing establishments within the county. Since that time there have been started at South Haven two piano factories, a wood-working factory, and a pipe organ factory, now in process of erection.
There are within the county many industrial concerns whose products directly relate to the agricultural and horticultural in- terests of the county. Included among these are canning and preserving plants; crushed fruit, grape juice, cider and vinegar factories; pickle factories; basket and package factories; butter and cheese factories and creamery stations; plants for making spraying outfits and preparing spray materials; grist mills, saw- mills, planing mills, sash and door factories; manufactories of cement blocks, fence posts, brick and tile; also shops for black- smithing and the mending of all sorts of farm and orchard tools, wagons, carriages ; besides packing houses, warehouses, depots and docks, with special equipment of cars and boats for handling the various products amounting annually to hundreds of thousands of dollars and giving employment to thousands of men, women and children.
The compiler is pleased to acknowledge his indebtedness to Hon. Charles J. Monroe, one of his associate editors, for the foregoing able and interesting article on the agricultural and horticultural interests of Van Buren county. No man is better qualified to speak authoritatively concerning these important industries than Mr. . Monroe.
AGRICULTURE IN EASTERN VAN BUREN' By Jason Woodman
Very few, if any, of the counties of Michigan can show so great a diversity of soil and timber as the county of Van Buren. Beauti- ful "oak openings," heavy timbered lands, pine lands, thousands
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of acres of fat black muck, clay and loam, sand and gravel, with all the varying types of soils composed of these materials; plains, hills and valleys; lakes, streams and woodlands, give an infinite variety to the landscape and furnish the foundation for as diversi- fied an agriculture as can be found anywhere in the United States.
On the plains east and north of the village of Paw Paw, the pioneers found unmistakable evidences of fields or "gardens" that had once been cultivated, although again grown up with forest timber. The real agricultural history of the county, however, begins with the spring of the year 1829, on the northern boundaries of Little Prairie Ronde, section thirty-five of the township of Deca- tur. There, eighty-three years ago, settled Dolphin Morris; on lands still owned by his descendants he turned the first furrow and raised the first crop ever grown in the county by a white man. For two or three years Mr .. Morris enjoyed the distinction of being the only settler in the county; but the years 1833, 1834 and 1835 wit- nessed the beginning of the tide of immigration from the east.
"OAK OPENINGS" FIRST CULTIVATED
The new comers found a broad, well-beaten Indian trail, running diagonally across the townships of Almena, Antwerp, Paw Paw, Lawrence, Hamilton and Keeler. The old Territorial road, when first laid out, generally speaking followed this trail, and along its course the tide of immigration flowed. Nearly all the way, this road ran through oak openings.
According to the accounts of early settlers, these openings, in a state of nature, were beautiful beyond description. The surface of the land was level, or gently rolling. The trees grew scattering, some in groups, others standing alone, with wide "openings" or vistas between. The timber was mostly of the various varieties of oak, with low broad-spreading tops. There was little or no under- growth, and one could see for many rods in any direction. The ground was carpeted with grass and, during the summer months, sprinkled over with flowers. These "openings were great natural parks," wrote one of the early pioneers. Another said: "Coming from the bleak New England hills, the country looked to our eyes like the Garden of Eden."
The land was easily cleared and had natural underdrainage. It was fertile and produced abundantly, and twenty years from the time the first settlers made their appearance, while the heavily timbered portions of the county were yet sparsely settled the "oak openings" were dotted over with well improved farms and with substantial, well built, commodious farm houses and barns.
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PIONEER FARM IMPLEMENTS
The farm operations of those early days were primitive. Hay was mown, raked and gathered by hand. Wheat was cut with a "cradle," bound by hand and threshed with a flail, or the grain trodden out underneath the feet of cattle or horses. The first threshing machine made its advent about 1850, and was operated by David Woodman. It is described by his son, Edson Woodman, who in his boyhood worked with this machine many days, as "a cylinder mounted on a platform and operated by horse-power." The bundles of grain were fed through the cylinder ; the straw was raked from the rear of the machine by hand, while the grain and chaff were shoveled to one side, to be afterwards run through a fanning-mill, thus separating the grain from the chaff. Later, a device for separating the grain was attached to the cylinder and this was considered a great improvement. This threshing outfit was used, not only in this county, but in Kalamazoo and Cass counties as well; being for years the only implement of its kind in this immediate part of the state. It was last operated on the farm of the late J. J. Woodman about the year 1861, where it was broken by a too violent pull on the part of a team of fractious horses and never repaired. It was succeeded by a new and improved machine, owned and operated by Mr. A. R. Wildey, the father of E. A. and W. C. Wildey. This new threshing outfit was considered remark- able because of the fact that a bundle of wheat could be run through it whole, with the band uncut, and not stop the machine.
AFTER THE CIVIL WAR
With the close of the Civil war, Van Buren county agriculture entered upon a new era. In 1864 the population of the county, mainly agricultural, numbered about eighteen thousand, an in- crease of ten thousand in ten years. The giant forests that covered the heavier, more fertile lands of the county, were rapidly disap- pearing before the woodman's axe; the age of American invention was on and modern agricultural machinery was replacing the prim- itive implements of husbandry. Mowers, horse hayrakes and horse forks, grain drills and reapers, improved machines for threshing grains and hulling clover, radically changed the methods of the husbandman. All farms were fenced into fields and carried live- stock; clover grew abundantly, furnishing hay and pasture; the farmer sold wheat, wool, mutton, beef and pork. For many years, it is said, more wheat was shipped from Decatur than from any other station on the line of the Michigan Central Railroad between the cities of Chicago and Buffalo. Many thousand pounds of wool
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were marketed by the farmers every spring, and the annual ship- ment of sheep, cattle and hogs amounted to hundreds of carloads.
LIVE STOCK
Aside from the practice, usual on practically every farm, of fat- tening home-grown stock for the market, during the three decades following the close of the Civil war a considerable stock feeding in- dustry was built up. John and William Lyle and Albert R. Wildey were the pioneers in this business. Others followed after and the feeding of sheep and cattle purchased for that purpose became common. A large portion of this stock came from the west and many thousands of bushels of "Chicago corn" were consumed every year in addition to the hay and grain grown on the "feed- ers' " farms. In 1892 seventy-three carloads of stock in car lots were fed for the market within three miles of the writer's home. In the main this business was profitable and the acres of the stock- feeding farmer grew more and more fertile.
During the years from 1876 to 1890, Van Buren county became one of the great horse breeding sections of the state. In the former year Mr. Edson Woodman purchased the "Duke of Perche," one of the first six Percheron stallions imported by M. W. Dunham of Illinois. The "Duke" proved to be a remarkable foal-getter and while he was owned by Mr. Woodman sired about 1,700 colts. The uniform excellence of his progeny did much to popularize the Per- cheron breed in this part of the state. Other breeds of horses also had their advocates, and the introduction of many stallions and pure bred mares, of the Percheron and other breeds, followed. Thousands of colts were raised by the farmers. This industry, for many years, was a most profitable one, and the county became famous for its fine horses. Like the sheep and cattle industry, the raising of horses not only added materially to the income of the farms but also aided in maintaining them in the highest condition of fertility.
GOLDEN ERA (1865-90)
As one looks back on the eighty years of the history of Van Buren county, this period, from 1865 to 1890, seems to stand out as the "golden era" of its agriculture. The soil was fertile and the farm methods practiced tended to maintain its fertility. Clover grew, blossomed and matured its seed, unhampered and unimpaired by insect enemies. As compared with the cost of production, the prices received for farm products were profitable. There was an abundance of competent and reliable farm help. The more profit- able city industries, paying rates of wages with which the farmer
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could not compete, had not yet drawn the larger part of competent, skilful young men away from the rural neighborhoods; large num- bers of farmers' sons, well trained by industrious fathers, when not needed at home, worked by the day or month for neighboring hus- bandmen. The intelligent, steady-going, hardworking "hired men" of the sixties, seventies and eighties, not only earned substantial profits for their employers, but, in very many cases, laid for them- selves the foundations of future substantial competence. Many of those, who are today among our most successful farmers, profes- sional and business men, were farm laborers in those days.
THE LEAN YEARS OF THE NINETIES
It is said that misfortunes never come singly. Beginning with 1890, excepting the year 1892 Van Buren county farmers suffered from a series of disastrous droughts. Year after year they saw their crops shortened or destroyed by rainless weather. In 1893 came the elover seed midge and the clover root borer, and a little later the clover leaf beetle, which in the spring destroyed the young clover plants. This latter insect was especially disastrous to young spring seedings. For years, there were practically no clover fields, and as a consequence the soil rapidly deteriorated. During the same years the prices of farm products fell to a ruinous level. Wheat sold as low as forty cents per bushel, wool at eight cents per pound, fat wethers at seventy-five cents per head and hogs at $2.40 per hundred. The best heavy horses sold for from seventy-five to one hundred dollars per head, and in 1896 corn of the best quality sold for seventeen cents per bushel of seventy-five pounds. The prices of other staple crops dropped to the same level; good agri- cultural lands were offered at from twenty to forty dollars per acre, with few sales even at those prices. The breeding of horses ceased, the fattening of stock for the market came to a sudden termination, while sheep and beef breeds of cattle practically disap- peared from the farms.
After a time, however, the situation began to improve; the rain- fall increased, parasites preyed on the clover insect enemies and clover again grew on well managed farms, although not with its old-time luxuriance; prices of farm produce improved, but live- stock farming has never regained its former importance, nor, as a rule, its former profit.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE GRAPE INDUSTRY
Out of the hardships of the lean years was born the great grape- growing industry. It is true that for years prior to 1890 the grow-
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ing of grapes and other fruits in what is known as the Lawton dis- trict was a business of some magnitude, but the carloads shipped each year were numbered by the score and not by the thousand. In 1868 A. B. Jones of Lawton set out a plantation of one hun- dred grape vines, Concords and Delawares. That year, or the next, N. H. Bitely, planted a small vineyard. Mr. Jones made the first shipment of grapes, sending them to Lansing, where they sold from twelve to fifteen cents per pound. These grapes, after being picked, were "wilted" for twenty-four hour's, picked over and packed with great care. Mr. Jones, in speaking of his second crop, said : "The grapes were put up in three-pound baskets and crated, twelve baskets to the crate." This fruit was also shipped to Lan- sing and sold as high as nine dollars per crate. The soil and cli- matic conditions proved to be exceptionally favorable for produc- ing good crops of finely flavored grapes, and as their culture was found profitable the industry steadily extended. In 1890 there was a considerable acreage devoted to vineyards. This area rapidly increased during the years immediately following. The introduc- tion of the eight-pound basket and of refrigerator cars widely ex- tended the market.
In the latter part of the nineties the great majority of the grow- ers were getting substantial incomes from their vineyards. Then it was that hundreds of the farmers of the eastern part of the county, suffering from the low prices of the "lean years," turned their attention to this new industry. Thousands of acres of grapes were planted. The years of low prices and hard times were passing, and the first crops from their new vineyards were very profitable. Then came the "boom;" men with no experience in farming and having no knowledge of agriculture, bought vineyards "set out to sell," or bought land and planted vineyards of twenty, thirty or forty acres in extent. On lowlands and highlands, on table-lands and in valleys and frost holes, on steep side hills, on sand and on the best of beech and maple timbered lands, grapes were set by en- thusiastic amateurs. A new era of prosperity, greater than the old, seemed to have set in.
And then the inevitable happened. Men who tried to raise grapes at long range found it impossible to hire sufficient numbers of men, skilled in the details of grape growing. Spring frosts cut short the crops on land that lacked air drainage; the great freeze of October, 1906, completely destroyed a large portion of that year's crop and, to a great extent, killed the buds that should have produced the crop of 1907. The cut-worm, the rose bug and other insects exacted a heavy toll and, to crown all, the dreaded "black rot" overspread the grape growing district. Many men who had so enthusiastically rushed into the industry found it wise to get
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out. Hundreds of acres of vineyards were pulled and many others have been woefully neglected. The greater number of the grow- ers, however, have stuck manfully to their task. They have learned to handle spraying machinery; they have mastered the chemistry of sprays and the method of their proper and effectual application. The great yields of 1908, 1909 and 1911 have demonstrated the ability of Van Buren county vineyardists to grow grapes, but the problem of marketing crops that are numbered by the thousands of car-loads, in such manner as shall leave a profit for the producer, is yet to be solved
Van Buren county, because of its proximity to great markets, its varied soils, and its especially favorable climatic conditions, will always be a great fruit-producing region. The grape, the peach and the apple grow to a degree of perfection not surpassed in any portion of the country. The great muck beds, once the home of the fragrant peppermint, about which a chapter might be written, are rapidly being utilized for less exhaustive and, in the long run, more remunerative crops, while the great diversity of upland affords the opportunity for an equally varied system of agriculture. The disadvantages of the rural home are being gradually eliminated by modern inventive genius; country life is becoming more desirable, and when the time shall come, as it will, that the profits of agriculture equal those of other industries, then the population will flow toward the farm, instead of away from it. When that time comes, men better educated and better trained than we are, working in the light of greater knowledge, will develop systems of agriculture that will enrich rather than deplete the soil and, at the same time, will continue to provide ample supplies of food for the people.
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CHAPTER XIV
TALES OF THE OLDEN DAY
DECATUR WAR SCARE-SNOW NOT TURNED TO OIL-FIGHT WITH A WOLF PACK-WOLF BOUNTIES-WOODS FULL OF "PAINTERS" -MRS. RICE'S REMINISCENCES-NARROW ESCAPE OF EDWIN MEARS-INDIAN MOUNDS IN LAWRENCE TOWNSHIP-JOSEPHI WOODMAN LOCATES AT PAW PAW (1835)-STORIES BY MRS. NANCY (HICKS) BOWEN-"GOOD TIMES" OF THE OLDEN DAY.
It is related that just after the breaking out of the Civil war, a meteor fell on the south side of the great Decatur swamp, with a loud explosion, and which was the occasion of a good deal of ex- citement. One valiant and brave citizen of the village, it is said, was sure that the commotion was occasioned by the advance of a column of the enemy on the peaceful village of Decatur. He rushed into his home in great excitement shouting "The rebels are shelling us, the rebels are shelling us!" and proceeded to bar- ricade the doors and windows, put his family under arms, and, seizing his trusty fowling piece, he declared that he was ready for them and that he would guarantee to whip a dozen rebels single handed. His misunderstanding of the cause of the explosion was the occasion of much merriment and "joshing" at his expense.
SNOW NOT TURNED TO OIL
During the "hard winter" of 1842-3 a considerable number of the inhabitants in some parts of the county became much exercised over the predicted approaching "end of the world." This was the time when "Millerism" was rampant and great numbers of people in different parts of the country so firmly believed the prediction that they gave away their property and prepared their "ascension robes." The idea of some of the people who placed credence in Miller's prophesies was that the great body of snow that had fallen would, by some miraculous power, be turned to oil and set on fire, thus destroying the entire world. It is certain that this notion be- came so prevalent as to cause no little uneasiness in the minds of superstitious people, which was only dispelled when the warm
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spring rains and the soft southern breezes turned the snow to water instead of oil.
FIGHT WITH A WOLF PACK
Wolf stories without number are related by the earlier settlers of the county. The following incident was told by the late Robert Nesbitt, one of the earliest pioneers of Hamilton and who made the first entry of government land in that township. Coming home on foot from Kalamazoo and while passing through the for- est about night-fall, he was attacked by a pack of ravenous wolves. He lost no time in climbing a tree. He was only about a mile from his home, and from the tree-top he could plainly see the light in his cabin. The wolves surrounded the tree and, with savage howls, waited for him to descend. The weather was bitterly cold and Mr. Nesbitt soon realized that it was up to him to "get a move on," as there was no possibility of any outside aid. Being wholly un- armed, he cut a heavy club and determined to make a fight for life. He descended rapidly and made such a vigorous onslaught on the hungry pack that they fell back. Taking advantage of the opportunity, he ran to another tree and braced himself for battle, with his enemies, which had returned to the charge. In this man- ner he fought his way to the shelter of his cabin, which he reached in safety, although nearly exhausted with the strenuous fight and the attending excitement.
WOLF BOUNTIES
During the earlier years after the organization of the county both the county and the state paid a bounty on wolves. At their first meeting the board of supervisors "voted to pay five dollars per head for each wolf and panther which may be killed during the ensuing year." The state, at the same time, was paying a bounty of eight dollars, so that wolves (dead ones) were worth thirteen dol- lars apiece. The following named hunters received such bounties during the year: Luther Branch, four wolves ; John Condon, three; Joseph Butler, one; Cahcah, an Indian, one. In 1838 the county bounty was raised to eight dollars, but the next year it was re- duced to four. Bounties were paid for twenty-four wolves during that year. From 1840 to 1847, inclusive, bounty was paid on sixty-eight slaughtered wolves and wolf whelps. The breeding of wolf whelps seems to have been a growing industry, and in 1844 the supervisors reduced the bounty on baby wolves to the meager sum of $2.40, which seemed to put a quietus on what promised to be a remunerative occupation. There is no record of the payment
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of any bounty for killing a panther. Evidently those savage beasts were not very abundant.
WOODS FULL OF "PAINTERS"
Apropos of panthers, the following amusing story related by one Abe Norwood, who was knowing to the circumstances, may not be out of place. Two young men, Will Shutter and Zade Rose- brook, brothers-in-law, many years ago planned to have a little sport at the expense of the good people of the township of Ham- ilton. They took a tin can and punched a hole in the bottom, and through this hole passed a stout linen string, which was then well resined. To operate the machine the string was held taut and drawn back and forth through the hole. It required some prac- tice to get the best effect. The result was a noise resembling the growl of some savage beast or the scream of a panther (They used to call them "painters" in those early days). When everything was in readiness, one of the boys went to the house of one of the residents and said he had heard an awful strange noise as he was passing through the woods and that he thought it must be made by some wild beast. Going out of doors they listened, and sure enough they could hear the sound, but it was hard to locate, some- times seeming near and the next minute far away. Next day all the people in the vicinity knew about the exciting news, and it was planned to put an end to the "panther," as the people be- lieved it to be. They did not succeed in finding the beast although they heard it first in one direction and then in another. Night after night the thing went on. Although the creature was so timid that no one could get near enough to see it, the people were as timid as the supposed wild animal and went armed when they had to pass through the haunted neighborhood.
The narrator of the incident says: "I remember one night a wagon load of armed men drove up to a squad of hunters who were listening to the growler. They did not get out of the wagon. They could hear just as well in it. Besides, if the beast should make a charge, those in the wagon would be in the safer position. They could fight just as well and in case of being compelled to make a speedy retreat they would save the time required to clamber into the vehicle and would be in less danger of being left at the mercy of the fierce growler.
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