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 50
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The first school in the county was taught in this same pioneer residence by William Alexander. A fairly good schoolhouse was built as soon as practicable and the first school therein was taught by G. N. Copley.
The Indians who at that time inhabited the county were as a rule friendly, some of the squaws being exceptionally kind. There was, however, now and then an exception. One Indian, known as old Shavehead, who was somewhat of a terror to the community,
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was looked upon with suspicion and regarded as being a treacherous fellow. It is generally believed that he was shot by some white man as he suddenly disappeared and nothing was ever heard of him afterward. His name is borne by a lake in the southern part of Cass county, Shavehead lake.
The log cabins of the pioneers were erected without regard to section lines; in fact, such lines were not run when the first set- tlers arrived and their claims were located by guess, or "stepped off." The field notes of Decatur township say that its boundaries were surveyed by William Brookfield in 1827, and the section lines by E. H. Lytle in 1830. Roads were laid from one settler to an- other as nearly in a direct line as the conformation of the ground permitted, continually changing as new settlers arrived or as some farmer desired to extend his fields. Very few of the original roads, as at first laid out, are in existence at the present time, and but few of the original building sites are now occupied as such.
A. B. COPLEY ON EARLY DAYS
Writing of these early days, Alexander B. Copley, himself a pioneer, since deceased, says: "My father left Dayton, Ohio, on horseback, to make a trip to that part of Michigan territory called the St. Joseph country, reaching the home of Dolphin Morris, September 4, 1832. From his journal it appears that up to that time there had been entered at the land office sixteen eighty-acre lots in the township of Decatur, four in Waverly, and five in La- Fayette (now Paw Paw). There were then six families in Van Buren county, namely, Dolphin Morris, his brother, Samuel H. Morris, H. D. Swift, George Tittle, David Curry and LeGrand Anderson-but for nearly two years Mr. Morris and his wife were the only settlers in Van Buren county. The cabin erected by Mr. Morris, the one hereinbefore referred to," says Mr. Copley, "was of more than passing interest, aside from sheltering the first white family of the county. Here it was that Daniel Alexander and Margaret Tittle, the second married couple in the county, began housekeeping ; and here it was also that Elias Morris, second son of Dolphin Morris, was born, and who up to the time of his death a couple of years ago was the oldest person born in the county. This cabin where the first birth and the first death occurred, where the germ of our valued school system was planted; this cabin that served for both schoolhouse and church and where the first family altar was reared, surely deserves to be kept in remembrance and its site marked to commemorate the beginning of civilization in our beautiful county."
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VARIOUS PIONEERS
Dolphin Morris remained a resident of Decatur until his death which occurred January 7, 1870. His wife, Nancy, died October 4, 1877. Henry Morris, his youngest son and his wife, Esther Mor- ris, aged respectively thirty-two and twenty-six, were murdered; shot to death in the night of the 28th of September, 1879, while in the peaceful occupancy of the old Morris homestead. Their mur- derer was unknown and was never brought to justice, although a large reward was offered by the public authorities for his appre- hension and conviction. Strong suspicion was entertained as to the perpetrator of the dastardly deed, but his identity was never established and the whereabouts of the suspected individual, who immediately disappeared from public view, has never been made manifest.
Dolphin Morris split with his own hands the first rail and turned the first furrow in Van Buren county. His three remaining sons, Samuel, Amos and Elias are all deceased.
Coming to Michigan with Mr. Morris, H. D. Swift located a claim on section thirty-six, in the township of Decatur, which he sold to LeGrand Anderson in 1831. With the proceeds of the sale he purchased another tract near at hand where he lived the re- mainder of his life.
George Tittle, who was Mr. Morris' brother-in-law, came from the state of Ohio in 1831 and settled on section thirty-five, where he lived until his death in 1866.
Samuel Morris, a brother to Dolphin, came to Cass county in 1829, where he resided for a couple of years when he settled on sec- tion thirty-six, near his brother, and where he spent the remainder of his days.
LeGrand Anderson came from Ohio to Michigan, in the spring of 1831, and purchased a tract of more than 400 acres in Decatur township, on sections twenty-six and thirty-six. In the summer of 1832, he brought his family from Ohio and they became permanent residents of the then wilderness. Mr. Anderson remained on his Decatur farm during the remainder of his life. After his death it passed into the possession of his son LeGrand R. Anderson, who continued to own it until his death which occurred October 14, 1909.
David Curry was one of Decatur's leading pioneers. He came from Indiana in 1830, to Cass county, where he remained about two years when he entered a quarter section adjoining the Morris land, built thereon a log cabin eighteen by twenty feet-quite a sumptu- ous residence for those early days, although it was sans floor, door or window. His young wife would not permit him to lay a "punch-
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eon" floor, preferring to tread on "mother earth" until she could have something better. The next winter Mr. Curry secured some rough boards from the adjoining county of Cass, with which he laid the floor of his primitive palace, and Mrs. Curry enjoyed the distinction of having the only "sawed" floor in the settlement (even if it was rough), and that she lived in the best house on the "prairie." Mr. Curry died in 1846 while in the prime of life, be- ing killed by a fall from a wagon.
Joseph Van Hise, a native of Butler county, Ohio, located on section thirteen in 1835. A year later he returned to Ohio for his family and with them came his brother, William O., and their father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. Oakey Van Hise. One of Jo- seph's sons, William K. Van Hise, who has been a man of consid- erable prominence in township affairs, is yet living on a farm on section thirteen near where his father made his primitive home.
Another of the early settlers was John Eckenberger, who sold his farm to Jacob Charles of Cass county and removed farther west, but eventually returned to Decatur and died there as did Mr. Charles.
Thomas Scott and family located on section thirteen in 1836, afterward becoming a resident of the township of Antwerp and removing to the state of Illinois. John W. Scott, a nephew of Thomas Scott, came from Ohio to Decatur in the spring of 1837 and worked as a farm laborer until. 1842, when he returned to his native state, married, returned to Decatur in 1844 and made that township his home.
At the time that Mr. Morris settled in Decatur there were In- dian traders at Bronson (now Kalamazoo) ; at Grand Rapids, a trading post at that time and now the second city in the state; and west, a trading post at St. Joseph ; nothing else east, west or north. To the south was the Carey mission, near the location of the pres- ent city of Niles, in Berrien county. This was established in 1820, in accordance with the treaty made by General Cass with the Pot- tawattamies. This mission was the means of opening up the valley of the St. Joseph to permanent settlement.
CIVIL AND POLITICAL
The township of Decatur, which was named in honor of Commo- dore Stephen Decatur, one of the nation's naval heroes, was organ- ized in 1837, by legislative enactment and embraced within its limits the present townships of Decatur and Porter-the latter having been set off and organized into a separate township in 1845. The first township meeting was held at the schoolhouse near Little Prairie Ronde. At this election John D. Compton was elected
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clerk and Joseph Van Hise, John D. Compton, George S. Freese and Tinker R. Smith were elected as justices of the peace. The of- ficial records of the county do not disclose the names of the other officers chosen at this election.
At the first general state election held on the fourth and fifth days of November, 1839, forty gubernatorial votes were cast, twenty-four of them being for William Woodbridge, Whig, and sixteen for Elon Farnsworth, Democrat. (Woodbridge was the only Whig that ever occupied the chief executive office of the state of Michigan.)
TOWN HALL, DECATUR
At the presidential election of 1908 there were 497 presidential votes cast as follows : 305 for Taft, Republican; 165 for Bryan. Democrat; seventeen for Chafin, Prohibitionist; five for Debs, So- cialist, and five for Hisgen, Independence party.
According to the census figures of 1910, Decatur ranked fifth among the townships of the county in point of population, hav- ing 2,106 inhabitants.
George S. Freese was the first supervisor of the township, hav- ing been elected to that office at the first town meeting held on the first Monday of April, 1837. The records do not disclose the names of the supervisor for either the year 1838 or 1841. John McKin- ney was elected in 1840. With the exception of the years noted, the, following is a complete list of the names of the persons who have filled that office : George S. Freese, Joseph Van Hise, John Mckinney, Stephen Kinney, Lyman Sanford, N. Le Fevre, Wil-
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liam O. Van Hise, Jeremiah Teed, George Bennett, O. T. Welch, E. Parker Hill, C. Hollister, Eri Beebe, Ransom Nutting, Marvin Hinckley, William K. Van Hise, David A. Squier and Emory II. Squier (present incumbent). Of the earlier supervisors, Lyman Sanford held the office seven years, possibly more. E. Parker Hill served seven years; William K. Van Hise, ten years; Ransom Nut- ting, fifteen years; David A. Squier was elected nine times in suc- cession and died in 1902 while holding the office, and his son, Emory H. Squier, was appointed to fill the vacancy caused by his father's death and has been continued in the office since.
There are several small lakes in the township, the principal ones being Lake of the Woods, which is within sight of the village of Decatur on the west and lies partly in the township of Decatur and partly in the township of Hamilton. This was originally a beautiful sheet of water, but its beauty has been considerably marred by its having been partially drained in order to secure a few acres of tillable land around its shores. A small lake just south of the corporation line of the village is dignified by the un- euphonious name of Mud lake. Pickerel lake, half a mile south- east of the village, was originally well stocked with that variety of fish from which it takes its name. Swift's lake, on section 36, in the southeast corner of the township, covers about one-fourth of the section. Several small streams take rise in the northern and western part of the township and unite to form what is known as the west branch of the Paw Paw river, and in the southern part of the township other similar streams (the principal one being the outlet of Pickerel lake), form the Dowagiac creek, which flows southeasterly into Cass county.
STATISTICS
The first school in Decatur was taught by William Alexander in the humble cabin of Dolphin Morris in the winter of 1834-5. There are now seven schools in the township and eight schoolhouses. The number of persons of school age, according to the enumeration of 1911, was 613, the value of school property is estimated at $21,700; the number of teachers employed during the school year of 1910-11 was sixteen; they taught an aggregate of 145 months and received in wages $7,065.25. The district libraries contain 1,072 volumes. $4,260 state primary school money was apportioned to the schools of the township during the last year.
The total amount of taxes levied in the township in 1837, was $263.60. No assessment of personal property appears on the tax roll, but the tax spread was just four cents per acre throughout the entire township. In 1911 the amount of tax spread on the as-
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sessment roll of the township was $14,002.75. In point of wealth, according to assessment, Decatur ranks third among the townships of the county, being assessed at $1,186,350, which is exceeded only by Paw Paw and Hartford.
VILLAGE OF DECATUR
The original plat of this village was surveyed in the spring of 1850. Joseph D. Beers and Samuel Sherwood of New York had become the owners of a large tract of government land in which was included the present village site. These gentlemen donated the site of the depot buildings, which were erected in 1848, the same year that the railroad was completed to Niles, in Berrien county. When the Michigan Central Railroad Company began to push its road westward from Kalamazoo these gentlemen con- ceived the plan of laying out and platting a village along the line of that road, which they did, calling it Decatur after the name of the township in which it was situated. Since that date there have been no less than fifteen additions to the original plat. The last of these is called "Hastings' Addition" and was platted in the summer of 1910. In 1905, the common council of the village caused a resurvey and a new plat to be made covering the original plat and the major portion of the various different additions. This plat is commonly known as the Supervisors' plat.
As at present constituted, the village embraces portions of sec- tions seventeen, eighteen, nineteen and twenty, and by the census of 1910 contained a population of 1,286, being exceeded in num- bers by no village in the county except Paw Paw.
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.
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