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 51
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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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HISTORY OF VAN BUREN COUNTY
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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South Haven, where he was identified with large business interests and became one of the prominent citizens of the county, serving at one time as a senator in the state legislature. He subsequently removed to California, where he resided until his decease.
STATISTICAL AND PHYSICAL
According to the Federal census of 1910 Geneva contained 1,420 inhabitants, being the twelfth among the townships of the county in point of population.
In 1854, the year the township was organized, its assessed valu- ation was $72,361, and the entire amount of taxes levied was the sum of $1,106.10. The valuation of the township in 1911 was $514,640, being the fourteenth township in point of wealth. The tax levied for all purposes in the latter year amounted to $11,855.51.
The surface of the township is generally level, or somewhat un- dulating, and the soil is fertile and well adapted to 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. A few years ago a severe and unusual October freeze injured the peach business, practically de- stroying many of the orchards; but new orchards have been planted and the business is again flourishing.
VILLAGE OF LACOTA
There is no incorporated village in the township of Geneva. In November, 1870, Almon J. Pierce, county surveyor, at the request of Enoch M. Pease, the proprietor, surveyed a village plat on the northwest quarter of section one, consisting of seven blocks, and named the proposed village Irvington, by which name it was known for some twenty years, and, indeed, is still so called on the official records of the county.
In August, 1892, Varnum H. and Marshall Dilley caused an- other plat, consisting of five blocks, to be surveyed on the north- east quarter of section two and adjoining the previous plat. This new survey was named Lacota, by which the two surveys are usu- ally known. This is also the name of the railroad station and the postoffice. The village is an enterprising, prosperous little town, and has one good, general store, one hardware store, two groceries, a livery, a cider and vinegar factory, a blacksmith and wagon shop for the manufacture of fruit wagons, a lumber and wood yard, a postoffice, a railroad depot, and two churches (the Christian and the Methodist Episcopal). The Methodist church was instituted about the same time that the township was organized. A house of worship was erected at Irvington in the summer of 1876. The Chris-
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tian, or Disciple church, is of a later date. That society also has a good meeting-house. Both these churches are in very prosperous condition.
There is also a school in the place which is a credit to its en- terprising patrons. There were ninety-two pupils in the district at the last enumeration. The school property is valued at $3,000. Two teachers were employed during the last school year, each of whom taught nine months of school and were paid salaries amount- ing to $945.
VILLAGE OF KIBBIE
There is another little burg in the township, on the line of the railroad about midway between the village of Lacota and the city of South Haven, being four miles from the latter place. It has a postoffice and one general store.
GENERAL TOWNSHIP PROGRESS
Although Geneva did not become an organized township until at a comparatively late date, only the township of Covert succeeding it, its progress has been rapid and its improvements of the most substantial character. To one who was familiar with it in its orig- inal state when it was covered with dense forests of giant hemlocks and other varieties of timber, the change is indeed wonderful and the labor required to effect it is almost incomprehensible. Instead of forests there are now orchards and cultivated fields; instead of the log cabins of the pioneers, the landscape is dotted with modern farm houses, convenient and up-to-date; instead of the scream of the panther and the howl of the sneaking wolf is heard the roar of the railroad train and the whistle of the locomotive; and in- stead of the roving red man the land is occupied by a happy, thriv- ing prosperous people, who are in the enjoyment of many modern necessities and luxuries of life that had never even been dreamed of when the first settlements were made in the township. Great as the progress has been, none can tell what the future will de- velop. Doubtless the changes of the twentieth century, although along different lines, will be as wonderful and as marvelous as have been those of the nineteenth.
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CHAPTER XXVII
TOWNSHIP OF HAMILTON
CIVIC AND POLITICAL MATTERS-PHYSICAL FEATURES-TAXPAYERS AND TAXES OF 1839-FIRST BUILDING AND FIRST PERMANENT SETTLER-ALSO SETTLED PRIOR TO 1844-ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE PIONEERS AND THEIR TIMES-SCHOOLS, THEN AND NOW-THE HAMILTON TOWNSHIP FAIR.
When the' county of Van Buren was organized in 1837, it con- tained seven townships. By act of the legislature of that year, townships four south, or ranges fifteen and sixteen west, as they were officially designated in the United States survey, were organ- ized into a separate township by the name of Covington. Just why Covington, does not appear, and the name was not of long duration and is remembered by very few of the inhabitants of the county at the present time.
CIVIC AND POLITICAL MATTERS
Pursuant to the legislative act organizing the county, an elec- tion was held on the second Monday of April, 1837, for the purpose of choosing county officers. The statute organizing the township of Covington provided that this first election should be held at the Keelerville postoffice, which was situated at about the center of the west half of the township, which was subsequently organ- ized as a separate township under the name of Keeler. Twenty- seven votes were cast at this election. There seems to have been but one ticket in the field; at least, there was but one set of candi- dates voted for. The official records recite that at this election James Conklin, Robert Nesbitt, James A. Hill and George S. Bishop were elected as justices of the peace, and E. H. Keeler as township clerk. No other local officers are mentioned. A subse- quent entry for the same year recites that at a special election, Benjamin F. Chadwick and Philotus Haydon were elected justices of the peace, in place of James A. Hill, deceased, and James Conk- lin, removed.
The poll list for this election is not preserved among the rec-
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ords, but at the general election held the next November, the fol- lowing named persons exercised their right of suffrage: Philotus Haydon, E. Lombard, W. H. Keeler, E. Staples, A. Barney, Ben- jamin F. Chadwick, Lyman Hill, R. Johnson, W. S. Hill, Lewis Johnson, Freeman Foster, S. A. Keeler, S. T. Howell, M. Lewis, E. Geer, C. Bartlett, Robert Nesbitt, Tobias Byers, John Comley, R. Comley, G. Geer, W. S. Sanart, C. Field, Jr., J. M. Lombard, L. T. Ball, Zebina Stearns, E. Smith, A. W. Ensign, H. S. Wright and Ira Foster.
The township of Covington had only a two years' lease of life. The legislature of 1839 passed an act providing that township four south, of range fifteen west, which was the east half of Covington, should be set off and organized into a township by the name of Alpena, and that the first town-meeting in the new township should be held at the house of Henry Coleman in said township. The records of that meeting show that Henry Coleman, Ralph Mason, Calvin Fields and Robert Nesbitt were elected justices of the peace; Henry Coleman, township clerk, and Ebenezer Lom- bard, collector.
The first general election in the newly organized township was held on the fourth and fifth days of November, 1839. At this election thirty-four votes were cast, equally divided between the Whig and the Democrat parties.
At the first presidential election which was held on the second and third days of November, 1840, there were thirty-nine votes polled in the township; twenty for Martin Van Buren, Democrat, and nineteen for William Henry Harrison, Whig.
At the presidential election of 1908, the voters of the township cast 183 ballots : ninety-eight for Taft, Republican; eighty-one for Bryan, Democrat; two for Chafin, Prohibitionist ; and one each for Debs, Socialist, and Hisgen, Independent.
The name "Alpena" did not prove satisfactory to the citizens of the township, and in 1840 the legislature, on request, enacted that "The name of the township of Alpena, in the County of Van Buren, shall hereafter be altered and changed to that of Hamil- ton." Not a very happily worded statute, but it accomplished its design, and Hamilton it has ever since been, in honor of Alexander Hamilton, one of the great American statesmen of early days.
The first township officers chosen after the division of the town- ship of Covington were George A. Bentley, supervisor; Henry Cole- man, clerk; Marcus Merriman, treasurer; Ralph Mason, Philotus Haydon and Henry Coleman, assessors; Ebenezer Lombard, con- stable and collector; Ralph Mason, Calvin Fields, Jr., and James Nesbitt, school inspectors; Joshua Comley and Aaron Barney, di- rectors of poor; Jackson Pratt, Philotus Haydon and Zebina
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Stearns, commissioners of highways; Henry Coleman, Robert Nes- bitt, Calvin Fields and Ralph Mason, justices of the peace.
The following named gentlemen have officiated as supervisors of the township : G. A. Bentley, Philotus Haydon, Palmer Earl, Henry Coleman, Robert Nesbitt, Truman Foster, George G. B. Yeckley, Calvin Fields, Solomon B. Hagar, Abram S. Wise, John H. Collins, James E. Maxwell, James M. Weeks, M. F. Phillips, C. W. Byers, Amos B. Wagner, Austin D. Conway, and Waldo E. Phillips (who is now serving his second term).
Those supervisors who served more than two years were M. F. Phillips, three years; Bentley and Foster, each four years; Nesbitt and Collins, each five years; Conway, six years; Yeckley, seven years ; Hagar and Byers, each eight years, and Haydon, ten years.
PHYSICAL FEATURES
The surface of the township is generally level or slightly undu- lating, and the soil is rich and productive. The northern part was originally covered with heavy timber, while the southern por- tion was mostly what is termed "oak openings." In the south- eastern part there is a considerable low land, originally somewhat swampy, but this has practically all been reclaimed by an extensive system of drainage and is now among the valuable, high-priced lands of the town.
There are several creeks and small streams within the township, the principal ones being Brush creek, a branch of the Paw Paw river which crosses the northwestern corner of the town in a north- erly course, and a branch of the Dowagiac creek which takes its rise in the Lake of the Woods and crosses the southeastern corner of the town in a southerly direction. There are also several small lakes, the principal one being Lake of the Woods, which lies partly in Hamilton and partly in Decatur. The name seems, at the pres- ent time, to be somewhat of a misnomer, as the "woods" by which it was originally surrounded have all disappeared and in their stead are cultivated fields with the village of Decatur within a quarter of a mile of its eastern shore. Originally this was a handsome sheet of water, but its beauty has been somewhat marred by having been partially drained, thus lowering its surface and diminishing its area. However, there is some compensation for this in the increased area of arable land rendered tillable by the draining of the lowlands adjacent to the lake. Other lakes in the town that have been considered of sufficient importance to bear distinctive names are Pond Lily, Pine, Knickerbocker, Osborn, and Johnson.
The southeastern corner of Hamilton is crossed by the line of
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the Michigan Central Railroad, but there is no station within its limits. Hamilton has no village, no postoffice, and neither store nor church building. Its nearest market town is Decatur, situated within about a mile of the eastern boundary of the town, although considerable trading is done in other places. The city of Dowagiac is about six miles south of the southwest corner of the township; the village of Lawrence, four miles north of its north line; the little town of Keeler, three miles west of the west line, and the village of Hartford, about six miles northwest. So that the people do not have to travel far in any direction to find a market place. The population of the township, as given by the census of 1910, was 952, Almena being the only township in the county with a less number of inhabitants.
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