A twentieth century history and biographical record of Branch County, Michigan, Part 10

Author: Collin, Henry P
Publication date: 1906
Publisher: New York : Lewis Publishing
Number of Pages: 1198

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It should also be noted that the block of land on which the court house and jail are now situated was squared off to its present proportions at this time, when the board purchased a lot of land fronting on Pearl street for seven rods and running north fifteen rods and three feet, "excepting a strip ten feet by sixty feet out of the southwest corner."

To finance the building operations it was resolved that bonds of five hun- dred dollars each to the amount of forty thousand dollars should be issued, dated July 1, 1887, with interest at five per cent, payable in four equal instal- ments on the first of March of each of the years 1889, 1890, 1891, and 1892. There were two local bids for the bonds, that accepted coming from Mr. George Starr and reading as follows : "I will give par and $425 with accrued interest to the first day of any month within one year from the date of bonds,

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

for the court house bonds in lots of ten thousand dollars until the whole amount of forty thousand dollars in said bonds are delivered to me."

The preliminary arrangements completed, the actual work of construction was soon begun. The plans of Mr. M. H. Parker, a Coldwater architect, were adopted, and at the June session of 1887 the committee was authorized to let the contract for the construction. In the following August the committee was authorized to tear down the old building, and provision was made for the accommodation of the various offices during the time of building, the clerk, sheriff, treasurer and superintendent of the poor being quartered in the old postoffice building, the register of deeds in another building, rooms in the Masonic block being rented for the judge of probate, while the circuit court sessions were held in Armory Hall.

Crocker and Hudnutt, of Big Rapids, Michigan, who were awarded the building contract as the lowest bidder, rapidly pushed the work of construc- tion, and since the summer of 1888 the present court house has been in use for the transaction of all county business. The building committee made its final report on August 1, 1888, and a few days later the report was approved and the building formally accepted as complete. At that time the committee reported the total receipts for the building of the court house to be $52,098.99. and the total disbursements as $50,131.34, leaving a balance to the people of $1.976.65. Not only the financial management, but the entire transaction was creditable to those officially concerned.

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

CHAPTER XI. SETTLEMENT AND BEGINNINGS (CONTINUED).

QUINCY.

The preceding pages have carried the narrative of settlement and begin- nings along the Chicago road up to the last township traversed by that thor- oughfare, namely, Quincy. One of the main propositions with which we started this account of settlement was the remarkable influence of the Chicago road. Nowhere is it more graphically illustrated than in the case of Quincy township. According to the original land entries, the locations for the year 1830 were chosen on sections 12, 13, 14, the last two sections being bisected by the road ; the locations for 1832 were on section 15 : those for 1833, on sec- tion 19; and those for 1834. on sections 17, 18 and 20-all being on or near the road. Only one circumstance can qualify in any way the deductions to be drawn from these facts-namely, that the best land for settlement lay along the central area traversed by the Chicago road, the "prairies" and the oak openings being situated in this portion, while both the north and the south sides of the township were originally heavily timbered.

The first settler who came along the road into this township was Horris Willson, who came from Detroit, where he had lived since 1825, his native place being Batavia, New York. His land purchase, which was the first in the township and was made in June. 1830, consisted of three hundred and twenty acres in one body but lying in sections 12, 13 and 14. Being a carpenter, with the assistance of a hired man, he constructed a house of hewn logs on the north side of the Chicago road in section 14, and soon afterward opened it to the public as a tavern. To quote the words of another, Mr. Will- son "purchased the first land, built the first house, plowed the first furrow, planted the first corn, sowed the first oats, and kept the first tavern in the township of Quincy." He did not live long to enjoy the fruits of his pioneer labors. Ellis Russell kept the tavern for his widow after his death. Mr. Willson's daughter became the wife of Dr. E. G. Berry.

A pioneer whose connection with the township was longer and who became one of the prominent men in the early history of the county was James G. Corbus, who was born in Detroit in 1804. and came to Branch county in June. 1832. It has already been stated that he was a contractor during the summer of that year on a portion of the Chicago road in Bronson township, and it is possible that this work led him to locate in Branch county. Anyhow, in the fall of that year, he purchased some land in section 13, and on taking up his actual residence in 1833 he began the erection of the first frame house.

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

When this was completed it was also opened for the accommodation of the traveling public. This house was located on the north side of the Chicago road and almost opposite the road since called Maple street. The house stood for many years. In it was organized the first Sunday school and the first temperance society of the township. It afforded shelter to many of the work- men engaged in the construction of the Lake Shore railroad, which destroyed the importance of the Chicago road and at the same time took away the patronage of the inn. Mr. Corbus was the second treasurer of Branch county.

As already stated, the year 1832 showed a land entry on section 15, but as this has particular reference to the village of Quincy, it will be well to omit its consideration at present and speak first of the course of settlement in the other portions of the township.

On the western side of the township, in section 19, Joseph L. Hartsough entered land in 1833, and in this same section Rice T. Arnold, the father of William P. and Anselum, soon after purchased land. Henry Van Hyning entered land in section 17 in 1834, and about the same time settlement began in sections 18 and 20. Not until 1835 did the land entries reach beyond the central belt of the township. In that year sections I and 2, on the north, and section 30, showed entries, but by that time all of the two middle rows of sections were entered in whole or in part.

Quincy township and village have shown the slow and steady growth that marks the purely agricultural community. In the period of pioneer years which we are now discussing, scarcely any occupation was followed except farming. The population spread out over the thirty-six sections of the town, and in time, by a process of natural selection, began grouping around the civic center. Here settled at any early day some men of unusual personality and strength of character, whose influence was exerted for village life, and gradually there appeared such institutions as the church and school, the post- office, the store, and representatives of the trades and the professions. The point to be emphasized is, that for many years the community which became Quincy village was the central settlement of Quincy township and without the sharp distinctions which we have seen marked off the village of Cold- water so soon from the rest of the township. This natural growth and ab- sence of rapid business changes may account in a measure for the appearance of permanence, of continuity in life and institutions, and the wholesome civic interest and pride, which impress themselves most definitely on one who studies and observes the history of Quincy village.

On October 16, 1832, the first land was entered in section 15, it being in the southwest corner of the section, with its west boundary the main street of Quincy village. The course of history, we might say the accidents of his- tory, caused the locator of this land to be honored as the pioneer of Quincy village, the man who made the first improvements which the thousands of after generations would enjoy and carry on to greater development. This pioneer was John Cornish, who was living in Girard township at the time he made his land purchase at Quincy, being one of the pioneers of the former

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

township. He did not put up a log cabin and move his family to his new pur- chase until the fall of 1833. In the spring of 1834 he began the erection of a frame house on the north side of the Chicago road and where Main street now intersects that thoroughfare, this being the site of the present "Quincy House." As soon as this house was ready he opened it as a tavern. That event marked a beginning. Travelers along the road, on reaching the beau- tiful prairie which surrounded this house, chose to stop there for entertain- ment. Being situated at the center of the township. the electors made the Cornish tavern the place of their first township meeting. Mr. Cornish was moderator at that meeting and was elected one of the justices of the peace. He rented his tavern in the spring of 1836 to Pearson Anson, and soon after sold the property to Joseph Berry, and then lived in his first log house until he could move to a new home on a farm in the township.

But for the first year after the establishment of his tavern. Mr. Cornish was practically alone so far as permanent neighbors were concerned. Other parts of the county were attracting the majority of the immigrants. But in 1835. a year which gave hundreds of strong and able citizens to Branch county, Quincy township and especially its central area received a great im- pulse in settlement.

In 1834 Joseph Berry, one of the several sons of Samuel Berry, the family being originally from New Hampshire but at this time residents of Chautauqua county, New York, had come to Branch county and spent the summer at the Arnold home in east Coldwater township. His enthusiastic descriptions of this region, recited again and again when he had returned to his home in New York state, were sufficient to induce all the Berry family to become pioneers. The father came out in the spring of 1835 and after pros- pecting as far west as Illinois, in the summer purchased land in the north- east corner of section 21 and began building a frame house near the Chicago road. In the same spring his son. Enos G., had come to Branch county, and in the fall Joseph arrived with the household effects. Ezra, the youngest of the boys, then fifteen years old, arrived about the same time, having driven the two cows that belonged to the family the entire distance from New York to Michigan.

The Berry home, which was located on the south side of the road about three-quarters of a mile west of Main street. became a hotel, and the boy Ezra assisted his father in its management. In 1836 the hotel was leased to another party, and Mr. Samuel Berry built for his home a small house a few rods east. This house is also of historic importance, for when the first postoffice was established in this vicinity it was located at the Berry home, in 1837. Dr. Enos G. Berry was the first postmaster, and it is of well established tradition that a bushel basket was the receptacle in which the mail was kept. Ezra Berry, however, performed the active duties of the office, and was gener- ally called upon to examine the contents of the basket.

The Berry family, father and sons, owned most of the land on which the village of Quincy was afterwards built. Samuel and Dr. E. G. were the original purchasers of a large part of section 21, and Joseph Berry bought of

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

John Cornish the southwest corner of section 15, and also owned a large part of section 22. At the time now under consideration this part of the town- ship had few evidences of village life. Dr. Berry was the physician for the people of the vicinity, besides being postmaster. In 1835 Daniel Bagley had arrived at the settlement. Buying an acre of ground from Mr. Cornish, he put up a frame house on the north side of the Chicago road and on the south side a blacksmith shop, where he attended to the mechanical needs of the community. This was located where Dally street now intersects Chicago road. Consequently, a blacksmith shop, a postoffice, two hotels and a physi- cian were the elements of village life that would have been found here in 1837.

But several other settlers had come in during 1836 and 1837 who were to take a prominent part in the affairs of this township. In 1835 John Broughton, a native of Vermont, had come from Lorain county, Ohio, and had located on the Chicago road just over the line in Coldwater township. In the double log house which stood adjacent to the brick kiln (one of the first brick-making establishments in the county), he kept a tavern for the first year, but in 1836 moved to the Quincy settlement. On the north side of the Chicago road, about opposite what is now Grove street, Silas Hamilton (who was a settler of the fall of 1835) had begun the erection of a large log house. This was still unfinished when Mr. Broughton bought the prop- erty, completed the building, and moved his family to the new home in December, 1836. Just across the road from the Broughton home, the same Mr. Hamilton had erected a little shanty to serve as his first shelter, and here, about 1837, a cobbler named Thomas Valier had a shoe shop.

One other settler in 1836 deserves mention. James M. Burdick, who came to Branch county and spent the year 1831 in the employ of Abraham F. Bolton near Coldwater, and then lived in Hillsdale county for several years, moved to Quincy township in the spring of 1836, locating on section 24, which was his home during many years of worthy citizenship.

During all this time the area of the present Quincy township had not been organized separately, and as we know, the first Quincy township com- prised also what are now Algansee and California. Therefore, at the first town meeting, which occurred in April, 1836, some of the men who took part were resident south of the present south line of the township. But almost all the officers chosen came from the settlers whose names have been mentioned, the first official list of the township comprising the following : Enos G. Berry, David W. Baker, John Cornish, James G. Corbus, Samuel Beach, Samuel H. Berry, Luther Briggs, James Adams, Joseph T. Burnham, Pearson Anson, James M. Burdick, Griswold Burnham, Conrad Rapp, Thomas Wheeler, Joseph L. Hartsough.

In October, 1837, Quincy township, still comprising an area of two full townships and one fractional, had 569 inhabitants. Just what per cent of these lived in the present township of Quincy cannot be stated, but it is certain that they were the great majority, and furthermore that they lived in the sections convenient to the Chicago road. This concentration of popu- lation is further proved by the location of the first three schools of the town-

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

ship. The first school house, of logs, was built in 1837 on land now owned by the railroad in Quincy village; the second, built the same year, was in the "Hog Creek district," in the eastern part of the township; and the third, in 1838, was at the west edge of section 20 on the Chicago road.

BISHOP CHASE AND GILEAD TOWNSHIP.

The Chicago road was the avenue by which Bishop Philander Chase came to Branch county. The story of his settlement in Gilead, apart from the importance attaching to it as the historical beginning of Gilead township. is of even more interest for the threads of fact concerning the county in general and the conditions and customs of the time.

Bishop Philander Chase was born in Cornish, New Hampshire, in 1775, graduated from Dartmouth College in 1795, studied for the ministry of the Episcopal church, and in 1819 was consecrated bishop of Ohio, the first bishop of the Episcopal church west of the Alleghany mountains. He was the founder of Kenyon College in Ohio, which is regarded as his greatest achievement, but which was also the source of his greatest personal disap- pointment. For, being unable to carry out his plans for that institution be- cause of the interference and persecution from his enemies, he felt it his duty to resign the episcopate of the diocese and the presidency of the college, which he did in September, 1831. On Easter day of 1832 he administered holy communion for the last time in Ohio, and on the following morning set out on horseback with a friend, Bezaleel Wells, with the intention of visiting a son of the latter at Prairie Ronde in Kalamazoo county, Michigan. It was also a half-expressed hope of the bishop to find in the course of his explora- tions a region where he might found a home and build up the institutions of the church and education in accordance with the plans which were still so cherished by him.

Going to Monroe and from there to Adrian and to the Chicago road, the party came on through Jonesville. Coldwater and Bronson's prairie. At this point we may quote the bishop's own " Reminiscences," written in 1847, only a few years before his death. "It was Friday night when they reached a place called Adams' Mills on one of the streams of the St. Joseph river. ' And who is this? ' said the landlord of the log-cabin tavern to Mr. Wells. in a low voice. ' Is he come out to purchase lands? ' . He may purchase if he finds some that suits him.' Mr. Judson, for that was the man's name, then strode through the room and raising his voice. said aloud, as if still speaking to Mr. Wells, 'Much more beautiful scenery and richer land are to be found in this neighborhood than further west. And men would find it so if they would only stop, go about and examine.' These words were meant for the car of the writer. He took them so and inquired, ' Where is this good land you speak of?' 'Within eight miles of this, to the southeast, there is a charming, limpid lake, surrounded with rising burr-oak and prairie lands, in- terspersed with portions of lofty timber for building. The streams are of clear and running water, and like the lake, abound in the finest kind of fish ; and

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

what is quite an essential point, these lands are now open for market, and (except some choice sugar-tree eighties already taken by persons from In- diana) may be entered by anyone going to White Pigeon where the land office is kept.' 'Will you show me these lands if I stay with you a day or two?' 'If I do not, Mr. Adams, the owner of the saw mill, will. I will furnish him with a horse; and Thomas Holmes, who lives near us, shall go along with you on foot with his rifle to kill game and keep off the wolves.'

" The next day was Saturday. Notice was given to the few settlers in the neighborhood of these then solitary mills that divine service would be celebrated and a sermon preached on the morrow. The day proved fine and nearly all the inhabitants attended. This was the first time the prayer book had ever been used for public worship in all the St. Joseph country.

" On Monday Mr. Judson's pony was made ready, and Mr. Adams and Thomas Holmes were in waiting. The weather was mild and the streams of water soon crossed. The path we fell on was an old Indian trail leading from northwest to southeast. On this trail we had traveled mostly through grass land, thinly studded with trees, till the eight miles spoken of by Mr. Judson were judged to have been finished; when, on the left of us, we came in sight of a lake of pure water and sloping banks thinly covered with trees, having grass under them all around. The lake itself was of an irregular shape, and about a mile and a half long. It had a promontory running into it, covered with trees of peculiar majestic shape, in the manner of the finest rookeries in England. All things were like magic. Such charming scenery seemed to rivet the beholder to the spot. This was no wonder ; for it was the first time that any such lands had ever met his eye. " The remainder of the day was spent in riding round this charming region, which the writer named ' Gilead ;' a name it still bears. Before night a family was discovered to have just moved on to these beautiful grounds ; a few logs had been rolled one upon the other, around a space of nine or ten feet square, and a covering put over it, six feet high on one side and five feet high on the other. In this was Mr. John Croy, his wife and three or four children. *

" The writer soon after this went to the land office, thirty miles to the west, and entered and paid for a farm in this charming land of Gilead, in- cluding the promontory, or 'English Rookery' just described. The price was one dollar and a quarter per acre, and no more. As he returned from White Pigeon he engaged a carpenter to find materials and draw them to the newly named place, Gilead, sixteen miles, and put up and cover a framed room for a ploughman and his family, fourteen feet square. The ploughman was hired nearly at the same time to break up fifty acres of prairie turf-land. All this was accomplished in a short time, so as to allow of a crop of sod corn and potatoes the same year. This was very difficult to accomplish, having little help in planting besides himself, for all the neighbors in the surrounding settlements were called to bear arms in the 'Sac War' then raging in the state of Illinois, with the famous Black Hawk as its head."

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

After the planting was over the bishop went back to his family in Ohio, and then returned to Gilead with his sons in July, 1832. They set to work . hewing timber and framing it for a house of five rooms, digging a cellar, and making preparations for the arrival of the rest of the family. He also looked out a proper place for a saw mill, which he selected on Prairie river at the outlet of Island Pond on the east side of section 4, and purchased the adjacent woodland. This was the first saw mill in the town, and the site continued to be used until recently. The bishop says in his reminiscences : " The fenced fields were enlarged, and every year produced more and more. The number of horned cattle increased to more than one hundred. A mill was buit on the stream, for the preparing of lumber to erect a schoolhouse; and all things seemed to flourish and succeed beyond his fondest expectation."

The home of Bishop Chase while in Gilead was located on the west line of section 9, at the site of the present residence of Mr. Ed Keeslar. When preparing to erect his house a few years ago, Mr. Kesslar discovered the re- mains of the foundation of the Chase house. At one spot he found a depres- sion that required several loads of earth to make solid, and at this point no doubt was located the well or perhaps the cellar. As mentioned in the chap- ter on education, a schoolhouse was built, and this stood to the south of the residence, and just west of where Mr. Kesslar's barn now stands.

The bishop remained in this place of " exile " as he felt it to be, for three years. He attracted many other settlers to this township and his work as a pioneer must not be underestimated, but so far as founding a church or carrying out any other ambitious plans he may have cherished on coming here, his success was little and the members of his church numbered only a handful. Then in the spring of 1835 came his appointment as bishop of the newly formed diocese of Illinois, and his acceptance preceded by only a few months the removal of his home and active influence from Branch county. He went to Illinois to look over the field of work, and on returning to Gilead made preparations for a visit to England, where he spent the fall and winter of 1835 in soliciting subscriptions for his new work.

While in England the bishop received a letter from his wife in Gilead which cannot fail to be of interest to those who prize the history of that por- tion of Branch county. This letter, containing so many side-lights on the Gilead community, was dated December 23. 1835. and reads in part as fol- lows :

"Last Saturday night we went to bed in apparent security, but about twelve o'clock a slight noise, like the kindling of a fire in a stove. startled me. I sprang from bed and throwing open the dining room door, saw the flames had burst from the upper part of the chimney into the garret. A cry of fire instantly assembled all the family. A tub of water was in the kitchen, and three pailsful in as many seconds were thrown on the fire. It was, I saw. in vain; the fire had seized the roof; and I bid them lose no time but throw out as fast as possible. My first care was your sermon box, and then the box of English letters, with your letters to myself from England, certificates. and three hundred dollars in money received for sales of cattle.

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

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A twentieth century history and biographical record of Branch County, Michigan, Part 10

Author: Collin, Henry P Publication date: 1906 Publisher: New York : Lewis Publishing Number of Pages: 1198

Author: Collin, Henry P
Publication date: 1906
Publisher: New York : Lewis Publishing
Number of Pages: 1198