A twentieth century history and biographical record of Branch County, Michigan, Part 3

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

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HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

tells us are the facts and truths of nature in the large region, in exhibiting the facts and truths of nature in the lesser area. On this arena with its physical condition and its previous political relations with France, England and the United States, the 4,016 white inhabitants of Branch county in 1837 began their relation with the new state of Michigan, which that year was admitted as such into the Union. Since that time the inhabitants of the county as a body politic have carried on their life as an organic part of the state of Michigan, and through it also as an organic part of our great American republic, while in numerous other ways than those strictly civil and political the people of the county have entered into the life of the people of the com- monwealth, of the nation and of the world, and have taken the life of these larger realms into their own. The forms and the products of this continuous interaction will be to many, perhaps, the more interesting part of our county's history.

These introductory thoughts indicate the scope of this work and our aims in it. Stated briefly, these aims have been three fold: I. To show how Branch county came into existence as a definite area and what it has been as such. 2. To portray what the life of the people within this area has been. 3. To make the vision of the past a pleasure and a recompense to those who have done anything for the welfare and happiness of Branch county's people and the world thus far, and an incentive and inspiration to all to live for this welfare and happiness in even a higher degree in the future.

In preparing to write this history, it was natural that we should acquaint ourselves with whatever history of the county may have been composed by previous writers. Any such previous work would be sure to be of service in presenting another and later picture of Branch county's life. Considerable of a historical nature relating to the county has been written and printed dur- ing the last fifty years, and much too in the way of biography of persons who have been residents in it. What has been thus done is itself material for our history. Moreover, justice to preceding writers and honesty with our read- ers require that the work of those writers be recognized and that acknowl- edgment be made of its value and use. It is our purpose to give in another place in this volume a complete bibliography of the county. In only two instances, however, have a history of the county and biographies of its resi- dents been printed in book form with contents extensive enough to be prop- erly called a county history or a county biography. We make mention here of these two works, inasmuch as the first one in particular comes into con- sideration in laying out the plan and the periods of the present history. The first one was entitled as follows: "History of Branch County, Michigan, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of its Prominent Men and Pioneers." This history was written by Mr. Crisfield Johnson, and was published by Everts and Abbott of Philadelphia, in 1879. It is a medium sized quarto volume of 347 pages. The second work referred to has the fol- lowing title page: "Portrait and Biographical Album of Branch County, Michigan, containing Full Page Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens of the County, Together with Por-

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

traits and Biographies of all the Governors of the State and the Presidents of the United States. Chicago, Chapman Brothers, 1888." This volume is a smaller sized quarto than the other, but contains 654 pages. The latter part is devoted to Branch county and begins with page 180. thus giving to the county 474 pages.

The former of these works was a real history of the county. The lat- ter was a collection of brief biographies of "prominent and representative citizens of the county," 364 in number, but it contained no history proper apart from the " biographical sketches." The other volume compiled by Mr. Johnson was a fairly full general history of the county as a whole, with a particular history of its one city, its four villages, and its sixteen townships. up to the date of its publication, the year 1879. Since then no such particular history of the county as a whole has been given to the public or attempted until the present work was begun.

We now present the periods into which the entire time of the county's life may be conveniently divided by reason of events and developments in it. These periods will form the general framework which we shall use in building up the present history.

I. From 1828 to 1842: or, from the year of the first white settlement in the county at Bronson to the transfer of the county seat from the village of Branch to Coldwater.

2. From 1842 to 1865: or. from the location of the county seat in Coldwater to the close of the Civil war.

3. From 1865 to 1879; or. from the return home of Branch county's soldiers in the Civil war to the publishing of Mr. Crisfield Johnson's history of the county.

4. From 1879 to 1906; or, from the publishing of Mr. Johnson's history by Everts and Abbott to the publication of The Twentieth Century History of the County by The Lewis Publishing Company of Chicago.

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

CHAPTER II.

THE CREATION AND SURVEY OF THE COUNTY.

Let us now note precisely what and where Branch county is, its area, and how men came to define its boundaries with the precision of civilized custom and to make them permanent. We have already referred to the act by which the county was created, and have quoted from it the exact language in which its area was described and its boundaries established. The language thus used by the legislative council of the territory of Michigan is that in which the United States government describes and bounds the surveyed divi- sions of its public lands. It implied that already, previous to 1829, the sur- veyors of the United States had been over the territory to be made into Branch county, and had divided it into " ranges " of townships " west of the meridian," and into " townships" "south of the base line." These terms assumed that these men had already measured and marked off this land into portions six miles square and containing a certain number of acres.

This work of the United States surveyor must be done before people in the domain of the United States can begin to live upon its land and form such associations with each other as constitute a county. Only on condition of this preliminary work having been done can definite individual ownership exist, and those mutual rights and duties of men with each other be established. which make an organic body such as a township or a county possible. The legislative council of Michigan territory were able to declare where and what the area of our county should be, because the United States measurers of land had already laid their measuring chain upon the land out of which the county was to be made. It was this fact that made it possible, for example, for John Morse in 1830 and Robert H. Abbott in 1831 to each become the owner of "80 acres " now lying within the limits of the City of Coldwater. In 1796 congress enacted the law in accordance with which all the public lands were to be surveyed. The system embodied in this act is called " The Rectangular System." The original act has been repeatedly amended by con- gress, and the methods of making the surveys under it have been continually modified and improved, but the system as such has been used through the hundred years from 1796 to the present time. The entire territory of the present state of Michigan has been surveyed and divided into townships in accordance with this system and with reference to a certain " meridian " and "'base line."

" The meridian " spoken of in the territorial act as determining the loca- tion of Branch county was a north and south line known in the United States survey as " the principal meridian of the peninsula of Michigan." It is a

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

line running due north from the mouth of the Auglaize river, which empties into the Maumee near Defiance, Ohio. "The base line," or the east and west line also mentioned in the act creating the county, is a line crossing the principal meridian at a point 54 miles north of the southern boundary of the state. It now forms the northern boundary of all the counties in the second tier, or of the counties from Wayne on the east to Van Buren on Lake Michigan, the tier next north of Branch. With this principal meridian and this base line established, the surveyors of the general government began to go over the public land of the peninsula of Michigan lying north of Indiana and Ohio, with compass and chain, and to mark trees and set posts for the boundaries of townships and sections and quarter-sections. These survey- ors knew, of course, no names of counties and townships as we know them now, neither did they give names at all to townships or groups of town- ships as they surveyed them. They recorded and dated carefully day by day their measurements and topographical notes in their note-books, thus creating the original " Field Notes," which in Branch county and every county today are of such primary and incalculable importance for titles, deeds, mortgages and all transactions involving buying, selling and owning of land. As they tramped over the surface of the country, measuring and marking it off into portions each exactly six miles square, making a town- ship, they gave no names to the townships, but merely numbered them in their relation to meridian and base line, according to the ingenious but simple system, the principles of which were struck in the Land Ordinance of 1785, but which appeared fairly well developed in the Congressional Act of 1796.

Mr. Silas Farmer, in his " Michigan Book " of 1901, says : " The pub- lic surveys of the region including Michigan were begun in 1815." In the " Outline History of Michigan," contained in the Legislative Manual of 1905. the statement is made that " the survey of public lands began in 1816." We shall see that there is a sense in which each of these authorities is correct as to the year in which the United States surveyors began laying the founda- tions of the white man's civilization on the public lands of the Michigan peninsula. The earliest date appended to any part of their records or " field notes " of their survey of what afterward became Branch county, is January 23, 1825. It was thus ten years after the beginning of their work in the Michigan country that the surveyor's chain was first laid down within the limits of our county. The eastern boundary of Branch county was stated in the creating act to be "the line between ranges four and five west of the meridian." Its distance west from the meridian was accordingly twenty- four miles. The surveyors must necessarily start from the principal merid- ian in measuring off their townships, and work east and west from it. In working westward from it towards our area, they must first lay out the townships which are now Hillsdale county, as this is the first county west of the meridian in the southern tier of counties, and indeed is the only county between the meridian and Branch county. The exact location of the townships destined to become Branch county would be dependent upon the previous location of the townships to become Hillsdale county, and the

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

dependence of all these townships of both counties was dependent upon the Michigan meridian. This dependence was so close and so important that a glance at the survey of Hillsdale's townships and at the history of the meridian itself will be interesting and will make our own history more com- plete.

The Territorial Act of October 29, 1829, creating Branch county, at the same time also created and set off all the counties touching it on its three Michigan sides, namely, Hillsdale, Jackson, Calhoun, Kalamazoo and St. Joseph. The meridian itself was made the eastern boundary of the county to be called Hillsdale. This meridian has already been stated to be a line starting from the mouth of the Auglaize river in Ohio and running due north. But how come it to start from that point? Mr. Crisfield Johnson in his History of Branch County, p. 29, has indicated the answer. In a treaty made with the Indians November 17, 1807, they ceded their rights to certain land. The exact language of the treaty describing the western boundary of this land was in part the following: "To the mouth of the great Au Glaize river; thence running due north until it intersects a parallel of latitude, to be drawn from the outlet of Lake Huron, which forms the river Sinclair." Evidently the boundary line in this Indian treaty of 1807 is the origin of the Michigan meridian, but when it was officially deter- mined upon and proclaimed as such, or when the actual survey of it from the mouth of the Auglaize was begun, the present writer has not yet with certainty discovered.

However, as to when that part of the meridian lying within the state of Michigan was actually run, the book of Field Notes of Hillsdale County in the office of its county surveyor shows us with almost conclusive certainty. The eastern boundary of all the townships in the easternmost range of Hills- dale county is identical with the principal meridian. All these townships are in " range I west," that is, in the first range west of the meridian. The present names of these townships from south to north are Wright, Pittsford. Wheatland and Somerset. At the end of the field notes of the survey of the " East Boundary " of Wright township, or T 8 S, R I W. in the Hills- dale County Book of Field Notes, is written the following: "Oct. 6, 1815, Benj. Hough, D. S." The notes of the eastern boundaries of the other three townships are subscribed in nearly the same manner. The notes of Pittsford, or T 7 S, R I W, are subscribed thus: "Surveyed in 1815 by Benj. Hough, D. S."; of Wheatland, " Oct. 6, 1815. Surveyed by Benj. Hough, D. S."; and of Somerset, " Surveyed in 1815 by Benj. Hough, D. S." These subscriptions or certifications, copied from the manuscript volume of Field Notes in the office of the county surveyor of Hillsdale county, are in them- selves almost decisive proof that all that part of the principal meridian of Michigan forming the eastern boundary of Hillsdale county was run and marked out in 1815 and probably in the month of October. Quite likely nothing more was done by the surveyors in the year 1815 than the running of the principal meridian. This may be thought of as the beginning of the public survey of the region, and in this sense the survey of the public lands

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HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

of Michigan may be said to have begun in 1815. In the stricter sense, the survey did not begin until the surveyors actually began to lay off town- ships, and this probably did not commence until 1816.

But while the eastern boundaries of Hillsdale's eastern range of town- ships were all run in 1815, none of the other boundaries of those townships nor any boundary of any other township was run until in 1823. Then in 1823, 1824 and 1825 the country which now forms the area of Hillsdale county was marked off by the United States surveyors into six-mile square townships in ranges west of the meridian and south of the base line, and designated accordingly. . In the Field Notes of Hillsdale County over the date, " Feb. 3, 1825," and over the name, " John Mullett, D. S.", stands a note which shows that on that day the surveyors touched territory that is now Branch county. That note is this: "set post cor. T 5 & 6 S, Rs 4 & 5 W." This was the post now marking the common corner of the two townships in Hillsdale now known as Litchfield and Allen, and the two in Branch, now known as Butler and Quincy.

We thus see that in working westward from the principal meridian, the surveyors reached what was to become Branch county land on the 3d of February, 1825, or a week or ten days before. We have already noted that the earliest date of a day's survey entered in the Branch County Book of Field Notes was January 23, 1825. A photographic fac-simile of the page on which this date stands is inserted in this volume, it being perhaps a repre- sentation of the oldest official document originating within our county. The surveyor who signed his name to these field notes and entered this carliest date appears to have been William Brookfield. The latest date given in the volume of Field Notes is June .12. 1820. The time during which the United States surveyors were occupied in the survey of our county lands was about four and a half years.

The men who, during these four and a half years of 1825 to 1829. actually went over the land of Branch county as United States surveyors were John Mullett, Robert Clarke, Jr., William Brookfield, and Orange Risdon. The original " field notes " or records which they made of their surveys are to the people of Branch county without question the most import- ant documents in existence. A few statements as to the history of these "notes " will be of interest to those who see the important things in a county's life even though they may not be conspicuous. At the close of each day, these men wrote off in small blank books the records of the lines they had run, their direction, the exact distance measured, the posts they had set, and the trees or other objects they had marked to indicate the location of their lines. The original note books written out by these surveyors were deposited with the land commissioner of the state after its organization. They are now in the office of the commissioner in Lansing. In November, 1905, the present writer called at the rooms of the state land office in the capitol at Lansing, and at his request the land commissioner, William H. Rose, kindly put the original note books of Branch county as written up by the United States surveyors into his hands for examination there. These

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

books are in general about four inches wide, six inches long, and about a quarter of an inch thick, and contain about thirty leaves. Each book con- tains commonly the records of the survey of one township, that is, of the lines which were run to form the boundaries of the township itself, and its sections, and quarter-sections. With an eager interest the writer took in his hand the book containing the Field Notes of T 5 S, R 5 W, now the township of Butler, the features of which may serve as an example of the entire set. The book contains thirty-two leaves. On the first page is a map of the township, with its sections numbered from I to 36, and with its streams and some other topographical features indicated. Underneath the map is written, " Recorded S. Morrison," which is understood to mean, that the notes of this book have been copied into books of record in the United States Land Office in Washington, and that the fact and the correctness of the recorded copy were certified to by S. Morrison. The pages of this par- ticular little book are not numbered. On the leaf following that having the map, the notes, written in ink, begin. Apparently the notes were made during the day or at the close of each day's work, and when a day's work was done and the notes of it were written out, the date of the day was ap- pended to them. The first date thus written is "Oct. 30," but the year is not written; then follow notes and dates consecutively until "Nov. 7," im- plying that the surveyors worked nine days in succession in going through the timbered lands and swamps and streams and openings of Butler town- ship as they were in 1825, one of which days must of course have been Sunday. Thirteen dates in all are entered in the notes, the last being " Nov. 13," all without the year. On the last page, however, stands this entry, " Certified this 21st day of January, 1826. Robert Clark, Jr., Dep. Sur."

The " field notes " in these original small note books of the U. S. deputy surveyors were afterward copied into books of record in Washington, as was illustrated above in the case of the original book of Robert Clark, Jr., con- taining the notes of Butler township. When the survey of the entire state was completed, the original books themselves were given into the possession of the state land commissioner in Lansing. The survey was finished in 1857, and May IIth of that year the originals were deposited with the commissioner.

The records contained in these note books have been very important in the life of the county from its beginning continuously. They are the ultimate authority of the county surveyor in determining the boundaries of townships and of farms owned and bought and sold. While these books in Lansing were the only legal records of these surveys, the people of the county were obliged to obtain certified copies of the records from Lansing when needed. It would seem that this was done until 1871. At present the county surveyor of Branch county has in his official possession in one large book a copy of all the field notes contained in the small note books as made by the U. S. surveyors in surveying the entire area of the county. This book is the official "Field Notes" of the county. At the close of the notes, on page 579, stands the written certification of E. H. Parker.

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

deputy commissioner in the land office at Lansing, with the date of March 22, 1871, that these notes are a correct and complete copy of the originals. There exists only one other copy of these notes, it is believed, and this copy is now in possession of Mr. Ianthus D. Miner, a resident of Coldwater. Mr. Miner obtained this copy from Dr. John H. Bennett, who had it made from the county's book.

The act by which our county was created and its boundaries named described its eastern and western boundaries, as we have seen, by lines be- tween " ranges," and its northern boundary by " the line between townships 4 and 5 south of the base line." Its southern boundary, however, was described in different terms, namely, "the boundary line between this terri- to. , and the state of Indiana." The year of this act was 1829, and it recog- nizes the boundary of Indiana as already established. The boundaries of states are determined by Congress. The act authorizing the formation of the state of Indiana and naming its boundaries was approved by the presi- dent April 19, 1816. The state by this act was to be bounded on the north " by an east and west line drawn through a point ten miles north of the southern extreme of Lake Michigan," and extending from that point on

Lake Michigan to the north and south line forming the western boundary of Ohio. This is the first time that this line appears in any official acts of the national or state governments. The people within the boundaries named responded to the enabling act of Congress by electing representatives who were to meet in convention at Corydon, June 10. 1816. The convention was in session from June 10 to 29. It accepted the boundary proposed by the enabling act, and December 11th of the same year the state of Indiana was admitted into the Union with its northern land boundary a line drawn as described, from a point on Lake Michigan straight east until it meets the western boundary of Ohio extended northward. This northern boundary of Indiana, thus established in 1816, remained unchanged from that time on. It became consequently a line to be recognized by the U. S. surveyors in their survey of the public lands and their laying out these lands into townships from certain meridians and base lines. Some nine years before any of the land now forming Branch county had been touched by the U. S. surveyors this northern boundary of Indiana had been authoritatively pro- claimed on paper, though the boundary was not actually run by surveyors until 1827 and 1828. Moreover, when the United States surveyors began laying off the public lands of the Indiana country into rectangular townships, they did it from another meridian and another base line, and when the year 1816 determined the northern boundary of the state of Indiana, it deter- mined also the southern limit of the country to be laid off into townships from Michigan's meridian and base line. Hence, when in working south from our base line in laying off their six-mile square townships, the sur- veyors came to the Indiana line, they had reached the limit of land to be made into townships from the Michigan base line and meridian.

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A twentieth century history and biographical record of Branch County, Michigan, Part 3

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