USA > Michigan > Branch County > A twentieth century history and biographical record of Branch County, Michigan > Part 5
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The first state law on the subject of drainage was passed in 1856. This act created a drain commissioner for each township, who should have juris- diction over all the drains entirely within his township; while one county drain commissioner exercised supervision over the drains in which two or more townships were concerned. This created an unwieldy system. Seven- teen men, with varying views as to the usefulness and practicability of drain- age work, and few if any possessed of the engineering skill needed in such construction, formed a body without the concentrated ability needed in sci-
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HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY
entific drain-making. Nevertheless, the sum total of their work reclaimed or benefited thousands of acres in the county.
In June, 1897, an act of the legislature took effect abolishing the office of township drain commissioner, and put all the drains of the county under the jurisdiction of the county drain commissioner. It further provided that the new county commissioner should collate and systematize the drainage records, which hitherto had been very imperfectly kept by the township com- missioners. This task of recording, alone, has consumed a large part of the commissioner's time, and it is due to the present commissioner. D. E. W'eage. to state that the records and plats belonging to this branch of the county's business are thoroughly well made and arranged. Mr. Weage has been com- missioner the greater part of the time since the office was created, and it has been under the new law that the county's drainage has, in the main, become systematic and scientific.
It has been thought well to present a brief account of the important feat- ures of the drainage work in the various townships of the county. Butler township, which is one of the four that have received greatest benefit from the work, has forty-five public drains wholly or partly within its borders. The land of this township is largely a clay subsoil. originally covered with heavy timber, and hence lacking, over a great portion, in natural drainage. More land has been reclaimed in this township than in any other. The most important drain is known as the Warren Brook ditch, which crosses the township from east to west, almost centrally over the area between Hog creek and Tekonsha creek. This drain was constructed in the seventies. Another drain. crossing the northeast corner of the township, from Hillsdale county into Calhoun, will. when completed, reclaim five hundred acres and benefit about fifteen hundred acres in Butler.
Girard township, whose most conspicuous feature is the beautiful and fertile prairie in the center, has required as little artificial drainage as any township in the county. There are about twelve public drains, the two most important being a continuation of the Warren Brook and the Tekonsha Creek, which come from Butler. the former finding an outlet in Hog creek.
Union township, though originally thickly wooded, has more natural drainage than Butler. Its thirty public drains affect about five sections of its area. The largest drains are Buell No. 10, in sections 19. 30 and 31 : and Union No. 36, in sections 2. 3. 11, 13, 14, and 24, affecting a large area in the northeast corner of the township.
Sherwood township is cut up with natural water courses, chiefly the St. Joseph river, and consequently its eighteen public drains are comparatively short. The Kilbourn, Blackwell and Fimple drains are the largest.
In Matteson township are twenty-five public drains, none of them ex- tensive. No. 16 and No. 17 being the largest. Nevertheless, drainage has added materially to the agricultural wealth of this township. Along the . courses of several of these drains lie large areas of peat or muck lands, and since they have become available for cultivation the owners have engaged in
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HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY
mint-raising, a crop that is becoming a strong asset in the agriculture of southern Michigan, and which is best grown on the reclaimed swamp lands. With an average yield an acre of such mint land as is found along drain No. 17 will produce sixty pounds of mint oil, for which the market price is three dollars per pound, a large income from the land and labor expended.
Batavia township is crossed from northeast to southwest by the swampy valley of Mill creek. The principal drainage work to be done in this town is the straightening and dredging of this sluggish stream, some work having already been done. Altogether Batavia has thirty-three drains, the largest being county drain No. 5, in sections 6, 7, 17, 20.
In Coldwater township are twenty-three drains. The most important are drain No. 15, Benton Pond and Williams No. 28. These three especially concern the city of Coldwater. Benton Pond was constructed to take the storm sewerage from the second ward, while No. 15 and No. 28 were also constructed mainly for the city. The city is at the bottom of a watershed of about five square miles extending east into Quincy township. In freshet seasons the drainage from this area not infrequently spread over the prairie and caused inundations in the city. The municipality therefore constructed a drain along its eastern border to divert this water, in 1904, and after it had proved ineffective against a recurrence of the flood, the county took charge of the drain and improved it and made it county drain No. 15.
Quincy township has thirty-four drains, the largest being No. 8, which was laid out in 1861, but did not become fully effective until two years ago, when, after the expenditure of ten thousand dollars, it drained and reclaimed a large amount of land in the township.
An interesting bit of history may be told in connection with Quincy drainage. In 1878 was formed the "Quincy Chain Lake Channel Company," the president of which was James Donovan of Quincy, and the secretary and treasurer was R. W. Berry. These men and their associates proposed to dredge out a navigable channel connecting the chain of lakes in Quincy, Al- gansee and Ovid townships, so as to afford a continuous water way from Marble lake to Coldwater lake; in other words, to connect the headwaters of both branches of the Coldwater river, the east branch of that stream having its origin in Marble lake, and the west branch rising from Coldwater lake. The purpose of the channel company was to make a continuous water course of some twenty miles' length, affording magnificent fishing and pleasure resorts. The enterprise was begun with much popular enthusiasm and the channel was actually dredged out and completed according to program.
About that time it was discovered that the surface of Marble lake was eight inches higher than that of Coldwater lake. It had previously been con- tended that the lake were of equal level, and that the connecting channel would have no effect on the flow of the water though their natural outlets. But as a matter of fact, Marble lake being the higher of the two, and the new channel affording a freer escape for the waters than the natural river bed, the result would have been for Marble lake to empty its waters through the chain
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HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY
of lakes and thence by way of the west branch of the Coldwater river, while the east branch of the river would receive a greatly diminished supply and might eventually become entirely dry.
As is known, the Quincy branch of the Coldwater supplied the W. A. Coombs mills at Coldwater with power. As soon as he saw that the opera- tions of the Channel Company would threaten his water supply, Mr. Coombs secured an injunction against Mr. Donovan and his associates preventing them from diverting the waters of Marble lake from its former outlet. The courts upheld this injunction and the Channel Company was compelled to fill up part of the channel, effectually preventing them from carrying out the broad plan they had contemplated.
Algansee township has thirty-seven drains. Most important of these, and the largest in Branch county, is the Pridgeon and Warner drain, which was completed in 1905 at a cost of twenty thousand dollars. This ditch also drains a large portion of California township.
In Ovid township are eighteen drains. The largest is the Betts drain. which was dug in 1901, its course lying in sections 6, 7, 8, 18, 19, 29, 30, 32. All of section 29, as well as portions of several other sections, was long known as " Grass Lake," and the land was sold again and again for taxes, being totally unfit for use. The old drain No. 7, which passed through it, did little to reclaim the land. Since the completion of the Betts drain prac- tically all this submerged land has been reclaimed.
Bethel township has for years known the value of drains. Elias C. Tozier now deceased, was township drain commissioner for about twenty- five years, laid out most of the drains during his term of service, and the results of his careful and energetic work make his name deserving of men- tion in this connection. Bethel now has thirty-six drains, all of about equal importance and size, running over from one to three sections.
Bronson township has thirty-two drains, the largest being county drain No. 10, built in 1861 and running through sections 13, 14, 15, 16, 20, 21, 23 and 29.
Noble township has not required much artificial drainage. There are eleven drains, Blosser drain and Noble drains No. 4 and No. 5 being the largest.
In Gilead township a large acreage in the central portion had little value until it was cleared and drained. Lang's drain, running through this sec- tion from Pleasant lake, has lowered the waters to such an extent that at the present time the north shore line of that lake has receded south of the state line. Drain No. 39 is also a large drain. There are seventeen public ditches in the township.
Kinderhook township has ten drains. Kinderhook No. 4, which is the. largest, passes from the center of the town out through the lakes into Gilead.
California township has fifteen drains, the most important being the Pridgeon and Warner drain already mentioned in connection with Algansee.
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HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY
CHAPTER IV.
THE INDIANS AND THE EARLY SETTLERS' LIFE WITH THEM.
The first settlers of Branch county had Indians as their neighbors, and for several years after settlement began there were more red men than whites in the county. In the work of development and civilization the Indians had no part; in fact they were an adverse element which had to be removed before white men could proceed to build homes, make farms and lay the foundation of business and institutions. Happily for the history of Branch county, the Indians were never hostile to the degree that was true of Indians in other parts of the country, notably in the far west. The repre- sentatives of the government were able to conciliate them and generally treated them fairly, and therefore this history can recount no revengeful outbreaks nor pitched battles between the two races. It seems necessary in a general way to describe the people who lived here before the coming of the whites, the manner of disposition of their lands and their removal to the west, and what relations subsisted between the natives and the settlers.
The Indians whom the pioneers to Branch county encountered were in nearly every case Potawatomis, an Algonquian tribe that originally were found by the whites in the vicinity of Green Bay, Wisconsin. But about 1670, being harassed by hostile tribes, they were moving south, and by the close of the seventeenth century had established themselves on Milwaukee river, at Chicago, and on the St. Joseph river, mostly in territory that had previously been held by the Miami. By the beginning of the nineteenth century they were in possession of the country around the head of Lake Michigan, from Milwaukee river in Wisconsin, to Grand river in Michigan, extending southwest over a large part of Illinois, east across Michigan to Lake Erie, and south in Indiana to the Wabash and as far down as Pine creek. Within this territory they had about fifty villages. The principal divisions were those of St. Joseph river, Michigan, Huron river, Michigan, Wabash river, and the Potawatomis of the Prairie in Illinois and Wis- consin.
The Potawatomi sided actively with the French down to the peace of 1763. They were prominent in the rising under Pontiac, and on the break- ing out of the Revolution in 1775 took arms against the United States, and ·continued hostilities until the treaty of Greenville in 1795. They again took up arms in the British interest in 1812, and made final treaties of peace in 1815. As the settlements rapidly pressed upon them they sold their land by piecemeal and removed beyond the Mississippi. Those who went west were settled partly in western Iowa and partly in Kansas, the former, with whom
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HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY
were identified many individuals of other tribes, being known as Prairie Potawatomi, while the others were known as the Potawatomi of the Woods. In 1846 they were all united on a reservation in southern Kansas. In 1861 a large part of the tribe took lands in severalty and became known as citizen Potawatomis, but in 1868 they again removed to a tract in the Indian Terri- tory, where they now are. The others are still in Kansas, while a consid- erable body, part of the Prairie band, are still in Wisconsin, and another band, the Potawatomi of the Huron, are in lower Michigan. According to the census of 1820 there were 3.400 Potawatomis in the United States. In 1884 those in the United States were reported to number 1.332. distributed as follows: Citizen Potawatomi in the Indian Territory, 550: in Kansas. 430: Prairie band in Wisconsin, 280: and Potawatomi of Huron, in Cal- houn county, Mich., 72. A few besides these are scattered through their ancient territory and at various other points. The numbers in the United States in 1903. according to the official report were as follows: Prairie band in Kansas, 602: Potawatomi of Huron, 78; Citizen Potawatomi in Oklahoma, 1.686.
The Indians of this tribe are described in the early notices as the " most docile and affectionate toward the French of all the savages of the west." They were also more friendly disposed toward Christianity, besides being more humane and civilized than the other tribes. Their women were more reserved than was usual among Indians, and showed some tendency toward refinement in manners. As slaves were found among them when first visited by the whites. it is probable they were in the habit of making slaves of their captives rather than torturing and slaying them, though no positive state- ment on this point is on record. Polygamy was common when they were visited by the early missionaries.
These were the people whom the first settlers in Branch county found dwelling in small village groups or passing across the county over the Indian trails. But even then they were living in the county merely by sufferance of the government. for they no longer had legal claim to the land. The im- portant treaty that affected Branch and other counties of southern Michigan was the Chicago treaty of 1821, which was negotiated at Fort Dearborn on the 29th of August hy Governor Cass and Solomon Sibley with the Pota- watomis. Chipewas and Ottawas, the first named being the tribe principally interested and the others signing the instrument as auxiliaries or friends. By this treaty the Indians ceded to the government a tract of land embracing nearly eight thousand square miles, containing Branch county and all those surrounding it. besides practically all of the country now designated as south- western Michigan. As mentioned in the history of Coldwater township, five small tracts were reserved from this cession, one of them being in the center of Branch county.
On the 19th of September. 1827, a treaty was made at the Carey Mission (Niles) by Gov. Cass. the object of which was to gain the cession of a num- ber of small Indian reservations (that in Branch county being of the num- ber) " in order to consolidate some of the dispersed bands of the Potawatomi
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HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY
tribe in the territory of Michigan, at a point removed from the road leading from Detroit to Chicago, and as far as practicable from the settlements of the whites." This last reservation was along the St. Joseph river near Niles. A few years later this last foothold of the tribe in Michigan was signed away, and the chiefs of the St. Joseph band of the Potawatomis agreed that they and their people would remove from the country in 1836. This was the result of the second treaty of Chicago, signed on September 26, 1833. There were Indians in Branch county during the greater part of the decade of the thirties. They did not willingly leave their Michigan home. When the commissioners escorted the bulk of the tribe to their new homes beyond the Mississippi, many eluded the vigilance of the officers and remained behind. Some even returned after they had reached the western reserva- tion. The efforts at collecting the Indians had to be repeated several times, and as already mentioned, some were never taken away and their descend- ants are still to be found in certain localities of southern Michigan.
The Indian villages that were found in the county by the early settlers are to be mentioned in connection with the story of settlement. There was one on Coldwater prairie. When Wales Adams came along the Chicago trail in September, 1830, and stopped over night at the Bolton-Morse tavern on the east side of the prairie, he learned, to quote his own words, that " a lodge of several hundred Potawatomi Indians was encamped about one and a half miles in a northwest direction, to which place the travelers re- paired. The Indians occupied their time in smoking, dancing and speech- making alternately. They were discussing the subject of their removal be- yond the Mississippi." Girard prairie was also a favorite haunt of the In- dians, and in historical times a small village existed in Kinderhook town- ship.
The relations of the Indians and the settlers were generally amicable. Then, as now, vagrancy was a notable characteristic of Indian nature, and it was chiefly petty stealing and meddling that made the whites apprehensive of such neighbors. Drunkenness was the source of most of the crime, and this coupled with natural shiftlessness made the Indian a generally unwel- come though not dangerous visitor.
The presence of the Indians actuated the establishment of the first mer- cantile businesses in Branch county. Roland Root, the father of E. R. Root of Coldwater, is said to have had a trading post on the banks of the Cold- water river west of present Coldwater, and there trafficked with both the Indians and the whites. Loren Marsh in 1831 had established a trading post in the eastern part of Coldwater township, and later moved to a location west of the Coldwater river, where he carried on his trade with the Indians over a large circuit.
So often in the course of this history will Indian trails of Branch county be referred to as affecting settlement, that credit should be given at this point for what was practically the only public improvement which may be said to have originated with the Indian. The early settlers were familiar with several trails, which they used until straight roads could be laid
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HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY
out. and in some cases the trail bed became the route and foundation of the highway : the conspicuous example of this being the Chicago road.
As late as 1840 Indians were not uncommon in Branch county. They caused the settlers much annoyance, and the latter at every opportunity urged their removal from the country to which they had no longer any legal right. The civil authorities finally co-operated with the military of the United States, and a detachment of troops under Gen. Brady of Detroit was sent to gather up and take away all the Indians who still remained in Branch and surrounding counties. Even then some escaped the forced exile, but with the departure of that band from the home of their ancestors the Indian ceased to be a considerable factor in the life of Branch county.
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HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY
CHAPTER V.
NUMBER, NATURE AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE COUNTY'S PEOPLE.
The first enumeration of the people of Branch county as a county by itself took place in 1837. At least this is the year of the first census of which there now remains any particular record. The number of white men, women and children then making their home within the county's bound- aries was 4,016. This census was taken by the state government a few months after the admission of the state into the Union. No Indians were included in this census, and no Indians not taxed have been included in any census of the county taken either by the state or national government.
There was, however, one enumeration, and probably two, previous to 1837, of the people residing within our county's area. The year of the first settlement of a white man in this area was 1828, the year before the county was created and named. The first regular decennial census of the United States after the white man had thus begun to live within our limits came in 1830. Branch was not yet separately organized as a county, but for all judicial purposes was attached to St. Joseph county, and along with "Cal- houn and Eaton, and all the country lying north of the county of Eaton," formed the township of Green. The population of St. Joseph county is given in the census of 1830 by four subdivisions of the county, the second of which is " Green and Flowerfield." The total population of Green and Flowerfield is given as 110, 71 males and 39 females. Green and Flowerfield were the westernmost of the four subdivisions of St. Joseph county, and the total of IIO inhabitants was the smallest of the four, "Sherman " having 205, the " Township of Brady " 391, and " White Pigeon " 607. Within the bound- aries of our Branch county itself there were, it can be said with certainty, not a hundred people in the year 1830, and probably not more than fifty. But here in this census, we see at any rate at this time towards fifty people living within our area, the fountain head or nucleus of all our history.
In 1834 a census of the Territory of Michigan was taken by order of the Legislative Council in preparation for the admission of the territory as a state. The act provided that the enumeration be taken by the sheriffs of the counties " between the second Monday of October and the first Mon- day of November." and that returns be made to the county clerks and to the territorial secretary. The county had been organized for its own action sepa- rate from St. Joseph, March 1, 1833. William McCarty had been elected sheriff in April. But there is no record now in the county clerk's office of any census taken in this county in that year, nor are there any records of
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HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY
such census of this county in the state library or in the archives of the De- partment of State in Lansing. The total population of Michigan territory by that census is known, but not that of Branch county.
In starting with the first enumeration of our county's inhabitants, and making our first note of the increase of population, we have, therefore, to think of the period of seven years from 1830 to 1837. Inferring the num- ber to have been fifty in 1830, as we have done. 1837 shows the number to have reached 4.016. All the counties adjoining us had in 1837 a larger population than we. Hillsdale to the east of us had 4.749: Calhoun on the north. 7.959: and St. Joseph and Cass, with areas exactly equal to ours, had 6.337 and 5.296. Today, according to the census of 1904, our popu- lation, considerably exceeds that of St. Joseph and of Cass.
In 1840. three years after the first state census, another national census was taken and in 1845 the second state census. In 1850 a new constitution was adopted, which required the legislature to " provide by law for an enumer- ation of the inhabitants in the year eighteen hundred and fifty-four and every ten years thereafter." Accordingly, from 1850 on, a census of the county has been taken every four and six years in alternation, the work being done alternately by the national and by the state authorities. We present here in one view the population of the county at the times of these several censuses from 1837 to 1904:
1837 4.016
1870. 1874
.26,227
1840
5.715
25.726
1845 9.070
1880 .27.941
1884. 27,661
1854 15,686
1890 . 26.791
1860. 20.981
1894 26,207
1864. 22,458
1900. 27,811
1904. 26.397
Space will not permit us to direct attention with much particularity to the facts which appear on the face of these figures, nor to bring forward facts and causes which lie behind them. We present only a few of the more general and striking phases of the population during the seventy-four years between 1830 and 1904.
First. as to the first decade of 1830 to 1840. Inferring as we have done from the census of 1830. that the county began with fifty inhabitants in that year. we see 1837 giving it 4.016. and 1840, 5.715. This was an increase on the average of over five hundred people in each one of those first ten years. Our knowledge of the persons who were living in the county in 1831 makes it certain that by the end of that year there were thirty or forty families settled in it, and we may say that the fifty inhabitants of 1830 had increased to 150 or 200. As to the points about which they were nearly all settled, these were Bronson. Branch, Coldwater and Girard.
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