A twentieth century history and biographical record of Branch County, Michigan, Part 6

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

USA > Michigan > Branch County > A twentieth century history and biographical record of Branch County, Michigan > Part 6

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In May, 1832, the call for Michigan militia to aid in defending Chicago in the "Black Hawk War" put a stop almost entirely to the coming of

1850 12,472

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

people, which had been growing from 1830 up to that time. People coming from the east became afraid to settle where there were any Indians. About the same time in 1832, cholera was brought from Quebec to Detroit and Chicago. Fear of cholera combined with fear of Indians to prevent emi- gration to southern Michigan. After May many of the stages, which had been doing a larger passenger business during the spring over the Chicago road than ever before, were taken off. The check put upon immigration into the county in 1832 by these two causes was felt through the two years fol- lowing. There was increase, but it was slow. With the opening of 1835, however, the tide began to flow strong again along the Chicago road. A goodly share of prospectors and of the occupants of the white-covered emi- grant wagons were attracted by the lands of Branch county. In the spring of 1836 the tide doubled its volume. It seemed to those already on the ground as if the whole country was alive with emigrants. Speculation in land and platted village lots, with visions of great profits, was a large factor in the movement. The numbers coming continued to increase through 1836, and with the opening of 1837. In the early part of 1837 Dr. Isaac P. Alger found thirty-three taverns on the Chicago road in Branch county in going from Quincy to Sturgis. But in May and June of 1837 this tide of immi- gration and of business inflated by " wild cat " currency reached its height, and then began rapidly to decline. By the latter part of autumn people had stopped coming. The standstill of 1832 was repeated. But the people who had been brought into the county by the three years from 1835 on, mostly remained, and the state census of 1837 took them, and found them to be 4,016, as we have seen. Probably more than three thousand of this number came into the county during the three preceding years. The three following years added only 1,699, according to the United States census of 1840, which made the population of the county 5,715.

We will next take a general view of the population of the county as to numbers during the entire time of the county's life. We note in this view, first, that the census of 1880 stands out as the high-water mark of all the census years between 1837 and 1904, that highest population being 27,941. It will be natural now to note the movement during the forty-three years preceding that year, and the twenty-four years subsequent to it.

From 1837 to 1870, or during the first thirty-three years, each census showed an increase over the one immediately before it. But four years later, or in 1874, the first decrease appears; this, however, is more than overcome in the six years following, which brings us to the high-water census of 1880. The rate of increase was very rapid from 1840 to the begin- ning of the Civil war in 1861. The four years of the war lowered the rate of increase, but during the six years from 1864 to 1870 the rate rose to about what it was during the six years before the war.

As to the twenty-four years since 1880, it will be a true general state- ment to say that the population of the county in numbers has continued at a standstill. . The United States census, taken twenty years after 1880, made

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

a difference of only 130 between the population then, in 1900, and that of 1880. it being 130 less.

To understand the nature of the people, whose history we are writing, we must give some attention to their nationality, to the communities from which they came, to their occupations, and to their intelligence and moral and religious ideals. Very few counties in Michigan, and, indeed, in any western state, have had an American born and homogeneous population to the degree which Branch has had all through its history. We use a few facts from the census of 1880 to illustrate this statement.

By that census there were no Indians and no Chinese in the county, and only 65 colored persons. St. Joseph had 230 colored people and Cass 1,837. In its entire population of 27.941. Branch had 1,808 persons of foreign birth. This was one in fifteen, or six per cent of the total. St. Joseph county had in that year 2.554 foreign-born in its population, and its total was some- what less than that of Branch. There is an interesting significance in the several numbers of these 1,808 foreigners coming from different foreign countries. The number born in England and Wales was the largest; it was 481. This is quite a sprinkling of fresh, genuine Englishmen among the inhabitants of the county, and those who have been residents of it have been aware that they are a perceptibly distinct element of its life. Separate from those who were born in England and Wales, the census of 1880 made enumerations of those who were born in Ireland, in Scotland, and in British America or the Dominion of Canada. It is rather surprising perhaps that a less number of persons had come into Branch county from Canada, just across the Detroit and St. Clair rivers, than had come directly from old England across the ocean, or than had come from Ireland alone. There were 276 of Branch county's people who had been born in British America, while 330 had been born in Ireland, and 481 as we have noted were natives of England and Wales. Besides these there were 46 who had been born in the land of Burns and Carnegie. Counting these all together as being in the large sense British born, they make a total of 1, 133, and become by far the largest foreign-born ingredient in the county's population. But in the bearing of this fact on the homogeneous and American quality of the population as a whole, it is to be noted that all these English speaking foreigners are nearer than any other nationality to native born Americans.

Next in number to the British born component stood in 1880 those born in Germany. There were 479 of them, two less than the 481 born in Eng- land and Wales. The larger portion of the Germans have always been found in the city of Coldwater and its immediate vicinity. Since 1858 a German Lutheran congregation have held services in the city in German. Next to Coldwater city and township. Algansee is the region in which men from the land of Luther and Lessing have settled. The numbers of foreign- born in the county in 1880 from other countries were given as follows : Born in Poland, 141 : in France. 9: in Sweden and Norway. 7: and in Hol- land. 3. The Poles of 1880, with the 141 who had been born in the Poland of Europe, were settled almost entirely by themselves in the township of

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

Bronson, south and west of the village. They have since then multiplied rapidly, and have been spreading out from their locality in 1880. By their industry and cheap mode of living they have saved money, have bought not a little of the land upon which they began to labor for wages, and have been steadily improving their condition in every respect. They are almost uni- versally Roman Catholics, and now, in 1906, form a large Roman Catholic congregation with a church building in Bronson which is the largest in the village. A Polish priest resides there and conducts the church services in the Polish language and superintends a parish school in a fine, large brick school building, in which the teaching is in Polish. Our .Polanders are gradually becoming assimilated to our American life, but as yet they are noticeably the most foreign and un-American portion of our county's population in physique, in language and in religion.

With only 1,808 foreign-born people in a population of 27.941, the mass of Branch county people are seen at once to be American born. But the different portions, the different states even, of the Union have always shown distinctive qualities in their people. Michigan belongs to the first or perhaps the second group of western states that were settled by migrations from the eastern states. It remains to glance at the nativity of the American-born portion of our county's people.

The census of 1880 gave the following figures as to the nativity by cer- tain states of the inhabitants of the county at that time: born in the state, 13,873; born in New York. 6,425; in Ohio, 2,706; in Pennsylvania, 828; in Indiana, 790; in Vermont, 301; in Massachusetts, 203; in New Jersey, 143 in Wisconsin, 83. It thus appears that when the county had attained its growth as to population, almost one-half of the people were Michigan born. As to those born in other states, the figures confirm a fact generally perceived and frequently commented upon by the people of the county, that they are more largely from New York state than from any other. More than 22 per cent of the population in 1880, or nearly one in four, were born in the Empire state. If we go back a decade to the census of 1870. the fact of New York state people leading those from all other states in the early population of the county, grows more conspicuous. In that year 7,875 out of a total of 26,227 were natives of New York. This is 30 per cent, or nearly one in three. The census of 1860 made no note of the nativity of the population by counties. The events and influences which caused this main stream of the migrations from other states to flow from New York will be set forth in a future chapter, especially in the one treating of the Chicago road.

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

CHAPTER VI. ROUTES OF IMMIGRATION.

THE ERIE CANAL.

In 1825 the Erie canal, after eight years in building, was opened to traffic, and the waters of Lake Erie flowed across the state of New York into the Hudson river. The dream of Henry Hudson in seeking a northwest passage up the river that bears his name was realized after more than two centuries, only instead of the spice-laden orient the new way led to the far more desirable and potentially richer American west. The land-bound com- merce of the Atlantic seaboard found, in this direction, outlet to the eager west, and, borne along the same channel, the grain harvests of the inland were brought to the markets of the world. It was no uncommon thing for fifty ark-like boats. loaded with passengers and freight, to depart from the eastern terminus of the Erie canal in a single day, passing to the west at the rate of four miles an hour. While before the water was turned into the " Big Ditch " the toilsome urging of creaking wagons had not carried a frac- tion of the commerce that passed along this waterway.

The Erie canal not only gave a tremendous impetus to westward expan- sion and development, but it changed its direction. Herein lies the signifi- cance of the canal in the history of southern Michigan, including Branch county.

Before 1825 the trend of western migration had been down the Ohio valley. The great water courses were fringed with settlements when the inland country was still an unbroken wilderness. The regions bordering the riverways and great lakes were populous before a tree had been felled for a settler's cabin on the fertile prairies and woodlands of northern Indiana and southern Michigan. In proof of this witness the admission of Indiana to statehood ten years before the first settlers came to her northern tier of coun- ties. Southern Michigan was aside from the current of emigration, and its settlement was delayed while settlers were overrunning the country to the south and the Illinois prairies.

OVERLAND ROADS.

There were no roads in southern Michigan even for several years after the completion of the Erie canal. A map of the highways of travel in the United States in the year 1825 shows a network of routes along the Ohio valley, but none north of the watershed into the great lakes which would bring emigrants within many miles of Branch county.

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

The homeseekers who traveled across Lake Erie to its western end would on their arrival at Detroit find one generally used road to the west. That led southwest to Monroe, up the valley of the Maumee river past Defi- ance, Ohio, through Fort Wayne, Indiana, and thence northwesterly around the lower end of Lake Michigan to Chicago or further west. Fort Wayne was the converging point for several other roads leading from different points along the Ohio river. The great bulk of the pioneers who settled the northern Indiana and southwest Michigan counties bordering on Lake Michigan came by way of Fort Wayne. This accounts for the more cosmo- politan character of the population of that region than is found in Branch county. Through Fort Wayne passed streams of emigrants not only from the New England states and New York and Pennsylvania, but also from Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas and Kentucky.

It should also be mentioned that a large number of emigrants, instead of debarking at Detroit and taking the Fort Wayne route, made the entire circuit of the lakes by way of Mackinac, not beginning their journey over- land until they reached the lower end of Lake Michigan. But this route also took them far from Branch county, which remained practically isolated except as a chance settler might find his way here.

Railroads at that time had not become a factor in directing and assist- ing emigration. In 1830 only thirty-six miles of railway were in operation in all the United States. Only two years before had the first mile of the Baltimore and Ohio been built. The decade of the twenties was prolific of railroad charters and plans, but only the beginnings were made of the rail- road building which soon absorbed the energies of the nation. In fact, the part of the railroad in southern Michigan was that of development rather than settlement. When the first railroad penetrated Branch county its popu- lation was nearly fifteen thousand. The lands had been taken up, and the pioneer period was practically over when the Southern Railroad began push- ing west from Lake Erie.

CHICAGO ROAD.

Such was the situation for Branch county at the completion of the Erie canal. The routes of travel were around the lakes to the north or through Fort Wayne on the south, converging a hundred miles to the west, where settlement was begun before Branch county had any inhabitants, except the Indians and some wandering hunters. What reason is to be found for the settlement, within a period of twenty years, of fifteen thousand people in this county ? Pre-eminently above all other causes, the " Chicago Road."

While the stream of migration that poured forth from the western end of the Erie canal would in time have overflowed all the peninsula between Lake Erie and Lake Michigan, it was the Detroit and Chicago national road that gave it direction and caused the rapid settlement of the southern tier of counties. To this institution more than any other except the character of the settlers it brought, Branch county is indebted for the establishment of its

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HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

prosperity on the substantial basis which has endured more than two genera- tions.

The famous thoroughfare which passes centrally through Branch county from east to west may reasonably be called an overland extension of the Erie canal. It was a national highway built to connect two important strategic points, to afford rapid transportation of military supplies and armies from the western terminus of the waterways at Detroit to Fort Dearborn on Lake Michigan. Empowered by the constitution to establish post roads, the gen- eral government designed this road as an important section of the postal route between the east and the west, and for the twenty years before the railroad came the New York-Chicago mail was carried by stage over this road. But its character as a government highway was almost lost sight of in the in- portance it attained as an emigrant route. The coming of the mail coach never lost novelty or ceased to be the event of the day for the people dwelling along the road, but the almost continuous line of settlers' wagons became one of the commonplaces of life at that time and attracted little attention.

In accordance with congressional legislation for the construction of a military and postal road between Detroit and Chicago, in 1825 the president was authorized to appoint commissioners to survey and mark this road. In 1827 congress appropriated twenty thousand dollars for the construction of the road. It was the original purpose to build the road in a straight line between the designated termini, but the commissioners soon found that with the money at hand they could hardly make a beginning of the undertaking on that basis. The straight course had to be abandoned, and one was adopted which, while presenting fewer engineering difficulties, was, historically, more natural and interesting.

Before civilization introduced scientific road-making, wild animals were doubtless the markers and surveyors of roads. The narrow, deep-worn and wavering path through the woods, indicating the route of the wild animal between its lair and the spring where it quenched its thrist or the spot where it sought its quarry, was the course which the Indian, and later the white man, took in going through the woods or across the prairie. Thus animals were the first road-makers, and blazed the way for their immediate succes- sors, the roving Indians. The latter would naturally extend and connect the trails into certain long avenues of travel across the country, which they would follow in making their pilgrimages from one hunting ground to another or for their war expeditions.

Several of these trails existed in Branch county long before white man set his foot here. Most used of all was that one extending centrally across the county from west to east. This was not only a favorite route pursued by the Indians of southern Michigan, but since the war of 1812 the Indians dwelling in Illinois had been accustomed to make their annual pilgrimages along this route to Canada, where the British government paid them their annuity earned by loyalty to that government in its war against the Ameri- cans. The Detroit-Chicago Indian trail, therefore, had historic importance long before any marks of civilization had been made in Branch county.

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

Accordingly, when the government surveyors who sought to carry out instructions and define a military road from Detroit to Fort Dearborn, found that the appropriation for that purpose was far from adequate, they deter- mined to follow the route that had been surveyed and marked by the animals and the Indians. Of course many of the windings of the original trail have been corrected, either when the road was made or later. But the traveler whose journey lies along this thoroughfare may say with approximate fidelity to history that the road is but an Indian trail enlarged and improved to a modern highway.

The engineers who began the work of marking this road in 1825 did not " make " the road; they merely designated its course. As late as 1829 the pioneers through this county called the road little better than an Indian trail. It was planned that the road should be one hundred feet wide, but in the actual process of construction it seemed most expedient only to cut off the trees for that width and to clear the stumps and smooth the roadway for a width seldom exceeding forty feet. From available data, it seems probable that the Chicago road was still in process of construction through Branch county as late as 1832. For James G. Corbus in that year was a contractor engaged in building a portion of the way on Bronson's prairie. And when Martin Olds, the Batavia pioneer, came along this road in 1834 the first stream over which he found a bridge was the Coldwater, the bridge at Masonville having just been completed before his arrival in June. Stages had been running, however, since 1830, so that the road must have been passable at that date or earlier.

It should be kept in mind that the Chicago road was a national highway, was constructed and maintained by appropriations from Congress. At a later date the Michigan legislature provided for numerous "State roads," several of which were built through or in Branch county, and are still known as "State roads." The third class, to which most of the roads in the county belong, are those laid out by the township highway commissioners. But both state and township roads were maintained by local taxation.

SOURCES OF EARLY SETTLERS.

One of the most interesting themes of early Branch county history is concerned with the sources which furnished the pioneer settlers. The same study will indicate in a graphic manner the combined influence of the Erie Canal and the Chicago Road in directing migration to this county. This route was the most natural one for the people of New York and the New England states to take in moving to the west. It is from New York state, indeed, that we find the bulk of the early settlers of this county to have come. While that state may not be called the first state home of all these people, it will be found that in most cases the people of Massachusetts, of Vermont, or of Connecticut, made some point in New York the first stage of their westward movement, in many instances spending several years there before proceeding to Michigan.

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

Samuel H. Berry, father of the Quincy pioneers among whom was the late Dr. E. G. Berry, while a native of New Hampshire, moved from that state to Pennsylvania, then to New York, and from there came to Brand county, in 1835. Saratoga county, New York, was the birthplace of Peter M. Newberry. also of Quincy, who in 1836 started from New York with the intention of settling in Ohio, but landing in Detroit came down the Chicago road to Jonesville, and then on to Quincy township, where he was one of the early settlers. Other pioneers of Quincy who came from New York were Alvarado Brown, from Orleans county; John S. Belote, from Albany in 1835: B. F. Wheat. the banker, who came from Ontario county to Lenawee county, Michigan, in 1836; Ansell Nicholls, who settled in Quincy township in 1836, was from Oswego county, New York; Chautauqua county was the starting point of William P. Arnold, who located two miles east of Coldwater along the Chicago road in 1833. and in 1839 bought a hundred acres in the present Quincy village.

The late Dr. W. B. Sprague of Coldwater came from Rochester to this county in 1835. and Syracuse was the birthplace of Alonzo Waterman, who came to Bronson in 1832 and later to Coldwater and became noted as a miller, merchant and successful business man. The Erie Canal was the route that Lorenzo D. Halsted followed in coming to this county in 1836. He drove a horse on the towpath from Albany to Buffalo, and from there worked his way on a steamer to Detroit, whence the Chicago road finally guided him to Coldwater.

Monroe county, New York, was the home of many who later became well known in Branch county. James M. Burdick walked from there to Buffalo in 1830. took a steamer to Detroit, and by the roughly marked Chicago trail reached Allen's in Hillsdale county, whence lie came to Quincy in 1836. The well known horseman. Abram C. Fisk, who settled on the Chicago road just east of Coldwater, was from Monroe county, and in the next year the pioneer Harvey Haynes came from the same locality.

In 1835 came Lorenzo D. Crippen from Herkimer county, and began his career as merchant, manufacturer and public-spirited citizen of Coldwater. And in the next year James R. Wilcox, also of Coldwater township, came from Cayuga county.

Many other instances of this community of origin might be set down here, but it is sufficient to indicate the subject to the reader, who will find abundant examples of the historical phenomenon on nearly every page of the following narrative.

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

CHAPTER VII. FORMATION OF TOWNSHIPS.

A map of Branch county shows sixteen civil townships blocked out four square, and laid out on the lines of the original United States government survey. Although the government surveyors blocked out the territory that became Branch county by means of the range and township lines that desig- nate the boundaries of the present civil townships, it was more than fifteen years after the creation of Branch county before the townships were all organized and named as we know them at present. The civil townships and the townships of government survey happen to correspond in Branch county ; but there is no necessary connection between the two, and in some other counties one civil township is more than an area six miles square. The civil township is created for the convenience of government, and in Michigan the legislature has almost invariably caused its boundaries to coincide with those of the United States survey, as has been the case in this county. But during the period of early settlement the population was not dense enough to warrant a civil organization in each of the sixteen surveyed townships. So it is that the map of Branch county underwent many changes up to 1846. There were townships of varying extent and form, and several whose names are practically forgotten. It will be the purpose of the following paragraphs to show how the county was divided from time to time and to describe the process of township making until the boundaries were fixed as at present.

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A twentieth century history and biographical record of Branch County, Michigan, Part 6

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