A twentieth century history and biographical record of Branch County, Michigan, Part 8

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 8

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BATAVIA.

In October, 1837. Batavia township had 357 inhabitants. When one considers the position of this township both with reference to the Chicago road which runs for four miles across its southeast corner, and to the village of Branch which lay close to the east line of Batavia, it will be possible to judge beforehand about where this population of 1837 was largely located. Topog-

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

raphy also played its part in the shaping of settlement. Mill creek running from northeast to southwest gave a strip of low land along its banks in the central portion of the township. Between this strip and the line of the Chicago road was the oak-openings land, which seems to have been favored most in the settlement.

In the northwest corner of section 25, on the north side of the Chicago road, Timothy R. Wallace, in 1832, established the first public house in this township. Five years later it was purchased by Leonard Taylor, a New York state settler, and under his ten years' management became known far and wide as the " Taylor House." and still later as the " Batavia House." During the twenty years before the coming of the railroad, thousands of emi- grants must have stopped there, and in many ways it was a part of the pioneer life.

Even more noted was the " New York House." a log tavern on section 33 on the south side of the Chicago road. built in 1833 by Jeremiah Tillotson, the first supervisor of Prairie River township. About a year later the house and the farm were sold to the Reynolds family, who had come from Genesee county, New York. This family, so long identified with this portion of the county, consisted of the father, Alpheus, and his sons, Alpheus, William, Lewis. Jacob and John. The "New York House " had the distinction of being a stage station. A stage station was not so important to the sur- rounding locality as a railroad station of later date, but many a village that grew up along the Chicago road dated its history from the time when the stages began making their over-night halts at that point. And for a time it scemed likely that the "New York House " would be the nucleus of a village, for about a dozen houses were grouped around the station. The railroad was built, the stage coach ceased to arrive, and the community dis- integrated. It is of interest that the first town meeting of Batavia was held at this place. in 1836.

The next important settlement was made at the east side of the town- ship. In the southwest corner of section 24, Abel Olds settled in 1834. His brother, Martin Olds, one of the most prominent of the early settlers, came in June of that year. He journeyed hither from Ohio, and passing through Coldwater halted at the Wallace House already mentioned. Here his family remained until he had completed his land entries, which were made in the oak-openings of sections 13 and 14. His house was built at the southwest corner of section 13. Martin Olds became the first supervisor of this township, and was later probate judge of the county.

John H. Stephens, one of the early sheriffs of Branch county, also settled on section 14 about a year after Mr. Olds, his farm being located along the state road. Another neighbor of Mr. Olds was Allen Stoddard.

There was soon a settler on every section of the land south and east of Mill creek. The circumstances connected with the settlement of John Bassett on section 34 have been recounted. . In 1835 the first blacksmith shop in the town was established in section 28, its proprietor being John Woodruff. In the same section, on Mill creek, was located, in 1836, the

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

first sawmill of the township, long known as the "Woodard Mill." It was built by Alpheus, William and John Reynolds, but was later owned by Samuel Woodard, hence its name. Here, too, was the site of a boom town, " Lawtonville," whose location was described as beautiful and whose lots were sold in the east to any credulous purchaser who was willing to take a well executed village plat as evidence of a flourishing village.

In 1836 Benjamin Olmstead and Philo Porter located on section 27. The latter served two terms as sheriff of the county. In 1838 another tavern was opened along the road, in section 34, by Samuel H. Cary, a settler of that year from Ithaca, New York. He also gave the name to Cary's Lake, and when the government consented to the establishment of a postoffice in this town in 1840, he became first postmaster. On the building of the railroad the office was moved and became the central institution of the little hamlet since known as Batavia. The office was kept in another of the Chicago road hostelries, the " Dudley House," which had been built by Albert Dudley.

That the sections just mentioned contained the bulk of the early popu- lation, finds additional proof in the fact that when, in 1835, the citizens decided they needed a school they built the first one in section 13. A year later the site was changed to a location on the Chicago road in section 27. The second district, organized in the winter of 1836-37, had its building on section 25, the land being donated by Timothy R. Wallace.

The names of the first settlers already mentioned find repetition in the record of the first town meeting of Batavia, held in April, 1836. The fol- lowing are the men who were chosen at that meeting to act as officials of the township: Alpheus Reynolds, Martin Olds, J. H. Stephens, Jabe Bronson (who lived in Batavia after leaving Bronson), Samuel Woodard, L. Taylor, Abel Olds, Morgan Smead, Shirlock Cook, Amasa Miller, T. R. Wallace, James L. Young, Ira Gifford, George D. Babbet, Horace Field, John Bas- sett, John M. Chapin, Moses Olmstead, Benjamin Parker, John Woodruff.

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

CHAPTER IX.

SETTLEMENT AND BEGINNINGS (CONTINUED).

COLDWATER TOWNSHIP.

When the census of 1837 was taken. Branch county had ten townships. Of these Coldwater was by much the most populous; indeed, it 'contained nearly a fourth of the entire population of the county. That ratio has been maintained practically throughout the subsequent seventy years. Approxi- mately, a quarter of the entire population of Branch county now live in Coldwater township, including Coldwater city.

Coldwater township did not receive the first settlers of Branch county. This is a circumstance requiring some attempt at explanation. It might have been an accident of history. But when we consider that the west- bound emigrants saw the beautiful plain known as Coldwater Prairie before they reached Bronson's Prairie, it is pertinent to ask why the nucleus of the county's settlement was formed at Bronson, that Jabe Bronson's house was the first civic center, rather than on Coldwater prairie.

Major Abraham Edwards, of Kalamazoo, who went along the Chicago trail in August, 1828, stated that on the site of the village of Coldwater was an Indian trading post kept by Beaubien and that on the prairie adjacent was a large Indian settlement. The same traveler found Bronson settled on his prairie, and both Hillsdale county on the east, and St. Joseph county on the west had begun to be settled. But the existence of a large Indian reserve in central Branch county and the presence of a number of Indians in possession of one of the most eligible regions along the Chicago road, would seem to be sufficient explanation of the fact that no settlement had yet been attempted there.

At the Chicago treaty of August. 1821, the Indians of southern Mich- igan ceded to the government all their lands except five comparatively small reservations, on which it was the policy of the government to collect the various bands and retain them until the convenient season should arrive for removing all the tribes to the west. The " Mick-ke-saw-be" reservation, which was one of the five, was located wholly in Branch county. It was six miles square, and comprised the eastern two-thirds of what is now Coldwater township, and the western one-third of the present Quincy township. How- ever, in compliance with the request of the Indians, the west boundary of the reserve was run sixty rods west of the appropriate section line in Cold- water township, and the same was true of the east boundary in Quincy township.

Thus the greater part of the present Coldwater township was an Indian

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

reserve, until it was ceded to the United States by a treaty of September, 1827. Notwithstanding this treaty, the Indians did not at once quit their old reserve in this county, and there can be no doubt that their presence acted as a retarding influence on settlement for at least a year or so after the treaty of 1827.

But with a population of 960 in October, 1837, Coldwater township must have been settled very rapidly between 1830 and that date. In the other townships we have indicated the focal points of settlement and the general directions of growth. In Coldwater township the prominent facts are con- cerned with the county seat at Branch and with the gradually overshadowing importance of Coldwater village. Therefore, the story of beginnings in Coldwater township becomes the story of the origin of Coldwater City, around which the rest of the township extends as a fringe to the central commercial and social area.

A little more than seventy-five years ago, not a habitation nor institu- tion of white man existed on the ground now covered by Coldwater city. The Chicago trail, entering at the center of the east line of the township, continued a distance of one mile over the gravelly drift ridges that were once the east shore of a large lake, and then descended, at what is known as the Fisk schoolhouse, to a plain of burr-oak openings, almost perfectly level, and stretching to the west for a distance of over three miles until the trough of the Coldwater river and the chain of marl lakes is reached. Along the trail a small band of Indians still had their homes, and there was an Indian trading post near the east side of the prairie, and another on the ground now occupied by the cemetery. From the point where the trail came to the level, a ridge of gentle ascent passed around the northwest, while to the southwest a more, prominent acclivity, since known as the Warner hills, seemed to guard and give direction to the little stream that wound at its northern base.

At this point. at the eastern edge of Coldwater prairie, there settled, in 1830, Abram F. Bolton and John Morse, on the east part of section 23. This was " university land," and had not yet come into market, consequently these men, and those who became their neighbors, were " squatters." They built a log cabin of two rooms, which they opened to the use of the traveling public as the first hotel in the vicinity. Here also was held the first town meeting of Coldwater township, and the " Morse Tavern" belongs among the institu- tions of early Branch county. Another well known family that settled on these university lands east of Coldwater were the Arnolds, who located there in 1833, and who soon after became identified prominently with Quincy town- ship.

But this was not the only event of that year of beginnings, 1830. Lem- uel Bingham put up his cabin near the house of the Indian trader, Phineas Bonner, also near the east side of the prairie, and there established a black- smith shop, at which many an emigrant's horses were shod and wagons mended.

In another important event of that year, Mr. A. F. Bolton was con- cerned. Although, as stated, he had located with Morse at the east end

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

of the prairie when he brought his family here in 1830, in 1829 he had been over this ground and had purchased a tract of land on the east side of Cold- water river where the Chicago road crossed the stream. In the summer of 1830 the three commissioners appointed to locate the spot where the county seat should stand when the county was organized came to transact their busi- ness in Branch county. Mr. Bolton at once became an interested party, and explained convincingly the eligibility of his land for the purposes intended. As one looks back from the present, it seems that the commissioners exercised good judgment in locating the site of the future court house on the east bank of Coldwater river near where the bridge is located: for it must be remem- bered that the village of Coldwater had not yet begun, and few spots along the Chicago road, and in the central area of the county, offered more advan- tages than the one selected. But the commissioners had failed to be " sworn in " before proceeding with the execution of their duties, and for that reason their action in " sticking the stake " on Mr. Bolton's land was invalid. Had their work been legal, the history of the Branch county seat and of Cold- water city might have been different.

This event leads us to the brief recital of the ephemeral existence of the village of " Masonville," which long since became an empty name, and whose site many years ago was absorbed in the growing city of Coldwater. Mason- ville was the name given, probably by Mr. Bolton, to the prospective village that would inevitably grow up around the county seat. Furthermore, at the spot now occupied by the cemetery, there had been for some years an Indian trading post, and as early as 1831 Roland Root and James B. Stuart were engaged in merchandising there, principally with the Indians. About the same time Mr. Bolton had procured the services of two carpenters, and just east of the river, on his land, had a frame hotel constructed. The " Bolton House," according to the authority of the late Dr. W. B. Sprague, was kept for awhile by such well known men as Elisha Warren and Harvey Warner. and in 1833 passed into the hands of James B. Stuart, who was a very popu- lar landlord. Shortly after his death the hotel burned, and so far as known that was the last page in the history of Masonville, which had once aspired to be the county seat and commercial center of Branch county.

For the time being the western side of the township was in the lead. In 1830 John Toole, the schoolmaster and pioneer of Bronson, had begun the construction of a sawmill on the west branch of the Coldwater, on sec- tion 30, at the site of the historic Black Hawk mills. The work progressed slowly, and during the same year Seth Dunham, John Allen and others took a share in the enterprise. Toole became discouraged and left, but the others had the mill in operation by the spring of 1831, Mr. Allen being in charge. This was the first sawmill in the county, and from it the settlement at Cold- water obtained its lumber for several years.

VILLAGE OF BRANCH.

Half a mile north of this mill site the land rises rather abruptly from the river and forms a well defined eminence. On this broad surface the

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

three commissioners appointed under an act of March 4, 1831, formally located the county seat of Branch county. Mr. Bolton tried without effect to prevail on them to accept the original but invalid location of Masonville. No settlement or improvements had been made on the spot thus designated for the county seat ; but no censure can attach to the commissioners on that account. Nothing resembling a village had yet appeared in this vicinity; and their choice not being circumscribed except in a general way, the com- missioners selected what at that time must have seemed the most suitable spot for the civic center of the county.

This action of the commissioners gave official cause for the existence of the " village of Branch." There yet remained two years before the separate organization of the county when this county seat should really become a place for the transaction of county business ; but men of judgment were on hand to make the most of the opportunity thus presented. Elisha Warren and others purchased all the land about the site, and at once laid out a village.

The fortunes of the village are soon told. A few of the old pioneers lived there and were identified with the only years of prosperity the village had. Seth Dunham, the first county treasurer and one of the proprietors of the mill near by, was one. Another was Harvey Warner, who, born in Warren county, New York, in 1809, had come from Monroe county, that state, by the Chicago road to Coldwater prairie in 1830, and in 1832 was appointed the first postmaster, the office being located in Branch. A store was opened in 1833 by E. T. Paxton, a distillery was put in operation about 1835, and a schoolhouse was erected that served not only its essential pur- pose but also for religious worship and was the first court house of Branch county. In the summer of 1837, in accordance with previous action of the board of supervisors, a jail was built, Branch county's prisoners up to that time having been detained in the St. Joseph county jail. Five hundred dollars was the sum set aside for the construction of this building. It was thirty feet square, built of hewn logs, and while the lower floor was utilized as a jail, the upper part was used for court purposes. This was the only public building that Branch county had until the construction of the first court house of Coldwater.

The village of Branch was also the home of the first newspaper published in the county, the Michigan Star, issued by County Clerk Charles P. West for the first time in May, 1837. At this time of speculation and " wild-cat " business promotion preceding the great financial panic of 1837, several efforts . were made. to establish in Branch a bank, along the lines of the old Cold- water Bank elsewhere described. The principal mover in this enterprise, which never succeeded, was Joel Burlingame, father of Hon. Anson Bur- lingame, the statesman and diplomatist. Four or five years of the latter's youth were spent at his father's tavern in Branch, and he got his first ac- quaintance with men and affairs in the original county seat.

So far as authentic records go, the above may be considered a fair description of the village of Branch in the high tide of its existence. One other institution is of pregnant importance to the succeeding narrative.

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

As already stated, the water power of the west branch of the Coldwater was the first utilized for mill purposes in the county. The same power was used to turn the first grist mill in the county. The " Black Hawk " mills have been an institution in Branch county almost from the beginning of its history. One of the first physicians in the county, a Dr. Hill, was the pro- moter of the enterprise, and it is probable that Seth Dunham and others had a part of the control, and, as Dr. Hill soon left, they must have become sole proprietors. The mill was a small affair, located alongside the sawmill, and the stones were about two feet in diameter, and the bolting cloth a sort of gauzy cotton fabric. At that early day it was best known for the bad qual- ity of flour it produced. The date of construction of this mill is usually given as 1832.

But the important fact in connection with this mill was explained by the late Judge Harvey Warner at a pioneers' meeting in 1884. While the rush of settlement was at its height. about 1836, several enterprising men, among whom was Francis Smith, determined to establish a mill. " And as the water power at Branch was better than that where Coombs' mill is now situated, they proposed to Mr. Elisha Warren of Branch to buy the half interest in his property at that place for $75 and then build the mill there. This offer Mr. Warren would not accept, and on that account the mill was located at Coldwater. This was the death blow to Branch: and this transac- tion was the turn in the tide that ended in the prosperity of Coldwater. Otherwise what is now the city of Coldwater would have remained a beauti- ful broad field dotted with elegant farm houses." Perhaps the importance of the mill transaction is overestimated in the quoted words. But it is certain that the proprietors of the village of Branch, by holding the land at high price, did not encourage the formation of an industrial and business center at that point, and this fact is to be kept in mind in considering the waning importance of Branch and the growth of Coldwater.

The situation of the village of Branch off the line of Chicago road must also be considered an adverse circumstance in its struggle to become the center of the county. When we remember that mail stages began running along this road from Tecumseh to Niles in 1830, and that travel increased constantly from that date, it is evident that a position even a mile south of the thoroughfare was a detriment to the fullest development of the village.

Concerning Elisha Warren, the founder of the village of Branch, Caleb D. Randall, in a paper read before the Pioneers in December, 1884, gave this sketch :

Born in Connecticut in 1795, and died in 1857, he married Caroline Hanchett, daughter of Joseph Hanchett, and moved to this county in 1831. Mr. Warren settled at Branch, where he purchased five eighty-acre lots and platted and established the village of Branch, where he secured the estab- lishment of the county seat. In connection with the ten years' contest over the county seat the name of Mr. Warren is intimately associated. After the first location of the county seat (at Masonville) had failed, new commis- sioners were appointed in 1831, who located the county capital at Branch.

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

where the court house and jail-a cheap wooden building-was located on the fine rise of ground just west of the present group of houses. From that time until 1840 there was a contest for the removal to Coldwater, in which Mr. Warren took an active part and fought his battle well. Mr. Warren frequently visited Detroit, the then seat of the state government, to defend his county site, and it was not till 1840 when the legislature passed the definite act of removal to Coldwater. The question entered into politics. The county was canvassed for votes. Mr. Warren was able to carry the western part of the county with him, and he had much merit on his side. . First, the county seat was already located at Branch; second, it was the geographical center of the county; third, the site, by its high rolling ground, purer water, drainage, etc., was better adapted to a village. But he had a hard battle when we recall that against him were the Crippens, Spragues, Daugherty, the Hayneses, Francis Smith, Cross, Chandler, and a host like them, young vigorous men. It was not, after all, the merits of the case that decided the issue. The population of Coldwater and the eastern part of the county in- creased the more rapidly, and so it had by 1840 votes enough to secure com- missioners favorable to the change, which was accomplished. Mr. Warren remained and died at his post.

ORIGIN OF COLDWATER.

In the meanwhile Coldwater Prairie had become the seat of a thriving population. In October, 1829, when the first lands of this vicinity were offered for sale, two brothers, Robert J. and William H. Cross, obtained a patent, signed by President Andrew Jackson, to three-fourths of section 22 in Coldwater township. The following year both these men came to this land and built a flat-roofed log shanty on the north side of the Chicago road, a few rods west of the present eastern limits of the city. The improvements they made became proverbial with the people in the county and with travelers who passed through this region. This land was sold in 1835 to James Fisk. Rev. Francis Smith and William B. Sprague, and Robert J. Cross then went to Illinois. His brother, William H., who held official position in the first years of the county, was at one time in the mercantile business as a partner with Silas A. Holbrook, and his later career was identified with St. Joseph county, where he died in 1886.

On section 15 John Morse purchased eighty acres, in 1830, and in Jan- uary of the following year A. F. Bolton, Robert J. Cross and Robert H. Abbott each purchased eighty acres of this section.

On section 21, Joseph Hanchett, Jr., took up eighty acres in the fail of 1830. In 1831 entries were made on this section by Elisha Warren, Audrain Abbott and Robert J. Cross.

Section 22 was entirely taken up by Hugh Campbell and the Cross brothers, their entries being dated in the fall of 1830, and by Allen Tibbits, who entered the remaining eighty acres in June, 1830. In February, 1831.

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

Campbell sold his eighty acres, in the northwest corner, to the Crosses. Twenty acres of this had been plowed and sixteen apple trees set out.

These three sections comprised the area on which the village of Cold- water had its beginnings. The first entry on section 16, which was the public school section, was not made until 1837. It is reasonable to suppose that the men above mentioned were on the ground in 1831, and were the landed proprietors most concerned in the inauguration of any village enterprise.

Hugh Campbell, whose eighty was located in the northwest corner of section 22, built a log house on the north side of the Chicago road. This was in 1830, and is accredited with being the first dwelling erected on the original site of the village. It stood near the corner of what is now Hudson and Chicago streets, about the site of the Y. M. C. A. building.

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A twentieth century history and biographical record of Branch County, Michigan, Part 8

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