A twentieth century history and biographical record of Branch County, Michigan, Part 9

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

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This was the approximate situation when the Rev. Allen Tibbits came along the Chicago road to this spot in the autumn of 1830. An itinerant Methodist preacher, with headquarters at Plymouth, twenty-five miles west of Detroit, he was at this time a young man of twenty-six years, having been born in Lyons, New York, in 1804. The purpose of his visit to Coldwater prairie in 1830 was to find a permanent home, and when he returned in 1831 he located, as above shown, eighty acres in the southwest quarter of section 22. In the meantime Hugh Campbell had moved from his residence, and in his rough log cabin, which was without a floor, Mr. Tibbits made his first home. About the same time, also, he must have purchased this Campbell eighty (from the Crosses) in the northwest corner of section 22. From the records above given and from what follows, it is certain that, in the year 1831, the eighty acres in the northwest corner of section 22 was owned by Mr. Tibbets, and the eighty adjoining that on the west, in the northeast cor- ner of section 21, was owned by Mr. Joseph Hanchett.

Mr. Hanchett, who had arrived on the ground a few weeks before Mr. Tibbits, also lived during the summer of 1831 in the Campbell cabin. These two men decided to establish a village on part of their land. To them be- longs the honor of being called the founders of Coldwater. Calling in the services of James B. Tompkins, they platted a village. The original plat, signed by James B. Tompkins, the surveyor (whose son, of the same name, died in Girard township in 1905), and dated July 29, 1831, is now in the register of deeds office at Centerville, where it was filed for record December I, 1832. This plat was acknowledged by Allen Tibbits and Joseph Hanchett on November 29, 1832. From these facts it is proper to date the origin of Coldwater on July 29. 1831. so that the city may in the year of this writing celebrate its seventy-fifth anniversary.

The first name given to the village was "Lyons," assigned by Mr. Tib- bits in honor of his birthplace at Lyons, New York. But in the following year it was christened Coldwater, which was a translation of the Indian name "Chuck-sew-ya-bish," by which the natives are said to have designated the waters of the stream flowing south of the village.

The two eighty-acre lots owned respectively by Joseph Hanchett and Allen Tibbits, as above stated, were both included in the act of incorporation

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

of the village. But only part of this land was surveyed into village lots at first. The extent of the original village of Coldwater is easily stated. On the west it was bounded by what is now Monroe street ; on the east by what is now Jefferson street. The north boundary was the section line, or, approximately, Church street; while the south was what is now Washington street. This area was divided into fifty-five numbered lots, each six rods wide by twelve rods deep. The conspicuous features designated on the original plat were, the Public Square, sixteen rods wide from east to west, and thirty rods long from north to south; the Chicago street, one hundred feet wide, a width that has been one of the chief charms of this broad avenue and a matter of pride to citizens; the other streets named on the plat-Pearl and Church streets, running east and west, and Hudson and Division streets, north and south- were each four rods wide.

The manuscript history of "The Origin of the City of Coldwater," by the late Dr. William B. Sprague, describes the first twelve buildings erected on this village plat and which were standing at the time the Doctor came to Coldwater in 1835.

The first was the log structure put up by Hugh Campbell, the location of which has already been mentioned.

The second was more pretentious, a log residence, finished and occupied by Mr. Joseph Hanchett in the fall of 1831. This stood on Lot 44, a little north of the E. R. Clarke and Company building, and on what is now Monroe street.

In 1832 John Wilson, a brother-in-law of Allen Tibbits, built for him- self and family a frame residence on Lot 41, on the north side of Chicago street and next to the Loomis Battery Park. Mr. Wilson was a carpenter and joiner by trade.

On the next lot east, where the Episcopal church now stands, William McCarty in the same year built a frame house. This house is still standing, externally intact, as part of the barn on the rear of the premises of Mrs. Sarah E. Conant, next east of the Loomis Battery Park. We were assured by Mr. L. D. Halsted early in the present year, 1906, that this is the oldest house in Coldwater ever used as a dwelling. It still shows so well what it was originally that an illustration of it is given. Mr. McCarty used his dwelling as a jail during his service as sheriff.

Where the Edwin R. Clarke Library building now stands, Peter Martin, the first probate judge of Branch county, erected in 1832 a frame dwelling.

Also in 1832, the first building used for store purposes was built. It was a frame structure, and stood on the south side of Chicago street just west of the public square, on part of the site now occupied by the Bovee block. Silas A. Holbrook and Grover Hibbard had come here early in 1832 from Tecumseh, and in this building the first Coldwater store was opened, the attic being used for the residence of Mr. Holbrook and family.

On the north side of Chicago street, near Hudson, on the spot now occupied by the Milo Campbell residence, Rev. Allen Tibbits erected a small

The House occupied in 1833 in Coldwater by the first Sheriff of the County, William McCarty, as home and jail; now, 1905, the oldest building in Coldwater and part of a barn.

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

frame house in 1833. Up to that time he had continued to live in the log cabin built by Hugh Campbell.

On the west side of Hudson street, a short distance south of Chicago, Hiram and George Hayden, cabinet makers, put up two dwellings in 1834. On the northeast corner of their lot, that is, on Chicago street, they had their shop.

There is evidence in what has just been said, that the proprietors of Coldwater village were very much in earnest in promoting the interests of their village. Every encouragement was held out to the settlement of those who would become factors of usefulness in the community. The good judg- ment of the founders is seen in the fact that all of the settlers just mentioned became closely associated with the affairs of the village and county, excepting only the Hayden brothers, one of whom soon died and the other moved to a farm in the county.

The zeal with which Allen Tibbits undertook to build up Coldwater is well shown in the case of the next settler. Matthew Brink. a blacksmith, had located in the village of Branch. Early in 1835 he was induced to move to Coldwater by the gift of a lot in the village, on which he was to build his home and have his shop. This lot was on the south side of Chicago street. at the east edge of the village, near the present Jefferson street.

Dr. Sprague mentions three other buildings that were on the village plat in 1835. One was a plain frame house on the west side of Division and between the square and Pearl street, about where the Baptist church stands. On the east side of Hudson street. a little north of Pearl, was built the first village schoolhouse, standing on a lot also donated by Mr. Tibbits. And on the north side of Chicago street, just west of the public square, where the Southern Michigan Hotel now stands. was a two-story frame structure still in process of building. Edward Hanchett was building it for a tavern. It remained for John J. Curtis to finish it and open it to the public, as the "Eagle House."

Such was the pioneer Coldwater, seen at a time when it was still possible to distinguish the individual units. In the men who were there in 1835 lay great possibilities for future development ; but still more in the group of settlers who came that year. In that list would be found such names as Bradley Crippen and his four sons, Lorenzo D., Philo H., Benjamin and Rev. Elliott M .: James Fisk, Thomas Dougherty, Rev. Francis Smith. Dr. William B. Sprague, Dr. Darwin Littlefield. James Haynes and his sons John T., Levi. Harvey and James. These men, with those already men- tioned, formed the bulk and sinews of the community and were the real founders of the city of Coldwater.

The developments of the next few years are all important. The de- tailed features of the growth of Coldwater cannot be noted. The strength of its citizenship has been noted; it was a live, enterprising community, with business and industrial promise. Alert and determined to make the most of their opportunities, the citizens pressed on to the next step in civic growth. In February, 1837, the legislature passed the act of incorporation

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

for the village of Coldwater, and when, pursuant to this act, the citizens convened on the first Monday of May at the "Central Exchange," they chose the following men to direct the affairs of the village during its first year : Hon. Hiram Alden, then Branch county's representative in the legislature, became village president; Hiram Shoudler, recorder; and William H. Cross, Silas A. Holbrook, Joseph Hanchett, Reuben J. Champion, Harvey War- ner and John J. Curtis, trustees.

So much for the civic community. It was still a pioneer village, barely out of the first stages of individual activity. Organization of industry and classification of pursuits had only begun. The tilling of the prairie soil was a part of the work of nearly all. There were several physicians, whose range of duties, however, covered most of the county, Dr. William H. Hanchett and Dr. Hiram Alden being most prominent; there were several merchants, hotel- keepers, mechanics, and in 1837 came the first lawyer. Altogether, the basis of village growth and prosperity was well laid.

Manufacturing received its first strong impulse at this time. It is not an overstatement of the truth to say that this form of activity was the vital element in Coldwater's subsequent growth. Up to that time Branch, with the nearby "Poka" or Black Hawk mills, had been the manufacturing center for lumber and flour.

Of similar enterprises at Coldwater, the first is best described in the words of Allen Tibbits: "Joseph Hanchett and myself were the sole pro- prietors and builders of the first grist mill erected at Coldwater. It con- sisted of a piece of an oak log some three feet long set firmly in the ground with a hollow on the top and in the shape of a bowl, hacked and burnt smoothly out for a nether millstone. It would hold a peck. For the upper stone a large piece of timber made roughly in a pestle form was suspended from a strong springpole above, and then we were ready for custom work as well as our own. But how to obtain the corn to grind was another con- sideration, none could be furnished so early by the people-it had not yet been grown ; so we went to northern Indiana where the settlements along the Vistula turnpike were more advanced, and this all here were obliged to do. Our profits from this investment were not large, scarcely enough to pay for outlays and labor, though our patronage was large." This mill, operated in the summer of 1831, stood at the south front of Mr. Hanchett's log resi- dence already described.

In 1834 Peter Martin, the judge of probate, built a sawmill that stood a trifle north from where Division street intersects Clay street, and the dam occupied the line upon which Division street crosses the Coldwater river. Traces of the old mill race may still be seen along the north bank of the river. The pond, which spread over quite a large surface, was after about four years considered to be a source of disease and was torn away by the people as a nuisance. On the authority of Dr. Sprague, this property had passed into the hands of L. D. and P. H. Crippen about 1835.

On a previous page, in connection with the history of the village of Branch, has been mentioned the failure of an attempt to establish a mill

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

there, and the significance of the event in the contest between Branch and Coldwater. It is now proper to describe how that attempt which failed at Branch resulted in the establishment of early Coldwater's chief manufactur- ing industry.

Early in 1836 the partners, Francis Smith, Thomas Dougherty and Will- iam B. Sprague, selected a site at the west end of Pearl street as the location for their saw and grist mill. Work on the sawmill was begun the same season and was finished some time in the fall. The flouring mill was commenced quite early in the spring of 1837, and completed early in the following winter. Samuel Etheridge, another pioneer citizen of Coldwater, was chief engineer. architect and builder. The mills were built in accordance with the most mod- ern standards of the time.

In 1838 the mills were sold to John J. Curtis and O. B. Clark, from whom they passed. in 1841, to L. D. and P. H. Crippen. On the withdrawal of P. H. Crippen in 1844 the firm became Crippen and Dougherty, and later L. D. Crippen was sole owner. The mills were burnt in 1858, but rebuilt the next year. James B. Crippen became owner, and then E. R. Clarke, and in 1869 William A. Coombs bought the plant, since which time his name has been connected with the institution.

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

CHAPTER X.

COUNTY SEAT CONTEST.

With this understanding of the growth of Coldwater village, the ability of its citizenship and its material resources, we may now describe the final stages of the county seat contest, which resulted in the complete loss of prestige for the village of Branch and the transfer of all its power to the rival village on the prairie.

As mentioned in the sketch of Elisha Warren, the citizens of Coldwater never allowed the county seat to rest quietly with Branch. In the end the question was settled by local option, and Coldwater, being able to summon the greater political power to the support of her contention, won the county seat.

An act of the legislature approved March 16, 1840, declared that after July 4, 1840, the seat of justice of the county of Branch was vacated and that the same should be selected and fixed upon by "three commissioners to be appointed by the governor by and with the advice of the senate." Of course these commissioners could choose to allow the seat to remain with Brancli, and removal to another location was conditioned on a land site being donated and all cost of court house and jail being secured by money or bond from the interested parties. The entire transaction of removal should cause no expense to attach either to the state or the county.

The commissioners were to make their selection on or before the first Monday in June, 1841. Whether the opposition to the change was still too strong in the western part of the county, or whether the citizens of Cold- water were unable or unwilling to fulfill satisfactorily the conditions of the bill, cannot be definitely stated, since neither the county nor newspaper rec- ords throw any light on the matter. Certain it is that the county seat was not changed under the provisions of this bill of 1840.

But on February 5, 1842, an. act was approved declaring the seat of justice vacated and to be established in the " village of Coldwater ;" provided, that security should be given to the county commissioners for a sum equal to the appraised value of the court house and jail at Branch; that at least three- quarters of an acre of land in the village of Coldwater should be donated for the county site; and that the persons interested in the removal should furnish free temporary quarters for the holding of the terms of circuit court until a court house could be erected. The terms of the bill were to be com- plied with on or before March 1. 1842.

By this act the selection of the site was to be determined by the three county commissioners. (It should be stated that the system of county gov-

The Old Court House, Coldwater, 1848-1887

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

ernment by a board of township supervisors had been abolished in 1837 and the county's affairs placed under the jurisdiction of a board of three county commissioners. The office of county commissioner had been abolished in 1841 and a return made to the township supervisor system. Accordingly the last important official acts of the Branch county commissioners was the selec- tion of the new county seat.) The county commissioners at this time were Hiram Shoudler, of Union, chairman of the board: Oliver D. Colvin, of Kinderhook ; and Hiram Gardner, of Matteson. Mr. Gardner had been chosen the preceding autumn in place of Wales Adams of Bronson, and as stated in the sketch of Mr. Elisha Warren, the election had largely hinged on the county seat question.

The political issues involved had been settled, therefore, before the act of the legislature passed, and there was no delay after the act had been ap- proved, on February 5th. The issue of the Coldwater Sentinel of February I Ith contained the following paragraph: "The requisitions of the bill which has passed the present legislature to vacate the seat of justice and establish the same at the village of Coldwater have been complied with-the county commissioners have performed their duty under the law; and the result of their deliberations has been to drive the stake for the court house on a lot on the southeast corner of the public square, taking land for the jail a little east of the public square on land owned by Mr. James Shoecraft."

One other incident of the contest should be noted. It was provided that the jail at Branch should be used for the confinement of prisoners until one could be built at the new seat. Thus Branch retained a part of the county seat until the event recorded by the Sentinel of June 16, 1843: "The old court house and jail at Branch was destroyed by fire during the night of Sun- day, the IIth. The building had not been in use by the county except as a jail since the removal of the county seat to this place. One room in the building was occupied as an office by Dr. H. B. Stillman. The fire was evidently the work of an incendiary, and circumstances having transpired to fasten sus- picion on Lawson Woodward, a young man who had previously been confined in the prison, he was arrested." etc. Thus ended the first county seat. It has been asserted that the former prisoner was paid to burn the old building. the motives being, apparently, to destroy Branchi's last claim to the seat of justice, and also perhaps to hasten the building of a jail at Coldwater. Until a new jail was provided, Branch county prisoners were kept in St. Joseph county.

Pursuant to the act for the removal of the seat of justice, the citizens of Coldwater had guaranteed three hundred dollars toward the erection of a county building, that sum representing the value of the structure at Branch. In October, 1843, the board of supervisors resolved to submit to the electors a proposition to raise four hundred dollars in addition to this sum of three hundred, with which to build a jail. But the people were not yet ready to vote money for county buildings, and this resolution and similar ones were neg- atived. In the spring of 1846 a proposition to expend a thousand dollars, besides the sum guaranteed by Coldwater, was approved by the votes of the

HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

people. The jail was built in the summer of that year, and was accepted as completed in January, 1847. This old jail, which was built of heavy plank- ing straight up and down, and riveted together, stood on the north side of Pearl street and about midway between Hudson and Jefferson streets. It was burned in April, 1859, while Sheriff David N. Green was residing in it. After the fire a barn that stood on the corner where the jail now stands was converted into a lock-up, and five or six years later that, too, was burned. A temporary wooden structure was then erected, and served as a jail until the present brick jail was erected in 1875. The present jail, which was built at a cost of $18.358.70, was constructed under the direction of a building com- mittee of which the late Cyrus G. Luce was chairman, the other two mem- bers being the late Judge David N. Green and William P. Arnold. Their committee report was accepted by the board of supervisors on October 12, 1875.

COURT HOUSE.

More than six years elapsed from the time Coldwater became the county seat before a court house was erected. The various permanent officials had their quarters in hired rooms, while the courts were conducted in a rickety old building that occupied the site of the brick residence erected by the late Dr. J. H. Beach. During one of the presidential campaigns this building received the name of "Coon Pen." It was well entitled to this name, and bore it long after it was given up for court purposes.

The jail being the important public building, it was not until after that had been provided that the supervisors turned their attention to the erection of a court house. Resolutions were finally passed making the building of a court house a proposition to be voted on by the people of the county at the spring election of 1847. The vote cast in favor of the building was 824, with 797 votes against it. It is a noteworthy coincidence that this majority of 27 by which the building of the first court house in Coldwater was assured, was exactly duplicated forty years later, when the erection of the present court house was decided upon, 27 being the decisive number in both instances, although of course the total vote was much larger in 1887.

The old court house pictured on another page was accordingly erected in 1848, at a cost of five thousand dollars, being accepted by the supervisors in the fall of that year and first occupied for public purposes in December.

The court house erected by the county in 1848 served for the home of official business a generation of time, and then as the county developed there came a time when the building became unsuited to be the seat of a flourishing county like Branch. All this and more is recited in the preamble of a resolu- tion offered for the consideration of the board of supervisors at their regular October session of 1885 by the committee on county poor and county prop- erty. This committee consisted of Elliston Warner, Jerome Corwin and C. C. Van Vorst. After describing the unsuitableness of the court house for its purposes, the lack of fire-proof offices for the keeping of the records, the impossibility of repairing the court house so as to accommodate the business

,HISTORY OF BRANCH COUNTY

of the county, and calling the attention of the board to the cheapness of labor and material as opportune for the erection of a new building, the com- mittee resolved "that the question of raising by tax upon said county the sum of $50,000, one-third of the same to be raised in each of the years 1886, 1887 and 1888, for the purpose of building a new court house, be submitted to the electors of Branch county at the next annual township meetings." The resolution was adopted without a dissenting vote.

When the real decision of the question came before the people of the county on April 5, 1886, an adverse majority of 687 was rendered against the proposition. Nothing more was done during that year, except to carry on the agitation and call for plans of a proposed building.

At the January session of 1887 Supervisor Warner offered another resolution, which was adopted by the board, to submit the matter of raising the required sum for the new court house to the people. Some of the super- visors had evidently been instructed by their constituents, for five votes were recorded against the resolution. This motion, it should be noticed, provided for the raising of the sum of fifty thousand dollars by loans instead of by tax, such loans to be paid with interest in five annual instalments on the first of February of the years 1888, 1889, 1890, 1891, 1892.

To safeguard the interests of the people another motion was then car- ried to the effect that "we as members of the board of supervisors pledge ourselves individually and collectively that in no event shall the amount ex- pended in the erection of the court house exceed the sum of fifty thousand dollars."

The vote was taken in April, 1887. The people of the county were by no means unanimous, the canvass of votes showing 2.791 for and 2.764 against the proposition, so that the erection of a new court house was assured by a bare majority of 27.

The construction of the court house was entrusted to a building com- mittee of five, elected by the supervisors from their own number. As the executive responsibility devolved on these men, it is proper that their names should be given in the history of the building that is still in use for county business. They were George W. Ellis, David B. Purinton, George Miller, M. B. Wakeman, and J. H. Davis.

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A twentieth century history and biographical record of Branch County, Michigan, Part 9

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