USA > Michigan > Allegan County > A twentieth century history of Allegan County, Michigan > Part 3
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HISTORY OF ALLEGAN COUNTY
FIRST TOWNSHIP MEETING.
The first township meeting of the township of Allegan, designated by the legislative act just mentioned, brings into notice the first men con- nected with the civil history of the county, who were, of course, likewise among the first settlers. This township meeting was held April 6. 1833, at the house of Dr. Samuel Foster, whose pioneer home was on section 23 of what is now Otsego township and was within the present corporate limits of the village of the same name. Hull Sherwood was moderator of the meeting, and the other town officials chosen were: Cyrenius Thomp- son, clerk : Charles Miles, supervisor : Ebenezer Sherwood. Calvin White, D. A. Plummer, assessors : Martin W. Rowe, collector; Giles Scott and H. C. White, overseers of the poor: Turner Aldrich, Norman Davis, R. Sherwood, commissioners of highways: M. W. Rowe, constable : Orlando Weed, Ebenezer Sherwood, U. Baker. Abijah Chichester, overseers of roads ; S. Foster. C. Miles, S. Thompson, school inspectors.
These township officers were elected in accordance with the territorial laws governing the selection of such officials. The full complement was chosen to comply with the provisions of the law, not, surely, because they were all needed to conduct the business of such a thinly settled region as Allegan county was at the time. It is probable that nearly all the citizens of the township, with the exception of the few located near the mouth of the Kalamazoo, were required to fill the numerous offices.
July 8. 1833, a general election was held, and the voters of the town- ship cast ballots for a delegate to Congress (Lucius Lyon) and a member of the legislative council. Twenty-two votes were counted. The citizens who took part in this election and in the second township meeting in April, 1834, were residents about Otsego. At the township meeting of April 6. 1835, held at the schoolhouse near the mouth of Pine Creek, the name of Alexander L. Ely of Allegan village appears as school commis- sioner, and also that of William G. Butler, the Saugatuck pioneer, as con- stable. By that time the citizenship all along the river was represented.
The new names added to the official list at the town meeting of 1834 were Almerin L. Cotton. John L. Shearer. Ezekiel Metcalf, and John H. Adams, Jonathan Russell, Friend Ives, Dan Arnold : and those at the elec- tion of 1835: Oka Town. Silas Dunham, Benjamin Plummer. Randall Crosby, William Still. L. S. Prouty. R. S. Crosby.
With the township election of 1835 the official record of Allegan town- ship as a civil division of Kalamazoo county ceases. Its territory was organized the following year as Allegan county, with a civil government of its own. Already in October. 1834. the governor had appointed three commissioners to locate a county seat for the prospective county. These commissioners, whose names were Oshea Wilder. Cyrus Lovell and Isaac E. Crary, taking into consideration the advantages of the new and enter- prising village of Allegan, its central location in the county as a whole and with respect to the river Kalamazoo, decided that the seat of government should be located there and the governor subsequently made proclamation to that effect. No marked dissent to this decision was made by the citizens, and consequently Allegan county has never had a "county seat contest." Allegan has retained the prestige undisputed for over seventy years.
8
HISTORY OF ALLEGAN COUNTY
August 12, 1835, a meeting was held at Otsego to undertake the pre- liminary steps of county organization. Elisha Ely was chairman of the meeting, and John L. Shearer secretary. The first resolution of the meeting declared the expediency of immediate organization of the county. Then nominations were made for the principal county offices-Elisha Ely and John Anderson for associate judges; Alexander L. Ely for county clerk ; J. L. Shearer for sheriff ; Martin L. Barber, for surveyor; Oka Town for judge of probate. A committee, consisting of Eber Sherwood, D. A. Plummer and Joseph Fisk, was chosen to forward the resolutions to the governor and council.
The resolutions were acted upon by the legislature and a measure approved during the same month for the organization of the county. The commissions for the officers mentioned in the resolutions were signed by Stevens T. Mason on August 25th.
September 1, 1835, the civil machinery of Allegan county went into operation. The county still had but a single township, so that the officers of the latter had jurisdiction over as wide a territory as the county officers. Accordingly when, shortly after the organization of the county, an election was held on the adoption of the new state constitution and the election of the first state officers, notice was given to both "the electors of the town- ship of Allegan and the county of Allegan." The election was held at Otsego on October 5th and at Allegan on the following day. Allegan's strength of political numbers is shown by the fact that Elisha Ely, the village's candidate for the legislature, won against Linsford B. Coats, the candidate from the southeastern part of the county, by 31 to 30 votes.
With this election, which resulted in the adoption of the constitution, the state government of Michigan became in force. Nevertheless Congress did not accept the state into the Union until January 26, 1837, so that for over a year Michigan was in the anomalous position of being a state, yet not a member of the Union.
The county government having been organized, it has gone on without interruption to the present time. The business of a county is much the same everywhere, and in a history extending through a period of over seventy years it is hardly proper to select the administration of one year for special mention, any more than it is possible to describe the routine transactions of each successive year. Concerning the personnel of the county officials, it is hoped that the official lists published in another part of this volume, and the individual mention of some who have held public position, will prove a satisfactory record of the men who have faithfully administered the affairs of county. The courts and those connected with them will be treated in a special chapter. It now remains to continue the general subject of organization by describing the court house and other public buildings and institutions of the county, and then taking up the formation of the townships and the early affairs of each.
The proprietors of Allegan, in platting the village, made provision for the county seat by the dedication of a square of land to afford sites for the county buildings. The plat as recorded by the proprietors, Samuel Hubbard and C. C. Trowbridge, June 23, 1837, designates this public square, and ten years later these same men deeded this land to the board of supervisors, and this deed was supplemented by another deed to the
FIRST SCHOOL HOUSE AND COURT HOUSE; NOW REMODELED AS A DWELLING.
9
HISTORY OF ALLEGAN COUNTY
board from the village of Allegan, waiving its claims and titles to "as much of the public square * *
* as may be wanted or used for county buildings and necessary appurtenances, and this grant is for no other pur- pose." It is not likely that the county's title in this land could ever be disputed, even though the county buildings do not cover the entire site.
COURT HOUSE.
The county of Allegan paid out $32 in rent for the use of the first schoolhouse in the village to serve as a court room from the organization of the county through the years 1837 and 1838. County buildings lacked the character of permanence and adequacy during the first few years. The inevitable schoolhouse had multiple uses in those days, and the first temple of justice was likewise the building where the pioneer children met for instruction and where on other days divine worship was held. This school- house that must go down in history as Allegan's first court house stood, when built, on the south side of Trowbridge street, just east of Pine street. At the time of the laying of the corner stone of the present beautiful court house, Mr. Phillip Padgham, in an address, referred to the old structure as follows: "It now stands in plain view of us all. on the south side of Hub- bard street, directly across from this public square, and is occupied by James Forward as a salesroom for agricultural implements. Its age is an excuse for its appearance, and its size compares with that of its new rival relatively as the amount of business to be transacted therein. It has out- lived many of the pioneers who built and used it, and is one of the few landmarks remaining that remind us of the early history and struggles of the heroic little band that located the site of our beautiful village.
Only court sessions were held at the schoolhouse. Inquiry as to where the various offices of clerk, treasurer, register, etc., were kept leads only to the general answer that they were kept at the residence or place of business of the incumbent at the time. We can imagine a citizen of the time passing from the office of the county clerk to the treasurer's and going clear across town. The grand jury in 1838 met in a room of the Michigan Exchange, opposite from the northwest corner of the public square.
Until 1889 the word "court house" did not convey the meaning that it did in most counties, denoting the usually ample building in which all the courts and the county administration were housed. For many years the courts were held in one place, the county offices were in another, and the jail in still another.
Judge Padgham, in the address already quoted, has given the story of the various quarters occupied by the circuit court after it ceased to be held in the schoolhouse. "Several terms of the circuit court were held in the old school building, and afterwards the circuit court held its session in a building known as the Methodist chapel, which was located near the present site of the Methodist Episcopal church ( Trowbridge and Walnut streets). The chapel was afterwards burned down, and the different courts for a time were held in a basement to the building occupied by the jailer. This basement was fitted up for county offices and was used for county and court purposes. It stood on the north side of Hubbard street in the southwest corner of this public square. The courts were next held in the basement of the Baptist church. This church was a brick building.
10
HISTORY OF ALLEGAN COUNTY
the upper part being unfinished, and in 1854 the county purchased the building of the Baptist society for court purposes, and the upper part was then finished off for a court room, and the sessions of the circuit court were held there until the building was condemned by the village and county authorities, in the year 1887. The court then moved its quarters to the dining room of the Chaffee block, where two sessions of the court were held, and since then to the present time (1889) the circuit court has occu- pied the room over Delano's store on Locust street, known as Grange hall. The business of the court, instead of being disposed of in one day as in November. 1836, has increased to such an extent that it now has, some- times, a session of three or four weeks with a jury, besides cases heard and determined by the judge himself. But the present place of holding the court is not very much in advance of the modest old building which, as I said before, has retired to the business of sheltering agricultural imple- ments.
This scantiness of accommodations for the county government was not due to a lack of enterprise on the part of those in anthority, but obviously the wealth of the people during the early decades did not warrant large expenditures for such purposes. It was perhaps a reflection of the willing- ness to mortgage the future felt throughout the state during the boom period of the thirties that led the board of supervisors at their meeting in November. 1837. to propose the raising of the sum of fifteen thousand dollars to be expended on public buildings. The proposition, if submitted to the vote of the people, failed to receive their assent, and the first prac- tical moves for county buildings, undertaken a year or so later, indicated that the era of extravagance was over and the time of economy was in full realization.
The supervisors at their meeting in November. 1837, had authorized the sheriff to procure quarters for the confinement of "debtors and crim- inals." at not greater charge than one hundred dollars a year. April 25, 1839. the board of county commissioners ( who had succeeded the super- visors : for which see official lists) directed that S. FF. Littlejohn submit a plan for the construction of a jail, a house for the jailer, and a room to serve for county purposes, at a total cost of not more than $1,200. Mr. Littlejohn was given the contract for the erection of this the first county building. It was completed and accepted February 27, 1840. The late Judge W. B. Williams thus described this structure : "The first court house, jail and sheriff's residence was erected upon the southwest corner (of square). It consisted of a small frame building with a lean-to of logs attached. The lean-to was the jail, the upper floor of the upright was the sheriff's residence, and the lower floor the court room. The building was used for a jail and sheriff's residence until condemned by a grand jury as a nuisance. The jail was low, damp and unhealthy, and some of the prison- ers who were fond of quiet and rest complained that 'they did not care turn over in bed for fear of rolling out of jail.'" The total cost of this building was $1.567.98.
The county offices were next given a separate building. Five hundred dollars was appropriated October 15. 1846, and the following January it was directed that a fire-proof brick building, one story, and containing three rooms, be erected. Thomas M. Russell constructed this building. under
THE OLD JAIL BUILDING
11
HISTORY OF ALLEGAN COUNTY
the direction of Henry H. Booth, Ralph R. Mann and David D. Davis. The total cost was $528.50, and it was completed in October, 1847. It stood on the northwest corner of the square, near the later county offices, and the probate judge, the treasurer and county clerk and register had their offices there. The part of the jail previously occupied by county offices was then remodeled for a court room.
The next provision was for a suitable court quarters. As already men- tioned, the supervisors-after failing to secure a specific tax for the build- ing of a court house-negotiated the purchase of the unfinished Baptist church, which was remodeled for court purposes at a cost of $1. 106.63.
Soon the old log jail became unfit. A proposition to raise five thousand dollars for a new one was submitted to the people in the spring of 1859. and was carried. It was decided to locate it on a lot in the block west and opposite the public square, the building to be of brick with stone fouil- dations, 40 by 50 feet on the ground and two stories high, the west side for jail purposes and the front for the sheriff's residence. This building was completed by January. 1862, at a cost of $4.890.
A few years later the building for county offices was reported of not "sufficient capacity," as "dilapidated." and generally inadequate for its pur- poses. An attempt was made at this time. 1867. to obtain the consent of the people to erect a court house and office building, but the board finally had to be content with the erection of quarters for the county offices alone. The agitation was continued for several years before anything definite was brought about. In October. 1870, the supervisors resolved to submit the question of raising $6,000 for the purpose to the people at the following April election. The proposition was carried. The office building was erected, the two-story brick building still standing on the northwest quar- ter of the square, and at this writing not used for any permanent offices. It was first occupied January 1, 1872, and its total cost to the county, includ- ing furniture and fixtures, was $9.561.25. The lower floor was occupied by the register and treasurer, and the upper by the clerk and judge of probate.
Such were the county buildings before the modern structures now in use. Until the latter part of the eighties, the square was adorned by the office building just described in the northwest corner, and in the opposite. the southeast, corner stood a village engine house. West of the square stood the brick jail which has only recently been replaced, and north of it was the court house, remodeled from the old church and soon to prove unsafe and be condemned.
January 7, 1887. a committee of the boards of supervisors. to whom had been intrusted the investigation of ways and means for obtaining a new court house, made the following report :
"Your committee to whom was referred the consideration of the motion to submit to the voters of said county a proposition to raise, by tax, a fund for the purpose of erecting a court house for the said county, do respect- fully submit a report thereon as follows: And it having become necessary to build a court house for the county of Allegan for the reason that the present court house is not only unsafe, but is lacking in the requisites nec- essary for the transaction of the business of the county, consider that a new court house should be erected, and for that purpose the sum of $45,000
12
HISTORY OF ALLEGAN COUNTY
should be raised by tax, and would recommend that at the township election next ensuing a proposition be submitted to the voters of the county to spread a tax of one mill on the dollar of the state equalized valuation, each year, for the term of three years."
The result of this motion is given in a resolution offered April 24, 1888: "Whereas, it appears from the canvass of votes cast at the last spring election for and against the proposed new court house that the prop- osition was defeated by a small majority of 115; And, whereas, it further appears that in the township of Saugatuck the vote against the proposition was mainly the result of a misunderstanding of the voters therein in rela- tion to a matter entirely foreign to the court house question, thereby defeat- ing the will of the people of the county on the matter; And, whereas, believing that a new court house is necessary at the earliest possible moment for the preservation of the records of the county and accommodation of the business thereof: Therefore resolved, that at the next general election to be held on the sixth day of November, 1888, there be submitted to the voters of Allegan county for their action a proposition authorizing the building of a new court house not to exceed in cost when built and fur- nished with necessary furniture the sum of $44,000.'
This motion was lost, but the following offered the next day, was car- ried: "Whereas, it appears that Allegan county has no court house and from the records of said county it appears that said county is now paying $547.50 for a night watch to guard the county records, and $300 is paid for rent of a room for the circuit court, with prospects of being obliged to pay more ; and also about $250 in repairs for the owners of building that is now rented : Therefore, be it resolved, that at the next general election to be held in November. 1888, there be submitted to the voters of Allegan county a proposition authorizing the building of a new court house not to exceed in cost when built and finished with all the necessary apparatus and furniture $44,000.
"If on canvassing the votes a majority of the votes cast shall favor the raising of said money for building said court house the sum of $15,000 shall be spread on the tax rolls of Allegan county for the year 1889, and $15,000 on said rolls in 1890, and the balance spread on the tax rolls of Allegan county in 1891."
Following is the tabulated vote taken on this proposition at the Novem- ber election :
Yes.
No.
Yes.
No.
Allegan
1,049
IO
Manlius
71
37
Casco
82
I37
Martin
37
I24
Cheshire
161
32
Monterey
198
32
Clyde
44
I7
Overisel
56
55
Dorr
62
94
Otsego
21
636
Fillmore
45
103
Pine Plains
104
23
Ganges
59
180
Salem
156
II
Guns Plains
II7
192
Saugatuck
56
280
Heath
II2
29
Trowbridge
93
I18
Hopkins
182
95
Watson
108
139
Laketown
II
57
Wayland
I13
I30
Lee
41
89
Leighton
I42
61
Total
3.120
2,681
...
ALLEGAN COUNTY COURT HOUSE
13
HISTORY OF ALLEGAN COUNTY
Court house committee were Charles Johnson, Frederick Schrader and A. E. Calkins. The building committee were Charles Johnson, A. E. Calkins, Frederick Schrader, John Crispe and B. F. Granger. S. I. Osgood was the architect.
The laying of the court house corner-stone, August 29, 1889, was a cele- bration attended by a great number of people from over the county and from abroad. Some of the addresses made on that occasion have been quoted, and altogether it was an event of more than ordinary importance.
The building committee's report on January 9, 1890, thus describes. the progress of the building: "That since the report at the special session of this Board, June last, the work has progressed with commendable fidelity, both as to character of work and material, until the building is enclosed except the tower, which has been carried above the roof and covered with a temporary roof. Considerable work has been done inside. Steam connec- tions nearly completed. The delay of the glass has greatly annoyed the contractor, but expect this will soon be completed and the plastering soon commenced. Whole amount paid contractor to date $28.969.85, which is 85 per cent, due him at last estimate."
June 10, 1890, the committee reported in part as follows: "That since their report made at the January session of the Board the contractor has pushed forward the work of construction so that it is now completed, and he is prepared to give up the keys into your hands, provided the work proves satisfactory to your Board. The committee met frequently during the progress of the work and unite in expressing their full appreciation of the fidelity and honest effort on the part of Mr. J. M. Crocker to present to this county a building so constructed, from foundation to turret. that will bear the closest scrutiny, and in a style of finish rarely excelled in far more costly buildings. Your inspection will convince you of this fact. Your committee take pleasure in stating that they have not seen any attempt to put in any reprehensible work, but always the best care and skill attainable."
The financial report on the completion of the court house was as follows :
Contractor, Mr. Crocker.
$42.035.49
Decorating
410.00
G. R. Furniture Co.
370.00
Desks, rail and tables.
282.75
Bill of chairs.
144.00
Mantel and grates 245.00
Additional plumbing 69.91
Locks, registers, etc.
38.25
Book racks
I 50.00
Furnishing ladies' room.
58.28
Paving boiler and fuel room
51.20
Total cost $43.854.88
After more than forty years of use, the old jail, with its ivy-grown front, was declared obsolete. Its unfitness was ground for a resolution by the board of supervisors on January 13. 1905, reading partly as follows: "Your com- mittee would therefore respectfully recommend that the proposition to raise-
14
HISTORY OF ALLEGAN COUNTY
the sum of $25,000 for the purpose of building a new jail and sheriff's residence be submitted to the electors of Allegan county at the spring election of this year 1905, said $25,000 to be raised as follows: $12,500 to be raised in the year 1905, and $12,500 to be raised in the year 1906; provided, however, that the sum aforesaid of $25,000, together with the $1,500 already on hand in the jail fund, shall be all the money that shall be used in the construction of said jail and sheriff's residence. Raised in this way, it would mean a rate of less than seven-tenths of a mill on each $1 assessment of the county ; or, to a man paying on a house and lot assessed at $500, the cost of building a jail as proposed would be only 33 cents each year for two years."
This report, submitted to the board by Albert L. Nichols, J. W. Sturgis and L. B. Scholten, was adopted, and the proposition was referred in proper form to the voters for action. The result of the vote taken the following April 17, 1905, is thus tabulated :
Ranges.
Yes.
No.
Ranges.
Yes. 334
No.
II
423
406
15
205
12
516
498
16
446
457
13
845
467
14
262
161
2,826
2,194
The architect of the new jail was Mr. Hall, of Detroit, and Crocker and Knapp were awarded the contract for its construction. The special committee appointed to supervise the building were Roscoe N. Ellis, John Lubbers, Fred C. Wilcox, Alvah H. Tracy, Daniel D. Harris ; the member- ship did not remain the same throughout, however.
At the session of the board of supervisors, June 28, 1906, the fol- lowing report was adopted :
GENTLEMEN : Your committee on the building of the new jail would respectfully submit the following report: The jail has been accepted with a guarantee that some work that could not be finished till the old jail was out of the way, should be completed as specified. The jail has been built at a cost of $24,940.09. * *
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