USA > Michigan > Allegan County > A twentieth century history of Allegan County, Michigan > Part 9
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Allegan, perhaps more than any other village, was the product of invested capital, whose active representatives, however, were on the ground personally directing and participating in the building of a village.
Nature designed the site of Allegan for village purposes. The long horseshoe bend in the river, by which the swift current after flowing more than a mile from the entrance of the "horseshoe" is bent back to within a few hundred yards of its beginning, is an ideal situation for the development of water power and was so recognized by the founders of the village. This peculiar adaptability of topography to the enterprise of man must be set down as the originating cause of Allegan's existence. That the judgment of the founders was not at fault is proved by the fact that the "peninsula" within the bend is well covered with manufacturing enterprises of all kinds. the majority of them depending on water power.
George Ketchum, Stephen Vickery and Anthony Cooley were the original purchasers of most of the land on which Allegan village was built. Their purchases were made in the late summer and fall of 1833. In November of that year there came on from Rochester, N. Y., Elisha Ely, evidently a man of means, who possessed the confidence of other investors and was a capable executive. He bought an undivided third of the land owned by Ketchum, Vickery and Cooley, and also agreed to develop the water power and build a sawmill. In the following spring Mr. Ely turned the active management and ownership of his property and enterprises over to his son, Alexander L., who thereafter figured prominently in village and county affairs. In 1834 these men-Ely, Ketchum, Vickery and Cooley- projected a village, employing Oshea Wilder to survey the plat. It was due to the irregularities in this first survey that the streets of Allegan run in such bizarre directions and with such intricate angles. In 1837 F. J. Littlejohn was employed to revise the plan and rectify the survey, but owing to the rapid settlement of the two tiers of blocks previously surveyed he was unable to change materially the work of his predecessor.
There now comes an important change in the fortunes of the settle- ment-for it was no more than a settlement as vet. The investment of
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HISTORY OF ALLEGAN COUNTY
eastern capital and the promotion of manufacturing and village sites in the new regions of Michigan were, as we have seen, favorite methods of capitalistic enterprise at that prosperous period.
George Ketchum, of Marshall, Michigan, one of the original owners of Allegan site, seems to have been the agent in introducing a change in the proprietorship of Allegan. Having been employed by Samuel Hubbard, a resident of Boston and a judge of the supreme court of Massachusetts, to purchase Michigan lands, Mr. Ketchum besides buying land in his name on various sections in the vicinity of Allegan, also recommended to Judge Hubbard the purchase of an interest in the village site. Several others were interested in the deal, including Charles C. Trowbridge, of Detroit, one of the best known names in the public life of Michigan.
Hubbard, Trowbridge, Edmund Monroe and Pliny Cutler, of Boston, purchased the two-thirds interest in the village owned by Ketchum, Vickery and Cooley, the title being vested in Judge Hubbard. A. L. Ely retained his third interest, but soon after, to secure a loan of several thousand dollars from Judge Hubbard, he surrendered his title to Mr. Trowbridge.
Thus it comes about that Samuel Hubbard and C. C. Trowbridge are named as the proprietors of Allegan village, although the others mentioned had financial or active interests in its development. The association of these men was called "The Allegan Company," which though unincorporated, during its existence furnished the capital and exercised the executive control for Allegan's growth and development. In this respect the carly history of Allegan exhibits some points of marked contrast from villages which may be said to have grown up naturally and by the aggregation of individual enterprise and effort-a process described on other pages. The latter type of village formation seems to possess more of the qualities of democracy and individualism, and as a whole more of the elements of continuance and stability. The history of towns and cities that have been "boomed" by railroads, and commercial bodies and other corporate firms exhibits a depressing number of failures. Where they have succeeded, it is generally due to the substantial character of the population, who instead of relying wholly on the resources of the promoting company, have built up indepen- dent enterprises and have turned from the pap of outside capital to solid home industry and business. Though the Allegan Company must be given credit for founding the village and bringing in money and settlers to give it a fair start, so far as Allegan's permanent prosperity is concerned the com- pany failed of its purpose.
The principals in the Allegan Company about the same time purchased about 20,000 acres of land in Allegan and surrounding counties and for the exploitation of this property carried on operations under the name of the "Boston Company." The two companies were nominally independent though their interests were harmonious and, locally, the people seldom discriminated between the words "Boston" and "Allegan," but referred to the concerns as "the Company." Thus the companies became identified not only with the early growth of Allegan village but with much of the surrounding country, and for this and reasons to be mentioned later it has been deemed proper to consider as one subject the history of "Allegan and vicinity."
The revised Allegan plat, above referred to, was certified to by Samuel Hubbard and C. C. Trowbridge June 23, 1837. On the engraved "Plan of
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HISTORY OF ALLEGAN COUNTY
Allegan" made by F. J. Littlejohn appeared the following interesting pros- pectus :
"Allegan is situated at the foot of the Rapids upon Kalamazoo river at the head of steamboat navigation and 20 miles from Lake Michigan. It is the country seat and surrounded by heavy-timbered farming lands of superior quality. The town is high and healthy and is the natural outlet for the surplus products of the upper Kalamazoo, a district of country eighty in length by fifty in width. There are extensive bodies of excellent pine and whitewood over Allegan which will then be converted into lumber. Its settlement was commenced in 1835 and there are now, April 1837, 700 inhabitants. Mills, furnaces and various kinds of machinery are in operation or being erected upon water power which may be considered as fully equal to that of Rochester, New York. A steamboat is expected to run this season from Allegan to the mouth of the Kalamazoo river. Several important state roads have already been established centering at Allegan and one or more railroads will terminate at the same point. There are also in its immediate vicinity two fine beds of clay for making brick and extensive marle beds for burning lime and a large body of superior sand for manufacturing glass. Allegan from its various natural and acquired advantages will doubtless rank ere long among the most populous towns of the west."
This rather glowing prospectus is, so far as we are able to learn, the earliest written description of the village. To arrive at its true historical value, one must read it as an advertisement, which was no doubt freely cir- culated in east and west to induce settlers to locate here and invest capital for the development of "its various natural and acquired advantages." That Allegan was the natural outlet ( however, sharing the honor with Saugatuck ) for the products of the upper Kalamazoo remained true until the building of the Michigan Central R. R. to Kalamazoo, which reversed the current of traffic. Its important position as a center of the lumber industry continued as perhaps the most valuable asset of the village until the seventies. The estimate of population acquired in two years' time, if accurate, illustrates how rapidly the village grew under the impulse of the Company. But with the total population of the county, at the census of 1837, estimated at 1469. it seems hardly probable that half the number were residents of Allegan village. The fact that the Elys and other settlers were from Rochester, New York, furnished a ready comparison between the water power of the two places. No steamboat ran from Allegan to the mouth during the thirties, but the "C. C. Trowbridge" was built at Singapore by the Allegan Company about 1842 for the purpose of river navigation. It was found unsuited for its purpose and after two trips was taken off. The state roads mentioned as centering at Allegan were most valuable aids to the development of the village as a commercial center. But the prospectus safely spoke of the railroads as a future accession. The proprietors had a railroad surveyed from Allegan to Marshall in 1838, but it fared as many other railroad ventures undertaken about that time. Allegan had to wait thirty years for a railroad.
The Company also established a bank (elsewhere described), with the "wild cat" features of paper issues and unsecured capital. Disaster soon overtook this institution, and therewith the prestige and usefulness of the Company began to decline. The bank and other enterprises were the prod- uct of the era of speculation and inflated values then prevailing everywhere.
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Relying on the rosy prospects of the future, values were forced far beyond reasonable figures. It is doubtful if some of the prices at which village property was then held could be matched at the present day.
Perhaps the most serious phase of the matter was the relations of de- pendency between the people and the Company. It was the Company's vil- lage, and the inhabitants pinned their faith in the resources and management of the Company. It was said that "everybody owed the Company" and "Company orders" were legal tender throughout the community. This was not a healthy economic condition. The Company was carrying too heavy a load-being not only the financial backers but relieving the inhabitants of much of the initiative and business responsibility which are the foundation of civic as well as individual character. In the end both the Allegan and Boston companies were involved in financial embarrassments little less than bankruptcy. The Boston Company was practically dissolved in 1844 when its lands were inventoried and a division made among the individual owners. In 1849 the village property of the Allegan Company was sold at auction and the proceeds divided.
The passing of the Company was undoubtedly a good thing for the village. Left to struggle for themselves, without recourse to outside capital, the people soon found their real level and began to progress by individual enterprise. The period of fallacious hopes had passed here as throughout the state, and permanent advancement began.
So far we have presented the Company's relations to Allegan in a rather negative light. The successful issues of its control were by no means in- considerable. In 1835 and '6 a temporary dam was constructed across the river in the same location as the present one. A race was cut across the nar- row neck of land to the opposite channel of the river. A sawmill was erected, converting the pine and hardwood into lumber for the settlers' homes. During the winter of 1835-36 the upper part of the peninsula where the business portion of the village now stands was cleared of its trees and here among the pine stumps, on the village lots which had been first offered for sale the preceding June, many small frame houses sprung up to shelter the rapidly incoming settlers. In 1836 the Company erected a small frame building for the use of the Presbyterian society organized in the spring of that year. It was burned down in a fierce fire two or three weeks after being first occupied. In the same spring the large frame schoolhouse else- where described, used for church purposes and as the first courthouse, was built.
A ferry was first used to cross the river to the village site, but in 1837 a bridge was built on the site of the present bridge near the Allegan House on the south side of the village.
Through the enterprise of the Company the village was incorporated in 1838, antedating by nearly thirty years any other village incorporation in the county. At that time, owing to the fact that the Company's enterprises were brisk, that a large number of people were earning their support as em- ployes of the Company, and that the financial stringency had not yet reached the village, Allegan was flourishing. Only a year or so after incorporation, however, the decline of the Company's fortunes brought about a situation where it was clearly seen that Allegan had been advanced more rapidly than the pioneer conditions of this part of Michigan warranted. There was more
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HISTORY OF ALLEGAN COUNTY
produced than could be consumed or marketed. Population had been con- centrated and organized before the surrounding country was settled. After the panic of 1837 trade all over the country became dull, and demand being confined to the necessities, over-production resulted. This state of affairs bore specially hard on Allegan, which had been founded and promoted as a producing center, whose prosperity depended on a ready market for its output with the outside world. As yet commerce in Michigan had no rail- roads to carry it east or west. The only route in this county lay down the river, and Chicago being yet a village, and other parts of the west not yet asking for Michigan's products, it is evident that each community was strongest when it was most nearly self-sustaining, offering in the market only so much as necessary to offset its own pioneer needs. In view of these facts, there seems no overstatement in the words of an early writer who said the hard times "produced a paralysis on the growth of the village and en- tailed much suffering and hardship upon the people." Not only was the growth of the place retarded for several years, but it would seem that its population actually decreased.
In the meantime the bulk of Allegan's pioneers had come and made homes in and about the village. Those who were actively connected with the founding of the village have been mentioned. The first family to come in as settlers was that of Leander S. Prouty, who arrived in April. 1834. Elisha Ely had gone to his old home in Rochester and induced the Proutys. Andy J. Pomeroy and one or two others to return with him to Allegan where the work of improvement lingered through lack of labor. This party came from Kalamazoo to Allegan by rafts, that being a better thoroughfare than the forest trails. The Prouty house was built on what is now Brady street, between Hubbard and State, and on an acre of ground they planted the first garden crop raised on the village site. Before fall the Company had built them a log house, where they lived and kept a sort of public house for boarding the men in the employ of the Company. That first winter in Al- legan, when all the peninsula save an acre or two was covered with pine woods, when only two or three mud-and-stick chimneys sent their smoke aloft into the clear, frosty air, when hardly more than a dozen white persons made up the social community, when luxuries were the necessities, and necessities luxuries, may be remembered with profit by all who live in this time of comfort and enlargement of life's advantages.
In the spring of 1835 the village began growing rapidly. It is stated that the population then numbered about 60 persons, so that the increase during the next two years was not far from a thousand per cent. Col. Joseph Fisk, of Rochester, New York, who arrived in 1835. soon made himself a factor of prominence in the place. His first log house was replaced in a few years by the Allegan House, at the corner of Brady and State streets, which is now one of the oldest buildings in the village and after long service as a hotel is now a tenement house. He and Alva Fuller opened a store near the east end of Hubbard street, and in 1837, in partnership with Sidney Ketchum, resident agent of the Allegan Company, he built the first grist mill, where the Oliver furniture plant is now located.
When the late N. B. West came to Allegan in August, 1836, the Al- legan House was the only tavern, but William Booher was then erecting the Michigan Exchange, on the corner of Trowbridge and Walnut streets. The
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HISTORY OF ALLEGAN COUNTY
Michigan Exchange is still standing, though no longer known by that name, and now thoroughly remodeled and used as a tenement house. Mr. West lived in Allegan almost continuously until his death about a year before this writing, nearly seventy years, and from one of the earliest carpenters in the village became a successful manufacturer of doors and other building mate- rial, so that he left a considerable fortune to church and educational purposes and his heirs at the time of his death.
In the description of the village accompanying the "Plan of Allegan," already spoken of, mention is made of a furnace among the manufacturers. This was established by Alby Rossman and Hyman Hoxie, pioneers of 1836. Their machine shop and furnace, located on the race, was the first plant of the kind in the village, and served a great variety of wants among the early settlers. Mr. Rossman was identified with manufacturing in the village for thirty years, and was also a farmer and influential citizen.
Little more than nominal mention can be made of those who came in 1835 and 1836. All contributed something to the growth of the village, and some made their activity and influence so useful and conspicuous that their careers are closely interwoven with the subsequent history of the village.
Of those who came in 1835, William Jones was the first minister of the gospel in the village ; George Y. Warner was the first attorney; Ira Chaffee at once became useful as a mill operator to the Company, from 1841 con- ducted the sawmill built by the Company as its owner, and besides leaving a reputation as one of the most successful lumber manufacturers of the county, his name became familiar in the county and this part of the state through the "Chaffee House," which he built in 1872 and which ranked as the leading hotel of the village for many years. Its site is now occupied by the Masonic Temple. Doane D. Davis came in 1835, was a carpenter and contractor and also served in official positions.
The only living pioneer of 1835 is T. E. Streeter, who, a child of four years when he arrived, has spent practically all his life in the village and is the only link between the present and the years when Allegan belonged to the Company and all affairs were only beginnings. He and his brothers, J. B. and A. L., accompanied their father, Elias Streeter, to this place from New York. The latter was for a time in the employ of the Allegan Company.
Others who came in 1835 and were long connected with the village were: W. C. Jenner, the first shoemaker ; John Askins, the first millwright ; James Dawson, a resident of fifty years, and an early carpenter and joiner ; J. W. Bond, a painter. The trades, the professions, and the business callings were soon filled, and in a single year Allegan was almost on a par with villages throughout southern Michigan.
The high tide of immigration was reached in 1836. The following year came the financial panic, and cessation of immigration everywhere. The Littlejohn family were the most conspicuous arrivals in 1836. For seventy years it has been represented in the life of the village, and business and professional ability, close connection with community affairs, and high personal character have marked its individual members. Flavius J. Littlejohn was a college graduate, the first one mentioned among Allegan's pioneers. He re-surveyed the village, as already stated, and soon after entered the practice of law, and from that time until his death in 1880, his name is found in connection with public office and affairs. There were
F
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ALLEGAN IN 1840 From an etching made by Dr. O. D. Goodrich
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HISTORY OF ALLEGAN COUNTY
other brothers, Philo B., Silas F., Philetus O., and the father, John, also prominent in the village and county.
Other settlers in 1836 were Lyman W. Watkins, one of the first mer- chants; Rev. W. C. H. Bliss, a cabinet maker by trade, which he was the first to follow in the village. For many years he was a circuit rider, and performed many and arduous duties for the sake of religion, being still remembered for his aggressive and wholesome Christianity. Dr. O. D. Goodrich, the first physician, as mentioned in the chapter on Medicine. arrived in 1836. In this year came Duncan A. McMartin, a worthy citizen for half a century.
A man of substance, enterprise and eminent public spirit arrived in the person of Henry H. Booth, whose name is mentioned in connection with county and village offices, and also as the donor of the Pine Grove Seminary, an educational institution that supplemented Allegan's public schools before the organization of the graded schools. Milo Winslow, a successful mer- chant until his death, Alanson S. Weeks, father of W. C. and H. C. Weeks, J. B. and Leonard Bailey are only a few of the many who came during the "boom" time of 1836.
Allegan's history since pioneer times may be briefly sketched. Many departments of village life and activity are described in other chapters, and many facts of great interest are to be found in the personal histories. Up to the close of the Civil war, Allegan village and vicinity increased but slowly in population and business activities. The population of the village in 1850 was little more than that claimed in 1838.
The lumber industry and its affiliated business were the main interests of the village, aside from those essential to any center of population. Until traffic was directed south by the construction of the Michigan Central Railroad, Allegan benefited greatly from the river transportation. That fell off during the forties, but as long as the lumber business continued the river remained a source of profit to the village.
During the war the village experienced the setbacks and stagnation along all lines that were felt in all parts of the country. After the war came a "boom." Railroads were built in, lumbering was still active, manufac- turing showed increased prospects, settlers were flocking in to take up and develop the farming community, and every pursuit and profession found broadened scope and activity. Population figures alone show an almost phenomenal increase. The entire township in 1860 had less than a thousand inhabitants. Ten years later the village alone had a population of 2.374. the greater number having come between 1865 and 1870.
The decade from 1870 to 1880 marked the passing of lumbering as a stable resource of the county. In 1880 there were fewer inhabitants in the village than in 1870. From the early seventies until the close of the eighties there was no marked progress. One of the best evidences of the change beginning with the latter date is seen in public and private buildings and improvement of village appearances. It will be remembered that in 1889 the new court house was built-a credit to village and entire county. The best buildings of the village have been erected in the past fifteen years. Two excellent school buildings, a new jail, two beautiful churches, not to mention the residences, can be pointed out with pride as evidences of the material prosperity of the village.
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At the present writing Allegan is experiencing a better and more sub- stantial revival of business than at any time in its history. This is not a fatuous opinion from an enthusiastic citizen, but is a practical judgment formed from the actions of conservative men of hard business sense who do not embark in new enterprises and lend their support to business pro- motion without substantial reasons. With its many natural advantages, and with a proper degree of progressiveness on the part of the capital and property-owning class, Allegan's future seems to be cast among the wealth- producing and prosperous small cities of Michigan.
Concerning the industrial and business situation in Allegan at this time, the following quotation from the annual address of the president of the board of trade will prove of interest :
"Just one year ago tonight the citizens of Allegan met here for the purpose of becoming unitedly effective in promoting the material welfare of our village, to increase the industries, to add to the number of employes, to encourage in general all that tends to thrift and happiness, and for the purpose of a united co-operation among ourselves for a greater Allegan: I take this opportunity to congratulate the association upon the success it has made in the first year of its existence, and herewith extend my thanks to the secretary and directors for their willingness to do their work, so often in demand.
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