USA > Michigan > Cass County > A twentieth century history of Cass County, Michigan > Part 12
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84
This country about us is not what it was in a state of nature ; great improvement has been made. It is still beautiful, but its beauty is of a different kind. Then its voices sang of solitude, now they sing of use- fulness. Then it had a wild beauty, and its atmosphere was laden with the poetry of an imagined past, when it teemed with the civilization of the mound-builders, or when the red man roamed through its forests and over its prairies. But its beauty has been chastened by human touch, and now it tells us of happy homes, and of the triumphs of human life: saddened, of course, by the thought of the hardships and sorrows and final partings which its inhabitants have experienced.
To enumerate all the factors which produced this transformation would be impossible in any work. For every individual whose life has been cast within the county has contributed either a forwarding or ad- verse influence to the development of the county. Manifestly, we can at best merely describe some of the general conditions and select from the great host of names of those whose lives have been identified with this county some few for special mention.
In this age when the sources for obtaining information and the means of communication are almost illimitable, it is difficult to realize the primitive conditions in that respect as they affected the early set- tlers of such a region as Cass county. In this day of the telegraph and
102
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
the daily newspaper a false report may reach us concerning some dis- tant situation, but the equally effective and rapid means of authentica- tion will enable us to quickly disprove the first news, and no serious harm is done. Not so seventy-five years ago. The report of unfavor- able conditions in the new Michigan country, of a serious failure of crops, of an Indian scare, would be a long time in reaching the east, its serious aspects would increase with the circulation, and once told its vicious and retarding influence would continue a long time before information of perhaps an opposite character would reach the intending emigrants.
It is not surprising, therefore, that the settlement of Cass county did not proceed uniformly or unbrokenly. The first of the adverse in- fluences which checked the current of immigration was the Sac or Black Hawk war of 1832. The Sac Indians had never been friendly with the United States. In the war of 1812 they joined sides with the British. As a recompense they were receiving an annuity in Canada, whither they went every year, and returned laden with arms and ammunition. They crossed the border at Detroit, and probably passed through Cass county by way of the Indian trail along the southern border. Black llawk, the powerful chief of the Sacs and Foxes, had conceived the idea that the several Indian tribes by combining might be powerful enough to resist the whites ; though after being captured and taken east to see the white man's populous towns and cities, he returned and told his braves that resistance was useless.
Years before this the Sacs by treaty had ceded their lands east of the Mississippi to the United States, but had still remained upon them. When required to conform to their treaty they resisted. Early in 1832. in ugly mood, a large number of their braves went to Canada. This was their last annual expedition. When, returning, they reached Illinois, the fiends began their work of slaughter by murdering an old man, which was the first bloodshed in the memorable Sac and Fox war.
When the news came that the Indians had commenced hostilities in Illinois, the settlers of southern Michigan feared that they would re- treat into Canada instead of going to their own lands beyond the Mis- sissippi. There was no telegraph to convey the news, and it came in the form of vague rumors, and imagination pictured a hundred horrors for every one related. Besides the fear of an invasion by Black Hawk's warriors, there was anxiety lest the Pottawottomies still in the country would rise and join in the revolt.
103
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
Although, as was afterwards found out, there was not a hostile Ind- ian within a hundred miles of southern Michigan, for some time the danger was felt to be very close and real, and the "Black Hawk war" was an epoch in the pioneer memory. At the first information of hos- tilities the authorities at Chicago sent an appeal for militia to Michigan. General Joseph W. Brown commanded his brigade to take the field, ap- pointing Niles as the rendezvous. Cass county furnished as many men as her small population would allow. The news was brought to Cassop- olis by Colonel A. Houston and communicated to Abram Tietsort, Jr., whose duty it was, as sergeant of the local company, to notify the mem- bers of the order issued by their commander. Isaac Shurte was cap- tain, and Gamaliel Townsend one of the lieutenants. There was great agitation in the scattered prairie settlements of the county as the order to turn out was carried from house to house, and still greater when the men started away from their homes for what their wives and children supposed to be mortal combat with the ferocious Sacs and Foxes.
An Indian scare has not been known in Cass county within the memory of but few if any now living. But to some extent we may im- agine the trepidation and alarm of those composing the settlements at that time. No doubt some of the more timid packed their movables into a wagon and made post laste to leave the danger-ridden country. Dur- ing the short time the scare lasted hundreds of families from this part of the west stampeded as far east as Cincinnati, many of them never to re- turn to their forest homes. But the majority were of sterner stuff. They had endured the rigors of cold and fatigue, of hunger and bodily pri- vations, in establishing their homes on the frontier ; they would not easily be frightened away. Those settlers living in the central part of the county advised with one another as to the practicability of taking ref- uge on the island in Diamond lake and fortifying it against attack. This no doubt would have been done, had the alarm not subsided. It. is said that the women of the Volinia settlement had begun the erec- tion of a fort when the message reached them that the war was over.
Short as the Black Hawk war was, immigration to this portion of the west was almost completely checked. Not a few returned to the east, while those who were preparing to emigrate hither either aban- doned their plans altogether or delayed their execution for a year or so.
While we are considering some of the retarding influences in the settlement of Cass county. it will be proper to mention the frost of June, 1835. That event lived long in the memory of old settlers. Cli-
104
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
mate, as we kir w. bas much to do in lending a country the charms which attract immigration. The beauties of the landscape, the fertility of the soil, the gentle warmth of summer, and the not too severe winter. were favorite themes of praise with those who described their Michigan home to eastern friends.
But in climate as in human affairs, an abnormal event gains widest current in general knowledge. This unusual phenomenon of a heavy frost at the middle of June, causing an almost total ruin of the grow- ing crops, although such a thing had never happened before, and so far as known has not been paralleled in subsequent history, at once counter- balanced all the good that had ever been said of Michigan's climate. The seasons were never dependable, according to the report that passed through the eastern states ; the latitude was unfavorable for the produc- tion of the crops suited to the temperate zone; the climate was com- parable to that of Labrador, and so on. This occurrence had an adverse effect on immigration perhaps only second to the Black Hawk war.
It must not be supposed that nature yielded her empire at once and without a struggle. Indian scares and June frosts were the uncommon- est of events. But the daily, usual life was a constant exertion against the forces of wildness, requiring fortitude and strength of a kind that the modern life knows little. Improvement was in many respects very gradual. It was a toilsome and slow process to transplant civilization to the wilderness of Cass county. The contrasts between the present and the past of seventy-five years ago are striking and even wonderful; none the less, we dare not suppose for that reason that the transforma- tion was of fairy-like swiftness and ease of accomplishment.
The first thing, of course, after the newly arrived settler had made his family as comfortable as possible temporarily, was to build the tra- ditional log cabin. To the younger generation in Cass county, the "creature comforts" of that time seem primitive and meager indeed. In obtaining material for his house, the builder must select trees which were not too large, or they could not be handled conveniently ; not too small, or the cabin would be a house of saplings. The process of fell- ing the trees, splitting the logs, hewing them so as to have flat walls in- side, notching them at the ends so as to let them down on each other, slanting the gables, riving out lapboards or shingles, putting on roof poles, binding the shingles to them, sawing out doors and windows, making the fireplace, and many other things necessary in building a log cabin-this process is yet familiar to many old settlers.
105
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
After the settlers had housed their families they made a shelter for their stock, which was often done by setting poles in the ground, with! crotches at the upper end; poles were laid from crotch to crotch, other poles laid across, and the roof covered with marsh hay until it was thick enough to shed water. Poles were slanted against the sides, and hay piled on them in the same manner. The door could be left open or closed by any means convenient. This made an exceedingly warm shel- ter, though it was so dark that the animal's eyes sometimes suffered from it. Swine and other stock could be left to shelter themselves, and they usually found some sheltered nook in the groves and forests, or among the thick grass, where they made themselves comfortable, though some of them ran wild.
Of course, in a country like Cass, where it was possible, though difficult, to obtain from the centers of civilization the necessary articles, these primitive methods were greatly modified and improved upon from the very first. Shingle nails were often used instead of weight poles, window panes soon took the place of oiled paper or cloth. and 30 01. The first settlers brought with them the few tools necessary for their pioneer life, such as axes, adzes, iron wedges, hammers, saws, angers, gimlets, frows for shaving shingles, planes, chisels, etc., and the women brought needles, scissors, thimbles, pins, thread, yarn, spinning wheels, and some brought looms. And in the early settlement of the county, as we have seen, there came a few trained mechanics, a carpenter, sad- dler, and so on.
After the primitive log cabin came the frame building. It was the sawmill which marked the first move away from pioneer life. For as soon as a sawmill was accessible to any community, frame buiklings were practicable. The county was well wooded, and all that was neces- sary was to cut the logs, haul them to mill, pay the toll, in whatever form, and haul the lumber home again. And this was an economy of time very precious in those days of subduing the virgin soil and making a settled home. It was no easy matter to hew timber, and split out boards with wedges, and then smooth them by hand. Hence it was that sawmills were, along with grist mills, the first institutions for manu- facturing in this section of country. And at once frame buildings- mills, and shops of different kinds, stores, hotels, churches, schoolhouses and dwelling houses began to multiply. and the country put on the ap- pearance of advancing civilization. Some of those buildings are stand- ing to-day, though most of them have long since vanished, or given
106
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
place to others. In various parts of the county may be found an occa- sional frame dwelling which was built in the thirties or forties, and many of those built at that time have since been remodeled and mod- ernized so that few traces of their original form remain. The front portion of the Newell house, just west of the public square at Cas- sopolis, was constructed in 1832 or '33, so that it has survived the stress of weather and time longer than any native resident of the town.
Slowly, as the years went by, improvements were made. Gradually new, more beautiful and commodious buildings were put up for both families and dumb animals, and more and more conveniences were intro- duced into the former ones, until to-day, as one rides through any part of the county, he sees not only highly improved and well stocked farms. but large, commodious and in many cases even artistic buildings, which bespeak the thrift of the owners, and the vast progress which has been made since the first log buildings were made in Pokagon and Ontwa townships in 1826 and '27.
In the meantime. the first small groups of settlers which we have seen planted in certain favored parts of the county have been rapidly growing and advancing out into the yet virgin regions until in a few years there was hardly a section in any township that was available for entry.
Of all the transactions with which the early settlers were concerned none were more important than the government land sales. The first public lands in Michigan disposed of under government regulations were sold at Detroit in 1818. In 1823 the Detroit land office was divided, and a land office established at Monroe, at which all entries of lands west of the principal meridian were made up to 1831. It was at the land sale at Monroe in 1829 that the first settlers of the county made formal entry of their lands. The United States law required that every piece of land should be put up at auction, after which, if not bid off, it was subject to private entry, at one dollar and a quarter per acre. It was an unwritten law among the settlers that each pre-emptor should have the privilege of making the only bid on his land. This right was uni- versally respected among the settlers, no one bidding on another's claim. It occasionally happened, however, that an eastern man, unaccustomed to the ways of the west. essayed to bid on the home of a settler, but was soon convinced, in frontier fashion, that such action was a distinct con- travention of western custom. Such was the case with one young man at the sales at White Pigeon, where the land office for this district was
107
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
located from 1831 to 1834. This individual insisted on the right to bid on any land offered for sale, but made only one bid when he was sud- denly felled to the floor, which instantly inspired him with respect for settlers' claims and usages of western society. The land speculator was persona non grata with the settlers, and in some parts of the country associations known as "squatters' unions" were formed to protect the settler in his claims and when necessary to use force in compelling the speculator to desist from his sharp practices. It was owing to the fact that the public auction of land enabled the speculator to bid in as virgin soil and at the usual price of a dollar and a quarter an acre lands that had been settled and improved by an industrious pioneer, that the system of public sales was finally abolished. After 1834 the Cass county set- tlers entered their lands at Kalamazoo, where the land office for this part of the state was continued until 1858.
The process of settlement is graphically illustrated by the figures from several of the early censuses. These figures of course are quite likely to be inaccurate as exact units, but they convey in a general way the successive increases of population. From these statistical tables we see that in 1830 the county had something less than a thousand inhab- itants, meaning by that white persons. This was the number with which the county began its organized existence.
Despite the Black Hawk war that occurred in the meanwhile, by 1834 the enumeration shows 3,280, an increase of over three hundred per cent in four years ; and three years later this number had nearly doubled. By 1840 Cass county was a comparatively well settled com- munity of nearly six thousand people, while in 1845. at which date the townships had been formed as at present, the population was over eight thousand.
Considering the population according to townships, we find that in 1840, when all the townships had been formed except Marcellus, the most populous township was LaGrange, with 769 people. Then followed Porter, with 556; Ontwa, 543; Pokagon. 516; and thence on down to Newberg, with 175 persons.
Of the older townships, whose early settlement has already been adverted to, the population soon became settled on a substantial basis. Practically all the lands of Pokagon township had been entered as early as 1837. and the assessment roll of resident taxpayers in that town- ship for 1834 shows the names of fifty persons, indicating at least an approximate number of families.
105
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
LA GRANGE.
In LaGrange township, as shown in the above quoted figures, popu- lation increased more rapidly than elsewhere, owing doubtless to the es- tablishment of the seat of justice at Cassopolis. At the first township election, April, 1830, there were but eighteen voters, according to the history of 1882, whereas there were elected nineteen officials for the various civil positions, making it necessary in one or two cases that one man should hold several offices. But beginning with that year the set- tlement of the township increased rapidly. Among the early settlers not already mentioned were the McKenney and Dickson families; the Jewell family, whose first representative, Hiram Jewell, arrived in September, 1830, and William Renniston, who came the same year; Henry Hass and sons; the Petticrew and Hain families; James R. Coates, whose death, in August, 1831, as a result of his horse dashing him against the limb of a tree, furnished the first interment in the Cassopolis burying ground; Catherine Kimmerle, the first of that well known family, who brought her family of children here in 1832; and arbitrarily to end the list, Jesse G. Beeson, who came to settle here permanently in 1833. Many facts concerning the history of this township are detailed in the chapter on Cassopolis. In this township, too, the list of original land entries seldom shows a date later than 1837.
PENN.
In Penn township, the seat of the Quaker settlement, the first land entries were made in June, 1829, and the date of the last was May, 1853. The assessment roll of 1837 of the township as then organized gives a good idea of the citizenship of the township at that date. It contains the following names: Amos Green, John Price, John Donnel, Jacob T. East, Elizabeth Cox, John A. Ferguson, Hiram Cox, William Lindsley, Marvick Rudd, Ezra Hinshaw, Reuben Hinshaw. Abijah Hin- shaw, Mary Jones, Lydia Jones, Jesse Beeson, Joshua Leach, Nathan Jones, John Lamb, John Cays, John Nixon, Moses McLeary, Henry Jones, Ishmael Lee, Christopher Brodie, Alpheus Ireland, Drury Jones, Samuel Thompson.
ONTWA.
Ontwa township, in which the second settlement was made. from the first received a good share of the immigration. The settlement was especially rapid from 1833 to 1838. and by the latter year there was little or no land left for entry. This township has produced an unusual
ยท
109
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
number of prominent citizens, several of whom are mentioned under other appropriate headings. Edwardsburg was the natural center for the county, and around the history of that village much of the interest that belongs to the township gathers. Among the settlers during the thirties were, Ezra Miller, who turned away from Cassopolis to locate in Ontwa because the landlord of the hotel in the former place charged him six pence for a drink of water : Reuben Allen, who brought his family from Vermont and located on the site of Adamsville, using for his tem- porary home a frame building in which had been a "corncracker" mill : Joseph W. Lee, a New Hampshire Yankee, who for a dwelling moved to his elaim the block house built by Ezra Beardsley and which had been used as a hotel and as the first court house in Cass county. These and many others were the builders whose industry was responsible for the subsequent prosperity of Ontwa.
VOLINIA.
Volinia township from the earliest times has been a very interesting community. Many notable enterprises have originated and been fos- tered there, and in the character of the early settlers there was an in- dividuality that removes their history far from the monotony of mediocrity. To mention only a few besides the names already given. there was Col. James Newton. an Englishman by birth, who came to this country in youth, served under the American flag during the war of 1812, and came to Cass county about 1831. He was prominent politically, was a member of the convention that framed the state con- stitution, and also represented Cass and Van Buren counties in one of the first sessions of the state legislature. His son. George Newton, was also prominent in the township. served as supervisor and in the state legislature of 1858-59. just twenty years after his father's term. An- other early character was John Shaw, from Pickaway county, Ohio, who gained celebrity in the township as a justice of the peaee as well as a man of affairs generally. His motto was, "Equity first and legal technicalities afterward," and in forwarding the cause of justice he was wont to employ some very unusual methods. In later years he became a victim of drink. lost all his possessions, and his sadly checkered career came to its end in the county infirmary. Early in the thirties Volinia received two settlers who were skilled in a trade. Richard Shaw, a shoemaker, although he engaged in agriculture mainly. Levi Lawrence, a genius as a blacksmith. and the scythes which he made were the most effective implements of
110
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
the kind until they were superseded by mowing machines. He did not remain long in the township.
PORTER.
Settlement in Porter township progressed rapidly after county or- ganization. One of its early residents, whose career is historical, was George Meacham, whom we have already met as one of the coterie of pioneers in Ontwa. He moved into Porter township in 1836 and was a resident there nearly half a century. He constructed for his own use what was claimed to be the first threshing machine used in this section of the country, it being in fact but one of the component parts of the modern grain separator, namely, the cylinder for beating out the grain. He was the first sheriff in the county, serving from 1830 to 1836. His jurisdiction was all the country west of St. Joseph county to the lake, and in empanelling a jury he summoned all but five of those qualified for this service in this great scope of territory. To serve on a jury at that time it was necessary that one had paid a minimum tax of fifty cents : this excluded the majority of the residents in this circuit. Mr. Meacham was also in the lower house of the legislature in 1839, and twenty years later occupied a seat in the state senate.
Then there was the remarkable family of Rinehart brothers, Lewis, Samuel, Jacob, John and Abram, whose interests and connections in Cass county might fill many pages were we to describe them in detail. John Rinehart, their father, born in 1779. came to Cass county in the spring of 1829, settling first in Penn and later in Porter township. The sons were farmers, mechanics, and Lewis, Samuel and Jacob owned and operated the first sawmill in Porter township.
Among the arrivals during this decade was James Hitchcock, a stone and brick mason, who constructed the first brick house in Mason town- ship. Brick early became a favorite building material in this part of the country, and it was not many years after the county was settled before the primitive log house was used only during the short period while the settler was getting started in his work of improvement.
JEFFERSON.
In point of population, Jefferson township soon grew to about her present standard. From less than five hundred in 1840, to nine hun- (red in 1850, her enumeration in 1860 was 1,071, with no marked change since that date. Besides the pioneers who made the first set- tlement in the northeastern corner, there are named among the early
111
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
land entries Stephen and Peter Marmon, Aaron Brown, David T. Nichol- son, Daniel Burnham, F. Smith, Richmond Marmon, John Pettigrew, Samuel Colyar, William Barton, William Mendenhall, Obediah Sawtell, Isaac Hultz, several of whom became closely identified with the affairs of the county and township. Richmond Marmon was an orthodox Quaker. In 1834 came Ishmael Lee, who in later years became, accord- ing to the record, "one of the most faithful and successful conductors on the underground railroad, and many a wagonload of fugitive slaves have been piloted by him through the woods of Michigan on their way to Canada and freedom. He was a prominent actor in the well known Kentucky slave cases of 1848, and was one of those sued by the Ken- tuckians for the value of the escaped fugitives, and he paid a large sum of money to compromise the litigation." Other arrivals were Daniel Vantuyl, John Stephenson, Robert Painter, a justice of the peace, mer- chant and manufacturer, Horace Hunt, who was a wagonmaker and made some of the wooden plows used by the early settlers. Many citizens of this township remember Pleasant Norton, who lived here from 1832 to his death in 1877. He was a stanch Democrat politically, and his name is among those occurring most frequently in the early civil lists of the county. He was twice in the legislature, was supervisor of Jefferson nine times, was township treasurer four terms. At his death he left a large property. He was a man of native ability, of rugged personality, and unusual force of character, and it was these qualities for which his fellow citizens honored and respected him.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.