USA > Michigan > Cass County > A twentieth century history of Cass County, Michigan > Part 16
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Cass county was organized in November, 1829, but the act author- izing the location of a county seat was not passed until July, 1830. The citizens did not proceed immediately after organization to administer their civil functions, since the first courts were not held until the sum- mer of 1831 and the first hoard of supervisors did not meet until Octo- ber, 1831, and the place of hoth official gatherings was at Edwardsburg, in acordance with legislative enactment. The first set of commission- ers probably located the court house site during the summer of 1830. As already related. it was located on the land of Dr. H. H. Fowler, on section 31 of Penn township. this land having been entered in May, 1830. It cannot be stated with certainty that Dr. Fowler had already platted a village at this point which the commissioners chose. The plat of Geneva was filed May 1, 1832, several months after the county seat question had been permanently decided, and the further fact that the description states that "the public square is given to the county on which to erect a courthouse" provided the county seat was located there, makes it reasonably certain that the plat was made while the decision as to the county seat was still in the balance. Yet the plat must have been made after January, 1831, since Hart L. Stewart was one of the pro- prietors whose name is signed to the plat and who did not enter his land until January, 1831. From these facts and figures it is deducible that Dr. Fowler's land had no special improvements or advantages to rec- ommend it as the location of the courthouse site in preference to the similar tracts of land owned by a dozen other settlers in that immediate locality. And each settler was an active claimant for the honor of hav- ing the county seat located on his land, and no doubt in proportion with the degree of his previous desire was the strength of his disappoint-
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ment and dissatisfaction after the decision had been announced in favor of Dr. Fowler. The story of fraud in connection with the act of loca- tion is aside from our purpose here except as it added strength to the ar- guments for change of the site. The essential fact is that each settler was on practically an equal basis with his neighbors in his contest for the site of the county seat, and that in due course of time a village would have been platted and would have sprung up wherever the com- missioners had "stuck the stake" for the county buildings.
It is not known how the settlers individually stood with reference to the first location of the county seat. But, as elsewhere related, the legislature, in response to the request of what must have been an in- fluential proportion of the citizens, passed an act, approved March 4, 1831, for the relocation of the county seat. This restored the contest to its original status, and every group of settlers in the central part of the county urged the advantages of their favored locality upon the three commissioners.
The act provided that the commissioners should assemble in Cass- opolis the third Monday in May, 1831, to consider the respective claims, but as Governor Mason did not issue his proclamation declaring Cassopo- lis to have received the choice until December 19. 1831, the matter must have been debated and undecided until the late fall of that year. This conclusion is forced upon us if we are to accept the usual account of the manner in which Cassopolis was brought into active competition for the honor.
In the list of original land entries of section 26. LaGrange town- ship, are found the names of E. B. Sherman and A. II. Redfield with the date September 22. 1831. The story of how these young lawyers came into possession of this land has often been told. Sherman, having arrived in the midst of the excitement over the county seat affair. had decided that he too might enter the contest and in pursuance of his plans fixed upon the southeast corner of section 26 as the location which he would urge upon the attention of the commissioners. Before start- ing to the land office at White Pigeon he learned that the Jewells also were preparing to enter that particular land, and in consequence he made all haste to anticipate his rivals. Arriving in Edwardsburg he admitted another young lawyer, A. H. Redfield, to a knowledge and co- operation in his plans, and by pooling their utmost cash resources and borrowing ten dollars they had enough to make the entry and purchase the desired land a few hours in advance of the Jewells, who arrived
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in White Pigeon just as Sherman was leaving with the receipt for the land safely in his pocket.
Sherman and Redfield, on their return to the banks of Stone lake, began an aggressive campaign. They knew the value of organization and harmony, and associated with themselves several of their neigh- bors, namely : Abram Tietsort, who gave to the village site forty acres on the banks of Stone lake in section 35: Oliver Johnson, who contrib- uted twenty acres from section 25 ; and Ephraim MeCleary, twenty acres from section 36. These five men were the proprietors whose names are signed to the village plat, which was recorded November 19, 1831. The village must have been platted and all the circumstances just re- lated must have taken place between September 22, the date of Sherman's entry of the land, and November 19. In this interim the associates had prosecuted their case before the commissioners, naming three streets in their honor and presenting the other advantages of the site, and it was probably in the month of November that the decision was reached by the commissioners, for. as will be recalled from a previous chapter. the proclamation of the governor was made December roth, by which Cassopolis was affirmed the county seat.
Cassopolis was now secure in the possession of the seat of justice, and any further details with reference to this central institution must be found on other pages, while here we proceed with the tracing of the development of the village as such. And here it may be mentioned in passing that the original spelling of the village name, as found on old letters and the first plat, was "Cassapolis," and that the change from a to o, which was clearly dictated by euphony, took place gradually in custom and was finally affirmed by the postoffice department.
The history of the public square of Cassopolis is none the less im- portant because few people of this generation know that the village ever possessed such a locality. To picture early Cassopolis it is necessary to reconstruct mentally a public square, measuring twenty-six rods north and south and twenty rods east and west, around which were grouped the early stores and taverns, and each side bisected by the wide streets of State and Broadway. To comprehend the appearance of the village as it would be had the original plans been carried out, we must clear away, in imagination, all the business buildings which front Broad- way on the west, from the Goodwin House on the north edge of the square, to the alley ten rods south of State street, and also all the build- ings on the east side of Broadway north of the same alley. In other
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words. a person standing at the intersection of State and Broadway would be at the center of the old square, with a clear space on the east to the jail and Baptist church, on the west to the Newell House and the Moon supply house, both buildings that belong to an earlier period. All the buildings on the area of the old square are of comparatively re- cent date. With the exception of the old court house and jail on the northeast quarter of the square and the "Old Fort," containing county offices, on the northwest quarter, the square was unoccupied by per- manent buildings up to forty years ago, and around its four sides stood some of the structures which were landmarks at that time and which have now nearly all disappeared from sight and memory. Among such buildings of that time we recall on the east side the old Cassopolis House, a wooden building on the site of the present Baptist church, south of which was a blacksmith shop, and across State street, where the jail now stands, was a two-story frame building, the upper story being the Odd Fellows' hall. On the north side stood the brick store building, now the Shaw hotel, and on the west side of Broadway was the Union hotel, built by Eber Root. On the west side stood the first frame building built on the plat, elsewhere mentioned, and on the south side of the street the old building above mentioned and then used as a tin shop: and south of this stood a frame building occupied by Daniel Blackman as a law office and by Asa Kingsbury as a banking house. The south side of the square was bordered by a frame build- ing still standing, then used as a store, and on the east side of Broad- way by the Eagle hotel. While these buildings at that time occupied the most eligible and conspicuous sites of the village, subsequent devel- opments have placed many of them on alleyways, and rows of brick business blocks have shut them from the main routes of business traffic.
With this understanding of the situation forty years ago, we may properly introduce the story of how the public square became absorbed for business purposes and was lost to the county. The history was given in detail in the decision of the supreme court in 1880, which permanently confirmed the defendants in the ownership of all the pub- lic square expect that portion covered by the court house. The deci- sion is interesting as the most authoritative resume of the circum- stances and events which pertain to the public square question.
The history of the case as outlined in the opinion delivered by Judge Cooley is as follows: When the three commissioners located the county seat at Cassopolis, the laying out of a village plat contain-
PUBLIC SQUARE IN 1860.
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
ing a block of land marked "Cassopolis public square," "designed for building's for public uses," was a distinct offer on the part of the propri- etors to dedicate the whole of the public square for public buildings. "The inference is very strong, if not conelusive, that if the county had proceeded to appropriate the whole square to its needs for county build- ings this would have been a good acceptance of the offer and would have perfected the dedication."
But the supervisors did not see fit to employ the square as the site of the first publie buildings, the first jail, used till 1852, as also the first court house. used till 1841. being situated on lots not the public square. Furthermore, when the county commis- sioners, in 1839, planned the erection of a new court house, they con- veyed to Asa Kingsbury and associates of the "Court House Com- pany" a deed to the publie square and grounds, reserving only the privilege to ereet a court house on the northeast quarter. This last reservation is the first and only distinet aet of acceptance on the part of the county of the grounds originally dedicated for public purposes. and though the conveyance was made "with the privileges and appur- tenanees for the uses and purposes for which said square and grounds were conveyed to said county." the court held that, as the conveyance was made by a deed which also conveyed a large number of village lots to the grantees for their own use and benefit. "it seems scarcely open to doubt that the intent was that all right of control on the part of the county was meant to be conveyed to the grantees."
The proprietors of the village plat having made the broad offer to donate the square for public buildings generally and the county having accepted for its purposes a site for a court house and at the same time transferred to trustees any power of control in respect to the remainder. the dedication to the county "must be deemed to have been restricted to the actual acceptance of a court house site, as being adequate to the county wants, and the county could not, therefore, claim as of right any further land for its uses."
After the erection of the court house in 1841, for the construction of which the Court House Company had accepted as part payment a deed to certain parcels of land, including presumptively all the public square not covered by the court house, the question of ownership of the vacant square rested until the county built a jail, in 1852, on the same corner with the court house. Kingsbury disputed the right to do this and the county subsequently purchased the land of him. Then. in 1860, the
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county office building was erected on the northwest quarter, and this also was put up against the protest of Kingsbury and associates.
The other two quarters of the square were not occupied by the county in any manner, and this land was claimed individually on the basis of the deed given by the county commissioners to the parties who had erected the court house. The history of the appropriation of this land for commercial purposes is thus given in the decision :
In 1836 Kingsbury commenced business as a merchant in a store situated immediately south of the southwest quarter of the square and used in connection therewith a part of that quarter for the storage of lumber, shingles, barrels and boxes, and with a hitching rack for horses. In 1856 he built a new store, seventy-two feet in length, with stone foundation, one foot of which for the entire length was upon the square. The cellarways for the store were on the square. From 1858 to 1869 a tenant had hay scales on the square, set over a walled pit, near the center of the quarter; he moved them in the year last men- tioned to another part of the same quarter, where he continued to use thein.
In 1865 Joseph Harper and Darius Shaw deeded their interest in the public square to Daniel Blackman. Redfield also deeded to Black- man in 1869. In 1870 Blackman deeded to Kingsbury; the heirs of Tietsort gave him a deed in the same year and Silvers another in 1873. Blackman, it seems, had set up some claims of title to the south- east quarter of the square in 1863: a building had been moved upon it, which was occupied for a law office and millinery shop until 1878, when it was moved away and a brick store erected in its place. The south- cast quarter is now ( 1880) built up and claimed by the applicants. In 1868 Kingsbury platted the southwest quarter of the square into six lots an.1 sold five of them to persons who erected two-story brick stores thereon, which they now occupy and claim as owners. Kingsbury also erected a similar building for a banking house. The buildings were completed in 1860 and 1870; they have been taxed to the occupants and the taxes paid ever since 1868.
Such was the situation when, in March, 1879, the board of super- visors brought suit in the circuit court to eject the occupants from the public square, which they claimed to the county on the ground that the land had been dedicated by the original proprietors in 1831. Judge John B. Shipman of the St. Joseph circuit decided that the dedication had not been perfected, and the state supreme court, in October, 1880.
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affirmed this decision in an opinion the substance of which has been given above. This was the conclusion of a rather remarkable case, involving many facts of history that have become quite obscured in later years.
The original plat of Cassopolis, copies of which are still extant, is a very interesting document, from which the subsequent history of the village may be computed. The platted land measured one hundred and nineteen and one-half by one hundred and ninety-one rods, the rectangle being broken on the southwest corner by the lake. The north and south streets named on the plat were: "West," which has never been opened : "Disbrow," "Broadway," "Rowland," "O'Keefe." "Timber" and "East." On the north side of the plat no street was designated and none has since been opened. The first east and west thoroughfare was "York" street, and then came "State," "Jefferson," "Water" and "South" streets, from which familiar boundaries the limits of the orig- inal village may be easily recalled. Subsequent additions have expanded the village mainly to the south and east, toward the railroads, encircling the entire east side of Stone lake. The lake occupied the principal natural position in influencing the location of residence and business enterprises at the early period. But the keystone of the village was the public square, designedly the site of the county's business institutions. around which the first business houses were grouped.
Around the public square the first business and residence houses of Cassopolis began building. On a lot facing east on the southwest corner of the square Ira B. Henderson erected a double log cabin, which became the first hotel or tavern, and near the southwest corner of the old square John Parker had his log house. As stated elsewhere, the oldest building that has been left from pioneer times is the east front portion of the Newell House, on the north side of State street, one hundred and fifteen feet west of Broadway. The original part of this building was put up in 1832 by Sherman and Redfield, the promoters of the village, and its first lawyers. This was the first frame dwelling house erected on the plat, and after several additions were made to it, became a village tavern.
The "old red store," kept by the Silvers, was the principal mercan- tile institution of the pioneer village. It stood the first lot south of the southwest quarter of the square and now stands west on Disbrow street and is used as a dwelling house. In this store A. H. Redfield kept the postoffice. The postoffice was established in 1831, about coincident
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
with the creation of the county seat. The office was first kept in a small building that stood where the Goodwin House kitchen now stands. at the northwest corner of the square.
The distillery of the Silvers was on the shore of the lake, just west of Disbrow street, and Abram Tietsort's house was on the lake shore outside the old village plat. These business and private houses were the principal ones that formed the nucleus of Cassopolis village in its beginnings. A brief retrospective sketch will describe the import- ant improvements and events which have developed the village from that time to the present. The county buildings, the schools and churches belong to other chapters, but the main points, the "high lights," can he detailed liere.
As a civil organization Cassopolis progressed slowly during the first forty years. The village was first incorporated by the board of supervisors October 14. 1863. The census taken at that time showed four hundred and seventy-five persons residing on the area of a mile square comprising the four cornering quarter sections of sections 25, 26, 35 and 36. The heads of the families represented by the census and whose signatures appear on the petition to the board of super- visors may be called "the charter citizens" of the village of Cassopolis, and deserve naming in this chapter. They are :
Joseph Smith. Jacob Silver,
John McMarus.
O. S. Custard,
Isaiah Inman.
M. B. Custard,
M. Graham,
Ethan Kelly,
Joseph Harper,
David Histed,
J. P. Osborn,
John H. Powers,
1. Smith. Thomas Stapleton,
Bartholomew Weaver.
L. H. Glover,
D. L. French,
C. C. Allison,
Isaac Brown,
Lewis Clisbee
Henry Walton.
Ira Brownell.
Barak Mead.
M. Baldwin.
H. K. McManus.
I. V. Sherman.
H. L. King.
Charles Hartfelter.
M. J. Baldwin,
S. S. Chapman.
Byron Bradley.
1. E. Cleveland.
Hiram Brown.
Charles W. Brown.
E. B. Sherwood
Sanford Ashcroft.
Charles W. Clichee.
Jefferson Brown,
D. Blackman,
Peter Sturr.
J. K. Riter,
S. T. Read. Daniel B. Smith,
A. Garwood,
W. K. Palmer.
G. A. Elv.
Geo. W. Van. Antwerp.
R. M. Wilson.
L. R. Read.
S. Playford.
D. S. Jones,
James Norton,
Henry Shaffer,
Joseph Graham,
L. D. Tompkins,
Charles A. Hill
James Boyd.
J. B. Chapman,
J. Tietsort.
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
Of this list of men, many of whom were identified in a prom- inent way with the history of the village, only a few are still living in the year of this writing. Those living and still residents of the village are: L. H. Glover. Charles Hartfelter, J. B. Chapman. D. L. French, Henry Shaffer, C. C. Allison, Daniel B. Smith; others resid- ing elsewhere, Byron Bradley, Charles W. Brown, Isaiah Inman, I. V. Sherman.
From a population of less than five hundred Cassopolis has in- creased to one thousand five hundred. Cassopolis was in a peculiarly adverse position during the early years of its history. It was the county seat, the official center of the county. But without that institution it is reasonable to believe that the village would have experienced mutations of fortune like Edwardsburg and other centers of the county. Before the railroad era. Edwardsburg on the south held the commercial su- premacy because of its position on the Chicago road. Then in the forties the Michigan Central established the main transportation route in the northwest corner of the county and gave origin to Dowagiac. which at once became the shipping point for Cassopolis, together with the northwestern parts of the county.
Between the establishment of the county seat in 1831 and the building of the railroad in 1871, the years are marked by no event of pregnant meaning for the development of the village: the community grew slowly, the various institutions were added in regular course, a few factories were established. civil organization followed when pop- ulation had reached the necessary limit, and at the close of the period just mentioned the county sent was the conspicuous pillar in the cor- porate existence of Cassopolis.
In 1870-71 two railroads came to Cassopolis. Theretofore the merchants had hauled their goods from Dowagiac. The mail had come from Dowagiac. The telegraph was at Dowagiac. All the surplus pro- duction and market commodities that would naturally have been dis- posed of at Cassopolis were transported to the railroad for shipment. But with the building of these railroads the world was opened, as it were, to Cassopolis. The court house on the public square for the first time had a rival institution in the depot on the south line of the village. Since the railroad was built the principal growth of the village has taken place.
In 1863 the population was less than five hundred. In 1870 it was
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728 and in 1880 it was 912: in 1890. 1,369; at the census of 1900 it was 1.320, and according to the state census of 1904 it was 1,477.
The first additions to the village site began to be platted about the sune time as the railroads were built. An iron foundry, a na- tional bank, various business enterprises, one of the newspapers and other undertakings, whose inception dates from the first years of the rail- road period, indicate the advance along all lines made by Cassopolis at that time.
In 1875, when the special charter was granted by the legislature, the limits of the village were extended north a quarter of a mile and the same distance south to the railroad. The village was governed by this charter for twenty years, and in 1805 the blanket charter provided for all the villages of Michigan became effective.
In recent years Cassopolis has made commendable progress in mu- nicipal improvements. The old method of fighting fire with buckets has been superseded by a volunteer fire department, consisting of a chief and twenty members. The equipment of hose cart and hose, hook and lad- der truck and other apparatus are kept ready for immediate use at the city hall building, a brick two-story structure on North Broadway, a short distance from the square and north of the Goodwin House. The upper story of the house is used for council rooms. The city hall was erected in 1805.
But as a precedent to this efficient fire protection and the most important of all the village improvements is the water-works system, which was established in 1801 at a cost of $10,000. The village was bonded for this debt, the first of the ten annual installments being paid in 1806. The water is pumped into the mains from the depths of Stone lake, where the water is crystal pure and ice cold, and free from lime, or "soft." The village has arrangements with the Cassopolis Mill- ing & Power Company for pumping the water through the mains, and the same company furnishes the Grand Trunk Railroad with water. The power company also light the village with electricity.
Those who have been most prominently identified with the com- mercial activity of the village should receive mention. The dean of them all is Charles E. Voorhis, who began in the grocery business in 1865, and has been in this exclusive line of trade for forty years. He was the first to embark in one line of trade as distinct from the "gen- eral store." The grocery firm of S. B. Thomas & Son stands second in point of time to Mr. Voorhis. S. B. Thomas began here in 1876.
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