A twentieth century history of Cass County, Michigan, Part 17

Author: Glover, Lowell H., 1839- [from old catalog] ed
Publication date: 1906
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis publishing company
Number of Pages: 946


USA > Michigan > Cass County > A twentieth century history of Cass County, Michigan > Part 17


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D. L. French, who went out of business in the late nineties, was the first to engage in the hardware business exclusively, beginning in March. 1862. W. B. Hayden has been in the hardware business since 1884. The late George M. Kingsbury was closely interested in the business life of the community for a quarter of a century. Others whose names should be recorded are: S. S. Harrington and G. L. Smith, who en- gaged in the mercantile business thirty years ago as partners and are now individually engaged in the same business; J. B. Chapman, who with Henry Shaffer began the manufacturing and sale of boots and shoes in 1858. After seven years with Mr. Shaffer, Mr. Chapman acquired his interest and continued the business with different partners until 1885, when he again became sole proprietor and continued the business for eleven years.


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CHLAPTER N. CITY OF DOWAGIAC.


During the decade of the thirties the few settlers who lived in the vicinity of which the city of Dowagiac is now the center had to go to LaGrange or Cassopolis or Sumnerville for their mail and supplies. As related on a previous page, LaGrange was the manufacturing metropo- lis of the county during that decade and for some years afterward. The water power of Dowagiac creek in the neighborhood of the township corners where the city is now located early presented itself as an at- tractive site for industrial and village purposes, it is true. In the regis- ter's office is found a plat of the village of Venice, filed for record Aug- ust 6, 1836, by Orlando Craine. This site was laid out on the north side of Dowagiac creek, and in the southwest quarter of section 31 of Wayne township. Nothing came of this attempt to boom the loca- tion ; not a lot was sold, and Venice is in the same class of villages as Shakespeare and Mechanicsburg and some others described on previous pages. But it is of interest io know that all that part of the city of Dowagiac bounded on the south and west respectively by Division street and North Front street was the site of Orlando Craine's Venice.


Among the original land entries of LaGrange township is that of Renniston and Hunt in section 6, dated in May, 1830. William Ren- miston in the same year built a carding mill on the creek just east of the Colby Milling Company's mill, where the road from Cassopolis crosses the stream. At the same site he built, a few years later, a grist mill. Successive owners of this property were Lyman Spalding. Jonathan Thorne and Erastus H. Spalding, from whom it passed into the hands of II. F. Colby in 1868 and a part of the splendid manufacturing inter- ests now controlled under the Colby name.


The Venice enterprise and the manufacturing interests show that this locality had some advantages as a village site even in the pioneer period. LaGrange, however, distant only a few miles, was still in the ascendant. The few citizens on the present site of Dowagiac could have had no prevision of what the future would do for the locality. On the authority of Mr. A. M. Moon of Dowagiac, the sole inhabitant of


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the site of Dowagiac in 1835 was Patrick Hamilton, and of course some settlers were grouped about the mills. Certainly the prospects of this spot becoming the home of trade and industry had not appeared at that date. LaGrange, Edwardsburg. Cassopolis, Adamsville, or any of several other incipient villages would have been thought at that time to possess better outlook for the future than the wilderness on the north side of Dowagiac creek where Orlando Craine had. with the fatuity of visionary enterprise, platted a village that, except as a prophecy of the city of today, hardly deserves remembrance.


But the railroad came, the new fulcrum of civilization, and changed and rearranged all former bases of industry and society. The seats of manufacturing at LaGrange were transferred to the mill sites, which had formerly been in the wilderness, but because of the presence of the iron road soon became the center of Cass county's manufacturing enter- prise. In 1847 Nicholas Cheesebrough was engaged in buying the right of way through Cass county for the Michigan Central railroad, the con- struction of which is described on other pages. The inception of the village of Dowagiac was due to him and Jacob Beeson of Niles. They bought of Patrick Hamilton eighty acres in the northeast corner of Pokagon township, and on this land was laid out the original plat of Dowagiac, which was recorded in the register's office February 16. 1848.


Thus the original area of Dowagiac was all in Pokagon township, diagonally across from the plat of Venice, which had been laid in Wayne township. And all of the plat was located on the north side of the railroad. At the time the plat was made, the railroad had not been completed for operation, but no doubt the grading was well under way, for trains began running into Niles the following October. The original village was in the area that lies south of West Division street, and bounded on the east by the railroad to the point where the town- ship line intersects the same, extending west to the intersection of Main with Division street, and south to Dowagiac creek.


The railroad was responsible for the diagonal directions of the streets in the business portion of the city. In the words of the plat. "Front street runs parallel to the track of the Michigan Central rail- road." The railroad runs at an angle of thirty-six degrees with the north and south line. Hence, to get north bearings when standing on Front street it is necessary to face about two-fifths of a right angle. The calculation and sense of direction needed to perform this feat properly are greater than most citizens will practice, and only the oldest residents


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can figure out the time of day by the position of the sun and reduce the bizarre directions to the four fundamentals of the sign post.


At right angles with Front street the founders laid out Main street, one hundred and eight feet wide, wider than any other street on the plat, and designed as the business thoroughfare. But a village is not made according to plat, and when Dowagiac began to grow commer- cially the business men preferred to locate along Front street rather than on Main street, which today, without business houses except at the lower end, on account of its exceptional width seems incongruous and like a big hiatus separating the town. The other streets, as first laid out, were Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania, parallel with Front street, and Pine, Commercial, High and Chestnut streets parallel with Main street. In all there were one hundred and eighty- four lots and fractional lots in the original plat.


Since the original plat was recorded the register of deeds at Cassopo- lis has received plats of forty additions, showing how the limits of the city have extended in all directions from the nucleus. Except along the line of railroad the rectangular system of platting has been followed in nearly all subsequent additions. The first addition to the village was made in April, 1849, by Patrick Hamilton, who laid out some of his land in the southeast corner of Silver Creek township, the area com- prising all the lots bounded by North Front, Spruce, Main and Division streets. The second addition was made by Jacob Beeson from land in Pokagon in March, 1850. In 1851 Jay W. McOmber platted into lots a portion of land in the southwest corner of Wayne township, and in the same year Erastus H. Spalding added some land from northwest LaGrange, so that in three years' time Dowagiac had expanded its area into four townships, and the many additions since that time have mere- ly increased this civic area, although LaGrange township has given less land to the city than any of the others, owing to the creek and mill sites presenting obstructions to growth in this direction.


The municipal growth and improvement of Dowagiac have kept pace with the increase in its area and population. By 1860, twelve years after the founding, the number of inhabitants was 1, 181. Two years previously the village had been incorporated by the board of super- visors. The petition for incorporation was granted February 1, 1858, and the first village election was held at Nicholas Bock's American House, now the Commercial House, on Division and Front streets. The


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officers chosen at this election and for the subsequent years will be found in the official lists.


In 1870 population had increased to 1.932. During the next dec- ade, which witnessed the construction of two other railroads through the county, the rate of increase was slower, the census for 1880 show- ing 2,102 inhabitants. In the meantime Dowagiac had become a city. The last village election was held in March, 1877, and in the following April the first election of city officers took place. From 1877 to 1892 the city was represented in the county board by one supervisor, and beginning with 1893 one supervisor has been chosen from each of the three wards. Thus in the civic organization of the county Dowagiac stands on a plane with the townships. The population has more than doubled since incorporation as a city. In 1890 the enumeration was 2,806, and in 1900 it was 4,151. The state census of 1904 gave 4.404.


Dowagiac is progressive as regards municipal improvements and conveniences. Streets and sidewalks, lighting and fire protection are the first matters to receive the attention of a village community. As regards the first, Dowagiac was very deficient in the first years of its his- tory, and hence the more to be proud of at this time. Being built on the banks of the creek, the village was in places marshy, and it is said that in the months of high water the farmers of Silver Creek had to hitch their teams on the other side of Dowagiac swamp and come across as best they could on foot to do their trading. Furthermore, to quote the language of an early settler. "there was not grass enough in the whole town to bleach a sheet on." Grace Greenwood, the well known writer and sister of Dr. W. E. Clarke, while visiting the latter in 1858. wrote a descriptive article to an eastern paper, in which she complained that the people did not plant shade trees in their door yards or in the streets, and that the burning sun shone down pitilessly on the grassless ground and unprotected dwellings. Of course these deficiencies have long since been relieved. not by organized effort so much as by the individual ac- tion of many citizens moved by the desire to beautify and adorn their own property. The paving of streets and laying of substantial side- walks has been going on for years. Board walks are becoming more and more rare, brick and cement being the popular materials. A num- ber of streets are improved with gravel roadways, and in 1894 Front street through the business section was paved with brick, that being one of the best investments the city has made, since a paved street is at


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the very basis of a metropolitan appearance, which prepossesses the fa- vor of strangers and visitors.


The majority of the citizens have personal recollections of the time when all the streets were dully illuminated with kerosene lamps. In 1887 the Round Oak Gas & Fuel company drilled two thousand feet below the surface in search for gas, but found none. The Dowagiac Gas & Fuel Company was established in 1892 and supplies light and fuel to a large number of patrons.


Nearly every village and city has had its disastrous fires. The first one in Dowagiac occurred in January, 1864, when the business houses on Front street north of Commercial were burned. In January, 1866, a $50,000 fire destroyed Front street south of Commercial, and in June. 1882, the block south of Beeson street was destroyed. In 1854. six years after the founding of the village, a meeting of the citizens was held to provide for fire protection, but it was not until 1858 that any important action was taken. A hand fire engine was purchased and other apparatus procured ; the engine continued in use for a quarter of a century. Hamilton Hose Co. No. I was also formed and is still in existence. having been reorganized in 1880. With the installation of water-works in 1887 the efficiency of the fire department was increased several fold. The pressure in the mains rendered the old hand engine unnecessary, and the placing of electric signal apparatus and other im- provements afford a fire protection which is equal to that of any other city of the size in southern Michigan. The volunteer hose company and hook and ladder company of the city are reinforced in their work by the independent companies of the Round Oak Stove and the Dowa- giac Manufacturing companies' plants.


Dowagiac's schools and churches and library, which are the cor- nerstones of its institutional life, its clubs and social and professional interests, and much other information bearing on the history of the city will be treated in other chapters, for which the reader is referred to the index. In a resume of the main features of Dowagiac's growth, the railroad must, of course, be given first place as the originating cause. As soon as the trains began carrying the mail through this point in- stead of the stage coach or horseback carrier, a postoffice was estab- lished, in November, 1848. Arad C. Balch, who became the first post- master, at the time sold goods in the Cataract House, the name that had been given to a boarding house for the railroad workmen, which stood on the bluff east of the track. In naming the successive postmasters


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many of Dowagiac's prominent citizens are mentioned, for the suc- cessor of Mr. Balch was M. T. Garvey, whose long career in public affairs made him one of the best known men in Cass county; following him have been Noel B. Hollister, James A. Lee, William H. Campbell. William M. Heazlitt. Henry B. Wells, David W. Clemmer, Clarence L. Sherwood, A. M. Moon, H. A. Burch and Julius O. Becraft. Mr. Becraft is serving his third, though not successive, term. In 1899 free city delivery was established, and this event is another milestone in Dowagiac's career.


Dowagiac's business area is now quite solidly concentrated along Front street from Park Place to Division and for some distance up sev- eral of the intersecting streets. Going back half a century in our en- deavor to picture the commercial status of the young village, it is evi- dent that the business center at that time, while comparatively large and showing excellent growth since the founding of the village, was only a nucleus of what it is now. There is at hand a business direc- tory of Dowagiac as it appears in the Cass County Advocate of January II, 1851, that being the first paper established in Dowagiac, its founder being Ezekiel S. Smith, a brother of Captain Joel H. Smith, a long- time resident of Dowagiac.


The Dowagiac House is first named in this directory. It stood on the corner of Main and Front streets, and is said to have been the first hotel built. A. J. Wares was the builder and was landlord at the date above given. The house received various additions, and was later known as the Continental. Bock's hotel, at Division and Front streets, has already been mentioned. The next advertiser is Livingston & Fargo's American Express, names very suggestive in express company history. William Bannard was local agent of the company.


Under the head of "dry goods, groceries, etc .. " are named four firms. The first is Lofland. Lybrook & Jones, whose large brick store was on the northwest side of Front street facing the depot. The firm consisted of Joshua Lofland, Henley C. Lybrook and Gilman C. Jones. G. W. Clark, also in business at that time, had a store on the corner of Front and Commercial streets.


W. H. Atwood was then in business in succession to the first im- portant mercantile enterprise of Dowagiac. Before the founding of Dowagiac Joel H. Smith and brother, Ezekiel S., had been in business at Cassopolis, but at the beginning of 1848 they moved a stock of goods by team from Cassopolis, passing through LaGrange, then a thriving


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village and which to many seemed at the time a more favorable loca- tion for business than Dowagiac. The Smith brothers built their one- story frame store on the corner of Main and Front streets, it being the first building specially erected for mercantile purposes. It was a land- mark in Dowagiac, having stood at the corner for half a century, until it was moved out to Indian lake to be converted into a barn. The Smiths sold their business in about a year to Mr. Atwood, who, as we see, was proprietor in January, 1851.


E. H. and B. F. Spalding were also proprietors of a general store at that time. Turner & Rogers dealt in groceries, drugs and med- icines. S. Sheridan in groceries and provisions, S. Bowling in boots, leath- er, etc .. J. C. and G. W. Andrews, who advertise stoves and tinware, were the pioneer hardware firm, G. W. Andrews continuing in business until 1877. Their first store was in the basement of Bock's hotel.


Others who advertised in the Advocate were Parker B. Holmes. iron worker and general jobber; George Walker, draper and tailor : Henry Arnold, carpenter and joiner: J. 11. Sharp, carriage and wagon maker: Thomas Brayton, physician and surgeon, and J. T. Keable. physician and surgeon.


There were several other business concerns in the village he- sides those named in the advertising directory, but the only one calling for mention is the clothing house of Jacob Hirsh, who began business here in 1850, being the founder of the business which is still carried on by Hirsh & Phillipson.


Other business men whose long connection with commercial life makes them deserving of mention were Benjamin Cooper and Francis J. Mosher, the first exclusive grocery merchants. Mr. Mosher's father. Ira D .. was a resident on the site of Dowagiac when the railroad came.


C. L. Sherwood, who has been in the drug business longer than any of his competitors, came to Dowagiac in 1868 and purchased the stocks of Asa Huntington and N. B. Hollister, pioneers in the business. and also the store of Howard & Halleck.


In the line of groceries George D. Jones, who has lived in the county since 1829 and in Dowagiac since 1864, has conducted his store on Commercial street for more than twenty-five years.


F. H. Ross, who was in the hardware business from 1860 to 1886 and then a real estate dealer until his retirement in 1901, is another who contributed to the commercial enterprise of early Dowagiac.


The proprietor of the Daylight Store on Front street is one of the


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oldest merchants still in active business. Burget L. Dewey came to Dowagiac in 1865 and began as a clerk, and since 1873 has been in the drygoods business, building up one of the leading mercantile concerns of the city.


The manufacturing enterprises of Dowagiac have been at the core of her prosperity and the source of its wealth and reputation among the cities of Michigan. An account of these interests is reserved for the chapter on trades and manufacturing, but it is proper to mention the dates of the establishment of the different enterprises, each one of which marks another step in the city's progress, and also the men who have been foremost in this department of activity. The first of a long list of subsequent industrial enterprises was the basket factory established in 1857 by Horace and Gilman C. Jones. In a very small way. such as could hardly be dignified with the name of factory. P. D. Beckwith was already casting plows and doing general repair work, having come to the village in 18544. and soon laid the basis for the mammoth enter- prise with which his name will always be associated. In 1859 Mark Judd helped to establish the planing mill which was the nucleus for the Judd lumber and planing mill business, which is not least among Dowa- giac's large enterprises. It was in 1868 that H. F. Colby became iden- tified with the mill interests of Dowagiac, and although, as we know, milling was one of the first industries at this locality. the energy and ex- ecutive ability displayed by Mr. Colby in expanding and organizing the industry are reasons for considering the date of his coming to Dowagiac as marking an epoch of industry. And in the sixties also were made the beginnings of the manufacture which has since developed into the large Dowagiac Manufacturing Company's plant. Myror Stark, the veteran manufacturer and inventor, patented his sand brind in 1876 and soon after made Dowagiac his permanent home. Willis M. Farr, the present manufacturer of the Common Sense sand bands, identified him- seli with the manufacturing interests of the city in the seventies, at first as one of the partners in the drill works, and then joined with Myron Stark in perfecting and putting on the market the latter's excellent in- vention. The Hedrick sawmill dates back to its foundation in 1860. and the extensive lumber yard and planing mill of John A. Lindsley was established in 1885. This summary indicates the principal events in Dowagiac's industrial career.


With the splendid transportation facilities afforded by the Michii- gan Central Railroad, with some of the most important manufacturing


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enterprises of Michigan, with good mercantile houses, with municipal improvements in keeping with the size of the city, with excellent schools, and churches and library, Dowagiae occupies a position of increasing influence among the cities of southwestern Michigan, and her devel- opment fully justifies the faith which Jacob Beeson evinced in this wilderness locality in 1848.


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CHAPTER XI.


COMMUNICATION AND TRANSPORTATION.


Man cannot live alone; he must communicate with others. We are parts of a great organism. So it is with communities. The time came when the railroad and telegraph brought them in closer relations with each other. But even from the first there was communication with the outside world, for absolute isolation is impossible. At first there were no railroads leading out from the eastern cities across the great valley of the Mississippi. The mountain ranges and dense forests were great barriers between the east and Michigan territory. There was a canal from Troy to Buffalo, there were a few steamers on the great lakes, and there was a short horse-car railroad running out of Toledo. There were no wagon roads, but in place of them were Indian trails.


In all lands, however primitive and barbarous, even in the dense forest fastnesses of Africa or South America, there are passages from one locality to another. The word best descriptive of such courses of early communication is "trail." Before civilization introduced scientific road-making, wild animals were doubtless the markers and surveyors of roads. The narrow, deep-worn, and wavering path through the woods, indicating the route of the deer or bear between its lair and the spring where it quenched its thirst or the thicket where it sought its quarry, was the course which the Indian, and later the white man, took in going through the woods or across the prairie. Trails are easily made, as anyone may know who observes how quickly the turf of a park or meadow is worn down by the regular passage of human feet. And as the wild animal pushed its way through the brush and trees, pursuing the easiest and therefore a winding course to its goal, it left evidence of its progress in the broken twigs and bent bushes and trampled grass. so that the next creature bound in the same direction would pursue the same way and better define it, until a new trail was marked out. Thus the animals were the first road makers. and blazed the way for their immediate successors, the roving Indian. The latter would naturally extend and connect the trails of animals into certain long avenues of


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travel across the country, which they would follow in making their pil- grimages from one hunting ground to another or for their war expe- ditions.


Thus it happened that when the white man first came to southern Michigan, as was also true of any other part of our country, he found certain courses of communication already marked out. These were used by the pioneers until better, broader, straighter and more direct roads could be made. Oftentimes these old trails formed the most prac- ticable and convenient route of travel, and were consequently the basis of a highway ordered and constructed by the state or county.


.A description of these primitive roads in Cass county, showing how useful they were to the early settlers, was furnished by Mr. Amos Smith, the county surveyor at the time, for the History of 1882, and being authoritative information, is quoted as follows :


"I find that every township, in the olden time, had its highways and its byways. Some of these seem to have been of great importance. connecting localities widely separated from each other, while others of less note served only neighboring settlements.




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