USA > Michigan > Cass County > A twentieth century history of Cass County, Michigan > Part 2
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Richardson, Norris .- 731.
Rickert, Charles C-420.
Rinehart, Carleton W .- 590.
Rinehart, Family .- 110, 186.
Rinehart, John .- 48.
Rinehart, S. M .- 126, 127.
Ritter, Charles A .- 195, 625.
Ritter, John J .- 197, 735.
Roads .- ( See under Communication, Rail- roads. ) 163. 164 et seq.
Robbins, George W .- 472.
Robertson, Alexander .- 420.
Robertson, George W .- 472.
Robertson, John .- 264.
Robinson, C. S .- 267.
Rockwell, John D .- 597.
Rodgers, Alexander .- 45.
Roebeck, John I. - 491.
Root, Eber .- 146.
Rosewarne, Henry G .- 720.
Ross, F. H .- 673.
Ross, Jasper J .- 558.
Round Oak Stove Works .- (See P. D. Beckwith. )-188, 190-192.
Rouse, Daniel G .- 97.
Rowland, Thomas .- 99.
Rudd, Barak L .- 140, 633.
Rudd, Orson .- 137.
Rural Free Delivery .- 120, 125. 128, 132, 179, 204 Russey, E. J .- 650.
Sage. Chester .- 45, 126. Sage, Family .- 124. 196; Moses, 124, 125. 186; Martin G., Norman, 124 Sailor .- (See Kessington. ) Salisbury, William .- 519. Sandy Beach .- 140.
School Finds .- 222. Schools-120. 132. (See under names of villages, 215-243. ) Cassopolis, 228- 231: Dowagiac, 231-237: Edwards- burg, 237-230: Vandalia, 241-243 : Marcellus, 230-241. School Officers .- 303: 224-227. Senators .- 389. Settlement Affected by Natural Condi- tions .- I; early, 37 et seq. : date of first, 12: 102, 106; 107 et seq. Shaffer, Daniel .- 48. Shaffer David .- III; Peter, HIT; 187; George T., III. Shakespeare .- 135. Shanahan, Clifford .- 273. Shannon. Albert J .- 482. Sharp. Craigie -130. Shavehead .- 19: trail, 164, 165.
Shaw, Darius .- 148, 20%. shaw. James -114.
Shaw, John .- 100, 138. Shaw, Richard .- 109.
Shepard, James M .- 252. 556.
Sheriffs -392.
Sherman. Elias B. 135. 1.38. 143, 144 't seq .; 195, 271, 336.
Sherwood, C. 1 .- 159, 100, 679.
Shields, Martin .- 48.
Shillito, Ernest .- 571.
Shockley, Alfred .- 507.
Shoemakers, Pioneer .- 182
Shore Acres,-130.
Shugart. Zachariah .- 289.
Shurte, Isaac .- 47, 103.
Sibley, Col. E. S .- 98, 129.
Silo Plants .- 203.
Silver Creek Township .- 11. 20, 96, 115, 223, 285, 377. 309.
Silver. Jacob and Abiel -121: George F .. 123; Orrin, 124, 149: Jacob, 207, 3,36.
Skinner, Samuel F .- 574. Smith, Amos,-522.
Smith, A. J .- 123, 131, 274.
Smith, Cannon .- 114, 376.
Smith, Daniel .- 704.
Smith, Ezekiel C .- 114.
Smith, Ezekiel S .- 159, 255. 272; Joel H., 150. Smith, George W .- 494.
Smith, Harsen D .- 195, 282, 657.
Smith, Hiram .- 538.
Smith, Joseph .- 187, 208, 251.
Snyder, Robert .- 436.
Social Organizations .- 334-348. Soil .- 12.
Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument Associa- tion .- 332, 333.
Soldiers of Cass County in Civil War - 208-328. Spalding, Erastus H .- 133, 154. 156, 160, 103: Lyman, 154.
Spencer, James M .- 275.
Spinning Wheel .- 181.
Squatters' Unions .- 107.
Stage Coaches .-- 121, 123. 126, 169. 170 Standerline George .- 470.
Standerline. William .-- 471.
Stapleton. James S .- 261.
Stark, Myron .- 161, 194, 741.
Starrett. Charles .- 700.
State Officials from Cass County .- 390. Stebbins, F. S .- 264. Stewart, Hart L .- 08, 120, 143; A. C., 120.
St. Joseph Township .- OI. Stone Lake .- 90, 142, 145, 149, 152.
Stretch. William H .- 626. Subscriptions, to Railroads .- 175. Sullivan, James -272.
Sumner. Isaac .- 134. Summer Resorts .- 139, 140, 14I.
xiv
INDEX
Sumnerville -- 43, 134. Supervisors, Township .- 393-401.
Surveyors,-392. Sweet, Charles E .- 282, 753. Sweetland, John B .- 255, 262. Swisher, John F .- 659.
Talbot, John A .- 276.
Talladay, Alamandel J .- 524.
Taverns .- 43: 46, 50, 115, 116, 121, 123, 126, 138, 146, 149, 156, 159, 337. Taylor, Albon C .- 682.
Taylor, Alexander .- 414.
Taylor, Clifford L .-- 430.
Taylor, James D .- 264.
Teachers,-216; certificates, 219, 220, 223.
Telephones .- 127, 179.
Territorial Road (see Chicago Road) .- 167.
I harp, Abner,-49, 50.
Thatcher, Nelson E .-- 528.
Thickstin, David C .- 638.
Thomas, S. B .- 152.
Thomas, Silas H. 578.
Thompson, Allison D .- 502.
Thompson, Merritt A .- 277.
Thompson. Squire .- 44.
Thomson, Samuel C .- 450.
Thorp, A. L .- 264.
Tibbits, Nathan and William .- 126.
T'ietsort, Abram .- 103, 142, 145. 150, 183.
lietsort's Sidetrack .- 139.
Times, The -253, 254.
Tolbert, George H .-- 596.
Toledo War .- 22. 33. 34, 35-
Tompkins, L. D -200.
Laney, James,-51.
Topography .- I et seq. : striking features of. 5.
borists' ( Inb .- 341. Townsend, Abram -41. 46, 202, 255: Ephraim, 40; Gamaliel, 44, 103.
joinship Officers -393-401.
Townships, Formation of .- 93 et seq. l'rades (See Manufacturing, Industries, etc )
Transportation. ( See under Communica- tion, Railroads )
Treasurer. County .- 392.
Tribune, The. 252.
Irmitt, James M. 771.
iruitt, Peter -07. 11.4
Truitt Station .- 177.
Inriter, George B .- 39, 205, 251. 273.
Tuner. Virgil .- 777.
Tuttle. William .- 192.
Underground Railroad. 287 et seq I'nion -125, 126, 165. 376.
L'nion Hotel .- 146. United Brethren Churches .- 387. Universalist Church .- 387.
Vail, Levi M .- 129. Van Antwerp, Lewis C .- 497. Van Buren County, Attached to Cass .-- 94. Vandalia .- 8, 49, 130, 131, 185, 241, 242, 408, 409. Van Riper, Abram, and Sons .- 133. Van Riper, J. J .- 276. Venice .- 154. Vigilant, The .- 251, 252.
Volinia Farmers' Club .- 205, 206.
Volinia Township .- 11, 19, 51, 52, 95, 103, 109, 223, 395.
Volinia Village .- 138.
Volinia and Wayne Anti-Horsethief So- ciety .- 206. Voorhis, C. E .- 152, 434.
Wakelec .- 130, 137. Walker, Henry C .- 635.
War, Toledo .- 22; Sac or Black Hawk, 102: Civil, 297-328; Spanish, 297.
Warner, J. P .- 193.
Washington, Booker T .- 292.
Water Works .- 152, 189.
Watson, John H .- 779.
Wayne Co .- 24. 25, 26, 01.
Wayne Township .- 96, 223, 397.
Weesaw .- 19.
Wells, C. P .- 264.
Wells, Henry B .- 671.
Wells, Isaac. Sr .- 696.
Wells, Leslie C .- 423.
Wells, Willard -748.
Wheeler. J. 11. 264.
White, Gilbert .- 531.
WInte, Milton P .- 233, 207. 767.
White Pigeon Land Office. 100.
Whitman, Martin C .- 08, 133.
Whitinnville .- 133. (See La Grange Vil- lage. ) Wilber. Theodore F .- 676.
Wiley, Robert H .- 763.
Williams, Josiah .- 127.
Williamsville -127, 128.
Witherell, Dnane .- 416.
Women's Clubs .- 338-348.
Worden, Zacchens .- 38.
Wooster, John. 282.
W'right. Elijah W .- c6.
Wright. Job .- 38-40, 140, 334.
Wright, William R .- 47.
Young. John H~496. Young's Prairie -7. 374. 376.
MAP of CHASS COUNTY
MICHIGAN Scale: { Miles to 1 Inch
R.16 W.
R.15 W.
R.14 W.
R.IS W.
Many min L.
1
1
Charleston
2
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10
11
12
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12
9
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22
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olinia
Little
26
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33
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211
20
21
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23
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CASSOPOLIS
Jones
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Bear L.
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17
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17
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24
27
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MICHIGAN
11
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Nicholsville
Fish L.
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY.
CHAPTER I.
DESCRIPTION.
Cass county, topographically considered, is much the same now as before the first settlement. The three generations of white men have cleared the forest coverings, have drained the swamps, have changed some of the water courses; have overwhelmed the wilderness and con- verted the soil to areas productive of useful fruitage; have net-worked the country with highways and roads of steel; have quarried beneath the surface and clustered structures of brick and stone and wood into hamlets and villages, and from the other results of human activity have quite transformed the superficial aspects of our county. But the greater and more basal configurations of nature endure through all the assaults of human energy. The eternal hills still stand as the sym- bol of permanence and strength; the lake basins, though their water area is becoming gradually reduced, still dot the expanse of the county to form the same charming contrast of sparkling waters and green for- est and prairie which the original settlers looked upon. The slopes of drainage, the varieties of soil, the general geology of Cass county con- tinue with little change.
To describe the county as nature made it seems a fit introduction to the history of man's occupation which forms the bulk of this volume. The development of a people depends on environment in the first stages at least, until the powers of civilization assert their sway over the in- ertia of nature. Succeeding pages prove this fact over and over and indicate how natural conditions affected the settlement and growth of the county. The conspicuous natural features of the county, both as related to the pioneer settlement and as they can be noted now, deserve description. Nature is not only useful but beautiful, and both attributes are known and valued in any proper history of a county and its people.
It is not an impertinent query why the surface configuration of the county is as it is. Why the county is traversed, roughly in the di-
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
rection of the Grand Trunk R. R. line, by the well defined range of hills constituiting the axis of drainage for all the surface water of the county, so that the overflow from Diamond lake passes south, while the waters collected two miles west of the county seat flow west into Dowagiac cicek ? Also, what is the origin of the many lakes on the surface of the county? Why were the hills piled up in such irregular confusion in some places, and in others the surface becomes almost a level plain ? Whence come the rounded boulders of granite which are found every- where, yet quite detached from any original matrix rock, as though strewn about in some Titan conflict of ages past? These and many other questions come to the mind of one who travels over the county, endeavoring, with the help of modern science, to
"Find tongues in trees, books in running brooks, Sermons in. stones, and good in everything."
The key to the understanding of Cass county's topography is found in the action of ice and water during the glacial age. The surface of all the region about the Great Lakes is radically different from what it was when this part of the continent first rose from the sea and be- came a habitable portion of the earth's ernst. Perhaps thousands of years passed after the sea separated from the land and many forms of vegetable and animal life flourished on the soil. Then came the ice age. A period of intense cold, with the intermittent warm seasons so brief that the rigors of winter were never entirely relaxed, covered all the north temperate zone with an ocean of ice and snow, which, radi- ating from a probable center near Hudson's bay, extended its glacial flow southward as far as the Ohio and Missouri rivers, which spread like embracing arms around the southern borders of the ice area. Geol- ogists have estimated the thickness of these ice fields to vary from a few hundred to thousands of feet, in some places a mass of glaciated material over a mile high.
Had these great ice areas been stationary, they would have had little effect in reconstructing the earth's surface. But the mass was characterized by a ponderous, irresistible motion, sometimes but a few Icet in a year, and now advancing and again retreating ; but prolonged over an era of years such as human minds can hardly conceive, its effect was more tremendous in the aggregate than those of any natural phe- nomena observable in historic times, surpassing even the earthquake and' volcano.
3
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
As the ice sheet passed over the surface, down the mountain val- leys and over the plains, individual glaciers uniting with others or from elevation or depression being cast upon or under a larger sheet, every- where the motion of the mass being marked by terrific rending, plough- ing and friction, it was inevitable that the earth's surface would be greatly changed. The ice mass acted in some places as a mighty broom. sweeping the loose material down to the bare rock and carrying the mingled soil and broken rock buried in the ice. Again it plowed up and moved away entire hills. And the friction of such a mass through the ages of its movement wore off even the hardest rock and bore the re- sulting sand and boulders to remote distances. Thus it came about that the ice sheet had not moved far from its source before it became a car- rier of a vast weight of rock and soil material transported on the sur- face. embedded in the center and rolled and pushed along underneath.
As mentioned, the motion of the ice fields was not constant. Event- ually its southern extremes reached as far south as indicated, but there were many stages of advance and retreat, and it seems that at one pe- riod the ice was driven far back to the north and then came south again, so that for a portion of the United States there were two periods of glaciation, separated by an interval when the ice siege was raised.
While the ice field was advancing it was continually receiving new accessions of solid material in the manners described above. But when the cold relaxed to the point where melting was greater than freezing. the edge of the field. decaying under the heat, began to retire. As soon as the ice relaxed its grasp, the imbedded and surface load of solid ma- terial was dropped and deposited in irregular heaps, according as the mass carried was great or small.
This material gathered by the glacier in its progress and deposited in its retreat is the "drift" which throughout Cass county covers the original surface to varying depths, and from which the "soil" of the county has been formed. The composition of this drift is readily rec- ognized by any observer .. Varying in thickness throughout the south- ern half of the state from a few feet to several hundred feet, in the case of a well bored at Dowagiac.a few years ago the drill having to pene- trate 202 feet of drift before reaching the regular strata of slate and shale, this mass of sand,, gravel, clay, with large boulders of granite, is the material from which all the superficial area and surface configuration of the county have been derived. In other words, the farmsteads and villages of Cass county rest atop a, conglomerate mass which had been
4
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
ground and pulverized and heaped together by the action of ice and wa- ter ages before Columbus discovered America.
Whenever the edge of the ice field remained stationary, because the advance of the glacier was offset by the melting away of the forward end. there resulted a deposit of glacial material heaped together along the entire border of the ice and much greater in bulk and height than the drift left behind when the field was steadily withdrawing. These ridges of drift, brought about by a pause in the retreat of the ice mass, are called "moraines."
Cass county is crossed by one of the longest and best defined of these moraines. The ice fields which covered the lower peninsula of Michigan had three distinct divisions, considered with respect to the source and direction of the movement. The Lake Michigan glacier, whose north and south axis centered in Lake Michigan, was the west- ern of these fields or glacial "lobes." On the east was the "Maumee glacier," advancing from the northeast across Lakes Huron and Erie, the western edge of which has been traced in Hillsdale county. Be- tween these two the "Saginaw glacier" protruded itself from Saginaw bay, and its southern advance is marked by a "frontal moraine" extend- ing east from Cassopolis through south St. Joseph and Branch coun- ties to a junction in Hillsdale county with the Maumee glacier. The moraine of the Lake Michigan glacier, marking the final pause of the ice before it withdrew from this region, is a clearly defined ridge circling around Lake Michigan, at varying distances from the present shore of the lake, being from 15 to 20 miles distant on the south, with Valpa- raiso, Ind., lying upon it. It passes into Michigan in the southeast cor- ner of Berrien county, being observable from the railroad train west of Niles as far as Dayton. Thence it passes obliquely across Cass county- Cassopolis lying upon it-and crosses northwestern Kalamazoo county. Valparaiso is 100 feet above the level of Lake Michigan ; La Porte, 234 feet ; and as the moraine enters Michigan it rises somewhat and corre- spondingly develops strength. Passing over the low swell in southwest Michigan, it is depressed somewhat in crossing the low belt of country which stretches from Saginaw bay to Lake Michigan, its base being less than 100 feet above these bodies of water.
From the south line of Michigan the moraine is more sandy than the corresponding arm on the opposite side of the lake, is less sharply and characteristically developed, more indefinitely graduated into the adjacent drift, and more extensively flanked by drifts of assorted material.
5
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
The superficial aspect of the formation, as observable in Cass county, is that of an irregular, intricate series of drift ridges and hills of rap- idly but often very gracefully undulating contour, consisting of rounded domes, conical peaks, winding ridges, short, sharp spurs, mounds, knolls and hummocks, promiscuously arranged. The elevations are accompa- nied by corresponding depressions. These are variously known as "pot- ash kettles," "pot holes." "pots and kettles," and "sinks." Those that have most arrested popular attention are circular in outline and symmet- rical in form, not unlike the homely utensils that have given them names.
It is not to be understood that the deposits from the glaciers re- mained where or in the form in which they were left by the withdrawing ice. From the margin of the ice flowed great volumes of water, in broad, rapid rivers rushing from beneath the glacier, and in dashing, powerful cataracts plunging from the surface to the drift below. The power of this flowing water in redistributing the loose drift may be comprehended by comparing its action with a spring freshet in the rivers of today, although the forest and vegetation that now cover the soil serve as a protection against the floods, so that the glacial waters were many times more effective in their violence. The glacial streams. liber- ated from their confined channels under the ice, tossed and scattered and re-collected the deposited drift with the same effect that a stream from a garden hose will dissipate the dry dust in the road. The water's power was sufficient to gutter out deep valleys and surround them with high hills of dislodged material. In other places, flowing with broader current, it leveled the drift into plains and wrought out the so-called "prairies" which are so conspicuous a feature of the county's topog- raphy. Not alone while the ice fields were here, but for a long period afterward, the surface of the county was wrought upon by the inunda- tion and flow of water. In fact, the numerous lakes are but the distant echoes, as it were, of the glacial age, indicating in whispers the time when the dominion of water was complete over all this country. When the ice departed and the water gradually passed off by drainage and evaporation, the drift ridges, the Ararats of this region, naturally ap- peared first, and the subsidence of water then brought the rest of the sur- face successively to view. But the depressions and basins, hollowed out by the ice and water, remained as lakes even into our times, al- though these bodies of water are but insignificant in comparison with their former size, and most of them are slowly decreasing in depth and area even without the efforts of artificial drainage. Since the settlement
6
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
of white men in the county many of the small lakes have "dried up." and their bottoms are now plowed over and their rich "muck" soil pro- duces the heaviest of crops.
Describing the lakes of the Lower Peninsula, Prof. C. A. Davis says: "The small lakes, particularly those of the Lower Peninsula, are commonly depressions in the drift, shallow and not of large extent, fre- quently partially filled in around the margin with the remains of former generations of plants, so that many of the typical features of the lakes of hilly or mountainous regions are partly suppressed or entirely want- ing. These lakes belong to recent geological time, and this undoubtedly accounts for some of their peculiarities. By far the larger number of them exhibit the following features: \ small sheet of water. roughly elliptical in shape, bordered by marshy areas of varying width, or on two or more sides by low, abruptly sloping, sandy or gravelly hills. The marshy tract is frequently wider on the south than on the north side, and its character varies from a quaking bog at the inner margin, through a sphagnons zone into a marsh. In the larger lakes the marshy border may not extend entirely around the margin, but it is usually noticeable along the south shore, where it may be of considerable extent while the rest of the shore is entirely without it." This description may be veri- fied in an examination of any of the lakes of this county.
The hills and morainal ridges approach most nearly the composition and form in which the drift was deposited from the retreating glaciers. Here we see the least sorting of materials, the boulders being indiscrim- inately mixed with the finer sand and gravel. Hence the soil of the hills is generally lighter and less varied in its productiveness than the lower areas.
Those portions of the surface which were long inundated by the post-glacial waters naturally were subjected to many changes. The rough contour was worn off by the action of the water, and the bottoms of former vast lake areas became smoothed down so that when the wa- ter finally drained off they appeared as the "prairies" of today. Further- more. the water performed a sifting process, the constant wash causing the larger rocks to settle on the lowest level and the sand and clay, as lighter material, to remain on the surface. In some cases, where the water remained sufficiently long, decomposition of vegetable and or- ganic matter resulted in the formation of muck-as seen in the lakes today-which mingled with the other materials to form the rich loam soil that can be found in some of the prairies.
7
HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
Thus, all the prairies-Beardsley's prairie, Young's prairie, Bald- win's prairie, Little Prairie Ronde, and the numerous others that be- came the favorite sites for settlement in this county-were at one time covered with water, the action of which effected many of the features which characterize these level or gently undulating areas.
From the prairie levels the waters, in their retreat, were collected in the yet lower depressions which are now the lakes of Cass county. Some- times the glacial ridges were piled up so as to completely surround these - depressions, resulting in the ponds and sinks above described, and which could not be drained by artificial outlet except at such expense as to be impractical.
Drainage, both natural and artificial, has been a matter of foremost importance from early settlement to the present time. The presence of so many lakes on the surface of the county indicates that natural drainage is defective. The glacial waters were drained off so gradually that they did not cut deep channels for their outlet, but must have flowed off in broad, shallow courses, which gradually narrowed down to a stream little larger than a brook. Just east of the village of Jamestown, to mention a case in point, the road crosses two little water courses that later contribute their waters to the Christiann. The actual channels are mere brooks, but each is at the center of a uniform depression, some rods in breadth, which was clearly the bed of a once large but sluggish river. The writer lias observed but one of these old water courses which indicate that the current was swift enough to "cut" the banks. . At the north end of Lilly lake in Newberg township is a "narrows," through which the waters of the once larger lake extended north into what is now a recently drained and swampy flat. On the west side of this "nar- rows" the bank juts sharply down to the former lake bottom, indicating that the subsidence of the water caused a current through the neck suffi- cient to cut the bank at a sharp angle.
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