USA > Michigan > Cass County > A twentieth century history of Cass County, Michigan > Part 21
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OTHER MANUFACTURES.
Among the plants enumerated in the inspector's report. mention should also be made of the Standard Cabinet Company, which was estab- lished in 1800 and employs thirty or forty men. Its output is sold throughout the middle west.
BANKING AND FINANCE.
Cass county had none of the unfortunate experiences with "wild- cat" finance which are part of the record of some Southern Michigan counties. Of course the financial panics and business depression of the thirties extended their baneful influence to the people of this county, but the frenzy of speculation and inflated currency were never localized here in a banking institution of the wild-cat type.
Cassopolis has the honor of possessing the first banking institution. Asa and Charles Kingsbury, two names most prominent in the bank- ing history of the county seat, began a private banking house in 1855. This was a quarter of a century after the settlement of the county and when we consider how important and necessary the bank is as an insti- tution in this age the question might naturally be asked, Where did the people put their money and transact their financial affairs during those years? In the first place, the amount of money in circulation was very small and the wealth of the people was quite fully represented in labor and tangible property. A place to keep the cash surplus was little needed. Then, the financial transactions of the time were not of every-day occur- rence, and the machinery of checks and drafts and organized finance was not so essential. So we see that banks were not so much needed in the early days as grocery stores and schools and churches, and were not established until the country reached a fair degree of development.
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FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF CASSOPOLIS.
The Kingsburys dissolved partnership in 1857, and thereafter AAsa Kingsbury conducted the business until the organization of the First National Bank. This well known institution has had an existence of thirty-five years. The personnel of its officials and stockholders has always been maintained at a high standard, and the organizers, in No- vember, 1870, were representative of the best business interests of the village and county at that time, as those now concerned in the man- agement are representative of the business ideals of this epoch. The incorporators and stockholders were: Asa Kingsbury, S. T. Read, Jo- seph K. Ritter, Isaac Z. Edwards, David M. Howell, Charles W. Clis- bee, Charles H. Kingsbury, Joel Cowgill, E. B. Sherman, Amanda F. Ritter, Daniel Wilson, all of Cassopolis ; also David Lilly, of LaGrange township; James E. Bonine, of Penn township, and N. Boardman, E. M. Irvin, D. C. Read and Henry FF. Kellogg, from outside the county. The first directors were: Asa Kingsbury, Joseph K. Ritter, David M. Howell, David Lilly, James E. Bonine and E. B. Sherman. The present directors are: M. L. Howell, C. A. Ritter, J. H. Johnson, H. D. Smith, A. M. Kingsbury, Ellen R. Funk, W. G. Bonine, all of Cassopolis excepting J. H. Johnson, a resident of Penn township. Asa Kingsbury was president from the date of the first charter until his death in 1883, when he was succeeded by David M. Howell, who first held the office of vice-president, and served until his death the same year. His successors have been Joseph K. Ritter, 1884-91 ; Sylvador T. Read, 1893-98; Marshal L. Howell, since 1898. The first cashier was Charles H. Kingsbury, who was succeeded by Charles A. Ritter, the present incumbent, in 1891, who then was assistant cashier and was succeeded by David L. Kingsbury. assistant at this time. The bank has a capital of $50,000; surplus and profits, $50,000.
DOW AGIAC BANKS.
H. B. Denman was the first banker of Dowagiac, establishing a private bank in 1856, and was the leading spirit in organizing the First National Bank in 1865. This for six years was the only national bank in the county. Also in 1865 the late Daniel Lyle and Joseph Rogers established a private banking office. In 1869, Mr. Denman having re- linquished the controlling interest in First National stock and Mr. Lyle becoming the chief stockholder, the two institutions merged their inter-
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ests, with Mr. Lyle as president of the First National, while in the same year Nelson F. Choate became cashier.
When the charter of the First National expired in 1883 it was not renewed, but the bank was reorganized as a private bank under the firm name of D. Lyle & Company, Bankers. On the death of Daniel Lyle-one of the foremost citizens, a man whose memory deserves per- manant record not only in financial affairs of his city, but in public- spirited citizenship-another reorganization was effected, this time a state charter being taken out, and at that date the City Bank of Dowa- giac was born. Then again, in 1904. the state bank organization was dissolved and since then the bank has been conducted by the firm of Lyle, Gage & Company, Bankers, under the old name.
The first officers of the bank under the state organization in 1887 were: John Lyle, president: N. F. Choate, vice president ; F. W. Lyle, cashier ; I. B. Gage, assistant cashier. At the next change, in 1904, the officers became: F. W. Lyle, president; N. F. Choate, vice president ; I. B. Gage, cashier; Leon R. Lyle, assistant cashier. In February, 1906, occurred the death of Nelson F. Choate, who had been identified with banking interests in the city nearly forty years. The official director- ate then became: F. W. Lyle, president; I. B. Gage, vice president ; L. R. Lyle, cashier; F. J. Phillips, assistant cashier. The flourishing condition of the City Bank is shown in the statement of nearly $350,- 000 deposits and surplus, indicating the creditable management since 1865 and also the financial status of the city and country.
LFE BROTHERS COMPANY, BANKERS.
This institution, whose offices are in the Beckwith Theatre block, had its origin in the brokerage business begun by C. T. Lee in 1867 and the exchange bank established by him in 1875. The present firm was established in 1887, its personnel being C. T. Lee, Henry MI. Lee and Fred E. Lee. C. A. Hux has held the office of cashier since 1896. This bank has deposits of over $300,000.
The Sage brothers, Martin G. and Norman, while engaged in the mercantile and milling business at Adamsville, received money and is- sued certificates of deposit and sold exchange on New York.
About ten years ago a private banking concern, backed by Chicago capital, was started at Edwardsburg. \ failure of the Chicago enter- prise resulted in closing the Edwardsburg branch. The citizens there-
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upon organized a "Citizens' Bank," which did business for one year, when it also closed.
FARMERS' MUTUAL FIRE INSURANCE COMPANY.
This company has had a longer continuous career than any other of the financial concerns of the county. It was organized May 8, 1863, its object being the insurance of farm buildings at a minimum cost and on the mutual plan. In the list of its officials during more than forty years' successful business have been numbered some of the most influential and substantial agriculturists of the county. Its first of- ficers and directors were: Jesse G. Beeson, one of the founders of Dowagiac city, president; A. Jewell, of Wayne township, treasurer ; A. D. Stocking, of Dowagiac, secretary; and W. G. Beckwith, of Jef- ferson. Israel Ball, of Wayne, William R. Fletcher, of Wayne, Frank Brown, of Pokagon, Daniel Blish, of Silver Creek, directors.
The present officers are as follows: Samuel Johnson, president : Frank Atwood, secretary: J. J. Ritter, treasurer; James H. Graham, C. H. Scott, Clint Elsey, Edson Woodman, Walter N. Sommers, director.
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HISTORY OF CASS COUNTY
CHAPTER XIII. AGRICULTURE.
The pioneer farmers of Cass county were probably as progressive as those of any other part of the country at that time. They brought with them from their homes in the older states the methods which pre- vailed there. And, as many of them came from the east, which was considered the most progressive section of the country, they must have known the best methods of farming which were practiced in their day.
But the first farmers of this county were confronted with a task such as has been unknown in the settlement of the more western prairie states. The obstacles to be overcome were great, the implements and means were primitive. The steel plow was not invented until after Cass county had been substantially settled and improved. Whereas the west- ern prairie sod is turned over for the first time by immense gang plows. drawn by four or five horses, or even by a traction engine, the farmer of the twenties or thirties had to depend on a wooden moldboard shod with an iron share roughly made at a local blacksmith shop.
With this hint at pioneer conditions it is evident that agriculture has undergone development in as wonderful degree as any other phase of the county's history. It will be the purpose of this chapter to de- scribe as far as possible the methods and circumstances of early agricult- ure, and from the point of view of the past indicate the great changes that have preceded modern agriculture.
The pioneer farmer's first work. after a rude temporary shelter had been provided, was to prepare a little spot of ground for the first crop. Those who located on Pokagon, Beardsley's and other well known prairies-and, as we know. those were the favorite selections of the first settlers -- were very fortunate in this respect. Relieved of the neces- sity to clear off the trees, they had only to turn over the prairie sod. But even so, the undertaking involved labor that one man alone couldl hardly accomplish. The turf on the prairies was very tough, and the ground in most places was filled with a net-work of the wire-like red root. If the location was in the oak woods, it was necessary to girdle the trees, clearing away the underbrush and sweeping the surface with
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fire. The dead trunks of the trees were sometimes left standing the first season, and the corn grew up among the aisles of the blasted forests.
Although the surface of the ground had been cleared, just beneath there remained the roots of the former growth, and these, formed into massive "stools." were for several years insuperable obstacles to easy farming. An ordinary plow team would have been useless among the stools and grubs, and a common plow would have been quickly demol- ished. The plow used was a massive construction of wood and iron, and was known as the "bull plow." The share and coulter were of iron. and made very heavy and strong. The bean was long and of huge proportions, to resist the enormous strain brought upon it. Usually the weight of one of these ponderous bull plows was about three hundred pounds, and occasionally one was found weighing five hundred pounds. Six or seven yoke of oxen, and sometimes more, were required to pull this implement through the ground. With such an equipment, the ordin- ary roots were torn from the ground like straws and subsequent culti- vation was made easy. It usually took two persons to do the plowing, a man to hold the plow and either a man or a boy to drive the team. This process of "breaking" new land was made a regular business by some of the pioneers, just as threshing is at the present time.
In a few years plows with iron moldboards were introduced, but as they would not scour well in all kinds of soil, they were not consid- ered a success at first. Besides, as the ground was full of roots, of new stumps and standing trees. the wooden moldboard was less liable to break than one of iron, so it was better adapted to the conditions than the iron one. The cultivation was done with the hoe at first, then came the "fluke," a V-shaped wooden frame with five iron flukes, drawn by one horse, then the single shovel plow, then the double shovel plow, which was in use for a number of years. Among the trees, stumps and roots both the plowing and cultivation were tedious, laborious and disagreeable work. This condition continued for a number of years, until the stumps had decaved sufficiently to make it possible to remove them.
The planting was likewise primitive. As the sod was turned over, a man followed about every third furrow, dug into the top of the fur- row with his foot or with a hoe and planted corn, covering it in the same way. In some instances the corn was dropped in the furrow very near the outside, so that the edge of the next furrow when turned over would be directly over the grain. The corn would then come through between the two furrows. Wheat was sown among the stumps and trees.
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The grain was harrowed in with a wooden-toothed harrow. The farin- er who did not have even one of those rude implements would cut a small tree, trim off part of the limbs so as to leave a bushy end, weight it with a log, and, hitching his team to it, would get about the same results as from a tooth harrow.
In harvesting the corn the stalk was not utilized, as is done at the present day. The prevailing practice was to pull the ear from the stalk, husk and all, haul the corn to a pile and then husk it. The husk was utilized for feed, and as much of the grain as was not needed for home consumption was hauled away to market. As soon as large crops of corn were grown husking bees became the fashion. The corn was pulled from the stalk and put in a pile, as when the farmer himself, or he and his family did the husking. Then a number of neighbors assem- bled and everybody husked. This was repeated at the home of each farmer until all had their crops husked.
Wheat was harvested with the cradle, such an implement as a reaper or harvesting machine of any kind not then being dreamed of. Besides the cradle. the sickle also was in use at that time. But that was used only in wheat that had blown down or grew among stumps and trees, making it difficult and sometimes impossible to cradle. And for the first few years that was a large portion of the crop. It was well that only a limited area could be sown, because had there been a greater acreage it doubtless would not have been harvested. The work of har- vesting with those old-time implements was extremely slow in compar- isen with the way it can be done with our improved harvesting machin- ery. The threshing was done either with a flail or the grain was tramped out by horses. Both processes were very slow, the former being about as slow as harvesting with the sickle. When horses were used a thresh- ing floor was made out-of-doors by smoothing the ground or beating it until it was as solid as could be made. The horses were ridden by boys, while two men worked the grain toward the center of the floor and threw out the straw.
In the early forties a machine came into use which threshed out the grain and dispensed both with the use of the flail and the tramping of horses. This machine consisted only of a cylinder, and was operated by horse power. When the threshing was done by any of these methods the grain had to be separated from the chaff by fanning with a sheet, the wind blowing the chaff away. There were no fanning mills then. but they were introduced a few years later. These mills were in the
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crudest form, but were considered a great improvement over the win- nowing sheet. All of this labor had to be done in order that the farmer might produce a supply of wheat sufficient to provide bread for his family and, if possible, a small surplus to sell.
Wheat regularly sold for fifty cents a bushel for many years, which seenis a small remuneration for the labor bestowed upon the raising. During the early thirties, however, when immigration was greater than the settled population, the newcomers took all the surplus wheat at ex- travagant prices. This stimulated the farmers to unusual efforts and the following year everybody had wheat to sell, and prices were too low to pay for the labor of raising. George Meacham, in his capacity as sheriff of the county, called the farmers together at Cassopolis to take concerted action for disposing of the grain. It was suggested that a warehouse should be built at the mouth of the St. Joseph. Abiel Silver. one of the proprietors of the distillery at Cassopolis, came to the rescue by agreeing to purchase all the surphis. It was not long after that the tide of immigration increased so that the demand once more took all the supply.
Corn and wheat were the two leading crops grown then, as they are now. Other crops that were grown were oats, rye, potatoes, buck- wheat and flax. Oats were usually fed in the straw, only enough be- ing threshed out for the next year's seed. A patch of potatoes was planted on every farm for home use, but there were very few, if any. grown for market. The crop being a bulky one and the market so dis- tant made the growing of potatoes as a market crop impracticable. Flax was raised for home use, the product being manufactured into linen for a part of the family's wearing apparel.
No attention was paid to the rotation of crops. Corn was planted after corn, and wheat after wheat, and that was continued year after year. Sometimes these crops were alternated, but only as a matter of convenience and not to prevent exhaustion of the soil. It was not nec- essary at that time to give any attention to this matter, which has come to be one of the most important questions the farmer of the present day has to consider. When the timber was first cleared away the land was full of fertility, and the possibility of the soil losing its substance had not yet been thought of. Had the same care been exercised in con- serving fertility then as the farmers are compelled to exercise now, the soils would never have become impoverished, as so many of them have.
It has already been told how some of the first settlers, immediately
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on arriving in the county, especially if they came in the fall of the year, busied themselves with cutting and stacking a sufficient amount of the native hay to feed their stock for the winter. Uzziel Putnam and Abram Townsend cut their first winter's supply of forage on the prairie about the present site of Edwardsburg.
For many years the hay crop consisted of the native grasses. When the settlers were yet few in number the prairie and marsh land grasses furnished an abundant supply of hay for their live stock. When the prairie lands were all taken up each farmer on those lands set off a portion of his farm for a meadow, but this was sufficient only for the owner, and those who had settled in the timber had to look elsewhere for a supply. There was an abundant growth of grass on what were then known as wet prairies, or mowing marshes, which after being cut and cured in the sun, was called "massauga" hay because of the numer- ous snakes by that name on the marshes. At first every settler could find a sufficient supply of this marsh grass near his home if he had none on his farm. This hay had to be mowed by hand, then thrown to- gether and hauled from the marsh on a small sled drawn by a yoke of oxen. The ground was so soft that a team of horses and a wagon could not be driven over it. Only a small hit could be hauled out at a time in this way, and it took a number of these sled loads to make a wagon load. The same method of making hay had to be employed on all of the wet prairies of those days.
With this view of the status of agriculture sixty years ago, it is not difficult to realize the broad developments that have taken place since then. Farming has become easier with every year. Its condi- tions and surroundings are no longer those of the common laborer. Several things have contributed to this change. Some claim that the invention of labor-saving machinery and its general use has done more to elevate agriculture than any other factor. It certainly is not wide of the mark to measure the progress of agriculture by the distance that separates the self-binder from the cradle. Yet there are other factors. The working and hiring of help has been quite reformed from the methods of fifty years ago. The progressive farmer no longer depends on transient labor. Not so many years ago, when harvest time or other extra press of work arrived, the farmer would start out into the sur- rounding country and hire by the day such men as were available. This is neither practicable nor possible now. Improved machinery has done much to relieve the farmer of the necessity of hiring day laborers.
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His policy now is to hire a man by the year, and often a man of family, who will live on the farm and give it his entire attention.
Transportation has also effected many changes in farming methods. In place of marketing by the bushel, the farmer now markets "on the hoof," that is, feeds his grain products to stock. And of recent years the farmers do not hesitate to import stock cattle from distant ranges of the Dakotas or the Southwest and feed them for market on grain raised in Cass county. This in itself is one of the most important de- velopments of Cass county agriculture.
In the general upward trend of property values land is the last thing to appreciate. At a distance of ten years from the beginning of the present remarkable era of prosperity, the farm lands of the county show only a slight increase in value. But now more than ever the worth of Cass county lands is being understood. Instead of passing on to the western lands, where climate and soil are uncertain, the farmers of Ohio and other states in the east and middle west, after selling their farms at from $60 to $100 an acre, are choosing to locate on moder- ately priced lands in Cass county rather than investing in property which not for many years will have the environment of comfort and culture found here.
Much of Cass county is situated in the famous Michigan fruit belt. The northern part of the county shares with Van Buren county a repu- tation as a grape growing center. The shipping points of Mattawan, Lawton and Decatur draw upon northern Cass county for large quan- tities of grapes, as well as other fruits. There is a large acreage in the county better adapted to fruit culture than any other crop, and fruit- growing is increasing at the expense of other crops.
Mention should be made of the mint culture which has become a feature of Cass county agriculture during the past few years. The muck land of Volinia and Wayne and other townships is well adapted to mint growing. Mint is cultivated in rows like corn, and is cut just before it blooms, and from the harvest is distilled the mint oil. \ still plant can be built for about $300. As an example of the crop's value. it is claimed that eight acres in Volinia township last season produced mint oil to the value of $1,050.
One of the conspicuous methods of caring for crops should be mentioned. Within recent years progressive farmers have built silo plants for the purpose of preserving the essential qualities of "roughen- ing" or fodder throughout the winter. One of the first things to catch
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the attention on many farms in the county is the silo plant, and often there are several of them. In these huge cylindrical, air-tight tanks, built of "silo lumber," and some of the recent ones of cement, the green corn, stalk and all. after being cut up by a special machine, is stored very much as vegetables are canned. While in the reservoir it undergoes a slight fermentation process, but with the exception of a small portion on the top, which rots and molds just as the top of a can of fruit often does, and which is thrown out before the rest is used, the entire contents of the tank are preserved with original sweetness and wholesomeness for feeding to stock during the severe winter sea- son. What an improvement this method is over the old one of stacking the dry fodder in the late fall, when most of its essential qualities have dried out, even one unfamiliar with agriculture can readily realize.
THE GRANGE.
The Grange, whose basic purposes are educational, fraternal and the general improvement of the farmer and his family and the con- ditions under which he works, has not been the factor in agriculture in this county which it has proved in other counties of Michigan, and yet its influence as a state and national organization for the uplift and im- provement of agriculture has been so great and so widely distributed that it deserves some mention in this chapter.
The National Grange organization was commenced in 1867; but it was during the middle seventies that the movement reached its height in southern Michigan. The general name applicable to the organization as a whole is "Patrons of Husbandry," the "granges" being the subor- dinate branches, but the name Grange is the one generally used in re- ferring to ali departments of the organization. The Grange was the first fraternal organization to admit the wives and daughters on an equal basis in every way.
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