Compendium of history and biography of Kalamazoo County, Mich., Part 6

Author: Fisher, David, 1827-; Little, Frank, 1823-
Publication date: 1906
Publisher: Chicago [Ill.] : A.W. Bowen & Co.
Number of Pages: 598

USA > Michigan > Kalamazoo County > Compendium of history and biography of Kalamazoo County, Mich. > Part 6

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The weaving was done by women, one or two skilled in the art dwelling in each neighborhood.

VIEW OF KALAMAZOO FROM PROSPECT HILL. By courtesy of the Gazette.

KALAMAZOO COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

The price for weaving plain tow, linen or flannel cloth was about six cents a yard, from six to ten yards being a good day's work. The tow-and- linen cloth was made up into clothing for the "men folks," dress for the "females" and into sheets, pillow-cases and towels, and then came on the making of flannel and winter garments. Nearly all of the farmers owned a flock of sheep. which were carefully yarded nightly to protect them from the wolves, which were so numerous and destructive that, at nearly every town meet- ing, the question of bounty on wolves occupied a large share of the proceedings. The wool taken from the sheep was hurried to the carding mill, there to be made into rolls, and soon the girls were again busy at the spinning wheel, their work being valued at seventy-five cents a week. A day's work was thirty. knots of warp and forty knots of filling, but some of the more active would spin twice that amount. From this spinning and sub- sequent weaving resulted the chief part of the family's winter clothing, although most of the young women owned a calico dress, the most pop- ular color being blue. Those "boughten dresses" cost twenty-seven cents a yard, and were rarely worn, only being bought to light on Independence Day or at New Year's .dances and were expected to last for years. No carpets were seen on the floors, and, as long as this simple life continued. and money was not invoked to bring in luxurious furnishings and surroundings, universal content- ment reigned and merriment and cheerful songs and jollity were the life, not only of each home, but of the community as well.

In 1838 the pioneer days were in their prime and the sturdy Easterners had made their full ex- tent and imprint on the soil of this country, where, like William the Conqueror, in his conquest of England, they took fast "seizen" of the land, as is shown by that very ac- curate and painstaking work, the "Gazetteer of Michigan," published by John T. Blois in 1838. This historian says : "Kalamazoo county i bounded on the north by Allegan and Barry, east by Calhoun, south by St. Joseph, west by Van Buren. It was organized in 1830 and contains five hundred and seventy-six miles; the seat of

justice, Kalamazoo. The water courses are the Kalamazoo, the Portage, Four-Mile creek, Gull creek and Bear creek. The organized townships are Alamo, Brady, Charleston, Climax, Com- stock. Cooper, Kalamazoo, Pavilion, Portage, Prairie Ronde. Richland and Texas. The villages are Kalamazoo, Schoolcraft and Comstock. Kal- amazoo county is generally level, though suffi- ciently undulating to conduct off the waters in healthy streams. It is divided into prairie, open and heavily timbered lands. About one-third of the county is heavy timber, beech, maple, ash, basswood, whitewood, butternut and black wal- nut. There are eight prairies, viz .: Prairie Ronde, Gourdneck prairie, Dry prairie, Genesee prairie, Grand prairie, Toland's prairie, Gull prai- rie and Climax prairie. These contain about one- eighth of the county. Every portion of the county is susceptible of and admirably adapted to agricul- ture. The soil is a black loam, rich and fertile in the extreme. There are numerous mill sites in the different parts of the county, with hydraulic power sufficient to support the most extensive manufactures. The principal mill streams are the Portage river, of St. Joseph, and the Portage river, of Kalamazoo and Gull creek. The Kala- mazoo river runs through the county, near its geographical center, and is skirted with heavily timbered and open lands of the first quality. The settling of this county commenced in 1829. In 1830 two or three townships of land were offered for sale by the general government. In 1831 the balance of the land of the county, save a reserva- tion of one township, was brought into the market. The public lands in this county were mostly taken up by actual settlers though some of a good quality yet remain unsold. It belongs to the Kalamazoo district. Kalamazoo county elects two representatives and belongs to the sixth senatorial district, which returns two senators to the legislature. The population is 6,367."

From Clark's "Michigan State Gazetteer," published in 1863, the following excerpts may in- dicate not only the condition of the county at that time, but its solid and gratifying progress along the lines of the highest citizenship. In the county at the time were 4.787 dwellings, 4,668 families ;

COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY OF

the population being in 1860, 24,663. Every por- tion of the county is susceptible of cultivation and will produce in the greatest profusion all kinds of cereals and root crops, also all kinds of fruit adapted to this latitude. The soil in most parts is a rich, black loam, with occasional patches of warm and light sandy soil, the latter producing sweet potatoes and Indian corn in astonishing perfection.

"Kalamazoo village, the county seat, is one of the most beautiful towns in the western states, and is noted as a center of wealth and refinement. In 1860 it contained 1,940 occupied farms, with I37,663 acres of improved land and 129,276 acres of unimproved land. There was owned in the county 54,576 sheep and 13,697 swine. The crops included 585,235 bushels of wheat, 548,691 bush- els of corn, 147,529 bushels of oats, 128,033 bush- els of potatoes, 141,490 pounds of maple sugar, 187,160 pounds of wool, 496,158 pounds of but- ter and 68,237 pounds of cheese. There were nine flouring mills, manufacturing 157,250 barrels of flour annually. The thirty sawmills, twenty-two water and eight steam mills, manufactured 7,590,- 325 feet of sawed lumber annually. The number of children attending public school was 7,078, and the total amount of district taxes was $14,338.17.

"The sale of government land at the Kalama- zoo land office from its establishment up to 1838 was as follows : 1831, 93,179.36 acres ; 1832, 74,- 696.17 ; 1833, 95.980.25 ; 1834, 128,244.47 ; 1835, 745,661.34 ; 1836, 634,511.82; 1837, 313,855.15. The total amount entered was 3,086,138.56 acres, the price being one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre. The vacant public lands in the district in 1838 still subject to entry, amounted to 449,- 056.15 acres : 83,001.69 acres were occupied by Indian reservations ; 95,663.60 acres were school lands, while the lands appropriated to universities amounted to 35,014.84 acres. The land office was established first at White Pigeon in 1831, with Abraham Edwards as register and Thomas C. Sheldon as receiver. In the spring of 1834 the office was removed to Kalamazoo, where it should have been located at first. The description of the Kalamazoo land district has been given on another page of this work, to which we refer the reader for more detailed information.

"To give an idea of pioneer conditions before 1838 we will say that the recognized villages of the state in 1825 were Port Lawrence, on the Maumee, Monroe, Frenchtown, Brownstown, Truax's, near Detroit, Mt. Clemens, Palmer, on the St. Clair, Tecumseh, Pontiac, and Saginaw. Orange Risdon, of Ypsilanti, made the first map of the surveyed part of Michigan in 1825. In ad- dition to the old, six new counties were added to this map. These were Washtenaw and Lenawee, both organized in 1825; Saginaw and Lapeer, in 1835; Shiawassee, in 1837; and Sanilac, in 1838. On this map the average village is indicated by four black dots. Detroit had twenty dots; Ann Arbor, ten; Woodruff's Grove, eight; Ypsilanti, three; Dexter, two; while Dixborough, with the name as black and much larger than any of them, had not even a speck. At the same time the pos- sessions of Benjamin Sutton, the pioneer of 1825, covered two sections of land in Washtenaw county." The roads in 1824 were the Chicago road, starting from Detroit, with a fork at Ypsi- lanti to Tecumseh, and one to Ann Arbor, and a road from Detroit to Pontiac and Saginaw. The most noted of these was the old Chicago road. which was cut through from Detroit to Ypsilanti in 1823. That old pioneer, John Bryan, was the first white emigrant that passed over this road. Soon after it was cut through, he drove an ox- team before a wagon carrying family and house- hold effects from Detroit to Woodruff's Grove, which place he reached on the night of October 23, 1823.

In 1835, John Farmer mapped out Michigan with its improvements at that date. I find that old map the most valuable and interesting of his- tories. Just one decade had elapsed in the new pilgrim's progress, between Orange Risdon's map of 1825 and John Farmer's of 1835. During this time civilization had taken up its line of march with its emigrant wagons, or with knapsacks or staff, on the old Chicago road westward from Ypsilanti, and all along its route the sound of the axe was heard breaking "the sleep of the wilder- ness"; while clearings were made and hamlets sprung up at Saline, Clinton, Jonesville, Cold- water, Sturgis, Mottville, and at other places on toward Chicago.

KALAMAZOO COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

The same busy work of progress was going on from Ann Arbor westward, along the old Ter- ritorial road, where log cabins arose and villages appeared as if evoked by magic. For on the map of 1835 we find located west of Ann Arbor, Lima, Grass Lake, Jacksonburg, Sandstone, Marshall, Battle Creek, Comstock, Kalamazoo and St. Jo- seph, on the lake. Emigration had pushed out from Detroit, on the Grand River road to Sara- nac and on to Grandville. There were other roads branching out north and south from these main roads, leading to the various improvements in the lower part of the peninsula, and dotting the map, here and there, were heralds of progress-post- offices, sawmills and gristmills.

In 1840 the pioneer era practically ended, al- though there was much pioneering still to be done, for, with the passing away of hard times and the incoming of numerous settlers, the early difficulties and deprivations ceased to exist, and a course of rapid and prosperous development en - sued. The era of speculation in enhanced and fictitious prices of lands offered for sale at ex- horbitant prices to guileless and unsuspecting purchasers in the east had a short and not bene- ficial effect on the prosperity of the state and Kal- amazoo was in a measure unfavorably affected by there operations as well as by the "wildcat" bank- ing methods that for a number of years made the state an actual stench in the nostrils of honest financial institutions of the conservative East.

Roads occupied much attention. In the terri- torial days great labors were expended in con- structing turnpike roads under the authority of the federal government. These were six rods wide and well made, following nearly the courses of the rough primitive roads, which the settlers were compelled to use, but not so winding or devious in their ways. These drained in some degree the swamps, the others either wound around or caused the settlers to wallow through and smooth the inequalities of the higher lands. There were five of these territorial and early state roads. all com- mencing at Detroit and sending branches into all the southern portion of the state. The principal one of these was the Chicago road, leading from

Detroit to Chicago. This road forked into two branches in the central part of the state and had between 1830 and 1840 probably more travel than any other road in the United States.

Following the state roads were the primitive railroads and canals. These deserve to be men- tioned. During the decade alluded to, were in- corporated in Michigan the Romeo & Mt. Clem- ens Railroad in 1833, the Detroit & Maumee Rail- road in 1835, the Allegan & Marshall Railroad in 1836 (this had a capital of four hundred thou- sand dollars and was designed to connect Mar- shall and Allegan, passing through Battle Creek, Comstock and Bronson The charter demanded the completion of twenty-five miles in four years, its length to be fifty miles. The state loaned one hundred thousand dollars to this company). The Monroe & Ypsilanti Railroad was incorporated in 1836. The Kalamazoo & Lake Michigan Rail- road was incorporated in 1836, with four hun- dred thousand dollars capital, to run from Kala- mazoo village to the mouth of South Black river in Van Buren county. The charter required a commencement of work within three years, the construction of twenty-five miles in six years and the completion of the forty miles in eight years. The Monroe & Ann Arbor Railroad was also in- corporated in 1836. The Constantine & Niles Canal or Railroad Company was incorporated in 1836, with a quarter of million dollars as capital, to connect the St. Joseph river by either railroad or canal with the places named.

In 1837 Michigan was admitted as a state of the federal republic and its youthful pride launches out into great schemes of internal im- provements. Loans of funds from the state for the improvement of navigable rivers, the build- ing of canals and for the construction and opera- tion of three grand trunk lines of railways, to the amount in all of five million dollars were provided for by the legislature and active work was com- menced in all parts of the Lower Peninsula, par- ticular attention being given to the three lines of railroads, the Southern, the Central and the Northern. The Detroit & Shiawassee Railroad was started under a charter granted in 1837. The

COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY OF

Saginaw & Genesce Railroad, the Gibraltar & Clinton Railroad, the Pontiac & Huron River Canal Company, the Owasso & Saginaw Navi- gation Company, the River Raisin & Grand River Railroad Company, the Macomb & Saginaw Rail- road Company, the St. Clair & Romeo Railroad. the Shelby & Belle River Railroad, the Clinton & Adrian Railroad, the Erie & Kalamazoo Railroad, incorporated in 1833, the Detroit & Pontiac Rail- road, incorporated in 1834, the Shelby & Detroit Railroad, the Palmyra & Jacksonburg Railroad, the River Raisin & Lake Erie Railroad, the Au- burn & Lapeer Railroad, the Ypsilanti & Tecum- sch Railroad, the Mottville & White Pigeon Rail- road and the Medina & Canandaigua Railroad were all chartered before 1838, and it will be seen that the question of transportation was the chief one then in the minds of the people.

Some of these roads amounted to nothing, charters lapsing and the state aid given freely to the earlier roads, being withdrawn. The earliest roads leading toward the relief of the Kalamazoo valley was the Erie & Kalamazoo, chartered by the territorial legislature on April 22, 1833, to con- nect the Maumee valley of Ohio with that of Kal- amazoo. Commencing at Port Lawrence, Ohio, now Toledo, it passed through the important towns of Sylvania, Blissfield, Palmyra and Adrian onto the headwaters of the Kalamazoo river. The road was completed to Adrian, thirty-three miles, and opened for business on October 1, 1836. The cars were first drawn by horses, but the Toledo Blade of January 20, 1837, announced the arrival of the road's first locomotive. The Palmyra & Jacksonburg Railroad, now the Jackson branch of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, was built in 1838 to Tecumseh by the same company. This road made Tecumseh its western terminal point for twenty years. In 1844 the Erie & Kal- amazoo Company became involved financially and the road was purchased by the state of Michigan. which united it with the great Southern line it had built from Monroe to Hillsdale in 1843. In 1846 the state sold both roads to the Michigan Central Railroad, which was completed to Kala- mazoo on February 2, 1846. It was not finished to Chicago until May, 1852.

CHAPTER V1.

DEFORESTING.

The work of deforesting the country which has been going on to stem the cold of the intense winters for the long years during which Euro- pean civilization has been present on this conti- nent, nearly three centuries, can be best appre- ciated by the present struggle to keep up a fuel supply from the woods. The primal necessity for clearing away land incumbrances of heavy timber that the cultivation of the soil might take place needs no explanation, but the deprivation of later generations of a necessary supply of wood and timber was not presented to the pio- neers, and the thing that should have been done, the replanting of sufficient land to keep up a good supply was never thought of nor done. These replanted forests would have provided full sup- plies for the building, fire and other purposes for which our forest timber is available. Germany has fully demonstrated what magnificent results can be obtained from a wise and systematic cul- tivation and fostering of forests. Under this cul- ture the trees have reached a ripeness for decay, and have been and are replaced to meet the loss and no deforesting is possible. The trimmings and refuse of forest preserves now provide a handsome store for fuel annually.

The United States have been behind hand as separate nationalities in considering the pro- tection of the forest supply, never apparently thinking anything about this important subject. Corporations and private owners of real estate have mercilessly cut off the timber for its sale for immediate profits. Therefore the dense masses of forest growth which should have been kept in full existence to hold back the water supply for streams like the Hudson, Connecticut, Mis- sissippi, Missouri, Platte, Saginaw, Kalamazoo and other rivers have passed away.

All states have barely escaped the deprivation of a water supply. The United States are just in time to protect the sources of the Mississippi from degenerating into a barren watercourse and the Yellowstone Park will save the Missouri

KALAMAZOO COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

from a barren drainage. And since irrigation has made the western portions of the country fruitful, a double obligation is laid upon our people to increase water sources by the regenera- tion of forests and the protection of trees from vandalism.

Yet there were periods when to obtain ground for tillage, the forests of civilization had to be shorn. Tree trunks, branches, stumps had to be made way with by an indiscriminate conflagration. The pyres of log heaps were piled up, generation after generation, until the general devastation cried from the ground to high heaven. And this holocaust was apart from the timber, boards and shingles needed for the homes of the country or industrial uses of growing population. Nor in the enumeration of forest depredations was the discount of the backlogs and foresticks of the fireplaces of New England fully reckoned. It is amazing that the assaults of two hundred years have left a tree standing.

But let no iconaclast belittle the backlogs of New England, which evolved warmth and pro- vided the cooked food for the living of the house- hold, yet from whose smoke wreathed fireplaces were sent forth cogitations which changed the conditions of the world. The backlog students caught the inspirations of patriotism, stateman- ship, politics, morality, divinity, romance, and poetry from the genial and diffusive warmth of glowing embers. The Winthrops, Miles Standish, Jonathan Edwards, Aaron Burr, the Beechers, Longfellows, Whittiers and Emersons were back- log students and a long catalog of their contem- poraries. Going further back the list might in- clude the patriotic band, calling themselves in their Indian disguise, "Mohawks," who destroyed the tea in Boston Harbor, and the other incipient patriots of the Revolution. Who will assume to estimate the warmth, the glow of patriotism im- parted by the consuming of the backlog, in spur- ring the uprisings, the expressions of human na- ture in every direction ?

The Indian trails ran like a network in every direction and occasionally the dusky red men would be seen in solemn file as they rode along the forest glades. A large portion was annually

cleared by the fires, which kept down all kinds of undergrowth. The great trees of the forest and the scattering oaks of the openings made the whole country appear like one vast park, which indeed it was, nature's own. When the fresh grass was making its first appearance in the spring it looked like a broad wheat field, and later on it was all carpeted with the sweetest wild flowers. Game of all kinds was plenty, and so were wolves and other beasts of prey. The set- tlers gathered much of their winter's hay from the adjacent marshes. The miasma from these marshes and the newly-plowed soil brought with it a great amount of malarial sickness, which the settlers had to combat as best they could as phy- sicians were scarce.

Without the glowing fires and warm hostel- ries where would have been the satisfaction of winter sleigh rides and country balls? Or, giving revery the rein, how could the Pilgrims and Puri- tans have buffeted the blasts around Cape Cod or the grim winters of New England without the the primeval wood fires? Whence the fiery coals for the footstoves of church pews, or the cords of wood for the huge church boxstove. Or the warming pans of glowing embers to temper beds in frosted chambers. The forests conquered the cold and frost and made civilization possible.

With communication instantaneous around the world it would be available to test the old adage that weather conditions move in fifty year cycles. Recollections are vivid of seasons of snow tem- pests sweeping over the land and piling up the huge drifts and three feet falls on a level, filling sunken ravines to the depth of fifty feet.

One severe winter, in the early settlement of Michigan, was remarkable for its destitution, both in fodder and grain stuffs. Forest browsing and food makeshifts did not save stock, two-thirds or half of the farm cattle dying by starvation, survivors showing a spring array of skin and bones.

There were no ready communications whereby the abundance of portions of the country could supply the necessities of the famine stricken.

Yet the long and waiting winters had their reliefs in social neighborhood gatherings, in farm-

COMPENDIUM OF HISTORY OF

house visits, balls, dancing parties, dinners, sup- pers, by family invitations. District spelling schools, writing schools, singing schools gave young people satisfactory recreations.

Winter was especially set apart for the down- fall of primitive forests. Maples, sugar, curled, grained, hard-all of the large timber was doomed to cordwood for remorseless domestic fires. The clearings for summer fallows furnished the great log heaps to be consumed for the fall sowing of grain.

Many trees were cut down and made into logs for sawmills, six of which were in operation at a time on one flooded stream within the dis- tance of a mile. During the season of fallow burn- ing it was no uncommon episode, the alarm spread along the country road by some farmer's wife on a bareback horse, calling for help to fight the spread of fire into adjacent woodlands by digging trenches or back firing.

Neighborhood bees were got together not in- frequently to cut the timber and clear lands. With the ruthless consumption of wood there was a singular immunity from house conflagrations. Slaughtering of hogs for pork packing, beeves and sheep for home consumption called for out- door fires and steaming caldrons of hot water. Within doors, the perambulating shoemaker, the tailoress tarried until the wants of each household were met. Spinning, weaving, knitting around the heaped-up, warm fireplace went on without interruption. Making buckskin mitts became quite an industry, the sewing by the pair being entrusted to the wives and daughters of neighbor- ing farmer families. Patent medicine concoction and pill making were occasional industries. Do- nation parties were an annual occurrence, the so- cial features, acquaintance, and plenteous good will swelling the charitable features to provide one- half of the minister's salary.

The first frame building was put up by Judge Eldred in 1833. It was a large barn, forty by eighty feet, with twenty-foot posts and a massive frame. Assistance to raise it was gathered from a wide circuit, including Battle Creek, Gull, Gourdneck and Toland prairies. A considerable

number of Indians also helped to raise it. Asa Jones, of Gull prairie, was the boss carpenter who framed and superintended it. Everything was in perfect order, help was plenty, and the great frame went up without a hitch or delay of any kind. When it was done, the Indians gazed at it in wonder, and exclaimed, "Majash wig- wam!" in utmost astonishment. This was the pioncer raising in town, and was enjoyed as all such meetings are. A two-year-old heifer was killed and cooked for the company, and, in the words of one of those present, "they had a big time." The old barn has been cut in two. One part still stands where it was built, and the other was moved away and is doing duty on another part of the farm on which it was first located. Large as the barn was, it was filled to overflowing with wheat the first year.

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Compendium of history and biography of Kalamazoo County, Mich., Part 6

Author: Fisher, David, 1827-; Little, Frank, 1823- Publication date: 1906 Publisher: Chicago [Ill.] : A.W. Bowen & Co. Number of Pages: 598

Author: Fisher, David, 1827-; Little, Frank, 1823-
Publication date: 1906
Publisher: Chicago [Ill.] : A.W. Bowen & Co.
Number of Pages: 598