USA > Michigan > Kent County > Grand Rapids > Grand Rapids and Kent County, Michigan: History and Account of Their Progress from First. Vol. I > Part 18
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HISTORY OF KENT COUNTY, MICHIGAN
June the council gave permission to grade Division street from Mon- roe to the south line of the city, and for the construction of the road thereon ; but there was to be no toll gate within the city limits. One means of financing this project is evidenced by the announcement of J. W. Peirce, who said he would take "plank road, Illinois River, and Chicago Marine Bank money for goods, and for all debts due him." There were numerous other rail and plank road projects mooted dur- ing this year, for it was a time of great activity, and, by June the Michigan Central had reached Chicago and the marvel was witnessed of trains going from Chicago to Buffalo in thirty-four hours! At Grand Rapids, stock books were opened for a plank road, via Paris Mills, to Barns, in Allegan County, and although there was much dis- satisfaction with the route selected, the entire line of the Kalamazoo road was soon placed under contract. F. H. Cuming was a promoter of a railroad planned to run from Jonesville, via Litchfield, Homer, Marshall, Bellevue, and Hastings to Grand Rapids, and an organiza- tion meeting was held at Homer. The fare to Detroit at this time was $6.50, which was considered very high. In June, the citizens were called on for additional stock subscriptions for the Kalamazoo road, and $4,000 was subscribed, and, by August eight assessments had been called for. The plank road was not completed during this year, and, in December, there was increased agitation for a railroad. Hiram Smith, of Homer, was president of the proposed Homer, Jones- ville & Grand Rapids Railroad, and H. R. Williams, T. B. Church, and Rix Robinson represented Kent County at a meeting held to pro- mote it. Other projects were for lines via Coldwater, and it was sug- gested for the first time that it might be desirable to extend a line as far as Fort Wayne. In this connection, the 'Enquirer" said that a line to the south would be preferable to one to the east.
Among the newcomers in 1853 was Geo. W. Allen, who opened a general merchandise store which soon became a wholesale grocery, under the firm name of Allen & Haxton. He was a member of the Legislature, one of the incorporators of the Kent County Soldiers' Monument Association, United States Pension Agent, and one of the founders of the Grand Rapids Savings Bank. Peter Weirich came from Coblentz, Germany, via Milwaukee, and be- came the prosperous owner of the Michigan Brewery, was prominent in city affairs and one of the founders of the Fifth National Bank. Robert Briggs came from New York and was the first to establish an extensive dairying business, and, in November, Prof. Edward Chesbro, having completed the school census, reported the population on the east side of the river as 2,800, with 901 children of school age, and that forty-five new houses had been erected during the summer. One other improvement of importance to the community was the building of what was called Concert Hall by J. W. Peirce, over his store on old Canal street, and this became a popular center for public meetings, theatrical performances and social events. In Ada, a new town was platted at the mouth of the Thornapple on the proposed site of the expected railroad station, although the pioneer village was on the other side of the river, and a toll bridge was built. William Proctor came to Lowell, from England, purchasing a farm of 320 acres, and becoming one of the prominent men of that neighborhood. Allen
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GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT
Durfee purchased a farm four miles below Grand Rapids, removing to Grand Rapids in 1868, and being well known as an undertaker and manufacturer of funeral goods. The county was greatly the loser by the death of Dr. B. S. Scoville, of Grandville. He started to his old New York home on account of failing health, but did not live to com- plete his journey.
Grand Rapids had passed through its pioneer days, had grown from a village into a city, laid well the foundations of the furniture business which was to make it famous, and was fully ready to play its part in the development of Michigan civilization, in the preserv- ation of the Union and in the wonderful progress of succeeding years.
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CHAPTER VIII. CITY OF GRAND RAPIDS
FIRST SETTLER, LOUIS CAMPAU-THE SETTLEMENT-TOPOGRAPHY- EARLY SETTLERS-GRAND RAPIDS AS A CITY-LABOR MATTERS- PUBLIC WORKS, BUILDINGS, ETC .- PUBLIC PARKS-ORGANIZED CHARITIES, HOSPITALS, ETC .- NATIONAL SOLDIERS' HOME-NO- TABLE FIRES-FRATERNAL AND OTHER SOCIETIES-CEMETERIES.
The history of the city of Grand Rapids properly begins with its incorporation and organization under the charter, April 2, 1850, but a portion of the pioneer annals has been reserved for this chapter, in order that the record of the metropolis of the county might not be dissociated from the earlier and important events. It was at a very early period that the site of Grand Rapids first attracted attention. The name of course was chosen because of the fact that the location is at the rapids of Grand River, and it has no other significance. Long before its discovery by the white man-as well as thereafter-it was a popular meeting place or "council ground" for different tribes of In- dians.
A question which has given rise to some controversy, oftimes of such magnitude as to be entirely out of proportion to the importance of the subject, is the one as to who is entitled to the honor of being handed down in history as the first settler on the site of the present city of Grand Rapids. Many of the statements made in this connection bear the imprint of intense partisanship, rather than of historic re- search, and as there is little or no difference in the statement of fact by these partisans, their claims seem to become but a quibble over terms. That Louis Campau was the magnet around which civiliza- tion clustered in the beginning, and that he laid the foundation of the settlement which has developed into the city of Grand Rapids, is un- deniably true. That his settlement here was antedated a number of years by other white men who, although they left no impress upon the community, and can hardly be said to have contributed to the advancement of civilization, were for a time residents here, is equally true. It is also undoubtedly true that white men visited this Grand River Valley before Indian trading posts were established, in 1821 ; and probably there were visitors to those posts and to the mission sta- tions before 1833; but they were few and far between, and very few of their names are preserved. Even of those directly connected with the posts and the missions the number was not large-scarcely more than a score of persons in all. Two or three instances of early ex- ploration are well authenticated. Chief Noonday once told Richard Godfroy that as early as 1806 a white man, a French trader, erected a cabin at Grand Rapids, but the name he did not know.
In 1827 one Samuel Holloway, a boy of seventeen years, came to Grand Rapids with a party to distribute supplies to the Indians, and assisted Louis Campau in building his log house, the first habitation for white men here. Holloway went away about 1832, just before the
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Yankee settlers began to come in, and when there were but nine log cabins and shops and no frame buildings here. He never visited this place again until 1872, though at this latter date he had for three years been living within twelve miles of the city. The nine log huts referred to were doubtless three at the trading post, three at the Baptist Mis- sion Station, and three down by the Indian village. Francis Bailey, a half-white, came here, about 1828, from Eastern Canada. He had an Indian wife and settled at the Indian village opposite the foot of the Rapids. He was a "medicine man" among them, and built a small house in which he resided until after the treaty of 1836. He then sought to get, as an Indian, the forty-acre piece of land on which he lived, to separate from the tribe and make it his permanent home. His application was rejected, he said, because he "was not full-blood Indi- an." He next sought to retain his home by entry under the pre-emption law, but was again repulsed, on the ground that he "was not a white man." Mr. Bailey died at or near Pentwater, in 1887, aged eighty years.
In 1854, Noah Humphrey Osborne, of Cortland County, New York, informed a friend that, in 1829, he was at the Rapids of Grand River, and for some days was sick at the wigwam of Chief Noonday, who cared for him as tenderly as if he were his own child. The late Richard Godfroy once said that, in 1834, he was informed by the older Indian chiefs here that a Frenchman named Laframboise established a trading post by their village at these Rapids, and built a cabin there, on the west side of the river, as early as about 1806. The chiefs de- scribed the hut as built of logs and bark, chinked with clay, and about thirty feet in length, and said they assisted him in making it. It has been related that as early as 1810 Pierre Constant, an agent of the American Fur Company, established a trading post on Grand River, a little distance from its mouth. Not many years later than that a French trader named Rupell was in or near the Indian village on the west side of the river near these Rapids. He died there, leaving a family in which were two or three daughters, but nothing is known concern- ing their subsequent history. But as white settlers of Grand Rapids, these early traders are of interest only as sort of landmarks, inasmuch as no portion of the subsequent development of this locality has been traceable to their influence or existence.
It is certain that they were not pioneers in the true sense of that word, nor can they be considered as advance agents of civilization. They did not seek to establish a colony or start a "settlement," and had the inducement to others to locate here been left to their initiative, to that of others coming later and like them, the site of what is now a thriving and considerable city would doubtless still have remained a gathering place for the red men. So it remained for another to take the first steps toward building up a civilized community and make for himself the distinction of being the founder of West Michigan's me- tropolis. These early French traders can properly be spoken of as the first white inhabitants, but Louis Campau is entitled to all the honor that attaches to the term of "the first pioneer citizen." It was he who made the first entry of land in the village and platted the same, and who became a member of its first board of trustees. Before Campau's time there was nothing much of Grand Rapids but the river, the blue
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sky overhead and the bluffs and the swamps and the marshes round about, and the dark, unexplored wilderness surrounding it on all sides and called a part of the Territory of Michigan. The name of Grand Rapids and the name of its principal founder are as inseparably con- nected as the name of Watt and the steam engine are interlocked for all time. Campau's life, public services and picturesque career are part and parcel of the city's history, and it can be truthfully said that before Grand Rapids there was not much of Campau, and before Cam- pau there was nothing at all of Grand Rapids.
Campau was the first to introduce a civilized mode of living on the banks of Grand River at the Rapids, for, as before stated, his prede- cessors had been simply Indian traders, who had no intention of mak- ing a permanent home and spending their days here. But when we approach the subject of Campau's life, again we meet with difficulties, for but little is known of his career before he came to Grand Rapids. No effort seems to have been made to preserve the facts and important incidents of his early history, which is due no doubt to the fact that amid the vicissitudes of a pioneer existence the early setlers gave but little thought to the importance of minor events in the lives of themselves and their neighbors who were to be the objects of interest to the future historian. The greater part of Campau's career before he came to the present site of Grand Rapids is therefore shrouded in mystery, and what little is known can be briefly stated. The following account of his career is considered as nearly accurate as any that has been published :
"Louis Campau came to Grand Rapids in 1826, and engaged in the Indian trade, under a Government license. He was born in De- troit in 1791, and was one of the soldiers surrendered by General Hull to the British in 1812. After that he was engaged with Detroit mer- chants in selling goods to the Indians at Saginaw. Following are the original instructions given him with his license from the Superintend- ent of Indian Affairs, as a trader, a license upon the acceptance of which it was necessary to give bonds, and which was liable to be re- voked on well-grounded complaint :
"Instructions to Louis Campau, this day licensed to trade with the Indian nation at.
"I. Your trade will be confined to the place to which you are licensed.
"2. Your transactions with the Indians will be confined to fair and friendly trade.
"3. You will attend no Councils held by the Indians, nor send them any talk or speech, accompanied by wampum.
"4. You are forbidden to take any spirituous liquors of any kind into the Indian country ; or to give, sell or dispose of any to the In- dians.
"5. Should any person attempt to trade in the Indian country without a license; or should any licensed traders carry any spirituous liquors into the Indian country ; or give, sell or dispose of any to the Indians, the Indians are authorized to seize and take to their own use the goods of such traders; and the owner shall have no claim on the Indians or the United States for the same.
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"6. Should you learn that there is any person in the Indian coun- try, trading without a license, you will immediately report the name of such person, and the place where he is trading, to some Indian agent.
"7. The substance of the Fifth regulation you will communicate to the Indians.
"8. You will take all proper occasions to inculcate upon the Indi- ans the necessity of peace; and to state to them that it is the wish of their Great Father, the President, to live in harmony with them; and that they must shut their ears to any wild stories there may be in circu- lation.
"Given under my hand, at he city of Detroit, this 15th day of No- vember, 1822. WILLIAM WOODBRIDGE, Secretary, and at present vested with the powers of Superintendent of Indian Af- fairs therein."
For such trade Louis Campau came to this valley, arriving in No- vember, 1826, being engaged also by Mr. Brewster, of New York, to buy furs. With two assistants, he spent his first winter here at the Indian village. In the following year he built two log cabins, one for a dwelling and the other for trading uses ; also a small shop, for black- smithing and other mechanical work. These were of partially hewn timbers, and of the kind in those days denominated block houses. They were by the river bank at or near what is now Huron street, at the foot of the east side canal, and were the first buildings erected here on that side of the river, and the only ones on the east bank until six years later. Subsequently Mr. Campau made this place his permanent home, and became prominent among its pioneers. Always on friendly terms with the red men, he enjoyed with them a profitable trade, not only here but throughout the northern half of this peninsula of Michi- gan. His brother, Toussaint, came here in the latter part of 1827, and a few years later two other brothers-Antoine and George. These Campau families were all prominent in the early growth and develop- ment of Grand Rapids. Louis Campau was twice married. His first wife died at Saginaw. His second wife died here, in 1869, aged sixty- two. He died in 1871 at nearly eighty years of age. Toussaint died in 1872. Antoine died in 1874, aged seventy-seven. George died in 1879, aged seventy-seven. Mrs. Campau was a woman of character and good natural endowments, and was greatly esteemed among the pioneers for her kindliness and generous hospitality. She acquired a good influence over the Indians, because through long association with them she became thoroughly familiar with their language, customs and habits ; and this influence was always used to foster the interests of the whites and promote the advancement of civilization.
THE SETTLEMENT.
It was in 1832, as already stated, that Campau and his assistants laid out the little town between the river and the present Division street, and it is from that date that the history of Grand Rapids, as a hamlet or village, may be said to begin. The village was a small and insignificant one, given up to Indian trading, and for a time its history was nearly devoid of interest. Like the knife-grinder, it had
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no story to tell, and the narrator of what little gossip there is about it may be told, as Macaulay was about his "History of England," that it is his story, and not history. Still, within the succeeding months and years the foundations were laid for the city as it exists today, and it does not do for cities, any more than individuals, to despise the day of small beginnings. It was for years prior to the first Anglo-Saxon arrival prominent as a trading post; it has always, too, kept pace with the growth of the great West, and has always had reason to congratu- late itself that its founders had some conception, even if an inadequate one, of the great prospect before it.
Nothing more than a trading post could have been claimed for the place prior to 1831, and in fact the maps of the Territory of Michi- gan of that date indicated a trading post at the rapids of the Grand River. But Louis Campau was here, and his brother, Toussaint Cam- pau, had also settled near him, while members of the Marsac family and other French Canadians were occasional visitors to the post. The vanguard of "settlers," using that word in contra-distinction to "Indian traders," came in the summer of 1833, when Joel Guild, Barney Bur- ton, Josiah Burton, Eliphalet H. Turner, and others came here to es- tablish homes. These pioneers had journeyed hither from the State of New York, and had been a long time in making the trip, traveling with horses and wagon through a country which bore no evidence of having been previously traversed by vehicles of any description. They had been attracted to the West by reports concerning its wonderful re- sources, which had traveled back to the Eastern States immediately after the close of the Black Hawk War. And when they learned that fine lands lying on the Grand River had been ceded by the Indians to the United States Government, and that said lands were open for set- tlement, they concluded to move to this point; and with their coming the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Grand Rapids began. They lived dur- ing the winter of 1833-34 in the home of Mr. Guild and the buildings of Mr. Campau, in some cases men doing their own cooking and living in much the same manner as the traders and adventurers who had preceded them. But their plans and purposes were of an entirely dif- ferent character-they were home-seekers, and came for the purpose of becoming permanent residents. Barney Burton came in from Ypsi- lanti. He became prominent in the township of Paris, where he im- proved an excellent farm, yet he always seemed identified with the city, into which he moved and spent the closing years of his life, a respected, thoroughly upright and conscientious citizen. He was born in Green- field, Saratoga County, New York, March 16, 1807. Josiah Burton located two or three tracts of land, and settled on the east side of Divi- sion street; afterward lived on West Bridge street. These brothers both served the public acceptably in official positions. Eliphalet H. Turner was the first clerk of the township of Grand Rapids. He set- tled in what is now the southeast portion of the city, but soon moved into the village, and in 1845-6 built him a home on Front street, near the head of the rapids-the first stone dwelling of note on the west side. He was a mechanic, assisted in erecting a number of the very early buildings on Monroe and Waterloo streets, and was associated with James Scribner in the erection of the first bridge across Grand River here. He was a sturdy yeoman of the old stamp, faithful to all trusts and duties. He died in 1870, aged 78 years.
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ORIGINAL SKETCH OF GRAND RAPIDS-1831 Made by Rev. M. Booth from the spot which is now part of Campau Square, Near Foster & Stevens Store
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CITY OF GRAND RAPIDS
In the spring of 1834, the trading station at the rapids of the Grand River, which for years had been the meeting place of the trad- ers with their customers, the Indians, had developed into a white set- tlement with a total population of about twenty men. Some of those men had families, and a number of women joined their husbands here in the summer of 1834; but Mrs. Joel Guild and her daughters have passed into history as the first female residents of Grand Rapids who were not of mixed French and Indian extraction. Richard Godfroy, who had previously been an Indian agent or trader at Saline, near the headwaters of Grand River, came here to stay when the Spring opened, and Antoine Campau and Daniel D. Whiteman came early in the year. Andrew Robbins, Daniel North, and Robert M. Barr arrived here about the first of May. Besides those mentioned, a considerable num- ber of travelers, land-seekers, and adventurers, visited and passed through Grand Rapids during the summer, but if one may judge from the few who became actual settlers, a comparatively small number of those who saw the place were favorably impressed with it. In addi- tion to those whose names are given above, Joseph S. Potter, Ezekial W. Davis, Julius C. Abel, Ephraim P. Walker, William McCausland, Louis Moran, Robert Howlett, Aaron Sibley, and Willard Sibley, and a number of others became actual settlers before the close of the year 1834. Some of them began the construction of saw-mills, from which was obtained, a little later, building material for many of the dwell- ings, stores, shops and offices erected by early settlers. In this way they paved the way for improvements of a more substantial character than any that had been made up to that time.
Richard Godfroy, immediately after his arrival, built a commo- dious dwelling on the southeast corner of Monroe and Ottawa streets. This building was destroyed by fire in January, 1850, it having in the meantime been converted into a Catholic chapel. Mr. Godfroy lived to a good old age, and died at Muskegon. Antoine Campau began trade at the foot of Monroe street. He afterward built a residence on the south side of Monroe street, a short distance above the Waterloo corner, and lived there until about 1845, when he moved upon his farm on South Division street. He was a man of fine presence, over six feet in stature, straight and erect, of noble carriage, manly and affable toward high and low, of sterling integrity, kind and courteous always, humane and sympathetic, and scrupulously punctual and exact in all his business affairs. He had the entire confidence of the Indians, with whom he dealt largely. It was said that he was the first born white at Saginaw. He first came to Grand Rapids in 1833, and moved here with his family a year later. Of those who came in 1834, Robert M. Barr was the last survivor, and he continued a resident of Grand Rap- ids until his death, which occurred Nov. 7, 1910, when he lacked but three months of being 99 years old. Joseph S. Potter was among the first builders, and erected the Eagle Hotel, in 1834. Ezekiel W. Davis lived a little time in a log cabin here, planted some corn near the cor- ner of Ottawa and Fountain streets, moved to a farm at Reed's Lake, where he was the first settler, lived there about thirty years, then moved into the city, where he died in 1873.
The first practicing lawyer in Kent County was Julius C. Abel, who came to Grand Rapids in 1834. He was a surveyor of land, and a I-10
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self-made lawyer, of whom many good jokes were told in later years by older members of the bar. Physically, he was a large man, the pos- sessor of a stentorian voice, which sometimes, it was said, won him cases which common sense would have pronounced bad ones. He was a man of mark among the pioneers, brought by his profession into con- tact with nearly all of them in ways that created many warm friend- ships as well as some strong enmities. He died in 1871.
Louis Moran came here as a clerk for Louis Campau, in 1833, stayed but a short time and then went up the Thornapple River, where for a while he kept the tavern at Scales' Prairie, near Middleville. He came back to Grand Rapids in 1837 and was landlord of the Eagle Hotel. He was made comparatively poor by the financial crash of 1837, and for many years thereafter drove teams as proudly as ever he hired others to drive for him. Moran was a man of powerful frame, over six feet tall, erect and self-poised, honest, and had almost un- bounded faith in human honesty. "How much does your load come to?" he would ask of the farmer of whom he purchased a load of hay. Receiving a reply, he would throw down a handful of money, with the remark, "Count it out," after which he would carefully put the rest in his pocket, in full confidence that the farmer had counted it correctly. Late in life he received the use of the proceeds of some valuable prop- erty in Detroit, part of his father's estate, which enabled him to live in quiet and comfort thereafter. Few men among the pioneers had more or warmer friends than Louis Moran.
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