USA > Michigan > Kent County > Grand Rapids > Grand Rapids and Kent County, Michigan: History and Account of Their Progress from First. Vol. I > Part 29
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Peter McLean was born in Caledonia, Livingston County, New York, Dec. 11, 1815. He was reared on a farm and attended school in the pioneer log schoolhouses. Though the advantages were meager his diligent application fitted him for a teacher, in which vocation he spent fourteen successful years. In 1836 he went to the island of Put-in-Bay, in Lake Erie, where he helped build the first frame house and barn, and six months afterward returned to New York. In May, 1838, he came to Jackson County and in February, 1843, "took up" 160 acres of State land on Section 13 in Ada township. Almost the entire face of the country was covered with woods, settlements were "few and far between," and the Indians who had a village on Section 1 were still numerous. Mr. McLean was a factor in all the early im- provements of the township and took his share of the hardships of
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the first settler. He served as a member of the Board of Supervisors sixteen years and as a justice of the peace eight years.
Patrick Fingleton was a native of Ireland, born in the year 1800. In 1844 he crossed to America and settled in the State of Michigan. For twenty-four years he was engaged in farming in Ada township, and he died in 1868.
Gurden Chapel was a native of New York State, but removed to Canada, as he was probably of English descent. He came to Michi- gan in middle age and first located in Oakland County, but later in Kent County, and he died at Ada in 1876, at the age of eighty years.
Jacob S. Schenck was born in Potter, Yates County, New York, May 17, 1819. In October, 1845, he purchased 200 acres in Ada town- ship, paying therefor $1,000, and on this he located in the spring of 1848. His land was covered with woods-there were fifty acres cleared and a log house and barn had been built-but, with Mr. Schenck's untiring industry and well directed energy, it was converted into beautiful fields.
The township was organized April 2, 1838. The first election was held on the date above given, at the house of J. W. Fisk. Ed- ward Robinson was moderator, and Peter Teeple was clerk of the election. Officers were elected as follows: Supervisor, Sidney Smith ; township clerk, Nelson Robinson ; assessors, Rix Robinson, Hamilton Andrews and Peter Teeple; collector, Carlos Smith ; overseers of the poor, Tory Smith and Miniers Jipson; commissioners of highways, William Slosson, Edward Robinson and Lewis Cook; constables, Car- los Smith, Rix R. Church and Michael Early; commissioners of schools, Nelson Robinson, George Teeple and Lewis Cook. A com- plete list of the supervisors of Ada township is as follows: 1838, Sidney Smith; 1841, Rix Robinson ; 1842, Norman Ackley ; 1843, Sid- ney Smith; 1844, Rix Robinson; 1845, Amos Chase; 1846, Nelson Robinson; January to April, 1853, Emory F. Strong; 1853, Gurden Chapel; 1854, John H. Withey ; 1857, Peter McLean; 1859, Moses O. Swartout ; 1860, Peter McLean; 1866, William H. Mekeel; 1867, Hi- ram A. Rhodes; 1868, Peter McLean; 1870, John T. Headley; 1871, Peter McLean; 1875, Rudolphus G. Chaffee; 1877, John T. Headley ; 1878, Peter McLean; 1879, John T. Headley; 1881, Peter McLean; 1882, Walter S. Plumb; 1885, John T. Headley; 1887, E. B. Clem- ents ; 1888, John T. Headley; 1889, Edward B. Clements; 1892, Lu- cius C. Warner; 1894, James H. Ward; 1895, Edward B. Clements ; 1896, James H. Ward; 1908, Patrick J. McCormick; 1911, James H. Ward, present incumbent.
Amos Chase came from New York to Lenawee County, Michi- gan, in 1842, but the following year returned to his Empire State home. In June of the same year, however, he came to Kent County and entered all of Section 10 of Ada township and thirty acres of Section 11, besides eighty acres of Section 36 in Cannon township. He was quite prominent among the pioneers.
William H. McKeel was born in Philips, Putnam County, New York, Jan. 31, 1831. When twenty-one years old he engaged in cut- ting ship timber in York State, and this business he followed the most of his life. In 1854 he came to Kent County. In 1857 he made a second trip here and bought a farm of 100 acres on Section 29
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in Ada township. He lived there two years and then returned to New York, but in 1860 he moved to Ada the second time and thereafter made it his home.
John T. Headley was born in Sussex County, New Jersey, Oct. 6, 1822. He grew to manhood in Steuben County, New York, and in 1862 came to Michigan, buying land in Cascade township, but three years later located in Ada. He pursued farming in the summers and attended to his lumbering interests during the winter seasons.
The various industries of commerce and manufacture were early established and prosecuted with intelligence and success. The first grist mill erected in the township was on Section 24, by H. H. Ives and Robert L. Shoemaker. Many of the present-day citizens and men of affairs are the sons of the early pioneer settlers, who have left their impress upon the succeeding generations, and the people are generally well-to-do and progressive.
The first school house was at Ada. In 1854 the second school house was built near where stands the school house of Ada today. It was a very convenient structure, and Moses Everett, then recently from New York, a teacher by profession, was first placed in charge. About 1870, the second house having become too small to accommo- date the rising village, a brick house was built and the school opened in it. This was succeeded by the present graded school building. At present the district schools of the township are in keeping with the high standard of excellence maintained throughout the county.
Ada village was laid out into lots by Dalrymple & Dunn when the Detroit & Milwaukee Railroad was built, about the year 1858; and although one or more additional plats were made its growth has seemed to be quite slow. It is located on Sections 33 and 34, near the confluence of the Thornapple and Grand Rivers, ten miles by the railroad from the city of Grand Rapids. It possesses a tolerably good water power, which has never been fully improved. A good grist mill appears to be doing a good business, its proprietor being John Becker. The village also contains a good school house, hotel, one drug store, three grocery stores and several other establishments. Its church needs are supplied by the Christian Reformed, Congregational and Dutch Reformed denominations.
CHAPTER XII. PLAINFIELD TOWNSHIP
TOPOGRAPHY AND WATERCOURSES-GEORGE MILLER, THE FIRST SET- TLER-OTHER PIONEERS-FIRST TOWNSHIP MEETING-ZENAS G. WINSOR-EARLY MILLS-LIST OF SUPERVISORS.
Topographically, this township enjoys the distinction of being among the most irregular in Kent County, and it presents many vari- ations in soil and surface. High bluffs along Grand River and the Rouge present the beholder with many magnificent outlooks, over lowland, water course, hillside and plain, rarely excelled; and no more beautiful spot can well be found than the little prairie set in
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hills, lying on the Grand Rapids and Ionia State road, just north and east of the little village of Plainfield, where, for many years was the home of the Hon. Henry C. Smith.
Grand River, the Owash-te-nong of the red man, enters the bor- ders of this township by its eastern boundary, at the northeast corner of Section 36, reaches the highest northern point at the exact center of Section 23, where the bridge on the Grand Rapids and Ionia State road crosses its stream; then it sweeps away to the southwest, its banks being originally adorned on either hand with willowy maples and grand old elms that up to the advent of the white man had shed their leaves for centuries on its waves, and the river leaves the town- ship by its southern line, on the southeast quarter of Section 31. The Rouge River, so called from the peculiar tint of its waters, enters the township from the north, on the west half of Section 1, and runs southwesterly, debouching in Grand River on the line of Sections 22 and 23. These are the largest water courses in the township, but there are other small ones, fed by springs and the lakes. A portion of the township is very broken and rugged and it contains several inconsiderable lakes, the two larger ones being named respectively Scott's Lake, lying on Section 17, about three-fourths of a mile long and a half mile wide, quite deep, and well stocked with fish; and Crooked, or Dean's Lake, on Sections 33 and 34, one mile long and half a mile wide. This has an island of one acre, is generally shallow, and quite destitute of fish. But for what the township lacks in lake views it makes ample amends in river scenery.
When John Ball was selecting lands, prior to 1844, he made volu- minous notes of those surveyed in this vicinity, and about thirty years later prepared a paper giving a brief description by townships, which was printed in the Michigan Pioneer Collections, under the title of "Physical Geography of Kent County." Notwithstanding his statements were a little discouraging as they related to Plainfield township, the land there is now principally owned by actual resi- dents, who have strenuously endeavored to cultivate and improve it, and a comparison with other townships in the county will show that their efforts have not been in vain. Choice farming land lies in the valleys of the streams. Some of the land is still covered with natural forest trees, thinned out, of course, by the process of seventy-five years of culling in the search for desirable timber for various pur- poses. Being a purely agricultural and dairy district, in this respect it maintains a high standard of excellence. The soil averages with other lands in the county in fertility and value, being well adapted to certain features of the farming industry, and the farms are rendered profitable according to the energy and intelligence employed. Long years before the white man entered the territory, this was a favorite rendezvous for the Indians in passing through the country, and doubt- less was the scene of stealthy plottings against the enemies of their own race, equally as often as against the white intruder.
The honors of first settlement are due to George Miller. He was born in Delaware County, New York, in 1799, and came to Kent County in 1837, settling in Plainfield township on Section 23, where he resided the remainder of a long and useful life. Upon coming here he took up 160 acres of Government land, this being appropriated by the Government for school purposes. He held different offices, with
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honor to himself and satisfaction to his constituents, and he served as justice of the peace for twenty years. Mr. Miller's family was the first on the ground in Plainfield township, and the deprivations which fell to their share were the common lot of all who made their homes in this new land at that early day. Grand River was the only thor- oughfare and means of communication with the outside world, hence the settlers depended mainly on what they raised, and their own in- genuity, to prepare it for food. Pork, if imported, was $60 per bar- rel. The nearest flouring mill was sixty miles away, and the bread eaten in the family of Mr. Miller, for eighteen months, was ground in a coffee mill. In the fall of 1838, the first birth occurred among the whites, in the family of Mr. Miller, a twin girl and boy. They lived but a short time, and theirs were the first deaths, also, among the settlers. The greatest delicacy loving friends were able to offer Mrs. Miller, during her confinement, was boiled wheat.
Among the early settlers, in 1837, we find, in addition to Mr. Miller, James Clark, who settled on Section 24; Cornelius Friant, on Section 24; and Warner Dexter, on Section 13. James Clark was a native of Sussex County, England, and in his native country was game keeper on the estate of Lord Ashburnham. He came to America in 1834 with his family, and after living for a time in Ohio came to Grand Rapids, and while there did the first plastering and laying of brick chimneys with lime mortar, the work being done on the house of Louis Campau, at the corner of Monroe and Waterloo streets. In the spring of 1835 he purchased an acre of ground and erected there- on a log house at what was then the head of Fountain street, just east of Ransom street. The family lived there two years and then located in Plainfield township.
Cornelius Friant was born in New Jersey in 1806. He went from there to Wayne County, New York, and thence, in 1837, to Kent County, Michigan, locating in Plainfield township. He located land and built a cabin, and in the fall went in a canoe to "Scott's" to ob- tain their household goods left there in the previous spring. Mr. Fri- ant was a powerful, vigorous man, and besides stalwart strength and unbroken health, he brought to the accomplishment of his life pur- pose an indomitable will and most persistent energy.
In 1838 Ezra Whitney settled on Section 15, Gideon H. Gordon on the same section, Daniel North on Section 31, and in 1844 Samuel Post settled on Section 8, while his father, Jacob Post, and seven other sons settled about the same time. The Posts were of Holland descent and natives of New York State, the father, Jacob Post, hav- ing been born in Cayuga County, April 29, 1798. His father was a commissary in the Revolutionary War. Jacob Post and his sons were active in every public movement for the general good and cheerfully contributed their share to the progress of the county.
In 1845 Samuel Gross made his way with his family, by the aid of his axe, to a home on Section 2, and in 1846 Chester Wilson set- tled on Section 12. Mr. Wilson was born in Vienna, Oneida County, New York, in 1815. His parents, Chester and Anna (Holdrich) Wil- son, were natives of Connecticut. The family came to Plainfield township in 1846 and located a homestead. The father was a musi- cian of some note in his native State.
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There are many more who should receive a passing notice, but the names and facts concerning them have been lost in the years that have intervened. Those pioneer days were days of toil, privation, and suffering. To rear the rude dwelling, subdue the forest, prepare the soil, fence the lands, harvest the crops, and in short create a home with anything like comfort, required indomitable courage, untiring industry, and unwearied attention. Yet those noble men who forsook the luxurious ease of their Eastern homes, the scenes of their child- hood, the graves of their fathers and mothers and kindred friends, and those noble women who left behind them the luxuries of refine- ment and ease, the allurements of society and style, are worthy of the blessings which the most sanguine of them may have pictured, as well as the gratitude of an enlightened people. Of those who bore a conspicuous part in the settlement and organization of the township, none is now living; but by their tireless energy they helped to open up a township possessed with natural resources of wealth, surpassed by none in the country.
Although the lands were being surveyed and rapidly located, they were not in market, and it was no uncommon thing to see white men and Indians tilling their corn in the same fields, in amicable proximity to each other. But in the fall of 1839 the great land sale came off, when the settlers secured their claims, and the red men van- ished from the scene, leaving naught in memoriam but the bones of their dead, on Section 23, where the burial mounds, worn by the at- tritions of the plow, were fast leveled with the surrounding country.
The first township meeting in Plainfield was held on the first Monday of April, 1838, at a rude log school house on Section 23. The officers elected were: Zenas G. Winsor, supervisor; Ethiel Whitney, township clerk; Daniel North, Samuel Baker, Zenas G. Winsor, and George Miller, justices of the peace; Daniel North, Andrew Watson, and George Miller, assessors; Jacob Francisco and Jacob Friant, di- rectors of the poor ; James Francisco, Henry Godwin, and Ezra Whit- ney, constables ; A. D. W. Stout and Warner Dexter, commissioners of highways; Zenas G. Winsor, Ethiel Whitney, and Cornelius Fri- ant, school inspectors; Damas Francisco and Henry Godwin, collec- tors.
Zenas G. Winsor, who was the first supervisor of Plainfield town- ship, was born in Skaneateles, N. Y., Dec. 14, 1814. He acquired a fair education in the common schools of his native State. In 1830, the business misfortunes of his father, under the old barbarous law of imprisonment for debt, threw upon him and a younger brother the burden of supporting the family, including five young children. For that he left school, engaged as clerk in a store, and was assistant to a physician during the prevalence of cholera among them, in 1832. In the spring of 1833 the family came with the Dexter colony to Ionia, and the next year to Grand Rapids, where the parents died in 1855. Zenas was one of the first to transport lumber from Grand Rapids and goods from Grand Haven up the river to Ionia. As soon as they were fairly housed there, in the fall of 1833, he came with the Terri- torial County Seat Commissioners as axman, and drove the stake to mark the site selected for the Kent County court house. He then en- gaged with the pioneer fur trader, Rix Robinson, as clerk, and pro- ceeded to Grand Haven to take charge of the trading post there, with
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three or four aids. After about a year he came up to the Rapids and erected a small store at the corner of Monroe and Ottawa streets (No. 98 Monroe street), his employer having offered to stock it and share with him the profits. This enterprise fell through. He remained with Mr. Robinson some time longer at an increased salary, and then drifted into other lines of trade. In 1836, with Edward P. Macy, a New York banker, he opened an exchange or brokerage at Ionia, where the land office had been located, and in that business, until the financial revulsion of the following year, made a marked success, ex- changing currency for the numerous land buyers. At the organiza- tion of Plainfield township he lived there and was chosen its first su- pervisor and also was elected justice of the peace at the same time. Returning to Grand Rapids in 1843 he became interested in a pail factory; then soon afterward in the mercantile trade in the Faneuil Hall block. With his brother, Jacob W., he was also engaged in man- ufacturing and exporting lumber for several years. About 1850 he built for a residence a stone house, considered in those days a very fine building, at the junction of Washington street and Jefferson ave- nue. In the following year he went to California and spent nearly two years there, in Mexico, and further south. Returning, he en- gaged with Daniel Ball in the steamboat business on the river, which he followed until 1859, when he went to Pennsylvania, and there was for a time president and manager of the Tioga County Bank. Again he returned to Grand Rapids and engaged in the dry goods trade until 1863, when he sold out and went to look after an investment in Nevada silver mines, which he soon discovered was lost. Next he engaged in trade-purchase and shipment of goods between New York and Grand Rapids. In 1866 he operated in developing oil wells and the petroleum trade in Canada, with only moderate profit. In 1868 he engaged at Grand Haven in the storage, forwarding and com- mission business, in which he remained until about 1885, when he re- turned to Grand Rapids. He died Aug. 2, 1890.
In 1840, Gideon H. Gordon erected on Section 15 the first mill placed upon the Rouge River. It had a small grist mill attached, and there the settlers and Indians carried their corn to be ground. In 1848, a saw-mill was erected by Roberts & Winsor on Section 2, at a point then called Gibraltar. It was afterward owned by H. B. Childs & Company, who erected in its near vicinity a paper mill, in 1866. This was destroyed by fire in 1869, but was rebuilt the second year by the enterprising proprietors. It was on the line of the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad and became known as Child's Mills Station, but the growth of the village of Rockford, near by, has caused it to di- minish in importance. In 1850, a saw-mill was erected by Robert Konkle some forty rods from the mouth of the Rouge and it was aft- erward owned by Tradewell & Towle. Mill Creek runs through the southwest corner of the township, and as early as 1838 a saw-mill was erected on this stream, on Section 31, by Daniel North. It was afterward owned by Eli Plumb, who erected a flouring mill at the same place, in 1866. It was on the line of the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad, and the station was first known as North's Mills, later as Mill Creek, but now the station is called Comstock, and the locality, a fine residential site, is known as Comstock Park. There is also a railway station at Belmont, about six miles northeast of Grand Rap-
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ids. It lies in the midst of a fine farming district, but otherwise it pos- sesses no particular advantages or attractions. Plainfield village is a small place at the foot of the bluffs on Section 23. It was the old ferrying post, when a ferryboat was the only means of communica- tion-if we except the Indian canoe-between the two banks of the Grand River. It has a sunny site and a pleasant outlook up and down the river.
Rockford, on the line between Plainfield and Algoma townships, is a thriving village. The growth of the place has been quite rapid, and a bright future for it is confidently expected.
In the winter of 1838, the accidental shooting and subsequent death of Peleg Barlow, who had come to seek a home but had not lo- cated, cast a saddening gloom over the little band of pioneers.
The township of Plainfield has today within her borders eight excellent schools, exclusive of the high schools to which the chil- dren have access. These institutions of learning are in charge of a corps of specially trained instructors, who receive compensation ac- cording to their attainments and efficiency. No township in the coun- ty has a better system of public schools or a more appreciative class of patrons.
The township now, as a whole, presents a striking contrast to what it was when the early pioneers came. The majestic solitudes, before those days unbroken, save by the howling of the wild beast, the war of the elements, or peals of the reverberating thunder, now respond to the busy hum of industry, the scream of the locomotive, and the chime of the church-going bell. Where the red man once bivouacked around his campfire, with his girdle of wampum strung with the scalps of his enemies, and then whirled into mazes of the war- dance, now fields of plenty and homes of industry, comfort, elegance, luxury, gladden the eye of the beholder. Where the unsightly swamps and quagmires and waste places marred the symmetry and beauty of nature, now arises the stately manufactory, with its thun- dering machinery, all subjected to the control of man, for the good of this generation-yes, and of generations yet unborn; where vice, ignorance, and superstition was the rule, now it is the exception, and institutions flourish which are worthy of the progress of the age, and a bright prospect opens for the future.
A list of the supervisors of Plainfield township from its organ- ization down to the present time is as follows: 1838, Zenas G. Win- sor ; 1839, Collins Leach; 1841, Ezra Whitney ; 1842, Gideon H. Gor- don ; 1843, A. Watson; 1845, H. C. Smith; 1847, William Thornton; 1848, Chester Wilson, jr .; 1849, Henry C. Smith; 1853, Peter B. Wil- son ; 1854, John Hamilton; 1856, H. C. Smith; 1859, James K. Mor- ris ; 1861, H. C. Smith ; 1867, Austin Richardson; 1869, Horace Kon- kle; 1876, H. D. Plumb; 1877, Horace Konkle; 1878, Henry D. Plumb ; 1880, Nathaniel Rice ; 1889, Robert M. Hutchins; 1891, Hen- ry D. Plumb ; 1892, Charles N. Hyde; 1896, Thad O. Brownell; 1900, Charles L. Smith; 1901, Thad O. Brownell; 1903, Austin Laubach; 1906, Charles H. Plumb; 1907, Peter R. Walker; 1908, Charles Plumb ; 1909, Peter R. Walker; 1911, John Van Dam; 1914, Weaver J. Stout; 1916, Thomas A. Hice, present incumbent.
Horace Konkle was born Dec. 1, 1824, in Northampton County, Pennsylvania, and came with his parents to Plainfield township in
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1839. His active life was devoted principally to farming and lumber- ing. He held the office of supervisor seven years, township treasurer seven years, and filled the various school offices.
Thaddeus O. Brownell was born in Plainfield township, July 6, 1852. He was reared an agriculturist and fruit grower, which indus- tries claimed his attention throughout all of his career. He was edu- cated in the common schools of his township. He served as tax col- lector four years and in 1896 was elected supervisor, being re-elected in 1897, 1898, 1899, and again in 1901.
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