USA > Michigan > Lenawee County > History and biographical record of Lenawee County, Michigan, Volume I > Part 2
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HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
townships, it may be added that in 1869, the old six mile square township of Tecumseh was divided into two; the north half being formed into the township of Clinton, and the south half retaining the name of Tecumseh.
In this sketch of the settlement of Lenawee county, I have, thus far, confined myself principally to the laying off and organizing of the county into townships, deeming that this would serve to indicate in a more authentic and reliable form than any other, perhaps, the progress of settlement and consequent demand for local municipal governments. In the early stages I have given at length the full wording of the territorial laws relating to this county, as being much less known and less accessible than the more recent State legislation, and also, so as to show what counties had been organized in the Territory, previously to the laying off and naming of Lenawee county, and what other counties were laid off and organized at the same time, thus defining, as it were, its relative age and place in the history of the Territory and State. The result of the municipal legislation respecting the county has been, that commencing with three townships in 1827, the twenty surveyed towns and five small fractions graciously left us by Congress, on our southern border out of the area originally belonging to the county, it has been organized into twenty-two townships and a city of four wards, giving us a board of supervisors or county legisla- ture of twenty-six members. It ought, perhaps, to be remarked here, that until the large immigration from the State of New York, the counties of the Territory were governed by commissioners, a system adopted from the State of Ohio. And the county commissioner system was again enacted in the Fletcher code, so called, or Revised Statutes of 1838, but was repealed in 1842, and the county boards of supervis- ors again re-established.
It may, perhaps, be well here to state, that in the " Proclamation" of Governor Cass, and in all the territorial laws as printed, which relate to the county of Lenawee, except in one of the latest acts of the Council, the name is spelled with one e in the final syllable; but in the proceedings of the Convention to form the first State Constitution and all subsequent State laws and documents, it has been spelled with two ee at the end of the word.
The name " Lenawee " is said to be from a Shawnee word meaning " Indian," so that the memory of the Red Man may be said to be held in remembrance in the name of this county, although he has now left us, leaving behind him but few traces of his occupancy. The principal memento of his residence here, which I have heard of or seen, was a plat of ground on the north bank of the River Raisin, in the north-east corner of that portion of the village of Tecumseh, known as Brownville. It was laid out in the form of a square and a circle, with an opening from the one to the other, where they joined-the trails all leading to and from the circle; and both parts having an embankment of about four feet in height, and having in the center of the circular part, a pit five or six feet deep. By digging in the
13
OF LENAWEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
bottom of this pit, nothing especial was found, except some charcoal or charred wood. When the white settlers first came here, there were some cedar posts in the outer embankment, and there were evidences of the place being quite often used for meetings or gatherings of some kind. But the Indians seemed always reluctant to say anything about the objects for which it was used; and whether for war dances, or worship, or some ceremonies of medicine men, it would be difficult to tell or guess. It was generally spoken of by the early settlers, as the Indian dancing ground-some thought that it might be the burial place of some chief, but this was all a matter of mere conjecture or surmise.
The only other relics of the Red race found in Lenawee county or the adjacent country, so far as I know, are some flint arrow-heads or other small articles, and some scattered human bones, ploughed or dug up in the fields and highways, and an occasional patch of corn ground or garden bed or some small mounds ; but nothing that could be con- sidered the work of the pre-historic race of the "Mound Builders," who have left to the south and west of this State so many large works of undoubted antiquity, as well as evident proofs that the copper mines of the Upper Peninsula had been worked by them.
It is well known to all the old settlers of the county, that from the time of the first laying out and platting of the village of Adrian, there grew up quite a strife between it and Tecumseh for the final location of the county seat. Tecumseh had the start of Adrian by about two years, and had obtained the advantage of having had the county seat first established there by the Territorial legislature, and thus kept rather ahead of Adrian in population and improvements for the first ten or twelve years of their growth. By the State census of . 1837, the township of Tecumseh had a population of 2,462, whilst Logan township, (afterwards changed to Adrian) and including the village of Adrian, had 1,962, and Raisin township, lying between them, had about 1,076, about equally divided in interest as between the two villages, but leaning strongly towards Adrian, on account of the influence of Darius Comstock being thrown actively and power- fully in favor of his son's interests as the founder of the village of Adrian. Itis related by W. A. Whitney, proprietor of the Adrian Press, in an article upon the subject of the celebration of the eighty-fourth anniversary of the birth-day of Gen. Brown, held at the Exchange Hotel, in Tecumseh, on the 26th of November, 1877, that he well remembered a conversation between the General and Darius Comstock, when the latter inquired, " Does thee. really think, Joseph, that thee has a better place at Tecumseh for the county seat than we have at Adrian ?" " No," said the General, " but we have a much better water power and will keep the county seat also, if we can." But the geographical position of Adrian, being so much nearer the center of the county, and the then near completion of the Erie and Kalamazoo Railroad, from Toledo to Adrian, built largely by means of capital furnished by Adrian and vicinity, decided the question in favor of Adrian, and the old feeling of rivalry between the two places has long
14
HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
since ceased to exist, or to show any evidence of even being much remembered.
The removal of the seat of justice of the county from Tecumseh to Adrian, was provided for by an act of the first State Legislature, approved March 21, 1836, to take effect from and after the first Monday of November, 1838. The location was to be made upon lands previously conveyed to the county by Addison J. Comstock, or upon such other lands as might be conveyed for that purpose, and accepted by the board of supervisors. And the board was authorized to fix the site of the county buildings, and to negotiate for the erection thereof, a loan not exceeding ten thousand dollars, for a term of not over ten years, and at an interest not exceeding seven per cent. per annum. In the same year, by an act approved seven days later, the village of Adrian was incorporated as a civil municipality, being the first chartered village in the county. This was followed in March, 1837, by an act to incorporate the village of Tecumseh-both acts taking effect on the first Monday of May, succeeding the passage of the respective acts. In 1853, the village of Adrian, including some adjoining lands from the townships of Adrian and Madison, was incorporated as a city, superseding the township governments, on and after the first Monday of April following, so far as lands embraced within the city limits were concerned.
As connected somewhat with the question of the removal of the county seat, and as showing the growth and standing of the several tonwships in the county at the time of taking the first State census in October, 1837, I have prepared a table taken from the results of that census, showing the population, the number of saw mills, of grist mills, and of merchants, &c., in each township, thus indicating, in an authentic and semi-official form, the relative progress up to that time of the several portions of the county in population and business. Ridgeway was then and until 1841, included in the township of Macon; Riga (first called Pottsdam) was still a part of Blissfield ; and Deerfield, when organized as a separate township in 1867, was formed, in part, from Blissfield, and in part from Ridgeway-and Clinton, then and until 1869, was part of the township of Tecumseh. The table is made up in the order of the organization of the several towns, up to the time of the taking of the census :
ORGANIZED.
NAME.
POPULATION.
SAW MILLS.
GRIST MILLS.
MERCHANTS.
1827.
Blissfield ..
559
2
1
3
1827.
Logan, (Adrian)
1962
6
3
28
1827.
Tecumseh.
2462
7
3
24
15
OF LENAWEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
ORGANIZED.
NAME.
POPULATION.
SAW MILLS.
GRIST MILLS.
MERCHANTS.
1833.
Franklin.
989
2
0
0
1834.
Fairfield
203
0
0
0
1834.
Macon
1111
0
1
4
1834.
Madison
1151
3
0
2
1834.
Palmyra
898
2
1
2
1834.
Raisin
1076
0
0
0
1835.
Rollin
508
2
1
2
1835.
Rome.
826
0
0
0
1836.
Woodstock
541
0
1
0
1836.
Cambridge
523
3
1
1
1836.
Dover.
680
0
0
0
1836.
Hudson
333
2
1
1
1836.
Seneca.
431
0
0
1
1837.
Medina
420
3
2
3
1837.
Ogden
198
0
0
0
TOTAL
14,871
32
15
71
Not included in the table, there were, in Adrian village, one cabinet factory ; one pottery ; one tannery; and one iron foundry.
And in Tecumseh, two carding machines ; one cloth dressing shop, and one distillery -- and an iron foundry in Clinton.
By consulting a history of Jefferson county, N. Y., the county from which Musgrove Evans, J. W. Brown, and so many others of the first settlers of Lenawee county came, I find that Musgrove Evans had been employed in 1811, or earlier, as a surveyor, by a Mr. LeRay, a French nobleman, who owned a large tract of land in Jefferson county ; and that in 1818 Mr. Evans was also acting as land agent for Mons. LeRay, and was the means of bringing on quite a number of Quaker families from Philadelphia or vicinity. He also acted as one of three commissioners, appointed by the legislature of New York, under an act authorizing "James LeRay de Chaumont to build a turnpike from Cape Vincent to Perch river, at or near where the State road crosses the same, in the town of Brownville." He was also acting as postmaster at Chaumont, in Jefferson county, in 1823, when he came to Michigan with a view to engage in the survey of the public lands then being made in the Territory, or to look out a location, where to found a settlement. At Detroit or Monroe, he met Austin E. Wing, then a resident of the latter place, and who was connected with Mr. Evans and the Brown family by marriage, and was advised by him as to where he could find the best water power in Southern Michigan. This led him to explore the country along the upper waters of the River Raisin, and to select lands embracing the mill sites now occupied by the Brownville and the Globe Mills at Tecumseh. After this selection he and Mr. Wing found the necessity
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HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
of looking around for some active, out-door business manager to embark with them in the enterprise of building up a village, and erecting saw mills and grist mills, and making other improvements needed for the accommodation of a new settlement in the wilderness. They finally pitched upon their relative and friend, Joseph W. Brown, if they could induce him to go in with them. And certainly no better pioneer for such a purpose could well have been found. After going through the hardships and privations necessarily attendant on such an enterprise, he has long survived both his partners-Mr. Wing having died at Cleveland, Ohio, in August, 1869 ; and Mr. Evans, after the death of his wife, at Tecumseh, went to Texas, where he soon caught a fever which carried him off. His two sons, both seem- ing to be imbued with the spirit of adventure of their father, had previously gone to the Republic of Texas, and were both killed at the battle of the Alamo, bravely fighting for the liberty and independence of their adopted country.
Although the Hon. Austin E. Wing, of the firm of Wing, Evans & Brown, was not himself strictly a settler in Lenawee county, yet as he was largely identified with its early history, and as Monroe and Lenawee were virtually all one county for the first two or three years of the settlement of the latter, he may be considered, in some sense, as a Lenawee county pioneer. He was the delegate in Congress from the Territory of Michigan for two terms, or the four years from 1825 to 1829. His predecessor in 1823, and his competitor in 1825, was the Rev. Gabriel Richard, (pronounced Reesh-aur,) pastor of the French Catholic Church in Detroit, and who, as chaplain of the Legislative Council, prayed, it is said, that they might " make laws for de popes, and not for demselves ;" and who is said to have given notice at the close of service on Sundays, of pony races on the ice, or other pastimes. This, if so, was only in accordance with the then and present practice in France, to consider the latter part of Sunday as the principal time for the theatrical performances, operas, concerts and sports, as well as for political elections.
Mr. Wing, it is said, owed his first election in 1825, to some fourteen votes cast for " A. E. Wing " in Tecumseh. being all the votes then given in the county, and for which he had to procure the affidavits of each of the voters that they so voted, and that the votes were intended for "Austin E. Wing," in order to have them counted for him. Mr. Wing was succeeded, in 1829, by Major John Biddle, of Detroit ; and he by Lucius Lyon, in 1831, who remained the Territorial Delegate until he was elected to the U. S. Senate by the first State Legislature.
The U. S. Land Office, for the sale of government land in Lenawee county, was opened at Monroe in 1823. The district included the counties of Monroe and Lenawee, and the south tier of surveyed towns in Washtenaw and in part of Jackson county. The first land taken up in Lenawee county was entered by Austin E. Wing, in March, 1824, to-wit : The w 3 of n. w. 1, section 27, the e. 2 of n. e. 4 sec. 28, and the w. 3 of n. e. ], sec. 34, town 5, s., range 4 e. These
17
OF LENAWEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
were entered by him in advance of the arrival of Messrs. Evans, Brown, and others, who were coming on in the spring of that year, in order to secure for himself and partners the control of the water power of the Raisin, at the points where the Brownville dam and race and the Globe mill pond now are. The men of the party arrived in May of that year, coming in by the Chicago trail from Detroit, following it by way of Saline, until they struck the Raisin north of where the village of Clinton now is, and thence going south to a stream now known as Evans creek, which they followed to where it emptied into the Raisin. Soon after their arrival at the new proposed settlement, a large body of land was taken up; some additional lots by Mr. Wing, for the firm of Wing, Evans & Brown, who laid out the original plot of the village of Tecumseh, in June, and had the seat of justice for the county there established. In the surveyed town, in which the village was located, the entire of sections 27, 28, 29 and 34, was all taken up in 1824, nearly all in May and June; also all of section 33, except two eighty acre lots which were entered early in the following year. The s. e. 4, of sec. 34, was taken up on May 22, 1824, by Ezra F. Blood, being the land where he now lives and has lived ever since he came to the territory. The s. w. 4 of the same section was entered in June following by Peter Lowe, and now is the farm of Hon. P. Bills, to whom I am indebted for the use of a transcript of the sales-book of the U. S. Land Office, for the old six mile square town of Tecumseh, drawn off for him by T. M. Cooley, whilst Mr. C. was commencing the practice of law in Adrian. The e } of n. w. 4, sec. 33, now the Stacy farm, was taken up by Joseph Folsom, May 18; and the w. } of the n. w. 4, long known as the Bacon farm, and lately owned by A. B. Ward, and now owned and occupied by Robert Cairns, was entered by Henry Beacon, May 27, 1824. The n. e. } of sec. 33, now embraced in the village of Tecumseh, was taken up May 24 ;- the e. } by Peter Lowe, and the w. ¿ by John Hollister.
In letters written by Musgrove Evans to Gen. Brown, in the summer of 1824, whilst the latter was back in the State of New York, having returned there in order to bring on his family in the fall, he mentioned the rapidity with which lots were being taken up in the vicinity of the village and mill seat, and expressed regret that George Spafford had not come on in the spring with the rest of the party, as he feared that soon he would not be able to secure as good a location as they desired him to have. August 27, 1824, he however entered the w 2 of s. e. 4, sec. 33, being the west half of what has long been known as the Dr. Patterson farm, the e. } of the same having been entered the month previous by Abner Spofford. In a letter dated 8th mo. 8th, 1824, Mr. Evans, after stating that it was a great pity and a great error, that they had not made arrangements to secure more lands for themselves, says : "There is a man here by the name of Dexter, from Boston, who is buying for speculation, and I think will buy on the river above us,-he has been up this morning and is pleased with
18
HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
the land,-it is the very place where we ought to have had our timbered laud, because it can come to the mill by water."
And I find from the tract book that the w. ¿ of the n. e. 4, and e. 2 of n. w. 4, sec. 28, and the entire s. ¿ of sec. 21, and w. }, of s. w. }, sec. 22, were entered August 11, 1824, by Samuel W. Dexter, of Greene county, New York, being the Dexter spoken of by Evans, and who afterwards settled in Washtenaw county, and had the township and village of Dexter named after him.
Land speculators do not seem to have been liked much better in those early days by actual settlers, than they have been ever since. Darius Comstock, on January 18, 1826, took up the s. e. }, sec. 19, in Tecumseh, not, I apprehend, for speculation, but, as I understand, for some relative or friend-his own previous purchases and settlement being in what is now the township of Raisin, and about half-way between Tecumseh and Adrian. In May and June, 1824, James Patchen, who afterwards became the first sheriff of the county, took up the n. w. 4, sec. 35, and the w. ¿ of s. w. 4, 26.
In the north half of the town, now the township of Clinton, except on section 17, on part of which the village of Newburg was laid out, and which was all taken up in the fall of 1824, by Thomas Goodrich and others, only a few lots were entered that year. The s. w. }, of sec. 8, was entered November 13, 1824, by Ira Goodrich; and the w. 2, of the n. w. }, of that section, and the w. } of s. w. }, sec. 5, were entered November 25, 1824, by James W. Cole. Most of the land on which the village of Clinton is situated, on section 5, was taken up in September, 1825, by John Tyrrel; and part of the balance of what is now embraced in the village plat, by Amos Hixon, the same month, and the rest by Alpheus Kies, in September, 1828.
The balance of the government land in both halves of the town was taken up, from time to time, in 1825 to 1836, in which latter year the last vacant government lands in the six miles square were entered. Although Mr. Tyrrel entered the lands intended for the village of Clinton, in the fall of 1825, yet he did not come on as a permanent settler until 1830, and was preceded, as a settler, by Col. Hixon and Captain Kies, who had both built houses on their lands the year previous.
But it is time, perhaps, to proceed to glance at the first settlements in other parts of the county; and at the outset I would remark, that the three early settlers, at whose houses the first three town meetings were held in 1827, will always be remembered as three of the most prominent and leading pioneers of the county. Harvey Bliss, after whom the township of Blissfield was named, was a native of Massa- chusetts, born in 1790; he moved to Ohio in 1814, and in 1816 to Monroe, then a hamlet of a few families ; in the year following, he settled on land about thirteen miles up the River Raisin, and in 1824 came to Lenawee county, settling where the village of Blissfield is now located, cutting his way through heavy timber from Petersburg, in Monroe county, a distance of ten or more miles. But as the State
19
OF LENAWEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
Pioneer Society is already in possession of a sketch of the early settlement of that township as read by James T. Kedzie, at a semi- centennial celebration of its settlement at the Bliss homestead there, some two years ago, I need not here repeat the data there gathered or go over the same ground. I would merely remark in passing that the growth of Blissfield was comparatively slow for a few years, as compared with Tecumseh and Adrian ; partly on account of its being much more heavily timbered land, and partly because of the difficulty of getting in or out, until after the opening of the railroad from Toledo. But these drawbacks have long since been overcome.
Darius Comstock, at whose house the first town meeting for the then township of Logan was held, came to the territory in 1825, with his son, Addison J., afterwards the founder of the village of Adrian. He then took up quite a tract of land in what he denominated "Pleasant Valley," and which has been known as "the valley " ever since. He did not bring on his family for some time; he returned to Niagara county, N. Y., and remained there until early in 1826. In the mean time he had made arrangements with General Brown to build him a log house, 45x26 feet, with a space partitioned off at one end to be made into two bed-rooms. This was located near a spring, below where he afterwards built his two-story frame house. At the time he first entered the land, there were no settlers nearer than Tecumseh, or its immediate vicinity,-the village of Adrian having then no existence,-not being settled or platted until after his and his son's return to the territory in 1826. In a letter from General Brown, to his mother, dated February 26, 1826, after describing his farm house in the village of Tecumseh, and mentioning what he was engaged in, . amongst other things in building a house for Darius Comstock, he says in a subsequent part of the letter : " The D. Comstock, that I mentioned, is a Friend of a large fortune, and much of a gentleman ; he has been living with me for several weeks this winter. His place he calls ' Pleasant Valley ;' it is four miles south of us, through an open country, where you may drive a post coach without cutting a tree. He has a large, fine family, and will be here with all of them in May. A Friend has bought near him, who will be here in the spring; and they bid fair to have a large Friends' settlement,-and we anticipate much from the society of such neighbors."
Such, I suppose, General Brown thought would be acceptable news to his mother, who was herself a staunch member of the Society of Friends, as well as to others of the family, at his late home in the State of New York. Mr. Comstock was elected, in 1827, the first supervisor of the town of Logan, and in 1835 was chosen as one of the eight delegates from the county, to form the first State Constitution; and he also served for one or more terms as supervisor of the township of Raisin. His late residence there, now constitutes part of the build- ings of the " Raisin Valley Seminary."
In addition to what I have had to say of Joseph W. Brown, at whose dwelling house, in Tecumseh, the first town meeting for the
20
HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
organization of the township was held, as one of the firm of Wing, Evans and Brown, it ought, perhaps, be mentioned that he was appointed by Governor Cass, November 23, 1826, as "Chief Justice of the County Court, in and for the County of Lenawee," at the first organization of the county, but which position he soon afterwards resigned, and was succeeded by Stillman Blanchard, late deceased. He was also appointed Colonel of the 8th Regiment of the Michigan Militia, November 10, 1829, and by President Jackson, (General Cass being then Secretary of War,) May 10, 1832, as Brigadier General of the 3d Brigade of Militia of the Territory of Michigan. By virtue of these commissions and by appointment from the Governor, or Acting Governor of the Territory, he acted as Commander-in-Chief of the Michigan troops called out at the time of the Black Hawk war, in 1832, and the Toledo war in 1835. Although of Quaker descent, in part, he seemed to have had a natural aptitude and taste for military life and tactics, like his elder and then more distinguished brother, Major-General Jacob Brown, of the United States Army. And his sons also seemed to inherit the same inclination for military service and pioneer life. One of his sons, William A., went to California in an early stage of the American settlement of that country, and after building up an extensive express and banking business, was shot by a desperado, whom he had caused to be arrested as a robber. Another son, John T., went to Mexico, during the war with that country, and after his return home to Tecumseh, died of disease contracted whilst with the army in Mexico.
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