USA > Michigan > Lenawee County > History and biographical record of Lenawee County, Michigan, Volume I > Part 43
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HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
OSES VALENTINE was born in Jackson, Washington county, New York, in 1796, and in 1825 was married to Miss Rozillaner Heath who was also born in the same town. Early in 1826 Mr. Valentine came to the then territory of Michigan and purchased of the United States the s. e. fraction of the n. w. ¿ of section 1, situate in the n. e. corner of the present township of Ogden. Returning to York State he passed the sum- mer at his old home, and on the 5th day of October, 1826, bade his friends good bye and started, with his wife and a few household goods, for Michigan, via the Erie canal to Buffalo, where they arrived at the end of ten days, the passage being made on a freight boat. October 16th, they left Buffalo on board a schooner bound for Monroe, but adverse winds obliged them to go on to Detroit, where they landed at the end of a three days' voyage from Buffalo. After staying in Detroit ten days, they were landed on the old log pier, four miles from Monroe village, which place they reached the same evening. At Monroe, two days were spent in procuring a quantity of provisions, and an ox team with which to transport their goods and effects to their intended new home. Leaving Monroe, November 2d, they arrived at the house of George Giles, on the bank of the river Raisin, and within the southern boundary of the village of Blissfield, having made arrangements to stay with Mr. Giles until he could build a house on his own land, situated two miles farther up the river. After hiring some help, lie com- menced to build a log house, and on the 23d of November, 1826, had finished and moved into it. This was the eighth house erected within the bounds of the present township of Blissfield. On the 25th of January, 1827, the Valentines were much pleased to re- ceive the first addition to their little family, in the person of an averaged sized girl baby. This child was named Amanda M., and is supposed to be the first white child born in the township. After this the Valentines had three other children added to their family, as follows: Maria, born January 30th, 1828; Julia A., born May 25th, 1829; Arden H., born November 19th, 1834, and died of inflammation, April 16th, 1853. Mr. Valentine passed through the many privations and hardships that are met by the pioneers of all new countries. April 7th, 1828, and for five succeeding years, he was elected and served as an assessor of taxes in the township, giving the best of satisfaction to the tax-payers. In 1837, while suffering from a severe cold, brought on by ex- posure, he lost his voice, and a year passed before he regained it, and during all that time he could speak only in a whisper. Meanwhile he continued his labors as a farmer. Up to this time he had chopped and cleared about fifty-five acres of his land,
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OF LENAWEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
erecting thereon good, substantial frame buildings. In 1838 he was attacked with a disease of the nervous system, and for a long time was confined to his bed. Recovering, partially, he was able to ride out a short distance from his home, in fine weather. In July, 1859, he sold his farm, and with his wife went to reside in the family of his eldest daughter, Mrs. C. J. Randall, where they remained until removed by death. His wife died of inflammation of the lungs, March 19th, 1860, aged fifty-six years. In July, of this year, his disease assumed a very remarkable change, which obliged him to have his room made quite dark, light apparently having the singular power of imparting a very disagreeable heat to his whole body, and from that time until his death no light was allowed in his room, except that of a lamp or candle, and that was placed behind a screen. He remained in this condition until he died, July 19th, 1865, aged sixty-nine years. During these five long years, Mrs. Randall had the entire care of him, preparing his food and doing all other necessary work he might require. Mr. Valentine was a man of strict integrity, being just in his deal with all persons with whom he had business transactions, was social in his disposition, entertaining in his conversation, liberal in his religious belief, and in politics a Jeffersonian Democrat. His wife was kind and obliging to all, bearing malice to none, and in cases of sickness among her friends and neighbors, was always ready to do all in her power for their relief. Early in life she united with the Baptist church in her native town, and died regretted by all who were known to her.
ON. BRACKLEY SHAW was born in Plainfield, Hamp- shire county, Massachusetts, May 21st, 1818. His father, Brackley Shaw, was born in Abington, Plymouth county, Massachusetts, in 1790, was brought up a farmer, and lived in Abington, and made it his home with his parents until 1815. He served in the war of 1812, and was a commissioned officer in an artillery company. After the war, during the summer of 1815, he moved to Hampshire county and purchased a farm in Plainfield. He lived there until 1825, when he sold out and went to Ira, Ca- yuga county, New York, purchased a farm, and resided there until 1835, when he again sold out and came to Michigan, arriving in Adrian about the last of May, by ox team, through the mud of the Cottonwood swamp, from Toledo. During the previous year he came to Lenawee county and located government land on sections
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HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
six and seven, in the present township of Dover. He afterwards cleared this land, erected a good frame house, with barns, sheds, &c., and lived there until his death, which occurred May 2d, 1869. In April, 1815, he married Miss Lydia Pool, daughter of Joseph Pool, of Abington, Massachusetts, by whom he had seven children, Brackley being the second child and oldest son. Mrs. Lydia Shaw was born in Abington, Massachusetts, April 20th, 1791, and is still living in Dover, this county. Brackley Shaw, the subject of this sketch, was reared a farmer, and made his home with his parents until he was twenty-four years old. At the age of twenty- one years, he purchased a piece of land on section seven, in Dover, which he cleared and worked for a few years, when he traded for land on section thirty-five in Rome, where he resided about three years. He then-in 1845-exchanged again and came into posses- sion of a new farm on sections three and ten in Dover, where he now resides. Since then he has added to his farm until at one time he owned three hundred and forty acres, but subsequently sold off, until he now has but one hundred and forty-five acres. He has erected an elegant dwelling, with tastefully arranged grounds, good orchard, barns, sheds, &c. He has filled many township offices, and has always been an active member of the County Agri- cultural Society. In 1879 he was a member of the House of Rep- resentatives in the Michigan Legislature, and served on several important committees. Mr. Shaw relates many incidents of his pioneer life in Lenawee, but he enjoys relating the bright side, and says that the life, and experience of the early settlers were more jolly than sad ; there was an equality, a friendship, and real, earnest, and heart-felt fellowship, that was good and wholesome. The settlers were of a sturdy, honest and christian class of people, who came for the sole purpose of making homes for themselves and benefiting the world. Men and women could then walk miles to meeting, or to visit or assist their neighbors, and the young people were equal to any emergency, above all caste or clique, and were filled with bright hopes for the future. July 7th, 1842, Mr. Shaw married Miss Elvira M. Graves, daughter of Wells and Rhoda Graves, of Dover, by whom he has had two sons as follows: Byron L., born in Rome, this county, September 29th, 1843, now of the firm of S. E. Hart & Co., druggists of Adrian; Horatio W., born in Dover, this county, February 18th, 1847, now a mer- chant of White Cloud, Kansas. Mrs. Elvira M. Shaw was born in Harwington, Litchfield county, Connecticut, October 18th, 1821, and came to Michigan with her parents in 1835, and settled in Dover, this county. Her father, Wells Graves, was born in Har- wington, Connecticut, in 1791, and died in Dover, this county,
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OF LENAWEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
August 3d, 1864. He was noted among the early settlers as the most successful hunter and trapper in this part of the country. He did more to rid the country of wolves and bears than any other man during his life time. He made large sums of money from his furs and bounties. He owned a farm in Dover, on which the north-east part of the village of Clayton now stands. Mrs. Rhoda Graves was born in Burlington, Connecticut, July 13th, 1793, and died in Dover, this county, February 29th, 1837. She was the daughter of Marshal and Rhoda Clark, of Burlington, Litchfield county, Connecticut.
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ORTON BAKER was born in Manchester, Ontario county, New York, December 9th, 1802. His father, Joseph M. Baker, was born in Massachusetts, February 19th, 1780, but soon after, his parents moved to Rutland, Vermont. He lived in Rutland until he was about nineteen years old, when he went to Ontario county, New York, and soon after purchased a new farm in what was then the town of Farmington. He lived there until the spring of 1833, when he emigrated to Michigan, and finally purchased land from the government, in the town of Rome, this county, where he settled. He cleared the farm and lived upon it until the last few years of his life, and died in Rome, May 27th, 1872. About the year 1800, he married Miss Sally Cruthers, of Phelps, Ontario county, New York, by whom he had eleven chil- dren, six sons and five daughters, Norton being the oldest. Mrs. Sally Baker was born in Half Moon, New York, in 1778, and died in Rome, this county, September 15th, 1851. Norton Baker never had much school advantages, his father being a pioneer in Ontario county, New York, where schools were very " few and far between" in those days. He spent most of his time on his father's farm and in a distillery, until he was about twenty-eight years old. He came to Michigan in the spring of 1833, with his father, and took up the w. ¿ of the s. w. 4, and e. part of the s. w. frac'l } of section 7 in Adrian, (then Logan,) where he still resides. He has cleared one hundred and fifty acres of land, and it is now all under a good state of cultivation. He has erected a good frame house, has a gocd orchard and all kinds of fruit, with barns, sheds &c. Of course the selection of the land was made in the dense forest, but he had sagacity and experience enough to make an excellent choice. Wolf Creek, a fine little stream of water, passes through the farm from
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HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
north to south, and its sloping banks afford a splendid pasturage. Mr. Baker has never been an office seeker, but has been elected highway commissioner for sixteen years, and has been elected justice of the peace two different times. September 12th, 1830, he mar- ried Miss Almeda Howland, daughter of Jonathan and Mary Howland, of Manchester, Ontario county, New York, by whom he has had ten children, as follows: Sarah M., born in Manchester, New York, July 10th 1831, now the wife of Dr. Willard Perkins, of Franklin, this county; Isaac H., born in Manchester, New York, September 20th, 1833, died in Adrian, April 3d, 1852; Ellen L., born in Adrian, October 2d, 1835, now the wife of George Gambee of Adrian; Lois A., born in Adrian, October 24th, 1837, died March 12th, 1852; Mary E., born in Adrian, October 23d, 1839, now the wife of George Hunt, of Rome, this county; Roxanna I., born in Adrian, June 8th, 1841, died April 2d, 1852; Lewis C., born in Adrian, February 18th, 1844, a farmer and works the home farm. Frank I., born in Adrian, October 29th, 1845, died June 2d, 1862; Almeda A., born in Adrian, January 3d, 1848, died February 16th, 1852; Ava E., born in Adrian, October 25th, 1854, at home. Mrs. Almeda Baker was born December 6th, 1812, and came to Michigan with her husband in 1833. Her father was born in Adams, Massachusetts, in 1789, and was a pioneer of Ontario county, New York. He came to Michigan in 1846, and purchased a farm in Adrian township, where he died in 1871. Her mother was born in Gloucester, Rhode Island, in 1786, and died in Adrian, in September, 1846.
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ON. CHARLES E. MICKLEY was born in Northumber- land county, Pennsylvania, August 26th, 1818. His father, Daniel Mickley, died when Charles E. was about three years old. He was a tailor by trade, and during his life had been en- gaged in the mercantile business. But very little is known of his history ; his ancestors were from Germany. About 1799 he mar- ried Miss Tamer Elizabeth Evans, of Northumberland county, Pennsylvania, by whom he had seven children, Charles E. being the youngest. Mrs. Tamer Elizabeth Mickley was born near Philadelphia, December 5th, 1779. Her father was by profession a mill-wright, and went to Philadelphia in an early day. His parents were Quakers, and lived in New England, his ancestors com- ing from Wales. Charles E. Mickley lived with his mother until
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OF LENAWEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
he was about fifteen years old. He came to Michigan with his mother and sister in the fall of 1833. They came from Buffalo to Detroit, and were six days and nights on Lake Erie. They came from Detroit to Adrian by ox team. It was during this tedious trip that Charles E. first saw the beautiful forests of Michigan territory, and he could but admire the wilderness wild, that was so soon to be changed by the hand of industry, into fields and farms. For over two years Charles E. worked by the month clearing land. In October, 1835, he located the n. part of the n. w. ¿ of section 6, in Fairfield. He commenced work on this land in the fall of 1836, and has resided there ever since. He has never moved but once, and that was from the old log house into the new frame house. For several years he worked quietly on his farm. His first advent in politics was on the Democratic side, and he continued to act with that party until about 1850, when the anti-slavery movement was first inaugurated in Adrian. After hearing the able speeches of the anti-slavery champions of those days, he espoused their cause for the liberty and freedom of the slave, and was an active worker. His house was open to all anti-slavery people, although, at that time, they were looked upon with suspicion and derision. He wrote several articles for the Boston Liberator, pub- lished by William Lloyd Garrison, and commenced public speak- ing, continuing until 1854, when the Republican party was organ- ized, since which time he has acted with that party. He has been elected supervisor of Fairfield three times, and was chairman of the board two terms. He was a member of the State Board of Equalization. In 1865 he was elected a member of the House of Representatives of the Michigan Legislature. In 1867 he was again elected to the same position, and in 1873 he was elected a member of the Michigan Senate. He was chairman of the com- mittee on State Affairs in the Senate, and served on several im- portant committees while a member of the House. He was the first to introduce a measure in the Legislature to admit ladies to the Michigan University, and finally succeeded in carrying it through. He was appointed, in 1871, by Gov. Baldwin, one of the commissioners for selecting a suitable site and erecting thereon buildings for a State school for dependent and neglected children, to be known as the State Public School, in accordance with the provisions of Act No. 172 of the Session Laws of 1871. He was reappointed at the next session of the Legislature, by Gov. Bagley, for the term of six years and was chairman of the board until 1876, when he was disabled from further duties by sickness. He regards his official duties, in connection with the State Public School, the most arduous and responsible of his life. It is the
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HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
greatest public charity in the State. To procure a suitable site, originate plans, and erect buildings comfortable and convenient, without a precedent to go by, was truly a great task. It is an "experiment" no longer. The little waifs taken from the poor house, find here a home, good care, are educated, and receive moral and religious instruction. The Legislature of 1873 provided by joint resolution, for a commission of eighteen persons, to be ap- pointed by the Governor, to revise the constitution. Said revision was considered, and, after sundry amendments, was submitted to the people at the next ensuing election. This was done in an extra session of the Legislature of 1874, Mr. Mickley being a member of the Senate, and as one of that body he helped to do this work. He was President of the Lenawee County Agricultural Society for three years. He is now Lecturer of the Weston Grange, and the County Pomona Grauge. He has always been an active temperance man, and has made many speeches for the cause. February 12th, 1837, he married Miss Adaline J. Hayward, daughter of Theodore and Charlotte Hayward, of Dover, this county, by whom he has had two children, as follows: Eliza M., born in Fairfield, July 1st, 1838 ; Mary J., born in Fairfield, December 10th, 1842. Mrs. Adaline J. Mickley was born in Farmington, Ontario county, New York, September 17th, 1815. She came to Michigan with her parents in 1834. Her father was a native of Massachusetts, and died in Royalton, Ohio, May 15th, 1872. Her mother was from Connecticut, and died in Dover, this county, April 1st, 1869.
OSEPH W. GRAY was born in Windsor, Vermont, Sep- tember 20th, 1805. His father, Thomas Gray, was a farmer of Windsor county, but in 1810, he moved to Jefferson county, New York, where he died, in 1821. He married Miss Thankful Winslow, of Windsor, Vermont, by whom he had seven children, five sons and two daughters. Mrs. Gray came to Lena- wee county, where she died. Joseph W. Gray lived in Jefferson county, New York, until the spring of 1827, when he came to Michigan, and arrived in Tecumseh in June. Here he took up eighty acres of land, on the " openings," in Raisin, one and a half miles south-west of Tecumseh, where he has resided ever since. Since his first settlement here he has purchased more land, and he has now two hundred and eighty-eight acres, all in one body. Mr. Gray has improved, himself, about two hundred acres of this land.
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OF LENAWEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
In 1827 he built a log house, and kept " bachelor's hall " for a year or so. His first harvest was in 1829, but he was sick with the billious fever that summer, and on the 4th of July, during a celebration in Tecumseh, a party of friends came to his house and cut his wheat, and " put it up" in good shape, and thus his first crop was secured. In 1832 he was lieutenant of a rifle company that was raised in and about Tecumseh. This company was order- ed out that year for the Black Hawk war, saw service for about four weeks, and received one. month's pay. Mr. Gray had com- mand of the company, the captain, Wm. H. Hoag, being away. Mr. Gray now has his commission of first lieutenant, issued by Gen. Cass. In the fall of 1828 he married Miss Mella Ann Ketcham, daughter of Jacob Ketcham, of Tecumseh, a pioneer farmer, who came from New York in 1826. By this marriage he had six children, as follows : Jane, deceased ; Francis, deceased ; Elliot, resides on a part of the old homestead, but temporarily in Ireland ; Albert, deceased ; Maria, now the wife of Frederick Gamble, a farmer, of Tecumseh township ; Eliza A., wife of Mil- ton Ross, a farmer, of Hastings, Nebraska. Mrs. Mella Gray was born January 20th, 1808. She died at her home, in Raisin, May 14th, 1851. January 11th, 1853, he married Miss Sarah Cox, daughter of John Cox, a pioneer of Ridgeway, this county, by whom he has had four children, as follows: Willard, John, Ellen, and one, the youngest, who died an infant. The three children are living at home with their parents. Mrs Sarah Gray was born in Bucks county, Pennsylvania, December 23d, 1828. Mr. and Mrs. Gray recount many scenes which occurred with the Indians, and of seeing droves of deer, wild turkeys, howling wolves, etc., when the county was a wilderness.
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EV. JEDEDIAH SMITH was born in the town of Lyme, New London county, Connecticut, May 10th, 1802, and be- longs to a long line of Welch ancestry, traceable to a remote period. His parents' names were Esek Smith and Thankful Thompson, by whose marriage there were five children, Jedediah numbering the fourth. The names of the others are William, Hannah, Betsey and Prudence. When comparatively a young man, Esek Smith, father of these children, was drowned, with a a comrade, at the mouth of the Niantic river, in Connecticut, from a fishing smack, while attempting to make the shore, to es- 55
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HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
cape a sudden squall, which capsized the boat, and rendered the sea too rough to afford timely aid from the land. Having met with indif- ferent success in his efforts to acquire property, Mr. Smith left his family in humble pecuniary circumstances, and the wife was com- pelled to separate her children, Jedediah, not yet two years old, finding a home with an elder cousin, Abel Smith, with whom he emigrated, when in his fourth year, to Preston, Chenango county, New York. His relations with his senior cousin were those of a son, and with the exception of an apprenticeship of four months each year, for four years, with the firm of Judson & Brothers, of the Oxford woolen mills, where he acquired the trade of cloth dressing and coloring, he continued a member of Abel Smith's family till he attained his majority. He was married at the age of twenty-one, in the town of Preston, Chenango county, New York, to Sally Wilcox, of the same place, September 25th, 1824, and from thence, in 1825, removed to Sherman township, Chautauqua county, in the same State, and took up a tract of land from the government, where pioneering began with the energy and pluck of early manhood. Limited crops of cereals furnished bread, and the rifle provided meat for the young settler's table; aye, more than that ; it furnished raiment also ; for the "coon-skin" cap, and buck-skin pantaloons-even the buck-skin shirt-barred no man from a "reserved seat," or a "front pew" in those days. The ladies' toilet, however, was not considered perfect, without the tow frock and scarf, spun and woven by their own hands. Ten per cent. bonds and railroad stocks were not exchangeable commodities, and the "dollar of the fathers," with its Goddess of Liberty, and legend of faith, rarely invaded the new settlement. Bears' meat and ven- ison, with furs and deer-skins, were the bulky, but more ready representatives of commercial value, and on these were based near- ly all business transactions. It was a proud day for him whose name heads this sketch, when he was able to say, “ Behold, I have much goods laid up in mink-skins, muskrat-skins, venison," &c. In 1833, after an eight years' residence, he sold the farm on which he first settled, and purchased another, on the outskirts of the now handsome village of Sherman, in the same township. In the meantime, he had been chosen a captain in the New York State militia, holding the position two years, when, having professed re- ligion, he resigned his commission, under a sense, as he afterwards expressed it, " that the Lord required of him, a different service."
His wife made a profession about the same time, and both were baptized by Elder Thomas Grinnell, and united with the order of Free-will Baptists about the year 1830. The church of which Mr. Smith became a member, soon gave him a license to improve his evi-
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OF LENAWEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
dent gift as a speaker, he receiving, two years later, a license from the Quarterly Meeting, to preach. He was ordained to the work of the ministry, by a council, appointed by the Quarterly Meeting, in Sherman, about the period of 1843, and has never put off or tarn- ished the armor then given him, nor "unbuckled the sword of the Lord," being at this date, an aged, but vigilant watchman "on the walls of Zion." September 17th, 1836, his wife, Sally Smith, died, leaving three children to his sole care, aged respectively, eleven, nine and seven years. February 22d, 1837, he was mar- ried to Miss Lucy Morgan, daughter of George and Lucy Hale Morgan, she being then aged twenty-two years, and a resident of Chautauqua county, New York. In March, 1845, after sixteen years' residence in Sherman, New York, Mr. Smith, impressed with the belief that God required a ministerial work of him in Pennsylvania, removed to that State, with his family, and purchas- ed a farm in Bloomfield township, Crawford county, which was his residence for twenty years. Here, besides farming, he devoted a large portion of his time to the work of evangelism, and wit- nessed a gracious spiritual outpouring as the fruit of his labors, conversions, under his efforts, numbering hundreds of souls. It is scarcely emphatic to remark, that wherever he advanced, the Devil retreated, leaving his trophies behind. Four churches were organ- ized, as the direct result of his ministrations, the sphere of his usefulness not being limited to his own immediate locality, but ex- tending into the surrounding country, in some instances, forty miles. During this time he also had the pastoral care of the church in Bloomfield, with which he was connected, for eighteen years, preaching three Sabbaths of each month, with one of three others in their order, for many years. During the wide period of this devoted man's ministry; his earthly reward has been slender, the labor of his own hands chiefly supplying the needs of his family. Of those converted, few offered him substantial aid ; and these were often of the class of the poor Samaritan leper, concerning whom Christ said : "Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? They are not returned to give glory
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