USA > Michigan > Lenawee County > History and biographical record of Lenawee County, Michigan, Volume II > Part 7
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A portion of the land west of the ridge was oak openings ; the re- mainder, to the prairie, was heavily timbered.
The first road opened through the township was by Musgrove Evans, William Tilton, Curtis Page, E. F. Blood, John Coon, Peter Lowe and others, in the summer of 1824, and was the direct road from Monroe to Tecumseh, and was near where the LaPlaisance Bay turnpike now is.
The first land purchased of the government was by Coonrod Lamb- erson, who left the town of Camilus, county of Onondaga, State of New York, the 1st of November, 1825, with a pair of horses, rode one and led the other, and arrived at Tecumseh in December.
In February, 1826, in company with Peter Lowe, he started out to select land. They crossed the river Raisin near Ezra F. Blood's, and traveled to the first section corner south of the Champlain brook, thence east three miles, to the northwest corner of section 8, just east of the ridge one mile south of this village.
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OF LENAWEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
He found the land covered with early spring flowers, and it looked so beautiful that he located the north half of section 8, and built a house on that land in 1829. This was the only house at that time · between the ridge and the French settlement west of Monroe. The nearest dwelling south of this was at Blissfield, the nearest north at Ypsilanti.
The first dwelling in the township was built by Giles Hubbard, in the spring of 1828, about one mile west of this village, on the farm now owned by Cecil Clark.
The next was built by a Mr. Martin, on the prairie, in July, and was occupied by him about two months, when he removed to Monroe. The building was destroyed by fire the same fall.
· The first circuit preachers that preached in Ridgeway were Rev. J. F. Davidson and Thomas Wiley. They labored on the Tecumseh cir- cuit in 1835, and preached at Joseph Edmundson's and at Peter Miller's in Macon.
By the efforts of Mrs. Peter Davidson, Mrs. Asa Russell and Mrs. Jehiel Miller, a Sabbath-school was organized in Ridgeway in 1835. A Mr. Hall, living where Minor Davidson now lives, was the first Superintendent. The first Methodist Episcopal class formed in this village, of which I. can find a record, was January 25, 1840, A. Bill- ings, Presiding Elder, W. Sprague and U. Hoyt circuit preachers, Joshua Waring, leader. In 1845 the society built a house of worship, partially completed it and used it the same fall, and for twenty-one years after; then the society moved into this beautiful building. The old house is used by Samuel Arner as a dwelling.
A Dutch Reform Society organized here in 1842, built a house of worship in 1843. Rev. Charles Dewitt was the first pastor, and for many years they had a prosperous society and accomplished much good. Eventually the society disbanded, some of the members going to Pennington's Corners, the remainder to other societies. The church was sold and William H. Arner, Esq., uses it at present as a wagon shop.
A society was formed in East Ridgeway, in February, 1849, known as the First Church of Christ. They erected a house of worship the same year, and are still in a prosperous condition.
I have not been able to determine whether Drs. Saxon or Norton were first in Ridgeway.
Dr. De Mott was the first to remain long, and the first that was acceptable to the people. He had very unpleasant roads to travel. On one occasion he attended Mr. Hocum, on the G. L. Oliver place, and called Dr. Palmer, of Tecumseh, as counsel. They had to ford the Macon river (it was in the spring), and on returning, Dr. Palmer's horse lost its footing, and although the doctor was a high church man, he was completely immersed in the cold water of the Macon, and rode to Ridgeway without change of clothing. Mr. Hocum died, and Mr. Lupton went on horse-back to preach the funeral sermon ; three yoke of oxen were put to a lumber wagon ; Mr. Lupton drove the lead
;
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HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
team, and a man in the wagon the other two ; in this way the corpse was brought to Ridgeway for burial.
The early settlers of Ridgeway had many things to contend with ; it was said that the land was too low or the water was too high, and there was no way to get the water off. The land was heavily timbered and took much labor to fit a small piece for cultivation. When the crops commenced to mature, wild animals and birds were early to gather their share. Small clearings were made, but being sur- rounded by dense timber very little air was moving, and the sun beat down on them with intense heat. The roads through the woods seemed to have no bottom, and long pieces had to be covered with logs, rails and brush, in order to make them passable. The streams had to be forded. They went to mill, to church and to visit each other, with ox teams and lumber wagons.
They did not listen to the sweet sounds of the organ or piano, but to the howls of the wolf, which could, in resemblance to the listener, mul- tiply himself until one would appear to be ten, and ten one hundred ; also, to the hoot of the owl, that flew so noiselessly that in the night they would not be aware of his presence till the hoot broke with start- ling effect near them, warning them that if a chicken could be reached it would be missing in the morning. But through the indomitable courage and persevering efforts of the early pioneers, this has all been changed ; the woods have disappeared, the roads have become smooth, and pleasant to travel. The wild animals and destructive birds have disappeared, the log cabin is gone, and fine farm dwellings and large and productive orchards and small fruits of all kinds have taken their place, and many of the pioneers have removed to that house not made with hands; others are waiting with the armor on, for the command, " Go up and possess the goodly land."
:0:
PALMYRA.
DDRESS by F. R. Stebbins, delivered in April, 1879.
It is perhaps very commendable, in a recital of personal rec- ollections, to keep one's self as much concealed as possible ; but are not these histories often seriously shorn of great interest, in an over-sensitive reserve which leaves to other historians, who never knew of the incidents of our own lives, a record of events with our own rec- ollections left out ? The personal "I" was not so unpopular with the
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ancients. A military hero emblazons on his banners, “ Veni, vidi, vici," and all the ages resound with applause, because the claim was the truth. With how much greater consistency can the successful pioneer exclaim, "I came, I saw, I conquered." *
With these introductory remarks-pardon me if I turn to a recital of personal reminiscences connected with the early settlement of Len- awee county.
It was a pleasant day in a golden October, 1837, that a youth of eighteen saw his trunk strapped on to the rack of a stage coach, in the village of Montpelier, Vermont, for a forty miles ride, the commence- ment of a journey to the far off land of Michigan.
It is a comparatively small matter at this day for a young man with his pocket well supplied by a kind father, to go aboard one of our rail- way cars and go a thousand miles, with scarely a break in the connec- tion, or a change of cars; but this boy had no father to furnish him. By hard labor he had saved less than fifty dollars, and with that and his trunk he kept such a careful eye upon, he burnt his ships behind him, and started for the to him unknown west. He did well to watch that trunk, not alone that he felt a little proud of it, having made it with his own hands, but it contained his working suit, a change of linen and stockings, a few books, and what to him was to be the great weapons of war in the contest upon which he was entering, a set of cabinet-makers' tools which he knew how to use. And let me say right here, whatever material success this youth achieved in after years, he owes to that set of tools, and a practical knowledge of their use, and an ambition and power to use them well; and whatever honors he may have deserved in the estimation of his fellow citizens, he estimates not the lowest that he was a mechanic, and one who endeavored to make his profession honorable.
Need I tell of that wonderful first long journey of a Green Moun- tain boy ? Of the first steamboat he ever rode upon on Lake Cham- plain; his first railroad ride, on the road then just completed from Schenectady as far west as Utica ; a weary stage ride night and day from Utica to Rochester-the blessed repose on the canal from Roch - ester to Buffalo, and the three days' ride up Lake Erie, on the old Commodore Perry, Captain Wilkinson ?
As we entered the yellow Maumee we passed Manhattan, one of the embryo great cities of the west, already at that time in its death throes, and at last landed on the rude dock of the new town, Toledo. A little way above our landing was a low sand bar, formed by the con- fluence of the Maumee and a little creek called Swan creek, now crossed by the bridge between the depot and the city. This bar was covered with a rank growth of water reeds, and on it was stranded an old steamboat. A hundred acres could have been bought for as many cents. How like a dream seems the memory of the spot forty years ago, where we now behold the immense system of railroad tracks buildings and docks that now cover it! The railroad to Adrian had
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HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
just been completed. Toledo had a hotel and a few wooden business houses. The most of Summit street was a country road, and the cars started from a particular place in the open street. Toledo at that time had the worst reputation as "a sickly hole," as it was called, of any place in the west ; and the Michiganders having just been despoiled of the locality by diplomacy, did not in the least diminish the stories current of the deadly air of Toledo; in fact, it is more than half suspected some of these stories were invented by the Wolverines; and all through the Southern Michigan settlements you might hear the bar-room loiterers jerking out out between the chattering of their own teeth by the ague shakes in their own bones, sage remarks to stran- gers that Toledo was "terribly unhealthy !" One of the favorite illus- trations was, that a stranger made inquiry about some locality-some distance on the Summit-street road, to the lower part of the settle- ment. He was directed to follow the most traveled road. He did so, and brought up in the grave-yard.
There is no doubt that Toledo in those days swelled the noble army of ague-stricken pioneer martyrs to an alarming extent. What a change since 1837! It must seem a horrid dream to the old pioneer in that beautiful city to-day, when he looks back forty years.
The Maumee river had a bad reputation, and the stories of the green scum which often rested on its surface, were not much beyond the truth, and the yellow color of the water was a terror to the people from the east who were brought up by the trout streams and mountain springs of New England. I was once on a steamer at Toledo, when a passenger pouring some water from a pitcher into a goblet, and notic- ing its color, innocently asked, " Is this lemonade?" " No, sir," said a bystander, "it is death's aid."
In the morning the trunks were taken from the hotel, and set down in the street, by the side of the track. Our boy traveler waited by his baggage far the baggage man to appear, but no one came. The other travelers, one by one, had put in their own trunks, and our boy was left alone with his, and then the engine whistled for a start.
Just then a tall, cadaverous victim of Toledo fever and ague accosted him with ; " Look a here, youngster, ef you are goin' on this train, you had better bustle aboard that chist of yourn." "But I can't do it alone, it is too heavy," said the boy. "Then git somebody to help ye," said the man. The boy appreciated the advice, and replied, " That's so, and you are just the man; take hold !" The fellow stared for an instant as if in debate whether he would get mad or help ; but the cars began to move, and his better nature ruled. With his help the trunk was pushed into the baggage car, and the young emigrant just succeeded in getting aboard as the train moved off. 1 have never forgotten that "first lift" given me by that poor ague- stricken fellow in Toledo. May his bones rest easy in the quiet home where I have no doubt they were laid long since, and ceased from their rattling.
An easy ride of ten miles an hour gave us ample time to admire
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and wonder at the primeval forest on both sides of the railway, through the then famous cottonwood swamp. How those old trees tow- ered in the sky, and with what solemn majesty they slowly swayed their tops in the gentle autumn wind! How wonderful was the drapery of the woodbines which here and there completely encased the tall trunks of trees whose tops had been broken off by the wind, thus changing an unsightly stub into a column of beautiful fret work of leaves and tendrils, all aglow with the autumn tinis which the October frosts had painted on the foliage ! Oh, these grand old woods, how through this county they have melted away since then, before the set- tlers' axe! Two or three log cabins, with small clearings, where for many years it was a fierce struggle with the pioneer between life and the malarial fevers and mosquitoes, in which the pioneer was not always the victor, were passed between Whiteford (now Sylvania) and Blissfield. Blissfield was quite a settlement, of a dozen or so houses. On again through the dense forest without a clearing, until Palmyra, the then great city of the future, was announced. Here was to be the home of our boy adventurer. An elder brother, Hon. C. B. Stebbins, late Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction for twenty years at the State capital (who, by the way, knows more about the practical workings, laws and general information pertaining to the public school system of Michigan than any man living), had settled in Palmyra a few months previous, and here our traveler joined him in the manu- facture of furniture. And many an article of furniture in the homes of Palmyra township, and other parts of the county, can still testify that we strove to do well what our hands found to do. for we made all of our work with our own hands.
Many a day have we stood at the old foot treadle turning lathe, one of us handling the chisel, and the other doing the treading of the lathe, while we turned out the four inch square bed-posts, then the style in bed-steads.
Palmyra at this time was, with all other new places in the west (Leroy not excepted), a place of great expectations. Brick blocks filled the imaginations of the proprietors, and Adrian was a rival which must be yet outstripped and put down. A splendid Jarge flour- ing. mill was just completed, by Toledo capital, and Spalding's saw mill was busy converting the monster logs into lumber. And her destinies were in the hands of men of no mean ability. George E. Pomeroy, who afterwards became the founder of the express business in America ; Volney Spalding, whose energy and perseverance deserved a better result than the failure to make Palmyra a city, an able man of sterling character ; Alexander R. Tiffany, one of the first jurists in the west ; James Field, of large experience, afterwards a resident of Adrian ; Lyman T. Thayer, afterwards a successful hotel keeper in Toledo. Donald McBain, since a resident of Toledo, was financial clerk and bookkeeper at the flouring mill. And the progress of the old "greenback " movement in Michigan, which called for more money, and on the principle that law could create it by stamping paper " one
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HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
dollar," culminated in the wild-cat system of banking. Palmyra had two banks, one the Palmyra and Jacksonburgh, and the other the Lenawee County bank.
Money was made by the quire, and issued like the leaves of the forest, and used principally by the owners of the banks. You are all aware that this " money " was never redeemed ; the banking law being declared unconstitutional, every mortgage under it on real estate was null and void, and these mortgages were almost the entire assets or real security for the redemption of the bills. The crash of these banks left many thousands of this money in the hands of the people, entirely worthless, who realized that for once they had been blessed with " more money " than was profitable.
The wild-cat money, as it was called in its flood tide, was not good out of the State ; and merchants who must purchase goods in the east, had to pay heavy exchange for " eastern funds," as they were called, and merchants often sent on flour and wheat to pay for their goods.
Dishonest men would meet the emigrants from the east at Toledo or Detroit, and tell them that eastern money was not good out west, and as a great favor would consent to give them wild-cat for it in exchange. The banks being required by law to keep on hand a certain reserve in specie, resorted to some ingenious tricks to deceive the Bank Com- missioner or Examiner, who visited all the banks once a year for inspection. In some parts of the State a large number of banks would club together and procure enough specie to cover the law for one bank. The route of the Commissioner was ascertained, and the specie placed in the bank first to be visited. Of course the bank passed examination. The next bank to be visited was ascerta ined, and while the Commissioner was being feasted and wined, to detain him, this specie was loaded into a wagon and driven to the next bank, where it was ready for another inspection when the Commissioner arrived.
Isolated banks, which could not enjoy the benefits of this rotation of specie reserve, resorted to other devices. Some of them, it is said, would buy a small quantity of specie, and nearly filling small kegs with pounded glass, cover the top well with specie, and thus pass examination.
The banks themselves did not always escape the wiles of other financiers. Doc. Alford, whom many here remember, was Cashier of the P. & J. bank. Eastern money was like gold; and a green-look- ing stranger called one day and asked Doc. if he could change an eastern fifty-dollar bill. Doc.'s eyes fairly glistened at the sight of so much " eastern," and the prospect of its possession. He made the change in the money of the bank, and the stranger left town. Doc. soon began to brag of his luck, and paraded in triumph his " eastern fifty." Alas! it was counterfeit! Doc. didn't hear the last of his " east- ern funds " for a long time. The very boys would sing in the street-
" But counterfeiters will impose,
And that's the way Doc.'s money goes !"
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Palmyra township also contained many sterling men, such as Ran- som Stewart, the two Harveys, George and Barzilla, one of whom is still on his farm, one of our most honored citizens ; George Crane, who was Chief Engineer of the Erie & Kalamazoo railroad, with his sons Calvin, Benjamin and George; the Whitmarshes and the Warners, Alonzo and Newton Mitchell, George Colvin, Rollin Robinson, and other like sterling men, many of whom are yet living, all of whom might be honorably mentioned. I venture to say no town in this county could at that time show a better set of pioneers than Palmyra township and village.
I remember, soon after my arrival, becoming acquainted with a young millwright, who was working on the flouring mill. He was diffident in society, to awkward bashfulness. One day he strolled into the little office of Dr. Loomis, the village physician, and accidentally taking up a book on surgery, his mechanic's eye was interested in the wonderful complications of the human system His interest became a study; and after a course with Spalding & Barnard, in Adrian, he graduated in the medical school of Cleveland, moved to Detroit, and Dr. E. M. Clark, long before he died, was acknowledged as one of the first surgeons of the west.
The first Governor of Michigan, Stevens T. Mason, honored us with a day's residence in 1837, being obliged to stop over Sunday, having missed connection with the Palmyra & Jackson railroad Saturday night. A party of ladies and gentlemen were with him, and the eaves- droppers reported that the company had a very jolly time, in their rooms, at the Junction hotel. The Erie & Kalamazoo railroad had just advanced from the wooden to the strap rail track, and the advent of a daily train of cars was an event of no small importance' in a town in the woods.
Church associations and schools were formed as soon as the settle- ment of Palmyra was established. Rev. Joel Walker was settled over the orthodox church I think in 1836, and collected a very respectable society. The Methodists also occupied the ground by the aid of exhorters and itinerant ministers, and the largely prevailing sentiment of society was moral and refined.
I have no doubt many present will remember the fall of 1838. Were such a state of sickness to happen now as existed in Palmyra (and we were told it was general through the country), the newspapers would fall short of appropriate display heading to the statement of facts, on account of a lack of display type. I do not exaggerate when 1 say with us there were three sick persons to every well one. My brother and his wife were both on their bed with " chill fever," and myself the only one about in the house; and this only between the passing off of the sweating stage of one ague attack, to the coming on of the chill of another. In this interval of a few hours I did the house- work, and provided for the others who had no respite. And this was a fair sample of the whole community. Our principal medical attendance was by Dr. Barnard, who rode through our part of the county, while Dr. Spalding, I suppose, visited other sections.
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HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
One day the news came that the entire stock of quinine in the county had been exhausted ; and quinine at that time meant more to us than bread ! To add to the horror of our situation, the cathartic medicines of Palmyra were exhausted, and the doctor not expected for two days! Had our bread failed, our wells and the river dried up, we could have endured it ; but to be without pills and quinine in the fall of 1838 in Palmyra, was worse than a bread and water famine. But the doctor came one day earlier than expected, and many a wan face lighted up with joy and hope when he said he had fortunately found a couple of ounces of quinine at some place out on Bean creek, and it would last until a new stock could be obtained from abroad. The winter frosts brought us permanent relief, and one after another came out again to their usual occupations.
Who of us can ever forget those ague eccentricities ? How the cold chills would run through the spinal column, sending a shiver through the whole system, and an icy winding sheet over our spirits, for well we knew what those chills foreshadowed. Fires were of no avail, and the hot sun of summer only aggravates the disease. How the teeth rattled together like the castanets of the African dancer. How the blood settled blue and ominous under our finger-nails, and we felt like a quivering ice-berg on the point of sudden dissolution in the waves of an Arctic ocean. But after a season a warm flash is felt ; another and another-the ice melts. How genial those first glowings of the fever stage. Warmer and warmer come those heat waves, until the fierce heat of the tropics burn through body and limb like a fiery fur- nace.
How we quaff the cool water, which we shunned so carefully a few minutes before. Again a change comes-a slight moisture in the hands, a few drops on the forehead, and we hail with joy the third and last stage. Thicker and faster comes the perspiration, until it seems as if the poor body would dissolve in a fountain of tears dropping from every pore. But this also ceases at last, and after the perhaps three hours' duration of these little varieties of condition, we consider ourselves comparatively well until the next attack, which might come the same day, usually the day after. And yet how we joked and laughed at each other, through all this strange experience of the ague.
I think but few persons died during this general sickness, but I know those who went through these days will never forget them ; and I only speak of them that the rosy-cheeked youth of to-day, who have hardly ever known what sickness is, will remember what their fathers and mothers endured in subduing and bringing forth this healthful and beautiful land which we leave to them as our best gift.
During the years of 1838-39 the general government, on account of the demoralized condition of the paper currency under the State banks system, issued orders to postmasters not to receive anything but specie for postage, and many persons were compelled to let their letters remain in the office for weeks, from the inability to obtain the twenty- five cents in specie, the sum required on every piece of paper in a let-
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