USA > Michigan > Lenawee County > History and biographical record of Lenawee County, Michigan, Volume II > Part 8
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OF LENAWEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
ter, at that time from over 400 miles distant. The insertion of a separate strip one inch wide, with writing upon it, along with a half or quarter sheet letter, involved, if detected, double postage, when the largest double sheet, if not cut apart, was only single ; but cut apart the same sheet and resend it, it would be double postage, or fifty cents. Such was the wisdom of legislation forty years ago.
It was always customary for gentlemen writing to their sweethearts to prepay postage ; but the lady in answer never prepaid, and it thus cost every fellow who wrote to his girl in the east, and received an answer, fifty cents. Courtship by mail is much cheaper now; let the boys be thankful, and the girls also, that they do not have to torture their brains now as then to write letters long enough to give their fel- low the money's worth of the postage.
I well remember a letter of my own remaining in the office several days, until at last I found a man who had seventy five cents in silver, and who was persuaded to part with it for a dollar bill. Prices of course were high under the wild-cat inflation, and the laboring man could obtain but four or five pounds of salt pork for a dollar.
Our social gatherings in Palmyra in 1837-8-9 were very pleasant, and we knew no caste of rich or poor. All of the pioneers were from the more favored districts of New York and New England, and the ladies, especially in point of culture and refinement, were not excelled in any State in the Union. To those who remember them, I need only men- tion the name of Mrs. Tiffany, Mrs. George E. Pomeroy, Mrs. Volney Spalding, Mrs. Thayer, Mrs. Dr. Robinson, Mrs. C. B. Stebbins, Mrs. Dearborn, Mrs. Dr. Loomis and others of the married ladies; and the Misses Laura and Rosamond Warner, the Misses Walker, daughters of the Presbyterian clergyman, Rev. Joel Walker, Miss Clay, from Adrian, and others whose names I cannot recall, while on special occa- sions we were joined from the country by Mrs. Ransom Stewart, Mrs. George Colvin, the Mrs. Harveys, Mrs. Mitchell, Mrs. Rollin Robin- son, and others, all fitted to adorn any station in society.
Some of these have long since passed from their labors, but all who knew them remember them with pleasure and respect, and many are yet living, without an exception to my knowledge, honored and respected by all the people.
A tear for the blessed dead of those early years. They fell as truly martyrs to a noble work as any of the early martyrs of the church, and as truly do their good works follow them; our fathers, our mothers, our wives, and husbands, dear children and friends. The grass has been green over their graves, and the wild flowers bloomed around their resting places for many a year, but the memory of their blessed lives is as fresh and sweet to us still, as the fairest flowers of spring.
In memory we walk again with these dear ones amid those early scenes of trial and joy, and we thank God they were given to us, even for a season, and trust they can from a better world look down upon the beauty their labors aided us in working out in this western world.
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HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
Judge Tiffany, in private life, was remarkably social and cheerful, when Mrs. Tiffany was present ; without her presence he was taciturn and uneasy ; for he thought more of her than all the world besides. One of his demonstrations of this devotion was shown in his immediate search through the village, house after house, enquiring for " Abigail," whenever he arrived home, even after an honr's absence, and found Mrs. Tiffany from the house; and he never gave up the search until he found her; then he was happy, and if any woman in the world de- served such devotion, it was Mrs. Tiffany, for she was a noble woman.
It is perhaps not well known in these days that Palmyra had prob- ably the first car works west of the Hudson river. In 1838 Thomas Hill erected a fair-sized shop, and built the first rear entrance passen- ger coach ever run in Southern Michigan, if not in the State. It was about thirty feet long, and was used on the Palmyra & Jacksonburgh railroad, and run for a time on wooden rails. I made the windows for him, which were in small lights, not over four or five inches in size, all set in thin, flat sash, nine or twelve lights in a sash, and the glass set in thin grooves, and put in when I drove together the many joints of the sash. There may be some who can remember the sensation pro- duced when this then splendid car first went over the road to Tecumseh. It would be a curiosity now, but it stamped Thomas Hill, of Palmyra, the pioneer car-builder of the west. We used to hold two days' election in those days-one day at Palmyra village, and one day at Leroy, then another point with expectations. Palmyra still lives, but Leroy holds scarcely a mark to show its former Jocality. The citi- zens of Palmyra organized a total abstinence temperance society in December, 1836. Was it not the first in the county ?
It was our usual custom, after the hours of labor, to gather at some house and pass the evening in socialities, on almost every pleasant evening, when there was no public meeting, where we had no jeal- ousies, or neighborhood differences to disturb the harmony of our inter- course. At times we were joined by visitors, and the genial face of the present Secretary of the Michigan State Insurance Company, Henry Hart, Esq., then a young civil engineer on the State railroad, between Adrian and Monroe, was often greeted with welcome at our gatherings. David Smith, late of Toledo, Mr. Hart's associate in the survey, also met with us, and will ever be remembered for his quaint speech and sterling honesty of character. He died not long since, one of the leading wealthy men of Toledo.
Another civil engineer, by the name of Gooding, and Chief Engineer Hopkins, also often joined our gatherings. I do not know if these recitals have any interest to the new generation, but they will certainly bear with our weakness if we delight to fight the youthful battles o'er again in these pioneer meetings, where we meet still a few faces which smiled back joy for joy in those times of forty years ago.
After a little more than a year's absence in 1840-1, I returned to Palmyra in the fall of 1841, and what a change! Many of the same residents it is true remained, but some had died, others removed, and
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OF LENAWEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
our old social circle was broken forever. Of the Palmyra with great expectations, only remained a town with no expectations or aspira- tions.
The daily quiet of the street, I can best illustrate by an incident which I relate at my own expense, for I cannot consent to withhold a good illustration "for relation's sake." I was just married, and my brother, having removed to Buffalo, I took his building, in which was both a dwelling and cabinet-shop, until I could look around and see where to choose in the great west, for my life's battle was all before me.
Myself and wife, one day after breakfast, thinking it Saturday, pro- ceeded to our respective work, she to wash, and myself to the work- shop, to make a table. Throwing open the window back of my bench, for it was a warm day, I cut out my lumber and went at my table. John Sherwin, brother to the late Ezra Sherwin, of this city, seeing me at work, came over and remarked that, seeing me at work, thought he would step in and see for whom I was making a coffin. i replied, "No one; I was making a table." I thought he looked rather queerly at me, but he went away with no further remark, and again I made the shavings fly on my boards. About 4 o'clock I finished my table, brushed off my bench, and thought I would go over to the post-office, as that was the only place of general resort. My wife meanwhile had finished, and hung out the week's washing. Arriving at the post-office I found two or three fellows on the fence near by, and the door and the shutters of the post-office closed. "What is the post-office shut up for ?" I enquired. "Why," they replied, " it is never open on Sun- day."
Sunday ! Gracious heavens thought I, and my wife has the wash- ing on the line this minute, and a new table in my shop will testify of my day's work, and only a week before I had read the sermon and led the orthodox meeting in the school-house. I went home and told my wife. You may guess that washing came off that line in a hurry, but I did not break up my table; it was too good a one, and I have no doubt if the recording angel wrote down that day's work against us, when he came to look at the every day's quiet of the streets of Pal- myra in 1841, and remembered that the transgressors were but three weeks married, and but a little out of their teens, he has long since with a sunny smile of forgiveness blotted it out forever. I did not think a place where one could not tell when it was Sunday without being a living almanac, a fit place for me to labor in through life, and in October, 1841, I moved to Adrian. But I shall never forget Pal- myra. Some of the happiest days of my mature boy life were spent there, and when I look upon the many splendid farms and farm houses now seen all over the township, I can hardly realize the fact of the almost unbroken, mighty forest there in 1837, and I hope before it is too late some of her early pioneers may write a history of the first set- tlement.
Adrian in 1841 was a promising village; and although there has
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HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
not been a year since then that I have not heard wise men declare that it " was as large as it ever would be; " it is now ten times as large as in 1841. At that time it had outgrown Dr. Spalding's first advertise- ment, which described his present residence as located "in the eastern part of the village," but there were very few buildings east of Broad street, still less east of the next, or Clinton street, and almost entirely commons east of Locust street; mostly commons north of Butler street, commons and woods south of Church street, except a scattering of dwellings on South Main street; a few dwellings over the river on Maumee street. South of West Maumee the woods came down to the Church-street bridge, and I used to shoot ducks on the river in the dense woods along where the paper mill stands. The depot of the Erie & Kalamazoo Railroad was on the northeast corner of the present county offices lot. The Southern depot was on what is now Monument Square. The Presbyterians worshipped in the building now standing next east of the engine-house on Church street.
Several log houses remained in the village; one stood on the lot now occupied by the residence of W. E. Kimball, and another on or near the lot where stands the St. Stephen church on Toledo street. There were but one or two brick dwelling-houses, and very few brick business houses. There were not ten rods of sidewalk, other than the natural soil, sometimes improved a little with.a thin coating of gravel. C. B. & F. R. Stebbins put down the first plank walk in Adrian, in front of their store on Maumee street. Frank King, now of Toledo, kept a dry goods store in a wooden building on the lot now occupied by the county offices, from which he soon after removed to the old green store on the corner occupied by the National bank building. Ira Buck was daily at his work making trunks and harnesses two doors farther east; Dr. Underwood kept a drug store in the old Union block on Main street, where he was burned out not long after. Our friend Helme, with the laurels of the patriot war fresh upon him, was making good bread and crackers, and Ira Bidwell astonishing the natives with his big posters all over the country, with their curious pictures and big letters, and the Watchtower and Michigan Whig, weeklies, dispensed the usual amount of politics and literature. The old Franklin, with its high wooden steps on both streets, on the corner where Mason's drug store now is, and the Exchange, on the location of the Lawrence house, both wooden structures, were our principal hotels, Japheth Cross keeping another where the new jail now stands. A saw mill stood where the Mineral Spring hotel now is, and the river ran around the fair grounds next to the bluffs.
The bar-room of the old Cross house was afterward used for the pri- mary department of our public schools, and the children went in under the sign "Bar-room," and in recess hours played hide and seek behind the old bar, which had not been removed. The higher depart- ment occupied for a time the old ball-room, where the fathers and mothers of some of the children had in their courtship days " tripped the light fantastic toe." The corner where Hart's drug store stands
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OF LENAWEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
was an open public square from Maiden Lane to somewhere near W. S. Wilcox's hardware store, and Bidwell's dry goods and hardware stores faced the square on Maiden Lane.
Ira Bidwell soon after moved into his new block en Maumee street, between Main and Winter streets.
In 1843-4 we saw some close times in Adrian. The collapse of the wild-cat currency had turned all our money into rags, and we raised little or nothing to export to bring in other money. With our dry goods and groceries and hardware purchased in the east, all the money was absorbed and carried out of the State, in the balance of trade against us. All business in products of home manufacture was carried on by barter. Our manufactures were exchanged with the farmers for provisions, the manufacturer getting barely money enough to obtain a few cash materials.
In my own business we used to exult that for once we had the better of the lawyers. They were obliged to have office furniture, and we kept clear of law-suits, and made them pay us the money for their desks. They sometimes thought we ought to quarrel with some one for once, that they might. barter their services for ours, but we could not see it in that light, and most of the money we received for two years was from this source. Judge Tiffany was living in Adrian, and stood at the head of the bar. Judge Stacy was a young man just ad- mitted to the bar, and I remember seeing two farmers sitting in the old, then the new Court-house, with the chief judge as associates. Baker, Harris and Millard were in those days leading attorneys, and had a large practice. E. L. Clark was keeping a dry goods store in the wooden store still on the corner of Main and Toledo streets, or had just moved into the new store on Main street. J. H. Woodbury was selling goods on Main opposite the end of Toledo street. Father Graves was making great spinning-wheels, and found sale for them.
In conclusion, let me say to my fellow pioneers, we are passing away; these younger people are fast filling our places; they must increase; we must decrease. Have we lived worthily in the advantages we have received ? Have we arrived at that stage of manhood and womanhood that thinketh no evil? Have we a "God bless you " to mankind, individually and collectively ? If we have not, we must feel we have not yet rounded out our lives to such perfection that we can contemplate our departure from these scenes of life with composure. Have we wronged any one? Let us see to it at once that the wrong is righted. Has some one wronged us, and there rankles in our hearts thoughts of hatred ? Forgive and hate no more. For by hating we not only continually keep fretting the wound made by others, but we add a deeper and more painful wound by our own act. What a no- bility of soul there is in forgiving a wrong !
. It is indeed God manifest in the flesh, who exclaims, " Father. forgive, they know not what they do." With these words on honest lips, and coming from honest hearts, we can peacefully at last lie down, not to dreams, but to enter upon the pleasant realities of the eternal life,
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HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
where many of our fellow pioneers before us have ceased from these earthly labors, to enter upon the higher and nobler activities of that better land. And when from the sublime heights of the grand here- after, we shall look down upon these scenes and battle-fields of our earthly pilgrimage, and see how really small were the trials which vexed us here, and how they have, if rightly improved, worked out for us a far more exceeding and eternal nobility of character, how will the soul swell with gratitude to Him who hath cared for us, and led us kindly through all these years of toil, to work out a life for which our children shall rise up and call us blessed.
-: 0:
ERIE & KALAMAZOO R. R.
HE Erie & Kalamazoo railroad was incorporated by the Territo- rial Legislature of Michigan, in April, 1833, to construct a railroad from Lake Erie (Port Lawrence, now Toledo), to the head waters of the Kalamazoo river, hence the name " Erie & Kala- mazoo." At that time the entire road was supposed to be in Michi- gan, but on final adjustment of the boundary question, after the cele- brated " Toledo war," about one third of the road-eleven miles-was found to be in the State of Ohio. This road was laid with a thin iron ribbon, on oak stringers, and was opened in 1837. Until August the motive power consisted of horses.
The notice of the arrival of locomotive No. 1, the first one in the tier of States bordered by the great lakes, and the advertisement of the road, in 1837, over forty years ago, is here given, copied from the Toledo Weekly Blade :
[From the Toledo Blade, January 20, 1837.]
It affords us pleasure to announce the arrival of the long-expected locomotive (Adrian-Baldwin No. 80), for the Erie & Kalamazoo railroad. The business of our place has been embarrassed for want of it; goods have accumulated at our wharves faster than we could transport them into the interior on cars drawn by horses, and as a natural consequence several of our warehouses are now crowded to their utmost capacity It is expected that the engine will be in operation in a few days, and then, we trust, goods and merchandise will be forwarded as fast as they arrive. A little allowance, however, must be made for the time necessary to disencumber o ur warehouses of the large stock already on hand.
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OF LENAWEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
[Advertisement.] (Cut of old-fashioned train.) TO EMIGRANTS AND TRAVELERS.
The Erie & Kalamazoo railroad is now in full operation between
TOLEDO AND ADRIAN.
During the ensuing season trains of cars will run daily to Adrian, there con- necting with a line of stages for the west, Michigan City, Chicago and Wiscon- sin Territory.
Emigrants and others destined for Indiana, Illinois and the western part of Michigan
WILL SAVE TWO DAYS
And the corresponding expense, by taking this route in preference to the more lengthened, tedious and expensive route heretofore traveled.
All baggage at the risk of the owners. .
EDWARD BISSELL, W. P. DANIELS, Commissioners E. & K. R. R. Co. GEORGE CRANE,
A. HUGHES, Superintendent Western Stage Company.
It will be observed no time is given for the departure of trains. The Board of Directors adopted the following tariff in 1836:
Resolved, That the fare in the " Pleasure Car" (a two-story, top- heavy affair, always jumping the track), shall be as follows: Passen- gers, Toledo to Adrian, twelve shillings, fifty pounds of baggage free. Freight: Toledo to Adrian, four shillings per hundred pounds ; salt, $1 per barrel.
For ten years this road had a stormy and troublous existence, its - affairs being managed sometimes by a Commissioner, acting for the Board of Directors, sometimes by Trustees, appointed by order of the court, and part of the time by a Receiver at the Toledo end, and a Commissioner at the Adrian end, recalling the familiar anecdote of the retort of the mate of a vessel to the captain, " My end of this craft has come to anchor."
In 1848 the road was sold out under accumulated judgments ; Hon. Washington Hunt, of Lockport, N. Y., and George Bliss, of Massa- chusetts, were the purchasers. They leased the road August 1, 1849, in perpetuity, to its rival, the Michigan Southern, then in operation from Monroe to Hillsdale, and, although it forms a part of the main line of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern from Toledo westward, the Erie & Kalamazoo company still exists, drawing and dividing its rental of $30,000 per year.
MICHIGAN SOUTHERN.
In 1837 the new State of Michigan launched out in a grand scheme of internal improvements, providing for a loan of $5,000,000 (an enormous sum at that time), for the improvement of rivers, construc- tion of canals, and for three railroads-a Southern, a Central and a Northern railroad.
The Southern road was to start at Monroe, on Lake Erie, traverse the southern tier of counties, and terminate at New Buffalo, on Lake Michigan. Chicago was a mere Indian trading-post, with a fort
(9)
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HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
(Dearborn), in an apparently irreclaimable quagmire. The track was laid with the flat or " strap " rail. 2} inches wide, 2-inch thick. The road was opened as follows :
Monroe to Petersburg, eighteen miles, in 1839; Adrian, thirty- three miles, in 1840; Hudson, fifty miles, in 1843; Hillsdale, sixty- six miles, in 1843. This comprised all the Southern road built by the State.
The Palmyra & Jacksonburg railroad (now the Jackson branch) was started by the owners of the Erie & Kalamazoo railroad, and opened to Tecumseh, its terminus for nearly twenty years, with a cele- bration August 9, 1838.
This road became involved, and was sold to the State of Michi- gan in 1844, for the amount of the State's loan and interest, $22,000. The State united it with the Southern road, as the "Tecumseh branch," stipulating in the sale of the Southern road in 1846, that this branch should be extended to Jackson, which, after a delay of ten years, was done. In 1846 the State sold the road to a company, with Edwin C. Litchfield at its head, for $500,000, in ten equal annual installments. The new company did but little the next four years, adding but four miles to the west end to reach Jonesville. During the years 1851-2 the road was constructed very rapidly, reaching Chicago, 243 miles from Toledo, in March, 1852. The lease of the Erie & Kalamazoo, already noticed, August 1, 1849, settled the struggle for supremacy between Monroe and Toledo, in favor of the latter.
BIOGRAPHICAL RECORDS.
The following Biographical and Family Records have been ob- tained by personal interviews with the persons, or their children, and all the dates and figures are taken from family records. The greatest care has been taken in writing and compiling, every sketch being approved and pronounced correct by the parties of whom it has been obtained. They will be found as reliable as it is possible to make them.
ON. JAMES H. PARKER was born September 2, 1803, in Masonville, Delaware county, New York. His father, Farrington Parker, was born in Weston, Worcester county, Massachusetts, October 19, 1776. At the age of 15 years he left home and went to Ballston, Saratoga county, N. Y., where he lived with a man named Baldwin until he was 21. He went to school some during this time, and assisted Mr. Baldwin, who was a sur- veyor, in surveying and laying out a large tract of country in the vicinity of Lake George, in the northeast part of the State, and be- tween the Delaware and Susquehanna rivers, in the south part. He had a twin brother; the two, dressed in uniform, were the sur- veyor's chainmen. In 1801 he took up 121 acres of land in the township of Masonville, Delaware county, cleared it and erected comfortable buildings, which he owned and occupied while he lived. He was a natural mechanic, and could turn his hand to several things. After going on his farm, he commenced laying stone chimneys, first for himself, afterwards for his neighbors, in new log houses. Mason work became a part of his regular occu-
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HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
pation. On rainy days he turned shoe-mender, and picked up a little change in that way. In the years 1809-10 he, with others, built a saw milll on a creek passing through his farm, in the midst of an abundance of the first quality of white pine timber, worth $4 per 1,000 feet when made into lumber. In 1812, politics ran high, war being declared against Great Britain. On the first Mon- day of September, 1814, the usual annual military drill-day brought with it an order to the captain of the company there, to draft one-half his men for the immediate protection of the city of New York. Training day was not a gala day this time. Hus- bands and fathers looked sad. Wives and mothers thought of widowhood and fatherless children. Mr. Parker was building a house, the frame was ready to raise, the carpenter was waiting the completion of the foundation walls-the draft came-blocks at the corners were substituted for walls, the frame raised, and both the proprietor and the mason, in the same person, were soon (as he was a musician) trying to be musical as a soldier after being thus snatched from his family, from his business and his home, all of which needed his constant aid and oversight. He was now sole owner of the saw mill, which a few days previous had been sub- jected to a damaging freshet, sweeping out the dam and rollway. His compensation as a soldier was the paltry sum of $9 per month. He held important town offices, and was a prominent and respected citizen. On the 25th day of November, 1798, he married Miss Anna Herrick, daughter of Stephen and Anna (Smith) Herrick, of Ballston, Saratoga county, N. Y., by whom he had eight children, six sons and two daughters, James H. being the second child. He died in Masonville, Delaware county, N. Y., September 1st, 1860. Mrs. Anna (Herrick) Parker was born in the township of Nine Partners, Dutchess county, N. Y., January 24, 1778, and died in Masonville, Delaware county, N. Y., December 24, 1869. James H. Parker lived with his parents until he was 21 years old, and received a common school education, finished by a three months' term at an academy. He usually worked at farming and lumber- ing while at home, except during the winters after he was 17, when he taught school and "boarded round." After arriving at his majority he worked at the carpenter and joiner's trade a part of his time during the following 10 years. When 18 years old he was enrolled in the State militia, and at the first drill was elected fourth corporal, and by regular gradation and election made captain of the company eight years after. He served two years and re- signed. In the spring of 1833 he came to Michigan and located the s. w. ¿ of sec. 14, in the now township of Rome, and at once built a shanty and kept bachelor's hall. His prospective farm was
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