USA > Michigan > Barry County > History of Barry county, [Michigan] > Part 2
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The Township of Barry
It was provided by the Ordinance of 1787 that as soon as any of the states to be formed out of the Northwest Territory should
17
HISTORY OF BARRY COUNTY
have a population of sixty thousand free inhabitants, it should be admitted by its delegates into the Congress of the United States. In 1832 the people of Michigan voted in favor of statehood, but the Black Hawk war and the ravages of the cholera compelled postponement of action. According to a census of the state taken in 1834 the state had a population of eighty-seven thousand two hundred seventy-eight. A constitutional convention was con- vened, the constitution of 1835 prepared, submitted to the people, and ratified by them at an election held for its adoption or rejec- tion. A general election was held and a governor and state legis- lature chosen, and a complete state government organized, although the state was not recognized by Congress as being ad- mitted into the Union until 1837. In the meantime the state Legislature was busy. March 23, 1836, it passed an act providing for the organization of the township of Barry, with boundaries co-extensive with the County of Barry, and the first township meeting of the township so organized was to be held at the house of Nicholas Campbell in said township (in what is now Prairie- ville township) on April 4, 1836.
At this, the first township meeting in the new township of Barry, it was necessary to organize the voters before holding a township meeting, and Charles W. Spaulding was chosen Mod- erator and Orville Barnes was chosen Clerk of the meeting. After the organization of the township meeting the voters proceeded to an election of township officers. At this, the first township elec- tion, there seems to have been plenty of offices in Barry town- ship. Calvin G. Hill, who then lived in what is now Thornapple, was chosen Supervisor; Orville Barnes, who had come from Gull Prairie to what is now the township of Prairieville, was chosen Township Clerk; Benjamin Hoff, who resided in the township of Barry and who died of cholera in 1838; Henry Leonard, who re- sided in what is now the township of Thornapple, and Charles W. Spaulding, were elected Assessors. Amasa S. Parker, the first settler in Barry County; Nicholas Campbell, at whose house the first township meeting was held, and Calvin G. Hill, were elected Commissioners of Highways. Orville Barnes, Charles W. Spaulding, Benjamin Hoff and Calvin Hill were elected Justices of the Peace. William Campbell, a brother of Nicholas Camp- bell, was elected Collector; Charles W. Spaulding, Benjamin Hoff,
18
HISTORY OF BARRY COUNTY
and Luther Hill, a brother of Calvin G. Hill, were elected School Commissioners. Linus Ellison, who was one of the first settlers in what is now Prairieville township and who sold his farm to Isaac Otis and removed to what is now Barry township, and Moses Lawrence, the pioneer preacher of Barry township, were elected Commissioners of the Poor. Lewis Moreau and William Campbell were elected Constables. It seems that Calvin G. Hill must have discovered that he had too many offices, because he resigned the office of Supervisor, and at a special township meet- ing held later, Isaac Otis was elected Supervisor to fill the vacancy. At this time Barry County was attached for governmental pur- poses to Kalamazoo County, and the Supervisors of the township of Barry were members of the Board of Supervisors of Kalama- zoo County. The tide of emigration toward the west was now in full swing and during the years 1836 and 1837 the population of Barry County rapidly increased. It reached 512 in 1837. Inter- nal improvements, wildcat banks and paper cities everywhere sprang up during this period of reckless speculation; then came the financial panic of 1837; the collapse of these inflated schemes, and most of those who came west to find homes in Barry County were too poor to get away, even had they been so inclined.
At the second annual township meeting of the township of Barry held at the house of Charles W. Spaulding in 1837, Isaac Otis was elected Supervisor of the township of Barry and Am- brose Mills was chosen as County Clerk; Duty Benson, who lived in what is now Thornapple township; Thomas Bunker, who lived in what is now the city of Hastings, and Charles W. Spaulding, were chosen Assessors; Ephraim Block, Eli Waite, and William Lewis, afterward famous as the proprietor of the Mansion House of Yankee Springs and prominent in the early political history of this county, were chosen as Commissioners of Highways. George Brown, who then lived in what is now the township of Orangeville, near Pine Lake; Henry Leonard, and Isaac Otis were elected as Justices of the Peace. Ambrose Mills, who died of cholera in 1838, was elected Collector, and Benjamin S. Dibble, who kept the first postoffice at Middleville near what is now Gates Corners, was elected School Commissioner; and Timothy G. Johnson, Isaac Messer and Ambrose G. Mills were chosen as Constables.
19
HISTORY OF BARRY COUNTY
Early Settlements
In the Michigan Gazetteer, published under date of 1837, speaking of Barry County it is said: "The county is new and not yet extensively settled, though it is said to be rapidly increas- ing in population. The principal settlements are Middle Village, Bulls Prairie, Hastings upon the Thornapple, Yankee Springs upon the road leading from Grand Rapids in Kent to Gull Prairie in Kalamazoo."
In 1838 Barry County was divided by an act of the Legis- lature into four townships; the northeast quarter of the county was called Hastings township; the northwest quarter of the county was called Thornapple ; the southeast quarter of the county was called Johnstown and the southwest quarter of the county was called Barry. The first township meeting in Hastings town- snip as then organized, was held at the house of Slocum H. Bunker; the first meeting in the township of Thornapple was held at the house of Benjamin E. Dibble; the first township meet- ing in the township of Johnstown was held at the house of William P. Bristol, and the first township meeting after this division in the township of Barry, was held at the house of John Mills. After these townships in Barry County were organized it continued to be for all government purposes a part of Kalamazoo County until after the passage of the act of March 15, 1839.
Barry Still Attached to Kalamazoo
At the first township meeting of the township of Barry, after the division of the county into four townships, held in the spring of 1838, Ambrose Mills was chosen Supervisor and Peter Falk was chosen Township Clerk. At the first township meeting in the township of Thornapple, Calvin G. Hill was chosen Super- visor and Henry Leonard, Clerk. At the first township meeting held in the township of Hastings, after the township of Barry was subdivided into four townships, Thomas H. Bunker was chosen as Supervisor ; Willard Hayes, Clerk, and Slocum H. Bunker, Commissioner of Highways.
At the first township meeting held in the township of Johns- town, S. V. R. Rork was chosen Supervisor; Harlow Merrill, Clerk, and Cleveland Ellis, who lived in what is now the town- ship of Assyria, was chosen as Treasurer.
The several townships in Barry County were still attached to
20
HISTORY OF BARRY COUNTY
Kalamazoo County for all governmental purposes and the several Supervisors above named were members of the Board of Super- visors of Kalamazoo County until the provision was made for the organization of Barry County in 1839.
The "Sickly Season"
Among the early settlers of Barry County the "sickly season" of 1838 was long referred to as the distinct epoch from which they marked time, just as in later years they marked it from the "cold New Year's" and the "smoky fall." Physicians disagree as to what the disease then prevalent was. It is doubtful whether it was cholera or not. At any event the epidemic swept over the northern states, and it was particularly fatal in this county, where notwithstanding the sparse population during the summer of 1838, in the township of Barry alone more than twenty people died. Among them were Ambrose Mills, then the Supervisor of the township of Barry, and Benjamin Hoff, one of the early pioneers, who had been prominent in local affairs. The visitation of the disease was looked upon by the superstitious as the curse of God, but with the coming of the cold weather the disease subsided, but not until many families had been wiped out.
Organization of Barry County
After the passage of the act of March 15, 1839, entitled "An act to organize the County of Barry," and on the first Monday in April, 1839, a general election was held in Barry County to elect all the several county officers to which by law the county was entitled.
The following were the first county officers of Barry County after its organization in April, 1839: Probate Judge, Stephen V. R. Rork; Associate Judges, Nathan Barlow and Isaac Otis; Sheriff, Willard Hayes; County Clerk, Thomas B. Bunker; Register of Deeds, Abner C. Parmelee; Treasurer, Charles W. Spaulding, and the three County Commissioners hereinafter named.
On April 13, 1839, the County Commissioners of Barry County, three in number, in whom was then vested powers sub- stantially similar to those vested in the Board of Supervisors at the present time, met in the village of Hastings and organized. Calvin G. Hill of Thornapple, John Bowne of Barry (afterward
21
HISTORY OF BARRY COUNTY
Prairieville), and Nelson Barnum of Hastings, were the three Commissioners. Calvin G. Hill was chosen Chairman of the Board. At this meeting John J. Nichols of Barry, John W. Bradley of Yankee Springs and William P. Bristol of Johnstown were chosen Superintendents of the Poor, and after authorizing the payment of a few bounties for wolves the board adjourned.
In the proceedings of the Board of Commissioners for July 17, 1839, there is an abstract of the first assessment rolls of the vari- ous townships in Barry County then organized, as follows:
Township
Acres
Value Real Estate
Value Per. Prop. $ 2,398
Total
Hastings
69,451
$241,246
$243,644
Johnstown
63,092
189,829
2,097
191,926
Barry
50,581
151,743
9,768
161,511
Yankee Springs
31,813
96,888
4,826
101,714
Thornapple
28,281
88,884
2,395
87,239
Total
243,318
$768,550
$21,484
$786,034
The total taxes spread according to the report of the County Commissioners at their meeting of October 15, 1839, was as follows:
State
County Township Highway
Poor
Township
Tax
Tax
Tax
Tax
Tax
Total $1,126.30
Yankee Springs .... $
203.43
$ 152.57
$ 212.21
$ 558.09
Barry
323.03
242.27
392.24
$15.00
972.54
Thornapple
174.48
130.86
170.38
66.679
1,142.51
Johnstown
383.86
287.89
272.72
1,347.86
2,292.33
Hastings
487.29
365.46
203.49
1,842.64
2,898.88
Total
$1,572.09
$1,179.05
$1,251.04
$4,415.38
$15.00
$8,432.56
The south half of Thornapple township, as originally organ- ized, now forming the townships of Rutland and Yankee Springs was, by act of the Legislature of March 22, 1839, set off from the township of Thornapple and organized as the township of Yan- kee Springs; the first township meeting was held at the "Mansion House" of "Yankee Bill" Lewis. Rutland did not long remain a part of Yankee Springs, for on April 17, 1839, the east half of the township of Thornapple, as originally organized, including what is now the townships of Rutland and Irving, was by an act of the Legislature, set off and organized into the township of Irving; the first township meeting in the new township so created was held at the house of Albert E. Bull. In 1841 the township
22
HISTORY OF BARRY COUNTY
of Barry was divided and the two west townships, which are now Prairieville and Orangeville, were organized as the township of Spaulding, and the place for the first township meeting of the new township was the house of Hiram Lewis, and the place of meeting of the next annual township meeting of the township was fixed at the "white school house" in district number thirteen of the present township of Barry, at Hickory Corners.
"Yankee" Lewis, from a Daguerreotype Taken in Detroit in 1846, When he Represented Barry and Allegan Counties in the State Legislature
Townships Organized
In 1842 Hastings township, as originally organized, was divided by act of the Legislature into the present townships of Carlton, Castleton, Woodland and Hastings. The first township meeting in Woodland was held at the house of Alonzo Barnum, the first township meeting in the township of Castleton was held at the house of William A. Ware, and the first township meeting in the township of Carlton was held at the house of William Mc- Cauley. The name of the township of Yankee Springs was un-
23
HISTORY OF BARRY COUNTY
doubtedly changed to Gates, but when this was done we have been unable to find; but, in any event, in 1848 the Legislature passed an act changing the name of the township again from Gates to Yankee Springs, and by that name the township is still known. In 1843 the name of the township of Spaulding was changed to that of Prairieville. By act of the Legislature of February 29, 1844, the two eastern townships of Johnstown, as originally organized, were set off and organized as the township of Assyria, and the first township meeting in that township was held at the house of Cleveland Ellis. In 1846 the township of Maple Grove was set off from Assyria and the first township meeting was held at the house of Henry Deens. In 1847 the township of Rutland was set off from Irving and the first township meeting was held at the house of David Rork. The present township of Baltimore was set off from Johnstown, as originally organized, by act of the Legislature of March 15, 1849, and the first township meeting was held at the house of Bardsley S. Blanchard in said township. And finally in 1850 the township of Hope was set off from Barry and the first township meeting was held in the house of Alvah Mott.
With the admission of the state into the Union the Legis- lature under the constitutional power to encourage internal im- provements, began laying out and establishing state roads.
Early Road Making
Long before Michigan became a state it was apparent that better roads were necessary to accommodate the incoming settlers seeking homes in Michigan. Prairie Ronde in Kalamazoo County was settled in 1828; Gull Prairie in 1830. Many of the settlers from both of these places afterward came over the line into Barry County. In 1833 the Territorial Legislature established a road beginning at the Middlevillage (so-called) in Barry County and running through Gun river plain to the territorial road near the forks of the Pawpaw (so-called). William Duncan of Prairie Ronde, Cornelius Northrup and Carlos Barnes, better known as Captain Barnes of Black Hawk war fame, from the same place, were named as commissioners to lay out this road. The same year another highway, leading from Marshall to the rapids of the Grand River, was established. Lewis Campbell, Jr., Joseph W. Brown, founder of the village of Tecumseh, and Brigadier
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HISTORY OF BARRY COUNTY
General in the Toledo War, and O. Wilder, one of the founders of the village of Allegan, were appointed as commissioners to lay out this road.
After the admission of the state into the Union, and with the rapid settlement of this section of the state, roads were still more essential. In 1837 the state road was established from Kalama- zoo to the county seat of Barry Couny, and Lloyd Jones, Sherman Cummings of Comstock, Kalamazoo County, Michigan, and Mumford Eldred, who was one of the original settlers of Gull Prairie, were named as commissioners. During the same session. of the Legislature another state road was established to run from Marshall via. Verona, now absorbed as a part of the city of Battle Creek, and Gun Plains to Allegan, and Charles W. Spaulding, Silas F. Littlejohn, who located in Allegan in 1836, and Cephas A. Smith, the first Prosecuting Attorney of Calhoun County, elected in 1833, were named as commissioners.
Another road was established, leading from Bellevue to Hastings, and Andrew L. Hayes, who came to Calhoun County in 1831; Reuben Fitzgerald, who had come to Bellevue in 1833, and was one of its influential business men, and Levi P. Wood- bury, were chosen as commissioners to lay out this road.
Another state highway was to be laid out from Allegan to Howell. Guy C. Lee and Flavius J. B. Crane, who the same year was elected Representative in the State Legislature from Oakland County, were appointed commissioners for that purpose.
In 1838 a state road was established to run from Battle Creek via. Hutchinson's Mills to Hastings, and Stephen V. R. Rork of Johnstown, Rustin Angel of Battle Creek and John Meachem of Bedford were named as commissioners for that purpose.
Another state road was established from Battle Creek via. Gull Prairie to Grand Rapids, and Isaac Barnes; George Torrey, afterward editor of the Kalamazoo Telegraph, and Roswell Britain, were named as commissioners. Another road was estab- lished from Kalamazoo to Hastings. Mumford Eldred, Isaac Otis and John Mills were named as commissioners to lay it out. Another was established from Galesburg to Hastings and Nathan- iel Cathern, Hugh Shafter, father of the late General Wm. Shafter, prominent in the Spanish War, and Reuben H. Sutton were chosen as commissioners.
25
HISTORY OF BARRY COUNTY
In 1840 a state road was established from Vermontville to Grand Rapids, and William Stoddard, one of the first settlers of Charlotte; Levi Wheaton, of Chester, Eaton County, at whose home it is claimed the first county convention in Eaton County was held; Wait J. Squire, of Eaton County; Abner C. Parmelee, who was the first Register of Deeds in Barry County, and after- ward County Treasurer, and William G. Henry, who formerly operated a store in Grand Rapids on the present site of the Morton House, were named as commissioners.
Another road was established from Hastings to Grand Rap- ids, and Wait J. Squire, William G. Henry and Abner C. Parme- lee were named as commissioners; another from Battle Creek to Grand Rapids, of which George Torrey, Isaac Barnes and Roswell Britian were commissioners.
In 1841 new commissioners were appointed to establish the highway from the county seat of Eaton County, through Ver- montville to Hastings, and from Hastings to continue said road to Grand Rapids. In 1841 William B. Thorne, Calvin Hill of Yankee Springs township and Henry H. Broth of the township of Allegan were appointed commissioners to lay out a road com- mencing on the Thornapple river road in Yankee Springs, thence via. Long Lake to Allegan.
In 1844 Aaron Ellis of Hastings, Isaac Barnes of Gull Prairie, and James Pelton, one of the pioneers of the Grand River Valley, and for many years Supervisor of the township of Gaines in Kent County, were named as commissioners to lay out and establish a road from where the road from Gull Prairie, via. Yankee Springs to Grand Rapids crosses the base line, thence in the most eligible route near the foot of Gun Lake and Lake Alone to the county line in Kent County.
In 1845 John Ball, who was prominent in the early history of Grand Rapids; Albert E. Bull, first settler in Irving, and Calvin G. Hill, were appointed as commissioners to lay out the highway from the village of Middleville to Grand Rapids.
In 1848, Willard Davis of Eaton County, Nathan Barlow, Jr., of Barry County, and Ezra Southworth of Grand Rapids, were appointed as commissioners to establish and lay out a highway commencing at the township of Michigan in Ingham County,
26
HISTORY OF BARRY COUNTY
thence through the counties of Eaton and Barry to the village of Allegan.
In 1849, Nicholas Campbell, Hiram Tillotson and Seth Demic were appointed as commissioners to lay out and establish a state road from Richland, in Kalamazoo County, to the village of Hastings.
In 1850 a state road was established from Hastings to Ionia, and J. W. T. Orr, who was a member of the Constitutional Con- vention of 1850 from Barry County; John B. Welch of Ionia County and George Richmond of the same county, were appointed as commissioners to lay out and open it.
And as late as 1859 Cyprian L. Hooper and N. G. Chase of Ionia County, and John W. Stebbins of Hastings were appointed as commissioners to lay out and establish a road commencing on section 34, township 9 north, range 8 west, and running thence by way of Cook's Corners, Smyrna, Fallasburg and Lowell, to the village of Hastings, in Barry County.
All of these roads which were actually laid out and opened were made passable when conditions were favorable. Bridges were crude log affairs and frequently washed out during fresh- ets. The roads were generally ungraded and the yielding soil in rainy seasons and in the spring became a quagmire through which the settlers were compelled to wallow with their ox teams and old linch pin wagons. The marshes and swampy places were covered with corduroy and this was fully exposed on top, being for the most part free from dirt. These roads followed the line of easiest travel, veering around lakes, hills and marshes, so as to reach their destination with the least resistance. Many of them have been relaid on section lines; some have been discontinued altogether, but many of them are still in actual use as thorough- fares.
Early Agriculture
In the early settlement of the county the pioneers in the selec- tion of land for settlement took that which was easiest available. They first picked that which would yield most quickly and abun- dantly with the least labor. There were various small prairies in the county. In Assyria, where Cleveland Ellis in 1837 selected one as the nucleus of his extensive farming operations; Bull's Prairie in Irving, where A. E. Bull settled in 1836; Scales Prairie
27
HISTORY OF BARRY COUNTY
in Thornapple, the location of what was probably the first white occupation of the county. Next to these bits of prairie land, wholly or partially cleared, the oak openings of the western and southern part of the county where the timber was without under- brush, and the soil a sandy and gravelly loam, easily broken up and subdued and capable of producing all varieties of cereal crops, attracted the incoming settlers, and we find that Prairieville, Barry, Orangeville and Yankee Springs were, in the early history of the county, much more rapidly settled and developed than the more heavily timbered lands of Woodland, Maple Grove and Baltimore, where the dense underbrush in many places kept the soil damp and cold during nearly the entire season. These tim- bered lands were very much more difficult to subdue, more difficult to clear.
As the settlers came into the oak openings they at once pro- ceeded to break the soil and put in crops without stopping to clear the lands of timber, and then through the fall and winter months they put in the spare time girdling the forest giants, to destroy the foliage, and frequently these girdlings were not removed from the land for years, though in the meantime the soil was cultivated and produced bountiful crops with little labor. This system of farm- ing could not be carried on in the timbered lands, where the set- tler had to fell the timber before he could successfully break up the soil. The prairies and oak openings developed much more early and were settled more extensively than the timbered lands.
In 1840, when the county contained nearly twelve hundred inhabitants, the township of Yankee Springs contained more in- habitants than Hastings, Baltimore, Hope, Rutland and Irving combined. Gradually the settlers grew to realize that although it required increased labor to subdue, the timbered lands were rich and productive, and during the thirty years from 1840 to 1870 the timber of this county which was practically worthless as a merchantable commodity was windrowed and burned in order that the settlers might get it out of the way and clear the land for culti- vation. During all this time in the slashings the high brush piles, log heaps and giant bull thistles were matters of course, and through the autumn months the light of the fire in the burnings reflected in every direction from the sky. Many times the smoke was so thick it was difficult to see the highway fence, and the set-
28
HISTORY OF BARRY COUNTY
tlers were frequently called to protect their buildings and fences from forest fires.
Homes of the Pioneers
The settlers' houses for the most part were log cabins, one story high, with two doors set opposite each other, with a shake roof, with either a puncheon floor, or one made of sawed lumber, which was regarded as an advance and a mark of aristocracy. The furniture was of the crudest sort, generally hand made, and the bed-steads rough wooden bunks with split pole bottoms and marsh hay ticks. Corded bed-steads were regarded as a great ad- vance over this earlier furniture, and a first step toward modern luxury. Tables and chairs were hand made; oil lamps were yet undiscovered; gasoline an unheard of product, and their cabins were lighted by the blazing embers of the open fire-place. Later some of the more prosperous and progressive settlers essayed the luxury of the tallow candle. Cook stoves were not yet in use. There never was a practical one until the old fashioned elevated oven stoves came on the market. Cooking was done over the open fire-place in kettles swinging on a crane, and the family baking was taken care of in a bake kettle which seemed to pro- duce as satisfactory results as a modern electric oven. Sanitary precautions were laughed at and were generally unnecessary on account of the absence of many people, and the fact that many of them lived out of doors. Sleeping accommodations were meagre and generally in the loft beneath the rafters, from which was hung the season's seed corn and a variety of medicinal herbs for winter use. This was generally reached by hand made ladders or a crude wooden stairway; doors were hand made and in the winter time the settlers as they sat before the fire frequently complained that they toasted their shins while they froze their backs.
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