USA > Michigan > Barry County > History of Barry county, [Michigan] > Part 3
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The First School
The pioneers brought to the new county the ideas of their former home, and among those most quickly acted upon was that of a primary school. Probably the first school taught in Barry County was taught by Sarah Paul, at Middleville in 1835.
A school was kept by Theoda Spaulding in a room in her father's house in what was afterward the township of Prairieville, in 1836. It was, however, prior to 1837, for in that year the
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HISTORY OF BARRY COUNTY
"white school house," the first frame building in Hickory Corners, mentioned in the statute as the place of the first township meeting in Barry township after Spaulding was set off and organized, was erected ; and Theoda Spaulding was the first school teacher in it and in the township of Barry, as now organized. There was a mission school at the Slater mission in Prairieville in 1836. In 1837 Mrs. Isaac Messer taught the first school in the Brown neigh- borhood in the township of Orangeville, at her house on section thirty-two, and during the same year Harriet Hoyt held school in Prairieville township. In 1839 Elizabeth Carpenter opened a school in George Fuller's house in Carlton, and in 1840 Emma and Marie Mott opened a private school at their home in the township of Maple Grove. Mary, a daughter of Judge Nathan Barlow, taught the first school in the township of Yankee Springs, in a house built for a dwelling near the "Mansion House" of William Lewis at Yankee Springs. Prior to that time Sarah Curtis had kept school in the township of Johnstown in the house of W. P. Bristol, receiving therefor the sum of one dollar and fifty cents a week, and in that year the first school house in the township was crected. Hattie Bidwell of Battle Creek was the first "wielder of the birch" in the township of Woodland, having taught there in 1841. There was a school taught in Hastings at the house of Slocum H. Bunker by Miss McArthur in 1839, at which there were four pupils. In 1841 the first school house in Hastings was made ready and Sophia Spaulding, a daughter of C. W. Spaulding of Prairieville, was the first teacher. A school was taught in Castle- ton in the Mudge district in 1842, but before that time Mrs. Olive Racey had taught school at her house on section thirteen. In 1843 Lydia Warren of Verona taught the first school in Assyria town- ship, at the house of Cleveland Ellis, and there was also a school held in the township of Rutland by Chloe Benson in 1844, at Bull's Prairie. The Mott school in Hope township was first opened in 1848 and Julia Woodward was the first teacher. The pioneer school teacher of Baltimore was Sarah Blanchard, daughter of the pioneer, Bardsley S. Blanchard. She afterward married George Sheffield, whom she outlived, and she is now the last of the pioneer school teachers of the townships of Barry County.
Free Schools
With the increase in population the townships were rapidly
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HISTORY OF BARRY COUNTY
broken up into small school district organizations. From the first the state seemed destined to have free schools. The constitution of 1850 provided for them. Free schools were not established until 1869. Prior to that time they were maintained by a rate bill and unless the parents or guardian paid the child could not attend school. Compulsory attendance was unknown; high- schools had not yet been thought of. Academies, embryo col- leges, and seminaries, generally private institutions, but some of them endowed by religious denominations; rural primary schools, and the branches of the University of Michigan, and different select schools, that is, private schools maintained by individual teachers, satisfied as best they could the craving of the youthful mind for broader learning. The primitive primary school houses with their hand made benches; small blackboards; floors, of course, of unplaned lumber; open fire-places, or high box stoves generally set upon a brick foundation, and the pupil was lucky if he had a piece of slate and a pencil, instead of a tablet and pencil, as a part of his equipment. Thirty years ago the child in the rural schools who had during the entire winter half a dozen sheets of paper for the practice of penmanship was looked upon as get- ting much more than he was entitled to by the other pupils. Goose quill pens were the principal implements for penmanship and these had to be sharpened each day by the teacher or the bigger boys. Examinations and grades were then unknown. A pupil who possessed push, quick perception and energy was not cast into a system of grades and his pace measured by that of the slower pupils, but he could go forward as rapidly as his ability warranted, but on the other hand those who were duller in many cases under the primitive school system in force in Michigan, obtained no edu- cation worthy of consideration. Under the rate bill system the opportunities of the children of poor men were not equal to those of the better class and many children grew disgusted with the schools and quit them early for the more immediate productive fields of agricultural development. Music was no part of the school curriculum. Discipline was severe and physical strength was fully as important as educational qualifications to the teacher. Singing schools, spelling schools and writing schools were fre- quently held in the various district school houses, evenings, but these were quite generally considered as much places of amuse-
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HISTORY OF BARRY COUNTY
ment and as affording a place of sparking rather than as a part of the educational system. They were patronized and tolerated not as educational institutions, but as social meeting places.
Ague or Malarial Fever
Among the early settlers malarial fever or ague was a com- mon complaint, and prior to 1870 very few of the inhabitants escaped its ravages, especially during the summer months. Ague cures were favorite quack nostrums, but with the clearing up of the country, the drainage of stagnant pools and cat-holes and the disappearance of the swamps, both ague and the omnipresent mosquito of pioneer days have to a great extent disappeared.
Plank Road Companies
There was then as now a demand for better transportation facilities, and through a heavily wooded country, where standing timber was valueless, plank roads seemed the best temporary solu- tion of the highway problem, and we find not only in Barry County, but throughout the state many plank road companies organized for the construction of plank toll roads. In 1848 forty- six companies were chartered. In 1849 thirty-nine companies were chartered and in 1850 more than sixty plank road companies were chartered, so that the period from 1845 to 1855 may well be called the plank road era in the state of Michigan.
In 1849 the Legislature incorporated the Battle Creek & Hastings Plank Road Company with an authorized capital of forty thousand dollars, to build a plank road from Battle Creek to Hastings. Alonzo Noble, Jonathan Hart, Reuben Pew and E. K. Ward of Battle Creek and Henry A. Goodyear, Nathan Barlow, Jr., Alvin W. Bailey, Salmon C. Hall and William P. Bristol of Barry County, were named as the directors. A part of this road was constructed and for many years it was the main thoroughfare between Battle Creek and Hastings.
In 1850 the Legislature chartered the Hastings & Yankee Springs Plank Road Company to construct a plank road from Hastings, through the township of Yankee Springs, with the priv- ilege of connecting with the plank road of any other plank road company. Philip Leonard, who had come to Thornapple in 1836; David Rork, at whose house the first township meeting in the township of Rutland was held; Heman I. Knappen, prominent in
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HISTORY OF BARRY COUNTY
the early history not only of Gull Prairie, but of Hastings, were the directors. This road had an authorized capital of thirty thou- sand dollars, but I cannot find that the plank were ever laid upon any part of it. The same year the charter of the Battle Creek & Hastings Plank Road Company was amended so as to authorize that company to continue their road from Hastings to the mouth of the Thornapple river and thence to the village of Grand Rap- ids, and the authorized capital was increased from forty thousand dollars to sixty thousand dollars.
The Grand River Valley Railroad
In the meantime progressive men were looking forward to the development of railroad facilities in this state, and the Grand River Valley Railroad Company was incorporated as early as 1846 to build a railroad from Jackson to Grand Rapids, although construction was not commenced until after the Civil War.
Court House and Jail
The first Circuit Court ever held in Barry County was said to have been held in a building which then stood where the Hast- ings City Bank now stands, May 6, 1840. The first jail is said to have been back of where Isaac Hendershott's residence now is, and this jail has been described as a square log house, set in a hole in the ground, without windows and doors, the logs being hewn smooth on the inside; the prisoners were lowered into this jail from the top by ladder and then the ladder was withdrawn and there was no way that the prisoner could get out. This jail was used but a short time and most of the prisoners who were incar- cerated therein were let out each day by the Sheriff on their "parole of honor." The grand jury room which was the first used in the city of Hastings is said to have been in the log tavern of Levi Chase, situated just west of the south end of the Michigan Avenue bridge. At a meeting of the County Commissioners, who then exercised the duties now performed by the Board of Super- visors, on January 13, 1842, the building of a jail was considered. Drafts and estimates seem to have been already furnished to the Board of Commissioners and these were taken up for action. The first action of the Board of Commissioners was the passage of a resolution declaring that it was expedient for the county to erect a jail together with a room suitable for holding courts, and there-
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HISTORY OF BARRY COUNTY
upon it was further resolved that the Board of Commissioners adopt a plan as soon as may be and receive proposals and let the job for erecting the building to the lowest bidder. At a meeting of the Commissioners held on July 4, 1842, they allowed Hiram J. Kenfield of Hastings two hundred dollars toward compensating him for building the courthouse and jail. This courthouse was built upon substantially the same site that the present one occu- pies. These were strenuous times on the Board of Supervisors, which about this time succeeded the Board of Commissioners. On October 14, 1844, we find the Board of Supervisors adjourning to meet at five o'clock the following morning, and there are many adjournments of record in the Supervisors' proceedings during the period from 1840 to 1850, to six o'clock in the morning. This courthouse and jail which was erected by Hiram J. Kenfield was undoubtedly completed by 1844, because at the October session of 1844 Frederick Ingram was appointed as the agent of the county to procure stoves for the courthouse. This, the first court- house in Barry County, was burned in 1846. Abner C. Parmelee, who had been the Treasurer of the county from 1839 to 1845, un- doubtedly did not account satisfactorily for the county funds, be- cause in 1844 he together with the sureties upon his bond were requested to confess judgment in the Circuit Court for the County of Barry for the amount of his alleged defalcation as Treasurer, and in 1845 the county procured a judgment against both Par- melee and the sureties upon his bond as Treasurer. At the Octo- ber session of the Board of Supervisors of 1846 the issuance of an execution against Parmelee and the sureties on his bond was postponed pending negotiations to rebuild the courthouse then re- cently burned, for the reason that the Board of Supervisors of the county contemplated swapping the judgment which they obtained against Parmelee and the sureties upon his bond toward the con- tract price of rebuilding the courthouse.
The County Well
The county well was a source of much annoyance to the early residents of Hastings. When Hiram J. Kenfield built the first court house and jail it was claimed that he was to put down a county well and that he failed to do so. At the September meet- ing of the Board of Supervisors in 1845 the Prosecuting Attorney of the county was directed to proceed against Mr. Kenfield for his
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HISTORY OF BARRY COUNTY
failure to dig the county well at the court house. We do not find any record that proceedings were actually commenced. We think that Kenfield dug the well, but just how deep he sunk it is con- jectural; in any event, at the October session of the Board in 1845 we find that Mr. Hayes was authorized to employ Peter Cobb to take up and sink the county well of sufficient depth so that three feet or over of water could be obtained, and the proceedings show that Cobb later received his pay for so doing.
Rebuilding the Court House
At a meeting of the Board of Supervisors on January 6, 1847, it was resolved to let the job of rebuilding the court house, and the plans of John Lewis prepared for the same, were accepted and the contract for its erection awarded to Alvin W. Bailey of Hast- ings, who was to receive therefor as the first payment of fifteen hundred dollars upon the contract price of the court house, the judgment which had been rendered in favor of the county against Abner C. Parmelee and the sureties upon his bond, Cleveland Ellis of Assyria, George Brown of Orangeville, and Calvin G. Hill of Thornapple. Bailey was undoubtedly slow in fulfilling his contract, for on March 16, 1848, he was asked by the Board of Supervisors to show cause why he had not carried out and ful- filled his contract for the erection of the building. He undoubt- edly came before the Board and explained the situation to their satisfaction, for on the next day a new contract was made with him for the completion of the job and he then went on and fin- ished the building. On October 9th, 1848, the proceedings of the Board of Supervisors showed that it was resolved that E. D. Alden of Hastings be employed to furnish seven sets of Windsor chairs for the Court House, said chairs to be made of two inch stuff in bottoms and proportioned accordingly, otherwise well painted, and lettered on the back with the word "County," and that he receive twenty-four dollars in county orders therefor.
A New Jail
After the first jail and court house was burned in 1846 noth- ing was done for several years toward the erection of a new jail; the prisoners of Barry County being in the meantime confined in the county jail at Kalamazoo. At the October session of the Board in 1853 Cleveland Ellis, John Miles and E. R. Carpenter were appointed by the Board as a committee to investigate the
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HISTORY OF BARRY COUNTY
practicability of erecting a new jail, and they reported that the county should build a jail of the dimensions of the upright build-
Dr. Charles S. Burton, Pioneer Physician of Hastings, Whose Biography Appears in the Biographical Section of This Book
ing of the Calhoun County jail at Marshall, and recommended that a committee of three be appointed to make an estimate of the probable cost and report at the next session of the Board of Super-
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HISTORY OF BARRY COUNTY
visors. They also recommended that the county purchase lots 583 and 584 of the city of Hastings as a site. The report made by the committee to the Board of Supervisors was adopted and it was voted to raise one thousand dollars for the construction of a new jail. Nathan Barlow, Jr., George K. Beamer and E. R. Carpen- ter were appointed as a committee to take over the title to the land and provide for the construction of the jail. This committee was discharged at the January session of 1854 and Nathan Barlow, Jr., Cleveland Ellis and George K. Beamer were appointed as a com- mittee to purchase the site and to supervise the erection of the building. This jail was built by Ferris & Edgcomb, contractors, and was on the site now occupied by the residence of Philo A. Sheldon.
The Present Court House and Jail
The county buildings erected in 1847 were repaired from time to time, but after forty years of use they were somewhat anti- quated. There was considerable agitation in Barry County in favor of the erection of more modern county buildings. At the January, 1889, session of the Board of Supervisors a committee, consisting of Albert G. Kent, Supervisor of Assyria; Edward F. Nye, Supervisor of the township of Johnstown, and Charles A. Brown, Supervisor of Rutland, was appointed, to visit the court house at Charlotte with a view of gaining information in order to submit to the qualified voters of Barry County the question of building a new court house. They reported at the same session and a resolution was passed submitting the question of raising the sum of sixty thousand dollars for the purpose of erecting a new court house to the voters of the county at the April, 1889, town- ship meeting. This proposal was opposed somewhat strongly by many of the Supervisors who believed that the county should get along with the old court house and erect some sort of a safety vault for the protection of the county records, and the proposition was decisively defeated at the polls. Things went along for a number of years. The county needed a jail. On January 20, 1891, Circuit Judge Frank A. Hooker sent a communication to the Board of Supervisors of Barry County in which he stated that after a personal examination he had found that the jail was not a secure one, that the Sheriff's duties were rendered exceedingly hazardous by reason of the construction of the jail; that its sani-
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HISTORY OF BARRY COUNTY
tary condition rendered it unfit for habitation; that it was a fire trap; that should a fire occur the prisoners therein would almost certainly perish; that it was unsafe for the detention of prisoners and that it was an outrage upon justice to confine prisoners therein, and directed that the Board of Supervisors designate some other place for the detention of prisoners. At the same ses- sion the Board of Supervisors made arrangements to detain pris- oners thereafter in the jail of Eaton County. At the January, 1892, session of the Board of Supervisors the question of submit- ting to the qualified voters of the county at the spring election of 1892 the question of raising fifty-four thousand dollars for build- ing a court house was passed and the Clerk authorized to give notice of the submission of the question. At the spring election of 1892 the proposition to build a new court house and jail was carried by a vote of 2,772 for and 1,667 against the proposition. At the April, 1892, session of the Board of Supervisors a building committee was appointed to have charge of the erection of the county buildings, consisting of John G. Nagler, Supervisor of Irving; Orson Swift, Supervisor of Maple Grove, and Oscar Mat- thews, the Supervisor of Hastings. A committee was also ap- pointed to investigate the plans adopted by different counties for their court houses and this committee consisted of Orson Swift, James H. McKevitt, Supervisor of Thornapple; John G. Nagler and Thomas S. Brice, the County Clerk. This committee after visiting and examining the court houses in Allegan, Muskegon, Mecosta, Isabella, Livingston, Branch and Ionia counties, reported that they were unanimous in the opinion that the court house at Howell, in Livingston county, was the best, considering the cost of construction, of any that they had visited, and they recom- mended that the building committee adopt a plan for a court house in the city of Hastings substantially similar to that of the court house in Livingston county. This was done and the present build- ings were erected and completed ready for occupancy on the first of January, 1894.
The Court Yard
The Court House square in Hastings is regarded as one of the most beautiful in the state of Michigan. After the first court house was burned in 1846 and before the second court house was erected the Board of Supervisors let Nathan Barlow, Jr., occupy
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HISTORY OF BARRY COUNTY
the court house square during the spring and summer of 1847 for the purpose of sowing said ground to oats and seeding it down with clover seed, and the resolution of the Board of Supervisors provided that Barlow was to have the avails of said crop in con- sideration of his sowing and seeding the same in a good and work- manlike manner, and as late as October 10, 1849, the Board of Supervisors voted that Nathan Barlow, Jr., be allowed to go on agreeable to the old contract and grub the stumps out of the court house yard ; and on January 4, 1855, the Sheriff of the county was instructed to keep the fence around the court house square in re- pair and to keep the gate locked except when court was in session, so as to exclude therefrom all cattle, hogs and other domestic ani- mals which in those days roamed not only over the county but the city as well.
County Agricultural Society
The Barry County Agricultural Society was organized De- cember 29th, 1851. The second annual fair of the society was held at the Court House in the city of Hastings, the Court House square being used for the purpose of exhibiting stock, the lower part of the court house being used as a place for exhibiting dif- ferent products, the upper part of the court house being used for speaking. The county fair was held for two years at Prairieville. In 1859 it was decided to hold the fair on Market Square, the same being now a part of the fair ground claimed by the Barry County Agricultural Society, and the fair has been held on sub- stantially the same site continuously since. At this, the second annual meeting of the society, Hiram Lewis of Prairieville was elected President, and James W. Bradley of Yankee Springs was elected Secretary. An executive committee was appointed con- sisting of seven members of the society. At the election of the society on July 12, 1858, it was decided that in addition to the president, secretary and treasurer, there should be a vice-president elected from each township, and the following were the first vice- presidents of the Barry County Agricultural Society under this arrangement :
Cleveland Ellis, Assyria. Gilbert Striker, Baltimore. Irvin Hewitt, Barry.
Isaac Messer, Carlton.
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HISTORY OF BARRY COUNTY
Lorenzo Mudge, Castleton.
Nathan Barlow, Hastings.
J. E. Hall, Hope.
C. Hannah, Irving.
William P. Bristol, Johnstown.
Leander Lapham, Maple Grove.
Henry Brown, Orangeville.
Hiram Lewis, Prairieville.
Asa D. Rork, Rutland.
Alonzo Barnum, Woodland.
Timothy Johnson, Yankee Springs.
Since that time substantially the same sort of an organiza- tion has been maintained and fairs have been held each year at the Market Square, which now constitutes a part of the fair ground of the Agricultural Society and which has been enlarged from time to time by the purchase of additional grounds.
The County Farm
Superintendents of the Poor were elected by the County Com- missioners at the first meeting in 1839. The poor had generally been supported by contract. There were no insane asylums in the state and during the early forties insane patients of this county were cared for at the insane asylum in Chicago, Ill., until after the opening of the Michigan Asylum for the Insane at Kalamazoo, Michigan. In December, 1849, the Board of Supervisors resolved that the Superintendents of the Poor should be instructed to solicit terms of purchase and gather information preparatory to pur- chasing a county farm and building a building for the care of the poor, and this committee so appointed seems to have made a re- port. In 1853 the Superintendents of the Poor earnestly recom- mended to the Board of Supervisors that steps be taken for the purchase of a proper poor farm and the erection of county poor buildings, and W. W. Ralph was appointed by the Board of Super- visors as agent to open correspondence and elicit information in regard to the cost and advisability of so doing. At the October session of the Board of Supervisors in 1854 a tax of eight hundred dollars was directed to be levied upon the taxable property of the county and this sum when raised was to be applied toward the purchase of a poor farm and erection of county buildings. R. W.
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HISTORY OF BARRY COUNTY
Hanna of Irving, D. G. Robinson of Hastings, and Hiram Lewis were appointed as a committee to select a proper location for the poor farm. On January 22, 1855, this committee reported to the Board of Supervisors. Much opposition to the purchase of the present poor farm was apparent, and the Board of Supervisors voted not to purchase the farm recommended by the committee. On the next day, however, they rescinded that resolution and ap- pointed a committee consisting of John Miles, O. B. Sheldon and Silas Bowker, who were to purchase a poor farm as soon as prac- ticable and who were to use their own judgment as they might think proper in the situation in its purchase, and to draw the money from the county treasury for the payment of the same. Shortly afterward this committee purchased for thirty- five hundred dollars the west half of the southeast quarter and the east twenty acres of the southwest quarter of section 27 in the township of Hastings, now constituing the Poor Farm. There were already buildings upon this farm, but a frame building near the site of the present county poor house was erected for the care of the poor, and this was repaired from time to time until 1877, when a committee of the Board of Supervisors reported that the county poor house was entirely unfit for the comfortable keeping of the inmates and recommended that the county build a new brick poor house containing at least one room for the care of insane patients. David G. Robinson, Samuel J. Bidelman of Hastings, and Lewis Durkee of Castleton were named as a building com- mittee to look after the erection of the same, and the present poor house was constructed and turned over by the committee to the Superintendents of the Poor as completed in January, 1879. In 1898 a brick hospital building was erected by the Superintendents of the Poor and later a building for the care of tubercular patients was established.
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