History of Bay County, Michigan, and representative citizens, Part 10

Author: Gansser, Augustus H., 1872-
Publication date: 1905
Publisher: Chicago : Richmond & Arnold
Number of Pages: 738

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to Saginaw, in order that they might be nearer his favorite haunts, the shores of Saginaw bay and river.

That same year Albert Miller bought land along the Saginaw River, in what is now Bay County, and proceeded to lay out the town of Portsmouth. At the same time, Mr. Fraser planned the purchase of the Riley Indian Re- serve, given to that family of half-breeds by the government for bringing about the favor- able treaty of 1819 with the Indians.

In September, 1836, this reserve was bought by the Saginaw Bay Company, which Mr. Fraser had organized, for the sum of $30,000, an enormous price in those days. The stockholders included some of Michigan's most prominent citizens : Governor Stevens Thomp- son Mason, the first executive of our State, whose remains lie buried in New York,-they are now to be brought back to Detroit, to be buried on the site of the first Capitol of Michi- gan, Griswold Park, through the consent of his sister, Miss Elizabeth Mason, now of Wash- ington, D. C., secured on the day following President Roosevelt's inauguration,-March 5, 1905 : also Henry R. Schoolcraft ( Indian com- missioner), Frederick H. Stevens, John Hul- bert, Andrew T. McReynolds, Horace Hallock, Electus Backus, Henry K. Sanger, Phineas Davis and James Fraser. The articles of association were executed February 9, 1837, and a deed in trust, naming Frederick H. Ste- vens and Electus Backus as trustees, was exe- cuted February 1I, 1837. The company at once caused 240 acres to be surveyed and plat- ted for a town, and named it "Lower Saginaw."

The boundaries of this embryo city were the present Woodside avenue, the river, a line 400 feet south of and parallel with 10th street, and a line 100 feet east of and parallel with Van Buren street. The energy and enterprise shown in making the purchase was continued

HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY

in laying out the future city. A dock and ware- house were built, and a large hotel was framed and lumber provided for its completion. A building was also erected to contain the "wild- cat" bank. The plans of the company were only just maturing, when the panic and finan- cial crash brought the work to a standstill, and the stockholders of the Saginaw Bay Company to the verge of bankruptcy. James Fraser alone was able to tide over the storm.

In 1838 business in the valley was at a standstill, and the land-lookers vanished. The Saginaw County Bank, projected for Lower Saginaw, and the Commercial Bank of Ports- mouth had bills engraved for circulation, but aside from those stolen while in transit from the engravers in New York, none was ever put into circulation. On March 1, 1838, Sydney S. Campbell and family arrived to take charge of the hotel, and with their advent begins the real history of Bay City proper.

In 1837, John Farmer resurveyed and re- platted the town of Portsmouth for the Ports- mouth Company, headed also by Governor S. T. Mason, and including Henry Howard, State Treasurer; Kensing Pritchet, Secretary of State; John Norton, cashier of the Michigan State Bank; John M. Berrien, of the United States Army, and Albert Miller, judge of the Probate Court of Saginaw County. That also was before the great financial crash came, and things for a season looked bright indeed for this valley. Judge Miller, B. K. Hall, Thomas Rogers and Barney Cromwell erected the first sawmill here in 1837. The first postoffice was established the same year at Portsmouth, with Judge Miller, as postmaster, and Thomas Rog- ers as mail carrier, bringing mail once each week from Saginaw. Three or four letters each way, and a few weekly papers coming down, was the extent of the mail business for several years to come. Dr. J. T. Miller located

at Portsmouth about this time,-the first physi- cian to begin practice here.

Mrs. Elizabeth Rogers, wife of Thomas Rogers, was the daughter of Dr. Wilcox, of Watertown, New York. She was an earnest student of medicine, putting up the prescrip- tions for her father, and when but 18 years old was often consulted by her father on difficult cases. In 1828 she married Thomas Rogers, coming with him to this county in 1837. For years she was the ministering angel of the early pioneers. Through storm and night she would hasten to the bedside of the sick and the dying, sometimes on horseback, more often on foot, through the woods, swamps and prairie, wherever the call of duty might be. For 15 years she was present at every birth in the set- tlement. During the epidemic of cholera she was the constant attendant of the sick and the dying, day and night. She would take no money and had no price. Some of the daily necessities of life sent to her home would be accepted, but nothing more. After 1850 many practicing physicians came to the valley, yet many of the old settlers would call Mrs. Dr. Rogers, as they fondly called her. William R. McCormick was taken with the cholera, and ever after credited Mrs. Rogers with saving his life. The Rogers family occupied a little block-house on the banks of the river in Ports- mouth, and the venerable old lady never wearied in after years of telling her many har- rowing experiences in those dismal years. The wolves howled so at night that the newcomers could not sleep. In time they became so accus- tomed to these nightly wolf concerts that they did not mind them any more, and often in after years she would start out to see a sick person with the howling of the wolves as accompani- ment all the way. Often in the daytime she could see packs of wolves romping on the oppo- site river bank, where Salzburg is now located.

FIRST BUILDING ERECTED IN BAY CITY. (Built by Medor Trombley in 1835, and still standing at 24th and Water streets, East Side.)

GOLD

MEDAL FLOUR'

OLD GLOBE HOTEL, Bay City, E. S.

BAY COUNTY POOR FARM AND BOARD OF SUPERVISORS IN 1899. (Buildings burned April 9, 1905.)

BAY COUNTY COURT HOUSE, Bay City, E. S.

AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS.

One day two drunken Indians came to her door while her husband was away. She refused them admittance, when they secured an axe and proceeded to break down the door. She seized an iron rake, flung open the door and knocked the nearest redskin senseless with one blow, and the other was glad to make off. Then she nursed the wounded Indian back to con- sciousness and bade him begone. She was at once brave and tenderhearted, and gave the pioneers credit for all the noble characteristics she herself possessed. When the tide of com- mercialism swept over the valley, she fre- quently remarked the change. Our settlement has grown from three families to more than 20,000 inhabitants, she would say, but the greatest change is in the people themselves. They do not seem to be as hospitable, noble- hearted and generous, as they used to be. And the surviving pioneers readily agreed with her. She died July 16, 1881, in the community for which she had done so much during the trying days of the early settlement.

Cromwell Barney brought his family to this place in 1838 from Rhode Island and on May 22, 1838, there was born in the little block- house on the river bank, now Fourth avenue and Water street, Mary E. Barney, the first female white child born in Bay County, later Mrs. Alfred G. Sinclair, a well-known resident of Bay City. Barney was the messenger of the little settlement in those years, and frequently made the trip to Detroit in winter for supplies, which he would bring back on a little sled, re- quiring nine days for the round trip! The Barney farm, located within the boundaries of the First Ward of Bay City, was long a land- mark in the county, and a street of that ward has been named after him. He later went into the lumbering business with James Fraser on the Kawkawlin River, where he lived until his death, November 30, 1851. He was a con-

spicuous type of the early pioneer. Upright and straightforward in all his dealings with his fellow-men, of unbounded energy, to whom idleness was a crime, he was one of the ster- ling builders of this community. In 1838, Cromwell Barney was working on the Globe Hotel, which is still standing, though consider- ably altered, at the corner of Water street and Fifth avenue. At that time the clearing along the river front extended only from what is now Third street to Center avenue, and east hardly as far as Washington avenue. Four block- houses comprised the settlement.

Mr. Fraser induced Sydney S. Campbell to open the Globe Hotel, the first hostelry here, his friends insisting ever afterward, that Syd's love of ease made it easy for him to doze in the wilderness. Born at Paris, Oneida County, New York, February 29, 1804. Judge Camp- bell did not enjoy many birthdays during his long and useful life. In March, 1830, he mar- ried Catherine J. McCartee, at Schenectady, New York, and immediately started life near Pontiac, Michigan. They were of that sturdy Scotch stock, which did so much to build up this valley. Their eldest son, Edward Mc- Cartee Campbell, was the first white boy born in Lower Saginaw. He built a brick business block on Water street, and looked after the Globe Hotel continuously for more than 45 years. The venerable old couple spent the last years of their life in the commodious farm house at Woodside avenue and Johnson street, surrounded by a large orchard, which 23 years ago yielded many a juicy apple to the humble scribe of these chapters, whose good fortune it was to be a favorite of the pioneers. The jovial old settler provided the children of the neigh- borhood with their pet rabbits and tame pig- eons, and seemed never happier than when a group of youngsters would listen to his Indian yarns and play with his many pets.

HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY

Sydney S. Campbell was the first supervi- sor of Hampton township, elected in 1843, and was judge of probate of Bay County for 16 years after its organization. He used to tell the writer that it was a common thing for him to paddle 16 miles to Saginaw for one pound of tea. In 1839 he borrowed the government team of oxen and plowed up the site of the Folsom & Arnold mill, now the Wylie & Buell lumber-yard, and sowed a field of buckwheat, which he and his good wife harvested on a sail- cloth and stored it away in the loft of Camp- bell's hotel. That winter there was a scarcity of flour, and pioneers and Indians helped them- selves to Mr. Campbell's buckwheat, which they ground in a coffee-mill in the "wild-cat" bank building, just across the way. Frederick Derr, a young mechanic, came here that year, and meeting Miss Clark, a young lady teacher who had been engaged to teach the young idea to sprout, promptly proposed, was accepted, and before night the blacksmith of the settle- ment, who was also justice of the peace, tied the knot in the smithy by simply pronouncing them man and wife. This was the first wed- ding here. Mrs. Derr lived only a year after the marriage, being the second person to be buried in the cemetery established by the set- tlers where Columbus and Garfield avenues now meet. A death in that little backwoods settlement cast a gloom over the population, which it took months to efface.

During the winter of 1838-39. General Rousseau and his brother, Captain Rousseau, with Dr. Rousseau, an uncle, were busy sur- veying new townships in this vicinity for the government, which had lately acquired a clear title to the lands from the Indians. Owing to the swampy nature of much of the land, this work could best be done when the ice and snow made them passable. In 1839, Louis Clawson, assisted by some of the well-known trappers

and traders of the valley, surveyed much of the territory along the shore of Lake Huron for the government. Tradition and speculation on those lands were giving way to scientific research and established fact.

In July, 1839, Captain Stiles with a char- tered vessel brought Stephen Wolverton from Detroit to begin the erection of the old light- house at the mouth of the river, which is still standing, a picturesque landmark of those early mariners. It has since been replaced by a larger and more modern lighthouse. Capt. Levi John- son, of Cleveland, finished the first one in 1841.

In September, 1839, the early settlers had a chance to see one of the large assemblies of In- dians, which in years previous had been a com- mon occurrence in the valley. Seventeen hun- dred Indians camped about the Globe Hotel and on the Fitzhugh mound on the West Side for two weeks, while John Hulbert, the Indian agent, distributed the final payment of $80,000 for the purchase of their reservation, consum- mated in 1837. The Indians camped there for two weeks, and not one overt act is charged to them during their stay. It was an event the old settlers long remembered and often recalled. For a time Poor Lo lived high, but he had not the faculty of handling money, and fakers of all descriptions soon separated him from the fruits of his land sale.

In 1838, Capt. Joseph F. Marsac came here as Indian farmer and government agent, and he did his best to secure to the red men a safe method of keeping their money, and a few who followed his advice and invested their cash in real estate in this vicinity, reaped the harvest a few years later. Captain Marsac was one of the most popular pioneers here. Born near Detroit about 1790, he commanded a company at the battle of the Thames in the War of 1812. The Indians were fighting for the English, and when General Proctor wanted

AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS.

messages taken back to Detroit, he selected an old scout, James Groesbeck, and Captain Mar- sac for the perilous undertaking. They hid in the daytime, and traveled at night, until the message was safely delivered to the American commander at Detroit. In 1816 he visited Chicago as interpreter and trader. That future metropolis of the West then contained but five block-houses. In 1819, General Cass sent for him to assist in passing the treaty of that year with the Indians, where Captain Marsac did excellent service. He rode on horseback with General Cass all over Michigan, as the Gov- ernor was determined to see how things actu- ally looked in the much-abused interior. Com- missioned by Governor Porter to raise a com- pany of Indian fighters for the Black Hawk War, he got as far as Chicago, when news came that Black Hawk had been captured, and Cap- tain Marsac's company of border scouts re- luctantly returned home. In 1836 and 1837 he took a prominent part in the final treaties for the Indians' lands. He was a close friend of O-ge-ma-ke-ga-to, and did much to win over that powerful chieftain. His estimable wife, Theresa Rivard, was born at Grosse Pointe, Michigan, July 22, 1808, and in 1829 became the bride of the famous Indian fighter. They had six children : Charles, Octavius, for 12 years recorder for Bay City and Democratic candidate for another term for Greater. Bay City ; Mrs. Leon Trombley, Mrs. W. H. South- worth, Mrs. T. J. McClennan, and Mrs. George Robinson, all residents of the city their father helped to build. Captain Marsac died in the old homestead in this city, June 18, 1880.

On November 16, 1840, Capt. John S. Will- son sailed into the river with his family, just ahead of a cold wave which froze up the river the next night, which remained closed until late the following April. He took his family

to the little block-house on Albert Miller's prop- erty in Portsmouth, where he lived until the McCormicks bought the homestead in 1842. Then he bought 27 acres of land on the river front, between the present 18th and 21st streets, building a cabin and planting an orchard. He spent the winters hunting and trapping, with good success, and in summer he sailed the 40- ton schooner "Mary" along the shore between Lower Saginaw and Detroit. In the fall of 1844 he was caught in a terrible storm off the mouth of the river, blown across the lake and shipwrecked on the Canadian shore, 80 miles above Goderich. He and his crew had to walk to that little port with frozen feet and without food. They could get no help until they reached Detroit, and from there they had to walk to their homes in the Saginaw Valley! The settlers had long since given boat and crew up for lost, and their surprise was unbounded when the hardy mariners arrived. Captain Willson's oldest daughter had died during his absence, and he gave up sailing for the less risky occupation of farming. Little did he dream that within 10 years his farm would become the site for a mammoth sawmill. The sturdy pioneers had 14 children, seven of whom survive. Captain Willson died in this city August 21, 1879, and his good wife did not long survive him. A suitable monument marks their last resting place in Pine Ridge Cemetery.

In 1840, Dr. Daniel Hughes Fitzhugh bought considerable land on the west side of the river, opposite Portsmouth and Lower Sag- inaw. In 1841 came Bay City's most famous citizen, Hon. James G. Birney, in pursuit of solitude and rest, which he found. Dr. Fitz- hugh, James Fraser and Hon. James G. Birney were practically the sole owners of Lower Sag- inaw, having bought the rights and properties of the defunct Saginaw Bay Company. Theo-

HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY

dore Walker, of Brooklyn, New York, also held some of the scrip for the land, which he secured, for an unpaid tailor bill, from one of the bankrupt stockholders of the original com- pany. Little did he dream that some day this discredited bit of paper would bring him wealth and a new home. He came here in 1842, and for years after was one of the town's most ec- centric characters, until death claimed him in 1870. The lives of these three projectors of Bay City,-Fitzhugh, Fraser and Birney,-are so closely identified with the growth and de- velopment of these cities that their personal sketches belong of right to the section of this work devoted exclusively to biographies. The first six years of their activity in the new settle- ment were rather monotonous.

In 1842, Frederick Backus brought a stock of goods and opened the first store in Bay County, in the vacant warehouse on the river front.

In 1843, Michael Dailey, the Indian trader and interpreter, opened his trading house at the mouth of the Kawkawlin River, and began his travels about Northern Michigan, which gave him a well-merited repute as a fur hunter and pedestrian. Each winter he would take his blanket and pack and follow the shore of Lake Huron as far north as the Straits of Mac- inac and even the shores of Lake Superior. On one of these trips he met the two Indians whe were handling Uncle Sam's mail with a dog train, at Sault Ste. Marie, bound for Lower Saginaw. The Indians were on snow-shoes, and calculated to go 50 miles each day. This did not discourage Mr. Dailey, who led the Indians a merry pace for 150 miles, finally left them, and came into this settlement some hours ahead of the dog train. In 1857, Mr. Dailey married Miss Longtin, daughter of an estima- ble pioneer, and having unbounded confidence

in the future of this settlement invested all his earnings in real estate, which eventually be- came very valuable. The last years of his life were spent in the family homestead on Wash- ington avenue and First street, suffering much from rheumatism due to exposure and over- exertion in his younger days.

In 1843 the settlement was separated from Saginaw township and created into Hampton township. In 1844 the first school house was built near the north end of Washington ave- nue, and Israel Catlin arrived. Hon. James G. Birney held religious services in this building, with the often dubious assistance of the irre- sistible Harry Campbell. In 1845 the late P. J. Perrott joined his fortunes with the settle- ment. J. B. Hart and B. B. Hart came in 1846.

In April, 1846, Hon. James Birney, of Con- necticut, came to visit his father. His experi- ence on this trip is a vivid reminder of the prim- itive conditions still existing in the interior of Michigan at this time. He journeyed from Flint to Saginaw by the stage, a springless wagon drawn by two ponies, over a road of corduroy and mud, each worse than the other, with plenty of trees and roots adding excite- ment and jolts to the trip. After waiting two days at Saginaw for a boat to bring him down, he hired an Indian for 75 cents to paddle him down. He surprised his famous father while the latter was working in mud and water up to his ankles on a line fence where St. Joseph's Church is now located, then a long way in the wilderness.

In 1847, James Fraser proceeded to carry out his pet scheme of converting these majestic pine trees into lumber, and the lumber into the circulating medium of the realm, by construct- ing the first sawmill in conjunction with Hop- kins and Pomeroy.

In the winter of 1847, H. W. Sage, of New

AND REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS.

York, who later did so much to develop the west side of the river, came with Deacon An- drews and Jarvis Langdon, of Elmira, New York, and Joseph L. Shaw, of Ithaca, New York, to negotiate with Mr. Birney for some of the property in the settlement, whose fame was gradually finding its way to the business centers of the East. They put up at the Globe Hotel, where they found only one little bed available for strangers. They cast lots to see who would sleep in the bed, and three drew lucky numbers, while Deacon Andrews drew the floor, but as the latter was old and in poor health, Mr. Sage took his place on the pine knots. After several nights on the floor, Mr. Sage concluded he had had enough of rough pioneer experience and salt pork thrice daily, so on the Sabbath Day he hired a sleigh and, despite the Deacon's scruples about traveling on the Lord's Day, hied himself back to civil- ization.

In 1847, Daniel H. Futzhugh, Jr., built what was then considered an extravagant house on the corner of Third and Water streets.

In 1848 the fortunes of the settlement be- gan to brighten, and soon a boom was in full swing. In 1848 there were added to the popu- lation,-Curtis Munger, who opened the sec- ond store in the settlement ; and Edward Parke, an experienced pioneer. Thomas Carney and wife came to look after the boarding house being built for the sawmill employees, and J. S. Barclay and wife reinforced the Scotch col- ony in this outpost of civilization in the north woods, as Deacon Andrews described it, after regaining his equilibrium and his cottage in the East.

J. L. Hibbard came to clerk in the Munger store in 1849, as did Alexander. Mckay and family and J. W. Putnam, who erected homes cn the river front in keeping with the

modest pretensions of the settlement. Old settlers assure us that life in the colony was now picking up. The social forces consisted of the Mesdames Barney, Bar- clay, Cady, Catlin, Campbell, Hart and Rogers, all of whom belonged to the "social set" and kept perpetual open house, where they disseminated the local news with conscientious promptness and due diligence. A serpentine foot-path winding in and out among the stumps on the river bank furnished an ample thorough- fare for the equippages of the little settlement. But the tall and whispering pines on the Sagi- naw had been heard in the business centers of the country, and soon there came "the first low waves, which soon will be followed by a human sea."

The settlement is growing apace in 1850, and space will forbid calling the roll of these new arrivals. The little community soon began to grow by leaps and bounds. The axe of the woodsman is heard all along the shores of the river, the clearings are increasing in number and in size, new cabins and cottages, more or less pretentious, are springing up under the merry music of hammer and saw, new mills are furnishing work for new arrivals, new busi- ness places are opened up, the river is alive with craft of all descriptions, roads are opened to the south and east, fisheries prosper, and farms are in bloom, where once the whip-poor- will was undisturbed. The settlement is out- growing its last suit of homespun, and the boundaries are being steadily pushed eastward, northward and southward, while an equally ambitious community beckons to Lower Sagi- naw from the village of Wenona across the river. The settlers have become villagers and citizens. The reminiscences of the pioneers must give way to the record of achievements in the fields of commerce and industry. The

HISTORY OF BAY COUNTY

pathfinders have shown the way! The multi- tude will soon follow. Ever new shoulders are being put to the wheels of progress and devel- opment. The long drawn out and hard fought battle of the early settlers with dangers, priva-

tions, toil and hardships is clearly won. The "Garden Spot of Michigan," but yesterday a howling wilderness, has been revealed even under the primitive work of the pioneers. An- other new era is dawning in this blessed valley!

CHAPTER V.

ORGANIZATION AND GROWTH OF BAY COUNTY.

EARLY LAND TRANSACTIONS AND SETTLEMENTS-HAMPTON TOWNSHIP ERECTED-EARLY ELECTIONS-THE STRENUOUS FIGHT FOR SEPARATION FROM SAGINAW COUNTY-ERA OF PROSPERITY-EARLY OFFICIAL TRANSACTIONS-ARENAC COUNTY ERECTED-CEN- SUS FIGURES AND SOME VITAL STATISTICS-SYNOPSIS OF ELECTION RETURNS-SOME OF THOSE WHO HAVE SERVED IN OFFICIAL POSITIONS-ROSTER OF COUNTY OFFICIALS.

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History of Bay County, Michigan, and representative citizens, Part 10

Author: Gansser, Augustus H., 1872- Publication date: 1905 Publisher: Chicago : Richmond & Arnold Number of Pages: 738

Author: Gansser, Augustus H., 1872-
Publication date: 1905
Publisher: Chicago : Richmond & Arnold
Number of Pages: 738