USA > Michigan > Calhoun County > History of Calhoun county, Michigan, With Illustrations descriptive of its scenery > Part 18
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Memphis, Missouri, July 18, 1862; Moor's Mill, Missouri, July 28, 1862 ; Kirsville, Missouri, August 6, 1862; Brownsville, Arkansas, August 25, 1863 ; Bayou Mecoe, Arkansas, September 7, 1863; Little Rock, Arkansas, September 10, 1863; Benton, Arkansas, September 11, 1863 ; Princeton, Arkansas, Decem- ber 8, 1863; Little Missouri River, Arkansas, April 3, 4, 1864; Prairie Dehau, Arkansas, April 12-14, 1864; Camden, Arkansas, April 15, 1864; Jenkins' Ferry, Arkansas, April 29, 30, 1864; Franklin, Missouri, October 1, 1864; Ot- terville, Missouri, October 10, 1864; Independence, Missouri, October 22, 1864 ; Big Blue, Missouri, October 23, 1864; Trenton Gap, Georgia, March 22, 1865 ; Alpine, Georgia, March 24, 1865 ; Summerville, Georgia, March 25, 1865.
ONE HUNDRED AND SECOND UNITED STATES COLORED TROOPS.
The only Michigan colored regiment in the war was the One Hundred and Second United States, raised by Colonel Henry Barns, of Detroit, organized by Lieutenant- Colonel W. T. Bennett, and in March, 1864, took the field in command of Colonel H. L. Chipman, then a captain in the regular army, who had procured a leave of absence for that purpose. It was mustered into the service as the First Michigan. There were some thirty or more men from Calhoun County enlisted in the regiment, but no fully organized company. J. H. Clark, of Marshall, was orderly sergeant of Company I. The regiment served in South Carolina and Florida and in that section of the country. It made a good record in the following, its list of engagements during the service :
Baldwin, Florida, August 8, 1864; Honey Hill, South Carolina, December 30, 1864 ; Tullifinny, South Carolina, December 7, 1864 ; Devaux Neck, South Caro- lina, December 9, 1864; Cuckwold's Creek Bridge, February 8, 1865 ; Sumter- ville, South Carolina, April 8, 1865 ; Spring Hill, South Carolina, April 15, 1865 ; Swift Creek, South Carolina, April 17, 1865; Boykins, South Carolina, April 18, 1865 ; Singleton's Plantation, South Carolina, April 19, 1865.
CHAPTER XVI.
CONCLUSION.
AND now, dear reader, our task is done. We have wandered together by the stream of history as, for nearly half a century, it has meandered through old Calhoun, receiving its affluents here and there, and depositing in its banks relics of the past, which patiently, and we trust successfully, we have exhumed and brought before your vision, recalling the olden time and placing it in contrast with the new. Standing on some jutting headland, we view the panorama as it slowly passes by, unfolding the etchings the versatile artist, Time, has penciled thereon. Here, coming up out of the misty past, is the Indian in full chase after the bounding deer. He passes, and before his form dies away in the distance we see the first settlers moving forward with the slow-paced oxen, bearing their house-
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HISTORY OF CALHOUN COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
hold treasures into the openings of the Kalamazoo. A cabin of rude logs rises ; the pioneer's axe rings through the woods ; the cumbersome plow turns the fur- rows .; the pioneer mill rises, and a new life has taken possession of the wilderness, and the hunting-grounds of the red man are no more before us, but have moved westward toward the setting sun. Another scene unfolds before us, and the rude school-house and chapel are seen, wherein gather the children of the pioneer for instruction, even amid the solitudes of the border ; and we hear the song of thanks- giving and the voice of melody rise upon the air, and blend with the song of birds and the rustle of leaves as the summer zephyrs move the foliage of the woods. The stage-coach rumbles up to the door of the log hostelry, the notes of the driver's horn waking merry echoes through the old parks, and startling the quail and partridge from their coverts by the wayside. Houses of more pretentious appearance begin to dot the landscape, which is fast assuming the aspect of a civil- ized and prosperous community. Villages, whose houses have been playing hide- and-seek among the oaks of a thousand winters, but now nestling more sociably together, are rising into view ; and church spires, sure indices of civilization and refinement, point heavenward, as if to lift the thoughts of the dwellers of the land from the soil, wherefrom hitherto their chief substance has been drawn, to other sources of life rather than "bread alone." Another picture comes before us as the parallel bands of iron converging into one in the dim distance expand into the railway track, along which thunder the cars of the Central, and lo ! the old life is gone and another takes its place. "Ten days to New York and return" is soon put to shame by the fast train through in a single day. The telegraph brings the news from the sea-board, and the days of slow-moving trade are num- bered and laid to rest. Magnificent school-houses, wherein the youth are fitted for life's business, professionally or otherwise, stand before us, monuments to the wisdom of the founders of the system which has made them possible. Spacious and luxurious tabernacles take the place of the out-door temples of the Boanerges of the olden time, who launched their doctrines, fiery and depressing, at our de- 7
fenseless heads. The priests who minister at the altars of the new temples tell us the story of the " very same Jesus," but in tripping cadences and rhetorical periods. Another series of scenes comes before us, and we see in dim and shadowy outline the pioneer shouldering his trusty rifle, and bidding wife and children good-by, leaving westward to intercept the approach of the savage before his bloody trail shall strike his own settlement. This moves on, and in its place we see the sons of these pioneers forming by squad and company and battalion and regiment, and going forth by hundreds, yes, thousands, to defend the flag of the country which has given them a government, under whose fostering care all these later scenes have been made accomplished facts. We look upon the serried ranks as they move forward, shoulder to shoulder, against the deadly blast of war. The cannon and musketry of traitors in arms thin their ranks, but forward they bear' the colors of the Union, reflected in their blood, that stains every step of the weary . way from Bull Run to Appomattox. Homeward they turn when victory is secure and the Union has triumphed, their columns gaping from the havoc of shot and shell and the disease of the camp and prison-pen, and their colors ragged and torn, but proud and defiant as ever. One grand ovation to the living, a sad, wail- ing requiem for the dead, and the remnant left of the brave thousands who went forth to do battle for the right settle back into the busy routine of the private citi- zen, and the war-clouds pass away, and gentle Peace covers all with her wings.
And now, dear reader, standing face with these evidences of enlightened prog- ress, shall we not say that the cause of humanity is ever onward and upward ? That here and there, all over the world, the evidence accumulates that the Divine purpose is steadily being developed and wrought out, as well over the bloody trail of war as by the pleasant paths of peace ? And may we not truly say that
" sometimes gleams upon our sight,
Through present wrong, the eternal right ;
And step by step, since time began,
We see the steady gain of man ?"
HISTORY OF THE CITIES, TOWNS, AND VILLAGES OF
CALHOUN COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
THE CITY OF MARSHALL.
AMONG the interior cities of Michigan, none have been more widely known, and few as well advertised, in their early history in the State, as has the city of Marshall. From the very outset of its career it was the expectation not only of its own citizens, but of those of its neighbors far and near, for the space of ten years, that the capital of the State would be located within its limits, and therefore, as early as 1835, lands were set. apart by the proprietors. of the village plat for State uses where the Agricultural Society's ample grounds are now situate, and became known for years as "Capitol Hill." These expectations were based on no imaginary theory, but, as is shown elsewhere, upon actual arrangement with certain powers in authority, whereby a mutual exchange of benefits was to accrue along the line of the Central road, and which arrangement came very near its consummation. This expectation, though it finally proved to be but " the baseless fabric of a vision," did by no means " pass away, leaving not a rack behind," but, on the contrary, most substantial benefits resulted, giving to Marshall a reputation and a fame at home and abroad enviable in the extreme. The most able bar of the State from 1836 to 1850 gathered about this city and that of Battle Creek .. Learned divines and skillful physicians assembled here; the best instructors brought their talents and displayed them for the education of the rising generation, laying foundations of intelligence and culture, and building thereon a stable and permanent structure. The influence and direction given by these earlier citizens have not failed to leave their impress so durably stamped upon the society of the city that the tides of thirty years have not only been un- able to efface it therefrom, but have rather made it deeper and broader. Those who have followed the first-comers have taken up the lines where their predeces- sors had dropped them, and gone forward, in a great measure, to greater achieve- ments, at least in a social and intellectual sense. The Marshall of the olden time may have been noted for its great expectations, but it was none the less noted for its actual excellences. Among its first expectations which came to naught (with which, for reasons above given, the capitol dream should not be classed) was its steamboat navigation of the Kalamazoo. In consequence of a strife between Comstock and Kalamazoo, then called Bronson, for the county-seat of Kalamazoo county, Marshall secured the prize, and was declared to be the head of steamboat navigation on the Kalamazoo. Immediately the lithographer was called into requisition, and his artistic skill portrayed the future city as already a queen, with steamboats loading and unloading at her wharves. But it was soon ascer- tained that it was a difficult if not impossible feat for a fair-sized scow with a decent cargo to make the descent of the stream, so narrow and shallow was its channel. The village was well advertised, however. Speculation in 1835-37 was rife in Marshall as everywhere, and real estate rose rapidly in value, and when the crash came, to tide over the stormy times recourse was had to " wild cat" banking, based on mortgages on real estate, which very shortly shrunk in value to such meagre proportion that the issues of the concerns which flooded the country were worthless rags, and many well-digested plans based thereon came to naught, and brought ruin and bankruptcy to the unfortunate schemers.
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Among those who strove to build up Marshall by every means at his command was the original proprietor of the village, Sidney Ketchum, who labored diligently to that end for more than fifteen years, but was overwhelmed in the final disaster and left penniless, and forced to emigrate farther west and begin life anew. He was the first proprietor of Marshall, having come to its location in the summer of 1830 from central New York,-Clinton county. Being provided with letters of introduction to Governor Cass, he, on leaving his eastern home for a tour of ob- servation through the west, determined to look at the Territory of Michigan, and
arrived at Detroit in the month of August of the year 1830, and, after obtaining all possible information, proceeded to the interior. There were at this period two roads which had been surveyed across the peninsula, one known as the Chicago turnpike, which had been partially worked, leading from Detroit to Chicago, and the other known as the Territorial road, diverging from the Chicago road at or near Ypsilanti, and passed directly west, and terminated at the mouth of the St. Joseph, on Lake Michigan. The latter road had been surveyed and "blazed" only, and followed a deeply-worn Indian trail, trodden perhaps for ages. Mr. Ketchum procured the assistance of Samuel Camp at Ann Arbor, and made his selection of lands and water at the site of the present city of Marshall and village of Albion, as is fully related in the general history of the county. In tracing the progress of the settlement of Marshall, Mr. Ketchum's prominence in every scheme for its advancement will be readily seen, and we will here give but a summary of his work. His large interests in what was subsequently termed the upper village of Marshall, and the water-power in the Kalamazoo, were merged into that of the Marshall Village Company, whose work in building up the place is elsewhere re- corded. He was the chief mover in this enterprise, though others were active with him, Geo. S. Wright being the trustee and fiscal agent for the company. He was largely interested in the Calhoun County bank, being its president during the whole period of its existence. (This was not a "wild cat.") He surveyed and laid out the upper village of Marshall after the seat of justice was located on the plat of the lower village, and was one of the four owners of the lower village, his co-proprietors being Isaac N. Hurd, Charles D. Smith, and George Ketchum. He built the first stone church in the county at the cost of several thousand dol- lars, subscribing liberally at first, and finally completing it himself and presenting it to the Methodist Episcopal church of Marshall. His house, which was the most ample one in the village for many years, was open at all times for public worship of any denomination that chose to occupy it previous to the building of the church, and he brought the first school-teacher to the settlement. Whatever faults Sidney Ketchum had were overbalanced by his restless energy and deter- mination, and although disaster and ruin came to him financially, others who came after him builded largely on his foundations. He removed from Marshall in the year 1845 or thereabouts to the State of New York, and after some years returned again to Marshall, where he died.
In writing the history of a county and its constituent townships recapitulation to some degree is unavoidable, and to avoid it as much as possible we must refer our readers to the general history of the first settlements of the county, as they were mostly made at Marshall, and merely name the settlers in this connection. The first settlers on the village site were George Ketchum and his party, who came thereto in April, 1830, built a cabin and proceeded to erect a saw-mill on Rice creek. They next built a flouring- or rather grist-mill on the same water privilege, getting the same into operation in the fall of 1832. Previous to this time the settlers were compelled to go to Tecumseh, Flowerfield, or Constantine for their milling. The opening of the flouring-mill at Marshall was an important event in the history of the settlement, and reversed the relations of the little hamlet with the outside world at once. It was now the Mecca to which hungry pilgrims for miles around came and were filled, and buying, came again and again, and con- tinued to do so for over thirty years, from the north and south, till the railroads came through the territory which had so long been tributary to the village and city. After the Ketchum party came Dr. A. L. Hays, the first physician in the county, in May following. He came alone to look out a location in the west, and found one at Marshall and bought it, returned to his home in the east, and brought
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RESIDENCE OF C. P. DIBBLE, COR, OF MANSION AND MADISON STSMARSHALL, MICHIGAN.
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HISTORY OF CALHOUN COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
on his family in September of the same year. In July, on the first Sunday of the month, the minister of Christ came in the person of Rev. John D. Pierce, who opened his mouth and taught the little handful that gathered to hear him under the oaks of the forest, which then shaded every inch of the ground which is now covered with the business houses of the present city. A little later, in the month of August, Sidney Ketchum, Randall Hobart, and Peter Chisholm came to make glad the only woman of the settlement-Mrs. Ball-with the companionship of their wives and little ones. In September, Isaac N. Hurd came, and Mrs. Hays, as before stated ; and about this time, or maybe a little later in the fall, Charles D. Smith and Levi Smith, Abram Davidson and Jonathan Wood, of the surveying corps of the United States Land Survey, had secured the site on which the seat of justice was subsequently located. They never settled in Marshall, but disposed of their interest to Hurd, who manipulated the location of the county-seat, securing it in October, 1831, by dedicating certain lots for public purposes. In October, the early part of the month (the 8th day), Rev. John D. Pierce, who had returned to central New York for his family, came to make his home at Marshall. He is now living at Ypsilanti.
In November, George Ketchum, who had returned east for the purpose, brought on his family, and with him came Thomas Chisholm and wife. Asahel Warner and his father, Wareham Warner, came to Marshall in May, 1831, and the former remained a citizen of the village for several years, but the latter returned to New York, and on his second coming to the county located at Albion. In February, 1832, Luther G. Crossman, the builder of the first frame houses in the county, came, and early that year Isaac E. Crary, the first lawyer, came, and the learned professions were all represented. Dr. Luther W. Hart came that year, and Asa B. Cook, Henry Failing, Oshea Wilder, Sands McCamley, Henry J. Phelps, Samuel Camp, and others. About this time Sidney S. Alcott came, perhaps not till 1833, but after 1832 the village gained so rapidly in population it is impos- sible to name them all. Andrew Mann came in 1833 or 1834, George S. Wright in 1835, and is still a prominent resident of the city ; Colonel Charles Dickey, Chauncey M. Brewer, Hon. Charles T. Gorham, Hon. Charles P. Dibble, in 1836, early; Rev. Dr. O. C. Comstock, Sr., and Dr. O. C. Comstock, Jr., Dr. J. H. Montgomery, A. D. Schuyler, and the Wallingfords came in 1836 ; S. S. Burpee in 1835, and F. A. Kingsbury also. In 1833, William R. McCall came, and still continues his trade in the city. Rev. Calvin Clark came in 1835, and after serving his Lord and Master in the State of Michigan forty-two years, fell asleep quietly, peacefully, and quickly, June 4, 1877, at the age of seventy-two years, in the same place where he first located, grown under his eye from a little village of three hundred inhabitants, living mostly in small framed or log houses, to a city of brick business houses, churches, school-houses, and palatial dwellings containing five thousand people. Stephen H. Preston, Esq., Hon. J. Wright Gordon, and Hon. Wm. H. Brown came to the village in 1836, and are named more particularly in the history of the bar of the county. Marvin Preston came in 1833, or before. Sands McCamley kept a boarding-house in Mr. Pierce's double log house in the fall of 1832. Hon. Francis W. Shearman came to the village in 1841 as the editor of the Michigan Journal of Education, and died in the city in 1874. In 1835, James M. Parsons came to the village and engaged in trade, and is still so occupied in the present city. Dr. Joseph Sibley also came in about that time. Preston Mitchell came in 1836, and George Ingersoll in 1838. A. O. Hyde, the veteran druggist of the city, and a genial gentleman, came in 1840, and continues to dispense the specifics of materia medica in the city. Philo Dibble came to the city with his son Charles P. in 1836.
George Ketchum died in California, between 1855 and 1860; Randall Hobart removed also to the Eldorado of the Sierras in 1850, and died there a few years ago; Dr. Hays died in Marshall, and Peter Chisholm also. Crary, Hart, Wilder, ' McCamley, Phelps, Camp, Allcott, Mann, the elder Comstock, Burpee, Gordon, Sherman, Sibley, and Philo Dibble, good, brave, and earnest men all, have laid down to rest beneath the soil of the city they helped so grandly to build.
THE FIRST HOUSE
erected on the site of the present city was the log cabin of George Ketchum. It was twenty by twenty-six feet, one and a half story high. The first frame building erected was Charles D. Smith's store, though the school-house was soon after built, in May or June, 1832. The first frame dwelling of any pretensions erected was that of Hon. Isaac E. Crary, who also built the first frame office erected in the village. The first brick building was the National House, which was erected in 1835, and opened January 1, 1836. The first brick dwelling-house erected was that of Sidney Ketchum, in 1837-38. Deacon J. L. Lord also put up a brick dwelling about as soon as Ketchum, and it was a very fine one, too, for the times. Deacon Lord was on the top of the brick church built by Deacon J. S. Fitch when it fell, but, fortunately, escaped serious injury.
THE FIRST MARRIAGE
celebrated in the county was consummated in the village of Marshall, in the early part of 1833, between John Kennedy and a lady whose name we have been unable to ascertain, Rev. John D. Pierce being the celebrator of the bans.
THE FIRST WHITE CHILD
born in the county was also the first one " to the manor born" in Marshall, and was Helen Chisholm, daughter of Peter Chisholm, the first blacksmith in the city and county. She was born October 26, 1831. She was followed by Luther Hays, a son of Dr. A. L. Hays, in January, 1832. During that year Minerva Chisholm, a daughter of Thomas Chisholm, and Mark McCamley, a son of Sands McCamley, were born, being the third and fourth in point of precedence in the county.
THE FIRST DEATH
that occurred in the county was that of Isaac N. Hurd, a citizen of Marshall, the first victim of the cholera, in July, 1832, his demise taking place on the evening of the 20th day of that month, about twelve hours after the first attack of the scourge. There were eighteen cases of the disease, eight of which proved fatal, out of a population of fifty-six souls. Mrs. John D. Pierce was the second victim, and died July 24, and was prepared for burial by her husband, and by him and Rev. Randall Hobart buried the same evening, Mr. Hobart making the coffin to hold her remains. A Mr. Fake with his wife and three children fled from Detroit to Marshall to escape the disease, which was raging fearfully in the former city. They were boarding with Mr. Pierce when Mrs. Pierce was stricken down, but immediately moved into a small log office. The disease, however, followed the family and took away one child, when they removed into the store chamber of Charles D. Smith, where Mrs. Fake died with the same disease. The father then removed with the two surviving children into Peter Chisholm's house, which happened at that time to be vacant, but death followed and took another child from him, which he left unburied, and, taking the only living remnant of his once happy family, returned to Detroit. Three brothers named Thompson were boarding with Dr. Hays, one of whom was stricken with the awful plague and died, and as soon as life left the body of the victim the two remaining brothers, leaving their dead to be buried by strangers, fled to Detroit. The next death was Julius Kimball, a son of Stephen Kimball, who lived on a farm on the south side of the river. The next and last death was that of Bradshaw, who was in the employ of Sidney Ketchum. These victims were all buried by Mr. Hobart and H. P. Wisner. The school-house was then taken for a hospital, to which the remainder of the sick were carried, and attended by Mr. Hobart and Wisner, until all danger was passed. In 1838, malarial fevers scourged the community most fearfully, as they did all over the country. The well were insufficient in numbers to properly care for the sick, and hardly to give the dead a decent burial. Lack of proper medicines, added to the want of proper treatment and care, swept off the people all through southern Michigan at an appalling rate. All ambition was lost, hope fled, and despair settled upon hundreds, who cared not how soon death put an end to their fears and misery. In Marshall local causes were charged with the intensity of the epidemic, but these were no more responsible for the virulence of the fevers than elsewhere. In 1841 the same diseases wrought havoc again, and the people rose in arms against the mill-pond on Rice creek as the cause of their woes ; and the board of trustees of the corporation took action on the matter, and after due notice served on Messrs. Comstock and Halsey, who then owned, or at least operated, the property, called on the people to aid in enforcing the demands of the board in the abatement of what they had declared under the statute to be a nuisance. On Saturday, Nov. 27, 1841, the people assembled, agreeably to the summons of the village authorities, at the dam of the pond, intent on de- molishing the same, with great excitement moving the crowd. But peaceful counsels prevailed, and a compromise was effected whereby one thousand dollars was subscribed on the spot to aid the proprietors to build a raceway from some more distant point above the dam, which was estimated to cost two thousand dollars; and, the embankment cut and the pond drained off, the people dispersed, well satisfied with the favorable turn matters had taken.
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