USA > Michigan > Calhoun County > History of Calhoun county, Michigan, With Illustrations descriptive of its scenery > Part 48
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Mrs. Hewitt was born in Brutus, Cayuga county, New York, December 31, 1825, and was married to Mr. Hewitt October 13, 1845. The fruits of this union have been the following children : David M., Howard Eugene, Mary Louisa, Minnie Alice, and Carrie L., of whom Minnie alone survives. She is now attending the university at Ann Arbor, pursuing a classical course of four years.
Mr. Hewitt is identified with the Republican party in his political affiliations, and was formerly a Democrat, and cast his first presidential vote for Van Buren, in 1840. He has held the position of supervisor of Marengo for several years, discharging the duties of the office acceptably to all parties. He is not a mem- ber of any church organization, but ranks high among his fellow-citizens as an upright, moral, and enterprising man. Mrs. Hewitt and her daughter, Minnie, are members of the Congregational church of Marshall.
HENRY L. WHITE.
The subject of the present sketch was born in Ira township, Cayuga county, New York, October 20, 1819. His parents, Asa and Lucy (Bennett) White, were natives of Connecticut, and removed therefrom to Cayuga county. Mr. White lived as a boy with his father, assisting on the latter's farm and attending the district schools of the country until he was twenty-one years of age, at which time he removed to Calhoun County, Michigan, and located in the township of Clarence, purchasing from time to time lands until he now owns a good farm of two hundred acres. He resided on his farm until March 15, 1872, when he assumed charge of the county almshouse and farm, and has been so engaged to the present time. He is quite successful in the management of the unfortunates placed under his charge, his strong common sense and humanity blending and controlling his actions to such a degree as to make his rule on the farm a success. On the 20th January, 1839, Mr. White was married to Julia Ann, daughter of Noah Brown, a native of Massachusetts. Mrs. White was also a native of Mas- sachusetts, where she was born in 1822, and removed with her parents to Cayuga county, New York. The children of this marriage are Emma, now Mrs. Peter Strauss, of Bedford township, and Charles, a resident of Marshall township, in Calhoun County. Mr. White is a Democrat in politics, and has held several minor offices in his township, among them that of town treasurer for several years. Mr. and Mrs. White are not members of any church, but incline to that of the Baptist denomination,-their parents being members of that body.
THOMAS CHISHOLM.
Among the sterling farmers of Calhoun County none stand higher in point of thrift, skillful management, and just dealing, than did the subject of our brief review, Thomas Chisholm, in his life-time, spent largely in pioneer times in New York and Michigan. Born amid the purple bloom of the heather in " bonnie Scotland," the qualities of unbending integrity and inflexible purpose, the peculiar characteristics of the natives of the land of Bruce, distinguished Mr. Chisholm throughout his life of nearly threescore and ten years. He was born in Melrose on the 5th day of May, 1807, being the first-born child of John and Barbara (Young) Chisholm, with whom, at the age of ten years, he migrated to Plattsburg, in the State of New York, where he encountered, and for years endured, the pri- vations of a pioneer life in the then wilds of that region. Mills were few, and ' inaccessible to teams, and Mr. Chisholm and his brothers were obliged to draw their grists to and from the nearest one, six miles distant, on a hand-sled, often compelled to stay in the mill over night and make their meals out of parched corn. Potash-making gave them the only means to get money with, the timber, with which the land was densely covered, furnishing the raw material wherewith the same was manufactured by burning.
When Mr. Chisholm was twenty-one years of age, he met and married Miss Minerva D. Platt, a niece of Judge Platt, after whom the city of Plattsburg took its name. In 1831, in company with Sidney Ketchum and Randall Hobart and their families, Mr. Chisholm and his wife, and younger brother, George, came to Calhoun County and located on what is now included in the site of the city of Marshall, where, in 1832, a daughter was born to him, Ellen Minerva, who was the first white child born in that city. She afterwards married a Mr. Boughton, and is now deceased. Mr. Chisholm assisted in building the first dwelling and mills in Marshall, as well as in the county. He entered at the government land office, in 1831, the land on which he resided until his death. Mrs. Chisholm died in June, 1838, leaving, beside the daughter before named, the following children surviving her : James M., Thomas J., and Mary D. On January 22, 1839, Mr. Chisholm took another companion to cheer his pathway,-Miss Mary A. Hewitt, daughter of Dethic and Louisa (Ainsley) Hewitt, and who was born November 27, 1821, in Pike county, Pennsylvania. They were married in Marengo, whither Mrs. Chisholm came with her parents in 1836. Around the old fire- side the following children, fruits of this union, have gathered : Sarah J., now Mrs. J. W. Bailey, of Chicago, Edwin H., George A., Lucy W., who died when but six years of age, Emma L., now Mrs. H. M. Evans, of Marengo, and D. Hewitt Chisholm, at present on the old homestead with his mother. The other sons, by both marriages, all live within a half-hour's ride of the parental roof, on good farms of their own, and amid their own families. Mr. Chisholm was throughout his whole life, from his majority until his death, a stanch and con- sistent Democrat in politics, casting his first presidential vote for General Jackson, in 1828. He was supervisor of Marengo for several years, but never sought political preferment, yet was ready to discharge any duty for the people they thought proper to charge him with the performance of. His elegant and commo-
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HISTORY OF CALHOUN COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
dious farm dwelling and barns were all built by his own exertions and those of his sons, who, with himself, brought the original forest which was once the old home into its present state of high culture and productiveness. We present our readers with a fine view of the same, together with portraits of this pioneer couple, in another part of our work.
Mr. Chisholm, in the closing days of the Centennial year, contracted a severe cold, which, terminating in congestion of the lungs, closed his life on the morning of the new year.
In an obituary published in the Marshall Expounder, written by one who knew him intimately, it is said thus of him: " For nearly forty-six years he has resided where he died. His life has been like an open book, read by all. He was a large and successful farmer, and gave substantial aid and encouragement to every measure calculated to advance the interests of the county. His life has been a pattern of industry, frugality, and honorable dealing, which, in his case, met its sure reward in the esteem and warm personal regard of all who knew him, and in the accumulation of a fine competency. Although firm and decided in his opin- ions, he readily gave to all the same right he claimed for himself, and lived so that no one is found who can say aught against him ; his character unsullied, and his word as good as his oath."
Mr. Chisholm was for years the subject of deep religious impressions, but, naturally diffident, he never felt sufficient confidence to make a public profession of faith.
EDWIN B. CARRIER.
Among the enterprising and successful farmers of Marengo, Edwin B. Carrier justly takes his place. Actuated in his dealings with his fellows by strict integ- rity, his success is commendable, and his upright character has gained him the esteem of his neighbors who know him best, and appreciate him accordingly. His parents, Burt H. and Emeline (Hanchett) Carrier, were natives of Cayuga county, New York, with whom he migrated to Calhoun County, arriving therein March 27, 1837, where they located on section 6, in the township of Sheridan, and where the parents now reside. The father was born May 4, 1807, and the mother September 12, 1812, and were married September 29, 1830. The chil- dren of this marriage were Edwin B., the subject of our sketch, who was born May 13, 1832, in Conquest, Cayuga county ; Oscar M., Alice, now Mrs. Sidney Thomas, whose husband is a prominent lawyer of Chicago, and Orange A., who married Martha Macomber, and now lives on the old homestead. Oscar M. was educated at Olivet, Oberlin, and Yale colleges, graduating among the first in his class from the latter institution in 1860, and was appointed to the professorship of languages in Olivet college about one year thereafter, and died the fourth year of his incumbency, consequent upon his arduous labors and sacrifices for the institution. The college faculty acknowledge their obligations to him for his great labors at a time when the fate of the college was balancing between utter extinction and future usefulness, his services and self-denial being largely the pivotal point on which the institution turned towards the latter direction. He died in Olivet, of softening of the brain, October 31, 1865, leaving a wife, Miss Susie .Lyon, whom he married July 3, 1862. He received the degree of Bachelor of Arts from Yale.
Edwin B. Carrier was married September 27, 1853, to Cornelia C. Root, of Cato, New York, a daughter of Ralph and Phebe (Miller) Root, natives of Massachusetts and New Jersey respectively. She was born November 26, 1831, in Cato, Cayuga county, New York.
Mr. Carrier received more than an ordinary common school education, having attended the Marshall Union school and Olivet college for a time. He taught school for several winters, and also taught several terms of singing schools, and has been the chorister of the Methodist Protestant church of the Rice Creek set- tlement for twenty-five years. He bought his present location in Marengo town- ship in 1853, living thereon ever since. It now includes one hundred and sixty acres, and a view of his excellent improvements, in the way of dwelling and barns, and neat and tasteful grounds, is seen on another page. In politics, Mr. Carrier is a Republican, and he has been a member of the Methodist Protestant church since he was ten years old, and the superintendent of its Sunday-school for nearly or quite twenty years, all told. His children have been as follows: Lester R., who died in infancy ; Ella M., Wilbur O., Sarah A., Merton R., and Ettie.
Mr. Carrier has filled several offices of trust in the township, being elected thereto without solicitation on his part.
Mr. Carrier's mother died, after a long illness, in Sheridan, on the old home- stead, May 26, 1877.
CALEB HANCHETT.
Among the worthy citizens of Calhoun County, Caleb Hanchett, of Marengo township, holds an honorable position. He is a native of Brutus, Cayuga county, State of New York, where he was born, May 18, 1810. His father, David Han- chett, was a native of Hartford, Connecticut, and his mother, Diantha Rood, was born in the State of New York. His father's business was farming, and Caleb remained at home, assisting in the labors on the farm, until he attained his ma- jority, gaining a common school education in the mean time at the district schools of his township. When Mr. Hanchett was about twenty-one years of age, he was united in marriage to Esther, a daughter of Daniel Miller, of Brutus, on the 24th day of February, 1831. She was born in Brutus on the 10th day of March, 1813. The young couple immediately commenced life for themselves, Mr. Hanchett following the business of his father. In April, 1836, Mr. Han- chett came to Calhoun County in search of a new home, and bought a tract of land on sections 35 and 36, township 1 south, range 5 west, now known as the township of Lee. In June, 1837, on the 20th day of that month, his family arrived at that location, but which latter he exchanged for his present one in Marengo, on section 1, and removed to it in November, 1838, on which he has ever since resided, with the exception of a few months' residence in the city of Marshall, where, after the lapse of nearly forty years, are now seen a comfortable brick dwelling and ample barns, surrounded by finely-tilled fields, the original oak openings spread before the eyes of the new settlers, out of which they were to carve their farm and make their home. In this home Mr. and Mrs. Hanchett are now enjoying well-earned repose and comfort, after the burden and heat of the day has been faithfully borne for more than a generation.
Around their hospitable fireside have gathered seven children : Mehitable, now Mrs. W. W. Bentley, of Marengo ; Phebe J., now Mrs. H. E. Dunham, of Ober- lin, Ohio ; Norman De Witt, of Grand Rapids; Elvira Octavia, Mrs. C. A. Ma- gee, of Calhoun County ; Walter C., who died in infancy; Janet Izora, now Mrs. Montgomery Crossman, of Marshall ; and Esther Maria, the wife of W. P. Slay- ton, deputy sheriff of Calhoun County, and who reside in the old homestead with the aged and honored parents of Mrs. Slayton.
Mr. Hanchett, in politics, has ever acted with the Whig and Republican parties, and for seventeen years was the postmaster of the township of Marengo continu- ously, notwithstanding the changes of administrations which intervened. He has held the office of justice of the peace in his town for seven years.
Mr. and Mrs. Hanchett have been members of the Methodist Protestant, now known as the Methodist church, for forty years, and have been zealous and effi- cient members of that society in Marengo since its organization, Mr. Hanchett having been a trustee of that church for twenty-five years. He has been most liberal in his support of the preaching of the gospel, and aided the building of the church very generously.
LEWIS TOWNSEND.
Among the successful farmers of Calhoun County, Lewis Townsend takes justly his place. He was born in Monroe county, State of New York, of which State his parents were natives, October 19, 1817, and removed to the territory of Michigan in the year 1831, when it was to a great extent an unbroken wilderness. The family located in Washtenaw county, near Ypsilanti, on what was called the " Ridge" road, between the latter place and Plymouth. When Lewis was sixteen years old his father gave him his time as an equivalent for his (Lewis') portion of the paternal estate. The first venture the boy-man made was to engage to work for a year at farming for ten dollars per month, but the employer cheated him out of one-half of his wages. In 1836 he took his axe on his shoulder, and with all of his worldly possessions beside, tied up in a handkerchief, traveled on foot to Grand Rapids, a distance of one hundred and sixty miles, and went to work. He cut one hundred and fifty cords of wood on the site of the present business portion of that city, staying about fifteen months, and saving about four hundred dollars. He then returned to Washtenaw county, and bought twenty- five acres of land in Superior township, and began life in earnest by marrying Maria Trumbull, July 7, 1838. Her parents were also natives of New York. In 1851, Mr. Townsend sold out in Washtenaw, and bought four hundred and forty acres in the township of Marengo, near his present residence. He has since then added to his original purchase the present homestead, and also a farm on which his daughter, Mrs. Viletta Barhite, resides. He is now reported to be among the wealthiest farmers in the county, the result of steady, persevering effort on his own part and that of his worthy helpmeet.
The following children have blessed the union of Mr. and Mrs. Townsend :
-
EDWIN B.CARRIER:
MRS. EDWIN B. CARRIER
RESIDENCE OF EDWIN B. CARRIER, SEC. 1 &2. MARENGO TP., CALHOUN CO., MICH.
L. G. CROSSMAN.
MRS. L. G. CROSSMAN
RESIDENCE OF L. C. GROSSMAN, MARENGO , CALHOUN CO., MICHIGAN.
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HISTORY OF CALHOUN COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
Viletta T., born June 15, 1839 ; Miles, July 9, 1841 ; Jerome B., December 30, 1842; Eveline, May 30, 1844 ; Myron, June 4, 1846; Owen L., May 30, 1858. Eveline died in infancy, and Myron when he was nineteen years old and over. Viletta T., Miles, and Jerome are married, and well situated in the county, and Owen lives at home. Mr. Townsend has one sister, Rebecca Watson, residing near the first location of the family in Washtenaw county, and a brother, George W. Townsend, who is in the Methodist ministry. Mr. Townsend, in his party fealty, is a Republican, to which organization he has been attached since its organization. He has been elected supervisor of Marengo eleven times, and was the enrolling and enlisting officer of the township during the entire war of the Rebellion, in which position he was prompt and efficient, spending much time and money to fill the quotas of the township under the several calls of the government for troops. He evinced his faith in the government in subscribing liberally for the first issue of its bonds, at a time when many felt it would be a poor investment, and was jeered at by some of his fellow-citizens for so doing, but who subsequently made invest- ments in the same securities. He is a Protestant in religious belief. His son, Jerome, was two years in the army of the Union during the Rebellion.
LUTHER G. CROSSMAN.
Among the earliest settlers in Calhoun County was Luther George Cross- man, a native of Deerfield, Oneida county, State of New York. His parents, Nathaniel and Mercy (Pratt) Crossman, were natives of Taunton, Massachusetts, from whence they removed to Deerfield prior to 1807. The senior Crossman was a carpenter by trade, but followed farming as a business in Deerfield. The sub- ject of our sketch was born February 10, 1808, and after arriving at a suitable age assisted his father on the farm until he was nineteen years of age, when he turned his attention to his father's trade, and acquired a practical knowledge of the same, which he followed summers, employing his time in the winter seasons in teaching in the district schools of his neighborhood until February, 1832, at which time he came to Calhoun County, and bought his present farm in Marengo township. He, however, did not settle on it until 1837, working at his trade in the mean time, and making several trips back and forth between Calhoun and his native place.
On the 19th day of April, 1837, Mr. Crossman was united in marriage to Amanda M., a daughter of Eseck and Lucy (White) Burlingame, natives of Rhode Island and Massachusetts respectively. Mrs. Crossman was born in Gov- erneur, St. Lawrence county, New York, July 15, 1818, and with her parents removed to Herkimer county, where they resided till she was nine years old, when the family removed to West Bloomfield, Ontario county, in the same State, where she was married. Her grandfather Burlingame was a Revolutionary soldier, and was one of the party who surprised and captured the British General Prescott at Newport.
In October, 1838, Mr. and Mrs. Crossman removed to their home in the woods, and began life in earnest. For nearly forty years they have toiled and brought their wild, unbroken, uncleared land up to a finely-cultivated, productive farm, with comfortable barns and a convenient dwelling thereon, where they are now enjoying the fruits of their honest and well-directed efforts. Around their fireside children have gathered, some of whom have gone out therefrom to homes of their own, some live quietly in the sunshine of the old homestead, and some have gone forward to that land where shadows never come.
Their first-born, John Sidney, died in infancy. Their second, George Harvey, remains at the home where he was born. Next to him, a little bud, a daughter, unfolded and faded almost at the same time. Montgomery, the fourth child, now lives in Marshall, and is the superintendent of the Marshall Wind-Engine Company, he being the inventor and patentee of the article manufactured. Caro- line died when she was five years of age. Florence, now Mrs. H. H. Clute, re- sides in the township of Lee, in Calhoun County, and Helen, Mrs. Garry Blake, in Marengo. Julia M. and Eva, both graduates of the Marshall high school, and the former a teacher, make their home under the old roof where they first saw the light, and by their accomplishments and tenderness add no little to the happi- ness of this pioneer household.
Mrs. Crossman is a woman of intelligence, and has transmitted to her children her own traits of excellence. Mr. Crossman has been a useful citizen in Calhoun County, and is highly esteemed by all who know him. He aided in the erection of the first frame barn and dwelling built in the county, in 1832, the same belong- ing to John Bertram.
Mr. Crossman was formerly a member of the Whig party, and cast his first presidential vote for Henry Clay; and, on the rise of the Republican party, asso- ciated himself with that organization, and is still an ardent supporter of the same.
In 1844, Mr. and Mrs. Crossman united with the Methodist Episcopal church of Marengo, and have been active and influential members of the same to the present time.
SAMUEL CHAPIN,
the subject of this sketch, was born in the town of Springwater, Livingston county, State of New York, June 7, 1819. His father, Samuel Chapin, was a native of Long Island, and his mother, Elizabeth (Setson) Chapin, was born in Dutchess county, New York. Samuel Chapin, Sr., came to Michigan in May, 1834, and purchased a farm of eighty acres in the town of Sylvan, Washtenaw county, to which he removed his family in September of the same year. It was a wild country then ; the woods were filled with wild game of all varieties common to the country, and the nearest neighbor, as late as the following summer, was seven miles distant, a log cabin being put up then by a man who had just come in, fourteen persons, young and old, being gathered together to roll up the logs. In 1837, Mr. Chapin exchanged his eighty acres in Washtenaw for one hundred and sixty at Marengo, Calhoun County, to which he and the subject of our sketch came on the 5th of July, the same year. On the 6th they yoked up two pairs of oxen to a breaking-plow, and began plowing; the grass being so thick and rank a log could not be seen until it was under the beam, when it would have to be pulled out of the way before further progress could be made. The first half- day was spent in getting a furrow around six acres, when the boy of eighteen took the team alone, and the father went to clearing the fallen timber out of the way, and in this way succeeded in getting thirteen acres cleared. Harvesting now coming on, the younger Chapin worked for Robert Houston, during the season, for one dollar per day and board, after which the ground already plowed on their own land was prepared and sowed, and a log house built by the father and son, into which the family moved in October. The younger Chapin worked at home until his majority, and then went to work for himself by the month. In 1842 the elder Chapin sickened, and died in December, when Samuel, the son, went back to take care of his mother; but, her health failing, she returned to Canandaigua, New York, to her relatives, and the farm was leased, and Samuel continued to work by the month during the summer of 1843. The mother died in 1850. In the year 1846, November 11, Mr. Chapin was united in marriage to Mrs. Sophia Bagg, who has borne to him the following-named children : Edward, Franklin, Margaret, Sophia, now deceased, and Ellen Beach, now at home. Edward is married, and resides in Marengo. Mr. Chapin is a Republican in his political affiliations, and in 1858 united with the Presbyterian church of Marshall, of which he has been for the past twelve years, and still is, a deacon. His wife and daughter also are members of the same church. Notwithstanding his early privations and hardships he has accumulated a handsome property, his homestead in Marengo now numbering three hundred and eighty-one acres of highly-cultivated and productive soil, upon which he has erected a commodious and elegant dwelling, and capacious barns; a view of which we present to our readers on another page of our work, together with portraits of himself and his estimable wife.
MRS. SOPHIA CHAPIN
was the daughter of J. L. Powell, of Trenton, Oneida county, New York, and was born September 14, 1809. She was married to M. J. Bagg, April 14, 1833, and removed the same spring, with her husband, to Marengo, Calhoun County, Michigan, to a location he had purchased the year previously, making the trip in three weeks in a covered wagon, with her household goods. A primitive log house was her home, and her furniture such as her pioneer husband made him- self with his axe. But notwithstanding the forbidding meagreness of her indoor surroundings, her woman's nature was filled to its utmost with the flower-carpeted expanse that spread out before her vision whenever she chose to look out of the single door of her cabin upon the lovely landscape that then formed the field of view in Calhoun County. In 1833, Judge H. J. Phelps came to Marshall, and Mrs. Chapin says, to go to his house (the first framed one in the village), a dis- tance of five miles, and " sit on real boughten chairs, was a treat indeed." Mr. Bagg died April 28, 1842, leaving three children, Nancy, Fred, and Edward, and Mrs. Bagg remained a widow until November 11, 1846, when she remarried, taking Samuel Chapin for her husband. After trials and sorrows consequent upon life in a new country, which she has surmounted, she now can look back upon them and the marvelous changes that have taken place in the grand old county since she first came to it, a young and hopeful bride, forty-four years ago, and say, as she does say, the lines have fallen to her in pleasant places, and she has a goodly - heritage. She is one of the vice-presidents of the Pioneer Society of Calhoun County, and has rendered us efficient and valuable service in the compila- tion of our work.
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