USA > Michigan > Calhoun County > History of Calhoun county, Michigan : a narrative account of its historical progress, its people, and its principal interests, Volume I > Part 14
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"My father and mother were away from home for the night. I was then a girl of sixteen. I knew that something must be done. Hastily rising and going to the window, I saw a group of thirty negroes-twenty- six men and four women-standing near the door. I roused the household. When the waiting fugitives found that my father was away they were greatly disturbed, for they had relied upon him for food and protection ; but when they found that "Miss Susan" was at home their spirits re- vived. I was known all along the Underground road, clear down to Kentucky. I invited the poor people to come in. We boiled great cauldrons of coffee for them, and, with some contributions from neigh- bors, I managed to supply them with plenty of food. Then I gave them a note to Jabez S. Fitch of Marshall, and sent them on their way, for it was night-their time for traveling. As they filed out, the men all shook my hand and thanked me, and the women all embraced me and blessed me. Our large baking of the day before had disappeared, and our night's rest had been destroyed, but the gratitude of those poor people was pay enongh."
Fugitive slaves, during their passage over the Underground Railroad, were in a state of constant terror. This was due to the nervous strain of night travel and the ever present dread of pursnit. Lest this fear be unjustly construed as cowardice, another story from Mrs. Hussey is quoted.
"Old Nancy was a refugee who liked Battle Creek so well that she remained there, regardless of the chances of capture. She had a son named Peter. When the war broke ont, Peter enlisted. One day word came that Peter had been shot while in the line of duty-a cannon ball
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had crushed his chest. When the sad news was conveyed to Old Nancy she was leaning over a tub busily engaged with the week's washing. She pansed a moment, and said : 'Praise de Lawd I's raised a son to be de defender ob his country.' Then as she resumed the rythmical serubbing of the clothes on the wash-board, she repeated, over and over again, in perfect time with the swaying of her body : 'Thank God-he didn't run ! Thank God-he didn't run !"
No fugitive slave was ever retaken from the Battle Creek station. There were, however, times of grave alarm. Rumors of impending at- tack by armed slave owners were not infrequent. The Underground Railroad operatives always acted upon the principle that, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." The community was at all times alert to catch the premonitions of danger. As an illustration of this it is related that, on a certain memorable night, when news of approaching Southerners was peculiarly threatening, twenty or thirty men stood guard at Battle Creek, prepared to resist force by force.
On sneh occasions the negroes were relied upon as dependable allies. Long after midnight, during the anxious hours just mentioned, Erastus Hussey, while making his rounds of inspection, stopped at the cabin occupied by Nancy Stevens. He found the old negress seated by an open fireplace. The end of a long-handled shovel, heated red-hot, glowed among the coals. Nancy explained : "I ain't got no gun, an' I wouldn' know how to shoot ef I had ; but I does know how to use a hot shobbel- an' I's got one."
The hour was suitable for story-telling, and Nancy related enough of her personal history to sustain a statement suggested by the glowing shovel. "Ilot ? Co'se it's hot. But dat shobbel ain't so hot as I'd like to hab it to use on Master Tom. I'd be willin' to go to hell, honey, 'deed I would, if I could stir up de fire down dare under him. What hab he done? I wants to tell you. Ile sol' my ole man down de Red ribber country, an' den he killed my pore boy Joe. Dat's what he done. Joe had went to git up de cows one mawnin'. Dey wuz fros' on de groun' an' Joe's feet got col'. Master Tom fonn' de hoy standin', gittin' his feet warm whar de cows had been layin' down. Joe wuz gone a long time. I kept lookin' fer him an' lookin' fer him down de lane. De cows come up, but no Joe. Arter a while I see somethin' that looked like a big dawg, creepin' along. creepin' along, comin' up de lane. I looked an' looked, but I couldn' make out what it wuz. Den somethin' jus' tol' me it wuz Joe-creepin' on his han's an' knees. I never stopped till I got to him. Lordy! Lordy! It wuz Joe shore 'nuff- crawlin' home, a gash in his belly whar Master Tom had kicked him with a spur, an' his innards draggin' on the groun'. I picked him up an' toted him home, an' nussed him, an' cried ober him, but-dat night he died." This is an unadorned tale of murder. Its truth is undoubted. It is typical of slavery. The irresistable appeal of disclosures such as this kept the managers of the Underground Railroad nerved to action.
Aeross the Detroit river lay Canada and safety, but danger of eap- ture menaced the fugitives to the very water's edge. Mrs. Hussey re- lates an incident illustrative of this faet. A wealthy southern planter had freed two slaves-a negro woman and her daughter. The daughter was
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of transcendant beauty, without visible trace of negro blood. Indeed, it is said, her relation to her former master was that of closest kinship. We shall call her the "Beautiful Girl," for so she is remembered by those who saw her. When the planter died, his son refused to recognize the Beautiful Girl's manumission. He chose to hold his half-sister as a slave.
In Kentucky, at this time, there was a fearless man who bore the peculiar name, Wright Maudlin. IIis parents and his neighbors were slave holders. His sympathies were with the slaves. Secretly he co- operated with the Underground Railroad as a spy, scout, guide and con- ductor. This gratuitous employment was extremely hazardous. Had his neighbors discovered his activities, they would have shot him like a dog. But he defied danger: "No bullet," he said, "will ever pierce Wright Maudlin's skin."
It was this man who rescued the Beautiful Girl from worse than death and brought her north, by the underground route, to Battle Creek. Here she remained at the home of Erastus Hussey for a few hours. Pur- suit was hot upon the trail. Although the poor girl was upon the verge of nervous exhaustion-pitiably frightened by the danger of recapture, and worn by the terrible strain of enforced and continuous travel-the stay could not be long. After a few hours of rest she was disguised as an old woman and bundled into a top-buggy. With Wright Maudlin dressed as a farmer and acting as driver, the flight toward Canada was continued.
Again and again, upon seeing portentous clouds of dust approaching along the road, the two escaped to the privacy of some friendly wayside farm house. Maudlin had passed that way before and knew where safety lay. At last as the outskirts of Detroit were reached, four mounted horsemen were observed following at a gallop. The Beautiful Girl was instantly in a frenzy of terror. Maudlin turned to her and said: "I have a knife in my belt. If you make any outery I shall kill you. I shall not permit you to fall into their hands alive." This violent threat had the desired effect. The girl became calm. In a moment the horse- men rode up-two on each side of the carriage-and peered in. This moment was the crucial test of the girl's nerves. She uttered no sound. Her sunbonnet shaded her face. The riders saw only an indifferent appearing female and an old farmer. The latter pointed across the fields with his whip and cried out in a high key : "Me an' the old woman is out land-lookin'. Do you know of any good farms for sale 'round here?" The horsemen rode on without answering.
As the carriage lumbered along Woodward avenue, a man on the side- walk raised his hat and wiped his forehead with a white handkerchief. This motion did not escape the watchful eye of Wright Maudlin. He understood the secret signal. It meant: "I am a friend. Follow me." No word was spoken; no look of recognition was exchanged. The horse and carriage moved steadily along down the street toward the water front. Here their silent guide entered a boat-house. A moment later Wright Maudlin and the Beautiful Girl followed him. A row-boat and two oarsmen were in waiting. The girl was passed into the boat; the rowers gave way with a will; the skiff with its precious freight shot
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toward Canada. Hardly had mid-stream of the Detroit river been gained, before a body of horsemen galloped up to the boat-house door-three minutes too late. The Underground Railroad had safely delivered the Beautiful Girl to freedom.
Thus the great work was carried on during a quarter of a century. When services were needed, they were donated. When provisions were required, they were contributed. No books of account were kept; there was nothing to be repaid. Contributions amounting to fortunes went into the eanse. Thousands of negroes were passed through Michigan into Canada-how many we may never know. No record was ever made. Indifferent alike to the blame or praise of their own day, and of the future, the heroes of the Underground Railroad were content to accept the joy of their good work as that work's complete reward.
CALHOUN COUNTY AGRICULTURE
By J. H. Brown
Agriculture in its most primitive form was practiced by the first and early settlers in Calhoun county. Even those sturdy pioneers who came here from the eastern states had to do their farming largely by means of the axe, spade and grub hoe. In their eastern homes they enjoyed what they called conveniences and even luxuries. They used oxen and horses and could plow fields of moderate size without constantly meeting stumps and grubs in the furrow. But cultural methods in the early days were extremely erude in this new county.
Very few of the old pioneers are now living. The present generation has no adequate conception of the extreme hardships endured by the majority of the first settlers in southern Michigan. It is doubtful if hundreds and thousands of the young men and women now enjoying life on the improved farms of this county could make a living or even keep body and soul together could they be translated back to the times and conditions that existed here when the first real settlers came into the wilderness.
And even the axe, spade and grub hoe were crude and more or less awkward to handle compared with the fine tools of the present day. The first farmers found plenty of need of the blacksmith and a few of these old country shops are still left in the form of tumbled-down shacks here and there by the road side. The first settlers generally were farmers from necessity, no matter what their previous vocation had been in York state or way back east. The first thing needful was to get something to eat. Some brought along sufficient to last for a spell of greater or less duration, but the majority quickly looked for a place to scratch dirt and put in a few seeds. And the mueh desired seratching places or patches were mighty few and far between. In those days the saying, "Root hog, or die," was literally adopted and practiced by everybody who amounted to anything.
There were some places in Calhoun county where the timber had been burned and spots of more or less open prairie where settlers found it less difficult to prepare a seed bed and grow a little wheat, potatoes
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and a limited variety of "garden sass." The oak openings were gener- ally preferred as the soil was usually a heavy loam and easier to break up. But it is a wonder today why so many pioneers selected the hilly, stony, heavy timbered land in preference to the level openings that were mostly heavy fertile soil and comparatively free from stone.
Some of the first settlers came here and started a home in the wilder- ness, then went back east for their families. Some had wives and grown children, while others left a young wife or sweetheart while they got things started by clearing up a patch of ground on their claim and then building a one-room log cabin. These cabins were quickly con- structed. Trees of small size, from ten to fifteen inches in diameter, were cut down near the site selected. They were straight and each individual log extended the whole length or width of the cabin, except where the doors and windows were located. There was usually but one door and a small window made in a single opening in the center of the front wall. Another door and window was provided on the back side and frequently a window was set in each end. This was the prevailing style or architecture and material provided for the first farm homes in Calhoun county.
When the logs had been cut there were sometimes log rolling bees, if any neighbors were within a few miles, and the plan of changing work helped out wonderfully. The shanty raising was frequently less than a day's work. The ends of the logs were notched enough so that the cracks might be reduced to a minimum and these were usually plastered with "mud" enough to keep out the most of the rain and wind. The roof was very crude, covered with "shakes," and the floor made up of broad flat pieces of timber riven from the central portion of logs and dressed down by a broad axe and adz. The puncheon floor and shake roof was very common in the cabins of this county for years after the first settlers came.
The biggest job the farmer had was to cut down trees enough to make a clearing. It was hard work and many of the logs were rolled together and burned as soon as they had seasoned out. There was no use for the timber and it was destroyed on every farm and claim as fast as the trees could be cut up and piled in big heaps with the smaller limbs and brush. I can remember seeing hundreds of these piles burning in almost every direction. As fast as a little clearing was made it was broken up with a sort of home-made breaking plow, with possibly a straight coulter or knife for cutting off the roots in line with the landside. The plowed ground was very rough and it was slow and tedious work fitting any sort of a seed bed with a yoke of oxen. The stumps, grubs and big roots bothered all day long over nearly every square foot of ground, and the strongest pioneer farmer was mighty glad when night came so he could lie down and rest a few hours.
The first "harrows" were made of strips of hard wood bolted together and iron teeth abont one inch square were inserted. Both the A-shape and square drags had to be made very stout to stand the catching of roots and snags. The blacksmith had plenty of custom from far and near and he became an expert in his line. With the crude tools, anvil
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and forge of those days farm tools were constructed that are a wonder to the present day blacksmith.
A little wheat, oats, corn, buckwheat and potatoes were grown on almost every clearing, and a small garden patch near the house furnished a good living for the pioneer farmer who was a hustler. Some of the shiftless settlers would have starved had it not been for their wives or neighbors. Very often the settler's wife did more work, in doors and out, and was the mainstay of the family, no matter how many babies came into the home. In those early days it was a common thing to see the women folks doing the hardest kind of work clearing up the land and breaking up the soil. They took an active part in cultivating the growing erops, this laborious work being done mostly with a crude and heavy hoe or pick-axe.
The farmer's wife was frequently an adept in handling the scythe and grain cradle. There were plenty of grub roots and stumps in the way and it was very slow work getting over an acre of ground. On nearly all the clearings there were yokes of oxen and women learned to guide them around by using the "haw" and "gee" formula, aided with a good stout whip-stalk, lash and cracker. In fact, it would have been impossible for the pioneers to have succeeded in conquering the wilder- ness of Calhoun county, had it not been for the "women folks."
For many years there was little effort to make money by growing wheat to sell as the leading crop of the small farm clearings. It was mighty hard work to get enough to eat sometimes off from these small patches, but the pioneer and his family stuck to the job through thick and thin until more and more acres of the claim was cleared of timber and brush. A few had horses, but a single team and one yoke of oxen made up the motive power on even the largest farms in some sections of the county until the time of the Civil war.
The wagons were more or less substantially made; quite heavy gear, and narrow tires were the rule. The old territorial road through Calhoun county and other main roads were almost impassable in places in the spring and late fall. The low places across marshes and each side of many small streams were sometimes filled in with logs and brush before hauling on dirt and gravel. It was an almost daily occurrence for one to get a wheel stuck in a deep mud hole, and the narrow tires made such holes deeper. But even in those days some good roads were built by the pioneers.
Each township later on was divided into road beats and put in charge of a pathmaster. Road beds were made by plowing a backfurrow from each side into the middle of the road. From one to a dozen teams would plow all day on a mile or half-mile strip and the center of the track would sometimes be left very high and narrow. Each team, wagon, plow and man would count a day's work, and any present-day labor union would have been pleased with the extremely short sessions of the farmers each forenoon and afternoon on the job, with committee meetings under a shade tree and in fence corners every half hour, more or less.
As the years passed by the farms gradually increased in number in various sections of the county. More ground was cleared and wheat became the principal crop. Settlements and villages had grown rapidly
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into towns and there was considerable demand for all farm products for home consumption, with the exception of wheat. Long before the Civil war it was a common daily occurrence in the late spring, during the fall, and for weeks at a time, to see strings of teams and wagons loaded with twenty to twenty-five bags of wheat waiting at the elevators to un- load. The wheat buyer frequently was the biggest and most important man in town. He stood on the corner and watched the loads coming in on the main roads. Sometimes he had no competition and would pay a little less than the wheat was worth in the market. When there was a good demand for wheat and prices were going up, with two buyers in competition, it was interesting to stand on the street and watch the loads come into town. Sometimes they would be met several blocks out and two buyers would jump on the same load. This kind of a per- formance delighted the owner of the wheat, for he knew he would get a little more money than he expected when he left home. Sometimes the two buyers would agree on a price and hold it down for the day, thus forming the first sort of a "trust" and stifling competition. The farmer usually started for town with his load of wheat without even knowing what the prevailing market price for the day might be. After delivering the first load he would sometimes contract for several more at a stated price.
During "war times" the farmers of Calhoun county had plenty of excitement in selling wheat in Battle Creek, Marshall, Albion and other points where there was a railroad station and elevator. Wheat took big jumps in price and reached three dollars and over on certain days of the greatest activity in this cereal. A telegram would sometimes reach the wheat buyer after he had opened a bag, inspected a handful and made a "bid" to the farmer. The farmer would have his eye opened all the time and could generally tell how the price was going by watching the buyer as he glanced over the telegram. Before that bag of wheat was tied and laid down on the road the owner might be offered from five to fifteen cents per bushel more than the first bid made when the bag was lifted on end
Those were strenuous days for the farmers of this county and many pages of this history might be devoted to the experiences of the pioneer farmers and the street wheat buyers There were all sorts of tricks in vogue or tried by a few on both sides. Short weights were claimed by the farmer frequently, and occasionally the elevator man would find a heavy stone rolling into the hopper. Later on farmers began buying scales and then weighed the wheat at home. This was a most desirable plan and soon stopped much of the complaint regarding short weights. And yet there were some farmers who became "tired" of weighing at home and let the scales stand in the corner and rust. These were the farmers who were always complaining "bout suthin or other" going wrong with everybody but themselves.
There are many hundreds of acres of land in Calhoun county today that are practically worthless for farming purposes, same as elsewhere in Michigan. Swamps and "catholes" are plenty in places and they are well distributed in the various townships. Others have been drained in the years gone by and made available for growing certain crops.
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Some of this kind of land is now the most valuable of all and is worth one hundred dollars and more per acre in the market Measures have recently been taken to drain a large section of low land in the northeast- ern portion of the county that will ultimately increase the value of that land in the neighborhood of nearly a million dollars.
It was a gradual change from wheat growing as the leading farm product to that of dairying. Wonderful yields of wheat were grown on the hundreds of fine farms in the county from before the war until about 1880. The general plan on many farms before that time was to "summer-fallow" at least one field. This was usually well covered with a good growth of red clover, sown the year previous. Soon after planting corn the plow would be started in the clover lot. Frequently it took two teams, or one span of horses and a yoke of oxen, to haul the walk- ing plow through heavy clay loam soil and turn under the rank growth of clover. The knife coulter later gave way to the little plow or "jointer." This was first bolted to the beam and cut a shallow and narrow furrow in line with the landside of the plow. The effect was to cut and turn the sod and clover over enough so that all trash disappeared under the furrow as it laid over on, and against, the preceding one.
The summer-fallow was plowed before commencing the wheat harvest, if possible. At odd spells the plowed ground was harrowed and culti- vated alternately until seeding time in September. If the ground be- came very weedy sheep were turned on, as nearly every farmer kept some sheep in those days. It was during that time that the spring tooth harrow appeared. The wood frame was of a V-shape and the flat spring teeth were fastened on the under side with steel clamps and short bolts. Before this implement appeared the summer-fallows were cultivated with a tool made in Battle Creek and very popular in those days. There were several kinds on the market and a nice clean fallow depended ou the thorough use of one of these tools. Some had rigid legs and breakages were frequent on stony ground. At seeding time the summer-fallow on many Calhoun county farms was the pride of the owner. The ground would be thoroughly compacted underneath, while the surface soil was very smooth and mellow. Not a weed could be found and the drill hoes deposited the seed at just the right depth. There would be plenty of moisture and the seed would germinate and show green sprouts above the surface in less than a week, sometimes. The tap root and laterals would all remain in the upper two inches of soil and there would be no danger from the upheaval by frost the following spring. Under other conditions of seed bed treatment the tap root would go down several inches and be broken off by freezing and thawing of the upper layer of soil.
After 1880 wheat growing began to decline in this section of the country. The yield kept diminishing from various causes. Dairying was beginning to increase rapidly on the farms around the larger towns and cities and corn gradually became the leading crop in order to more cheaply feed the increasing herds of cows. From that time to the present the acreage and yield of corn has increased until now corn is "king," instead of wheat, in southern Michigan.
As dairying increased it was found that the farmer who kept cows Vol. 1-7
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must produce the largest possible quantity of the best quality in order to make the greatest profit. And the milk must be secured at the least possible expense in production. Naturally, under these conditions, the leading dairy farmers of the county found that the silo was a valuable adjunct in securing the best and cheapest succulent feed the whole year round. Fifteen years ago there were about a score or more silos in the county, while now they can be counted by the scores in every neigh- borhood and township.
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