USA > Michigan > Hillsdale County > History of Hillsdale county. Michigan, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 8
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If that array of names doesn't give a good title to land it were difficult to find one that would. It will be observed that " Baw Beese," who is supposed by many to have been the head chief of the Pottawattamies, or at least one of the principal chiefs, does not appear as one of the signers of the treaty, even in a minor capacity. He might, however, have been absent for other good reasons-not from insignificance.
It was shortly after the signing of the Chicago treaty that we first hear of Baw Beese's band in Hillsdale County, though this had probably been their headquarters for some time before. It was in connection with an event of a most tragic nature that the band first comes into the light of local history. The story was told to the early settlers by the Indians, and the locality of the tragedy pointed out, but the natives were not good at keeping count of years, and the precise date is unknown. Some time, however, between 1820 and 1825, an Indian who belonged to the band dis- covered that his squaw was unfaithful to him. He proved his grievance to the satisfaction of the band, and they de- cided that the offender must die. She was accordingly taken to a point in the south part of the present village of Jonesville, and there in presence of the assembled band was shot to death by the executioners selected for the purpose.
Thenceforth the whites, who soon began traveling and prospecting within the territory of Hillsdale County, were constantly seeing some of Baw Beese's band, and not un-
frequently met the chieftain himself. The band numbered about a hundred and fifty all told, men, women, and children. They could hardly be said to have any settled headquarters, even for a part of the year. They seem to have stayed, however, more in the eastern than in the western portion of the county, ranging principally from the shores of Baw Beese Lake, and the vicinity of the site of Hillsdale, into Pittsford, Jefferson, Adams, and Wheatland. They also made long excursions east into Lenawee County, and south into Ohio and Indiana ; always, however, returning to their range in this county.
They built temporary cabins of bark, but these were not all in one village, nor did their occupants hold continuously to the same location. There were a few small open fields of a few acres each, where the squaws raised corn and beans, but the greater part of the subsistence of the band was obtained by hunting. There is believed to have been an old trading-post kept by a Frenchman at what was after- wards called Allen's Prairie, and there were certainly two or three in the present county of Branch, where the furs se- cured by the Indians were exchanged for guns, ammunition, calico, cheap jewelry, and whisky. After the treaty of Chicago, Baw Beese's band made no move toward establish- ing themselves on the reservations, but continued their mi- gratory occupation of the territory of this county. For a few years there was no one to object to this, for emigration had not yet reached our borders. But events were rapidly shaping themselves toward a different state of affairs.
In 1823 a land-office was established at Monroe, the dis- trict embracing the whole of the present county of Hills- dale. * In 1824 the first settlement was made in Lenawee County. At this period, through the influence of Gen. Cass, the general government ordered the construction of a road a hundred feet wide from Detroit to Chicago (with a branch from near Monroe, striking the main line near the eastern line of Hillsdale County), and appropriated ten thousand dollars to pay for a survey of it.
In the spring of 1825, the chief surveyor began his work, planning to run on nearly straight lines. He soon found, however, that if he followed this plan, cutting a vista for his compass through the dense woods, and spending a large part of his time in hunting up good routes and good places for bridges, the money would all be expended before he should have half completed his task. So he determined to follow the " Chicago trail," the old pathway which the Indians had followed from time immemorial in passing between Detroit and the point at the mouth of Chicago River where the great city of the West now stands.
This he did so faithfully that it is said there is not an angle, bend, or turn of the Indian trail which is not pre- served by the present road from Chicago to Detroit, except for a single mile in Washtenaw County. This is somewhat exaggerated, but a glance at the map will show that there are angles enough in the present road to give good reason for the statement. The flagmen were sent ahead as far as they could be seen, the bearings taken, the distance chained, and the re- sults noted in the field-book ; then the flagmen were again sent ahead, the axemen meantime blazing the trees fifty feet on each side of the central line.
It was not a very bad plan, though it caused considerable
HISTORY OF HILLSDALE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
crookedness. The Indians had avoided the worst marshes, which were the principal obstructions to road-making, and what was equally important, they had selected the best fording-places of the creeks and rivers that could be found. The trail, and consequently the road, entered the territory of the county in the present township of Somerset, about a mile and two-thirds from the northeast corner of the county, ran nearly west to the present village of Moscow ; thence southwesterly to the crossing of the St. Joseph, where Jonesville now stands; and thence southwesterly through the present township of Allen, passing out of the county half a mile north of the centre of that township. It was not opened by the government for several years after the survey, but the fact that it was surveyed and established as a road caused emigration to follow that line, and the emi- grants here and there did a little something towards making it passable.
As early as 1826, a few prospecting-parties began to pass westward along the Chicago road, looking for the best places for settlement, some of them going through as far as Lake Michigan. There was still, however, no white man, save an occasional Indian trader, residing west of Lenawee County, in the Territory of Michigan. But the time had come for the subjugation of the wilderness to begin. Who began it and how it was carried forward may be learned in the succeeding chapter.
CHAPTER VII. THE PIONEER ERA.
The First Pioneer-Date and Locality of Settlement-Another Treaty -Good-Natured Indians-Settlement at Jonesville-The Infant in the Corn Barn-Increasing Population-First Sale of Land-First Tavern in the County-The First Death-Making the Coffin-For- mation of Hillsdale County-Its Boundaries-It is Attached to Lenawee-The Township of Vanee-Location of the County-Seat- The Governor's Proclamation-The First Village-First Mill-The Black Hawk War-List of Hillsdale County Soldiers-Another Treaty-Sale of Land down to 1833-The Sale of Nottawa-Seepe Reservation-Opposition of the Indians-Baw Beese at Dinner Time-First Store-First School-House-Organization of Hillsdale County-The First Officers-Division into Four Townships-Move- ment to be Admitted as a State-The Toledo War-Its Causes and Conduct-Interposition of the President-The Offer of Congress- Its Rejection and Acceptance-The "Flush Times"-" Wild Cat" and " Red Dog"-Hillsdale Village-The Great Crash-Fluetuation of Prices-A Turnpike Project-New Townships-Emigration- Friendship with the Indians-Pioneer Hardships-Sickness-Wolves -More Townships-Baw Beese's Idea of Friendship-Removal of the Indians-The Last Procession-Their Subsequent Fate-At- tempted Removal of County-Seat.
THE very earliest pioneer of Hillsdale County was an enterprising citizen hailing from near Wyandotte, in Wayne County, an ex-soldier of the war of 1812, bearing the name and title of Capt. Moses Allen. He is said to have been one of the original party who surveyed the Chicago road in 1825. It is certain that in the spring or early suminer of 1826, Capt. Allen, with John W. Fletcher and George Hubbard, made an extended prospecting tour over the valley of the St. Joseph, exploring the lands of Southern Michi- gan nearly to the mouth of that river.
Of all the territory thus examined, the fertile soil and
beautiful appearance of the tract since known as Allen's Prairie most attracted his eye and satisfied his judgment, and there he determined to locate. The surveys were not yet made, or at least not completed so that he could obtain a title, but he was anxious lest his choice location should fall into other hands, and in April, 1827, he moved on, with his family, and took possession of a claim. It was on the east side of the prairie, on the southeast quarter of section 10, township 6 south, range 4 west, and comprised the site of the present village of Allen. The locality was called by the Indians, Mascootah-siac or Sand Creek Prairie.
This was the very first settlement made for the purpose of permanent improvement in Hillsdale County, and so far as known was the first in the whole State of Michigan west of Tecumseh, Lenawee County. In the spring of 1827, how- ever, several families settled in the present county of St. Joseph.
Captain Allen was accompanied by his brother, John Allen, who resided at the Prairie three or four years, but did not become the owner of any land. He was afterwards a prominent citizen of Branch County. They erected a rude cabin with a puncheon floor, and there the family re- sided over a year without a neighbor eastward nearer than Tecumseh, fifty miles distant, or westward nearer than White Pigeon Prairie, at about the same distance. South- ward the forest, broken by occasional prairies, but unoccu- pied by a single settler, extended far into Ohio and Indiana, while in the opposite direction there was not a solitary per- manent white resident between Allen's Prairie and the North Pole.
The Allen family have all removed from Hillsdale County, and little is known of their lives during that lonesome period. It is pretty certain, however, that during the summer of 1827 they raised a crop of corn, the evidence being that in the spring of 1828 they had an empty corn barn. They found a grist-mill ready made to their hands. It consisted of a stump hollowed out on the top to receive the corn, the grinding part consisting of a wooden pestle fastened to a spring-pole, and worked up and down by hand, this being the common style of pioneer mill in places remote from the conveniences of civilized life. The one in question is reputed to have been made by some one in the employ of Campau, an Indian trader of Detroit, who had formerly had a station on the prairie.
In the September succeeding the advent of the first settlers in Hillsdale County a new treaty was made, by which the Indians exchanged all their reservations reserved by the treaty of Chicago, except that of Nottawa-Seepe, for a tract of land adjoining that one, the whole making an area of ninety-nine square miles. But they still con- tinued to wander at will through the forest. In fact, the Pottawattamies seem to have been a peculiarly uneasy clan, for there are no less than thirty-seven treaties with them transcribed in the published records of the United States down to 1837. This is a larger number than were made by any other tribe, the Chippewas, who were the next in order, having made but twenty-six treaties down to 1842.
The pioneers of Hillsdale County found Baw Beese and his band the sole occupants of its territory. Even these, as before stated, were not permanent. They wandered to
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HISTORY OF HILLSDALE COUNTY, MICHIGAN ..
and fro, hunting and fishing, occasionally straying into Indiana, and again making a journey to visit their brethren in Branch and St. Joseph Counties. The testimony is gen- eral that the old chief was one of the best natured of men, and there seems never to have been the slightest difficulty between him and the new-comers.
The nature and example of the chief, too, appear to have had their due influence on his band, or else all the good- natured Indians followed him as a matter of choice, for, from the time of Allen's arrival until the Pottawattamies were transported to the shores of the Missouri, a period of some thirteen years, the red men of this clan lived in almost perfect harmony with the whites, and with each other. This is the more remarkable as the bands in Branch and St. Joseph Counties had numerous feuds among themsel ves, sometimes resulting in murder, and occasionally came in collision with the whites around them.
Baw Beese is described as being always ready to give shelter and a meal of victuals, such as it was, to any white man who came to his wigwam, and, on the other hand, he was still more ready to receive the same hospitality from the whites whom he visited at their cabins. And, if they did not offer, he was not averse to asking ; for, proud as the Indian is in some respects, he seldom comprehends that any degradation attaches to begging for whatever he needs.
During the fishing season the band was usually to be found near Baw Beese Lake, which was one of the best fish- ing-places in the country, the river being unimpeded by dams, and the fish coming up from Lake Michigan in great numbers. Of the little patches of corn-ground before mentioned, the largest was in the north part of the present township of Wright, embracing about fifteen acres. There were a few other smaller tracts in various parts of the county, and near the eastern line of Wheatland was a log cabin, said to have belonged to Baw Beese; but he and his family spent so much of their time wandering in the woods that it would be extremely difficult to prove their title to the domicile in question.
In June, 1828, Benaiah Jones, Jr., came, with his wife and five children, along the Chicago trail, seeking a place in the wilderness to make them a home. He fixed on the point where that trail crossed the St. Joseph River, as the most desirable one at which to locate. To save his family, however, from camping out while he was building a house, he proceeded to Allen's Prairie, and obtained permission for them to live in Allen's corn barn during the summer. From there Mr. Jones and his oldest son returned to the point he had selected, built a log house, and made some other slight improvements. These were on section 4, township 6 south, range 3 west, being the site of the present village of Jonesville.
It was during this time, in the month of August, 1828, that the first child in Hillsdale County saw the light, its place of birth being the corn barn just mentioned. The youthful stranger received the name of Cordas M. Jones, being the sixth of the sons of Benaiah Jones, Jr. In Oc- tober, Mr. J removed his family to their new home, and the winter of 1828-29 passed with two families instead of one in the county.
The year 1829 saw a decided increase in the population
of the county. In the spring, Edmund Jones, a brother of Benaiah, came and selected a piece of land adjoining that occupied by the latter. About the same time, Thad- deus Wight located himself two miles west of Jonesville, and at least as early as this, Reuben Cornish, a brother-in- law of Mrs. Allen, joined the little settlement at Allen's Prairie. In the middle of the summer, Thomas Reed also settled at the same point. Population was getting crowded.
Meanwhile the land had been declared ready for sale, and on the 8th day of June, 1829, Moses Allen, Benaiah Jones, Jr., and Edmund Jones all appeared at the land- office at Monroe, and purchased the tracts on which they had located themselves, Mr. Allen taking a quarter section, and the two Joneses each acquiring eighty acres.
By this time emigrants and prospecting-parties began to pass through the county with considerable frequency, and Mr. Jones opened a tavern at his log house, the first in the county. To keep a tavern was in fact the aristocratic as well as the profitable thing to do in those days. If a man kept tavern it might fairly be presumed that he had two rooms in his house, while if he didn't the inference was almost certain that he had only one.
Mr. Allen also wished to set up a tavern (hotels were not known here then), and as his primitive cabin was hardly fit for that purpose, he proceeded in the summer and fall of 1829 to erect a substantial log house. It was not quite completed when Mr. Allen was taken sick, and in October he died; the first white victim of the grim destroyer in Hillsdale County, so far as known. There was no lumber anywhere within reach from which a coffin could be made, yet his few neighbors were anxious to give him Christian and civilized burial. They accordingly cut down a black- cherry tree, placing one end of a log severed from it on a high bank, and the other on a crotched tree. Then one man standing upon the log, and another beneath it, pro- ceeded with a cross-cut saw (in the manner known as " whip-sawing") to cut out boards enough for the required purpose.
Hitherto we have frequently spoken of " Hillsdale County," to avoid inconvenient repetition, meaning the territory of which the county was to be formed. But henceforth the county of Hillsdale was to be an actual entity, though for several years without any county organization. On the 29th day of October, 1829, an act was passed by the legislative council of the Territory and approved by Governor Cass, creating the counties of Hills- dale, Branch, St. Joseph, Cass, Van Buren, Berrien, Jack- son, Barry, Eaton, Kalamazoo, and Ingham. The section devoted to this county reads as follows :
"So much of the county as lies west of the meridian and east of the line between ranges 4 and 5 west of the meri- dian, and south of the line between townships 4 and 5 south of the base line, and north of the boundary line between the State of Ohio and the Territory of Michigan, be and the same is hereby set off into a separate county, and the name thereof shall be Hillsdale."
The appellation thus selected is highly proper on account of the diversified surface, consisting entirely of alternating hills and dales. There is also a town of Hillsdale in Co- lumbia Co., N. Y., another in Indiana Co., Pa., and another
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HISTORY OF HILLSDALE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
in Bergen Co., N. J., and it is quite probable that some of the early settlers or their ancestors came from one of those regions, and that the name was thus suggested to them .*
The boundaries of the county, as above defined, were the same which have ever since been retained, except that the boundary between this county and Ohio was then supposed to be a little farther south than it was located on the admis- sion of the State of Michigan. The change will be noted at the time it occurred.
It will be understood, however, that the mere creation of a county amounted to nothing except to specify the name and boundaries. No county officers could be elected until further action was taken by the Territorial authorities. When the county of Hillsdale was formed there was not even a township organization within its limits. Five days afterwards, on the 4th of November, 1829, another law was passed by the legislative council declaring that for all ju- dicial and legislative purposes the county of Hillsdale should be attached to and form a part of Lenawee County.
The next day still another act was passed, one section of which enacted that the whole county of Hillsdale should thenceforth constitute a township by the name of Vance. A township embracing a whole county seems rather large, but the township of Green, formed by the same act, em- braced three counties, Branch, Calhoun, and Eaton, besides a large tract lying north of Eaton, the whole being attached to St. Joseph County for the time being.
The act in question also provided that the first town- meeting in the new township of Vance should be held at the house of Benaiah Jones, Jr. The meeting was accord- ingly held on the first Monday of April, 1830. James M. Burdick, now of Quincy, who settled at Allen's Prairie early in the spring of 1830, says that every voter in the county was present at that meeting, and that every one had a township office, some of them two or three. Vance town- ship continued to exist a little over five years, its officers performing the usual functions, and its successive supervi- sors acting as members of the board of Lenawee County. The records have, however, disappeared, and we are there- fore unable to give the names of those who officiated during what may be called the chrysalis period of Hillsdale County.
In 1830, settlement in the county began to increase con- siderably ; all, however, in the northern portion. The Chicago road was not yet opened by the government through the county, but the old trail was there, the blazed trees marked by the surveyors were there, and enough travel had been attracted by these forerunners of a highway so that wagons with considerable trouble could make their way along the devious path. The slight improvements thus made drew all the new emigrants, and the settlements were all made in the immediate vicinity of the Chicago road.
Mr. Jones found business increasing at the location he had chosen, and he and his neighbors naturally desired
# There are no less than twelve post-offices named Hillsdale in the United States besides the one in this county, namely, in Columbia Co., N. Y .; in Bergen Co., N. J. ; in Indiana Co., Pa .; in Guilford Co., N. C. ; in Macon Co., Tenn .; in Vermilion Co., Ind. ; in Rock Island Co., Ill. ; in Mills Co., Iowa; in Nemeha Co., Neb. ; in Moody Co., Dakota ; and in Kane Co., Utah. There is, however, no county bearing that name except the one which is the subject of this history.
to have the county-seat fixed there. The proper application was made, and in the winter of 1830 the legislative coun- cil passed an act appointing Shubael Conant, of Monroe, Jared Patchin, of Lenawee, and Judge Sibley, of Detroit, as commissioners to establish the county-seat. After due ex- amination they selected Jonesville, as people already began to call the neighborhood where Mr. Jones had located, though no village was yet laid out. Owing, however, to some informality this selection was not considered final.
In July following the legislative council passed a gen- eral law authorizing the Governor to appoint commissioners to fix the location of county-seats, and also authorizing him to confirm and proclaim their selections. To locate the county-seat of Hillsdale County, the Governor appointed De Garmo Jones, Joseph W. Brown, and Charles Noble, and after they had performed their duty he issued the fol- lowing proclamation :
By Lewis Cass, Governor in and orer the Territory of Michigan. A PROCLAMATION.
Whereas by an act of the Legislative Council passed July thirty- first, one thousand eight hundred and thirty, authority is given to the Governor of the Territory to appoint commissioners to locate the seats of justice of the several counties in which the seats of justice may not have been located, and to receive their report and confirm the same if he approve thereof, and then to issue a proclamation estab- lishing the seats of justice so located; and whereas De Garmno Jones, Joseph W. Brown, and Charles Noble, Esquires, were appointed com- missioners to locate the seat of justice of the county of Hillsdale, a majority of whom proceeded to execute the said duty, and have located the seat of justice of the said county of Hillsdale at the vil- lage of Jonesville, in said county :
Now, therefore, by virtue of the authority given in said act, and in conformity with the said report, I do hereby issue this proclamation, establishing the seat of justice of the said county of Hillsdale at the village of Jonesville, in said county.
In test whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the great seal of the Territory to be affixed. Done at the city of Detroit, this sixteenth day of February, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-one, and of the Independence of the United States the fifty-fifth.
LEWIS CASS.
By the Governor.
JOHN G. MASON, Secretary of the Territory.
This was one of the last official acts of Gov. Cass' long administration, for in the following summer he was called to the office of Secretary of War of the United States, by President Jackson.
In June, 1831, Benaiah Jones, Jr., laid out the ground at the point where the county seat had been located in a regular village plat, the first in the county. He recorded the plat under the name of Jonesville, which had already been given to the settlement there. Only twelve hundred and eighty acres of land had then been sold in the county, and this had been purchased by twelve persons: Moses Allen, John S. Reid, Thomas S. Reid, S. N. W. Benson, James Olds, Abram F. Bolton, Richard W. Corbus, E. J. Sibley, Martin G. Shellhouse, and Benjamin F. Larned. All except perhaps the three last were actual settlers. Allen and the two Reids were in the present town of Allen. The two Joneses and Olds were in the present Fayette. There were also a few settlers who had not made any pur- chase, though these generally did so not long afterwards.
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