History of Ingham and Eaton counties, Michigan, Part 95

Author: Durant, Samuel W. cn
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia : D.W. Ensign & Co.
Number of Pages: 772

USA > Michigan > Eaton County > History of Ingham and Eaton counties, Michigan > Part 95
USA > Michigan > Ingham County > History of Ingham and Eaton counties, Michigan > Part 95

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Ilenry Baldwin, from Camden, Oneida Co., N. Y., set- tled in Charlotte with his family in 1844. His death occurred Sept. 20, 1860.1

Dr. Alden B. Sampson, a native of Norwich, Mass., removed to Sullivan, Ohio, in 1837, and became a success- ful practitioner in the line of his profession. In 1843 he came to Charlotte, and during his residence here won a place as one of its most respected and enterprising citizens. Several years before his death he relinquished his practice, but his efforts were turned to the improvement of the " vil- lage of the plain," which he had adopted for a home. The fine building known as " Sampson Hall," now so popular with the citizens of the place as an amusement resort, and in which the courts have long been held, was built by him in 1866-67, and was the second or third brick building in the place. The doctor was never married,-except to the desire to do good to all men and build for himself a monu- ment of respeet in the hearts of his fellow-beings.

Hiram Shepherd, who died in Charlotte on the 20th of July, 1871, aged nearly sixty-nine years, was a native of . Otsego Co., N. Y., and first came to Michigan in 1837. Hle purchased a piece of land about two miles southeast of Charlotte, upon which he made some improvements, and went East for his family, returning with themu in the fall of 1840. Charlotte then contained but two or three buildings, and neighbors were searee, the county being thinly settled. After moving two or three times Mr. Shepherd finally set-

Mr. Foote entered Michigan University in 1840, upon the removal of his father to the State. Ile afterwards engaged in teaching and portrait-painting in Southern Michigan and Northern Indiana, untit he settled in Charlotte. In 1851 was appointed distributing clork in the Chicago post-office, and held tho position three years. In 1861 was appointed by Governor Blair a member of the Board of State Prison Inspectors, and released the life convicts from their solitary cells. Aitmitted to har in 1863. Hlas held other important positions. t From obituary notice in Eaton County Republican, Sept. 21, 1860.

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CITY OF CHARLOTTE.

tled at what became known as "Shepherd's Corners," where his remaining years were spent. Alonzo L. Baker settled in Eaton County in 1842, and in 1848 located at Charlotte, which was his home until his death, March 8, 1880. His wife had preceded him through the dark valley on the 13th of the previous February.

Ellzey Hayden, a native of Orange, Richland Co., Ohio, settled in Charlotte in 1844, and engaged in business in com- pany with his brother, John Hayden. IIe has continued to be one of the prominent citizens of the city and county, and for several years held the office of county treasurer. (See county civil list.)

James Johnson, born in England, settled in Calhoun Co., Mich., in May, 1844, and in Eaton County, March 7, 1851.

F. H. Kilbourn, a native of Denmark, Lewis Co., N. Y., settled in Detroit, Mich., in 1834, in Ingham County in 1836, and in Eaton County in December, 1857.

Theodorus D. Green, a native of Cobleskill, Schoharie Co., N. Y., settled in Michigan in September, 1843, and in Eaton County in November, 1846. Upon his arrival in the State he was the possessor of a dollar and a half in cash, one box and one chest of wearing apparel, and had with him his wife and two children. He located first in Kalamo township, afterwards removing to Charlotte, where he at present resides.

Rev. Luman Foote, the father of Edward A. Foote, Esq., was an Episcopal clergyman, and located in Kalamazoo, in 1840, as rector in charge of St. Luke's Church. He was a graduate, in 1818, of the University of Vermont, at Burlington. He studied law in the office of his brother, and in 1821 was admitted as an attorney in the Chittenden County Court, and in 1822 of the Supreme Court of Ver- mont. In company with his partner, Mr. Austin, he founded the Burlington Free Press, a paper which he ably edited. In 1833 he retired from his editorial chair and also from the practice of law. He took orders as an Epis- copal clergyman, and preached in several places in Vermont and New Hampshire. In 1840, as stated, he removed to Michigan, and preached at Kalamazoo, White Pigeon, Mottville, Constantine, and Jonesville. In May, 1846, having tired of his unsettled life as a preacher, he pur- chased a place at Charlotte, whither he removed. He preached occasionally, and was for many years a prominent justice of the peace. His death occurred Aug. 5, 1876, when he had passed the age of eighty-two years.

Dyer F. Webber, Esq., now of Charlotte, is a native of Richland Co., Ohio. He afterwards lived in Haneoek County, in the same State, and in the summer of 1857, after spending a short time at Fort Wayne, he came to Charlotte. During the following winter he taught the school in the village, and in the spring of 1858, it being necessary to make up a rate bill in order to raise his wages, he took a census of the place, and found the number of inhabitants to be less than 700. The building in which he taught was the brick structure now used as a wagon-shop, on West Lovett Street, in the rear of Cochran Avenue.

CHARLOTTE IN 1845.

From the files of the Eaton Bugle, established March 26, 1845, we make a few extraets. In the first number of

the paper Mr. Johnston, the editor and publisher, apolo- gized to the publie for the delay in presenting the sheet to its patrons, the reason therefor being the great amount of trouble experienced in bringing the press and material to the place. The editor said he almost felt that he was born a " wolverene," in face of the fact that his mother had always informed him differently ; but, at any rate, he was prepared to adapt himself to the manners and customs of the people of Eaton County, and asked in return that they aid him in sustaining the paper. The following were the local adver- tisements which appeared in the first number :

"S. E. MILLETT & Co. have permanently established themselves in the village of Charlotte, Eaton Co., Mich., where they intend to keep all kinds of GOODS usually found in a country store, which they are determined to sell ( for ready pay only) as cheap as any establishment in the western country." The firm advertised for sale brush and beaver hats, broadcloths, cassimeres, cassinetts, and Tweed's cloth, und wanted 100,000 bushels of nshes, in exchange for goods, to be de- livered at their ashery# in Charlotte.

Joseph Hall., M.D., having located in the village, respectfully offered his services to those in need of them, and M. S. Wilkinson, attorney and counselor at law, located nt Eaton Rapids, had a card in the paper, advertising that he would "attend to professional bnsi- ness in Eaton and the adjoining counties."

Messrs. J. & E. Hayden advertised their tin, sheet iron, and copper manufactory as follows :

"The subscribers would inform the citizens of Eaton County that they have permanently established themselves in the above business in the village of Charlotte, where they intend to keep coustantly on hand an assortment of articles in their line, which they will dispose of, at wholesale or retail, on as reasonable termis as can be had at any shop in Michigan. Their stock shall be of the best quality, and for neatness and durability of work they defy competition. Repairing and job work done at the shortest notice.

" Tay TERMS-Ready Pay. All kinds of produce taken in ex- change for ware."

The editor mourned because the ladies of Michigan in- dulged in kissing each other to such an extent that the gentlemen were nearly crazy, and feelingly remarked :

" It does our soul good to hear the smack of their lovely lips as they take what the Pennsylvanians familiarly call & smoutch. Oh, Jupiter ! hnt the sight is lovely to behold-but how provoking to think that the hoys are obstin itely forbidden to participate in this feast of lips ! We can easily imagine the miseries of Tantalus when, dying with thirst, he was placed in the middle of a flowing stream, and as the cooling waters rose to his lips he was forbidden to taste ; but where is the heart that hath ever imagined the inward prug that a half-erneked swain endures when gazing upon two of these flowers -the most lovely that ever grew-bringing their lips together with a sound not unlike that which a cider harrel makes when the buog flies out ? . . . "

Frederick M. White, postmaster, advertised the list of letters remaining unelaimed in the Charlotte Post-Office, --- seventeen in number,-as follows :

C. S. Bowen, Roswell R. Maxson, James Richmond, Esther Sleuther, Eber Jones, Jacob Willard, Asaph Landers, Thomas Nichols, S. M. Root, J. Baker, Avery Pool, Henry M. Munson (2), Henry P. Chase, R. M. Wheaton, Asaph B. Landers, Peter Sloan.

In the sixth issue of the Bugle, May 7, 1845, Mr. Johnson says : "Since our last paper there have thirteen new settlers arrived in our prairie city. We are happy to announce that the prospects of our village were never

* This firm erected a large ashery in the early part of April, 1845.

384

HISTORY OF EATON COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

better. We hear of a small legion that are following in the wake of those already here, and to a better place no man ever came." In the next number the editor prints a short sketch of Charlotte, and in describing it speaks in the following language :

" We are hold to challenge the world to present a more beautiful location than that on which the village of Charlotte stands. Nature has been Invish of her benuties to extravagance. The plat consists of a beautiful prairie, containing about 600 neres, and surrounded on all sides by heavy timbered lands. It presents rather n curious appearance to the eye of a stranger, and takes him by sur- prise on emerging from heavy forests into a beautiful open plain, unmarred by brush or stumps or swamps. This lovely opening, resting in the bosom of n dense forest, like an oasis in a desert, we have no doubt was once an Indian corn-field ; it bears many evi- dences of it upon its surface. Our streets at all times are perfectly dry, and even in the worst seasons of the year they are never muddy, the sandy soil drinking up the waters as they fall.

" At this season of the year our prairie presents beauties that no imagination ever dreamed of. Reader, you who have never been bere, picture to yourself a beautiful prairie, level as the sleeping sur- face of the lake, and surrounded on all sides by waving forests, form- ing a complete cirele : within, a lovely carpet of grass, begemmed with flowers of a hundred varieties and ten thousand hues, rolling back and forth to the summer breeze. Ilere, in the midst of all these beauties, is the village of Charlotte, the county-seat of Eaton, its white cottages contrasting richly with the green foliage in which it is embowered.

" When we say that Charlotte is proverbial for healthiness, we do not intend it for a mere ruse, as is too often the case when citizens are asked concerning their villages. Our prairie is free from everything like swamps or marshes, consequently free from fevers and all that class of diseases arising from decaying vegetable matter. The purest and freshest breezes of heaven fan ns, and if there is a place on earth whose locality contributes to health, it ought to be ours.

" This must ultimately become a thriving place, from the fact that the country around is composed of the best farming lands in the State, and thesc lands are now in the hands of industrious and coterprising men. The more common order of procedure in commencing settle- ments heretofore has been to build up a village, while the country around bas been left a perfect wilderness. Of course there was noth- ing to supply the constant demands of these non-producing communi- ties, and they have remained stationary for years, or become, like the city of Romulus, imago urbis,-the shadow of a city. But we have reversed this order of things, going upon the principle that the coun- try must always support the town; and, if this principle is a good one, then we have a sure guarantee of our ultimate success. The country around Charlotte is generally well settled; good farms are opening ont ; the resources of the country are being developed more and more every day, and the increasing products of industry are bourly demanding a market. Occupying a central position in the county, the main thoroughfares all centring here, and people from different sections being drawn here on county business will, beyond question, turn the channel of trade in this direction. Other induce- inents are held out to settlers in the cheapness of village lots, which can be had from $5 to $200 apiece. Good water and abundant can be obtained at the depth of twenty-four feet. Building materials of all kinds are easy of access and cheap, with the exception of lumber. There is a saw-mills within one mile and a half of town, but so great

has been the demand for lumber that many have been long delayed. Mensures are now on foot for the erection of a snw-mill on Battle Creek, immediately ndjoining town, which will remedy all difficulties, we hope, in the way of procuring lumber."

That Mr. Johnson's confidence was not misplaced in the future of Charlotte is plainly seen from its present condi- dition (1880). In noting the improvements of the place he wrote :

. . . "Improvements are now the order of tho day. From our win- dow we can at this moment number nine new buildings going up, and we hear of several others that are delayed on account of the want of materials. A new court-house is going up on the public square under the stendy guidance of Major Seout, and will be ready for the next term of the Circuit Court in September. Dr. Joseph P. Ilall is erect- ing a commodious two-story dwelling on Cochrane Avenue. The Messrs. Hayden are putting up a large tin, copper, and sheet-iron manufactory, and are preparing to go into the business as extensively as any other establishment in the State. We were highly gratified to sce these enterprising young men start out a traveling-wagon yester- day ; it is the best evidence of our prosperity. We are informed that it is the present calculation of one of the proprietors to sink a tan- nery here this summer. A large asbery has already been erected by our friend S. E. Millett. The Messrs. Melsheimer are making ar- rangements to commence the saddle and harness business. Their stock and tools are already here, and in a few weeks they will be 'in the full tide of successful experiment.' But why need we particu- larize? Our motto is ONWARD! and who shall set bounds to our efforts ? Commendation in behalf of Charlotte is superfluous, for to see it is to love it. We confidently helieve, from present appearances, that no other town in the State has fairer prospects abead, and we know that no other can furnish so many natural beauties to feast the eye and regale the senses.

"Such is Charlotte, the county-seat of Eaton."

During the opening years of the history of Charlotte the fates seemed to will that every inch of progress should be disputed, and the pioneers struggled with exceediog per- severance against adversity, unwilling to give up the fight, whatever the odds, and their heroism sustained them and bore them safely through to a haven of final prosperity. But it was often very discouraging, and a prominent local writer, in speaking of those years, says :

"Those were indeed close times in money matters. It was with the utmost difficulty that people met their cash engagements. They were ready to pay in work, or dicker in making terms, but as for money, that was absolutely out of the question. The first year or two on a beavily-timbered farm, with all of the money paid on the land, with nothing but an ox-team and an axe to do with, nothing but a little eorn raised the first year, no money to pay taxes, und the greater portion of the family down with the ague, made close, cramp- ing times. Ilad it not been for the black salts and maple-sugar, it is difficult to tell how taxes ever could have been paid. Five or ten dellurs io one man's pocket was a sensation in those days. The money hurned there. Everybody knew of it. The man was re- speeted. There was intense figuring around to borrow it for a few days; to sell him a watch or a rifle, or get up a trade which would bring a little boot-money, just enough to sweeten it.

" Those were slow times : slow in building frame houses ; slower still in finishing them off and paying up; very slow in making inoney. But they were quick times in neighborly sympathy and kindness; quick in going to the bedside of the sick. It was quick work for strong and willing arms to roll up the logs for a new-comer's shanty, or to assist at a new-comer's birth, and quicker still to rally for a wedding or a dance.

" It was owing to the want of money, and consequently of labor- saving machinery and of facilities for getting out and in, that Char- lotte grew so slowly. In those duys it usually required a day or two to get the material ready for building a frame dwelling-house, and often four or five years before the house would be finished uff, and then the best rooms would stand a long while before paterfamilias could get ont of debt enough to furnish them. Sash, doors, flooring,

" This saw-mill was known as the " Mud Mill," and stood on the bank of a sinall stream known as Butternut Creck, northeast of the village. It was built in 1843 by Johnson & Stoddard, who owned cighty aeres of land, including the present " Maple Ilill Cemetery." These gentlemen built the dam and the frame of the mill, and sold out to a man named Walker, who paid for it in part, finished the mill and put it in running order, and commenced operations in it in 1814. The amount of water in the stream was sufficient only when high to turn the mill machinery, consequently it wus in operation but a part of the time. This was the first saw-mill in the vicinity of Charlotte. Walker finally failed, and Mr. Johnson lort what he had originally invested, although he afterwards carried it on himself fur a time. This Inill ceased running about 1865, and has since been removed.

385

CITY OF CHARLOTTE.

and cornice had to be got out hy hand. In matching seasoned white ash flooring two men would often be employedl, one to push and another to pull through the matching plane. The building of the academy was but a fair sample of the slow progress of what we call improvement. The railroad and steam-engine, pioneering the way into the woods, as they now do north of us, would have hurried and hustled us along into doing more in two years than we accomplished here in twenty without their aid.

" But the railroad and steam-engine would not have given us the leisure we had for social enjoyment, for knowing and thinking of each other, and for gently prying into each other's affairs. There was time then for those long friendly confabs, while perched upon the top rail of a fence, during the summer evenings, confiding all we knew to some bosom cruny; time when a row of us could afford to spend the whole of a sunny torenoon upon the dry-goods boxes in front of I. D. Burns' store, cutting deeper with our jack-knives than with our wit, too lazy to unpucker and straighten our faces when the sun had gone behind a cloud, slowly thinking, dreaming, and some- times mustering energy enough for a broken remark. If a fellow went to see a girl, as fellows did and have done and will do in all ages of the world, it would be pretty generally understood by the entire prairie before he was up the next morning. Dear to us all are the memories of those old log houses in which we used to live and visit. No matter if the leg of the chair or table did now and then go down between the loosely laid boards of the floor. There was one house with whitewashed logs and shake-covered roof, and a stove- pipe through the roof serving as a chimney, for bricks, too, were scarce; there were morning.glories climbing the strings up and around a little square chamber-window of the aforesaid house which are still bright and dear in the memory of at least one of us. From the burnt-away doors of the old cooking-stove the glowing coals still shed their mellow light upon the face of one not yet forgotten.

"The quickest way in those days to raise a little ready change was to give a dance. The young men could always be depended upon to pay their dancing-bills when no one else could raise the wind. The rule was that not a single girl should be left out. If a fellow hung back about going, it was surmised that he was short of means, aud the difficulty was at once remedied by the loan of a dollar, or even more. Two double wagons or sleighs would carry us all, every one of us, in- cluding Ira Bailey, the fiddler. The teams of Shepherd or Allen SearIs were always ready. Whenever a new floor was laid, or there was room enough for one cotillon set to form, there we were welcome; and dear as lumber was, it was rumored that sometimes, when return- ing home towards morning, the young men would so far forget them- selves as to throw the seats all overboard, notwithstanding the earnest remoustrances of the girls. Often here in the village there would be impromptu gatherings, sometimes in the room up-stairs in the jail, when Nate Johnson wus deputy sheriff, and sometimes up in the attic of the old Eagle.

"Although houses were far apart, neighbors lived very near in those days; and in trouble or sickness, at weddings or funerals, they were always there to do all that could be done, to feel all the sorrow or joy or kind sympathy that could be felt by those who knew and understood each other so well."

The " California gold fever" broke upon Charlotte at a time when all were sadly in need of ready money. Farms were mortgaged in every direction, and so wonderful had become the purchasing power of good money that men were willing to separate themselves from their families and risk everything-body and often soul-to secure a quantity of the shining nuggets which were said to be lying around in the greatest profusion in the far-distant gulches and fastnesses of the California mountains. The choice was by one of the two routes,-around by water and across the Isthmus of Panama, or the weary and very dangerous journey "across the Plains" and through the Rocky Mountains by way of Salt Lake City, then in its zenith as au abode of blood- thirsty fanatics and a terror to straggling parties of " Gen- tiles." As the route by water was very expensive, the greatest rush was overland, and a survivor of 1849 or 1850,

or even later, who made the journey through by land, has a memory filled with hairbreadth escapes, days and weeks of privation, discouragement, attacks by Indians and Mormons, and all that made the days of the gold fever frightful to look back upon. A few retained their honesty, although by so doing they did not often become wealthy, while others gave themselves over to the bad and lost caste among their former fellow-citizens. Numerous citizens of Charlotte and Eaton County caught the fever and departed for the land of gold. Some never returned ; others came back, broken in health and stricken with poverty, and many wandered upon the face of the earth forgetful of home and its attrac- tions, while no great good resulted to any.

ORIGIN OF NAME .- LAYING OUT OF VILLAGE AND ADDITIONS.

The land on which the original village of Charlotte was laid out was purchased from the government by George W. Barnes, who sold it to Edmund B. Bostwick, of New York City, through the latter's agent, Mr. Lawrance. In the Charlotte Republican of Oct. 10, 1879, H. I. Lawrance caused the following old letter from Mr. Bostwick to be published, and it settles any doubt as to the origin of the nan e of the place :

"NEW YORK, Dec. 29, 1835. "DEAR LAWRANCE,-Your favor communicating the terms on which you purchased the balance of the Eaton county-seat property is he- fore me. I am much pleased with the purchase, and will soon write you a long letter submitting a plan for the town. You speak of call- ing the place after me, but as I have just become a married man, I would prefer calling it Charlotte, or Charlotteville, after my wife. I will make a deed for one-quarter of the property as soon as my deed arrives, and hand it to your father. Next spring we will try to bring the place into notice.

"You will have heard through the papers of the late destructive fire in this city. We, among others, were burnt to the ground, though our loss is but small. On Sunday next I will write you a long letter, and give some of the particulars of the late fire and also of my mar- riage.

"In haste, your friend, " E. B. BOSTWICK."

It is stated also that Mrs. Bostwick offered, in case the county-seat should be honored with her name, to donate a fine bell to the first church that should be erected here. Afterwards one of the churches (Methodist or Congrega- tionalist) is said to have claimed the fulfillment of the promise, but the offer was asserted to have been made only to an Episcopal Church. Mr. Bostwick died in the moun- tain region of the West, in Carson Valley.

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History of Ingham and Eaton counties, Michigan, Part 95

Author: Durant, Samuel W. cn Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Philadelphia : D.W. Ensign & Co. Number of Pages: 772

Author: Durant, Samuel W. cn
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia : D.W. Ensign & Co.
Number of Pages: 772