USA > Michigan > Ionia County > History of Ionia County, Michigan : her people, industries and institutions, Volume I > Part 11
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There was an occasional chance of selling wheat at Lyons and getting half cash and half store pay, but journeys to Detroit were often in order and then the man who went would usually undertake to bring out supplies for the entire neighborhood.
The first cemetery laid out in the eastern part of the township was the one on section 25, and the first person buried therein was the wife of Dr. W. Z. Blanchard, in 1839.
Charles Millard first located in the wilds of the West in 1840 and for three years after that period lived in the townships of Lebanon and North Plains. In 1844 he moved to section 14 in Lyons, and made a beginning upon an eighty-acre lot of wild land. The Beckwiths were then living on section I and, with Moses Dean, owned the only two-horse-teams boasted in the region between Stony creek and the Maple. There was at that time a traveled road between Lyons and the region known as the East Plains, and a road from the south that intersected the angling Lyons road on section 11. Millard and his wife had accompanied Moses Dean and wife westward at Dean's suggestion, the latter, for some time a settler in North Plains, being in western New York for a visit. In the summer of 1841, Millard conchided he would go to mill, and. as a preliminary to that performance, walked through the woods to Maple Rapids to engage an Indian and canoe, for the trip to mill was to be made via river to fonia, after which they returned home.
In September, 1841, Millard came down with chills and fever and lay almost helpless until June, his wife having to do all the labor. Like their neighbors, the Millards had to go hungry once in a while. Good whole- some flour was a highly-prized luxury, hard to get and exceedingly satisfy- ing when at hand, even if there was not much else available.
When Charles Millard settled upon section I44 in Lyons in 1844. he found his neighbors to be Alexander Chubb, on section 11 ; Nehemiah Ilunt.
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just west; Abram Ely, directly north of Hunt; Franklin Chubb, on section II; T. O. Warner, on section II, and John Gee, at the mill-site on Stony creek. "Doctor" Millard, father of Charles Millard, bought Alexander Chubb's place in 18446 and moved upon it. Although his name was Joshua, he in some way gained, early in life, the appellation of "Doctor." despite the fact that he never was a man of medicine.
The first settlements west of the Grand river and among the first made in the township were those of William Moore, and his sons, Daniel and Will- iam. They made their advent early in the summer of 1834 and, after tarry- ing at Hunt's trading-house long enough to permit the men folks to get up a cabin on the Moore tract, in section 28, the family moved up there. Their land lay on the river, opposite Moore's island, so named from the family. The Moores did not remain more than four years, when they moved to Port- land. Meanwhile, in 1837. Isaac Thompson, known far and wide as "Judge" Thompson, purchased in that vicinity a very large traet of land and brought out a large force of men to do the clearing. For a time Thompson was allowed to remain the only settler in that locality. \sahel Hopkins was per- haps the earliest comer thereabouts after Thompson, but Hopkins happened to locate on the eastern bank of the river in section 33.
William Hunt, the Indian trader, made a location on the western shore of the river. William Way came along presently and in 1847 A. A. Crane made his clearing. A man by the name of Lamb was among the carly comers in that region and, in 1853. B. F. Faxon and his son, E. M. Faxon, made settlements, followed, in 1854, by Rufus Kelley, who bought the old Thompson traet of land on section 29 and 32, on which Judge Thompson had cleared about thirty acres. Jacob improved the place on section 32.
Among other early settlers on the west side of the Grand river may also be named John Rock, Edward Doran, D. C. Bennett, W. Johnson, Simon Town, Bernard Thomas and Frank McQuillin, Patrick Fitch and C. W. Staley.
In 1840, James Root concluded to come to Lyons and join Mr. Jason. one of his relatives, then living west of the river, upon land formerly embraced within the Judge Thompson tract. Root remained there about two years, and in 1842 removed to the eastern side of the river, where, in section 26, he bought a place of Hervey Bartow, and where, in 1845, he died.
Alvin Sutton settled in 1842 in Portland township on the north town- ship line. He came from western New York, where he had been a Meth- odist Episcopal circuit-preacher, and upon his arrival in Michigan resumed
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his ministerial labors. He preached in Portland, Lyons and other places over a wide circuit and died in Lyons in 1864. His son, Lorenzo, settled there in 1849, and made his home in the midst of a dense forest. Later settlers in that neighborhood were M. R. Fisk and E. O. Smith, the latter a settler in Eaton county in 1838.
William Brown setticd in Michigan in 1833, and in 1843 bought of Allen Reynolds a place in Lyons, on section 23, where Joseph Reynolds had mado a clearing of twenty acres. The north and south road, later passing their home, was then but a mere path. About that time. O. S. and S. H. Kimball made beginnings on new land just south of Stony Creek and How- ard Wright located on section 23, coming with O. S. Kimball. Among other settlers in the neighborhood of Stony creek were W. R. Slade, N. P. Hopkins, W. Steels, Francis Gee, Isaac Balch and Joseph Townsend.
North of Stony creek and east of the Maple was the settlement, in 1842, of Isaac Shoemaker, who bought of Nathan Benjamin, on section 1. forty acres of land partially improved. He was accompanied to the town by his brother-in-law, William H. Pratt, who soon afterwards made a location on section 1. Near Shoemaker, at a later period, settlements were named by Dr. Alonzo Sunderlin (a practicing physician in those parts for many years ) and William T. Bissell. With them came Nicholas G. Bissell, who settled farther south. Joseph Randolph was among the later settlers in that vicinity.
West of these, David Fifield and Abram Ely were early comers, and in 1845 Richard Carberry and Thomas Welch took possession of a quarter of section 10 and gave out that they proposed to farm accordingly to purely scientific principles. They brought in a flock of about three hundred sheep and, in support of their scientific determination, brought also an invoice of books on agriculture, according to whose precepts they proposed to conduct their operations as husbandmen, for their practical knowledge of farming was literally nothing. Of course they made a disastrous failure of the whole affair and a langhing stock of themselves. They had no sooner got their sheep into the town than they discovered that they had nothing to feed them. and so they sold them off as fast as they could. At the end of less than a year, they came to the conclusion that they had made a woeful mistake in undertaking farming and, like sensible men, retired to some other and more congenial pursuit. The place was subsequently occupied by Eugene Beck- with and, in 1853, by M. R. Vance.
Carberry boarded with Nehemiah Hunt awhile, but by and by came to the conclusion that he could not pay the price of board, one dollar and a
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half a week, and accordingly set up a bachelor's hall. At that time sturgeon were very plentiful in Stony creek, and Carberry was naturally fed on them freely. He probably grew tired of a steady fish diet, for Hunt overheard him holding an imaginary conversation with some of the old folks at home. in the course of which he remarked, "Oh. if you old folks could only know how we're living out here in Michigan. Just think of it. Stinking fish and jolumy-cake!"
Henry Loomis moved with his family in 1849 to a place on section 11. where Wexander Chubb had improved ten acres. South of him the Seavers (early settlers in Dallas ) settled later, and A. Bahlke, on the north, where William Merril had made the first improvement.
Lyons has been the most prolific of any township in relation to the vil- lages within her limits. There are at present three growing towns in Lyons township, namely, Pewamo. Lyons and Muir.
SUPERVISORS.
1867-71, W. II. Woodworth: 1872, D. C. Spaulding: 1873, Louis Willis: 1874, W. H. Freeman: 1875-76. A. W. Sherwood: 1877-79. A. K. Roof: 1880. A. H. Jacob; 1881-83, Dustine C. Oakes; 1884, Abram H. Jacob: 1885, no report : 1886-87. A. K. Roff : 1888-89-90. Henry H. Ilitch- cock: 1801. Julian S. Tibbitts: 1892-93, Henry Hitchcock : 1894-95. Julius S. Tibbitts : 1896. John Hale: 1807, Clarence Hodgman : 1808-1900-01. John McQuillian; 1902 to the present time, George D. Faxon.
INDIAN BATTLES.
In section 20, Lyons township, where Grand river makes a big bend from a north to a southwest direction, was fought a big Indian battle, prob- ably about 1785. A tribe of Pottawatomie Indians on the Arthurburg hill just west of Muir, built earthworks for defense, on which trees are now growing eighteen inches thick. Chippewa Indians, thirty miles up Maple river, planned to attack those at Arthurburg hill in conjunction with the Menominee Indians on Grand river, near Lansing, purposing to take the stronghold and also the fields of cleared land in the valleys at the junction of Grand and Maple rivers, on which good crops were then growing The fast-flowing current of Grand river brought the Menominees a day ahead of the others. The Pottawatomies, who had been fully informed by runners. of the proposed attack, met them at the bend of the river cast of Lyons,
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where the Le Tandre farm is now, and defeated the invaders. The next day they met the other attackers up the Maple river and likewise defeated them. Hundreds of skulls and skeletons have been dug up where they fought. On the south side of the bend was a plat of ground reserved by the Indians for their annual "green corn dance" and they had about four acres of corn growing there. At the time of their dance, all arms and ammunition were deposited with the chief. in order to prevent their killing each other when full of liquor. They kept up these dances for ten or fifteen years after the white settlers came to this locality.
LYONS.
The village of Lyons, charmingly situated in a fertile valley upon both sides of the Grand river, invited the attention of the pioneer at an early date, both by reason of its picturesque location and the presence of the fine water-power. The river flows from the south through the center of the village, margined by high, abrupt bluffs and thickly-wooded banks. South of the town one may gain from the hill overlooking the river a magnificent view. At his feet, and stretching away upon either hand, lies a broad- reaching valley, upon whose bosom, in picturesque beauty, repose the villages of Lyons and Muir.
Until 1830 no white man ventured to penetrate into the Grand river valley near the village of Lyons. In that year. however, William Hunt. learning that the point was a most favorable one for the purpose, set up a trading-post on the west bank of the river and began to traffic with the Indians for furs, skins and such other commodities as they chose to bring to him in exchange for whisky, blankets, guns, etc. Hunt had as partners in the enterprise at various times men named Belcher and Burgess, of whom Belcher remained until 1834, when he removed to Kalamazoo. He was by profession a lawyer, but while here he appeared to be given to the notion that he could do better as an Indian trader in the wilds of Michigan than as a lawyer in the haunts of men. Whether his practice proved the truth of that theory, has never yet been disclosed. Belcher's wife was undoubtedly the first white woman resident on the site now occupied by the village of Lyons, while her child, born in 1834, was likewise the first white chikl born in that territory.
The business of trading with the Indians as carried on by Hunt. Belcher and Burgess, was the only white man's effort in mercantile lines in that neighborhood until the year 1836, when Lucius Lyon founded the village of
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Lyons. Lyon, who was concerned with the surveying of the government lands in Michigan, entered the land upon which Lyons now stands, and in 1836 proceeded to carry out his originally-formed project of creating a vil- lage there. The first settler upon that ground was Giles S. Isham, who made a location upon the west side of the river, put up a log cabin and began to clear his land. The impression that H. V. Libhart was an early settler in Lyons was a mistaken one. He settled, it is true, in 1833, but in what was then in Lyons township and now in lonia township.
Isham had gotten fairly settled in the summer of 1836, when along came Edward Lyon, Henry A. Leonard and Andrew Hanse, attended by a company of sixteen carpenters and builders sent out by Lucius Lyon to build a bridge, stores, dwellings, etc., and to give the new village a proper archi- tectural start. Among the sixteen carpenters alluded to, were Ashley Cooper, David Pressy and N. J. Allport, who, with Leonard and Lyon, became permanent settlers. Isham's was the only house on the spot except Hunt's and the only one at all capable of containing the company of carpenters, though it was a close fit. However, all hands took shelter in it until they could arrange accommodations of their own, which they were not long in doing. They established a camp on the bank of the river, N. J. Allport being "chief cook and bottle-washer," and, as the first work in hand, began at the erection of a store, in which Edward Lyon was to be the storekeeper. That building was a pretty good one even for this day and was the first framed structure built in the village. The next improvement was the building of a dwelling-house for Edward Lyon, likewise on the west bank of the river. Lyon obtained the brilliant idea that Lyons would become a first-class city in less than no time and. to meet what he conceived would soon be the popular demand, he stocked his store with choice goods, including even silks, cham- pagne, etc. When he gave the champagne away to get rid of it and saw the silks severely neglected, he concluded that there was such a thing as being too smart.
The lumber for the village improvements was easily obtainable at H. V. Libhart's saw-mill, about two miles westward, and in the business of hauling the lumber from mill to village David Baldwin, famous as the owner of a great breaking-up team, was the chief factor.
The first recorded plat of the village of Lyons is dated November 26. 1836, signed by Lucius Lyon, and designated as "occupying land on sections 18 and 19, in town 7 north, range 5 west." The plat further sets forth that "this town is situated at the head of steamboat navigation on Grand
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river, one hundred miles from the river's mouth, and sixty miles from Grand Rapids."
The second plat was made by Walter Halstead, on section 19, March 18, 1857, as Halstead's addition. The third was made by Daniel Ball and R. E. Butterworth in September, 1857, as Ball's addition, and the fourth by H. and E. A. Hawley. D. B. Lyon and B. F. Rockafellow. The latter addi- tion is described as "commencing at a point in the south line of Isham street. four rods south of the southeast corner of block 84, of the original plat of the village, in a magnetic course south three degrees east ; thence along the south line of Isham street south eighty-seven degrees west two thousand eight hundred feet to the bank of the Grand river."
In the fall of 1836, the village being platted and the village site fast emerging from the embrace of the forest, as the woodmen plied their busy axes, the population began to increase and the signs of the times pointed to a healthful growth of the enterprise.
In October, 1836, Simeon Mortimer came to the town and, on Decem- ber 7 of that year opened the pioneer blacksmith shop.
To that time the village improvements had been confined wholly to the west side of the river, but now James W. Tabor, who was in charge of Lucius Lyon's landed interests in that region, erected a fine residence on the east bank. Meanwhile, Joel Burgess had opened a house of entertainment on the west side of the river, and A. L. Roof and A. F. Bell were living in a shanty. Bell and Roof made the journey together down the river from Jackson to Lyons in a poleboat, in which they conveyed all their worldly possessions, which, as may be imagined, were not very extensive. These young men were law graduates and surveyors and, coming to the new vil- lage with a few law books as their chief stock in trade, established them- selves there as lawyers and surveyors.
In 1837, Henry A. Leonard and Andrew Hanse began the erection, for Lucius Lyon, of a bridge over the Grand river at Lyons. It was the first bridge thrown across the stream between Grand Haven and Jackson.
Early in the year 1837. Peter Coon and T. H. Dewey, then sturdy young men, joined the diminutive band in the little village. They were friends and neighbors in Genesee county, New York, and. hearing from Marshall Smead, just returned from a prospecting tour, that there was a fine country and good land at the mouth of the Maple river, they determined to go out there and grow up with the country. They went to a country 'dance the night of February 22, and on the morning of the 23d left the ball-
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room for the far West. Each, with a twenty-eight-pound pack on his back, footed it merrily to the mouth of the Maple, which, without experiencing any remarkable vicissitude, they reached on March 13, 1837, each with an English six-pence in his pocket as the sum total of his worldly possession. Mr. Dewey relates that, when they got to Lyons, they found Edward Lyons and Giles S. Isham keeping stores on the west bank of the river ; Joel Burgess kept what he called a tavern; Simeon Mortimer was carrying on a black- smith shop: and there were living also on the west side of the river, David Irish (clerk for Edward ), James W. Tabor ( Lucius Lyon's agent ), William Hunt ( then having exchanged the business of Indian trader for land-hunter and guide ), David Pressy and Henry A. Leonard, carpenters, and A. L. Roof and A. F. Bell, who were keeping house and studying law in a board shanty.
On December 1, 1837. the good people of Lyons were treated to the sensational spectacle of a steamboat plowing the waters of the Grand river to the very doors of the town. The vessel was the "Governor Mason," a side-wheeler employed in navigating the lakes, and the river being risen to an extraordinary height, the owners of the craft ascended the rapids and river as far as Lyons simply to gratify a sudden fancy. Ordinarily the boat, which was a capacious one, could not have accomplished the undertaking, but the flood had laid the country under water and supplied an ample depth in the river. Until 1838 the waters of the stream were not again vexed by a steamboat's paddle, although navigation was regularly pursued by means of pole boats. In this way supplies for the settlement and produce for mar- ket were transported via Grand Haven, although there was also similar traffic overland to and from Detroit.
Ten years afterwards, in 1847, the Legislature made an appropriation for the improvement of navigation on the Grand river and navigation was so improved that in 1848 small steamboats were put into service by Daniel Ball and others between Lyons and Grand Rapids for the purpose of towing fatboats. These boats did considerable business in the way of carrying produce out of the valley, and by their agency all wheat shipments were made until railway construction pushed them aside. Burgess Hall, as agent for Beach & Company, had a wheat warehouse at the west end of the bridge. from which the flatboats took their wheat cargoes and through which a vast amount of grain was forwarded, from first to last. Steamboats and flatboats plied with more or less regularity between Grand Rapids and Lyons until the completion of the Detroit & Milwaukee railroad, in 1837, when the business was abandoned.
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Up to the time of the construction of the first bridge across the river at Lyons, in 1837, the village proper was confined exclusively to the western side of the stream, but, with established communication between the shores came a spread of the population and business to the eastern shore. The first improvement there after Tabor's house was Truman Lyon's tavern, at the eastern end of the bridge. Lyon called the tavern the "Lyons House" and there, as postmaster, he opened Lyons' first postoffice in 1836. The first business establishment, aside from the tavern on the eastern bank was started by N. J. AAllport, the shoemaker, and the first store, in 1841 by Dorus M. Fox. Lucius Lyon was anxious to push the architectural adornments of the town, and engaged a man to burn a kiln of brick, with a view to the erection of a brick hotel, but the brick-kiln turned out a total failure and the hotel project was abandoned.
On the eastern shore, in 1837, were Stevenson, a shoemaker: David Burnett and one Atwater, carpenters; Horace Catlin, John Montrael, Abram Hause and other mechanics: William W. Fitch, a surveyor : Peter Coon. Mount Vernon Olmstead. Thomas Dewey and Joseph Letandre, the four latter being employed by' James W. Tabor; David Irish, earlier a clerk for Edward Lyon, himself became a storekeeper, and had for a clerk Fred Hall.
There was a popular stage route from Detroit to Grand Rapids, via Lansing, Lyons and Ionia, in the days of 1846 and after, and there was much travel on it. The road touched Lyons on the western shore of the river. where Giles Isham kept a stage house, and passed on down a stream to Gen- eraux's landing. where there was a good bridge and so on towards lonia. Those were the good old coaching days when every few miles each passenger was called upon to carry a rail with which to life the coach out of the mind.
Lyons' first wedding was solemnized in 1835 by Franklin Chubb. at the house of William Hint, the Indian trader. The contracting parties were Loisa. daughter of William Hunt, and Stephen Bunker, a young man in the employ of William Hunt. The young woman was apparently anxious to have the performance well attended. with proper embellishment, even if it were to be simply a blackwoods wedding, so she took a six-mile walk through the woods one fine morning to the house of T. O. Warner, of whose wife she borrowed a pair of wedding-gloves, and then went back to be married in style.
The child of Belcher. the Indian trader, is supposed to have been the first white child born upon the village site. The first child born to a settler in the village was Martha, daughter of James W. Tabor. the year of her birth being 1836.
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Lyons came within one vote of being chosen by the Legislature in 1846 as the capital of the state and they do say that if it had not been for the obstinacy of somebody the project would have succeeded.
Lyons village was incorporated by the board of county supervisors under the general law. January 6, 1859. The corporate limits of the village were described as follows: "Beginning at the southwest corner of section 19, in the township of Lyons; running thence east on the south line of said section to the south quarter-post of said section; thence north to the north bank of the Grand river; thence east along the north bank of said river to a point eighty rods east of the east line of section 19; thence north eighty rods: thence west to the south bank of the Grand river; thence west along the south bank of the Grand river to the west line of H. Degarmo, and con- tinuing on the same line to a point eighty rods south of the section line between sections 18 and 19: thence over a due west course to a point eighty rods west to the township line; thence south to a point that shall be eighty rods south of the quarter-line of section 24, township 7 north, range 6 west ; thence due east to the west line of section 19. township of Lyons; thence south to the place of beginning."
Truman Fox, Curtis Hawley and Peter Coon were appointed to be inspectors of the election, which was ordered to be held in the town hall in the village of Lyons. The village records, dating from the incorporation in 1859 to the reincorporation in 1867. have disappeared, and nothing can therefore be presented to show who served as village officials during that period.
In 1867 a legislative charter was obtained, and under that act the village has since then continued to have its legal existence. The act of 1867 described the limits of the corporation to be as follows: "Beginning at a point. sixty rods north of the southwest corner of section 19. township 7 north, range 5 west, running thence east one hundred and sixty rods : thence north to the north bank of Grand river: thence east along the north bank of Grand river to a point eighty rods east of the east line of section ro: thence north to a point eighty rods north of the section line between sections 17 and 20. township 7 north, range 5 west: thence west to the south bank of the Grand river. to the west line of land owned by George W. Van Auken ; thence south along said west line of Van Auken land to the section line between sections 18 and 19. township 7 north, range 5 west : thence west to a point forty rods west to the township line between townships 7 north. range 5 west. and township 7 north, range 6 west ; thence south to a point
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