USA > Michigan > Ionia County > History of Ionia County, Michigan : her people, industries and institutions, Volume I > Part 19
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In 1852 Elihu Halladay settled near the Corners, and in 1853 came John Friend, who bought Jacob Green's log house and, after occupying it a year, built a house and in one part thereof put a stock of goods, becoming a trader. From that time to 1879 he kept store at the Corners almost con-
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tinuously. The first tavern at the Corners was opened in 1854 by William Barber, and stood next south of Friend's house. P. G. Cook succeeded Barber as landlord, and after him Hiram Trim took the helm.
The postoffice at the Corners was called Cornell. although up to the spring of 1880 it bore the name of Sebewa. Cornell had since 1867 been the name of that portion of the village lying in Danby, the plat having been recorded in that year, and, in deference to request, the postoffice name was changed to accord with the name of the legalized portion of the village.
Sebewa postoffice was established along about 1846 or 1847, and B. D. Weld was appointed postmaster. In 1853 the office was removed from the Weld neighborhood, in the southwest corner, and transferred to the Shower- man settlement, when I. E. Showerman received the appointment. In 1857 the office was moved to the Corners. John Friend was the first postmaster at the Corners, being succeeded by O. W. Kibbey and R. W. Wilson.
HALL-FOWLER MEMORIAL LIBRARY. IONIA.
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CITY HALL. IONIA.
CHAPTER XIX.
CITY OF IONIA.
Ionia is a city of from six thousand to seven thousand people. located in the central portion of Ionia county, on the Detroit, Grand Haven & Milwaukee division of the Grand Trunk railway system, and on the Lansing, Ionia & Big Rapids division of the Pere Marquette railway, one hundred and twenty-five miles northwest of Detroit, thirty-six miles northwest of Lansing and thirty-three miles east of Grand Rapids.
Tonia city is the county seat of Ionia county, and situated in the midst of one of the finest farming sections of the state. The spirit of progress which is pushing this city to the front is best shown by the large number of manufacturing establishments located here, the handsome business blocks and elegant residences which stand as monuments to the thrift and enter- prise of her business men.
With the two great railway systems mentioned above, whose branches reach every section of the state, Ionia has superior inducements to offer desirable manufacturing establishments. In this age of spirited competition, shipping facilities play a very important part in determining the cost of placing any article upon the market. and with these two great railway sys- tems competing for the business, lonia manufacturers are assured of receiv- ing any and all accommodations possible in the transportation of raw mate- rials and the finished products.
Prior to 1833 this immediate section of the state had not been penetrated except by an occasional trapper, hunter or some missionary with an Indian guide bound for the north. With these exceptions, nature held full sway; bears, wolves, deer and other smaller wild animals were abundant, and the Grand river, unobstructed by dams, wended its way through the valley and on to Lake Michigan.
Though a little more than three-fourths of a century has passed since the first white settler located in this region, it has been converted from a (lense wilderness into a cultivated and productive country, affording all the conveniences and comforts of advanced civilization. The spring of 1833
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witnessed the arrival of Samuel Dexter and his associates, Erastus Yeomans. Oliver Arnold, Darius Winsor, Edward and Joel Guild and Doctor W. B. Lincoln, who sought homes in the Grand River valley. It is asserted, and doubtless is a fact, that the Grand river ( which then and for many years after was considered a navigable stream) was the inducement which led the members of Judge Dexter's party of colonists to fix their homes so far away from settlements already established. Be that as it may, it is certain that quite a number of other settlers followed the course of the "Dexter trail" and located in this county later in the same year.
Following the settlement of the Dexter colony, in May, 1833, came Henry V. Libhart, to the southeast corner of what is now Ionia township: the Cornells, to Easton; John E. Morrison, to Berlin, and Philo Bogue and John Milne, to Portland, all of whom became settlers within the county before the close of the year 1833. Among those who came in 1834 were Franklin Chubb and Nathan Benjamin, who located in what is now Lyons township ; George W. Case, Horace Case and the Connor brothers, in Easton ; John McKelvey and Gadd Bunnell, in Ionia township.
In the year 1835 the population of the county was still further increased by the settlement of Alonzo Sessions and brother, Job, in Berlin township: Chancellor Barringer, in Danby, and Selah Arms, the first settler in Orange. The great influx of immigrants from New York to Michigan in 1836 and the establishment of a United States land office in the village of Ionia were causes which greatly increased the number of inhabitants over the entire county, and, in fact, in this section of the state.
SELECTION OF A COUNTY SEAT.
Early in 1833 the Indian traders and their employees, then the only white people residing in the county, inaugurated measures looking toward the establishment of a county seat, they sending a petition to Governor Porter, in March of that year, asking that commissioners be appointed for that purpose. Before any action was taken, Samuel Dexter and his asso- ciates arrived and settled permanently on and near the present site of the city of lonia. The county seat question at once became uppermost in their minds, and in July of the same year they also forwarded a petition to Gov- ernor Porter, asking that commissioners be appointed to determine upon a place suitable for the erection of a court house and other county buildings. Unfortunately the new county of Ionia possessed two localities deemed advantageous for the establishment of a county seat, according to the loca-
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tion of the settler. One party was composed of the original settlers of Ionia city and that vicinity, while their opponents were their neighbors up the river at Lyons, assisted by the early residents of the township of Portland. As a consequence there were two opposing parties, each striving for mastery.
In September, 1833, Governor Porter appointed a commission to locate the county seat, they visiting this city in the latter part of October. After due deliberation, the commissioners made choice of lands owned by Samuel Dexter, situated in the north half of section 19, township 7 north, range 6 west, that being the present site of the county buildings.
The news of their determination and proceedings was soon noised abroad, and remonstrances were forwarded to the Governor by those oppos- ing the selection of that location. Governor Porter died, July 6, 1834, without having confirmed by proclamation the finding of this commission; neither did he order a revision of their work by the appointment of another commission. Hon. Stevens T. Mason then became governor, and the fight was renewed before him. However, soon after assuming the duties of the office he became involved in a warm dispute with the authorities of the state of Ohio regarding the boundary line between these two states. His Excel- lency devoted nearly his entire time to this controversy, and matters per- taining to the Ionia county struggle were considered too insignificant for attention at that time. However, the inhabitants of this locality became restive under the long delay and the non-appearance of a proclamation con- firming the report of the commissioners. Then petitions were again circu- lated and forwarded to the Governor, which seem to have settled the matter. Although there seems to be no record of the precise date of the proclama- tion confirming the report of the commission, it is certain that it was issued during the latter part of 1835 or early in 1836, and the seat of justice in Ionia county still remains where it was first located in the fall of 1833.
PIONEER HARDSHIPS.
People of this generation, reared among the conveniences of the twen- tieth century, know absolutely nothing of the hardships and pleasures attendant upon pioneer life. The attractiveness of our beautiful farms and picturesque landscapes, dotted here and there with neat and substantial resi- dences and modern farm buildings, present a very pleasing picture as well as a strong contrast to the humble log cabin of the thirties, whose walls sheltered a few articles of rude furniture, while the stumps in the dooryards were the repositories for the cross-cut saw, the beetle and the ax. Many
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of the men who were very largely instrumental in the development of this immediate locality were born beneath these humble roofs, their infantile cries being hushed by a mother's soft lullaby as she rocked them to sleep in a cradle improvised from a basswood sugar trough.
The early settlers coming into the new country found themselves sub- ject to the pressing demands of nature. Away from civilization, yet they must live. After the first meager stock of supplies was exhausted, they were obliged to go out after more, the nearest reliable points then being Pontiac and Grand Haven, several days' journey distant and through dense forests and over roads almost impassable for travel, even on foot. From these points must come all provisions, flour. etc .. as well as all mail. How great is the contrast between the conditions of the thirties and the present. when the farmer can sit in his comfortable home and telephone the mer- chant, miller or doctor for the necessities of the occasion, and, while waiting their delivery, read his daily paper, delivered at his door by the carriers of the rural free delivery service. The younger people who know none of the privations of pioneer life cannot fully apprciate the conveniences of the modern homes and times.
FIRST THINGS.
The first frame house built in the city of Ionia was that of Doctor 'Lincoln, erected in 1834.
The first white child born was Eugene, son of Darius Winsor, and whose birth occurred August 12, 1833.
The first death in the new settlement was also in the family of Darius Winsor, being their six-year-old daughter, in the fall of 1833.
The first wedding in the settlement was that of Doctor W. B. Lincoln to Anthy P., daughter of Oliver Arnold, the marriage taking place on Sun- day. July 5, 1835, Squire Dexter performing the ceremony.
The first railroad to enter either the city or county of Ionia was what is now known as the Detroit. Grand Haven & Milwaukee division of the Grand Trunk system. . That section of this road between Detroit and Pontiac was commenced as early as 1834, but it was not until 1838 that even that section was operated. Then the rails were of wood, the cars of a most inferior class and propelled by horse-power. By degrees this road was improved, developed, extended and consolidated with other projects until it reached this city in the fall of 1857, and in November, 1858, was completed through to Grand Haven.
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TRADERS AND TAVERNS.
In the fall of 1836 old Coon Ten Eyck, of Northville, Michigan, con- cluded that Ionia offered a good opening for a merchant, and so he arranged to send his son William up there, in company with John Lloyd, for the purpose of opening a store. Lloyd and Ten Eyck rented Samuel Dexter's barn, and engaged Ezekiel Welch, then captain of the pole-boat "Davy Crockett," to bring up a load of goods from Grand Haven. Welch set sail from lonia on September 28, having on board twenty-eight passengers for Grand Rapids, at one dollar a head. `Those who were in a hurry lent a hand in poling the boat ; those who had leisure took matters lazily. Welch got the goods and brought them up as far as Utica landing, now in Easton, whence they were hauled by teams to Ionia, for the river above was then too low for a boat. Lloyd and Ten Eyck used Dexter's barn until they could put up a store-building, which was simply a hastily-constructed block- house. It occupied the corner of Main and Third streets, known as the "grab-store," because of the high prices charged by Lloyd for goods. Lloyd used to say. in explanation. that it cost a heap to get goods down the river. and he was bound to make Ionians pay for them. In December. 1837, they received a load of goods, by the steamer "Governor Mason," and it may be that they were enabled after that to put prices down to a decent figure. The second store was opened by M. J. Youngs, his being a hardware store. He afterward occupied the corner of Main and Kidd streets, where he was doing business in 1837, and where he eventually failed.
There was no village tavern until early in 1838, although there were boarding-houses before that, Asa Spencer, in 1836. opening the first one. The frame for the structure, which was called the Eagle Tavern, was, how- ever, raised in July. 1837, but the enterprise was left uncompleted, until 1843, when Abel Avery bought and finished it. christening it the "Grand River Eagle." Samuel Dexter wanted a tavern for the town and, with J. W. Brown, register of the land office: Cyrus Lovell and others. formed what was known as the Ionia House Company, for the purposes of building a tavern to be called the Ionia House. A site was chosen on the corner now occupied by the Bailey House, and Jeremiah Eaton, a house-builder of Herkimer county. New York, was induced, by the promise of a liberal inter- est in the company, to come out and build the tavern. As before observed, the frame was raised in July, 1837. and a kitchen finished, but by that time the affair had gone in expenditure so far beyond the expectations of the
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projectors that they got disheartened and refused to push it any farther. So it was left in an unfinished state, and the Ionia House Company became a thing of the past. The failure stimulated Ezekiel Welch to try his hand at tavern-keeping and, as was seen, he made success of it. Welch had come to the town in 1836, was captain of a poleboat on the river that year, and the following year and early in the year 1838 opened the first tavern known to the history of lonia.
The second tavern was opened by William McCausland on April 18, 1838. The building was called the Cottage Inn, and was afterward kept by Ezekiel Welch. In 1843 Abel Avery having bought the unfinished Ionia House of Samuel Dexter, for a stock of Yankee notions and leather, opened it.
The year 1836 was a year fraught with importance to the village, for it was during that period that the United States located a land office at that point. On September 20, of that year, the office was opened, on Main street, and there set in at once a steady and voluminous flow of land-seekers and speculators to that center, which in a trice seemed to have awakened from the quiet features of a backwoods settlement to the bustling, stirring and well-nigh distracting elements of a county village in fair time. The rush for lands was something quite remarkable, and applicants were fre- quently compelled to wait for weeks before they could get a chance to make an entry. The crowd was hungry and must be fed and lodged. The citi- zens were, of course, not averse to entertaining them, provided pay was forthcoming, and, as money was plentiful, customers did not haggle about the prices charged.
The inroad upon the stock of provisions compelled new supplies to be brought from Detroit or Pontiac and, although it was a struggle between supply and demand, supply managed, through heroic exertions, to meet the requirements of the occasion, albeit it was tough business hauling goods from Detroit, especially when the ground was frozen. Thirty days to Detroit and back was not considered a long trip.
President Jackson's war upon the United States bank brought oceans of worthless western bank-notes into circulation, and money was almost as plentiful as water. Speculation ran rampant and fortunes were made rap- idly. The turn in the tide came with the issue of Jackson's specie circular and lonia suffered some under the blow. The check was a sudden one and gave the little settlement a set-back, but the blight was but temporary. The reaction came in due season and then set in the era of substantial advance- ment which strengthened and expanded with the march of time.
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A writer of that time thus deals with the situation: "The location of the land office at lonia was the occasion of public rejoicing, but it proved a very unfortunate thing for the county. At the very beginning when the mania for speculating in wild lands was raging and the fever at its extreme height, the land office was opened-in the midst of an extensive tract of the most valuable lands just thrown upon the market-by officers so devoid of all sense of honor as to practice daily in open daylight the most barefaced frauds upon poor men, who desired small tracts to live upon, and criminal favoritism in the interest of those who had money to bribe them and to secure great numbers of acres to hold wild and waste.
"Just at that time President Jackson's specie circular came in force, and that enabled greedy officials to swindle honest purchasers in detail and in bulk.
"The result is soon told. Those who came to buy land to make them- selves homes, soon became disgusted and left. It may be wondered why they did not tear down the land office and the office of the broker."
The first Fourth of July celebration in lonia took place in 1836 and was a great event. Alonzo Sessions delivered the oration and Thomas Cornell provided the feast of solids.
In the month of July, 1841. Thomas Cornell and Alexander F. Bell. surveyors, laid out for Samuel Dexter the village of Ionia County Seat, on the north half of section 19. in township 7 north, range 6 west. The line of survey commenced at a stone set south nine degrees and thirty minutes east, distance one hundred and fifty links from a stump known as the county- stake of lonia county. Said stone lay north forty degrees thirty minutes. west two hundred and twenty-five links, from the northwestern corner of the upright part of the house built by Joseph W. Brown.
On August 25, 1841, the plat of Warner's addition to Tonia County Seat was recorded as having been surveyed by A. F. Bell, and beginning at a point on the northeast quarter of section 19 aforesaid, fifty links west- erly on the north line of the Main street. On November 9, 1854, James M. Kidd and Hampton Rich platted an addition, and on November 29, 1855, Merritt and York's addition to the village of Tonia County Seat was recorded. In June, 1857. Samuel A. Alderman surveyed Titus Merritt's addition.
One may very naturally say. these pioneers must have endured great privations and sufferings. There are none of the pioneer settlers now living who do not look back with pleasure to the days when an untrodden wilder- ness surrounded them and when the nearest settlement was a hundred miles
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away. The memories of those days are full of sweetness of real life-a life characterized by virtuous and noble aspirations. Never before did husband and wife so realize their oneness; never was the family union so complete and perfect, or neighbors live in such peace and joyful fellowship. Not that they were different from other men, but their circumstances and sur- roundings were favorable for the development of the noblest qualities, the stirring up of the gentler impulses and awakening of the kindlier feelings that insure mutual sympathy and help. Helping others, they helped them- selves ; seeking to make others happy. they increased their own happiness. They were delighted with their new location. Everything was yet to be done, and they rejoiced in doing it. Every new acre of improvement pro- duced a thrill of joy in the household. Every fruit-tree planted was watched over with an increasing interest as the family estimated the time when it would yield them its ripened fruit. Every new building erected by them- selves or others marked the advancing tide of civilization and all were jubilant over it.
No man who has come into the possession of a patrimony, with the lands all cultivated, buildings completed, fruit trees in bearing condition, the surrounding villages grown to a stand-still, can have a just appreciation of the vitalizing power and life-giving energy embodied in pioneer life, or the abiding pleasure with which the early pioneer looks back to the days when the wilderness was made to blossom as the rose.
IONIA VILLAGE IN 1845.
"Squire" A. B. Clark, a justice of the peace in lonia City, came to the town with his father in the summer of 1845. the latter having come from Oakland county for the purpose of continuing in Pontiac for several years. A. B. Clark was then a lad of fifteen and the impressions of time. place, and circumstance made upon him at that period have remained with him to this day. with such keenness of recollection that he calls to mind vividly and in elaborate detail the condition of Ionia in the summer of 1845. From First street down to and beyond Dexter's red mill, he names, on Main street, residents, storekeepers, and all others abiding thereon with such minute exactness that one is forced to compliment the performance as a remarkable feat of memory.
Following his chain of description, the north side of Main street, in the summer of 1845, may be pictured as follows: At the corner of First and Main streets was the Baptist church and just north of it the Episcopal
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church. West on Main street was the residence of Osmond Tower and next to it Mr. Tower's fanning-mill factory. Still farther along was S. B. Wor- den's cabinet-shop and residence, and on which later was the Sherman House. stood the residence of John Tompkins, the blacksmith. Tompkins enlarged his residence in 1848 and opened it as a tavern called The Exchange. When The Exchange was burned. Tompkins built the Sherman House and kept it until his death. On the corner where the Second National Bank stood was Tompkins' blacksmith shop. Where M. J. Young's hardware store stood was the Cottage hmm, then vacant. That tavern' was built by William McCausland, and by him opened in 1838 as one of the pioneer institutions of the kind in the village. West was the residence of Steptoe Brown, a carpenter; beyond him, A. F. Carr's house; next west, the Parks lot, into the house which W. C. Clark moved when he came to town, and on which also Cornelius Elvert. a tailor, lived. Then there was the house of Benjamin Harter (a clerk for James M. Kidd) and on the corner of Main and Third streets to the opposite corner, the exploration reached the "grab- store." built by John Lloyd, and then kept by Charles M. Moseman.
Moseman's "grab-store" ( so called while John Lloyd owned it, and thus designated ever afterward) was a place of popular resort, or, more appropriately speaking, "the general loafing-place of the town." George M. Mills had succeeded John Lloyd in its possession and to Mills succeeded Charles M. Moseman, a sometime Mormon preacher of Nauvoo, Illinois. Next west of the "grab-store" was E. S. Johnson, tailor and postmaster. and next west of him was Doctor W. B. Lincoln. Then there was the resi- dence of the widow of William Dallas ( who had served as register of deeds and died in 1842), the house and the shop of Elijah Kirkham, carpenter and joiner and local "character"; the office of the Ionia Journal ( whose editor, J. W. Robinson, lived on Washington street just north of his office), and the house, of Samuel Dexter, whose place extended to the corner of Dexter and Main streets. Westward of Dexter's, in lonely solitude, stood the residences of Samuel Smith, Ethan S. Johnson and Erastus Yeomans, between which latter residences was the village school house.
On the south side of Main street, beginning at the eastern end, was the Eagle hotel. on the Bailey House site. Abel Avery completed the Eagle hotel in 1843, but in 1845 it was kept by Ben Welch. Abel Avery lived just west of the Eagle hotel, and west of his house was Ezekiel Welch's tavern. Beyond was Daniel Baxter's wagon and repair-shop (south of which lived Doctor Norton Beckwith), and west of the corner of Second street the residence of B. Preston, an employee of Ethan S. Johnson. West
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of Preston's was the United States land office and Doctor Alanson Cornell's drug store, in one corner of which Judge L S. Lowell had his law-office. Back of the drug store was Doctor Cornell's residence. Merritt Fisher lived in the next house and next to him was the building first used as the Ionia land office, but then occupied by Ira Porter. a lawyer Westward were Daniel Clapsaddle, shoemaker, and Jonathan Tibbitts, harness-maker. The southeast corner of Main and Third streets was occupied by a vacant store, into which, in the fall of 1835, James M. Kidd moved a stock of goods and began trading: On the southwest corner of Main and Third streets A. F. Carr was carrying on a store for Daniel Ball, of Grand Rapids, and west of him was the residence of Mason Hearsey, the blacksmith shop of Philander Ilinds, the wagon-shop of John Miller (in the log house built by Samuel Dexter when he reached lonia ), Samuel Dexter's barn, Daniel Fargo's meat- market ( Fargo was Samuel Dexter's father-in-law ), and then Dexter's red grist-mill, where the Novelty mill stood. West of that, on the south side, Main street was a waste. At the corner of Main and Kiss streets was a vacant store, originally occupied by Parks & Warner. It was the second store built in lonia, but happened to be too far out of the way for business and did not have a very long lease of life. When Parks & Warner built it they though perhaps that Brown's village at Prairie Creek might become the county seat, and thought, perhaps, that Dexter's town might be chosen. At all events, the supposition was that they wished to strike a happy mean, and therefore got pretty well out of the way of either place. Hampton Rich. justice of the peace, lived nearby, also Lorenzo Dexter, and Lawson S. War- ner lived on eastward towards Prairie Creek.
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