USA > Michigan > Jackson County > History of Jackson County, Michigan > Part 21
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The winter of 1836 was remarkable in the annals of the county. A snow fell 18 inches deep and erusted. The wolves, driven by hunger, came up from the northern wilderness and killed the deer in droves. Mr. W. saw 20 or 25 lying dead together where they had been pulled down by their ravenous enemies. They even killed young stock. The cold was something terrible. Quails and prairie- chickens were almost exterminated. From November 15 to Jannary 1 it did not thaw, and it thawed then but little. From February 20 to April 20 the sky was without a cloud, and the cold was steady and intense. However, April 1, Mr. W., being in Jackson, ob- served that it thawed a little on the north side of the street. April 20 the snow went off, and the long, hard winter was at an end. The wolves went back to their northern haunts, and none have been heard of in the county since.
When Mr. Wolcott was here in 1835 he hired ten acres broken up, and let out five of them to Daniel Dunn, and has never been out of wheat since. For meat Mr. W. depended more on his gun than his pocket. He became an adept in bagging wild turkeys, and through the fall and winter the family was seldom without a fat turkey in the larder. He used to delight in getting in the friends, and with a big fire in the old fireplace, and the children at home, have a feast on baked turkey.
Ile used to hunt through the woods to Jackson, get his mail, and hunt back again, without thinking it much of an undertaking. On one occasion, having business to do at Mason, he set out on a trail through the woods with dog and gun. On his return, when he was north of Leslie, night fehl; it elouded up and became fear- fully dark, and he lost his trail. After groping on the ground for some time he found it again, but without being sure which way he was facing. However, it must bring him somewhere, and finally
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he came out to the house of Mr. Phillips, on the right track. He awoke the inmates to learn where he was, and they were surprised that any human being should undertake to traverse these woods in the night. Arriving at the river it was necessary to halloo out the ferryman, Mr. Allen, who, with the generosity of a frontiers- man, refused to receive pay from a new settler.
lle killed one bear-a large one-famous in the country for killing hogs. The bear was easily recognized from the fact that he had lost one of his feet in a trap. It had recently killed one of Mr. Sibley's hogs, and Mr. W. went for Rue. Perrine's bear-trap; but bruin was posted on traps. Finally Mr. Sibley saw the ani- mal while looking after his cow, and with Perrine and Wolcott turned out to hunt him. The bear first undertook to pass Messrs. Sibley and Perrine, who shot at him and turned him back. This drove him toward Wolcott, who saw him coming along the path in which he was standing; feeling sure that he must kill him at the first shot or have an encounter, Wolcott aimed for his eye, and with the crack of his riffe bruin went down. Ile proved to be very large and fat.
Mr. Wolcott had six children, all of whom are living but one. Grove II. Woleott is a lawyer in Jackson; William V. Wolcott is one of the publishers of the Times-Herald, St. Louis; Mark S. is a lawyer in Jackson; Thomas C. now takes charge of the farm; Charles C. is a hotel proprietor and hardware dealer in Nashville, Mich .; his only daughter, Josephine, he buried in 1861.
WILLIAM D. THOMPSON, OF JACKSON.
BY COL. M. SHOEMAKER.
William Doliville Thompson was born Feb. 24, 1815, and is a native of Shenango county, N. Y. He removed to Le Roy, in Genesee county, when quite young, and continued to reside there until 1831.
The great stream of emigration from New England and New York to Michigan and the then far West, which set in about 1830, caught in its flow many of the most enterprising and industrious of the young men of those States, who sought in these then unoccupied fields a proper sphere for their labors, and for the expansion of that spirit of enterprise which was denied to them in the more densely populated regions of the East. This was more especially the case with those young men who had only their willing hands and strong hearts with which to carve their way in the world to wealth and fame.
Among those who determined at an early day to strike out and try his chances in a new country, where he could " grow with its growth and strengthen with its strength," was young Mr. Thompson. He came to Jacksonburgh, as the infant settlement was then called, in 1831, and was among the first to make it his home.
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The first house in the place was built and occupied in 1830, and they could all be connted on the fingers of one hand when he decided that in it and with it he would try his fortunes.
In the fall of 1832 Mr. Thompson opened a boot and shoe store, the first of the kind in the village. In 1834 he built and occupied a store on the south side of Main street, just east of the public square. Mr. Thompson was elected county clerk on the Democratic ticket, and served for the years 1836-7. He was one of the school board in 1837. In 1838 he sold his stock in trade to Walter Fish, and entered into partnership with George B. Cooper, who was transacting a general mercantile business. In 1841, upon the completion of the Michigan Central railroad to Jackson, Mr. Thompson was appointed freight agent. He continued on the road at Jackson and west of this point, as completed, to Niles, for a period of ten years, including the administration of the road while owned by the State, and after it had passed into the hands of the Michigan Central Railroad Company.
A period of two years elapsed after the completion of the railroad to Niles before it was built to Chicago, and during this time all the freight and many of the passengers were taken by boats to and from the railroad depot at Niles and St. Joseph, at the mouth on the river St. Joseph. This was the most desirable route from Niles to Chicago and the great West, then rapidly being settled by the emigration which had now assumed such magnitude that every avenue and means of conveyance was filled to over- flowing. The service of the St. Joseph river was undertaken by Mr. Thompson on his own responsibility, and for his own account. It was conducted with marked suecess. During most of the time he owned and controlled a small fleet of steamboats and towboats. The extent of the business was such that while Commodore Thompson, as he was then called, conducted the business to the perfect satisfaction of the shippers and the railroad company, he also made it largely remunerative to himself. He, while at Niles, accumulated a capital which enabled him, on the completion of the railroad to Chicago, to return to Jackson, after closing out his stock on the river, and in connection with George B. Cooper, to establish the banking house of Cooper & Thompson. The integrity, strict attention to duty, and business ability dis- played by Mr. Thompson in the several places at which he was stationed and in the positions which he filled, were so well under- stood and appreciated that he has ever since, in a marked degree, retained the confidence of the managers of the Michigan Central Railroad Company; and his influence has been, many times sinee, of decided advantage to Jackson, when questions of importance to the interest of the city have been under consideration by the officers of that company. In 1851 Mr. Thompson returned to Jack- son and engaged in the business of banking. As a member of the firms of Cooper & Thompson, Cooper, Thompson & Co., and of the Jackson City Bank, he has ever since been the leading banker of Jackson. Of the Jackson City Bank, which does much the
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largest business of any of the six banks of Jackson-and probably more than all the rest of them together-Mr. Thompson has always been general manager and president, and is now under- stood to be sole proprietor.
On the first of July, 1856, Mr. Thompson was married to Alma M. Mann, in Madison, Wisconsin. They have two children, a son and a daughter.
Mr. and Mrs. Thompson have traveled in Europe, and the many works of art selected during their sojourn in the old world, which make their home attractive, bear ample testimony to the correct judgment and good taste manifested in their selection.
In 1862 Mr. Thompson took part in the organization of the Jackson, Lansing & Saginaw Railroad Company. Its successful completion to Mason in 1865, to Lansing in the spring of 1866, and to Wenona, on the Saginaw bay, in 1867, is in a great measure due to the labors and influence of Mr. Thompson. He not only gave it his personal attention, but also furnished material aid at times when, but for the money advanced by him. the building of the road must have stopped for a time at least.
This railroad is now extended through the pine woods to within one hundred miles of the straits of Mackinac, and will doubt- less soon be completed to that point, there to connect with a railroad to Marquette and the iron and copper regions of the upper peninsula. The one hundred miles of this road terminating at Gaylord were built exclusively by Mr. Thompson, and finished in July, 1873.
In 1866 the Jackson, Lansing & Saginaw Railroad Company bought that part of the Lansing, Amboy & Traverse Bay railroad lying between Owosso and Lansing, and with it the land grant made by the United States to the latter company. This purchase gave much greater value to the stock of the Jackson, Lansing & Saginaw Railroad Company.
Mr. Thompson is noted for his broad and comprehensive business views. Many enterprises which have added much to the growth and prosperity of Jackson owe their success to the fearless manner in which he in some cases invested his capital, and in others sustained those who were interested in building them up. He is one of the firm of Bennett, Knickerbocker & Co., who built and still own and run the extensive steam flouring mill known as the "City Mills." The same firm also own and run the "Stone Mills " at Albion, and is one of the largest manufacturers of flour in the State. Mr. Thompson is one of the principal stockholders in the "George T. Smith Middlings Purifier Manufacturing Company," now extensively engaged in the manufacture of their "purifiers " in Jackson. ITe is also largely interested in the costly "Chemical Works " and " Pulp Mills " located in the northern part of the city, and he has aided to develop, and is one of the proprietors of coal mines now worked within the city limits. But it is as a banker that Mr. Thompson is most widely and favorably known. .No man in Michigan enjoys a higher reputation in his particular
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calling than does the subject of this sketch. The business men of Jackson look to him and rely upon him in time of need; and to him his customers never look in vain for those accommodations often so necessary to success in their business.
Mr. Thompson stands prominent among the citizens of Jackson for his generosity and benevolence. His name is always found among the most liberal subscribers to all projects of a business or charitable nature, and the calls are many in a city so fertile in new enterprises as in Jackson. Both Mr. and Mrs. Thompson make the most praiseworthy use of the goods of this world, with which they are so amply endowed, in dispensing that unostentatious charity most acceptable to its recipients, and most creditable to themselves, fulfilling the Scriptural injunction : " But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth."
The integrity and liberality of Mr. Thompson have placed him in the front rank in the State in the estimation of its people. He also stands prominent as one of the very few remaining of those pioneers who cast their lot in Jackson, when it had little to boast of and was held in light estimation by villages now of far less im- portance, because of its marshes, sand-hills and the general unin- viting appearance of its surroundings. There are now living in Jaekson but two of its citizens who made it their home previous to the advent of Mr. Thompson.
Without the knowledge attained by actual experience, it is im- possible to realize the changes which have taken place in Jackson, in Michigan, in the Northwest, and in the great West, extending to the Pacific Ocean, during the business lifetime of a man even now in the midst of his usefulness. No succeeding generation will be able to look back upon and realize the wonderful growth of an em- pire, and the spread of a civilization in their own time, as can Mr. Thompson in contemplating what he has seen grow up under his own observation sinee he eameto Jackson in 1831.
JACOB CORNELL'S REMINISCENCES.
" In the autumn of 1833 my father, Stephen Cornell, of Pongh- keepsie, New York, came to Michigan and purchased of the United States 120 acres of land in the township of Unadilla, and with the help of two men, a yoke of oxen, and a rope, erected the first log house in the county. He hauled the clapboards and the lumber for the floor from Dexter, 14 miles southeast of our home. He and his men built a camp of brush and marsh hay in which they lodged and cooked for three weeks, using brush for a spring bed. My father returned home late in the fall, preparatory to re- moving his family the following spring to our home in the Territory of Michigan. About the middle of April, 1834, we packed up our little all, together with a year's supply of provisions and medi- cines, and employed a sloop to carry us to Albany, a distance of 80 miles, on the Hudson river, the trip from Poughkeepsie occu-
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pying nearly a week. At Albany we took a boat on the Erie canal for Buffalo, reaching that city in about nine days ; thence by way of Lake Erie, on the steamboat Daniel Webster to Detroit. At Detroit we made a contract with two teamsters to take us the remainder of our journey, 60 miles, through the mud. We counted up onr funds and found we could foot the bill and have 50 cents left. We left Detroit, plodding our way, when not stuck in the mind, over a wild and horrible road to Dexter, being then within 14 miles of our new home, for eight miles of which we were blessed with an Indian trail to guide us, the remainder being trackless marshes and lakes. We waded abont 50 rods through a lake, and this seemed close akin to shipwreck, and my mother and sister thought that if this was Michigan life their days were numbered ; but we reached the shore in safety, and three miles more brought us up in front of our new log house, and although without paint or cornice, and having a chimney of sticks plastered with mud, we all repaired to it with great relief from a long and fatigning journey of three weeks, being obliged to walk most of the way from Detroit. We soon discovered that several hundred miles lay between ns and our New York home, and to return, with but 50 cents in the treasury, was impossible, so we resolved to submit to the fortunes of the pioneer and protect our scalps from the swarm of Indians that surrounded us as best we could ; they were so numerous we felt that we were completely in their power. When our goods were unpacked and the rough floor was cleaned my mother remarked that she was now prepared to receive com- pany.
THE INDIAN FRIENDS.
After a hearty laugh over the remark, sure enough, in marched her company in single file, to the number of nine, all red men, squaws and pappooses ; this was a stunner, as was shown by the pale face of my mother, who soon distributed among them all the cooked provisions she had in the house, hoping to save her life thereby, but they soon departed in a friendly manner, and we found it a great convenience to have such friends, for they often brought us venison to exchange for flour, and we ever found them friendly and honorable unless influenced by whisky. We expe- rieneed very close times the first two years, and one year our scanty supply of provisions gave out before harvest time, and we were compelled to cut the unripe wheat, dry it in the sun, thresh it on sheets, fan it in the wind, grind it in the coffee mill and bolt it through erape, and this flour made into biscuits we partook of with a relish that I shall never forget. As we were 14 miles from post-office, mill, or store, it required three days to make the trip with an ox team, so that the brcad box sometimes got lone- some before the new grist came from the mill.
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HISTORY OF JACKSON COUNTY.
WOLVES AND WHISKY.
The howling of wolves of a winter evening was of frequent oc- currence, but we were never disturbed by them or any other wild animals ; the worst enemy to mankind with which we came in con- tact was whisky ; some of our nearest neighbors who settled about us the first year being intemperate men who sought to injure every outspoken temperance man ; my father, being of the latter class, undertook to raise a barn without the customary aid of intoxicating liquors, but inviting all to the raising. The whisky lovers came with bottles of whisky of their own, and a more disgraceful scene than the one that occurred on that occasion I never witnessed. After furnishing them with a good supper, they remained till a late hour drinking and carousing ; they broke our dishes, butchered the dog, tore down all the outbuildings, and threatened to destroy the barn frame. Nearly all of these rioters have dropped into drunkards' graves.
REMINISCENCES OF HON. JONATHAN SHEARER.
Mr. Shearer was in the county 43 years ago, and stopped at Ring's tavern, the site of which he could not find during his visit in 1877. Then he could see the whole city easily; but now it had been built up so that he could not. Forty-three years ago he set- tled in Ingham county, in the town he himself christened Bunker Hill. There was no school-house there, none in Jackson, and none in Flint, so he went to Plymouth, and finding one there located in that town, and has lived there ever since. In that time he lost his way near Lansing, while traveling through the woods, and tell in with Col. Hughes and Maj. Wilson, who were in the same predicament. They wandered together looking for the trail, but without success. Their provisions ran out and they ate elm bark; and after that failed then they used bass-wood root bark as a substitute. After a time they fell in with an Indian who directed them to a house which had just been built, eight miles or so from Jacksonburgh. They walked along and at last saw a cow, and then Mr. Shearer exclaimed to his companions, "Glory to God! we have reached the pale of civilization."
They found the house was newly built, with a blanket hung up for a door. They were delicate about putting the blanket aside; so they knocked on the logs, and a beautiful little woman showed her face. The travelers saw there no floor, but on the shelf they saw johnny-cake that made their mouths water. They told her they were hungry, and asked for food. She told them they might have all they wanted, and she supplied them with bread and milk, and kept them over night. When they went away next day, they left her four silver dollars. Afterward, he learned, she told a neighbor that they were angels, and that money never was so good before, as they were entirely out of it at the time. Her name was Mrs. Tanner, and the narrator was quite affected by the intelligence of her death.
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HISTORY OF JACKSON COUNTY.
HON. FIDUS LIVERMORE'S REMINISCENCES.
He came to the county in 1839, when the settlement was 10 years old, that is 10 years after the first white settler located. At that time the county was not organized, but was a township of Washtenaw county.
W. R. De Land was the first justice of the peace, and his juris- diction extended all over the county. One of the members of the first grand jury that sat in the county was present at the pioneer meeting of 1877, -Chester Wall, of Sandstone.
After Mr. Livermore came to Jacksonburgh, he was admitted to the Bar, and the next year was appointed to take the census in the northern part of the county. He rode from house to house on a pony lent him by old Mr. Shaw. His credit had improved; the year before he could not borrow a wheelbarrow. The animal was a stout Indian pony, and would carry a man over a bog where the man could not walk.
He carried with him a large portfolio to hold blanks, and he used it as a desk; he would sometimes hear the remark made that he had to carry a guide board to tell him where he was; while others thought he was a picture seller. In that six weeks he earned $400. Ile brought it from Detroit in a sachel. The stage was full of men, and didn't he hold tight to that bag? He reached home and poured it out on the bed, and how proud he felt as he said to his wife, " We are all right now." There was enough to carry them through a year.
The people then were united, full of good feeling, and stood by one another.
He could remember when there were not well people enough to take care of the sick, but now this is the healthiest country in the nation. He related a number of incidents in his early life herc, and told a story of Dr. Russ. One Sunday morning on getting up, he saw smoke rising in the willows on the river bank and walked over there. He found two men named Fox and Savacool dressing a hog they had just killed. Stepping up and examining the animal, he accused them of stealing his hog, but they denied it. He began talking of arrest and started as if for an officer. The men admitted that they stole the hog; but pleaded in exten- uation the fact that they were out of meat. After talking sharply to them, he told them to go on, and when they had finished to di- vide the pork in four parts,-one they were to take to Elder Har- rison, one to his house, and the rest they might keep. The point of the story was that he did not own the hog, but as he used to tell it, he was out of meat too.
OTHIER PIONEERS.
Prior to 1835 several families had settled along the Territorial road west of the village, to-wit: Abel Barrett, John Daniels and sons, Wm. Shipman, Osgood Fifield, John Collar, Westey W.
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Laverty, and Jotham Wood and sons; and along the river north of the village, Edward Morrill, Nathaniel Morrill, Geo. Fifield, Enoch Fifield, Geo. Woodworth, Samuel Woodworth, Abner Pease, Samuel Wing, Jerry Marvin and John MeConnell; on Ganson street, northeast of the village, Constant McGuire and sons, and Joseph Darling and sons. Merrills Freeman lived on the farm now owned and occupied by Henry Daniels, and Jeffer- son Smith lived on the farm which he sold to the superintendents of county poor for Jackson county in 1837, 180 acres for $3,500, $19.44 per acre, a large price for those times. Roads took the direction that was most convenient to the farmer, in avoiding marshes and reaching his destination. All was commons except small enclosures about the dwellings. Fire had kept down the undergrowth, and one could drive as he pleased through forests of stately oaks, blazing a tree occasionally to ensure a safe return.
The village of Barry (Sandstone) took the lead of Jacksonburgh in business and enterprise. But the building of the old water grist-mill in 1836, and the establishment of the State's prison and building of the court-house in 1837 put Jacksonburgh ahead and gave Barry a set-back from which, some think. it will never re- cover. The township of Jackson was six by twelve miles square, embracing the territory now constituting the townships of Summit and Blackman and the city of Jackson. All came to the village to vote, and an election was quite an important occasion; where the new settler could meet and become acquainted with the older; where neighbors could meet and talk over the news from " York State " or Vermont, or discuss the news only " seven weeks later " from Europe. Neighbors! The word seemed to imply more then than now. Then it meant if your neighbor was sick, or behind- hand with his work from no fault of his own, to make a "bee " and husk his corn, dig his potatoes, get up his winter's wood, or do many other acts of kindness, which he was very ready to re- ciprocate when occasion required. It was considered no hardship to go four or five miles to assist at a neighbor's raising, or to yoke the oxen to the sled and take wife and children for an even- ing's visit. Visit! Yes, that is the word. When those old motherly ladies-"God bless them"-got together for a visit it meant business in that line. No gossiping and baekbiting, but generous, heart and hand friendliness, while the click of knitting needles kept time to the intellectual feast. It may not be amiss to say in connection with this subject, that the ladies of that period took upon themselves their full share of the burdens of pioneer life, and are entitled to as much eredit as their husbands.
The pioneers of Jackson were intelligent, honest and indus- trions-were good neighbors and good citizens. Very few are now alive to meet with the pioneers of Jackson county; but many lived to see remarkable changes and to be proud of their township and the city which now bears its name.
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