History of Kalamazoo county, Michigan, Part 120

Author: Durant, Samuel W. comp
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia. Everts & Abbott
Number of Pages: 761

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With the accumulation of evidence thus given, it does not appear necessary to sift the matter further. It is not material as to the exact day of the birth, for whether it was the 27th, 28th, or 29th makes little difference.

* From account by William Bair. This gentleman stated to the writer that the mill was built in the fall of 1829.

until 1829, and in March of the latter year settled in Prairie Ronde. In 1830 he was appointed postmaster of Prairie Ronde post-office, the first in the county of Kala- mazoo, and had a contract for carrying the mail between there and White Pigeon. It is related that the colonel kept the mail in a basket under the bed in his house. In 1832 this office was removed to Schoolcraft village, the name changed to Schoolcraft, and Joseph A. Smith ap- pointed postmaster.

Another post-office was established early in the northeast part of town and kept by a man named Coe. Still another, named " West End," was kept by Clark Bird, half a mile north of Nesbitt's Corners .; At some date not long sub- sequent to 1836, an office called " Westfield" was established on the west side of the prairie, of which either James S. Cowgill or Abram I. Shaver was the first incumbent as postmaster. While the latter was in charge its name was changed to " Prairie Ronde." Mr. Shaver's successor was Crawford Patterson, to whose house the office was removed. Soon after the breaking out of the Rebellion it was discon- tinued, and the township is now without a post-office. Peter F. Alexander carried the mail early between La Grange, Cass Co., and Battle Creek, making the round trip once a week.

Christopher Bair, a native of Westmoreland Co., Pa., and for some time a resident of Crawford Co., Ohio, made a trip to Michigan in the spring of 1828, and stayed through the summer with a man named Cutler on White Pigeon Prairie. He made a claim next west of Cutler's, where the village of White Pigeon is now located. He planted some corn, which he picked in the winter following, cut hay in the summer, and hired a man to sow wheat for him that fall. As cold weather approached he went to Ohio after his family, returning with his wife, four daugh- ters, and one son,-William,-the latter now living near Vicksburg, in the township of Schoolcraft. Upon his return Mr. Bair found that a man named Savery had " jumped his claim" at White Pigeon, and rather than have any altercation with the man he located temporarily upon another place on Crooked Creek. Some time during the winter he made a claim in Prairie Ronde township, and moved his family upon it early in March, 1829. His son, John Bair, had located upon a claim a little farther west, and another son, Joseph, settled north of the latter soon after. About 1831, Joseph Bair sold out and removed to Gourd-Neck Prairie, in Schoolcraft. The elder Bair is said to have made the third claim of land in Kalamazoo County. He was accompanied when looking for his land by Erastus Guilford and several others, and, as he was the oldest man in the party, he was allowed the privilege of making the first selection, the others all choosing afterwards.

Joseph Bair, Mishael Beadle, and - Garver visited Michigan in the spring of 1827, each with his gun on his shoulder and pack on his back, and the party was also accompanied by a dog. They went as far west as Elkhart, Ind., where was then an Indian mission, and, returning by a trail to Detroit, they finally reached home and gave a glowing description of the country along the St. Joseph.

t Information by George Nesbitt.

444

HISTORY OF KALAMAZOO COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

John Bair,-a genuine pioneer, hunter, and explorer,-who had a claim at what is now Mottville, St. Joseph County, traveled north from that place on an Indian trail, and in due time arrived at the Indian village on the northwest corner of Prairie Ronde where the Nesbitts now live. Pushing thence eastward, he was greatly impressed with the beauty of the country, and, arriving at the shore of Harrison Lake, he took his tomahawk from his belt, cut some bark from a small burr-oak tree, and with a piece of red chalk wrote his name on the " blaze," saying that if he ever returned he should take up a claim at that spot. That was in 1828. In the fall of the same year, however, Bazel Harrison located at the same spot. When John Bair passed through not a single white family was located on the prairie, and he is thought to have been the first of the actual settlers of the county who became acquainted with Prairie Ronde.

Christopher Bair died in 1834, and his sons are all de- ceased except William, the youngest, who has resided on the farm he now occupies in Schoolcraft township (section 12) since April 16, 1844.

Ransford C. Hoyt, a native of Bellefontaine, Logan Co., Ohio, moved with his father to Michigan in 1829, when in his twenty-first year, and located on the farm near the south end of Prairie Ronde, upon which he continued to live until his death. His father, Stephen Hoyt, was an inti- mate friend of Judge Bazel Harrison, and occupied with the latter a seat as one of the first associate judges for Kalamazoo County. R. C. Hoyt died on his farm in Prai- rie Ronde, Sept. 13, 1874 .*

Delamore Duncan, a native of New Hampshire, visited Michigan in 1825, and stopped from six to nine months at Dexter, Washtenaw Co. He then returned East as far as probably Cuyahoga Co., Ohio, where he stayed about a year, and then went to Vermont, remaining some two years. In March, 1829, he came to Prairie Ronde and making a claim, returned to Huron Co., Ohio, and " took unto himself a wife," and in October of that year came back to Michigan, with his father, leaving his wife behind. The family of his father accompanied them. A log house was built on the bank of Rocky Creek, about one hundred yards west of the present residence of Charles C. Duncan : the place occupied by the latter is the old Delamore Dun- can homestead, and is now the property of his widow. William Duncan had made his claim in April, 1829, the next month after his son's choice was made, and, remaining upon it through the summer, returned for his family and brought them back in October as stated. Delamore Dun- can's wife followed in January, 1830, in company with her father, Joel Clark, who drove through with a horse-team.

The Duncans came with an ox-team, driving their stock and camping out by night. When they arrived, Col. Fel- lows had his house up and partly finished, and they stayed with him until they had built for themselves. William Duncan, whose farm was situated next north of his son's, went at an early day to Iowa and built and operated a saw- mill and a grist-mill near Des Moines. He finally returned to Michigan, and continued to reside here until his death, which occurred about 1850. In the spring of 1836 he had, in company with his son, built a saw-mill on the lat- ter's place, which is yet standing, though greatly improved and extensively repaired. They had previously built a saw-mill on the Paw Paw at Watervliet, in the edge of Berrien County. Delamore Duncan and Timothy Fellows were afterwards interested in another saw-mill, north of one previously mentioned in Prairie Ronde. Delamore Duncan held numerous offices in the township, and was the first sheriff of Kalamazoo County. His widow remarks that " her house was the first jail in the county and she was the jailer," that being on the occasion of the first jus- tice-court, held in October, 1831. Mr. Duncan died April 30, 1870, aged sixty-five years. His father, William Dun- can, was a Territorial justice of the peace, and held court as far away as Gull Prairie .; He was also the first clerk for the county of Kalamazoo, his commission being dated Aug. 17, 1830, and signed by " Lew. Cass," Governor.

"The first court held in the county was opened at the house of Ab- ner Calhoun,¿ on Prairie Ronde, on the third Tuesday of October, 1831, present, Bazel Harrison and Stephen Hoyt, judges, and was adjourned 'to the school-house, near John Insley's, in Brady town- ship.' Stephen Vickery was appointed foreman of the grand jury. The first case on the docket was an appealed case, George Shaw vs. A. I. Shaver and Ephraim Harrison. At this term four indictments were found. Lyman I. Daniels appeared as attorney, and challenged

t The following is some of the evidence presented at a suit before William Duncan, Esq., the parties to the suit being George Brown and John C. Carpenter :

" TERRITORY OF MICHIGAN, { 88. KALAMAZOO COUNTY.

" The evidence given on oath and in the presence of George Brown by the several witnesses before William Duncan, Justice of the Peace, and by said justice reduced to writing and signed by said Witnesses, respectively, at Brady, in sd County, this 4 day of May, 1832, touch- ing the complaint and accusation against the said George Brown for the criminal offence of Assault and Battery. On the part of the prosecution, that is to say :

"John C. Carpenter, sworn, states that George Brown and Mr. Car- penter sat in room together ; Mr. Brown pitched at me with a piece of Board, and said he would split my Brains out if I gave him the lie in his house; the board hit me on the wrist; I then resisted ; to defend myself took hold of him, and in the scuffle he got my fingers in his mouth, which he bit severely.

" Benjamin Jones, sworn, and testified that Brown and Mrs. Car- penter were in the room next the road together, and some angry words passed between Brown and Carpenter; Carpenter chª Brown with ly- ing ; Brown said if he (Carpenter) repeated the words again he would split his brains out ; Carpenter repeated the words; they advanced towards the door that separated them ; Brown opened the door, and had a piece of board in his hand ; a scuffle ensued ; they both fell towards the chimney in the room in which Brown was; I did not dis- cover who struck first; I advanced into the room where they lay to part them ; Carpenter held a flat-iron in his hand, with which he gave Brown a slight blow, and then raised it, apparently with a determina- tion to give him one more fatal, and at the instant I seized Carpen- ter's arm and parted them ; Carpenter left the room ; Brown followed in a great rage, throwing clubs and using threatening language." # Abram I. Shaver ?

** At the pioneer meeting in 1873, R. C. Hoyt stated that his father came here in 1827 and looked at the country and returned to Ohio. "The next year (1828) I came out with him, and father picked out the place where Judge Harrison resides." In returning home in the fall of 1828, Mr. Hoyt said that he and his father and his uncle met Judge Harrison and family near Fort Wayne. The wagon of Henry Whipple, the judge's son-in-law, had broken down, and they had all stopped to fix it up. "That night us youngsters, the judge's boys and girls and myself, went to a tavern near by, kept by a Frenchman, and danced there till eleven o'clock." If Stephen Hoyt visited the prairie in 1827, he gazed upon its beauties earlier than even John Bair.

PRESTON J. McCREARY

was born near Erie, Pa., Oct. 28, 1805. The family were originally from Scotland, but the date of their emigration is not known. They settled in Lancaster, Pa., where Wil- liam McCreary, our subject's father, was born in 1771. He was a farmer, and reared a family of five children. After his marriage he removed to Erie County, where he purchased land. In 1807 he removed to Allegany Co., N. Y., where he died in 1816. Preston received a common-school education, and was apprenticed to a tanner and currier. After the completion of his apprenticeship he went into business in Washington, Pa., where he remained four years. He then decided to come to Michigan, which was at that time considered the El Dorado of the West. Accordingly, in 1830, he came to Kalamazoo County, and settled in Prairie Ronde, where he purchased, of Judge Harrison, eighty acres of land, near Harrison's Lake. In 1832 he

established a tannery, but the business not proving remu- nerative he abandoned it. In 1836 he married Christiana Middleton, a native of Ohio, where she was born in 1807. Her parents were Quakers.

Mr. and Mrs. McCreary were blessed with five children, Samuel S., George, John, Adaline, and Springer, all of whom are living but two. Mr. McCreary has been promi- nently connected with the development of Prairie Ronde. He has witnessed its transition from a wilderness into one of the most productive and prosperous agricultural regions of the State, and in his own person admirably typifies many of the agencies that have wrought these changes. He has been called upon to fill many positions of trust, the duties of which he discharged with fidelity. He has been the representative of Prairie Ronde upon the Board of Super- visors, and for eleven years has officiated as magistrate.

445

TOWNSHIP OF PRAIRIE RONDE.

the array of the grand jury. 'The motion made by L. I. Daniels to challenge the array of the grand jury is decided by the court to be out of order and improper.'"*

It has been previously stated that when Mrs. Delamore Duncan came to Prairie Ronde, in January, 1830, her father, Joel Clark, accompanied her .; The farm of Mr. Clark was located on section 2. His son, Justin Clark, had preceded him to the township in August, 1829, and was living with the Duncans at the time of his father's arrival. Mr. Clark and the son named are now both deceased; two other sons, Edwin and Philo D., are residents of the town.

In the spring of 1830, Delamore Duncan built on his place a frame barn, and, notwithstanding the expressed fears of many that the "raising" could not be accomplished without the aid of liquor, which was the plan contemplated, the work was successfully carried to completion, and not a drop of liquor was used. This barn was the first frame structure erected in the township of Prairie Ronde or the county of Kalamazoo. The timbers for the frame were hewn from logs in the neighboring forest. The lumber used was cut at Flowerfield, St. Joseph Co., where a saw-mill had been built the previous fall or winter. The dam for this mill was constructed by Delamore Duncan and Erastus Guilford, and the lumber they procured was cut on shares. The barn built by Mr. Duncan is yet standing.

Soon after his settlement, Mr. Duncan arranged in a truly primitive manner for grinding-or pounding-the corn used to make bread in his household. A large stump close by his house was hollowed at the top by burning ; a spring pole was set in place, projecting over the end of the house ; a pestle was formed at the end, into which an iron wedge was driven, and the " mill" or " stump mortar" was complete. After laboring upon improvements to his place during the day, Mr. Duncan was accustomed to pound up enough corn each evening to make sufficient bread to last through the coming day .;

George Fletcher, a native of Pennsylvania, and for some years a resident of Hampshire Co., Va., located in Prairie Ronde township, one and a half miles west of Schoolcraft, Oct. 1, 1832. In 1836 he purchased a farm near Harrison Lake, and moved upon it. His first wife died in 1837

# Historical Directory, Kalamazoo County, 1869-70.

t Mr. Clark's family did not follow him until the succeeding July. Mr. Clark bought a claim of a man named Davis, on section 2, upon which Davis had built a log house. Mr. Clark-who had stayed but a few days at the time of his visit in January, but returned to Ohio- accompanied his family to Michigan, arriving July 29th, and moving into the Davis log house the next day. The trip from Ohio was made with two yokes of cattle. The family (those who settled) then con- sisted of Mr. Clark and his wife, four sons (Justin, Philo, Edwin, and Joel), and three daughters. Edwin owns a portion of the old farm, but does not occupy it. Mr. Clark, Sr., has been dead about thirty years.

į John Vickers' grist-mill on Rocky Creek and Mishael Beadle's at Flowerville were very soon afterwards built, and a dispute arises upon the question of which was built first. Mrs. Duncan's memory is that Beadle's mill was first erected, and flour was first procured there early in 1830, Beadle's daughter attending to the wants of cus- tomers. William Bair, who helped fell the tree which entered into the construction of Vickers' dam, stated to the writer that the mill built by Vickers was the first one in the region, and was erected in the fall of 1829. In a previous printed article he had given the date as 1830, and that opinion is concurred in by O. H. Fellows, now of Prairie Ronde.

(January), and in 1840 he again married, his second wife dying about 1867. Mr. Fletcher died Jan. 30, 1870, in the eighty-seventh year of his age. His son, Zachariah Fletcher, is still a resident of the township.

Samuel Hacket moved into this township from Northern Ohio in 1830, and with the exception of about three years lived upon the farm he then settled until his death, which occurred Feb. 16, 1871, when he was sixty-eight years of age.

William Fanckboner, Sr., from near Belvidere, Warren Co., N. J., settled where he now lives in the fall of 1837, with his wife and five children. He had come into the township in August of the same year, and lived, while building a small frame house, with his wife's father, Chris- topher Crose, who was from the same county, and had set- tled on the northeast quarter of section 13 in June, 1836. Jesse M. Crose, son of Christopher, had settled on section 13 in 1835. He and his brother William had stopped for a time in Ohio. William visited Oakland Co., Mich., where friends and relatives were living, returned to New Jersey (intending to settle soon in Michigan), and died in the spring of 1837. Jesse M. Crose, who was then unmarried, came from Ohio in company with John Buskirk in 1835, and afterwards married a daughter of the latter. Mr. Bus- kirk settled near the present residence of Philo D. Clark, west of Schoolcraft, and is not now living. Jesse M. Crose resides on the farm which he originally located. His brother, George G. Crose, came with his brother John, their mother, and the rest of the family in the spring of 1837. Their father had come alone the previous season. John, George G., and Jesse M. Crose, with their sister, Mrs. William Fanckboner, are all living in the township.

Preston J. McCreary, from Washington Co., Pa., arrived .

on the prairie June 1, 1830. Before selecting land for his future farm, he assisted Orrin Jerome to build a double log house on the latter's place, in the southeastern edge of Texas township. He soon after purchased land in Prairie Ronde, and remained with Mr. Jerome while building a log house upon his own place. In August, 1830, he went after his family, returning with his wife and two sons, and arriving Nov. 11, 1830. When Mr. McCreary first came he was much pleased with the land around Harrison's Lake, but it was all claimed by the family for whom it was named, and they did not wish to dispose of any of it. Finally, however, they agreed to sell some, and he accord- ingly purchased of them the place he now owns. A log house was erected, which he occupied two years, when he built a frame house, and converted the log house into a tannery, his trade being favorable to the management of such an institution. He continued in the tanning business four or five years, but it proved unprofitable and was given up, and Mr. McCreary's occupation since has been that of a farmer. When he first arrived in the vicinity, a black- smith-shop stood near the site of his present residence, on the north side of the road, and the hammer was wielded by Judge Harrison's son, Ephraim. George Fletcher pur- chased the shop afterwards, and continued to work at the forge until the infirmities of age forced him to desist.

Abner Mack, from Strong's Ridge, Huron Co., Ohio, set- tled in the township of Prairie Ronde, with his wife and

446

HISTORY OF KALAMAZOO COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

six children, in the fall of 1833. He purchased a place on section 10, upon which he still resides. He had come to the 'State in September, 1832, and bought a lot in the township of Porter, Van Buren Co., in the midst of a forest, and there built a log house and lived in it a year. The farm he now owns and occupies he purchased from second hands, but with his own hands made the first improve- ments upon it. Mr. Mack's wife is a native of Madison Co., N. Y. The journey of the family from Ohio was made in an old-fashioned, wide-track Southern wagon, with a span of horses and a yoke of cattle. Streams were forded and swamps waded, and the trip was attended with all the difficulties encountered in the days when traveling by steam overland had not been introduced in the West.

John and Robert Nesbitt, natives of Ireland, who had located and purchased land in Washtenaw Co., Mich., made a trip on horseback to Prairie Ronde in September, 1829. From Sag-a-maw, the chief of the band of Pottawattomies and Ottawas who had their village at the northwestern ex- tremity of the prairie, they purchased, for the sum of $35, a field which had long been cultivated by the Indians, and put in four acres of wheat. Returning to Washtenaw County, they sold their property there, and in the spring of 1830 came back to Prairie Ronde and settled on their place, on section 9. A log house was built nearly opposite the present residence of George Nesbitt. As soon as the land came into market they purchased 160 acres each, having previously acquired a pre-emption right. Two or three years after their arrival, John Nesbitt went to what is now Keelerville, Van Buren Co., purchased land, and made what are claimed to have been the first improvements in that county. Robert Nesbitt afterwards went to the same county, and built a grist-mill and two saw-mills at Brush Creek.

George Nesbitt, Sr., the father of the gentlemen above named, came directly from County Antrim, Ireland, in 1830, with the rest of the family, including four sons,-George, Thomas, Harry, and Edward. They left Ypsilanti, Mich., on the Fourth of July, arriving in Prairie Ronde on the 12th of the same month. The elder Nesbitt purchased from the government a number of 80-acre lots, and two or three years later divided them among his sons, the portion assigned to George, Jr., being still in possession of the lat- ter. George Nesbitt, Sr., and his wife are both deceased ; of their sons two are yet residents of the township,-George and Thomas. The first frame house on this portion of the prairie was erected by Mr. Nesbitt, Sr., as soon after his arrival as he could arrange to build it, and is yet standing, though long since fallen into disuse.

Josiah Rosecrans, who settled probably in the fall of 1829, lived half a mile north of the Nesbitt settlement. None of the family are now left in the vicinity. The In- dians, who gave to the white settlers such names as were suited to their peculiarities, called Mr. Rosecrans " Co-sab- ba-tee," or "Old Black Walnut," on account of his swarthy appearance. To Abram I. Shaver they gave the name " Nish-cock," or "Hairy Breast."

Peter F. Alexander, a carpenter by trade, from the town of Lyons, Wayne Co., N. Y., came to Prairie Ronde, Oct. 26, 1832, having reached Kalamazoo the previous day.

. He was then a young man of seventeen, and had pushed out afoot from Detroit in company with his older brother, Nelson W. Alexander, and two other gentlemen, one of whom was an Englishman ; the latter had but recently arrived from the " mother-country" and was on his way to Grand Prairie, where he had friends. The other man was left at Kalamazoo. P. F. Alexander entered land imme- diately west of his present location, the latter being taken in 1835 by his brother, Marsden Alexander, who, with his widowed mother, settled upon it. Marsden Alexander was killed by a falling tree in February, 1836 or 1837. Peter F. Alexander visited various parts of the State, but finally, in the fall of 1840, settled on the place he now occupies. His own entry was made on section 7, in 1835 .* Mr. Alexander is now enjoying the fruits of years of hard labor, but is of the opinion that, should he begin his pioneer life over, he never would settle in the heavy timber and attempt to cut a farm out of it, when acres upon acres of fertile prairie land awaited only the plowshare to convert them into fields of plenty.

Hon. H. G. Wells, in an address before the Pioneer So- ciety, in 1879, mentioned many items of historic interest pertaining to the early settlement of the prairie. The per- sons whose names he mentioned were part residents of Prairie Ronde and part of Schoolcraft. The following are extracts from his address :

" . . Is there a man or woman in this assemblage whose residence and recollection runs back thirty years on Prairie Ronde, who fails to remember as marked men, with peculiarities never to be forgotten, James Smith, Joseph Addison Smith, Thaddeus Smith, Uncle Billy Smith, Harry Smith, and old Jimmy Smith ? I believe I could talk a full hour in describing the good qualities of these pioneer Smiths, and I should dislike to spend five minutes in speaking of their faults and vices, if they had any. Rev. Benjamin Taylor and Rev. William Taylor,-the first explained the precepts of the Bible with more ra- pidity of utterance than any other man of his day and generation ; his brother William gave his monitions from the pulpit in fewer words, but always to an audience who had faith in his sincerity,-both these men were examples of honest living and integrity. Remember, I am now speaking only of the dead. The Harrisons, I believe,-and there was a tribe of them, -are all living,; except Bazel Harrison, who more than rounded out his full one hundred years, and went to his grave knowing, as he said, no enemy all through life. Over in the northwest neck of the prairie, among the first settlers, were the Fletch- ers, George and Tommy ; Darius Wells, a just man ; Josiah Rosecrants, who came from Schoharie Co., N. Y., and who believed that a man must have some Dutch blood in him to approach perfection ; then, as his next neighbor, was John Nesbitt, who was a true Irishman all over, and who believed that the Emerald Isle, at no distant day, would get back to its former glory, won from it by the fraud and violence of England. Tommy Barber, James Bates, John Kelly, Joel Clark, Sam Hacket, Alanson Wood, Abner Calhoon, John Cowgill, Christopher Bair, Stephen Hoyt, and Erastus Williams, recently deceased, were farmers in the same neighborhood. Each had peculiar and marked characteristics; they filled well the position in life assigned to them. I might lead you around the margin of Prairie Ronde and over on Gourd-Neck and call up names familiar to the pioneers present as the names of their own households, for in that early day everybody knew everybody here, and there was that kind of sympathy and community of feeling that led to intimacy and a hearty 'God bless you !' every time you met your neighbor. We were all neighbors, all friends, and it might be that this bond of union, this seeming disposition to stand by each other and be one big family, had its influence in making men, not so good in the country they came from, quite a little better here.

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History of Kalamazoo county, Michigan, Part 120

Author: Durant, Samuel W. comp Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Philadelphia. Everts & Abbott Number of Pages: 761

Author: Durant, Samuel W. comp
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia. Everts & Abbott
Number of Pages: 761