History of Kalamazoo county, Michigan, Part 138

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

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" In the summer of 1831 Lyman I. Daniels and Jeremiah Hum- phrey came to Prairie Ronde, and were the first attorneys who practiced law in Kalamazoo County. Jeremiah Humphrey and I occupied the same room at Isaac Sumner's during that summer and fall, and we had law, medicine, and county records in close proximity. Lyman I. Daniels located at Insley's Corners.

" Within a period but little antedating the first settlement of this country, and within memory of many now living, a great revolution has swept over the world, and the law of progress is stamped upon it in unmistakable characters, with the application of the power of steam to various manufacturing purposes-to the steamboat and the loco- motive-of immense value to the human race. The moral has fully kept pace with the physical, and the fetters have been struck from the serf and the slave, and the world moves on with a velocity unparal-

* See medical chapter for a description of the life and services of Dr. Thomas.

t See Chapter XV.

Į At Kalamazoo.

Photo. by Packard, Kalamazoo.

PETER KNISS

was born in Armstrong Co., Pa., Nov. 20, 1808. When eight years of age his father moved with the family to Ohio, where they lived until 1830, when they came to Kalamazoo County, and settled on Prairie Ronde, where the father died Oct. 7, 1832.

Peter Kniss came to Schoolcraft in 1830; worked by the month, and worked land on shares. He married Elizabeth Smith, daughter of William Smith, who came from Ohio, and settled on a farm adjoining the village of Schoolcraft.

In 1838, Mr. Kniss purchased forty acres of

land on section 30, where he has since resided. At this time he was only able to make a partial payment ; but with a firm resolution to make him- self a home, he commenced and has kept steadily on until the original forty acres have expanded to a splendid farm of two hundred acres, besides other lands and interests.

Mr. Kniss has contributed liberally to the build- ing of railroads and other public improvements, and has been the father of four children,-three sons and one daughter.

509

TOWNSHIP OF SCHOOLCRAFT.

leled in history, and who can tell what the future will unfold ? Is it too much to anticipate, judging the future by the past, that with the close of another century, if not of the next half-century, a code of international laws will be so far perfected and established as to insure the settlement of all conflicting interests between civilized powers without an appeal to arms, and war, that relic of a savage state, with all its attending evils, be speedily banished from the earth ? And now, fellow-pioneers, you have passed through those eventful times that have made so deep a mark upon the world's history and accom- plished so much for the glory and happiness of man. Those who were residents of this county at an early day, and partook of its toils and privations, joys and sorrows, and were actively engaged in mak- ing the first improvements, how few are here to-day ! how few are in the land of the living ! and the number is constantly growing less. You took this county from the hand of the savage in a rude and un- cultivated state; you leave it blossoming as a rose, and yielding an abundance of the fruits of the earth ; and in a few brief years the old pioneers of Kalamazoo County will have passed from earth, leaving an enduring monument behind them in the development and growth of this beautiful country, dispensing to its future occupants all the comforts and blessings incident to civilized man."

The following chapter of reminiscences is from the pen of Hon. E. Lakin Brown, of Schoolcraft, and was read by him at the pioneer gathering in 1879 :

"On the 5th day of November, 1831, I finished a long and tedious journey of over three weeks from Vermont by riding from Bronson (now Kalamazoo) after sunset, on horseback, in company with H. B. Huston. The road was the old Indian trail that led from Kalamazoo River to Harrison's Lake, and from there to the Big Island. School- craft was already in existence-on paper. Stephen Vickery had that same week made the plat and run the lines of the principal streets for the proprietor, Lucius Lyon, under the direction of Dr. David E. Brown. The log store and dwelling, all in one, stood near where my tenement-house now is, and a frame barn, 30 by 40, was raised and being finished,-David Hill, carpenter. All this was the property of Smith, Huston & Co. The barn is now the east part of my old barn, and still in good condition. My first labor in Michigan was shingling said barn, and it was the first framed barn on Prairie Ronde. A little frame for a cabinet-shop had been raised the day I came for a young man from New Hampshire, named Edwin M. Fogg. It is still standing, just north of John Earl's garden. John Patrick had partly finished a small story-and-a-half framed house, a half-mile east of the village, where Willie Cobb now lives, and was then living in it. This completes the list of all the buildings at and about Schoolcraft, and the framed buildings I have mentioned were the only ones on the prairie, or in the county, with the exception of Smith, Huston & Co.'s store at Kalamazoo, built that season. The prairie, seen by the bright sun of Sunday morning, November 6th, seemed wondrously beautiful and grand. It was simply in a state of nature, covered with a pretty rank growth of grass, then dry and sere; no tree except the Big Island grove and one or two other smaller groves; no roads, no fences, no houses, for the log cabins of the settlers were all at the edge of the timber, and I think not one of them could be seen from the old store at Schoolcraft. The effect of the scene upon one who had lived all his life among the wild and rugged mountains of Vermont was striking and solemn. I never tired of contemplating its unri- valed beauty.

" I should be glad to name the settlers who were already established on Prairie Ronde and Gourd-Neck, with a running commentary upon their peculiarities,-many of them of note in various ways, and whose names are connected with the early history of the county,-but I have not time to do so, and, besides, much has been already said and written about them. They were mostly plain, uneducated men, from Ohio, Ken- tucky, and Virginia, five or six from Vermont, about as many from Massachusetts, one or two families from Connecticut, and at least one young man from New Hampshire. As there were scarcely more than half a dozen who had more than the mere rudiments of education, and many none at all, so there were not more than that number who brought to the prairie any considerable amount of money. A few had a few hundred dollars each, the larger part literally nothing. As the old Smith, Huston & Co.'s store was the only place of resort for the whole prairie, the winter of 1831-32 gave opportunity of witnessing many scenes and characters new, interesting, and peculiar to one just from New England. In general, however, the people were frank,

honest, and friendly. The Virginians, of Virginia Corners, and the Vermonters, especially, always fraternized,-partly, perhaps, because they were all Henry Clay Whigs; and I always remember old Aaron Burson, the patriarch of that colony, with affectionate regard. But I cannot stop to particularize. We passed the winter of 1831-32-a long, cold, snowy winter-as merry and jolly as we could be, without fire in the store till late in the winter. But spring came at last, and brought its hopes, its disappointments, and its wonderful panorama of changes in the scenes of nature around us.

" Early in March the rank growth of last year's grass, dried by the sun and wind, was set on fire and the whole prairie burned over, leaving it bare and black as midnight. Then in a few days came the beautiful flowers, covering the whole prairie with one uniform kind and color : first, the blue violet, then the purple phlox, and this succeeded by some other color. In July and August a tall, yellow flower, the name of which I do not know, mixed profusely with the tall grass and gave yellow as the predominant color. But all was wild and native to the soil,-not a spear of any of the cultivated grasses, not a leaf nor flower of red or white clover was to be seen -- and the eye and heart used to so long to see them. But all was wild, with a peculiar, rank, sickening smell that even now almost brings back the shivers of the ague.

"Great hopes were entertained of the prosperity of immigration that spring would bring to our new settlement; but with the very opening of spring came the Black Hawk war, and a little later that new and terrible scourge, the cholera. These together gave a total check to the tide of immigration that was expected, and the summer passed drowsily away, doing little but prepare for the abundant supply of fever and ague for the early autumn. But I cannot pass the ex- citement and stir caused by the first aların of the Black Hawk war without mentioning an incident or two connected with it. Of course the powerful militia of the county was at once called out, and the re- sponse was in general bold and warlike. A few, however, were greatly frightened. Among the number, Josiah Rosecrants, an old Mohawk Dutchman, who lived near the Nesbitts, on the northwest corner of the prairie, started at once with all his stock, bag and baggage, for the East. I well remember that we yarded and milked his cows the first night at Schoolcraft. But the courage of the Rosecrants family was soon to be vindicated. IIis son, Mortimer, was then a young lad. In due time he was admitted a cadet at West Point, was duly graduated, and entered the army as lieutenant. The war with Mexico occurred, and young Rosecrants carried the colors of his company at the storm- ing of Chapultepec, getting especial notice for his bravery. The northwest corner of Prairie Ronde has since then given a specimen of its prowess, for Corporal Munger was a prominent figure in the capture of Jeff. Davis.

" But it was at the battle of Bloody Run, in the Black Hawk war expedition, that cowardice and bravery shone conspicuous. It was then that Pete Wygant, the experienced frontiersman and old hunter, absolutely refused to fall into line when the alarm was given, and ve- hemently declared that he was not going to stand in the front rank of the battle, and his brother Abe shouldn't. In the mean time, amid all the uproar and confusion, could be heard the voice of droll Dan Barber, besieging the commissary wagon, and calling out lustily for ammunition, declaring his intention to ' shoot whole bars of lead and kegs of powder.' Such were the scenes at the battle of Bloody Run, so called because there was no battle and no blood was shed.

" In one of the hot summer days of 1832, when the news was daily being received of the fatal work of that new and terrible disease, the cholera,-many having died in Detroit and Ann Arbor, including a leading business man, a cousin of mine, and some well-known persons at Marshall and Nottawa-seepe,-Addison Smith and myself were sit- ting at the door of the old log store, gloomily discussing the state of affairs, when a man quite advanced in years approached on foot, with a weary, sad, sickly look, and greeting us in a woe-begone way, sat down beside us. He was from Gull Prairie; said he was a Massachu- setts man, and was on his way to White Pigeon on some land business. But he was sick, felt terribly, and believed he was going to have the cholera. Again and again he would say, in his quaint New England dialect, ' I vum, I wish I was to hum !' We cheered him up as well as we could, gave him all the medicine our dispensary contained, of which peppermint-drops was a leading article, and after resting a while he said he felt better, and started on his way to White Pigeon. The old man said his name was Samuel Brown, and I suppose was no other than Deacon Samuel Brown, the well-known pioneer of Rich- land, whose death occurred not long since.

510

HISTORY OF KALAMAZOO COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

" After this rather dreary year prospects brightened a little, and from 1833 to 1836 the settlement of Western Michigan increased rapidly. In 1837 hard times came in earnest. The United States bank was broken up, and financial anarchy held sway. Then came the Wild Cat and Red Dog-genuine fiat money. Everybody had enough and more than enough. The difficulty was it was good for nothing. Business men were ruined, farmers and others became in- volved in the wreck of worthless banks, and the settlement and pros- perity of the country was materially retarded. The good people of Prairie Ronde, like the rest, thought it highly important that they should have a bank, notwithstanding not a soul of them had a dollar to loan, but all wanted to borrow. So the Farmers' Bank of Prairie Ronde was organized, plenty of beautiful notes were procured, and everything ready to issue money and make no end of trouble. And here you must permit me to take credit to myself, and claim to have saved this community from the disgrace and loss and litigation that would have certainly followed the starting of the bank and the issue of the bills. I was cashier, and as such absolutely refused to sign or issue a single note. The whole system was going to pieces, and after a while the stock paid in was returned to the owners, expenses de- ducted, and that was the end of it. That whole banking fiasco taught me one simple lesson, but a most important one,-let those bank who have money to loan, not those who want to borrow."

At the meeting of the pioneers of Kalamazoo County in 1873, Hon. Edwin H. Lothrop was present and delivered a very interesting address, filled with many amusing and entertaining incidents of the days when the country was new. He said, "In those days sometimes they were for a week without a mouthful of bread in the neighborhood, until some man would go to the mouth of the river, or some other place, and get a barrel of flour, which was at once distributed around. This, too, would soon be gone; and during all this time very few complaints were made." He told also of a man named Metcalf, who at one time owned a large share of the Breese farm on the prairie. Metcalf seemed to possess but little faculty for " getting on in the world." One day, when Mr. Lothrop was coming home from a journey to the south part of the State, he met Metcalf, with his wife and household goods, coming along the road, and asked him where he was going. "Well," said he, " I'm going back to New York; my wife can't live here, -- she wants to go back where folks have something !" And they proceeded on their journey. Some time later Mr. Lothrop was traveling down the Kalamazoo River and saw a man chopping brush by a little log shanty ; it proved to be Metcalf himself. "So you've got back here ?" said Mr. Lothrop. "Yes," was the reply. "I went back to New York, and my friends wasn't so glad to see me as I ex- pected, and my wife didn't find things as she expected to find them, and we have come back here; and now, instead of having three beautiful lots there on the prairie, I have 40 acres here in the woods." Several years afterwards a man, who was at once recognized by Mr. Lothrop as the identical Metcalf, came limping along with a crutch past the former's door, and was hailed with, "My friend, where do you come from ?" " I am from Illinois; my wife wouldn't live on the Kalamazoo River, and nothing would do but I must go back to New York; and when we got there my friends were mad to see us back again, and gave us money and sent us to Illinois. Now my wife is dead, and I'm going back to go into the poor-house in Chautau- qua County, because I believe they have better poor-houses there than in Illinois." This was one of a few instances where settlers were dissatisfied, and where their wives were

not content to help them acquire a competence from a good start as pioneers.

Mr. Lothrop related also the following :

" In 1830 the nearest grist-mill we had was at Tecumseh, or Ann Arbor. In that spring the first wheat was harvested here. I recollect the first day I was on the prairie. I went down to Longwell's to get my horse shod, and stopped at Mishael Beadle's, where Flowerfield now is, on the way. I found Longwell, like most of the old settlers, very glad to see me; but there was one peculiarity about the man- he wanted to know all about me, where I came from, who my father and mother were, how long I was going to stay, and how much money I had. I was young, and gave truthful answers to his questions. We went out to the shop, and he commenced to heat his rod to make the nails. When the rod was hot he would take it out of the fire, ask me some question, and before I would get it answered his rod would be cold, and he would have to stick it into the fire. I soon discovered what the man's weakness was, and I thought I would see how many times I could make him heat that rod before he would make a nail, and when he would draw the rod out of the fire, if he did not ask me a question, I would begin talking to him, and I made him heat that rod forty times before he made the first nail. I went there immedi- ately after breakfast, and it was two o'clock in the afternoon before my horse was shod. I went from there to Mr. Elisha Doane's, and found him drilling holes into a large hard-head, so as to split it open. I asked him what he was going to do with it, and he said he was going to make a pair of mill-stones, ' for,' said he, 'we have got to have some way to grind our wheat.' And he made out of that stone a pair of mill-stones for Mr. Beadle, who put them into his saw-mill, and they were used for nearly a year, or perhaps longer. I do not think there are a great many ladies before us to-day that would use the flour made with those stones, but our wives were pretty glad to get it without complaining."

Mr. Lothrop stated that the first pair of buhr-stones were brought here for Mr. Beadle, in December, 1831, by Col. Abiel Fellows, Mr. Lothrop being in company with him at the time. They took the place of those first in use. As an illustration of what constituted the wearing-apparel of the women in the early days, Mr. Lothrop gave the follow- ing incident : " A man came to me and wanted me to help him buy a farm, and agreed, if I would, to give me a pre- emption right to a certain part of it. By the laws of Con- gress I could not get a deed of it until he got his patent. When the time came around I called upon him, and he very cheerfully signed the deed, but his wife would not do it without I would give her a dress. Well, I was a full- blooded Yankee; I had come from a country where people had different views. When my father did a thing, my mother always assented to it, so I was not prepared to meet any such thing as that. Finally she said, ' You need not stand back and refuse to give it to me, because I can get a dress out of six yards.' Now, I am a man of family, and I tell you it is a good many years since six yards would make a dress for my wife."

Mr. Lothrop, although a sincere lover of the home of his nativity, was no less so of that of his adoption, and at the close of his address made the following remarks :

"I have never yet been sorry that I came to Michigan. In looking over the State of my adoption I have felt like exclaiming, 'Oh, Mas- sachusetts, Massachusetts! the land of my youth, the grave of my fathers, the scene of my boyhood, I love thee! But oh, Michigan, Michigan ! the land of my manhood, I will cling to thee until thou shalt find a grave for the son of New England !'"

Judge Wells, of Kalamazoo, a former citizen of School- craft, gave at the same meeting* some interesting reminis- cences, including the following :

* 1873.

Photo, by Packard, Kalamazoo.

GODFREY KNIGHT

was born in Roscommon Co., Ireland, May 26, 1786. He was raised an agriculturist ; was super- intendent of a large farm of eighteen hundred acres for his cousin, William Knight, for eleven years, during which time, in June, 1822, he mar- ried Ann Kenny.

In 1832 he emigrated to America, and settled on the land in Schoolcraft, where he has since re- sided. He has raised a family of six children, who have received a good education.

James Knight graduated at Union College, set- tled at St. Louis, Mo., in the practice of law, and

rose to distinction in the profession; was elected judge of the Circuit Court, which position he filled for eight years. His death occurred Nov. 25, 1876, aged fifty-one years.

Godfrey Knight is a man of marked character and great vivacity. His mental and physical con- dition is as strong and vigorous as that of most men twenty years his junior. He has always been actively engaged as a farmer, and by his energy, industry, and economy accumulated a handsome property in one of the most delightful regions of Southern Michigan.

511

TOWNSHIP OF SCHOOLCRAFT.

" I will call attention to the fact that Schoolcraft and Brady town- ships were surveyed by the general government into sections and quarter-sections in the year 1826, by Robert Clark, Jr., of Monroe, Mich. At this date there was not a resident white man in what now constitutes the county of Kalamazoo! A half-breed Indian-French- man had charge of a trading-post on the east side of the Kalamazoo River, on the ground now used for cemetery purposes by the township of Kalamazoo. Robert Clark, with his compass and chain, his flag- inen, his axemen, and his chain-carriers, passed along within twenty rods of the ground we are now occupying, just forty-seven years ago last February. In a talk I had with Surveyor Clark in 1849, he stated that he made the surveyings in February,-a deep snow on the ground, and that he failed to meander 'Sugar-Loaf Lake,' on the north side of the river, thinking it was a marsh. As he passed over its surface, covered with ice and snow, there was fifty or sixty feet of water under him, and if he had happened to strike an open place in the ice and had gone down, it would have been the last of him and his Jacob's staff.

". . . I used to think, when I knew every man, woman, and child in this part of the county, they were the best people on earth, and yet other people used to say that it was a suspicious circumstance that we talked but little about the regions of country from whence we came. Possibly we might have acquired this character from some such circumstance as this : I was over at Flowerfield,-I think in 1834,-and in company with Uncle Aaron Burson, Col. L. I. Daniels, Harry Smith, and others, possibly E. L. Brown and E. H. Lothrop. Well, we journeyed along the west side of the prairie until we reached ' Insley's Corners,' where we stopped at ' Uncle John's to get some- thing to drink. They kept whisky there which was made at Flower- field ; they called it ' tamarack,' and when a man drank a good horn. of it he rubbed his hand over his stomach and lifted up his feet as though his toe-nails were burning. In fact, he acted as though he had more than he bargained for. Well, while there some one of the company inquired of another where he came from, when he came to Michigan, and also why he came. The response came, quick as a flash, ' It's none of your business!' And then and there it was re- solved by the company present that whatever might have occurred in the past in the localities from which he had emigrated, by day or night, should be forgotten. If any of us had left any particular re- gion of country for that country's good, nothing was to be said as to this ; it was to be nix ; but, therefore, as the boys say in playing marbles, we were all to play for keeps, and be good as circumstances would admit."

In alluding to various early settlers the judge spoke as follows :

"There was Rev. William Taylor, the best man of all the pioneers, and the Rev. Benjamin Taylor. I heard him preach the first sermon I listened to in Western Michigan, in a new barn one and a half miles east of this village,# in August, 1833. He was an able man, a good thinker, and one of the most rapid talkers I ever listened to.

"Rev. Amos B. Cobb, whom I heard preach in what was called the ' Fellows School-House,' on the north neck of Prairie Ronde. He divided his sermon into seventeen heads, and went on with more divisions after he got through with the seventeen. It was a hot day in August, and I have had my doubts whether I was improved in grace to any great extent by that sermon. I had no watch then, and could not time the preacher, but I presume he held us on those slab seats, without backs, possibly two hours.

"James Smith, Jr., if he had been true to himself, would have proved, probably, the ablest man, mentally, of all the men in Kala- mazoo County. He was liberal in his views on all subjects, large- hearted and kind-hearted, and the immense fund of knowledge he had drawn from books he knew how to put into practical use.

"Then came Thaddeus Smith, and if I did not know to the con- trary I would say that Thad. Smith had been a justice of the peace here about one hundred years. . . . And then last in the list of Smiths-there may have been more-was Harry Smith. He lived at the south margin of Prairie Ronde; he was a sharp, shrewd, cunning man. His character was evidenced, to some extent, in the advice he once gave to Dr. David E. Brown. The doctor's brother, Isaac, was involved in the meshes of the law. He was charged with some viola- tion of right, and was in the custody of an officer. The doctor ap-

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History of Kalamazoo county, Michigan, Part 138

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