History of Livingston County, Michigan, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 28

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Having made and noted their selections of lands the party returned to Salem, and thence Pinckney and Sage proceeded without delay to the land-office in Detroit, where they entered and purchased the tracts, as above noticed, on sections 35 and 36. Mr. Pinckney then went to his home in the East (where he arrived after an absence of nearly two months), and Mr. Sage returned to Salem; and both began their preparations for removal and set- tlement on their new lands in Livingston County.

In the month of May, 1834, George T. Sage and his father, James Sage, with their families, came up from Salem and settled upon the lands pur-

chased by the former in the previous year,-James Sage building his log house on or near the spot where the mansion of William McPherson, Jr., now stands, and opposite this, on the south side of the Grand River road (which was then but a mere trail), stood the primitive dwelling of George T. Sage. Its location is said to have been directly in the present track of Grand River Street, which, by straightening, was afterwards made to pass over the site of the old Sage cabin. These two families were the pioneer settlers in what afterwards became the village of Howell, as they were also the ear- liest in the township. The date of their arrival here was May 14th, in the year named. The sons of James Sage were George T., James R., and Chester A. The last two were but boys at that time. Chester is now dead, and James R. is living in Ann Arbor. James Sage, the father of the family, died June 29, 1839.

George T. Sage died in Marion township Aug. 21, 1852. At the time of his settlement here he was but recently married to Miss Louisa Austin. Their son, George L. Sage, was the first person born in the village or township of Howell. The date of his birth was Jan. 23, 1835. He became a printer, and carried on that business for some time in Howell. He is now living in Albion, Mich.

On the Ist of June following the arrival of the Sage families, David Austin, from Salem, Wash- tenaw Co. (but previously from East Bloomfield, Ontario Co., N. Y.), came in with his family and settled about half a mile west of Sage's, on the west half of the northwest quarter of section 35, a tract which had been entered by his son-in-law, George T. Sage; the place where Mr. Austin lo- cated being the same where Mr. Fishbeck now lives. On that farm he spent the remainder of his life, and died there Feb. 1, 1847, at the age of sixty- seven years. His wife survived him about one year. Their children were five in number, viz., David (who never came to settle in Michigan), Jonathan, Louisa, Malvina, and Sally T. The last named became the wife of Merritt S. Havens; Malvina became Mrs. George Sewell; Louisa was the wife of George T. Sage, and after his death was mar- ried to the Rev. George Jenks. She is now living in Brighton.

Jonathan Austin, who had reached the years of manhood when he came with his father to Howell, purchased and settled on the northwest part of section 35, the land which is now the farm of Mr. Gilk. His name appears frequently as an officer in the records of school district No. I, of Howell and Marion. He remained here for many years, but finally removed to the Lake Superior region of the State.

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VILLAGE OF HOWELL.

During the winter and spring of 1834 Mr. John D. Pinckney had completed his preparations for emigrating, and in May of that year he left his old home in New York, with his family, and again turned his face towards the West. They came by the Erie Canal to Buffalo, then by steamer on Lake Erie to Detroit, and thence by wagon to Salem, where Mr. Pinckney left his family at the house of his father, and then came on to Livingston County, to clear and prepare his lands and build a house. Not having come into the new country empty- handed, as was the case with many of the pioneers, he brought with him from Salem two men (one of whom was his brother Thomas, who afterwards settled in Genoa) to assist in the heavy preliminary labor on the land, and in the erection of his house. He also brought with him four yoke of oxen and a team of horses, with harnesses and a wagon ; all of which he had purchased in Detroit. These horses were the first which were brought into the town- ship of Howell .* Mr. Pinckney had, of course, no trouble in keeping his cattle, during the summer, on the abundant feed and browse of the openings, and in anticipation of the coming winter, he cut an ample supply of the rank grasses growing along the margin of the lake, and stacked the hay thus easily obtained for use in the season of frost and snow.

From the several entries of lands made by him in 1833, he selected the eighty-acre tract in the southeast corner of section 36 for the location of his farm and home, and built his house at a point near the east line of the township, a considerable distance to the north of the present Grand River road, and between it and the southern end of the sheet of water now called Thompson Lake; the spot being directly east of the Livingston County Agricultural Society's fair-grounds, and a part of what was known in later years as the "Wilber farm." The trail at that time, bending north from the present line of the road, passed di-

* It is stated, in Mr. Smith's historical sketch of Howell, that the first team of horses in the township were those brought in by Moses Thompson; but this is entirely disproved by a recollection of Mrs. John Pinckney, who is now a resident of Howell village. She remembers that on the occasion of sickness in the family of George T. Sage, at the birth of his son, George L. Sage, Jonathan Austin, brother of Mrs. Sage, came to the house of Mr. Pinckney to borrow one of his horses, to ride to Kensington, to procure the services of Dr. Curtis, of that place ; but as the horses were away, at Salem, he was compelled to make the journey to Kensington on foot. As the date of the birth of George L. Sage was Jan. 23, 1835, and as Moses Thompson, in coming out to make settlement here, did not reach Detroit until May 25th of that year, and did not arrive in Livingston County until several days later, it seems clear that Mr. Pinckney was working his horses here several months before Mr. Thompson came.

rectly by the house. In the December next fol- lowing their arrival in Michigan he moved his family up from Salem and occupied the dwelling which he had prepared for them. It was similar to other homes of pioneers at that time,-a log house of a single room,-and was without floor, door, or window when they first took possession, blankets being hung over the apertures, and a fire being lighted before the cabin at night to keep away wolves. The boxes in which their house- hold articles had been brought from the East were used as tables and a bedstead was made of tama- rack-poles. The family of Mr. Pinckney at that time were : his wife, Margaret (daughter of Alex- ander Fraser, of whom further mention will be made), and two daughters,-Alice, aged seven years, and Gertrude, aged three years; also Sea- man Fraser, Mrs. Pinckney's brother, a sickly youth of about eighteen years of age, who re- mained here a few years and returned to die in New York City. After Mr. Pinckney's settlement here his family was increased by the birth of three daughters, two of whom (now Mrs. Knapp and Mrs. Goodrich) are living in Howell, and the third (unmarried) is living in Jackson, Mich., with her elder sister Alice (now Mrs. Elmore Dennis). The daughter Gertrude died unmarried in Howell. Mr. Pinckney died Feb. 11, 1861, in Howell village, where he had removed from his farm in 1842. Mrs. Pinckney is still living in Howell, being the only resident in the village or township who came here prior to 1835.

LIVINGSTON CENTRE-SETTLERS OF 1835.

When the families of Sage, Austin, and Pinck- ney made their settlement here, the locality be- came quite extensively and generally known as "Livingston Centre," though (until the arrival in the following year of other immigrants, who set- tled on the west part of section 36) the name seems to have had more particular reference to the farm and house of Mr. Pinckney, not only because it was very nearly on the actual centre of the ter- ritory of Livingston, where it was believed by many that the county-seat would be established, but because he was in a manner compelled (much against his inclination) to furnish shelter and ac- commodation to the rapidly-increasing swarm of land-seekers, to whom his house thus became an objective point from which they pushed their ex- plorations on towards the west and north.

The year 1835 brought important accessions to the settlement of Livingston Centre; not so much on account of the number of the immigrants (though the population of the two sections and two half-sections was fully trebled during that sea-

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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

son) as because they included among their num- bers those who came prepared to establish a mill and other necessary enterprises, and others who took the first steps towards the founding of the village which was to become the county-seat of Livingston.

The first of the settlers who arrived here in that year was Moses Thompson, with his numerous family. His previous home had been in Herkimer Co., N. Y., from which place he came to Michigan, in 1833, prospecting for lands, but from some cause made no purchases in this region, and re- turned East for the winter. He again came West in 1834, and purchased on sections 25, 35, and 36 in this township, as has been noticed. He also purchased other lands in the township outside the limits of the present village. In the following year (1835), in the month of April, he set out from Herkimer County with his son, Lewis Thomp- son, and his daughters, -- Rachel and Lucinda,- on their way to a home in Michigan; it being arranged that the remainder of the family should follow a few weeks later. Crossing the Niagara River, Mr. Thompson, with his son and daughters, made the remainder of the journey to Detroit through Canada, traveling in a lumber-wagon drawn by a pair of large, strong horses, and reaching Detroit on the 25th of May.

The remainder of Mr. Thompson's family, con- sisting of his wife, their sons, Morris and Edward, their daughters, Maria, Elizabeth, and Jane, with Mr. Thompson's nephew, Ezra J. Mundy, left Her- kimer County for Michigan on the 29th of May, traveling by the Erie Canal and steamer on Lake Erie, and on the 7th of June arrived at Detroit, where they found and rejoined the family party who had preceded them by the land route. On the Ioth of June they started out from Detroit with the horse and ox-teams (Mr. Thompson hav- ing purchased five yoke of oxen in Detroit) and went to Lyon, in Oakland County, where the family remained several days, and then came on to Livingston Centre, arriving on the 23d of June. Mr. Thompson had preceded them by several days, and commenced the construction of a log house on his land, in section 25. A part or all of the family lived at George T. Sage's while their house was being built, but it was soon completed, and they moved into it between the Ist and the 4th of July, 1835. The location of this house was where Mr. E. J. Mundy now lives, and a part of the log structure is still standing there.

Moses Thompson was a man of energy and en- terprise,-the projector and owner of the first mill in the village and township. He was honorable, upright, and generous, and was always held in

high esteem by his fellow-townsmen. He lived only about seven years after his settlement here, and died Dec. 2, 1842. His son Edward was also a man of enterprise, and the proprietor of one of the additional plats in the village of Howell. He died April 16, 1852. His brother, Lewis Thomp- son, was the first mail-messenger between Howell and Detroit, and served in that capacity through several of the earlier years of the existence of the village. He was never married, but lived a bach- elor at the homestead, with his mother, after his father's death. Hon. Jerome W. Turner, who, from the days of his boyhood in Howell, remem- bers Lewis Thompson and his mother, mentioned them in a recent address, as follows : " And there, too, was Lewis Thompson, an old bachelor, who had the Thompson farm, by right of primogeni- ture; a strange, silent, unfashionable old man, who did not say much to little boys, or they to him, for he left them with the impression that he belonged to the family of Elisha, and possibly had fourteen bears near by to devour too familiar chil- dren. There, too, was his old mother, a large and fleshy woman, kind and motherly, and I remem- ber that, after passing Lewis in the lane, and get- ting into the kitchen where she was, I felt per- fectly safe, and I knew instinctively that she would guard me from all the bears in the world. . .. Shortly after I left the county, I learned that Lewis Thompson was found dead on a seat under a tree near the old farm-house, and somehow his death in that especial way did not seem to me to be unexpected, and I listened to it as though I had been familiar with it beforehand. He died right out in one of the ways and attitudes of the living, and his death made no more sign than his quiet, unostentatious life. His mother fell from a chair in the garden, and, by reason of her great weight, injured herself so that she died. The two seemed inseparable, and I have often thought that, while sitting on his seat in the yard, he caught sight of her, and finally went to join her, as he would have moved through the soft grass of his pastures to milk his cows." Morris Thompson, the other son of Moses, became engaged in milling. He was for a time the sawyer in the mill which his father built, and afterwards, with others, he erected a flour-mill above, on the same stream. He lived many years in Howell, and died there recently.

Of the daughters of Moses Thompson, one mar- ried Alvin L. Crittenden, another became Mrs. Ezra Frisbee.

Alexander Fraser, the father of Mrs. John D. Pinckney, came to Livingston Centre in December, 1835. He was a native of Scotland, but emigrated early to America, and went into business as a coal

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VILLAGE OF HOWELL.

merchant in the city of New York. As early as 1824 he bought a country-seat seven miles from Pough- keepsie, N. Y., where he was accustomed to spend the summer season with his family, and where his daughter Margaret became the wife of Mr. Pinckney. When Mr. Fraser came to Livingston County, in 1835, he first lived with his daughter and son-in- law in their house near the south end of the lake. He afterwards built a good house of hewn logs, on the south side of the road, near the southeast corner of section 36, but never occupied it, as it had been his intention to do. This house after- wards became known as the Shope house, and later was kept as a tavern by S. B. Sliter. Mr. Fraser had an interest in, and in fact was under- stood to be the owner of, most of the lands entered by John D. Pinckney in 1833. He liked the country at and around Livingston Centre, but never made his permanent residence here on account of his wife's disinclination to leave her Eastern home. He remained in Michigan some four or five years, and then returned to the city of New York, where he died, at the age of sixty-six years.

Another who came to Livingston Centre in 1835 was Alvin L. Crittenden, though he did not per- manently settle here, but after a stay of about a year purchased and located upon lands in the township of Howell, a short distance north of the village. He is still living, a widely-known and respected preacher of the Gospel. In a short ad- dress made by him before the Livingston County Pioneer Society, at its latest meeting (June 18, 1879), he related the incidents of that first journey of his to Livingston Centre, and how the place appeared to him in 1835. He said,-

" In the fall of 1835 I left the State of New York to seek a home in the West, wending my way to the then Territory of Michigan, and on the 16th of November I passed through the village of Ann Arbor, and that night put up at a log tavern six miles north of it. Having some acquaintances in Livingston County, I left the hotel on the morning of the 17th for Livingston Centre, the county-site of Livingston County. I was afoot and alone. Passing north, in the course of a few hours I came to the Huron River, but there was neither bridge or boat, and it was necessary for me to gain the opposite shore. I suited myself to the situation as well as I could. I pulled off my boots and socks, rolled up my pants as far as pos- sible, and waded in. I succeeded in reaching the north shore of the river without getting my clothes wet. Readjusting my clothes, I walked on and called at a house some miles from the river to inquire the way; received directions that when I got to a certain place I was to take an Indian trail; and on inquiry found it was nine miles to the next house. There was but one incident that occurred during the nine miles' travel that made any particular impression on my mind that I now recollect. When I had trav- eled a long time, or so it seemed to me, I began to look at every turn of the trail for the house. I saw a man coming towards me, and when he came within hailing distance he called out and said, ' Hallo, friend, it looks good to see a man ! How far is it to a house ?' I replied, ' I think it must be nine miles, for they told me at the last house I passed that it was nine miles to a house, and I think I have traveled that distance; how far is it the other

way to a house ?' He answered, ' I think it must be about nine miles.' After talking with each other for a few minutes we con- cluded that we must be about half-way through, and I thought afterwards that we were. We separated, and each of us traveled on. Arriving within about a mile of the present village of How- ell, I came to a wagon-track,-it could hardly be called a road, for it went crooking around the trees and swamps. I soon came to a log house, which I afterwards learned was occupied by Mr. John D. Pinckney and family. Here I was directed to take the left-hand road near the lake. Traveling about a mile, I came to a house in the midst of the woods, several large trees standing near enough to have fallen on the house if they had fallen in the right direction. [This was Amos Adams' tavern-house, men- tioned below. ] I went to the place for a door, and shoved aside some boards that were set up for a door, and inquired of some mechanics at work on the inside of the building for the county- seat of Livingston County, and received the reply that it was right here. I inquired for some old friends who had settled near there, and was informed of their whereabouts; but the men thought I would find them half a mile west raising a barn.

" Going out of the house, I looked around, and there was not another building in the village. There were plenty of stakes standing in the woods in every direction to designate the several blocks, lots, and streets of the village, which was afterwards named Howell, for as yet the town was not organized or the vil- lage named. Leaving the village, I traveled westward about half a mile, and found nearly all of the men of the region round about busily engaged in raising a log building [at Sage's]. Finding my old acquaintance, I spent a few days very pleasantly visiting, and then hired to George T. Sage for one year, and commenced work for him on the 24th day of November, 1835."

THE CRANE AND BROOKS PURCHASE-HOWELL VILLAGE.

On the 2d of July, 1835, the west half of the southwest quarter and the southwest quarter of the northwest quarter of section 36, in township 3 north, of range 4 east (Howell), were sold and conveyed by Alexander Fraser (the lands having been entered by John D. Pinckney for Fraser, to whom the duplicates were assigned) to David Wetmore and Edward Brooks, of Detroit. On the 17th of September, in the same year, Edward Brooks and wife and David Wetmore (the latter by Charles G. Hammond, his attorney) sold and conveyed one undivided third of both the above tracts to Flavius J. B. Crane, of Detroit; and on the 29th of October following, David Wetmore, by his attorney, Hammond, conveyed his remain- ing interest to Edward Brooks.

By these transfers,* Crane and Brooks became joint proprietors-the former having a one-third, and the latter a two-thirds, interest-in the above- described tracts, upon which they proceeded to survey and lay out a village plat,-the original plat of the village of Howell,-and to file the same in the office of the Register of Oakland County. The acknowledgment upon the plat is as follows :

* On the 18th of July, 1836, John D. Pinckney and wife deeded whatever interest they had in these lands to Crane and Brooks. t In the erection of Livingston County, in 1833, the north half of it (in which Howell is situated) was taken from Shiawassee; Hosted by

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HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

" MICHIGAN,

" WAYNE COUNTY, } ss.

" On this 10th day of November, 1835, personally appeared be- fore me Edward Brooks and Flavius J. B. Crane, proprietors of the west half of the southwest quarter and the southwest quarter of the northwest quarter of section 36, in township 3 north, of range No. 4 east, and acknowledged that they had signed the an- nexed or above map or plat of a part of said land lying north and south of the Grand River Road, so-called, which is designated on said plat as Grand River Street, and declare that the said streets and square shall be and remain open for the use of the public as laid out on said map.

" ASHER B. BATES, J. P. W. C. M. T."

The territory embraced in this original plat of the village was bounded as follows: on the west by the west line of section 36; on the east by a north and south line drawn through the centre of the southwest and northwest quarters of the same section ; on the north by Higgins Street and the north line of the southwest quarter of the north- west quarter of the same section; and on the south by Livingston Street. The "public square," which was laid out by the proprietors (doubtless with the expectation that the county buildings of Livingston would be located upon it) to "be and remain open for the use of the public,"* was the square or block of land bounded by Grand River, Walnut, Sibley, and Centre Streets.

The prospective village thus laid out by Crane and Brooks was named by them HOWELL, in honor of Thomas Howell, a friend of Mr. Crane, and a son of Judge Howell, of Canandaigua, N. Y. The name, however, did not immediately come into general use, and the place continued to be known as Livingston Centre for a considerable time after- wards. The first building erected within the limits of the village plat was a two-story frame house, built by the proprietors in the fall of 1835, the lumber for its construction being hauled through the openings from Evert Woodruff's mill in the township of Green Oak. At the time of their pur- chase of the land from Fraser and Pinckney (the latter being understood to be a party interested in the sale), they had agreed to erect a tavern-house upon their tract, to relieve Mr. Pinckney's family from the necessity of furnishing food and lodging (as they had in a manner been compelled to do) for the ever-increasing throngs of land-seekers. It was in pursuance of this agreement-though probably quite as much for the purpose of giving

but that county, although " laid out" by Governor Cass' proclama- tion, in September, 1822, had never been organized, and its terri- tory therefore remained attached to Oakland. In the same manner the part which Livingston had taken from Shiawassee remained attached to Oakland until the organization of Livingston in 1836.

* This public square, not having been used for the purposes for which it was donated, and " the public" having performed no act constituting a legal acceptance of the gift, reverted to the orig- inal proprietors, or their representatives, many years afterwards.

a start to their village-that Crane and Brooks built the frame building above mentioned on the southeast corner of Grand River and Walnut Streets, and caused it to be opened as a public- house. This was the " house in the midst of the woods" mentioned by Mr. Crittenden, where he found the mechanics engaged upon its inside work on his first arrival at Livingston Centre. The first boarders in the "Eagle Tavern," as it was called, were F. J. B. Crane and Alexander Fraser, and its lodgers and transient customers were the crowds of men who came to Livingston in search of gov- ernment lands.

. The landlord who opened this house about December 1, 1835 (who was also the first settler within the boundaries of the village plat), was Amos Adams, who came here in the autumn of that year from Geneseo, Livingston Co., N. Y. On the organization of the town and county he was elected one of the first justices of the peace, and also county treasurer and surveyor. The last- mentioned office he held in the county for a num- ber of years, having several times been re-elected. Judge Turner makes mention of him as "our old surveyor who made for us these imaginary yet im- passable lines in the wilderness, which bounded our property, and divided all the untilled soil,-a brave man and true, who took upon himself such labors here in our young county as perhaps no one else would have been adapted to perform." He kept the " Eagle" for only about two years, it being sold to Joseph H. Steel in 1837. Mr. Adams afterwards became proprietor, with Joseph Porter, of a saw-mill on the Shiawassee River, on section 27 in Howell township, and also built a frame house, which he opened as a tavern on the south side of the Grand River road, near the bridge which crosses the Shiawassee, and on the west side of that stream. In this house he died, May 14, 1855. His son, Amos S. Adams, also became a hotel-keeper in the village, and at one time held the office of Register of Deeds of Livingston County. Another son, John Q. Adams, is now living in California. Of the daughters of Amos Adams, Abigail, who was the first school-teacher in Howell, married Enos B. Taylor, and removed with him to California, where she is still living. Angeline, another daughter, is also living in Cali- fornia, unmarried; and Eveline, their sister,-now Mrs. Metcalf,-is living in the village of Fowler- ville.

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History of Livingston County, Michigan, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 28

Author: Publication date: Publisher: Number of Pages: 617

Author:
Publication date:
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 617