History of Livingston County, Michigan, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 30

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The village gained additional consequence, and assumed more of the appearance of a county-seat, by the arrival and settlement here of its first at- torney, Wellington A. Glover, who opened his office in Mr. E. F. Gay's store building in 1838. The court for the county, which had first convened here in the school-house in the previous year, now held its terms regularly in the village.

Another event of considerable importance to the people of Howell and vicinity was the settle- ment among them of their first resident physician, Dr. Gardner Wheeler, who also came in 1838. Before this they were compelled to go to Oakland, or Washtenaw County, or at least to Brighton, where Dr. Fisher had then recently located, to obtain medical attendance when it became neces- sary. The second physician of Howell, Dr. Charles A. Jeffries, came in the following year. Both these gentlemen are mentioned more fully in the account, elsewhere given, of the early physicians of Liv- ingston County. Dr. Gardner Mason also came here from Salem, Washtenaw Co., in 1838, and made his first location in the village, living near where is now the residence of William McPher- son, Jr. His health was poor, and he did not practice his profession. After a comparatively

short residence here he removed to the "Six Cor- ners," in Howell township. During all his resi- dence in the village and township he was one of the most prominent and useful members of the Baptist Church.

The Rev. Henry Root, from Ann Arbor, be- came pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Howell, and settled here in 1838. The Rev. Thomas Baker, . from Highland, Oakland Co., became pastor of the Baptist Church here in the same year.

Almon Whipple-afterwards, for nearly forty years, a well-known and highly-respected citizen of Howell-removed to this village from the town- ship of Handy in 1839, he having been elected in the preceding autumn to the office of county clerk. He was born in Hardwick, Mass., in the year 1800, and remained in that State until the year 1825, when he removed to Otsego Co., N. Y. There he carried on a mercantile business from 1828 till 1835, when his health became poor, and he emi- grated to Handy, in this county, in 1837. In 1838 he opened a store in that town, and in the follow- ing year removed to Howell, as mentioned above. On the 14th of January, 1840, he married Mary Curtis (daughter of Victory Curtis), with whom he lived for nearly thirty-seven years. Upon his settlement in Howell, he engaged in mercantile business in partnership with John Curtis, under the firm-name of Curtis & Whipple. They pur- chased the business of Edward F. Gay, and be- came his successors in the store built by the latter, near the southwest corner of the old public square. His partner died in 1841, and Mr. Whipple after- wards removed to the main street of the village, and remained in the business of merchandising until 1860, when he retired from it, but continued to engage in real estate and other operations dur- ing the remainder of his life, and was successful in amassing a comfortable fortune. Besides the office of county clerk he also held that of county treasurer, and was for some years postmaster of Howell. He died Feb. 14, 1878. " He was one of the early settlers of Livingston County, and ever manifested an active interest in the welfare of his adopted State. His record was honorable, and he enjoyed the confidence and esteem of all who as- sociated with him. He was ever the poor man's friend. Honesty, generosity, and charity were his marked characteristics."

Rev. Edward E. Gregory became a resident in this village in 1839. He says he lived at first in Rev. Henry Root's unfinished house, " and cooked by a stump in the street," and he adds, " I farmed it at arms' length three miles away, but found old Nature in her soil more stubborn than I antici- pated. So 'what I know about farming' is quick

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told, and yet deficient ; as it is, it may allow me to rank among the pioneer farmers as doing the best I could, though I never got rich by it." Mr. Gregory became pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Howell in 1844, and remained in that charge for a term during that year and 1845. He has lived in Howell since his first settlement here, except an interval spent at Owosso. He is now among the oldest, as he is also among the most respected, of the citizens of Howell village.

Joseph B. Skilbeck, an Englishman by birth, is another of the residents of Howell who came here to settle in 1839. He was by trade a shoemaker, and followed that business here for several years. Afterwards he became one of the merchants of the place, and finally retired from business on a competency. One of his daughters is Mrs. An- drew D. Waddell. Mr. Skilbeck, although the owner of a good farm, is still residing in the village, which has been his home for the past forty years.

John R. Neely and Joseph Rowe became settlers in Howell in the same year as Mr. Skilbeck. Mr. Neely was a mason, and the first of his trade who settled here. Mr. Rowe was a tailor, and imme- diately after his arrival commenced business in that line,-his being the first tailor-shop opened in the village.

Early in the year 1840, Josiah Turner, then a young and aspiring lawyer, now well known to nearly every adult citizen of Livingston County as Judge of the Seventh Judicial Circuit, came to Howell to establish himself in the business of his profession. At first he lived, with his family, at the public-house of Shubael B. Sliter, on the Grand River road, east of the village, and had his office in the wooden building that stood on the north- east corner of the old public square, but soon after he occupied a log house near the present Methodist church, and later built a dwelling-house and office, the latter being a small building which stands on the west side of East Street, a little north of Grand River Street, near the engine-house. In this and in the former office on the square he did so flour- ishing a law business that he still speaks of the first eight or ten years of his practice in Howell as being, pecuniarily, the most prosperous period of his pro- fessional life. Besides the practice of his profession in those years, he was at different times engaged in mercantile business; first in partnership with William McPherson, and afterwards with Nelson G. Isbell. But these merchandising enterprises were of comparatively short duration, and he finally. relinquished that business altogether. Of the offi- cial positions which he has since filled, and of the evidences of their respect and confidence which his

fellow-citizens have shown him during nearly forty years of public life in Livingston County and adjoin- ing portions of the State, a more full account is to be found in a short biographical sketch on another page of this history.

Judge Turner recollects that when he first came to Howell, the village-by which term was then meant only the cluster of buildings on Crane & Brooks' plat and in its immediate vicinity-was spoken of as containing but thirteen families; and he enumerates the heads of these families as follows : Dr. Gardner Wheeler, George W. Jewett, William McPherson, Joseph B. Skilbeck, Dr. Charles A. Jeffries, Richard Fishbeck, Orrin J. Field, Wel- lington A. Glover, John Curtis, Edward E. Gregory, Rev. Henry Root, Enos B. Taylor, Allen C. Weston. This recollection of the judge, however, doubtless has reference to the time when he came here (prob- ably in the last days of 1839 or very early in 1840) on a prospecting visit, preliminary to bringing his family here from Ann Arbor; and this will account for the omission of the name of Almon Whipple, who, prior to the 14th of January, 1840, was not the head of a family, but became such at that time (the date of his marriage), and was certainly a merchant in the village of Howell at that time. There were also during that year a very consider- able number of other persons living in the village (though probably not all, or nearly all, house- holders), as appears by the following transcript from the township assessment roll for 1840, which was probably made out considerably later in the year than the time when Judge Turner arrived here :

"Owners and residents* of village lots in the village of Howell- Charles A. Jeffries, Wellington A. Glover, Ely Barnard, Allen C. Weston, Richard Fishbeck, Joseph Rowe, Enos B. Taylor, Orrin J. Field, Elijah Coffren, Curtis & Whipple, John Curtis, Abram Rorabacker, Mary Curtis, Edward F. Gay and Henry Root, Brown & Clark, William Butler, Joshua Boyer, Richard Carlton, Augustus Chaston, Joseph H. Cobb, Robert W. Dunn, Harriet W. Elwell, Francis Eldridge, Peries Ellis, Alfred Tanner, Augustus Goodell, Samuel Goodell, Edward E. Gregory, Willis S. Garrison, Charles Holder, James M. Hawley, Daniel O. Hager, Robert Hilton, John Habercorn, Walter Hubbell, Jason G. Jackson, William M. Johnson, John R. Kellogg, Henry Leroy, Thomas M. Ladd, H. Mc- Laughlin, Henry M. Miller, Chauncey Morse, David Prindle, William Phillips, Gideon Paul, Carl Pollard, Nathaniel Prouty, Patrick Pierce, John J. Peterson, Theobald Ungerer, Corne- lius Rierson, Frederick Reuhle, Samuel Reed, Thomas Shally, John Scott, Samuel Smith, R. Emerson, Silas Titus, George B. Turner, David Thorn, William Waycott, Joseph Ward, Alpheus White, Cornelius Ward."

* Although this purports to be a list of resident taxpayers (there being another and entirely separate list of non-resident taxpayers on the same assessment roll), it seems evident that not all those named in this list were actual residents in IIowell in the year 1840.

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THE OLD HOME.

RESIDENCE OF SEYMOUR E. HOWE, HOWELL, LIVINGSTON CO., MICH.

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RESIDENCE OF M. L. GAY, HOWELL, MICH.

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VILLAGE OF HOWELL.

By the same assessment roll the resident tax- payers on lands outside what was then known as the village, but within the present limits of the corporation, were (in addition to the Sages, the Austins, the Thompsons, and Mr. Pinckney, as enumerated above, from the roll of 1837) as fol- lows :

Gardner Wheeler, on section 35; Joseph B. Skilbeck, on section 26; Shubael B. Sliter, on section 36; Matthew West, on sec- tion 26; George W. Jewett, on section 35, and also taxed on village lots 24 and 194.

Amos Adams had then removed from the vil- lage, and was a resident taxpayer on section 27, Howell township.

VILLAGE EXTENSION.

About eight years after the survey and location of the plat of Howell, by Crane and Brooks, the village began to extend eastward beyond its origi- nal limits; not because the number of actual set- tlers was too great to be accommodated with lots upon the plat which was first recorded, but owing largely to the fact that speculators-among whom were many who were supposed to be of the far- seeing kind, like Peter J. Desnoyers, of Detroit, and others-had absorbed a large number of the lots here, with no intention of settlement, but in the expectation of realizing a handsome advance on their investments at the county-seat of Living- ston. So, in the year 1843, Mr. Peter A. Cowdrey, who had acquired the title to the east half of the southwest quarter of section 36, platted and laid out that tract as an addition to the village of How- ell,* and commenced the sale of lots. On the 14th

* This plat-known as the " first Cowdrey Addition"-was not recorded, however, until Jan. 4, 1848. It embraced the remain- der of the southwest quarter of section 36, not included in the original plat, joining that plat on the east, and also joining the south side of Thompson's Addition to the Village of Howell, which had previously been platted by Edward Thompson, propri- etor of the east half of the northwest quarter of section 36, which had been entered by his father, Moses Thompson, May 15, 1834. Thompson's Addition was platted on the southwest part of the land above described, and the plat was acknowledged and offered for record by its owner Feb. 27, 1847.

Cowdrey's Second Addition, being a plat " of the division of the east half of the northeast quarter of section 35," was surveyed Nov. 16, 1852, and filed by the administrator of the estate of P. A. Cowdrey Oct. 26, 1853. This addition, containing 49 acres, has its west boundary on the Byron road, its north on the north line of the quarter-section, its east on the east line of section 35, and its south on Grand River Street.

Wilcox's Addition lies south of Livingston Street, and contains 32 lots. This was laid out by Joseph H. Wilcox, and by him offered for record Aug. 1, 1867.

Two additions have been laid out on the east side of the village, on lands of Almon Whipple, in the west half of the southeast quarter of section 36. The first of these, lying on the north side of Grand River Street, and bounded by Cowdrey's first addition on the west, and by the Livingston County Agricultural Fair- Grounds on the east. This addition is dated Jan. 27, 1868. The

of August, 1844, he advertised his addition in the Livingston Courier, as follows :

" LOTS AT HOWELL FOR SALE.

" The plat of the eastern part of the town, and in which the site of the county buildings is located by an act of the Legislature, can be seen at the store of A. Whipple, with the prices and terms.

"P. A. COWDREY."

The act of Legislature referred to in this adver- tisement was that (approved March 20, 1841) which extended the limits of the county-site so as to embrace all of the west half of section 36. The result of this enactment, together with Cowdrey's timely platting of " the Eastern Part of the Town," was to extend the settlement eastwardly along Grand River Street, and eventually to carry the business of the village away from the "public square," around which the projectors had expected to see it located.

HOWELL IN 1844.

Within a period of ten years from the time when the Sages, the Austins, and John D. Pinckney built the first cabin here, Howell had increased in size, and attained the proportions of a very re- spectable village, not only in population, but in regard to the business transacted within it, as will be seen from the following summary of its principal business and business men, as they were in the autumn of the year 1844.

First in importance on the list here (as at all county-seats) come the lawyers. Howell's first attorney, Wellington A. Glover, had died in 1843, but five others were here at the time named, of whom the senior (with respect to date of estab- lishment in the county) was Josiah Turner, whose

second Whipple Addition, dated Sept. 4, 1871, lies opposite the first, on the south side of Grand River Street, and also has its west boundary on Cowdrey's first addition.

Jewett's Addition lies in the west part of the platted portion of the village, being on both sides of Washington Avenue, and bounded on the east by the original plat. This addition, contain- ing 64 lots, was laid out by the heirs of George W. Jewett, and offered for record May 23, 1868.

McPherson's First and Second Additions extend from Mill Street, on the west, to the lake and Oak Grove Cemetery, on the east. The first dates April 17, 1868, and the second Aug. 24, 1874.

McPherson's first and second Prospect Place Additions were laid out and offered for record in August, 1874. The first men- tioned lies north of Grand River Street, and west of the Byron road, and the latter is on the south side of Grand River Street, opposite the first. Cardell's Addition lies adjoining the second Prospect Place Addition on the east.

T. W. Mizner's Washington Heights Addition to the village of Howell contains nineteen blocks, situated on the east half of the southeast quarter of section 36, north of Grand River Street, near. the fair-grounds, dated Sept. 23, 1875. Two additions to the vil- lage have been laid out adjoining the corporation, but outside its limits, in the township of Marion. These are William and Alex- ander McPherson's Addition, Feb. 18, 1871, and Joseph B. Skil- beck's Addition, May 30, 1874.

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business card announced him as "Attorney and Counselor-at-Law, Master in Chancery, County Clerk, and Justice of the Peace; Office, north side of the Public Square." Then, there were L. H. & L. K. Hewett, " Attorneys and Counselors-at- Law, and Solicitors and Counselors in Chancery ;" Richard B. Hall, "Attorney and Counselor-at-Law and Land-Agent;" and James H. Ackerson, " At- torney and Counselor-at-Law."

Of physicians residing and practicing here there were Dr. Gardner Wheeler, the pioneer practitioner of Howell; Dr. William Huntington, successor to the office and practice of Dr. Charles A. Jeffries (who had removed), and Dr. E. F. Olds, " Physi- cian and Surgeon,-Residence at Morris Thomp- son's Office, at E. B. Taylor's store," his adver- tisement having been issued and dated while Mr. Taylor was alone in business, before his partnership with Mr. McPherson.

The tailors of the village were Mulloy & Har- rington, whose shop was located on Main Street. They guaranteed good fits and low prices in clothing.

Andrew L. Hill was carrying on " Wagon-Mak- ing in all its branches, from an ox-yoke to Buggies of a superior kind, at the old Stand, west of the Presbyterian church," and he also announced that " he designs in future to keep constantly on hand and make to order Cabinet-Ware of every descrip- tion ; and from much experience and practice he feels assured that both in Style and durability his work will compare with that done at the East."

Eli Carpenter announced "to the City of Howell, and the inhabitants of the surrounding Country, that he is prepared to furnish Saddles, Bridles, Martingales, Trunks, Valises, and Harness of every description."

Hickey & Galloway had then just commenced the foundry business, and manufactured stoves, agricultural castings, etc. Their foundry-building was located on East Street, north of the main thoroughfare.

The Livingston Courier, having been established in Howell for about a year, was then enjoying a good patronage. Its office of publication was on Main Street. Proprietor, Nicholas Sullivan ; Edi- tor, L. H. Hewett. Job printing-office connected with the establishment.

The Howell Lyceum was in full tide of success- ful experiment, and weighty questions were being discussed at stated times by the ablest disputants to be found among the citizens of the village.

The old frame school-house on lot 36 had over- .

flowed, and other rooms were then rented for the use of the surplus scholars who could not be ac- commodated within its walls, but no select schools

had yet been established in the village, as they were a year or two later.

There were three church organizations,- Methodist, Baptist, and Presbyterian ; but only the last named had a house of worship,-the others holding their services in the village school-house. These churches will be found more particularly mentioned in following pages.

Of merchants, the senior was Almon Whipple,- he having commenced the business in Massachu- setts in 1825, and in Howell in 1840. He, with his partner, John Curtis, had been the successors of Edward F. Gay, at the store southwest of the public square, but Mr. Curtis had died in 1841, and not long after, Mr. Whipple had abandoned the old store as a business stand, and had removed to a wooden building standing where is now the store of George Greenaway & Son, at the northeast cor- ner of East and Grand River Streets. At that time the name of " Grand River Street"-although so designated on the Crane & Brooks plat-ap- pears not to have been in use by the people of the village, as the advertisements of merchants and others located on it invariably mentioned their places of business as " on Main Street, Howell."

Riddle & Hinman's store was in a building known as the "Old Fort," which stood on the south side of the main street, where S. F. Hub- bell's block now is. This mercantile firm was composed of William Riddle and Derastus Hin- man. The firm had previously been styled Wil- liam Riddle & Co., and was then composed of Riddle, Hinman, and L. K. Hewett; but Hewett retired from the partnership, April 15, 1844, leav- ing the firm as above named.

The store of Taylor & McPherson (Enos B. Taylor and William McPherson, successors to E. B. Taylor) was on the north side of the main street, at or near the corner of Walnut Street, and a short distance west of the present store of Wil- liam McPherson & Sons.

The firm of Turner & Isbell, composed of Jo- siah Turner and Nelson G. Isbell, were then in business here as merchants, the partnership hav- ing been formed September 25th in that year. In their first business card, issued at that time, they announced themselves as " general merchants, and dealers in drugs and medicines, in the store lately occupied by Josiah Turner;" and they pledged themselves " to sell as low for cash or produce as can be bought this side of Lake Erie." Their store (where H. C. Briggs' jewelry-store now is) was the same in which Judge Turner and Mr. Mc- Pherson had commenced merchandising in 1841, with a small stock of goods which they purchased of Wellington A. Glover, who had himself been a

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merchant here in a small way, and for a short time. Turner & McPherson had sold out, after a few months of unsuccessful business, to Giles Tucker, who removed the stock to Shiawassee County. Mr. Turner had commenced again (alone) in the same business and same building, in the early part of 1844, and received Isbell as a partner in September of the same year, as above stated. Mr. Isbell had arrived in Howell in the preceding summer, from Charleston, Saratoga Co., N. Y.

At the same time (the fall of 1844), William R. Melvin, besides being engaged in the business of blacksmithing and carriage-ironing, was also a merchant in the village, and announced himself in his business advertisement as "Dry Grocer, Main Street, Howell." His store was on the north side of the street, where H. H. Mills is now doing business. He was succeeded at that place a few months later by "Chester Hazard, Dry Grocer," as is learned from the business card of the latter, dated in the following April.

The mercantile firm of Lee & Brother (George W. and Frederick J. Lee) had not commenced business in Howell in 1844, but was established here in the following year. With them, as a clerk in their store, came Leander C. Smith ; and all three of these gentlemen achieved pecuniary suc- cess, and became leading citizens of Howell. Among all the residents of the village, from 1835 until the present time, few have done as much towards its prosperity and the advancement of its material interests as Col. George W. Lee. He has since removed, and is now a resident of Washte- naw County. Mr. F. J. Lee and Mr. L. C. Smith still live in Howell, both widely known and wealthy.

Of public-houses in Howell, at the time men- tioned, there were three, including one on the Grand River road, something more than a half- mile east of the centre, but still within the limits of the village, and two more were added during 1845. Further mention of these public-houses will be found below.

HOWELL THE HOME OF HILARITY.

It was about this time, and during the other years of the decade which succeeded 1840, that the village of Howell acquired much of the repu- tation which seems to have been universally ac- corded her of being the home and headquarters of unlimited and unrestrained fun and jollity. The Hon. Jerome W. Turner, in the address from which a quotation has before been made, said,-

" Howell was a town from the start, with a grin on its counte- nance, which never relaxed but continually flowered into guffaws. Men from the East, who had no design of settling here, staged it

out from Detroit, or over from Dexter, to spend a few days in laughing. One man I know, who resided in the city of New York, who has since told me that he was accustomed to travel through almost every town in the United States large enough to hold a meeting-house, without finding one that could equal Howell for fun. There was an abandonment about it, too, that gave it zest ; men laughed in hearty, deep-chested tones here in the woods, and assembled to see the perpetration of a practical joke in more numerical strength than they did at a funeral. Nobody was in a hurry ; no one was careful, or troubled about many things; we had actors and an audience. Men forsook what little business they had for simple sport. One man I knew-Elijah Coffren, who now lives in Greenville, Montcalm Co., a carpenter and joiner by trade -who would come down from the roof of a promising job to join in a little hilarity, and not be able to get away from it so that he could return in a month. The super-urgent business was fun ; that was a complete plea to any declaration for damages on account of delay in work. Even ' shows,' which are supposed to carry about with them a sort of stereotyped humor which can make an hour passable, were tame concerns here in these early days, and it was two to one that something laughable would happen to them before they left the place. Subjects of mesmerism underwent copious inundations of cold water; the magic-lantern cuirass sud- denly grew cloudy with ink, and the return of pewter and tin six- pences astonished the showman when he counted up after the per- formance. Apropos of this, there were at an early day, organized in Howell, companies of 'squirters,' armed with pint and quart squirt-guns, with which they deluged all bibulous individuals. A man could get on a drunk in the daytime, but he had need to watch the sun very closely, and not be seen around after nightfall.

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History of Livingston County, Michigan, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 30

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

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