USA > Michigan > Mason County > History of Mason County, Michigan > Part 47
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In April, 1880, Elizabeth Cady Stanton gave her lecture, "Our Girls" and speeches before the temperance associations, and mothers of the city, which added courage and enthusiasm to the hearts of the few suffragists who were considering the feasibility of organization.
A call was published, signed by Mrs. Fannie H. Fowler, Mrs. O. C. Hawley, and Mrs. Anna Chandler, requesting "women who desire the ballot to meet in Good Templar's Hall, to consider the grave questions of the hour." Twenty-three women responded and the "Manistee Woman Suffrage Association" was formed June 8, 1880, adopting the constitution of the National Woman Suffrage Association, and electing officers as follows: President, Mrs. O. C. Hawley; vice president, Mrs. Fannie H. Fowler; secretary, Miss A. M. Golden; treasurer, Mrs. L. T. Stansell.
Mrs. Sarah A. Kies and Miss A. M. Golden were chosen as delegates to the convention of the N. W. S. A., held at Grand Rapids the ensuing week.
An active canvassing of the city, by committees of the associa- tion, resulted in securing the attendance of tax-paying women at the school-meeting in September, when the first woman vote was cast in Manistee County and has been followed at each successive school meeting with an increased number.
The following Spring (1881) a pamphlet was published by the Manistee Woman Suffrage Association and sent broadcast through- out the state, stating its objects and containing its constitution, by- laws and epitome of their work.
In August of that year, Mrs. Mary Wright Sewell, of Indiana, was engaged by the M. W. S. A. to deliver two educational lectures, which were free to the public, her expenses being defrayed by the association. In February, 1882, a social celebrating Miss Anthony's birthday was given under their auspices,at the residence of Hon. S. W. Fowler, and was voted a grand success.
Through the untiring energy of the president, Mrs. L. T. Stan- sell, who was also one of the Ladies' Lever Lecture League, Mrs. Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, of Evanston, Ill., was induced to give a Manistee audience a rare treat in her " Homes of Representative Women," April 20, 1882, and a public " conversation," which elicited much interest in woman suffrage.
The M. W. S. A. have done much quiet work in distributing suffrage literature, and are now canvassing the state with petitions for equal and municipal suffrage, which are to be presented to the Legislature of 1883. They are also helping Nebraska in her strug- gle to secure a woman suffrage amendment, having forwarded funds for that purpose. The officers of the M. W. S. A. for the year ending June, 1883, are as follows: President, Mrs. L. T. Stansell; vice-president, Mrs. Fannie Holden Fowler; correspond- ing secretary, Mrs. Fannie Holden Fowler; recording secretary, Miss Nellie Walker; treasurer, Mrs. Susan Seymour.
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HISTORY OF MANISTEE CITY.
The city of Manistee is the county seat and only city of Man- istee County. It is located on the east shore of Lake Michigan, and is about 175 miles distant from Chicago. The city extends east along the Manistee river and south along the west shore of Lake Manistee. The banks of the river on the south side are of sand, and about ten feet high. From this bank a sand plane from ten to twenty rods in width extends back to clay banks, which rise abrupt- ly from ten to thirty feet to a plane which stretches away to the south. This plane has a clay soil, and affords a charming site for dwellings. It is here that the elegant residences, for which Manis- tee is so justly noted, are situated. At this altitude the air is de- lightful, and the view obtained is well calculated to excite the ad- miration of the beholder. Upon the plane below him is the busi- ness portion of the city full of life and healthful activity, while along the river and far away upon the shores of the beautiful little lake are the many mills which day after day chant their chorus of an unrivalled prosperity. River Street extends along the south bank of the river for a mile and a half to Lake Manistee. Upon either side of this street are substantial business blocks, and every one is a hive of commercial activity. The river between the two lakes is the most important highway in the city. Its waters are clear and flow with a rapid current and never freeze. The mighty procession of water crafts never stops, for even in Winter when, Lake Michigan sometimes conceals itself under a cover of ice, there is more or less doing upon the river.
Twenty years ago the population of the entire county was less than one thousand. A rude hamlet of shanties, and two or three mills were all that relieved the loneliness and dreariness of this remote region. From this obscurity a city struggled to a promising stature, only to be turned to ashes in a night. Then a hurrying hither and thither of determined men and women, builders bend to their work, streets are outlined, blocks follow each other, homes are built, ten years hurry by, and we stand in the midst of a city of nine thousand inhabitants, noted for their morality and culture, while everywhere are the unmistakable evidences of real prosperity and wealth.
The early history of this region has already been gathered with & skilful hand. In the Centennial year, 1876, Gen. Byron M. Cutcheon was chosen to deliver a historical address at the 4th of July celebration, which was one of the most notable events in the history of the county. The address shows that the historian of that occasion was wisely chosen. We are indebted to the author for permission to use his manuscript.
The following is the address referred to, except such portions as relate to subjects which are treated in their proper order.
GEN. CUTCHEON'S HISTORY.
"When the mariner has been tossed through toilsome days and starless nights upon the trackless and tempestuous sea, he gladly avails himself of the first favorable opportunity to take his obser- vation of the sun, correct his course and ascertain his whereabouts.
"The past is the teacher of the future, and as the surveyor cor- rects his courses by an occasional back-sight, so we, as a nation and as communities, may correct our errors by occasional reviews of the course we have already run.
"It is especially appropriate that as we are about entering upon * the second century of our existence as a nation, we should seek to draw wisdom from the lessons of experience, that we may avoid in the future the dangers and follies of the past; that the history of our second century be as much grander than the first, as our opportu- nities are greater and our foundations broader.
"It was in this spirit that the American Congress, at the begin - ning of this centennial year, passed a joint resolution recommending that in every county in the nation, upon this centennial anniver- sary of our independence, an historical address should be delivered, embodying the local history-which local histories should be printed and preserved as the materials from which future historians might draw materials for that great history of the century's progress.
"The resolutions met the approval of the President of the United States, and by his executive proclamation he recommended to the favorable action of the several states and communities. The gov- ernors of most of the states, including Michigan, have responded to the presidential proclamation by similar proclamations to their respective commonwealths, and the citizens of Manistee County have thought favorably of the suggestion, and have determined to preserve the little history that they have made.
" But why the committee should have hit upon me as their his- torian passes my understanding, unless it be upon the same prin- ciple that the humorist, Mark Twain, says he was selected to edit an agricultural newspaper-to wit: because he knew nothing whatever about agriculture-for, he said, he had always observed that the less a man knew about a subject the better he could write about it, for if a man undertook to write about a thing he knew anything about, his mind would be biased, more or less, by the facts, while a man writing about that of which he knew nothing, could rise entirely superior to facts into the region of pure speculation.
"Upon this theory I conceive that I am specially fitted to write the history of Manistee County.
"I believe it was the author of the Knickerbocker history of New York who remarked that to write the history of any locality correctly, one must begin with the creation of the world.
"But at the risk of leaving this history incomplete, I shall entirely dodge the creation of man, shall try to get out of the way of the fall, shall jump the Garden of Eden, evade the flood, pass over the migration of the lost tribes, flank the question of the Asiatic origin of the American Indians-lightly touch upon the pre- historic Mound Builders who doubtless once inhabited this shore and have left their tracks upon its riversides and their bones within its sand-hills, and come at once to that comparatively modern epoch when the historic American Indian-red skinned, large boned and long haired-roamed and hunted and fished on the Manistee.
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HISTORY OF MANISTEE COUNTY.
" There is no evidence that this region had any very consider- able Indian population, nor, so far as I am aware, have any well defined Indian traditions of wars or other notable events prior to the coming of the white man, come down to us. We must conclude that they were a rather quiet and peaceable people, whose civiliza- tion had not yet degenerated into the era of investigating commit- tees or presidential scalping parties.
" It was in 1641 that the first white men-the French Jesuit Fathers, bearing the standard of Christianity, penetrated these far western wilds, and made a lodgment at the Straits of Mackinaw, but whether they extended their journey into this part of the pen - insula we have no record. It was several years later, in the year 1668, that a permanent white settlement was effected by the same Jesuit Fathers, within the limits of what is now the state of Michigan.
" In 1672 Jacques Marquette, better known by his title of Pere
. Marquette, a Jesuit Father of exceeding zeal and piety, set out upon his perilous undertaking of discovering and exploring the father of waters.
"Passing through what is now the upper peninsula, and so round by Green Bay, he performed his daring and perilous voyage. Returning and settling among the Illinois, in the year 1675-two hun- dred and one years ago-he undertook the exploration of Lake Mich- igan. Perhaps it would be impossible to establish the fact in proof, but I have but little doubt that Father Jacques Marquette was the first white man who ever looked upon the pine-clad hills of Manistee, or dipped his oar in the waters of our beautiful river. I have no doubt that more than two hundred years ago, with his Indian guides, he camped on the bank of yonder stream, and that the first Christian song and prayer that broke the stillness of these primeval solitudes was the morning and evening devotion of Father Mar- quette.
"Continuing southward on his journey, he reached the mouth of the stream that now bears his name. Thirty miles south on that narrow belt of sand which now lies to the southward of the outlet of Pere Marquette Lake, but formerly formed a spit of land to the northward of that outlet, he breathed his last, and was buried by his Indian followers in the sand. The exact place of his burial is unknown, and even the adjacent city has not done itself the honor to preserve to itself the name and fame of Pere Marquette, the devoted missionary, the intrepid explorer and bold pioneer. It is to be hoped that before another century has rolled around, our children will have done him or his memory some partial justice, by erecting on the spot of his burial some monument worthy of the man and of the state.
" At the time of the visit of Marquettee, Manistee existed only as the Indian name of this beautiful river and lake.
" The word ' Manistee ' is derived from the Indian title of the river which now bears that name. It is a corruption of the original Chippewa, which, in outward appearance, bears but little resem- blance to the present name. Whatever may be said of the original, the present name is as beautiful as could be desired-as liquid as the bright-flowing river it names, and as sparkling as the lake to which it has been assigned, and as neat as the future city we hope shall bear it with honor to the world.
"As to the meaning of the name there appears to be a diversity of opinion. One of Michigan's historians gives its meaning as 'The River with Islands,' but we can see but little appropriateness in that meaning.
" The late A. S. Wordsworth, formerly assistant superin- tendent of the Michigan geological survey, who was one of the first white men to visit this river, and who was familiar with the
Indian tongue, stated that he had it from the early Indians that it signified ' The Spirit of the Woods.' Whether this be true or not, we prefer to believe it so. It is stated that this name came to be applied to the stream in the following manner:
"Upon the high lands about the sources of the Manistee, stands, and for ages has stood, a dense forest of pines and hemlocks, and the constant sough of the breeze through these forests produces a constant murmur, which the untutored Indians attributed to 'the spirit of the woods,' which they supposed dwelt about the sources of this stream-and hence the name.
"But we fear that the spirit has departed. His realm has at last been invaded by sturdy axe men and lumbering camps, and the scream of the locomotive drowns the voice of 'the spirit of the woods,' and soon no man standing on the banks of the Manistee shall be able to say, with the poet:
"' These are the forests primeval- The whispering pines and the hemlocks.'
"But the name will abide when we are sleeping by the side of these ever-flowing waters, and our sleep will be ullabyed by the unceasing murmur of the spirit of the woods.
"The name Manistee, from being applied to the river, came in time to be also applied to the territory adjacent, to the lake near its mouth, and the city on its banks, so that we have Manistee river, town, county, lake and city. This name we have borne. This name we must bear; and it rests with us, fellow-citizens, as we stand at the portal of this new century, whether it shall be a name of honor, or an appellation that shall carry dishonor with it.
"THE INDIANS.
" After the visit of Father Marquette, two centuries ago, we lose sight of Manistee for more than a hundred and fifty years. Undoubtedly the Jesuit missionaries occasionally visited it, and adventurous traders, seeking furs, made pilgrimages to its shores.
" The first authentic facts that I have been able to discover date as late as 1830. About that time we know that one of the Campeau family, a French trader from Grand Rapids, made visits to this point to traffic with the Indians. The principal tribe that then inhabited this valley was the Chippewas, though there were more or less of the Tawas and Ottawas. But this was the proper hunting-ground of the Chippewas. The blind old Indian whom most of you have seen led about our streets, and who must now be nearly a hundred years old, was the last chief of that tribe. He is now known as the old Manistee Chief. His name, as near as I can get it, is Ke-wax-i-cum. He has inhabited this valley all his life, and he says that his father lived here before him. He says when he was a boy he hoed corn on what is now the marsh at the channels, between the north and middle channel. And it is true that since the settlement by white men, much of that marsh has been tillable meadow lands, and hundreds of tons of hay have been cut on those flats which are now under water.
" FIRST WHITES.
"1882. In 1832, if I am correctly informed, a party of men from Massachusetts landed here, and with boats proceeded up the river to Section 36, Town 22 north, of Range 14 west, where they commenced to get out square timber to build a dam and block- house. They had completed their block-house, and had their tim- ber for the dam prepared, when the Indians assembled, and by menaces compelled them to desist. The party were obliged to abandon their block-house, which was very substantially built, and which was standing until a few years ago.
" THE OLD HOUSE.
"Mr John Canfield has informed me that when he came here, in 1849, it was already known as the 'old house,' and it has borne that appellation ever since. This whole region was then one vast
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forest, and we have it upon the authority of A. S. Wordsworth, before mentioned, that at a very early day this old block-house was taken possession of by a gang of counterfeiters, and that here for some time they plied their trade. Those were 'hard money' times, and those gentlemen were 'inflationists.' They believed that a money of faith was as good as a money of value, and they seem to have conceived the patriotic idea of expanding the currency with a circulating medium that should not absorb so much of the wealth of the country as the regular government issues of silver. I have no doubt that many of those bogus dollars and halves and quarters went on faith and answered all the purposes of a medium of ex- change just as well as their cousins, the non-convertible 'green- backs' of a later day.
"But after Mr. Wordsworth blundered upon them and discov- ered the nature of their retreat, 'they folded their tents like the Arabs, and silently stole away.' Since then the 'old house' has been used as a logging shanty, and a whisky saloon, and a dwelling, but it is gone, and the place that once knew it shall know it no more forever.
"CAPT HUMPHRY.
"1888. In 1888 old Capt. Humphry, who a few years ago sailed one of the Engelmann boats, visited the mouth of this river, with a vessel, and brought the machinery for a mill, but he found the water in the stream very shallow, and after landing, for some reason which I have been unable to learn, he reshipped his machinery, abandoned his enterprise and sailed away, leaving the Manistee for a few years longer to its primeval quiet.
" RESERVATION.
" 1885. I have not been able to satisfy myself completely as to when the manistee reservation was set apart for the Chippewas, but from the best information I have been able to obtain, it was in 1832.
The reservation is six miles in width and twenty-two east and west, including the valley of the Manistee, on both sides of the river as far east as Section 4, of Range 18 west. It is related that when the surveyors requested instruction as to the shape and extent of the reservation, the government instructed them to lay it off in any shape that Chief Ke-wax-i-cum should direct, and he extended it so far east for the express purpose of including the ' old house.'
"About the year 1841 or 1842, when the Stronachs were building their water mill on the Little Manistee, the Indians determined to drive them off. They demanded whisky, but fortunately the whisky was buried in kegs in the sand at the mouth of the river. The In- dians then began war-like demonstrations, when Stronach (father of Adam and James) invited them into his boarding shanty, gave them all they could eat, opened a barrel of pork and divided it, distributed a barrel of flour among them, and so concluded a treaty of peace. The Chippewas, since the whites came on this shore, have generally been kind hearted and well disposed; but with the universal Indian failing of a weakness for bad whisky.
" They had two principal planting grounds on the reservation; one near the mouth of Chief Creek, near Samuel Potter's, and an- other and smaller one near the outlet of the river into the ' little lake.' Their largest planting ground was not on the reservation, but was north of Portage Lake. Their favorite camping ground was on the flat at the northwest corner of Manistee Lake, on what is now Lots 3 and 4 of Section 1, Town 21, 17. Another favorite camping place was on the north bank of the river, in the little val- ley opposite the City Hotel. Their burying ground was in the little opening back of G. M. Wing's shingle mill, on Lot 2, Section 11, Town 21, 17.
"The Jesuit Father's mission house was a log building near the present site of Christy Ashe's place, at the northwest angle of the Lake Manistee.
" The agency of these Indians was at Mackinaw, whither they went twice a year to receive their allowances from the Government, making the journey by water in Mackinaw boats.
" The reservation was taken up and the land brought into mar- ket September, 1849, and the tribal relations of the Manistee Indians permanently broken up. At that time there were probably nearly a hundred families of them. Some have migrated northward to the Leland reservation; some have scattered; some have gone to the Spirit hunting grounds, and some still remain among us, a harm- less, thriftless, spiritless, vanishing people.
" OTHER WHITE VISITORS.
" 1886. In 1886 Mr. Wordsworth, who was then a justice of the peace, having jurisdiction from Grand Rapids to the British do- minions, holding his seat of justice at Grand Rapids, visited the Man- istee with Campeau, the Indian trader. He found the Indians camped near the mouth of the river, holding high carnival upon the occasion of the wedding of one of their distinguished members to one of the belles of that day. A large bough house had been pre- pared for the wedding dance, and a feast of dog for refreshment. It was a very warm night in the Summer. Whisky obtained from the traders flowed freely, and Wordsworth felt like retiring to private life, when he was prevented by the number and voracity of the mos- quitoes. which attacked him with uncommon venom. To obviate this, he was advised by an old squaw to anoint his hands and face with rancid sturgeon oil, which he did, and in a short time was serenely oblivious of song and dance, and mosquitoes.
" After a time he was awakened by something sniffling around his nose and opened his eyes to find that a huge black bear was licking the sturgeon grease from his face. His first alarm was modified on finding that the bear was tame and harmless.
" After the failure of the attempt to build the dam at the ' old house" in town 22 and 14, another attempt was made to dam the River just above the present swing bridge, near the section line be- tween 11 and 12. This also met with opposition, and the scheme was abandoned.
" 1885. At some time between 1885 and 1889, Charles Mears visited this river, looking for a mill site and to locate land, but so far as I can find, left no traces of his visit.
" 1885. In December, 1835, a schooner with her crew was cast away between Rush Lake and Portage Lake, and appears to have remained there through the Winter.
" Upon a large hemlock tree, from which the bark had been care- fully peeled, until within a few years could be seen the name and date of the wreck, the names of the officers and men, and the date of the captain's death. The tree was standing seven years ago, but has since disappeared-probably destroyed by fire.
"1840. Up to this time no permanent settlement had been made in this county by the whites.
" In the Fall of the year 1840 John Stronach, of Berrien County, Mich., accompanied by his brother Joseph Stronach, of Muskegon, coasted along this shore in a small sail boat, until they arrived at the mouth of the Manistee. They were met by a party of Chippewas, who treated them cordially, and gave them information of the country.
" Hiring a company of Indians to take them in their canoes, they explored the Manistee until they came to an ancient ' jam ' of logs, flood wood and fallen trees, and finding no good place for a dam, they returned and explored the ' Little River,' called by the In- dians ' Mamoosa' or ' Dog River.' After locating a point for a mill site, they set sail and returned to Muskegon.
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HISTORY OF MANISTEE COUNTY.
" 1841. The following Spring, about the 13th of April, John Stronach, with his son, Adam Stronach, chartered the schooner ' Thornton,' of St. Joseph, to convey them and their machinery and supplies to the Manistee.
" They arrived at the mouth of the Manistee on the 16th of April 1841, and from that day dates the actual permanent white settlement of Manistee County.
" They found it impossible to enter the river, on account of the shallowness of the water, there being not to exceed three feet, on the ยท average, between Lake Michigan and Manistee Lake.
" Unable to enter the stream, they constructed a pine raft, bound together with cross pieces and wedges.
" This raft they towed with the yawl to and from the vessel, until the cargo, except the cattle, was landed; the cattle they threw over- board, and all but one swam safely to the shore.
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