History of Monroe County, Michigan, Part 50

Author: Wing, Talcott Enoch, 1819-1890, ed
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: New York, Munsell & company
Number of Pages: 882

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" The Hon. James Witherell, member of Congress from the State of Vermont in 1808, was while a member of Congress appointed by President Jefferson one of the judges of the Supreme Court of the Territory of Michigan,and soon after resigning his seat in Congress started on his long journey to the then unknown land of Michigan. He is the grandfather, by the mother's side, of the Hon. Thomas Palmer, present United States Senator from Michigan.

" The Hon. James Witherell, in a letter to a friend in Vermont, dated Detroit, February 3, 1812, records his observation of the effect of an earthquake at Detroit on the 23d of January, 1812. A newspaper was not at that time pub- lished in Detroit, and the event was not there- fore chronicled. Judge Witherell said : 'The earthquake occurred in the morning at half past eight o'clock. As I sat reading by the fire at Colonel Watson's, I felt an unusual sensation. I thought something must be the matter with me. I felt an agitation I could not account for, but I soon observed that the walls of the house were in motion north and south. I got up, stepped to a bedroom door and asked my daughter if she perceived that the house trem- bled. She replied that she did, and thought that some one was shaking her bedstead. 1. then discovered that a small looking-glass, which was hanging on the wall, was swinging to and fro several inches, and the shade trees in the yard were waving considerably north and south.

"'Dr. Brown informed me that his store oscillated very much, and that a cradle was set rocking smartly though there was no one in it. A little girl that had crossed the lake the fall previous tottered about and called out, "Oh mother, we are in the vessel again !" Cook's house shook more than most others, probably because it was higher and the frame new and stronger. The ice in the river was split for several miles. A Frenchman at Grosse Point, nine miles from Detroit, says that his bowl of mush and milk was spilt thereby.'

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HISTORY OF MONROE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

" Judge Witherell also related a strange event that occurred at Orchard Lake, twenty-five miles from Detroit, on the 17th of December, 1811. ' The Indians said the waters of the lake began to bubble, boil, foam and roll about as though they had been in a large kettle over a hot fire, and in a few minutes up came great numbers of turtles and hurried to the shore, upon which they had a great turtle feast.'" *

At least upon two other occasions tremors of the earth's surface have occurred in this vicinity. One within the last five years, the exact date of which is not remembered, was of a very slight nature, a brief tremor lasting but a few seconds, traveling apparently from south- west to northeast, may pass with the brief mention that it was observed and noted by too many to doubt either its existence or its character.

The other occurred Sunday morning, Febru- ary 20, 1876, and the following is the account of it given in the Monroe Commercial of the same week :

" At about eight o'clock last Sunday morning a loud report was heard which startled our citizens generally, and in some parts of town created considerable alarm. At St. Mary's church a good many people were at early mass, and they ran out of the church, some with the idea that the steeple had fallen down, and others thinking the steam boiler in the academy, across the street from the church, had blown up. Those who were at mass in St. Michael's church also fled from the building in great alarm. The shock seems to have been felt more in some parts of the town than in others. On the north side of the river the shock seems to have been felt the most, shaking and rattling the buildings considerably. On the south side, at most of the private houses, the sensation caused was as if a cannon had been fired at some little distance away, or as if some heavy substance had fallen in the upper part of the house. At the jail, however, the shock was more heavy, and Sheriff Woodin says it caused so much alarm among the prisoners that they wanted to be taken out and given other quarters. There was no prolonged rumbling, such as usually accompanies earth- quakes, but simply a report like that of a cannon, or some explosion.

" The water in the river was falling quite rapidly at the time of the explosion, and soon thereafter a quantity of large rocks was dis- covered in the river bed about twenty or thirty feet below the Waterloo dam, having the appearance of having been thrown up from the river bed by some unknown agency. It is averred by all who are acquainted with the river bed in that locality, that it was solid rock, and quite smooth. It was at once conjectured that this was the effect of the shock, and that the rocks were thrown up in a sort of confused heap thereby. The . water continued to fall gradually, and since that time the place has been visited by many people. The largest of the rocks, which seems to have been riven out of the solid bed, is say ten by fifteen feet, and about two feet thick; and there are a good many others, varying in size down to rocks which two or three men could lift. The surface of the river bed which has been disturbed is perhaps two or three rods square. A good many insist that these rocks have been quarried out by the heavy volume of water pouring over the dam, with occasional saw-logs and drift-wood, while others believe this to be impossible, and are firm in the belief that the upheaval was caused by the earthquake shock."

Following this account the paper editorially comments upon the occurrence, and endeavors to explain it upon the hypothesis of the gather- ing of sulphurous gases in the crevices of the limestone rock, their continued pressure and final explosion; commenting also upon the fact of the numerous sulphur wells in the vicinity. This article apparently fell under the eye of Dr. Ingersoll, who a couple of weeks afterward published a communication in the same paper, attributing the fracture of the rocks to lateral pressure, cleavage and shrinkage.

It may be seriously doubted if the upheaval in the river was anything less than an effect of the movement of the rock strata under the influence of a true seismic wave; and it can scarcely be doubted that such a wave passed along the earth's crust on that occasion. No theory of lateral pressure finding its relief in so small an area could account for the other phenomena. Nor is the theory of a gas explosion tenable. When gas well No. 2 was shot, one hundred quarts of nitro-glycerine

* Michigan Pioneer Collections, Vol. IV., page 111.

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THE GEOLOGY OF MONROE COUNTY.

were exploded in rock strata full of fissures, but with superincumbent beds of homo- geneous rock ; yet although the explosion of this amount of material would form a vohime of gas not only much larger, but also under a greater pressure than could gather in fissures, as editorially suggested, yet no tremor was dis- tinguishable at a distance of three hundred- feet from the scene of the explosion. The phenomena can be accounted for satisfactorily upon no other theory than that of seismic action.

Though very level, Monroe county has numerous flowing wells and springs, some of which are of more than local fame for curative properties. Dr. Ingersoll furnishes the follow- ing notes upon them :

MINERAL SPRINGS.

"The limestone of Monroe county is somewhat porous, and more or less fractured by contrac- tion of the crust of the earth and by pressure. Earthquake shocks and upheavals, if they did not occur here, may perhaps have taken place in other localities sufficiently near in some former age to disturb the rocks in this region. This creviced condition of the limestone is favorable for the formation of mineral springs, the permeability favoring the reception of rain- water, which sinks to a lower level where the rock is more compact, and it must then find some crevice by which it can emerge spring- like on a hillside or from the under side of some rock. If this be true the facts seem to rob springs of all mystery that are vainly supposed to come up from the heart of the earth without any cause. Rainwater, in passing through porous rocks, dissolves out some min- erals that are supposed to be beneficial to health, and some springs in this county have been visited by invalids hoping to improve their bodily condition.

" It was said a few years ago that Doctor Charles Osgood, of Cholagogue fame, used, at one time, the mineral water of a spring a few miles west of Monroe City to enrich his medi- cines and fill his Cholagogue bottles. The medicine was considered a good remedy for those who were afflicted with the agne. As the spring flowed away to Raisin River, vege- tation which sprang up in its course became incrusted with carbonate of lime and other

minerals, which were held in solution by the water, and a small boggy swamp was formed between the spring and the river, com- posed chiefly of mineral matters and decayed plants. By that means the little marsh-plat was constantly growing broader and higher. " Shawnee Spring, situated a short distance south of Monroe City, is perhaps the most re- markable spring in the county. It was named after the Shawnee tribe of Indians, who re- sorted thither for the supposed health-giving water, and in time the white people com- menced the practice of drinking at the spring and bathing in the water.

" The spring is not only Indian in name but Indian in mound-like form. It is several rods in diameter and several feet in height. The water is discharged from a spongy bowl-shaped depression in the top of the mound, part ooz- ing out through the sides of the sponge-like bowl, and part flowing over the sparsely plant- bordered brim and running away to Lake Erie. The minerals held in solution by the water were first deposited about the infant spring at the close of the ice age, particle by particle, and in time, as vegetation accumulated year after year, it became incrested with carbonate of lime and other minerals which were added to the mass. Mound building in this way has been in progress for thousands of years, the cavity on top rising with the mound and keeping its brim fairly above it; and in that way Shawnee Spring maintains its fountain of mineral water, while it is constantly rearing its own monument and writing its own his- tory."

Besides those mentioned by Dr. Ingersoll there are numerous springs scattered all over the county with the same characteristics. All the artesian wells bored in the city produce water strongly impregnated with mineral salts, sulphur predominating, and cach gas well also produced sulphur water. Several very large sulphur springs bubble up beneath the surface of the water in the bay between Bay Point and the main land in Erie township. All these springs are reported to have therapeutic vir- tues, but it is from a medical and not from a geological point of view this question should be discussed.

NOTE .- With the exception of the quotations from Rominger's report, no attempt has been made in the

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HISTORY OF MONROE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

foregoing chapter to deal with Monroe county geology from a strictly technical standpoint ; but the "story of the rocks" has been given with such ab- sence of scientific terminology as would serve to render it intelligible to the reader, who does not seek in a work of this nature a text-book of exact science. Geology, like some other sciences, is far from exact in itself ; it is, at the best, full of guesses

and hypotheses, and while its principal epochs are capable of strict definition, yet time, place and cir- cumstances are often involved in doubt ; and scien- tific criticism is not invoked upon an attempt, which, while endeavoring to follow, in the main, the result of technical investigation, aims to be plain rather than precise, popular rather than pedantic.

A. B. BRAGDON.

CHAPTER XXIV.

BIOGRAPHIES OF PRESENT AND FORMER CITIZENS OF MONROE.

MAJOR HENRY SMITH. [By his son, Winfield Smith.]

H ENRY SMITH was born at Stillwater, New York, in September, 1798, his father being Dr. Warren Smith of that village. The war with Great Britain led him to seek a military life, and be entered the United States Academy at West Point, whence he graduated in 1816. He was assigned to the artillery, but preferred and received an appointment in the infantry service. He was on duty at Fort Warren, Boston Harbor, and later at Fort Columbus, Governor's Island. He was lieuten- ant in the Second Infantry, and afterwards in the Sixth. For nearly six years, ending in July, 1826, he was aid-de-camp to General Win- field Scott, and traveled with him over a large part of the United States, visiting Fort Snell- ing, between the present sites of St. Paul and Minneapolis, then the extreme northwestern military post ; also the southern and eastern garrisons. Progress was slow in those jour- neys, there being no railroads, and the steam- boats on the lakes and rivers affording the fastest as well as the easiest mode of travel from point to point.

In July, 1826, he married at Watertown, New York, Miss Elvira Lorraine Foster. eldest daughter of Judge Jabez H. Foster, a prominent citizen of that village, and they soon after started on the long journey, via Sackett's Harbor, Lewiston, Buffalo and Detroit for Fort Howard, Green Bay, consuming three weeks in the last part of the journey, which was made by schooner, without the aid of steam. The barracks were in process of con- struction when they arrived, and they would have fared hardly but for the hospitable shel- ter offered them by the surgeon in his little quarters, where they remained for several weeks. Lieutenant Smith was quartermaster of that post, and was promoted while there to be captain. His son Winfield was born in the

barracks in August, 1827, and in 1828 Captain Smith was ordered to the East. He went to Watertown again, and in February, 1829, his daughter, Harriette Foster, was born there.

In 1831 he was stationed at Jefferson Bar- racks, Missouri, and he took an active part in the campaign against the Sacs and Foxes, who were led by the famous Black Hawk. Captain Smith marched with his regiment from the landing on the Mississippi at Rock Island, across northern Illinois and southern Wiscon- sin to Fort Atkinson, and thence west, pursu- ing the Indians, until, overtaking them, the battle of the Bad Axe was fought, in which he participated. The Indians were defeated, scat- tered, and their power completely destroyed. Black Hawk, the Prophet, and other leaders were captured then or soon afterward, and were confined at Jefferson Barracks. One of the writer's earliest recollections is the sight of the prisoners taken for exercise without the garri- son, and on another occasion his feeding some of them through the window of the lower room in which they were confined.

Captain Smith's second daughter, Elvira Pamelia, was born in Jefferson Barracks in 1831. Returning with his family in the fall of 1832 to Watertown, he was ordered the next spring to proceed to Monroe, Michigan, to take charge of the Government works then con- structing in the harbor of La Plaisance Bay. He continued to reside there until his death in 1847. He soon recommended to the Govern- ment the construction of a new harbor, to be opened from the River Raisin a mile or more northerly from its mouth by means of a canal one hundred feet wide and three-fourths of a mile long, connecting the river with Lake Erie, and avoiding the long, crooked and shallow channel of the river between the west end of the canal and La Plaisance Bay to the south- east. This work was approved, and was con- structed under his charge, appropriations

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HISTORY OF MONROE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

being made for that purpose from time to time by Congress. . During the years he was so employed, he was also for a time in charge of all the Government harbors on Lake Erie. He was a Democratic member of the legislature in 1838, and again in 1841.

When the Mexican War broke out in 1846, he offered his services to the Government (he having resigned from the army in 1835), and was appointed a quartermaster in the regular army with the rank of major, in the early spring of 1847. After attending to moving the troops going to the seat of war from Michigan, he started on the 10th of May, 1847, for the South, leaving his home for the last time. There had been born to him in Monroe a son, William Henry, and three daughters, Evaline, Katherine and Josephine. He traveled by steamer to Toledo, thence by canal to Cincin- nati, accompanying two companies of Wiscon- sin troops, taking his two sons. After a few days in Cincinnati, he received orders to go by New Orleans to Vera Cruz, where General Scott's army had landed some months pre- viously. On the way to Cincinnati he had re- · ceived the news of the battle of Cerro Gordo, in which his brother, Captain Joseph R. Smith, had taken part. In pursuance of this order he prepared for departure, finishing his necessary duties. He parted with his sons on the canal wharf at Cincinnati, and never saw them again. Happily his wife had learned of the order in Monroe on its way to him, and she hastened to join him in Cincinnati, and bade him there a last farewell. The known mortality of the yellow fever in Vera Cruz was such that he deemed the probability to be great that he would not survive the season's exposure, going from the north in the height of summer. He arrived there in the latter part of June, was seized with the disease in two weeks, and died on the 24th of July. He was overworked from the hour of his arrival. His predecessor died of the same disease, and after his death three officers were assigned to perform the duties he had alone discharged. Two supply trains, under the command of General Pierce and Major Lally, were sent up by him to the army in the interior.

His younger brother, Captain, afterwards Colonel, Joseph R. Smith, entered the army from West Point two or three years after he joined, and was severely wounded at the battle

of Churubusco. He is well remembered at Monroe, where he afterwards resided until his death.

Major Smith, when a young lieutenant, sta- tioned at Plattsburg, New York, was chal- lenged to a duel by a gentleman from Montreal. Mr. Smith was one of the hosts in a ball given by the officers at Plattsburg, and was com- pelled to expel one of the guests for improper conduct. He challenged Lieutenant Smith, who refused to accept on the ground that the challenger was not a gentleman. He accepted, however, the challenge of a Canadian friend. After some weeks they met. Lieutenant Smith

was known to be an excellent shot. The Cana- dian gentleman knew that his only chance was to take the first shot. Major Smith told me he withheld his fire, and finding after the adver- sary's shot (which went through his fur cap) that he was not wounded, he fired into the air. The Canadian rushed up to him, thanked him for his generosity, which he declared had given him his life, and was afterwards a warm friend of Lieutenant Smith.

I am sorry that an autobiographical sketch of Major Smith's life, written just before he left for Mexico, has been lost in the movement of the household furniture after his death. No search has availed to bring it to light. The account of the duel I had from his own lips about the same time.

WINFIELD SMITH.

The part taken by Winfield Smith in the public history of Wisconsin, as one of her chief officers in a critical period of our country's history, his eminence as a member of the bar of Milwaukee through many years of severe and successful practice, and his labors in many ways for the good of his adopted city and State, entitle him to more than a passing ref- erence in any record of the development and advance of that city or State. He is one of the most marked illustrations of the fact that a high grade of character is essential to the truest professional success, to be found any- where in the bar of the Northwest; and those who have been pitted against him in the arena of law or of politics, as well as those who have stood by his side and had the aid of his abil- ities, are united in their tributes to him as a

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY.

ASTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS.

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BIOGRAPHIES OF PRESENT AND FORMER CITIZENS.

lawyer, an official, and as a man, and have willingly given the facts of which this record has been made up.

The family from which Mr. Smith is de- scended has given him, through the gift of nature, many of the qualities of which his success has been the fruit. His father, Captain Henry Smith, of the United States army (Sixth Infantry), and a graduate of West Point, was of Scotch-Irish descent, although born in Stillwater, New York ; while his mother, Elvira Foster - also a member of one of the best families of New England, afterwards resi- dent in Watertown, New York, where she was born - was a lady of unusual education and culture. The father saw severe military service in the Black Hawk War, but resigned his position in the army in 1835 or 1836, and for several years was in charge of important harbor improvements under the direction of the Government, on the lower lakes. He re- sided in Monroe, Michigan, from 1833 until his death. He also served in 1838 and in 1841 as a member of the Michigan legislature. When war with Mexico was declared he im- mediately offered his services to his country, and was appointed quartermaster on the gen- erał staff, with the rank of major. He was on duty at Cincinnati in May of that year, 1847, when he received orders to proceed immedi- ately to Vera Cruz, and went directly to the seat of war. Knowing the dangers of the cli- mate he hardly expected to return, and made his arrangements and addressed his farewells with that end in view. He reached his desti- nation in the latter part of June, and assumed the discharge of his duties on July 1. In about two weeks he was stricken with yellow fever, which was then raging with terrible violence, and died on the twenty-second of July .* He was a man of great natural ability, and his character was such as to commend him to all with whom he came in professional or personal contact.

The son of Captain Henry Smith, Winfield Smith, was born at Fort Howard, in the Terri- tory of Michigan, afterwards Wisconsin, where his father was then stationed, on Angust 16, 1827. The name was in tribute to General

Winfield Scott, of whose military family Cap- tain Smith had been a member for five years. His education was a matter of unusual per- sonal care on the part of his parents, and so fully did they amend and supplement such opportunities as he had, that in 1844, then in his seventeenth year, he entered an advanced class in the Michigan State University, and graduated with high rank two years later. He developed remarkable aptitude in the sciences and mathematics, standing at the head of his class in the study last named. He had been behind his class in Greek upon enter- ing, but soon caught up and held his own with the rest. As he had become proficient in French while at school in Watertown, New York, in 1840, and as he learned the German after removal to Milwaukee, he may be re- garded as a linguist, and adds to his other lines of culture those possible only to one who has access to the learning and literature of other lands.

Upon his departure from the University in 1846, the young man took charge of a private school in Monroe, Michigan, where his father was professionally located, and which had been his home since 1833. In the year following he retired from the school, and assumed the duties of private tutor to a small class in ad- vanced classics, which gave him time to com- mence the study of the law. In 1848 he en- tered the office of Isaac P. Christiancy, after- wards a justice of the Supreme Court of Michi- gan and Senator of the United States. He ap- plied himself to his legal studies with that industry and thoroughness that have been a part of every undertaking of his life, and when he was admitted to the bar it was with an equipment of knowledge and reading that few young lawyers possess. In October, 1849, he was led to the decision that the young and growing town of Milwaukee was a promising place in which to commence the real labor of life, and accordingly decided to make it his home. He entered the office of Emmons & Van Dyke, a firm of high standing, where he still pursued his studies, and soon entered upon practice. In February, 1850, he was admitted to the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, over which Judge Whiton then presided. In 1851 he opened an office of his own, and remained by himself until 1855, when he formed a partnership with Edward Salomon, afterwards the governor of

* The proportion of those who died of this dis- ease, in the American army, was greater than the proportion of those who were killed in all the battles of that war.

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HISTORY OF MONROE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

Wisconsin. This connection continued for fifteen years, and was only severed because of Mr. Salomon's departure to New York. From 1869 to 1875 he was associated with Joshua Stark, under the firm name of Smith & Stark, and in later years also associated with Matthew H. Carpenter and A. A. L. Smith, under the firm name of Carpenter & Smiths. Upon Mr. Carpenter's death the firm name was changed to Winfield & A. A. L. Smith. This associa- tion terminated in 1883, since which date Mr. Smith has been by himself, until February, 1888, when on the eve of departing for Europe he formed another partnership, which, under the name of Smith & Rosendale, carries on the practice of law at the present time in Mil- waukee.

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History of Monroe County, Michigan, Part 50

Author: Wing, Talcott Enoch, 1819-1890, ed Publication date: 1890 Publisher: New York, Munsell & company Number of Pages: 882

Author: Wing, Talcott Enoch, 1819-1890, ed
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: New York, Munsell & company
Number of Pages: 882