History of Monroe County, Michigan, Part 7

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

USA > Michigan > Monroe County > History of Monroe County, Michigan > Part 7

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

They remained in Ohio about sixty miles west of Cleveland, about two years, then re- turned to the River Raisin to find everything destroyed on the farm, fences burned and 4

naught remaining but the log house, which gave many indications of barbarous usage.

At this time and for many years thereafter, the land between First and Front streets, ad- joining Monroe street on the west, was occu- pied as a burying ground, and a number of our citizens well remember the time when the bodies were exhumed and removed to the old cemetery between Sixth and Seventh streets, on the west side of Monroe street.

Mr. Mulhollen sold, reserving a few lots on Monroe street, his farm to Messrs. Anderson and Kirby, officers of the United States Army, and invested proceeds in wild lands in the county and State, purchased a large farm about two miles south of Monroe on the turnpike, where he resided until the time of his death, which farm was inherited by his son Daniel. The old homestead remains in the family.

July 3, 1805, Governor Hull, by proclamation, established the District of Eric, a portion of which constituted Monroe county, embracing the strip on the south of the width of ten miles, which was subsequently the cause of strife, and gave rise to the bloodless Toledo war.

On the 3d of July, 1805, the first United States District Court was held by Chief Justice Augustus B. Woodward; Frederick Bates, As- sociate Judge; George McDougall. Clerk ; Solo- mon Sibley, Elijah Brush, attorneys and coun- selors, at the house of Jean Baptiste Jereaume, on the north bank of the River Raisin, below where the Canada Southern Railroad crosses the river in the eastern part of the present city of Monroe. The Grand Jury called at that session consisted of John Anderson, Francis Navarre, Israel Ruland, Ethan Baldwin, Alexander Ewing, Isidore Navarre, Jacques Navarre, Joseph Francis Mouton, Robert Navarre, Joseph Dazette, Joseph Jobin, John B. Lasselle, Bar- ney Parker, Jean Chavet, Samuel Ewing, Sam- uel Egnew and Joseph Pouget. Well do I re- member as a lad the familiar faces of most of these courteous French gentlemen constituting the first grand jury. Two years thereafter the demoralizing influence of liquors gave rise to the only presentment made by the grand jury against " those persons having license to sell whisky, deserving the intervention and au- thority of the court that they might be re- strained from selling on the Sabbath."

During the year 1807, the Indian title was relinquished to all the lands in the county of

HISTORY OF MONROE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

Monroe, excepting a tract of three miles square known as the " Macon Reserve," which was subsequently ceded by the Indians to the Catholic Church of St. Ann, Detroit, the title to which was subsequently acquired by the Hon. Isaac P. Christiancy, and called the Christiancy tract.

When war was declared, June 18, 1812, it was impossible for Americans to remain with any degree of safety, and for six weeks there- after it was necessary for the wives and chil- dren of the American settlers to spend their time in the stockade or fort, on the premises now occupied and owned by Major Edward C. Chapman on Elm Avenne. So intolerable was the annoyance and danger, the Americans with their families fled to Ohio and Kentucky, the French to Detroit and Canada, and for the fol- lowing three years this portion of the State was deserted. Immediately after their flight Col. Proctor ordered the stockade burned and destroyed, through fear it might fall into the hands of the American forces.

During the next three years mails, however, were regularly carried from Detroit to San- dusky, by the Indian trails, weekly, and three years after tri-weekly, by Francis Cousino, of Erie, and Mr. Barron, of LaSalle, contractors, on French ponies, who performed their trips with great regularity and speed when we con- sider there were no roads or bridges across the streams. Their approach to each postoffice on the route was announced by blowing the old- fashioned tin horn. Persons traveling then to or from Michigan timed their departure by these mail carriers, whom they followed as guides.

One after another of the families who had fled before the war of 1812, returned during the years 1816, 1817 and 1818 to Frenchtown, the principal settlement on the north side of the River Raisin. All of the stores and trading-posts were on the north bank of the river, on the front of the Campau, Godfroy and Lacroix farms, now occupied by residences of Louis Lafontain and E. B. Lewis, and the flourishing nurseries of Messrs. Reynolds, Lewis and Ilgianfritz. A strife then arose for the location of the county-seat on the site of Frenchtown on the north side of the river, but the proposition of Joseph Loranger to locate in town of Monroe in consideration of his grant- ing public grounds, with streets and alleys, was accepted, and the county-seat was established

on the south side of the river, the present site of the city of Monroe.

It was during the three years that Daniel Mulhollen, Samuel Egnew, General Levi S. Humphrey, Lorin Marsh, Daniel S. Bacon, Col. Oliver Johnson, Samuel Felt, Almon Chase, Alcott Chapman, Thomas Wilson, Luther Harvey, Henry Disbrow, Dr. Harry Conant, Walcott Lawrence, Seneca Allen, Robert Clark, . Col. Taylor and Col. Charles Lanman, names now familiar to our older citizens, came as the pioneers of Southern Michigan.

In 1816 Dr. Horatio Conant (uncle of ex- Secretary of State Harry A. Conant) settled at Maumee, and was appointed by Governor Cass Justice of the Peace. In 1819 Seneca Allen held a commission from the Governor of Ohio as Jus- tice of the Peace, with jurisdiction over the dis- puted territory, and notified Dr. Conant that he must not attempt to do any business under his commission from the Governor of Michigan. But Allen, in December, 1819, had an engage- ment to marry a couple on the north side of the Maumee river. The river was high, full of running ice, and very unsafe to cross. Conant lived near the bank of the river on the Mau- mee side, Allen near the bank on the Perrys- burg side and nearly opposite. Allen, finding it impracticable to cross to fill his engagement, called to Dr. Conant across the river and re- quested him to marry the couple. The doctor reminded him (Allen) of his former prohibition to act under his commission, but Allen insisted, on the ground that " necessity knows no law." Dr. Conant married the couple, and received for his marriage fee a jackknife.

July 14, 1817, Monroe county was established, then including all of Lenawee and a portion of the present counties of Wayne and Washtenaw, and the county court was required to be held at such place not exceeding two miles from the house of Francois Lasalle, on the bank of the River Raisin (the site being the present resi- dence of Peter Melosh), as the court might designate. September 4, 1817, the town of Monroe was established and made the county- seat of Monroe county. In December of the same year, provision was made for the con- struction of the first court house, on the southwest quarter of the public square, a little in front of the present site of the First Presby- terian Church. The second story of the court house was used for the court, while the east part

EARLY SETTLEMENTS.

of the first story served as the residence of the jailer, and the west part for the jail, and it had a small space in the rear surrounded by a stockade that served as a yard for prisoners. It was in front of this building the whipping post was located where criminals were senton- ced to be lashed- the same mode of punish- ment now retained and practiced in the State of New Jersey. One result of this mode of punishment was that such a degree of mortifica- tion and disgrace on the part of the criminal followed that he was never the second time thus punished for a like offense. This old yel- low court house was the only public building in the county for the following fifteen years, and the second story the only room used for public assemblies for either religious, political or secu- lar purposes.

June 1, 1819, John Anderson, Oliver Johnson and twelve others were authorized to build and maintain for twenty-five years, a toll-bridge across the River Raisin, which eventually gave place to the present Monroe street bridge.

The French inhabitants of Monroe county were nearly all farmers, and lived by the culti- vation of the soil. Some few might be called large farmers, but generally they cultivated much less ground than the same number of American farmers under like circumstances. Until 1828 and 1830 they had no market for a surplus except the small local demand among themselves, and by habit had quite generally come to think there was no great object in raising a crop much beyond the necessary an- nual supply for their own families. And this habit continued to a considerable extent, but gradually wore away. They were unambi- tious, limiting their wants to the real necessa- ries of life, which were easily supplied; indus- trious so far as they felt labor to be necessary, but with none of that disposition to excessive exertion for the sake of gain or the rapid accu- mulation of wealth which generally distin- gnished the American of New England or New York descent. They did not see the wisdom of over-exertion, nor believe that happiness con- sisted in the constant over-exercise of the mental or physical powers for accumulation of wealth. They were simple and inexpensive in their habits, and content with little. All devoted Catholics, they scrupulously observed all the fete days of the church, and followed implicitly the instructions of their clergy, who, judging

from the effects, must have been faithful shep- herds of their flocks. Kind and obliging to all, good neighbors and faithful friends. In those days their standard of morality and integrity was as high as among any people, crime being almost unknown among them.

The following is an extract from a letter written at River Raisin, March 8, 1808, by Judge A. B. Woodward :

The French inhabitants, though they may some- times be uninformed, are not generally ill-disposed. In a Catholic country, where there is not one Prot- estant minister,or one Protestant religious society of any denomination, a Protestant minister, particu- larly of eastern manners, even though his character was adorned with all the virtues appropriate to his profession, is not naturally the most acceptable. Indeed, to the people of this country, as well others as the French, the eastern habits are the least re- speeted. The British gentlemen have always indulged a sort of contemptuous and unjustifiable hatred of them; and when displeased, the term "Yankee " is one of the most virulent epithets which they conceive they can apply. The French do not use this term, though they entertain the same idea and perhaps with still greater force. They have another term which an- swers them the same purpose. It is the term " Bos- tonnois," which they pronounce "Bastonnois." " Sacre Bastonnois," or "Sacre cochon de Bas- tonnois," is their most virulent term of abuse when they are displeased with an American, or with a person from the Eastern States particularly.

The first French settlers that located on the River Raisin were the direct descendants from the old French pioneers of Detroit. Few among the French farmers had much of the education to be derived from books, yet there was quite a number of intelligent, strong thinkers, men of sound judgment, who well de- served their reputations for integrity and up- rightness. Though all are able to speak the French language, the English language is spoken by a very large proportion of them now.

The old French pioneer clung with great tenacity to the traditions and customs of France; they were the links connecting him with the shores of his sunny clime. The French lan- guage was spoken with all the purity and elegance of the time of Louis XIV. After the conquest it lost much of its purity by the mingling of the two languages. It was the polite language of the upper class, English officers and their wives always speaking it fluently. No people piqued themselves more

HISTORY OF MONROE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

in pride of ancestry. Many of the first colonists belonged to the ancient nobles of France, retired officers and soldiers. Several of their descendants still preserve their name and tradition. The commandants at Fort Pontchal - train at Detroit all belonged to distinguished families, and many bore historic names. We find in every branch of the Navarres, whether in Florida, Canada, New York or Michigan, the tradition of a descent from the King of France. These old traditions were handed down from generation to generation, and can still be found in the remotest branches.

Glimpses of their domestic life become more valuable, as our knowledge of their manners and customs is very limited.

On New Year's eve a number of young men, masked, went from house to house singing a peculiar song, suitable for the occasion; the host and hostess brought out bundles of cloth- ing, provisions and sometimes money, and fill- ed the carts of the minstrels. These contribu- tions were afterwards distributed among the poor.

On New Year's day the exchanging of pres- ents was very universally followed; also the making of calls. The fair hostess always pre- sented her rosy cheek to be saluted by the callers. The right of precedence was strictly observed, the oldest persons always being first and the officers according to rank. The wives of the English officers at first objected to the custom of being thus saluted, but soon adopted the style, though in trying to improve it, rather vulgarized it by kissing on the lips.

New Year's morning every child knelt to re- ceive its parents' blessing, and even when married hastened with husband and little ones to receive this coveted benediction. The chil- dren were all sent this day to visit all their relatives. On entering a room " Bon jour, Monsieur," " Bon jour, Madame," was the usual greeting of every French child to its parents. Children, constantly seeing the respect and deference their parents paid to their elders, soon acquired that graceful courtesy and affa- bility of manners which is so distinguishing a trait of the old French habitant.

Mardi Gras evening was one of unusual mirth and enjoyment with the easy-going, fun- loving inhabitants. " Vives les crepes," the toss- ing of pancakes, was an old custom handed down. A large number of guests were invi-

ted to the house and all repaired to the spa- cious kitchen. The large open fire-place with its huge hickory logs brilliantly illuminated the room. Each guest in turn would take hold of the pan with its long handle, while some one would pour in the thin batter, barely enough to cover the bottom of the pan. The art consisted in trying to turn by tossing it as high as possible and bringing it down without injuring the perfection of its shape. Many were the ringing peals of laughter that greeted a failure. The cakes were piled up in pyramid shape, butter and maple sugar placed between each layer, and formed the central dish in the substantial supper which took place later. After supper dancing commenced and at the first stroke of twelve all saluted the host and hostess and took farewell of pleasure until Easter, Lent being rigidly observed. The fes- tivities of a wedding lasted for several days. The marriage bans were published for three successive Sundays in church, and formed the all-absorbing topic of conversation. Marriage was then a serious undertaking. Divorces were unknown among them.

At the betrothal the marriage contract was signed by both parties, their relations and friends. The health of the newly married couple was drunk in many a bumper. This signing of names and stating professions or oc- cupations on the marriage certificate and church register was a usual custom. As soon as the marriage ceremony was over each one got into his cariole, calash or cart; according to the season, and headed by the newly wedded pair, formed a procession, and passed along the principal streets, then racing, if roads were snitable. Dancing and the great supper took place at the home of the bride. The bride opened the ball with the most distinguished guest - the stately minuets and graceful cotil- lions, French four, with fisher's hornpipe and the reel, concluding by filing into the supper- room by twos. Knives and forks were brought by -cach guest -often a spring-knife that would close and be carried in the pocket, or a dagger-knife suspended from the neck in a sheath.

Adjoining the kitchen was the bake house. The oven, built of brick, was generally plastered over with mortar. In the center was a wooden trough, in which the bread was kneaded. The front door always opened into the parlor. The

EARLY SETTLEMENTS.

latch was raised by means of a long strip of buckskin hanging outside. Whenever the in- mates were out no one, not even an Indian, would enter, to do so being considered a breach of hospitality. The clothes were taken to the river bank to be beaten with a mallet, the use of pounding barrels and clothes wringers being then unknown. The spinning-wheel was con- stantly used by the women; they made a sort of linsey woolsey which was the principal cloth used. The making of straw hats was the principal occupation of the children and maidens during the winter evenings.

The horses used were better known as Cana- dian ponies. The French were passionately fond of racing on the ice in the winter, and Saturday afternoons in the summer months in fair weather large numbers met for what we would now term scrub races - commencing at the residence of E. P. Campbell and running to Macomb street, on the river road on the south side of the River Raisin. This was the resort for many years Saturday afternoons for fun and frolic. When horses of greater pretensions for speed and bottom, and for racing greater dis- tances, came from Detroit, the Rouge or Mau- mee, the race grounds in front of the Jean Bt. Cecott (now Bisonette farm), one and one- half miles above Monroe, on the north side of the River Raisin, were resorted to, affording a mile of track well adapted for racing.

The whipping post was common in Michigan. The post in Monroe was on the public square in front of the First Presbyterian Church, and many now living remember the scenes there enacted. Colonel Peter P. Ferry as justice of the peace often sentenced offenders to the post, and John Mulhollen and Miles Thorp applied the lash. The thrashing was generally effectual, and in most cases, those punished felt the dis- grace of being publicly whipped on the bare back so keenly that they generally left for parts unknown, glad to escape from Monroe.

The facts in relation to the early settlement of the River Raisin are every day becoming more and more difficult to obtain, and after the older residents now living are gone-and they are rapidly passing away-the difficulty will be greatly increased.

September 10, 1822, Monroe county was es- tablished as it now is, including the " disputed territory," but attached to it was the present county of Lenawee. June 30, 1824, the seat

of justice for Lenawee county was established at Tecumseh, but the county was not fully organized until November 26, 1826. All suits then pending before the Monroe county court were to be considered before that court.

April 19, 1825, Laplaisance Bay Harbor Company was organized by Colonel John An- derson and seven others, and was the harbor for Southern Michigan until the completion of the Government canal in 1842.

December 25, 1826, our delegate in Congress was instructed to protest against any change of the southern boundary of the county-a premonitory symptom of the Toledo war.

As before stated, about 100 French fami- lies settled on the River Raisin in 1784, and from that time settlements spread with con- siderable rapidity to Otter Creek, about five miles south, and to Stony Creek, about four miles north, and Swan Creek, nine miles north- east. So that, as appears by the subsequent grants of donated tracts to these settlers under the act of Congress, March 3, 1807, which con- fined the right to such grants to lands occu- pied and in part improved prior to July 1, 1796, these settlements must, prior to the last named date, have extended all along both sides of the River Raisin almost continuously for eight or nine miles, and a few isolated tracts a little further up and along both sides of Otter Creek, from near the lake to some four miles into the interior and along Stony Creek. These early settlers, for the sake of security and protection from the Indians, had settled very near each other along the River Raisin and other streams mentioned, clearing only a small portion of land in front along the stream. But as the act of Congress confined each claimant to the lands the front of which he improved, and al- lowed bim any quantity up to 640 acres, re- quiring him to pay the government surveyor for surveying his tract, several remarkable re- sults followed : First, to get any considerable quantity of land each would be compelled to take a narrow tract, thus making up the quan- tity by extending a greater or less distance back from the river or stream. This resulted in making the tract of each a narrow, ribbon- like piece of land, fronting on the stream. Second, as the claimant had to pay the gov- ernment surveyor for surveying his claim, and most of the settlers, in the honest simplicity of those days, could see no use in extending

HISTORY OF MONROE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

their tracts further back from the front than would be convenient to work as a farm, together with enough woodland in the rear for fire- wood and timber, most of them declined to pay the extra cost of surveying out the large tract of 160 acres to which each would have been entitled, which in most cases, would have ex- tended from three to five miles to make up the quantity, and not more than one in ten of them would consent to make their tracts longer than about two miles, and many of them not more than one. But occasionally a claimant more far-seeing or more confident of the future, or perhaps stimulated by some "Yankee " (who had agreed with the claimant to purchase his claim), would extend his claim four miles or more in depth so as to include nearly 640 acres allowed by law. But these cases were excep- tional, and did not amount to one in twenty.

Very generally the adjoining claimants would make their claims of the same depth, and most generally about two miles, so as to make the rear of their claims a straight line ; but occasionally would come in the midst of them, a more modest claimant, who refused to extend his claim more than about one mile. This, of course, rendered the rear of the body of claims jagged and unequal, and the conse- quence of this was, that when the Government, some years after, surveyed the public lands, finding a considerable body of claims extend- ing the same distance back and bounded alike by one straight line, it omitted to notice the fact that among these claims were some which only extended back about half the dis- tance, and the land in rear of these short claims was thus, by mistake, left unsurveyed, and treated as a part of the claim in front. Although the original claimants knew that these lands were not included in their grants, their descendants, who were generally illiter- ate, most of them unable to read, really be- lieved that such lands were a part of the front claim which they had inherited, and they treated them as such in perfect good faith, sell- ing, mortgaging and leasing them as if a part of the front grant. And they might well do so in good faith, as the patents for a large portion of these claims were sent on to Michigan in 1812, and were captured by the British on a schooner bringing them. The heirs of the claimants, totally unacquainted with routine, never troubled themselves to inquire, and with their

limited knowledge could not, if they wished, have ascertained the truth in relation to these grants. There were several thousand acres of these so-called " lost lands," many of which were among the best lands in the county .. Be- tween 1850 and 1854 (while Hon. Charles Noble was surveyor-general in Michigan) a full and complete survey of such lands was made and returned to the general land office in Washington.

But the difficulty in making provision upon equitable principles for the adjustment of the various complications which had grown up under such a state of things, had prevented any adjustment of these titles, and the truly paternal nature of our Government towards those who have in good faith converted the wilderness into fertile fields, has prevented any hasty legislation which might disturb the oc- cupants of these lands.

The possession of these various tracts of land led to much litigation in Monroe county, and the connection of the public surveys with the prior grants of claims led to some litiga- tion in another way. The surveyor of the pri- vate claims did not always make the side line of some claims isolated from the general body of claims, and the government surveyor, on some occasions, included in the public surveys large portions of such claims ; and the govern- ment lands were bought in good faith, but afterwards found to fall within the patent of prior claims. Such was the case of a purchase of public land by Walcott Lawrence in Raisin- ville, some nine miles above Monroe on the north side of the river. A large part of his purchase turned out to be within the bounds of a prior patent, or a claim which had been purchased by Christopher Bruckner; and this case, after a long litigation, was settled by the decision of the Supreme Court of Michigan in Bruckner vs. Lawrence, 1 Doug. 19, and all other cases of a similar kind were settled or decided on the basis of this decision.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Monroe County, Michigan, Part 7

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