USA > Michigan > Oakland County > History of Oakland County, Michigan, a narrative account of its historical progress, its people, and its principal interests, Volume I > Part 45
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The Pythian Sisters also have a lodge which is well attended and conducted.
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DICK RICHARDSON POST, G. A. R.
Dick Richardson Post, G. A. R., of the Department of Michigan, was organized on June 8, 1883, with the following officers : Commander, S. S. Mathews; senior vice commander, II. B. Herrick; junior vice commander, William Willetts: quartermaster. William Albertson; sur- geon, W. G. Elliott: chaplain, L. G. Wilcox; adjutant, J. A. Bigelow ; officer of the day, O. M. Berry ; officer of the guard, J. D. Hammond ; sergeant-major, C. J. Fox ; quartermaster sergeant. M. F. North.
The present officers of Dick Richardson Post are: Commander, S. H. Giles; senior vice commander, D. C. Noli; junior vice commander, W. E. Sprague ; quartermaster, J. D. Hammond ; surgeon, B. D. Eddy ; chaplain, John Benjamin; adjutant, E. S. Whitcomb ; officer of the day. S. J. Clonan; officer of the guard, William Cheal; sergeant-major, W. G. Denton ; quartermaster sergeant, H. S. Damiels. The present num- ber of members is fifty,
The cannon stationed in the triangular city park were donated by the government through the influence of Hon. M. S. Brewer, and the mound of shells, which further ornaments the little park, was secured through the efforts of Hon. Samuel W. Smith.
KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS
Council No. 600, Pontiac Knights of Columbus, was organized on August 11, 1901, with about sixty-five members. At that time the fol- lowing officers were elected; grand knight, Rev. A. X. M. Sharpe deputy grand knight, J. L. Marcero; financial secretary, George Nus- baumer ; recording secretary, E. J. Foley ; Warden, A. G. Meldrum ; chan- cellor. Peter I. Meloy ; advocate, E. M. Murphy.
Since the organization of the society, the following members have served in the office of grand knight : George Nusbaumer, J. L. Marcero, E. J. Foley, J. H. Lynch, M. A. Bauer, T. J. O'Connor and Rev. 1. X. M. Sharpe.
The society has a present membership of 220, and the officers are as follows: Grand knight, E. A. Kelly: deputy grand knight, A. G. Meldrum : financial secretary, E. J. Donohue ; recording secretary, Wil- bur Crotty: warden, Stephen Lockman: chancellor, W. J. Parle ; advo- cate, J. HI. Lynch ; treasurer, Owen Smith.
ROYAL NEIGHBORS OF AMERICA
Independence Camp No. 3127. Royal Neighbors of America, was organized in Pontiac in 1902, with twenty-one charter members en- rolled. The growth of the camp has been steady and the present mem- bership is 120, with the number constantly increasing. Regular meet- ings are held on the evening of the fourth Tuesday of each month.
ORDER OF ELKS
As every one knows in these days who is at all interested in the fra- ternities of comparatively recent origin, the Benevolent and Protective
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Order of Elks is a great favorite among the secret bodies of Pontiac. The local lodge No. 10 was installed November 25. 1902, by Exalted Ruler George W. Dickinson, Charles E. Waldo, secretary. Its new rooms were occupied in January, 1905. and six years later its beautiful temple was purchased. The lodge now has a membership of 610, with the following officers: F. H. Carroll, exalted ruler ; F. R. Boyd, leading knight ; J. Byron Judd, lecturing knight; Caslius Bowers, secretary; C. E. Waldo, treasurer.
OTHER LODGES
The Royal Order of Moose is also constantly gaining ground, al- though one of the young fraternities. Its standing with the people of Pontiac was well illustrated by the grand carnival of 1912, which notwithstanding the rather inclement weather, was encouragingly patronized.
The Knights of Maccabees, Eagles and Modern Woodmen of Amer- ica also have organizations of more or less strength, and the industrial workers of the city have numerous unions and associations, some of which combine both fraternal and insurance features.
CHAPTER XXVI
BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP
PHYSICAL FEATURES-A GOOD MANY DEAD INDIANS-FIRST LAND EN- TRY -- FORMATIVE TOWNSHIP PERIOD-THREE COMPETING TAVERNS- MILLS AND STORES OUTSIDE OF BIRMINGHAM-BLOOMFIELD CENTER -BIRMINGHAM VILLAGE PLATS-OLD TIMES AT PIETY HILL-\'IL- LAAGE OF BIRMINGHAM-REINCORPORATED-VILLAGE PRESIDENTS AND CLERKS-PUBLIC WORKS-SOLDIERS' MONUMENT-BIRMINGHAM CHURCHES-SECRET AND FRATERNAL SOCIETIES.
Bloomfield township is one of the oldest civil divisions of Oakland county, being created by a proclamation of the territorial governor (lated June 28, 1820. It was officially designated as towns 1 and 2 north, in ranges 7, 8, 9, 10 and II east, and embraced the two southern tiers of towns in the county. Bloomfield continued to cover that territory until April 12, 1827, when the legislative council detached Southfield, Bloomfield and West Bloomfield (as now constituted ) and erected the township of Bloomfield. The organization of 1827 continued until 1830, when what is now known as Southfield was taken away from the original area, and in 1833 West Bloomfield was lopped off, thus re- ducing it to its present proportions.
PHYSICAL FEATURES
Bloomfield is watered by a number of beautiful lakes and by Rouge river, of which the eastern branch takes its rise beyond the boundaries of the township in Troy and Avon, and the western one has its source in the lakes of the northwest and west. These, uniting their waters a short distance northwest of the village of Birmingham, form the stream which thence flows in a southwesterly direction through section 35 and crosses the town line into Southfield. The largest lakes of Bloomfield town- ship are Wing, Upper and Lower Long, Island, Square, Forest, Turtle and Gilbert, all of them lying west of its center line, and all but Wing and Gilbert in the northwest quarter.
The general surface of the township is rolling, particularly in the lake region. The soil of this section is rather light, both in color and texture, as compared with that of the prairies and river bottoms, with the result that the part of the county which has proven to be the best grain and fruit producer was neglected by the settlers for many years. Vol. I-24
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JHISTORY OF OAKLAND COUNTY
The original forest of Bloomfield was not as dense, nor was the timber as heavy as in such townships as Southfield and Farmington. It had much the character of "openings," especially in the more uneven parts toward the west and north.
A GOOD MANY DEAD INDIANS
As elsewhere in the county, the country in the vicinity of the fish- producing lakes of Bloomfield township was a favorite resort of the Indians. When they made their semi-annual journeyings to Detroit to .receive their government annuities, they made their camps on their shores or' on the banks of the Rouge river. There are traditions, too, that this region was once the theater of great battles between the rival tribes. In particular, it was related by a centenarian French voyager named Michaud, whom Edwin Baldwin and other old residents of the township remember well, that on one occasion, long before the coming of the government surveyors, as he passed through these woods on a fur-trading expedition, he came to a fresh battlefield on which still lay unburied fifteen hundred dead Indians; and that this bloody spot was none other than what has since been known as "Swan's plains," a short distance north of Birmingham. Doubtless battles were fought within the limits of Bloomfield township between warring savages-but fifteen hundred dead Indians are a good many !
FIRST LAND ENTRY
The first settlers of Bloomfield township came into the country the year before it was created, civilly and politically. The first land entry within its limits was of the northwest quarter of section 36, made on the 28th of January, 1819, by Colonel Benjamin H. Pierce, an army officer and a brother of Franklin Pierce, afterward president of the United States. Colonel Pierce visited his land several times, but never settled upon it.
FORMATIVE TOWNSHIP PERIOD
The first township meeting was held at the house of John. Hamilton May 25, 1827. The board of inspectors consisted of Samuel Satterlee, Laban Jenks and Elijah S. Fish. Mr. Fish was the moderator and Ogden Clarke was the clerk for the day. Lemuel Castle was the first super- visor, and continued to serve continuously until 1830, the year that the township acquired its present area, when John W. Hunter was elected. Ezra S. Parke was township clerk from 1827 to 1834; so that he was also in office during this formative period.
The first schoolhouse in Bloomfield township was a small log build- ing erected on the farm of Dr. Ziba Swan, less than a mile north of the village of Birmingham. Captain Hervey Parke, the surveyor, com- menced the first term therein abont December 1, 1822.
The first district school in Bloomfield was taught by Rev. Lemuel M. Partridge in the winter of 1834-35, in the old log house of John Hamilton, at Birmingham. In the former year the district system of
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public education had been inaugurated in conformity with the provisions of the legislative act approved April 13, 1833, which made it obligatory upon townships to elect three commissioners of common schools. Their duties were to lay off the townships into school districts and to estab- lish them in numerical order.
THREE COMPETING TAVERNS
John W. Hunter is credited with being the first settler. With his brother, Daniel, he traveled by sleigh from Auburn, New York, through Canada, to Detroit, where he arrived in March, 1818. At the land- office there he entered the northeast quarter of section 36, which is now the southeast part of Birmingham. Daniel and John Hunter awaited the arrival of their father, Elisha ( with family) until the July follow- ing, but they did not locate in Bloomfield until the spring of 1819. About the same time John Hamilton and Elijah Willets settled further west, but still within the present limits of the village. By mistake, Mr. Hunter erected his log house-the first in the township-on the Wil- lets tract. He found a good "opening" there, and took advantage of it. William Hall, a son-in-law of Elisha Hunter, occupied this house, and John W. soon afterward built another a short distance southeast of the first on his own land. In this one-room cabin Mr. Hunter opened a tavern, and Mr. Hamilton, who had located on the southeast quarter of section 25, followed his example very soon, as did Mr. Willets, who established himself as an inn-keeper in the southwest quarter of the same section. Three taverns thus stood but a few rods apart and com- peted for prospective trade.
Thus was the first settlement of Bloomfield made on' the present site of Birmingham. The permanent population increased but slowly, but the name of the locality as a central point of entertainment for "man and beast" became so well advertised that the immigrants and land seekers who were attracted thither made quite a bustle. Hunter's was not long maintained as a public house, but Hamilton and Willets con- tinued their rivalry.
The result of all this was that the settlement was variously desig- nated as "Hamilton's," "Hunter's" or "Willets'". Still later, presuma- bly on account of the religious character of its people as a whole, it was quite generally known as "Piety Hill," until it was incorporated as a village in 1864.
MILLS AND STORES OUTSIDE OF BIRMINGHAM
Although, as we have seen, the three hotel keepers settled on the present site of Birmingham, the earliest industrial and mercantile en- terprises commenced at other points. A Mr. Doolittle opened a store on the northeast quarter of section 24, about a mile north of Birming- ham at what was called Fairbanks' Corners. He also started a potash works at the same place, and about 1829 Zeba Rice built a fanning mill there. The first distillery of the township had already been started about three-quarters of a mile northeast of the Corners.
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BLOOMFIELD CENTER
Judge Amasa Bagley had settled at what became known as "Bag- ley's," or Bloomfield Center, where both he and his son-in-law, Wil- liam Morris, operated a popular tavern. There the township meetings were held for many years. Near by, on the east side of the turnpike, George W. Morris commenced to make bricks. Again, in 1828, Wil- liam Morris put the first gristmill in operation, and still earlier (in 1825) Corbett & Monroe, of Detroit, had erected the first sawmill in the township on the west branch of the Rouge, about two miles north- west of Birmingham. In that vicinity were also built, in 1833, the Young sawmill, and more than thirty years afterward the Opdyke flouring mill was erected upon the old property.
In 1834 Edward Matthews, an educated and an energetic Irishman from New York, planned to build a flouring mill section 31, in the ex- treme southeastern part of the township, the water power to be fur- nished by the stream which is the outlet of Black Walnut lake in West Bloomfield township. The young man got into financial difficulties and bad habits as well, and the enterprise was taken up in 1837 by Colonel Peter Van Every, of Detroit, who completed the mill and also erected a distillery during that year. Both did a good business, and for several years the Van Every mill was the only establishment of the kind in Oak- land county.
Thus it was that many of the most important business and industrial enterprises originated outside of Birmingham in the early period of the township's history.
The first industries at Piety Hill were the tannery built by Elijah Willets in 1827, which stood on the west side of the Pontiac road near the north end of the present village, and John W. Hunter's foundry, built in the following year and located a little back from the main street. The latter developed into a prosperous establishment and the plant was burned in 1854.
The first merchants were a Mr. Dennis and Sullivan R. Kelsey, who formed a partnership in 1833 and opened a general store in front of the Hunter foundry. The latter entered politics and became a judge of Shiawassee county, but remained in business until 1843, his part- ner having withdrawn. Orrin Poppleton succeeded to the business and to a new store, which Mr. Kelsey had erected. J. B. Simonson and R. T. Merrill were also engaged in merchandising in the early forties. The latter built the first brick store in Birmingham in 1841, and in the fol- lowing year T. A. Flower displayed his stock of goods therein with due eclat. Mr. Merrill was quite an energetic citizen, being proprietor of the original village plat. Among his other enterprises was the public house which he opened in 1834. He operated it for some time himself. and it was maintained for years afterward by various landlords.
BIRMINGHAM VILLAGE PLATS
The original plat of the village of Birmingham was surveyed and dated August 25. 1836; location, northwest quarter of section 36: pro-
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prietor, Roswell T. Merrill. Willets' plat, northwest quarter of section 25, was laid out in 1837 ; Hunter's first and second plats, northeast quarter of section 36, 1840 and 1842, respectively ; Hamilton plat, southeast quarter of section 25, 1846, and William Torrey's plat, on section 36, in 1856. These were all the plats recorded previous to the incorporation of the village in 1864.
OLD TIMES AT PIETY HILL
One of the prominent citizens of Birmingham, who did much to stamp the community as a religious one, was Deacon Elijah S. Fish, who in January, 1820, established his homestead on the northeast quarter of section 23. He was a stanch Presbyterian, and it was at his barn and house that the first meetings of that denomination were held and the first society organized. His daughter, Miss Fannie E. Fish, pre- sented a paper to the Oakland County Pioneer Society, in 1888, de- scribing "Piety Hill" and vicinity as the Fish family found it in its earli- est days, and, although the matter is somewhat personal, it gives so graphic a picture of the region and the times that it is here republished. "No spat on the face of the earth," she writes, "has for me more pleasant associations than Oakland county. I sometimes wonder if we fully realize how fair a dot on the earthly ball it is. There may be, and doubtless are, thousands of places of more romantic scenery, of more historic interest, but I have seen hundreds, if not thousands of places without a tithe of its attractions. Its almost innumerable little lakes, crystal clear, have come to be appreciated by all lovers of the beauti- ful. And there is many a wooded knoll and many a country road, fra- grant in early summer with brier rose and clover, and later, gay with golden-rod and aster, bitter sweet and sumach, that would delight a poet's heart. But it is not so much to what it is, as to what it was, that I wish to invite your attention. We gather here year after year to re- call with loving memory the incidents of the carly settlement of this county. Let us spare a moment to glance at some of the beautiful features of that early day that belong as irrevocably to the past as do the sturdy settlers, who, we will believe, at the bottom of their stout hearts, appreciated the beauty it was their mission, in part, at least, to destroy.
"The little opening in the forest north of Birmingham must have suggested the cleared farms that were to be in the future. Though not great in extent, it was dignified with the name of 'the plains,' and was a pleasant break in the monotony of endless trees. The willow fringed brook on the west sang contented on its way, but told no tales of the past, and of the future only remarking that it was fully able to furnish power for sawing lumber or grinding grain, and was quite at the new comers' service. A few oaks had stepped from their dense neighbor- hood and secured elbow room in this open space. Painted cup and lupine were glad of a little more sunshine and flourished here accord- ingly.
"And the old road, too. the Indian trail that led from I know not where, possibly Saginaw, to Detroit. Detached fragments of it re- mained intact for many years. Doubtless it grew in loveliness after it
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was disused as a highway, for nature has a fashion of taking the dis- carded things of mau, whether it be a deserted house and garden, or a forsaken highway, and clothing them with a peculiar beauty; so here the turf grew thick and soft, clumps of hazel brush sprang up, now at one side, now in the middle of the green road. Birds found here plenty of safe resting places; robin and bluebird, thrush and catbird were all at home. With one such remnant of the old road I was especially fa- miliar, that between Doctor Parke's house and the sawmill road, so near the turnpike that the rumbling of the wagons and crack of driver's whip could be heard, and yet it had an air of perfect seclusion.
"Here there was once a famous picnic; how heartily Doctor and Mrs. Parke entered into the spirit of the occasion. Rowland Trow- bridge, fresh from college, or possibly home at vacation, was there. The Berkshire pig, which formed part of the repast, was much mixed up with quotations from Shakespeare, and it seemed to be a question with the elders that day which they really liked best, the poet or the pig. For the younger portion of the company, besides the delight of eating out of doors and being in the way generally, was the added ex- citement of finding a nest of young rabbits.
"Few are left now of that pleasant gathering. Rowland Trowbridge. our teacher, Miss Elizabeth Clark, Doctor and Mrs. Parke, Cornelia, Frank and Ira Parke, are all gone. Of those that were the children then, more than half have found homes on the Pacific coast, and two have found their last resting place there.
"Another section of the Indian trail was on the old Blackington place, and was just such another path of beauty. I think it is all gone now, and many a road that went winding through the woods in delight- ful fashion, turning out now for a stump and now for a mud hole, has been straightened out and compelled to abandon the curve of beauty for the law of right angles.
"No doubt every old resident can remember some such road fraught with beauty and full of pleasant associations. If in any mind I have called up such memories, my object is attained.
"The children of this generation will remember Oakland county as one of the thriving ones, with interesting railway, and telegraph and telephone wires on every hand; of comfortable and even elegant farm houses, of orchards, grain fields, pastures and meadow lands. Here have come not only people from our own eastern states, but those across the wide Atlantic, many of whom brought with them little save sturdy frames and willing hands, and have found here as a reward of their labors, an old age surrounded by every comfort, and have left to their children a goodly heritage of broad acres; but I am not sorry that my memory carries me so far back that I can form some idea of its look to the first settlers.
"I have been asked to say something of the life of my father. the late Elijah S. Fish ; especially that part of it relating to his settlement in Michigan. I can only give such incidents as I remember to have heard mentioned. What memoranda there are in the family are out of my reach at present ; but as those early days were not an unfrequent topic of conversation, while my parents lived, I am quite familiar with
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the story of the settlement of Bloomfield, as far as one family is con- cerned.
The incidents are commonplace enough, and owe whatever interest we may attach to them to the fact that they are part and parcel of the past of Oakland county.
"Elijah S. Fish was born at Athol, Massachusetts, February 22. 1791. Before his remembrance, his parents moved to western New York, and his father built the first home where the city of Rochester now stands. Left motherless when seven years old, he was taken to Vermont and brought up in the family of Gen. Samuel Fletcher, whose wife was his aunt. When of age, or soon after, he returned to the west again, and in 1815 married Fannie Spencer. Their first home was at Black Rock. Here they saw Lake Erie's first steamboat built and launched.
"The thought of going to Michigan may have been suggested by the weekly trips of the 'Walk-in-the-Water' to Detroit; at any rate, the project of going somewhere into a new country began to be discussed in the family as a possibility lying in the future, and ere long my mother said if we go at all, let us go soon. So October of 1819, just four years after their marriage, found them ready for the enterprise. They had expected to take the steamer but were delayed the last hour by the arrival of a near friend; not liking to wait a week, they embarked the next day on a schooner. They might as well have waited, for they were two weeks on Lake Erie, and reached Detroit only an hour or so be- fore the steamer arrived on her second trip.
"As soon as practical my father, leaving his family in Detroit, set out on foot for a prospecting tour. The oak openings, of which he had heard, was his objective point. Reaching Royal Oak, he wondered if that could be the place and felt quite inclined to go back and try his fortunes in Ohio, but still he kept on, and near sundown came upon the rise of ground where Birmingham now stands, and knew at once he . had found the object of his search, and felt amply repaid for his lonely tramp of eighteen miles. The whole country had been kept free from underbrush by the fires of the Indians, and the level rays of the set- ting sun lit up the scene, making a picture of wondrous beauty, which never faded from his memory. A day or two of looking about con- firmed his first impressions. During this time he probably made the acquaintance of the three families then living at Birmingham, Messrs. Hunter, Hamilton and Willets, and of Doctor Swan, who lived on the plains already mentioned.
"Returning to Detroit, he soon moved his family into a house stand- ing now where Mr. James McBride now lives and still known as the Dide Hubbard farm. They did not get a very early start when they left Detroit, and were obliged to camp out one night; some Indians came to the camp and begged for whiskey. The man who brought them out had a keg of the stuff, but he prudently used it as a seat, and would neither give nor sell them any.
"This home into which they moved seemed to have afforded a tem- porary shelter for a good many of the settlers. While there, Judge
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Bagley and family, and William Morris stayed over night with them. on their way to their new home.
"The next thing to do was to decide where to locate a home. Section 23, town 2 north, range 10 east, soon took his fancy, and wishing his wife to see it, he borrowed an old horse-at least I presume it was old. It certainly should have been trustworthy, for he mounted his entire family on its back. To tell the story in his own words: 'I put your mother in the saddle, and one child behind her and the other in front. then I took hold of the bridle and we started.' At this point my mother invariably interrupted him with 'Why no, pa, you didn't lead the horse. I knew enough to hold the reins.' But whichever was right, the small cavalcade of three horsemen and one horse made the short journey safely, and after looking around as long as they cared to, sat down by a spring of clear, pure water, which was one of the attractions of the place, and as they ate their lunch in the hazy sunshine of that Indian summer day, and looked out on the peaceful landscape, they said to one another, 'This is good enough ; here we will make our home.
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