History of Oakland County, Michigan, with illustrations descriptive of its scenery, palatial residences, public buildings, fine blocks, and important manufactories, Part 10

Author: Durant, Samuel W
Publication date: 1877
Publisher: Philadelphia, L. H. Everts & co.
Number of Pages: 553

USA > Michigan > Oakland County > History of Oakland County, Michigan, with illustrations descriptive of its scenery, palatial residences, public buildings, fine blocks, and important manufactories > Part 10

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At the October meeting, 1851, the supervisors resolved it was " expedient to build a new court-house, and that the sum of four thousand dollars be raised," and submitted the same to the people at the next annual town-meeting, who put their foot on the proposed luxury. At the October session, 1852, the board met in the Hodges House hall at a rental of two dollars per day, and during that year the old court-

" Estimated.

HISTORY OF OAKLAND COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

house was so dilapidated that a resolution was actually passed making a contract with the city authorities of Pontiac for the use of Firemen's Hall for the use of the courts, and the sheriff directed to move the furniture from the court-room to the hall ; but the matter was carried no further, and the committee reported that the court-house could be repaired for one hundred and thirty-five dollars, and made comfortable, and thereupon that sum was appropriated, and the repairs ordered. In January, 1854, resolutions looking to the erection of a court-house, embodying the raising of three thousand dollars in the assessment of 1854, and directing plans and specifications to be prepared, were passed by the board and submitted to the people, who were not ready yet for the expenditure, and set the seal of their objections on the same by a vote of eighteen hundred and twenty-eight nays to fifteen hundred and ninety-three yeas. The jail was repaired in 1854. In October, 1854, the board resolved to raise twenty-five hundred dollars for a court-house, but the sum was not raised, and in January, 1855, the board resolved again to raise the same sum, and appointed a committee to advertise for proposals for buildings, provided the people were willing and so expressed themselves at the town-meeting in April, 1856, which they did not. The removal of the county-seat from Pontiac was agitated during this period of attempted court-house building, which added to the interest and uncertainty of the movement. But at last, in 1856, the matter was settled, and proposals were called for and received for building the new court- house. C. W. Tuthill proposed to put up the building for fourteen thousand seven hundred dollars, and take the " Henderson property" as part payment, at two thousand dollars. D. J. Pratt offered to erect the building for twelve thousand two hundred and ninety-four dollars, and take the same property at twenty-five hundred dollars, and for three hundred dollars more would complete it in two years. William Scott's bid was for fourteen thousand six hundred and ninety-seven dol- lars, and to take the property at twenty-one hundred dollars. The contract was awarded to Pratt, and a building committee chosen by ballot, consisting of Francis Darrow, S. T. Bryan, and R. E. Trowbridge, who were authorized to sell the building known as the " county offices." The proposition for the erection of the court-house was carried before the people at the April town-meetings in 1856 by a vote of twenty-two hundred and seventy-seven yeas to seven hundred and forty-four nays. The building was erected in 1856 and 1857.

In 1857 the people voted a tax of two thousand dollars per annum for court- house purposes. Joshua Terry contracted to remove the old buildings. In 1874 five thousand dollars were voted to build fire-proof vaults in the court-house, which were so built in the county clerk's, judge of probate, register, and treas- urer's offices. Besides this, the county treasurer's safe is a burglar-proof chest, secured with a chronometer lock, in which he keeps his official valuables. The 'court-house has an area of sixty by one hundred feet, is two stories in height,- the walls being some thirty or more feet from the water-table to the rafters. A hall runs through the building on the lower floor, from the front on Saginaw street to the rear on the alley, on either side of which hall the offices above named are situated. The court-room is in the second or upper floor, and is about sixty feet square, with jury and judge's rooms attached. The whole building is surmounted by a wooden tower. The county jail stands on the opposite side of the alley, in the rear of the court-house, and contains some fourteen cells on the second floor, the sheriff occupying the lower apartments as a residence. Both the jail and court-house are built of brick.

THE COUNTY ALMSHOUSE.

The first action taken by the authorities of Oakland County looking towards the acquisition of a county almshouse was that of the board of supervisors of 1834, at the October sessions, at which time a committee of three were appointed to inquire into the expediency of procuring such an institution for the county. Messrs. Yerkes, Steel, and Gregory were the committee, and they reported ad- versely to the project; but, at the same session, another committee, consisting of Babcock, Castle, Dutcher, Gregory, and Stephens, made inquiry as to the expedi- ency of purchasing a location for a county farm, and reported in favor of pur- chasing eighty acres, which report was accepted, and seven hundred dollars appropriated, and the sum apportioned to the different towns as follows :

Farmington, sixty-six dollars and sixty-seven cents; Lyon, twenty-five dol- lars and forty-two cents; Southfield, thirty-eight dollars and fifty-four cents ; Troy, sixty-five dollars and ninety-nine cents ; Grand Blanc, Genesee county, twenty-three dollars and ninety-eight cents; Pontiac, one hundred and sixty-four dollars and twenty-eight cents ; Oakland, one hundred and twenty-two dollars and nine cents; Sagana (Saginaw county), thirty dollars and fifty-one cents; Novi, forty- eight dollars and twenty-nine cents; Bloomfield, sixty-four dollars and fifty-seven cents ; Commerce, twelve dollars and sixteen cents; West Bloomfield, thirty dol- lars and thirty-one cents; Royal Oak, thirty-seven dollars and seventy-two cents; Mia, six dollars and forty-nine cents. Total, seven hundred and thirty-seven dollars and two cents.

The report of the committee last above named was subsequently reconsidered and rejected, and another committee appointed to examine a location, consisting of Messrs. Castle, Curtis, Babcock, Dodge, Price, and Voorheis; and at the March sessions, 1835, Messrs. Castle, Curtis, and Voorheis were elected a committee to take charge of the funds already raised therefor, and purchase and fit up a farm for county poor purposes, at an expense not exceeding eight hundred dollars, to be paid in four annual installments. This committee purchased the east half of the northeast quarter of section 2 in Waterford, of Thaddeus Alvord, for ten hundred and fifty dollars ; and in March, 1836, there was an allowance of seven hundred and eighty-eight dollars made for stock, farming utensils, and superintendent's salary.

The total expenses on account of pauper relief in 1835, in the county, were fifteen hundred and ninety-one dollars and thirty-one cents. On the 2d of May, 1835, the committee advertised the poor-house ready for occupancy.

In 1839 the county commissioners abolished the distinction of county and township poor, assuming them all as a county charge. Theretofore, only those persons who had acquired no legal residence in the county had been helped directly by the supervisors as a county body corporate, the townships providing for actual residents. At the first meeting of the commissioners, in January, 1839, they also elected the first county superintendents of the poor, viz. : William Price, Harvey Seeley, and Friend Belding, whose terms of office were fixed at three years. The expense of the poor-farm system the first year was two thou- sand and eighty-three dollars and sixty-eight cents. This farm, bought in 1835, was occupied by the county until 1857, when it was turned in for a payment on a new farm purchased of Mead, in Waterford, of three hundred and seventeen acres, the old farm being taken at forty dollars per acre, and the balance of the purchase-money on the new purchase, nine thousand four hundred and sixty-six dollars and forty cents, secured by mortgage. The land was situate in Waterford, and was known as the northeast quarter and west half, southeast quarter and southwest quarter, section 27, except ten acres reserved therefrom. There were good buildings on the farm. In January, 1858, the board resolved to dispose of the Mead farm, and buy another containing about one hundred acres, and a committee reported in favor of disposing of a portion of the Mead farm and erecting build- ings on the balance. Mead offered to take back the land on the north side of the road at thirty-five dollars per acre, which proposition was not accepted by the board of supervisors, but about the year 1860 the farm reverted to the original owner, Mead, by default in the payments on the mortgage, and the first farm and the expense incurred in remodeling the buildings on the second farm lost by the county. William W. Martin, of Bloomfield, was then engaged by contract to support and care for the county paupers, for some years, and received nine shil- lings per week per head for the same. At the October meeting, 1863, the com- mittee on the poor-house, F. W. Fifield, E. B. Comstock, and Noah Tyler, re- ported as follows : "In regard to the system now practiced of farming out the paupers, it is extremely objectionable, repugnant to humanity, and in opposition to the true interests of the county. The paupers under this system are not cared for, or as comfortably situated, as the dictates of humanity or requirements of justice demand, notwithstanding the keeper is doing the best he can for them. The buildings in which they are kept are inadequate to the wants and absolute necessities of the inmates, and are uncouth, unshapely, and, worse, uncomfortable and unwholesome, and the committee recommends the purchase of eighty acres of land, and the erection of suitable buildings at once."

In 1864, in accordance with the recommendation, the board authorized the county superintendents to purchase a farm, and accordingly they bought, April 1, 1864, one hundred and twenty acres, being the one-half of the northwest quar- ter, section 35, and southeast quarter of southwest quarter, section 26, township 3 north, range 9 east, of Joel Benedict, for four thousand eight hundred and thirty- three dollars. This farm was subsequently sold to T. F. Harrington, and on June 23, 1866, one hundred acres purchased of Mortimer F. Osmun, being the east part of northeast quarter, section 24, in Waterford, for six thousand dollars. On the 6th of April, 1869, thirty acres or more were purchased of Ira K. Terry, being the southwest part of northwest quarter, section 19, township 3 north, range 10 east, for two thousand five hundred dollars, the total cost of the land being eight thousand five hundred dollars, and the farm containing about one hundred and thirty-seven acres. In January, 1866, the superintendents of the poor were authorized to receive proposals for buildings on the county farm, the cost of which should not exceed fifteen thousand dollars. The buildings were erected in 1866-67. The value of the property is estimated by the county superintendents in their report to the secretary of state as follows: farm and buildings, twenty-nine thousand two hundred and ninety-five dollars; live-stock on the farm, one thousand three hundred and thirty dollars; farming implements, four hundred and eighty-eight dollars ; all other property, nine hundred dollars ; total valua- tion, thirty-two thousand and thirteen dollars.

HISTORY OF OAKLAND COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

In the year 1875, ending October 15, the pauper labor was estimated at two hundred dollars for the year ; the estimated value of all farm products was placed at sixteen hundred and ninety-seven dollars and twelve cents, the actual sales of farm products amounted to three hundred and eighty-nine dollars and forty-seven cents, and the per cent. of value of farm products to capital invested was 5.30. The amount paid to superintendents during the same year was two hundred and eighty-two dollars, and to supervisors during same time, two hundred and eighty dollars and fifty cents, for the dispensing of the county charities.

Of the one hundred and three inmates of the almshouse in 1875, fifty-nine of them were American born, eight were English, sixteen were Irish, four Scotch, five German, one Swede, four Canadian, two negroes, one mulatto, and three of unknown nativity. The amount expended for pauper relief in 1875 was ten thousand three hundred and eighty-four dollars and seventy-nine cents. The cost of maintaining the poor-house, exclusive of interest on capital invested and the value of the pauper labor, was four thousand and fifty-two dollars and forty-six cents, the cost per week of each pauper being one dollar and fifty-one cents. The keeper's salary was five hundred dollars, and the cost of medical attendance amounted to three hundred and twenty-eight dollars, and eighty-two dollars and fifteen cents were paid in transportation to and from the house. The amount ex- pended for temporary relief in 1875, outside of the county-house in the different townships, was three thousand five hundred and thirty-seven dollars and seventy- eight cents ; the funeral expenses of inmates of poor-house amounted to two hun- dred and ninety-eight dollars and seventy cents. The cost of the insane paupers at Kalamazoo footed up two thousand one hundred and nine dollars and ninety cents.

The report of the county superintendents for the year ending October 1, 1876, makes the following exhibit: One hundred and seven persons were admitted dur- ing the year; thirteen died in the house, fifty were discharged, leaving forty-five inmates at the date of the report,-the average maintained for the year being forty-seven. The receipts from the sale of farm-products amounted to four hun- dred and forty-three dollars and two cents. There were raised on the farm during the year three hundred and twenty bushels wheat, three hundred and thirteen bushels oats, one hundred and fifty bushels peas, one thousand bushels (ears) corn, two hundred and twenty-five bushels potatoes, four hundred bushels bagas, twenty barrels apples, sixteen tons hay, twenty loads corn fodder, and nine hundred heads cabbage. The live-stock on the farm consisted of three horses, seven cows, three two years old, three yearlings, three calves, seventy sheep, forty-one hogs, one hundred fowls, and the farm was well stocked with farming implements. The expense of the farm for the year was four thousand four hundred and fifty-six dollars and nine cents, and for temporary relief four thousand two hundred and fifty dollars and twenty-five cents, and for the cost of maintaining the insane at the asylum some twenty-five hundred dollars. There was raised for 1877 nine thou- sand dollars for farm and temporary relief, and twenty-eight hundred dollars for the insane poor. The buildings consist of a large brick central building, a suit- able one of same material for the insane, four barns, corn-house, wash-house, and smoke-house, all in good order and repair. The facilities for bathing are two bath-rooms with tubs and shower-bath. The main building is warmed by three furnaces, and the building for insane by a stove. The ventilation is good, and is created by the furnaces, registers, and draft-flues, and the inmates are well cared for and comfortably clothed and fed, and cared for when sick by physician in charge. The children do not stay long enough to make schooling feasible. Fifty- three acres are under cultivation, and the whole farm is divided into fourteen fields, well fenced. The present keeper is David Mowhinney, who, with his wife, lives on the premises. The contrast between the care given to this unfortunate class now and in the early days is best shown by an incident which the report of one of the early directors of the poor of one of the townships of the county preserves. He was applied to by a blind man for relief, but by a judicious work- ing upon his fears (by threatening to have him locked up as a vagrant) he was frightened out of the county by the shortest road, and thus the county saved the expense of his relief.

" Rattle his bones over the stones. He's only a pauper, whom nobody owns."

This unfeeling method of shifting the responsibility upon some one else's shoulders was not always practiced, however, for the very same meeting to which this report was made provided for the support of a poor orphan boy, and paid his tuition fees, in order that he might not grow up in ignorance. Bills were allowed, too, for articles of luxury which would hardly pass the auditing com- mittee's marking nowadays. One very common bill of items used to read thus :

$2.00

1.50

2.00

$5.50"

And they were allowed, the idea being that a pauper had but few pleasures, and those of the cheapest kind.

The county superintendents of the poor have been as follows :

1839-42, Wm. Price, Harvey Seeley, and Friend Belding ; 1842-44, Samuel White, Ziba Swan, Jr., and Ira Donelson ; 1845, Salmon J. Matthews, Orison Allen, and Ira Donelson ; 1846, Geo. Patten, Ziba Swan, Jr., and George Dow ; 1847, C. H. Woodhull, Ira Murlin, and Geo. Patten ; 1848, Isaac I. Voorheis, Geo. Patten, and Francis Darrow; 1849, F. Darrow, G. Robertson, and F. Belding; 1850 to 1853 inclusive, Jas. A. Weeks, I. I. Voorheis, and Wm. Yerkes; 1854, I. I. Voorheis, Stephen Reeves, and D. M. Judd ; 1855, Stephen Reeves, F. Belding, and Phil. S. Frisbee ; 1856, H. W. Hovey, Henry Mead, and F. Belding; 1857, Almeron Whitehead, J. H. Button, and F. Bradley ; 1858, Whitehead, Button, and Stephen Reeves; 1859-60, no superintendents elected ; 1861, J. H. Button, Robt. M. Davis, and Wm. Cone; 1862, Jas. New- berry, J. H. Button, and Andrew Bradford.

In 1863 three superintendents were elected, one for one year, one for two years, and one for three years. Andrew Bradford was elected for the long term, Jas. Newberry for two years, and J. H. Button for one year. J. H. Button was elected in 1864 for three years, and again in 1867 for three years, but resigned in 1869. Bradford resigned in 1865, and Francis Baker was elected to fill the vacancy. James Newberry was re-elected at the end of his first term of two years for a term of three years. Horace Thurber, 1866-69 ; Caleb Terry, 1868- 71; John W. Leonard, 1869-71, to fill vacancy of J. H. Button; Augustus W. Hovey, 1870, 1873, 1876, 1879 ; Wm. M. McConnell, 1871, 1874, 1877 ; J. W. Leonard, 1872, 1875, 1878.

EASTERN ASYLUM FOR THE INSANE.

The legislature for 1873 appropriated four hundred thousand dollars for the purpose of building an additional asylum for the insane, and a locating board was appointed to select a site. This board, after visiting various localities and making extensive examinations, selected the present site at Pontiac, in June, 1874.

Some delay was occasioned in securing the land, but on the 16th of December, 1874, the titles having been all acquired, the board adopted the plans prepared by Mr. Myers, of Detroit, under the supervision of Dr. E. H. Van Deusen, and on the 18th advertised for proposals for the construction of the asylum.

In response to this advertisement twenty-one proposals were received, and on the 16th of February, 1875, were opened in public, and Messrs. Coots and Top- ping, of Jackson, were found to be the lowest bidders, and the contract was awarded to them, in the sum of three hundred and six thousand three hundred and eighty-four dollars and fifty-six cents.

This contract provides for all the mason and carpenter work, but does not pro- vide for sewerage, drainage, gas, water, steam, laundry, or kitchen apparatus, beds, bedding, or furniture.

The board had guaranteed to bidders the use of a side-track from the Detroit and Milwaukee railroad to the building, but the railroad being placed in the hands of a receiver about that time, they were obliged to advance seven thousand seven hundred dollars for the construction of this siding, which money is being gradually repaid by the company.

The asylum farm consists of three hundred and seven acres, embraced between the White Lake road, Elizabeth Lake road, Asylum avenue, and Detroit and Milwaukee railroad track.

Of this, but one hundred and sixty-four acres had, at the time of purchase, been plowed, there being, besides forty-four acres of woodland, large ranges of pasture, much of which was covered with undergrowth. Since the purchase the farm has been self-sustaining, and considerably improved by the addition, by clear- ing and grubbing, of thirty-seven acres of hitherto unproductive land, by laying four hundred and two rods of drain, by opening avenues, by removing stones, and by planting trees.

Nothing has been omitted that could add to its usefulness in fulfilling the object for which it was erected, while the artistic arrangement of the transverse and longitudinal divisions, bay windows and pilasters, dormer windows, towers and ventilators, breaks the monotony of so large a structure, and the effective use of cut stone adds beauty and elegance to its appearance.

For a more minute description we make the following extract from the recent report of Superintendent C. M. Wells :

" From this ground-plan and perspective given above, and the scale accompany- ing, can be obtained the number of stories in each division, and the form, dimen- sions, and relative position of each building or division. The ground-plan in general design corresponds with that of the new asylums at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Elgin, Illinois, Columbus, Ohio, Morristown, New Jersey, Poughkeepsie, New York, and with both the old and new asylums at Kalamazoo, being composed essentially of a centre or administration building, with wings or wards for patients, extending

"To clothing furnished John Jones.

To whisky (several items aggregating).

To tobacco

HISTORY OF OAKLAND COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

both right and left en echelon, while the necessary buildings for cooking, heating, power, and workshops are grouped in the rear of the centre building. This arrangement of longitudinal and transverse wards either side of a central division is known as the ' Kirkbride plan,' from Thomas S. Kirkbride, superintendent of the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane at Philadelphia. The centre building serves to divide the sexes. The longitudinal divisions are the wards proper, con- sisting of a central corridor with rooms on each side, each room occupied by a single patient, and belonging to him exclusively. These rooms vary in size from nine by twelve feet, to eleven feet eight inches by twelve feet eight inches, the larger size predominating, and the clear space between floor and ceiling is in every case thirteen feet. The corridors are used as day-rooms, while the large bay-win- dow in the centre of each main corridor affords opportunity for the inmates in common to enjoy the sunshine and to look without. The large rooms in the front of the transverse division can either be used as day-rooms or parlors, or as asso- ciated dormitories for a special class of patients. In the four main transverse divisions are grouped the dining-rooms, bath-rooms, clothes-rooms, lavatories, water-closets, and shafts, and it will be seen that each ward has a group of these auxiliary rooms readily accessible. The long, narrow wards render it possible to admit light and sunshine into each patient's room, while the transverse divisions perfect the classification by dividing the wards, and serve to break the view, so that patients in the different wards cannot shout across and annoy each other. Each story of the centre building and wings is a counterpart of the one shown. A basement, nine feet clear space, is excavated beneath the entire main building.

" The divisions in the basement corresponding to the corridors and passages in the first story are made tight, and afford continuous air-passages for the supply and distribution of fresh air. From these basement corridors a great number of flues start, and lead within the walls to the corridors of each story. Constant and regulated ventilation is secured by means of a large fan, situated in the shop build- ings. and driven by steam-power. The air from the fan-room is forced by the fan through large underground air-ducts or tunnels, six feet by eight feet, into the basement, and thence a constant stream passes up each flue, and is distributed to every portion of the building. In addition to these supply-flues, each single room has a separate and distinct ventilating flue of its own for the exit of vitiated air, leading within the brick walls directly to the attic, and the larger rooms have two or more such flues. The air forced into the corridors finds no egress except up these flues to the attics, and out through large ventilators placed in the roof.

" Steam will be used for heating,-mainly, indirect radiation. Beneath the chapel is a large pipe-duct, designed to conduct steam- and water-pipes from the boilers and pumps at the shops forward to the main building. These steam-pipes on reaching the centre building branch right and left, and extend within the air- passages through the basement to the extreme divisions. In the basement, at the base of the supply-flues, radiators or coils of pipe are placed, each connected with the steam-main. The air in its passage to the flue is forced in contact with the hot surface of the iron, and is warmed. In addition to this indirect radiation, a system of summer pipes, to be used in chilly or damp weather, when the main apparatus is not in operation, will extend through the building, connected with direct radiators at various points.

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History of Oakland County, Michigan, with illustrations descriptive of its scenery, palatial residences, public buildings, fine blocks, and important manufactories, Part 10

Author: Durant, Samuel W Publication date: 1877 Publisher: Philadelphia, L. H. Everts & co. Number of Pages: 553

Author: Durant, Samuel W
Publication date: 1877
Publisher: Philadelphia, L. H. Everts & co.
Number of Pages: 553