USA > Michigan > Ottawa County > History of Ottawa County, Michigan with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 2
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marshes similar to the above described. The streams are gener- ally narrow, and very deep compared with their width, the shores and bottoms of which are (with a few exceptions) swampy beyond description; and it is with the utmost difficulty that a place can be found, over which horses can be conveyed.
"A circumstance peculiar to that country is exhibited in many of the marshes, by their being thinly covered with a sward of grass, by walking on which, evinced the existence of water or a very thin mud immediately under their covering, which sinks from six to eighteen inches from the pressure of the foot at every step, and at the same time rising before and behind the person passing over. The margins of many of the lakes and streams are in a similar situ- ation, and in many places are literally afloat. On approaching the eastern part of the military lands, towards the private claims on the Straights and Lake, the country does not contain so many swamps and lakes, but the extreme sterility and barrenness of the soil con- tinues the same. Taking the country altogether, so far as has been, explored, and to all appearances, together with the information re- ceived concerning the balance, is so bad that there would not be more than one acre out of one hundred, if there would be one out of one thousand, that would in any case admit of cultivation."
EDUCATIONAL.
The ordinance of Congress, passed in 1787, providing "for the government of the Territory of the United States, northwest of the river Ohio," declared that "religion, morality and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged." .
PRIMARY SCHOOLS.
By terms of another ordinance of Congress, adopted in 1785, in regard to the disposal of lands in the western territory, it was provided that section numbered sixteen of every township should be reserved for the maintenance of public schools within such township.
The Legislative Council of the Territory, in 1827, provided for the establi hment of public schools in every township containing fifty inhabitants or householders. The first Constitution of the State, adopted in 1835, declares in its article "Education:"
"The Legislature shall encourage by all suitable means, the pro- . motion of intellectual, scientifical, and agricultural improvement. The proceeds of all land that have been or hereafter may be granted by the United States to this State, for the support of schools, which shall hereafter be sold or disposed of, shall be and remain a perpet- ual fund, the interest of which together with the rents of all such unsold lands shall be inviolably appropriated to the support of schools throughout the State."
The same general provisions are retained in the present Con- stitution, adopted in 1850.
The whole amount of primary school lands derived from the reserve of the sixteenth section, and sold by the State, to the close of the fiscal year, 1880, as shown by the records of the State Land Office, is 650,864 56-100 acres, leaving 370,751 22-100 acres unsold, with about 50,000 acres yet to be selected and placed at the dispo- sition of the State Land Office, on account of sales which had been. made from sections numbered sixteen, previous to the enactment by Congress of the ordinance dedicating these lands to the primary school fund.
During the years 1863-73 the amount of primary school interest apportioned to the several counties in the month of May in each year has ranged from forty-five to fifty cents for each child between the ages of five and twenty years. - In 1864 the number of children
14
HISTORY OF MICHIGAN.
was 272,607, and the amount apportioned at fifty cents for each child $136,362.00. In 1873 the number of children was 400,062, and the amount apportioned was $196,176.80, being forty-nine cents for each child between the ages of five and twenty years. In 1880 there were 6,352 districts, 13,949 teachers, 362,556 pupils, an expenditure of $3,109,915, value of school property $8,977,844. Since its admission into the Union, Michigan has expended for the support of primary schools alone, over $50,000,000.
POPULATION.
The population of Michigan, previous to the its final relinquish- ment by Great Britain, and for a long period thereafter, was incon- siderable, and mostly restricted to the confines of the three principal settlements,-at Sault Ste. Marie, Mackinac, and Detroit. The first enumeration after Michigan became a distinct Territory, was in 1810, five years after the erection of the Territory, at which time the number of inhabitants was 4,762. In the following ten years the population increased to 8,896, and the results of subsequent enumeration are as follows:
YEAR.
POPULATION.
YEAR.
POPULATION.
1830
31,639
1860
749,113
1834
87,278
1864
803,745
1840
212,267
1870 1,184,059
1850
397,654
1874 1,334,031
1854
509,374
1880 1,636,937
Excess of males at the last census, about 84,000; colored, 15,100; Indians, 7,249.
VALUATION OF TAXABLE PROPERTY.
The Constitution of the State (Article XIX., Sec. 13), requires the Legislature, to provide for an equalization by a State Board, in the year 1851, and every fifth year thereafter, of assessments on all taxable property, except that paying specific taxes.
Previous to the year 1851, State taxation was upon the basis of equalization by the Boards of Supervisors of the several counties. The valuation as cqualized for the various years, is as follows, viz:
YEAR.
VALUATION.
YEAR.
VALUATION.
1838.
.$ 42,953, 495,61
1856
.$137,663,009.00
1840.
37,833,024,13
1861 172,055,808.89
1845.
28,922,097.59
1866. .307,965,842 92
1850.
29,384,270.66
1871. .630,000,000.00
1851
30,976,270.18
1876. . 630,000,000.00
1853
. 120,362,474.35
1881
. 810,000,000.00
THE STATE SEAL.
The Great Seal of the State of Michigan was presented by Hon. Lewis Cass to the Convention which framed the first Constitution for the State, in session at the city of Detroit, on the 2nd day of June, 1835, and on the 22d day of the same month, the Convention adopted the following resolution, offered by the Hon. Ross Wil- kins:
" Resolved, That the president of this Convention tender to the Hon. Lewis Cass, the thanks of this Convention, representing the people of Michigan, for the handsome State seal presented by him to the forthcoming State."
The Latin motto on the seal, Si queris peninsulam amonam,
circumspice,-"If you wish to see a beautiful peninsula, look around you," was doubtless suggested by the inscription upon a tablet in St. Paul's Cathedral, London, to the memory of Sir Christopher Wren, its renowned architect, Si quæris monumentum amænum cir- cumspice,-"If you wish to see a beautiful monument, look around you,"-referring to the great master-piece of architecture, by him designed, as the most fitting tribute to his memory.
THE GOVERNORS OF MICHIGAN.
UNDER FRENCH DOMINION, 1622-1763.
Samuel Champlain 1622-1635
M. de Montmagny, 1636-1647
M. de Aillebout, 1648-1650
M. de Lauson, 1651-1656
M. de Lauson (son),
1656-1657
M. de Aillebout,
1657-1658
M. de Argenson,
1658-1660
Baron de Avangour
1661-1663
M. de Mesey,
1663-1665
M. de Courcelles,
1665-1672
Count de Frontenac,
1672-1682
M. de la Barre,
1682-1685
M. de Nonville,
1685-1689
Count de Frontenac,
1689-1698
M. de Callieres, 1699-1703
M. de Vaudreuil, 1703-1725
M. de Beauharnois, 1726-1747
M. de Galissonier, .
1747-1749
M. de la Jonquiere, 1749-1752
M. de Quesne,
1752-1755
M. de Vaudreuil de Cavagnac,
1755-1763
UNDER BRITISH DOMINION, 1763-1796.
James Murray, 1763-1767
Guy Carleton,
1768-1777
Frederick Haldimand, 1777-1785
Henry Hamilton, 1785-1786
Lord Dorchester,
1786-1796
TERRITORIAL GOVERNORS.
NORTHWEST TERRITORY.
Arthur St. Clair,
1796-1800
INDIANA TERRITORY.
William Henry Harrison,
1800-1805
MICHIGAN TERRITORY.
William Hull,
1805-1818
Lewis Cass,
1813-1831
George B. Porter, 1831-1834
Stevens T. Mason, ex officio,
1834-1835
GOVERNORS OF STATE OF MICHIGAN.
Stevens T. Mason, 1835-1840
William Woodbridge, 1840-1841
J. Wright Gordon (acting), 1841-1842
John S. Barry,
1843-1845
HISTORY OF MICHIGAN.
15
Alpheus Felch,
1846-1847
Moses Wisner,
1859-1860
William L. Greenly (acting),
1847-1847
Austin Blair,
1861-1864
Epaphroditus Ransom,
1848-1849
Henry H. Crapo,
1865-1868
John S. Barry,
1850-1851
Henry P. Baldwin,
1869-1872
Robert McClelland,
1852-1853
John J. Bagley,
1873-1877
Andrew Parsons (acting),
1858-1854
Chas. M. Croswell,
1877-1881
Kinsley S. Bingham,
1855-1858
David H. Jerome, .
1881.
0
HISTORY OF OTTAWA COUNTY.
The story of the rise and progress of Ottawa County is full of interesting incidents, and is by no means tame or commonplace.
Standing as it does at the western gateway of a great and rising State, with less than half a century of occupation by the whites, its possibilities are hardly yet perceived by its own people. Judging from the brief history of the past, its destiny is full of promise, replete with hope. With the decadence of its great lumber interest, which will take many years yet to effect, other interests more important, more beneficial, will arise. The husbandman will garner bountiful harvests of Mother Earth; on the plains and along the courses of its numerous streams, orchards and vineyards will flourish. Its clay beds will furnish brick enough to satisfy the demands of Chi- cago and other distant cities, Its valuable mineral springs already testify that it lies in the line of the salt strata. Its noble harbors will be white with the winged messengers of commerce. Its prin- cipal city, with its adjoining villages along the great bayou of Spring Lake, will yearly attract the tourist from the sultry South and West.
The country is only in its infancy; statistics show that but one acre out of eleven is under any sort of cultivation, and what little has been redeemed from the wilderness is capable of produc- ing many fold what it now does.
In the coming history we shall have to treat of the gradual pre- paration of the soil for man, of its rescue from the deep by natural forces still at work, of at least two prehistoric races, of the modern Indian, of the Jesuit Missionaries, of French and British adventur- ers, of explorers, of the Indian traders, of early pioneer settlers, of the lumberer's operations, and so down to the present day, with its infinity of particulars, the complex of civilized life. If it were for nothing more than for the settlement of the Holland Col- ony, the history of Ottawa would be an interesting theme. How, in one generation, a few hundred Hollanders, generally poor, and entirely inexperienced, have become a great band of nearly 20,000 thriving American citizens. Settling in a dense forest, they had to learn to chop or die. And well did they learn the lesson, so that now, although their chief city was wasted by forest fires, they are generally prosperous and happy, worshiping every man as his con- science dictates.
On the threshold of our task, we see in 1812 Jean Baptiste Recollet, a trader with the Indians landing at the mouth of Muskegon Lake, "threading the brake like questing hound." In 1825 we find Rix Robinson canoeing up the Grand River, Louis Campau about the same time comes in from the east. A mission station rises on the banks of the river at Grand Rapids. Zenas Winsor, in 1833,is a young clerk for Robinson at Grand Haven. Robert Stewart buys a half interest in Robinson's pre-emption at the mouth of the river; the Rev. W. M. Ferry, for years an Indian Missionary at Mackinaw, is commissioned by his friend and convert, Stewart, to attend to his interests at Grand Haven, and in 1834 he came in, his family and relatives coming in by lake from Mackinaw, twenty-two souls, arriving on Sabbath morning, November 22d. We seem to hear
them on that memorable Sabbath morning, "rolling the psalm to the wintry skies," and the preacher-now silent in the grave- preaching from Zachariah iv., 10, "Who hath despised the day of small things." Thus the first act was an act of prayer and praise, and thus they consecrated the future village and city to God.
Think what must have been the condition of these early set- tlers; no white neighbors nearer than thirty miles. To the south. ten miles up the Kalamazoo River, lived a family named Butler. To the east no whites in Ottawa County, but a family or two at Grand- ville and Grand Rapids; to the north none nearer than Mackinaw. On all sides an impenetrable forest, given up to the Indians and the beasts of the chase.
Then come in settlers here and there; the rebellion in Canada sends over some noble and enterprising spirits, Benjamin Hopkins, Jabez Barber, Richard Mason, Henry Griffin, Amos Norton, and others. Dr. Eastman and his family enter in from Maine. The Jenisons cross over from Grandville. The period of inflation follows, and grand schemes are inaugurated, and hope beams on every coun- tenance, only to be succeeded by years of hard times, when real estate reaches its lowest ebb. Since 1847, when the Hollanders arrived, there has been a gradual rise, until the wonderful impetus to the lumber trade of the last few years, and the rise of the fruit and farming interests has placed Ottawa and Muskegon on the highway to prosperity and success.
GEOLOGICAL.
Geology teaches that all the dry land was once submerged under the ocean, which had like the land, its inequalities, its mountain ranges, its hills, its valleys. Islands are but the tops of submerged mountains. Some of the sea mountains are steeper and more abrupt than any on the land. In the British Channel within ten miles the depth changes from 600 to 10,000 feet. At the close of the corniferous period a great upheaval formed a line of land across the southern part of Michigan, which extended to the older and wider formation in southern Ohio. The land now comprising Kent and Ottawa was still submerged, but the belt rose higher and higher, extending northward and westward, until the era of coal deposits, at the close of which Kent and its adjoining counties formed the highlands of lower Michigan. It is thought that lakes Michigan, Huron, Erie and 'Ontario did not then exist, their place being supplied by a swift river, with here and there expansions.
Then began the mesozoic age, characterized by intense activity of animal and vegetable life, myriads of reptiles crawling in the rivers. This era is only known in Ottawa by its fossils. The ter- tiary age succeeded, when vegetation was rank, and mighty mam- moths and mastodons roamed over the earth.
Then comes a change of scene; the glacial period-the ice age -buries animal and vegetable. Perhaps thousands of years may have elapsed before God removed the earth from the embrace of the ice king. At last spring came, the sea of ice a mile in thick-
17
HISTORY OF OTTAWA COUNTY.
ness dissolved, and the rocks which it held dropped down as rocky fragments or rocky drifts. The countless currents which sprang into existence and formed for themselves channels, were the chief agency in forming the stratum known as Modified Drifts.
Prof. Winchell's theory is that at this period the whole State was submerged, and one great lake existed, from the Falls of Niag- ara to Chicago. At all events, from Saginaw Bay to lake Michigan, via the valleys of the Shiawassie, Maple and Grand Rivers, a great channel, deep and wide, extended. South of this line barriers existed to the flow of waters and the accumulation of ice water, and a second ice period resulted in the formation of another glacial field, not over four feet in thickness, and when the second spring time arrived, millions of cubic feet of ice water were added to the lakes, resulting in bursting asunder their green coating of ice, car- rying with them their tables of limestone, and, as the waters fell, depositing them where they lie to-day. As the Niagara rock was worn down, the rushing waters made for themselves deeper chan- nels, and the inland lakes became proportionately lower. The present river system was then laid out by nature.
The counties of Muskegon and Ottawa, together with all Michigan, except an oval formation in the interior, with Lansing as the center, and over one hundred miles in diameter, is regarded by Prof. Hitchcock, of Dartmouth, as belonging to the Devonian or Lower Carboniferous region, which is the middle stratum of the Paleozoic era. In fact, all Michigan can be classified as Paleozoic, the oldest formation being of the first stratum, or Silurian, which is confined to the upper peninsula. The lower peninsula, with the exception of the central portion above mentioned, ranks next below in formation, and is Devonian or Lower Carboniferous, and the central portion is still later, being the third, or highest division of Paleozoic, the coal measure, or Permo-Carboniferous.
The Devonian, which affects the counties of which we are speaking, is termed by many American geologists the Erie forma- tion, and Dr. Dawson recommends that Erian be used here as the name solely, in view of certain difficulties in reconciling the meas- ure with that of the Devonian of the Old World. In this age there was a great advance over the Silurian; terrestrial plants, reeds rushes, and trees made their appearance in great numbers; also enormous ganoid fishies, more terrible than sharks. No evidence of vertebrate life has been found in Devonian beyond that of the fishes. If the Silurian is the Age of Trilobites, the Devonian is the Age of Fishes, not certainly like those of the present, but more obscurely resembling our sturgeons, gars, sharks and chimeras.
As a portion of God's green earth, Ottawa had existed from time immemorial to a period to which the memory of man runneth not back. Col. Ferry has demonstrated that, at a comparatively recent period, the western portion of the county, from the head of Spring Lake southeast to about a mile west of the mouth of Crock- ery Creek, thence still southeast by a line which would take in Robinson and part of Allendale and Blendon, and thence westerly along Pigeon Creek and again southerly to a mile from the mouth of Black River- a space comprising about one-third of the present county-was submerged, and. a mere bay on the west coast of Michigan; the Grand River then poured its floods into the lake not far from where Spoonville now stands.
Look again at the remarkable depression in the valley of tlie Black River, and consider that it would now take an obstruction in the Grand River below Jenisonville of but 15 feet to cause tliat stream to seek what was perhaps its ancient course, or at least the safety valve for a portion of its overflowing waters. What forces of nature have been ceaselessly working out happy homes on the far- famed fruit belt of Michigan; grain by grain it has been lifted out of
the sea by the ever-acting currents that play around the lake, bring- ing debris on the west coast of the lake southward and then gradual- ly eastward, and northward, piling the light drifting sand-pulverized rock-on the east coast, to be whirled into mountain sand banks by the prevailing west winds farther and farther into the land, until at last Ottawa County is completed. But no, the same forces are still at work and although slowly they are surely changing our western boundaries, and where the waves are now disporting will be the homes of men in the future. The effect of this formation is clearly seen and marked in the general contour of the county. The east and northeast is a fine rolling country thickly strewn with boulders, with considerable clay land mingled with gravel, and sandy loam, altogether forming a grand agricultural and grazing region, well watered and easily drained. The people are becoming wealthy, or at least in easy circumstances. They had their hardships in clearing up the dense growth of forest, chiefly hardwood, with here and there belts of pine. It is a pleasant sight to drive through the prosperous towns of Jamestown, Talmadge, Wright, Polkton or Ches_ ter. In the west especially of the line traced by Col. Ferry, all is changed. The soil seems a bed of sand covered with a thin vegeta- ble mould. There are no gravel or boulders to speak of, pine and hemlock prevail, with here and there hardwood, and in the lower portions tamarack, white ash and white cedar. The soil which was supposed to be worthless is found to produce fruit in profusion, so that the Fruit Belt of Michigan has secured a national reputation. As we shall endeavor to show further on as having been proved by ac- tual experience, these supposed sandy barrens may under proper treatment become the finest wheat and grass lands in the State. Gather up a handful of this sand and examine it; it is something more than mere sand; there is abundance of silica and other valua. ble vegetable food in it. Sow on it a crop of winter rye and the length and strength of the exuberant straw will prove the existence of the silica. Plow under the crop, plaster freely, seed thickly with clover, let this ripen and plow under, again seed, and one then has a soil which will produce of itself clover, and has sufficient vegetable mold to produce heavy crops of cereals and grasses. Com- ing down through the ages we find the soil fit for man, but until the last forty years, when "the heir of all the ages" the all-conquering Aryan appeared on the scene how little impress did man make upon nature. A mound here and there, a few arrowheads and fossil pot- tery scattered about, some small clearings or oak openings for the squaw to sow her corn on, all else, dense forest or miasmatic swamp given up to nature and her wild children, the devouring beasts of the field, or the ravenous birds of the air.
It is folly to say that the Indian has a "right" to keep any por- tion of the Great Father's heritage as a hunting ground, supporting but a handful, when his pale-faced brothers are ready and willing to come in and make it support multitudes, to make the waste places glad, and the desert to blossom as the rose. The earth was made for man to use, not as a hunting ground for savages, and they must either adopt the customs of civilization or perish. Such is the hard but just and inflexible law, the survival of the fittest.
ARCHÆOLOGICAL.
Without speculating at any length on the pre-historic races that have successively occupied the soil, there is undoubted evidence that the mound builders, that mysterious race of old, once swayed the re- gion of the Grand River valley. About three miles below Grand Rapids there exists a group of 17 mounds on the farm of Capt. Nor- ton, from 2 to 15} feet in diameter. The great age of these mounds is established by the fact that trees are growing upon them with 260 rings of growth, while at the base lie the remains of still older trees, which must have been giants when the former were saplings. Still
18
HISTORY OF OTTAWA COUNTY.
better evidence of their age may be found in the condition of the arti- cles they contain. Human bones are decomposed almost beyond recognition, copper is encrusted with a heavier coating of carbonate than that found at the depth of several feet in the heavy drift in the same neighborhood. Heavy marine shells are ready to fall into powder at the touch, while wood, bark, and all fabrics are entirely decomposed.
One single mound was removed some years ago to make way for the mill at Spoonville. It was a refuse heap of ashes, shells and fishbones, 15 feet high, 45 feet wide, and 100 feet long.
Louis Campau and Rix Robinson, the early Indian traders, wlio had the best means of knowing whereof they spoke, possessing as they did the confidence of the Aborigines, say that they uniformly declare that they do not know the origin of these mounds, but that they regarded them with reverence, and preferred to be buried near them.
The only remains these people have left are the mounds, which consist of the remains of what were apparently villages, altars, tem- ples, idols, cemeteries, monuments, camps, fortifications, pleasure grounds and the like. Their habitations must have been of wood or other perishable materials, otherwise their remains would be nu- merous. Who they were is an unsolvable problem. Some think they were an indigenous race; others, from coincidence in the religion of the Hindoos and Tartars and the supposed theology of the mound builders, think they are kindred races. They were doubtless idola- tors, and worshippers of the sun, as in every instance the mounds are always built with reference to the eastern position of the rising sun. Bodies are buried due east and west, and medals have been found representing the sun and its rays. Their works are such as might be erected by a people emerging from a hunting and fishing life. Their mounds are very numerous; along nearly every water course they can be found, covering the headlands and base points of bluffs which border the narrower villages, so that where the grand- est scenery exists, there the mounds are also in view. The mound builders were the pioneers of Michigan, and the first miners in the upper peninsula. None knew how they worked, but their remains excite astonishment. At Isle Royale the pits are 10 to 20 feet in diameter, from 20 to 60 feet deep, and are scattered throughout the island, following the richest veins of ore. Quantities of stone hammers and mauls weighing from 10 to 30 pounds have been found, as well as copper chisels, knives, and arrow heads, hardened by fire. Although one skilled miner could do the work of 100 mound builders with their rude appliances, yet at one point alone in Isle Royale the labor performed exceeds that done at one of the oldest modern mines operated by a large force for 30 years. Since these mines have been opened, forests have fallen and grown up, and to- day trees over 400 years old stand around them.
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