History of Shiawassee and Clinton counties, Michigan, Part 107

Author: Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia, D.W. Ensign & co.
Number of Pages: 716

USA > Michigan > Clinton County > History of Shiawassee and Clinton counties, Michigan > Part 107
USA > Michigan > Shiawassee County > History of Shiawassee and Clinton counties, Michigan > Part 107

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).

On the 25th of November, 1875, he married Miss Clara A., only child of Roswell Jones, Esq. To them two chil- dren have been born, viz., Lena, Feb. 28, 1878, who died March 30, 1878, and Grace L., Jan. 27, 1879.

In his political sentiments Mr. Creasinger is a Repub- liean, and although not a member of any religious denomi- nation, he is active and liberal in the support of all churches, having served ten years as Sabbath-school superintendent.

When it is stated that Mr. Solomon P'. Creasinger is the most prosperous man of his years in the county of Clinton, that his capital has been accumulated by his own unaided exertions, and that he enjoys the esteem and confidence of all who have the honor of his acquaintance, no more need or can be said.

O. F. PECK.

The gentleman whose name heads this sketch occupies a prominent position among the self-made, reliable, and re- speeted citizens of Clinton County. Born in Wayne Co., Mich., June 2, 1835, he is thoroughly Michigan in all his antecedents,-self-reliant, energetie, enterprising, and charitable to those in need and deserving. Ilis parents were Yankees. By them his character was moulded and habits formed. At the age of twenty-two he removed to Calhoun Co., Mich. After three years' stay there he went to New York State and learned the trade of a tinner, fol- lowing this occupation until 1864, when he returned to the place of his birth and worked at his trade about two years. In the fall of 1866 he engaged in the hardware business in Maple Rapids, and at this time carries on a large farm besides this hardware business. He has been largely inter- ested in the improvement and advancement of this village, having erected two of the finest residentes here. He has occupied several offices of trust : was township clerk five years, supervisor six years ; also Grand Reviewer for two years of the A. O. U. W. of Michigan, and during this time has paid out twenty-eight thousand dollars ($28,000) to its widows and orphans. Ile is also one of the directors of the llome Mutual Fire Insurance Company of Fonia, Clinton, and Montealm Counties.

Mr. Peck was united in marriage, May 8, 1864, with a daughter of David Hodges, Esq. For the past six years he has been a member of the Congregational Church. Politically, he affiliates with the Republicans.

NATIIAN R. LOWE.

The parents of Nathan R. Lowe were Cornelius and Phebe Roberts Lowe, who were both natives of New York State. He was the eldest of five children, and was born in Elmira, N. Y., Dee. 26, 1801. llis parents, who were farmers, resided at Big Flats, near the former city, and their son remained at home, engaging in the labors incident to farm life, until his marriage at the age of twenty-three to Miss Rachel Goble, whose parents were residents of the

NATHAN R. LOWE.

same locality. Four children were born to them, a son and three daughters. The birth of Phebe, the eldest, occurred in 1824, that of Sarah Ann in 1826; Joseph was born in 1827, and Mary in 1832. Of these children all but the eldest are still living. Mrs. Lowe died Jan. 24, 1852, in Duplain, and in December, 1853, Mr. Lowe was again mar- ried to Mrs. Sarah Seott, who was the mother of two chil- dren,-Robert C. Lowe, born Dec. 14, 1854, and Charles, Oct. 8, 1856. Mrs. Sarah Lowe died Sept. 8, 1863, and Jan. 28, 1864, Mr. Lowe was united to Mrs. Rachel F. Walker, who had two sons,-Ernest, born Feb. 14, 1865, and William S., whose birth occurred July 15, 1867.

In 1835, Mr. Lowe left his native State for the attractive soil of Michigan, and located in the township of Duplain, Clinton Co., where he purchased one hundred and sixty aeres of land, and additional land elsewhere. This was en- tirely uneleared, the country was devoid of roads, and a pilgrimage with oxen to Detroit was necessary to obtain supplies for family use. This estate was later disposed of, and another, partially improved, in the township of Essex purchased, upon which the family now reside.

The death of Mr. Lowe occurred Ang. 8, 1874. He represented his township as supervisor, though averse to the burden of official honors, and rarely ambitious for such dis- tinetions. He was modest in his tastes and eared little for publie life, his attention having been principally devoted to the labors incidental to farm-life. Both he and his wife were active members of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

458

HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

CHIAPTER LIX.

GREENBUSH TOWNSHIP .*

Settlements and Settlers - Township Organization -Civil List of Greenbush-Voters in 1844 and 1850 -- Old State Road-Schools- Town Roads-The Village of Eureka-Churches-Manufacturos- Secret Orders.

GREENBUSHI is the eighth township north in range 2 west. On the north it has Gratiot County, on the south the township of Bingham, on the east Duplain, and on the west Essex. It contains a village called Eureka, and has two post-offices. Besides the interest of agriculture, which is, of course, paramount, Greenbush has at least three quite important manufacturing enterprises, and is altogether a town of thrift and wealth. Although no rail- way traverses its territory, it has a popular highway known as the State road, over which, it is said, the village of St. Johns receives more travel than over any other two roads centering at that point. In the southern portion of the town there is a broad stretch of swamp which covers thou- sands of acres, and which, despite energetic efforts towards its reclamation, is likely to remain waste land for some time to come.

SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLERS.

Simultaneously with the earliest settlement of Duplain township by members of the Rochester Colony, Greenbush received its first settler in the person of John Ferdon, him- self a member of the Colony and a comer to the settlement with Oliver Bebee and Samuel Barker, in July, 1836. A detailed reference to the Colony settlement in the history of Duplain deals in extenso with the incidents of Ferdon's journey to Michigan with his fellow-pioneers and the inei- dents of his carlier pioneer experience. In this connection, however, it is appropriate to repeat the story of his locating his cabin upon the northeast corner of section 36 in Green- bush, just over the Duplain line, his landed possessions lying in both towns. And there, as the first white man resi - dent in that town, he abided a few years before passing for a permanent location into Duplain, where he lived until his death, at the age of eighty-six, upon the place now oc- cupied by his son Charles. Mr. Ferdon was famous in his day as a hunter of bears, and with Samuel Rowell, likewise a mighty Nimrod, worked from time to time sad havoc among the wild beasts of the forest. In the summer of 1847, Mr. Ferdon slaughtered no less than nine bears, as- sisted only by a elub and an old dog, and during that sum- mer was the conquering hero of a stubbornly-contested bear- fight, which was at the time something of a sensation. When he came to Michigan Mr. Ferdon brought a stock of goods he liad taken in Rochester on a debt, and having in his employ a good many hands engaged in clearing lands, of which he owned upwards of five hundred aeres, he dealt out supplies to his men from his Greenbush shanty, although he made no further effort at store-keeping after his stock was disposed of.

The next comer into Greenbush was Samuel Rowell, who in the spring of 1837 moved westward with Stephen Pearl.

Pearl settled in Ovid, and Rowell, after remaining a short time with Allen Lounsbury in Ovid, bought thirty acres on section 36 of John Ferdon, and moved to the place with- out delay. There he lived uutil his death in 1876, where his sou Stephen lives and carries on the foundry started by his father in 1850.

In the fall of 1838, David Richmond and Thomas Fisk, of Stafford, N. Y., visited Michigan for the purpose of lo- eating lands for themselves and others living in the same town. About all the desirable spots available they found in the hands of speculators, and determined to secure lands from first hands, they eventually discovered what they wanted in the town now called Greenbush, upon sections 22, 23, and 27. The traet was hedged in on three sides with swamps, and for that reason doubtless had been neglected by speculators, but it suited Fisk and Richmond, and so, having secured it, they went back to Stafford to report pro- gress. Their report proving satisfactory, it was decided that Thomas Fisk with others should start at once for the place of proposed settlement, to prepare habitations for the families of all concerned. Accordingly, Fisk set out in April, 1839, accompanied by G. W. Reed, Ilenry Fisk, Ora B. Stiles, and James Stiles, Jr. They traveled by ox- team by way of Canada, and arriving upon the ground set at once diligently to the task of getting up cabins. Work, however, as fast as they could, they found the job a slow one, and before they had got up one cabin along came the families of David Sevy, W. N. Daggett, James Stiles, and Thomas Fisk. They had come together via the lake to Detroit, and thence by teams over the Grand River road to Leach's, near Laingsburg. At that point they strnek north- ward over the path earlier marked by the Colony pioneers, and landed at John Ferdon's about the middle of May, 1839, after a four days' trip from Detroit. The night be- fore their arrival was spent at Henry Leach's, in Sciota. Leach kept a house of entertainment, and upon a tree in front of his shanty had nailed a board bearing in rude let- ters the legend, " Call and C."

A few days subsequent to the arrival of the families, two settlers named David and Alvah Richmond, with their fami- lies, came upon the ground, and completed the little colony for whose members Fisk and Richmond had made the land locations in 1838.

All hands had, it is true, reached Ferdon's, only a couple of miles or so from their prospective homes, but the better part of that two miles or more lay through a veritable " Dismal Swamp," and it will be hereafter seen that to over- come the obstacle presented by that swamp gave them well- nigh as much trouble as did the journey from Detroit to Ferdon's. It was possible to eross it afoot, but as for trav- ersing it with teams it was simply out of the question, and the hardy band therefore faced with heroic determination the conviction that they would have to carry afoot over a mile and a half of swamp everything they intended to take to their homes. From Ferdon's westward for the distance of a mile they ent out a road, and passed over it with their loaded wagons well enough, but at the end of the mile the swamp begau, and there they therefore unloaded their goods and carried them, as best they could, about a mile and a half from the southeast corner of section 26 to the north-

* By David Schwartz.

459

GREENBUSH TOWNSHIP.

west corner of the same section, where they found dry land.

That swamp journey was a memorable and a difficult one. Even under the most favorable circumstances it would have been no casy task, but when undertaken with heavy loads of furniture, stoves, and what not to impede the movements of the toilers, who were compelled to wade through mire and cross narrow log footways to avoid total immersion, the troubles that marked the passage may be slightly understood. The goods thus transferred included general supplies and household goods, of which latter four cook-stoves formed no small clement. For carrying his cook-stove over David Sevy paid the carriers one day's labor, and the same price for transporting a bureau, which he still preserves as a portion of his household furniture at his home in Greenbush.

As already mentioned, the families arrived before Thomas Fisk and his companions had fairly completed one cabin, but into it a majority of the new-comers moved after a few days' stay at Ferdon's, and although the quarters were close, the best was made of the matter, albeit that best was very bad. Ferdon kept as many as he could, but those who crowded into Fisk's cabin filled it to the door. The cabin measured ten by twelve, and with two beds in it left just room enough for a single file of lodgers, and wheu at night the household slept the beds and lodgers upon the floor took up every available inch of space. There was not room in the house for a table, and so they ate in the open air at a table made of a plank laid across two upright crotched sticks. The kitchen was the open air, and the kitchen-fire a log heap against a stump. After that fashion they man- aged to struggle along until each family got up a cabin and passing time introduced some of the comforts and con- venicnces of civilization.

Of course cabins were built as fast as hands could work, . and between cabin-building, chopping, transferring their goods across the swamp, and putting in crops the pioncers were during their first summer put to their busiest efforts. They could not stop to do any clearing, for they were too anxious to sow what would produce food, and thus their clearing during that summer was just what sufficed to give places for their cabins. Settled at last in their own homes by midsummer, the families were distributed in close prox- imity,-Alvah Richmond, James Stiles, and W. N. Dag- gett on section 22, David Sevy and Thomas Fisk on sec- tion 23, and David Richmond on scetion 27. Meanwhile they were still getting their goods over the swamp, and be- fore they finished that job the season had advanced to the latter part of August. It is worthy of remark that David Sevy carried a barrel of pork over the swamp single-handed. He accomplished the feat by transporting the pork in pails, and then the empty barrel. The Richmonds owned the only two pairs of horses boasted by the little band, and Thomas Fisk the only team of oxen. The horse-teams were engaged in hauling the goods of the settlers from De- troit to the edge of the swamp until August, and then driven into the settlement by way of Essex as the only available route, and thus to get around a swamp which measured but one mile and a half across they had to make a trip of twenty-two miles.

Important among their first efforts after getting settled was the work of making roads, and especially a road across the swamp towards the Colony. This swamp road, however, they made but a foot-path, and in that shape at least they found it a decent thoroughfare, and over which they man- aged to bring without much trouble such things as they needed from time to time. In the winter season, when the carth was frozen, they crossed the swamp with teams, much to their convenience. The first highway they cut out after their arrival was one running westward from the southeast- ern corner of section 22 to what is now Coleman's, a dis- tance of two miles.

Luckily they found upon their arrival that John Ferdon was abundantly supplied with potatoes, aud upon them they feasted in the absence of something better. Their first milling was done at Ionia, and for their first grist they bought wheat of Benedict, of Essex. David Sevy made the first trip to mill, accompanied by an Indian whom he hired to manage the canoe. The trip was made via the Maple River, starting at Maple Rapids, and occupied three days. Alvah Richmond went to the mill at Eaton Rapids, in the fall of 1839 by ux-team. When Sevy made his second mill trip by river, John Ferdon agreed to accompany him and manage the canoe. Sevy was doubtful of Fer- don's ability to do it, but the latter derided the doubt, and declared that as he had all his life been used to the man- agement of skiffs, it would be queer iudeed if he couldn't handle a canoc. As it turned out he found that there was a vast difference between handling a canoe and managing a skiff, and before half the journey was accomplished con- fessed that he knew but little about the canoe business. Although they did not capsize they came several times within an ace of doing so, and had altogether a hazardous and wearisome experience. While on the return voyage, worn out and ready to give up in despair, they hailed an Indian and tried to hire him to paddle them homeward, but the savage absolutely declined to help them unless they would pay him in whisky, and, as of whisky they had not a drop, they were compelled to press on as best they could. They finished the journey in the course of events, but in such an exhausted condition that they were laid up for two or three days afterwards. On another occasion Sevy engaged John and Horace Avery to go down the river to mill for him with eighteen bushels of wheat. The Averys reached Ionia all right, and started back with the flour, but en route their craft capsized, and the cargo descended to the bottom of the river. The flour was recovered, but only a very little of it was found to be available for use.

The first birth in the settlement occurred May 29, 1840, when Willard, son of W. N. Daggett, was born. He is now living in Missouri. The first wedding was that of Truman Watson and Esther, daughter to Sylvester Carter. Squire John Ferdon performed the ceremony at his house, which was then the home of the bride as well as of her father. The second wedding occurred in 1841, at the house of David Sevy, who, as justice of the peace, married Erastus Tinkel- paugh and Orpha Fisk. The first death was that of Miranda, the one-year old daughter of David Sevy. She died Oet. 10, 1839. The first adult person to die was Alfred Dane,

460

HISTORY OF CLINTON COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

who was buried on Thomas Fisk's place. There was, how- ever, no public burial-place until after the death of Celestia F. Sevy, Feb. 26, 1847. At that time a cemetery was laid out upon David Sevy's place, in section 23, and in the in- elosure Sevy's daughter was the first to be buried. A school was taught in the summer of 1840, and Thomas Fisk being an ordained minister of the Christian faith, publie worship was introdneed as soon as the settlements were made. David Sevy was by trade a cabinet-maker, and having brought a turning-lathe with him, lost no time in setting up a small shop, in which he carried on for many years thereafter the manufacture of chairs, tables, ete., which as fast as made he carried to De Witt and other places and exchanged for wheat and various supplies. There was no blacksmith in the community for years after its creation, and when a blacksmith's services became necessary a journey to De Witt was imperative to seenre them. A post-office was established at David Richmond's in 1843, before which date mail was got at Owosso or Laingsburg. Postage in those days was twenty-five cents per letter, and as it was almost impossible to sell produce for anything but trade short of' Detroit, the sum of' twenty-five cents in hard cash was of some consequence and not always at hand. Mr. David Sevy got word one day that a letter awaited him at the Laingsburg post-office, and collecting the required twenty-five eents-not without an effort-he went over. When he got there he found that instead of one there were three letters, but, alas ! he had only the simple twenty-five eents to pay for one. Letters were valuable prizes, how- ever, if they did cost twenty-five cents each, and, determined to have the entire batch, Sevy scoured the community at Laingsburg for the loan of fifty eents, and luckily obtaining it he got his letters and bore them homeward in triumph.

The construction of roads was pushed forward with zeal- ous industry, and as other settlers eame highways were opened rapidly, and travel rendered a comfortable con- venience instead of a dread. Road-bees were the favorite methods by which roads were made, and as at these bees about all the inhabitants gathered for work upon a stated day of each week, the business in hand was pushed on with celerity. The first grist carried over to the Colony mill from the settlement was a bushel of wheat which Henry Fisk packed on his back and Ingged afoot across the swamp. Lyman Richmond is supposed to have built the first framed house, Thomas Fisk to have raised the first erop of wheat, and the first orchards to have been set ont by David Sevy and John I. Tinkelpaugh, the latter of whom got his trees at an Indian nursery at Chesaning and carried them home on his back.

Thomas Fisk has already been alluded to as a minister, and for some years preached regularly here and there, pre- sumably to good purpose. By and by, however, reports began to spread that Fisk was falling into worldly immoral- ities, and the tide of popular prejudice and suspicion soon set in so strongly against him that he was openly charged with the grossest wickedness. Public indignation broke ont presently in a violent form, and those in whom it was felt the strongest banded for the common cause and set ont to harass and persecute Fisk by divers and sundry midnight

raids upon his premises,-burning his haystacks, threaten- ing him with death, destroying his stock and other property, and resorting, in short, to such efforts as they could think of to show the disfavor under which he rested. His per- seentors were known as the Swamp Guard, and at times as the Swamp Angels, and so persistently did they pursue Fisk with vindictive persecution that he was eventually com- pelled to leave the town and seek a residence elsewhere.

Before dismissing the history of the settlement of the six families mentioned, it will be of interest to note that of the heads of those six families three still live,-David Richmond, in Kent County ; W. N. Daggett and David Sperry, in Greenbush.

The ensuing autumn saw additions to the immediate set- tlement, in Nathan Spooner, Truman Watson, and Moses Phillips. At the same time John and Horace Avery, Herod and Runa Morton, and Marvin Greenwood located in the southwestern corner of the town, while Edwin Hol- brook made a settlement near Samnel Rowell's, on seetion 36. John I. Tinkelpaugh settled in the fall of 1840 near the site of the village of Eureka, and in 1841 Joseph Rus- sell, one of the early settlers in Bingham, came to Green- bush and settled at what is known as McMaster's Corners. When Russell located there his was the only house between the Sevy settlement and Benediet's Plains in Essex. His son William joined him in 1842, and his son James in 1843.

Joseph Russell fell a vietim in the year 1852 to a sad calamity, in which he was slain by his son Nathaniel. The boy had been ont on a hunting expedition, and having had bad luck thought upon his return to amuse himself by firing at a mark placed upon a shingle shanty. Unknown to Nathaniel, his father was at work in the shanty, and being within range of the first shot fired, which passed through a crack in the building, received it in his brain and expired almost instantly.

The following list embraces the names of the resident tax-payers of Greenbush in the years 1840 and 1841 :

1840.

Acres.

John Ferdon, sections 25, 8, 31, 36

370

S. Rowell, section 36.

G. W. Reed, section 27 SO

D. Richmond, section 27.

160

T. Fisk, section 23 80

H. S. Fisk, section 23 40

David Sevy, section 23

James Stiles, sections 21, 22

160

A. Richmond, section 22

200

T. Watson, section 23.

W. N. Daggett, section 22

J. Stanley, Jr., section 33

160

J. Stanley, section 32.

S. Stanley, section 32.

D. Allison, sections 31, 32. 160

J. Avery, section 33 40

140

R. Morton, section 31

II. Avery, section 31. 80

M. Phillips, section 20.

IS41.

David Sevy, section 23. 40

Joseph Russell, section 5 ..

100

T. Watson, section 23 SO

E. Tinkelpaugh, section 10. 80

W. N. Daggett, section 22 40

A. Richmond, section 22 200

M. Greenwood, seetion 31

461

GREENBUSH TOWNSHIP.

Acres.

M. Phillips, section 21 210

J. I. Tinkelpaugh, section 11 .....

H. S. Fisk, section 23 120

T. Fisk, section 23. 120

J. Ferdon, sections 31, 30, 25, 8. 370

J. M. Rowetl, section 36. 30

J. D. Richmond, section 27 160

G. W. Reed, section 27 80

M. Greenwood, section 31. 132

Runa Morton, section 31.

Herod Morton, section 3I 40

Horace Avery, seetions 31, 32 SO

N. W. Aldrich, section 30. 40

John Avery, section 33 40

In February, 1849, George Wagner, John Wagner, Henry Wagner, James Sargent, Nathan Kirby, Gilbert Owen, William Owen, Aaron Smith, and Caspar Wagner, of Knox Co., Ohio, and H. A. Smith, of Morrow Co., Ohio, set out for Michigan to locate land on Mexican war land-warrants, of which all save George Wagner had be- come possessed by purchase, Wagner alone having served in the Mexican war. The party numbered ten, and all but three (who had horses) made the journey of three hun- dred miles each way afoot. All except Aaron Smith bought lands in Greenbush and made settlements thereon, Smith making his location in Essex. H. A. Smith says the hardest day's work he ever accomplished was the day's work required for him to walk to Ionia for the purpose of entering his land. He says he walked all day through the roughest, wildest kind of a country, saw no human being, saw no track, and crossed but one trail during the entire journey.

Henry A. Smith's remarkable adventure with a bear in October, 1856 (remembered as the smoky fall), is within the general knowledge of the local populace as a historical incident of much importance, and will therefore bear repe- tition here.

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History of Shiawassee and Clinton counties, Michigan, Part 107

Author: Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885 Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Philadelphia, D.W. Ensign & co. Number of Pages: 716

Author: Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Philadelphia, D.W. Ensign & co.
Number of Pages: 716