USA > Michigan > St Joseph County > History of St. Joseph County, Michigan; Volume I > Part 19
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COMFORT AND JOB TYLER.
Comfort Tyler was born in the town of Marcellus, Onondaga county, New York, on the 7th day of March, 1801, where he received
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a limited education in the common schools of the county and assisted his father in the business of farming, milling and carding wool and dressing cloth, until he was twenty-four years of age. Then he be- gan life for himself in the paternal line.
In the year 1833 he traveled through Michigan and northern In- diana and returned to Marcellus, and in the spring of 1834 moved with his family to the west, thinking to locate in Indiana; but on arriving at White Pigeon, those of the residents of St. Joseph county who had met him in the previous summer, were so favorably im- pressed with his bearing, they persuaded him to look further for a location in the county. On doing so he made his selection for a home in the southwest corner of the township of Colon, buying 333 acres on sections 19 and 31, with the intention of making further pur- chases on the Nottawa prairie when the Indian reservation should come into the market, but did not do so by reason of the particular tract he wanted being located by another party.
On this location on section 31 Mr. Tyler resided until his de- cease, bringing it from nature's dominion to the finely cultivated and productive fields of a thorough farmer. The people of the town- ship found in him an able guardian of their trusts, which they placed into his hands in the fullest measure. He was the super- visor of the township for twenty-five years, his last term ending in the year when his health would not permit of further service. He also represented St. Joseph county in the lower house of the general assembly in 1841, and in the upper house, as senator, in the year 1859, and was a member of the constitutional convention of 1867. In politics Mr. Tyler was originally a member of the Whig party, joining the Republican party at its organization, of which he re- mained a stanch advocate until his death. He united with the Methodist Episcopal church at Centerville in 1841, and was its re- cording-steward for twenty-five years, and died in its communion.
Mr. Tyler was broad in his views, and liberal and enterprising in schemes for the public good. Though not particularly to be bene- fited by his act, he nevertheless aided generously in the construction of the railroad through Colon, believing it to be of general value to the people of the township.
Rev. Job Tyler, a brother of Comfort Tyler, preached to all classes of people without distinction of religious views, though a Sabbatarian himself. He was much esteemed by the people of St. Joseph county, among whom he dwelt and followed his calling until 1851, when he died at San Diego on his way to California.
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ROADS AND BRIDGES.
In 1836 the first road through Colon township was laid out passing through the village and Centerville, and thence to Cold- water, Branch county. With the first two hundred dollars sub- scribed by individuals and their donations of work, the road was cut through, streams bridged, marshes causewayed, etc., to the town of Mattison, Branch county. The first bridge over the St. Joseph river in the township was known as the Farrand bridge and was completed in 1839-40. The Leland bridge was built in 1845; so that by that year means of communication were fairly established.
FIRST TOWN MEETING AND OFFICIALS.
The first town meeting was held in April, 1833, when Colon and Leonidas were one. Roswell Schellhous was elected super- visor and M. G. Shellhouse, clerk; the latter also was the justice of the peace, having been appointed by Governor Porter.
In April, 1834, George F. Schellhous was chosen supervisor, and served until 1836; M. G. Schellhous remained town clerk until 1835 and in the succeeding year was followed by F. A. Matthews; and M. W. Alford succeeded M. G. Schellhous as jus- tice of the peace in 1834, and held the position until the first election of that official in 1836. At that election Roswell Schell- hous, Charles Palmer, M. G. Schellhous and Abel Belote were chosen; but Belote did not qualify and Comfort Tyler was chosen in his place. This was the status of office holding, in 1836, when Colon township was finally severed from Leonidas and became a unit of the sixteen townships which now compose the county of St. Joseph.
BURR OAK TOWNSHIP.
In 1838 the state legislature granted Burr Oak and Fawn River townships independence from Sherman, leaving attached to the parent stem only the township of Sturgis (yet unborn). On the 6th of March, of that year, Randolph Manning, secretary of state, affixed his name to the act by which Burr Oak was erected into a separate township and its first official meeting ordered to be held at the house of Julius A. Thompson.
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As ordered, the meeting was convened at Mr. Thompson's house, April 2, 1838, and organized by electing Alvin Gates mod- erator, and James L. Bishop and Hiram Draper, clerks. The fol- lowing were then chosen to fill the several township offices : Super- visor, Marshall Livermore; clerk, James L. Bishop ; assessors, Alvin Gates, Daniel Weaver and Hiram Draper; commissioners of high- ways, Oliver Raymond, Hiram Draper and Daniel Weaver; super- visors of primary schools, Norman Allen, Oliver Raymond and Sid- ney Carpenter; constables, John S. Sickles, Sidney Carpenter and Norman Allen; collector, Norman Allen; directors of the poor, Cyrus Benedict and Phineas H. Sheldon; justices of the peace, Alvin Gates, Marshall Livermore, Hiram Draper and Oliver Ray- mond; fence viewers and pound masters, Julius A. Thompson, Warren Norton and Benjamin Stocking; overseers of highways, Josiah T. Livermore, Samuel Needham, Ervin K. Weaver, Nathan- iel Leavitt and Casper Reed.
On the 9th of May, 1838, the inspectors of primary schools organized the township into four districts.
The first road within the limits of Burr Oak township was ordered by the commissioners of highways, March 27, 1837, while the territory was still a part of Sherman township. It was four rods in width, ran from the line between sections 1 and 2 in an east-by-southerly direction and struck Big Swan creek in section 11. It was surveyed by Hiram Draper. At about the same time another road was laid out in sections 12 and 13, southeast of the former.
The father of Julius A. Thompson is credited with having taught the first school in what is now the township of Burr Oak, District No. 1. In 1838 Miss Sarah Washburn, afterward Mrs. Nathan Hackett, taught school in a new building, with a loose floor above and below, which was located a short distance east of the Thompson and Farley corners, in the same district.
FIRST FRAME RESIDENCE.
In 1833 Reuben Trussell settled on the road leading to Center- ville, in the following year erected the first frame residence in the township, in which he passed the remainder of his life. Va- rious members of the family also occupied the homestead for years afterward. The planting of the Trussell family at that lo- cality inaugurated the era of permanency in the history of Burr
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Oak township. Mr. Trussell purchased the lumber for his frame house at Dugg's saw-mill, located not far from where the Jona- than Holmes mill afterward stood, and it was rafted down Swan creek to a point on section 11, on the Houston land, whence it was taken by teams to the building site. At that time the best white-wood lumber commanded five dollars per thousand, and nails sold for thirteen cents per pound; since then, lumber has gone up and nails have decidedly dropped.
About 1834 Josiah and Marshall Livermore were among the new citizens of Burr Oak township; in 1835 came James C. Sto- well and Daniel and Henry. S. Weaver, father and son; James L. Bishop and Sidney Carpenter, in 1836, and Ervin K. Weaver in 1837. Besides those already mentioned, the foregoing were the leading citizens of the township at its organization in 1838.
HASLET AND SNOW.
The first settler within the present limits of Burr Oak town- ship is recognized as Samuel Haslet, who, with his family and a bachelor friend, George Miller, settled upon the land which was long known as the Elder Farley farm. In the year following his location, Mr. Haslet became the proud father of the first white child of the township. Mr. Haslet came from Snow prairie, Branch county, as did Mr. Snow who gave the prairie its name, in the year 1832; and of these two pioneers of the township, who seem to have been original in both senses of the word, the follow- ing description has come down from Hon. Wales Adams, an old- timer of Branch who knew the men intimately: "Haslet was an easy body, with whom the world in which he moved generally wagged well. His wife was the presiding genius, and the more positive character of the two.
"Snow was apparently forty or fifty years of age, and of a taciturn cast of mind. His figure was rather tall and spare. His sloping shoulders, compressed lips, and black evasive eye, gave him a repulsive appearance. He was from one of the New Eng- land states-had been married; but being a man of keen sensi- bilities and possessed of a fondness for variety, he became dis- gusted with the restraints and annoyances of conjugal life, abruptly left his family to the mercy of the world, and sought repose for himself amid the wilds of the west."
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A PAIR OF TURTLE DOVES.
The bachelor friend of the Haslets, Miller (full name, George Miller), noted as having moved into Burr Oak township as a mem- ber of their household in 1831, was a chubby, grizzly German of middle age; uneducated and, since he could remember, a dweller on the borders of civilization. Not long after his arrival, two bachelor brothers named Eldred came from Vermont, entered a quarter section near the Haslets, built a cabin, commenced to make improvements and then sent for a maiden sister to come on as their housekeeper. Miss Eldred, who had experienced per- haps forty years of industrious life, was plain almost to painful- ness-that is, as viewed by the average outsider. But such is the mystery of human love that Bachelor Miller and Maiden Eldred were strongly attracted, billed and cooed like a pair of turtle doves, and went into history, a few months after their meeting, as the first couple to be wedded in the township.
TOWNSHIP IN GENERAL.
Burr Oak township is of the regulation government size, four hundred of its acres being covered by the waters of its streams and small lakes. Big Swan creek enters from the east through section 12, flows northwestwardly across its northeast corner and makes its exit into Colon township from section 4. Prairie river comes into the township over the line of section 24, runs north- west north of the village of Burr Oak into section 9, then reverses its course to the southwest, and, after passing through Hog creek lake, turns abruptly to the north, and leaves the township through the western half of sections 18, 7 and 6.
The lakes of the township are as follows : Eberhard's, in sec- tion 4; Bryant's, section 5; Fish, section 19; Stewart's, section 32, and Adams', section 29.
Agriculturally considered, the soil of Burr Oak township is one of the most productive in the county. It derived its name from the remarkable beauty of its burr oak openings, no town- ship except Florence approaching it in this feature of the landscape.
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CHAPTER X. OLD FLOWERFIELD TOWNSHIP.
FIRST SETTLER, MICHAEL BEADLE-EARLY FLOWERFIELD AND HOW- ARDVILLE-REDUCED TO PRESENT AREA-APPROPRIATE NAME- FIRST ROAD AND NOTED TRAIL-FIRST TOWNSHIP OFFICERS- How LEONIDAS WAS NAMED-DESCRIPTION OF TOWNSHIP-IN- DIAN TRADER HATCH-PERMANENT SETTLERS OF 1831-THE COWEN MILLS-CAPTAIN LEVI WATKINS-FIRST HOTELS-HOR- TICULTURAL SPROUTINGS-SETTLERS OF 1834-40-FIRST TOWN MEETINGS - FACTORYVILLE - LEONIDAS VILLAGE - MENDON TOWNSHIP-FRANCOIS MOUTAN AND PATRICK MARANTETTE- VILLAGE OF MENDON FOUNDED-SETTLERS FROM 1833 TO 1837- OLD-TIME OFFICIALS-GENERAL PHYSICAL FEATURES-PARK TOWNSHIP-FIRST SETTLERS ALONG FISHER'S LAKE-FIRST TOWN MEETING-PARKVILLE AND MOORE PARK.
Originally, the township of Flowerfield contained the pres- ent townships of Leonidas, Mendon, Park and Flowerfield, or the four northern townships of St. Joseph county of today. When it was organized, with the county itself, in November, 1829, the only settlers in this large area were Michael Beadle and his family, who had lately occupied their claim in section 1, comprising the north half of the northeast quarter and the northwest quarter of that section. A part of this tract-the northwest quarter- was afterward included in the plat of Flowerfield village, which was laid out in 1833.
FIRST SETTLER MICHAEL BEADLE.
Mr. Beadle, who entered his land in June, 1830, soon after- ward built a log house-the first in the township-and in the succeeding year also erected its pioneer frame dwelling. In 1830, before the building of the frame house, Mr. Beadle's daughter,
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Matilda, had married Justin Clark; but the local chronicles are uncertain as to whether the "newly weds" occupied the log cabin or the frame residence.
In 1831 Michael Beadle erected a grist-mill on Rocky river, its single run of stone being made out of a natural boulder two or three feet in diameter. In the spring of the following year it passed into the hands of Challenge S. Wheeler, a settler of 1831. It was destroyed by fire, in the spring of 1832, but was rebuilt the same year and was operated steadily thereafter for two decades.
EARLY FLOWERFIELD AND HOWARDVILLE.
Mr. Wheeler thoroughly overhauled the mill, put in a new set of burrs, and in other ways proceeded to challenge the ad- miration of the pioneers for his energy and enterprise. He threw open his home to the first children of the township, about ten in number, who formed the pioneer school taught by Malvina Nich- ols, and in 1833 owned the site of the village of Flowerfield, which had been first entered by James Valentine three years previously. In the year named M. J. Nichols and Dr. David E. Brown sur- veyed the plat on section 1, and Mr. Wheeler became first post- master of the village. Mr. Nichols lived long in Flowerfield vil- lage to enjoy his deserved honors and popularity.
Further south than Flowerfield, nearer the center of the township, was founded the burg of Howardville, named after the mill owner, Franklin Howard. Its site was contained in the purchase of Robert Gill, who bought the land in 1832 on account of the excellent water-power afforded by the Rocky river at that point. Mr. Gill erected the first house thereon, in 1833, and com- menced the construction of a dam, but sold his property and his privileges to the Morse brothers who built a saw-mill during the same year. They conducted the mill until 1836, when Franklin Howard bought it and conducted it until his death in 1845. It was operated for many years, a grist mill and other industries were started, and Howardville promised to become quite a place until the early fifties, when it was certain that it would not be favored with railroad accommodations.
From 1856, which year marks the appointment of Chauncey Tinker as postmaster, until it almost disappeared even as a set- tlement, the place was generally known as Tinker Town.
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HISTORY OF ST. JOSEPH COUNTY
REDUCED TO PRESENT AREA.
In 1833 the township now known as Leonidas was set off from the original territory of Flowerfield, and, with Colon, con- stituted a separate civil division of the county, while Mendon was attached to Nottawa. When Park township was detached, in 1838, Flowerfield was reduced to its present territory-one gov- ernment township of thirty-six square miles, of which only about thirty-five acres is of water-surface.
The drainage of the township is chiefly effected by the Rocky river, which rises in the township of Penn, Cass county, runs east- wardly into Flowerfield, through its central sections, and joins the north branch in the southwest quarter of section 24; the latter tributary has its source in a small lake northwest of the former village of Flowerfield, and flows almost directly south through sections 1, 12, 13 and 24. A little creek also runs north through sections 35 and 36, and empties into the Rocky near the north line of the latter.
APPROPRIATE NAME.
The name of the township is almost self-explanatory. Every fall the Indians were accustomed to burn the brush and scrub timber, and in the spring such an abundance of wild flowers sprung up in this locality that the early surveyors gave the coun- try the name of Flowerfield, even before the township was erected. When the political body was formed, no other name was suggested.
Before the settlers commenced to clear the lands to any ex- tent, the southern and eastern portions of the present township consisted almost entirely of oak openings, and the northern and western, of timber lands. The central and southwestern parts are hilly, and in some places very stony ; balance of the township level and slightly undulating. The soil is generally of a good sandy loam, admirably adapted to both horticulture and agriculture.
FIRST ROAD AND NOTED TRAIL.
The first record of a surveyed road in Flowerfield township is dated April 17, 1834, its course being east and west, through the centers of sections 32, 33, 34, 35 and 36. The surveyor was a Mr. Briggs, assisted by M. John Nichols, and the road commis- sioners were Henry Garver, George Nichols and Robert Gill.
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Prior to the survey of this road, the old settlers used to drive through the clearings and over farms, picking their courses between streams and generally following the Indian trails which always led to the easiest fording places. One of the most trav- eled of these trails in Flowerfield township started at an Indian rendezvous that formerly existed in section 23, on Rocky run, and meandered along the valleys toward Three Rivers, carefully avoiding all the hills. From constant and long use it became a hard beaten path, on an average fifteen inches deep, and traces of it were plainly visible for fifty or sixty years after the settlement of the township.
FIRST TOWNSHIP OFFICERS.
The first justice of the peace of Flowerfield township was George Nichols, who was appointed by Governor Porter, under territorial laws, in 1832.
The first township meeting was held at the house and tavern of Joshua Barnum, April 1, 1833-the year when Leonidas and Mendon were carved from the original territory of Flowerfield. The result of the election was the choice of the following: C. S. Wheeler, supervisor; Joshua Barnum, clerk; Samuel Valentine, George Nichols and Abraham Vardemark, assessors; Ira Stowell and Henry Whited, overseers of the poor; William E. Gragg, collector; William Wheeler, M. John Nichols and C. L. Clewes, commissioners of highways; William E. Gragg, constable; Henry Garver, fence-viewer. At this time Assessor Vardemark was one of the proprietors of the first distillery erected in the township (on the site of the village). It was abandoned after a trial of several years.
Barnum's tavern, where this first township election was held, stood near the pioneer store which C. S. Wheeler had built in 1832.
The principal township officers, when Flowerfield attained its present stature in 1838, were as follows: Supervisor, C. S. Wheeler; clerk, Aaron H. Foote; justices of the peace, Isaac F. Ulrich, Stephen P. Choat, Aaron H. Foote, Henry R. Moore, Henry Whited and Samuel Corry.
How LEONIDAS WAS NAMED.
Leonidas township is in the extreme northeastern corner of St. Joseph county, and the various steps by which it assumed its
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present area are these: In 1829, at the first organization of the county, its territory formed a part of Flowerfield, which then embraced the four northern townships; in 1833 it was joined to Colon and formed one township under that name; and in 1836 it became independent of its southern neighbor, and was named Leonidas through a mistake made by a clerk of the territorial legislature.
Captain Levi Watkins, one of its earliest pioneers and most prominent citizens, desired to call the township Fort Pleasant, both from the fortification of the Mound Builders within its limits and as expressive of the charms of its landscape. Its first post- office, established in 1834, was so named, but when the meeting for the separate organization of the township was held the people could not accept that christening. After much discussion they agreed upon Leoni, and petitioned the legislature accordingly. At the same time, Jackson county, to the northeast, sent in a petition for a new township to be named Leonidas, and when the engrossing clerk copied the bill for the organization of the two townships he unintentionally substituted "Leonidas" for "Leoni." The law was printed, with the incorporated error, and the names have "stuck" to the present time.
DESCRIPTION OF TOWNSHIP.
Leonidas township is chiefly drained by the St. Joseph and the Nottawa rivers; the former enters from Sturgeon lake, Colon, and flows across its southwestern sections toward Mendon, while the Nottawa, in two branches, enters from the northeast, flows southwest, and is one stream from the northeast quarter of sec- tion 20 to its juncture with the St. Joseph in section 30. The Little Portage runs diagonally across the west half of section 6 into Mendon township, and a creek enters the township from the north in section 3, runs southerly and empties into the old Cowen mill-pond. There are only four bodies of water worthy of the name of lakes-Adams, Havens and Mud, in section 36 and Benedict's, in section 32, southern part of the township.
Leonidas contains the usual thirty-six square miles of a government township, or twenty-three thousand and forty acres, of which only about five hundred acres comprise the water sur- face. When the first settlers came into the country they esti- mated that there were also five hundred acres of prairie within
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the limits of the present township. The balance of the land sur- face was covered with white and burr-oak groves, of varied density, merging into heavily timbered lands in the northern part of the township. About one-half of its area was covered with a heavy growth of beech, maple, white-wood, ash, elm, walnut and hickory. The best of white-wood lumber was cut in the forests of Leonidas, and made into the "arks" which transported much of the freight and most of the flour in the early days before the coming of railroads. It was this, more than any other drainage, which almost swept the Leonidas lands of their timber.
FIRST SETTLER, INDIAN TRADER HATCH.
The first white man to settle within the limits of the township was Hatch, the widely known Indian trader, who came to the country in the spring of 1831, and located near the permanent village of the Nottawa-seepe Indians on the prairie south of the river. Later he married Marchee-o-noqua, sister of Maguago, one of the chiefs, but appears to have tired of her; at all events, he moved away, and the woman, who was a beauty of her tribe, afterward became the wife of Buel Holcomb, according to the custom of her people. She was converted to Christianity and tried to induce Holcomb to marry her according to the rites of her church. As he refused, she was divorced-or divorced her- self-and contracted a third marriage with one of her own race, and her descendants lived for many years in Athens, Calhoun county.
The locations of Hatch and Holcomb are considered but temporary and had no bearing on the establishment of civil and domestic institutions in Leonidas township. The first permanent and worthy settlers came in 1831.
PERMANENT SETTLERS OF 1831.
In May of that year George Mathews, with his wife and two children, settled on his land in section 32, on the banks of the St. Joseph river. The family came direct from New York city, where the parents even had been reared in comfort, if not luxury. Educated and cultured people of the old school, they had come into the timbered wilderness to carve out a new home. Mrs. Mathews was the first woman to locate in Leonidas township,
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and bravely supported her husband in all his unaccustomed un- dertakings. Their land was finally cleared and the courtly, but hard-working husband and father, died upon it in 1845; his wife survived him nearly thirty years; and no couple was ever more honored than Mr. and Mrs. George Mathews. Their daughter, who was born in the early summer of 1833, was the first native white child of the township.
A few days after their arrival in 1831, Alexander Foreman and his family of sons and daughters from Ohio also located their claim near by. Afterward the Foremans ran the ferry across the St. Joseph at this point, and it is said that the Buckeye girls were not behind their brothers or father in its management. Both the Mathews and Foreman families raised crops of corn in the fall after their arrival, and the next year harvested the first wheat.
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