USA > Michigan > St Joseph County > History of St. Joseph County, Michigan; Volume I > Part 28
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In the fall of 1834, Messrs. Moore and Prutzman packed their stock of goods and sent it to the mouth of the St. Joseph river, via New York, Buffalo and the Great Lakes. The partners them- selves followed (Mr. Moore being accompanied by his family), and after six weeks of hard travel they arrived (October 29, 1834) on the present site of the city -- at that time but a hamlet of half a dozen houses. In the meantime, the harbor of St. Joseph had been closed by ice and the necessary stock of goods did not arrive until the following spring. Mr. Prutzman, then unmarried, passed the winter in Prairie Ronde, Kalamazoo county, and in the spring the firm built a store at that point which they conducted for two years. They then moved permanently to Three Rivers. About 1838 the firm rented the Three Rivers flour mill and bought it the next year. They continued to operate it, in connection with
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their extensive shipping trade down the river, until 1859, when their partnership was dissolved.
In the meantime, Mr. Moore had become prominent in public affairs, having served as a member of the constitutional conven- tion of 1850, a regent of the University of Michigan and a state senator. In 1864 he helped to organize the First National Bank of Three Rivers, and was in every other way a leader in the financial and commercial progress of the city, which conclusively accounted for the influence which he wielded in bringing Three Rivers into complete railroad communication with the outside world.
In his more private associations, it may be said that Mr. Moore was a stanch Presbyterian, and in 1837, very soon after coming to Three Rivers, assisted in the organization of the first society of that denomination. He was an active leader therein for more than thirty-seven years. His death occurred August 29, 1876, two years after he had celebrated his golden wedding anniversary with the white-haired daughter of Joseph Prutzman. Although they had become the parents of but two children, it is to their everlasting credit that during their long and busy lives they gave happy homes to no less than fifteen orphaned boys and girls, ranging from two to twelve years of age. Mr. Moore's name is also recorded on the map of St. Joseph county, in the station on the line of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern road called Moore Park, in the southwestern portion of Park township.
HON. A. C. PRUTZMAN.
Much of the life of Hon. Abraham C. Prutzman has been sketched in the above biography of his old-time partner, Edward S. Moore. Mr. Prutzman was a Pennsylvanian of evident German de- scent and was trained from early boyhood in various mercantile lines. After the dissolution of his long partnership with Mr. Moore, he associated himself with his sons in various enterprises of a busi- ness and manufacturing nature. He retired from active business in 1867, having previously become somewhat known as a public man from his service of ten years on the State Board of Agri- culture and as a member of the Michigan senate, in which he rep- resented St. Joseph county for six years. In 1867, the sons men- tioned (J. E. and J. P. Prutzman) took over the business of the Three Rivers Manufacturing Company. In this they continued
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for a number of years, afterward building their large works on the Portage river conducted by the Michigan Pump Company and adding the manufacture of plows to their original business. The name of Prutzman for three-quarters of a century has therefore been identified with the industrial growth of Three Rivers. The senior Mr. Prutzman was also as much a leader in the promotion of religious and benevolent enterprises, as in the advancement of the business and industries of the place, his activities in this re- gard being chiefly associated with the Presbyterian church.
HOME-COMING PIONEER LITERATURE.
Three Rivers obtained its first railway about two years be- fore it became a city and the main facts in connection with its history up to this time have already been given. One of the most interesting events from a local historical standpoint occurred about fifty years after the incorporation of the city-namely, in August, 1906-when its citizens celebrated with great enthusiasm what has come to be known all over the country as "Home-com- ing Week." Upon this occasion, letters were read to the com- mittee who had the celebration in charge from many old settlers who had moved from Three Rivers to various parts of the country, and from some who still lived in the locality which had been their home from a half to three-quarters of a century. One of the most prolific contributors to the historical literature of this cele- bration was ex-mayor M. H. Bumphrey who wrote among other interesting sketches, the following biographies of George W. Buck, Arthur Silliman, Sylvester Troy and Allen Wescott.
GEORGE W. BUCK.
George W. Buck, a veteran of the Civil war, came to Three Rivers in 1830, with his parents, three brothers and one sister. He says: "I was very young, and my first remembrance is of our hotel and ferry, now near Mrs. Bucher's residence on Fourth street, Sec- ond ward. Father also had a ferry there across the St. Joseph river. I think the price was fifty cents for team and a large double wagon; twenty-five cents for single rigs and ten cents for foot pas- sengers.
"The ferry boat, as I recollect it, was fifty feet long and twenty feet wide, so as to accommodate two wagons side by side. It was
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towed across by rope, sometimes by hand, but generally with one horse. The road on the east bank came down direct from east, where the large willow tree now stands on Buck street, and con- nected on the west bank with a road that followed the highland, coming out near the present Three Rivers House.
"In time, as the country began to settle, there was a stage road running to Kalamazoo. We got our supplies from Mottville or Flowerfield. In the winter, if we could not go with horses, we could follow the river on foot or with canoes.
"The first regular burying ground was on Eighth street, Sec- ond ward, near Broadway. My father, a brother and a sister were buried there, but later removed to Riverside and I think there are bodies there yet which have not been removed.
"There were three camps of Indians near Three Rivers. They came to our house quite often. They would gather there, dance all night, and in the morning go about their business. We never locked the house. The Indians would come at night, stir up the fire, sit around, chat and smoke, and when they got ready to lie down, would say to me 'White pappoose go to bed,' then they would roll up in their blankets, lie down on the floor and at day- break be up and gone. They liked potatoes and pork, and were eager to exchange venison, maple sugar or berries for anything we raised."
ARTHUR SILLIMAN.
Arthur Silliman, one of the older pioneer residents, was born in White Deer Valley, Lycoming county, Pennsylvania, in 1831. In 1861 he married Mary E. Stoufer, who is also one of the pioneer settlers, coming with her father, William Stoufer, in 1846 from Co- lumbia county, Pennsylvania, and settling in Park township.
In 1847 Arthur Silliman's father, Alexander, with his family of eleven, accompanied by Edwin Carrier and John Foresman, came in wagons from Lycoming county to Michigan, stopping for a few months at Dorr Prairie, Indiana. Mr. Silliman says that when they arrived in Three Rivers they found quite a little settlement of houses in a fine timber land-oak, hickory, quaking aspen-and with very little underbrush. Game was very plentiful-deer, wild hogs, turkeys, geese, squirrel and quantities of wild pigeon.
In the early fifties the Silliman brothers-James and Samuel- established a pump factory in the Third ward, where the water works building now stands.
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Hibbs & Bannan were the general blacksmiths and Mr. Petit the wagon maker. Mr. Silliman learned blacksmithing of Boyer & White in 1849 and worked in Three Rivers at his trade in 1856; in 1857 he opened a shop where the Avery residence now stands on Portage avenue; then, as soon as his own building was completed, moved to the frame building which is now at the rear of the Cen- tral House, but at that time stood at the corner where the main part of the hotel now stands. Then it was the top of a high sandhill. A narrow road ran in front of the shop and the sandhill was after- ward graded down to widen the road into what is now St. Joe street ; though many loads of sand went into the mortar used in the Methodist Episcopal church and other brick buildings.
One of the oldest landmarks now remaining in Three Rivers is the old warehouse standing on the bank of the St. Joseph river between the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad bridge and the St. Joseph street bridge. It was owned by Moore and Prutz- man and many are the stories told concerning shipments of grain "arked" from this point.
Among the old Silliman papers is the record of 1848 ;- an ac- count with Moore and Prutzman for "arking" 1,100 bushels of wheat at fifteen cents per bushel, the wheat netting the growers fifty cents per bushel.
Mr. Silliman is a most enthusiastic Mason, having joined that order in 1859. Among the men then active in the lodge were Ezra Cole, Herman Cole, J. A. Kline, Sterling Harding, George Gillis- pie, Norman Hoisington, W. C. Brokaw, A. C. Thiel, Joe Hile, R. E. Case, T. M. Clark, David Bateman, Peter Bell, J. C. Morse, John Cowling, D. S. Mead, Peter Colver, Norman Cole, L. T. Wilcox, I. C. Bassett, W. M. Griffiths, Reed M. Boutwell, J. B. Handy, Dr. Sidney Herrick, Dr. Sill and many others.
SYLVESTER TROY.
Mr. Troy came to Michigan in 1835, from Erie county, Penn- sylvania, to Three Rivers. He says (so writes Mr. Bumphrey for the Home Coming) : "I came with father and mother-seven in our family-and we came through alone, and were about three weeks on the road. I was small, but I recollect something of it. There were but few houses here. I was seventeen years of age and came to learn the millwright trade with J. B. Millard. There were no worked roads except the Chicago turnpike and the stage road from Nottawa down through Florence. The others were just trails.
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"The first brick building was put up by Monroe H. Spencer & Co., and then James Kelsey built one just north of it. My brother, George, built the first shop in the Second ward, on what is now known as the Roberts & Throp company plant. He built it for a foundry, and first made plows there. The building is now torn down. I made the wooden beams for the plows. My brother George and I had the contract for building the first dam on the St. Joseph river in 1851. It took all summer to build it and the origi- nal foundation is there yet. It was built of logs, brush and dirt. We built it for parties in the east for whom J. B. Millard was agent."
ALLEN WESCOTT.
Allen Wescott, seventy-five years of age, who early in Civil war enlisted in Company G, Twenty-fifth Michigan Infantry, and who has resided in Three Rivers almost continually since coming in 1836, says: "We came from Onondaga County, New York, in 1836. There were four in my grandfather's family and seven in my father's. My grandfather came here in the spring of that year and located 160 acres of land on section 27, east of Three Rivers. He made the round trip on horseback alone.
We came overland in wagons through Canada, leaving New York in October, and crossing on a ferry boat at Detroit. There were two or three dozen people here, and only three houses and a gristmill in what is now known as First ward-two on the east side of St. Joseph street and one on the west side near where Null block now stands. The mill was on the site of the Emory mill. The houses in the First ward were frame. There were no roads-just trails-the trees being blazed, and no roads chopped out. Supplies usually came from Detroit by wagon, and at Cen- terville there was a little trading post.
There were neither schoolhouses nor churches, but schools and meetings held in private houses. There were a good many Indians, friendly and all right, except when intoxicated; plenty of game of all kinds, including bear, deer and turkeys."
Of the interesting and welcome letters which came from old pioneers who were residing in other states were the following from O. W. Richardson and J. C. Morse :
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THE RICHARDSON LETTER.
[To E. G. Tucker.]
"CHICAGO, DEC. 13, 1906-MY DEAR FRIEND :- I often think of the Royal good time I had at the Home-Coming Carnival at Three Rivers, week of August 20th. To you and the many other good friends there are due abundant thanks for your indefatigable energy and good judgment in organizing such a delightful coming together of friends of former years and of our childhood. Such friends seem a part of our very life.
"While I have traveled over a large part of the world, I have had no keener pleasure than while I was meeting the friends of my boyhood while there. I was delighted to find Three Rivers so much improved since I moved away from there forty-two years ago. Many of the charming big shade trees lining both sides of many of the streets were not planted then. There was no bridge across the Rocky in town above the dam, and only one bridge over the Portage; and the old red bridge, that an elephant broke through of P. T. Barnum's show once, was the only one ever over the St. Joe.
"Lockport was small, and Portage not thought of. The old strap rail line from Three Rivers to White Pigeon was the rail- road outlet to the outer world.
"The old curiosities displayed in the old Hatch house made me think of the common things in use then that we see so little of now-a-days. The doctors pulled our teeth with that tortuous instrument, the turnkeys (no dentists) and they bled the sick copiously. A coal stove was unknown there, but our houses were heated with large wood-stoves that would burn large knots of oak wood, and we thought it wonderful to have a stove keep fire all night. To light our houses we had fish-oil lamps, fluid lamps, and candles; kerosene was just being introduced at one dollar per gallon.
"The ladies wore large hoop skirts, made of old hoops, whale- bone, rattan, or old hoops sewed in skirts. The shaker bonnets were worn; the girls wore pantalets and the boys long pants. The men wore high collars and stocks, and Barndoor pants and home- knit stockings. Our beds of straw and feathers were put on ropes crossed and recrossed on the bed frames. We ate with knives and 2-tined steel forks. Our guns were flint lock and
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percussion cap. Our skates were all wooden tops. Our pride was to wear red top boots, with our pants tucked in them.
"Our carpets and rugs were made mostly of our old rags. Blacksmiths made their own horseshoe nails, and the round wire nails that we use now, almost entirely, were hardly ever seen. No bed-springs, no automobiles, or rubber-tired carriages, no tel- ephones, and still we were as happy as we were now.
"But I missed many of the boys and girls of my day. I hoped more of them that were yet alive would be there. For in- stance : John Prutzman, Tom Snyder, Maggie Prutzman, Cyrus Pierce, Charley Tucker, Will La Suer, Burt M. Hicks, Chas. Bassett, Colonel Hicks, Gus Flint, Addison Crossett, Darius Throp, Elizabeth Jones, Laura Hiles, Noame Gordon, Burt Chad- wick, Fletcher Bateman, Dan Eagery, Wm. Henry Payne, and many others I cannot recall just now. It always gives me great pleasure to meet old friends.
"I was impressed with the great crowd of young people that were on the streets evenings, and the thought that they had all been born since I lived there, and that another generation were doing the business of the place made me feel I was surely grow- ing old.
"I must not forget Mrs. Henry Hall, her sister and her son, took me to ride in their automobile to dear old Centerville. I could only find a very few of the old friends I left there forty years ago, but it was a very keen joy to meet them, and to go around over the old streets where I used to play, a bare-footed little boy. The old town has not changed very much, but it is well preserved. I did not get lost there as I did on some of the new streets in Three Rivers.
"The attractive locations to me, in both Three Rivers and Centerville, were where I went to school and to Sunday School; where I played ball and other games; where I learned to swim, and catch fish, skate, etc .; where the hard work was done in the garden and on the wood pile.
"My visit renewed my youth and boyhood, but now it seems like a pleasant dream. My mother, who is now eighty-two, was en- thusiastic over the pictures of our homes and the scenes around there, which I took, and the description of my most enjoyable visit. Three Rivers and Centerville shall always have a warm spot in my heart as long as it continues to beat.
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" 'Count myself in nothing else so happy as in a soul remembering my good friends.
-Shakespeare.
"With best wishes for a Happy New Year, I am, sincerely yours, ORLO W. RICHARDSON.
"P. S. I hope you will celebrate the centennial fifty years hence."
LETTER OF J. C. MORSE. [To E. G. Tucker.]
"TOLEDO, OHIO, AUG. 20, 1906-MY DEAR SIR :- Not being able to be with you at Home Coming, I beg pardon for sending you a few reminiscences of the last fifty years. Fifty years ago your railroad was of the strap rail, 'snake-head' variety. The box cars carried six tons, and very few cars eight tons, and woe to the agent who overlooked this capacity! Soon a very few ten-ton cars were added, and when Bush Rice could ship a thousand bushels by using three cars he was a happy man. Now you have a railroad second to none, and with a thousand bushels in a car shippers are not happy. Then Three Rivers was the largest wheat shipping station, save one, on the Michigan Southern Road. The same old freight house still serves for package freight. The old mill at the station has gone, as well as the men who owned and operated it.
"Three Rivers was a live town, but the men who made it are mostly gone. One man I have in mind who can show more marks of his handicraft at that time and since, is still living with you. This is James Milton. Mr. Milton is one of the men who, working for his daily bread, worked to make Three Rivers grow. Should any one doubt this let him take Mr. Milton by the hand and note the crooked fingers caused by using the jackplane.
"Among the carpenters and builders that made Three Rivers were Hiles, Salsig, Gillespie, Ferguson, Troy, Milton and others. There were others of mechanical pursuits, who worked to make Three Rivers what it is, and among them E. G. Tucker, who had a faculty of making things stick by using his trowel with cement or mortar. You still have with you the man who was well versed in making crooked things straight, in the person of Arthur Silliman, smithing the red hot iron.
"Some, at least, of our old-time merchants are still with you in business, among them my old-time friend, A. W. Snyder. His long
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business connection with your people is evidence that he has dealt honestly and that he is respected by your people. Another, who I understand has recently retired, is Frederick Frey. Another man who now lives in a near-by city and helped to make things hum, was J. W. French, in his spoke and handle factory and paper mills.
"Fifty years ago standing in front of the old Three Rivers house and looking south, what did you see? Ruts and holes; and teams hauling clay and gravel from the banks of Rocky river to make a passable road. Then we looked beyond the rivers south, and beheld nothing but a mass of tangled brush and mud. Fifty years ago the business was mostly conducted in small wooden buildings.
"Fifty years ago today the now beautiful Riverside cemetery was a piece of natural oak openings; today, a city of our dead. Friends of my early day are resting within its borders. Norman Andrews, Herman Cole and one or two others first conceived the idea of converting it into a burial place. Mr. Andrews, being a civil engineer, and taking great interest in this, worked all winter map- ping out this beautiful place. The first grave was occupied by a child of the late Isaac Crossett, the second by a child of the writer, and the third by a child of Wenoel Nowak. During my travels I have seen many places of like character, but among them I found none that brought to my heart more sacred memories than Riverside, in my old-time home, Three Rivers.
"God bless your 'home coming'; may it be all that you wish! Tell all my old friends in Three Rivers, or elsewhere, that I should certainly be with you, if possible.
"From your old-time friend,
"J. C. MORSE."
CORPORATION OF THREE RIVERS.
Three Rivers began its local existence as a village February 13, 1855, when it was incorporated by the Michigan legislature. Its first president was Philip Lantz, with George B. Reed as clerk and A. B. Moore, Thomas M. Clark, L. L. Herrick, Sylvester Troy and W. D. Petit as trustees. In 1871 the corporation limits were extended over Lockport (Second ward) and "Canada" (Third ward). Up to that time the presidents of the corporation had been the following :
Philip Lantz-1855-9.
Daniel Francisco-1859, 1861, 1864-1866, 1868-1870. Vol. I-21
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Thomas M. Clark-1860.
Stephen Kelsey-1862, 1869, 1874.
L. B. Rich-1863.
J. C. Morse-1867.
At the first city election held in the spring of 1896, Marvin H. Bumphrey was elected mayor; Fred J. McMurtree, clerk, and Arthur E. Howard, treasurer. Since that time the mayors of the municipality have been as follows :
1897-Lester B. Place.
1898-Cadalzo A. Dockstader.
1899-1900-Clarence A. Fellows.
1901-Willard W. French.
1902-John J. Foster.
1903-4-Arthur W. Scidmore.
1905-John J. Foster.
1906-Fred D. Merrill.
1907-Whitman E. Clark.
1908-Clarence A. Howard.
1909-Robert M. Hall.
1910-Arthur W. Scidmore.
The other officers now serving are: Stephen O. Black, clerk; Arthur E. Howard, treasurer; William H. Wilson, justice of the peace; Albert Oernst, constable.
PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM.
Three Rivers has a well organized public school system, with one high school building on Third avenue, and four ward schools to accommodate the various sections of the city. The First ward building is located on Main, the Second at the foot of Ninth street, the Third, corner of Douglas avenue and North street and the Fourth, corner of Wood avenue and Fourth street.
The oldest building is known as the old Union school on Main street, First ward. This was burned several times and the present structure was erected in 1890.
The first school house in Three Rivers was built in the fall of 1837, in the eastern part of the city opposite the residence long oc- cupied by John W. Hoffman. It was a small plank structure, 24 x 30 feet, and erected to accommodate the pupils in what was then district No. 1, old Buck's township. On the first of July, 1837, the school district was organized by electing Philip H. Hoffman as mod-
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erator, Joseph Sterling, director, and Thomas Millard, assessor. The school district then included sections 4 and 9 and those portions of sections 16, 17 and 18 lying north of the St. Joseph and east of the Rocky river. The school board voted $100 to build a school house and $5 was afterward appropriated for a library. It appears that at this time there were forty-six children in the district between the ages of five and seventeen. This little plank building served the purposes for which it was designed, at the locality mentioned, until 1840, when it was moved to the public square west of the school-house lot. It was subsequently sold and again moved, and was used for school purposes until 1851 when a brick building was erected.
ELLE
1
HIGH SCHOOL BUILDING, THREE RIVERS
The district adopted the Union system in September, 1859, and graded the school. Under the improved system, the first board of education was Dr. O. W. Richardson, S. P. Adam, D. Francisco, I. Crossett, John Cowling and J. C. Bassett. During the same year of the grading of the school, a substantial building was added to the brick school house completed in 1851. This was the old Union and high-school building in the First ward, which has already been men- tioned. Its first principal was W. H. Paine.
School district No. 4 had its school house in the Second ward of the city and was separately organized in September, 1855, by the election of the following: William Fulkerson, moderator; W. F. Arnold, director; Frederick O. White, assessor.
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The first building erected was a little frame school house 26 by 30 feet on the southwest corner of Mr. Arnold's farm, which was finished in the fall of 1855. In 1868 a convenient two-story build- ing was completed in Section 20 at a cost of $4,500. This school was first graded in 1869.
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