USA > Michigan > St Joseph County > History of St. Joseph county, Michigan, with illustrations descriptive of its scenery, palatial residences, public buildings, fine blocks, and important manufactories > Part 33
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stitutes his present home. In April, 1853, he was married to Miss Caroline Voorhees, daughter of Christopher Voorhees. November 26, 1854, their only child, Ada A., was born. Mr. Nash has filled various positions of trust and honor in the town, with credit to himself and general satisfaction to his constituents,-has served as justice of the peace, supervisor of the town, and chairman of said board. In politics Mr. Nash affiliates with the Democratic party ; and in religion his sympathies are with the Disciple church.
NOTTAWA.
Nottawa-seepe, "a prairie by a river," was the Indian cognomen given to the prairie partially included in the limits of the present township of Not- tawa, Colon, Mendon and Leonidas-the little stream being called, by the dusky dwellers along its banks, by the same term. The prairie was irreg- ularly shaped; points of wood-land jutting out like capes into the sea, at some points entirely cut off, and thus forming islands. At one point the opposing wood-lands-oak openings-would almost meet, as it were reaching out their sinewy hands to throttle the wavy sinuous plain, devoid of forest growth, but luxuriating in the richest grasses, and adorned with the most beautiful flowers. Again the forest would retreat on either side, and the waving grass would sweep to the right and left, until its billowy outlines were. miles in extent, and then the oaks would gather steadily for a grand charge on either flank, and the plain would recoil under the shock until but a narrow pass was left between the monarchs of a thousand years and the survivors of tempest and fire for nearly as long.
Such was the outline Nottawa prairie presented to the eyes of John W. Fletcher, Captain Moses Allen and George Hubbard, as, in the summer of 1826, they followed the trail of Black Hawk and his fierce Sac warriors on their annual pilgrimage to Malden, and made the tour of southwestern Michigan in search of a place to build homes for future families to rest in. Theirs were the first views of this prairie vouchsafed to a white man, in whose breast arose a feeling that there he would make his home; there he would build a roof-tree, and gather around him a family in time to come. But one of this trio ever executed his then formed design, and realized his aspirations.
AREA.
Nottawa is a full government township, known and designated on the pub- lic surveys as township six, south of range ten west, principal meridian, and its area contains twenty-three thousand two hundred and thirty-eight acres, three hundred and eighty of which are water surface. Two thousand six hundred acres of the original prairie are included in the present bounds of the township, the rest of the acreage being covered with oak openings prin- cipally, the bottoms along the creek and the St. Joseph being covered with heavy timber of various kinds, common to the county.
TOPOGRAPHY.
The surface is generally level, undulating, more or less, in some portions of the openings. The soil is of the general characteristics of that of the whole county, and in the southern and western parts of the township there is a considerable deposit of bowlder-stone, which are of great use for building purposes.
DRAINAGE.
The township is watered and drained by the St. Joseph river, which crosses the northwest corner of the township diagonally, through sections five and six. Hog creek, or Prairie river, enters the township from the south, on the southeast quarter of the southwest quarter of section thirty-six ; runs northerly into the southeast quarter of section twenty-six, and thence west and south, passing out on the southeast quarter of the southwest quar- ter of section thirty-four, and re-entering on the southeast quarter of the southwest quarter of section thirty-three, and, running northwesterly, makes
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HISTORY OF ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
its final exit from the township on southwest quarter of section nineteen. Evans' lake on the southwest quarter of section twenty-one, and Sand lake on the southeast quarter of section twenty-seven, are the principal lakes, though a little one on section thirty-four rejoices in the highly-perfumed name of Skunk lake. A little creek comes into the township on section thirteen, which rises in Colon, and runs through the centre of the township, west, and enters Hog creek near the centre of section nineteen.
FIRST SETTLERS.
The first white man to select a location for a home on Nottawa prairie, was Judge William Connor, still a worthy and honored resident of the township, whither he came forty-eight years ago, in the freshness and elas- ticity of early manhood, to hew out for himself and those who should follow, a home amid the oak parks and flowery lawns designed and wrought by that deft landscape gardener-Nature. He came to the prairie in May, 1829, and, against the protests of the Indians,-who claimed all of Nottawa prairie, arguing that the line of their reservation, as drawn upon the sur- veys as the southern limit of the same, was in fact the centre line of the reservation,-made his selection and returned to Monroe to enter the same; after which he remained at Ypsilanti and taught school one term-return- ing to his location and settling thereon permanently, September 1, 1829. Other parties followed Judge Connor in looking for locations, among them Judge John Sturgis, who had, in 1827, made a settlement on Sturgis prairie, but having sold the same, came to Nottawa and made a new location on sec- tion four, against the same earnest and angry protests of the Indians that were made to Connor. Judge Sturgis tried to show them that their line was not so far south as his location ; failing in which, he persuaded them to go to Lima or Mon-go-qui-nong prairie, as it was then known, and lay the matter before a friend of theirs-a white man-in whom they reposed the utmost confidence; agreeing, if he should say the line of the reservation included his location, he would at once abandon it. They repaired at once to the referee, who showed them, by the terms of the treaty, that the surveyed line of the reservation was correctly drawn, and the Indi- ans withdrew their claims for the land south of it, but ever strongly insisted that the government, by its agents, over-reached their chiefs in the treaty, and took from them the best of what they meant to reserve. Mr. Sturgis came to his location in August, a few days before Judge Connor arrived upon his.
THE FIRST LAND-ENTRIES
made in Nottowa township, then unnamed and unorganized, were the fol- lowing : June 12, 1829, the northeast quarter of section four, by John Sturgis ; the west half of the southeast quarter of section ten, and the west half of the northeast quarter of section fifteen, Henry Powers; the west half of the southwest quarter of section ten, Henry Post ; the east half of the southwest quarter and the east half of the northwest quarter, December 15th, Russell Post ; the west half of the northwest quarter of section fifteen, William Connor. On August 28, 1829, John W. Fletcher came again to his first selection in 1826, and secured the west half of the northeast quarter and the west half of the southeast quarter of section seventeen ; and, on the 10th of October following, William Hazzard entered the other half of the same quarter sections, which were the only entries made that year.
THE FIRST HOUSE
in the township, or on the prairie, was a log cabin erected by John Sturgis, on his location, section four, in August, 1829, and which is still standing on the original site, but fast sinking in the embrace of mother earth, from whose loving breast it came forty-eight years ago.
Other cabins soon followed the Sturgis house; Mr. Fletcher returning in October, and putting up one and securing some marsh hay, and then returning to Wayne county, Michigan, whence he came, and taking his father's family (himself being an unmarried man), consisting of father. mother and two sisters, and their houshold goods, into a wagon drawn by oxen, in company with William Hazzard and his family and Hiram A. Hecox and family, similarly transported, made their way through the forest, following the Chi- cago trail, as before, to White Pigeon, and thence to the cabin on section seventeen, at which they arrived on the evening of Christmas, 1829. The party drove their cattle and hogs through, and had a rough journey. The weather was cold and bad, the streams difficult to ford, and eighteen days were consumed in making the trip from Brownstown. This cabin, which was a duplicate of the early ones, was built by Mr. Fletcher in October, he having come to make his selection about the 1st of August; after entering it, he procured a yoke of oxen and a wagon, and returned in October, rolled up the logs, covered it with a "shake" roof, and floored it with "punch-
-
eons." It was a good house for those days. Mr. Powers built a cabin the following winter, but a Mr. Lane, Judge Connor, Judge Sturgis and Mr. Fletcher, were the only ones to get into their own cabins in 1829. Connor's first cabin was rolled up on Spring creek, east of the present road, on the north and south line of section sixteen. Amos Howe made his selection of a location in 1829, but did not occupy it with his family until 1830.
Among other early settlers were Dr. McMillan and his family, who came late in the year 1829, living all winter in their wagons. The good old Doctor took his time to build his house, as to his precise, mechanical eye, the slightest deviation from a right line to the cardinal points of a compass, would have been a perpetual annoyance to him. Connor's cabin had a hole cut in it for ingress and egress, and the door to close the aperture was made when time and money were less pressing. Benjamin Sherman, Jonathan Engle, Sr. and Jr., George W. Dille, John Foreman, Glover Laird Gardner, Hiram Gates and Henry Powers, came in the spring or early part of 1830. Russell and Henry Post, John and Samuel Cuddy, Samuel McKee, James and Adney Hecox came to the prairie in 1829, during the fall; most of them were from Smooth Rock, Michigan, Judge Connor's former school district, but originally from the Eastern States.
The trials of these pioneers were the same, in kind, as those described else- where in the general history of the pioneers of the county, and a rehearsal of them here would be but a recapitulation of what has already been told. Suffice it then to say, that the privations which befell them, the sor- rows and afflictions which at times encompassed their pathways, were as bravely, unflinchingly and cheerfully borne by them as by any of their fellow-pioneers in the county elsewhere. Their charities and works of mercy for their fellows were no whit behind the most charitable; and their record of kindness and sympathy in times of distress is colored by the same radiance of love and brotherly affection that casts its halo around and over all of these unselfish and helpful men and women of "auld lang syne." Mrs. Fletcher's deed of mercy to the Cowens is preserved in the general history of the county.
THE FIRST FARMS
were opened in 1830, simultaneously by the above-named settlers of 1829, and early comers of 1830, no one having a pre-eminence in that direction. Nottawa was an exception to every other township in the county, by receiv- ing a colony instead of a single settler in the beginning. The seeding for the first crop was brought in from other points,-Mr. Fletcher getting his oats and potatoes from Allen's prairie, now in Branch county, in the manner described in the history of the navigation of the St. Joseph river. Corn, potatoes, and oats were grown and harvested in 1830, and wheat sown in the fall of that year and harvested the year following.
FIRST ORCHARD.
Mr. Fletcher brought thirteen hundred small apple-trees, currant and grape cuttings in the fall of 1829, from Wayne county, and preserved them during the winter by putting them in a beehive, which was buried in the earth ; in the spring of 1830 he transplanted them into a nursery. Benjamin Sherman brought in larger apple-trees in the spring of 1830, from Ohio, when he came, and set them out, which bore the first fruit grown on the prairie, which is now noted for its fine orchards and their productions. Judge Connor and H. A. Hecox planted their orchards the same year.
EARLY CROPS.
A fact, which is as yet unexplained, is stated by Judge Connor and borne out by the records, that up to 1844 smut in wheat was a terrible pest, but it then disappeared from that cereal and has never since re-appeared.
The theory that cutting off the timber affects the rain-fall of a given district does not appear to hold good in St. Joseph, as the old settlers say when they first came to the county it was drier than it has been since. The greatest snow-falls since the first settlement were those of the winters of 1831-32-33. The sickly season of 1837-38 was preceded by a series of wet, cold ones, the two named being excessively hot and dry.
In June, 1835, a frost killed the crops to the ground, and it was three or four weeks before suckers re-formed. The early wheat was destroyed, the later sown escaping, and the next year the price of wheat was very high. Judge Connor had ninety acres of the latter sown, and did not save enough from the frost to live on.
THE FIRST FRAME BUILDING
erected on Nottawa prairie was a barn by John and Samuel Cuddy, on their farm, in 1832. The first frame house erected in the present township of Nottawa, outside of Centreville, was that of John W. Fletcher, on his loca-
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HISTORY OF ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
tion on section seventeen, whereon he still resides. He built the same in 1835, and William Hazzard built one the same year.
THE FIRST BRICK HOUSE
outside of the village of Centreville, was the present one of Colonel Jonathan Engle, built by himself.
THE FIRST CHURCH SOCIETY
in Nottawa appeared before the schoolma'am did, contrary to the usual rule of precedence. In the spring of 1830 a class was formed by the Rev. Eras- tus Felton and Rev. Lyman B. Gurley, missionaries of the Ohio conference of the Methodist Episcopal church. William Fletcher and wife (parents of John W.) and William Hazzard and his wife being the members. A his- tory in detail of this class, and the subsequent flourishing society which grew therefrom, will be found in the history of Centreville.
THE FIRST SCHOOL-HOUSE
was built in the spring or early summer of 1831, on section sixteen. It was a rude log-house, and is still standing a short distance from Thomas Engle's residence, though fast crumbling to dust to mingle again with the earth whence it came, to re-appear in living forms again at the bidding of that unalterable law that makes no mistakes. Miss Delia Brooks taught the first school therein, in the summer of 1831; she had among her pupils Hamblen A. Hecox and David Hazzard, both of whom are now residents of Nottawa, and Amanda Fletcher, afterwards Mrs. Ira Thurston, now of Iowa. Miss Brooks married Colonel Jonathan-familiarly called " Jock " -Engle, Jr., but has been deceased several years.
The school statistics of the township for 1876 are as follows: There were nine school-houses, including the fine union school-building of Centreville, ( which is of stone, ) three of them being brick and five frame-buildings; the whole val- ued at twenty-nine thousand and five hundred dollars. They have six hun- dred and thirty sittings. There were seven hundred children in the township between the ages of five and twenty years, six hundred of whom attended the different schools, which were in session, not including the union school of Centreville, an average of eight months during the year. Six male teachers taught twenty-nine months, and were paid one thousand six hundred and one dollars ; and thirteen females taught eighty-six months, and received two thousand five hundred and twelve dollars therefor. The total resources of the districts amounted to twelve thousand four hundred and twenty-seven dollars and forty-six cents, of which was expended eleven thousand four hundred and thirty-six dollars and sixty-three cents,-including one thousand dollars on bonded indebtedness, and one thousand and eighty-five dollars and forty-three cents for repairs.
THE FIRST IMPROVED FARM MACHINERY
was introduced in 1832-3, in the shape of fanning-mills. One of the latter was owned by four neighbors, Mr. Fletcher being one of the stockholders. It was agreed that whoever used it last should keep it till it was called for by some other of the quartette, when, if it was not actually in use, no matter if so little time as ten minutes only intervened before the party in whose possession it was intended to use it, the party who came for it had the preference and took it away.
Previous to the advent of this mill they had harnessed zephyr to the work, and by her gentle, or more hurried breathings had winnowed their grain. In 1836 the open-cylinder threshers came in use-the first ones, manufactured by Sprague, being rude, clumsy, clattering affairs ; these, in 1837, were super- seded by others made by Daniel Johnson, which were a great improvement over the flail and tramping-process by horses. The " shaker " was added to the open cylinder next, then the "straw carrier," and finally, in 1842, the great separators were introduced with their eight and ten-horse powers.
The reapers came in also about this time, the Johnsons bringing the first one, a Hussey-the J. M. Leland machines coming in for trial the year pre- vious, or thereabouts. There was no reel on the first reaper, a man drawing the standing grain to the platform by a rake or other device. This was not so difficult a feat to accomplish as it would seem in the presence of the automatic machines of the present, as the machines were then drawn by four horses, and at a high rate of speed.
In the season of 1842, one of the neighbors on the prairie fell sick, just as his harvest was ready for the sickle, and Mr. Johnson, with his ' Hussey," followed by a large concourse of neighbors, appeared early one Sunday morning before the sick man's door and asked to be shown into the wheat-field. The request was complied with, and by night the whole field of thirty acres was covered with shocks of golden grain. The next Sunday the same was stacked, and the Sunday following it was threshed with a Con-
stantine separator, the thirty acres yielding six hundred and forty bushels. This was the largest day's work done by any reaper, before or since, in the county. The Sunday work, too, was on the the principle of the Master, that the "Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath."
The McCormick reapers were first introduced by the Wakemans and John Bowers ; Judge Connor introduced the first combined machine in 1854-a " Manny."
John M. Leland was the first to introduce the reel on reapers, but never received any benefit from its invention, and also invented the open guards, both of which improvements are as inseparable and essential to all reapers and mowers as the needle with an eye in its point is to a sewing machine, and yet Mr. L. never gained a penny of profit from either invention.
IMPROVED LIVE-STOCK
began to be introduced early, but no attention was paid to cattle until the Wakemans brought their thorough-bred short-horns from Ohio, in 1850. Judge Connor bought a Devon bull-calf in Rochester, New York, paying forty dollars for it, in 1836, and kept it several years, but nothing else of moment was done in that line previous to the date before given.
James Stadden has raised several very fine farm-horses, and Mr. Brown, of Sand Lake, once had an excellent stallion, from whose viciousness Brown lost his life. The horse was then taken to Kalamazoo, where he killed two other men, and was shot to prevent further mischief.
Sheep have been raised to a considerable extent, the American merino seeming to take the preference. Cultivation of the soil, however, is the branch of agriculture which chiefly occupies the attention of the Nottawa farmers, and in that they are unexcelled.
MANUFACTURES.
The first manufacturing done in Nottawa was by Asa Belote, in his black- smith shop on section fifteen, in 1831.
Henry Powers and Russell Post were the first carpenters in the settlement, and John V. Overfield, a Virginian, burnt the first brick on the prairie in 1832. He was a mason by trade, and it is said of him that for forty-two years he never failed to cast his vote at any election where he was entitled to do so except once, and was then only prevented by a storm so fierce that he could not reach the polls before they closed,-he being at Mottville and the election at Nottawa. He made the attempt, but failed to reach the polling-station until after the election was closed.
Glover Laird built the first distillery on the northeast corner of section one in 1831-2, and Hopper built another near the corner of the townships of Burr Oak, Colon, Sherman and Nottawa in the years 1836-7. The lo- cation is now known as Hopper's corners. The Johnsons had one sub- sequently.
The first and only flouring-mill ever built in the township, outside of Centreville, was erected in 1832-3 by T. W. Langley, who brought his mill- irons with him from Philadelphia, in October, 1832. He had, in June of that year, purchased the site and building in process of erection on the present farm of George Kline, deceased,-whose widow is a grand-daughter of Mr. Langley,-which site was owned by a Mr. Foster, who had begun the erection of a saw-mill. The saw-mill was put into operation in Decem- ber following, the dam being thirty-two rods long, with a heavy embank- ment of gravel on Hog creek.
The grist-mill was pushed to completion after many obstacles were over- come, and commenced operations with a single run of small burr-stones in April, 1833. The mill was a three-story building and was completely equipped the following fall by Johnston & Stewart, who succeeded to its ownership with three run of larger stone, and flouring wheat for merchant- work was carried on. Mr. Langley regained possession of the mill and run it himself, and it was also leased by Philip R. Toll and operated by him. It was burned some years afterwards and the site of the dam removed to Centreville, where the mill was rebuilt by the Talbots. As an instance of what practical knowledge and genius can accomplish in the face of ob- stacles, before which simple skill is powerless, the following incident, tran- spiring at this mill, is given : When Johnston & Stewart took possession of the establishment, according to their agreement, they at once set about re- fitting it, and for the purpose procured the services of two skillful mill- wrights from Rochester, who came on and began their work. They were exact and careful workmen, but met difficulties to which they were unaccus- tomed in their experience in the east. At last they came to the large cogged wheel, and were brought to a stand for want of properly seasoned timber out of which to make the cogs, and could do nothing. After some delay Messrs. Johnston & Stewart sent to John M. Leland, who came, and, learning the difficulty, set at once about supplying the needed material. The
SARAH FLETCHER.
JOHNW. FLETCHER
RESIDENCE OF JOHN W. FLETCHER, NOTTAWA TP, ST JOSEPH CO., MICH
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HISTORY OF ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
young men, though skilled mechanics, knew of no way of making what they wanted out of unseasoned timber, always having had a supply of seasoned lumber on hand. Mr. Leland chose his lumber and boiled it first thor- oughly, and transferred it to the oven and baked it as "well done" and proceeded with the work.
Cornelius Kline built a tannery in 1836-8 on the west side of Sand lake, and the building is now Mr. West's barn.
Elisha Strong built another tannery on the north side of the lake, about 1840.
THE FIRST MERCHANT
outside of Centreville, in Nottawa, was O. B. Harmon, who sold goods in 1830, on section one to the Indians and white people.
THE FIRST ROAD
was surveyed in the summer of 1830, from the Indiana State line through Sturgis prairie to Sand lake, to the corner of sections fifteen, sixteen, twenty- one and twenty-two, at which point the survey ended, and every section-line in the township was declared to be a public highway. The commissioners of the town of Sherman, Truman Bearss and Amos Howe, laid it out. Alfred L. Driggs built a saw-mill in Branch county soon after the Schell- hous mill was built in Colon, and Judge Conner went to Driggs' for lumber, cutting and blazing his way through, whereupon the commissioners laid out the trail as a highway direct from Sand lake. The angles have been straightened since, until there is but a small portion of the original road left,-which is near the present school-house on the prairie.
THE FIRST HOTEL
on Nottawa prairie was kept, in 1830, by Captain Henry Powers, on the west half of the northeast quarter of section fifteen. The building was a log- house twenty-two by twenty-eight feet, one and a half stories high, with a wing fifteen by fifteen feet. It had a double fire-place and a brick chimney. It was a great resort for dancing-parties, and also political gatherings before Centreville became the centre of the latter movements. It was the head- quarters for some days of Governor Porter at the time of the "big pay- ment" in December, 1833. It was also the location of the
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