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 57
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He owns property at Three Rivers, and also the seminary building in Colon, and is quietly enjoying a well-earned competency. He has held the office of supervisor of Colon for six years, and represented the county two years in the legislature. Mr. Eck was a Whig in the days of that party, and
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HISTORY OF ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
has been a member of the Republican party since its organization to the present. He is not a member of any church, but from his good old Quaker mother imbibed principles of justice and mercy, which have actuated him in his dealings with his fellow-men through life.
For reasons satisfactory, doubtless, to himself he has never married, but he has not, therefore, ignored the just demands of society, but in all things that would serve to improve its standing has ever been a generous and hearty contributor. No subscription was ever circulated in the township for any charitable object or business enterprise that has not had his name thereon, with a liberal sum affixed thereto. He aided liberally in the build- ing of the seminary, and also in securing the railroad, although at the time owning no real estate in the town. Mr. Eck is highly esteemed by his neighbors, and is passing through life's later stage with the serenity that a consciousness of a life of rectitude necessarily gives.
ADAM BOWER.
One of the thriftiest farmers of the township of Colon is the subject of the present sketch, Adam Bower, who was born December 18, 1813, in Spring- port, Cayuga county, New York. His parents, John and Mary (Cline) Bower, were born in Schuylkill, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, the former in 1764, and the latter in 1762, and were married in that place in 1795. They emigrated to Cayuga county in 1800, while it was a new and wild country, leading there the lives of pioneers-there Mrs. Bowers died, August 10, 1817.
The senior Bower again married, and with his family removed to Colon, St. Joseph county, Michigan, in 1836, Adam accompanying them. He located a large tract of land on section six, on which the father and mother resided till their death in 1844. Mr. and Mrs. Bower are gratefully re- membered by the older residents of Colon for their kindness and unbounded hospitality.
In the fall of 1836 Adam returned to the old home in Cayuga county, and brought back Hannah C. Richards as his wife. She was the daughter of Simeon and Mary Richards, and was born September 8, 1814, in Ballston Spa, Saratoga county, New York, and was married on the twenty-second an- niversary of her birth.
The new housekeepers went to their own location on section eight in the spring of 1837, where they lived most happily together until December 6, 1848, when Mrs. Bowers sank to her dreamless sleep, mourned sincerely by all who knew her. She was the mother of two sons, Simeon A. and John Francis Bower, of whom the latter alone survives.
Mr. Bower lived a life of loneliness until January 15, 1850, when he was united in marriage with Mary Elizabeth, daughter of Levi and Vilenda Pitts, who was born in Onondaga, Onondaga county, New York, Novem- ber 3, 1827. Mr. Pitts was born in the same county, March 16, 1797, and his wife, Vilenda Deuel, in Washington, Dutchess county, New York, No- vember 5, 1806.
They were married March 4, 1824, in Onondaga, whither Mrs. Pitts had removed seven years previously, and where Mr. Pitts died March 4, 1836.
Mrs. Pitts re-married July 16, 1840, and removed to Michigan in 1842 with her husband, Lewis Shuert, and her daughter, the present Mrs. Adam Bower.
By the second marriage Mr. Bower has had born to him six children : Augustus Levi, Hannah Elizabeth, now deceased ; James Elliott, Lewis Adam (deceased) ; William Emery and Henry F. The two older sons are married and live on their own farms in Colon; one son is in business in Colon village, and the two younger ones are still members of the household on the old homestead of 1837.
Mr. Bower is an active member of the Republican party, and was for- merly a Whig in his political affiliations.
Neither Mr. or Mrs. Bower are members of any church, but their prefer- ences are towards the Methodist Episcopal organization.
Mr. Bower owns at the present time five hundred and fifty-seven acres of the choicest land in the township, and has given his son eighty acres besides.
In 1858 he built a most elegant mansion of stone, of which and his ample barns and beautiful grounds by which they are surrounded and connected, we present our readers a fine view on another page.
Mr. Bower is recognized by his neighbors as a man of liberal views, pub- lic-spirited and ready to assist generously with his purse and hands any object which bids fair to conduce to the public good ; and hence he has been an able assistant in all of the enterprises which have advanced the prosperity of the town, and ministered to the progress of its society.
COMFORT TYLER.
Comfort Tyler.
Among the honored names of St. Joseph county, that of Comfort Tyler stands prominently out, as one who has done much to give the old county its proud position in the Peninsular State. His parents, Samuel and Deliverance (Whiting) Tyler, were natives of Connecticut, and removed therefrom in 1788, to Onondaga county, New York, where Mrs. Tyler lived nine months before seeing another white woman beside herself, and three months longer before she saw the second one. One of Mr. Samuel Tyler's brothers pre- ceded him to Onondaga a short time before. They were of the very best and foremost of the families of that region, and gained a most enviable reputation as men of ability and straightforward business character.
Comfort Tyler was born in the town of Marcellus, in the above-named county, on the 7th day of March, 1801, where he received a limited educa- tion 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, when he began life for himself in the business of his father before him.
In the year 1833 he traveled through Michigan and northern Indiana, and returned to Marcellus, and in the spring of 1834 removed 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 impressed with his bearing, they persuaded him to look further for a location in the county, and on doing so, he made his selection for a home in the southwest corner of the township of Colon, buy- ing three hundred and thirty-three acres on sections nineteen and thirty-one, with the intention of making further purchases 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 thirty-one Mr. Tyler resided until his decease, bringing it from nature's dominion to the finely cultivated and productive fields of a thorough farmer.
The people of the township found in him an able and careful counsellor, and guardian of their public trusts, and they gave those trusts into his hands in the fullest measure. He was the supervisor of the township for twenty- five years, his last term ending in the year when his health would not permit of further service. He was also appreciated in the councils of the State, representing St. Joseph county in the lower house of the general assembly, in 1841, and in the upper house, as senator, in the year 1859. He was also
Joseph harrand
Phineas Forvand
B Mu harrand
RESIDENCE. OF PHINEAS FARRAND, COLON TP., ST JOSEPH COUNTY, MICH.
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HISTORY OF ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
a member of the constitutional convention of 1867, from St. Joseph county. In politics Mr. Tyler was originally a member of the Whig party, joining the Republican party at its organization, of which he remained a staunch advocate till his death. He united with the Methodist Episcopal church at Centreville, in 1841, and was its recording-steward for twenty-five years, and died in its communion.
On the 16th day of January, 1823, Mr. Tyler married Desire, a daughter of Abel and Desire Belote, who was born in Onondaga county, New York, on the 11th day of March, 1803. The fruits of this union were the fol- lowing children : JULIA ANN, now Mrs. O. H. Atchinson ; SAMUEL, now of Sherman; ANSEL, who succeeds to the old homestead in Colon ; FIDELIA, now Mrs. A. C. Chaffee, of Colon; ASHER, now in California ; WILLIAM, now of Colon, and EDWARD, who died in infancy. The last two were born in Colon.
Mrs. Tyler was also a member of the Methodist church, and a lady of most estimable qualities. She died April 22, 1854. Mr. Tyler followed her on January 16, 1873.
Reverend Job Tyler, a brother of Comfort Tyler, preached to all classes of people without distinction of religious views, though a Sabbatarian him- self. 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.
Mr. Tyler was broad in his views, and liberal and enterprising in schemes for the public good. Though not particularly to be benefited 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.
In all matters of the public entrusted to his care he was scrupulously exact to see that his duties were promptly and fully performed, and he has left behind him a record as his monument, upon which his children may look with pride, and his fellow-citizens with admiration. His hospitality was unbounded, and he was generous to a fault.
L'ONCACE JESS
JOHN H. BOWMAN.
The subject of the present sketch, John Henry Bowman, was born in Mount Bethel, Northumberland county, Pennsylvania, March 13, 1796. He was the oldest of ten children born to Jesse and Sally Bowman. He re- moved to Brier Creek, Columbia county, Pennsylvania, and resided in that county until 1834, when he removed with his family, consisting of his wife and seven children, to Three Rivers, St. Joseph county, Michigan, where he built, the same year, the first frame-house of any pretensions erected in that city, and which was also, for many years, the best in the country around.
He bought one hundred and twenty acres of land on Johnnycake prairie and began farming; and in 1836, with the Smiths of Prairie Ronde, bought the Beadle mill-property at Three Rivers, and with them erected the Three Rivers flouring-mill, and began the manufacture of flour in February, 1837,
which business the firm of Smith & Bowman carried on, together with merchandizing, for about two years, when the mill was leased and afterwards bought by Moore & Prutzman ; and Mr. Bowman, in 1838, began the erection of another flouring-mill in Colon village with Dr. Voorhis, but the mill was not completed until after Voorhis' death.
The mill commenced operations in 1839, and soon after Mr. Bowman sold three-fourths of his interest to his son, William F. Bowman, and in 1845 re- moved from Three Rivers to Colon to reside.
He retained one-fourth interest in the Colon mills until his death, actively managing the property during the whole period.
On the 19th day of January, 1817, Mr. Bowman married Sophia, a daughter of John Freese, of Brier Creek, Pennsylvania, by whom he had four children : William F., Jesse, Sally and Martha, all of whom are now dead except the latter, who is the wife of Elisha B. Brown, of Columbia county, Pennsylvania.
Mrs. Bowman died in Brier Creek, October 12, 1823.
On the 15th day of December, 1826, Mr. Bowman was again united in marriage, to Mrs. Ann Millard, nee Rittenhouse, by whom he had born to him John Quincy, Andrew H. and Sarah Ann, all of whom are now dead; Amelia R., now Mrs. E. R. Hill, and Joseph E., both of Colon.
The second Mrs. Bowman died April 2, 1838; and July 6, 1844, Mr. Bowman took unto himself another companion,-Mary Ann Raymond, of Three Rivers, who still survives him. By this marriage one child was born, John Raymond Bowman, who is a practicing physician in Cheyenne, Colorado.
In the nullification times of 1832, Mr. Bowman was a major in the Penn- sylvania State troops.
In his younger days he was a member of the Whig party, but joined the Republican organization at its inception, though he died before he cast a presidential vote therein. He was a member of the legislature of Michigan two terms.
He was a member of the Methodist Episcopal church in Pennsylvania, but never united with it in Michigan.
In May, 1855, he went west on a tour of observation, and was attacked by the cholera at Lexington, Missouri, and died after a short illness. Mr. Bow- man was highly esteemed by his neighbors, and though sometimes despond- ent, was mostly of a cheerful frame of mind, and liberal to the extreme towards suffering and distress.
PHINEAS FARRAND.
One of the most successful farmers in Colon township is Phineas Farrand. His father, Joseph Farrand, was a success in the same line of business before him, beginning the same with the grandfather of Phineas, in Morris county, New Jersey. At the age of twenty-one Joseph Farrand married Julia, a daughter of Edward Cumpson.
Mr. Cumpson owned and operated the first mill for cutting iron into bars ever used in America. For fear of confiscation by the British forces during the Revolutionary war, he secretly operated his machinery in a cave, in the interests of the colonial armies.
In 1799 Mr. Farrand, immediately after his marriage, removed to Mentz, Cayuga county, New York, where he bought two hundred acres of land, wild and heavily timbered, subsequently adding two hundred acres more, clearing up three hundred and sixty acres of the tract, and bringing it to a high state of cultivation. Mr. Farrand owned and operated in his barn on this farm the second cylinder threshing-machine, which worked successfully, in the United States.
Of eight children,-five sons and three daughters,-Phineas, the subject of our sketch, was the youngest, and was born in Mentz, December 22, 1820. Here he attended the district-schools of the township, and assisted his father on the farm, until 1837, when he removed with his family, consisting of his father and mother and two sisters, Catharine A. and Abigail E., to Michigan, via Canada, by teams, arriving at Albion, in Calhoun county, in July of that year.
The family remained at Albion during the summer, Phineas occupying the time in driving a breaking-team of ten yoke of oxen, and the father making a tour of observation for a location, which he found in the township of Colon, wherein his son, Henry K., had located a year previous. He bought the location of George Brooks, one hundred and thirty acres, the last public land being entered by his son, Henry K., in 1836, in the township. This original purchase is the present homestead of the subject of this sketch. In the month of October the family removed to their new home, and occupied,
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HISTORY OF ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
for the winter of 1837-8, the small log-house on the premises built by Mr. Brooks.
There were about thirty acres partially broken-up on the location, and Phineas put eighteen of them into wheat that fall, which was the first crop raised by him in Michigan. One term at the district-school, in the Mathews school-house, during the first winter of his residence in Michigan, " finished " his education, and henceforth his "schooling " was that obtained in practical life.
To the original purchase the father and son added a large tract, the farms now numbering four hundred and ninety-one acres in a body, three hundred and nine-one of which are under cultivation, and upon which Mr. Farrand has erected fine, commodious barns and a comfortable dwelling-a view of which may be seen on another page of our work.
Orchards and good fences add to the sense of ease and comfort that per- vades this old pioneer homestead, all of which has succeeded wild nature through the steady, persistent strokes of the original purchaser and his worthy successor, who now occupies it.
Mr. Farrand has also been engaged in the breeding of thorough-bred cattle and fine-wooled sheep, and has now upon his farm some of the best-blooded short-horns and American merinos in the county. He has also some very excellent horses, to the breeding of which he pays considerable attention.
During the terrible year of 1838, when death stalked abroad through the country, gathering his harvests with unrelenting hand, the two sisters died within a brief period of each other. In 1845, on the 8th day of January, the mother died, and on the 4th day of December, 1854, the father, too, sank to rest in the old homestead, and of the five persons who came to it in 1837 Phineas alone remains.
In politics Mr. Farrand is and has been a Republican since the rise of that party, and was a Whig previously. His religious sentiments are inde- pendent, and he is tolerant of all beliefs.
On the 23d day of October, 1845, Mr. Farrand was united in marriage to Betsey M., daughter of Elias B. and Martha Kinne, of St. Joseph county, Mrs. Farrand being a native of Naples, Ontario county, New York. She is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church of Colon. The children of
this household are Joseph K., Grant E. and Ella, all of whom remain at home. The second son, Theron G., died at the age of twenty-five years, leaving a wife, but no child.
SAMUEL GORTON.
The subject of the following sketch, Samuel Gorton, was born in Lisbon, Connecticut, September 20, 1817, and is the second of eight children of John and Almira Gorton. At the age of about four years he removed with his parents to Henrietta, about six miles south of Rochester, N. Y., from whence, five years later, the family removed to Bergen, Genesee county, in the same State, where Samuel continued to reside with his father until 1840, when he came to St. Joseph county, Michigan, to look for a location for himself. In 1841 he finally located on section four in the township of Colon, but subsequently sold his first location and made another on section ten in the same township, in 1842, where he still resides. His home- stead contains eighty acres, besides which he owns sixty-five acres in the township of Leonidas. In 1874 he built an elegant house of the boulder stones found in the township,-a view of which we present to our readers in another part of this work.
Mr. Gorton's political faith in his early days accorded with the Whig policy, and when the Republican party came into existence he joined it, and remained a member thereof until 1872, when he voted for Horace Greeley for president, and in 1876 voted with the Democrats for Mr. Til- den. Though not a member of any church-organization, he acknowledges the force of a Christian line of conduct, marked out by the golden rule.
On the 8th day of April, 1844, he married Julia A., daughter of Samuel Noyes, late of Leonidas, but now deceased. The fruits of this marriage were: Charles James, who died in 1848, and Clarence Ernest, who is now living at home with his parents. Mrs. Gorton was born in Berlin, Ohio, in the year 1824, and came to Leonidas in the year 1832 with her father's family. She is a member of the Baptist church of Colon.
LEONIDAS.
TAKING into consideration the variety of soil, prairie openings and heavily- timbered forests still remaining unbroken, the water privileges of its rivers and creeks, and Leonidas is justly entitled to her fame, as standing among the best townships in the county of St. Joseph. Its farmers are well-to- do, and their acres, broad and well-tilled, are second to none in the county. The area of the township contains twenty-three thousand and forty acres, of which, five hundred acres are water surface. The prairie originally contained about five hundred acres, and the balance of the land surface was covered with a growth of white and burr oak, more or less heavy, merging into heavily-timbered lands in the northern part of the township. About one half of the township was covered with a heavy growth of beech, maple, white-wood, ash, elm, walnut, hickory, etc. The very best quality of white- wood lumber was cut in the forests of Leonidas and made into arks, by which the transportation of the flour of the county was effected. Millions of feet were thus used, and the forests despoiled of their richest treasure almost entirely.
In some parts of the township stone abounds, the boulder drift having scattered its debris liberally throughout the heavy timber.
The surface is a general level, although the land is a little broken and un- dulating as it approaches the river. Its drainage is good, and but little swamp or marsh land that is unfit for use is found in the township. It is watered by the St. Joseph river, the Nottawa and Bear creeks, the Little Portage, and another small creek, and four small lakes.
The St. Joseph river enters the township on the southeast quarter of
section thirty-four, and runs northeast, passing out on the west line of the southwest quarter of the northwest quarter of section thirty.
The Nottawa enters the township on the southeast quarter of section one, and runs southwest through the same, entering the St. Joseph on the north bank, near the north line of the southeast quarter of the southeast quarter of section thirty.
The Little Portage runs diagonally across the west half of section six, into Mendon township. .
A creek enters the township from the north on the northeast quarter of section three, and runs southerly and empties into the old Cowen mill-pond.
Three little lakes, Adams', Havens' and Mud, all lie on section thirty-six, and another small one, Benedict's, is situated on the southwest quarter of section thirty-two.
The township lies in the northeast corner of the county, being bounded north by Kalamazoo county, east by Branch county, south by Colon, and west by Mendon townships, in St. Joseph county.
All kinds of grain, fruit and vegetables can be and are successfully culti- vated. Mint has been cultivated somewhat, but no considerable amount has been produced in later years. Maple sugar is manufactured more or less extensively in the northern part of the township.
THE FIRST SETTLEMENT
of Leonidas was made in the year 1831. The first white man who had a cabin in the limits of the present township was a trader named Hatch, who
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SAMUEL GORTON.
MRS. SAMUEL GORTON.
RESIDENCE OF SAMUEL GORTON, COLON TP, ST JOSEPH Co, MICHE
٠
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HISTORY OF ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
came early in the spring of 1831, and subsequently married Marchee-o-no- qua, a sister of Maguago, a chief of one of the Nottawa bands of Indians. Hatch moved away or repudiated his Indian wife, when one Buel Holcomb married her according to the Indian fashion, but being brought to see the matter in a different light, Marchee desired Holcomb to marry her according to the rites of the church, and upon his declination, she sent him adrift and married a man of her own race, her descendants still residing in Athens, the adjoining township in Calhoun county. She was said to be a most beautiful woman in her younger days, and preserved traces of it long into old age.
The real settlers of Leonidas, however, in that year, were George Mathews and his remarkable wife and two children, who came from New York city, direct from that centre of luxury and wealth, into the timbered plains of Leonidas, to hew out for themselves a home. They arrived on the banks of the St. Joseph, where they selected their location near the present bridge, on section thirty-two, in May of 1831.
Alexander Foreman and his family of boys and girls came in a few days later, and settled near Mathews. Mr. Foreman came from Ohio, and his Buckeye girls used to run a ferry across the St. Joseph, and managed their craft as skilfully as their brothers or father could.
Of the first two named, Mr. and Mrs. Mathews, the following testimony to their worth and character is borne by their fellow-townsmen, who mourned their loss sincerely.
Mr. Mathews was born in affluence, and was truly a gentleman of the old school, courteous and affable in his deportment, ever ready to mete to all their just reward, with a hand ever open to relieve distress, which was not an infrequent applicant in the pioneer days. His memory abideth with his fellow pioneers imperishable. He died on the farm he located and cleared up, in 1845.
Mrs. Mathews was born in the city of New York, of wealthy parents. She was married in Ohio to an accomplished physician, Dr. Johnson, he surviving but a few years. On her marriage to Mr. Mathews she came with her two children to Michigan, locating as before stated, whereon she died May 11, 1874, she being the first white woman settling in the township, and the mother of the first white child born therein. Mrs. Mathews' abilities, both natural and acquired, were of a very high order, and her residence in a wild country, unaccustomed as she was to the backwoods, was at times as much as she could well bear, but she had indomitable courage and never- tiring patience, and these qualities, added to her unbounded charity and be- nevolence, carried her straight through all difficulties and vexations into the very citadel of the affections of her neighbors. These pioneers have gone to their rest and reward, and, it is safe to say, none were more sincerely mourned than were these friends and neighbors of the early days, in Leonidas.
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