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 58
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In 1831 Leonidas received her next settlers, all of them prominent in her history.
James and Robert Cowen came from Pennsylvania to White Pigeon November 11, and to Leonidas, and bought their mill-site and commenced to raise their cabin, getting it part way up during the same month, when a storm came on, and they finished it the next April.
Isaac G. Bailey, from Connecticut, came in the same year and bought a large tract of land around the Cowen mill-site.
All three of these gentlemen were single men, but they all subsequently married and brought their wives to the settlement, Mr. Bailey in the fall of 1834, and Mr. Robert Cowen 1835, and James later. These pioneers were also noted men in the community.
Mr. Bailey and James Cowen were both educated as physicians, and the latter was an excellent surveyor. Mr. Bailey was elected to the legislature in 1838, at the November election, and died in Detroit the following March. He was postmaster of Leonidas from 1834 till his death, he having influ- enced the establishment of a postal route from Jackson to White Pigeon in 1835, the year following the establishment of the post-office at Cowen's mills. Mr. Cowen removed to Indiana in 1846.
In the fall of 1832 Leonidas received another citizen, whose name fills a most important place in her annals,-Captain Levi Watkins, who built his cabin on the banks of the Nottawa creek, in October or November, and stocked it with provisions, and went to work on the Cowen mill, which was then in process of construction, and waited for his family, who came in February, 1833, accompanied by his father, seventy years old; the latter, however, returning to the eastern home in Ontario county, New York, where he remained until the winter of 1834-5, when he, with his wife and son, Alex. H. Watkins, came on and made the township their home until their death.
In the spring of 1833, Arnold Hayward and family came in, and built a log-house just above Captain Watkins', adding a frame "lean to" the next summer, and beginning hotel-keeping as a business.
In 1835 George Benedict, who has never lived in any other township since, settled on the east side of the prairie, and the same year Ezra Roberts, Abraham Rhynearson and N. V. Truesdell and family settled on the Indian reservation in the western part of the township. Moses Whiting, Ira Millard and family, and Aaron B. Watkins,-a most useful citizen,-all came in 1835.
The Tylers, Augustus, Charles and Erastus, came in 1834-5, and settled in the western part of the township, and were extensive farmers and men of ability, energy and perseverance. Moses Taft came in with them from Massa- chusetts, but moved into Mendon in 1835.
In 1836 Edward K. Wilcox, a prominent and leading citizen from then until the present, and Joshua Lyon, a brother-in-law, came in the spring. In 1835-6, too, the Cowen brothers each brought a wife to the settlement, both intelligent, energetic women, who were a great accession to the com- munity.
In 1837 William Bishop and a family of boys, two of whom, Lyman, Jr., and James, built the first brick houses in the township,-fine mansions,- came, as did also Addison Harvey and his father and family, and Elias Kinne and his family. Justus L. Vought,-a school-mate of Drew and Vanderbilt, and born in the same town,-came in 1836, with a very fine family of children, and the father is still living on the old homestead then selected, a much- valued citizen.
Stephen Van Rensselaer York came in 1840. W. M. Watkins came in with his father's family in February, 1833, and, with the exception of his residence in Centreville during his incumbency in the sheriff's office, has lived in the township ever since.
Jairus Peirce, originally from Berkshire county, Massachusetts, but later from Ontario county, New York, came in 1834, in the spring of that year, working at his trade of a carpenter. He helped to build the flouring-mill of the Cowens and many other buildings in the township. He removed with his family from Ontario to Leonidas in January, 1836, the latter comprising six children. In the fall of that year he settled on his present location. In 1834 he assisted to build the first saw-mill on Buck creek, seven miles from the present city of Grand Rapids.
Orrin M. and Martin C. Watkins, sons of Levi Watkins, came with his family in 1833, and were prominent citizens of the township till their death.
In 1835 also came Elijah Purdy, two of whose sons are now resident in the township, and bought the location on which John H. Purdy, one of those sons, now resides, a fine view of whose elegant grounds and capacious dwelling and barns, on the old homestead, may be seen on another page.
Millard came in 1835, and located on the reservation. David Barker, also, came in 1835, and bought his land, and the families of Purdy and himself came on in the spring of 1836.
In 1840 William Minor came into the western part of the township, and Jonathan Galloway was also an early comer. In South Leonidas, a family of Gilberts, an old man and sons, and M. C. Keith and brother, and Levi and David Keyes, settled early. In 1840 also, James B. Dunkin came in and bought a location on Nottawa creek, and built a dam and saw-mill, which Andrew Climie now owns.
John Foreman, although a late comer to Leonidas, was an early one in the county, he being born on White Pigeon prairie, February 6, 1830. His brothers, Cyrus and William Foreman, both of whom were pupils in the first schools taught on Nottawa prairie in 1831, are now prominent lawyers in Osage, Iowa, and Cleveland, Ohio. John grafted and raised the first pear he ever saw or ate, grafting it in 1849, and eating the fruit in 1852, on Nottawa prairie.
THE FIRST FARMS
opened were those of George Mathews and Alexander Foreman, in 1831, both of whom raised crops of corn that year, and the first wheat, also, the next year.
In 1873 there were three thousand three hundred and ninety-eight acres of wheat harvested, which produced thirty-four thousand six hundred and sixty- nine bushels, and one thousand seven hundred and thirty-seven acres of corn, which yielded forty-four thousand nine hundred and sixty bushels. The same year the productions also were, ten thousand eight hundred and four bushels of other grain, four thousand six hundred and twenty-five bushels potatoes, one thousand two hundred and fifty-five tons hay, ten thousand and ten pounds wool, one hundred and forty-seven thousand four hundred and seventy-nine pounds pork, fifty thousand seven hundred and fifteen pounds butter and cheese, sixteen thousand three hundred and forty-seven pounds dried fruit, five hundred and fifty-seven barrels cider and six thousand eight
170
HISTORY OF ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
hundred and eighty-five pounds maple sugar. Three hundred and ninety- four acres in orchards produced twelve thousand seven hundred and ninety- nine bushels apples, valued at two thousand five hundred and seventy dollars.
The first land entry was made in 1830, in the southern part of the town- ship, adjoining Colon, and by a Colon resident, and was as follows: The southwest fractional quarter of the southwest quarter of section thirty-four, Loran Schellhous, October 27, 1830. There were thirteen entries made in 1831, the first one being the north fraction and west half of the northeast quarter and the southeast quarter of section thirty-two, by Peter Beisel (then of White Pigeon), June 6, 1831. There were assessed in 1876, by Andrew Climie, supervisor of Leonidas, twenty-two thousand three hundred and thirty-two acres for taxation, which he valued at two hundred and eighty thousand seven hundred and three dollars, about one-fourth of its real value.
THE LEADING FARMERS OF TO-DAY,
in the township, are John Leidy, Addison Harvey, John A. Purdy, Olney brothers, Richardson Coddington, William M. Watkins, Baxter Lewis, E. W. Davis, - Rice, and Sylvester M. Clement.
THE FIRST HOUSE
built by a white man in the township, was the shanty of Hatch the trader, in the winter of 1830-31. The next one was Mathews' log-cabin, and Foreman's the third. The first frame house was the "lean-to " added to Hay- ward's log-cabin, in which the first tavern was kept, in 1834. The first brick house was built by Lyman Bishop, Jr., and the second one by his brother (James), who now reside in them.
We show on other pages views of several of the fine residences of the present, all built up from pioneer cabins by the men who have succeeded thereto after years of toil and privation. The first frame barn in the town- ship was built by Captain Watkins, in 1835.
THE FIRST FRUIT-TREES
in the township, planted out by the hand of man, were standing on the river bank, just below the present site of the so-called Mathews bridge, when the first white settlers came, and were then in bearing (being old trees at the time). They were apples, and had been set out so long, the Indians then living in Leonidas had no tradition even concerning them, except a very vague one concerning some "Chemocoman great medicine, heap way off," who had planted them,-meaning missionaries. These trees were trans- planted, at least some of them, by some of the settlers, but they never sur- vived their removal.
The first orchard begun by the settlers was the nursery planted by Captain Watkins, in the spring of 1833, when he planted apple-seeds and peach and plum-pits, and in the fall of 1834 transplanted the young trees, from which nursery-orchards were grown from Niles to Ann Arbor, hundreds of trees being sold therefrom.
Mr. Mathews set out an orchard of larger trees, in the spring of 1835 (which he bought of Jones), on White Pigeon prairie, the same being from the Cutler nursery planted in 1828-29. Mr. Mathews raised the first apples in the township.
The first cider made in the township was manufactured by W. M. Watkins, in 1848.
Peaches were first produced in Leonidas in 1837, and for twelve years con- tinued to be grown profusely, when the frost killed the trees to the ground, since which time the crop is an uncertain one.
Plums were first raised in 1845; and for eight years thereafter this de- licious fruit was abundant, since which time the ravages of the curculio have absolutely banished it from the township,-not even the wild fruit, which once filled the woods, escaping the havoc of the insect.
IMPROVED LIVE-STOCK
was first introduced into the township, in 1852, by Addison Harvey and E. L. Yaple, who bought " short-horn " bulls ; but no special attention has been paid to that class of stock until within the last four or five years.
John A. Purdy, in 1873, began a systematic business in breeding thorough-bred cattle, of the short-horn or Durham variety, and has now a fine herd of them. He bought his bull of Henry K. Farrand, of Colon, who brought his stock from the noted herds of the blue-grass region of Kentucky.
Mr. Addison Harvey and the Olney brothers also have now good herds of these cattle, having just begun to pay attention to the breeding of the same. Olney brothers have also improved breeds of swine.
Mr. Purdy began to breed blooded horses in 1864, and sheep in 1867, and has some very fine stock in both varieties. His "Mambrino Chief" is of the thorough-bred stock of Kentucky.
There were owned, in 1874, in the township, four hundred and sixty-nine horses, six mules, twenty-four oxen, two hundred and eighty-nine cows, five hundred and sixty-five other cattle, six hundred and fifty-six hogs, and two thousand and fifty-nine sheep.
"Grandfather " Watkins brought the first team of horses into the town- ship in 1835. One of them was a leopard-stallion, a very showy horse.
IMPROVED FARM MACHINERY
was introduced into the township, in 1845, by Ruel Johnson (the same being a separator-threshing machine). Open-cylinders had been in vogue some years before.
E. K. Wilcox, in 1847-48, brought in a combined " Manny " reaper and mower; and Mr. Bishop, about the same time, introduced a " McCormick."
THE MANUFACTURING INTERESTS
of Leonidas were early developed, the Cowens erecting, on Nottawa creek, a saw-mill in 1832, which was completed and operated in the winter of that and the succeeding year. A little incident, illustrating the old adage, "There's many a slip between the cup and the lip," attaches to this mill- site of the Cowens. In the fall of 1831, Isaac G. Bailey came into Leonidas looking for a location, and seeing the site in question selected it and returned to White Pigeon, and entered, as he supposed, the same at the land-office with several other contiguous tracts. Meeting Mr. James Cowen, he told the latter what he had found in Leonidas, and gave him a description of the neighborhood, Mr. Cowen taking the numbers of his entries and marking them on his map for reference, and soon after went to the location himself, where, after a careful examination, he found that the identical eighty acres on which the true site was located had not been entered at all by Bailey, whereupon Mr. Cowen returned to White Pigeon, and quietly entered the tract. Afterward, meeting Mr. Bailey, he told him that he, Cowen, also had found a good mill-site, and should immediately proceed to utilize it. When Mr. Bailey found that the cream of his location, by his own negli- gence, had been skimmed by another, his chagrin was great ; but he swal- lowed his mortification, and afterwards, in 1833, built a saw-mill on Bear creek.
In 1836 the Cowens built their first flouring-mill, and the dam proving a treacherous structure, in 1840 they abandoned it and built a new one, and also a new saw-mill. There were thirteen men present at the raising of the frame of the grist-mill, which was a heavy job, the framed bents being very sol- idly constructed, and it was only by the most persistent and heroic struggles and lifting it was raised at all. One of the neighbors "enthused" the crowd by his words of command, which, like the bugle-blast of Roderick Dhu, was, just at that particular juncture, " worth a thousand men." The present saw- mill is the third one built on the site, and was erected by Kidd, who also repaired thoroughly the grist-mill and ran them for some years, and then sold to Robinson, and Robinson to Switzer, who tore down the old mill and flume and built the present one, which he now operates, in 1874. It has three run of stone, and does custom work exclusively.
In 1840 James B. Dunkin built a saw-mill on the Nottawa, above the Cowens, and owned and operated it until 1862, when Andrew Climie, the present owner, bought it, and added a grist-mill, which contains three run of stone. A. C. Fisher rebuilt the Bailey mill on Bear creek, and subse- quently sold the same to the Hoags, who afterwards conveyed it to Addison Harvey, and the mill rotted down.
In 1839 Theodore Robinson and James Bishop built a saw-mill on Not- tawa creek, on section one, which they ran four or five years, until the Branch county people enjoined the proprietors against raising their dam, when the mill was abandoned. In 1842-43 William, Charles and Nathan Scholfield built at the same place a woolen-factory, but in 1845 the machinery was taken into Park by Leonard Schellhous. The little hamlet that gathered around these mills and factory on section one, was called Factoryville, and a steam saw-mill was erected there in 1866, which is now owned by Mr. Beam. A steam saw-mill was built in 1856, in Kalamazoo county, and was removed to section four in 1874. It sawed out all of the timber in its vicinity some years ago, and since then has been itinerating, and, like the Methodist circuit-riders, has never been more than a single year in a place. It is now owned by Charles Woodworth. In 1873 a steam saw-mill was built on sec- tion five, by Millard brothers, and is at present owned by Nye, of Union city.
LEXINGTON CHIEF, JR.
RESIDENCE OF JOHN A. PURDY, LEONIDAS TP, ST JOSEPH CO., MICH.
171
HISTORY OF ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
The heaviest undertaking in the manufacturing line in Leonidas was the damming of the St. Joseph in 1847, by W. H. Cross, the present most worthy judge of probate of the county. He secured his charter in 1846, and began the construction of his dam in 1847. His first attempt was unsuc- cessful, and he saw the wild rush of waters take away the labor of weeks, and with it his hard earnings of years. But, nothing daunted, he began again, and triumphed over the obstacles of nature as well as the jeers of friends and prophecies of ill-omened wiseacres. The foundation was secured by trees with scraggy limbs, cut and placed in the stream with the tops down the current, and, as the water pressed against them, the limbs were driven deeper into the bottom, and so prevented from washing down the river. The ends of the logs were then fastened to stringers, and filled in with brush, stone and gravel, and the dam of logs built thereon securely. A shute was put in below the dam for the passage of arks and rafts, the first raft over being loaded with staves and piloted by Captain Elisha Millard. He next took over an ark loaded with flour, and proved the dam a success. In after years it became a great place of resort for the people, who used to run the shute for sport, in their boats. Judge Cross built a mill, but the expense was too great for him, and he sold out his interest to Peter Becker, and there is now no dam at the place.
James Cowen ran a raft of lumber from his mill, in June, 1833, down the St. Joseph, and shipped it to Chicago, and sold it for cash at sixteen dollars per thousand feet, the same being white-wood. This money assisted him greatly in the prosecution of his business, which, in after years, became a very extensive one. In the first voyage he was assisted by Pottle and Martin C. Watkins. He ran a raft every year for several years thereafter, making the first one in the creek, but the rest he laid up in the St. Joseph.
In the spring of 1843, the first ark went down the river from Leonidas, partially loaded with flour by the Cowens, completing its cargo at Three Rivers,-Elisha and Thomas Millard, pilots. There were a large number of arks built in Leonidas by Jonas and Alex. Newton, for different parties down the river, Dunkin's mill furnishing a large amount of the lumber therefor, the very choicest white-wood plank.
In South Leonidas, in 1842, and for some years afterwards, there were extensive cooper-shops. Philip Clipfell and Jerry McDonald began about that date, and carried on an extensive and lucrative business.
In 1864 West and Watkins brought into the township a sorghum-mill and pan, and induced the cultivation of cane. They made a few hundred gallons of syrup that year, and the year following two thousand eight hun- dred gallons of very fine syrup. In 1876 there was made considerable also.
Charles Farnam owns and operates a large cider-mill and boiling-works, for the manufacture of jellies from apples and cider, as well as other fruit. Tutewiler Brothers also operate a cider-mill, and are heavy manufacturers.
In 1873 there were in operation in the township one flour and three saw- mills, employing eleven men, and a capital of thirteen thousand five hundred dollars, which manufactured one thousand one hundred and and fifty-eight barrels of flour, and nine hundred and ninety-five thousand five hundred and eighty-two feet of lumber, valued at seventeen thousand and forty-three dollars.
TRADE.
The first stock of goods brought to the township for sale was that of Justus L. Vought, in 1837. In 1843 Lester Buckley brought a larger stock, and was succeeded subsequently by his brother, Chester. Hewitt & Estes followed, and W. H. Cross had a stock on sale at Cowen's mills in 1847-8. Hewitt & Ramsdell, George Butler and William Little, Ladd & Galloway were all in trade after Cross, and E. L. Yaple made great deal of money in the same line, keeping a general stock, including hardware and leather. After Ladd & Galloway, Messrs. Duncan & Allen built a large store and filled it with goods, and-failed.
HOTELS.
Arnold Hayward, as before stated, opened the first tavern (in his log- cabin and frame addition) in 1834. In 1836 Captain Watkins built a new frame house on the Washtenaw trail, and kept the "Farmer's Home." He also built a blacksmith-shop, into which Thomas King put a forge and tools in 1837, and worked therein.
THE FIRST WHITE CHILD
born in the township was a daughter of George and Margaretha Mathews, who first saw the light of day in the early part of the summer of 1833. She died in infancy.
THE FIRST MARRIAGE
of white persons in the township was that one celebrated between William Orcutt and Esther S. Watkins, a daughter of Captain Levi Watkins, in the fall of 1835.
THE FIRST DEATH
that occurred in the township was in the spring of 1834, the victim being Thomas Baldwin, from the city of Rochester, New York, who came to the settlement in the fall of 1833.
THE CEMETERY
is laid out on section sixteen, and is a short distance from the village, and was so set off in 1836, though burials had been made there previously. There are burial-grounds also in the southeast part and northwest part of the township, the latter lying partly in Waukeshma, Kalamazoo county.
SCHOOLS.
The first school-house in the township was built in the summer of 1836, in the limits of the present village. It was made of logs, roofed with slabs, had slab seats, and counters against the wall served for desks. It was sixteen by twenty feet on the ground. Miss Adaline Clark was the first teacher, and taught therein the same summer the house was built, which was also the first school taught in the township. Miss Clark subsequently mar- ried Alonzo Goodrich, and is now deceased. Lucina Watkins, now Mrs. Colwell, was one of the pupils of that school. The district-numbered one -was organized the same year.
Mehitable Bishop taught the first school in Factoryville, about 1842, in a log school-house built that year.
In 1839 there was a frame school-house built in the east part of the town- ship, and a school taught therein by O. M. Beall the same winter.
The second school-house, built in district number two,-which was for- merly district number one, and which includes the village of Leonidas in its limits,-was erected in 1841, and was a frame building twenty-seven by thirty feet, one-story. The building committee were Elias B. Kinne, Samuel Hanna and William Bishop, who were limited to an expenditure of two hundred and seventy-five dollars, of which fifty dollars only were to be paid in cash, the balance being lumber and grain,-the builders to allow eight dollars per thousand for the first commodity. In 1859 the present house was built by Andrew J. Graham and William B. Hemingway, for one thou- sand dollars. It is twenty-four by thirty-seven feet area, two stories in height, and built of wood.
The present officers of the district are John C. Kinne, moderator; W. M. Watkins, director, and James L. Farnam, assessor. The district has been constantly reduced in territory since its first organization, until but one-half of its area (when the house of the present was built) remains, and but sixty-one scholars draw public money.
In 1876 there were nine frame school-houses in the township, valued at twenty thousand eight hundred and twenty-five dollars, affording five hun- dred and twenty-four sittings. There were four hundred and thirty-six children, between the ages of five and twenty years, of whom three hundred and ninety-four attended the schools, which were in session an average of eight months during the year ending September 1. There were employed four male teachers, who were paid five hundred and fifty-five dollars for their services, and eighteen females, who received one thousand and sixteen dollars and eighty-six cents. The total income of the districts amounted to two thousand three hundred and ninety-five dollars and seventy-six cents, which was all expended except a balance of three hundred and forty-one dollars and ninety-six cents.
The school-house in district number three is a very neat affair, and is called the "Reserve school," being situated on the site of the permanent Indian village, in 1830-40, in Leonidas, on a plain as " level as a house- floor." There were thirty or forty huts there in 1840,-the same being Maguago's village.
THE CHURCHES.
The first religious meeting held in the settlement was a Methodist gather- ing in May, 1833, at the house of Captain Watkins, whose house was open to everybody of any creed, though he was a Presbyterian himself, as well as his family. This meeting was held by the Rev. Mr. Dickinson, a missionary from the Ohio conference. His circuit extended from Monroe to Clinton, Jackson and Marshall, thence to a settlement on Climax prairie, thence to Leonidas, thence to a settlement in Branch county, and so back to Monroe. The Rev. Mr. Wiley succeeded him on the circuit, and meetings were held regularly (monthly) during the spring, summer and fall at Mr. Watkins' house, until the school-house was built in 1836, when the first meeting therein
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