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 74
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"I, Peter Sabin, preacher in charge of Centreville circuit, Kalamazoo district and Michigan conference, do hereby certify that I have, and by these presents do, in accordance with the rules and regulations of the Methodist Episcopal church, make, constitute, and appoint Simeon L. Frost, Amos Reed, Jonas Fisher, Michael L. Flower, Philip Felker, Isaac F. Ulrich, Percifer Hower, Nelson Healy, Isaiah Reed, they and each of them being members of the Methodist Episcopal church, trustees of a certain church of the Methodist order, to be known, designated, and described as the 'First Methodist Episcopal of the township of Park,' which said church is to be situated in said township, in the county of St. Joseph and State of Michigan, and within the boundaries of the said Centreville circuit, of which said cir- cuit I, Peter Sabin, am preacher in charge.
"In witness whereof, I, Peter Sabin, have hereunto set my signature and affixed my seal at Centreville, this the 23d day of January, A. D. 1844.
"PETER SABIN.
*Charles Ackenbach and Dr. J. F. Williams moved away, and James W. Childs and James Hutchinson were appointed to fill the vacancy.
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HISTORY OF ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
"Signed, sealed, and delivered in the presence of A. Bonham and Chris- tiana Bonham, the day and date above mentioned."
On the 2d of February, 1844, at a meeting called for the purpose, the fol- lowing officers were elected: Isaiah Reed, moderator; Isaac F. Ulrich, clerk ; Michael L. Hower, treasurer. At the same meeting a building-com- mittee was elected, being composed of the following: Amos Reed, Jonas Fisher and Simeon L. Frost. February 19, 1844, this committee met at the house of Isaac F. Ulrich, and proceeded to consider the best means by which a church-edifice could be built, Mr. Isaac Mowrey and Catharine his wife having donated an acre of land located one and a half miles south of Park- ville for the purpose. It was finally agreed that contributions of materials and labor should be solicited, which was accordingly done. The frame of the sacred edifice was begun in 1844, and the entire building was completed in 1846, having cost in money only seven hundred and two dollars. Among the first members were Jonas Fisher and wife, Michael Hower, Sr., and family, Amos Reed and wife, S. L. Frost and wife, George Wilson and wife, and others. The first pastor was Rev. Richard C. Meek. In 1867 the present church-edifice at Parkville was completed, and the old building is now used only occasionally. This was under the pastorate of the Rev. D. D. Gillett. The present officers are Richard Dougherty, Andrew Perrin, Benjamin Perrin, E. Bodmer, L. B. Perrin, George Good, Jacob Carr, trustees ; Richard Dougherty, Solomon Sterner, Granthan Deats, Michael Hower and John Holliday, stewards; L. Bodmer, class-leader. The present membership is eighty; pastor, Rev. S. S. Wilson.
PARKVILLE GRANGE, NO. 22.
This grange was regularly organized in October, 1872, with thirty-three members. The first officers were : Richard Dougherty, master; David Handshaw, overseer; Solomon Sterner, treasurer; S. H. Angevine, secre- tary ; Mrs. Susan Dougherty, Ceres ; Mrs. Ann Campbell, Flora ; Mrs. Sarah K. Leland, Pomona. The grange has been in successful operation since its organization, most of the prominent farmers of the township evincing a com- mendable interest in its meetings. The present officers are : George W. Osborn, master; Samuel H. Angevine, secretary ; John B. Norton, treasu- rer ; Wesley Shannon, overseer; Mrs. S. H. Angevine, lecturer ; John Detwiler, steward ; Orville Dougherty, assistant steward; W. P. Leland, gate-keeper ; Mrs. G. W. Osborn, Ceres; Mrs. Ann Campbell, Flora ; Mrs. W. P. Leland, Pomona ; Mrs. S. H. Angevine, lady assistant.
MOORE PARK
is a station on the Michigan Southern and Lake Shore railroad, established in 1871, and so named from the picturesque homestead of Hon. Edward S. Moore, a short distance therefrom. The side-track was laid down in 1868. A very neat and tasteful station-house was built in 1871, which has a capacity of storage in the upper story of eight thousand bushels. The ware- house is thirty-five by forty feet, and the ticket-office twenty-five by forty feet. Thirty-seven thousand bushels of wheat and other grain and one thousand two hundred barrels of flour, four car-loads of wool and six car- loads of fruit were shipped from the station in 1876. Moore & Weinberg are the shippers of wheat, and the Parkville mills of flour. Three or four very neat cottages are clustered .about the station.
PARK IN THE REBELLION
bore no inconspicuous part in defense of the national authority, but filled her quotas upon demand, uncomplainingly, and with promptness. Her citi- zens vied with their fellows of the county to place the record of the same high among those of the rest of the State.
We here append a list of those of her citizens who left the comforts and endearments of home to go in defense of the government which had secured to them " life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," that all men might taste the sweets thereof, black or white. Should any names be missing, which properly ought to be in the list, if the reader will refer to the several township histories and the general military history of the county, he may find them there.
SECOND MICHIGAN INFANTRY.
Private Stephen Baker, Company I; mustered-out.
FOURTH INFANTRY.
Second Lieutenant B. F. Gruner, Company C; first lieutenant ; discharged at expiration of service. SIXTH INFANTRY.
Private Samuel Bond, Company C; died at Camp Mars, November 11, 1862.
Private John Collar, Company C.
Private Franklin Felker, Company C; discharged for disability.
Private Isaac Hilliard, Company C; discharged at expiration of service. Private Conrad A. Lamberson, Company C; discharged at expiration of service.
Private Christian Schraeder, Company C; mustered-out.
Private William H. Woodward, Company C; mustered-out.
ELEVENTH INFANTRY.
Private Charles Carter, Company B; mustered-out.
Private Henry M. Woodward, Company C; died of typhoid fever, April 16, 1862.
Corporal John M. Day, Company E; killed at Chattanooga.
Private David Clingeman, Company E; discharged at expiration of ser- vice.
Private Hiram I. Evart, Company E; died at Stone River, December 31, 1862.
Private Solomon Shirley, Company E; discharged at expiration of service. Private Aaron Wilhelm, Company E; discharged by Colonel May, Sep- tember, 1861.
Private Robert S. Day, Company E; mustered-out.
Private James Slote, Company E; mustered-out.
Private Manasseh Clingeman, Company E; mustered-out.
Private Joseph S. Brown, Company E; mustered-out.
TWELFTH INFANTRY.
Private William Greiner, Company E; died at Duvall's Bluff, Arkansas.
THIRTEENTH INFANTRY.
Private Horace Cotherman, Company E; mustered-out.
Private Samuel P. Holben, Company K; veteran reserve corps.
Private John Shick, Company K ; re-enlisted, and mustered-out.
SEVENTEENTH INFANTRY.
Private Frank H. Osborn, Company C; died in action, October 4, 1862, at Middletown, Maryland.
Private George A. Osborn, Company C; mustered-out.
Private John A. Troy, Company C; killed at South Mountain, September 14, 1862. NINETEENTH INFANTRY.
First Lieutenant John Whaley, Company K. Sergeant Robert McElrath, Company K; mustered-out.
TWENTY-FIFTH INFANTRY.
Private Henry Barnes, Company D.
Private Andrew Gonever, Company D; mustered-out.
Private Wesley N. Hower, Company D ; died at Bowling Green, Kentucky. Private Southard Perrin, Company D; killed at Tebbs' Bend, July 4, 1863. Private Elijah Reed, Company D. .
Private Samuel Stecker, Company D; mustered-out.
Private Francis C. Koch, Company G ; died at Bowling Green, Kentucky, April 7, 1863.
Private Welton Smith, Company G ; mustered-out.
TWENTY-EIGHTH INFANTRY.
Private Daniel Sidler, Company I; mustered-out.
FOURTH CAVALRY.
Private John Ballow, Company G; mustered-out.
FIRST LIGHT ARTILLERY.
Private Adam Bloom, Battery Fourteen ; mustered-out.
Private Simeon Bloom, Battery Fourteen; mustered-out. Private Daniel Hartranft, Battery Fourteen ; mustered-out.
Private William Hopper, Battery Fourteen ; discharged for disability.
PROVOST-GUARD.
Henry Kimple ; mustered-out.
UNITED STATES NAVY.
Christopher Schraeder ; re-enlisted in Sixth Infantry.
Theodore Ludwick ; died, August, 1862, at Helena. William Woodruff; died, September, 1862, at Helena.
We are under obligations (and tender our thanks for the same) to I. F. Ulrich, Esq., John Lomison, Esq., Andrew M. Leland, Esq., Richard Dough- erty, and Mrs. James Hutchison, for information and assistance in com- piling the history of Flowerfield.
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JAMES HUTCHINSON.
RESIDENCE OF STEPHEN D. HUTCHINSON, PARK TP., ST JOSEPH CO., MICH.
FLOWERFIELD STATION.
RESIDENCE OF ALEXANDER FRAZIER, PARK TP, ST JOSEPH Co., MICH .
219
HISTORY OF ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES.
RICHARD DOUGHERTY.
Richard Dougherty was born June 8, 1823, in the town of Hector, Schuyler county, State of New York. In the fall of 1840 he removed with his father John B. Dougherty, and his family, to Branch county, in the State of Michigan. In the year 1843 he came to St. Joseph county, where he has resided ever since.
In January, 1846, he married Susan Leland, daughter of George and Lydia Leland, and together they have raised a large family, grown and growing up. The oldest three children are girls. The oldest daughter died in her twenty-fourth year. There are eight sons and two daughters still living, and all at home except the oldest daughter, who is married and lives in Three Rivers.
Mr. Dougherty is a breeder of Durham cattle and merino sheep, and has some most excellent stock of both varieties.
JOHN LOMISON.
Of the very few pioneers of Park township now remaining, none stand higher in the estimation of the public than does the subject of this sketch ; hence, a representation on the pages of our history is but a fitting tribute to his general worth.
John Lomison was born in Turbet township, Northumberland county, Pennsylvania, November 14, 1807. He comes of a good old Scottish family, and bears the impress of the careful training he received at the hands of his parents, as his entire life has fully demonstrated. Until his nineteenth year he worked on his father's farm, and then apprenticed himself to one Jacob Hibler, under whom he learned the trade of tanner and currier. His in- dustry and close application to his trade early won for him the good opinion of his master, and at the close of his apprenticeship he was made foreman of the establishment, and subsequently became a partner in it. He remained in this position about seven years and then worked at the business on his own account for four years.
In 1836 he abandoned his trade and turned his attention to farming. For the furtherance of this new vocation he returned to Michigan, and on the 1st of September, 1836, he arrived at his new home, entering eighty acres at first, and subsequently the same amount adjoining his first purchase. He has added to this until he now owns one hundred and eighty-four acres of highly-cultivated land, having thereon good substantial buildings.
On the 17th of March, 1833, he married Miss Sarah Fisher, by whom he has had an interesting family of eight children-four sons and four daugh- ters. Of the sons, two, Franklin and Clarence, served in the rebellion ; Franklin in the Sixth Michigan Infantry (afterwards heavy cavalry), under General Benjamin Butler, and was killed at Port Hudson, May 27, 1863; Clarence served in the Twenty-fourth Michigan Infantry, and received an honorable discharge.
Mr. Lomison has been several times elected to the offices of supervisor, town clerk and justice of the peace, and also once a representative in the State legislature. He served in these various capacities of trust with honor to himself and to the satisfaction of his constituents. His character for ** honesty and business ability is well known ; and perhaps no man in St. Joseph county has been oftener selected by those leaving fortunes, to admin- ister on their estates, than he. And we know that none have fulfilled the trusts committed to their care with greater integrity or more to the satisfac- tion of those interested. We mention one instance of an estate he adminis- tered on, not because we wish to make any particular merit of it, but simply as illustrating his character as a business man and as a faithful trustee : we
refer to the estate of John H. Bowman, of Three Rivers, which, when pro- bated, was assessed at twenty-two thousand dollars. After paying the debts of the estate and some bequests amounting to over twenty thousand dollars, he handed over to the heirs property assessed at twenty-two thousand dollars, being equal to the entire estate when coming under his administration, after settling everything.
In politics Mr. Lomison is a Republican, and while never having sought political preference, yet he has always earnestly served the best interests of the party when chosen by it to fill any office. In religion he is a Presbyte- rian, having been a member of that church for thirty-five years, and an elder in it for more than thirty.
By thrift and economy he has accumulated a neat fortune, and now, at the age of three-score years, he enjoys the fruits of a well-spent life. Looking back over the past, he harbors no regrets, and looking to the future, he has no fears. Having always enjoyed good health, great energy and keen en- terprise, and having been blessed with an admirable wife, who fearlessly shared his many trials, rejoicing ever at his success, and cheering him on in all his difficulties (and in the life of the pioneer they are many), they won a mutual triumph, and will finally reap a great reward.
JAMES HUTCHISON.
Among the truly representative men of St. Joseph county, none were more prominently connected with its early improvement than was James Hutchi- son. He was one of the pioneers of Park township, and was in every re- spect adapted to the arduous life of the early settler. He had a robust con- stitution, excellent health, great intelligence, and a knowledge of men and things well calculated to inspire energy into those less able to cope with the trials incident to a new settlement.
His virtues were soon recognized by his fellow-pioneers, for we find him at an early day county surveyor, and also one of the county commissioners, which offices he was abundantly qualified to fill, being a man possessing con- siderable more than an average education for those days.
James Hutchison was born in Columbia county, Pennsylvania, November 14, 1799, and died February 2, 1866. At an early age he evinced a desire for study, and although his father's circumstances would not admit of his attending school for more than about six months, yet we find him often poring over such books as he could procure, having a particular preference for those treating on civil engineering and mathematics, in which sciences he became tolerably proficient. He was pre-eminently a self-made man, and although commencing life quite poor, he left at his death a very fair compe- tency.
On the 11th of May, 1837, he married Rosanna S. Fortner, a native of Pennsylvania, who still survives. She proved to him a true and faithful wife ; sharing his toils and cares, and doing all in her power to assist him in his struggles in the development of a new country. Three children were sent to gladden the hearts of the good couple, of whom but one survives. Oliver H. P. died when he was in his twenty-seventh year, and Epaphroditus in his infancy, leaving but Stephen W., who now resides on the old home- stead, and is well-known throughout the county as a raiser of poultry and bees.
In politics Mr. Hutchison was a Democrat, having voted for Andrew Jackson in 1832, and always remained true to the old Jacksonian political principles.
In religion he was a Presbyterian, and though never making any ostenta- tious display of his religious views, yet was ever a devout Christian ; a good citizen ; a firm friend, and, in fine, a true specimen of nature's noblemen. (See portrait and illustration.)
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HISTORY OF ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
MENDON.
THE territory now included in the township of Mendon, and a portion of western and eastern Leonidas and Park, was included in, and formed the portion of the Nottawa-seepe reservation lying within St. Joseph county. Its surface is level generally, though somewhat rolling as it borders on the river St. Joseph. The township was originally covered with oak-openings, rather heavy than otherwise, except that portion of the southern sections which embrace the northern part of Nottawa prairie, some two thousand acres.
The soil is remarkably fertile and productive; the prairie being a black sandy loam, capable of producing large crops of corn and wheat, and the openings being a lighter yellowish soil. In the northern part of the town- ship it is heavily timbered with oak, walnut, whitewood, black and white ash, sycamore, elm, maple, etc., and has and still does furnish large quanti- ties of fine timber.
The area of the township includes twenty-two thousand three hundred and forty-two acres of land, and six hundred and forty acres of water-sur- face. It is drained by the St. Joseph, Big and Little Portage rivers and Bear creek. The former enters the township on the northeast quarter of section twenty-five, and runs westerly and southwesterly through sections twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven and thirty-three, skirting the prairie on its southern bank, and passes into Nottawa township on the southeast quar- ter of section thirty-two. The Big Portage enters the township in the north- west, and passing through Portage lake makes its exit into Park on section nineteen. Bear creek also empties into Portage lake, a fine body of water in the northern part of the township, the creek coming in from the north- east. The Little Portage enters the township on the southeast quarter of section one and runs southwest through sections twelve and fourteen, thence westerly through sections twenty-three, twenty-two, twenty-one, twenty-nine, thirty and nineteen, into Park.
The water-power at Mendon village was created by damming the Little Portage on the southwest corner of the southeast quarter of the northeast quarter of section twenty-two, and cutting a race one-half mile south to a series of marshes, and thence by a short flume to the bank of the St. Joseph, securing a head of sixteen feet of water. There is little or no stone in the township. A series of marshes lie along the Little Portage, which are the only lands in the township that are not susceptible of cultivation.
FIRST SETTLEMENTS.
The first white settler in the present territory of Mendon was Francois Moutan, a Frenchman, who, with his family, consisting of his wife and two or three children, one of them Frances, now the wife of Hon. Patrick Marantette, came to the reservation in charge of the trading-post established by Peter and J. J. Godfroi, in 1831, near Mr. Marantette's present residence, on the south bank of the St. Joseph. Mr. Moutan subsequently purchased lands of the government, when the same came into the market, and settled permanently, his descendants still living in the township. . Mr. Moutan was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1770, and he died in 1853.
At the first court held in the district of Erie, set off by the governor of the territory of Michigan (Hull), April 7, 1805, which district comprised all the present southern tier of counties in the State and north to Huron river, Mr. Moutan was a grand juror. This court was held at Monroe, September 2, 1805, at the house of John Baptiste Jeraume, by Augustus B. Woodward, chief justice of the territory.
In the month of August, 1833, Mr. P. Marantette came and assumed charge of the post for the Godfrois. He was then an unmarried man, but in 1835 he married a daughter of Mr. Moutan. He subsequently bought a section of land on the reservation, which was reserved to him when the Indians sold their claims to the same in September following. Mr. Maran- tette possessed a great influence over the Nottawa Indians, and it was by his endeavors, largely, that they were finally gathered together in 1840 and removed to the west. His history in connection with them is given in the general history of the county. Mr. Marantette was born of French parents, about 1808, in or near Detroit, and his father before him was a man possess- ing the unbounded confidence of the Indians, with whom he was for years
in contact daily in Canada, where he is, or was but a short time previous to this writing, living.
Peter Neddeaux came to the Reservation in 1833, during the fall of the year, and located near the fort. He also was a Frenchman, as was the next comer, Leander Metha, who came in from Monroe in 1834, and settled on the north side of the river, on the present site of Mendon village.
A Mr. Miller also came in 1834, and located near Mr. Marantette's, on section thirty-five.
In 1835 Moses Taft, one of Mendon's worthiest citizens, came into the township with his family from Massachusetts, and located on the farm where he lived to the day of his death, which occurred in the year 1874. His son Seth now occupies the old homestead William Harrington, Abram H. Voorhees, and A. Wesley Maring married daughters of Mr. Taft, all of whom are now living in the township. Mr. Taft was a native of Mendon, Worces- ter county, Massachusetts, where he was born July 8, 1792. He came to Leonidas in 1834. In an early day he made the journey down the Ohio and up the Mississippi as far as the falls of St. Anthony, the latter part of the trip being made in an Indian canoe. James S. Barnabee also married a daughter of Mr. Taft, who, alone of all her sisters, is now deceased. Mr. Taft was noted for his charitable and generous disposition, and is said never to have turned away distress unrelieved.
Stephen Barnabee was also an early settler, and Fordyce Johnson, the latter locating on section thirty-five in 1834. Samuel E. Johnson and his family of six boys, of whom Sherlock and Fordyce are now residents of Mendon, came from Livingston county, New York, to Nottawa prairie, November, 1833, and located on section one in Nottawa, south of the reser- vation-line. Mr. Johnson died in 1839.
Rowell came to the reservation in 1835, and Oliver H. Foote the same year, with his family of six children, and located where Elisha Foote now lives.
The Wakemans came to Nottawa prairie in 1833-6, Adams being the advance of the three brothers-Hiram the main body in 1834, and Mark the rear-guard in 1836. They settled in Mendon in 1837.
Benjamin Peter House came in from Mendon, New York, in 1837-8; N. Chapman in 1834; B. B. Bacon, 1837-the latter from New York ; Ephraim K. Atkinson, from Pennsylvania, in 1837; James Van Buren, 1837-8; Abram H. Voorhees, 1841; Ira Pellett, 1837, and William Pellett, his brother, the same year, came in from Pennsylvania, and Joseph Woodward, also, who settled that year on Portage lake. A Mr. Curtis came in 1834; Abner Moore came in from Pennsylvania in 1834, and Harvey White in 1836 located in the same neighborhood,-southwest part of township, where he now lives. Ezra Brown came to the township in 1840; Pattee came in 1836-7, and Timothy Kimball and Van Buskirk before that time.
THE FIRST FARM
was opened by Mr. Moutan in 1832-3, who raised a crop of corn. Mr. Marantette raised the first wheat, sowing two bushels of a spring variety, in 1835. In 1873 there were four thousand and forty-five acres of wheat sown, which produced forty-four thousand and forty-one bushels, and one thousand six hundred and eighty-six acres of corn planted, which yielded forty-eight thousand five hundred and seventy-five bushels. The crop of 1873 also pro- duced ten thousand six hundred and fifty-six bushels of other grain, three thousand nine hundred and fifteen bushels potatoes, one thousand two hundred and seventy-three tons hay, fifteen thousand six hundred and sixty-seven pounds wool, one hundred and twenty-two thousand four hundred and fifty- two pounds pork, twenty-nine thousand and sixty pounds butter, five thou- sand five hundred and eighty pounds dried fruit, and three hundred and seventy-eight barrels of cider. Three hundred and forty-seven acres in orchards produced six thousand five hundred and sixty-one bushels of apples, valued at five thousand and forty-three dollars.
The first entries of public lands in the township were made in the year of 1836. The locations made previously were all by pre-emption, the land not coming into market until after the time had expired during which the Indians were promised quiet and undisturbed possession of their reservation
A. P. EMERY.
MRS. A. P. EMERY.
RESIDENCE OF A.P. EMERY, MENDON, ST JOSEPH CO, MICHIGAN.
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HISTORY OF ST. JOSEPH COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
after the sale thereof to the government in 1833. Notwithstanding this guaranty the choice lands were all pre-empted before the expiration of the stipulated period of two years, or at least were located and occupied much to the discontent of the tawny possessors of the reservation, but the strife to secure the best possessions regarded not the conditions of treaties or rights of the natives of the soil, but in face of them all the choice lands of the Nottawas were appropriated by the Anglo-Saxon who has made the town- ship what it is, one of the best in the county. There were but two entries in 1836, and both were made by Samuel T. Larkin on section twenty-six- the northeast fractional quarter on September 22, and the southwest quarter September 29. In 1837 and '38 there was a rush for the land-office, and large tracts of the township were located. In 1876 there twenty-two thou- sand one hundred acres of land assessed for taxation, valued by A. P. Emery, supervisor of the township, at four hundred and thirty-six thousand and thirty dollars, which is about one-quarter to one-third its real value.
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