History of Washtenaw County, Michigan : together with sketches of its cities, villages and townships...and biographies of representative citizens : history of Michigan, Part 52

Author: Chas. C. Chapman & Co
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago : Chas. C. Chapman & Co.
Number of Pages: 1457

USA > Michigan > Washtenaw County > History of Washtenaw County, Michigan : together with sketches of its cities, villages and townships...and biographies of representative citizens : history of Michigan > Part 52

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AN EARLY TEMPERANCE CRUSADE.

" Whisky certainly grew more potential, and in 1829 our good old county set out upon a crusade, not of prayers and prohibitory

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HISTORY OF WASHTENAW COUNTY.

laws, but of ' moral suasion,' temperance societies, townships and county pledges, to abstain from the use of all ardent spirits, as a beverage, the free use of wine, beer and cider being allowed to mem- bers. It was an earnest hand-to-hand conflict of men, in which nearly all good citizens participated, in which most of those that sold, sold no more, a few not hesitating to stave in the heads of bar- rels, watering the earth with a much purer and better article than, in these days of tariff and excise, money can buy.

" I have had access to much family correspondence and records relating thereto, one letter of which, under the date of January, 1832, merits rehearsal. The writer has no relatives or friends left in this region, but I suppress the name, as not needed 'to point the moral or adorn the tale.'

" It would seem that the constitutions of those earlier societies did not, at first, prohibit the sale, but only the free use of 'strong waters,' and this was under the control of the doctors, not always temperance doctors. With this introduction the letter speaks for itself.

To the Secretary of the Ypsilanti Temperance Society:

SIR : My feelings have been touched in a tender point. After reflecting that I was one of the first to lend my influence in the support of the cause of temperance, both by precept and example, then to be dealt with in the way I was that evening, is unmanly and ungenerous, and more than human nature or human reason ought to bear. If I had violated the constitution there would have been just grounds for the objection.

There is no article prohibiting any member from selling distilled spirits. Of course, where there is no law there is no sin. The very man who has purchased bottle after bottle of liquor of me this season is the first one to rise up and condemn me for selling it to him, and even the man whose zeal destroys his better judgment must rise up and say that he was about to make the same objection on account of its being an injury to the cause of temperance. I would ask that man, which would be the most injurious to the cause: to sell liquor, or the amendment of the constitu- tion, as he proposed. I say that the amendment would have done the most harm, for there would have been at least one-half of the members withdrawn from the society.

The amendment proposed was, " That no member shall make use of any distilled spirits as a medicine, unless by the advice of a temperance physician." Any man of common sense can see that such an amendment is leading to aristocracy.

I have no doubt that the abuse I received that evening was in consequence of my opposing that amendment, and was done for retaliation; otherwise, why all this abuse ? I have feelings, like other men, and too much so to be made sport of in such a way as that. And unless there is some retraction on the part of some indi- viduals present that evening there will be a breach in the society which will not be soon healed. Whoever lives to see a few years more will see the members of that society bound under sarcerdotal government. As for myself I was brought up in a land of liberty, where I could speak and think without being proscribed. I always mean to be free and use my liberty in all cases, and will be the first one that with- draws from a society which wishes to bind me under such tyrannical laws. There- fore, under these considerations, Mr. Secretary, I shall consider myself no longer a member of the Ypsilanti Temperance Society. You will please to strike my name from the list after reading this before the society at the next meeting.

THE SITUATION IN 1824.

" Pausing here at this eventful celebration, let us contemplate for a moment a shade more in detail, the situation of the county

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HISTORY OF WASHTENAW COUNTY.

and Territory. Politically, the administration of Monroe was draw- ing to a close. It had been a quiet one, in which the country had been rebuilding itself after the war of 1812. The debt of the United States, at the highest point it had ever reached, over $127,- 000,000, in the closing year (1816) of Madison's term, was at the closing year of Monroe's term (1825) but little over $83,000,000. It was thereafter to steadily decrease to the almost vanishing point of $37,513, with an income of almost $20,000,000 in excess of expenditure in 1836, the closing year of Gen. Jackson's term of office, and would to God the good people of these States could again find his equal! The census of 1830 gave the population of 27 States and Territories, and the District of Columbia, at upward of 12,000,000. Michigan, 31,639, increased in 1840 to 212,267, or over 250 per cent. At the session of Congress which met in December of 1823, King (Rufus and Wm. R.), Macon, Hayne and Jackson, in the Senate, and in the House, Clay and Webster (now representing Massachusetts), Forsyth, Rives and Livingston were the leading spirits.

" The chief measures of interest were the Monroe doctrine, who should be the next President and the tariff. On this latter we find, as representing the navigation interest of New England, Webster, in full concord with the planting interest of the South and oppos- ing, while the agricultural and manufacturing interest of the East and West was led by the gallant ' Harry of the West,' favoring. For 10 weeks the battle raged, and not until April 16, 1824, did the tariff revision pass the House by the meager majority of five, and the Senate by four, a month later. Bills to abolish imprison- ment for debt and for a bankrupt act both failed.

"Internal improvement secured but $30,000 for surveys, plans and estimates of such roads and canals as the President might deem of national importance. The leading topics of the year were the gallant struggle Greece was making against the Turks and the South American revolutions. It was a busy session; none more so had been held before it. Two hundred and twelve measures had passed to completion. This summer was also rendered memorable by a visit of the illustrious Lafayette, who landed in New York on the 15th of August, 1824. As the older among you will readily recall, his tour through the country as the 'Hero of two worlds,' and ' the Nation's guest,' was a perpetual ovation. In the fall of 1825 he received a township of land in Florida and $200,000 in money, and was sped on his homeward way by the Nation's new frigate named in his honor, the Brandywine.

" Perhaps the event of this period which had the largest influence upon the future prospects of 'the Far West,' which in those days meant this Territory, but in the 50 years since numbered with the dead past has, like the vanishing point in perspective, passed west- ward still with the 'Star of Empire' until it has disappeared down the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains, was the completion of 'Clinton's Big Ditch.' This great work foreshadowed by Gen.

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HISTORY OF WASHTENAW COUNTY.

Washington in a letter written to Gen. Harrison Oct. 10, 1774, suggested by Gouverneur Morris in 1777, who in 1811, 34 years later, was at the head of the commissioners created by New York to put the work in motion, was due, in its perfection and complete- ness, to the energy, wisdom and perseverance of De Witt Clinton. The ground was broken July 4, 1817, and on Oct. 4, 1825, the first boat passed over the 360 miles from Lake Erie, and arrived at New York. A wonderful stimulus was now given to the growth and prosperity of all the lake region, and the Territory of Michigan. with its 1,620 miles of lake coast, felt the impulse. If I add to these few of the current events, that about these days (September, 1826) William Morgan disappeared in a close carriage moving from Ontario county jail toward the Niagara frontier, you will, I think, have enough suggestive history to enable you to recall many of the minuter and more personal incidents of those bygone days.

"Certain it is that the bitter and excited state of feeling that grew up with the rise of the Anti-Masonic party in Western New York operated as largely as any one cause to fill up the Territory, and particularly Washtenaw, with men of substance and power. There are but few among the early pioneers but can make a roll of names of those they know to have come West because Morgan, like the soul of John Brown, would 'keep marching on,' and, like the ghost of Banquo, would not 'down.'

SETTLEMENT OF THE COUNTRY.

"In the Territory at and near the era of which I have been speaking, but little had been done toward the real settlement of the country. There were two land districts, that of Detroit, established as early as 1804 (but none of the public domain in the district had been sold prior to 1818), and that of Monroe, created in 1823, which was divided from the Detroit district west from the Detroit river, on the north line of the south tier of townships of Washte- naw. In 1824 but 61,919 acres had been sold in the Detroit dis- trict, over 50,000 of which were in the years '22 and '23 just preceding. The 12th year thereafter the sales for the year were 1,475,725 acres, with a total up to that year of over 4,000,000 acres; while in the meantime three other land districts, Kalamazoo (1831), Saginaw and Grand River (1836), had been established.

"The recognized hamlets or villages along the lake and river shores were, Port Lawrence or the Monroe side of the Maumee, a bay settlement, as it was called, just north of the Ottawa Reserva- tion of 10,240 acres at the mouth of the Maumee; Monroe; French- town, opposite; Brownstown in Wayne county, abreast of the south end of Grosse Isle; Truax's, a few iniles above; the city of Detroit, and Mt. Clemens, all reached by a United States road running along or near the shore line, from the north boundary line of Ohio .. On the St. Clair was Palmer, opposite Fort St. Clair, at the mouth of Pine river, connected by a trail road along St. Clair river to Fort

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HISTORY OF WASHTENAW COUNTY.

Gratiot and the Lighthouse. Tecumseh, Pontiac, and lastly Sagi- naw were well-known places.

ROADS AND TRAILS.

" The principal roads about that time projected were the Detroit and Chicago, with a fork at Ypsilanti to Ann Arbor and Dexter, and another fork west of Ypsilanti, southwesterly to Tecumseh. Another road led northeasterly from Detroit to Pontiac and the Saginaws, while the Pottawatomie trail up and down the Huron, used by the Indians on their way from the far West to their pay- ments at Malden, was a well-recognized means of entrance and exit. Most of you pioneers remember it well, and how the Indian-file mode of progress had worn it in places to the depth of two feet. It was a romantic pathway over the gravelly hills and through the fat valleys of the Huron, then skirted with Indian corn-fields, bury- ing grounds and camping stations, ever hugging the shore-line in its serpentine windings to the blue waters of Erie. I have said that the most of these roads were projected (still more than I have named are given on the Risdon map), but the most noted of them all, the Chicago and Detroit, was first cut through toward Ypsi- lanti, in advance of the first ox team by pioneer John Bryan, reach- ing the Huron at Woodruff's Grove, on the night of the 23d of October, 1823.

ALPHA WASHTENAW.

" Four months after (Feb. 27, 1824), Mrs. Bryan gave birth to the first white child 'born in the limits of old Washtenaw. To memorize the event, and as all pioneers in those days were well up in their Greek, he was, by Allen and Ramsey, of Ann Arbor, christened Alpha Washtenaw. John Bryan died not many years since at Constantine, but the mother (now residing there) and the infant Alpha (aged 50), a teacher from Tennessee, are to-day here present, recalling the memories of early days and trying to find on the north end of the Jacob Emerick farm the home of 50 years ago.

" As late as 1831 this Chicago road was worked no farther west than Chicago. * * * * * *

FROM 1830 To 1840.

"Passing now to the period of 1830, we find the country with a population of 4,032. Washtenaw is still on the verge of the wilder- ness, steamboats in their infancy, but 24 years from the experiment of Robert Fulton, railroads none, telegraphs yet in the forked light- ning and not bottled.

"But coming forward to the end of the next decade, what an event- ful 10 years to the Territory passing into a State! Its population is now 212,267-seven times that of 1830.

C. Allen L.

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HISTORY OF WASHTENAW COUNTY.

"The cholera of '32 and '34, and the famous quarantine at Colby's Corners, the Black Hawk war, the Toledo boundary fracas, the Patriot war, the wild-cat speculations, the admission of the State into the Union-each and all the theme for a lengthy treatise. No people ever made history faster. It fairly makes the head whirl to recall the many events that crowd this decade-the popu- lation of the county in '40 almost equal to that of the State in '30, 23l miles of canal, 321 of river and 557 miles of railroad improve- ments entered upon by a State within two years of its birth! The estimated cost of all this is nearly $8,000,000, and nearly $500,000 actually expended. So much for the State.

EARLY RAILROADING.

" In the meantime private. enterprise was not behind-hand. Twenty-four chartered railroads undertook to create 1,011 miles of railroad. Washtenaw had, in 1836, the 'Monroe & Ypsilanti,' with a capital stock of $400,000. It was to run from Ypsilanti, via Rawson's Mills, to some point on the River Raisin and Lake Erie railroad, near Monroe, to commence in two years, finish 12 miles in four years and get through in eight. There is no survey, no stock and no road yet. The ' Monroe & Ann Arbor ' the last de- scription will answer if we add-the line, being seven miles longer, the stock was $100,000 less.

"The ' Ypsilanti & Tecumseh,' incorporated in 1838, capital $200,000, borrowed $100,000 of the State, and spent a portion. It had an engineer and contractors, and moved some dirt near the city, traces of which are yet visible just south of the city limits, east of the Monroe road. Bronson Murray, its engineer, now a prominent citizen of New York city, was here a day or two since inspecting his work, and at this date (July 2) is expected to assist you to celebrate.

" But of all these railroads, which promised so much under the stimulus of ' wild-cat ' bank paper, none performed but the old ' Detroit & St. Joseph' and its successor, the now well-known ' Central,' chartered as a private company in 1831, with a nominal capital of $1,500,000. The company had in good faith, and under many adverse fates, expended nearly $117.000, when it was sold to the State (1837). At a cost of about $400,000, including rolling stock, it was (Feb. 5, 1838) completed to Ypsilanti. Its receipts for the first four months and 11 days of its existence were $23,963 .- 56. They nearly doubled that in the next two months, transporting nearly 10,000 passengers, or an average of 200 for each working day. It reached Ann Arbor in October, 1839.

" That was the callow day of railroading and engineering. The perfect line was a reverse curve. Engineering followed the stream in all its sinuosities (witness this serpentining the Huron from Ypsi- lanti to Dexter, where now are tangent lines and 16 bridges) from

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HISTORY OF WASHTENAW COUNTY.

the mouth to the source, then crossed the divide to the nearest stream on the route, and ran down the winding margin of that to or near the objective point.

" This road was built on a continuous wooden rail or stringer of sawed timber. This rail was fitted into sawed ties, held to the tie in a trapezoidal groove by wooden wedges. On the top of this continuous stringer was spiked the old iron strap rail when they had it, and when they didn't, a 12x3-inch oak ribbon nailed to the tie did duty in its place. The passenger car of that day resembled an omnibus placed at right angles to the track, moving sidewise on four wheels.

"The conductor walked a platform in front and along the end of the omnibus train, and collected his fares hanging by the arms in the window. The usual boy's ambition to be a stage driver gave way in these days to his wish to be a conductor. 'Snake heads,' or the old strap rail worn and loosened from the stringers, occa- sionally varied the monotony by curling up their ugly points through the floor of the car. The equipment of the road during the first few months after it reached Ypsilanti was four locomotives, five passenger and 10 freight cars, running upon four wheels like any well-regulated wagon in an exceedingly jerky and independent way.

TURNPIKE TRAVEL.

" But for all that it was a much pleasanter way of locomotion than the old Detroit and Chicago dirt road, which, in the first few weeks of its turnpike existence (in 1829) was passable in about four hours in the old-fashioned two-wheeled gig, hung on thorough- braces, and which a few months later was not passable by the rush- ing tide of immigration for an empty wagon and a strong team of horses in much less than as many days. Its dreary route led through seas of mud and over miles of 'corduroy,' with every mile an 'inn,' of which TenEyck's, at Dearborn, Ruff's, near Wayne, and Sheldon's were well known and favorite ends of the several days' journeys, of about 10 miles each. In 1828 this route was ' no thoroughfare,' and the usual way of ingress to old Washtenaw was by the 'Old Road,' as it was called, by Plymouth, Dixborough and Ann Arbor. Even that was almost bottomless. In that year the same favorite gig and Anson Brown's one-horse wagon were three days bringing the reader, a toddling infant, and his respected parents, in sight of their new home in the valley of the Huron. A first glimpse of its few log cabins and its solitary frame building, unfinished and even uncovered (afterward Perry's, more recently Bucklin's Tavern) from the brow of the hill, where now is ' God's quiet acre' -Highland Cemetery, I learn from one who had borne her own and the reader's share of the toil of that weary pilgrimage-was not assuring. It was greeted by that lux- ury of woman's woe-a good cry.

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HISTORY OF WASHTENAW COUNTY.

WOMAN'S WORK.

" Forty-six years last June, with its lights and shadows, its failures and its successes, its joys and its privations, have since passed, and one who was the staff and stay of that little family has gone to his rest on the hill that gave to those near and dear to him a first outlook upon that pioneer life that was to come, and was to be and was made to develop those forces of head and heart which in the luxury and ease of an older civilization rarely appear.

"Nor was it always the dark side of the shield which looked out upon the pioneer, for though many, perhaps most, of the earliest settlers were a rough and godless band of hardy adventurers, yet manhood and womanhood were there in all their strength and beauty; and nowhere in the world of created intelligence did God's ' last, best gift to man' more clearly assume the character of a help- mate than in the log cabins and amid the rough and trying scenes incident to a home in the wilderness. Ever foremost in the work of civilization and progress, she was to-day physician, to-morrow nurse, and the next day teacher, yet always busy in that wearisome household work that knows no pause 'from morn till dewy eve,' from month to month and year to year, as through many privations and much new and strange experience of that necessity which is the mother of invention,' husband and wife, hand to hand and shoulder to shoulder, worked out in the green arches of the forest the beginnings of the Washtenaw of to-day.

PIONEER TRADING AND PRICES.

"Nor was the progress a slow one. The figures I have given you show how rapid it was. Neighborhood then meant the Terri- tory, and a ride of 20 or 30 miles, over a bottomless road, to an afternoon's tea and visit was an ordinary matter. As early as 1829, 150 miles, from St. Joseph to Ypsilanti, was frequently traveled by pioneers who wanted a few rolls carded or a little tea, shirting and whisky. Merchandising meant in those days having everything to sell which a pioneer wanted, and was brisk and lively. It's an even question, whether the trade was not as good then as it is to-day with some of this city's merchants.

"Take one example: Goods purchased in New York, having made the tour of the Hudson, the Erie canal and the lake, are due and anxiously expected in Detroit. Along the trail up the Huron comes the intelligence that the schooner upon which they are is passing up the river. Seven two and four-horse teams are started through the mud for Detroit to await their arrival, and the mer- chant goes with them. The vessel is becalmed at the mouth of the river; he boards her in the stream, finds his merchandise in good order, and returns to Detroit to await the coming of the schooner and his venture. After a season they do come, and in 31 days from New York they are on the shelves for sale at the reasonable prices

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HISTORY OF WASHTENAW COUNTY.

(in July, 1829) which follow: Shirting, 122 cents a yard; sheeting, 182 cents; iron, 9 cents a pound; nails, 11 cents; tea $1@1.25; coffee, 25 cents; rum, $1.50 per gallon; brandy, $2 (to inn-keepers, $1.87}); whisky, 50 cents; by the barrel, 372 cents. * * *

"Then as now, 'credit exceeded cash,' but there were but few bad debts. I find but few accounts of those days unbalanced. Now and then one is balanced, after the quaint and quiet way of the bookkeeper, by the entry, 'Runaway like a scoundrel.' In those days it was imprisonment for debt, and debt was dreaded. Later, in '39, '40 and '41, the balancing is not so uniform, and the bank- rupt act of '40 appears on the ledger's pages much too often for the health of the assets.

SOCIAL LIFE.

" Passing from the trade to the social life of those earlier days let me give you (still drawing from the old letters, which furnish so accurately and truthfully the lights and shadows of pioneer life) a scene near the Raisin, between Adrian and Monroe, in the winter of '32 or '33. A party of two ladies and two gentlemen, after a weary drive through the wilderness, passing on the way but two or three log cabins, are approaching at nightfall the solitary log house of Judge Tiffany. Here let the writer speak for herself:

'Everything looked wild and gloomy without, and I must confess I dreaded to go in with so many of us to stay, and we had heard that two families lived there ; but in we went, when lo! instead of seven or eight ragged children we might possi- bly have seen, we found a large, comfortable fire, the inmates all well dressed, floor carpeted, two large bureaus, a sideboard, a very large looking-glass, a large library in one corner of the room, and a bass viol and bassoon hanging up. I assure you the change from outside to inside view of the premises was sudden and startling. There were about 20 persons present, most of whom came three or four miles, their nearest neighbor being a mile and a half. The Judge's family came in last fall from Palmyra, had a saw-mill in operation and a village laid out (of course) to be called Fairfield-when they get a postoffice. We were affectionately received, hos- pitably entertained, and found them a highly interesting and intelligent family.

" As I have said that whisky and godlessness were abroad in this land, let me also add that prayer and true religion worked by their side-the wheat with the tares, then, as ever, and no more fervent prayer ever rose to heaven than went from that Christian home from the lips of pioneer minister I. M. Wead, faithful to all life's duties, even unto death.

" How comfortable the 12 or 15 inmates were put to sleep in the many-bedded and raftered chambers, each bed partitioned from its neighbors with snowy sheets and counterpanes, as was the custom of those days! How kindly they were sped on their way in the morning! You, from the picture of the letter, can better imagine than I can describe. Now, as I draw near the conclusion of this too lengthy paper, which I have no time to review or revise, I am

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HISTORY OF WASHTENAW COUNTY.

painfully sensible of its many omissions. More than a reference is justly due to the rise and growth of

THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM

of the State, whose first aged Superintendent has so feelingly in- voked the blessings of heaven to rest upon your future life and la- bors, as it has upon your past. The University and the Normal, which from the bosom of old Washtenaw annually send forth to the State and Nation young men and maidens trained for the duties of life, deserve more than a passing word. But I may not longer weary your patience. They were not here in 1830, and are not yet 60 years old, and I must leave them for the centennial, at which time they will, without doubt, receive a due meed of com- mendation at the hands of some yet unborn historian of the em- pire, founded many years before by Ulysses I.

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History of Washtenaw County, Michigan : together with sketches of its cities, villages and townships...and biographies of representative citizens : history of Michigan, Part 52

Author: Chas. C. Chapman & Co Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Chicago : Chas. C. Chapman & Co. Number of Pages: 1457

Author: Chas. C. Chapman & Co
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Chicago : Chas. C. Chapman & Co.
Number of Pages: 1457