USA > Michigan > Wexford County > History of Wexford County, Michigan, embracing a concise review of its early settlement, industrial development and present conditions > Part 30
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In the early days of 1872 there came to the county seat town two young and energetic men from Howell, Liv- ingston county, to see what encourage- ment they could get toward the establish-
ment of a newspaper. Everybody was anx- ious to have a newspaper started and it did not take long to secure pledges enough to warrant the venture, and on the first day of May, 1872, the first issue of the Wex- ford County Pioneer was printed. The publishers were Charles E. Cooper, late ed- itor of the Manton Tribune, and A. W. Tucker. This was the first newspaper ven- ture in the county.
During the year 1872 three new town- ships were organized by the board of su- pervisors, viz: Clam Lake, Cedar Creek and Antioch. Quite a village had sprung up where now stands the city of Cadillac, and it was not long until it became ap- parent that an effort would be made to se- cure the removal of the county seat from Sherman to the new village of Clam Lake. The inauguration, development and success of this effort will be treated in a separate chapter in order to give the details in a more connected manner than occasional ref- erence thereto with contemporaneous his- tory. The court house was completed in 1872 and also a county jail, thus giving the county ample room for its officers and courts. its prisoners and its paupers.
In the spring of 1872 Rev. Jonas Den- ton, a Congregational minister, located at the county seat and through his efforts a Congregational church society was organ- ized with the following membership, viz : H. I. Devoe and wife, C. L. Northrup and wife, .\. Anderson and wife and Gifford Northrup. Services were held in the vil- lage school house once in two weeks, al- ternating with the Methodist Episcopal services.
The new county had its first gen- uine experience with politics in 1872. In
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that year was held the first presidential election since the organization of the coun- ty. That election witnessed probably the greatest number of presidential candidates in the history of the country. There were seven in all, as follows: Gen. U. S. Grant. renominated by the Republican party; Horace Greeley, nominated by the Lib- eral Republicans and endorsed by one wing of the Democratic party; Charles O'Con- nor, nominated by the "straight-out" Dem- ocrats : James R. Black, by the Prohibition- ists; W. S. Groesbeck, by the Revenue Re- formers: David Davis, by the Labor Re- form party, and Charles Francis Adams, by the Anti-Secret Society party.
During this memorable campaign the first political club ever known in Wexford county was organized at the county seat. As a matter deemed worthy of historical preservation, the names of the members of Wexford county's first political club are here given as follows: W. J. Austin, I. P. Champenois, E. Gilbert. J. H. Alberts, E. S. Carpenter. S. Gasser. Harvey Burt, E. J. Copley, N. L. Hanna, J. P. Barney. Jonas Denton, Isaac Johnson, Moses Cole, Mar- tin Daniels. T. II. Lyman, Charles E. Cooper, Charles Fancher, C. McClintock. William Cole, A. Finch, William MeClin- tock. H. J. Carpenter, T. A. Ferguson, William Mears, Arthur Morrell. Nathan E. Soles. B. Woods, C. L. Northrup. H. B. Sturtevant. J. S. Walling, J. L. Newberry, Stephen Snyder, S. C. Worth. J. B. Paul. A. E. Smith, George W. Wheeler, James Seaton, A. W. Tucker. J. S. York, J. H. Wheeler, forty. It was called the Grant and Wilson Chib and of its forty members at least one-half are still living, and al- though a few have drifted into other po-
litical organizations, nearly all of the sur- viving members are still true to the party whose principles they subscribed to over thirty years ago.
We had few speeches, no torch-light processions, no barbecues, no bonfires; in- deed, there was no occasion for such things. for Wexford county politics in those days was somewhat like the handle to a jug -- wonderfully one-sided. The total vote for presidential electors was three hundred and fifty-one, of which two hundred and sev- enty-seven were in favor of U. S. Grant and seventy-four for Horace Greeley. Neither of the other five candidates re- ceived a vote in Wexford county. At the November election in 1872 the following county officers were elected. all Republi- cans: Sheriff, E. D. Abbott; clerk. and register. II. B. Sturtevant : treasurer, Ezra Harger: prosecuting attorney and circuit court commissioner, S. S. Fallass ; judge of probate, William Mears: surveyor. A. K. Herrington.
In this election Hon. T. A. Ferguson was elected representative in the state leg- islature for the district to which Wex . ford county was attached. The bill intro- duced by him, and which his efforts secured the passage of, which most largely inter- ested his constituents and gained for him their united praise was the act taxing rail- road lands. The railroad company claimed that their lands should not be taxed until five years after the issuing of the patents therefor, and even after the passage of this bill introduced by Mr. Ferguson they re- fused to pay the first tax levied against their lands, claiming the law to be unconsti- tutional. They took the case to the su- preme court, got beaten and thereafter their
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lands helped to pay the burden borne by the public for the support of government.
During the summer of 1872 the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad was pushed on through the county and as a result another new village came into existence. It was at first called Cedar Creek, after the township in which it was located, but later the name was changed to Manton. This shortened the distance from the county seat to the railroad by nearly one-half and enabled the making of a round trip in a day instead of taking two days, as before. The mail route was soon changed and all railroad business was thereafter transferred to the new sta- tion.
A second newspaper was started in the county in 1872, its first issue appearing June Ist. It was given the name of the Clam Lake News, and was published by C. L. Frazier for a few months, but in No- vember of that year its management was assumed by S. S. Fallass, the new prose- cuting attorney-clect.
The year 1872 witnessed the inau- guration of the stupendous lumbering operations, which has at last swept away nearly the last vestige of the large tracts of pine timber which the county then possessed. In addition to the heavy opera- tions along the Manistee river, the new vil- lage of Clam Lake was a genuine lumbering town. As early as June, 1872, there had been two saw-mills, each with a capacity of twenty-five thousand feet per day, put in operation, and a few months later two oth- ers were started, with a capacity of forty and sixty thousand feet per day, respective- ly. These four mills manufactured about four million feet of lumber per month, or nearly fifty million per year.
If one stops a moment to contemplate
the work of these mills, and those built soon afterward at Haring, Long Lake, Bond's Mills, McCoy's Siding and on the shores of Clam lake, and their constant operation for ten, fifteen and twenty years each, he can get some idea of the vast wealth in the pine forests in Wexford county at that early day.
During the legislative session of 1873 an act was passed detaching the township of Cleon from Manistee county and attach- ing it to Wexford county. The act was thought to be unconstitutional, as it changed the boundaries of legislative and judicial districts in effect, though not specifically providing for such changes, consequently it had to be re-enacted at the next session of the legislature. This town remained a part of Wexford county until the year 1881. when, by act of the legislature, it was set back into Manistee county. While it re- mained in Wexford county, Alonzo Chubb, one of its most prominent citizens, was elected judge of probate for Wexford coun- ty and served a four-year term.
Two new townships were organized by the legislature of 1873, viz: Haring and Greenwood, the former consisting of town- ship 22 north of range 9 west, and the lat- ter of town 24 north of ranges 9 and 10 west. making thirteen townships in the coun- ty. The first agricultural society in the coun- ty was organized in October, 1873, with Alonzo Chubb as president ; A. M. Lamb, of Clam Lake, T. A. Ferguson, of Hanover, and Warren Seaman, of Cedar Creek, vice- presidents: George Manton, of Colfax, as secretary, and C. J. Mankletow, of Selma, as treasurer.
Rev. R. Rideoff succeeded Mr. Denton as pastor of the Congregational church at Sherman in April, 1873, and through his
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efforts the society built a church building during the summer, which was dedicated October 11 of that year. This was the first church building erected at the county seat and the second in the county, the Methodist Episcopal society of Clam Lake having got- ten their church edifice in condition for oc- cupancy in July of that year.
.As a result of the taxation of the rail- road company's lands, the aggregate valu- ation of the county, as equalized by the board of supervisors in October, 1873. was $1.423.416.63. greatly reducing the rate of taxation and thereby relieving a part of the burden which had hitherto been borne by the people of the county.
CHAPTER VI.
WOMAN SUFFRAGE-STATE CENSUS-COUNTY ELECTIONS BEAR TRAPPING.
To show that Wexford county was [ still quite a wilderness in 1874, two local trappers, by the name of Walter and Jesse Mesick, caught twenty-four bears in the spring of that year, besides the capture of several others by other residents of the county. Deer were also very numerous and many a settler saved a considerable portion of his meat bill by eating venison: in fact, many of them were without the necessary means to purchase meat, and wild meat was all they had. Many a saddle of venison was left at the door of needy settlers by the Mesick brothers, with no thought of re- ward.
It must be borne in mind that the early settlers in this county, as in all new coun- ties, were of limited means, and by the time they had paid for moving their families and household goods thirty to fifty miles to their
homesteads and had gotten up a little house to shelter them, their money in many in- stances was about exhausted. One of to- day's prosperous men in Wexford county had to work out by day's work to earn the money to pay the freight on his goods aft- er their arrival at Traverse City. It was no uncommon occurrence that people would sometimes live for days and weeks upon potatoes and salt. Even leeks were resorted to as an article of diet by some, and there are merchants and ex-postmasters still liv- ing in the county who can well remember the odor brought into their places of busi- ness by those who resorted to this produc- tion of nature to eke out their scanty supply of food. It may be said that these men might have gone out and worked for others and earned enough to have lived more com- fortably, but let any such imagine a man
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with a family going twenty-five miles from the nearest trading point, through a dense forest, and starting in to make a home. No team, no cow, nothing but his hands with which to fell and clear away the monarchs of the forest and erect a log house to live in. His neighbors were few and, for the most part, in like circumstances as himself. When such conditions are realized, one can see that the result must have been privation. Of course these pioneers had to work out some of the time, but they had the courage and fortitude to suffer privation for a time, that they might the sooner be in a position to raise the necessaries of life upon their own land.
The census of 1874 showed a popula- tion of thirty-one hundred and twenty-five, as compared with six hundred and seventy in 1870, a gain of over four hundred and fifty per cent. This is the most rapid growth in the history of the county and was the direct result of the building of the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad and the advent of newspapers in the county. Many a settler was induced to come to the coun- ty from reading about it in the papers pub- lished in the county.
The legislature of 1873 passed a resolu- tion submitting to the people a constitu- tional amendment granting to women the right of suffrage, the vote on its adoption to be taken at the general election in No- vember, 1874. There was an animated dis- cussion of the question in the county dur- ing the summer. but of course the amend- ment was defeated. The public mind was not ripe for such a movement at that early date. It might not be amiss to reproduce a prediction made by "Zelma." a correspond- ent of the Wexford County Pioneer dur-
ing that canvass: "But with all the oppo- sition men can offer, this measure will be- come a law all over the United States. "Tis just as certain to be as the sun is to rise. It will probably be years before it becomes general, but, like the eels, they'll like it when they get used to it." This prophecy of near- ly thirty years ago has, in part, been ful- filled already, and who shall say the time will not come when it will be true entirely ?
The township of Liberty was organized by the board of supervisors in October, 1874, making fourteen organized townships in the county. The county campaign of 1874 was really the first hotly contested one had in the county. Both parties put up strong tickets, and a vigorous fight was made by each. The opposing tickets were as follows: Sheriff, J. Shackleton, Repub- lican, J. E. Culver, Democrat; treasur- er, E. Harger, Rep., I. H .. Maqueston, Dem. ; clerk and register, H. B. Sturtevant, Rep .: clerk, E. Shay, Dem .; register, I. N. Carpenter, Dem. ; prosecuting attorney and circuit court commissioner, D. A. Rice, Rep., E. F. Sawyer, Dem. ; surveyor, C. J. Mankleton, Rep., S. H. Beardsley, Dem. ; superintendent of schools, A. K. Harring- ton, Rep., William L. Tilden, Dem. ; coro- ners, H. N. Green and George Roth, Reps., H. B. Wilcox and William E. Dean, Dems.
The Republicans elected their entire ticket except the surveyor, though some of the majorities were quite small. Sheriff Shackleton had 226 majority ; H. B. Sturt- evant had 113 majority for clerk and 80 for register; E. Harger had 227 majority for treasurer : S. H. Beardsley (Dem.), 39 ma- jority for surveyor; D. A. Rice had 483 majority for prosecuting attorney, and cir- cuit court commissioner, Mr. Sawyer having
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withdrawn from the contest; A. K. Har- rington had 223 majority for superintend- ent of schools; and H. N. Green and George Roth had 214 and 8, respectively, for cor- oners.
Hon. T. A. Ferguson was renominated for representative in the state legislature. his opponent being a Mr. Holbrook, of Clam Lake. Owing to the fact that Mr. Ferguson in his first term had secured the passage of the bill annexing Cleon to Wex- ford county, and the further fact that it was thought to be necessary to do the work over again to make it entirely legal, and also to the fact that the people of Clam Lake did not want the town to remain in Wexford county, as it tended to prevent the removal of the county seat to that village, the Clam Lake News, a Republican journal, espoused the candidacy of Mr. Holbrook, the nomi- nee of the Democratic party, and did all in its power to secure his election. Notwith- standing this, Mr. Ferguson was elected by nearly five hundred majority in the district.
The first agricultural fair in Wexford county was held in October, 1874. A very good display was made in the various de- partinents, but, owing to the newness of the country, the only fruit shown was a plate of grapes grown by H. J. Carpenter. C. L. Northrup, one of the early settlers in the county, having taken up the study of the law in the office of T. A. Ferguson, was ad- mitted to the bar in the summer of 1874 and commenced practicing with Mr. Ferguson, the name of the new firm being Ferguson & Nortrup.
.As previously stated, the Grand Rap- ids & Indiana Railroad Company took the case of the taxation of their lands to the su- preme court, and in March, 1875, a decision
was reached upholding the law and requir- ing the company to pay taxes that had been assessed aginst its lands. As a result of this decision, there was paid into the treasury of Wexford county in the spring of 1875 the sum of $33,207.08, which should have been paid during the two preceding years. .A large portion of the money-in fact, near- ly all of it-went back to the townships. consequently the latter were enabled to make great improvements in roads and school houses and to pay up indebtedness caused by the refusal of the railroad company to pay their taxes when they were due.
At the spring election in 1875 Harrison H. Wheeler was elected judge of the cir- cuit to which Wexford county belonged, over S. W. Fowler, of Manistee, his Dem- ocratic opponent. Judge Wheeler had previ- ously served the circuit some time, having been appointed to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Judge White. So well was Judge Wheeler liked that he received almost the solid vote of Wexford county and in several townships in the county there was not a vote cast for his opponent.
In those days there was no limit to the number of special meetings the board of supervisors could have during a year, and such meetings were sometimes very fre- quent. To such an extent were these special meetings indulged in that it came to be re- marked, when the notice of a special meet- ing was seen, "It must be that the super- visors are getting out of pork again." Two of these special sessions of the board were held during the summer of 1875. at both of which a petition for the organization of a township, to be called the township of Sum- mit, was presented. Action on these peti- tions was frustrated at both of these meet-
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ings, principally because of the bearing the organization of this town would have on the county seat question, but at the annual ses- sion of the board the matter was again brought up under a new petition, asking that the same territory be organized into a township to be called Boon. This effort was successful and another township was added to the roll of townships in the county.
The Colorado potato beetle, a few spec- imens of which had been noticed in 1874. became quite numerous in 1875. Many ways of destroying them were suggested and tried, but nothing except the poison method succeeded. Much was said at the time against the use of paris green, it be- ing claimed that the plant would absorb the poison and convey it to the tubers and thus injure those who ate them, but experience has proved the fallacy of such reasoning. Much was written about the new pest, and the general belief was that it would not re- main long, but pass away like the locusts. Subsequent experience, however, has shown this little beetle to have the great- est staying qualities of anything known to the nineteenth century. It seems a little strange that this destructive beetle should have remained in its native hauts and let potatoes grow for two or three hundred years unmolested, and then suddenly swoop down upon the whole land in numbers suf- ficient to destroy the entire crop, if let alone. Perhaps the rapaciousness of its appetite can be partially accounted for by these long years of waiting for its favorite dish of po- tatoes.
The most destructive June frost ever ex- perienced in the county occurred on June 12, 1875. Winter wheat and rye had
headed out and were thus ruined by the frost. A few settlers tried the experiment of mowing down the growth already made, and those who did so were rewarded with a second growth, which yielded ten or twelve bushels to the acre, but the fields that were left uncut proved almost an utter failure. The frost was so severe that it killed the new growth on the beech tree branches and the leaves as well. It did no injury to fruit, for the very good reason that there had been no fruit trees planted long enough to bud or blossom. The usual early snow falls did not occur in the fall of 1875 and the year closed with the mild- est weather for the season ever before known since the first settlement of the coun- ty. Games of base ball were played the first day of the year 1876 in Sherman, and it was not until near the close of January that sufficient snow fell to make good sleighing.
An effort was made early in 1876 to organize a company to be known as The Manistee River Navigation Company, with a capital stock of fifty thousand dollars, the object being to put a boat on the river to run between Manistee and Sherman, but the project was abandoned as sufficient sub- scription for stock could not be secured.
The first mowing machine brought into Wexford county was purchased by Jerome Bartley in the summer of 1876. Previous to this time all hay and grain raised in the county had been cut with the scythe and the cradle. At the election of November, 1876, the county cast nine hundred and thirty-eight votes for president, six hun- dred and eighteen for Hayes and Wheeler, three hundred and eighteen for Tilden and Hendricks, one for Peter Cooper (Green-
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back) and one for the Prohibition candi- date. The new county officers were all Re- publican, thongh one of them. Alonzo Chubb, judge of probate, was elected on an "independent" ticket, defeating the Repub- lican nominee for that office, Rev. . A. L. Thurston.
As a general, rather than a local, his- toric fact, it might be well to mention the first effort toward the resumption of specie payment by the government. Congress had provided for the coinage of twenty-six mil- lions of silver bullion into minor coins with which to redeem the fractional paper cur- rency, that had served the people for "change" since 1863. It was a novel thing to many of the younger people to see "hard" money instead of "soft" money in circula- tion, as no one under eighteen years of age could remember to have seen the like before. It was not long until the great volume of "shin plasters" had entirely disappeared and their place filled by the minor silver coins.
This was a wonderful help in paving the way for a complete resumption of specie payment, which was brought about only a few years later. The legislature of 1877 passed a law granting a city charter to the village of Clam Lake, though under a new name, Cadillac. It is quite doubtbul if this little town would have thought of being made a city, much less to change its name, had it not been for its desire to become the county seat. A bill of this kind would have met with strenuous objections from other sections of the county had not its origin and pathway through the legislature been shielded by a new and mysterious name. So completely did this name hide the object of the bill that no one except those on the "inside" were aware of the object sought
until it had passed both houses and been signed by the governor.
This act provided for dividing the city into three wards and giving to each ward a supervisor, who, of course, was a member of the board of supervisors, thus giving to the township of Clam Lake a representa- tion of four on the board. one from the town and three from the city, that was within the limits of the town, except a little strip that was taken from the township of Har- ing. There were only about six or seven hundred people in the new city. the school census for the previous year showing but three hundred and fifty children of school age in the entire township of Clam Lake, including the village. The number of school children in the other townships of the county at that time was as follows: Antioch, 90: Cedar Creek. 119; Cherry Grove, 25: Cleon, 23: Colfax, 92; Green- wood. 8: Hanover, 58; Haring, 10; Hen- derson, 4; Liberty, 13; Selma, 51 ; Spring- ville, 20; Wexford. 100; total for the coun- ty, 958. Another new township by the name of Sherman, was organized in 1877, consisting of section i in town 23, north of range 12 west, section 6 in town 23, north of range 11 west, section 31 in town 24. north of range 11 west, and section 36 in town 24, north of range 12 west.
During the latter part of the year 1877 a company was organized with the object in view of building a narrow gauge rail- road from Sherman to Cadillac. A pre- liminary survey was made of the proposed road and the route pronounced feasible, but the promoters were not able to interest cap- italists with sufficient means to warrant the building of the road and nothing further was ever done in the matter.
CHAPTER VII.
THE COUNTY SEAT-EFFORTS TO SECURE ITS REMOVAL FROM SHER- MAN-SCHEMES TO PREVENT REMOVAL-FINAL RESULT.
The first effort made for the removal of the county seat from Sherman was at the annual meeting of the board of supervisors in 1872. Mr. Hollister, supervisor from Clam Lake township, introduced the reso- lution, and the place designated for the pro- posed location was the village of Clam Lake. This resolution was defeated by a vote of four yeas to five nays. Not daunted by this defeat, Mr. Hollister renewed his efforts at the January meeting of the board in 1873, but the result was more disastrous than before, there being but three votes for the resolution to six against. During the legislative session of 1873 the township of Cleon, as before stated, was attached to Wexford county, which was a purely coun- ty-seat move. The legislature had some scruples against taking this town away from Manistee county and placing it in Wexford county, and it was necessary to secure a petition signed by residents of Manistee county, outside of the township of Cleon, as well as those in that township, who favored the proposition. According- ly a messenger was sent to Manistee vil- lage with a properly drawn petition and a
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