USA > Michigan > Ionia County > Memorials of the Grand River Valley > Part 22
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Sparta has two villages-Nashville and Lisbon.
Nashville is a pleasant country center, and is growing. It has two churches-Baptist and Methodist. each of which have good houses of worship, both built in '66. It has a Lodge of Good Templars, whose influence for good has been felt and acknowledged. Quite an impulse has been given to the growth of the village by the Newaygo Railroad. The village has no charter.
Lisbon, lying partly in Sparta and partly in Chester, Ottawa county. was chartered in 1869. Its first settler and first post-master was John Pintler, who located there in '46.
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The place was called "Pintler's Corners." In 1859, the post-office was named Lisbon, and the name was afterwards adopted by the village. The village is pleasantly situated on elevated ground, but not where it has the prospect of grow- ing, the presumption being that a contemplated railroad will leave them in the distance. The inhabitants justly pride themselves on the good order and general intelligence of the people; on their graded school, and home-like associations. The Good Templars have for many years kept up an effective working lodge, which is educating the young people into sound principles and the social virtues. This village is the "Sweet Auburn " of the region.
As a town, Sparta has always ranked high for the charac- ter and intelligence of the people. Among the young there is the desire to be, and not to seem. Temperance has a strong hold on them, and there is mental culture. When temperance organizations gave up existence in every other town in the county, Sparta maintained her two lodges of Good Templars. Their influence has told for good. Would we could say all the young people were members of the order. But the sad fact must be told-there are in the town three young men who are not ashamed to go into a saloon! Though the door is the open gate of perdition, Sparta has three young men who can step within. Good-bye, young men! You left your hopes, your characters and your good name outside. Lost! lost! lost! Farewell!
There-one of those young men is coming out of that saloon. See him! And then take a look at that young Good Templar that he is meeting. God pity the one! The other needs not our prayers. Grasping his moral principles with hands of iron -with his eye on the Eternal-we are willing to risk him. God speed you, Good Templars! Our hat rises to the young person who honors himself. It is a habit that a good many hats besides ours have got into.
SPENCER.
Spencer is one of the towns that were reached by settle- ment in its natural progress, when people just go into tl:2
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woods beyond their neighbors. The Grand River Valley be- gan to be settled in 1833, but the first occupant of land in Spencer did not locate himself until 1846-thirteen years after. When it is considered that he was only some sixteen miles from the village of Plainfield, and that the intervening space was occupied, that roads were open, mills and markets within easy reach, that it was only to yoke up Bright and Brindle, and in one hour be in the midst of a civilized people, we will hardly call him a daring pioneer. As Spencer was reached in progress, we will say little of its settlement.
Yet. unimportant as is the fact, and recent as is the date, who was the first to occupy is a matter of dispute. It is claimed that an old trapper by the name of Lincoln, was the first. But this Lincoln's first location was in Montcalm coun- ty, and he moved his chebang into Nelson after others had come in. Beyond this, it is conceded that Cyrns B. Thomas, who came from Washtenaw county in 1845, was the first that located over the line. He came with his two boys-William and Levi-and settled by the sonth line of the town, where still the family ocenpy. IIere Mr. Thomas lived three years; not "monarch of all he surveyed," but sole resident in the township. It was not until 1853 that others moved into the town. Then came Abner Haskins and his two sons, Joseph and Alexander, Henry Stoltz, James Tuck, Samuel McClelland, Elias Markley, Jesse Haskins, and possibly some others.
But it matters little who were the earliest settlers; they had nothing to encounter, but the work to clear up their lands; they were simply borderers, not adventurers.
The town assumed political individuality under the name of "Celsns," in 1861; the first meeting being at the house of Thomas Spencer, on the first Monday in April.
Those who have the honor of being the first town officers were:
Freeman Van Wickle, Supervisor; Henry A. Freeman, Clerk; Wm. W. Hewitt, Ed. D. Clark, Justices.
The settlement of Spencer was rather slow, owing to the fact that it was a region that invited the lumberman, rather than the farmer. Until recently, it was supposed that a piece
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of pine land after the pine was off was nearly worthless; the consequence was that pine lands were not considered settlers' lands. Where the timber is pine, the first operation is to cut that off. Lumber camps are located, and the pine disappears. Then the land will be taken by those who are too old to push into the wilderness; or who are unwilling to go beyond the skirts of civilization; or by those whose capital will not allow them to buy cultivated farms. The " stump machine " be- comes the principal agricultural implement; and in the wake of that, the plow and reaper will follow. There is little of the pine region which cannot be turned to good account by those who would live from the soil. The famous " fruit belt " near the shore of Lake Michigan, is no more nor less than one of the least inviting " pine barrens." A year or two ago, passing through that region, the writer observed a man fencing a piece of land. He stopped, and expressed his admiration of the benevolence of the man, who was putting up a fence to keep the poor cattle out of a place where they must starve; he further asked the man if he owned those premises; and be- ing assured that he did, he, with a Yankee curiosity, inquired what the former owner gave him to take it off his hands. Didn't his eyes open a little when the man informed him that he gave $50 an acre for this land, which would apparently starve a grasshopper, if sole occupant of a ten acre lot. It was "fruit land,""and the owner, far from asking pity, was revel- ing in visions of peaches, raspberries and cash. Spencer does not ask our sympathy. She has still her virgin pine, which is itself a mine of wealth; and then, she can make farms where the pine has been taken off; that she is doing. Her history is of the future.
The old trapper looked upon the region as a place for rais- ing muskrats. Then followed the lumberman, who saw noth- ing but pine. What cared he for Lincoln and his "rats." IIe saw beauty in a saw-log. " Hic jacet" will soon mark the grave of the lumberman, and the land will be what is looked to. First, the animals, then the trees, and last, the soil; each step marking a grade of civilization. To show the progress of civilization in Spencer-Lincoln caught muskrats; Thomas
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Spencer put up the first saw-mill in 1863; Cyrus Thomas located the first farm. Muskrats and timber are things of brief time, but the land is eternal.
The first teacher in the town was Miss Harriet White.
Thomas died in 1852, and rests in Oakfield Cemetery. Miss White is also there.
The town was first named "Celsns," but afterwards the name was changed to Spencer, in compliment to her prominent citizen Thomas Spencer; thus sacrificing poetry to merited compliment. Ilow anxious we are to perpetuate a name! When we are forgotten, it is cheering to think our name will not be lost. And how the dying eyes will glisten as the death-damps are on the brow, if we are told our name will still survive; not as ours, but as the name of a town! We will give a new set of books to the town that will so compliment us; will orate for them gratis on the Fourth of July, and then will sweetly dream of our name's immortality !
TYRONE.
Tyrone was a part of Sparta until 1855, when, by the Sul- pervisors, it was set off and became a town by itself. Its organization was effected at the school-house near the sonth- west corner of the town, April 2d. There were elected:
Uriah Chubb, Supervisor; Albert Clute, Clerk; Harlow Jackson, Treasurer; Patrick Thompson, Albert Clute, Uriah Chubb, Justices.
On the record appear the additional names of John W. Thompson, Theodore P. Scott, Lot Folkerson, Darwin B. Clute, Win. Daggett, Leander Smith, Peleg Brownell, Jona- than P. Niles, Reuben Barr, Bela Chase, James Blackall.
Of these, Patrick Thompson, Peleg Brownell, J. P. Niles and R. Barr were but transient residents. Bela Chase died in 1868; Albert Clute died from disease contracted in the army; James Blackall was killed in the war. The remainder of the list are still resident in the town. That grim messen- ger of fate, Death, has been quite indulgent to Tyrone; giving the first settlers time for repentance, of which, it is to be hoped, they have made good nse. But let them not trust too far.
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White hairs are an admonition that the unwelcome reprobate is coming along.
A tax of $50 was voted for town purposes, and $10 for a burying ground. It would seem that in those good old times there was but little to tempt a town treasurer to go into irreg- ular financiering.
In 1856, the number of votes for Representative was twen- ty-three -- for Littlejohn fifteen; for Waldbridge, eight-prov- ing that the town was Democratic.
The remark applied to the other towns of the northern tier in Kent county, applies to this town: Its pioneer history has little of interest, settled, as it was, so long after the Grand River Valley was a civilized region.
The first who sought a home in the town, was Mrs. Lonisa Scott, a woman of great energy of character; who, finding her- self with a crazy husband, and a lot of long-legged boys, took the helm into her own hands; and, struggling against accu- mulated adversity, maintained for herself and family an honora- ble position. Her sons have all died but one, and he is a cripple. Her husband is a happy lunatic at the poorhouse; considers himself the owner of the establishment, and is known there as "Gen. Scott." A woman can do something besides spend man's earnings; Mrs. Scott has demonstrated that. Mr. Scott died in 1877.
Mrs. Scott came in 1850; Lot Folkerson came the next year. Just over the line, in Casenovia, was Mr. Waterman, a mighty hunter, at sight of whom a bear would give up his fur; not voluntarily, it is true, but Waterman had a power of persuasion that no bear could resist. Twenty-three of their shaggy hides were his trophies one fall. The bears knew Waterman; warned each other to give him a wide berth. But his eye was to them the eye of a basilisk-to fix it on them was death. He was to them what whisky is to the youth-a thing to be kept out of sight of. As certain as a bear, prompted by curiosity to see the enemy, or tempted by the grunting of innocent pigs, came snooting around, one crack of Waterman's rifle sent him, a shrieking ghost, to the "hunting grounds across the river." And just so, my young sinner, it will be with you, if you
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go peering round those places, whose sign is the death's head and cross-bones -- or, in written language, the word "Saloon."
The third settler was Harlow Jackson, whose entrance dates February, '52. Jacob Smith followed him the next November.
The first school was taught by Miss Susan Field, now Mrs. Myron Buck, at Cedar Springs. The next winter the school was kept by Miss Nettie Wetmore, of Grand Rapids; now Mrs. Rood.
The first sermon preached in the town, was by the Rev. Francis Prescott; it was in the school-house, in 1854. After that a missionary preacher, a Methodist, held meetings there once in two weeks. During the first years, Elders Bennett, Congdon and Smith, held meetings. A Sabbath school was started at an early day, of which Wm. N. Wylie was Super- intendent. There are as yet no houses of worship in the town. Three religions societies are in existence-Free Will Baptist, United Brethren, and Methodist. The Methodist society was the first organized; the Free Will, second.
There is a very noticeable curiosity on the farm of H. C. Wylie, on section thirty-three. It is a very extensive beaver- dam. The plow has done damage to it, but still a part of it is in the woods untouched. The whole length of the dam is some sixty rods. At first sight, it seems to have been built on no correct engineering principles. But a little observation will show the principles that guided the chief engineer, "Castor Fiber." The construction is not of so remote a period that the name of the engineer has been lost. IIe had no theodolite or level, and his skill was the result of his native genius. As Newton deduced the law of gravitation from the fall of an apple, so Castor Fiber based his whole system upon the equilibrium of water, and established the grand principle --- that water will run over in the lowest place. With this one guiding thought in his head, he commenced the dam before us. ITe said within himself: "If we would create a reservoir of water, we must stop the flow where it runs over. So he com- menced by obstructing the stream. This done, he watched " the rising of the water and where he saw it running over he
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stopped it; and so continued until the requisite height, and capacity of reservoir were obtained. As a consequence, the dam is as irregular as the ground. There are no lines or angles; but all conforms the one principle-" stop the water where it runs over."
The average height of this dam may be two feet; at the out- let of the stream, perhaps five feet. The flow of the pond was about twelve acres. It is built entirely of earth. Prob- ably across the stream there was something else, but that part has disappeared.
We are not to pre-suppose reason as guiding animals in their constructions. A scientific man of Grand Rapids, rang- ing the northern wilds of Michigan, discovered a large beaver- dam of recent construction, and then occupied. Where the stream had run over and formed little rills below, the young beavers had built little dams. It seems to be as much an impulse in the beaver to obstruct water, as it is for the wood- chuck to dig a hole. We call this impulse, "instinct "-that is, a disposition to do what they have never been taught. A. study of the dam in Tyrone will show that the sole principle of its construction is given above, and is found in the instinct of the animal to obstruct running water.
It may be here observed, that we can scarce find a brook without its beaver dams. These are a shapeless ridge of earth. running either way from the brook to the bank; generally but a rod or two in length. The dam in Tyrone is one of the big ones; but probably, in tracing any brook, as many dams may be found as miles. They are not conspicuous; but when once attention has been directed to them, one will be surprised at the frequency of their occurrence.
The beaver is noble game. A poor man may walk the streets or traverse the forest, without fear of robbers; but the rich are in constant danger. The poor woodchuck may live and multiply almost undisturbed by man. But the beaver, with equal fecundity, is exterminated because of his rich gar- ment of fur. We don't kunt the woodchuck; we merely kill him, when we happen to have a chance. But the beaver is hunted until he disappears, There is not now a beaver in a
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settled county in the State. Man immediately exterminates them; not from dislike, but for immediate gain. Blessed be poverty! It is well for the woodehneks that they adopted a simple style of dress long years ago; and that, Quaker-like, they still adhere to the costume worn by their ancestors. Extravagance in dress is the beaver's ruin. Some of the human race may well heed the lesson which their fate teaches.
VERGENNES.
Vergennes was one of the towns earliest organized. By aet of Legislature in 1838, fonr townships-5, 6, 7, 8, N., R. 9 W .- Bowne, Lowell, Vergennes and Grattan, were set off from Kent, and made a town. The first settlement was in what is now Lowell, and the south part of the present town of Ver- gennes. Its carly history is mainly that of Lowell. In 1840, Caledonia was organized; and T. 5 N., R. 9 W. (Bowne) was detached from Vergennes, and temporarily united with Cal- edonia. In 1846, Grattan, T. S N., 9 W. was made a town and detached from Vergennes; and in 1848, Lowell (T. 6 N., R. 9. W.) was organized; leaving Vergennes (T. 7 N., R. 9 W.) with the modest limits of a single township.
In speaking of Vergennes, in early times, it must be borne in mind that its center was Lowell; that its settlers were mainly there, or in that part of Vergennes which is contiguous. A few pushed up Flat River. The two towns, Vergennes and Lowell, lived lovingly together as one for ten years, not fol- lowing the example of many sister towns, of setting up inde- pendent, as soon as they had a dozen voters. There was good reason why the two townships should keep together.
They were, in substance, one settlement, which the town- ship line about equally divided. This settlement, near the month of the Flat River, was the place; the scattered settlers around seemed to be its dependencies. They had lived together as a community; they did not choose to divide; and they did not until both towns were well supplied with inhab- itants.
Who gave the town the name the writer does not know. It was probably so called from some dear personal association, or
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more likely, from the poetic interest that attaches to the word. Thongh an imitation, it is a good one; one of those that can be tolerated.
The town was organized in 1838 (but it must be borne in mind that it was Lowell as much as Vergennes), the 2nd day of April, at Lewis Robinson's house. The number of voters is not known. The memory of the old residents gives the num- ber of families in town as about twenty.
The first town officers were: Supervisor, Rodney Robin- son; Clerk, M. Patrick; Justices, Rodney Robinson, Charles A. Lathrop; George Brown; Lucas Robinson.
The others, who are named as holding the other town offices are: Thompson I. Daniels, John M. Fox, Porter Rolph, Everett Wilson, Charles Newton, Henry Danes, P. W. Fox, A. D. Smith, O. II. Jones, and James S. Fox.
In 1846, after Grattan was set off, Vergennes (the two towns, Vergennes and Lowell) mustered at the town meeting 133 voters. The meeting was held at the house of John M. Waters.
In 1848, after the organization of Lowell, the meeting was at the house of Eliab Walker; and again the number of voters was 133. This indicates a rapid filling up during the last of those years.
The occupation of Vergennes dates from 1836. It is not known who was first on the ground; but following the mem- ory of one of the settlers of that year, we have the names of Ira Van Densen, Jesse Van Deusen, Alfred Van Densen, Chauncey Van Deusen, Everett Wilson, Hamilton Andrews, Rodney Robinson, Thompson I. Daniels, John Thompson, Charles Francisco, Sylvester Hodges, Anios Hodges, Matthew Patrick, Ebenezer Smith, Ira Danes, Charles Newton, Lucas Robinson, James Thompson.
It is not absolutely certain that all of these settled that year.
In the north part of the town the first to occupy were four brothers by the name of Ford-Barnard, David, Ira and Abel. They took up land on the line between Vergennes and Grattan-David and Ira in Grattan. They were Canadians; had little but their teams; took up small pieces of land;
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forty or eighty acres. Elder Godfroy, with a grown up family, came the same year (1838); also Franklin Kenney, Smith Godfroy, Micah Mudge, Eliab Walker. To the same year, or the year before, we are able to set the names of Benjamin Fairchild, James Montague, Benjamin Toles, Jared Nagles, Abel French and Noah Peck, as settlers in the north part of the town.
To these, we may add, in other parts, Silas S. Fallass, 1838; P. Wesley Fallass, 1837; Wm. P. Perrin, 1837; Alexander Rogers, 1837; Alanson K. Shaw, 1839; Emery Foster, 1837; Christopher Misner, 1838; Morgan Lyon, 1838; John Bran- nagan, 1837.
Of these Barnabus Ford died in 1843, aged forty-seven; Alvah II. Andrews in 1872, aged sixty-three; Charles Fran- cisco in 1874, aged sixty-seven; Elder Newcomb Godfroy in 1859, aged seventy-five; Rodney Robinson in 1875; Franklin Kenney, 1873; Benjamin Toles was killed by a tree in 1847.
CHURCHES.
METHODIST EPISCOPAL.
The first class was formed by Elder George in 1841. Its members were: Charles Collar and wife, Anthony Zerkes and wife, Smith Bailey and wife, Burtis Hoag and wife, Howland Soules.
The church was dedicated March, 1866. Present membership abont thirty.
CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
First banded in 1843, by Elder Godfroy; had then about fifteen or twenty members. They have a good house of worship, which cost about $2,000, and was finished in 1863. Messrs. Godfroy and Moshier have been the pastors. Present number about forty.
WYOMING.
When Kent county was a town of Kalamazoo county, set- tlements were made at Grand Rapids, Wyoming, Ionia, and Lyons. Campan had his trading station at Grand Rapids, and Rix Robinson at Ada and other places, and the few persons in the Valley were dependent on them. Living, as they did, dependent on the Indians, with no rights, further than a license to trade, and such as the Indians would give them, they are not to be considered as at that time occupants and settlers.
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A few, dependent on Campan and Robinson, were at Grand Rapids, but in point of fact, the first settlement was in Wy- oming; and the earliest history of the Valley is the history of this town. The first locations were made here. The farms were begun here; and here the plow first broke the soil; and here the first crops were raised. The advent of the first white man into Ionia county was in the spring of 1833. But. Wyoming dates from 1832, when her soil was taken possession of by Robert Howlett, Luther Lincoln, Amos Gordon and Stephen Tucker. They are, therefore, the Grand River Pioneers. They came in the fall of 1832, and raised crops of their own planting in 1833. Lincoln took up what was the paper city, but now the thriving village of Grandville: and there, in the spring of 1833, was the first in the Grand River Valley to turn the soil with the plow, and he raised the first crop of corn where the village of Grandville now stands. This pioneer Lincoln was an erratic genins; we wish we could give a better history of him. He did not stay where he was the pioneer.
Still, 1833, the same year that settled the first colonists at Ionia, is looked upon as the year when the Valley was taken possession of by civilized men. This year brought Jno. F. Chubb, Stephen Tucker, Gideon H. Gordon, James Gordon, Wm. R. Godwin, Joseph B. Copeland, Myron Roys, Henry West, and George Thompson, to Wyoming.
The first house of any description, built by the whites, was a log shanty for Lincoln, in the fall of 1832. The first house fit for a family to live in, was the log house of Stephen Tuck- er, built mostly by the Indians in March 1833. Lincoln had brought on with him five yoke of oxen, and he stayed over winter in his humble cabin, to take care of them. Tucker built his house to live in with his family.
Mr. Tucker was the first mail-carrier, going once a week to Gull Prairie; Slater, the missionary, the postmaster. Tucker commenced carrying the mail and doing errands for pay, Jan- mary, 1833.
As in the rest of the Grand River Valley, 1834 brought accessions to the settlement: Roswell Britton, Nathaniel
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Brown, Eli and Erastus Yeomans; Ransom Sawyer, Richard Moore. Justns C. Rogers, E. T. Walker, Josiah McArthy. Geo. Thompson, Julius C. Abel, Hiram and Luman Jennison; Alvah Wansey.
Let us stop here, and briefly follow these pioneers.
Lincoln soon left, and appears again as a pioneer in the northeast part of the county, where he lived as an eccentric man, and died.
Mr. Howlett is one of the solid men of Grand Haven; looks as though the world had used him well; as though he was at peace with his stomach; and we are in hopes it will be long before " hic jacet " shall be on the marble over him.
Stephen Tucker soon left.
Gideon H. Gordon was but a transient resident.
Joseph B. Copeland is still a resident of Grandville; and there long may he flourish.
The Jennisons are still resident, not exactly in Wyoming. but over the line where they are the life and soul of a smart little village, that bears their name.
Wm. R. Godwin was long a leading resident of Wyoming. and after it was set off, the leading man of Byron until his ‹leath.
Jonathan F. Chubb, after having developed one of the best farms in the region, sold out and removed to Grand Rapids. where he was an efficient business man, and one of the city fathers. He is dead.
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