USA > Michigan > Ionia County > Memorials of the Grand River Valley > Part 44
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The company had for a general superintendent, Saunders Coates, who afterwards became a manufacturer of gas-works in New York. He was for four years editor of the Mobile Register. He was one of those men who live to diffuse hap- piness and to win friends. While in this region, he was much esteemed as a gentleman. The other resident superintendents were Alexander H. Judon and E. P. Deacon. Judon was
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last heard from in New York; Deacon died in Cuba. George M. Barker, well known at Grand Rapids, was with them as a surveyor. Abraham Pike, since famous as the one who first enunciated the subordinate position of office-holders, was with them in the capacity of clerk. There were also about thirty agents, clerks, etc
They proceeded to lay out a city; to survey the harbor and improve the entrance. An elegant map of the harbor and plat was engraved. A careful study of this map shows that they were either decidedly in earnest, or were projecting a mighty humbug. The latter it certainly was not intended to be, as subsequent events most fully demonstrated. The city was most carefully laid out, and makes a beautiful display on paper. There are 142 blocks; generally 24 lots in a block. It needs but one thing to make it perfect-a central park. Seven lots are reserved for churches; one for a fish market; two for mar- kets; four for a railroad depot; four for a city hall, and one for a school-house. A railroad is laid through the city, and piers from Pigeon Lake to Lake Michigan. The soundings of the harbor are on the map, and all indicates that if there is not a city there, the projectors mean there shall be.
The company laid out and made roads to Grandville and Grand Haven-good roads, too,-at an expense of from five to ten thousand dollars. They built a light-house, and main- tained it at their own expense for two years. They owned a beautiful little yacht, the Memee (Indian for pigeon); had their fancy boats and boat club, who used to disport themselves in full regalia. They built a splendid hotel, at an expense of from thirty to forty thousand dollars; finished and furnished it in superb style. It was 60 by 120 feet-a hotel in the wil- derness, where a traveler did not come once a month! They built an office which cost $10,000, and a store of the same value: no country around to supply, and their city on paper. They put up a steam mill, the best in the Western country, costing $20,000; and erected about 15 small dwellings.
In 1838, there were there about 300 people, mostly in the employ of the company. To some of these lots were sold at a moderate price. These formed a community, in true frater-
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nity, and enjoyed themselves extensively. The same bell that now calls from Butterworth & Lowe's foundry, in Grand Rap- ids, called the happy company to their luxurious dinners. Pike, from whom these facts are obtained, now sighs when he thinks of Port Sheldon; and it is with tearful eyes he revolves in his mind the scenes of those happy days.
Among the company was a lawyer-Edward Badger-a man who liked to "raise Cain" better than to study Chitty on Pleading. In fact, he was a fellow whose character will be un- derstood at once, if we say he was a "colt." IIe stayed there two years, went off, turned play-actor, and became somewhat distinguished. He probably did no law business among the denizens of Port Sheldon. For a time they had a physician -- Dr. Scranton -- who won hearts while he cared for human in- firmities. IIe left, went South, and was suceceded by Dr. Coxe, who is now believed to be in Detroit.
The company obtained a charter for a railroad from Port Sarnia across the State, to Port Sheldon, and made a beginning, by grubbing several miles of the road. They had their railroad office, whose beautiful gilded sign is the memorial the writer has secured of the great city that was to be. It was presented by Mr. Pike, who, in giving the facts, confirmed them by a "sign."
Alas! must the whole be told! Port Sheldon is not. The commercial crisis that followed, and the discovery of the fact that the entrance to the harbor could not be kept open, oblit- crated the city. The company abandoned the project; bought off those that had made investments; paid for their improve- ments, assuming to themselves all the loss; dismantled their mill; moved off everything movable; abandoned the places, leaving Mr. Pike sole occupant and sole agent. There he lived several years, endeavoring to sell the land, hotel, etc., for some- thing. HIe sold the hotel and thirty lots for less than the cost. of the paint and glass. The rest of the land has since been sold for the sake of the hemlock bark that was on it. The result of the whole is, one man is there, trying to fight starva- tion, by doing the work of a whole city. It is to be hoped he does not own much of the land thereabout; for if he does, the Lord pity him!
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The whole scheme was a mighty bubble. Yet, wild, roman- tic and visionary as it now seems, in the light of results. it was one which involved an immense amount of capital; and which was carried on with a noble comprehensiveness of design, worthy of crowning success. In its active life, and in its failure, the company displayed a regard for hon- orable principle that may well defy comparison.
This was a beautiful folly; a wild scheme which seems like the dream of a child. But who would mistrust a bubble was not solid, if he did not see it burst!
A man in New Jersey invented an improved steam engine. When he had got his working model nearly completed, he invited a learned professor from New York to examine it. The professor scanned it closely, and was profuse in his expressions of delight. "Beautiful workmanship," "Very ingenious," "Only one fault about it." Delighted with the encomiums, the inventor inquired " What is that ?" " It won't go! otherwise it is perfect," was the cheering reply. So with the Port Sheldon scheme. There was but one fault about it. Any good hydrographer could have told them the entrance to the harbor could not be kept open; and of course the city "couldn't go."
Pigeon Lake, which was to be the harbor, is an inlet of Lake Michigan, connected by a narrow strait. The influx of water from the land is too small to keep that strait open. If opened by dredging, the first storm on the lake will silt it np. When the company had demonstrated this fact, they wisely abandoned their project. Their folly was, that they did not prove there could be an entrance to the harbor before they in-" curred the great expense. It is easy to see why they failed, but sometimes lessons of wisdom cost a great deal; and men are not to be reproached for their folly when they have acted according to their best judgment. Whose ways have always shown wisdom ? Not yours or mine.
When Port Sheldon was abandoned, Olive was once more an abandoned wild-uninviting to the settler and entirely neg- lected. It was finally settled upon the principle that causes all poor land to be taken. When the good land has all been
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bought in the region aronnd, somebody will give something for the poor, and will occupy it. The land of Olive had long been in the market as U. S. Government land, and found no pur- chasers. When land has been for a series of years in market it is sold at a reduced price-a mere nominal sum. Under the gradnation act, land was taken in this town, and settle- ment progressed. Hemlock bark had become a thing of value, and a considerable portion of the town was hemlock land. But it is not necessary to speculate on the various reasons that induced people to come in. They came in-at a late day, to be sure; but they came; good, staunch men, who, taking hold at the right end, have made for themselves homes and for- tunes; and they ask no sympathy.
The settlement is, in a measure, identified with that of the south part of Robinson and Allendale, and of the Holland colony. The early history of Olive places it as an off-shoot or expansion of the Holland settlement. It remained a part of Holland until 1857, when it was set off.
As the settlement of the town was at a late day, and then only by spreading out a little, who were the first to occupy, is of little importance, and there is uncertainty about it. Our gleanings are:
Augustus Names, formerly from Saxony, came from Ohio in 1856. At that time there were no settlers in the north part of the town. James Eastway and his three sons-William, Samuel, Alfred-and Gale Burchess, Joel M. Fellows (son-in- law of Eastway), and Thomas S. Finch, came at the same time. Most of these had families. All were poor men. Some had teams and a little property. The Eastways were Edwin, Elias, and Egbert (their father liked his "E's"). All of these per- sons, with the exception of Gale Burchess and Egbert East- way, took land under the graduation act, paying 50 cents an acre for it. At the time time Names and the others came into the north part of the town, there were a few Hollanders in the southern part.
It is not deemed expedient to enlarge npon the early occu- pation of Olive, as it was part and parcel of the Holland settlement, which is more fully treated of in another place.
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The town was set off from Holland, and organized April 6th, 1857. The first meeting was held at the house of Wm. P. Bakker. at Port Sheldon. Its first officers were:
G. C. Jones, Supervisor; J. M. Fellows, Clerk; K. Warner, Treasurer; James B. Eastway, Warner Semple, James L. Fletcher, C. Smith, Justices.
Number of voters, 55. $100 raised for town expenses.
It was a good while before the settlers leaned much on the soil for a support. They made shingles and carried them to Lamont and Eastmanville, where they got their supplies.
They had no schools or school-houses until 1863. Then two were built, one of which is standing and occupied still. The first school in No. 2 was kept by Miss Tate, of Georgetown.
In 1861, a great part of the town was burnt over, doing a good deal of damage.
James Eastway, spoken of above as one of the first, was a valuable citizen; a well-educated man; looked up to by the people. He moved to Robinson, in 1860, where he died, in 1870.
Nature was not very liberal to Olive, but Dutch frugality and hard work have proved that where there is the will, man need not despair. A Dutchman will support a family and lay up money, if you will give him a chance to work. That he is not afraid of. He will make money where that class who pride themselves on their smartness would be sure to see themselves seated on a stump, and sighing, with poverty enough and to spare. You don't see a poor Hollander, nor very often a rich one. The property they have, they worked for; it was not got by specu- lations. When they have earned a dollar, they will make it do full service, and not part with it without full and valuable consideration. In time, the old stocking is full of bright, shin- ing dollars; and Knickerbocker and his good vrouw, too old to work, can smoke their pipes, smiling in calm content on their good home and numerous progeny. For you may be assured. that in their prime they have devoutly sung the 127th Psalm, and have drank in its inspiration. They have read and de- voutly pondered Proverbs, xiii., 4th; and the consequences are independence and self-respect. Let alone a Hollander for get-
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ting a living. By patient perseverance the obelisks of Egypt were wrought out of porphyry. So patient perseverance soon changes the poor emigrant into a thriving farmer, or well-to- do shopkeeper. It don't fill poor-houses, or clothe in rags. Well would it be for some of our young men, who cannot sup- port themselves on a $500 salary, to take a few lessons from the Hollanders, who, earning far less than that, have brought up families, laid up a snug little fortune, and own their houses, shops or farms; just because when they got money they knew how to keep it. Thirty cents a day for cigars! Twenty for whisky! Young man, your mother did not receive a prize the day you was born. Go to the Dutchman, thou spendthrift, and learn the secret of human thrift. Proverbs vi., 6.
The part of Olive, now Port Sheldon, is one of the great "Pigeon Roosts" of Michigan. These birds are to the last degree gregarious; in countless millions occupying the same region in the breeding season. Their numbers at these roosts defy competition; loading the trees with their nests, darkening the air in their flight, and drowning all other sounds in the con- fused din of the coming and going flocks. Their feeding grounds may be 100 miles away. At all times, day and night, flocks are going and coming, the size of which staggers belief. About 1870, the writer was in Grand Haven, and witnessed the return of a flock. It could not have been less than 100 miles in length -a continued uninterrupted stream of life, which was two and a half hours in passing.
The feeding of pigeons is systematic. A flock alights in a field or wood, and then each pigeon examines the little space around it, and having exhausted it, flies forward, alights just in front. At first sight all would appear to be on the wing, so constant is the rising and alighting in advance. There is nothing left when they have done their work.
The killing of pigeons has been an extensive business at Olive. They are sent by the car-load to New York and other places.
The pigeon is a queer bird. It hatches one brood, and then always keeps an egg in the nest for the young ones to hatch; this is kept up during the whole summer. Thus brood after
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brood is filling up the flocks decimated by man and all the predaceous birds. Defenseless, their existence is in their fecundity. As to whether they are a nuisance or not, opinion is divided; but certainly they are an interesting feature of Olive.
ROBINSON.
This town takes its name from its first settlers. It is else- where noted in this book, that a large number of the relatives of Rix Robinson came into the Grand River region in 1835, Six brothers-Nathan, John, Rodney, Edward, Lucus, and Ira -came in the vessel, "St. Joseph," from Detroit to Grand Haven. They, aided by the judgment of their brother, had come to the conclusion that this Valley was the place to build a fortune. So, with their wives and children, 42 in number, they came on together
Four of the brothers-Rodney, Lucus, John and Ira located in this town. About three years afterwards, Rodney and Luens removed to Flat River, leaving the other two.
They took up land in the fall of 1835. They raised a few potatoes the next season; but spent most of their time lum- bering. Like most of the operators in lumber at the time, they failed to make money by it. The faet is very notice- able, that lumber was manufactured before it was demanded; and in quantity in excess of the demand. Therefore it was a poor business. The person who reads this history, or one who in any way familiarizes himself with the doings in early times. will be surprised at the calculations that were based on pine- at the investment in mills, in advance of the real prospect in sales. Probably ten dollars were lost on mills and lumber, where one was gained. It seems that there was a kind of mania for saw-mills. Instead of putting up the cheap concerns that were really needed, expensive mills were erected; and failed to remunerate, of course.
As an instance of early times lumbering, the first winter Ira Robinson cut with an ax, and put by the river, 996 logs which had been contracted to the Grand Haven Company, at 50 cents a log. The Company did not buy them. They lay
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by the river several years; and were then sold for a barrel of pork and two barrels of flour! Robinson found that getting rich by cutting logs was rather doubtful.
The growth of the town was slow; most of the land was owned by non-residents; bought on account of its pine. The town had little to attract those who were seeking places for farms. No settler in his senses would choose his location in a forest of pine. That pine will not then find a sale; the labor of clearing is immense; and then the stumps! Time rolls on; the openings and timbered lands have invited occupation; a demand has arisen for lumber; it has been cut and carried from the land. It is now easy to be cleared. The filling up of the region has given a valne to the land; and the process of turning pine land into farms is going on. The stump ' machine' is civilizing the land in Robinson.
As said before, the occupation by settlers was slow. The town was not organized until 1856. The first meeting was at the house of Ira Robinson, when eighteen voters were present.
Its first officers were: John W. Barnard, Supervisor; Edward G. Robinson. Clerk; Willard Furgerson, Treasurer; Jonathan Hazard, Wm. H. Wood, Alfred Robinson, Fred. T. Ranney, Justices.
The settlers who came soon after the Robinsons, were: Wm. F. Wood, Jared and Harrison Conner, Alva Trumbull, James Black, Joseph Lemon, Dexter Ranney and - Hartenburg -all within three or four years.
It will be perceived that the town was not organized until twenty-one years after its first occupation. The number of its inhabitants at the time we have no means of ascertaining. The small vote at the first meeting has been given. In 1857, the vote was thirty-six. The first census, that of 1860, showed one hundred and twenty-eight. Four years after it was one hundred and twenty-six. So it seems that as late as 1864, there was but a very partial occupancy. In 1870, there were four hundred and six; showing quite an increase. This is in har- mony with the experience of other pine townships. People began to see that a good use could be made of this land, and went to work to subdue it. At present the population is over five hundred.
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There is in the town, the little village of Robinson, where Mr. Eastman has a mill. Around the mill some other busi- ness has clustered. There are two stores and a church.
As a matter of course, the town has but little history, other than its lumbering operations-all of which went to enrich or impoverish, as the case might be, the residents of other places. Robinson had to begin its history, and its development after it had been sacked and its primitive resources exhausted by others.
Its few pioneers were in during the time that tried the souls and the endurance of men. They suffered during the often mentioned " starvation winter," when $20 was the price for a barrel of flour, and $50 for a barrel of pork; and when, for the last, $100 was refused. Mr. Robinson paid $20 at Grand Rap- ids for a barrel of flour, and drew it home on a hand-sled. During that winter a team with flour got stuck by Bass River, and they were obliged to leave it. The people, recognizing the rights of dread necessity, took forcible possession-not as robbers, but as citizens, facing the responsibility of their deed. It was carefully weighed out to the needy, and charged to those receiving it. The whole was afterwards paid for. Before cen- suring, reflect on the great principle that necessity knows no law. If your children must starve, or you commit a trespass, how would you act? Those with a full stomach can moralize on principles and rights; but it is hard to be a saint or moral- ist when hunger is gnawing the vitals. "Lead us not into temptation," is about equivalent to " Don't let us be hungry."
Sitnated as the town is, it is easy to see what it will be. But at present it has the air of newness, and it is but imperfectly developed. Its beautiful river prospects will be appreciated. It bides its time.
GEORGETOWN.
Georgetown, consisting of four townships-5 and 6 N., Rs. 13 and 14 W.,-was anthorized by the Legislature to organize as a town in 1839. But it seems that they failed to organize; for we find that, in 1840, the Legislature enacted that George- town is attached to Ottawa, if she does not organize.
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At first. almost every year witnessed some change in the limits of the town. These may be traced by reference to the summary of the legislative history, given in another place. First limits are understood to be temporary arrangements. By simple reference to the map, it will be seen that many surveyed townships are divided by the river; and that the towns border- ing on the river are composed of fractions of townships.
Georgetown, in its settlement, may be considered an exten- sion of Grandville; and measurably, at the present time, they are identified; as the two villages-Grandville, in Wyoming, and Jennisonville, in Georgetown-are scarcely anything but divisions of the same village, for many years constituting one school district. They are one settlement, with simply the mis- fortune of being in two towns and in two counties. The his- tory of Grandville is given in its proper place, and in giving it, there was no intentional separation of it from its neighbor. Georgetown. A town line near Grandville was not observed. Now, stepping over that line, and eliminating Georgetown from the Grandville settlement, we note that the first settler was an old bachelor, Lorenzo French, who located in 1835.
The first family was that of Lemuel Jennison, who came on with his wife and four children, the same year. Jennison, Sr., lived but a short time, being killed by a tree in 1837. His wife died in 1840. The family, at the present writing (1875), are still all living. Altha, formerly Mrs. Bliss, now Mrs. Johnson, is near Jennisonville; Betsy, as Mrs. B. S. Hanchett, is at Grand Rapids; and the brothers-Hiram and Luman- whose business has ever been, and is, the center and founda- tion of Jennisonville, are still in the town, and carrying on business at the village, that bears their name.
The early history of Georgetown is about all of Iumbering operations. The principal operators were the Jennisons. John Haire, Galen Eastman and the Messrs. Weatherwax. Haire commenced in 1S51; built a steam mill in 1856. But little was done in the further part of the town, except stealing the lumber. The land, considered worthless for set- tlement, was sold in large tracts for the pine that was on it. It was a late idea that the land was valuable. When stripped
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of its pine, it was a public common, resorted to in the season for blackberries. Then Georgetown was alive with those who came from Grand Rapids and other places, to pick the deli- cions fruit. As the blackberry pickers began to see log houses going up in the blackberry region, they pitied the persons who condemned themselves to perpetual poverty. But the next year showed heavy crops of corn, where it was supposed only blackberries would flourish. And soon were visible the fine fields of wheat and clover. Opening their eyes, and raising their hands, the exclamation was: " Well, who would have thought it!"
Mr. Haire was one of the first to develop the land. IIe built the first large house and pulled the first stumps in 1855. Having fixed upon a beautiful location, his ambition was to have a model farm. It is now not a little interesting to see what work can do, and to witness the philosophical coolness of those who have grappled with the difficulties, despised and overcome them. A ride through the town is interesting. The virgin forest has mostly disappeared. A tract will be passed where the valueless pine is standing, blackened by the fires: the ground covered with what was left after the logs had been taken away-a picture of poverty and desert desolation. Soon we come to a field enclosed, and in crops among the stumps. On the other side of the road stands a " stump machine; " and there, half covering the ground, are the extracted stumps, in all their hateful ugliness. A little further along the road some men are at work drawing these stumps to the side of the fields, and arranging them in a hideous row; and the complacent owner is standing near, with his hands in his pockets, serenely contemplating the scene, and soliloquizing after this fash- ion: "There's a fence made for all time! None of your flimsy board concerns that an ox of any spirit would walk right through, and that cost as much as my stump fence. None of you rotting rail fences to be forever repaired, and that must be rebuilt in fifteen years. No, thank God, I have stumps on my farm, enough to fence it; and fenced, it is done for all time; and my fields and cattle are safe. Let them turn up their noses, if they please, at its lack of beauty, just as they
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do at my wife-say she is homely. Lord! don't I know her worth? I wouldn't swap her, homely as she is, for a dozen of your delicate, fancy wives. No! no! give me the substantial and enduring. Give me a good stump fence!"
That old fellow is not so green after all. The real value of these pine lands is just beginning to be realized, and the owners of them ask no commiseration.
Above it is said that the first operations were in the line of lumber. There was for a long time but a very sparse popula- tion. In 1845, we find but 133 persons in the large territory then called Georgetown. In 1650, 196, which would suffi- ciently show that people were in no haste to establish homes in that place.
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