USA > Michigan > Washtenaw County > Past and present of Washtenaw County, Michigan > Part 62
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"During the previous fall several families had been added to the settlement. Daniel Cross, John Bryan, Mr. Noyes, and Mr. Brainard. There
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were now in sight eight small log huts, built in the same manner as Mr. Tuttle's, except that those of Messrs. Bryan, Cross and Woodruff had rough floors and stick chimneys. Mr. Grant's house was the one occupied by Mr. Stiles, and as soon as Stiles could move onto his farm, Mr. Grant came to the Grove to live. George Hall and his brother and a Mr. Beverly had built on the west side of the river near the place now occupied by the paper mill.
"Work now began in earnest. Roads were cut in different directions, a landing made for boats where Ransomville now is, land cleared, etc. In May Mr. Jason Cross and his brother-in-law Avery came in. They both had families of grown- up children who were quite an addition to the working force of the place. Mr. Grant owned the farm now (1875) belonging to Mr. E. King, and there are still standing there some of the apple trees we brought from Ohio. On the Tut- tle and Grant farms were old Indian corn fields, which were easily put under cultivation. Mr. Woodruff did not work on his farm but rented it and gave up his time to helping people who were coming in.
"The Indians passed through the place in 1824, the company numbering between three hun- dred and fifty and four hundred, all marching in single file. They were peaceable and inof- fensive, and continued so until they were fur- nished whiskey by the white people. Deer were plenty and bears, wolves and wildcats abounded. Venison was the most common article on our bill of fare.
"A few logs, together with bark scattered around, which had the appearance of having been used for a roof, was all that remained of God- froy's trading post, in the spring of 1824. Near by this, an the banks of the river, was a fine spring, and here a Mr. Stewart built the first house on the west side of the river in Ypsilanti. Others soon joined him and quite a settlement sprang up during the summer.
"Mr. Woodruff sent out an invitation to every- one in the county to celebrate the Fourth of July (1824) at the Grove. He brought up from De- troit such articles for dinner as were considered necessary, and could not be found in the settle-
ment. Among these were loaf sugar, cheese, raisins, rice and last, but not least, a half barrel of whisky. Mrs. Woodruff's oven was the only one in the place. It was built out of doors, of stone plastered with mud. Here the baking was done. All joined in the work of preparation. A beef was killed, and when the meat was ready to roast, the oven and even bake kettle were already full. Logs were rolled together and a fire quickly made out of doors. Two large kettles were turned over on their side before this fire, and on sticks laid on these the meat was roasted to per- fection.
"The company gathered in Mr. Woodruff's yard where a log had been set up to resemble a cannon; on this the boys fired their rifles and ushered in the day with wonderful salutes. From a stump near by Mr. Woodruff read the Declara- tion of Independence and made a speech. Then all who could sing joined in singing "Hail Co- lumbia," and we were ready for dinner. Our table was made of rough boards covered with the whitest and smoothest of home-made linen. We were all proud of our success in preparing the dinner, and it certainly was very inviting. There were chickens and roast beef, new potatoes, green peas and beets, warm biscuit with butter and honey, cheese, rice puddings and loaf cake, both well filled with raisins. The following were the names of those who partook of the dinner, as nearly as I can remember : Mr. Woodruff and family, Mr. Grant and family, Mr. Hiram Tuttle and family, Mr. John Bryan and family, Judge Fleming, Arden H. Ballard, Thomas Sackrider, David Stiles, David McCord, Saunders, Beverly, Leonard Miller, Captain Fair, J. Stoddard, Or- ange Crane, J. Malheu, Wm. Eichlor and W. W. Harwood. The dinner passed off well and Delia Woodruff ( afterward the wife of A. H. Bal- lard ) and I had the hot sling ready for toasts. This was new work for us and we forgot our instructions and put in a double portion of whis- key. The effect of this mistake was soon appar- ent on the toast drinkers, in increased liveliness and good humor. Everything passed off pleas- antly and in the afternoon we were joined by Mr. Mallett and his sister from Brownstown. Mr. Mallett was the fiddler and we had a lively dance
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in the evening being joined by others who had not been present at the dinner. Harmony and good fellowship reigned throughout the day, and it was a time long to be remembered by those present.
"Death visited the settlement that summer (1824) for the first time and cast a gloom over every heart. A young Irishman named Oakman, who had come to the place with John Phillips, was taken sick and lived but a short time. Chills and fever now commenced and some families were not able to do anything for themselves. Mrs. Woodruff made a large kettle of porridge every day and sent me with it to those who were sick. The supplies brought with us were divided with those whom sickness had made destitute, and were soon exhausted. Money was scarce and we now began to see hard fare. The corn yielded well, but there was no way to grind it. Hulled corn was our staple for a long time. Those who had been able to work had made gar- dens and raised plenty of turnips and some beans and potatoes. In the winter mortars were made by burning a hollow in the top of stumps, where the corn was placed and pounded with a pestle fastened to a pole, which worked like a well sweep. The fine and the coarse parts of the pounded corn were carefully separated, the fine being used for bread. the coarse for samp. Mr. Cross and Mr. Grant had each sown wheat, and after harvest we had pounded wheat which was a welcome change. The cold weather abated the sickness and we beguiled the long winter even- ings by meeting together at the different houses to dance, sing and play. This was enjoyed by old and young, and was an excellent prevention of homesickness, a disease we carefully guarded against. Work again progressed, fields were cleared, dooryards enclosed, and by spring Ama- riah Rawson had a saw-mill running at the land- ing (now Rawsonville). The surrounding coun- try was rapidly settled: wild animals were not so numerous.
"The first grist mill built in the county was by Major Woodruff about half a mile down the Huron river from the Grove. It was built of hewn logs: the building was some twenty by thirty feet square, and he commenced running
the mill in the fall of 1825, and it was a day of rejoicing among the settlers, who had a hard time previous to this to prepare their corn fit for use."
In the autumn of 1823 Mrs. John Bryan ar- rived from Geneseo, New York, with the first ox team to come through from Detroit. Mrs. Bryan has left the following description of their arrival :
"After a wearisome journey of four days, through the thick woods and marshes-husband cutting the wood before us with an ax-we ar- rived at night on the beautiful Huron, October 23, 1823. We got the privilege of staying in a log cabin with another family until we could build one, into which we moved the last day of December. Eight weeks after this (February 27. 1824) my son Alpha was born. We called him Alpha Washtenaw-the latter name in honor of the county, and the former on account of his having been the first child born in the county. He was promised a lot of land, but never re- ceived it.
"It was amusing the first fall and winter to hear the corn mills in operation every morning before daylight. There were two in the settle- ment. They were made as follows: A hole was burned in the top of a sound oak stump; after scraping this clear from coal. a stick, about six feet long and eight inches in diameter, was rounded at one end and hung by a spring pole directly over the stump ; a hole was bored through this pestle for handles, and now the mill was done. A man would pound a peck of dry corn in half an hour, so that half of it would pass through a sieve for bread; and very little of any other kind of bread was used. in the settlement for two years. Sometimes for weeks together we had nothing to eat but this sort of bread and potatoes.
"We saw but few Indians the first year ; but the next summer they came through our place by hundreds. Every morning they would go to every house begging for something to eat. As I was much alone and a quarter of a mile away from any house, many times when I saw them coming I have instantly put my table out of sight : I could not feed them without robbing my
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children. It was enough to make one's heart ache to see the condition of these poor Indians. Sometimes there would be six hundred in a drove, going to Detroit or Malden for presents, which they would soon part with for whiskey."
The first permanent settlement, as has been seen, was made near the present city of Ypsilanti, in 1823. The second permanent settlement was inade in 1824 in what is now the city of Ann Ar- bor and the two pioneer settlers were John Allen and Elisha Walker Rumsey. They were also the first to actually plat a village in Washtenaw and they played a prominent part among the pio- neers who were fast taking up the available land in the county. They met in Cleveland, Ohio, in January or February, 1824. Allen came from Virginia and Rumsey, who was accompanied by his wife, from New York. Both were looking for an eligible site to start a town and concluded to locate together. So, in February, Allen, Rum- sey and his wife, and Benjamin Sutton, of New Jersey, who was also looking for a location, started out from Detroit on horseback. They crossed Swartz creek and Tonquish plains and continued on together to what is now Plymouth, where the Indian trail forked, and here they sepa- rated. Allen and Rumsey and his wife took the south fork and continued on to what is now Ann Arbor. Sutton took another trail and located at what is now called Sutton's Corners in Northfield. about five miles from Ann Arbor.
John Allen belonged to an old Virginia family and he was born in Augusta county in that state, May 17, 1796, and was consequently twenty- eight years of age when he aided in founding Ann Arbor. He was the first postmaster of Ann Arbor, held numerous offices including that of senator from 1845 to 1848, at one time owned thousands of aeres in the western part of the state, which he lost. He finally went to Cali- fornia with the gold seekers in 1850, and died there March 11. 1851. Elisha Walker Rumsey was - years old when, with Allen, he located Ann Arbor. He died in Ann Arbor in 1827, and his tombstone is now in Forest Hill cemetery. and bears the inscription: "The first settler in Ann Arbor." After many years, during which Rumsey's memory had been respected in Ann
Arbor, documents were filed with the State Pio- neer Society which stirs up old and forgotten scandal. These documents, which are nothing but remembrances of old citizens of New York, put forth the claim that Elisha Walker Rumsey's real name was Walker Rumsey, the Elisha being added after he came to Michigan. They made the claim that Walker Rumsey had run away to Canada from Bethany, New York, with three thousand dollars given him by an Albany firm to buy cattle, deserting his wife and taking with him a grass widow named Ann Sprague. But. finding that he would fare worse in Canada than in the states, he went to Michigan, where a young lawyer found him and took him back to Albany, where he succeeded in settling the charge of em- bezzlement. After his release he lived at Bethany with Ann Sprague, described as "a smart, fine looking woman," as his wife. But opinion in Bethany was so strongly against the couple that they pulled up and came to Ann Arbor, where his brother Henry Rumsey afterward followed him and rose to prominence. This scandal has been published in the pioneer collections of the state, and. as the parties have all passed away, there has been no one to deny it.
John Allen announced in Buffalo, before he had met Rumsey, that he was going west to found a town. When he met Rumsey in Cleveland, he found that he was on the same errand, and they decided to locate together. While the first house was built for Rumsey, as Rumsey was accompa- nied by his wife, the Ann Sprague spoken of above. Allen may be regarded as taking the leading part in the settlement of Ann Arbor. While Rumsey bought one hundred sixty acres of section 20. Allen bought four hundred eighty acres, and it was Allen who laid out the village of Ann Arbor and recorded the plat in Detroit, May 25, 1824. Rumsey died within three years of his coming to Ann Arbor, while Allen took part in the pioneer work and saw the village grow to large proportions, witnessed the formation of the state constitution on the very land which he had located, and was honored with a number of offices before he went farther west, once more in search of fortune.
It was on February 12, 1824, that Allen and
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Rumsey purchased six hundred forty acres of the present site of Ann Arbor. The exact date in February at which they arrived in Ann Arbor has not been handed down to us. On their arri- val here they pitched their tent, which was made with poles arched over the sleigh box, covered with boughs of trees and a rag carpet, near Al- len's creek, and on the south side of Huron street. An Indian trail followed the east bank of Allen's creek. Here it was said had been the ancient dancing ground of the Pottawatomies. The pio- neers found a good spring of water on the exact spot where the Walker house on Miller avenue now stands, a spring which was used by all the early settlers. Before the building which now occupies the site of the spring could be erected. the water supplying the spring had to be drained away by tiling. The main part of Ann Arbor was then a beautiful burr oak plain. It was midwin- ter. However beautiful the oak opening. or cozy the tent of boughs and rag carpet, it is natural that no time would be lost in erecting the first house for the first woman, Mrs. Rumsey. As quickly as it could be built, Rumsey's house was erected on what is now the southwest corner of Huron and First streets. It was, of course, a log house. John Geddes, who first saw Ann Ar- bor. July 14. 1824. describes the house as one story high, with an additional log block on the side, one and a very low half story high with no rafters and no roof on it. He says this was then the only house here and that John Allen was putting up in a tent north of the house. while Rumsey and his wife occupied the house and en- tertained people who came viewing the land. This house was afterward called the Washtenaw Cof- fee House, and Mr. and Mrs. Rumsey ran it as a tavern.
The second house was built by John Allen of hewn logs on the northwest corner of Huron and Main streets, where the Ann Arbor Savings Bank now is. This house was painted a blood red, and for a long time the corner was known as "Bloody Corners." Mr. Allen, having completed his house. sent for his wife and wrote her that his house then contained twenty families. She expected to find a very large hotel, but when she got here she found that the only partitions were of
blankets. Mrs. Ann Isabella Allen, John Allen's wife, did not come alone. Accompanying her were John Allen's father and mother, James and Elizabeth Allen, their son James T. Allen, and Mr. and Mrs. John Allen's daughter. Sarah A .. together with two children of John Allen, by a former marriage. James C. and Elizabeth M. C. Allen. With them, also, came Orville Barnes, of New England, who had been teaching school in Virginia. This party of eight left Augusta county, Virginia. August 28, 1824, and arrived in Ann Arbor, October 16, 1824. and at once took quar- ters in the new block house in "Bloody Corners."
At the time of the arrival of the Allen family at their home in Ann Arbor, the father. James Allen was fifty-three years old and his wife was forty-nine, while John Allen's wife, one of the Anns after whom the city was named, was twenty- eight years old. James Allen died in 1828 and his wife died here in 1861. Mrs. Ann Allen died in Virginia in 1875. James T. Allen was twenty years old when he came here. while John Allen's son James C., was eight years old. James T. Allen was county clerk in 1830. He died in Chi- cago. December 22. 1890. James C. Allen died in Ann Arbor.
But before John Allen's family arrived, there were still other settlers in Ann Arbor. That spring. Mr. and Mrs. Asa L. Smith and child. a little girl one year old, arrived on foot through the woods, bringing on their backs all their earthly possessions, and with just one shilling in their pockets. Mr. Smith was a carpenter and it did not take him long to build a house a short dis- tance west of Allen's house. The early settlers of Ann Arbor seem to have been marrying men, for Mrs. Smith was also a second wife. They had been married for two years and were still a young couple, he being thirty-two years old and she twenty-six. They arrived in Ann Arbor May 29, 1824, Mrs. Smith being the second white woman and her child the first white baby in Ann Arbor. Poles were driven in the ground and blankets suspended to keep out the chilly night air, but it did not shut out the howlings of the wolves which yet frequented the new settlement. Soon Mr. Smith had a hut built of poles and covered with bark pulled from the forest trees,
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and about the first of October he had built and moved into his log hut on Main street, north of Ann street. He soon sold this house and built another, and so in his first seven years he moved his family thirteen times, each time selling his old home to a new settler. He is supposed to have built the first frame house in the town in 1828. He built the first school house. He also built the first brick block on the north side of the city on the corner of Broadway and Canal streets. He died at his home in the fifth ward, February 13, 1844. His wife, the intrepid woman who, with her year-old baby, accompanied her husband on foot through the wilderness, married in 1849. Casey Mckay, and lived in Kalamazoo county until her second husband's death in 1861, when she went to live with her daughter, Mrs. Martha Ann Hickman, of Battle Creek, where she died in 1888, at the advanced age of ninety years. Mrs. Smith's maiden name was Syrena Irms, and she was a native of Unadilla, New York, while Mr. Smith was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Their child, Elisha Walker Rumsey Smith, was the first white child born in Ann Arbor, his birth being on November 24, 1825. He did not live long, dying April 5, 1827.
In September, 1824, John Harford opened a store in Ann Arbor in John Allen's block house on the present site of the Ann Arbor Savings Bank, the first store in Ann Arbor. Several months later Cyrus Beckwith brought another stock of goods to Ann Arbor and opened another store. David and Jonathan Ely had a store here before May, 1827, when Edward Clark came to Ann Arbor and opened up a general store on the east side of Main street near Washington street. The next year. Mr. Clark, afterward General Clark, built a two story frame store building on the opposite side of the street. Hethcott Mowry opened his store in 1830, Edward Mundy, af- terward lieutenant-governor and acting governor of Michigan, opened his store in 1831 and John Thompson began his store the same year. About this time William S. Maynard, the merchant prince of early Ann Arbor, also opened his store.
In June, 1824. George W. Noyes and wife, who had come to Woodruff's Grove some six months previously and who had, while there, on May 24.
1824, bought from the government the first land purchased in Pittsfield, removed to Ann Arbor and began making preparations to build a grist mill, where the City Mills now stand. Noyes and his wife were like most of the other settlers, a young couple. He had been born in New Hamp- shire in 1798, and his wife, whose maiden name was Martha -, was a native of New York, where she was born in 1803. They were mar- ried in New York in 1818 and came to Michigan in the fall of 1823. The description of their com- ing may be of interest as illustrative of the way in which Michigan was settled. The young couple had heard of the surveying of the Territory of Michigan and that land could be purchased for one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre. Nothing daunted by reports that the country was one vast swamp nor by the reputed danger from Indians and wild beasts, they packed their effects into a double wagon and with a valuable team of horses they drove to Detroit over rough roads. When they reached Detroit they had their goods and one dollar in cash. At Detroit they sold their wagon and horses. Emigrants then had in view Pontiac or Woodruff's Grove. Noyes' choice fell on Woodruff's Grove and there he remained about six months. Allen and Rumsey having started Ann Arbor, and Ann Arbor township showing signs of rapid settlement, Noyes, as stated above, removed to Ann Arbor in June, 1824, four months after Allen and Rumsey, and a few days after the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Smith. They lived in a log house near the corner of Main and Ann streets. Although Noyes began preparations for a grist mill at once, it was not until about August 1, 1826, that the frame of the mill was raised. At this raising, be- sides the settlers of Ann Arbor city. were Cap- tain John Dix, of Dixboro, and John and Robert Geddes, Colonel Orrin White, and others of Ann Arbor town, Judge S. W. Dexter and Mr. Arnold, of Dexter. Horace and Virgil Booth and others of Lodi. Orrin Parsons and others of Saline. Oli- ver Whitmore, S. D. McDowell, Ezra Carpen- ter and Ezra Maynard, of Pittsfield, and a number from Ypsilanti. The mill was soon running and was well patronized so that Mr. and Mrs. Noyes seemed to be on the highway to prosperity,
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when there occurred the first fatal accident in the county after the settlement. On November 23. 1826, Mr. Noyes was killed at the raising of a house for Andrew Nowland, on the east side of North State street, near the Central tracks. The building was being raised by posts and beams, a bent at a time. Mr. Noyes went up on the frame to adjust the plates when the whole building, not being sufficiently braced, fell and Mr. Noyes was instantly killed. He is supposed to have been the first person buried in the old Ann Arbor cemetery, now known as Felch Park. His young wife did not long remain a widow, but on January 23. 1827. married Ezra H. Platt. who soon bought the Maynard farm in Pitts- field.
James Noyes, a brother of George W. Noyes, is credited with building the third house in Ann Arbor which was on Main street, north of Ann street. He it was who took up the land on which the university is now located. It included forty acres in addition to what is now the campus, and he sold the whole eighty acres to Henry Rum- sey in 1825 for three hundred dollars.
In 1824. Nathan Thayer and his son, Captain Charles Thayer, arrived in the new village, and Captain Thayer in later years spoke of the vil- lage as he saw it on his arrival. Elisha W. Rum- sey occupied the Washtenaw Coffee House. John Allen the block house on the corner of Huron and Main streets. A log house with a frame addition stood on the corner of Main and Ann streets. Two small houses stood on the opposite side of Main street. and were occupied by two brothers. James and George W. Noyes. A frame house stood near what is now the Cook House on Huron street, which had been built by Cor- nelius Ousterhaut. Another log house was near the northeast corner of Main and Washiington streets. Further south on Main street another log house was occupied by Alva Brown.
Captain Thayer continued to live in Ann Ar- bor until his death on December 14. 1800, at the advanced age of eighty-nine. He was postmas- ter of the village from 1834 to 1841. and held many other local offices.
Henry Rumsey, a brother of E. W. Rumsey. bought the eighty acres of James Noves, on part
of which the university is located. in the spring of 1825. and built a house on it, and in the fall of 1825 he brought his family on from New York. He was the first representative of the county in the territorial legislative council from 1827 to [820. He was a senator in the first state legisla- ture and was re-elected.
Andrew Nowland with his wife and seven chil- dren came in June. 1824. and purchased one hun- dred twenty acres in what is now the fourth and fifth wards of the city. It was aiding in building for him a house to be used for a hotel that George W. Noyes was killed in 1826. He built a saw mill on the south bank of the Huron in 1825 at the foot of State street. His son, John S. Now- land, born June 13. 1826, long claimed to be the first white child born in Ann Arbor, but that honor seems to belong to Elisha Walker Rumsey Smith, born November 24. 1825: John S. Now- land being the second birth.
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