USA > Michigan > Washtenaw County > Past and present of Washtenaw County, Michigan > Part 66
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"We had a large red ox that we used to call "Old Ben." Well, in his eagerness for the tender grass which grew at that season only on the marshes, old Ben got mired, and my mother and the children were utterly unable to extricate him. To leave him there until father's return we knew would be fatal to him, and the only resource left was to send the little girls already referred to, to Dexter for help. In due time two vigorous and athletic young men appeared, and with the aid of rails used as levers and a yoke of oxen attached to a very long chain, old Ben was placed on dry ground, and the young men with the utmost cheerfulness hurried back to their homes, glad that they had done a neighbor a kindness.
"As I look back to those days and remember the genuine pleasure we had in our social inter- course, and the eagerness with which we sought each other's society, I can not resist the conviction that the social sympathies of our nature are stronger in that condition of society than they are at present. It certainly appears to me that there was a greater cordiality among us than we find in our present social life. Upon this point I dare not speak too positively. I know the influence of advancing years upon our susceptibilities and sympathies. It may be that the differences which we notice and deprecate in this particular are in us and not in society.
"Descriptions of the manners and style of living among our first settlers, then cordial, sincere and in good taste, provoke a smile of amused incre- dulity at this day, even among those of middle life who half know them to be true. I shall al-
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ways remember the first visit from our neighbors, and its incidents. It was Friday that we passed through, or rather by Dexter, as we were moving to our new home. The next Sunday morning there occurred in that solitary house in the wil- derness a pleasant scene. Two young gentlemen, Captain Jerome Loomis and William Wightman, Esq .. timidly and deferentially approached two young ladies, Miss Hannah Cowan, afterwards the wife of Russell Parker, Esq., and another whose name is forgotten by the writer, and in- vited them to a pleasure ride on that beautiful morning to call on their new neighbors. With the usual blushes and heart-throbbings the invita- tions were accepted. In the shortest time consist- ent with the circumstances, the most stylish and elaborate "turn out" which the country afforded was at the door to receive the party. It consisted of a heavy lumber wagon, with the usual square box about twenty inches high. The seats were of unplaned oak boards, laid across the top of the box, with an inch wooden pin through each end to prevent them from slipping off, and a yoke of young, vigorous broad-horned oxen. In this es- tablishment one of the young men acted as Jehu. Perched upon his seat, with a blue beech whip- stock about ten feet long and a lash to correspond, with his fair companion at his side, he gave the word of command, 'Go 'long,' and the party, all arrayed in their best, started in high glee, promis- ing themselves a day of unalloyed pleasure. But alas! for us poor mortals, even the near future is hid from us. And 'tis well, for dread of the com- ing future would spoil all present and prospective enjoyment. The party in due time, following the solitary wagon tracks through the woods and over the plains, arrived safely at their destination, and the day passed rapidly and pleasantly away. But as the sun was gradually sinking in the west, a black cloud appeared on the southwestern horizon, and distant thunders warned all within hearing to prepare for a storm. It was then too late for our guests to think of reaching their home before the shower, and nature seemed to care but little for the condition and wishes of men. The cloud swept around the western horizon to the north- west, and thence, turning to the right, it rushed upon us with fearful power, in one of those terri-
ble August storms which occasionally visit us. Our only accommodations were the tent and cov- ered wagon already described. But the tent was too frail to bear up against the fierceness of the winds for a single moment. Hence, while I crawled into the covered wagon, I remember see- ing my father and our two gentlemen guests take their positions on the north side of the tent, and by main strength hold it from blowing away, while the ladies and smaller children huddled to- gether inside, and were thoroughly drenched by the rain which filtered through the covering. The rain continued till long after dark, so that our visitors, per force of circumstances, spent the night with us. This visit, so unpleasant in its close, furnished amusing incidents to which the parties afterwards recurred with pleasure."
Jerome Loomis settled in the township in June, 1825. Russell Parker came from New York in 1826 and resided on the farm he located until 1880. He was the first supervisor of Lima town- ship. William Wightman and William Boucher came in 1827. Among the other early settlers was Hezekiah Riggs, the first blacksmith of the town. He came in 1829. By 1830 Marvin Cad- well, Francis Daugherty, James and Thomas Mitchell, Elias Easton and John Doane had be- come citizens of the township. By 1831 the popu- lation had been augmented by John Davis. Calvin Winslow, Jacob White, Thomas Haffey, Lemuel Scott. William Nordman, Guadelope Norman, Hiram Gregory, Rev. Arannah Bennett, Hiram Andrews, Darius Pierce, Richard Snell, William Lemon, Samuel Cooper and John Harford, the latter of whom had previously kept a store in Ann Arbor.
Salem was another of the townships that were settled in 1825. John Dickerson, Joseph Dicker- son and Mrs. Amy Dickerson, of Seneca, New York, have the honor of being the first settlers of Salem in the fall of 1825. A few days later El- kanah Pratt became their near neighbor. His son, Edmund Pratt came in 1826. Accompanying him were Mr. and Mrs. Jesse Peters. Royal Wheelock, Aaron Blood and John Renwick ar- rived in 1825. By 1828 Joseph Lapham, Jacob Bullock, Constant Woodworth, Daniel S. Burch, Philemon C. Murray, Luther Graham, Orson
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Packard, George Renwick, Joseph Stevens, Sam- uel, John and Robert McCormick, Limon Corban, Charles Lewis, Thomas Bussey and James Mur- ray had arrived. So difficult were the means of communication that Mrs. Jesse Peters, the second white woman in the township, had resided in her new home for four months before she met Mrs. Amy Dickerson who had settled here previously. The first white child born in the township was Isaac Peters, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Jesse Peters. The first sawmill was built in 1829 by Joseph Lapham. John Dickerson built the first log barn in 1827 and later the first frame barn.
Alexander Lafferty was the first settler of Scio and he located on section 25 in October, 1825, but he did not remain here many years as he had the true spirit of the pioneer and Scio took on the shape of a settled community too quickly to suit his aspirations for frontier life. Hiram Putnam located on section 18 in the same year but moved to Ingham ten years later. Russell Parker, James Cleland, George W. Patterson and Elias Smith were among those who arrived in 1826. Hiram Arnold, Robert McCartney, Samuel Rath, Rufus Knight. James Popkins, Cornelius Briggs, Vree- bon Bates and George Babcock were among the settlers of 1827.
The village of Dexter in this township is lo- cated on land purchased from the government by Samuel W. Dexter in 1824. but the village was not platted until the summer of 1830. Previous to that time, however, there were located in what is now the village Judge Dexter and his family, Dr. Cyril Nichols, Samuel W. Foster, A. D. Crane and John A. Conway. Judge Dexter had a grist mill and a sawmill on Mill creek. Conway kept a tavern, the only one at this day west of Ann Arbor within the county. Dr. Nichols was living on the west side of the river and he doc- tored all the early settlers for many miles. He was a Vermont man who came to Dexter in 1826. Samuel W. Foster was a miller who came from Rhode Island and was in the employ of Judge Dexter for some years, later removing to and located at the village of Scio, where he built a mill. Selling this out he built another mill at what is now called Foster station. Later he joined the gold seekers in California, where he
died. The first store in Dexter was opened by Charles P. Cowden in 1830, and the next spring Nelson H. Wing had opened his store. Shortly afterwards William C. Pease and Richard Brower became Dexter merchants. The first schoolhouse in the township was on section 14 and was built in 1829 and known as the Arnold schoolhouse.
The first settlement of Dexter township was in May in 1825 by Nathaniel and Sylvanus Noble who had settled in Ann Arbor township the year previous and whose settlement in Dexter is de- scribed on previous pages. Joseph Arnold, Rufus Crossman and Henry Warner located in 1826, and within the next two years Cornelius Osterhaut, C. S. Goodrich, David Dudley, Charles B. Taylor, Richard Brower, Levi Whitcomb, Thomas Lee, Roger Carr, Isaiah Phelps, Sidney F. Derby and Clark Perry had located here. Osterhaut built a sawmill where the Hudson mills now stand in 1827. Judge Dexter and Isaac Pomeroy built another sawmill in the township on the site of the present Dover mills, in 1832. The first inhab- itants in the township were mostly from New York, though a few came from the New England states. The first Irishman to settle in the town- ship was Patrick Curtin who had not arrived until 1834. At the present day a majority of the citizens of the township can undoubtedly trace their descent from the Emerald Isle.
The first purchaser of land in the township of Lodi was Hugh Christie who, however, never set- tled in the township. He located his land on Sep- tember 29, 1824. The first actual settler was Allen Williams who located his land in the gov- ernment office in Detroit on May 9, 1825, and he it was who built the first log house. During 1825, among others, came Rufus Knight, Adolphus Spoor, Aaron Austin, Russell Briggs, Jesse Me- chem, Smith Lapham, Samuel Camp, Orrin Howe and Daniel Allmendinger. Orrin Howe was a member of the territorial legislature in 1835-6 and was a member of the first state legislature, and was again elected representative in 1843. He was speaker pro tem of the first Michigan legislature and he held a very high position in the councils of his party. Daniel Allmendinger was one of the first Germans to locate within the county. In 1825 the pioneers followed a line of marked trees
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from Ann Arbor, but by the spring of 1826 they had cut a wagon track through the woods. The settlers by this time were coming in very rapidly and among them was Captain John Lowry who was afterwards a member of the legislature. Others who came in that year were John Cobb, Porter Lathrop and Horace and Virgil Booth. Within three years the whole eastern part of the township had been settled and there was no land in that section to be purchased from the govern- ment. In 1827 a postoffice was established and called Lodi, with Orrin Howe as the first post- master. In the same year the first school was opened by Miss Polly Stratton in the house of Allen Williams. In 1829 the first log schoolhouse was built on Lodi Plains and served also for a church. In April, 1827, the first birth in the township occurred. when Harriet, daughter of Smith Lapham, was born. The first death was that of Miss Betsey Howe, the daughter of Orrin Howe. Hers was the first grave in the present cemetery on Lodi Plains. The first sawmill was erected by Russell Briggs in 1829 on the Saline river. Timothy W. Hunt settled in Lodi in 1828 and his wife, who came with him, has left an in- teresting description of their arrival in Lodi. Mr. Hunt, who had lived in New York, came west in the spring of 1828 for the purpose of locating a new home, and, hearing in Detroit of the beauti- ful lands near Ann Arbor. located lands on sec- tions 26 and 35 of Lodi, the last government land to be found in that part of the township. He erected a house and went back to New York for his family which consisted of his wife and two small children. They arrived at their new home on July 9, 1828. Their journey had been a tedi- ous one through dense woods, and they forded the Huron river at Ann Arbor, which Mrs. Hunt says then comprised a few small houses nestled among the scattering burr oaks. "The surround- ing scenery," says Mrs. Hunt, "was delightful. We tarried all night at the only tavern. As morn- ing came we were eager for our last day's jour- ney. Through the woods we went, passing two houses before reaching Lodi Plains which nature had decked profusely with flowers of every hue, interspersed amongst the tall grass with here and there a shaded oak which, together with a few
neat log houses, completed the landscape. On that beautiful plain we found our frontier home on the ninth of July. Not a white man's abode west of us, within our knowledge, between there and the Rocky mountains. Our house was without a door, window, hearth or chimney. We built a fire against some green logs. When the smoke disturbed us we carried the fire outdoors and cooked there. Often times we could peer through between the logs and see the deer feeding in numbers near the house, turkeys, too, in flocks, and the red men by hundreds as they passed on a well beaten track going to Detroit and Malden to receive presents from the different governments. They often filled the house, there being no door to shut them out. Then the wolves organized regularly at sunset and made the air ring with their highest notes. One night a stray one sneaked in under the blanket and scratched on the meat barrel but a 'Halloo' from the bed made him beat a hasty retreat. and as civilization advanced they, with the red men, retreated westward. In August my husband and one of our little ones were pros- trated with the fever. It often became necessary for me to leave the sick ones alone and go with a sad heart and hasty step to my nearest neighbor, a half a mile distant. for water to cool their parched lips and aching heads. About the middle of October our eldest son was born, our house being in the same unfinished condition. All our sash glass with many other necessary articles were to be hauled from Detroit by ox teams over almost impassable roads, but by the last of No- vember our house was made comfortable. In March, 1829, my husband started for Syracuse, New York, making his way across the Maumee swamp in Ohio which contained but one or two houses in forty miles. He made the entire jour- ney on foot. In his absence an Indian crept noise- lessly to the door, opened it wide enough to show his keen eye and feather in his hair, and, seeing a nice fire. walked in, three urchins following. I bade them begone. He pointed to the corner where they spent the night. My every limb trem- bled with fear. especially so with my children, the eldest not four years and the youngest five months old, and my nearest neighbor a half a mile distant. He called for potatoes and made signs for milk.
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He was supplied. He appeared friendly and my fears gradually subided. I slept quietly, hugging my three nestlings, and when day dawned, the red men went as they came."
Orange Risdon bought the first land in Saline township where the village of Saline is now located, on August 12, 1824. He was a sur- veyor and located many of the county seats in the various counties of Michigan. Before com- ing to Michigan he had aided in laying out Lock- port. Brockport and Buffalo, New York. He had seen service in the War of 1812 and had ac- quired considerable property in New York which was partially swept away in the commercial crisis of 1817. He spent several months in Michigan in 1823, and in 1824 rode over 2,000 miles on horseback in eastern Michigan with Judge Samuel W. Dexter, inspecting land. He thought that Saline, as it is now called, was the spot favored above all others that he had inspected and he foresaw that the territorial road would be built through it. In 1825 Mr. Risdon was the chief surveyor of the military road from Detroit to Chicago, in the United States Government em- ploy, in which he continued until 1856. He sur- veyed seventy-five townships in Michigan and re-surveyed about forty-five others. He of- ficiated at the first wedding in Saline, was a high Mason, and officiated as deputy grand master in laying the cornerstone of the Michigan capitol building in Detroit in 1823. He died November 27, 1876, at the age of ninety years. But Mr. Risdon was not the first settler in Saline, that honor belonging to Leonard Miller, who settled a mile south of what is now Saline village at a spot where there were many evidences that a large Indian village had once flourished. Here was a large salt spring, a favorite resort of deer. Six Indian trails centered here and there was a large Indian burying ground. Here, too, was to be seen the remains of a large well, and it was reported, with what truth we know not, that General Anthony Wayne wintered his army here and while here manufactured the salt that they needed for the wild game on which they sub- sisted. The main salt spring at this point is be- lieved to have been in the present bed of the river and the salt springs here were in years
gone by of much greater note than now. Leon- ard Miller built a double house and used part of it for an inn. He was a native of Connecticut who first came into the county in 1824, when he located near Ypsilanti. He died five years after locating in Saline. His son Dudley Miller was fourteen years old at the time of coming to Saline, and succeeded his father in the care of his family; and the same year, at the age of nineteen, a common age for a young man of that period to marry, he married Rebecca Gillett. Daniel Cross built the second house in 1826 and also ran a house of entertainment for man and beast. Russell Briggs, Orrin Parsons and Ches- ter Parsons came the same year. Orrin Parsons was born in Massachusetts in 1794 and came to Michigan in May, 1826, from New York, in company with his brother Chester, who was born in 1799. They settled about a mile south of Saline village, and being in haste to locate their land before some other enterprising pioneer should locate, they started for the government office in Monroe an hour before sunset. Mon- roe was distant thirty miles through a dense wilderness, with not a single house on the way. In the dark they felt their way along an old Indian trail with their hands. When daylight came they had made twenty miles of the distance and it took but a few hours to reach Monroe. Re- turning they built a log house, and in 1827 they erected the first sawmill in Saline. In 1829 Orrin Parsons built the first frame house in the township. They cut a road from Saline village to intersect Tecumseh road, and six persons made the first trip over it with a yoke of oxen to Monroe for provisions. The trip occupied three days. Orrin Parsons was, in April, 1831, elected the second supervisor of Saline, to which position he was re-elected eight different times, and in 1846 he was a member of the state legislature. In 1828 he erected a grist mill which he ran for a number of years. He died in 1851. His brother, Chester Parsons, lived for many years after him. Alfred and Ashur Davis came to Saline in 1826, Ashur dying soon after ; and Alfred was the first supervisor of the township, being elected in April, 1830. He was again made supervisor in 1834, and afterwards went to Grand Rapids, where he
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lived for many years. Among the other early settlers of Saline were three Revolutionary soldiers all of whom are buried in the township. These were Timothy Cruttenden. Archibald Arm- strong and Dr. Franeis Smith. Timothy Crut- tenden was born in Connecticut in 1747. but was living in Massachusetts at the outbreak of the Revolutionary war, and in 1776 went to Montreal and Quebec, being driven back with the other Americans by the approach of the British trans- ports. He took part in the campaign against Burgoyne and witnessed the surrender of that British leader. Archibald Armstrong was in the siege of Fort Schuyler and in the battles of Cowpens, Monmouth, Germantown and York- town, where he witnessed the surrender of Corn- wallis. He also witnessed the execution of Major Andre and drummed his death march. He sounded the salute when Cornwallis surrendered and the Americans had won their independence.
A. B. Markham, of Plymouth, fifty years later deseribes a prospecting journey he made in De- cember. 1827. on a French pony. He visited Saline to find Orange Risdon from whom he gained considerable information, and journeyed on to the western part of Michigan. "After leaving Saline with its two or three houses," he said. "I saw no other dwelling till I got to Jones, where Jonesville is now," so remote from each other were the early settlers. Coming later into the township than those who have been men- tioned. but still among the early settlers, were Robert Mills, George W. Miller, Norman G. Fowler. Daniel Wallace, Lewis M. Phelps, Rob- ert Edmunds, Freeman Moulton, Daniel Ham- mond. Robert Hammond, Jeremiah and John Smith, William M. Gregory. Smith Lapham. Aaron Goodrich, Robert Shaw, John Kanouse, George Partridge, Joseph Annin, James Russell and Jacob Sherman. The first birth was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Miller, who became Mrs. Louis Stoddard. The first death was that of Ashur Davis, in 1827. The first marriage was of Robert Craig to Miss Polly Gilbert, on April 12, 1829. The first schoolhouse was built through the efforts of Russell Briggs, a mile west of Saline, in 1831, and the school was taught by Calvin Lamb and afterwards by Miss Harriett Sumner and Mrs. Russell Mills.
York township was settled as early as 1824. Among the first settlers was Alanson Snow, known to the Indians as "Matchi Agon." "Indian hater." When a lad his father's family had been massacred in the boy's presence in Ohio, and the boy vowed eternal vengeance upon the Indians, a vow he kept. For months he would range the woods for the sole purpose of getting a shot at the Indians, and the Indians came to regard him as in possession of a commission from the Great Spirit to destroy them, and fled at his approach. As civilization followed him, he pushed further and further into the wilderness to keep the vow he had made as a child. Among others who came from Ohio with Alanson Snow were Capt. John Thayer and the Hall brothers. Capt. Thayer had been in command of a vessel on Lake Erie. His daughter. Abigail, when a girl six- teen years old. attended a sugar bush two miles from the house in a dense forest where were bears and wolves and panthers, staying by the bush night and day alone, her lodge a hollow tree. Among the other early settlers of York were Oscar McClough, Samuel Bishop, William Shaw. Thomas Shaw. William Richards, John Parsons. Leander le Baron, Ephraim Judd, Josiah Hathaway, Lorain Mills, Jacob Cook, Caleb Moore, Lorain Moore, Daniel Carpenter. Shef- field Newton, Isaac Clark, Jesse Warner, Mat- thew Salisbury. Arthur Coe, Aaron Wheeler, James M. Kelsey, James Miller, Conrad Red- ner and Casey Starks. Nearly all of these set- tlers were from New York.
Augusta and Bridgewater were settled in 1829. The first settlers of Augusta were Andrew Muir and James Miller. The latter located at Stony Creek and was the pioneer of the village. He was also the father of Andrew Miller, the first white child born in the township. Andrew Muir had been an officer in the British army at the time of the battle of Waterloo. He was born in Scotland and his daughters were the mothers of the Campbells and McDougalls who are promi- nent residents of the county today. His daughter, Mary Muir, was married to George McDougall, a Scotehman who came to Ypsilanti in 1828 and worked on the first frame mill in that place which he ran for twenty-five years. As illustrative of the condition of the county at the time of its early
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settlement, it may be stated that Mrs. McDougall set out from Ypsilanti to visit her father in Augusta by way of an Indian trail, wearing a pair of new shoes. A tree had fallen over the trail and she was obliged to go around it, but failed to again strike the path. She started again in what she thought was the direction of her father's home but was absolutely lost in the wil- derness. She slept out in the opening with howl- ing wolves disturbing her rest and could find no trace of any settlement till upon the second day she heard a dog bark and soon came upon some cows with whom she stayed till they went home, where she found herself three miles below Saline. Her husband had not been worrying about her because he knew that she had gone to her father's. Her father had not worried because he had not known that she was coming. Her new shoes were worn out. The kind family who took her in near Saline escorted her to her father's home in Augusta. Mrs. McDougall was the mother of John and George McDougall, promi- nent residents, at the present day, of Superior. She died in 1879. Prince Bennett settled in Augusta in 1831, coming from New York. Wil- liam Sanderson, of Massachusetts, came from Ypsilanti, where he settled in 1830, to Augusta, in 1832, and lived on the land he located to a ripe old age. John Minzie located in Augusta township in 1833. His parents were natives of Scotland but he was born in New York and ar- rived in Augusta with but a dollar in money in his pockets, and a wife and little one to care for. He first worked as a farm hand, his pay being twenty bushels of wheat a month. He aided in building the first schoolhouse and in organizing the township, and raised a family of twelve chil- dren. Harmon Vedder located in Augusta in 1833 and built a cabin on the land where he lived until 1879. Aaron Childs, who was born in New Hampshire in 1806, came to Augusta in 1834, and it was at his residence that the first township meeting was held, and he was clerk at the first township election. He served as super- visor of his township for fifteen terms. He was a member of the legislature in 1871 and 1872. Augusta was slowly settled but it was not until after the thorough drainage of the town-
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