The Vermontville Colony - Part 2



Page 19 continued

GETTING IN AND OUT

Roads were horrible; sometimes impassable; when not raised eighteen inches 
to two feet above the surface by hauling logs across the driveway and 
rolling them close together, called corduroy, they were two feet below the 
surface in the mire, and even then not very solid. Often, as "In the days 
of Shamgar, the son of Anath in the days of Jael, the highways were 
unoccupied, and the travelers walked through the bye-ways." From Bellevue, 
through the woods for fourteen miles to the earnest postoffice, the road 
was of such a character as to make the last installment of the journey 
from New England to the colony the hardest part of the trip. It was merely 
underbrushed, trees on each side blazed with an axed to guide the 
traveler, and passing many low and wet places, they soon became quagmires 
by being cut up by passing teams. A mile an hour was good time over them. 
Some families, when moving in, were compelled to camp out in the woods 
over night, and to accommodate them a shanty was built near a brook for 
shelter. Form this fact the stream got the name of Shanty Brook, by which 
it is still known. In October, 1839, when my father, Edward H. Barber, 
moved in, with his wife, four boys, an ox team, wagon and cow, we left 
Bellevue a clear and frosty morning, before the sun was up, stopped long 
enough in the woods to eat a lunch, feed 

Page 20

the oxen and extract some milk from the brindle cow, and about nine 
o'clock in the evening arrived at the top of the hill in Vermontville, a 
rain storm having set in after dark at the close of the day and of Indian 
summer. The first log house at the top of the hill was owned by Sidney B. 
Gates, and he came out with a old-fashioned tin lantern and tallow dip to 
light and guide us to our destination, the house of Oren Dickinson, three-
quarters of a mile distant. For a mile or two north of Bellevue the road 
had been chopped out four rods wide, and also for half a mile or so south 
of Vermontville. The rest of the way the track was through the woods, and 
sometimes hard to find on account of the fallen leaves. But we made a mile 
an hour that last one of eight days from Detroit, and three weeks from 
Benson, Vermont, and reached our stumpy Canaan at last.

In the spring the Thornapple river about a mile south of the village 
overflowed its broad bottom land, rendering it impassable for teams. In 
April, 1837, W. J. Squier arrived at the south bank of the river with his 
family just at night. The water was so high they could not cross. Learning 
of their arrival and knowing the situation, R. W. Griswold and W. S. 
Fairfield waded across with provisions and took them to an Indian wigwam 
not far away, where they stayed overnight. The next morning Mr. Griswold 
ferried Mrs. Squier and their youngest child across in a small dugout, or 
log canoe, a distance of about eight rods. During the day the team and 
household goods were got over. To go to Bellevue to mill and return always 
required two days.


A WOLFISH SERENADE

Wolves were plentiful, and it was an easy matter by giving a long human 
howl in the evening to start a wolfish serenade. In the fall of 1836 Oren 
Dickinson came to the colony with a horse team, his family not arriving 
until the spring of 1838, a year and a half later. The road then was but 
little more than a trail, just enough underbrush having been cut out to 
allow a team to pass. None of the mucky places had been corduroyed and the 
mudholes were deep. To drive a team through by daylight was oftener tried 
than accomplished. R. W. Griswold started from Vermontville early one 
morning to drive through to Bellevue. Night over-took him while yet in the 
woods, and in the darkness he could not follow the track, over which but 
few wagons had previously passed. He stopped the team and endeavored to 
find the roadway by getting down upon his knees and feeling with his hands 
for old wagon tracks, but in vain. It was as dark, he once said, "as a 
stack of black cats." Thinking that he might be within hailing distance of 
Bellevue he gave a loud halloo, and was answered by a prowling wolf. Again 
he shouted, and other wolves responded in different directions. They were 
cowardly whelps and seldom 

Page 21

attacked a person, yet none the less these voices of the night were 
unwelcome music to a lone traveler with a team in the dense woods and 
darkness. He unhitched the team, tied them to the wagon, seated himself in 
it, gun in hand, talked to the horses for company, and through the long 
night watches listened to his serenaders, whose performances culminated in 
a thrilling wolf chorus in the wilderness. When daylight came the next day 
the blazed trees on either side of the pioneer highway indicated the route 
out of the woods.

Such incidents, not being able to make fourteen miles by daylight with a 
pair of horses and a wagon, show better than words can describe the 
character of the roads the first settlers traveled over. In a few years 
they were improved so that the trip to Marshall, where most of the 
settlers sold their products and did their trading, could be made 
comfortably in a day, going there one day and returning the next, though 
when goods were to be purchased for the winter outfit for the family the 
trip and trade would consume three days. While Michigan roads are not the 
best in the world all the year round, the soil being too good and the 
frost sinking too deep to permit making firm and solid roadbeds at a cost 
rural communities can stand, yet they have improved greatly and should be 
improved more. The first settlers did a great deal of gratuitous work on 
them in the way of chopping to cut down the timber for the four rods width 
of the highways and letting the sun in to dry out the soil. Even then the 
wagon track was a line of curves to avoid big stumps for several years. A 
vast amount of labor was involved in making them passable evidences of 
civilization, for, as Dr. Bushnell says: "The road is the physical sign or 
symbol by which you will best understand any age or people. If they have 
no roads they are savages, for the road is a creation of man and a type of 
civilization."

Almost every year during the spring freshets the low lands along the 
Thornapple overflowed and were impassable. The river channel run close to 
the high bank on the south side, and north of it to high land again, 
towards the village, wa about eighty roads of bottom and in some places 
almost bottomless. Sometimes cattle would wade to the bridge and cross 
over to the south side to feed during the day, returning at night. One 
morning they went across, among them a cow belonging to W. S. Fairfield. 
Towards night they crossed the bridge, homeward bound, and commenced 
traveling in single file over the log causeway. The water had risen so 
much during the day that some of the logs were afloat. As the cattle 
stepped on them they were easily displaced and those in the rear found it 
difficult to make the passage. The last one was Fairfield's milch cow. She 
struggled along, plunging into the water, swimming in deep places and here 
and there finding logs that had not floated, succeeded in making slow 
progress, until she was nearly exhausted. About half way 

Page 22

across were two big oak logs, nearly four feet in diameter, in the 
causeway, which were higher than the others and did float. The cow gained 
a position on these logs and would go no further. Poles were placed around 
her to keep her from falling off, feed and bedding were taken to her in a 
boat, she was milked twice a day and remained on these logs for several 
days until the water subsided.


THE PIONEER SPIRIT

The Vermontville settlers inherited the pioneer spirit. With two or three 
exceptions they were Vermonters, and all were Yankees in fact and name. It 
has never been the habit of enterprising Yankees to wait for a region to 
get very old before leaving it. They did not wait until all of New England 
was settled before they commenced pushing west, and hence their influence 
has been large in all of the western country. The name New England was 
first given to the northeast corner of the United States by Captain John 
Smith, the daring navigator who explored the coast, and was subsequently 
adopted in the patent of King James, which created a council "for the 
planting, ordering and governing of New England." Of its six states, 
Massachusetts was first settled by Pilgrim and Puritan refugees of English 
stock. Rhode Island was founded by a young Baptist minister, Roger 
Williams, who fled there in 1636, only sixteen years after the first 
settlement was made at Plymouth, to escape persecution at the hands of the 
Puritans, who, though themselves religious refugees, had little toleration 
for anything except their own forms of belief and methods of government. 
Connecticut was settled by the English and Dutch almost simultaneously, 
but the former were the first to enter the cultivate the rich valley of 
the Connecticut river, and they held control. The earliest settlers of New 
Hampshire were fishermen, who, being once rebuked by a traveling minister 
for neglecting religion, answered: "Sir, you are mistaken; you think you 
are speaking to the people of Massachusetts Bay. Our main object in coming 
here was to catch fish." Name was for a long time a mere hunting ground, 
and remained a part of Massachusetts until after the Revolution. Vermont 
was first explored by Champlain, the great Frenchman who founded Quebec 
and was the first governor of Michigan, was claimed by New York, for 
independence from which province the Ethan Allen Vermonters were ready to 
fight it necessary, and was not recognized as a separate colony until 
after the Revolutionary war.

The Champlain valley of Vermont was settled largely by men from 
Massachusetts and Connecticut. My grandfather, Daniel Barber, was the 
first permanent settler in the town Benson, in 1783, and my grandmother, 
when they moved, carried her first babe, a daughter, in her arms on 
horseback from Pittsfield, Massachusetts, to their home in a 

Page 23

dense wilderness. That daughter became the wife of Isaac Griswold of 
Benson and the mother of Roger W. Griswold and Daniel B. Griswold of 
Vermontville. So we trace the movements of our pioneers.

New England has grown the fastest in the west. Although two-fifths larger 
than Old England it contains only about six million inhabitants, hand only 
those parts where mills and factories are engaged in money-spinning are 
densely populated. Connecticut and Massachusetts men, under the 
pioneership of Israel Putnam, crossed the Alleghanies into the Ohio valley 
and founded Marietta more than a hundred years ago, and mainly the sons of 
Connecticut planted new towns in the Western Reserve of Ohio early in the 
century. Vermonters moved up the Mohawk into western New York soon after 
the opening of the Erie Canal in 1826, pushed westward into this great 
lake region, scattered themselves over northern Ohio, moved into Michigan 
and occupied northern Illinois at an early date. Such prominent United 
States Senators as Jacob M. Howard, Stephen A. Douglas and Matthew H. 
Carpenter were Vermonters by birth. But in no instance, so far as known, 
was a New England colony organized on the plan of the one that located in 
Vermontville.


ORGANIZING THE CHURCH

Although much isolated from the rest of the world, these colonists had the 
advantage of good society and they provided themselves with religious 
privileges and a school for their children from the start. In February, 
1837, a Congregational church with sixteen members was organized by Rev. 
S. Cochrane, its first pastor, and his duties extended over a period of 
five years. It would have been slim picking for the minister, no doubt, 
but for his working the land as did all the rest and some aid from the 
Home Missionary Society. We have an original subscription paper, dated 
Sept. 24, 1838, which says: "We, the subscribers, being desirous to 
sustain the preached gospel in this place, agree to pay the several sums 
annexed to our names respectively to the support of the Rev'd S. Cochrane 
as our minister. Said sums to be paid in labor in chopping or clearing off 
his land, in cash or produce, as may best suit the subscribers, and as 
they may agree with the said Mr Cochrane, two-thirds of said subscription 
to be paid by the fifteenth day of May next, and the third by the first 
day of October, 1839."

The names, conditions of payment, and amounts in this paper are: S. S. 
Church, paid, $10; Warren Gray, in labor and team work, $6; H. J. Mears, 
in labor, $6; Jay Hawkins, in labor with team, $6; Jacob Fuller, in labor 
or cooperage, $5; Wait J. Squier in labor and team work, $10; S. D. 
Scovell, $10; Reuben Sanford, in produce, $5; Alexander and William Clark, 
$5; Martin & Robinson, in goods, $15; William P. Wilkinson, $1; M. S. 
Norton, $5 Sidney B. Gates, $5; George S. Browning, 

Page 24

$8; Oren Dickinson, $10; Levi Merrill, $5; Oliver J. Stiles, $10; Samuel 
S. Hoyt, $5; Roger W. Griswold, $5; W. S. Fairfield, $5; Charles Imus, in 
shoemaking, $5; F. Hawkins, $1; Wm. B. Fuller, $1.25; Joshua Blake, in 
work, $1; Peter Kinney, $1; E. O. Smith, $1.

Of these subscribers Samuel S. Hoyt and E. O. Smith resided in what 
afterwards became the town of Sunfield. Mr. Hoyt lived six miles north and 
his nearest neighbors in 1837 were in Vermontville. S. S. Church, in a 
sketch of the early settlements, says: "During this season, Samuel S. 
Hoyt, who lived six miles from any white inhabitant, and whose wife had 
not seen a white woman for several months at a time, brought his wife on 
an ox-sled to the colony, and after two or three weeks returned home, 
rejoicing in the possession of a fine daughter to cheer the loneliness of 
his forest home. Nor was this an isolated case. One from Chester occurred 
the same season, and not long after one from a remote part of our town."


THE SCHOOL AND ACADEMY

In the summer of 1838 the first school was taught in a private house. In 
the fall of that year a log school house was erected on the northwest 
quarter of the public square, in which schools were regularly taught and 
the scholars uniformly whipped from three to four months in summer by a 
female teacher, and for three months in the winter by a male teacher. A 
rate bill was prepared by the school officers to raise the money to pay 
the teacher, and the wood was furnished pro rata by the patrons of the 
school. The teachers boarded around at the homes of the pupils, th length 
of time at each place determined by the number of scholars in the family. 
When there were but two rooms in a log house, one down stairs and the 
other up stairs, with hardly a spare corner, sleeping a teacher was more 
difficult than feeding him or her. An aristocratic log house would have 
two rooms on the ground floor, and that made matters pleasanter. However, 
all got along very well, and the petty annoyances were soon forgotten.

In 1843 an academical association was formed, the money raised by 
subscription and the materials procured to build an academy, the building 
to answer the double purpose of a school and meeting house. Finding it 
best to have a legal existence, the Vermontville Academical Association, 
with W. U. Benedict, Oren Dickinson, S. S. Church, Daniel Barber, W. J. 
Squier, M. S. Norton, D. H. Robinson and Levi Merrill for the first board 
of trustees, was incorporated by act of the State legislature April 28, 
1846, and vested with "power to establish at or near the village of 
Vermontville, in the county of Eaton, an institution for the instruction 
and education of young persons." Nine trustees were provided for and the 
capital stock of ten thousand dollars was divided into one thousand shares 
of ten dollars each.

Page 25

Prior to this act of incorporation, in the fall of 1844, the upper story 
of the academy building was completed, and Rev. W. U. Benedict, pastor of 
the church, taught for four months of the winter of 1844-5 the higher 
English branches and the languages. Mr. Benedict continued to teach in the 
academy for several successive winters and gave general satisfaction. The 
district school was also continued summer and winter until both were 
merged into a union school with two departments. In 1870 the present union 
school building was erected at a cost of about $12,000. The old academy 
was a well conducted and popular institution while under charge of Mr. 
Benedict, and scholars attended it from various parts of Eaton county and 
from Battle Creek for several winters.

A handbill for the winter term of 1849 has been preserved and is worth 
reproducing entire: "VERMONTVILLE ACADEMY!!--The Winter term of this 
Institution will commence October 9th, 1849, and continue 20 weeks under 
the superintendence of Rev. W. U. BENEDICT. Mr. B's success as a Teacher 
hitherto, and the location of this Institution, removed from everything 
that tends to divert the student's mind and draw off his attention from 
his studies, renders this a desirable Institution for those who wish to 
make improvement. The terms of tuition are:

For common English branches ... $2.50 per quarter 
do Higher do do ... 3.00 do 
do Languages ... 3.00 do
With a small charge for incidental expenses. Board can be obtained at from 
$1 to $1.25 a week. By order of the Trustees.
S. S. CHURCH, Clerk.
Vermontville, Aug. 10, '49."

In the winter of 1846-7 George N. Potter of the town of Benton, sheriff of 
the county for four years and recently State Senator, was one of the 
scholars, and he paid his board by slashing down the timber on several 
acres of land just north of the academy for W. S. Fairfield.


ORGANIZATION OF THE TOWNSHIP

Sixty years ago, January 26, 1837, Michigan became a state. The political 
finessing of that period was devoted to the preservation of an equilibrium 
in the national government, so far as possible, between free and slave 
states, slavery having been one of the sacred compromises of the 
constitution. Arkansas, therefore, was admitted at the same time, 
statesmanship failing to discover until twenty years later that this Union 
could not exist half slave and half free.

The first census in which Eaton county and Vermontville appear was taken 
by the state in October, 1837, which disclosed a total population in 
Michigan of 175,025, Eaton county having 913 in three organized towns--
Bellevue 413, Eaton, 330, and Vermontville 145. Each 

Page 26

of these town organizations at that time contained more than a single 
surveyed township. At the national census of 1840 the state had 212,216 
inhabitants, Eaton county 2,379, and Vermontville. The county was laid out 
by act of the territorial legislature October 29, 1829, and at the same 
time organized into a single town named Green. The town of Bellevue, which 
at first embraced the entire county, was organized as "Belleville" in 
1835. A subsequent act of the legislature, approved March 11, 1837, 
provided that "all that portion of the county of Eaton, designated in the 
United States survey as townships 3 and 4 north of range 6 west, and 3 and 
4 north of range 5 west, be, and the same is, hereby set off and organized 
into a separate township by the name of Vermontville, and the first 
township meeting therein shall be held in said township." The last few 
words indicate that an election might be legally held in any one of the 
four surveyed towns that were organized into a township, for all were 
Vermontville. From this territory were afterwards formed the towns of 
Chester, March 21, 1839; Sun-field, February 16, 1842; and Roxand, March 
13, 1843, thus leaving at the last named date town 3 north of range 6 west 
as the sole possessor of the name Vermontville.

The first election was held on the first Monday of April 1837. The record 
of that meeting of the electors, with the names of the officers chosen to 
set the wheels of local government in motion, are worth transcribing, as 
it shows the mode of coming into existence of a new civic entity when time 
was young in Michigan, namely:

"Agreeable to an act of the Legislature of the State of Michigan, passed 
Feb. 14, 1837, and approved March 11, 1837, organizing surveyed townships 
Nos. 3 and 4 north of range 6 west, and townships Nos. 3 and 4 north, of 
range 5 west, in Eaton county, in said State, a town, with township 
privileges, under the name of Vermontville, the electors met at the town-
house in said Vermontville, agreeably to previous notice, on the first 
Monday in April, and organized said meeting by choosing Samuel Selden, 
Esq., moderator and S. S. Church township clerk, who administered the oath 
prescribed by law to each other, when proclamation was made of the 
organization of said meeting. 
"2d. The ballots being taken for supervisor, Oren Dickinson was duly 
elected. 
"3d. S. S. Church was then chosen township clerk. 
"4th. S. S. Church, Samuel Selden, and John Hart were elected assessors. 
"5th. Walter S. Fairfield was elected collector and constable. 
"6th. Elected S. S. Church and Bazaleel Taft directors of the poor 
"7th. Elected Oren Dickinson, Jay Hawkins, and Bazaleel Taft road 
commissioners. 
"8th. Elected Franklin Hawkins poormaster. 
"9th. Elected Reuben Sanford, Levi Merrili, Jr., and Sidney B. Gates fence 
viewers. 
"10th. Elected Jacob Fuller, Harvey Williams and Samuel S. Hoyt overseers 
of highways. 
"11th. Elected Oren Dickinson, John Hart and Levi Merrill school 
inspectors.

Page 27

"12th. Elected Samuel Selden, S. S. Church, Samuel S. Hoyt and Oren 
Dickinson justices of the peace. 
"13th. Oren Dickinson for the term of one year, S. S. Church for two 
years, Samuel S. Hoyt for three years, and Samuel Selden for four years. 
"14th. Voted, To raise the sum of two hundred dollars on the taxable 
property in said township, to be appropriated to building bridges and 
making roads in said township. 
"15th. Voted, To raise the sum of two hundred dollars on the taxable 
property of said township for defraying the town expenses for the current 
year. 
"16th. Voted, That cattle and horses be permitted to run at large in said 
town, but the owner to be liable for damages when they shall break over a 
decent fence, in which case the fence-viewers shall decide whether the 
fence is decent or not. 
"17th. Voted, That hogs be permitted to run at large. 
"18th. Voted, That Jay Hawkins, Jacob Fuller, S. S. Church and Samuel 
Selden be the board of inspectors of election. 
"19th. Voted, To dissolve the meeting.

"The foregoing is a true record of the township meeting held on the first 
Monday in April, 1837, and the doings of said meeting.
Attest. S. S. CHURCH, Township Clerk."

Thus Vermontville was born. A memorandum shows that at a special election 
held April 3 and 4, 1837, to fill a vacancy in the legislature caused by 
the death of Ezra Convis, twelve votes were polled, all for Sands McCamly.

On the foregoing town officers, Samuel S. Hoyt lived in Sunfield and 
Harvey Williams in Chester; the rest in Vermontville. Mr. Hoyt cleared up 
a large farm, sold out and moved away in a few years. Mr. Williams was 
county treasurer for several successive terms and state senator, residing 
in Charlotte, where he died. He was one of the best known and most 
reliable citizens of the county, and one of the earliest settlers in 
Chester.


IMMIGRATION

As heretofore stated, the first settlement by members of the colony was 
made in 1836, but most of them came in 1837 and 1838, and my father, the 
last one to arrive, moved in with his family in October, 1839. For a 
number of years immigration was insignificant, the hard times that 
followed of panic of 1837 rendering real estate unsalable at any price, as 
there was no speculative interest in Michigan lands. The marvelous 
resources of the state were unavailable for human needs. Probably many of 
the settlers would have left but for the fact that all their previous 
savings were invested in wild lands and these would not bring anything in 
the market. In 1844, as appears by the assessment roll for that year, 
there were only fifty-one resident taxpayers in the town and village, 
namely: A. L. Armstrong, W. U. Benedict, George S. Browning, Daniel 
Barber, Edward H. Barber, Levi Brundage, John Barrett, Joshua Blake, 
Dudley F. Bullock, S. S. Church, William Clark, Nathan 

Page 28

Clifford, Oren Dickinson, Jonas Davis, Willard Davis, Lucy H. Dwight, W. 
S. Fairfield, Jacob Fuller, William B. Fuller, James A. Fuller, Hamilton 
Folger, Warren Gray, Sidney B. Gates, Roger W. Griswold, Jay Hawkins, 
Henry Haner, Aman Hooker, David Henderson, Isaac Hager, James Hager, W. F. 
Hawkins, Wells R. Martin, Hiram J. Mears, Simeon McCotter, Levi Merrill, 
Martin S. Norton, Dewey H. Robinson, Henry Robinson, Truman W. Rogers, 
Artemus Smith, Cephas Smith, Lovina Smith, Jason Smith, Philetus Sprague, 
Stephen D. Scoville, Lemuel Standish, Reuben Sanford, William B. Sherman, 
Wait J. Squier, Asa B. Warner and William W. Warner. Of this number five 
went away during the next three of four years.

Already the names of several of the pioneer settlers had disappeared, 
while others had taken their places. A. L. Armstrong made the first 
clearing in the town, east of the village, on the road to Charlotte; Mrs. 
Lucy H. Dwight, Jonas Davis, Henry Haner, W. f. Hawkins, William Clark, S. 
D. Scoville and W. W. Warner on the northeasterly sections; the Hagers in 
the extreme nortwest corner; Artemas and Cephas smith near the west line 
on th road to Hastings; Levi Brundage and William B. Sherman in the 
southwest, while Dudley F. Bullock was the first and at that time the only 
settler in the southeast part of the town. He lived on the farm where he 
located in the spring of 1840 for fiftyseven years, until he passed away 
in March, 1897, in the eighty-fifth year of his age.

It has been my purpose, although it has somewhat lengthened this 
historical sketch, to put on record, for preservation in the permanent 
"Collections" of the State Pioneer and Historical Society, the names of 
the first settlers of the village and town of Vermontville--those who were 
chiefly instrumental in the transformation from a dense wilderness to a 
region of fruitful fields civilized homes. The history of the people, of 
their labors and trials it is our effort to preserve. Our civilization is 
largely the product of the humble toilers whose names would otherwise be 
forgotten in the onrush of events. It required sturdy and continuous blows 
for years to fell and clear away the forests, and to change a savage 
wilderness into pleasant homes and fruitful fields.

"Cheerily, on the axe of labor,
Let the sunbeams dance,
Better than the flash of saber
Or the gleam of lance!
Strike! With every blow is given
Freer sun and sky,
And the long-hid earth to heaven
Looks, with wondering eye!"

Two generations of workers have entirely changed the physical, social 

Page 29

and moral conditions. Even religious opinions have broadened to keep in 
touch with the forward movement of the age. The people were too 
intelligent not to be progressive and keep abreast of the best thought of 
the time. To satisfy a Vermontville audience was a credit to any speaker. 
Among the conties of the state there is scarcely one that, in all 
respects, is better than Eaton. Heavily timbered, it was hard to subdue, 
but rewarded the effort. The beech and maple forests that still remain 
remind one of the study labor of the past. Hills with far reaching views, 
fertile intervales, bowlders of northern granite dropped here and there by 
the ice-sheet of a far away geologic period, flora and fauna the same as 
those of Vermont, show that the Vermonters were guided by what they knew, 
as well as by circumstances they could not control, in selecting a site 
for new homes in the wilderness. Above all else they wanted timber, and 
wore themselves out getting rid of it. No other spot in the state, by 
topography, soil, timber and products, is better entitled to the name 
Vermontville.


REMINISCENT

It may be after years have passed that the names of these pioneers, though 
permanently preserved in the "Collections" of this Society, will cease to 
awaken interest, but so long as wood grows and water runs the results of 
their work will last. In a small village and town they played the drama of 
life, as it has been played under varying conditions in all the rural 
towns of Michigan. Great changes, like those hastened by steam and 
electricity are linked with names that will be long remembered; but the 
many minor changes which, day by day and blow by blow, transform a 
wilderness from a savage to a civilized state, are not associated with a 
few immortal names; for the work is done by hosts of earnest men and women 
in the humbler walks of life; yet without the work of the humble toilers 
in forest and mine, in field and factory, the men at the ton would be like 
castles in the air--no foundation to rest upon.

Life, to these early settlers, was externally primitive; the log cabin 
sheltered it joys and sorrows; yet it was not, though rude, unrefined. 
They were intelligent, representing the best of New England rural stock. 
The women were of superior quality, excellent housekeepers, and though 
into their lives came but little of outward beauty, they made the most of 
their meager opportunities. Heroic souls! with the single exception of 
Mrs. Browning Griswold they are all gone, and angelic mother-love still 
watches over and protects their children.

It was an isolated life. In the village of Bellevue, fourteen miles 
distant, were the nearest stores, the postoffice and grist-mill. With but 
little to sell not much could be bought. At first, coon skins and black 

Page 30

salts were the principal cash products. George S. Browning gathered 
together all his marketable products one full, took them to Marshall, sold 
them for fourteen dollars, and he was one of the thriftiest of the 
settlers. They lived on what the few acres of cleared land produced, 
bought tea, tobacco, spices and saleratus, the forests furnishing common 
pasturage for cattle from the time the snow melted in the spring until it 
fell again the next winter. Leeks came first, and by June the woods were 
carpeted with wild flowers. All the sugar came from the maples.

The village stretched out a mile long from east to west, with two rows of 
log houses fronting the street--one frame house built by W. J. Squier 
breaking the monotony--located from ten to forty rods apart, small 
structures, unadorned, low ceilings, bare walls, little space for 
furniture, often going up stairs on a ladder through a hole in one corner, 
a trapdoor in the floor to get down cellar; but probably, as much 
contentment as usually falls to the lot of humankind, for there was hope 
ahead. The inside illumination of winter evenings radiated from huge 
fireplaces made of stone and clay, and the smoke passed up chimneys made 
of sticks that were plastered with mud on the inside. The floors were 
seldom sawed boards, but split out of white ash and spotted with axe and 
adz where laying on the round stringers with a hewed upper surface to make 
them as smooth as possible. The earliest shanties were roofed with peeled 
basswood bark, but the more aristocratic log houses which succeeded them 
were shingled with rived oak "shakes," and warping under the influence of 
the summer sun, while they shed a plain rain fairly well, they let the 
wind-driven snow sift in freely during the winter, which falling on beds 
and floor, made stepping out into it with bare feet in the morning a 
chilly experience. Doors were seldom fastened or buttoned on the inside; 
civilization not being so advanced as now, and education away from manual 
labor not having been the practice of the time, life and property were 
safe without bolts and bars. With a wooden ketch and latch on the inside 
and a buckskin string, fastened to the latch and passing through a hole in 
the door to the outside, where a wooden handle served the purpose of a 
knob, when the string was out" night and day. Summers the boys went 
barefoot, and chasing cattle in the woods when nettles were abundant left 
many a sting; while for winter one pair of cowhide boots was all that 
could be afforded; overcoats for them were garments of the future; and 
woolen underwear unthought of. Sometimes babies were rocked in an 
unpainted wooden cradle made by the village carpenter, and sometimes in a 
sap trough, which was thus made to do double duty in sweetening the home. 
Woolen yarn was spun and socks and mittens knit by the mother in the 
evenings by fire-light, tallow-light or lard-light, as the case might be. 
Shirts with linen bosoms and starched collars were not worn. The cloth for 
common wear was 

Page 31

called "hard times," and was rightly named. Summer hats were braided out 
of wheat or oat straw, and the braids sewed together and fashioned into 
hat-shape in the household, and caps for winter made out of heavy cloth by 
some seamstress who worked for fifty cents a day. Boys learned to help 
their mothers at housework, washing dishes, pounding clothes, getting 
vegetables ready for cooking, and being useful in various ways. Before 
tallow candles could be had, a strip of cotton flannel, put into an open 
dish of lard and resting on the edge of the dish, was lighted by a wisp of 
paper and furnished artificial light for unplastered walls and ceilings. 
Sometimes, however, the walls were papered with Weekly New York Tribunes, 
or the New York Express, or the Albany Evening Journal, depending upon 
what eastern sheet was the favorite of the head of the family. When beef 
cattle were raised and fattened, the tallow was carefully saved for 
candles, and preparing and dipping the wicks by hand into the melted fat, 
time and again until they reached the right size for use, was as regular 
an autumnal bit of work as making soap or maple sugar in the spring, or 
putting in a supply of potatoes and pork for winter. It was quite a trick 
to go into the woods and find the crotch of a tree of the right shape and 
size for a harrow and with axe and sugar prepare it for use, while hunting 
a white oak knot for a beetle was an education in woodcraft, and making an 
axe-helve the acme of mechanical genius. Using the axe was the first thing 
to be learned, and then the handspike in the logging field. After the 
first few acres of land were cleared, so fertile and productive was the 
soil that food was abundant, but money was scarce and dear, and in all 
respects the home-life was of the strictest economy.


THE INDIANS.

With the Thornapple river for canoeing and fishing, and the forests for 
game and maple sugar, this had long been a favorite and favorable region 
for the Indians, and their bark shanties and pole and brush wigwams were 
quite common upon the high lands adjacent to that stream. They were never 
troublesome, though when the matter of moving the Pottawatomies to the 
Indian Territory came up there was something of an Indian scare, as they 
dislike to leave their old hunting grounds and were quite ugly in their 
talk and actions. The possibility of a raid on the settlement was 
discussed and the idea of building a block-house for defense was 
suggested. There was, however, no occasion for alarm.

Every season the settlers obtained vension and fish of the Indians, giving 
them in exchange salt pork, corn meal and wheat flour. Some of them 
remained in the vicinity for a number of years, making occasional visits 
to the village to sell furs and obtain supplies, until about 1860. One of 
them in particular liked to get trusted at the store, and was very 

Page 32

punctual in coming around to make payment and get trusted again. A noted 
Indian, who called himself a chief of the Pottawatomies in that part of 
the State, went by the name of Sawby, or Saaba, was very shrewd and was 
well known by all the settlers. Probably there was not a house he did not 
visit. He picked up all the slang and vulgarity that was in circulation 
and often used the unseemly words and phrases in the presence of ladies. 
All English seemed to be the same to him wherever picked up and whatever 
the meaning, and he did not improve on acquaintance. As he was in 
Vermontville often he became enamored with a bright young lady, Naomi 
Dickinson, and made proposals of marriage to her father, but rather after 
the manner of the politician than the lover. He proposed to buy rather 
than woo, and offered to give four ponies and twenty-five dollars for her, 
or five ponies and no money. When she objected to any such a deal, he said 
with disgust: "You no think me handsome." He was, however, very much in 
earnest and fears were expressed that he might attempt an abduction, but 
they were groundless. As the "white maiden" still lives and is unmarried 
it cannot be said by way of excuse that she never had an offer.

Besides the native Pottawatomies, several Indian families came from Canada 
and remained in the town for about a year. They were much more civilized 
than the natives, and in dress and habits imitated the whites. In addition 
to hunting and trapping, they took jobs of chopping and cut down many 
acres of timber. They talked good English. The squaws dressed neatly, and 
displayed much skill in needlework. They held religious meetings on 
Sunday, and frequently attended the regular Congregational services in the 
village. During their stay one of the squaws sickened and died. An Indian 
made a coffin for her and they desired for her a Christian burial. Rev. 
Mr. Day, a Methodist clergyman who had been a missionary in the northern 
part of the State, was in the vicinity at the time. He was sent for, and 
he came to the village meeting house and preached a funeral sermon through 
an interpreter. Several native Indians also attended the services. 
Vermontville people went with sleighs to their wigwams, brought the corpse 
and Indians to the place where the services were held, and after the 
sermon carried the remains with the Indian attendants to the burial plot 
and assisted at the final obsequies. An account of this incident, written 
by S. S. Church, says: "The corpse was clothed in a very nice white 
shroud, handsomely worked with scalloped edges."

Under all circumstances the Pottawatomies were friendly. One night, after 
dark, having been hunting cattle two or three miles southwest of the 
village, three of us, boys, arrived at the bank of the river where a band 
of Indians was encamped. The cattle had been started homeward, and the 
Indians told us they had crossed the river near by. The water was high and 
they rowed us across in a canoe. Darkness was intense, 

Page 33

but there was a cattle path that could be followed about a mile to the 
nearest clearing. When accustomed to the woods, getting through them in 
the night is not so difficult a task as it seems.

Once in a while an afternoon was spent at an Indian camp, practicing the 
bow and arrow with the young red-skins. On high land north of the 
Thornapple were a number of sunken graves, and the hackings on the trees 
suggested that it had been an old burial place. In the spring of 1841, 
while fishing or hunting cattle, on the south bank of the river, a beech 
tree was discovered that showed fresh cuttings in the smooth bark. An 
examination disclosed the outline of a canoe, in it an Indian with arm 
lifted and a fish spear in his hand pointing down the stream, as if to 
inform others that one or more of the band had gone down the river on a 
fishing trip. At all events, that was the interpretation we gave to the 
picture-writing at the time. The only domesticated animals the red men had 
were wolfish-looking dogs and the hardy French Canadian ponies, used 
mainly for packing and carrying their blankets and few cooking utensils on 
their journeyings from place to place.


WILD GAME AND A BEAR HUNT

Wolves were plenty, but seldom committed any depredations. Like 
politicians, they were great howlers. Hunters rarely saw one in the woods, 
and they were caught in traps for the sake of the bounty of five dollars 
on each one that was killed. Deer and wild turkeys were abundant. In the 
fall coon-hunting was a common pastime, and the coon-dog that did not get 
his nose and mouth full of porcupine quills by attacking the wrong animal 
was a fortunate brute. The only early settler who ate coon meat was one 
Jason Smith, a bachelor or widower, who shantied by himself and lived a 
hermit's life. About almost every log house could be seen during the 
months numerous coon skins tacked onto a board, or box, or barn door, the 
inside exposed to the air and sunshine for drying and preparing for the 
purchaser who was sure to come around and gather up all the deer skins, 
coon skins, and an occasional mink skin for the market. Of the emblems of 
the presidential campaign of 1840, log cabins and coon skins were plenty, 
but the hard cider was missing. Fifty cents for a coon skin was a good 
price. The wild turkey was the proudest and most aristocratic denizen of 
the forest, and with partridges and wild pigeons constituted the principal 
game birds. Pickerel, suckers, mullet, perch and bream were the fish in 
the rivers and lakes.

Of all the wild animals the bear was the boldest and most troublesome. The 
most toothsome morsel for Bruin was a young porker, and to steal a pig 
from a pen he would take great risks from dogs and rifles. From time to 
time pigs disappeared, and the tracks showed that taking them away must be 
the work of a bear. Forays were made on the pig pen of 

Page 34

R. W. Griswold, who lived nearly half a mile north of the east end of the 
village, his house facing miles of unbroken forest of the eastward. In 
these woods and a swamp not far away this depredator seemed to have his 
lair. One day, in 1839, he came out of the woods in to the main street at 
the east end of the village. Mrs. Cochrane, the minister's wife, saw him 
passing down the bill in the road near where the old cheese factory now 
stands, and going towards the log house in which W. R. Martin then lived. 
Out in the road in front of the house she saw Henry J. Martin, a young 
boy, playing by himself as unconcernedly as if there were no bears in 
Vermontville. The bear was making towards him and Henry thought it was a 
dog. Mrs. Cochrane screamed, which startled the beast, and Mrs.Martin, 
looking out of the door, saw the impending danger to her boy, ran out into 
the road, caught him up in her arms and carried him into the house. For 
boy or man this was the closest known call among the first settlers.

The depredations of this animal were so frequent and numerous that finally 
a bear-hunt was organized for his capture. Rev. S. Cochrane was selected 
for captain, and all the men, boys, dogs and guns of the colony were 
mustered into the service. This was the most exciting of any early 
incident. A night or two before the hunt was determined upon the bear had 
made a successful raid upon R. W. Griswold's pig-pen. It was known where 
he crossed the road and plunged into the woods. About a section of land 
was surrounded, men with dogs and guns stationed at nearly uniform 
distances apart, and at a given signal, which was passed along the line, 
all were to march towards a common center. Soon the bear broke through the 
line and men and boys and dogs gave chase. W. J. Squier's big mastiff, 
Bonaparte--called "Bone" for brevity --was one of the first to overtake 
the fleeing bear and give fight. Smaller dogs would snap at his hind legs, 
but "Bone" tackled him at close quarters. When John Wager and Arthur W. 
Squier arrived the dog was getting the worst of the battle. Wager and W. 
S. Fairfield's musket, of the revolutionary pattern, and he jammed the 
butt of it into the bear's mouth to loosen his hold on the dog. The marks 
of the bear's teeth in the stock of the musket were evidence of the 
closeness of the conflict. The dogs were so excited that getting a sage 
shot at the bear was difficult, but finally Reuben Sanford gave him a 
bullet from a rifle, and two more shots ended his career. Loaded on poles, 
a procession was formed, and the hunters marched to the public square, 
about a mile, where the bear was dressed, the carcass cut into as many 
pieces as there were families, and Daniel Barber, being blindfolded in the 
name of Justice, as each piece of meat was touched by the minister called 
out the name of the person who should have it.

The bear had fed well and the meat was good. It had the flavor of the 
forest. The skin was sold, but the authorities do not agree as to 

Page 35

the price. One says four dollars, another seven dollars, and Mrs. Browning-
Griswold of Battle Creek, the only surviving head of a family at that time 
now living in Michigan who was present, says the skin sold for eight 
dollars. All agree, however, that the money, probably seven dollars, was 
used to purchase the first installment of Sunday school books that was 
brought into the village. Back to this bear the Sunday school library of 
Vermontville can trace its financial origin.

An account of this bear hunt was written by Captain and Reverend Sylvester 
Cochrane, and printed in the Marshall (Mich.) Statesman, Seth Lewis editor 
and proprietor, of January 2, 1840, and a copy thereof has been kindly 
furnished by W. R. Lewis, son of the original founder, editor and 
proprietor, which is herewith given in full. Fortunately for the writer of 
early history the files of that paper have been carefully preserved, and 
this enables me to give the original description as written nearly fifty-
eight years ago.


A BEAR HUNT

"For a number of days, during the month of October, the inhabitants of 
Vermontville were annoyed by the visits of a bear. Almost every day he had 
the presumption to come out of the forest and present himself in the 
streets, and in one or two instances he even took the liberty to parade 
himself in an erect position in front of the houses, as if desirous to see 
what was going on within. The women and children were of course 
sufficiently alarmed. Those who were particularly exposed to his 
depredations began to feel that his visits were becoming quite too common--
especially as he seldom left without seizing and carrying off one or more 
swine. Several attempts were made to capture him, but without success. It 
was seen that some more direct and efficient efforts must be made. 
Accordingly about 30 men and boys assembled, with all the dogs and guns 
that could be collected. The necessary arrangements were soon made, a 
circle was formed, including nearly a section of land, within which it was 
evident his bearship was lurking. At about 11 o'clock the watchword went 
around--'ALL READY'--and the hunters began to gather in. Long before the 
center was made, however, bruin was discovered. Fortunately at the point 
where he was first seen, his assailants had become considerably numerous. 
Supposing himself surrounded he immediately broke through the line and 
commenced a retreat; just at this moment the dogs were let loose, and a 
hot pursuit of dogs, men and boys commenced. He was, however, so harrassed 
and his progress so impeded by the dogs, that escape was impossible. After 
running about 100 rods he was overtaken by some of the gunners, when two 
or three rifle balls soon dispatched him. The conflict was now ended, and 
the forest echoed with the sound of victory--a procession was formed--the 
captured and slain enemy was taken up on the shoulders of his conquerors 
and borne in triumph to the village, where, after having been sufficiently 
viewed and admired by the ladies and children, he was dressed and cut into 
pieces; a portion of the meat was then distributed to each family in the 
village, and a resolution was passed that the avails of the skin should be 
appropriated to replenish the Sabbath School library. After this disposal 
of bruin the inhabitants returned to their homes, well satisfied with 
their day's work.
C."


Page 36

OTHER BEAR INCIDENTS

Another authentic bear adventure, in which Dudley F. Bullock, the earliest 
settler in the southeast quarter of the township, was an active 
participant, is worth relating. Mr. Bullock and his young wife lived about 
four miles from the village of Vermontville, where their nearest neighbors 
resided. The tramp of wild animals around their rude cabin, and the 
dolorous howling of wolves, after they had retired for the night, were not 
uncommon sounds. These were solemn serenades. Mrs. Bullock's father, 
Horace Howell, one of the pioneers of Calhoun county, desiring to know how 
his daughter and son-in-law were getting along in their forest home, made 
them a visit. He went out hunting one day and killed a deer within hailing 
distance of the log cabin. Wanting assistance he halloed for Mr. Bullock 
to come to his aid. While on the way, in answer to the call, he saw three 
bears descending a large leaning tree. Mr. Bullock tried to stop them by 
pounding on the trunk with a club, at the same time calling to Mr. Howell 
to come with his rifle. One of the bears, as if realizing the urgency of 
the situation, loosed his hold on the tree, and dropped like a big ball, 
nearly prostrating Mr. Bullock by hitting him as he fell. Acting promptly, 
for he was always cool in every situation, in spite of the surprise, 
Bullock dealt the bear such a heavy blow with the club he had in his hand 
that it broke, and losing his balance he fell upon the bear. Then it was a 
surprise party on both sides, and the scrambling, shouting and growling 
showed that neither man nor beast desired further or closer acquaintance. 
The frightened bear got out of the melee and made tracks into the forest, 
and Mr. Howell coming up the men turned their attention to the two 
spectators that were still up the tree and succeeded in killing both of 
them.

In the way of stirring adventure in hunting and killing a bear, Jonas 
Davis, an early settler in the village and town, a man who was always cool 
and deliberate, heads the list. In company with a number of Chester men, 
among them Amasa L. Jordan, a prominent citizen, a bear was surrounded in 
a swamp. It was a rainy day, and by the time the bear was discovered the 
powder in all the guns was wet and not one of them could be discharged. 
Apparently the bear was master of the situation. The guns would not go 
off, and there seemed nothing to prevent him from doing so. Letting him 
get away, however, without an attempt to capture him, was out of the 
question. The emergency required prompt action at close quarters. While 
the rest of the hunters attracted his attention in front and held him at 
bay, Mr. Davis quietly approached him from the rear, and with an axe 
struck him a stunning blow on the head that killed him. Later this same 
Mr. Jordan was shot and killed by one of his sons while they were out 
hunting together. They separated 

Page 37

and after a while the son saw a dark object moving in the bushes and 
thinking it was a bear fired the fatal shot that killed his father.

On one occasion, early in the forties, my brother, John Carlos Barber, now 
of Battle Creek, was carrying through the woods to workmen on the sawmill 
their dinner, a portion of which was a big tin pail of steaming hot pork 
and beans. The road had been merely underbrushed, and when near some big 
oak trees about a hundred rods from the mill, he saw an old she bear cross 
the road some four rods ahead of him. Passing along he stopped a moment to 
see her tracks, when four cubs came along on her trail. One of them 
stopped a few feet distant from him, raised its head and snuffed the 
wafted odor of the pork and beans. Taking off his chip hat he swung it at 
the cub, halloed like a loon, and started on a keen run for the mill. The 
smelling cub, together with the other three cubs, started off on a lope 
into the woods. When he got to the mill he was so out of breath that he 
could hardly tell the men that he had seen five bears. Hiram Gridley of 
Kalamo, a millwright, who was at work on the mill, had a dog and gun, said 
his dog would follow them, and without stopping to eat dinner the men 
started to find the bears. On arriving at the place where they crossed the 
road, the, tracks being plainly visible, the dog stuck his tail between 
his legs, run around yelping for about ten rods, and would go no further. 
Gridley was disgusted, saying, "D--n the dog, he is more scared than the 
boy was," when the prospective bear hunt was abandoned, and the men went 
back to the mill to save the pork and beans, and to talk over bear 
adventures and what might have happened if the dog had followed the trail.

Six miles south of Vermontville, on the road to Bellevué in the town of 
Kalamo, was the well-known tavern kept by Samuel Herring, a farmer as well 
as a landlord, a sturdy pioneer, better known in the west half of Eaton 
county than is any member of congress at the present time. His wife, "Aunt 
Debby," was equally well known in all the region roundabout. They came to 
Kalamo in 1838, lived together as husband and wife for seventy years. She 
died about six years before he did, and he passed away September 8, 1895, 
aged 98 years, 6 months and 6 days-- probably the oldest living person in 
the county previous to his death. No man who lived outside of their town 
was better known by the Vermontville pioneers. Early one Sunday morning 
there was a great commotion and loud squealing in the log hog-pen near the 
house. Louis Herring, a son and hunter of wide repute, guessing rightly as 
to the cause of the disturbance, seized a rifle and rushed out of the door 
just as a full-grown bear was climbing out of the pen with a pig in his 
possession, when a bullet through his head, the result of Lou. Herring's 
quick and steady aim, put a stop to his pig-stealing career.