The Vermontville Colony - Part 3



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A WONDERFUL CHANGE

One passing through that region now would not dream that less than sixty 
years ago it was a dense wilderness, inhabited by Indians, bears, wolves 
and deer. But Indians, bears, wolves, and deer have disappeared with the 
forests. They belonged to the untamed wilderness that the pioneers came to 
subdue and civilize. Most of the hunting that is done now is for votes. 
The fauna and flora of the country change with the change of its 
inhabitants. Still the hunter's life and the wildness of nature have 
charms for white men as well as for the Indian. There were expert riflemen 
among the early settlers. One of the best single shots was made by W. F. 
Hawkins. Two deer were standing side by side. He saw but one of them, drew 
a bead on that one with his long, old-fashioned, heavy, hand-made rifle, 
and the ball passed through and killed both of them. The last of the large 
game to disappear was the wild turkeys. They were lordly and wary birds. 
How much more appropriate for a national emblem than the savage eagle. No 
reminders of the early days are left. Generally but small tracts of the 
original forest remain in anything like their primitive condition. 
Probably the three hundred acres in nearly a square form, owned by my 
brother, Homer G. Barber, and myself, part of the land located by our 
father, Edward H. Barber, in 1836, and which the axe has never ravaged, or 
in which it has never been used except to save fallen timber, is one of 
the largest tracts of original forest in a solid body that can be found in 
Southern Michigan. One can go into that native woodland, and out of sight 
of a clearing in any direction, and does not have to draw upon imagination 
to realize how every acre in Vermontville appeared in the spring of 1836, 
before the sound of the axe and the crash of falling trees awakened to new 
life a savage wilderness for unnumbered centuries.

There were men with strong arms as well as stout hearts among the 
pioneers. The most stalwart wielder of the axe was a champion among men, 
and got himself much talked about. Perhaps William F. Hawkins was the 
foremost chopper. He could slash down an acre of average timber in a day. 
With long arms and tremendous sweep he made every stroke count. He would 
fell a tree with wonderful accuracy, seldom failing to hit the desired 
spot. Bore a hole with an auger in the trunk of a fallen tree, stick a 
wooden pin in the hole, and he would fell another tree, standing thirty to 
forty feet away, and hit the pin almost every time. His education was that 
of the eye and muscle. John Wager was another expert chopper. One winter, 
in the month of February, he chopped down into winrows ten acres of very 
heavy beech and maple timber for Jonas Davis in nineteen days. He was a 
slasher. When a boy got so that, chopping down a tree with his father, he 
could take the heart away from him, he was proud of his achievement, but 
did not dare to say much about it in 

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the presence of his hard-headed Vermont ancestor. The boy's place was to 
dig in, do the best he could, and say but little. A common maxim was--"A 
workman should be known by his chips." Axes were much discussed, the best 
weight for efficient use, the proper length of helve, and of the kinds 
used those made by Isaiah Blood of Hoosac Falls, New York, were a prime 
favorite. The axe followed the tomahawk, as the horse succeeded the deer, 
the dog the wolf, the swine the bear, and the cattle and sheep on the 
hills the many native denizens of the forest; and then, even the axe was 
supplanted by the saw for felling timber. The wild game of sixty years ago 
is gone forever, and if there be any happy hunting ground for the Indian 
it is in another sphere. It is my purpose to give the reader some idea of 
the conditions that existed in this region three score years ago, and this 
done, my purpose in presenting these details is accomplished.


THE LOST BOY INCIDENT

One of the early incidents that caused great excitement anxiety was a lost 
boy and the search for him in the early forties. Truman W. Rogers, an 
early settler, went with his wife and young children to visit relatives a 
few miles northeast of the village. It was through woods all the way. The 
next day he started back to Vermontville with his horse and wagon. Soon 
after he started his young son, Frank Rogers, not five years old, slipped 
out of the house and into the road unbeknown to his mother, evidently with 
the intention of finding his father and going back with him. As soon as he 
was missed search was made for him by the family, but he could not be 
found, nor any trace of him discovered. Night came on and he was still 
missing. The father was notified and he hastened back to his family. The 
few inhabitants then living in the neighborhood collected the next morning 
and searched the woods for him all through the day. Another night came and 
no trace of the lost boy had been discovered. News was sent to the colony 
and with each passing hour the excitement and anxiety grew more intense. 
Men amd women gathered in knots and talked over the probabilities of his 
having been stolen by Indians or devoured by bears or wolves. All 
volunteered to prosecute the search. Women cooked victuals so that the men 
could take rations with them and lose no time. On the morning of the third 
day after his disappearance, the search was renewed systematically, and 
during the day traces of him were found, as where he had picked red 
raspberries along the edge of a swamps, and his cap where he had 
apparently laid down in the night. On arriving at the Ionia road, three to 
four miles from the house he had left his tracks were discovered, and the 
conclusion was reached that he had passed to the west of it. For the third 
day's quest the plan agreed upon was to rendezvous along the line of the 
road, from two to three miles north 

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of the village, early in the morning and march through the woods to the 
west near enough together so that no object could escape discovery. Deer 
were seen, but not a gun was fired. If the boy was found by any of the 
party one gun was to be fired, and if alive a second discharge was to 
follow. As daylight dawned the people began to gather. Reuben Sanford 
lived about three miles northwest of the village, by the highway, and a 
mile west of the Ionia road. He started early through the woods to the 
place for the search to begin. In the gloaming, before the sun was up, as 
he was passing through the dense forest, and the silence was as solemn as 
the occasion, he heard a faint noise like a child's voice. He stopped, 
listened intently, and heard these words: "Hoo-ah! Hoo-ah! You seen my 
pa?" Turning his eyes in the direction the voice came from, he saw the 
capless white head of the lost boy in the tall grass at the edge of a 
swamp. The boy was not afraid, and when spoken to said: "I've been to 
grandma's; where's my pa?" The idea of finding his father occupied his 
mind. When asked, later, if he had seen any of the men who were looking 
for him, he replied: "Yeth, but I didn't see my pa?" Sanford at once fired 
his rifle, and quickly loaded it and fired it again. The noise rang 
through the forest, and the father of the boy heard the reports, though 
nearly a mile away, and started on the run towards the point from which 
they came. The second report assured him and all who heard it that the boy 
was alive. Truman Rogers was but a few minutes in reaching the spot where 
Sanford and the boy were moving towards the place of rendezvous, a halloo 
and an answer informing him just where they were. As soon as Rogers 
reached them and grasped the lost boy in his arms the latter said to 
Sanford: "I've found my pa." It was a thrilling episode. Through the 
woods, as swiftly as a man could run, Rogers, with the boy in his arms, 
bore him to his sorrowing mother, and the three days of agony were ended. 
Leisurely men and boys scattered to their homes and labor, and Reuben 
Sanford was the proudest man in all that region. During the years that 
have passed since then there has been no greater joy for all the people 
than on the day the lost boy was found. For many years, grown to manhood, 
he lived in the town, married the daughter of Curtis Chappel and raised a 
family.


POLITICS OF THE COLONISTS

Of the first settlers, all who came from Rutland and Addison counties, 
Vermont, were conservative whigs, while those who came from Bennington 
county were rock-rooted democrats. It would be a curious study to 
ascertain for how many generations the ancestors of the whigs had been 
whigs, and also for how long the ancestors of the democrats had been 
democrats. While there have been a few individual changes from one party 
to another, yet Vermonters have adhered to party names with wonderful 
tenacity from generation to generation. Heredity in politics was stronger 

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even than in religion. Later comers, early in the forties, like Artemas 
and Cephas Smith from Orwell, Rutland county, were whigs, and both Samuel 
and Henry Robinson, the latter the father of Sam. Robinson of Charlotte, 
who came from Bennington, were democrats. Still all were inoculated with 
the democratic idea, and every man in the village felt himself to be the 
equal, in the possession of all essential rights and privileges, of every 
other white man in the world. All were positive and assertive. It was 
expected as a matter of course that partisan politics would descend from 
sires to sons with unbroken regularity. Before a store was opened in 1853, 
and until he moved away, which included the first ten years of the village 
life, Norton's blacksmith shop was the place for general discussion. 
Politics, in their season, they talked with a good deal of heat; at other 
times the crops, planting, cultivating, harvesting, the merits and 
demerits of different tools and implements and methods, whose oxen had 
hauled the biggest logs, the latest letters from Vermont, the weather-
signs and how they differed from those of New England, for every man then 
was his own weather bureau, and the last baby born in the colony. Theology 
was not much discussed as all had inherited the same kind, and so nearly 
all the friction and fire was about party history, policy and leaders.

Dividing, as they did, according to the counties in Vermont they came 
from, the Barbers, Dickinson, Griswold, Fairfield, Squier, Mears, McCotter 
and others were dyed-in-the-wool whigs, admired Daniel Webster and 
worshiped Henry Clay; while Martin, the Robinsons, Norton, Browning, the 
Fullers, and a majority of the settlers on land outside of the colony 
purchase, were staunch democrats, swore by Andrew Jackson, later on loved 
Silas Wright and hated Tippecanoe and Tyler too intensely. At first the 
solitary abolitionist was Willard Davis, and though one of the best 
educated and best read men in the town he was a political outcast. The 
head of each family took some favorite eastern weekly paper, like the New 
York Tribune or Express, the Albany Journal or Argus; but when it came to 
the religious weekly the New York Observer was the favorite and only 
paper, as it was true-blue in its orthodoxy and its application of 
religion to politics, and more especially to the ominous slavery question.

No magazines were taken--indeed, the magazine age had not arrived--but the 
papers were read thoroughly, then exchanged for the ones taken by the 
nearest neighbors, and so all were well informed as to public men and 
measures, as well as in regard to the larger world movements and events 
which the age of steam and electricity was then inaugurating. The early 
hope of the construction of the Clinton and Kalamazoo canal along the 
bottom land of the Thornapple river, where, it is said, the surveyors had 
found an eighty-mile stretch without a lock and the only question was 
feeders, was blasted by the collapse of all western enterprises which 

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followed the panic of 1837, and yet how often the relative advantages of 
railroads and canals were discussed, with the conclusion always in favor 
of the canal. The canal boat was conservative and did not jerk everything 
through and out of a country like the railway locomotive, but the horses 
and mules used to propel the boats would consume coarse grain and help to 
furnish a home market. This economic idea cropped out in politics, the 
broader concept of free and open markets with unrestricted exchange of 
products not finding general acceptance in Yankee land, and so the 
majority were whigs and protectionists and the minority democrats and free 
traders.

Before the slavery question came to the front as the dominant issue the 
colonists divided on the economic question, according to hereditary 
influence upon thought and party association, and many and hot were the 
discussions, generally held at Norton's blacksmith shop, on the paltry 
politics of the time. During a presidential campaign, the first one coming 
in 1840, the discussions were heated, and sometimes abusive epithets were 
indulged in by the brethren, which were sure to be condoned at a 
subsequent church meeting, when the apologies made to each other and the 
forgiveness asked were sincere; but the next partisan round was as hot as 
ever. Wells R. Martin and Martin S. Norton, the foremost upholders of the 
democratic cause, were fluent talkers, and Edward H. Barber was one of the 
most valiant and ready defenders of the whig party. The log-cabin, coon-
skin and hard cider campaign of 1840 gave the whigs their first and only 
innings in Michigan, when they carried the state for "Tippecanoe and Tyler 
too" and for "Woodbridge and Reform." Log cabins and coon-skins were 
familiar things, but the hard cider was merely a reminiscence of bygone 
days in New England.

In the presidential campaigns of 1844, 1848 and 1852 the whigs voted the 
whig ticket and the democrats voted the democratic ticket with undeviating 
regularity, although vital issues growing out of slavery and its 
aggressions were forming in the public mind, and the only thing they 
agreed upon was the dislike of the abolitionists. The last appearance of 
the whig party in a national campaign was in 1852. Already the anti-
slavery movement was gathering force, though generally condemned. In 1844 
the abolition vote for James G. Birney defeated Henry Clay in the state of 
New York and lost him the presidency. He was the favorite leader of the 
whigs; they were downcast over his defeat; and their hatred of the 
abolitionists was more intense than ever. In Vermontville, prior to 1852, 
there were but three abolitionists: Willard Davis, Alvah L. Armstrong and 
William B. Hopkins; but that year, by the arrival of Dr. Robert C. Kedzie, 
in February, they numbered four, all told. Soon thereafter came the great 
political upheaval of this century; the republican party was organized in 
1854; and all the whigs, the free-soil democrats and the abolitionists 
became republicans.

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THE ANTI-SLAVERY BIBLE

The year 1852 witnessed the publication of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." At that 
time, Norton and the Robinsons having moved away, nearly all of the voters 
in the village were silver gray whigs; they did not believe in slavery but 
adhered tenaciously to the compromises of the constitution; they read the 
New York Observer, and repeated with something skin to solemn awe, as if 
it was applicable to our time and conditions, the old saying, "Cursed are 
Canaan." When Dr. Kedzie came an aggressive abolitionist was introduced 
into society and the church. Willard Davis was strong and firm; Dr. Kedzie 
was sharp and incisive; together they made a full team. When it became 
known that Kedzie had voted for John P. Hale for president there was a 
good deal of feeling manifested. Here was a firebrand, and one on which 
the fire did not go out. A leading whig said to him one day: "Doc., do you 
believe a nigger is as good as a white man?" "That depends on how the 
white man behaves himself," was the prompt reply. No one, unfamiliar with 
the feelings and thoughts of that time, can realize how strong and 
antagonistic they were.

Soon after the Kedzie family had settled in the village, Mrs. Nancy H. 
Fairchild of Oberlin, Ohio, visited Mrs. Kedzie, in 1852, and brought with 
her the first copy of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" that came into Vermontville. 
From a perspective of forty-five years we can form a tolerably accurate 
estimate of the influence of that wonderful book. Every great movement has 
its bible--is voiced in literature. Some one gives utterance to the 
formative sentiment of the time when great historic upheavals come and 
hastens their culmination. Thus Harriet Beecher Stowe's undying story, 
weaving the actual incidents of life among the lowly and the oppressed 
into the attractive form of a novel, became at once, on its appearance in 
a book, the gospel of the anti-slavery dispensation. It stirred the hearts 
of men and women to their depths, and profound convictions of the moral 
wrong and political degradation of slavery broke the crust of conservatism 
and destroyed that reverence for the compromises of the constitution upon 
which man-hunting and man-stealing securely rested for more than half a 
century.

Of the reception given to that epoch-making book in an isolated and 
intelligent community, where really strong moral natures slumbered 
underneath the crust of traditional politics--a book that still lives 
because in portraying a great wrong it appealed to the moral natures of 
men and women at a crucial period of American history and is as perennial 
as the desire for liberty and immortal as human rights--Prof. Kedzie, in a 
personal note to the writer, says: "Food and sleep and earthly cares had 
little hold on us till wife and I, in tears and choking sobs, had read 
that wonderful book. Before we had read much it leaked out that we had a 
book of wonderful pathos, and Frances A. Mears"--now Mrs. Fitz Stebins 

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of Vermontville--"filed her application to read the book next, but before 
she got it seven other applications were on file, and before she had read 
it there were thirty who spoke for the book. After it left our hands we 
saw no more of it for two years, and it came back the most worn and 
tattered book I ever saw." But it performed its mission and hastened the 
fusion of silver-gray whigs, free-soil democrats and abolitionists into a 
solid organization to resist and prevent the further aggressions and the 
extension of slavery.

Wherever read it had the same or a similar effect, though nowhere was it 
more marked than upon the conservative minds of these Vermonters. Of 
course there were political pachyderms who could not be reached and 
influenced. It may not be out of place for me to say in this connection 
that at the time "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was performing missionary work at 
Vermontville I was living in Detroit, working in a printing office, and 
boarding at Martin W. Burpee's on Fifth street, near Grand River avenue, 
and during the leisure evening hours read the book aloud to members of the 
family. One of the listeners was Miss Minerva Ellis, afterwards the wife 
of Dr. E. E. Ellis of Detroit. Often some pathetic incident brought tears 
to all eyes. Truth possesses power and pathos to overcome wrong, even when 
intrenched in precedent and law.

No other book of this century had so remarkable an influence in moulding 
public opinion and in controlling the thoughts and actions of all classes 
of people. it is related of President Lincoln that the first time he met 
Mrs. Stowe--it was in Washington during the civil war--he grasped her hand 
when introduced and in his big-hearted and spontaneous way said to her: 
"Is this the little woman who brought on the great war?" Leaving affairs 
of state to take care of themselves for the time, and unmindful of others 
present, he accompanied her to a seat in an alcove of the White House, and 
that hour's conversation between these two great and congenial souls, 
whose names are forever associated with the most eventful period of 
American history, is recorded only in that invisible realm where thought 
never dies.

In Vermontville, where each man and woman knew every other man and woman, 
and human foibles, failing and idiosyncrasies were much talked about, 
vastly more than they are now in this age of daily newspapers, the 
missionary work of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was very effective. Conservatism 
forgot about Canaan and its unhappy lot. The book became the gospel of a 
new political dispensation. Nevertheless, conservatism never surrenders 
gracefully. Memory of the flesh-pots lingers. One day a leading citizen 
came to Dr. Kedzie in great glee with copies of the New York Observer, 
which contained criticism of Mrs. stowe's book, and among the pious 
witticisms was this conundrum: "Which would you rather kiss, the Pope' toe 
or Harriet Beecher Stowe?" Some days later the Doctor was asked if he had 
looked over the papers and noticed what they said. 

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He replied, with more twinkles than usual in hi eye: "I cannot forget 
them, for wife complained about dreadful smell coming from a certain 
cubby--it smelled awful micey--would I open it and see what was the 
matter? I opened it and found those New York Observers!" His questioner 
said nothing in reply, but the Doctor thought that the look on his face 
spelled "blasphemy." Such incidents indicate the sentiment of the time. It 
was like molten lava.

But events moved swiftly. Feeling was at fever heat. "Coming events cast 
their shadows before." Early in 1856, after nearly ten years' absence, I 
went back to Vermontville to reside. The political contest of that year 
opened early and in earnest. It was a part of my experience, in company 
with Willard Davis, a strong debater, and Doctor Kedzie, a sharp and 
incisive talker, to visit every schoolhouse in Vermontville, and many in 
Castleton, Woodland, Sunfield, Rexand, Chester and Kalamo, to take part in 
evening meetings for the discussion of the slavery question during the 
Fremont campaign. We went without thought of pay in money. The schoolhouse 
would be lighted and warmed, some farmer who lived close by would put out 
and feed the team, and often the good wife would have a lunch ready after 
the meeting, before we started for a drive home, sometimes ten to fourteen 
miles. A paid speaker was unknown. A principle stirred the heart of the 
people, and the question of compensation in dollars and cents did not 
enter into the campaign. Politics bud not become a profession. So rapid 
was the progress of events that, in 1856, Willard Davis, the despised 
abolitionist of 1852, was nominated for representative of the Western 
district of Eaton, count and Henry A. Shaw of Eaton Rapids for the eastern 
district. Both were elected, and both voted to make Zachariah Chandler 
United States senator at the session of 1857. In town, county and state 
the political transformation was complete, not until 1860, however, did 
the nation declare that freedom was national and slavery sectional by the 
election of Abraham Lincoln.


THE CIVIL WAR

The civil war came. Never were people more determined. Slavery was the 
aggressor. The first gun fired on Fort Sumter woke the nation from along 
dream of peace and compromise with wrong. The first battle of Bull Run 
occurred. Holiday soldiers then began to change to veterans. Men of the 
North began to realize that it would be no mere child's play to conquer 
the men of the South. They, too, were Americans. One beautiful day in 
July, writes Prof. Kedzie, while he was looking over his beloved fruit 
trees in his amateur orchard, Mrs. Kedzie came out of the house and with 
tear in her eyes, said to him: "O Robert! our army is destroyed and the 
rebels are going into Washington!" This was the first news of that raw 
battle, which congressmen and other civilians went out 

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to see. The whole village was at once in a tumult of excitement. Seldom 
does it come to one's experience to see an entire community so profoundly 
stirred. The people gathered in groups to hear Ed. Hunter read the first 
wild rumors from the battlefield. A great deal was left for imagination 
and conjecture; but soon men realized that the nation was involved in a 
bloody and fratricidal conflict, and that no holiday excursion to the 
South, with military pomp and display, would settle the grave problem 
slavery had prepared for solution.

During the exciting events of 1861, getting the news as quickly as 
possible was a serious question. There was a horseback mail twice a week 
from Bellevue, which arrived quite regularly unless the Thornapple river 
was in flood; also a mail from Lansing by pony express along the "State 
Road," subject to the same conditions of weather. From Bellevue to 
Marshall was a daily stage and mail, and likewise from Charlotte to 
Jackson, but both terminals were fourteen miles distant. The great outside 
world was crowded with stirring events, and the people longed for daily 
communication with the news centers, and for the daily papers the same day 
that they were printed. A revolution had come which was one of the world's 
great heart-beats of progress. How to get the news from the seat of war 
was the problem to be solved. A daily mail none dreamed of as possible to 
obtain. What then? The Michigan Central railroad brought the Detroit 
dailies to Jackson and Humphrey & Hibbard's stage line delivered them in 
Charlotte late every afternoon, but then they were fourteen miles from the 
little village where all were hungry for war news. Finally a purse was 
made up and a boy hired to ride a pony to Charlotte and bring the Detroit 
morning papers with their precious burden of intelligence from the seat of 
war--whether the rebellion was being crushed and the Union safe from all 
assaults--and no one thought of retiring until the last item of war news 
was read aloud in the store at nine to twelve o'clock in the evening. 
Sometimes the stage was late in arriving at Charlotte and the hours for 
waiting seemed long until the boy came with the papers. Dr. Kedzie relates 
an incident which shows the intense eagerness for news that prevailed. He 
was walking up and down the street at midnight, listening for the patter 
of the pony's feet, when he met Edward H. Barber, who lived three-quarters 
of a mile away, treading the same beat and waiting for the boy to arrive. 
He asked: "Has the paper come?" "Not yet," the Doctor replied. "Well," was 
the disappointed response, "I believe I am the biggest old fool in the 
county, but I cannot sleep until I know how the war goes." There was a 
whole community of just such fools abroad that summer night, for the store 
always remained open until the papers arrived, and yet the extra anxiety 
that stirred the blood on that occasion was caused by rumors of Gen. 
Butler's skirmish at Big Bethel, where Major Theodore Winthrop, a young 
American author of great brilliancy and promise, then Butler's military 
secretary, was killed 

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while leading an assault on the Confederate line, June 10, 1861. The 
Atlantic Monthly, for which he wrote, was taken in Vermontville and hence 
his name was well known in that community.

Who that knew of them can forget the emotions that stirred the hearts of 
the people during the civil war? The spirit of patriotism came to them 
clothed in resurrectional brightness, like unto that which lights the 
footsteps of men along the pathway to the radiant realm of perfection and 
peace. Manhood broke the fetters of party and stood proudly erect, as in 
the early days of the Republic, and gave sublimity to American character. 
The price paid was great, sorrow and sacrifice in almost every household, 
yet ere the era of greed came with its blighting influence, great were the 
compensatory results. How the events of that crucial period, among a 
generation of men and women nearly all of whom have passed away, crowd 
upon the mind! War waves swept through the little village, then isolated 
from the electric pulse-beats of the time, though it was the center of 
trade for all of the surrounding towns, and its influence extended far 
beyond its territorial area. From almost every family there were one or 
more enlistments in the military service. The regiments that received the 
largest number of able-bodied soldiers from the town were the Second 
Michigan Cavalry and the Sixth and Twelfth Infantry, though in the Fifth 
Cavalry and Thirteenth Infantry the town was also represented. In many 
states of the South soldiers from Vermontville were buried, stretching 
from Maryland to Texas, and not one of them was charged with cowardice or 
desertion.

The year 1861 was the last year of my residence in the town, an election 
as clerk of Eaton county in 1860, as clerk of the house of representatives 
in the State legislature in 1861 and 1863, the appointment as Reading 
Clerk of the national house of representatives in 1864, as Supervisor of 
Internal Revenue for Michigan and Wisconsin in 1869 and as Third Assistant 
Postmaster General in 1873, taking me away permanently; still it is the 
one place on earth that has the associations and charms of home. But the 
stirring events of politics and of the civil war, among its positive and 
independent citizens, each one of whom possessed a strongly outlined 
individuality, are ended. The pioneers have made their last argument. Like 
them, the great leaders they argued for and against are also dead. In the 
greater issues of life and destiny, in the contemplation of which all the 
differences and prejudices of this mortal state seem inconsequential, they 
are reaping results of the lives lived here--reaping as they have sown.


FIRST STORE AND MERCHANTS

The advent of a mercantile firm, with a general stock of dry goods, 
groceries, boots and shoes, hardware, patent medicines, etc., was an 
important event in the economic life of the community. Until this occurred 

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in 1853 the trading had been done almost wholly in Bellevue, Marshall and 
Battle Creek. Hale & Frink--Warren S. Hale and William S. Frink--opened 
the store. Some years later, two or three years after the war, when 
looking over the Thornapple Valley, with reference to a line for the Grand 
River Valley railroad, in company with Amos Boot of Jackson, we met Hale 
at Alaska, Kent county, where he was in the same business. He was a smooth 
and fluent talker. Frink was active and energetic, with a large endowment 
of hope and courage. He built a large store, modeled somewhat after the 
pictures of Noah's Ark, purchased big stocks of goods for the time, bought 
wild land on the school section and commenced improving it, and was 
financially swamped in a few years. Had the inflation of the war period 
come while he was in trade he would have become wealthy. From Michigan he 
went to Iowa, and thence to the far West, where "rolls the Oregon." A son 
born in 1856 he named Fremont, and a second one born in 1860 he called 
Lincoln. The firm of Frink & Barber came next--Homer G. Barber succeeding 
Hale in 1855--and were followed by D. F. Barber & Co. This firm did a 
prosperous business until 1863, when D. F. Barber sold out and moved away. 
The firm of Barber & Martin--Homer G. Barber and Henry J. Martin--was 
organized May 15, 1863, and conducted a prosperous business for ten years. 
On the dissolution of this firm Martin continued business with Mr. Downing 
for five years, under the firm name of Martin & Downing, and after that by 
himself to 1890. The old business, established in 1853, was continued by 
the firm of Barber, Hull & Ambrose, both Fred A. Hull and Chester A. 
Ambrose having been clerks in the old store. In 1883 Hull sold his 
interest to Sidney S. Rockwell, the firm of Barber, Ambrose & Rockwell was 
organized and still continues the business. Last year Chester A. Ambrose 
was elected treasurer of Eaton county on the silver ticket and has moved 
to Charlotte, the county seat.

For forty-two years Homer G. Barber has been in trade, and is the oldest 
merchant in continuous service in the county. In 1872 he started a private 
bank, which has been successfully managed ever since, W. C. Alsover, a son-
in-law, looking after the details as cashier. In company with his son, 
Edward D. Barber, a hardware store is carried on, and he is a director in 
the Merchants National Bank at Charlotte. In the course of business 
several farms have fallen into their hands; he has the general care and 
supervision of three that he now owns, and looks after a large one of 525 
acres owned in connection with E. W. Barber, land purchased of the 
government by their father, Edward H. Barber, in May, 1836. Though engaged 
in active business all his life, going to California in 1849, making the 
trip from New York around Cape Horn in the packet ship Sheridan, gathering 
gold enough to make a start in a successful business career, H. G. Barber 
has not neglected the larger fields of thought and literature, and has one 
of the best private libraries in that section of country. In 1870 he was 

Page 49

elected State senator from the Twentieth district, composed of Eaton and 
Barry counties. An independent thinker belonging to no church and tied to 
no party, he has been and still is the foremost person of the second 
generation in promoting the welfare and giving tone and character to the 
religious life, social condition and business interests of the village and 
town. He has served officially in many capacities, as town clerk, justice 
of the peace, member of the township board, school inspector, postmaster, 
president and trustee of the village, school director and trustee of the 
Congregational society--making, all in all, probably the most active life 
of any citizen of the town or county.

Another general store was started in June, 1854, Wells R. Martin of 
Vermontville and John F. Hinman of Battle Creek being co-partners under 
the firm name of W. R. Martin & Co. In about a year Mr. Hinman was 
succeeded by Adonijah H. Proctor for two years, when the business of W. R. 
Martin & Co. passed, in 1850, to the new firm of Benedict & Martin--
William H. Benedict and Henry J. Martin. Benedict's interest was purchased 
by Martin and the business continued by the latter until 1863, when the 
firm of Barber & Martin was organized and the stocks of the two stores 
consolidated. W. H. Benedict, son of Rev. W. U. Benedict. second pastor of 
the Congregational Church, acquired a knowledge of trade in the store of 
Chauncey M. Brewer at Marshall. After the dissolution of the firm of 
Benedict & Martin he engaged in the grocery business, and for over thirty 
years has been the leading grocer, grain, wool and provision dealer. He 
served one term as sheriff of the county, making an excellent record. 
Henry J. Martin is now a farmer. For thirty years he has been the leader 
of the Congregational choir, and for the lifetime of a generation has been 
active in matters relating to the religious, social and business interests 
of the community. Other merchants and traders were not identified with the 
early settlers, or makers of Vermontville. James Fleming, a Scotchman, 
opened a shoe shop in 1857, and still runs a boot and shoe store.

Until the country was cut up by railroads, Vermontville was the center of 
a large trade in a naturally rich agricultural region. In the leading 
store sales sometimes reached a thousand dollars a day. During the forty-
four years since the first general store was opened, there have been fewer 
changes among the merchants than in most villages. At first, Hale & Frink 
talked of placing their stock in a board shanty on the hill opposite the 
residence of Daniel Barber. Naomi Dickinson, who lived near, said that 
would suit her exactly, as she could take the tongs and draw out the goods 
she wanted through the cracks and not bother the salesmen at all. But the 
firm occupied by common consent the lower story of the Academy instead of 
the shanty, and the small stock of staples then needed has grown to a 
business that requires a general assortment on hand worth at least twenty 
thousand dollars to keep pace with the demands of the community. 

Page 50

The old Academy served the educational, religious, political, patriotic, 
civil and mercantile needs of the village for many years, and is now used 
as a chapel by the Congregational society, having entered the second half 
century in a good state of preservation. An excellent town hall, built of 
brick, one of the best for a village of its size in the State, with a lock-
up for offenders to meet the requirements of a progressive civilization, 
now serves the secular purposes of the town, and there is no longer a 
mixture of religion, education, merchandise, and politics under the same 
roof.


PHYSICIANS

Among the colonists were two physicians, Dewey H. Robinson from 
Bennington, Vermont, and Oliver J. Stiles from the State of New York. Dr. 
Stiles first settled in Bellevue, Michigan, and was admitted to membership 
by a formal vote at a meeting held in Vermontville, January 26, 1838, and 
was the earliest resident physician. He remained but a year or two, then 
moved back to New York, and was lost sight of. Dr. Robinson was an 
original member of the colony, signing the compact in Vermont, and became 
a resident of the village in 1838. He was a very bright man, witty and 
sociable, quick tempered, a college graduate and a good physician. His 
wife, Olive Rigelow, was a daughter of Dr. William Bigelow of Bennington, 
well educated, and both were great favorites, especially with the young 
people of the settlement. Three children were born to them in 
Vermontville: William, the oldest, who married and died many years ago; 
Edmund Albert, at present living in Memphis, Tennessee, and an 
enthusiastic musician; and George Stephen Robinson, a bachelor, and a 
successful collar and cuff manufacturer at Troy, New York. He supports his 
mother, who is one of the three surviving pioneer women of the Colony, has 
educated one of the daughters of his oldest brother, and assisted the 
other brother in his musical career. The family remained in Vermontville 
until 1846, then moved to Marshall, Michigan, resided there about a year, 
and then went back to Bennington, Vermont. The Doctor was much broken in 
health from long rides through the woods over rough roads in all sorts of 
weather, with irregular sleep and meals, and died a few years later.

Obliged to furnish medicines, as there was no place where they were sold 
within a dozen to twenty-eight miles, quinine for chills and fever and 
calomel with jalap or heroic work, and epsom salts and castor oil for 
constant duty, his outfit was a trusty Canadian pony, with saddlebags to 
carry the drugs and instruments needed for a day on the road. Often the 
ride would take the entire day and extend well into the night. Particular 
about his food, the Doctor would not eat until he reached home, perhaps 
after an absence of twelve to fifteen hours, and his table was one of the 
most inviting of the village. Tired and hungry, the kind of life, 

Page 51

with its irregular habits, was not calculated to promote health and 
longevity. The minister could preach old sermons, but the doctor must be 
on hand with fresh prescriptions in every emergency, and his ride extended 
many miles in all directions. Of the pony it was said that he could thrive 
on maple browse and a nubbin of corn.

In 1840, when the mail route from Marshall to Ionia was established. 
Doctor Robinson was appointed the first postmaster, and his log house was 
more frequently visited than any other residence in the village. Prior to 
that year Bellevue was the nearest postoffice. The mail was not large, as 
the postage on a letter from Vermont was twenty-five cents, and sometimes 
raising the quarter of a dollar to pay Uncle Sam for bringing it was a 
difficult matter. Towards night, of the day the mail arrived from 
Bellevue, a representative from nearly every family in the village could 
be met at the postoffice, and every one knew who had received a message 
from the old New England home. These details are mentioned so that the 
reader of this narrative may realize the marked contrasts of the past with 
the present. A weekly mail, when not interrupted by the spring flood of 
the Thornapple river, with a paper or two for each family and an 
occasional letter, was the only connection with the outside world, and yet 
that was vastly better than for the first four years, with the postoffice 
fourteen miles distant.

Dr. Robinson and his wife were very popular with the young people. He had 
more books than any other settler. Among them were Walter Scott's novels 
and poems. In reading portions of the "Lady of the Lake" to young 
listeners he took great pleasure. "Ivanhoe" was a revelation of the age of 
romance and chivalry, of knights and ladies and tournaments, and was more 
attractive than Baxter's "Saints' Best" or his "Call to the Unconverted," 
which were staple household literature of that time. With this books and 
brightness, his ready wit, and talk about men and events, Dr. Robinson had 
a marked influence upon the young people of the colony.

After he left in 1846, his successor was Dr. J. H. Palmer. He remained 
about three years. In 1849, on the discovery of gold in California, he 
caught the Argonaut fever, set out with a party to make the overland trip, 
and died of cholera at Independence, Missouri.

Then for nearly three years no physician resided in the village, the 
nearest one being at Hyde's Mill in Kalamo, seven miles distant. The next 
resident physician was Dr. Robert C. Kedzie, now Professor of Chemistry at 
the State of Agricultural College. The family name is also associated with 
Kedzie's Grove in Lenawee county, which I find was an established 
postoffice in 1839, when there were but five other postoffices in that 
county. In February, 1852, he moved from Kalamazoo to Vermontville. His 
real wealth then consisted of pluck, character, education, profession, 
wife, and a seven-months-old baby, his perishable wealth, two wagon loads 

Page 52

of household furniture, a small stock of medicine, a saddle-horse, and 
three dollars in cash. The family found shelter in the hospitable log 
house of Daniel Barber, until he could fit up and make habitable, the 
vacated log structure of Lemnel Standish, who had moved away, and one-half 
of his cash was invested in 7 by 9 window glass to keep out the weather. 
One day, hungering for "the meat that perisheth," he went to R. W. 
Griswold and asked him: "Can you land me Noah's second son?" The reply 
came promptly: "Shem, Ham--by thunder, yes!--you shall have Noah's second 
son." Then in his whole-souled way he handed the Doctor a nice fat ham.

Looking backward, it seems clear that Dr. Kedzie added more to the life 
and character of the village than any other one person. He was born at 
Delhi, New York, January 28, 1823; came to Michigan in 1826 with his 
father, William Kedzie, after whom the Kedzie's Grove postoffice was 
named, and of which he was the first postmaster. The name of the office 
was afterward changed to Deerfield. His wife, Harriet Eliza Fairchild, was 
born at Brownhelm, Ohio, May 31, 1828, graduated at Oberlin college in the 
same class with the Doctor in 1847, and died December 17, 1891. They were 
married at Brownhelm, May 20, 1850. Their children: William Knowlton 
Kedzie, born in Kalamazoo, Mich., July 5, 1851, graduated at the Michigan 
Agricultural College in 1870, was assistant in chemistry there 1870-73; 
professor of chemistry in Kansas Agricultural College, 1873-78; resigned 
to accept the position of professor of chemistry in Oberlin College, Ohio, 
which he held for two years, when he returned home in poor health and died 
April 14, 1880. Robert Fairchild Kedzie, born in Vermontville, December 9, 
1852, graduated from Michigan Agricultural College in 1871; assistant in 
chemistry there 1873-80; appointed professor of chemistry in the 
Mississippi Agricultural College in 1880, and died there in February 13, 
1882. Frank Stewart Kedzie, born in Vermontville, May 12, 1857, graduated 
at the Michigan Agricultural College in 1877; assistant in chemistry 1880-
87; assistant professor 1887-90, and adjunct professor since 1890.

In 1852, when Dr. Kedzie came to Vermontville, most of the settlers lived 
in log house, there being only six frame dwellings. The first one was 
built by Wait J. Squier in 1838; the second by W. S. Fairfield, which was 
a long time getting finished; the others by S. S. Church, Oren Dickinson, 
Rev. W. U. Benedict, and Simeon McCotter, with a shanty-like frame on the 
Cochrane village lot occupied by Rev. Seth Hardy, the Congregational 
minister. None of the other inhabitants lived in "ceiled houses," but in 
tabernacles built of rough logs.

Nine years of practice by Dr. Kedzie when the war came and with it the 
question, who shall go? The first call for seventy-five thousand three 
months' men, and the unfavorable results, opened optimistic eyes to the 

Page 53

fact that a tremendous struggle had begun. When the call for more soldiers 
came Dr. Kedzie felt that duty to an imperiled country was stronger than 
to the home circle. When the decision to go was reached no wife was more 
brave and faithful in helping her husband to get ready for service in camp 
and on battlefield than Mrs. Kedzie. He enlisted about thirty men for the 
Twelfth Michigan Infantry, who joined Company G, Captain Isaac M. Cravath 
of Lansing. Humorous incidents occurred. Dr. Kedzie asked Bob Hope to 
enlist, and he promised a reply in the evening, when he said: "I guess I 
won't go; Milo Deuel told me that when I went into battle I would have to 
wear two plow points hung in front and two in the rear, and if that's the 
way they rig soldiers I don't want to enist." Commissioned assistant 
surgeon of the regiment January 15, 1862, Dr. Kedzie was promoted to 
surgeon April 25, 1862, after the battle of Shiloh, which occurred April 6 
and 7; where he was taken prisoner while attending to the wounded, and 
resigned October 8, 1862. In January, 1863, he was appointed professor of 
chemistry in the Michigan Agricultural College, a position he still holds 
and honors. He was elected a representative in the state legislature for 
the first district of Ingham country in 1866, his object in taking the 
office being to promote the welfare of the Agricultural College.

The eleven years of Dr. Kedzie's residence in Vermontville were the best 
years in the intellectual life. An intelligent physician is brought every 
lay into close associates with the people. In organizing "The Antediluvian 
Society" he took the lead. Meetings were held at the houses of members, 
original papers read, and much interest aroused. It was like many of the 
clubs in villages and cities today. His library had a number of readable 
volumes. In selecting books for the Township Library, at that time as 
excellent institution, his knowledge and advice were of great value. 
Positive and keen, a lover of liberty and hater of shams, true to his 
friends and fond of the sports of the forest, no man had a stronger and 
better influence in moulding public opinion and in giving a healthy and 
manly tone to society during the decade that preceded the civil war.

In 1858, Almon A. Thompson, son of Uriah Thompson, born in Vermont and 
educated at Oberlin and Ann Arbor, came to Vermontville from Olivet, and 
for the first year was in partnership with Dr. Kedzie in practicing 
medicine. He made the village his home for nearly twelve years, and took a 
leading part in its social and intellectual life. He was a first-class 
man. September 24, 1862, he was commissioned assistant surgeon of the 
Twelfth Michigan Infantry; resigned January 28, 1863; was made assistant 
surgeon of the Eleventh Michigan Calvary December 13, 1863, and was 
mustered out the service August 10, 1865. He resumed practice in 
Vermontville; was elected representative in the State legislature in 1868; 
was appointed United States consul at Goderich, Canada, 

Page 54

in 1871, through the influence of Senator Zachariah Chandler, and remained 
there until 1876; was consular agent at Stratford, Canada, for a short 
time; then settled in Flint, Michigan, where he recommended and continued 
the practice of medicine until his death in 1893.

Albert Thompson, a brother of Almon A., began his career as a physician in 
Vermontville just before the civil war. He was appointed assistant surgeon 
of the Third Michigan Cavalry March 3, 1864; was promoted to surgeon 
October 4, 1864; and was mustered out February 12, 1866. After the war he 
resumed practice in Vermontville, then wisely turned his face westward; 
now resides in Colton, California, where he is practicing medicine and 
politics, and owns and edits a newspaper.

Vermontville, though a small village, furnished, with Dr. Joseph B. 
Griswold, now of Grand Rapids, Mich., four surgeons and assistant surgeons 
for the military service. While not a practicing physician in the town, he 
is entitled to honorable mention in this connection. September 2, 1861, 
when 19 years old, he enlisted in the Second Michigan Cavalry, and was 
discharged August 21, 1862, after having been in hospital for three 
months, on surgeon's certificate of disability. Recovering his health and 
studying medicine, he was commissioned assistant surgeon of the Fourth 
Michigan Infantry November 5, 1864; surgeon in January, 1866; and mustered 
out in the regiment June 12, 1866, at the age of 23 years. Near the close 
of the war the regiment was ordered to Texas, and Surgeon Griswold was 
appointed medical inspector of the Department of San Antonio, having 
charge of the military prison at that place in 1865-66, until mustered out 
of the service. Few, if any, volunteer regiments had so long a term of 
service for the government.

Since the war Dr. Griswold has been a prominent member of the Grand Army 
of the Republic, and the Loyal Legion for Michigan. For fifteen years he 
has been a pension examiner; is a member and ex-president of the Grand 
Rapids Academy of Medicine; is now president of the Michigan State Medical 
Society; is a member of the National Association of Railway Surgeons; is 
also a member of the American Medical Association; an honorary member of 
the Minnesota State Medical Society, and consulting physician for the Alma 
Sanitarium. Born and educated in Vermontville, Dr. Joseph Bascom Griswold 
is entitled to honorable mention among its physicians, though his practice 
has been at Taylor's Falls, Minnesota, and Grand Rapids in this State.

William Parmenter, a well-educated physician, settled in Vermontville in 
1864. Born in Tully, New York, he was educated at the Michigan University 
in Ann Arbor, practiced medicine in Iowa for four years and in Olive, 
Michigan, for one year before he moved to the village where he now 
resides, having been in continuous practice for a third of a century, a 
much longer time than any other physician.

Page 55

Phillip H. Green came to Vermontville as a boy with his father, Amos 
Green, and began life there on a wild farm in the northeast part of the 
town, obtained a good medical education by his own efforts, began practice 
in the village in 1870, and is still in the harness. Not having practiced 
anywhere else he is Vermontville's sole indigenous physician.

Charles J. Lane, of the eclectic school, came to Vermontville in 1871, was 
a successful practitioner for a number of years, and had many friends. He 
moved to Iowa and then returned to Michigan. His brother, W. H. Lane, is 
Judge of Probate for Calhoun county. His father was a pioneer of that 
county, living on a farm and keeping a hotel about half way between 
Bellevue and Marshall, on the principal highway from Vermontville out into 
the world for trade and markets. But new men were better known to the 
early settlers, outside of Vermontville, than was Mr. Lane.

In 1876, Charles S. Snell, a skillful homeopath, settled in the village, 
and has built up a fine practice.

From the planting of the Colony, Vermontville has been fortunate in the 
character and ability of its physicians. Mingling with the people in times 
of trial and sickness, of pain and sorrow, birth and death, the good 
physician is a potent factor in moulding public sentiment and in giving 
direction to the thoughts of those for whom he is called upon to minister. 
More than any other class, even the clergymen, he knows the life of the 
people.

We talk about the hardships of pioneer life, and yet these so-called 
hardships do not kill people half so fast as do the vices and luxuries of 
civilization. The pace that kills the quickest is born of wealth and 
idleness. The early necrology of Vermontville, young and old, was very 
small. S. S. Church kept a memorandum of the deaths in the town from its 
first settlement in 1836 to 1846, a period of ten years, which is worth 
transcribing, as it shows that pioneer life is conducive to health and 
life rather than to disease and death.

The first death, that of Mrs. Maria S. Mead, the young wife of Elijah 
Mead, one of the earliest colonists, occurred March 24, 1837, at the age 
of 22 years.

July 26, 1839, Eliza Hewitt Browning, aged one year.

August, 1839, Mary J. Gray.

In 1840, Alexander Clark, an old gentleman.

July 9, 1842, William Warner, another old man and settler in a shanty in 
the northeast part of the town.

July 6, 1842, Marietta Knapp, a beautiful girl, aged 15 years.

January 7, 1843, Ellen Mears, aged three years.

November 12, 1843, Mrs. David Henderson, aged 75 years.

In 1844, Mrs. Laura Gray, wife of Warren Gray.

August 9, 1844, Mrs. Maria Davis, wife of Jonas Davis.

Page 56

May 9, 1845, Catherine Norton, daughter of Martin S. and Mary A. Norton.

August 22, 1845, Camilla Barber, daughter of Daniel Barber, and sister of 
Julius S. Barber of Coldwater, Michigan.

Deaths and funerals were rare during the first ten years of the Colony, 
and weddings were still rarer, but of births there were many, children 
coming to every family. The deaths of the three young and beautiful girls--
Marietta Knapp, Catherine Norton and Camilla Barber--who were great 
favorites, caused profound sorrow. Half a century has not erased them from 
memory. Not the events of yesterday, but those of the long ago, leave the 
most durable impressions.