The Vermontville Colony - Part 4



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THE CHURCH AND THE MINISTERS

Religion and education were the ideals of the Vermontville colonists. The 
Congregational polity was as natural to them as was the town meeting as 
the basis of civil government. Both were government by the people and 
suited their notions of independence and responsibility. The first 
minister and father of the Colony was Rev. Sylvester Cochrane, from 
Poultney, Vermont. The first meeting that was held in the wilderness he 
opened with prayer before the settlers drew lots for the choice of village 
locations and farms. Though they believed in Divine Guidance, they were 
none the less anxious for a good selection. On February 27, 1838, the 
First Congregational Church was organized with Mr. Cochrane as the pioneer 
pastor. He was a man of stalwart frame, of large and vigorous mental 
capacity, thoroughly imbued with the New England theology of sixty years 
ago and earlier, and in religious doctrine and thought as firm as the 
granite hills of his native State. He remained from 1837 to 1842, and 
afterwards for many years was pastor of a church at Northville, Michigan. 
The last part of his stay was not all "sweetness and light;" difficulties 
arose connected with building the Academy, and he never returned to visit 
the Colony he was instrumental in organizing. Still, after the troubles 
ended, he was always mentioned with great respect. The early meetings on 
Sunday in the log schoolhouse were peculiar to the time. In the summer 
came barefooted men, in shirt sleeves; wives and mothers in calico 
dresses, wearing shaker sun-bonnets, with babies in arms; children of all 
ages, with clean clothes and bare feet, smiling and happy; all assembling 
to hear the gospel preached twice and to attend Sunday school, and during 
the intermission to talk over various matters of interest to the young 
community, or if any one was absent to ascertain the reason. The stalwart 
minister offered prayer, read the Scriptures, gave out the hymn and all 
joined in singing, those who could keep time and tune as well as those who 
could not. Martin S. Norton or Willard Davis used the tuning fork to get 
the right pitch, and then the solid sermon of an hour, as stern and 
uncompromising 

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as the decrees of fate. While earnest in his ministerial work, Mr. 
Chochrane did his full share in clearing the forest and raising crops for 
a living; making maple sugar in the spring, planting corn and potatoes, 
and doing whatsoever his hands found to do with all his might. I recall an 
amusing incident. In the spring of 1839, just as the sap was beginning to 
flow, having ordered a barrel for gathering it, of Jacob Fuller, the 
cooper, who lived at the west end of the village, nearly a mile away, Mr. 
Cochrane got up very early one morning, went for the barrel, found it 
outside of the log shop, and the cooper's family being still abed, put a 
stick into the bunghole, shouldered the barrel and marched home. On his 
arrival Mrs. Cochrane was getting breakfast, and was surprised to see him 
walk up to the house with a new barrel on his shoulders. She asked him 
where he had been. He told her. "Why, Sylvester, don't you know it is 
Sunday?" Then for the first time it dawned upon his mind that he had 
violated the third commandment, and his sorrow was intense. He went to the 
log schoolhouse as usual at meeting time, and with tears streaming from 
his eyes, confessed his fault. Somehow he had lost a day in counting time, 
and his reckoning, not his intention, was wrong. Of Mrs. Cochrane we 
remember but little. She was a gentle woman and accepted the privations of 
pioneer life cheerfully. It was an uphill struggle for the pioneer 
minister, and his Vermont dream of a rapidly-growing Colony in Michigan 
failed to materialize. They had two children; Lyman Cochrane became a well-
known lawyer in Detroit, where he died several years ago, and of Sarah, 
the daughter, nothing is known. With the organization of the Colony and 
the early settlement of Vermontville, the name of Rev. Sylvester Cochrane, 
in all good works for the promotion of religion and education, is closely 
interwoven.

In 1842 Rev. William U. Benedict became pastor of the church and the first 
principal of the Academy, continuing his preaching and teaching for eight 
years. To him the children of the pioneer colonists are indebted for their 
education. He always took a great deal of pride in his scholars in after 
life. He was an excellent teacher, active and useful in every sphere in 
life, and as minister, teacher and citizen he filled every place assigned 
him with marked conscientiousness and ability. After he left the pastorate 
and became a successful farmer, he would go on Sunday to Oneida or to some 
other place to hold religious services. Until the close of his mortal life 
he never rested from his labors. To the Academy, where he taught for eight 
winters, he gave learning, enthusiasm and devotion. More than all others, 
he was the teacher of the children of the pioneers. To the church he 
brought a high type of Calvinistic theology, thoroughly in harmony with 
New England orthodoxy of that time. Without doubt religion and education 
are more largely indebted to Mr. Benedict because of his learning and 
energy, than 

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to any other occupant of the Congregational pulpit in Vermontville; 
certainly no other man is held in more grateful remembrance by those of 
the second generation who received most of their schooling under his 
tuition. He was born September, 1808, and died at Vermontville in October, 
1875. His wife, Almira A. Benedict, one of the noblest and gentlest of the 
pioneer women, was born January, 1811, and died July, 1890. Children: 
William H. Benedict, born in 1835; Edwin Ellis Benedict, born in 1838; 
Sarah A. Benedict, born in 1841, and Anna M. Benedict, born in 1845, are 
living, married and have families; and Orville E. Benedict, born in 1851, 
is dead. These details are given here to perpetuate the names of the 
members of one of the worthiest pioneer families.

Rev. Seth Hardy was the next minister, and his pastorate lasted for three 
years. He was a man of fair ability, possessed a kindly spirit and good 
social qualities, and gave his best efforts to the work.

Rev. Charles Temple was the next pastor, filling the pulpit from 1854 to 
1861. Born in Smyrna, Asia Minor, of missionary parents, he was a man of 
rare spirituality, as unlike the practical Yankee as a man could be; a 
preacher who found his themes in the New Testament rather than in the 
older Hebrew Bible; and he impressed everybody with the conviction of his 
sincerity of purpose and goodness of heart. He was without guile.

Rev. Orange H. Spoor came to the pastorate in 1861 and remained in charge 
until 1872. He graduated at Oberlin and was less conservative than the 
usual run of ministers of that date. It was during the stormy period of 
the civil war and of the reconstruction of the Union after the abolition 
of chattel slavery. He was active in social and civil life; an all-around 
pastor as well as a liberal thinker and preacher; loyal and patriotic to 
the core; and a sermonizer of great force and ability. Under his pastorate 
the society made rapid growth, and gave indications of breaking away from 
its earlier Calvinistic moorings and traditions. A commodious church 
edifice was built during the early part of his service, and he pushed 
forward the work with business tact and energy. Mr. Spoor now resides at 
Redlands, California, where he has become wealthy from the rise in value 
of orange lands and the cultivation of fruit.

Rev. J. Homer Parker was the seventh minister in the changeable order of 
succession, and this was his first pastorate. It lasted only a year and a 
quarter. He was young, bright, vivacious, entertaining, liked to play 
croquet, and possessed fine pulpit ability; was liberal in his views, 
persuasive in his speech, and gifted with considerable cloquence; but his 
new ways were not quite to the liking of the old heads with their fixed 
New England notions.

Rev. R. C. Bedford, another young man, followed, and occupied the pulpit 
for a year. Possessing a brilliant imagination and a fluent flow 

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of words he gilded his sermons with poetic ideas, and was a religious 
optimist--always finding good in the world.

Rev. T. Lincoln Brown succeeded, but for only a year. He, too, was a young 
man, but either the pulpit was too small for him, or he was too large for 
the pulpit, and so his stay was brief. The records show his service.

Rev. F. W. Dickinson occupied the pulpit from 1877 to 1880. He was a man 
of superior ability, pleasant in manner, an attractive speaker, and 
liberal in thought and utterance.

Rev. H. R. Williams was pastor from 1880 to 1886, and brought to the 
service of the church fair ability, was strictly orthodox in his views, 
never deviating therefrom, but was genial in his intercourse with all, and 
was an excellent pastor. The people liked him as a man, and that was the 
secret of his success.

Rev. David Beaton, now of Lincoln Park Church, Chicago, brought larger 
gifts of learning, thought and eloquence to the pulpit than perhaps any of 
his predecessors. His theology was broad and catholic; he led rather than 
followed the thought of the members of the church; and exalted good 
character and right conduct above the observance of stereotyped forms and 
adhesion to dogmatic beliefs. He filled the pulpit with marked ability for 
one year.

Rev. S. L. Smith was pastor for two years. His social qualities were his 
most striking characteristics; always genial and pleasant; and a preacher 
of fair ability. He is remembered an as agreeable minister on all 
occasions.

Rev. A. O. Cossar, a Scotchman by birth, education and character, occupied 
the pulpit for five years, from 1889 to 1894. He was an unusually deep 
thinker, very variable in the quality of his sermons, and might without 
injustice be called a professional preacher.

Rev. W. H. Spence was minister for about a year, when he left the pulpit 
temporarily to pursue a course of collegiate study with the idea of 
fitting himself for greater usefulness.

Rev. Frank J. Estabrook, son of an eminent professor at Olivet College and 
a former State Superintendent of Public Instruction, is now the pastor of 
this pioneer Congregational Church of Eaton county.

It is a problem, however, how long such a church, with the decadence of 
village life, business and wealth, can be self-supporting. Our farming 
population, upon which villages are wholly dependent, find in recent years 
the struggle to get ahead growing more and more severe, on account of 
unfavorable economic conditions, and villages become less thrifty and 
prosperous. There is a business side to religious societies and the 
support of the minister, as there is to marriage, the family, and all 
social and civil relations. The financial pressure is severely felt in 
small villages, and it is more difficult to raise money enough to pay the 

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minister and meet running expenses than it was thirty to forty years ago. 
Already the minister's pay is down to a hard times' limit. It cannot go 
much lower. The change is not an agreeable one to contemplate. Probably 
the school costs too much for the service it renders to society and the 
teacher is driving out the preacher.

Another thing: For men in the pulpit and on the rostrum audiences are 
growing more exacting. Once what the preacher said was accepted without 
much dissent, and more fault was found with his manner than matter. The 
time has come, however, when it is no idle work to so expound religious 
truth and set forth the hidden things that pertain to human life and 
destiny, as to meet and satisfy the demands of the hungry and progressive 
thought of the present and still more of the coming time. Not forms of 
belief, not the rigid creeds of a darker age, not stereotyped dogmas, do 
pews ask of pulpits, but rather simple goodness and truth that exalt, 
ennoble and purify human character. The village cannot afford to do 
without the church. Its abandonment would be followed by social and moral 
retrogression. And yet the question comes up, in view of the general 
decline of village prosperity under existing financial conditions, can the 
village much longer support the church and the minister? Already this is a 
serious problem.

From what has been said it may be superfluous to remark that the ministers 
had a marked influence, not only in the organization of the Vermontville 
Colony, but in the subsequent development and character of the village. 
The schoolhouse and the church--education and religion--were its corner 
stones, and right nobly, in spite of all conflicts and contentions, has 
their mission been fulfilled, and many helpful intellectual and moral 
influences been strengthened and preserved.


CHURCH DISCIPLINE AND TRIALS

The records of church meetings and trials, kept by S. S. Church, clerk for 
over thirty years, are very full and accurate. He was a model scribe. An 
examination of these records shows that the Congregational Church was a 
prominent factor in the life of the young community. Of the heads of 
families all but two of the original colonists--Edward H. Barber and Jay 
Hawkins--were or became members. To a greater extent, probably, than any 
other village settlement in Michigan, the Vermontville Colony was composed 
of members of the church.

Citations and trials for unbrotherly remarks and conduct were of frequent 
occurrence, though a more orderly community could not be found. When 
complaint was made for some alleged offense, a committee was uniformly 
appointed to endeavor to reconcile the militant members. To give an idea 
of the character of these proceedings a transcript of the record in a case 
between Martin S. Norton and Wells R. Martin is worth 

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reproducing. The specifications in detail at a church meeting held January 
18, 1847, are:

"1st. Br. Norton charges Br. Martin with lieing or prevarication with 
regard to Mrs. Martin's mother's coming to Vermontville. 
"2d. With prevarication in regard to a statement made to Br. Robinson, 
coming from Br. W. J. Squier. 
"3d. Charges him with a lie in a statement made to Br's Browning and 
Norton respecting Doct. Robinson's father, and his, Doct. Robinson's, two 
uncles. 
"4th. Charges him with making a statement in the presence of Doct. 
Robinson, Br. Norton, and his son, respecting his wife's feelings 
concerning a certain piece of property--and afterward denying statement. 
"5th. Charges him with prevarication in a statement he made to Br. 
Browning in regard to the opinions of his neighbors, touching the matter 
of Br. Browning's acting as umpire or referee in the case of Br's Church 
and Norton."

The last specification refers to another difficulty that came before the 
church for adjudication and settlement. These matters seem strangely 
trivial now, but they stirred the little isolated society to its depths 
and provoked much earnest discussion. With a daily mail and newspapers to 
keep in touch with the live and throbbing outside world it is not probable 
they would have received any attention. They are only important now as 
showing the relation of the church to the social gossip and feeling of 
fifty years ago. The details were talked over and stirred the community as 
much as an embalmed beef court of inquiry stirs the people of a great 
nation today. None of these things, or the decision in regard to any of 
them, affected the social standing or business character of any of the 
parties an iota. They often grew out of unfounded suspicions or family 
misunderstandings and temporary quarrel. The period of fighting with blows 
had evolved into the period of fighting with words.

Mr. Martin, the defendant, was acquitted on the first, second, third and 
fifth specifications and convicted on the fourth. Then the clerk was 
ordered to furnish Bro. Martin with the decision in his case, and to 
inform him that the church will require a written confession on the next 
Sabbath. But the storm blew over. Explanations took the place of 
criminations. The sky cleared. March 26, 1847, W. R. Martin was chosen one 
of the delegates to represent the church at the Marshall conference.

The extent of these internal troubles is indicated by the proceedings of a 
single church meeting held May 4, 1847, when committees were appointed to 
adjust difficulties between brethren, if possible. First, Brothers Sprague 
and Merrill were appointed to visit Brothers Norton and Church on a 
mission of peace; second, Brothers Scovell and Merrill 

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were instructed to wait upon Brothers Norton and Martin and their families 
in the interest of peace and reconciliation; third, Brothers Dickinson and 
Fairfield were commissioned to call upon Brothers D. H. Robinson and W. R. 
Martin and try to bring about a settlement of their difficulties; fourth, 
Brothers W. Davis and Gray were selected to visit Brothers D. H. Robinson 
and Daniel Barber and the family of the latter, also Bro. Norton and 
family, in order to restore good fellowship; fifth, Brothers Porter and 
Merrill were designated to inquire into an alleged offense with which Bro. 
W. W. Warner was publicly charged; sixth, Brother Scovell was directed to 
ascertain the religious standing or state of Bro. Fonger; seventh, Bro. W. 
Gray was instructed to visit Bro. W. F. Hawkins and ascertain his 
spiritual state, and report to the church.

This seems to have been a general house-cleaning, or rather church-
cleaning occasion. Scarcely a male member escaped during the first twenty 
years. Generally a winter revival would bring discordant members together 
again, after the confession of some wrong and asking pardon of each other. 
The organized church was always for peace and good will.

All sorts of questions were bought before the church for adjustment. As an 
example, under date of January 28, 1847, is a minute of charges preferred 
by Bro. Armstrong, "against Brethren Church, Norton, Martin, Barber, W. J. 
Squier, Dickinson and Robinson, that said brethren have wrongfully and 
unlawfully used their influence to retain and have retained money 
belonging to school district No. 2 of Vermontville." Besides the 
appointment of an investigating committee nothing came of this groundless 
charge, and later it was dismissed. Nowadays it would be a proper case for 
the civil court.


THE SLAVERY QUESTION

Even political questions were not ignored. Slavery came to the front to 
vex the souls of silver-gray whigs and dyed-in-the-wool democrats. In the 
minutes of a meeting held January 2, 1847, Alvah L. Armstrong, one of the 
first three abolitionists in the town, made application for a letter of 
dismissal from the church on the ground "that he could no longer 
fellowship or commune with church members who took no action on the 
subject of slavery." His purpose was to unite with the Wesleyan 
Methodists, who proposed to organize an anti-slavery church in the town. 
There was hesitancy about granting him a letter of dismission and 
recommendation to the Methodist body, but finally a letter was voted him 
to the Wesleyan Methodist Church to be organized in the township of 
Vermontville, after amending the motion so as to include, "or to the 
Congregational Church of Olivet." The Olivet church, being an off-shoot of 
Oberlin, Ohio, was then thoroughly anti-slavery in sentiment.

This action caused much discussion. It was a new departure, granting 

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a member of the church a letter of dismission and recommendation to the 
Wesleyan Methodists because the Vermontville church had taken no action in 
opposition to slavery, and so at a meeting held March 26, 1847, the church 
voted to send the following overture to the Marshall Conference, namely: 
"Resolved, that Marshall Conference be requested to give their advice and 
opinion for the benefit of the churches under its care, whether it is 
proper and right for churches to grant letters of dismission to members 
residing among us, for disaffection of any kind (say on the subject of 
slavery or any other cause), or whether it is proper to grant letters of 
full recommendation to churches not in correspondence with us."

At a subsequent meeting, held on Sunday, May 2, 1847, the church gave its 
first official expression on the slavery question by unanimously adopting 
the following: "Resolved, that as individuals and as a church, we regard 
the system of slavery, now existing in these United States, as a system of 
unrighteousness, alike opposed to the law of God and to the gospel of his 
Son, decidedly detrimental to the true interests of our country, and to 
the best interests of humanity; and that we do sincerely desire its speedy 
abandonment in every land under heaven." The offensive word "abolition" 
was carefully avoided, and the word "abandonment," which implied voluntary 
action on the part of the slaveholders, was used, and upon this "whipping 
of the devil around the stump" all could agree.

This presentation of the methods of church discipline, of the trial of 
members for unbrotherly remarks and conduct, of the constant watch over 
the sheep in the fold lest any of them go astray, of the action taken on 
the burning question of slavery that finally plunged this nation into a 
terrible civil war, is necessary in order to give an idea of the 
agitations and discussions in an isolated colony, made up of men with 
strong political and religious prejudices, as well as personal 
idiosyncransies, in which the church was the dominant factor.


AN ENOCH ARDEN CASE

Life and experience in a rural town often repeat the tragedies and 
comedies that help to make up the world's literature and history. The 
Pathos of Tennyson's "Enoch Arden" has brought tears to many eyes, though 
it is read as a romance, and yet its counterpart is found in the history 
of Vermontville.

Among its pioneer settlers were three old men--Alexander Clark, William 
Warner and Daniel Hager. Some of their children were grown men and women 
when they settled in the wilderness. William Warner was the father of 
William Willis Warner, who married Harriet Bascom of Benson, Vermont, both 
of whom passed away several years since, and one of their sons, Charles J. 
Warner, is now a prosperous farmer in 

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the town. Another son of the elder Warner, Asa B. Warner, left about 1847, 
going to Buffalo, New York, to carve out for himself a different career 
than pioneer life and a home on a farm afforded. He also died many years 
ago.

Alexander Clark, who died and was buried in the village in 1840, before a 
cemetery had been located, was the father of William Clark, a life-long 
resident, but none of the family now reside there.

Daniel Hager settled in the extreme northwest corner of the town, on 
section six, in the year 1836. He was old and feeble in 1856, when Roger 
W. Griswold drove out to his farm and brought him to the village so that 
he might vote for John C. Fremont for President, and after dinner took him 
home again. Mr. Hager was born in Somerset county, Pennsylvania, and was 
the only settler in the town from that State.

The Daniel Hager family was a large one, seven sons and three daughters; 
the sons were John, Joseph, William, Daniel, James, Samuel and Isaac; and 
the three daughters were Mary, who married Joseph Cupp; Sarah, who married 
Josiah Wickum; and Joanna, who became the wife of Charles Galloway. John 
died soon after the family settled in the wilderness. They were of the 
solid type of Pennsylvania Germans, and at the present time there are 
several descendants who are thrifty farmers in Vermontville and Sunfield.

Jacob H. Hager, son of Henry Hager and nephew of Daniel Hager, senior, was 
best known as "Little Jake." In due time he married and settled on a piece 
of land of his own. Along in the fifties he left home for the West, and 
during the next few years was heard from occasionally in the Black Hills 
region, now a part of South Dakota. His wife, Anna Hager, a little and 
patient woman, remained on the forty-acre farm and did the best she could. 
It was a hard struggle. Every few, weeks she would walk to the store in 
the village, about five miles, bring a little butter and a few dozen eggs, 
buy some tea and other necessaries, rest a while, and then walk back to 
the lonely home again. It was a life of self-denial and patient waiting, 
with an occasional ray of hope when a letter from Jacob was received. He 
had been away some eight years when the last one came. In it he stated 
that he would return as soon as he could close a business transaction that 
involved the collection of several thousand dollars. Nothing more was 
heard from him. Anna believed that he was dead; she married again, to a 
Mr. King, by whom she had one son, who, in 1897, is twenty-four years old.

More than thirty years passed after Jacob Hager was heard from the last 
time; both Mr. and Mrs. King were dead; but one day, in 1897, a letter 
came to Vermontville from the West inquiring if any persons by the name of 
Hager lived there. Nelson Hager, a son of Jacob and Anna, and a good 
farmer, lived near the village, and the letter informed him that his 
father was alive, but had lost all memory of the past, and could 

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give no information concerning his family or where he had formerly 
resided. By some means it had been ascertained that he once lived in 
Vermontville, Michigan, and would like to go back there and spend the rest 
of his days. Nelson sent the necessary funds to pay his fare and other 
expenses, and the first week in July, 1897, Jacob H. Hager returned, after 
an absence of thirty-eight years.

But Anna King, the wife who had been faithful so long as there seemed to 
be a hope that Jacob was living, has passed away, and so by the kindness 
of death escaped the tragedy of his return. If he had come back before her 
death the Enoch Arden parallel would have been nearly perfect; and 
Tennyson's pathetic poem, the scene of which was an English seaport 
village and the ocean in which unnumbered loves and hopes are buried, 
would have found an almost complete counterpart in the real life of 
Vermontville--the chief variation being an absent husband in the wilder 
regions farther west.

Jacob H. Hager had lost all his property, and his memory was so impaired 
that he could not recall the names of wife, children or relatives, or his 
former place of residence; but, at last, he found a home with his 
children, two sons of Anna Hager, born before he left them to go west. How 
often is real life as strange and pathetic as the most touching narrations 
of song and story!


NEWSPAPERS

A Michigan village without a weekly paper to let some portion of the 
outside world know if its existence, and to peddle the local news for a 
dollar a year would be very unpretentious. Patent insides render this 
practicable. The first venture was made in 1879, when J. C. Worcester 
started the Vermontville Enterprise, which he conducted for a short time. 
He sold the office to J. C. Hoskins, who carried it on for two to three 
years, and disposed of it to Kendall Kittredge, previously the owner and 
editor of the Charlotte Republican. In about a year Kittredge sold the 
paper tp F. M. Potter, who changed its name to the Vermontville Hawk, and 
continued its publication until 1885. The name and character were quite in 
harmony under Potter's management. He sold the paper to W. E. Holt and 
James H. Knox, who changed the name to the more civilized one of the 
Vermontville Echo. In 1887, Knox sold his interest to J. C. Sherman, and 
the firm name became Holt & Sherman. In 1892 Holt transferred his interest 
to his partner, J. C. Sherman, who took his youngest son, H. B. Sherman, 
into partnership, and the plant is now operated, mechanically and 
mentally, by J. C. Sherman & Son.


GENERAL REMARKS

The Thornapple Valley was not a land flowing with milk and honey when 
these pioneers entered it in the last week of May, 1836, sixty-one 

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years ago. They found no figs and pomegranates ready to be plucked, nor 
the blossoms on any trees that bore edible fruit save the wild plum, 
though wild grapes grew along the river bottoms and ripened and sweetened 
with the autumnal frosts, and there was no milk, but occasional bee-trees, 
the hollow spaces of which near the tops were laden with honey. Finding a 
bee-tree and felling it so as to save the sweetness was quite an event in 
the young community. There were no prairies or marshes where natural 
grasses grew for the cattle. All the acres were covered with dense and 
heavy forests. In the spring and early summer the woods were carpeted with 
flowers; it was dark shade below; but there was sunshine above. When they 
settled down to the work of a lifetime, clearing the savage woods away, 
making homes for themselves and their children, and realized how far they 
were from railroads, the newlyforming highways of the world's activity, 
with markets for their products nearly thirty miles distant, as they were 
all thrifty Yankees and wanted to gather in their share of western wealth 
from the rise in land values and the products of the soil, the prospect 
was not hopeful an cheerful.

Still, with few exceptions, this little bond of men and women, in the 
heart of a dense wilderness, kept steadily at work until better and 
brighter days came to them ere they left the scene of their earthly labors 
and trials and passed to their final rest. They lived closed to nature, 
and this of itself is an education. A home in the country is the best 
starting point in life. Nature herself decides against those who forsake 
her for the more artificial modes of society. Those who do so generally 
become puny and helpless, unless they can hire others to work and fight 
for them. It is a sagacious remark of President Eliot of Harvard that the 
survival of particular families in the United States--families so strong 
in character as to give them in some measure a natural leadership in the 
community--depends upon the maintenance of a home in the country. On its 
healthy hills best brain and brawn of a nation are born and nurtured. But 
the old days cannot be reproduced or their experience repeated. There 
cannot be another Vermontville. A general characteristic of all its early 
settlers was their intense individuality. To leave New England, canal it 
to Buffalo, risk the lake voyage to Detroit, and then ox-team it to Eaton 
county, was not the work of effeminate men and women. It required real 
grit and the stiffest backbone. A man who had the stamina to settle in the 
wilderness of Central Michigan and hew out the surroundings of a new life 
possessed the qualities of both pioneership and leadership. Every 
individual Yankee who located there was capable of being a directing 
spirit in larger enterprises. But the greater opportunities, who then 
could discern them? Chicago was little else than a mudhole, and the modern 
Northwest was not even a dream. Being all leaders, there was a constant 
locking of horns, and the court of last resort, from which there was no 
appeal, was the discipline 

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of the church. It was oftener resorted to than the civil tribunal of 
justice and jury. But if at times they were hot-tempered, they were 
sincere and just, and they helped to lay the foundations of a great State. 
Their work is ended. Their influence lives. For the preservation of our 
institutions their children's children will have more serious problems to 
solve than did those who assisted in their creation. It may be a dream, 
but none the less it seems a clear perception, that in the rural village, 
with intelligent co-operation in the cultivation of the soil, using the 
masterful forces of nature applied to machinery--each working for all and 
all for each--the practical Christianity of the Master of Nazareth will 
find complete exemplification, and the noblest types of American manhood 
and womanhood will be developed. Each higher stage of civilization is an 
ideal before it becomes real--an aspiration before a realization.


PERSONAL

Pardon a few final words of a personal nature. For well-nigh fifty-eight 
years--fifty-eight next October--Michigan has been my home and 
Vermontville its Mecca. For farmers, upon whom prosperity rests, I know of 
no better county than Eaton. There, in the quiet village, with the kindred 
and friends of youth and manhood, this abandoned physical tenement of mine 
will be buried. It is the one place, more than any other, than has the 
charm of home. Form boyhood I have been familiar with the growth of the 
State, with its forests and farms, its towns and cities, its magnificent 
lakes and prolific mines, and from newness and original fertility have 
noted its passage to oldness and that economic condition wherein the law 
of diminishing returns for labor and capital expended has become 
cooperative. At first it needed muscle to subdue it; now it needs applied 
science to insure prosperity. The successful farmer must know more things 
accurately and apply his knowledge, than is necessary to get along in any 
other occupation. Situated in the heart of a continent, surrounded by 
great waterways that furnish cheap transportation, the State has 
unsurpassed natural advantages for agriculture, manufactures and commerce 
when trade shall be unvexed by tolls and extortions in its passage from 
oceans to these inland seas.

What changes have already taken place! We who take note of its history 
have witnessed the disappearance of the Indian trail, the entrance and the 
exit of the stage-coach, the development of railways, and the advent of 
electricity. Forty-nine years ago this summer, I saw workmen stretching 
telegraph wires upon the new cross-sticks of the world along the line of 
the Michigan Central railroad at Marshall, when learning my trade in the 
Expounder printing office, and wondered how they could carry messages 
across continents, for then the idea of transmitting them under oceans was 
still in the womb of thought. Marvelous has 

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been the progress since then, and more wonderful revelations are yet to be 
made, especially in the control and discipline by the mind of genius of 
the hitherto wasted forces of nature.

But what else? I have noted an increase in population of the State from 
less than two hundred thousand, in scattered settlements of the southern 
portion of this beautiful peninsula, to nearly two and a half million, 
overspreading its entire area. I have beheld a complete economic 
revolution caused by labor-saving machinery--for I remember when only the 
sickle and cradle and scythe were used for cutting grain and hay--labor-
saving machinery which should render getting a good living easier for all, 
and is forcing to the front for consideration the problem of equitable 
distribution, so as to prevent want and misery, pinched lives and starved 
souls, from invading the homes of wage-workers; and I realize that vaster 
are the responsibilities resting upon those who must solve the new 
problems, in the interest of social and industrial peace, of the welfare 
and happiness of all, and of the stability of blood-bought institutions, 
than ever came to our ancestors.

Even a State like ours, incalculably rich in natural resources, cannot 
yield comfort and happiness for all, under economic conditions, born of 
the spirit of the time when might made right, though changed from selfish 
force to selfish law, whereby people seek to live upon each other and not 
for each other. A change must come, or want, misery and crime will 
increase. The pioneers laid the foundation, the superstructure is the care 
of their successors. The required social and industrial change is of an 
altruistic character; equal rights to natural opportunities for all; 
government taken care of by a self-reliant people, and not a dependent 
people taken care of by the government; no special privileges and no 
monopolies, and the application to every phase of public and private life 
and conduct of the ethical principles and political economy of the Golden 
Rule.

At its inception Vermontville was a co-operative colony in religion and 
education, as well as by purchase. For many years voluntary and cheerful 
aid and assistance of others was the rule, but more than this the time was 
not ripe. Permanent industrial co-operation had at that period no place in 
human thought. Hand labor was aided only by hand-worked tools and 
implements. Steam-power was born, but society looked to water-power to 
operate mills and factories. Mind hand not yet triumphed over muscle. 
Grain was cut with a cradle and the sheaves bound by hand; meadows were 
mown with the scythe and the hay gathered into winrows by the hand-rake; 
cornfields were cultivated with the hoe, and the ox-yoke was used to make 
animal power contribute to human welfare.

Narrating the history of Vermontville is for me a pleasure and not a task. 
Of the work of the earliest pioneers none can fully know except from 
experience. Living it over again is impossible. Nature's school 

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was a good one in which to gain a practical education. There has been 
great progress in Michigan. Will it continue? That depends upon the 
character of the people. Society moves forward or backward. It is never 
stationary. It is barbarous, it is civilized, it is christianized; or, 
sometimes, it ripens and rots, especially when its customs and covenants 
serve the few and oppress the many whose labor bears its burdens, and it 
does not bring emelioration for all its honest and willing workers. The 
settlement of a country, useful and honorable as the work may be, settles 
no social questions. As society becomes more complex the questions that 
arise become more difficult to solve. As yet, great as is the progress 
that has been made, but few questions touching inalienable human rights 
have been considered from the standpoint of equal rights for all. In the 
village community, among thoughful, conscientious, intelligent people, the 
problem is most likely to find a righteous solution, and to this end the 
early settlement of Vermontville contributes an important lesson. But the 
present is an era of new conditions, and
"New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth;
They must upward still and onward who would keep abreast of Truth;
Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! We ourselves must pilgrims be,
Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea,
Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted key."