The Vermontville Colony - Part 5



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PERSONAL SKETCHES OF THE COLONISTS

EDWARD HINMAN BARBER

A "Genealogy of George H. Barbour" of Detroit--1636 to 1897--prepared by 
Fred Carlisle, supplemented by other information of a reliable character, 
shows that Thomas Barber, a pioneer settler of Windsor, Connecticut, was 
the American ancestor of the Vermontville Barbers. In 1634, an English 
expedition was fitted out, under the patronage of Sir Richard 
Salstonstall, to take possession of a grant of land made to him by the 
Massachusetts Bay Company in the Connecticut Valley. Says she Genealogy: 
"He placed the expedition in charge of Mr. Francis Stiles, a master 
carpenter of London, who, with twenty others, took passage on the ship 
'Christian de Lo,' (Joseph White, master), March 16, 1634, which reached 
Boston Harbor the 20th of June following. Among the names appearing in the 
London Passenger Register was that of Thomas Barber, age 21."

June 16, 1635, after nearly a year's delay, caused by trouble with the 
established church of Massachusetts Bay, the Stiles party went up the 

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Connecticut River, and the early records of Windsor show that Thomas 
Barber was one of the settlers there in 1635. In 1637 he was enrolled as a 
sergeant under Major Stoughton and took part in seven fights with the 
Pequot Indians. Later, under John Mason, he participated in an attack on 
the Pequot for--known in history as the "Pequot massacre"--in which 77 
white soldiers and 100 Nyantic and Naragansett warriors defeated 700 
Pequots, captured and destroyed their fort, and only five or six escaped. 
Mason's account of this battle, published at Boston in 1737, refers to the 
part taken by Thomas Barber as follows: "He had entered the fort, and in 
going out of a wigwam encountered seven Indians. They fled, and we pursued 
to the end of a lane, but before we could reach them, they were met by 
Thomas Barber and Edward Pattison, who slew the entire seven--their 
muskets having been discharged."

In 1640 Thomas Barber married. His wife's surname does not appear in the 
church records of Windsor. Her given name was Jane or Joan, and there is 
some evidence that she was the daughter of a Dutch settler at Saybrook. 
One authority says: "The wife of, or she who became the wife of Thomas 
Barber, was the first white woman to land in Connecticut."

Second generation: Thomas Barber, second son of Thomas the immigrant, born 
in Windsor, July 14, 1644, and married Mary Phelps.

Third generation: John Barber, born in Windsor, November 1, 1664; married 
Mary Holcomb; settled in or near Worcester, Mass. According to the 
Worcester Antique Society's History, "John Barber was granted 10 acres of 
land near Worcester in 1686."

Fourth generation: Matthew Barber of Pittsfield, Mass., deacon of the 
Congregational church there as late as 1784. One account says he was 
"deacon of the church for forty years."

Fifth generation: Daniel Barber, born in Pittsfield, Mass., married Ruth 
Hinman; moved to Benson, Vermont, in 1783; his family being the first one 
to settle in that town.

Sixth generation: Edward H. Barber, the subject of this sketch, and Daniel 
Barber, his brother, pioneers of Vermontville, Eaton county, Michigan.

Edward H. Barber was born in Benson, Vermont, January 4, 1794. He was a 
man of slender build, fine mental organization, a nervous temperament, and 
a great reader. His integrity was never questioned. Better than any sermon 
ever preached was the remark made to me by Michael Monks, an Irishman of 
Vermontville, one day: "Edward, I hope you will be as honest a man as your 
father." Before coming to Michigan he was under-sheriff of Rutland county, 
Vermont. Business was brisk, as imprisonment for debt was a cruel law of 
the time, and Benson was a common runway to and across Lake Champlain for 
hard-pressed debtors. Many a good citizen of Michigan left New England 
between Saturday 

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night and Monday morning because he could not pay his debts. The debtor's 
cell was part of every county jail. The whipping post stood in every 
village for the punishment of petty offenders. In Benson it stood in front 
of the schoolhouse. I have a souvenir of that time in a cedar cane made of 
a portion of that by-gone genal institution.

Mr. Barber first came west on a prospecting trip in 1836, and purchased 
about 1,200 acres of land from the government, mostly in Vermontville. 
Among his ancestors Thomas Barber the second built the first saw-mill in 
Simsbury, Conn., Daniel Barber, his father, did the same thing in Benson, 
Vermont, and he put up the first saw-mill in Vermontville. In 1840 he was 
elected supervisor and held the office for six successive years.

Of the colonists he and Jay Hawkins were the only heads of families who 
did not belong to the Congregational church. They may have had more 
comfort and peace in life for this reason, as they escaped the possibility 
of church trials. Neither of them, however, was skeptical in regard to the 
truths of Christianity, but my father could not get religion in the usual 
way. Thoroughly conscientious and with a high ideal of what genuine 
religion required, he was "a Christian on the silent list" all his life. 
During a revival, when Rev. Mr. Lord was personally urging him to come out 
and profess to be a Christian, he said: "I wish with all my heart I was 
one. If I could only just swamp sides." He was too honest to profess more 
than he saw was attained in practical life, and so never could "swamp 
sides" by merely becoming a member of the church.

In politics a conservative whig, when the civil war came and the first gun 
was fired on Fort Sumter, all his conservatism disappeared, and he was 
earnestly in favor of putting down the rebellion and the abolition of 
slavery. He lived until the struggle ended in the triumph of the cause of 
national unity and freedom. This was for him a great gratification.

In 1826 he married Rebecca Griswold of Benson, Vermonth, whose ancestry 
has been traced back to the time of the Norman conquest of England. She 
died in 1838. Four children were born to them in Benson; Edward W. Barber 
of Jackson, Homer G. Barber of Vermontville, and John Carlos Barber of 
Battle Creek; another son, Noel A. Barber, died in Marshall, Michigan in 
1851. By a second marriage, in 1839, with Laura E. Root of Orwell, 
Vermont, there were five children, all born in Vermontville: Parthena E. 
Barber, widow of Willard H. Dickinson, of Vermontville, Albert M. Barber 
of Charlotte, Josiah W. Barber, deceased, Marshall F. Barber of Biwabick, 
Minnesota, and Vernon N. Barber, deceased. Josiah W. was member of Company 
H, Sixth Michigan Infantry, in the civil war. He died in hospital and was 
buried at Carrolton, Louisiana.

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DANIEL BARBER

Youngest of the seven children of Daniel Barber and Ruth (Hinman) Barber, 
the first family to settle in Benson,Vermont, the subject of this sketch 
was born in that New England town December 16, 1799. The last male 
survivor of the Vermontville colony, he passed from earth at the home of 
his daughter, Mrs. William H. Benedict, in that village, April 12, 1897, 
at the advanced age of 97 years, 3 months and 27 days. He moved to 
Vermontville in 1838; and his genealogy is the same as that of Edward H. 
Barber.

Daniel Barber was one of the sturdiest of the pioneers. Of medium size, 
strong and active, always in good health, and very energetic, he was well 
adapted to pioneer life. His log house was among the best and his frame 
barn one of the first in the town. The raising was a progressive event in 
the colony. He was an active and efficient promoter of the religious and 
educational plans the "Union Colony" was organized to carry into effect in 
the wilderness. Calvinistic in his earlier belief, he grew broad and 
liberal in sentiment during his later years. Religion and education were 
twin ideals of New England faith and intelligence. The first log 
schoolhouse was also the place of worship, and after the "Academy" was 
built, church services, schools and town meetings were all held in the 
same building for more than twenty years.

Daniel Barber was the first citizen of Eaton county elected to the State 
Legislature, and the representative district was composed of Allegan, 
Barry and Eaton counties. The files of the Marshall Statesman show that 
the whig convention that nominated him was held at Yankee Springs, Barry 
county, October 2, 1839, and at the November election following he was 
chosen over Hon. Flavius J. Littlejohn of Allegan, the "Woodbridge and 
Reform" cry giving to the whigs their first and only Governor and 
Legislature in the State. The main traveled route to Detroit then was by 
private conveyance to Marshall, by stage from there to the west end of the 
Michigan Central railroad at Ann Arbor, and by strap rail and pigmy 
locomotive and cars the rest of the way. Of the members of that 
Legislature there were but two survivors on Mr. Barber's death--Col. 
Andrew T. McReynolds of Grand Rapids and Judge Dewitt C. Walker of Capac, 
St. Clair county.

During his long life Mr. Barber resided in but two places--thirty-nine 
years in Benson, Vermont, and fifty-nine years in Vermontville, Michigan. 
In 1883 he attended and took part in the centennial celebration of the 
settlement of his native town.

A few months before his death he attended the funeral of a fellow-pioneer 
of the Vermontville colony, and, standing alone, leaning on his staff, at 
the bier of Simeon McCotter, the last one of his made contemporaries, he 
gazed intently into the open coffin, lingered there more than a moment, 
dropped a silent tear as the thoughts of three score 

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years of friendly association passed in quick review, then in seeming 
loneliness sat down. He was then only one left of the earliest pioneers. 
It was the final meeting of two venerable men who had witnessed the 
passage of two and had outlived three more generations--one barely on the 
other shore, and the other barely on this.

So far a known, Daniel Barber was the oldest Mason in the United States at 
the time of his death. He became member in Vermont soon after his twenty-
first birthday, in 1820, so that his membership covered a period of 
seventy-six years; and as an honorary member of the Vermontville lodge he 
took a deep interest in its meetings.

By his first marriage with Cynthia Dyer he had three children, Julius S. 
Barber of Coldwater, Mich., Daniel F. Barber of Chicago, and Camilla 
Barber who died in Vermontville--all born in Benson; and by a second 
marriage with Laura Dickinson two daughters, Mrs. William H. Benedict and 
Mrs. Isaac C. Griswold, who were born and still reside in Vermontville.


GEORGE SHEFFIELD BROWNING

The records of the Union Colony show that at a duly called meeting of its 
members, held at the Colony House in Vermontville, January 26, 1838, it 
was voted to receive as members George S. Browning, Willard Davis and 
Oliver J. Stiles, upon their signing the articles of said colony. These 
were the last formal admissions to membership.

Mr. Browning was born January 8, 1811, in the town of Griswold, New London 
county, Connecticut, and married Frances Eliza Hewitt, born at North 
Stonington, same county and state, September 6, 1816, on the 24th of 
February, 1836. They left their eastern home for Michigan May 6, 1836, and 
were four weeks and one day making the journey to Bellevue, Eaton county, 
where they first located, and remained there about a year and a half 
before moving to Vermontville.

Locating first on a village lot, now part of the firm of C. J. Kroger, 
then on a farm south of and adjoining the original village pat, their home 
was always an attractive one for young people. Of the members of the 
colony who were heads of families, Mrs. Browning, now Mrs. Roger W. 
Griswold of Battle Creek, is the sole survivor living in Michigan. The 
kindest of neighbors, active in all religious and social work, they 
deserved and enjoyed the confidence and respect of the entire community.

Mr. Browning was a democrat, but not in any sense a politician, and was 
often elected to some local office by his whig fellow-citizens. He was 
literal and exact, though quite unconventional, in keeping his accounts. 
Among the early settlers in the town was an old man by the name of 
Whitney, who, with his aged wife, had to be aided by the town, as they 
were unable to work. Mr. Browning was poormaster, and Mrs. Whitney 
bothered him a great deal, and sometimes until his patience was 

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exhausted. When his account was presented to the town board for allowance 
it contained this item, which expressed his disgust as well as his claim: 
"Fussing with old mother Whitney one-half day, 50 cents." Of course it was 
allowed, after affording R. W. Griswold and others lots of fun, while the 
minister, Rev. W. U. Benedict, who was a member of the board, nearly split 
his sides with laughter.

Innovations he did not like, but what he was accustomed to accepted as a 
matter of course. After the civil war broke out and almost everything was 
taxed, he was assessed one dollar on his new carriage. No American had 
heard of such a tax before. It seemed to him like a penalty. Receiving 
notice from John Morris, deputy collector, to pay the tax at Charlotte 
before a certain date or suffer a penalty of fifty cents, he was quite 
warm over the annoyance and apparent injustice, saying: " I can stand it 
as long as the republicans can." Still, though liking the new ways of 
getting money, though he always paid his share to support the church and 
the schools, he was a loyal and patriotic citizen. While all of the 
colonists were Yankees, it is not at all derogatory to Mr. Browning to say 
that he was a genuine Connecticut Yankee, and in all respects an excellent 
citizen.

Mr. and Mrs. Browning's children were all born in Vermontville. Martha F. 
Browning married Daniel R. Griswold, and resides in Battle Creek, Mich.; 
Charles H. Browning married Louisa Rude of Stonington, Conn., and is in 
business at Westerly, Rhode Island; Abbie S. Browning married Dr. C. A. 
Hamilton and her home is in Washington, D. C.; George W. Browning married 
Frances E. Luscomb of Bellevue, Mich., and is a furniture manufacturer at 
Holland, Mich. After Mr. Browning's death, Mrs. Browning married Roger W. 
Griswold of Vermontville.


SIMON SMITH CHURCH

The members of the Vermontville colony possessed strongly marked 
individualities. Among them not one was more prominent and useful in local 
affairs, both civic and religious, than Deacon S. S. Church. He had the 
faculty of getting information from those with whom he came in contact. 
Slenderly built, with a light and fair complexion, a sensitive and nervous 
temperament, clean in thought and conduct, intelligent and conscientious, 
a ready conversationalist, a man of peace in the church and society, and 
apt in the discharge of clerical duties, most of the early records of the 
colony, without which this history could not have been so fully written, 
are in his plain and neat penmanship.

Born at Salisbury, Vermont, January 13, 1794, he received a good common 
school education, and taught in the rural districts of his native state 
for twenty terms. At one time he was teller of a bank in Middlebury, 
Vermont. March 11, 1819, he married Eliza Hall, sister of the late Tolman 
W. Hall and Moses Hall of Battle Creek, Michigan. About two 

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years after their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Church went to Georgia, Hervey 
Hall, a brother of Mrs. Church, being a prominent business man at Columbus 
in that state. While there Mr. Church was engaged in the tin and hardware 
business. During his southern residence he obtained very full and accurate 
knowledge of the leading public men of that section, among them William 
Crawford, an eminent Georgian and a prominent candidate for president in 
Andrew Jackson's time. After a stay of four or five years in the South the 
family returned to Vermont, where for a number of years he followed 
different kinds of business, including farming, until he was appointed an 
agent in the Union Colony, organized in 1835-6 to locate in the Territory 
of Michigan. The prominent part he took in locating the colony is alluded 
to in foregoing pages of this history. In the winter of 1837, with his 
wife and six children, he moved to Vermontville; three more children were 
born there; and the time nine reached mature life. One child, the first 
born, died in Georgia.

Active in the organization of the Congregational church, he was chosen one 
of the deacons at the formation of the society, and held the position 
until the close of his earthly life. He was also its clerk for about forty 
years. In all educational movements he took an active part, and was 
prominent in obtaining goods schools. He was a charter member of the board 
of trustees of the Vermontville Academy, an institution that had a strong 
formative influence on the lives and characters of the first generation of 
young people of the village and surrounding country, giving them an 
impulse and inspiration that affected their subsequent careers.

Deacon Church was a man of strict integrity in his dealings with others; 
it seemed natural for him to be honest; while rather grave and serious in 
manner, he was not devoid of humor, or lacking in appreciation of wit and 
merriment; yet disliking coarseness and vulgarity; and he gave much time 
and unselfish devotion to the promotion of every good cause. His face was 
an index of clean thoughts and his language chaste and fluent. He was a 
good man, and Mrs. Church was a refined helpmeet for her husband and 
family, possessing those graces of character that exalt a wife and mother, 
and win the undying love and reverence of children.

The names of the nine children who lived in Vermontville are Frederick A. 
Church, born in Eatonton, Georgia, January 28, 1824, and died July 13, 
1862, in Alabama, a soldier of the Union Army; Leroy Harvey Church, born 
in Sudbury, Vt., January 10, 1826, and died in Vermontville, October 11, 
1854; Moses H. Church, born June 17, 1828, and died September 17, 1879; 
Daniel W. Church, born in Sudbury, Vt., November 21, 1830, now living in 
the State of Washington; Marian Church, born in Sudbury, Vt., May 6, 1833, 
and died at Vermontville, May 5, 1881; Edward P. Church, born in Orwell, 
Vt., December 12, 1835, now superintendent of the State School for the 
Blind at Lansing, Michigan; Mary Lois Church, 

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born in Vermontville, January 4, 1839, now Mrs. J. G. Cowles of Cleveland, 
Ohio; George Oscar Church, born May 16, 1841, now living in Nevada; Eliza 
Church, born January 21, 1843, now Mrs. Chilson of Vermontville.

Surely, in the minds of the surviving children linger many memories of a 
pleasant and sacred character. In all the relations of life Deacon Church 
was a model man and a worthy descendant of Captain Benjamin Church of 
early colonial times in New England, and always firm and orthodox in his 
adherence to the faith and principles of the Pilgrim fathers.


WILLARD DAVIS

Under the subhead of "The Politics of the Colonists" reference is made to 
Mr. Davis. He was a persistent abolitionist, and always ready to debate 
the slavery question with whigs or democrats. With him the moral aspect of 
the great issue outweighed all legal compromises and obligations. A native 
of Princeton, Worcester county, Massachusetts, when he joined the colony 
he was in Bellevue, Michigan. With the religious ideas of the colonists he 
was in harmony, but he differed with them all in politics, and stood 
alone. Well educated, a great reader, a strong debater, he liked in 
vigorous rather than flowery literature, and withal did his own thinking. 
Of florid, complexion, and strongly built, he was a typical son of the 
land of steady habits. His ancestors might have been of the same blood as 
the Roundheads who fought under Cromwell.

Mr. Davis was a positive character in the setting of as unique a 
personality as could be found in the region where he lived. Nature moulded 
him of granite, and made him rugged, unyielding and uncompromising on any 
point that involved principle or conviction. Slavery was strong, and that 
was enough to control his political action. He had no rounded corners, and 
all his angles were salient.

Naturally, such a man, in a community of hardheaded Vermonters, whose 
politics were as orthodox as their religion, encountered opposition, and 
the friction was often sharp, yet all respected him as honest and 
conscientious; but he was an innovator, a firebrand, and the local prophet 
of a new time. As an outspoken abolitionist, in a community made up mostly 
of silvery-gray whigs, who read the New York Observer and reverenced all 
ancient compromises, he had stormy sailing over the political sea for many 
years. The fathers recognized slavery, and an abolitionist would destroy 
their work. Next to his pictured majesty with cloven hoofs and horns, he 
was an enemy of society. But, finally, after the passage of the Kansas-
Nebraska bill, followed by the border-ruffian effort to force slavery into 
free territory, the conscience of the North was aroused, and Willard Davis 
found political sympathy. In 1854 he was 

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the only man in Vermontville who attended the meeting "under the oaks" in 
Jackson, where the republican party was formed to resist the aggressions 
of slavery. I met him on the highway as he was walking home from 
Charlotte, fourteen miles, and leaning on a fence rail listened to his 
narration of the events of that great fusion meeting. He was full of its 
spirit and purpose. In 1856 he was elected as representative in the State 
Legislature, and during the session of 1857 took a prominent position as a 
logical and forcible debater.

When the annual subscription paper for the minister came around, it 
uniformly received his signature, "W. Davis, $16," in a very precise 
handwriting, and always in ink. He made up his mind what was his fair 
proportion and adhered to it. Six hundred dollars was considered a fair 
sum for the minister. Incomes were small and accumulations slow, but 
life's satisfactions were many. It was a period of steady material 
progress, and there was much intellectual vigor in that isolated community.

Mr. Davis was a good friend and sturdy foe. His Puritanism was of the kind 
that "feared God, and feared nothing else." His wife, whose maiden name 
was Lydia P. Sutton, was a woman of unusual intelligence. Two sons were 
born in Vermontville. The eldest, George Davis, enlisted in the Union Army 
and died in the service. Frank P. Davis studied civil engineering, was 
employed on the Denver and Rio Grande railroads, surveyed the Rocky 
Mountain division of the Canadian Pacific, was employed in the engineering 
department of the Nicaragua canal, and now resides in Washington, D. C. 
Willard Davis died in Vermontville.


OREN DICKINSON

A man of rugged nature, slow of speech, of great physical endurance, and a 
persistent worker. In physical strength he surpassed any other colonist. 
Early and late, all his life, he was at work, and then would carefully 
read his newspapers far into the night. In Vermont he lived for years at 
Stony Point on Lake Champlain, and was engaged in transporting produce to 
and bringing back salt, flour and merchandise from Albany, New York, by 
the Champlain lake and canal. It is said of him that he would take a 
barrel of flour by the chimes and carry it up a steep hill from the boat 
landing to the warehouse. Later he was a farmer and lime manufacturer at 
West Haven, Vermont. In 1836 he left those stony acres and came to 
Vermontville, bringing with him Roger W. Griswold and William P. 
Wilkinson, both young men. The latter was a famous bass drummer at June 
trainings in Vermont, and he brought his drum with him. Settling in 
Castleton, Barry county, four miles west of Vermontville village, many a 
clear and still evening we could hear his stalwart drum-beats, laid on 
with all the old zest, as they were wafted over the tree-tops on 
vibrations of air he set in motion. To all who 

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heard them those drum-waves awakened New England memories; but both drum 
and drummer have passed away.

Mr. Dickinson brought the first span of horses to the colony, the same 
ones that R. W. Griswold drove to Bellevue the night he received a wolfish 
serenade, and also to Climax, Kalamazoo county, for the first load of 
provisions. For the first winter marsh grass was cut on a small upland 
swamp in the woods about a mile south of the Thornapple river. The first 
work was clearing a few acres of land and building a log house and a log 
barn, the family coming in 1838.

In several respects Oren Dickinson was a pioneer. He brought the first 
appleseeds, planted them in nursery rows, and set out the first orchard of 
any size in the town. At the first election, held on the first Monday of 
April, 1837, he was chosen supervisor and one of three highway 
commissioners. After that he held various town offices, was trustee of the 
Academy and of the church, and did his full share in supporting church and 
school, making no fuss, and going about the performance of every duty in a 
grave and taciturn manner.

The woods afforded summer pasturage for stock, and often, at nine o'clock 
in the evening, he could be heard driving the cows home to be milked, 
after having done a hard day's work at chopping, logging, making fences, 
or cultivating crops. One winter he took two double-team sleighloads of 
dressed hogs to Detroit, 130 miles, and sold them there for $2.50 per 
hundred pounds. His day's work done, he would sit down to read his 
favorite newspaper, the Albany Journal, by the light of a tallow-dip, as 
the single candle-power of that period of dim illumination was called, 
then go to bed and be up again by day-light to resume the steady round of 
labor. There was no "inglorious case." It was a household of toil and 
progress, yet one of the jolliest places in the town for an evening's 
visit or a Thanksgiving dinner. Mrs. Dickinson, whose maiden name was 
Salome Barber, a sister of Edward H and Daniel Barber, probably did more 
hard work than any other woman in all that region of hard workers. Born in 
Benson, Vermont, in 1790, moving to Vermontville in 1838, always at home, 
using Sunday for rest, she lived on until time seemed to amount to 
nothing, and finally dropped into the final sleep at 95 years of age, 
painless and peaceful. Mr. Dickinson passed away a few years earlier.

Four children, born in Benson, Vermont, came with their parents to 
Vermontville--Naomi Barber Dickinson, the oldest pioneer of the second 
generation, still lives in the village; Marshall J. Dickinson served 
gallantly as major of the Second Michigan Cavalry during the civil war and 
died 1885; Hinman S. Dickinson is a leading farmer of Vermontville, and 
Williard H. Dickinson, the youngest, was born December 28, 1831, and died 
September 30, 1889. When the family record is closed all, no doubt, will 
be buried in the Vermontville cemetery.

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ROGER W. GRISWOLD

A young man, forceful, energetic, self-reliant and hopeful, coming to 
Vermontville in 1836, purchasing a wild 160 acres adjoining the north line 
of the village plat, building a log house and commencing to clear off the 
surrounding heavy timber at once, in the fall of 1838 Roger W. Griswold 
returned to Benson, Vermont, where he was born March 10, 1812, married 
Abigail Star Bascom, September 3, 1838, who was born in the same town 
October 11, 1816, and both left soon thereafter for their new home in 
Michigan.

A striking characteristic of the pioneers was an intense personality, no 
educational or other influences having reduced them to a "pale unanimity," 
and R. W. Griswold was one of the intensest. He was a natural leader, at 
the logging bee, in the church, at town meeting, in society--positive, 
prompt, decisive and aggressive--true as steel and full of grit; honest 
and plain-spoken; often locking horns with others, not in malice, but from 
positiveness of character; self-reliant in all emergencies; of sound 
practical judgment; generous and hospitable; proud of his wife and devoted 
to his family; his home especially attractive to young people who like his 
off-hands ways--Vermontville would have been less a genuine Yankee 
village, transplanted in Michigan, without him.

An early impression of a Vermontville home was given by a small painting 
made by Mrs. Griswold and sent back to Benson early in 1839, with the log 
house, stumps, pole fence--all very realistic, as experience proved. She 
was a woman of superior mental and moral culture, as gentle and womanly 
without being passive and inert, as her husband was forceful and manly. 
Her influence was second to that of no other woman of the colony. She made 
the log house pleasant, and had the qualities to adorn a palace. She added 
refinement to pioneer life.

When there was something to be done Mr. Griswold took the lead. He did not 
wait for some one else to go ahead, but started himself. He had no 
theories to work out, for his was the practical Yankee genius of pushing 
ahead by energetic labor. If he did not like the Sunday sermon the 
minister was sure to be the first one told of it in an off-hand way. His 
likes and dislikes were openly expressed, and his welcome to his friends 
was cordial, outspoken and thoroughly unconventional. In 1839 he was a 
delegate to the whig convention at Yankee Springs to name a candidate for 
representative in the State Legislature, his object being the nomination 
of his uncle, Daniel Barber. When the convention was organized he set the 
movement going by saying: "I nominate Uncle Dan, for representative"--and 
Uncle Dan, was nominated and elected.

Reciprocity was a conspicuous element in Mr. Griswold's nature. He would 
take special pains to return a favor, and if denied a reasonable request 
did not forget it. On one occasion he went to a store in Marshall, asked 
credit for a pair of shoes for his wife, and was refused. 

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Thoroughly honest, the refusal nettled him. A few months later he received 
a draft for $100 from Vermont, and he took pains to go to the same store 
and inquire if any one wanted to buy a New York draft. In those wild-cat 
banking times such a piece of paper found a ready market. The storekeeper 
said he would take it. "No, sir; you can't have it. You would not trust me 
for a pair of shoes to keep my wife's feet off the ground, and you are too 
poor to buy my draft." Thus he got even, something he was quite sure to do 
sooner or later. No doubt this was the first and only time that credit was 
denied him in Michigan. He cleared a large farm in a few years, built the 
first brick residence in the town; and in all matters pertaining to the 
schools, the church, society, improvements, was a leader. As a man of 
action his name is thoroughly identified with the early history of the 
village and town. He was often called upon to fill local offices, and 
served as supervisor for several years. His first wife died June 26, 1871; 
several years later he married Mrs. Frances E. Browning, widow of George 
S. Browning, and died in Vermontville, May 31, 1886.

Six children by the first marriage were born in Vermontville: Harriet J. 
Griswold, widow of Albert W. Bacon, born May 9, 1840; Dr. Joseph B. 
Griswold, born June 21, 1842, a prominent physician in Grand Rapids, 
Mich.; Isaac S. Griswold, born October 14, 1846, a teacher in Hiawatha, 
Kansas; William M. Griswold, born June 27, 1848, a farmer on the old 
homestead in Vermontville; Carrie Adella Griswold, born February 11, 1854, 
married Rev. Joseph Homer Parker and resides in Kingfisher, Oklahoma; Mary 
Naomi Griswold, born May 17, 1856; died April 30, 1857.


JAY HAWKINS

Whether of the same family or from the same place, the personality of each 
member of the colony was clear and distinct, but no one was more easily 
distinguishable in all respects from the rest than was Jay Hawkins. He was 
calm and unexcitable in speech and action, yet at times somewhat petuiant, 
and always heeded the Scripture injunction to have moderation in all 
things, but he was an attentive reader and observer, and had clear views 
of men and events. He was careful and painstaking, and an agreeable man to 
talk with. During the latter part of his life, when his health was poor, 
he was always ready to converse in his quiet and intelligent way with man 
or boy, at shop or store, or by the roadside. If he failed to return home 
at night there was no worry as to his whereabouts, as he was sure to be at 
some house where well known, perhaps from there to five miles away. He 
always had his thinking cap on, whether walking leisurely to the village 
from his farm, or to a neighbor's house. Time seemed to be a convenience 
rather than a burden, and he was a slave to no necessity. Economy made his 
burden easy and yoke light.

Page 81

A whig in politics, as were all the other settlers from Rutland county, 
Vermont, his convictions of what was right made him an opponent of 
slavery, but his natural conservatism held him to his party as long as it 
lived; still, his talks with Henry Hooker, son of Aman Hooker, a 
neighboring farmer, made Henry an abolitionist--probably the first one 
after the original four abolitionists mentioned under the subhead 
"Politics of the Colonists."

When Mr. Hawkins came to Vermontville he brought apple seeds, planted his 
own nursery, and from it set out an orchard on his farm east of the 
village. With a flock of sheep he took great pains, and was the first 
farmer to bring the average weight of fleeces up to seven pounds, 
increasing the weight from year to year. Never in a hurry, he did his own 
thinking, cared little for authority, was a good citizen in his own way, 
was a natural non-conformist in all respects, and did not belong to the 
church. So far as can be ascertained, his religious views were not known 
by any person, in or out of his family. Still, he was a careful observer 
of Sunday. His anti-slavery sentiments made him a republican on the 
dissolution of the whig party, and he was among the first to openly 
identify himself with the new political movement.

Jay Hawkins was born in Castleton, Vermont, June 27, 1802, and died in 
Vermontville, August 19, 1866. He married Lodica Plumley in 1831, and they 
moved to Vermontville the year the colony was located, arriving September 
27, 1836. Mrs. Hawkins was born in New Haven, Connecticut, May 13, 1807, 
and went with her parents to Vermont when five years old and died in 
Vermontville, in 1886. She was an excellent woman, a good housekeeper, and 
taught the first school in what is now district No. 5 of Vermontville. 
They first settled in the village, and the elms in front of Dr. William 
Parmenter's residence were set out by Mr. Hawkins, but early he moved to 
the farm of 160 acres east of the village.

Mr. and Mrs. Hawkins had three children. Horace Hawkins, the oldest, was 
born in Vermont, May 6, 1832, and lives on a farm in Vermontville, part of 
which his father bought of the government. He has been a resident of the 
town the longest of any person now living, nearly sixty-one years. The 
second son, Daniel Webster Hawkins, came to Vermontville October 18, 1837, 
and was the first child born to a member of the colony in the village. He 
died October 5, 1858. Duane Hawkins was born in Vermontville, February 17, 
1840, and resides on the farm that was owned and occupied by his father. 
He enlisted as a private soldier in Company B, Second Regiment of Michigan 
Cavalry, during the civil war; has held a number of local offices, and in 
1880 was elected a representative in the State Legislature by the voters 
of the Second district of Eaton county.

The Jay Hawkins family have been identified with the village and 

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township from the first year that a settlement was made, and for a longer 
period than any other family members of which are now living. At the first 
election held on the first Monday of April, 1837, he was chosen one of the 
highway commissioners. Duane Hawkins was the pioneer child of the colony, 
and the first and only native-born citizen of the town elected a member of 
the State Legislature. From first to last, it can be truly said, the 
influence of the family has been exerted in behalf of temperance, morality 
and good citizenship.


WELLS ROE MARTIN

His ancestral line antedates the revolutionary war. His grandfather was a 
soldier in Washington's army during the terrible winter at Valley Forge, 
and was a member of the garrison at West Point, the surrender of which to 
the British general, Sir Henry Clinton, was plotted by Benedict Arnold. 
Mr. Martin was born at Hoosac, New York, March 18, 1811, but lived in 
Bennington, Vermont, until 1838, when he moved to Vermontville, and 
resided there until his death in April, 1892.

In 1835 Wells R. Martin and Emily Robinson were married. She was born in 
Bennington, Vermont, March 31, 1816, and was a direct descendant of Samuel 
Robinson, who was born in Bristol, England, in 1668, and came to 
Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1703. His son, Samuel Robinson, was born at 
Cambridge in 1705; removed to Bennington, Vermont, in 1761, and was the 
first magistrate in that part of the Green Mountain state. Her grandfather 
and his brothers were revolutionary soldiers. Mrs. Martin died at 
Vermontville in December, 1885.

In the civil, educational, and religious affairs of the colony, Mr. Martin 
always took a prominent part. He was a fluent talker, and when on his feet 
could follow his line of thought clearly and give it a very accurate 
expression in words; but could not sit down and write it out afterwards in 
a manner at all satisfactory. Thoughts came to him more freely while 
making an extemporized speech than under any other condition. Though a 
democrat in politics, in a town with whig and republican majorities, and 
unswerving in his party allegiance, he served the people in various 
official positions, as supervisor, treasurer, clerk, justice of the peace, 
etc., holding the latter place at the time of his death. He was the first 
hotel-keeper in the village, entertaining travelers in the comfortable log-
house he occupied as a dwelling, and licenses as a landlord are recorded 
as having been issued to him in the years 1846 and 1847 at two dollars per 
annum. The first small stock of goods offered for sale in the village was 
brought from Bellevue by W. R. Martin and S. D. Scovell, but that earliest 
experiment in merchandising was not repeated.

The village of Vermontville was incorporated by act of the legislature 
March 11, 1871, and at the second election, Mr. Martin was chosen 
president. Up to date party politics have not entered into the choice of 
village 

Page 83

officers. The spoils are meager. At the general election of 1848, he was 
chosen to represent Eaton county in the State Legislature, his competitor, 
on the whig ticket, having been Edward D. Lacey of Kalamo, father of Hon. 
E. S. Lacey, president of the Bankers' National Bank of Chicago. By a 
legislative act of March 16, 1847, the seat of government was removed from 
Detroit to Lansing, and as annual sessions were held prior to the adoption 
of the present constitution in 1850, Mr. Martin was a representative 
during the second session held in the new State capital. For many years he 
was a deacon of the Congregational church. As a pioneer, hotel-keeper, 
merchant, public officer, and private citizen, he lived an active life for 
the fifty-four years of his residence in Vermontville. At the time of his 
death, by the appointment of Governor Winans, he was agent for Eaton 
county of the State Public School at Coldwater, Michigan.

Mr. Martin was a natural leader in local affairs and in party politics. He 
was always ready to do his part in all matters that related to public 
interests and the general welfare. At religious meetings, caucuses, 
conventions, he was a regular attendant. Being well-informed and gifted 
with readiness of speech, he was the leading debater of all subjects that 
came up for action and decision. Of medium height and wiry frame, he had 
great endurance and was seldom laid up from sickness. The contour of his 
face and head reminded one of the portraits of Oliver Wendell Holmes. With 
both young and old he could talk entertainingly, and though he often 
encountered sharp antagonists and harsh things were said in the off-hand 
debates in the country store, he never lost his popularity or the respect 
of his fellowmen. From his occupations as landlord and merchant, his 
service for several terms as justice of the peace, and his excellent 
conversational powers, he was oftener seen on the street than any other 
one of the original settlers. At church meetings and revivals his fluency 
of speech, doing his best thinking on his feet and never hesitating for 
appropriate words, he was the same natural leader as in secular affairs. 
With him left out, Vermontville would have been without one of its 
worthiest spokesmen on all public occasions, and his services were always 
given without expectation of fee or reward. One of his sayings was: "If a 
man earns fifty cents a day and salts it down he will finally become 
rich." And yet he never tried the salting process.

Of Mr. and Mrs. Martin's three children, Henry J. Martin was born in 
Bennington, Vermont, January 6, 1837, came to Vermontville with his 
parents in 1838, and is still a resident of the village. In 1867 he 
married Martha E. Jones, a native of Virginia. Minnie R. Martin was born 
in Vermontville, March 27, 1839, and married Horace L. Curtis in 1858. Mr. 
Curtis is a native of Genesee county, New York, came to Vermontville in 
1854, and both himself and wife still reside there. Harriet P. 

Page 84

Martin, born in Vermontville, May 4, 1841, married Dr. Almon A. Thompson, 
now deceased; is a resident of Flint, Michigan.


SIMEON McCOTTER

With the exception of Daniel Barber, Simeon McCotter was the last male 
survivor of the Vermontville colonists, and was an excellent citizen. 
Physicially he was a stubbed man, short in statute, with a quick movement, 
a cabinet-maker by trade, and the workman who did all kinds of woodwork 
for the first settlers, from making a cradle for the newcomer into this 
life through the gateway of birth, to making a coffin for those who passed 
from this life through the gateway of death into the unseen world. His was 
the first work and the last for many, young and old, whose bodies lie in 
the rural cemetery. Indeed, he was a general utility man for all; working 
on houses and barns; on the schoolhouse; the first sawmill; the academy 
and the church; very useful at raisings, as he knew how to put things 
together; was active to lend a helping hand on all occasions; and among 
the pioneer was a thoroughly useful citizen. How they would have got along 
without him, or some one else like him, is not clear. People always get 
along in some way, however, while they stay on earth; but the rendering of 
mutual services, for which compensation is given, makes life more 
comfortable and better worth living; and they would have got along in some 
manner of their own devising, as ingenious and inventive people always do, 
without such conveniences and utilities as Simeon McCotter's hands and 
tools put together.

While the owned an outside farm lot--a wild and heavily timbered eighty 
acres--he always lived in the village, on one of the ten-acre lots which 
fell to him in the raffle, when, after prayer by the minister, the 
colonists present cast lots for a choice among them; and later, added 
three more adjacent lots of the same size, the forty acres constituting 
his farm and home during a married life of fifty-three years. Thoroughly 
honest, he never suspected or expected dishonesty in others, and so 
sometimes was victimized by sharp traders and unscrupulous buyers of 
articles he had to sell. As character endures, surely he is better off now 
than are those who cheated him. If time sometimes fails, eternity never 
does, to make things even.

Though born in Vermont, Mr. McCotter was the least of a Yankee in worldly 
shrewdness, or in driving a bargain, of any of the settlers. If he ever 
wronged another it was unintentional. He was a good man--a little too good 
to gather much of the spoils of this world from the labor of others--but 
he lived comfortably, worked faithfully, and filled out the eighty-seven 
years of his life as a useful citizen, an exemplary member of society and 
of the church, and an honest man, leaving pleasant memories 

Page 85

only with those who knew him. He left his home free from debt; none of the 
family now reside in the town; and Simeon McCotter took with him the only 
permanent wealth a man can have when he leaves this world--a good 
character.

Still he had peculiarities. In walking he stepped quickly, did not raise 
his feet far from the ground, and frequently stubbed his toes in the rough 
and new country. One evening, carrying home with a neckyoke across his 
shoulders two pails of maple syrup from a sugar bush a mile away-- 
sweetness that represented one or more days of hard labor--he stubbed his 
toe in the darkness on some plaguey root or other obstacle to smooth 
transit, fell down and spilled the precious stuff, which he intended to 
have sugared off at home. Rising to his feet and contemplating the extent 
of the disaster, he groaned in spirit so that a passer-by, D. F. Barber, 
could hear him, and said to himself in a deprecatory manner: "Well, stub 
your toe, McCotter, if you don't know any better;" and then went home a 
sadder man than when he left in the morning, though with a lighter burden; 
but patiently resumed sugar-making the next day. "Stub your toe, McCotter,
" became one of the sayings in the colony for several years, whenever any 
similar occurrence justified its use.

Simeon McCotter was born in Benson, Rutland county, Vermont, August 30, 
1806; came to Vermontville as one of the original colonists, lived there 
until his death, November 15, 1893. He married Lucy Minerva Leveredge at 
Vermontville, April 1, 1840. She was born at Camillus, New York, April 20, 
1819, and died in Vermontville, August 4, 1895. She was a model wife, 
homekeeper and mother.

They had four children, all born in Vermontville. Mary Jennette McCotter, 
born April 13, 1841; married Oscar Hadley July 4, 1857; died at Malvern 
Junction, Arkansas, in 1887. James Howard McCotter, born January 3, 1845; 
married Florence Baker in March, 1874; resides at Pontiac, Mich, where he 
is superintendent of D. M. Ferry & Company's need farm, having fitted 
himself for the position as a student and graduate of the Michigan 
Agricultural College. Eliza McCotter, born October 20, 1849; married Fits 
Hughes Gage of Olivet, Mich., October 20, 1886, and resides there at the 
present time, where her husband is a dealer in general merchandise. George 
Samuel McCotter, born May 30, 1851; married Caroline De Planta in 1875, 
and resides at Hudson, Mich.


HIRAM J. MEARS

Here was a man with as few prongs or salient points of character and 
conduct, as any of the pioneers of Vermontville. He was even tempered, 
faithful in the performance of duty, fond of home and friends, in all 
respects an exemplary citizen, and willing to take events as they 
occurred, with very little outside fret or worry over the inevitable. He 
came 

Page 86

from Poultry, Vermont, and with his family moved to Vermontville in 1837. 
Of peaceable disposition and quiet ways, he seldom if ever engaged in 
strife and contention with others. He was the first wagon-maker. At that 
time it was common for each village to have its own blacksmith, shoemaker, 
cabinet-maker, cooper, tailor or tailoress, wagon-maker, etc., as well as 
doctor and minister, but the lawyer was a later need of litigant 
civilization; and to those engaged in the mechanical industries the 
farmers would give such jobs of work as they needed, paying partly at 
least in produce, chipping in cash enough to pay for the material used, 
and keeping running accounts each with the other, which would be looked 
over and settled once a year, unless procrastination let them run longer, 
especially if there was not much difference between debits and credits. 
Occasionally the settlements of these accounts caused sharp controversies, 
and unbrotherly remarks were made, which were apt result in a church 
trial, as bringing suits before a justice of the peace was of rare 
occurrence; but Mr. Mears was a man of such quiet manner and proverbial 
fairness that disputes over his charges seldom if ever happened, though he 
had dealings with all of his fellow-colonists. He was a Christian on the 
peaceable list.

Mr. Mears' penmanship was good. He never sought for an office, but in 1838-
40, and again in 1843, he served as town clerk. While he owned a farm, 
which he cultivated, he lived in the village from 1837 until his death in 
1883, built a comfortable house chiefly by his own labor, set out in front 
along the twenty rods of street a row of sugar maples, now large trees; 
and those whose see them and know the fact think kindly of him for this 
thoughtfulness of the future. While all were necessarily tree destroyers, 
he was also a tree conserver, and this beneficent work lives after him. 
His record is that of the quiet citizen, the good neighbor, and the 
upright man.

Mrs. Rhoda Mears, his wife, was a native of Vermont, a bright and active 
woman, a good conversationalist, and was well liked for her social 
qualities. She made the home, first a log house and then comfortable frame 
dwelling, unusually attractive to young people. The oldest daughter, Mrs. 
Frances A. Stebbins, was a native of Vermont, and was a general favorite 
in the early days, of a community where girls were scarce and boys were 
plenty. The other children--Wallace C. Mears, Ellen Mears, Julia Mears, 
the second wife of George W. Squier, and Alice Mears--were born in 
Vermontville, and with the exception of Mrs. Stebbins and Eugene Mears, 
have passed from earth.


WAIT J. SQUIRE

The letter "J." in the same of this stalwart pioneer stood for junior, and 
the interpolation by himself, when a young man, to distinguish him from 
his father, Wait Squier, senior, was characteristic of the original 

Page 87

methods of the man, and was a labor-saving as well as a convenient 
designation. The tallest and largest-framed of the colonists, he was in 
all respects the least modified Yankee, physically and mentally, among 
them. He was a typical pioneer. Born in Lanesboro, Massachusetts, when a 
young man he went with his father to New Haven, Vermont, and was a pioneer 
of two states--Vermont and Michigan. He married Abigail Powell, a native 
of the same western Massachusetts town, and the idea of a mismatch or a 
misfit never entered the mind of a person who knew them both. They lived 
in New Haven, where all their children were born, until they came to 
Michigan in the spring of 1837, and they added a larger number of 
inhabitants to the census of Vermontville in 1840 than any other family 
arrival. Physically the most conspicuous Yankee in the colony, he was also 
the most unique specimen of the genus home among them. Kindness of heart 
and common sense ways, with many a remark that savored of nature rather 
than of grace, made him a favorite with the younger boys, and his wife was 
equally a favorite with all classes. Rugged New England qualities were 
prominent. Older persons of the second generation remember them well 
because of their points and angles of character and speech. The only 
legible records of this largest family that came from Vermont are found in 
some early justice of the peace docket and town books, or of the part 
taken in the church and academy work, and in the cemetery, as all of the 
name have disappeared from Vermontville in less than sixty years.

Mr. Squier was a member of the committee to select a location for the 
colony, and was on the ground when the first blow was struck in May, 1836. 
He was a surveyor, and having his instruments with him when it was 
determined where the colony should be plantd, he at once surveyed the 
village plat in the woods, as preliminary to carrying into effect the plan 
of settlement agreed upon at Castleton, Vermont. Being present when the 
scriptural casting of lots took place for the choice of village lots, he 
selected one of the most central locations, adjoining the public square on 
the east, and built the first frame house in the town, hauling the lumber 
through the woods from Hyde's mill, seven miles distant, in Kalamo. This 
sawmill was built by Oliver M. Hyde, afterwards a prominent citizen and 
mayor of Detroit, who was a large land-owner in the towns of Vermontville 
and Kalamo. Mr. Squier was not present when the town was organized and the 
first election was held in 1837, having returned to Vermont for his 
family, but in 1840 he was elected supervisor, and in 1848, 1849 and 1853 
was chosen a justice of the peace.

One of the notable peculiarities of the early time was the general belief 
that, when a person became a justice of the peace he was qualified, as if 
some divine afflatus rested upon him and gave him wisdom to perform all 
the duties in the office, and some more, such as conveyancing, as well as 
taking the acknowledgment of deeds and mortgages, and even 

Page 88

the granting of a divorce. Could not the authority that performed the 
marriage ceremony do the unmarrying also? Justice Squier acted upon the 
theory that the power which makes can unmake--a theory which, if it had 
been adopted by the higher courts of this country, would have prevented 
many a hard exaction and grinding monopoly. While serving as justice of 
the peace, a Vermontville couple came before him to be united in the holy 
bonds of matrimony, and the ceremony was duly performed according to the 
statute in such cases made and provided. After trying the married 
relation--probably not wedded bliss--for a time, the parties concluded, 
and no doubt wisely, that separation from bed and board was the best 
course for them to take. So they appeared before Justice Squier again and 
stated their desire to separate. He had no guiding precedent. He was a 
court, had made them husband and wife, and the authority to annul his own 
marital function seemed right and proper. Ascertaining that the wife, at 
the date of the marriage, was under the lawful age for making the 
contract, he had an affidavit made to that effect, and declared the 
marriage null and void. A more effective divorce was never granted in 
Michigan. Nathaniel Lamb, the divorced husband, enlisted later in the 
volunteer army as a Union soldier, and was as honest, faithful and 
patriotic as if he had received a divorce from a court having 
jurisdiction. He died in the service, while the divorced wife is married 
for the third time and is in good circumstances. The legal right to a 
pension as a soldier's widow has not been raised. This divorce case is 
worth mentioning as a case of original jurisdiction, with the result as 
final and conclusive with all parties as any divorce ever granted by 
ecclesiastical, legislative or judicial authority. Had Justice Squier 
lived in the time of Henry VIII, he might have saved that erratic monarch 
a great deal of trouble in getting dematrimonialized.

Mrs. Squier died in Vermontville in 1860, at the age of 65 years, and Mr. 
Squier in 1869, aged 78 years. In naming their children, especially the 
boys, they selected the names of prominent persons. Dr. Arthur Wellesley 
Squier, the oldest, died at Whitehall, Michigan, in 1888, at the age of 
73; the second; Manly Wallace Squier, died at Ionia, Michigan, at the age 
of 65; Catherine Helen died in Vermontville in 1888, at the age of 56; 
George Washington Squier resides in Charlotte, Michigan, to which place he 
moved on being elected treasurer of Eaton county; Cornelius Hamilton 
Squier died at Forth Laramie on the overland route to California, in 1850, 
at the age of 24; Henry Clay Squier, at one time a prosperous merchant in 
the island of Mauritius and well known in mercantile circles of London, 
England, died in Vermontville in 1881, about 54 years of age; Martin 
Luther Squier died in Lisbon, Dakota, in 1888, at the age of 61; Mrs. 
Clara Aurelia Vanghan resides in Charlotte, Michigan, with her brother, 
John Howard Squier, the youngest member of this typical pioneer family. 
When they were all at home they made a house full of 

Page 89

physically stalwart persons, the father and all the boys, with one 
exception, being six feet tall or over. But they scattered widely with the 
years, and none of the original family that came to Vermontville in 1837, 
or any of their descendants, now reside in the town. In the colony 
archives, the town and church records, and the cemetery, the family name 
is preserved.


LUCY HAMILTON DWIGHT

Though not a member of the original Vermontville Colony, yet a pioneer, as 
an instance of a widow with a family of six children, three girls and 
three boys, the oldest twenty years of age, moving into the wilderness, 
settling upon a wild 160 acres of land, making an attractive home, and 
exercising a good influence upon the community in which they lived, Mrs. 
Dwight is worthy of special mention. Her management shows what a woman can 
do. Her husband, Peregrine Dwight, belonged to one of the most notable 
families of New England and of the United States, having been a direct 
descendant, of the sixth generation, of John Dwight, who came from Dedham, 
England, and was one of the first settlers in Dedham, Massachusetts, in 
the year 1629 or 1630. She was a laughter of Dr. Chauncey Hamilton of 
Brookfield, who married Mary Hubbard of Amherst, both in Massachusetts, 
and was born August 21, 1796. Peregrine Dwight was a farmer at 
Belchertown, Massachusetts, from 1815 to 1828, and from 1828 to 1842 at 
Niagara Falls, New York, where he died August 21 of the last named year. 
He was an earnest, austere, intelligent and religious man, a great reader, 
and well informed upon political and religious subjects. He had but 
moderate means; at Niagara Falls he worked a farm owned by Gen. Augustus 
S. Porter; and at his death left a widow and six children to be provided 
for, the oldest nineteen years of age, and the youngest an infant. An 
unimproved quarter section of land he owned in Barry county was traded for 
160 acres in Vermontville, in which not a tree had been cut. In September, 
1843, Mrs. Dwight moved to Vermontville with her family, to make in the 
unbroken wilderness a home for her household. The first dwelling, like 
those of the other first settlers, was built of unhewn logs, trees enough 
having been chopped down for a building place. By good management, 
prudence and economy, there was steady prosperity under her care, and no 
family in the town was more highly esteemed. But few among th new-comers 
got along any better. Many men, as the heads of families, failed to do as 
well. The first rude home was made attractive by good words and works. In 
the true sense of the term Mrs. Dwight was a Christian woman. No one ever 
heard her complain of or find fault with others. "The Dwight girls," as 
the three daughters were familiarly called, were great favorites. In 1880, 
after eighty-three ripened years, at the residence 

Page 90

of her son, George C. Dwight, in Vermontville, she passed quietly away of 
the infirmities of old age. During her life she had charity and kindness 
for all, and death was like going to sleep. There was no pain to indicate 
its coming. At night she passed into an easy slumber, which continued 
peacefully and quietly through the following day and another night until 
daybreak came, and then without a struggle awoke to "another more than 
ours,"

Three of her children were born in Belchertown, Massachusetts, namely; 
Martha Adelia Dwight, July 15, 1823, married Edward W. Barber, December 
24, 1853, and now resides in Jackson, Michigan; Chauncey Hamilton Dwight, 
born September 25, 1825, married Rebecca De Graff March 31, 1856, and 
lives on a farm in Vermontville; Clarissa Ann Dwight, born January 14, 
1828, now the wife of Sidney Seymour Rockwell, a member of the mercantile 
firm of Barber, Ambrose & Rockwell Vermontville, to whom she was married 
February 19, 1856. The other three children were born at Niagara Falls, 
New York, as follows: George Clinton Dwight, July 14, 1831, married 
Margaret Gregg of Castleton, Michigan, February 14, 1860, now living on a 
farm in Vermontville; Lucy Clarissa Dwight, born February 10, 1834, 
married Homer G. Barber, a merchant and banker at Vermontville, March 23, 
1853, and died at their home in that village May 1, 1893; and Edward 
Peregrine Dwight, born January 1, 1840, enlisted as a private soldier in 
Company G, Séventh Michigan Infantry, early during the war of the 
rebellion, and was killed in battle at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, August 5, 
1862. His body lies with other unknown heroes of the war, and memorial 
stone adorns the Vermontville cemetery.


OTHER COLONISTS

Of other members of the colony, concerning whom there is insufficient 
obtainable data, for accurate personal and family sketches, only brief 
mention can be made. Walter S. Fairfield, one of the earliest settlers, 
was a printer, and before coming to Michigan owned and edited a newspaper 
at Castleton, Vermont. He anchored at the outset of pioneerage in the 
village of Bellevue, and was the first register of deeds for Eaton county. 
He copied from the Calhoun county records the deeds and mortgages covering 
lands in Eaton county that had been placed on record there during the time 
that Eaton was a part of Calhoun for all civic and legal purposes. He was 
a well informed man, an easy talker on familiar subjects, strong in his 
prejudices, and unjust in his antagonisms. He died in Vermontville, 
February 15, 1860.

Stephen Decatur Scovell was one of the youngest members of the colony, a 
son of Josiah B. Scovell, one of its original promoters, and may be 
described as a energetic and erratic member of society and the 

Page 91

church. He figured considerably in church trails, and was as ready to 
forgive as he was to complain of the faults of others. He was not given to 
using a mental mirror that he might see himself as others saw him. He 
wanted others to toe the mark according to the gospel standard and the 
church discipline. He was a vigorous worker, and in a short time slashed 
down the timber and cleared off the large farm now owned by Ernest 
Sprague, in the northeast part of the town. He seldom missed church 
services or prayer meetings, as he liked to mix with people on all sorts 
of occasions. His widow, Mrs. Argalus Sprague, still lives in 
Vermontville, and is one of the worthiest of the pioneer wives and 
mothers. Mr. Scovell died in Vermontville.

Other settlers, who signed the original articles of association and came 
to Vermontville, but moved away and died in other places, were: Jacob 
Fuller, Sidney B. Gates, Charles Imus, Elijah S. Mead, Levi Merrill, 
Martin S. Norton, Dewey H. Robinson and Bazaleel Taft. Some of them 
remained only a year or two, while others, like Messrs. Fuller, Gates, 
Merrill, Norton and Robinson, were identified with the village and town 
for a number of years. Mrs. Fuller moved to the town of Sunfield, Mr. 
Merrill to the town of Chester, Mr. Gates to the town of Roxand, and Mr. 
Taft to the town of Kalamo--all in Eaton country. About 1846, Mr. Norton 
moved to Marshall, Michigan, where he resumed work as a black-smith, in 
partnership with Jacob Tanner, who afterwards became a farmer in the town 
of Carmel, Eaton county. In 1849, Mr. Norton went overland to California, 
settled in Grass Valley, was appointed postmaster there during Lincoln's 
first administration and held the office for twelve years. He died in 
Grass Valley several years since. His widow, whose maiden name was Mary 
Ann Sears, of Bennington, Vermont, still resides there. Dr. Robinson moved 
to Marshall, Michigan, in 1846, remained there a year or two, then 
returned to Bennington, his native town, and died a few years later.

None of the colonists--those who remained unto the last or those who moved 
away--ever realized their early hopes, desires, or dreams; for hewing out 
new homes in the wilderness was the hard work of a lifetime; yet they 
lived up to their ideals, embracing religion and education, as well as 
making homes for themselves and their children in a new country, with 
larger opportunities than existed in New England, more fully and 
completely than falls to the most pioneers.

Page 92

THE MICHIGAN PIONEERS

Lo! each grateful generation never tires
Weaving the past into prose and rhyme;
Praising the greater wisdom of the sires--
Yet the world grows wiser all the time.

The world grows better with the flight of years,
Not long since our fair and fruitful land
Was one vast wilderness, begirt with fears--
Said to be a waste of swamp and sand.

In the dark forests, meaning as the wind
Swept by, where reamed the wolf and hear, now
Grazes in the pastures, sweet with clover blooms,
The kind, soft-eyed, and gentle Jersey cow.

Look o'er the fertile fields, the orchards see,
Where once was maught but forest drear,
And ask whence these? This will the answer be:
These crown the labor of the pioneer.

Each home the monument of some stont heart.
That braved the perils of the savage wild,
Bore a noble, though a humble part--
Unceasing effort until fortune smiled.

Not man alone the work and danger dared,
To found a State on Michigan soil;
Mothers the sickness and the hardship shared--
A weary round of unremitting toil.

And oft, from out the gloomy wilderness,
Their thoughts to the eastern hill-homes turned;
And then resumed their cares with faithfulness,
While for brighter scenes their true hearts yearned.

These mothers toiled from drawn until the west
Was crimson with sunset's parting glow;
And so moved on unto the final rest,
With hopes and dreams they alone could know.

Let others sing the deeds of fighting men;
Of saints and martyrs in ages sere;
A humbler theme best suits my thought and pen--
The life and work of the pioneer.

For he who clears the land and makes it bloom,
Underneath the summer's rain and sun,
Much better serves his country and his home
Than heroes who have great battles won.

Page 93

Large wealth than builds the palace to be seen
Of men, doth but please the passer-by;
While those who built the schoolhouse have wiser been--
Op'ning a fountain that will never dry.

Who builds a church in which to worship God,
Though lacking lofty arch and frescoed wall,
Hath placed a blessing on the lonely sod;
But the home-builder buildeth best of all.

Men of today, for pleasant homes and farms,
Towns where sense of thrift and comfort cheers,
For all the wealth, for all the many charms,
For all the progress, thank the pioneers!