Qass ;^^7z Rr.r>k . /^ rA'l^ ^ H'f 'UK folldwiiii;- discourse was prepared and delivered at Adrian at a eeleliration of the Nation's Centennial Anniversary, in pnrsuance of the following recommendation of Congress and of the Governor, and is pnhlished nnder a resolutidii of the ('omnion Conneil of the City t>f ^Vdrian : Statk ok MicuioAX, Executive Office, ( Lansing, May 16, 1876. j' To the People of the State of Michigan : I have received notice from the ottice of the Dejuirtment of iState, at Washington, of the passage by Congress of the following j(.>int resolution: '■' Be it resoloed by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That it be, and is hereby recommended by the Senate and House of Ilej^reseutatives to the ])eople of the several States, that they assemble in their several counties or towns on the approaching Centennial anniversary of our National Independence, and that they cause to be delivered on such a day an historical sketch of said county or town from its foundation, and that a copy of said sketch may be filed, in print or in manuscript, in the Clerk's office of said county, and an additional copy, in print or manuscript, be filed in the office of the Libra- rian of Congress, to the intent that a comj)lete record may thus be obtained of the progress of our institutions during the first centennial of their exist- ence." Approvetl March 13th, 1S76. I earnestly hope that in the celebration of the anniversary of our national independence in this State, the recommendation may be universally regarded. Our record is yet new and familiar to us, our development and growth is a history of continued prosperity, and it is eminently proper, in this Centen- nial year, while recalling with gratitude the beneficence of Divine Providence in His dealings with us, that we should ])ut upon record, for those who are to come after us, the history of a State that in forty years has grown to be an empire with a million and a half of people — eeginning of 1824 'i An un- broken wilderness. Xot a white inhabitant within its Ixiunds. iJut as it then was, all in its native beauty, untouched Ijy the hand of civilization, uu- maiTed by cultivation, a fairer, niore beautiful and attractive region, the sun ne'er shone on. A portion of it, most of the northern, and a part of the southern portion, consisting of " openings," as they were called in the language of the countrj'^sparsely timbered with tall and beautiful oaks, and for the most part, in consequence of the annual fires passing over it, free from un- derbrusli, — the ground carpeted with a profusion of wild fiowers, — the whole like a beautiful park, through which, without track or path, the immigrant could drive with his horses or oxen and wagon, for miles in any direction — the remainder a dense forest of various kinds of trees; the surface undxdat- ino-, well watered by the Kaisin, the Tiffin, and a multitude of smaller streams, and gemmed here and there, especially in the northern portion, with beautiful small, clear lakes — it is no wonder that the earlier settlers were en- chanted with the scene, and in their letters to their friends, spoke in glow- ing tenns of its beauty and its loveliness. But the time had come when this fair region was no longer to be left to the wild men and wild beasts of the forest, hitherto its sole possessors. By a treaty concluded at Detroit on the 17th of November, 1807, between the United States and the Ottawa, Chippewa, Wyandotte and Pottawatomie nations of Indians, the Indians ceded to the United States a large tract of country in northern Ohio and southeastern Michigan, including the present county of Lenawee ; and by another treaty concluded at Chicago, on the 2ytli of August, 1821, between the United States and the Ottawa, Chippewa and Pottawatomie tribes, the Indian title to another extensive tract in Michi- gan, west of the tract first mentioned, and extending to Lake Michigan, was also extinguished, and the territory in l)oth cases acquired by the United States by fair pin"chase. In the summer of 1823, Musgrove Evans, of Brownsville, Jefferson Co., HISTORICAL ORATION. 7 ]S'. Y., came into the territory to explore, with a view to settlement, and found his way to the site of the present village of Tecumseh. The tract had before this been surveyed and put into market by the I'nited States. Mr. Evans, imjiressed with the beauty of the country-, and the ad\antages of that particular locality, particularly the hydraulic power atibrded by the river Raisin and Evans creek at that point, determined to settle and lay out a village there, and to secure and improve this water power. Returning to his home in New York, he enlisted in his enterprise, his brother-in-law, Joseph AV. Brown, of the same place, afterwards Gen. Brown, now of Cleveland, O., who subsequently played a prominent part in the atfairs of the Territory and State, both civil and military, and who still survives in a hale and green old age, to see and rejoice over the wonderful de^•ek^]1ment and advance in all the elements of prosperity and greatness of this new county and common- wealth, in which, while yet in the uid^roken solitude c>f its wilderness he made his home, and to the development and growth of which he devoted the prime of his manhood, and in no small degree contributed. Mr. Evans returned in the spring of 1824, with Mr. Brown and some ten or twelve others, coming from Butfalo in a schooner, and landing at Detroit, whei'e for the time being he left his family. From thence with packs on their backs containing provisions and such necessaries as were required for their joiirney, they made their way on foot through the forest to the place previously selected by Evans, where the village of Tecumseh now stands. In his first visit to the territory, the fall previous, Evans had met with Austin E. Wing, of Monroe, who had been for several years a resident of the territory — a man of intelligence and influence, who afterwards for several years represented the territory of Michigan in Congress as its delegate. It was through his advice and representations of its advantages, that Evans had his attention turned to the Valley of the Raisin, and especially to the water power at the junction of Evans creek with the Raisin. On the arrival of Evans and Brown, in the spring of lS2i, a co-partner- ship was formed between these three. Wing, Evans and Brown, and they be- came jointly interested in the enterprise of founding a village, and improving the water power at the point before mentioned. In anticipation of this, and before the return of Evans, Wing had taken up at the Land office, at De- troit, the west part of section 21, and the east part of section 28, which in- cluded the water power in that portion of Tecumseh now known as Browns- ville; and subsecjuentl}' after the arrival of Evans and Brown, they took up the north half of section 34, of the same townshiji. 8 HISTORICAL ORATION. On the 2d uf June of that year (is^^K Evans, having, in tlie meantime l.u.lt a rude log house upon tlie premises, the roof and tier ..f which were made of bark stripped oft" tlie neighboring trees, brought his family, consist- ing of a wife and fiye children, with a man named Peter Benson and his wife who were in his employ, from Detroit, and took possession of this lo<. In.t. These two were the first white women, and this family the first whit2 inhabitants within the bounds ..f Lenawee county ; and thus" the settlement ot tins large and now populous county was begun. In this first log house, the pioneer of the^omfortable, substantial, and often spacious and elegant dwellings and mansions which iiuw meet the eye oyer the whole county, three families domiciled during tlie winter of ls->j_5 Mr. Eyans, Mr. Brown, each with a family of fiye children, and Mr Geor..e Spattord and wife, and some ten or twehe men in addition, among them m'. E. 1-. i,lood, who was one of those that came in ^vith them, and who took up a lot of land in the neighborhood from the government, to cultivate as a farm, and who continues to reside on the same to this day. Indians were numerous, often visiting and supplying 'them with berries and the products of the chase, but not a white neighbor nearer than Mon- roe, 33 miles, or a family or two on the Raisin, a few miles abo\e Jklonroe The Indians, mostly of the Pottawatomie tribe, though at times objects of apprehension and fear, especially to the women and children, proved friendly and gave little trouble. _ Here these three families, all accustomed to the comforts, luxuries and re- finements of civilization and wealth, spent together a not unhappy or cheer- less winter. The weather was mild, and shut out though they were from the rest of the world, a wilderness almost pathless lying between" them and Mon- roe, the nearest settlement tu ^yhich they could look for supplies or assist- ance, an.l surrunuded by bands of wild Indians, to whose character for treachery and fer.H-ity, though then ap))arently friendly, these settlers were no strangers— yet there was much in the wild and romantic beauty of the native forest, in the novelty and excitement <.f the strange life tliey Avere living, and in the bright hopes of the future, which buoyed them up amidst the privations and tlie hardships incident to such circumstances ; and thus these stout hearted and resolute men, and these not less courageous and no- ble women remaine.i. abandoning the comforts and luxuries of their former homes, and giving themselves to the new enterprise in which they had en- listed, laid the f.-undations of civilized society and Cliristian iiistituti„ns in this wilderness ..f Southern Michigan. HISTORICAL ORATION. 9 A short extract from a letter written about this time by Mr. Evans (who, b}' the way, was of the same relictions faith with Wm. Penn), to Mr. Brown, who had then returned to Brownville for his family, dated Tecumseh, Sth mo., Sth, 1824, will serve to give us a sample of the shifts and devices to which these first settlers were often compelled to resort. The letter, after acknowledging the receipt that morning of Brown's letter of the 6th ult., one month after the date, says, among other things : " The articles thee mentions will all be good here, particularly the stove, as it takes some time always in a new place to get ovens and chimneys convenient for cooking. We have neither, yet, and no other way of baking for twenty people but in a bake-kettle and the fire out at the door." Immediately after getting upon the ground, this company, Wing, Evans & Brown, commenced the erection of a saw mill, which they built and put in operation in the fall of 1824, the first saw mill in the county, and an insti- tution of the highest necessity and value to the infant settlement. To raise the frame of this mill they were obliged to go to Monroe for as- sistance, and brought from there some forty men. During the summer of 1824, a plat of the village was laid out by the pro- prietors. Wing, Evans & Brown, and called Tecumseh, after the name of the fierce chieftain, who, though the home of his tribe was far away on the banks of the Sciota, in southern Ohio, it is said had often with his dusky Shawanees visited this locality and made his camping ground in its imme- diate vicinity ; and thenceforth the new town, though it did as yet consist of a single log house, had not only an existence but a name. During the same season a post-oflice was established here, and Mr. Evans was the first postmaster. Thus the time for a letter by due course of mail, between Brownville, New York, and Tecumseh, at that time was one month, and the postage twenty- fiye cents. (In the fall of the next year, 1825, the first crop of wheat raised in the county was sown by Mr. Jesse Osborn, on a lot taken up Ijy him near the \nllage plat, and a little north of the present residence of Judge Stacy, and was harvested the next summer, in time to be ground on the fourth of July, at the new grist mill just then erected, and which we shall notice more fully presently, and from the flour of which cake and biscuit were made by Mrs. Brown for the dinner at the celebration that day. This first crop of wheat was a success. It ripened early and was quite satisfactory, both in quality In HISTORICAL ORATION. and quantity, and proved the soil and climate well adapted to this impor- tant cereal. Having thus established the first town in the county, this enterprising firm of Ving. Evans ct Brown, took measures to get the county seat estab- lished there. A petition was sent to the Territorial Governor, Gen. Cass, who appointed commissioners to examine, select and report a location for the same. These commissioners located it at Tecumseh, upon the land of this firm, the northwest quarter of section thirty-four, and upon their report the same was established as the county seat, by an Act of the Legislative coun- cil, approved June 30, 1824. A somewhat amusing incident, attending this location, is related in one of the old letters I have seen. When the commissioners fixed upon the site and stuck the stake to mark the place for the Court House, the company present, among whom was Mr. Wing, swung their hats and gave three lusty cheers. Mr. Wing, in the ardor of his enthusiasm, swung his hat with such emphasis and force that at the last whirl it flew several rods away, leaving in his hand a piece of the brim about the size of a dollar. The writer of the letter adds that it was an old hat, and probably a little cracked in the brim. These proprietors and the citizens of Tecumseh, were naturally much elated, and expected great things for their new town from the location there of the county seat — expectations which, however, were destined to be but par- tially realized, as in the progress of events, it was, after the lapse of a few years, removed to Adrian. Up to the time of which we have been speaking, the county of Lenawee had not been organized. It was attached to and constituted a part of the county of Monroe. It received an independent organization by an act of the Legislative Council, apjmived December 20, 1S26, and was of ample territo- rial limits, having attached to it and made a part of it, for the time being, all the country within the Terrrtorv. to which the Indian title was extin- guished at the treaty of Chicago, before mentioned, its western boundary be- ing mostly Lake Michigan, and its northern Grand River, from its source to its mouth. The name Lenawee is a Shawanee woi-d, meaning Indian. In the appointment of officers for the new county, Joseph W. Brown was commissioned by Gov. Cass as Chief Justice of the county court, a position which, however, he soon resigned, and was succeeded b>- Stillman Blanchard. HISTORICAL ORATION. 11 wlio has deceased at Tecuniseh within the hist year. James Patchin was the first sherifi" — all of Tecuiaseh. The first townships organized in the county were three, Tecumseh, Logan, and Blissfield. They were organized by an act of the Legislative Council, appro\-ed A]iril 12, 1827, and embraced the whole of the present county ; Tecumseh at the north, Logan in the middle, and Blissfield at the south, each extending across the entire county from east to west. The three families first mentioned did not long remain the only families in the settlement. The track being opened, they were soon followed by oth- ers, and their village soon became a village in fact, and not a mere paper towni, and the log house was succeeded by more substantial and comfortable dwellings, and here and there in its vicinity, a sturdy pioneer, attracted by the richness of the soil and manifold advantages for agriculture, had taken up a lot for that purpose, and commenced clearing the same for a farm. In 1836, this company, AVing, Evans & Brown, built a grist mill on their site upon the Raisin, the first in the county, and a great acquisition to the new settlement, much needed and highly prized. It contained but a single i-un of stones, but sufiiced for grinding for all the inhal)itants of the county for several years. The dam raised, and the frame of the mill up, it remained to sup]>ly the stones. How this was to be done, was a problem not easy of solution. To procure and transport a pair of French burr mill stones from the far East, and through the forest from Monroe, or Detroit, to Tecumseh, in the condi- tion the roads were in at that time, would be a heavy expense, and a work of no small difficulty. But these proprietors were not to be baflied. A large stone, a rock of granite, was found lying upon the ground, a mile or two from the mill, broken into two unequal pieces by the tailing of a tree ujjon it. By the aid of a practical miller, Sylvester Blackmar, this stone was prepared, and made to answer the desired jjurpose, the smaller fragment serving as the upper stone, and the larger as the lower, and answering the purpose very well for several years, and until better ones could be procured. On the -ith of July of this year, 1826, the inhabitants, with no less pat- riotism in their hearts here in the wilds of Michigan than in older portions of the country, turned out en masse and held at Tecuniseh the first formal celebration of the day that the county had known — ^^just fifty years ago to- day. In 1S2S, an organization of the militia took place in the county, under the order v\' Gov. Cass, and Joseph W. Bmwn, afterward (4t'n. Brown, was \ \ 12 HISTORICAL ORATION. commissioned as Colonel of the reffiinent then formed, bein* the eighth ree- inient uf the Territorial militia. Thus this new settlement and new town in the wilderness, and the enter- prise of its first proprietors, moved on and prospered, and bade fair to real- ize in full their hopes and expectations. But the time had now come when Tecuniseh alone was no longer Lena- wee county, and was no longer to enjoy a monopoly of its political, social and commercial advantages. A formidable competitor was just starting in the race, destined to rival and ultimately to outstrip her. In the summer of 1S25, Addison J. Comstock, then a young man. with Darius Comstock, his father, of Xiagara county, New York, came into the Territory with a view of seeking a location. The elder Comstock selected and purchased from the Government a tract in the present townsliip of Rai- sin, at the place kno\vii as the Valley, midway between Tecumseh and Adrian. Tlie younger Comstock, in September of that year, purchased and received a patent from the Government for 480 acres of land, on which he subsequently laid out and platted the village of Adrian, and. comprising the larger portion of the present city of Adrian. This was near, though a little east of the geographical center of the county — that is of the county of Lenawee proper, according to its present boundaries. Mr. Comstock returning to Xew York, was married during the following winter to Miss Sarah S. Dean, a daughter of Isaac Dean, of Plielps, Ontario Co., X. Y. In the spring of 1826 he returned with his bride to take permanent pos- session of his new purchase, and make a home in the wilderness, as it then was. Mr. John Gift'ord. a man in the employ of Mr. Comstock. with his wife, came witli them. Two log houses, one for each family, were speedily put up by them, into which they moved in August of that year, Mr. Gilford oc- cupying his tii-st by a few days ; and these two women being the first white female residents of Adrian. Mr. Comstock's house was in the oak grove, on the bank of the river, where Mrs. Chloe Jones now lives, and Mr. Giflbrd's was in the immediate vicinity. Mrs. Giilbrd is still living, or was recently, in St. Joseph Co., in this State. The other three of these first inhabitants of Adrian are all sleeping beneath its soil. During the same year Mr. Com- stock erected a saw mill on the Raisin, near liis residence, and completed it in November. 1S2H. being the second saw mill in the county. Tlie whole population of the south half of the county at this time consisted of seven families, but it si>eedily increased by immigration. Ills TOE ICAL OHATION. 13 The county lieing organized in IS'26, as before noticed, the first township election for the township of Loo-an. in wliich Adrian was situated, was held at the house of Darius Conistock, in the Valley, on May 28, 1S27, at which Darius Conistock was elected Supervisor, and Addison J. Corastock township clerk. A letter written by Gen. Brown at this time, bearing date January l-tth, 1827, says : " The Legislative Council have organized three new counties, this winter, and in none of them was there a white inhabitant in the year 1823, and in ours not till June, 1824. This is the youngest and smallest of the three, and we liave more than Cm inhaliitants." The other two counties referred to in this letter were Washtenaw and Chippewa. During this year, 1827, the first frame dwelling house was erected by Dr. Caleb N. Orrasby, the first physician in Adrian. Did time permit it would be pleasant to take some notice of others of the earlier settlers in Adrian, Noah Norton, James Whitney, the father of two of our well-known citizens of to-day, Elias Dennis and others. But we must forbear, only noticing a few of the more prominent facts and incidents in the history of this early time. The original plat of the ^^llage of Adrian was laid out by A. J. Corn- stock, and i-ecorded in the Eegister's office on April 1. 1828. Unlike the inflated paper cities so common in that day, it was modest in its propor- tions and pretensions — consisting only of two sti-eets, equal in length, and crossing at right angles : Maumee, extending from the lot where the Gibson House now stands, as far east as the present residence of Wm. A. Whitney and the Presbyterian church, and Main, and forty-nine lots in all. From this it may be inferred that the proprietor at that time had little antic- ipation of what his new-founded village was destined to become in the not distant future. The same year, 1828, a post-office was established here, with A. J. Corn- stock as postmaster. The following somewhat amusing account given by Mr. Comstock, and which I take from a document prepared by him, and depos- ited iinder the corner stone of the old Union school house, will serve to show something of the condition of things in that early day. He says : "The same year a post-office was established in Adrian, A. J. Comstock, P. M. The conditions of establishing the office were that the contractor should take the net revenue of the office for transporting the mail from Adrian to Monroe. The whole receipts of the first quarter, ending March 31, 1829, was $S.60f. The net revenue to the contractor, after paving expenses of of- (4) U BIS TOXICAL ORATION. lice, IHiJ cents. It sbuukl be remarked that tlie carrying of the mail was not expensive, as the postmaster took advantage of the ox teams that made reg- ular trips to Monroe, and so obtained the mail about every week, as a trip to Monroe and back could be performed in aliout live days when they had good luck." But lack of time compels me to pass rajiidly over the history of that early day and the interesting incidents connected with it. The question of the removal of the county seat from Tecumseh to Adrian began very early to Ije agitated, being strongly urged by Mr. Comstock and the citizens of Adrian. Tecumseh had secured its first location before Adrian had an existence, and a court house and jail (the latter of logs), had been built there. All the county offices were there, and the political infiuence of the county centered there, and the larger portion of the population was in and around that town. But immigration began to find its way into the cen- tral and southern portions. In the township of Blissfield a settlement had been begun even earlier than in xldrian, Hervey Bliss having moved in there with his family in December, lS:i4, followed the next year and the year fol- lowing by several other families. From the first settlement of Adrian this question of the county seat be- came a matter of contention and strife between the neighboring towns — au unhap])y controversy, engendering bitter feelings at the time, kept up for a series of years, and terminating not until 1836, when bj' an Act of the Leg- islature, under the new- State government, it was removed to Adrian, and the question was put at rest. The removal by the terms of the Act was not to take ettect. however, until the first Monday of Xovember, 1S3S. The defeat that Tecumseh sufl^'ered in this was not owing to an}- lack of eilbrt pr lack of ability on the part its leading men. A high degree of liotli was abundantl}' manifest in the conduct of the controversy. They only yielded to the inevitable. It was the advantage of position alone which secured the victory to its rival. Adrian being central, while Tecumseh was tar to the north and east of the centre, it was not difiicult to see from the first that the removal was only a question of time. It was nut until ls:>S, when a jail having been built at Adrian, the courts, which U]) to that time, in pursuance of the Act, had been held in Tecumseh, commenced to hold theii' sessions at Adrian, and the removal was complete. The new court house was Ituilt at Adrian the next year, 1S39, on the lot adjoining the jail Int. on land donated for that ])uri)ose by Mr. Comstock, HISTORICAL ORATION. 15 on the east side nf Clinton street. This renio\-al coiitrihuted n(.it a little to the growth and prosjieritv of Adrian. But to go back again to earlier times. The publication of the Lenawee Eepiiblican and Adrian Gazette, the first newspaper in the county, was com- menced in October, 1834, bj E. AV. Ingals, who still resides here. This pa- per was neutral in ]3olitics, but after a few months was changed to the Adrian Watchtower, Democratic, and as such, its publicatit)n was continued until 1865, for many years as a weekly, and afterwards both weekly and daily — Mr. Ingals retaining his connection with it until near the close. An enterprise second to no other in its importance and effect upon the earh' growth and development of Adrian and the country about it, extending far into the interior and western portion of the State, was the Erie & Kala- mazoo railroatl, projected and built at a very early day from ^Vdrian to To- ledo, then Port Lawrence. The importance of this work, and the magnitude of the umlertaking, con- sidering the time and circumstances nnder which it was undertaken, have been by few fully appreciated. It was undertaken and accomplished Ijy a few men of moderate means at Adrian and Port Lawrence, l)0th then new settlements, at a time when there not only was not a railroad in Michigan, but none west of Lake Erie — nay, not one, or but one, in all New England, or (west of Schenectady), in New York. They were at that time a new thing, but recently introduced into this country. There was the road between Al- bany and Schenectady, the lirst link in the chain of the present New York Central, and run by stationary engines and liorse poAver, and there were short roads in some portions of Pennsylvania. But in all the west such a thing as a railroad was unknowji. Necessity was no doubt the mother of the enterprise. The new and grow- ing village of Adrian and all the new settlements in tiie county wei-e sepa- rated and cut off from communication with the older portions of the coun- try, except by a track cut through a dense forest, and much of the time al- most impassable, even with oxen, to Monroe, thirty miles, or a like road and distance to Port Lawrence, or the longer route to Deti-oit. Port Law- rence was situated upon the navigable waters connected with Lake Erie, and when that was i-eached there was ready access to the rest of the world. Te- cmnseh, then or soon after, had its La Plaisance Bay turnjiike, opened l)y the general government, and constituting a good highway to the lake at Monroe. Adrian, unaided by the government, conceived the idea of a rail- road, to be built by private enterprise, which sliuuld open easy connnnnica- It; HISTORICAL ORATION. til HI with navigable waters; and the outside world. A few men at Adrian and its vicinit}', anionic whom maj' be named Darins Ctmistock, Addison J. Comstock, George Crane, E. C. "Winter, Caleb N. Ornisbj and Joseph Gib- bon, together with a few at Port Lawrence, entered actively into tliis enter- prise and carried it snccessfully through, in the face of dithculties and dis- couragements that similar enterpi'ises rarely have had to contend with. A cliarter for the road was obtained from the Legislative Council of Michigan, in April, 1833. authorizing the construction of a railroad from Poi-t Law- rence to Adrian, and thence to such point on the Kalamazoo river as the coni]>any might select, the original project being to make the Kalamazoo the ultimate terminus, though that portion of the route west of Adrian was sub- sequently abandoned. Books of subscription for the stock were opened at Adrian, in March, 1834, and the amount required to organize the company, being §50.000, the whole capital, by the terms of the Act, being §1,000,000, was soon subscribed, and the company was fullj' orgauized in May of that year, and immediately entered upon the work. It was not at first contem])lated to run locomotives ujion the road, but it was constructed with wooden rails, with a view to run by horse power, and for a time it was so run. It was finished so that the cars commenced ruu- nintr between Port Lawrence and Adrian in 1S36. It continued to run bv horse power nntil June of 1837, when the wooden rail gave place to an iron strap rail, and the horses were superseded by a locomotive. The opening of this i-oad formed a new era. It accomplished all and more than was anticipated from it b}^ its enterprising projectors, and gave a new impetus to the growth and prosperity t)f Adrian, and the settlement and development of the surrounding country — drawing to it for shipment the grain and produce, and attracting the trade, of a wide extent of country', northward and westward and soutliward — for a time, especially westward and southward, e\en beyond the limits of the State, though this, of course, has since been greatly restricted by the opening of other roads :ui