Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections, 19:324-327

Lansing, Michigan: Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society, 1896

 

                  

ANNUAL MEETING, 1896.

SKETCH OF THE SETTLEMENT AND GROWTH OF ISABELLA

COUNTY.

BY J. E. DAY

     The county of Isabella was named after the celebrated patroness of Columbus, and was separated from contiguous territory by legislative act, dated March 2, 1831, but was not separately organized until twenty-eight years later, March 11, 1859. In the year l854, entries at the Land Office were made under what was known as the "graduation act," by eight or ten settlers, at the price of 50 cents per acre. These persons very soon began to clear and improve the land so purchased, and one at least (P. H. Estee), still resides on the original plat. The first high-way into the county was from the south, by way of Gratiot county, which boasted of the villages of St. Louis and Alma, each of which at that time consisted of two houses and families. This road was opened in November, 1854, and made just barely passable that winter, so that three families, viz., Joseph and Thomas Roberts and Patrick Fanning, moved in and have the honor of  being the first permanent settlers. Later in the same fall the road was pushed on west and in February, 1855, John M. Hursh settled on a farm just south of where the city of Mt. Pleasant now stands, and thus formed an opening in the forest near the central portion of the county. Almost simultaneously, John M. Frazer and one or two others had crossed the Tittabawassee river and cut a road along the Pine river to the old Indian Mission, a little northwest of the present city, and met the newcomers from the south. It would be profitless and tiresome to recount the hardships and trials of these pioneers, for they were not different from the hardships and trials which attended the settlements of other counties. Most were poor and found that after payment on the land was made, and the expense of the transit was met, little was left in the wallet, and opportunities for replenishing it were not numerous.

     The nearest mill, store and post office, were 45 miles, so the settlers ground their corn in the hand mill or pounded it in the stump mortar, went without store goods and                                        got their letters when they could. Game was plenty and easy to obtain, so they need not want for meat.

     In 1855, a treaty was made by the government with the remnants of several tribes of Indians, mostly Chippewa, who were scattered throughout Clinton, Saginaw and Gratiot counties, and nearly all of six townships of land were ceded to them for life.   The remaining land of the county was then withdrawn from market and no sales were made until 1863.  The placing of these Indians on the reservation made it necessary that something be done by the government to maintain them so the “Indian Mills” were soon built, upon the Chippewa River, and a nucleus made for a cluster of houses, since known as “Isabella City”.  The machinery and fixtures for the mills, also much of the merchandise needed at the hamlet, were brought up the Chippewa River by canoe or raft, or rather by two of them fastened together and decked over and poled up the stream against the current.  The saw mill and flouring mill was a needed blessing to the white man as well as the Indian, and for a time business seemed to settle there.  But other causes were in motion, which soon turned the business current into other channels.  The Indians on the reservation numbered at first 1,600, but in 1876 had been reduced to about 600, and at the present time scarcely number 300, aside from those connected with the Indian school.  “She-mo-ko-man” trickery and “She-mo-ko-man” whisky were elements in the process of civilization with which the Indian could not successfully contend.  They were divided by the agent or commissioner into two classes, called “competent” and “not so competent”, those of the first class being at once initiated into the mysteries of full citizenship, including the power to sell or mortgage the portion of land which had been the gift of the government, and to be outwitted and defrauded by the white at his will.  Those of the second class could not alienate their claims without consent of the commissioner, and as a result those of the less class were the longest stayers.  A characteristic of the Indian nature is to have little care, and to make no provision for the future.  So if one gave a mortgage upon his freehold, he made no plan to pay it, but when it became due he gave it up to some speculator and took in place of it a “wild forty” farther back, where the same process would be repeated.  Often some speculator would agree with an Indian who had not been granted his allotment, to make his selection and sell to the speculator at a nominal sum, perhaps not a tenth of its value; sometimes, too, by a convenient change of Indian names, the same party could select land more than once, to the benefit of a waiting white.  Their land was good and with proper treatment would yield ample returns for labor bestowed upon it, but few made any success in agriculture and most of the reservation is now owned by whites.

     The first court house was located at the center of the county, some eight or ten miles northwest from the present location, where a company of men, Jeffries, Isbell & Lee, had located some land upon four corners of contiguous sections, and tried to work up a boom for the county seat but failed.  

     The present site was selected in May, 1860, and the first court house was built by W. H. Nelson at a cost of $141.00. The legal business of the county was not large and the record of court proceedings for the first decade, would scarcely cover a dozen foolscap (13 ½ by 17 inches, this is a British term for legal paper) pages. Up to January, 1864, the county held but one lawyer and he was more disposed, to settle cases than to make himself business. The business of the term of that date consisted in the granting of a divorce to an Indian, and the admission of a young lawyer  to practice in the courts. Hon. J. G. Sutherland was judge, and which of these acts was of greater importance still remains ,in open question, but results may help to decide. The Indian has disappeared from view, while Hon. I.A. Francher, after thirty-two years of honorable practices is still “doing business at the old   stand."

     The first suit in the county was about some sap-troughs, in which the sum of $4 was involved. The first money paid into the county does not reflect  credit upon those early inhabitants, as it was one dollar for assault and battery. The first marriage was that of Daniel Robinson and Jane Foutch, by W. H. Stewart, and the latter was paid in coon skins, but at what rate we are not told. The crops of 1858-9 were a failure on account of frosts, and many of the people were reduced to desperate straits to keep the "wolf from the door," so one of the first acts of the county was to issue bonds to the amount of fifteen hundred dollars, to be loaned in such amounts as were necessary to those most needing it. These bonds were to be negotiated by William R. Robbins, agent, at a rate of not less than 75 cents on the dollar, and by his report it seems that $500 were so used and the balance returned to the county. During these early days the people depended largely upon the production of maple sugar to furnish means to purchase some of the needed things of common life. In the spring of 1860, four men loaded the product of their spring's work, consisting of eight hundred pounds of maple sugar in a canoe, and started for Saginaw. The load was heavy and they had not gone very far when. the boat ran upon a log lying below the surface of tile water and capsized, and all the sugar was lost. To the same man, in after years, the loss would have been trifling, but  at this time it represented not only the loss of days and weeks of hard labor, but the loss of prospective comfort for months to come.  Only one man went on, for only he had anything wherewith to make purchases, and he – Mr. Frazer – to his credit be it told, helped his neighbors in dire strait to which

the accident had brought them.  H.O. Bigelow, of Shepherd, one of the early blacksmiths, performed the feat of shoeing a yoke of oxen; making the nails out of the backs of old scythes, and the shoes out of  two old axes. Pages of such incidents might be written, but they belong to local history and would be of little interest to the State society.

     In 1891 measures were set on foot looking, to the establishment of an Indian industrial school, on or near the  reservation, a bill was introduced in congress and in due time became a law establishing such a school. A fine tract of land comprising 320 acres in sight of the court house, and a splendid school building erected, together with farm and other buildings, suitable to the needs of such an institution. Appropriations have been made from time to time amounting to eighty-five thousand dollars, and additional buildings are now being erected. The school consists, of 150 pupils of both sexes, and a corps of educational and industrial tutors. The government appropriates $167 to the main- tenance of each pupil one year. The proceeds of the farm are deducted pro rata from this amount.

     Altogether it is one of the attractions of the young city and presents a fine appearance.

     Almost simultaneously efforts were put forth by our citizens to establish a normal school  which should be managed by the State, and known as the "Central Normal School of Michigan." A site was procured and building erected at a cost of about $35,000 and a school equipped and started, and then offered to the State as a free gift if the State would assume and maintain the school as a normal institution, on a par with other schools of a like character. By an act of legislature of 1895 the school was accepted by the State and is now a fully fledged normal school.

     Mt. Pleasant, the county seat, naturally prides herself on these two accessions to her educational endowment; but aside from these the city has $40,000 worth of school edifices, and a court house and sheriff's residence, fine churches and business blocks         together with electric lights, and a fine system of water works and electric fire alarm, all of which compare favorably with any city of its population and age in the State. The county of Isabella comprises sixteen townships, mostly all of excellent land and nearly all in cultivated farms. The southern portion was settled by people from -New York and Ohio. The western, from Ohio, the Northern largely from Canada, and the northwestern front Clinton county, being mostly Germans. We have a fertile county and a prosperous and worthy people.