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Sebewa Recollector
THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR,
ANNUAL MEETING
The Annual Meeting of The Sebewa Center Association was held on schedule in June
with a bounteous potluck dinner. A
program of singing led by Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Speas and slides depicting
activities of the community in earlier times provided the entertainment.
At the business meeting, Henry Smith, R 2, Lake Odessa Mi 48849 was
elected secretary-treasurer for a three-year term and LaVern Carr was elected as
a trustee for three years.
The list of officers for the 1974-75 year is as follows:
President
John York
Vice President
Wesley Meyers
Secretary-Treasurer
Henry Smith
Trustees
Mrs. Ilene Carr, LaVern Carr, Robert W. Gierman (retiring president)
PROGRESS WITH THE DITCH
The cleaning of the Sebewa drainage ditches has been started.
Contracts for the job went to the lowest bidders, two local men—Larry
Daniels and Keith Warner, whose respective low bids for different parts of the
system were in the range of $12.00 per rd.
DEATHS.
Deaths in the area since our last report have been those of Walter Warner,
Herbert Seybold, Mrs. Gladah (Oliver, Blivens, and Mrs. Allyn (Florence)
Goodemoot.
YEAR OF THE RABBIT
1974 may be remembered as the year of the rabbit.
Whatever it takes to bring forth a large rabbit population seems to have
been in operation this year. Rabbit
hunters should be pleased with the prospects for a fall hunting season.
CENSUS. In case we overdosed you
with the 1880 census statistics last issue, only four pages are presented here
with the balance to come later. If
you keep those bulletins in order, it may be more satisfactory to unstaple and
place these later census names with the first group.
GROWTH (PROGRESS?) CATCHES UP WITH SEBEWA
By Grayden Slowins, Township Clerk
For the first
time since Sebewa was organized as a separate township by Act. No. 42 of the
Michigan Legislature in the year 1845, the registered electors of this township
will vote in two precincts beginning August 6.
The first town
meeting and elections was held in the home of Jacob Showerman and other
locations were used down through the years until the Town Hall was built in 1899
and that has been used ever since.
Even when the population numbered 1600 in the 1880’s no one deemed it necessary
to divide the load between two buildings.
Although the most distant resident would have had to travel six miles on
foot or horseback, no one considered it a hardship, but rather a solemn duty and
honor to cast his vote at elections.
Distance is no
longer a factor, but because someone might have to stand too long in line, the
State has ruled that not over 400 voters may be served by one paper-ballot
precinct. So, beginning August 6,
1974, all voters living on the north side of Bippley Road will be in Precinct #2
and will vote in the old Sebewa Center Schoolhouse.
All of those people should have received
a pink I.D. Postcard informing them of this new precinct.
Everyone south of Bippley Road will continue to vote in Precinct #1 at
the Town Hall. (Editor’s note:
Without women’s sufferage 1600 people may not have taxed the election
facilities of one precinct.)
THE DEATH OF MRS. FULLER
In the early
days of our local history, before funeral homes, embalming, qualified coroners
and doctors were common, there sometimes was uncertainty about the actuality of
death. Locally Samuel Severance,
who lived on Kimmel Road in section 17, Sebewa, was called in to prepare a body
for burial. One part of that ritual
was placing pennies on the eyelids to assure they would remain closed at the
time of the funeral. Stories
persist of failure to detect signs of life at the time of presumed death and
signs of struggle at a later disinterment.
Usually the story was embellished with the retelling.
From the
PORTLAND OBSERVER of November 23, 1869 is one such story that may have accounted
for some of the hair raising tales a generation or two later.
Here is the newspaper account:
About three weeks ago, Mrs. Fuller, wife of Dr. E. P. Fuller, living
about two miles west of this village (Portland) was suddenly taken ill by
violent purging and vomited while taking in an armful of wood from near the
door. The attack was so sudden and
severe that it was with difficulty that she reached the door.
The illness was followed, we understand, by what the doctor called and
treated as spinal meningitis or inflammation of the spine.
She, however,
recovered so far that her husband, the doctor, left home on Friday, the 4th
inst., for the north part of Montcalm County to be absent several days.
Mrs. Fuller’s convalescence continued Friday and Saturday, she retiring
to rest at an early hour on Saturday evening and slept well until about 11 PM,
at which time she drank some nervine tea administered by a sister.
At three o’clock on Sunday morning she arose and almost immediately
complained of severe pain in her back and fell and instantly expired.
The neighbors came in
with their kind offers of assistance and the corpse was laid out and arrayed in
the cerements of the grave. Dr.
Fuller was sent for on Sunday morning and arrived as soon as possible on
Tuesday. The corpse did not,
however, wear the appearance of death but rather of one taking rest in sleep.
A physician called on Sunday afternoon and found the lips of the corpse
of a healthy color, ears of bright red and the body still warm though placed in
a room where there was no fire.
There did not appear to be any stiffness of the limbs while the pupil of the eye
was full and bright and the whole countenance wore the appearance of quiet sleep
rather than that of one from whose clayey tenement whose spirit has passed away
forever.
On Monday
forenoon two physicians saw the corpse, which still retained its remarkable
appearance and on that afternoon they called into requisition the use of a
galvanic battery, which produced some softening and a pliability of the muscles.
The lips, ears and eyes appeared as before and as bright as in life.
A pressure on the ear would cause the blood to recede to immediately
return on the removal of the pressure.
A pressure on the external juglar vein would also produce the same result
almost as quick as in life. On
holding the hand near the light there was that transparent appearance of the
nails, which by the Paris College of Medicine is pronounced an infalliable
presence of life.
Dr. Fuller returned on
Tuesday and on Wednesday at two PM the funeral was held at the M. E. Church at
which time so strong was the doubt expressed by the people who attended
consequent on the appearance of the corpse that as the subject was talked over
in the evening, it was thought by many to be an absolute duty to make a further
examination and if possible to call into activity the dormant energies of the
buried one.
Several physicians
present coinciding with this view, a written statement with a request with an
order for exhumation was presented to a Justice of the Peace, who issued the
required order and the grave was opened about nine o’clock of the evening of the
day of the burial and the coffin with its contents was removed to Atchley’s
Hall, which had been prepared for its reception and where it was attended by
physicians who opened the coffin and who, had there been any means possible to
have brought about a resuscitation, would have afforded it.
But the
appearance had changed so materially since the same physician has seen her
Monday, that now there was little doubt that death had occurred.
When exhumation was decided on, there was no opportunity to inform Dr.
Fuller what was intended as he lives two miles distant and it was thought of
pressing importance to lose no time in ascertaining the fact of existence of
life. He was, however, notified the
next morning of the steps taken and was present until the final burial on that
day after the physicians and others cognizant of the facts, had, by the process
of decomposition, become certain of the hopelessness of any further efforts to
restore life.
We understand
that Dr. Fuller expressed his willingness that the examination should be had and
the excitement allayed, only regretting that he was not present when the coffin
was disinterred.
IT HAS BEEN SAID BEFORE
From the LAKE ODESSA WAVE of 1891:
It seems funny
there is a class of beings who, when for something you have said in your paper
that slightly displeases them, immediately stop their paper, at once get the
hallucination in their minds that they have broken a bed slat in your
prosperity, wounded your feelings to such an extent that you are no longer fit
for business; they borrow their neighbor’s paper and scan the columns to see if
they find any notice of the burial of your feelings and at the same time read
the rest of the news and finally when they get in such a habit of borrowing
their neighbor’s paper that it becomes such a nuisance that all the neighbors
shut down on it they come and say they guessed they will sign for it again.
August 12, 1915 mild
mannered Frank Merrit put his problem this way:
The publisher will deem it a great favor if subscribers will consult the
label on their paper and determine whether they are in the arrears.
Those who find themselves owing for the SENTINEL will be doing the
publisher a great kindness if they will send or bring their remittances to this
office without making it necessary to mail statements.
Mr. Griswold of
THE PORTLAND OBSERVER said plainly that it is:
A SERIOUS MATTER. July 13,
1922.
This week we
have been sending out annual statements to our subscribers and are surprised at
the amount of money a publisher of a weekly paper can keep tied up in his
subscription list. In a majority of
cases the amount is not large but the several hundred, who are in arrears totals
up to a mighty nice sum. This is
money we need in our business and sincerely hope that our patrons will take the
matter seriously and respond with these three beautiful words, “enclosed find
check”. It will take several days
yet to go over our entire list so if you are one of those who have not yet
received a statement, it will not be necessary to wait but just look at the date
on the label of your paper and figure it out for yourself and save us the
expense and trouble of the notices.
We can assure our subscribers it will be appreciated.
CURRENTLY we
have from THE LAKE ODESSA WAVE this NOTICE:
Due to the increase in postage, our subscribers will receive only one
notice in regards to their subscription renewal.
Subscriptions will be discontinued 2 weeks after renewal notice is sent
out.
ALL OF WHICH
BRINGS US TO OUR OWN LITTLE STORY SUNG TO MUCH THE SAME TUNE.
Last year we had 360 paid memberships in THE SEBEWA CENTER ASSOCIATION
and it is to those members THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR is mailed.
Our fiscal year runs from June to June.
To date 132 have paid dues for 1974-75.
Everybody knows you cannot spend $1.10 to collect $1.00 and stay solvent.
Thus we are here urging all who have not paid the 1974-75 $1.00 per
person dues to send them promptly to our new treasurer, Mr. Henry Smith, R 2,
Lake Odesssa, MI 48849 without any further tickling in these pages.
Our thanks for reading the commercial.
Back issues of THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR are available at the rate of $1 per year
or $9.00 for the total publication of the past nine years.
SUNFIELD TOWNSHIP 1842-1874 By Edith M. Berg, Sunfield Historian
Sunfield Historical Society Print
Reading the
names in the Sunfield telephone book today is almost like calling the roll of
our early settlers: Barnum, Bishop,
Bosworth, Burns, Dow, Figg, Hager, Knapp, Smith, VanHouten, Welch and many more.
Still others are related to pioneers who bore the names of Chatfield,
Brown, Dilley and others. The list
is endless. First names such as
Ezekiel, Josiah, Abram, Ezra, Willis and Cornelius have given way to more modern
names like Jakc, Max, Gary, Brad, Ron, Roy and Bob, but families remain
essentially much as they were 132 years ago.
The story of
Sunfield has been documented briefly by various historians who included it in
histories of Eaton County. Our
library has these works, and many of you may have read them.
So, except for a few pertinent repetitions, you might be interested in
learning some of the lesser known things about Sunfield.
An act of the
State Legislature, passed February 15, 1842, divided Vermontville Township to
create a new township, named Sunfield.
The boundaries were surveyed by Lucius Lyon, and the sections by Orange
Risdon. After the organizational
meeting held April 4, 1842, the officers met with those of Vermontville to
divide the assets and liabilities they had mutually owned when they were all one
township. Among items to be divided
were such things as ballot boxes, (Vermontville 3, Sunfield 2), books and paper
for keeping records, and the cash assets.
The funds were largely in the form of state scrip, and notes on various
banks. Many of these banks were
wildcat banks, many of which failed as quickly as had sprung up.
Sunfield was given a note on the Bank of Michigan for $3.00, and one on
the Bank of Allegan for $1.00.
These soon proved worthless, and $204.00 due Sunfield in state road monies, was
slow in being released from the Vermontville treasury.
Sunfield was in dire need of funds, as there was nothing here but
forests, wild animals, and Indians; also somewhat wild!
Therefore, in February 1844 the Supervisor, George Andrews, and the
Treasurer, Edward O. Smith went to Vermontville to examine the records, and to
take whatever steps they deemed necessary to recover the money.
Apparently it ended in a lawsuit, which cost Sunfield about $12.00 in
court and witness fees. I have been
unable to learn the exact outcome of the suit, except that Sunfield did receive
some, if not all of the funds.
I must assume
there was not too much bitterness over this action, because Sunfield and
Vermontville are still on speaking terms.
Although quite a
few of the first settlers were illiterate, they were much concerned that their
children should learn and at the second township meeting on May 7, 1842, the
first order of business was to establish a school district which comprised most
of the area south of Mt. Hope Hwy.
The school was first taught by Mrs. George Andrews in her home on the N.W.
corner of Bismark and Round Lake Roads.
In 1844 a log schoolhouse was built on Round Lake Road, just south of
Bismark Hwy. This was used until
1851, and was called the Andrews School.
A new frame schoolhouse was built on Bismark Hwy in 1851, and with the
settlement of that area, it was renamed the Bismark School.
Early teachers were Catherine Loomis, 1861; Maria Lamb in 1862; and
Phoebe Cooper and Carrie Hyde in 1863.
Education has
always been a prime concern to the people of Sunfield, and by 1871 there were 6
Sunfield school districts and 4 fractional districts with other townships.
The districts were: No. 1,
Bismark School; No. 2 on M 43, Figg; No. 5, St. Joe and Ionia Rds., Hunter; No.
6, St. Joe west of Sunfield Hwy, Hoover.
The fractional districts were:
No. 1, Sunfield and Roxand, Dow School; No. 2, Sunfield and Vermontville,
Brick School in Vermontville Township; No. 3, Sunfield and Woodland, Loomis
School; and No. 4 Sunfield, Roxand and Chester, Prindle School in Chester
Township. Note:
present day road names are used in locating school sites.
The Sunfield
pioneers settled first in the south part of the township.
This was natural as many of them came from Vermontville and other
counties south of us. The first
settler, S. S. Hoyt, built the first house in the township—a log cabin on
section 26, just east of the NE intersection of Brown Rd. and Bismark Hwy., in
1836. If you look there today, you
can still see the lilac bushes and some maple trees he set out.
Later the same year he was followed by Mr. and Mrs. Peter Kinne.
Mr. Kinne ventured farther north, settling on section 21.
His wife died in the winter of that same year and he followed in 1838.
Theirs were the first deaths in the township.
As land was
cleared, more settlers came. From
1845 to 1854 the population doubled; (112-224).
From then on, growth was steady, rising to 1,595 in 1880.
With more people came more problems.
People complained about mud in summer and snow-clogged roads in
winter—much as today! Solving the
problems took money. In 1847 the
total township expenses were $58.44, which was a great deal of money in those
days. About this time the State
began passing laws that affected the local governments, such as the first law
regulating the sale of spirits.
This law stipulated that each township must appoint an agent to purchase liquor
for resale to the inhabitants. It
went into effect on April 7, 1854, and on and after that date everyone had to
buy their “snake bite remedy” from John Dow.
The 1860’s was a
time of great growth, despite the Civil War.
Many issues appeared on local ballots; such as, in April 1863, they voted
to raise bounty money, by taxation, to pay each volunteer $100.00.
In 1866 came the question of financial aid to railroads, and taxes to
erect a courthouse in Charlotte.
The Civil War era was a time of great depression, and the voters were forced to
vote against raising taxes for these things; although when times got better they
did raise their share for those improvements.
The Sunfield
census, taken by John Dow in 1874, is a very interesting document.
This was the State census, and unlike the Federal census, it lists only
males over age 21 by name. Women
and children were merely counted, along with mules, horses, pigs, oxen, cows and
sheep. Indians were not counted at
all! The population was 1,248,
divided as follows: Males 21-45
years, 227; 45-75 years, 97 for a total of 324.
Of these, 66 were single, 247 married and 11 were widowed or divorced.
Males 20-21 years, 154. Of
those 42 were single, 252 married and 33 widowed or divorced.
Females 10-18 years 108; 5-10 years 68 and under 5 years 100.
The men were all
farmers, with the following exceptions:
Granger 1, Carpenters 5, Merchants 6, Cheesemaker 1, Doctors 2, Peddler
1, Blacksmiths 4, Sawmill Owner 1 and Sawyers 3.
1,300,000 feet of lumber was sawed in 1874, 6,487 pounds of wool was
sheared, 45,172 lbs. of pork was marketed.
27,558 lbs of cheese and 55,255 lbs of butter were made.
Grain raised in bushels of apples, 6 bushels of pears, 5 ½ bushels of
plums, 83 bushels of cherries and 102 bushels of currants and gooseberries.
685 pounds of fruit dried for market, and 87 barrels of cider was made.
They made 100,003 pounds of maple syrup, cut 1,462 tons of hay and dug
1,649 bushels of potatoes. These
products represented untold hours of back-breaking labor, as modern farm
machinery was then hardly a dream in the minds of the inventors.
The pioneers of
Sunfield Township were people of physical and moral strength, while they fell
short (of necessity) in some of the refinements and niceties of life, they were
long in the stuff of which men and women are made.
They defied danger and hardship, they labored and raised their families
against almost insurmountable odds; they overcame illiteracy and poverty and
carved out of this wilderness a heritage for their children.
Those who are descended from these pioneers have a background you can be
proud of and a duty to uphold.
This paper was
given by its author, before the Sunfield Historical Society in April 1974.
Probable U. S. CENSUS RECORD, UNDATED:
SHOWERMAN, LUCIUS E. 57, NY NY - ,
LOUISE 38 MI NY NY, Frank
12, MI NY MI, Ezzie 6, MI NY
MI.
GUNN, JOSHUA 43, NY PA NJ, RACHEL
39, MI NY NY, Rosetta 9, MI
NJ MI, Fred J. 6, MI NJ MI, Sherby
3, MI NJ MI, SAYER, Jacob (servant)
21, MI G G, WILSON, Clark
22, PA PA PA, GIERMAN, Charles 26
G G G; Christina, 23, G G G.
SMITH, FRANK C. 41, OH NY NY, ALICE
A. 30, OH VT NY, Cola B.
11, MI OH OH, Allen, Ora 9,
MI OH OH, Maud M. MI OH OH, Claude
E. MI OH OH.
CENSUS. In case we overdosed you with the 1880 census statistics last issue, only four pages are presented here with the balance to come later. If you keep those bulletins in order, it may be more satisfactory to unstaple and place these later census names with the first group. FROM: The Sebewa Recollector, Robert W. Gierman, Editor, R 1, Portland, Michigan 48875
Last update October 20, 2021 |
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