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Oka Town 1806 - 1895 Allegan County Justice of the Peace, First Judge of Probate for Allegan County & Superintendent of the Poor for Allegan County Courtesy of "Michigan Historical Collections" Volume 26 Annual Meeting, pages 330-333 |
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------------------- ALLEGAN COUNTY. OKA TOWN.--At his home on the south side, Sunday morning, March 24, 1895, occurred the death of Oka Town, one of Allegan's best known and most venerable citizens. His whole life, nearly, was identified with the history of this county and village. He was born July 2, 1806, and had he lived until July 2 next he would have been 89 years old. Stoddard, Cheshire county, N.H., was his birthplace, but he came to Michigan from Springfield, Windsor county, Vt. It was the latter part of August or the first of September, 1831, when he reached Kalamazoo county and settled on Gull prairie. A little over a year later, October 11, 1832, he was married to Miss Martha Sherwood, who resided at Pine Creek. Mr. Town, accompanied by Col. Barnes, the man who tied the knot, walked from Gull prairie to the home of his bride, wading the Kalamazoo river at Aldrich's crossing at Gun Plain. The next day, Edmund Sherwood, one of his brothers-in-law, took a team of horses and conveyed Oka and his wife to their farm home on the prairie. They began housekeeping in a log house, the floor of which was made of oak slabs split by Mr. Town--"a good, solid floor," as he once remarked to a friend. The next day they made bedsteads by inserting pieces of timbers in holes in the log wall, supporting the other ends on sticks fastened to the floor. In March, 1834, he "moved down to Allegan county, to Pine creek, and helped Father Sherwood build his grist mill," as he expressed it. In 1835, he located a farm on section 27 and settled there. April 11, 1842, his wife died, leaving him one daughter, now Mrs. Ashley, of Dakota. Remaining single until 1845, he married Miss Caroline White, October 11 of that year. She lived only one year and a day after their wedding. A year later, October 17, 1847, Miss Sarah A. Eldred became his third wife. She survives, as do also four sons and daughters of whom she was mother. They are Frank, Carlton, Mrs. R.C. Turner, and Miss Pearle. Mr. Town had been a resident of Allegan ten years or more, coming here from his farm in Otsego township and purchasing a residence. He lived quietly, enjoying the society of his family and friends and the esteen of his fellow townsmen. Like all those sturdy and energetic pioneers, his earlier years were spent in hard work, and when he quit active farm life he could thoroughly appreciate the change and better enjoy the results of his labors. Many of his earlier experiences and doings may seem very queer now, but recital of them is nevertheless interesting. By the kindness of a friend to whom he related them we are able to give them here. He was appointed a justice of the peace in 1834 by Stevens T. Mason, Michigan's territorial Governor at the time. The first couple he married was Sidney Smith and Miss Harriet Cannon. This was the third one in the county. Mr. Town's was the second. The first occurred in January, 1932, when Misses Mary and Ann Sherwood, afterward his sisters-in-law, were united in marriage to Almeron L. Cotton and Erastus Jackson. It was a double wedding and Col. Barnes performed the ceremony. Sidney Smith and a Mr. Prouty were the first settlers in Trowbridge, arriving there in the fall of 1834, or spring of 1835. Mr. Prouty brought a wife with him. They stopped at Eber Sherwood's at Pine creek for a time after their arrival, and there Mrs. Prouty gave birth to a daughter, the second white child born in the county. The first was a son to Mr. and Mrs. Giles Scott, also at Pine creek. In June, 1834, Wm. G. Butler came up the Kalamazoo river from Saugatuck and purchased 30,000 feet of timber. This Mr. Town and Abijah Chichester, father to Ira Chichester, rafted to Saugatuck, where a saw-mill had been erected. Work on it was begun in 1831 by Eber Sherwood. In 1832 the "running gear" was put in and the mill started. Mr. Butler was the only white man in the county west of Allegan at that time. "About 1835 or 1836," said Mr. Town, "we at Pine creek built the bridge there. Otsego turned out and helped us, and afterward, when they built a bridge at Otsego, about 1834, we went up and helped him. We had no tax for either of them." The Gun Plain bridge was built the same way a few years after. There was a ford a mile below the present site of Plainwell village, at the farm of Isaac Aldrich. Dr. Thompson was the first settler on Gun Plain. Isaac Aldrich kept a tavern at the ford. He had a sign out, "Our house." In 1831, Mr. Town, Calvin White, a man named Nurse who came from New Hampshire with him and a man named Allen, also from Mr. Town's native state, slept together in a French trader's house. It stood on the right bank of the Kalamazoo river, west of where the Calvin White schoolhouse now is, about a mile on the road to Otsego. The trader, a French-Indian named Prigott, was trading down at the mouth of Gun river at the time. The only road across the State then was the military road made by the government from Detroit to Chicago. It passed through Washtenaw county, Coldwater, White Pigeon, and off to the borders of Lake Michigan. Another road was built later by the settlers as they had use for it, running from Detroit through Kalamazoo to the mouth of St. Joseph river. It was called the territorial road. There were plenty of Indians along the river in those days, and Mr. Town used their canoes by which to cross it. Of his service in the Black Hawk war Mr. Town often spoke, and his account of it is as follows: "Black Hawk was chief of a tribe
of Indians with headquarters at
Chicago. The redskins were in the habit of going to Canada to trade, in large numbers, and on their return they would
rob settlers along the road. The president tried to stop this by issuing a proclomation that only seven should go at
a time, but old Black Hawk said he was going to do as he liked; so he started with his tribe; it was in 1832. Word went
along the Chicago road to the settlers to arm and fight old Black Hawk. This road, remember, was part road and part
Indian trail. About 1,000 men met at Gull prairie, and elected a man named Brown colonel. We marched as far as Niles,
when word came that the United States troops had been sent around by the lakes and had intercepted the old redskin.
They had a fight, of course, and Black Hawk was captured and taken to Washington, New York, and other places to show
him how many men there were in the states. The chief was surprised and promised to behave himself when he got back.
That is about all there was to it." "But what a pricely pension, $8 a month," said he; "I believe congress passed that bill pensioning
veterans in Indian wars, thinking they were all dead." "I think the county was organized in 1835," said Mr. Town.
"The whole county was one town, Allegan. Before we made nominations we called a convention at Otsego, in the fall of
1835, and sent the nominations to the territorial governor. The first session of the board of supervisors was held
in January, 1836, the election having been held the fall before." "In the fall of 1835," said Mr. Town, "we elected a legislator and a congressman, Isaac E. Crary of
Calhoun. We expected to be admitted to the union in December, 1835. Congress assembled then. Our constitution was
framed in June, 1835. We sent it to Washington. In December the Ohio trouble arose as to the boundary, and Mr. Crary
did not have a vote till he was reelected. Michigan was not admitted so early as she would have been if the Ohio
trouble had not risen. Congress fixed the boundary by giving us the upper peninsula, and Ohio took the ten mile
strip. We had to put that new boundary into our constitution and vote on it. It carried all right but we were not
regularly admitted into the union until, I think, January, 1837. The legislature met the winter of 1835-36, but the
session amounted to nothing.
"That name is from an old
man who owned land at the mouth of the creek. He had a contract with the government to furnish the milirary station
at Chicago with pork and flour. He was going down the river and stopped there at the mouth of the creek and stayed
over night. He liked the land and entered a large quantity. Afterwards he was here and stayed with me over night.
he never lived there. He was a Pennsylvania Dutchman. After he died I sold the land for his daughter, who inherited
it. He entered the land as a speculation." |
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