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HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE ARTICLE ON C.C. VAN VORST

For the last twenty-six years the form of this gentleman has been a familiar figure among the people of Matteson Township, to which  he came in 1862, and located upon the land from which he has built up one of the finest homesteads in this part of the country.

Our subject has been a resident of this part of Michigan since a lad nine years of age.  The opening years of his life were spent in Rutland Township, Jefferson Co., N.Y., where his birth took place Nov. 3, 1836.  His parents, Jiles and Sarah (Buyse) Van Vorst, were natives of Seneca County, N.Y., and both came from excellent old families, who were reared along the Mohawk Valley and were of Holland-Dutch ancestry.  The father of Jiles Van Vorst died when he was an infant, and he was reared by an aunt and learned the trade of wagon-making.  He was married in his native county, where he plied his trade for a number of years, then moved to Jefferson and later to Oswego County.  About 1846, with his wife and eight children, he started for the West, and coming to his State, located on a farm in Colon Township, St. Joseph County.  There most of the children were reared to mature years, and the father built up a good homestead, improving a farm of eighty acres.  He died there in December, 1863.  He was a man of great energy and industry and stood well in his community.  The mother passed away in 1873, at the age of sixty-five years.

Our subject acquired his education mostly by his own efforts, completing his studies in Elkhart, Ind.  He was for several years before his marriage engaged as a teacher.  He was wedded on the 16th of March, 1863, at the home of the bride in Bronson Township, to Miss Adelaide Hunt, who was born at the farm where she now lives, in Matteson Township, Jan. 7, 1848.  Her parents, Joseph S. and Harriet (Merritt) Hunt, were natives respectively of Pennsylvania and New York.  The father came to Lenawee County, this State, when a young man, and was first married to Miss Sarah Howell, who died in the city of Adrian, leaving one child, John L.C., who is now farming in Adrian Township.  Mr. Hunt subsequently  came to this county and was married to Mrs. Harret (Merritt) Monroe, and locating on the land which our subject now occupies, here spent the remainder of his days.  Mrs. Hunt was subsequently married to Harvey Anderson, and they located on a farm in Bronson Township, where Mr. Anderson died in 1873, and his wife Dec. 31, 1871.  The latter was forty-seven years of age.

Mrs. Van Vorst was carefully reared by her excellent mother, and received a very good education.  Of her union with our subject there were born two children, one of whom, Myrtie A., died when about ten months and twenty-one days old; Harriet C. is the wife of Byron Ruggles, who is farming in Bronson Township.  Both our subject and his wife belong to the I.O.O.F., in which Mr. Van V. has held all the Chairs of his lodge, and Mrs. Van V. is Past Grand of Rebecca Lodge No. 85, at Bronson.