THE COUNTY SEAT - EFFORTS TO SECURE ITS REMOVAL FROM SHERMAN - SCHEMES TO PREVENT REMOVAL

History of Wexford County, MI.
Compiled by John H. Wheeler
Published in 1903 by B. F. Bowen

CHAPTER 7
Pages 28 - 31

THE COUNTY SEAT - EFFORTS TO SECURE ITS REMOVAL FROM SHERMAN -
SCHEMES TO PREVENT REMOVAL - FINAL RESULT

The first effort made for the removal of the county seat from Sherman was at the annual meeting of the board of supervisors in 1872. Mr. Hollister, supervisor from Clam Lake township, introduced the resolution, and the place designated for the proposed location was the village of Clam Lake. This resolution was defeated by a vote of four yeas to five nays. Not daunted by this defeat, Mr. Hollister renewed his efforts at the January meeting of the board in 1873, but the result was more disastrous than before, there being but three votes for the resolution to six against. During the legislative session of 1873 the township of Cleon, as before stated, was attached to Wexford county, which was a purely county-seat move. The legislature had some scruples against taking this town away from Manistee county and placing it in Wexford county, and it was necessary to secure a petition signed by residents of Manistee county, outside of the township of Cleon, as well as those in that township, who favored the proposition. Accordingly a messenger was sent to Manistee village with a properly drawn petition and a long list of names was secured. To show how easily one can get names signed to almost any kind of a petition, this messenger reported that he would go into a saloon, call up all hands for a drink, pull out his petition, and nine out of ten would sign it without reading it or hearing it read. To look at the petition when it came back one would think that every last resident of Manistee wanted Cleon to go, and would almost be willing to pay something if she would go.

With petitions by the yard from Wexford county, the names upon which were too often fictitious, and such a formidable petition from Manistee county, it was not very hard to convince the legislature that Wexford county ought to have Cleon. One of the strong arguments used was the description of an almost impenetrable swamp adjoining Cleon on the west and south which made it almost impossible to get to Manistee, twenty-five miles away, while the distance to Sherman, the county seat of Wexford county, was only six to eight miles, with comparatively good roads. The arguments and petitions did their work and Cleon come into Wexford county and remained with us until 1881. With five supervisors that could be depended upon to vote against removal, the question was not again brought before the board of supervisors until June, 1876, although it frequently cropped out in the newspapers and once again in the legislature, in 1875, when the Cleon bill had to be re-enacted, owing to the fact that the first bill was thought to be unconstitutional.

On the 14th of June, 1876, two resolutions for removal were introduced at a special meeting of the board of supervisors, one by Warren Seaman, of Cedar Creek township, for removal to Manton village, which had by this time become an aspirant for county-seat honors, and the other by William Kelley, of Clam Lake township, to remove to the village of Clam Lake. On each of these resolutions the votes stood, yeas, eight, and nays, eight.
At a special meeting of the board held January 11, 1877, a resolution was introduced by R. D. Cuddeback, supervisor of Haring township, to remove the county seat to section 5, in town 23, north of range 9 west, the vote on which resolution was six yeas and nine nays.

When it became known, some time in March, 1877, that the village of Clam Lake had been transformed into a city under the name of Cadillac, and that after the first Monday in April she would have three members on the board of supervisors, steps were at once taken to checkmate this new scheme for the removal of the county seat. Plans were devised for the organization of four new townships in the northern part of the county, in order to hold the balance of power on the board of supervisors. One of these new townships was to consist of that part of Cedar Creek township lying on the west side of the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad, and was to be called Westside. Another was to consist of the north half of the township of Colfax and to be called Wheatland. The third was to consist of town 22, north of range 12 west, together with the southern tier of sections from town 23, north of range 12 west, which were put in, in order to have voters enough to hold the offices, and was to be christened Dover, and the fourth was the township of Sherman, heretofore described. In order to get these towns organized and officers elected in time to prevent any mischief which might be done by the addition of the three new supervisors from the city of Cadillac, a special meeting of the board was called for March 30th. For fear that dilatory tactics would be resorted to in this work, a rule was adopted as soon as the board was called to order, which provided that no member should speak more than once on any subject without the consent of the board and should not have more than fifteen minutes time without such consent.

Under this "gag rule" the resolutions organizing these towns were passed. The board took a recess until seven o'clock in the evening, and the supervisors from the northeast part of the county requested a conference at the house of H. B. Sturtevant with the supervisors from the northwest part of the county before the board should re-assemble. The object of this conference was kept an entire secret until all were present, when the subject of a vote to remove the county seat to Manton was broached. The writer was a member of that conference, and when this proposition was made the Sherman supervisors, as those from the northwest part of the county were designated, protested and argued that the question of removal had not been considered in the preliminary work of making these four towns, only so far as it would offset the advantage that Cadillac had gained by the city charter. The supervisors from Manton were obstinate and when the Sherman supervisors would not yield, they declared that they would have the resolutions organizing the new towns reconsidered if they could not secure the passage of a resolution to remove the county seat to Manton. This open threat was too much for the Sherman supervisors and they "bolted" the conference.

When the evening session of the board convened the Manton members, true to their threat, moved to reconsider one after another of these organization resolutions and lay them upon the table, the Cadillac supervisors being only too glad to assist in this work. A halt was called when the Sherman resolution was reached and then it began to dawn upon the members from Manton that they were playing with dangerous weapons, and an effort was made to take these resolutions from the table, but a motion was immediately made to adjourn, and, in explaining his vote on this motion, S. S. Fallass, of Clam Lake, took the floor and made a lengthy speech, reading copious extracts from the statutes of the state and the constitution to consume time. He was called to order time and again, but the chairman ruled that he was not out of order, and when an appeal was taken and a majority voted against the ruling of the chair, the chairman boldly asserted that it took a two-thirds vote to overrule the decision of the chair, and thus Mr. Fallass was allowed to continue his random, timeconsuming speech, and openly declared he would talk the session into Sunday before he would yield the floor for any motion except to adjourn. He even went so far as to send over to the hotel about ten o'clock for a lunch and ate his lunch during the intervals in his speech, until finally the board, becoming convinced that they were powerless to do business under the decision of the chair, adjourned, leaving the one township of Sherman saved out of the wreck. This was practically the turning point in the county-seat struggle, for had the resolutions organizing these other towns remained as originally passed, Sherman would have held the key to the county-seat situation and would doubtless still have retained the county seat. The supervisor from the new township of Sherman was, for a long time, denied a seat upon the board of supervisors, through another arbitrary act of the clerk in refusing to call his name, it being claimed that the organization of the town was illegal. The matter was taken to the courts, where the organization was sustained, after which the supervisor was accorded his rights upon the board.

At this March meeting of the board of supervisors another resolution for the removal of the county seat was offered, this time to section 32, in Colfax township. This point was very nearly the geographical center of the county and on the shore of Dayhuff lake, quite a pretty sheet of water at that time, but which, through the clearing up of the surrounding lands, is gradually drying up. This resolution was tabled, pending the passage of the resolutions to organize the new townships and, like those resolutions, laid on the table and died.

The broaching of this subject of moving the county seat to the center of the county was to form a combination to secure all the votes possible in favor of removal to some place. The insincerity of the talk of the supervisors about the county seat going to the center of the county, where it would be as far from a railroad as it was from Sherman to the railroad, was so transparent that it deceived no one, although it might have had some little influence occasionally with the supervisor of that town, Colfax. However we find that on the 16th day of April, 1877, a resolution was offered by S. S. Fallass, supervisor of the second ward of Cadillac, to remove the county seat to this same point on the Dayhuff lake. This resolution was killed on a tie vote, nine to nine, as was a similar resolution offered by R. S. McClain on May 31, 1877. On this last-named date Mr. Fallass offered a resolution of removal to Cadillac, which received ten yeas to eight nays, but not having the requisite two-thirds of the board, as provided for in the statutes. On neither of these questions was the supervisor from Sherman allowed to vote, although present at every meeting of the board. June 1, 1877, Mr. Fallass again offered a resolution of removal to the center of the county, which, like all its predecessors, failed to pass, the vote being nine to nine. June 12, 1877, W. P. Smith, supervisor of Cedar Creek township, offered a resolution to remove the county seat to the village of Manton, but it was killed on a tie vote, nine to nine. The same day William Kelley, of Cadillac, introduced a resolution to remove the county seat to Cadillac, but there is no record of a vote being taken on this resolution.

The matter was then allowed to rest until the January meeting in 1878. There were three resolutions for removal offered at this meeting, one by S. S. Fallass, to remove the county seat to Cadillac, one by Supervisor Dayhuff, to remove to the center of the county, and one by H. C. McFarlan, supervisor of Cedar Creek, to remove to Manton. Mr. Dayhuff's resolution was lost, the vote standing ten yeas and nine nays. The next vote was upon the resolution to remove to Manton and this received the necessary two-thirds of the votes, the result being thirteen yeas to six nays. This resolution having been adopted, of course the one introduced by Mr. Fallass was not voted upon. The resolution to remove the county seat to Manton provided that the popular vote should be on the first Monday in April, 1879, and the Manton people were quite elated at the prospect of that town being the seat of justice for the county, for they confidently believed that the proposition would be ratified by the people, but when the vote upon the question was canvassed there proved to be only two hundred and ninety for removal and nine hundred and seventy-one against, so the county seat still remained at Sherman.

The sixteenth resolution for removal was offered March 5, 1880, by S. S. Fallass, the place designated in the resolution being at the center of the county, but his resolution was defeated by a vote of seven yeas to ten nays. By this time the Cadillac side of the fight, under the leadership of Col. T. J. Thorp, who was then county clerk and register of deeds, came to the conclusion that it would be better to get the county seat away from Sherman, even if it went to Manton, and trust to the future to get it to Cadillac. They were aware of the fact that there was a tacit understanding between the Manton and Sherman interests whereby Sherman would have to favor Manton whenever a resolution favoring the latter place came before the board, as it was feared that otherwise Manton would join hands with Cadillac to spite Sherman.

Banking on these conditions, they said to Manton, "You introduce another resolution to remove the county seat to Manton, and test the good faith of the Sherman people, and you will find that we will be as loyal to you as Sherman will." Accordingly, on the 13th of October, 1881, Supervisor McFarlan, of Cedar Creek, introduced the seventeenth resolution for the removal of the county seat, and designated the village of Manton as the proposed new location. When the roll was called upon the question of adopting the resolution it was found that sixteen supervisors had voted in the affirmative and only two in the negative.

Many thought that while the supervisors from the city of Cadillac and surrounding towns had voted that the county seat should go to Manton, their constituents would not do likewise when called upon to ratify or reject the proposition, but this time, as before stated, the people of Cadillac had determined to get the prize on the wing and try and prevent it from getting much of a foothold until it was landed in Cadillac. Sherman, too, must needs give a good vote in favor of Manton, else Manton, failing to get it, would accuse Sherman of bad faith, and these two localities would then be at odds. Therefore it is not surprising that a heavy vote in favor of Manton was polled. Had the people of Sherman known just what the plans of the Cadillac people were, the vote would have been somewhat different, but the result showed that if every vote in the northwest part of the county had been cast against removal, it would still have carried by a large majority, as Manton and Cadillac gave practically a solid vote in favor of the proposition. The total vote on this question was twelve hundred and fiftyfive, of which eleven hundred and nine were in favor of removal and one hundred and forty-six against. Thus, after a struggle of nearly nine years, Sherman at last had to part with the county seat.

The agitation was not to stop here, however, and even before the county property had been conveyed to its new home, Mr. Fallass, a supervisor from Cadillac, on the 27th day of April, 1881, introduced the eighteenth resolution on this subject, which was referred to the committee on towns and counties and never reported out.
During the summer of 1881 the people of Cadillac, profiting by the scheme resorted to by the northern part of the county, splitting up townships for the purpose of increasing the membership of the board of supervisors, formulated a plan to organize six new townships. To carry out this plan, a special meeting of the board was called in August, at which the petitions for organizing these six townships were presented and granted by the board. It should be here stated that Henry F. May, of Cadillac, was elected as representative to the state legislature in 1880 and during the session of that body, in the winter of 1881, succeeded in getting a bill passed setting Cleon back into Manistee county, and another disorganizing the township of Sherman. Before these bills took effect and while a majority of the board of supervisors were opposed to the county seat going to Cadillac, the township of Concord was organized, consisting of the east half of the former township of Sherman and section 5, in Antioch, and section 32, in Hanover. This organization was declared by the courts to be illegal, and thus the number of supervisors opposed to another removal of the county seat was diminished by two, giving the Cadillac interests a majority of the board, but not the requisite two-thirds to secure the long-wished-for prize.
The object in organizing these six new townships was to secure this two-thirds vote. Of these six townships, five of them were made by splitting up the township of Haring, which was then the scene of active lumbering operations, having a saw-mill at Haring station, another at McCoy's siding, another at Bond's Mills and still another at Long Lake. These five townships were named Copley, Kysor, Garfield, Lindon and Long Lake. The sixth new town was made from the north half of Cherry Grove and was called Nelson. The vote on the organization of these townships is recorded as ten yeas and one nay, there being nothing to show whether the rest of the board of supervisors were present or not.

The first election for these new townships was fixed for the first Monday in February, 1882, and a set of township officers was at that time duly elected for each of them. Another special meeting of the board of supervisors was called for February 14th, at which all of these new townships were represented on the board.
The right of these representatives from the new townships to seats on the board was questioned and the matter was referred to a special committee for investigation. Pending the report of this committee, Supervisor J. R. Bishop, of the second ward of Cadillac, offered the nineteenth and final resolution, to date, for the removal of the county seat from Manton to Cadillac. Without the six new townships, the Cadillac contingent must gain one vote from the opposition in order to have this resolution adopted, while with the new towns they had votes to spare. What inducements were held out to gain this one vote from the enemy was not, and perhaps never will be, known, but the vote on the resolution was taken before the report of the committee above referred to was made, and it disclosed a startling fact to the people of Manton. The supervisor from Liberty, a township adjoining that in which Manton village was located, had voted for the resolution, giving it exactly the two-thirds required for its passage-twelve yeas and six nays. The object sought in the organization of the six new townships having been accomplished without their actual participation therein, the committee reported that they found the organization of the new townships "fatally defective, and that the said townships have no legal existence, and that to avoid all complications that might otherwise arise, we recommend that the supervisors from the said townships be declared not entitled to seats on this board." This report was adopted and thus the mushroom townships of a few months' growth died a natural death, without a pang or a struggle. They had wrought the desired work, however, by showing what could be done, and thus influencing one man to vote against his constituents, against the interests of his section of the county, and probably against his own conscience.

The question of removal, having thus been placed before the people again to be voted upon, at the ensuing April election, was carried by a vote of thirteen hundred and sixty-three for removal to six hundred and thirty-six against, and at daybreak the morning after the vote was taken the people of Manton were aroused by the toot of a special train which had come up from Cadillac for the county property. They rallied out sufficient force to baffle for the time being the efforts to take the county's property on board the cars, and the train went back to Cadillac with only part of its object carried out.A call was made for volunteers to go back to Manton for the rest of the public property, which was responded to by about one hundred and fifty mill men and campmen, many of them taking along a bottle or two of "fire water," and by the time they reached Manton they were ready for any undertaking. Under such circumstances it is quite needless to say that before noon all the county property was safely housed in Cadillac.

The reason for this unseemly haste in taking the county property to Cadillac was to prevent the delay and expense of injunction proceedings, which had been threatened in case the popular vote was in favor of Cadillac. Such proceedings would have been dragged out at as great a length as possible to enable Manton to hold on to the prize that much longer, even if she had to let it slip in the end. This brought the county seat warfare to a final end. At times it had been very bitter, and its inner history would reveal a vast deal more of corruption than it is worth while here to portray. One or two incidents will suffice to show to what lengths such things will sometimes run. There were several times in the history of this struggle when the change of one vote would mean the passage of a resolution for removal. On one of these occasions one supervisor had been approached and offered ten dollars to vote for a resolution to remove the county seat to Clam Lake. He told the party he would do it, and received the money, but when his name was called to vote upon the resolution he revealed the whole transaction, told who had given him the money, and then voted against the resolution. There was much confusion among the friends of removal at this turn in affairs and considerable talk of arrests for attempted bribery, but nothing was done in the matter.

At another time three hundred dollars was paid to a supervisor living near Sherman and an agreement made to buy his farm at a good price and givehim a house and lot in Clam Lake, in consideration for which he was to vote for a resolution to remove the county seat to that village. He was to be furnished protection from violence from the people of Sherman, whom he would thus have betrayed and whose wrath he expected the act would have merited, and would undoubtedly have voted for the resolution when the board met had he not, in an unguarded moment, made a confidant of a fellow workman, who laid the matter before H. B. Sturtevant, who was then clerk and register, largely through whose efforts the scheme miscarried. When the board convened there were a score or more of people at Sherman from Clam Lake, besides the supervisor, and arrangements had been made by the Sherman people with William McClintock, who was running a lumber camp four miles east of Sherman, to be on hand with a large number of his men to see that no one was molested after the vote was taken.
Odds of two to one were offered by the Clam Lake sympathizers that the resolution would pass, so confident were they that the arrangement would be carried out. Even George A. Mitchell, the one who had platted and fostered the village of Clam Lake, was present to witness, as he supposed, the end of his efforts to secure the county seat. The excitement was intense until the announcement of the vote deciding the resolution lost, when a great shout went up from the people of Sherman over the defeat of their enemies and a corresponding look of dismay was displayed by the friends of the resolution. The Sherman people were so sure that they would come out ahead that they had prepared to celebrate their victory by the firing of anvils, and had already commenced this work when Mr. Mitchell came along on horseback, having started on his return home, and begged the boys to desist until he could get by with his horse. This request was cheerfully complied with and after he had ridden past he was given a parting salute.

For many years following the removal of the county seat from Manton to Cadillac there remained a bitter feeling on the part of those who had "loved and lost," and even yet there occasionally crops out a tinge of this bitterness, but nearly all parts of the county have come to realize that the present location is the proper one and the most convenient for the majority of those whose business calls them to the county seat.