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Compiled by John H. Wheeler Published in 1903 by B. F. Bowen CHAPTER 8 Pages 33 - 36 |
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NEW JUDICIAL CIRCUIT-GREENBACK PARTY
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Taking up the thread of our history where we left off to narrate the events connected with the countyseat struggle, we commence with the year 1878. As yet there had been very little agitation of the Greenback question in Wexford county, but the county had arrived at that stage where there were a good many more aspirants for office than there were offices to fill, and it frequently occurred that there were defeated candidates in the ranks of both the old parties who, holding spoils above principle, were ready to do almost anything that they thought would land themselves in a good office. In the meantime the question of the resumption of specie payment by the government was being agitated and as a condition precedent to such action the volume of greenbacks was gradually reduced. This in a measure caused a contraction of the circulating medium, and this was taken up by those who were anxious to have a new party organized, that they might have a chance to once more get a taste of the "loaves and fishes," and accordingly the new party started out with an active and schooled leadership. Many speakers were employed throughout the state, and in Wexford county a thorough canvass was made. The new party wanted an "organ" in the county, and as both the county papers were Republican they tried to get control of one of them-the Pioneerand make it a Greenback paper. H. F. Campbell, who had been working on the paper for about a year, had secured an option to purchase it at a stated price by paying one hundred dollars down and the balance in one year. As the time approached for making this payment Mr. Campbell saw he was going to be unable to meet it, and a consultation was had among the Republican candidates on the county ticket and other Republicans at the county seat, the result being that J. H. Wheeler furnished the one hundred dollars to make the payment agreed upon, and became a half owner of the paper. The former owner was so anxious to get the paper back that he refused to take the money offered him, and a legal tender had to be made, and he was obliged in the end to take it. The campaign was waged with the utmost vigor, the Democrats and Greenbackers having "fused" on the county ticket, and through their untiring efforts they succeeded in electing one of their candidates, the treasurer, by a small majority. The candidates and the votes each polled were as follows: Sheriff, William Kelley, Rep., 407; William Marin, Dem., 355. Clerk and register, C. J. Manlelow, Rep., 559; A. J. Teed, Dem., 518. Treasurer, R. D. Cuddeback, Rep., 399; E. Shay, Dem., 499. Prosecuting attorney, D. A. Rice, Rep., 537; E. F. Sawyer, Dem., 521. Circuit court commissioner, D. E. McIntyre, Rep., 544; E. F. Sawyer, Dem., 523. It will thus be seen that the largest majority any candidate on the Republican ticket received was fiftytwo for Sheriff Kelley. Mr. Kelley died before the time arrived for him to assume the duties of his office, January 1, 1879, and a special election was held on the first Monday of April to fill the vacancy, at which election Charles C. Dunham was elected, receiving five hundred and seventy-nine votes to four hundred and four cast for E. Harger and two hundred and thirty-two for Frank Weaver. On the 5th of August, 1878, George A. Mitchell, the founder of the village of Clam Lake (now city of Cadillac), met with a fatal accident on the streets of that village. The village was yet in its infancy and the main streets were incumbered with the stumps from which the pine trees had been cut. Mr. Mitchell had a shingle mill at that time on Pine street, and while returning to his home from the mill he was thrown from his buggy, his head striking against a stump by the roadside, rendering him unconscious, from which state he never fully recovered. He died August 8, and his death was a severe blow to the community. He was a very public-spirited man, having donated sites for the different churches in the village and giving liberally of his means toward the erection of church buildings. When the war of the Rebellion commenced he was given the appointment of paymaster. He proved such a competent and energetic official that when the war closed he had risen to the rank of brevet lieutenant-colonel. During his services in this position he received and paid out millions of dollars for the government, and it was said of him that his accounts always balanced to a cent. It had been one of his greater desires to see the county seat located in Clam Lake and he had reserved block "F" of the original plat for such purpose, but his death came nearly four years before its arrival. About this time E. Shay, mentioned heretofore as having been elected county treasurer in the fall of 1878, invented a logging engine which practically revolutionized logging operations. Hitherto all logging had been done with teams and sleighs in the winter and with "big wheels" with occasional "tram," or "pole," roads in the summer. With this new invention it was possible to haul long trains of log cars over considerable grades and at much less expense than with teams, and to extend lumbering operations to a much greater distance from the mills, or water courses, with profit, than could possibly be done by handling the logs with teams. With the aid of this new means of conveying forest products to the mills, the mill owners of Cadillac began to enlarge their holdings of timber by purchasing tracts in adjoining counties, and thus the lumbering business, which it was thought could not last more than eight or ten years, has continued until the present time, with timber enough still in sight to keep the mills of Cadillac busy for the next fifteen or twenty years. It was not long after the inauguration of the narrow-gauge railroad logging that it was found practicable to move logs on the standard railroads, and this business has now grown to such gigantic proportions that the railroads find it almost impossible to furnish cars enough to supply the demand and logs are often carried a hundred miles to be manufactured. The extension of one of these logging railroads, running northeasterly from Cadillac, gave Lake City, in Missaukee county, her first railroad connection with the outside world. This was known as the Cadillac & Northeastern Railroad, and for several years it ran regular passenger trains to Lake City. The Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad finally extended its Long Lake branch to Lake City, and the Cadillac & Northeastern discontinued its passenger trains, but was still used for logging purposes until the summer of 1901, when, having exhausted the supply of timber through which it ran, it was abandoned and its rails and rolling stock were used in building and equipping a similar road which is now penetrating the forests in a northwesterly direction from the city of Cadillac, supplying the mills and chemical plant of Cummer, Diggins & Company with the necessary material to keep them in constant operation. The Greenback heresy had somewhat lost its hold upon
the people in 1880 and as a result the Republican county ticket nominated that
year was elected by old-time majorities, except the treasurer, for which office
the vote was quite evenly divided, and also on prosecuting attorney, for which
office there were three candidates, D. A. Rice running as an independent
candidate. The candidates and the vote for each is herewith given: The legislature which convened in January, 1881, passed an
act creating the twenty-eighth judicial circuit, composed of Benzie, Kalkaska,
Missaukee, Roscommon and Wexford counties. The first judge of the new circuit
was John M. Rice, who was appointed soon after the act creating the circuit took
effect, but resigned in April, 1882. His successor was Silas S. Fallass, then
living in Cadillac, who served out the balance of the term for which Judge Rice
was appointed and the next full term of six years. Wexford county has been
honored by furnishing a judge for the twenty-eighth judicial circuit ever since
its first organization until the present time. Great improvements had been made in the county for the first ten years of its existence as a county, as shown by the census of 1880, which showed a population of sixty-eight hundred and fifteen, compared with thirty-one hundred and ninety-four at the state census of 1874 and seven hundred and eighty in 1870. Many pieces of land were purchased by new settlers from the railroad company, and from the state, which had reserved several thousand acres of the farming lands in the county, under an act authorizing the reservation of a large quantity of land for the support of an agricultural college. This last class of lands could be purchased then for three dollars per acre, and only one-quarter of this was required at the time of purchase, the balance to run as long as the purchaser chose to let it run, by paying interest at the rate of seven per cent per annum. The railroad lands were for a long time sold on one-quarter payment at time of purchase and balance in four or five annual payments. The price of the railroad lands varied according to location, but none were sold for less than six dollars per acre. Many people have thought that the land-grant system was a great injury to the county, but in the light of experience this claim will hardly stand close scrutiny. Had all the land in the county been subject to homestead entry the timber would largely have disappeared, as farming would have been the chief industry, and the vast forests of hardwood would have been swept away to enable the homesteaders to raise the necessaries of life. In looking over the county at the present time one may see hundreds of farms upon which once stood a splendid growth of hardwood, nearly all of which disappeared long before it had any commercial value. By occasionally raising the price of their lands the state and the railroad company had to keep most of their lands until the time was ripe for the utilization of the hardwoods and hemlock with which they were principally covered, and this paved the way for the present most prosperous times the county has ever seen, when hemlock and hardwood lumbering distributes more money throughoutthe county and furnishes a better market for the products of the farm than did the pine lumbering in its palmiest days. "The poor ye have always with you," and consequently all counties have to take care of such indigent persons as live within their borders. The county had erected a commodious poor house, as heretofore noted, but the location did not suit those who were bent on moving the county seat to Cadillac. It happened that the superintendents of the poor were obliged to take care of a family by the name of Root, in consequence of the husband and father having been sentenced to the state prison for quite a long term of years. The family consisted of the mother and six or seven children, ranging from one to fourteen or fifteen years of age. The superintendents decided that the county should be reimbursed for the cost it might be put to in caring for the family, so they took a mortgage on the farm, subject to a mortgage that had already been given. The result was that the county had to foreclose its mortgage and take care of the first mortgage, and thus it was that the county came into possession of the present poor farm. As early as 1880 an effort was made to have the old county farm sold and make a poor farm out of the "Root farm," but without success. At the annual meeting of the board of supervisors in 1881 a resolution was adopted making the chairman of the board a committee of one to receive proposals for the sale of the poor farm. A sale was effected as the outgrowth of this action, the price agreed upon being nineteen hundred and twenty-five dollars, less than the buildings had cost, to say nothing of the hundreds of dollars that had been expended in clearing and fencing the land. Of this amount one thousand dollars was paid in cash and a mortgage given for the balance. The county was obliged to foreclose the mortgage and several years later sold the farm again for eighteen hundred dollars. At the same session of the board which took action to sell the old poor farm provision was made for putting the buildings on the Root farm in condition to care for such paupers as might have to be permanently supported by the county, and the next year a large and well-equipped building was erected and furnished for this purpose. Hitherto all expenses for the support of the poor had been borne by the county at large, but at the annual meeting of the board of supervisors a resolution was passed reviving the distinction between town and county poor. Under this arrangement each town had to support its own poor, and only transient poor were cared for by the county. The towns could send their paupers to the county house and have them cared for there by the week, or could hire them supported elsewhere if they preferred. As it took a year to gain a residence in the county to make the expense of an indigent person chargeable to any town or city, and as the support of such had to be borne by the county at large in the meantime, and the towns had to bear their share of this expense, as well as the expense of caring for their own poor, the arrangement was not very satisfactory and only remained in force a couple of years before the distinction was abolished, since which all poor expenses have been borne by the county. The valuation of the county as fixed by the board of supervisors at its annual meeting in 1882 was $3,676,739.25. This was a fine showing for the county in view of the fact that thousands of acres of pine land had been denuded of its forests, and the lumber had been shipped out of the county during the preceding ten years, and augured well for the future greatness of the county as an agricultural community. At this meeting of the board a resolution was also passed to submit to a vote of the people at the April election of 1883 the question of bonding the county for five thousand dollars for the purpose of building a county jail at Cadillac. The proposition was carried by a vote of eight hundred and eighty-eight to six hundred and sixty-nine, but a question arising as to the legality of the passage of the resolution of the board, the matter was again placed before the people at the spring election in 1884 and was again carried by a vote of eleven hundred and nine to nine hundred and five, but the bonds were never issued. When the county seat was removed to Cadillac the second story of the building then owned by Fred S. Kieldsen was rented for county offices and court room. This building stood on the site now occupied by the city hall. The county continued to occupy the second floor until 1887, when it rented the second floor of the Laber & Cornwell building, which it occupied for several years. When the Masonic fraternity decided to erect a temple in Cadillac a committee was appointed to confer with the board of supervisors with a view to having the second story of their proposed building fitted especially for the use of the county, provided the county would contract to rent it for a period of ten years at a rental to be agreed upon between the contracting parties. This arrangement was carried out, and in March, 1890, the county moved into its new quarters, where it has remained until the present time. The new quarters consisted of a large court room, a commodious supervisor's room, a suite of three rooms for the clerk and register of deeds, two rooms for the prosecuting attorney and one each for the judge of probate, sheriff, treasurer and superintendent of the poor. One or two attempts have been made to have the board of supervisors pass a resolution submitting to the people the question of bonding the county for the purpose of building a court house, but without success. At the election in 1882 the Republican party was again successful on its entire ticket except prosecuting attorney, the candidates of the two parties and the vote given for each being as follows: Sheriff, David C. Cook, Rep., 726; Horton Crandall, Dem., 288; F. Weaver, Ind., 427. County clerk, T. J. Thorp, Rep., 88I; James Crowley, Dem., 566. Register of deeds, T. J. Thorp. Rep., 887; James Crowley, Dem., 568. Treasurer, John Mansfield, Rep., 1079; C. T. Chapin, Dem., 352. Prosecuting attorney, E. F. Sawyer, Rep., 562: J. B. Rosevelt, Dem., 32; D. E. McIntyre, Ind., 689. The salary of the prosecuting attorney was raised to twelve hundred dollars at the October session of the board of supervisors, which induced Mr. McIntyre to enter the race for that office as an independent candidate, and so strenuous did he wage his campaign that he won by more than a hundred plurality. |