History of Wexford County, MI. Compiled by John H. Wheeler Published in 1903 by B. F. Bowen CHAPTER 6 Pages 23 - 26

WOMAN SUFFRAGE - STATE CENSUS -
COUNTY ELECTIONS – BEAR TRAPPING

To show that Wexford county was still quite a wilderness in 1874, two local trappers, by the name of Walter and Jesse Mesick, caught twenty-four bears in the spring of that year, besides the capture of several others by other residents of the county. Deer were also very numerous and many a settler saved a considerable portion of his meat bill by eating venison; in fact, many of them were without the necessary means to purchase meat, and wild meat was all they had. Many a saddle of venison was left at the door of needy settlers by the Mesick brothers, with no thought of reward. It must be borne in mind that the early settlers in this county, as in all new counties, were of limited means, and by the time they had paid for moving their families and household goods thirty to fifty miles to their homesteads and had gotten up a little house to shelter them, their money in many instances was about exhausted. One of today's prosperous men in Wexford county had to work out by day's work to earn the money to pay the freight on his goods after their arrival at Traverse City. It was no uncommon occurrence that people would sometimes live for days and weeks upon potatoes and salt. Even leeks were resorted to as an article of diet by some, and there are merchants and ex-postmasters still living in the county who can well remember the odor brought into their places of business by those who resorted to this production of nature to eke out their scanty supply of food. It may be said that these men might have gone out and worked for others and earned enough to have lived more comfortably, but let any such imagine a man with a family going twenty-five miles from the nearest trading point, through a dense forest, and starting in to make a home. No team, no cow, nothing but his hands with which to fell and clear away the monarchs of the forest and erect a log house to live in. His neighbors were few and, for the most part, in like circumstances as himself. When such conditions are realized, one can see that the result must have been privation. Of course these pioneers had to work out some of the time, but they had the courage and fortitude to suffer privation for a time, that they might the sooner be in a position to raise the necessaries of life upon their own land. The census of 1874 showed a population of thirty-one hundred and twenty-five, as compared with six hundred and seventy in 1870, a gain of over four hundred and fifty per cent. This is the most rapid growth in the history of the county and was the direct result of the building of the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad and the advent of newspapers in the county. Many a settler was induced to come to the county from reading about it in the papers published in the county. The legislature of 1873 passed a resolution submitting to the people a constitutional amendment granting to women the right of suffrage, the vote on its adoption to be taken at the general election in November, 1874. There was an animated discussion of the question in the county during the summer, but of course the amendment was defeated. The public mind was not ripe for such a movement at that early date. It might not be amiss to reproduce a prediction made by "Zelma," a correspondent of the Wexford County Pioneer during that canvass: "But with all the opposition men can offer, this measure will become a law all over the United States. 'Tis just as certain to be as the sun is to rise. It will probably be years before it becomes general, but, like the eels, they'll like it when they get used to it." This prophecy of nearly thirty years ago has, in part, been fulfilled already, and who shall say the time will not come when it will be true entirely? The township of Liberty was organized by the board of supervisors in October, 1874, making fourteen organized townships in the county. The county campaign of 1874 was really the first hotly contested one had in the county. Both parties put up strong tickets, and a vigorous fight was made by each. The opposing tickets were as follows: Sheriff, J. Shackleton, Republican, J. E. Culver, Democrat; treasurer, E. Harger, Rep., I. H. Maqueston, Dem.; clerk and register, H. B. Sturtevant, Rep.: clerk, E. Shay, Dem.; register, I. N. Carpenter, Dem.; prosecuting attorney and circuit court commissioner, D. A. Rice, Rep., E. F. Sawyer, Dem.; surveyor, C. J. Mankleton, Rep., S. I. Beardsley, Dem.; superintendent of schools, A. K. Harrington, Rep., William L. Tilden, Dem.; coroners, H. N. Green and George Roth, Reps., H. B. Wilcox and William E. Dean, Dems. The Republicans elected their entire ticket except the surveyor, though some of the majorities were quite small. Sheriff Shackleton had 226 majority; H. B. Sturtevant had 113 majority for clerk and 80 for register; E. Harger had 227 majority for treasurer; S. H. Beardsley (Dem.), 39 majority for surveyor; D. A. Rice had 483 majority for prosecuting attorney, and circuit court commissioner, Mr. Sawyer having withdrawn from the contest; A. K. Harrington had 223 majority for superintendent of schools; and H. N. Green and George Roth had 214 and 8, respectively, for coroners. Hon. T. A. Ferguson was renominated for representative in the state legislature, his opponent being a Mr. Holbrook, of Clam Lake. Owing to the fact that Mr. Ferguson in his first term had secured the passage of the bill annexing Cleon to Wexford county, and the further fact that it was thought to be necessary to do the work over again to make it entirely legal, and also to the fact that the people of Clam Lake did not want the town to remain in Wexford county, as it tended to prevent the removal of the county seat to that village, the Clam Lake News, a Republican journal, espoused the candidacy of Mr. Holbrook, the nominee of the Democratic party, and did all in its power to secure his election. Notwithstanding this, Mr. Ferguson was elected by nearly five hundred majority in the district. The first agricultural fair in Wexford county was held in October, 1874. A very good display was made in the various departments, but, owing to the newness of the country, the only fruit shown was a plate of grapes grown by H. J. Carpenter. C. L. Northrup, one of the early settlers in the county, having taken up the study of the law in the office of T. A. Ferguson, was admitted to the bar in the summer of 1874 and commenced practicing with Mr. Ferguson, the name of the new firm being Ferguson & Northrup. As previously stated, the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad Company took the case of the taxation of their lands to the supreme court, and in March, 1875, a decision was reached upholding the law and requiring the company to pay taxes that had been assessed against its lands. As a result of this decision, there was paid into the treasury of Wexford county in the spring of 1875 the sum of $33,207.08, which should have been paid during the two preceding years. A large portion of the money - in fact, nearly all of it - went back to the townships, consequently the latter were enabled to make great improvements in roads and school houses and to pay up indebtedness caused by the refusal of the railroad company to pay their taxes when they were due. At the spring election in 1875 Harrison H. Wheeler was elected judge of the circuit to which Wexford county belonged, over S. W. Fowler, of Manistee, his Democratic opponent. Judge Wheeler had previously served the circuit some time, having been appointed to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Judge White. So well was Judge Wheeler liked that he received almost the solid vote of Wexford county and in several townships in the county there was not a vote cast for his opponent. In those days there was no limit to the number of special meetings the board of supervisors could have during a year, and such meetings were sometimes very frequent. To such an extent were these special meetings indulged in that it came to be remarked, when the notice of a special meeting was seen, "It must be that the supervisors are getting out of pork again." Two of these special sessions of the board were held during the summer of 1875, at both of which a petition for the organization of a township, to be called the township of Summit, was presented. Action on these petitions was frustrated at both of these meetings, principally because of the bearing the organization of this town would have on the county seat question, but at the annual session of the board the matter was again brought up under a new petition, asking that the same territory be organized into a township to be called Boon. This effort was successful and another township was added to the roll of townships in the county. The Colorado potato beetle, a few specimens of which had been noticed in 1874, became quite numerous in 1875. Many ways of destroying them were suggested and tried. but nothing except the poison method succeeded. Much was said at the time against the use of paris green, it being claimed that the plant would absorb the poison and convey it to the tubers and thus injure those who ate them, but experience has proved the fallacy of such reasoning. Much was written about the new pest, and the general belief was that it would not remain long, but pass away like the locusts. Subsequent experience, however, has shown this little beetle to have the greatest staying qualities of anything known to the nineteenth century. It seems a little strange that this destructive beetle should have remained in its native haunts and let potatoes grow for two or three hundred years unmolested, and then suddenly swoop down upon the whole land in numbers sufficient to destroy the entire crop, if let alone. Perhaps the rapaciousness of its appetite can be partially accounted for by these long years of waiting for its favorite dish of potatoes. The most destructive June frost ever experienced in the county occurred on June 12, 1875. Winter wheat and rye had headed out and were thus ruined by the frost. A few settlers tried the experiment of mowing down the growth already made, and those who did so were rewarded with a second growth, which yielded ten or twelve bushels to the acre, but the fields that were left uncut proved almost an utter failure. The frost was so severe that it killed the new growth on the beech tree branches and the leaves as well. It did no injury to fruit, for the very good reason that there had been no fruit trees planted long enough to bud or blossom. The usual early snow falls did not occur in the fall of 1875 and the year closed with the mildest weather for the season ever before known since the first settlement of the county. Games of base ball were played the first day of the year 1876 in Sherman, and it was not until near the close of January that sufficient snow fell to make good sleighing. An effort was made early in 1876 to organize a company to be known as The Manistee River Navigation Company, with a capital stock of fifty thousand dollars, the object being to put a boat on the river to run between Manistee and Sherman, but the project was abandoned as sufficient subscription for stock could not be secured. The first mowing machine brought into Wexford county was purchased by Jerome Bartley in the summer of 1876. Previous to this time all hay and grain raised in the county had been cut with the scythe and the cradle. At the election of November, 1876, the county cast nine hundred and thirty-eight votes for president, six hundred and eighteen for Hayes and Wheeler, three hundred and eighteen for Tilden and Hendricks, one for Peter Cooper (Greenback) and one for the Prohibition candidate. The new county officers were all Republican, though one of them, Alonzo Chubb, judge of probate, was elected on an "independent" ticket, defeating the Republican nominee for that office, Rev. A. L. Thurston. As a general, rather than a local, historic fact, it might be well to mention the first effort toward the resumption of specie payment by the government. Congress had provided for the coinage of twenty-six millions of silver bullion into minor coins with which to redeem the fractional paper currency that had served the people for "change" since 1863. It was a novel thing to many of the younger people to see "hard" money instead of "soft" money in circulation, as no one under eighteen years of age could remember to have seen the like before. It was not long until the great volume of "shin plasters" had entirely disappeared and their place filled by the minor silver coins. This was a wonderful help in paving the way for a complete resumption of specie payment, which was brought about only a few years later. The legislature of 1877 passed a law granting a city charter to the village of Clam Lake, though under a new name, Cadillac. It is quite doubtful if this little town would have thought of being made a city, much less to change its name, had it not been for its desire to become the county seat. A bill of this kind would have met with strenuous objections from other sections of the county had not its origin and pathway through the legislature been shielded by a new and mysterious name. So completely did this name hide the object of the bill that no one except those on the "inside" were aware of the object sought until it had passed both houses and been signed by the governor. This act provided for dividing the city into three wards and giving to each ward a supervisor, who, of course, was a member of the board of supervisors, thus giving to the township of Clam Lake a representation of four on the board, one from the town and three from the city, that was within the limits of the town, except a little strip that was taken from the township of Haring. There were only about six or seven hundred people in the new city, the school census for the previous year showing but three hundred and fifty children of school age in the entire township of Clam Lake, including the village. The number of school children in the other townships of the county at that time was as follows: Antioch, 90; Cedar Creek, 119; Cherry Grove, 25; Cleon, 23; Colfax, 92; Greenwood, 8; Hanover, 58; Haring, 10; Henderson, 4: Liberty, 13; Selma, 51; Springville, 20; Wexford, 100; total for the county, 958. Another new township by the name of Sherman, was organized in 1877, consisting of section 1 in town 23, north of range 12 west, section 6 in town 23, north of range 1 west, section 31 in town 24, north of range 11 west, and section 36 in town 24, north of range 12 west. During the latter part of the year 1877 a company was organized with the object in view of building a narrow gauge railroad from Sherman to Cadillac. A preliminary survey was made of the proposed road and the route pronounced feasible, but the promoters were not able to interest capitalists with sufficient means to warrant the building of the road and nothing further was ever done in the matter.