Today’s issue of the Battle Creek Enquirer has a very nice article by Ryan Holland: “Uninished Tribute to the Open Road.” It’s about the strange-looking monument that is peeking above the “Welcome to Battle Creek” sign where I-194 ends in Battle Creek. (I took the photos in this article on my way out of town on a day-ride in July 2005 – my last ride with an old 2 Mp Nikon Coolpix camera.)

I don’t have a photo of the most interesting face of the monument, but you can find a good one in Holland’s article, as well as a photo taken during its construction.

I had not known about the James H. Brown who developed a new phonics system for his students, lobbied for better roads, recorded oral histories of old-timers in the 1910s and 1920s, and left a collection of glass negative photographs that was almost thrown out after his death. He is the one who started this monument, but didn’t quite complete it before his death. (I seem to remember that it was originally located downtown. The article doesn’t tell us about the travels of the monument itself.)

I also had not realized that each stone in the monument is significant, beginning with one from Abraham Lincoln’s birthplace:

Brown was obsessed with the transcendent power of historical objects. When he was presented a stone commemorating Abraham Lincoln at the president’s birthplace in Kentucky, Brown proceeded to take it on a tour of Lincoln’s life, stopping at various places in Illinois where Lincoln lived. Brown even placed the stone in Lincoln’s tomb before bringing it to Battle Creek to include in the tower.

Unfortunately, we don’t know which stone made that grand tour before coming to rest in Battle Creek.

Brown’s meticulous key to the tower now in Monument Park has disappeared. We don’t which of the stones is the Lincoln stone, nor do we know where stones devoted to Sojourner Truth or Gen. Robert E. Lee are located. Only some identifications remain: objects like the cast of a Moon Journal front page, a gear from the Hodunk flour mill and a German World War I helmet.

I presume this object is some kind of of plowshare. Is this one of the few objects whose provenance is known? At least I now know who to ask.

If one of the gears is from the Hodunk mill, how about this wheel, which looks to me like a millwheel that still has some faint traces of furrows in it. Did it come from the Hodunk mill, too? (I see that I haven’t yet posted anything about that mill.)

Brown loved the way the automobile enabled him to get out and see rural America, and perhaps didn’t foresee how the automobile would help make much of rural America disappear.

The great irony is that the car culture that inspired the monument now has spawned a passive indifference to the stones that Brown held so dear. There is no marker recognizing Brown or indicating the history of the monument, and many people, including myself, are used to hurtling down I-194 and giving it a short glance on the way in and out of downtown.

But there is a better way to get out and explore the history of rural America. It’s called a bicycle. I will venture to say it’s a good way to continue Brown’s work.

And maybe there is a bicycle ride coming up — to the site of Brown’s boyhood home in Climax Township, if I can identify where it was.

I had ridden past this old, stone house less than a mile before reaching that one. A house like this could well go back to the earliest settlement days, I thought.

Now after having taken time to look for information about it, I still don’t know when it was built, but the 1873 atlas says the property at this site was then owned by a “Mrs. Dickinson.”

There is also a creek nearby that is named Dickinson Creek. If you’re driving on I-94 between Chicago and Detroit, you may or may not pay attention to the fact that you cross the Kalamazoo River just east of Battle Creek. (It’s a lot easier not to notice such things when driving on a busy expressway.) Dickinson Creek flows into the Kalamazoo River very near that crossing, and this house is located about 1/3 of a mile northeast of that bridge.

There is information about the Dickinsons in the 1904 “Biographical Review” of Calhoun County. This information was apparently provided by Julie Ann Dickinson Waters, daughter of the Dexter Dickinson who first purchased this land from the government. His very first purchase was 40 acres immediately adjacent to this house, though, so the following reminiscences may refer to a location not at this very site, but nearby.

…on the morning of the 6th of April, 1833, they came to where their home was to be, the father having purchased forty acres of land in what is now Emmett township. He unloaded the wagon in the midst of the forests and the family ate their first breakfast there, using the bottom boards of the wagon for a table. Mr. Dickinson then took his ax and cut down small trees which he could lift and laid three sides of a shanty. He selected two large oak trees which grew near enough together to form the frame work of a door and across the spaces between he hung a quilt. Places were cut in the trees with his ax and a chisel so that he could place one end of a pole in the aperture, and thus the trees were laid one above the other as children make cob houses. The boys and girls of the household then gathered dry leaves and piled them up in the back end of the shanty upon the ground.

I must confess that I don’t quite follow that part about “cob houses.” When I was a kid I was very familiar with corn cobs. There were corn cob sheds that were filled in the fall with cobs that were used to supplement the heat from the coal furnace. But we never made houses out of cobs.

On the other hand, maybe she is referring to traditional cob houses as described at cobhouse.net. But that technique doesn’t quite match the description, either. In any case, it looks like the rough shelter was eventually replaced by the fine stone house that’s still in use.

Mrs. Waters told about their being a quarry on the land, which the father used to get materials to build a stone oven. I suppose there’s a good chance that the same quarry provided the stones for the house.

Mrs. Waters also told a story about Indian visitors. It’s a common-enough story of a type that was often told by settlers, but is more detailed than most of its kind. Maybe it made a vivid impression because it happened when the parents were gone on a trip to Marshall, leaving most of the kids at home:

They left Mrs. Waters at home to keep house for her brothers John and Cotton and her little sister Elizabeth, four years old. She was instructed to keep the house door shut after the sun went down lest they might be molested by the wolves and also to keep a good fire. She prepared their supper of bread and milk and rocked the little sister to sleep, after which she sat down on the foot of the cradle, with the two boys close by. All at once they heard talking outside and they knew the Indians were there. At length the door opened and an Indian head was thrust in. He took a look and then stepped back. Again they heard the talking and a second time the door opened and in walked two Indians, their knives and tomahawks glistening in the firelight. The larger one began talking with Mrs. Waters in his native tongue, but she only shook her head, so frightened was she that she could not speak a word, for she and her brothers supposed that the Indians had come to kill them. She, however, says that she felt that she must continue to rock the cradle and keep the little sister asleep, because the child was so afraid of the Indians that she might scream herself to death if she awakened and saw them there. The red men sat down and warmed themselves before the fire and after a time one got up and produced a large bundle, from which he took a great piece of bear meat. Then the lump seemed to go out of Mrs. Waters’s throat, for she realized that they were not to be killed, as the Indians seemed to want to appease their hunger instead. They cut off great slices of meat, and by signs and a few words managed to make known that they wanted a kettle in which to cook it. They also indicated in a similar manner that they wanted water and potatoes, and when these were furnished one of the boys raised the trap door in the floor and got out a large pan of milk. The Indians hung the kettle over the fire half full of meat and water and then put in the potatoes without washing or pealing them. Then they sat down on the hearth to wait for the meal to be cooked. All at once the children heard the father call out to the oxen. The boys jumped up and ran to meet the parents, leaving Mrs. Waters with the Indians. In relating the incident she, too, would, undoubtedly have run had she dared to leave the little sister.

Unfortunately the story doesn’t tell whether everyone sat down together to enjoy the stew after it was cooked.

These days such cross-cultural encounters are done a little differently. The Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi Indians recently opened a casino just a couple of miles from that Dickinson house. It seemed to be getting a lot of drop-in visitors when I rode by.

YTD mileage: 1540.5

The final stop was at Oakridge Cemetery in Marshall, MI. I had hoped to find a handful of graves of those who died from cholera, as well as that of a woman who recovered from it, but found only the one pictured above. The insription reads: “Erected to the memory of Isaac N. Hurd who was born at Arlington, VT. Sept. 1 1801 and died at this place of cholera. July 21, 1832.”

E.G. Rust’s 1869 directory of Calhoun County describes the death:

Scarcely had the confusion consequent on the Black Hawk war subsided, when these colonists were again alarmed by the cry of “cholera.” Isaac N. Hurd, one of the proprietors of the village, was the first stricken. Mr. Hobart [Methodist minister] writes thus: ” We visited him the afternoon of that day, and then, for the first time, witnessed the effects of that awful scourge. A strong man that we had seen on the streets the day before, now writhing in the dreadful collapse of cholera. He died about sundown. Under the apprehension that contagion might be conveyed if the remains were not immediately interred, some men in my employ had commenced a coffin before night. It was ready shortly after dark. Preparation by digging the grave was begun about the same time. We met at the house of Mr. Pierce, where he died, to place him in his coffin, and convey him to the grave. There were present, Isaac E. Crary, Sands McCamly, and three young men, brothers, by the name of Thomson, said to be from South Carolina. * * * I am not quite sure, but believe that S. S. Allcott and Mr. Pierce were present. * * * We bore the body by torch-light to the grave–the first ever opened in Marshall.” Several victims to cholera followed….

Of the other names mentioned in this extract, I had especially hoped to find that the graves of Sands McCamly and his wife, and that those of J.D. Pierce and his wife. Mrs. Pierce also died from cholera. But the only one of these that I found was that of Isaac E. Crary.

It’s a big cemetery, though, and it’ll be worth another look some time. When I’m on my way to places like Homer or Jonesville I’m usually ready for a rest break by the time I get to Marshall. I ought to start making it a practice to take it here at the cemetery.

The Isaac Hurd grave monument is also shown in this photo. It’s the odd-looking pyramid-shaped one behind and to the left of the planter in the foreground. Hurd’s parents are buried to the right of his grave. BTW, he wasn’t actually buried here when he died. There had been a cemetery closer to downtown Marshall at the beginning, but IIRC all of the graves were later moved out here to Oakridge.

YTD mileage: 1532

In all the times I’ve ridden to Athens, until last Saturday I don’t think I had ever taken the county road that follows the north edge of the prairie that drew settlers there in 1831. The photo is at the east end of the prairie (which they called Dry Prairie) at the place marked by the blue diamond in the map below.

This is the pre-settlement vegetation map of Athens township, from the Michigan National Features Inventory. The land entered by Warren Nichols is shown by the two black rectangles. The prairie is shown in yellow. The main intersection in downtown Athens is at the left (west) end of the blue line I’ve drawn to indicate the approximate location of the county road I took. The cemetery I visted is approximately where the blue rectangle is drawn. According to information gleaned from the 1877 county history and 1873 plat map, the 5 members of the Nichols family who died in the cholera epidemic were buried somewhere in the southwest quarter of section 27.

Burying the cholera victims was an act of bravery, given what the people knew and didn’t know about the disease, so it’s not surprising that the anecdotes recorded in the county histories tell about it. I still have other sites to visit that are connected to one of the persons who took part in the burial.

googlemap

The site of the photo is shown by a marker in the above googlemap of Saturday’s route. Googlemap tells me that I rode about 40 miles to get to the campground. So that means I get to credit myself with an extra 5 miles, in addition to today’s ride home from work (8.5 miles). YTD mileage: 1269.5

Last weekend was my second overnight, self-contained tour of the year. I started this one the same as the last one, by heading south to Athens. The above is a mile or two north of town.

In the spring of 1832 the town was only a year old. A world-wide cholera epidemic reached the town that year, having come with the soldiers from the east who were on their way to Chicago from where they were going to join the forces fighting Black Hawk. The soldiers didn’t come here to Athens — they were traveling by water — but had made a stop a Detroit. Cholera spread from there.

I had long known that a cholera epidemic had wiped out a family here in Athens, but it was only recently that I came to realize that there were other relatives, too. So maybe the graves of the family had been cared for and marked, I thought. If so, I’d want to visit and get photos. On my last trip I visited the big town cemetery, but this time I wanted to check out a pioneer cemetery east of town.

The cemetery was a lot smaller than I had expected. It didn’t take long to look at all the gravestones. There were none with the name Nichols. (Warren Nichols was the head of household of the family that had been killed.) The place has a nice view of what the first settlers called Dry Prairie, though, which is what had attracted the Nichols family and the others to the place.

But tonight I learned from the county histories that I had still had a lot of the details wrong. For one thing, the whole family did NOT get killed by cholera. Three of the children died, as did both parents, but other children did not succumb. The 1877 history of Calhoun County gives all of the names, and tells where the surviving children went. It also tells where the cholera victims were buried — on a farm just a little to the west (right) of this photo. That was a quarter-section that was originally entered by Warren Nichols — so they were buried on their own land. I have no idea whether there are gravestones, but now I have a better idea how to ask.

The history names eleven family members. One of the land patents says Warren Nichols came from Yates County, New York. So I checked the 1830 census. It looks like there were 10 family members in 1830, and that the parents were in their 30s then.

Maybe I can check out some of the surviving children to see if any of their homes still stand. More bicycle destinations coming up, maybe. There could even be descendents to talk to, for all I know.

Time to update my YTD mileage: I’ll call it 1256 for now. I’ve done 69 miles of commuting since I last reported it, and 63.5 miles last Sunday on the 2nd day of my tour. What I’m not sure about is Saturday’s ride. I didn’t realize it until shortly after I left the cemetery, but my bicycle odometer had started reporting kilometers instead of miles. It’s the 2nd time that happened. I think I know why — it has something to do with the way I remounted my odometer so that sometimes the contacts don’t contact very well. The problem is, I know it was measuring miles when I started, but I don’t know when it switched to kilometers. I had noted before arriving in Athens that I had accumulated a few more miles than I had expected. By the time I got to Union City I had really racked up some impressive miles for that destination, and I realized there was a problem. For now I’ll say it was 35 miles to the campground north of Coldwater. That may be an underestimate, but it’ll do for now.

Last week in Iowa and southern Minnesota, we saw a lot of road signs that seem to be a new feature of the last several years. It seems that as the countryside gets depopulated, it is no longer necessary to maintain all of the section-line roads. There are no longer any children living on them who need to get to school in winter, etc. So they’re now designated as “Minimum maintenance roads.” Some of the signs also say something about winter, or about traveling at your own risk.

Myra suggested grabbing one and taking it home to put at one end of the road on which our home is located. The paved roads in our county have taken a terrible beating the last few winters, and the county is not able to keep up with maintenance. We live near one corner of the county, so I’m guessing that’s why they’re in especially bad shape where we live. Sometimes I ride my bicycle on alternate routes to avoid the worst ones.

Things are changing, though. As we neared home Sunday, we found some of the local roads had new warning signs: “Rough Road.” However, our own road, which is even rougher than the ones that seem to have earned such signs, has not been given one.

But yesterday and tonight as I rode home from work I saw road crews close to home doing a different kind of chip-and-tar patch than I’ve seen before. At least I think it’s chip-and-tar. These patches are not wonderful. They are not rolled to make a nice, smooth surface. But they seem to be an improvement over some of the previous patches. At least the crews are not dribbling tar all over the road to make the few remaining smooth parts rough. And I now can ride on parts of the road that had been bone-shakers before. It might be a reasonably good method for tough economic times.

YTD mileage before I forget: 1088.5, including 39 miles last week Monday (Storm Lake to Royal IA) and 93.5 miles Tuesday (Spencer IA almost to Walnut Grove MN)

]]> http://www.spokesrider.com/2009/07/15/minimum-maintenance-road/feed/ 0 http://www.spokesrider.com/2009/05/23/huron-potawatomi-indian-reservation/ http://www.spokesrider.com/2009/05/23/huron-potawatomi-indian-reservation/#comments Sat, 23 May 2009 07:27:52 +0000 Spokesrider http://www.spokesrider.com/2009/05/23/huron-potawatomi-indian-reservation/ The start of an overnight, self-contained tour always brings excited anticipation: What did I forget this time? Last year it was tent stakes. Once it was tent poles. Another time it was the right set of tent poles.

This time it was a map for the north part of Calhoun County. Oh, well. I figured I could find my way to Athens if I didn’t get too adventuresome about it, and from there I had a map.

But I did try a different route anyway. Or at least I thought it was different until I came to this sign 20-some miles from home, when I realized it wasn’t so different after all. I’ve ridden past this sign a few times, and a couple of times I’ve even gone into the Huron Potawatomi Indian Reservation.

This reservation has a different origin than most. Unlike most cases, the word “reservation” doesn’t really apply here in a literal sense. Unlike most cases, this wasn’t land that was reserved for the Indians when a larger tract was ceded. Here the Indians bought their own place and called it a reservation.

Most of the southwest Michigan was ceded to the United States in 1821, with the exception of a handful of reservations. Most of the smaller reservations were consolidated into one in 1827-28, and then (with the help of the usual heavy-handed pressure and other inducements) even that was ceded in 1833. In 1840 the army rounded up the Potawatomi to evict them from Michigan, in Michigan’s own version of a Trail of Tears.

But some of the Potawatomi people avoided the roundup. And one of the influential leaders, John Moguago, escaped from his captors somewhere around Skunk Grove, Illinois. (A ride to that location is still on my to-do list.) After the excitement had gone down, he bought this land and put it “in trust” with the governor of the state, to avoid any possibility of it being sold. Just what that “trust” arrangement meant in legal terms is something that was still being determined in the 1990s when the tribe was seeking federal recognition.

The reservation is downstream from this location on Pine Creek. Moguago is buried in a cemetery not far from the stream, on the right bank.

I am not familiar with the documentation that was provided by the tribe when it was seeking federal recognition, but I just now found what I assume was a piece of it. It doesn’t tell the complete story of the reservation, but it shows how the trust arrangement did its job at one point, sort of. It’s in the Journal of the House of Representatives of the Michigan Legislature, published in 1863. On pages 1481-1482 the following is recorded:

By the committee on the judiciary:

The committee on the judiciary, to whom was referred Senate bill, being

A bill to authorize the Governor of the State to convey certain lands,

Respectfully report that they have considered the same, and the facts in relation thereto, within their reach. It seems that the land in question was purchased about the year 1846, for the benefit of a certain band of Indians, then residing in Calhoun county, of whom one Moguago, was Chief, and the legal title was vested in the then Governor of the State and his successors in office, in trust for these Indians; but what were the particular terms and conditions of this trust, your committee are not informed, not having been able, upon inquiry at the Executive Office and at the office of the Secretary of State, to find the deed of trust to the Governor. A deed has been produced to your committee, purporting to be from a certain band of Indians, located in the township of Athens, Calhoun county, Michigan, to Harvey Jones, of Wakeshma, in the county of Kalamazoo, for the consideration of four hundred and fifty dollars, and purporting to convey the land in question to said Jones. No particular persons, except as above stated, are named as grantees in the deed, but the deed purports to be signed and sealed by eleven Indian men and five Indian women, among whom appear the names of John Moguago and George Moguago. One notary’s certificate of acknowledgment states, that the within named Indians appeared before him, and acknowledged the same to be their free act and deed; and another certificate states, that before him appeared “the within named wimmin, wives of the within named Indians,” &c., and neither certificate mentioning any individual names.

Your committee therefore submit, that there is not before them any satisfactory or competent evidence, that the persons who appear to have received the consideration for this land—if this deed is evidence for any purpose—are the true beneficiaries of this trust, or that they had any legal or equitable right of sale, or that it was even intended, that if sold, the proceeds should be paid to the Indians at all, or what were the terms of the trust. The committee therefore report the said bill back to the House, and recommend that it do not pass, and ask to be discharged.

T. W. LOCKWOOD, Acting Chairman.

Report accepted and committee discharged.

On motion of Mr. Buckley,

The bill was laid on the table.

I haven’t found much information about the Harvey Jones who could have ended up as owner of the land in the reservation, but the 1873 atlas of Kalamazoo County, Washtema Township suggests where he may have lived. I’ve ridden through that township many times on my way to St. Joseph County, where Pine Creek empties into the St. Joseph River. But now I have a reason to ride to Wakeshma Township and stop there.

Not that it will tell me what happened between Jones and the Potawatomi people. But I’d like to take a look anyway. Like I say, almost any excuse will do for a bike ride.

This sign caught my eye as I rode back into Athens towards the end of my two-day ride to Branch County.

It claims that All Roads Lead to Athens. But I beg to disagree. Earlier that morning I had been explaining how All Roads Lead to Girard.

I had been visiting the descendant of one of the people who had served in the militia during the Black Hawk war. His was a family that had settled on West Girard prairie. My friend and colleague Ray had introduced me to him. While visiting, I explained about the Hinsdale atlas that had been published in 1931, and how it showed the sites of old Indian trails and villages. Looking at it I had concluded that “All Roads Lead to Girard,” even more so than to Coldwater, the largest town and the county seat.

At the beginning of the day I had ridden to Girard in hopes of getting some breakfast, and just to touch base with the location that was the center of the anecdote I want to write about in the next few blog posts. I had camped at the nearby Waffle Farm Campground, but had not bothered to bring food and cooking utensils for this brief trip. Last July when I had last ridden to Girard there was a sandwich shop kitty-corner across the street from the Girard Country Store. I had no idea what time of morning they opened, but I thought it wouldn’t hurt to check.

It didn’t matter. The sandwich shop had now become a barber shop and some other business, I forget just what. So I got a junk-food breakfast at the Girard Country Store. I was glad to at least have that choice. That’s just about all there is for business places in Girard that would be of interest to anyone traveling through.

There is no stoplight. I suppose the north-south street was busier in the days before I-69 was built a mile away, but even so it’s not a place that people outside of Branch County necessarily know about. If I say “Girard,” I often have to explain where it is in terms of distance and direction from Coldwater.

So how is it that All Roads Lead to Girard?

This is a snippet from Willard B. Hinsdale’s Archaeological Atlas of Michigan (1931) overlaid with some other information from my bike rides. (I see that I could purchase my very own copy of the atlas from a used bookseller for $567.) This portion shows the top two rows of townships in Branch County and some of the bottom row of Calhoun County townships. Athens township is the one labelled 16. Girard is township #3 in Branch County.

Those people who question the importance of Girard should note that Hinsdale shows even more Indian trails leading to Girard than to Coldwater. It’s true that the Great Sauk Trail is one of those going through Coldwater. That one was a major east-west road between present-day Rock Island IL and Detroit. But it’s still interesting to see how trails converge from all directions on little old Girard that nobody around here in my corner of Calhoun County seems to know about.

The orange dots on the map are related to the story of the Apple Trees, which I guess is something I still need to explain. The white square shows the location of the old Mickessawbe reservation. My best April ride was to the northeast corner of that reservation, where there still is a mark on the landscape to show where it was. The dotted blue line was my route into Branch County on Sunday afternoon. The orange triangle is where I camped, and the orange yellow dotted line shows the route of Monday’s ride.

YTD mileage: 545

]]> http://www.spokesrider.com/2009/05/21/all-roads-lead-to-girard/feed/ 0 http://www.spokesrider.com/2009/05/13/ceresco-dam-again/ http://www.spokesrider.com/2009/05/13/ceresco-dam-again/#comments Wed, 13 May 2009 05:52:37 +0000 Spokesrider http://www.spokesrider.com/2009/05/13/ceresco-dam-again/

I stopped at the Ceresco Dam on my only good ride of the year so far, back on April 18.

googlemap

The previous time I was here was in fall 2005. That time I talked to a young man who seemed to be in a thoughtful mood. He was looking over some of the places of his childhood before heading off to Army basic training.

I’ve sometimes wondered how he did. Did he serve in Iraq and come home safely?

This time a young boy was fishing with his father. It will be better if there aren’t any wars to fight when he becomes of military age.

The land here was first bought from the U.S. government by John Bertram in the very early 1830s. He was one who did go off to war — the Black Hawk war. The settlers remembered with amusement that he had marched off in full uniform. Perhaps it was a uniform he had brought with him from England. He may have gone to the militia gathering location at Schoolcraft along with others from Calhoun County. But if he did, his name didn’t get recorded on anyone’s roster of those who served. Did the others give him such a hard time that he went back home, instead? The local histories don’t say.

Bertram apparently came from England with enough money to buy land not only here but in several other places in Calhoun County. He seems to have had the idea of farming on a large scale, with tenant farmers. But his efforts didn’t succeed. The system was set up to encourage individual land ownership rather than large landlords who would rent their land. And people had little motivation to work as a tenant on someone else’s farm if they could buy their own land. So Bertram didn’t fit in very well on that account, either. The histories suggest he went back to England after using up a lot of his money without achieving his desired result.

On Saturday’s bike ride I came to a corner where this old one-room school stood. It’s almost at the extreme southeast corner of Eckford Township, Calhoun County, Michigan. There is still a swing set in the yard, but I don’t think the building is being used as a school. Back when it was a school, kids’ feet would have worn bare spots in the grass. There is a propane tank in back, but no sign that the place is being used as a residence, either. I don’t know who is keeping it in repair but it’s good that it is not being allowed to fall into disrepair.

Sometimes, with an obscure place like this, I challenge myself to a little game. I try to connect it to the Black Hawk story with the fewest possible degrees of separation. The best I could do with this one (after studying the county histories and atlases, and census records) is as follows:

A plat map from the 1870s shows that the land on which this school stands was taken from a parcel then owned by a W. Burland.

W. Burland is probably William, the son of Thomas Burland, who was the first settler in neighboring Fredonia Township, and who was living very near to this school in the 1870s. In fact, even though this school is located in Eckford Township, it seems to have been part of a Fredonia Township school district. At the time of the 1870 census, Thomas was 70 years old. His son William was 44 and was living in the same household, working the family farm.

The 1869 county history says, “Thomas Burland, the first settler, came and located in the east part of [Fredonia Township], May 14, 1832, and still resides on the old place.”

That date is a significant date in the Black Hawk war. It’s the day when the killing started. The episode is sometimes is called “Stillman’s Run,” and it gave its name to the town of Stillman Valley, Illinois (which is to the south-southwest of Rockford). There is information here about what happened on that date.

The war scare had started a few weeks earlier, when Black Hawk and his people crossed the Mississippi. The excitement had already started to die down by the middle of May, but when the news of Stillman’s Run reached Michigan, it stimulated renewed militia activity. We don’t know when the newly arrived Thomas Burland heard the news, but he is not one of the settlers who served in the local militia. (The nearest militia company that was formed was from Marshall, six miles to the north.)

Anyhow, that’s the Black Hawk connection to this school house. It’s not much, but it was the best I could do. I did learn a little bit about the settlement of this part of Calhoun County in the process, so I’ll plead that it wasn’t a complete waste of my time. Whether it’s a waste of the reader’s time is another matter.

googlemap

The location of the school is shown by the yellow pushpin on the above map.

YTD mileage:  336.5

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