In this edition:

In Memory of Ray Larson

Updates at the Museum  -  Updates from  the Board

Early Days in Ensley – Pioneer James Kinney recollects in 1905

Surnames

1922 essay by a 13 year old about Monroe Township

 In Memory Ray Larson, Board Member

Ray Larson, of White Cloud, passed away September 25, 2011.  Ray had been in the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Michigan National Guard and served in the Army at New Guinea during World War II until his honorable discharge.  Ray and his wife Dorothy moved to the White Cloud area in 1983 from Grand Rapids and he was a member of the White Cloud United Methodist Church, a member of the Dark Sky Observers in Newaygo County, Lowell Astronomy Club; had been a board member of the Newaygo County Historical Society and had been an active member of the White Cloud V.F.W. where he had held all office positions.  In any endeavor that Ray was involved, he brought interest and loyalty to the subject.  We thank Ray for his service.

 

October, November, December at the Museum

During the month of October three more exhibits were displayed:  a wall of license plates, several shelves of elephants of various size and material, and examples of lace.  We also unearthed some creepy and eerie items to place in our Hallows of Halloween room.  October 29 was the last day of our regular season and we invited school children to come in costume and receive a treat bag.

We were open during the Christmas Walk in downtown Newaygo with theme displays of a sleigh and toys, refreshments and Old Time photo shoot.  We displayed two Christmas trees, one depicting the 1970’s-80’s that was used in the Valley Inn building in downtown Newaygo.  The second was a fresh-cut tree wore ornaments made by volunteers replicating those from the Victorian style and Depression eras. 

We are now closed for the winter to allow volunteers to develop various displays, programs and research to be prepared to re-open in the spring of 2012.  Groups wishing to visit during the winter may do so by appointment.

The Education Committee has welcomed groups of school children to the Museum giving them the opportunity to visit an old-time classroom, play games from the late 1800’s – early 1900’s, and receive a lesson on various themes unique to Newaygo County.  We have volunteers that take the children in groups to experience these programs. Our lessons are following the history curriculum designed for elementary children.  We encourage local schools to schedule a visit to the Museum.

The Society Board, Museum Committee, and sub-committees were elated to learn of the award of a $35,000 grant for operations in 2012, presented by the Fremont Area Community Foundation.  The funding allows for payment of rent, utilities and misc. items.  We will also have a Museum Coordinator  - Luanne Nelson, back with us as well as the addition of Collection Manager – Jamie Wasilchenko. 

The Hesperia Library and Grant Fine Arts Center will display cameras and movie cameras from our collection through January.

 

November and December with the Society Board

Board meetings are now starting at 9:30 when held on Saturdays.  Meetings typically end by 10:45 and

we will remain open until noon for members and visitors to use our reference materials.

 Topics during these months:

·         1880 Newaygo County plat will be available on a cd to purchase

·         A “Building of the Hardy Dam” booklet will be printed and available to buy

·         Organization of the materials in the White Cloud office is continually taking place

·         Muskegon Co. Genealogy Society gave us files depicting the 1880 soundex files for Newaygo County

·         Our new membership entries have made a nice gain yet our renewals have dropped

·         The entire Board is involved in the country school project.  We are preparing to finalize phase 1 which entails Ensley, Grant, Croton, Big Prairie, Brooks and Wilcox Townships.  A booklet will be made once this is complete.

·         Scrapbook indexing continues as well as scanning photos

 

Early Days in Ensley

Pioneer James Kinney relates interesting reminiscences (1905)

James Kinney, a well-known farmer and fruit grower of Ensley Township is one of the very few who have resided there 49 years.  It is an extraordinarily interesting story that he kindly favors.  The Record with its series of pioneer sketches, and will best be appreciated by giving it in “Jim’s” own words:

“I was born in Roscommon County, Ireland on June 24, 1845 and came to America with my parents in the fall of 1849.  We landed in the city of Baltimore on Christmas Eve after a voyage of eleven weeks on the Atlantic Ocean in the old sailing vessel, “Sailor’s Bridge” which sank on her return trip.  Twice were blown back to within sight of Ireland and several times we encountered such storms that the hatch was closed and we were sea, the crew “lashed to the rigging” directing the ship’s course from the masts.  In the city of Baltimore attended the city schools.  We came to Michigan with our own and one other family in June 1856 in quest of a former old world neighbor then living in the township of Oakfield, Kent County.  We stopped off the Michigan Central railway at Kalamazoo, then the northern railway point in Michigan, where we were delayed two weeks while my father and his companion were locating their old acquaintance.  We hired a team to move us to Oakfield over the old plank road via Grand Rapids, then the only outlet, with the exception of by river boat to Grand Haven, the old “Daniel Ball”, the first one on the Grand making regular trips, then being in service.  Our horses tired out on the long sand hills east of Plainfield and they were replaced with a yoke of oxen to finish the journey, taking in all four days.”

“In the fall of 1856 my father located on the S. W. ¼ of section 9, at that time being a solid wilderness, where now is the organized township of Ensley with her many pleasant and comfortable homes.  What is now Ensley Township at that time belonged to Croton Township.  Besides this Croton also then claimed what is now Grant and the east half of Brooks Townships in Newaygo County.  Ensley Township was organized in the spring of 1859.  In company with my father and oldest brother I attended the first town meeting held in the township.  It was held in a private house and not a very large one either, near where the Smith Cook house now stands just north of Ensley Centre.  There are but two of the voters who voted at that first election alive now and they all reside on the old homesteads, Andrew Flynn and Parker Simpson.  Levi White, step-father of Bill Bronson who was murdered, and afterwards the principal witness in the notorious Merritt murder trial, was elected Ensley Township’s first supervisor and served until the following June when he moved to Lowell.  The Merritt case was the first murder to come up for trial in Newaygo County.  This was in the spring of 1859 when Judge Littlejohn then of Grand Haven circuit presided.  Augustus A. Kellogg was then appointed to fill the vacancy by the township board and is the first officer of whom there is any official record.  The first school house in this township was built in the fall of 1859 at the corners one mile north of Ensley Center.  Now we have nine organized schools.”

“In those times, neighbors were few and far between; although when there was a “raising” or logging bee they all met as they would go on such occasions from one corner of the town to the other.  Indians in those days were more common to be seen than white people.  It was during the summer of ’57 that the first railroad reached Grand Rapids – the Detroit & Milwaukee, now known as the Grand Trunk.”

Mr. Kinney’s brother, John, a well-known Ensley farmer, worked many months on the saddle-back swamps, grading right of way for this line.

“I helped cut the first road the township opened in Ensley Township.   It was from the south side to the north running through past Ensley Center from Kent County’s north line to the south line of Croton.  We had to take our dinners with us or go without as there was but one settler on the six miles.  We simply opened up a wagon road – what folks would now call a “cow-path.”  The old state road in the western part of the town had been open several years prior to this.  It was what was then called the “mailroad” running from Croton to Grand Rapids.  Then the mail for our northern country, north of Grand Rapids, was carried on horseback by a fellow named Myers, still living at Sparta. He came to Croton Mondays and Thursdays, returning Wednesdays and Fridays.  You could put all the mail on either trip in your overcoat pocket and it would not have to be a very large one either.

“I well remember one incident which will show some

of the younger generation what this country really was in the early days.  Shortly after our settling in the forest, father and the older boys were working away from home in the woods and elsewhere.  Mother and I “run” the place.  A neighbor woman, Mrs. Jones, who lived three miles or perhaps better away, came over to visit mother a few times and finally broke the news that she desired to borrow $100 until their little patch of wheat should be harvested.  Our folks had, beside what they had about them, $500 in gold and of course that meant riches in those days.  Mother demurred, but finally compromised the matter in order to be neighborly by loaning the Jones woman ten five dollar gold pieces.  Harvest came but wheat was worth only about 50 cents a bushel and there were many mouths to feed in the Jones family, so the debt wasn’t paid.  When their 30 hogs were fattened, though, we were promised our $50.  The Jones affairs grew from bad to worse however and the following year they went to near Grand Rapids to run a boarding shanty for the construction crew for a railroad.  Still in the spring of ’57 Mother hadn’t got her $50.  So one day she told me, then a chunk of a lad coming 12 years old, that the next morning she and I would start to walk to Grand Rapids to collect that money.  We walked what was then over the trail, easily more than 34 miles, in one day.  We didn’t get the money.  Mother had to be satisfied with taking a $23 cow for the debt, we leading it home a day or so after, walking the entire return trip.  Now, in all that distance between our place and Sparta there was at that time only two houses.”

“I can safely say that I have drawn millions of feet of as fine pine logs as ever grew at logging bees, and in clearing up the country to make what are now model farms.  I used to know every person in the whole township for father had a pair of oxen and of course they were sent to every “logging” and “Jim” - then a young boy – was sent along to drive them.  In those days there was no market for pine at any price.  As there was no attention paid to survey lines then some people made the finest shaved shingles and drew them to Grand Rapids for $1 a thousand.  Think of it!”

“The first lumbering done on the Tamarac was in 1860 and 1861 by Jerome Botsford, now living at Croton; and Henry and Alonzo Orton, late of Newaygo, both now deceased.  They put in about 4,500,000 feet in all but got into a dispute as to who should open the creek and finally their whole cut of logs laid in the creek until the spring of 1862 before the creek was opened for log running.”

“I used to find deer hunting more profitable than working in the woods.  Bear, wolves, and lynx were plentiful.  In the fall of 1867 I killed 22 deer.  I killed three deer and wounded a fourth at two shots.  I saw only one deer at either shot.  This was near where M. L. Kinney’s farm is.  In the summer of of 1863 my brother John and I with four yokes of oxen on a plow “broke” 45 acres of new land on the “Ben” Ensley farm.  The land we broke up was on the W. A. Williams and John Traver forties of the present day.”

“The winter of ’63 and’64 I attended school in Croton.  Well do I remember the noted cold New Year’s day.  On the Saturday previous I accompanied a teamster, Leavitt by name, employed by Charles Horton who kept the Riverside hotel at Croton, where I boarded, to Orson Pierson’s now where the village of Pierson is to get a load of hay to bring to his camp which was located one-half mile north of what is now the Maple Hill school house.  The timber was A No. 1 quality he bought of Mr. Reed for $50 and cut 1,500,000 and left 1,500,000 and left half as much as was scaled.  He profited over $3,000 off his $50 investment.  I, with a companion for curiosity, on the following morning went to the roll-ways to see what they looked like.  The roll-ways were where now the present site of the water works of Howard City is.  The banking grounds were newly cleared that winter.  It was a solid mass of as tall pine as I ever saw where Howard City now stands.  Up to that time in all probability there had not been an axe used there since the government surveyors passed through.”

“During the year of ’66 I purchased 80 acres of land in the town of Croton and commenced farming on my own hook which I followed for three years finally selling out to Will Collins, father of Ralph Collins now living on the same farm.  On June 1, 1869 I made a purchase of 120 acres of wild land, from Elder Welcome J. Johnson who officiated as clergyman at Ben Ensley’s first marriage and said the funeral services at the death of the first Mrs. Ensley.  Johnson afterward for years lived at Reed’s Lake near Grand Rapids.  Here I still remain with now 100 acres improved having since added 80 acres more with a comfortable home and buildings thereon.  During the winter of ’71 and ’72 I started in on lumbering; putting in 2,000,000 ft. from Sec. 4 of Ensley to Tamarac Creek.  I sold this to A. V. Mann & Co., of Muskegon.”

“During the winters of ’74 to ’77 I operated in lumbering at Heminway Lake between Stanton and Westville putting in over 12,000,000 ft., drawing at one load 5,665 ft.  Ed. Clark, of Ensley, and “Coll” Moore, of Croton, both saw this.  April 20, 1876 I joined the bonds of wedlock with Mary A. Quinn, to said union were born seven children, five girls and two boys of which six are living.  Anna the oldest died from the effects of eating matches when past four years old; Nora, of Cedar Springs, married C. E. Stone; Arthur, Jackson, Mich., Sadie, Katherine, Lizzie and Francis remain at home.  In the past few years I have devoted my time to farming entirely.  Also went into peach growing until the winter of ’98 and ’99 when the severe freezing killed about 1,200 and the winter ’03 and ’04 took about as many again of my trees leaving but a small patch of orchard.  I do not know what the outcome this season will be.  Am now in my sixtieth year and able to eat and relish three meals a day.”  

"Why waste your money looking up your family tree? Just go into politics and your opponents will do it for you." -- Mark Twain

 

SURNAMES

True surnames, hereditary names used to distinguish one person from another, first came into use in Europe about 1000 A.D., beginning in southern areas and gradually spreading northward. In many countries the use of hereditary surnames began with the nobility who often called themselves after their ancestral seats. Many of the gentry, however, did not adopt surnames until the 14th century, and it was not until about 1500 A.D. that most surnames became inherited and no longer transformed with a change in a person's appearance, job, or place of residence.

Surnames, for the most part, drew their meanings from the lives of men in the Middle Ages, and their origins can be divided into four main categories:

Patronymic Surnames

Patronymics, last names derived from a father's name, were widely used in forming surnames, especially in the Scandinavian countries. Occasionally, the name of the mother contributed the surname, referred to as a matronymic surname. Such names were formed by adding a prefix or suffix denoting either "son of" or "daughter of." English and Scandinavian names ending in "son" are patronymic surnames, as are many names prefixed with the Gaelic "Mac," the Norman "Fitz," the Irish "O," and the Welsh "ap."

Examples: The son of John (JOHNSON), son of Donald (MACDONALD), son of Patrick (FITZPATRICK), son of Brien (O'BRIEN), son of Howell (ap HOWELL).

Place Names or Local Names

One of the most common ways to differentiate one man from his neighbor was to describe him terms of his geographic surroundings or location (similar to describing a friend as the "one who lives down the street"). Such local names denoted some of the earliest instances of surnames in France, and were quickly introduced into England by the Norman nobility who chose names based on the locations of their ancestral estates. If a person or family migrated from one place to another, they were often identified by the place they came from. If they lived near a stream, cliff, forest, hill, or other geographic feature, this might be used to describe them. Some last names can still be traced back to their exact place of origin, such as a particular city or county, while others have origins lost in obscurity (ATWOOD lived near a wood, but we don't know which one).

Compass directions were another common geographic identification in the Middle Ages (EASTMAN, WESTWOOD). Most geographic-based surnames are easy to spot, though the evolution of language has made others less obvious, i.e. DUNLOP (muddy hill).

Examples: BROOKS lived along a brook; CHURCHILL lived near a church on a hill; NEVILLE came from Neville-Seine-Maritime, France or Neuville (New Town), a common place name in France; PARRIS came from -- you guessed it -- Paris, France.

Descriptive Names (Nicknames)

Another class of surnames, those derived from a physical or other characteristic of first bearer, make up an estimated 10% of all surname or family names. These descriptive surnames are thought to have originally evolved as nicknames during the Middle Ages when men created nicknames or pet names for his neighbors and friends based on personality or physical appearance. Thus, Michael the strong became Michael STRONG and black-haired Peter became Peter BLACK. Sources for such nicknames included: an unusual size or shape of the body, bald heads, facial hair, physical deformities, distinctive facial features, skin or hair coloring, and even emotional disposition.

Examples: BROADHEAD, a person with a large head; BAINES (bones), a thin man; GOODMAN, a generous individual; ARMSTRONG, strong in the arm

Occupational Names

The last class of surnames to develop reflect the occupation or status of the first bearer. These occupational last names, derived from the specialty crafts and trades of the medieval period, are fairly self-explanatory. A MILLER was essential for grinding flour from grain, a WAINWRIGHT was a wagon builder, and BISHOP was in the employ of a Bishop. Different surnames often developed from the same occupation based on the language of the country of origin (MÜLLER, for example, is German for Miller).

Examples: ALDERMAN, an official clerk of the court; TAYLOR, one that makes or repairs garments; CARTER, a maker/driver of carts; OUTLAW, an outlaw or criminal

Despite these basic surname classifications, many last names or surnames of today seem to defy explanation. The majority of these are probably corruptions of the original surnames -- variations that have become disguised almost beyond recognition. Surname spelling and pronunciation has evolved over many centuries, often making it hard for current generations to determine the origin and evolution of their surnames. Such family name derivations, resulting from a variety of factors, tend to confound both genealogists and etymologists.

It is fairly common for different branches of the same family to carry different last names, as the majority of English and American surnames have, in their history, appeared in four to more than a dozen variant spellings. Therefore, when researching the origin of your surname, it is important to work your way back through the generations in order to determine the original family name, as the surname that you carry now may have an entirely different meaning than the surname of your distant ancestor. It is also important to remember that some surnames, though their origins may appear obvious, aren't what they seem. BANKER, for example, is not an occupational surname, instead meaning "dweller on a hillside."

Printed from:  Last Name Meanings & Origins

By Kimberly Powell, About.com Guide

 

 

The following story was contributed about thirty years ago by historian Walter J. Husband of Hesperia.

Written by his sister, the late Mary Morna Husband Arndt, at the age of 13, it had been an 8^th grade assignment in 1922.  Her teacher was Alice Toogood.  Mary Husband married Elmer Arndt and the couple resided in the village of Hesperia in a home on E. Michigan Avenue.  Elmer owned an insurance company.

A Thirteen-Year-Old Looks at Monroe Township

Monroe Township was settled primarily for the purpose of lumbering, not for agriculture.  Mostly, the land was bought from the government and from Captain Ives.  However, some was bought from the GR & I Railroad Company.  At that time this land was covered with an abundant growth of pine trees which made a good average run of timber for general use, such as bridges and for house and barn lumber.

Monroe was organized as a township in 1872.  It then comprised congressional townships 15 and 16 north, 12 west, and the east half of townships 15 and 16 north and 13 west.  Home was later made into a township and Merrill was organized in 1911, leaving Monroe situated as it is now, in range 12 north and 15 west containing one legislative township.

There were a few farmers who located here even before the lumbering was begun, homesteading their farms.  Elias Ellwell was the first, locating in section 36 in 1868.  Other early settlers were Justice Chapman on section 36 in 1869, and Walter L. Whipple on section 12.  In 1870 Joshua G. Childs homesteaded land in section 26.  Luther Whipple homesteaded in section 24 and Jewel Dingman in section 21.  They were Americans, coming from New York and Vermont.

Woodville is the oldest village in the township.  It is situated at the point where the old West Michigan railroad crossed “Traverse State Road,” so called because it was the mail route from Grand Rapids to Traverse City.  This state road was built in 1854 by E. L. Grey of Newaygo.  The Big Rapids and Whitehall State Road crosses the center of the township, running from east to west.

In the year 1879 a depot, John Jernstd’s General Store, and a few log houses, were located at Woodville.  Nelson Peterson, now at Woodville in Norwich Township – must have located nearby, as did a druggist by the name of Hiram M. Read.  (Likely, Read was also a physician).  Joseph Martin, oldest pioneer resident still living in Woodville, came here in 1880 and commenced working as s section boss for the Chicago and Michigan Railroad Company until about a year ago when the whole crew was taken off.  He receives a pension for his long years of faithful service.

About this time several lumber companies came into the vicinity, Hart and Horning, West Michigan, Lyman T. Kenny, and the Hayes Lumber and Shingle Mill.  The West Michigan Lumber Company was by far the largest and most important.  The Sisson and Lilley Lumber Company established extensive mills at Pettibone Lake which was then in Monroe Township – and the town of Sisson sprung up.  Mr. Lilley, one of the members of the company, died about that time, and this section of land became an improved farm with modern buildings, owned by Charles Higley.

At Woodville, 12,000,000 feet of lumber a year were cut and piled by the West Michigan Lumber Company, and about 20,000,000 by other companies, producing a total of over 30,000,000 feet for the district.  The daily output of the West Michigan Lumber Company was 69,000 feet.  The principal owners of his company were Thayer and Adams of Boston, Mass.  The superintendent was E. B. Wright.  The number of men employed at Woodville was 350.  At Diamond Lake, they employed another 350.  At Park City 100 men were employed and their head camps were located on their farm in section 26.  As this is written, this old farm belongs to Phil Husband.  It is estimated the population of Woodville was 500 at the time the mills were running, not including the mill workers.

Rev. R. J. Slee (who became District Superintendent of the Traverse City District of the Methodist Episcopal Denomination) was a resident minister in Woodville during lumbering days.  He became a prominent man at Traverse City and surrounding areas.  He was married at Woodville to Rose Bisel, who was employed in the West Michigan boarding house.

There is an interesting incident concerning the early settlement of Brohman, located in Monroe Township until 1911 where Gibbs was a foreman in the employ of G. W. Crawford, a Big Rapids lumberman.  In a discussion with some interested people, Mr. Gibbs says:  “Myself and 36 men with 7 pairs of horses and 4 yokes of oxen started for what is now called Brohman, but at that time was called “Woods”.  The Woods was located north of Dingman’s Crossing.  Our jobs here were to build a lumber mill and a number of camps.  My father was the manager.  We arrived at the location at 7 in the morning of May 6, 1883.  Very soon, the first chip flew from Al Smith’s ax, and I picked it up and sent it to Mrs. G. W. Crawford.” 

As time went on, trees were cut into logs, land cleared, shacks built, a boarding house, men’s shanties, a store, a blacksmith shop, barns and a lumber mill were built.  They commenced cutting lumber August 22, 1883.  By that time there were about 150 people who began living there, and a lively place it was!

At Dingman’ s Crossing, old Uncle Dingman had a hotel and a ballroom and he could fiddle!

The schoolhouse was built in 1884.

When the West Michigan Company went away, Martin Holland, who had been a foreman in their employ for several years, bought their interests in Woodville and vicinity, which consisted of a greater part of Woodville and several hundred acres of land.  He took over their store and began his career as General Merchant of Woodville – which he filled very successfully until January, 1920, when he sold out to the Woodville Mercantile Company and retired to Big Rapids where he is now living, his property there requiring his attention.  Mr. Holland was always very ably assisted in his business by Mrs. Holland, who was a school teacher and bookkeeper before her marriage.  Both are highly respected by all who know them.  They have six children, all of whom have grown to lead successful lives.

The Big Rapids and Muskegon was the first railroad, and it was completed in the summer of 1873.  Hon. H. J. Mason was president and I. A. Nuns, the secretary.  The completion of the railroad was celebrated by a large excursion from Big Rapids to Muskegon.  In 1878 it was consolidated with the Chicago and West Michigan Company.  After this the West Michigan Lumber Company built a number of branch lines connecting their various logging camps and mills with the main line for transportation of logs and lumber.  These lines crossed Monroe Township in different places.  They were later taken up, but some of the old railroad grades still remain.  Management of the railroad later changed to the Pere Marquette Company, the present owners.

While the earliest settlers were building their shanties, even before any roads were made, they had to pack their supplies on their backs and walk through dense woods from Big Rapids.  As soon as a road could be made, oxen were used.  About this time the railroad was built through Woodville, making it their place for marketing.  Horses gradually took the place of oxen, and now automobiles are largely used.

The roads are being steadily improved.  The Big Rapids and Muskegon Trunkline Road, which crosses the township, being the best.  As this is being written our present bus line follows this road, making two round trips daily.

We think back, now, to the time when our pioneers had many difficulties in clearing or improving their farms that people of the present day do not have.  New ground had to be cleared and broken up and readied for their crops, and buildings had to be erected, although in Monroe Township there were some buildings left there by the lumbermen.  Their farming implements were crude and hand-made.

The early settlers lived far apart, but would often travel to each other’s farm to work together.  When a man wished to clear a piece of land, he would invite his neighbors and their wives to a logging bee.  The ladies as well as the men could have sociable times while working together.  Barn and house raisings were handled in the same manner.

In Woodville, the “Maccabees” gave dances in their hall which is now George Conkwright’s blacksmith shop.

The first grist mill was put in at Woodville by Martin Holland about 1900.

The first church was built in 1885 by the West Michigan Lumber Company.  The building itself is in Norwich Township, but the company doing the building was located in Monroe, as were a larger part of the church people.  It was called undenominational, but is now called a Methodist Church.  The first preacher was Miss Watson.

The Monroe Cemetery is in section 30, Norwich Township located just across the section line.  This cemetery was laid out at about the same time the church was being built.

The first schoolhouse built in section 18 about 1870 was called the Whipple school.   It was a log schoolhouse in which Mrs. Alice Whipple was the first teacher.  The schoolhouse in the local district No. 2 was built in 1882 or 1883. There were two rooms in the school at that time.  There are now two whole and five fractional districts in the townships.

The Gleaners’ Lodge was started in Woodville in 1908.  At that time they had about sixty members and soon owned their own building.

The first town meeting was held the first Monday in April, 1873, at the schoolhouse in district No. 5, with Elias Elwell, Roger Pettibone, and Harry Monroe as inspectors.  Monroe was elected the first Supervisor.  The leading political party was Republican.

The J. H. Johnson Pickle Company had a salting station and the Woodville Cooperative owned and operated several warehouses and a good grist mill.

The effect of the passing of the lumber business was felt for a long time.  Most of the people employed in the woods and mills moved away, leaving towns almost empty.   Buildings were torn down or moved away.

 

BIG PRAIRIE TOWNSHIP

Harry L. Spooner, prominent researcher of Newaygo County, wrote in 1925:

When Big Prairie was first settled in the 1850’s, the land was generally a prairie.  There was about a thousand acres in the tract and it was surrounded by a forest of giant oaks, pines and other trees.  The early settlers on the prairie were more lumbermen than farmers and the prairie offered an easy method of producing food for the men and animals used in logging operations.  No clearing of land was necessary and the whole tract was put under the plow the first year of its settlement.  The first crops were exceedingly good and the owners raised crop after crop without returning anything to the soil, not seeming to realize that this process could not go on forever.  The result was inevitable.

The wind began to blow the sand, in which there was but little humus, and in a few years the whole tract had to be abandoned and given over to the desert.  It did not stop with the original prairie but encroached on the farms around its border.

Heroic efforts were made to save the surrounding farms.  Fences were built, which held the sand in dunes.  When one fence was covered, another was built on top of this.  In spite of this, the desert won, and many acres of fertile land have been covered with the devastating sand.

The land was turned into a mini Sahara Desert, the largest east of the Mississippi River, never again to be the agriculture producer of its earliest years.  The prairie was discovered by John McBride who settled there sometime previous to 1849, when he sold his claim to Ephraim H. Utley who became the first permanent settler in the township.

Once the lumbermen came to the area taking the fertility from the soil and leaving the sandy waste, peach and cherry trees with deep penetrating roots were planted.  The shifting sands could not undermine them and they stood like victors upon mesas 15 feet or more above the surrounding level, giving mute evidence of where the former surface of the prairie was.

The desert with its white mounds of creeping sand became well known as a picnic place, especially for the last day of school outings.  Tourists drove hundreds of miles to hike across the dunes and picnic in the sun.

The first trees were planted on the prairie by a group of women known as the Old Social.  They planted several acres north of the Big Prairie Cemetery in 1924 and later deeded it to the township.

In the spring of 1938, the US Forest Service used the facilities of the CCC’s to start the Big Prairie pine forest.  They planted 148 acres that spring and another 27 acres in the fall of 1940.  The war interrupted the plantings and plans were made to resume them immediately after the war.

 

From the Western Michigan Genealogical Society, Nov/Dec 2011 issue:

1940 U.S. Federal Census becomes available April 2, 2012 on Archives.com.  Researchers will be able to browse, view and download images for free.  You will not be able to search for names until an index has been created.  You can search by using the Enumeration District number and that can be obtained by contacting the following website.  You will need to know the street address within the city or the name of the township your family lived in. stevemorse.org/census/quiz.php where you take a quiz and the quiz leads you through his website step by step to find the ED in 1940.

Society Security Death Index:  As of Nov. 1, 2011 state death records will no longer be used to create new entries on the Public Death Master File.  The 4.2 million entries based solely on state death records have been removed from the SSDI.  You can still order a copy of an application for a Social Security Application Card (SS-5) by using form SSA-771, Request for Deceased Individual’s Social Security Record.  The cost is $27 if you know the SSN and $29 if you do know the SSN.

FamilySearch.org now has images of Michigan County Marriages

SeekingMichigan.org has added death certificates for several counties

Ancestry.com has updated its Civil War Draft Registrations Records,1863-1865

Who Do You Think You Are? on NBC, sponsored by Ancestry.com will begin again February 3, 2012, 8:00pm Eastern Standard Time