names hidden in their graves. History entwines itself with the names of the notorious as well as with the illustrious. Wherever the former are held up for scorn, and the latter for the admiration of men, the pen of impartiality may be traced; for never yet was the writer true to his conscience or to his duty who clothed the wolf in the fleece of the lamb, or made a hero out of a coward.

In the pages devoted to the history of Kent county the useful man and his work will have that prominence to which his physical and moral courage entitle him. It is a necessity that the unstained names of such men be transmitted; because many of them, whose lives made material for this work, have passed into eternity; others stand' on the brink of the grave. Those who have joined the majority, as well as those who are soon to go to the better land, have done good service, claiming at last that their posterity should be reminded of their fidelity and profit by their examples.

To give effect to this desire is the aim of the writer. Turning over the records of the county, nothing of moment has been left unnoticed. Beyond these records all that is legendary has been examined and utilized. Although a full co-operation was extended by the old settlers, yet a great difficulty presented itself in the loss of the public records, which nothing but earnest, unceasing research could overcome. Success waited on such efforts, and resulted in bringing forth from their hiding places many valuable papers upon which to base accounts of early times. Many of the surviving old settlers were interviewed by the writer, and from their reminiscences of olden times, as related, a good deal of all that is historically valuable, in the pages of the history, was collated.

Now, it must be borne in mind that not every historical event is given in what we distinguish as the general history of the county. Nothing has been inserted in this department which does not belong to the county at large, instead of being exclusively confined to one neighborhood, township, village, or the city. Beginning with the history of geological formations, archæological discoveries and physical features, the chapter is succeeded by a full account of Indian and pioneer times, the story of American settlement, organization, military events, and other chapters necessary to form a complete general history. This section of the work is followed by the various chapters devoted to local history and biography. No effort has been spared to render this portion of the work reliable. Unlike the history of the State, county, city, and towns, biography is the work of many men, whose notes were transcribed, re-transcribed, and submitted to the persons immediately concerned, for correction or revision, so that if a literary error occurs it must be credited to the person who gave the biographical sketch in the first instance. Printers often make grave errors which no foresight can prevent; therefore if typographical errors do appear, let justice guide the critic to sympathize with the children of progress at the printer's case, and deal lightly with the excesses of the typo's art. With this introduction to the general history of the county, we will first consider its geology.

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CHAPTER I.

GEOLOGY, ARCHEOLOGY, ETC.

GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS.

It

In tracing the geological history of the county it will be only necessary to revert to the era when the accumulated sediments of the ocean were being formed into masses of rock. Geology teaches that the continents of the world were once beneath the ocean. is natural, therefore, to suppose that there are inequalities in the bottom of the ocean like those on the land. The recent deep-sea soundings confirm this opinion, and reveal mountains and hills, valleys and table-land. The greatest depth reached in sounding is 29,000 feet, which exceeds the height of the loftiest mountain of the Himalayas. Some of the mountains in the sea are steeper and more abrupt than any on the land. In the British channel the depth changes within ten miles from 600 to 12,000 feet; and it is very common, within a few miles of the coast of continents and islands, for the depth to change suddenly from a few hundred feet to many thousand. In other cases, as in a large part of the bed of the Atlantic between Europe and the United States, there are plateaux extending hundreds of miles with very slight undulations. The mysterious race that once occupied this continent may have sailed in their galleons over this Peninsula, and sounded the depths of the waters which rose above it in precisely the same manner as the mariner of to-day casts out the sounding line. close of the Corniferous epoch a great upheaval of sea bottom formed a line of land across the southern counties of Michigan, which extended to an older and wider formation in the south part of Ohio. The land, now within the boundaries of Kent, if not all that comprised in the counties laid off between 1829 and 1836, was still submerged; but by degrees the southern belt rose higher, spread out toward the northern continent, and was actually approaching the state of dry land at the beginning of the coaldeposit era. At its close Kent and the counties bordering formed the highlands of the Lower Peninsula. It is stated that Lakes Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario were not in existence then, their places being represented by a swift running river, with expansions. The great geological age, the Mesozoic, dates from this time. It was marked by activity in the animal and vegetable

At the

kingdoms, mild climates, and the myriads of reptiles which swarmed in rivers and over lands. Save in the fossils there is no record of the progress of this age to be found within the boundaries of Kent. The Tertiary period succeeded the Mesozoic. It was an age of beautiful climates, and high development of mammals. Animals greater than the mastodon roamed over the land, through verdant forests, meeting their enemy, man, and ultimately disappearing under his continued attacks.

The scene was changed; the snow and ice came on, burying all nature in its whiteness, and robbing the land of life. It was the beginning of the Glacial period. The duration of this age is lost in mystery. Were it possible to ignore the work of a God in the formation of the world, the continuance of the ice age might be set down at two thousand years; acknowledging a Divine economy in the handiwork of the world, the period of its duration might have been an incredibly short time. Spring time came, and with it the sea of ice, which covered land and water to a depth of over 5,000 feet, began to break up and dissolve, and the solids held within its grasp fell down and formed a bed of rocky fragments or boulder drift. The countless currents which sprang into existence and formed for themselves ten thousand channels, were the principal agents in the conformation of that peculiar stratum known as the "Modified Drift." Referring to this period the geologist Winchell says:

"In due time a change of climate, dissolving the glacier, originated torrents of water which imparted an imperfect stratification to the superficial portion of the drift materials. There was, per. haps, a subsidence which buried the whole State again beneath the waters of the ocean. Whether this were so or not, the great valleys excavated by Mesozoic and glacier agencies were left filled with the water, which either was originally, or in time became, fresh water. The breadth of the great lakes exceeded vastly their present dimensions. The barrier to the outlet of the great lake waters had not yet been worn down at the present mouth of the Niagara river, and the water set back as one continuous lake from the bluffs at Lewiston to Monroe-to Detroit--to Chicago.

From Saginaw Bay to Lake Michigan, via the valleys of the Shiawassee, Maple and Grand rivers, a great channel, deep and wide, extended. South of this line barriers existed that checked the flow of the waters south, and from hundreds of reservoirs. This accumulation of ice-water and the second season of ice resulted in the formation of another glacial field, differing from the great glacier in its depth and duration, being not over four feet in thickness. Along the borders of those reservoirs the ice became an integral part of the shore soil, of course including the limestone; and when the second geological spring-time arrived, millions of cubic feet of water were added to these lakes, resulting in bursting asunder their green covering of ice, which, in ascending, carried with it the limestone tables, and, as the waters fell, deposited them in the positions which they hold to-day. As the

Niagara rock was worn down, the rushing waters made for themselves deeper channels, the inland lakes lowered just in proportion as the great lakes. The present river system was laid out by

nature.

In the following pages the structural and economical geology of the county is treated as concisely as the subject will allow. The fossiliferous, ferruginous sandstone formation of the State may be said to reach its thinnest stratum at Grand Rapids. This comprised the following subdivisions: Thirty feet of coarse quartzose, yellowish gray sand rock; 15 feet of brown sand rock, with marine fossils; a short green rock with fossils and ferruginous spots resting on a bed of hard, gray sand rock, one foot in depth. A dingy green, fine-grained sandstone, interstratified with sandstone, slate and a blue, shaly clay, supports the upper strata and is from 15 to 20 feet in depth. This rests in turn upon the yellow sand rock of a marine fossiliferous character, 20 feet in depth, and all based upon the fine-grained sand rock, slightly saturated.

The gypsum and coarse-grained sandstones peculiar to the Kent formations point out their saliferous character, though the creation of fissures in the sand rock has caused an almost total drain of brine conducing to exhaust the saturation of the rock, and lead the saline waters to other basins.

The black bituminous shales known as the Huron shales and flagstones are found in Kent. In sinking the Butterworth salt well this shale was penetrated to a depth of 59 feet; and again in the boring for the Lyon well it was found to reach a depth of 214 feet. The rock is laminated, bituminous, pyritiferous and dark blue or black in color. The outcrop of the Napoleon sandstone, near Grandville, in Kent county, on the northwest bank of Grand river, is about 100 feet in depth, separated from the Marshall rock by a bed of clay from 10 to 15 feet in thickness.

The Carboniferous limestone of Kent county is the best known formation in the State. The rock along the rapids at the county seat is calcareous, with an arenaceous composition peculiar to the lower strata. Prof. Winchell, in his reference to this outcrop, states: This formation of Carboniferous limestone is best known at Grand Rapids, where the river has a fall of 18 feet in a distance of two miles. The rock here exhibits gentle undulations, but the resultant dip is slightly toward the northeast. It occurs in generally thin, irregular beds, which are considerably broken up, and embrace frequent partings of argillaceous and bituminous matter. In composition it is eminently calcareous; but in the lower portion arenaceous matter gradually gains preponderance, and belts and patches of the same material are irregularly distributed through the formation. In the upper part of the exposure is a belt five feet thick of red ferruginous, arenaceous limestone. The thickness of the formation below this is 51 feet, while the thickness above is probably less than that below. The portion of the formation below the ferruginous stratum contains numerous

geodes, filled with brown and white dog-tooth spar, brown pear spar, rhombic calcareous spar, selenite anhydrate, aragonite and pyrites.

This formation is common in other parts of Kent county. Extending through Ada and Cannonsburg, it may be traced north to the Muskegon rapids. Its southern extension underlies the townships of Walker, Paris and Gaines, and terminates in the exposure on section 13, Summit, Jackson Co., where it exposes its true formation. This may be shown in the following record:

Sandstone, red, calcareous, highly shattered, breaking into wedge-shaped fragments with conchoidal surfaces, changing to limestone, highly ferruginous, brecciated in places, containing nodules of chert. The first stratum is 10 feet in depth and the latter four feet. This rests on a bed of limestone two feet thick, arenaceous, brecciated, shattered, with thin layers of a sandy and greenish character. The whole exterior of some of the blocks is covered with a thick, loose coating of the same material. The upper surface is undulating but smoothed, as if by water, before the superior layers were deposited. Three of a crystalline, silicious, bluish-gray limestone, compact in form with crystals of dogtooth spar, underlie the three described strata. The sandstone referred to at the beginning of the record is the dividing layer between the upper and lower portions of the rock.

THE MICHIGAN SALT GROUP

appears outcropping near Grand Rapids, in Wyoming township. Here, as has been stated, the Napoleon sandstone is exposed, and is succeeded capitally by saliferous shales, intercalated beds of gypsum and magnesian limestone, known to attain a depth of 184 feet. On the north side of the river opposite section 3, Wyoming township, is the gypsum bluff, 80 feet above the river, containing extensive gypsum deposits. In the boring on the banks of the Grand river, section 3, township 6 north, range 12 west, which was begun July 8, 1838, and finished in 1842, when it reached a depth of 473 feet, the stratification given in the following table was found to exist. In respect to this well, it must be remembered that after Dr. Houghton went forth on that fatal tour to Lake Superior, John Ball was placed in charge of the State works at Grand Rapids. It is the impression of Mr. Ball that under his direction the State well was bored to a depth of 700 or 723 feet. Michael Carroll was the blacksmith at the works.