CHAPTER XV.

ECONOMY, RECUPERATION, AND PROGRESS.

THE ascendency of the Whig party in the State came to an end in the great reaction which followed the death of President Harrison, and the quarrel of his successor with the party which had elected him. In 1841, John S. Barry, the Democratic candidate for governor, was chosen, with a legislature of the same political faith to support him. The new governor was a man peculiarly adapted to the station in the present condition of state affairs. The State was just beginning to recuperate after its wild and disastrous financial extravagances, and an executive was needed who would bring the most careful and rigid economy into the administration of government. In Barry the State found such an executive: his New England hard sense had been strengthened, solidified, and broadened by pioneer life, and he was a fitting leader to bring the State back to ideas and practices of economy and frugality, without at the same time lowering its character or tainting its administration with meanness. He had been much in public life, but without at any time neglecting his

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business as a merchant, and he had accumulated what was thought in those days a considerable fortune, by strict attention to business in all its details, and by prudent foresight and frugality in expenses. His honesty in public life was scrupulous, and it was a matter of course with him that he should expect, on coming to his new office, to give practical effect in state affairs to the prudential rules and principles which he knew must be sound and wise for the public, because they were profitable and expedient when applied to the business of individuals. He was much lacking in popular manners, but he had been chosen governor in the belief that he would give the State a safe and economical administration, which above all things was what the people desired and the State needed at this time. The public expectation was fully justified: the public economy was rigid and well maintained during his administration; and when men whose projects he frowned upon went off calling him a bear, and circulated by way of ridicule the story that he mowed the state house yard to sell the grass and put the money in the state treasury, the hard-working farmers of the State knew instinctively he was the proper executive for the time, and proceeded to give him a reëlection. A bear before the treasury seemed quite in proper place just now, and no economy was ridiculous which pointed a moral. In spite of the governor's cold and repelling demeanor, he

acquired a popularity to which few of his successors attained; and it may be said of his four years' service, that no other period of four years in the history of the State has been more useful to the › people, who were now slowly but steadily and surely laying the foundations of a solid and permanent prosperity. The works of internal improvement were managed with prudence and economy, and the offer which had been made to state creditors to sell them and receive in payment the outstanding state obligations was before the public, and preparing the way for the sale that soon afterwards took place.

Emigrants continued to come into the State in considerable numbers, and the process of clearing off the forest and improving the land went on rapidly, but the people were able to add to their possessions only slowly and for the most part by hard labor and strict economy. Following Governor Barry came Alpheus Felch, who resigned in the second year of his service to accept the seat to which he had been elected as senator in Congress, and was succeeded for the remainder of the term by William L. Greenly. Then came Epaphroditus Ransom, elected in 1847, in whose term the capital was removed from Detroit, where it had hitherto been, and located in the woods of Lansing forty miles from any railroad. In this same term are to be noted two exceptions to the general fact that the emigrants to Michigan came

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singly or in families, and not in organized bodies of colonists. In 1847 a party of Hollanders, coming from their native land for greater religious liberty, under the leadership of Rev. Albertus C. Van Raalte of the Dutch Reformed Church, founded the village of Holland and also Hope College; and they were followed from year to year by many others who also settled in the same part of the State, where they had schools and publications in their native language and established many churches. They were sufficiently numerous to give a distinctive character to the population of many localities in that section of the State. But it was a good character and the people were not incongruous with the existing population of the State.

A colony of a very different character settled on Beaver Island, led by James J. Strang, who had been a Mormon elder at Nauvoo and high in the confidence of Joseph Smith, the first prophet. After his superior was murdered, he claimed to have been designated as his successor, but he was defeated in his aspirations of leadership by Brigham Young, and driven off by excommunication. He went first to Voree, Wisconsin, where he started a colony on the community plan, but in 1846 removed to Beaver Island, where he founded a settlement which was called after himself, St. James. Over this settlement he assumed the authority of high priest and king, and he made laws

for it which were implicitly obeyed. He established and enforced rules of strict morality, prohibited entirely the sale of ardent spirits and enforced the prohibition, observed the seventh day as the Sabbath, built a tabernacle, and collected a tenth from the people for religious and all other public purposes. For two successive terms he was elected a member of the legislature, and performed the duties with ability, and for the most part to general acceptance. But in 1849 he introduced polygamy, and though it never spread much among his people, it led to some secessions, to continuous trouble thereafter with the "gentiles,' and to some armed collisions. In 1856 he was assassinated by renegade Mormons and the colony scattered, leaving behind it no trace in Michigan of this strange delusion.

Governor Barry was reëlected in 1849. Up to this time the constitution of 1835 had remained in force, and been satisfactory to the people. But now radicalism was in the air the world over, and discontent with existing institutions was rife in every civilized country. In France, Italy, Hungary, and Germany there were revolutions, or attempts at revolution with considerable success, and everywhere the aspiration of the people was for greater liberty and more privileges to the individual and less power to the rulers. For the overthrow of existing governments there could be no excuse in the United States, but uneasiness and a