Orleans TOWNSHIP

History of Ionia County, Michigan : her people, industries and institutions, with biographical sketches of representative citizens, and genealogical records of many of the old families  by Rev. E.E. Branch (1906) pages 168-174

Township 8 north, in range 7 west, was included within Ionia township until March 25, 1846, when it was organized by the Legislature as the township of Orleans and the first meeting ordered to be held at the house of Ira Wheeler. The meeting called for the purpose of naming the town was held at the house of E. B. Post, and among the names proposed those of Wheatland and Dover appeared to meet with the most favor, the former especially. It would have been adopted, but the discovery that there was another Wheatland in the state caused it to be set aside by the legislative representative of the district, and the substitution by him or somebody else of Orleans, doubtless from Orleans, New York. It seems that some of the folks in the western portion of the town thought Wheatland ought to be the name because they raised buckwheat, and indeed did call it Wheatland before the town was organized. When they gave their reasons for wanting that name adopted, Daniel Hoyt, always keenly alive to a sense of the ridiculous, exclaimed "What not call it Buckwheatland?"

At the first town meeting, held at the house of Ira Wheeler, April 6, 1846, Gilbert H. King and Jessie Wood, justices of the peace, were present as inspectors of election, and they with Milo K. Cody, David Courter and Garrett Snediker constituted the board of inspectors. Jesse Wood was chosen moderator and Albert Dorr. clerk, whereupon the polls were opened. Forty-one votes were cast and officials were chosen as follows: Supervisor, Gilbert H. King; clerk, Seneca H. King, treasurer, Ira Wheeler; justices of the peace, Guy Webster and Garrett Snediker: highway commissioners, Chester Goss and Joel C. Green; constables, Samuel T. Kidd and Isaac Harwood; overseers of the poor, Joel C. Green and Jesse Wood; pathmaster, Milo K. Cody, Garrett Snediker, John Highbee and Gilbert H. King. Upon the license question, the vote against the license was twenty-six to thirteen; at the next annual township meeting, the vote was in favor by twenty-eight to fifteen.

In common with the lands of Keen and Otisco townships, those in Orleans were not put upon the market until August, 1839, but lands were preempted and settlements effected more than a year before that date. Whatever distinction can attach to the first settler in the town is due now, by the way of remembrance, to Guy Webster, of Ohio, who, then living on a farm in Lorain county, came out to Ionia county in the winter of 1837-38 on a tour of inspection, and fancying the lay of the land upon section 36 in Orleans township preempted a tract, returned to Ohio and at once began preparations for the removal of his family and goods to Michigan. He hired a young man by the name of William Henry Harrison Sutliffe to help him over the journey, and all hands set out with two pairs of oxen, one horse and a lumber wagon packed with goods. At Ionia, Webster left his family at McCausland's tavern and with Sutliffe went to his Orleans place for the purpose of making a clearing and building a cabin. After he and Sutliffe had been at work just one day they concluded that they must have a female to look after the cooking, and since their efforts in that direction had been attended with lamentable and disastrous failure Sutliffe went over to Ionia after Lucretia, the thirteen year-old daughter of  Mr. Webster, later Mrs.Loren Sprague of Ronald. At the little fellow's request they brought back also Master Guy Webster, Jr., a bright little lad of six years; but young as he was he was just as ready to rough it as any of them, and eager too to do what he could to lend a hand in pioneering. Sutliffe and the children came along on the road Webster and he had previously cut out by the way of Yeoman's place. When Mr. Webster raised his log cabin he had besides that of Sutliffe the assistance of Joshua S. Hall and Stephen Starks, two young men then just making a start in the woods in Ionia township near the northern township line. The floor of that cabin was not what in this latter day would be called a stylish affair. It was in short a "split" floor, and when Mr. Webster got enough of it laid to put a bedstead on he sent for his wife, who had thus far remained in Ionia in attendance upon her sick daughter, to come and help them keep house. With its split floor and its otherwise primitive appointments, Webster's log house was nevertheless a sort of house of entertainment for a time after its construction, and lodged numbers of people journeying that way in search of land or upon other business.

When Webster came to Orleans he brought a barrel of appleseed and planted the first orchard in the town, from which he was ultimately enabled to supply his neighbors with the stock for the foundation of other orchards. Guy Webster died in 1854, and his widow who lived with her daughter, Mrs. Loren Sprague, during the latter years of her life, died in 1874 at the age of eighty-four. As to Sutliffe, who worked for Mr. Webster, he preempted eighty acres on section 36 soon after coming in and did some work on the place while he boarded at Webster's, but not until 1843, when he married, did he make a settlement upon it. After a stay of ten years he left the community.

Joseph Collins, the second settler in Orleans township, settled on the northwest quarter of section 18 in May, 1838, but did not appear to make much of an effort towards improving the place. The very good reason for such lack of effort was that Collins was too poor to buy any land, and he knew that what improvements he might make he would have to give up just as soon as the land was sold. So he lived in a log shanty, raised barely enough to live on and made up his mind to live there until the purchaser of the land should put him off. He did not have to wait very long for that performance to take place, and then, like a philosopher, he went somewhere else. By some good fortune he got somebody to help him to a small tract of land in Otisco and there he lived until his death in 1850.

Although Mr.Collins was not especially distinguished for his pioneer performances in Orleans, his log shanty in that town became the locale of two interesting historic events-the first wedding and the first death known in that town. The wedding was a double marriage in which the brides were Lois and Sallie, daughters of Joseph Collins, and the bridegrooms William G. Bradish and Hiram Baxter, of Otisco. Squire Thomas Cornell, of Ionia, tied the knots, and of course there was a generally happy time although the Collins mansion was not precisely of the kind adapted to a very brilliant display in the way of marriage festivities. The weddings took place in the summer of 1839, and late that year Joseph Collins, Jr., a lad of nineteen, died at his father's house after a lingering illness of consumption. He was buried at Otisco.

Early in 1838 Erastus Higbee came to Michigan from New York and stopped in Oakland county to visit Charles Broas, formerly a neighbor of Higbee's in New York. From Oakland county Broas and Higbee came to Ionia county in search of land, and following Guy Webster's tracks to Orleans reached his place on June 26, 1838. Broas pushed on and eventually located at the place now called Belding in Otisco. Higbee decided to locate in Orleans and preempted four lots of eighty acres each in section 36, where his son John later lived.

The next arrival in that neighborhood was the Rev. Archibald Sangster, an alleged Baptist clergyman. He had but recently come to America from England, preached a year at Ionia and in 1839. finding that his preaching did not pay as a financial venture, made a settlement upon section 35 in Orleans. After assuming the role of pioneer he preached occasionally here and there, but as a minister of the gospel did not cut much of afigure. His religious belief was a little shaky at times, and for that reason possibly his influence was not quite so powerful as it might or should have been. John Higbee said he called on him one day and found the parson apparently disturbed in his mind: touching which condition, he presently remarked to Higbee that if he could by some exchange satisfy himself he would give the quarter section he owned for positive knowledge as to where he would go after death.

Later, Mr. Higbee happened at a meeting where Sangster preached, and after service asked him whether he had satisfied himself as to the future. Oh, yes," returned the preacher, "I think I've got it reasoned out all right." As he did not indicate whether he felt sure of going to heaven or to the other place, his conclusions were simply matter of conjecture. After he left Orleans he returned to California. To him is ascribed the honor of having built, in 1839, the first frame house in Orleans, the lumber having been obtained at the Dickinson mill in Otisco. The first frame barn in the town was built shortly afterwards by Guy Webster.

Speaking about John Higbee it may be remarked that in his day he was a famous hunter. Hundreds of deer had fallen beneath his unerring aim, and when he could not kill four a day he concluded the day was a bad one for deer hunting. He was likewise a sharp one after wolves, for the bounty, which at one time was as high as eighty dollars, was a big inducement. It was said that while Higbee was in the wolf-catching business he made money faster than any man in the town.

In 1838 Daniel Hoyt came to Michigan from New York state, and settling upon section 21 in Otisco, made a clearing and put in a crop of wheat. He made no attempt at a settlement there however, living meanwhile at the house of Philo Bates near Ionia. As he journeyed from time to time between his Otisco clearing and Ionia he passed by the land on which he later lived, and despite the fact that there seemed to be a general desire on the part of everybody coming out that way to settle near the Flat river, he made up his mind to buy some land in the town of Belding. He selected eighty acres on section 21, and at the land sale August 5, 1839, he bought the tract, that being the first land in Orleans sold at that sale.

When Mr. Hoyt bought his land and announced his intention to occupy it, at once those at the land sale already living in that part of Orleans fairly shouted with joy at the prospect of getting a new neighbor. The persons referred to as already living in that vicinity were Asa Palmer, Lorenzo D. Bates and Joseph Collins.

Palmer had been working at Dickinson's mill in Otisco since 1837, and in December, 1838, moved to a piece of land on section 19, in Orleans township. In 1842 Mr. Palmer moved to section 21, and there resided until his death. In 1851 he joined with his brother Charles in the erection of the first saw-mill in the town, on Long Lake creek, in section 5, and before completing the enterprise added also as partners, Hiram Hall and Robert Howe. Later, Jude R. Spencer bought the property and added a gristmill.

Among the settlers of 1839 was Chester Scofield, who, coming from Ohio near where Guy Webster had lived, bought some land of Webster in Orleans township, as did also John Frost, who came about the same time.

The identity of the first person born in Orleans is not easily defined, for there appear to be claims to that distinction on behalf of three children, of whom one was Abbey, daughter of Chester Scofield, born in 1841; in that year were born George Palmer, son of Asa Palmer, and Calista, daughter of Calvin Woodard, who married Mary Smith, sister of Chester Scofield's wife.

Nathan Redington and Deacon Pierce came from Lorain county, Ohio, in 1844, with a pair of horses and a yoke of oxen and settled in Ionia county Redington on section 24 in Orleans and Pierce on section 30 in Ronald. Before that John Ditmars, son-in-law of Erastus Higbee, located on section 25, where he lived about twenty years and then removed to Kansas, where he died. On section 25 Joseph Carev also located in 1814, and about a year after Marvil Haight occupied some land in section 36 that belonged to his son-in-law Joshua Hall. Jesse Wood came from New York state about 1844, and after living a brief period with his son William, in Ronald, settled on a farm in Orleans, on section 24.

Adam Buzzard moved from New York to Washtenaw county, Michigan, in 1837, and in 1840 was in Ionia for a brief stay. In 1845 he came back to Ionia county with D. C. Hurd and the two made land purchases on section 15 in Orleans. Buzzard worked for Hurd a year and then occupied his own land. Mr. Buzzard had a narrow escape from death in 1850, as did his companion on that occasion, E. B. Post, both of them having gone out on Long lake on a fishing excursion, Long lake being at that time a famous place for fish. While they were out a storm of violent fury came upon them, and before they fairly knew what had happened their canoe capsized and they were thrown into the water. Although the wind blew almost a hurricane and the waves dashed about madly, the unfortunate fishermen managed by heroic and desperate efforts to cling to the bottom of their upturned craft, and half dead with cold and exertion reached shore at last in safety. It was a terrible experience, however, and one that neither forgot to his dying day.

In 1843 James Kidd located four hundred and forty, acres of land in Orleans township for his father, William R., who in the spring of 1844 came out with his two sons, S. T. and Robert W., and occupied the land. In 1842 the Orleans settlers included Edmund B. Post, Alexander Howe and Angus McPherson. In I843 Martin Eckert and his son Jeremiah came from Washtenaw county to section 18; Joel C. Green, to section 17: Richard Hill, to section 3,; Isaac Harwood. to section 18; Milo J. Cody, to the Face farm, on section 23: David Courter, to section 17, and Richard Hale, to section 19. Those of 1844 included Albert Dorr, section 8; Ira Wheeler, section 15; Warner Wheeler, section 8; of 1845 Thomas Neep. William Bradley, Samuel Raby and Chester Goss: of 1846 James W. Gould, section 16; James C. Beach, section 28; Seneca H. King, section 20; Lewis J. Holcomb, section 19; Charles Chadwick, section 8, and Hiram Hall, section 17. Elder Robert Howe, Frank Olmstead and Erastus Sherwood were likewise among the comers of 1846, the last selling out in two years to Joseph Baldwin and returning to Oakland county. In I847 there were Lewis and Myron Smith, on section 14; James Baird, on sections 16 and 17, and Hiel Preston, south of Daniel Hoyt's.

In the northwestern corner of the town there was a community of English or Canadian settlers among whom were the Bradleys, Neeps, Chadwicks and Autcliffs. Near Long lake, where Hiram Hall and T. Heald built a saw-mill in 1860, the early settlers were Theodore Leach, J. W. Drake, the Morses, Kings, Freeman Decker and Oliver Decker.

Among other early settlers in the Southwestern corner of the town were Samuel Woolridge, E. D. Lambertson, T. W. Heald, R. P. Johnson, L. A. Benedict, Gilbert King, A. D. Johnson, L. M. Berry, John and Patrick Kelly, Fergus Flanagan, G. W. Basom, A. W. Smith and Abraham Alderman. The last mentioned settled in North Plains in 1853.

SUPERVISORS.1847-48, G. H. King; 1849, S. H. King; 1850, L. D. Smith: 1851, Guy Webster; 1852, S. H. King; 1853, J. Jennings; 1954, W. S. Lazelle; 1855, S. H. King; 1856, D. Hitchcock; 1857-69, M. Lazelle, 1860, G. H. King; 1861-64, A. Dorr; 1865-66, D. C. Spaulding; 1867-71, J. Collins; 1872, F. Flanagan; 1873-78, F. Pitt; 1879-80, E. D. Lambertson; 1881-83, Loren C. Falls, 1884-87-88-89-90-91-02: Luther E. Hall, 1893 -94-95; Alfred A. Palmer, 1896-97-98-99-00; Fred Pitt, 1901 to the present time.

SHILOH. The village of Shiloh, located on section 1, is a station on the Ionia and Stanton branch railroad, and, although the Youngest of the villages in Orleans, is one of the smartest. Wilmer Bishop was the leading merchant, and with Charles Leach carried on a saw-mill and planing-mill not far from the village.

Last update January 5, 2008