History of Hillsdale county. Michigan, with illustrations and biographical sketches of some of its prominent men and pioneers.

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HISTORY OF HILLSDALE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.

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I

and fro, hunting and fishing, occasionally straying into
Indiana, and again making a journey to visit their brethren
in Branch and St. Joseph Counties. The testimony is general that the old chief was one of the best natured of men,
and there seems never to have been the slightest difficulty
between him and the new-comers.
The nature and example of the chief, too, appear to have
had their due influence on his band, or else all the goodnatured Indians followed him as a matter of choice, for,
from the time of Allen's arrival until the Pottawattanmies
were transported to the shores of the Missouri, a period of
some thirteen years, the red men of this clan lived in almost
perfect harmony with the whites, and with each other.
This is the more remarkable as the bands in Branch and
St. Joseph Counties had numerous feuds among themselves,
sometimes resulting in murder, and occasionally came in
collision with the whites around them.
Baw Beese is described as being always ready to give
shelter and a meal of victuals, such as it was, to any white
man who came to his wigwam, and, on the other hand, he
was still more ready to receive the same hospitality from
the whites whom he visited at their cabins. And, if they
did not offer, he was not averse to asking; for, proud as the
Indian is in some respects, he seldom comprehends that any
degradation attaches to begging for whatever he needs.
During the fishing season the band was usually to be
found near Baw Beese Lake, which was one of the best fishing-places in the country, the river being unimpeded by
dams, and the fish coming up from Lake Michigan in
great numbers. Of the little patches of corn-ground before
mentioned, the largest was in the north part of the present
township of Wright, embracing about fifteen acres. There
were a few other smaller tracts in various parts of the
county, and near the eastern line of Wheatland was a log
cabin, said to have belonged to Baw Beese; but he and
his family spent so much of their time wandering in the
woods that it would be extremely difficult to prove their
title to the domicile in question.
In June, 1828, Benaiah Jones, Jr., came, with his wife
and five children, along the Chicago trail, seeking a place
in the wilderness to make them a home. He fixed on the
point where that trail crossed the St. Joseph River, as the
most desirable one at which to locate. To save his family,
however, from camping out while he was building a house,
he proceeded to Allen's Prairie, and obtained permission
for them to live in Allen's corn barn during the summer.
From there Mr. Jones and his oldest son returned to the
point he had selected, built a log house, and made some
other slight improvements. These were on section 4,
township 6 south, range 3 west, being the site of the
present village of Jonesville.
It was during this time, in the month of August, 1828,
that the first child in Hillsdale County saw the light, its
place of birth being the corn barn just mentioned. The
youthful stranger received the name of Cordas M. Jones,
being the sixth of the sons of Benaiah Jones, Jr. In October, Mr. J removed his family to their new home, and

the winter of 1828-29 passed with two families instead of
one in the county.
The year 1829 saw a decided increase in the population

of the county. In the spring, Edmund Jones, a brother
of Benaiah, came and selected a piece of land adjoining
that occupied by the latter. About the same time, Thaddeus Wight located himself two miles west of Jonesville,
and at least as early as this, Reuben Cornish, a brother-inlaw of Mrs. Allen, joined the little settlement at Allen's
Prairie. In the middle of the summer, Thomas Reed also
settled at the same point. Population was getting crowded.
Meanwhile the land had been declared ready for sale,
and on the 8th day of June, 1829, Moses Allen, Benaiah
Jones, Jr., and Edmund Jones all appeared at the landoffice at Monroe, and purchased the tracts on which they
had located themselves, Mr. Allen taking a quarter section,
and the two Joneses each acquiring eighty acres.
By this time emigrants and prospecting-parties began to
pass through the county with considerable frequency, and
Mr. Jones opened a tavern at his log house, the first in the
county. To keep a tavern was in fact the aristocratic as
well as the profitable thing to do in those days. If a man
kept tavern it might fairly be presumed that he had two
rooms in his house, while if he didn't the inference was
almost certain that he had only one.
Mr. Allen also wished to set up a tavern (hotels were not
known here then), and as his primitive cabin was hardly
fit for that purpose, he proceeded in the summer and fall of
1829 to erect a substantial log house. It was not quite
completed when Mr. Allen was taken sick, and in October
he died; the first white victim of the grim destroyer in
Hillsdale County, so far as known. There was no lumber
anywhere within reach from which a coffin could be made,
yet his few neighbors were anxious to give him Christian
and civilized burial. They accordingly cut down a blackcherry tree, placing one end of a log severed from it on a
high bank, and the other on a crotched tree. Then one
man standing upon the log, and another beneath it, proceeded with a cross-cut saw (in the manner known as
" whip-sawing") to cut out boards enough for the required
purpose.
Hitherto we have frequently spoken of " Hillsdale
County," to avoid inconvenient repetition, meaning the
territory of which the county was to be formed. But
henceforth the county of Hillsdale was to be an actual
entity, though for several years without any county
organization. On the 29th day of October, 1829, an act
was passed by the legislative council of the Territory and
approved by Governor Cass, creating the counties of Hillsdale, Branch, St. Joseph, Cass, Van Buren, Berrien, Jackson, Barry, Eaton, Kalamazoo, and Ingham. The section
devoted to this county reads as follows:
" So much of the county as lies west of the meridian and
east of the line between ranges 4 and 5 west of the meridian, and south of the line between townships 4 and 5 south
of the base line, and north of the boundary line between
the State of Ohio and the Territory of Michigan, be and the
same is hereby set off into a separate county, and the name
thereof shall be Hillsdale."
The appellation thus selected is highly proper on account

of the diversified surface, consisting entirely of alternating
hills and dales. There is also a town of Hillsdale in Columbia Co., N. Y., another in Indiana Co., Pa., and another