The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1871-03-31

time, provisions were plenty on Big
Prairie Ronde; the Nesbitt family had
on hand two large crops of wheat-near-
ly six thosand bushels-with no mill
within a reasonable distance to grind it.
With this large store of grain on hand,
they bought their -four at eleven dollars
per barrel, about four miles west of
White Pigeon, which was shipped by
way of the Lakes, from Ohio and up
the st. Joseph river. Robert Nesbitt
built the first saw mill in Kalamazoo
county within four miles OF their settle
ment He built it for firm named
Fellows and Bacon. The first sawed
lumber ever used in Kalamazoo, he
sawed with his own hands, in that mill /:
aud his brothers John and Thomas
hauled it with oxen to Kalamazoo, and
delivered it to Mr.. Hewson. With a
portion of this lumber, he also built, in
1881, for John p errine, the first framed
house on Big Prairie Ronde, which EN-
braced the whole of Kalamazoo county,
then unorganized. The next year, 1882
he built, or did the carpenter work on a
house for his parents; and Judge Mon
roe built the chimncys and plastered the
house. For three years after that, Mr..
Nesbitt worked at the millwright trade,
and during the whole time of his res
idence in this region, called then the St.
Joseph country, lie built, or superin
tended the building of twenty-three
saw mills; eight of the number were
for himself. Some of them he literally
wore out in the service of manufactur-
ing lumber for building purposes in the
new country. In the month of March,
1885, the three brothers, John, James
and Rbert Nesbitt, took their provision
sack, with twelve days rations, chain,
compass, and spirit level, and came on
foot to the present township of Hamil-
ton, which was then attached, with the
whole of Van Buren, county, to Cass
county for Judicial purposes He then
found his present location on Brush
Creek, and bought three eighty acre
lots at the land Office in Kalamazoo
April 18th, 1885. This was the first
land bought of government in the pres
ent township of Hamilton The year
previous, as stated in a former chapter,
the two brothers John and James, had
located some lots in Keller, Robert
did not make a final move till October,
then he hauled nineteen loads of lumber
and supplies from Prairie Ronde. with
two pairs Of oxen. He built his first
saw mill and started it the following
June, 1886. The same year he built a
log house. twenty by thirty feet in di-
mansions, which was the first inhabited
house in the township. The year pre-
vious, however, man by the name of
Clark, from Prairie Ronde, had built q
small house, for hunting and camping
accommodations, one mile and half
south of this locality probably very
near the old Brown Hotel. The next
actual settler in the township was Lewis
johnson, now living where he first To-
Gated. The third settler was Zebina
Stearns, who went, with his family, into
the hunting house built by Mr.. Clark.
Late in the fall of 1885 Mr.. Knick-
erbocker came and located on the bank
Of the lake bearing his name, which is
three miles south of Nesbitt's. Here
he built Il log shanty without doors, floor,
roof, thinking or chimney the fire was
built in the corner. Mr.. Knickerbocker
died in this uncomfortable house of
lung fever, after a few days sickness
caused by OVERRIDING in building it, and
restitution. Mr. Gremps brought his
coffin from Paw Paw, and the few set.
tiers who attended his funeral buried
him on an island in the lake; which
they reached by going out on the ice,
with snow two feet deep over it. The
family moved sway Immediately after
his death.
Soon after this sad vacancy was made
in the little sparse settlement, another
quite as affective, apd more sudden, &C.
cured in the town of Keller, only few
miles from the first. A man named
Fenton, spoken of in former chapter)
L. a