Kalkaska County MI Archives Biographies.....Row, Orange A 1837 - 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Pat McArthur http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00025.html#0006091 February 15, 2009, 8:10 pm

Author: H.R. Page & Co., 1884 - Chicago


"The Traverse Region, Historical and Descriptive, with Illustrations of 
Scenery and Portraits and Biographical Sketches of some of its Prominent Men 
and Pioneers"
Chicago: H.R. Page & Co., 1884
Page 318

ORANGE A. Row was born in Monroe County, N. Y., in the year 1837. About the 
year 1849 his parents removed to Michigan and settled in Eaton County. 
October, 1862, Mr. Row enlisted in Company K, Forty-fourth Indiana Infantry, 
and remained in the service until the close of the war. Sept. 7, 1871, he was 
married at Wright, Hillsdale. He was engaged in farming in that county before 
coming to Kalkaska County, in 1872, as already stated. He lived on his farm in 
Orange until 1881, when, having been elected sheriff of the county at the 
previous fall election, he removed to the village of Kalkaska. Since his term 
of office expired he has been in the real estate business. His homestead farm 
is one of the finest in the county, there being about seventy-five acres 
improved and good buildings.

The town of Orange dates back to the spring of 1871, when Orange A. Row, A. P. 
Wheeler and Lewis Deuel located homesteads, Row and Wheeler on Section 18, and 
Deuel on Section 8. The three men named from Hillsdale County set out in March 
to locate homes in this new country. They were accompanied by four others who 
came up here but did not remain. The party came by train to Paris, near Big 
Rapids, and from there the journey was made on foot. The first night after 
arriving here they camped out in the woods. There were plenty of hemlock 
boughs for shelter, but their stock of provisions consisted of one loaf of 
bread. A pioneer, however, was never known to starve. Persons die of hunger in 
crowded cities and in midst of plenty, but all the annals of history do not 
furnish an instance where the genuine pioneer has died of starvation.

O. A. Row was the first supervisor, James H. Drake, first clerk, and Norman 
Saunders, first treasurer. The first chopping was done by Row and Wheeler. The 
first school-house, known as "Row's school-house," was built on Section 19 
about four years after the town was settled. The postoffice was first 
established in 1879 with O. A. Row postmaster. The first frame barn in Orange 
was raised May 15, 1878, on the farm of Mr. Row. The town of Orange settled 
very rapidly, and by the fall of 1874, the government land had been nearly all 
taken up. When the first house was built there was not another within a 
distance of seven miles. The nearest postoffice was at Traverse City, thirty-
five miles away, and from that place the settlers had to transport their 
supplies upon their backs. 


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