Vassar First Events, Tuscola County, Michigan

Copyright © 1998 by Bonnie Petee. This copy contributed for use in 
the USGenWeb Archives.  

 

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VASSAR FIRST EVENTS

Taken from The History of Tuscola County, Biographical Sketches and Illustrations, 
H. R. Page Co., Chicago, 1883. Thanks to Bonnie Petee.


Dr. William Johnson, the pioneer physician, furnishes the following:

"The first resident family was that of Leander W. VanKleeck;  Mr. North's family came 
in June, 1850, and the same year O. A. Gibbs, Jacob Alber, Chauncy Furman, Mr. Waterman,
and some others.  It was some time during this year that Joshua D. Smith and Sylvester 
Black located about two miles below Vassar, their clearings being the only ones between 
Tuscola and this place.  Mr. Smith being extensively acquainted, his house became a 
frequent stopping place for all manner of travelers, Mrs. Smith ever showing herself a 
kind and attentive hostess.  Having lived for many years in the family of her uncle, 
Mr. Smith, of Saginaw City, she had acquired a considerable knowledge of medicine and 
its use, and your historian and many others made frequent demands upon her remedial 
supplies.  In 1851 a wonderful excitement prevailed, kept up by land-lookers coming in 
by scores, and others with the intention of actual settlement, and during this season 
several families moved up the river.  This year the first frame house was built in 
Vassar, erected by James Saunders, and now occupied by J. D.  Smith."

"A school district was formed in the fall of 1850 or early in the spring of 1851.  
Mr. North spending three days tramping through the woods in order to find a sufficient 
number of persons - freeholders - to sign the petition.  In the summer of 1851 the 
"Curtis shanty" was made over into a school-house, and four months of school taught by 
Miss Augusta Slafter.  A frame school-house was built the following year, and school 
taught during the winter of 1852-53 by D. G. Wilder, now of Watrousville.  The present 
brick school-house was erected in 1860."

"The first sermon preached in Vassar was by Rev. Calvin Selden, in the spring of 1851.  
In the fall of that year, Rev. S. P. Lee, a Methodist minister, found his way in, 
preaching every two or three weeks; a society was formed, comprising five members, on 
the 14th of October.  >From this date there has been Methodist preaching, thought more 
or less irregular at the beginning.  On the 12th of April, 1855, the Presbyterian 
Church was organized, the original membership being six."

"During the years 1852-54 several families moved in and became residents - F. Bourns, 
E. W. White, E. Sturges, B. W. Huston and others.  On Tuesday, November 24, 1857, the 
first copy of the Tuscola County Pioneer was issued by W. R. Bartlett."

"The first public discussion in the town on a specified topic was on the 2d of 
February, 1858, at the school-house.  It shows the drift of national thought and the 
political question of the day.  The notice read:  There is to be a public discussion at 
the school-house, on Saturday evening of this week, to commence at early candle light.  
The question to be discussed is one of no little importance, as it is so minutely 
connected with the political issues which now agitate our country:

"Resolved, that the constitution of the United States recognizes and countenances negro 
slavery"

GLIMPSE OF VASSAR IN 1855


Frederick Bourns, one of the early settlers, furnishes a view of Vassar in the spring 
of 1855, as follows:

"Those whose acquaintance with our town has only extended over the past few years, can 
have but little idea of its appearance in 1855.  It was then just about six years of 
age, and numbered less than one hundred inhabitants all told.  Most important places of 
business were the saw-mill of Messrs. North & Edmunds, now owned by our townsman,  Mr. 
B. F. McHose, a blacksmith's shop on the site of Butts & Stephens' store, the wagon 
shop of Messrs. Matthew D. and Samuel North, near where the furniture store of Messrs. 
North & Johnson now stands, the tannery at the lower end of the village, the store of 
Messrs. North & Edmunds across the street from the grist-mill, and that of Arms & 
Bourns on the present site of Mrs. Meehan's residence, and the public-house known as 
Pennell's Tavern, a part of which is still standing on Main Street, just south of the 
First National Bank.  Such is a brief description of the village of Vassar as it 
appeared in the spring of 1855."

During these years Vassar headed the march of progress, sending out its torch bearers 
to light the way.  It was here the first house of worship in the county was built, and 
the first newspaper enterprise that ever embarked upon the trouble waves of journalism 
in the county, started out from this obscure post.

Along the lumber roads or trails or through woods came settlers with their bags of 
wheat or corn upon their shoulders, bringing it to mill to be ground into material for 
bread or johnny cake.

The old boarding-house of North & Edmunds was the bakery for all this region, and men 
who had come on in advance of their families in order to get a clearing started and 
provide shelter, would bring their flour to Vassar to be baked into bread.

The first brick building in Vassar was a dwelling-house, still standing on Main Street, 
built in the year 1855.

The first private residence of much pretension in the village is the one now owned by 
B. F. McHose, on Main Street.  It was built in 1855 by John B. Joslin, and was the big 
house of this region.  Mr. Joslin never occupied it but sold it to a Mr. Swett, who 
occupied it as a boarding-house.

Dr. William Johnson was the first physician and first postmaster.







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