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This is to certify that the

dissertation entitled

THE VILLAGE AND THE WORLD:
THE SHAPING OF CULTURE IN MARSHALL, MICHIGAN,
1831-1859

presented by

Daniel R. Campbell

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

Ph. D. degree in History

QT“ (QT; “91“]

Date Nov-her 72 1986

ucn.-.....Am._-.;_.‘ ' '- H‘ ' ' ’ ' 042771

 

 

 

MSU

 

 

 

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MAR 1 9 2009

 

 

 

ABSTRACT

THE VILLAGE AND THE WORLD: THE RESHAPING
OF CULTURE IN MARSHALL, MICHIGAN, 1831-1859

BY
Daniel R. Campbell

This case study investigates the development of culture
in a Michigan village over a period of three decades. It
examines what villagers thought about culture and how they
cultivated their own. It also tests important cultural
hypotheses of scholars. Historians write about the cultural
significance of material culture, education, religion,
commerce, literature, politics, and the family, and Marshall
provides an opportunity to test their hypotheses and to
discover relationships between different forms of cultural
expression.

Culture in Marshall was shaped by local, regional,
national, and international influences. The need to produce
large quantities of goods in and out of the home, for
instance, created an early, local preference for simplicity.
Village culture was also shaped by regional influences.
Marshall evangelicals, in particular, were set afire
spiritually in New York State, and they became adept in
Marshall at exploiting new opportunities in the media,
schools, and the arts. As a result, Whigs exerted

significant cultural influence on the village, even though

11

their political party expired during the mid-18505. Through
the 18403, Marshall residents subscribed to national cultural
ideals. Popular tastes were self-consciously American.
Nationalism shunted foreign influence and minimized
parochialism, but it was short-lived. It was ground to
pieces by strong regional prejudices on one side and by ideas
from abroad on the other.

Important cultural change occurred in Marshall during
the 18505. The Neo-Classical style in the material culture
gave way to a new eclectic taste, and the heroic style of
literature was replaced by European realism. This
transformation was bound up with changes in the village
family and economy. Through the 18403, men and women
maintained different spheres or roles in the community.
Their children, however, shared similar spheres through early
adolescence, and when they came of age during the 18505, they
were less inhibited than their parents, rebelling against the
strictures of Neo-Classicism and producing a freer, Victorian

period in the village.

iii

To George E. and Beatrice E. Campbell

iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Numerous individuals assisted in this case-study. The
Marshall Historical Society was generous in providing access
to its collection. Society archivist Richard Carver, whose
knowledge about Marshall is prodigious, has been a frequent
guide and source of inspiration. The staffs of the Michigan
Library and the Michigan Archives were also most helpful. It
is with sadness that I acknowledge the contribution of
Stephen Botein who served as director of this thesis until
his recent death. Timely assistance by Professors David T.
Bailey and William B. Hixson made completion of this study
possible. Dr. Linda Stanford of the Art Department at
Michigan State University offered guidance and insight.
Other members of the History Department who have provided
assistance include Drs. Justin Kestenbaum, Gordon Stewart,
Emily Tabuteau, and Lisa Fine. Beatrice Campbell proofread
the manuscript and made editorial comment, and Dr. Cecil B.
Currey of the University of South Florida and Messrs. James
McKlurken, John Dederer, and Clifton Fox provided valuable

advice.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Tables vii
List of Figures viii
Introduction 1
Material Culture 12
Regional and National Media Networks 69
Lifelong Education 97
Popularizing the Fine Arts 124
Village Producers and Consumers 169
Literary Culture 207
Political Culture 240
Conclusion 268
Bibliography 271

vi

LIST OF TABLES

Population 2
Origin of Marshall Area Residents 8
Western Statesman Exchange, 1842-1843 75
Comparison of the Sources Cited in the Statesman

for the Years 1842 and 1858 90
Monthly Fabric Purchases 178-179
The Character of Customers 183
Allocation of Cash Receipts, 1837-1859 193
Disposition of Credit 197
Disposition of Payments on Account 198
Calhoun County Vote Returns in Presidential Elections 241

vii

LIST OF FIGURES

Map of Eastern United states
Hasbrouck Double Cottage
Schellenberger House

Lord Mansion

Sibley Mansion Roof Line
Fitch Temple Mansion
Calhoun County Court House
Mays Temple Mansion

Greeves Mansion

Brewer Cottage

McCall Cottage

Pratt Temple Cottage

Fitch Temple Mansion Side Entrance
Brewer Mansion

Young Ladies’ Institute
Capitol Hill School
Tillotson House

Herndon Motel

Calhoun County Poor Farm
Henry Mart Map

.Abner Pratt Sofa

.Abner Pratt Sofa

Sidney Ketchum Oil Painting

Drawing of a Gentleman

viii

42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
154
155

LIST OF FIGURES [contd.l

Daguerreotype of Justin Woolsey 156
Newspaper Advertising Cut 157
Ambrotype of Three Girls 158
Ambrotype of Lizzie Ingersoll 159
Ambrotype of Mrs. John Ingersoll 160
Calhoun County Bank Three Dollar Bill 161
Newspaper Front Page 162

ix

INTRODUCTION

Marshall, Michigan was a county seat and a commercial
grain milling center settled in 1831. .It was never a
particularly large town. It remained a village for nearly
thirty years and never achieved the urban dimensions of those
communities normally investigated by historians. It
constituted a point on the periphery of nineteenth century
social, economic, and cultural development. Yet, it was
typical in many regards of a great many communities settled
in the five states of the old northwest. Far more Americans
in that region turned to villages like Marshall during the
early nineteenth century for services, guidance, and
inspiration than to cities like Detroit, and it is essential
that scholars look at such villages and their economic,
social, and cultural roles. This case study of Marshall
examines the latter, the role the village played in
transmitting and affecting culture.

Marshall was typical of rural county seats in size and
function. Founded in 1831, it benefited from westward
migration during the boom of the 18305, its population
reaching a thousand in 1837. Population growth slowed down
during economic depression, recovering with the economy in

the late 18405. At the time of the 1850 Federal census,

Marshall had a population of about two thousand. Total
population topped 2,500 in 1852 and in 1859, when Marshall
became a city, it stood near thirty-five hundred. Marshall
was typical of a second level of towns in the Midwest, much
smaller than cities like Detroit, Chicago, or Buffalo, yet

much larger than the villages and hamlets in commercial and

cultural orbit around Marshall.

 

Table 1
POPULATION
Census Years Marshall Calhoun County
1837 1,004
1840 1,287 10,600
1850 2,050 19,169
1854 2,960
1860 3,580 29,398

 

Culture is defined here in a very traditional way. This
study began as an investigation of material culture, of form
and style. The examination soon broadened, however, to
include all the arts, and the culture of Marshall was
explored through its buildings, furniture, dress, art, music,
.and letters. The term culture is defined here, therefore,
much as Marshall villagers understood it when they insisted
‘that exposure to the arts made them "cultured." Villagers

<defined "the arts" broadly, however, to include both the fine

and domestic or "useful" arts. During the early nineteenth

century, the two were not necessarily distinguished from one
another. The homemaker, artisan, and shopkeeper expressed

much the same ideals in their work as the professional or
occasional itinerant artist.

This study also explores the development of a market-
oriented culture. During the early nineteenth century, some
traditional or folk values gave way to those of a commercial
market place in fashion and thought. Scholars are very
interested in this process, in the emergence of what they
call "urban," "popular," "cosmopolitan," ”mass," or even
”modern" culture. Much of that research draws on the
theories of anthropologist Henry Glassie. Glassie
distinguishes between folk and popular culture. In his
typology, folk culture tends to change over'space but not
time, while popular culture tends to change over time but not
space.2 This typology has invited some historians to view
the emergence of mass culture in simplistic terms, as a
simple transformation from folk or parochial to mass values.
That transformation, as we will see, was much more complex.

Culture in Marshall was shaped, in part, by local
factors. During the first decades of settlement, demands on
local production were great. Villagers responded by
inventing or importing better tools or by streamlining or
simplifying design in homes, furniture, and wardrobes,

creating a producers' vernacular. Marshall enjoyed an active

and aggressive local press and a number of public and private

schools and libraries. Local schools, associations, and
churches cultivated the arts to enhance their own popular
appeal, and as a result, innumerable villagers participated
in those arts. A surprisingly large proportion of the
village population learned to sing harmonically, to play
musical instruments, to draw, to write expository prose,
poetry, and fiction, to make fashionable clothing, and much
more. No one had yet convinced villagers that the arts were
the province of a self-proclaimed cultural elite.

Culture in Marshall was also shaped by regional
influences. Most Marshall settlers arrived from central and
western New York, importing tastes and values from that
region. According to one historian, early migration "was to
turn Michigan into a colony of New York in its political
principles, social fashion, and economic development."3 This
makes the extensive research done on cultural development in
central and western New York very significant for the
settlement of southern Michigan and perhaps other areas of
the old northwest.4 The influence of New York is evident in
Marshall architecture, schools, commerce, and letters. Many
villagers were converted in the great religious revivals of
the Empire State, and their evangelism encouraged them to
cultivate the arts and education in Marshall, and it flavored
the character of their politics. By the 18505, the cultural
region expanded westward as hundreds of Marshall residents

moved into Illinois and Missouri, and Marshall villagers

followed events there as closely as they did those in New

York.

Through the 18405, national cultural influences were
also very important, and artistic styles were predominantly

national. Greek Revival, for instance, was the dominant
architectural style in Marshall and in the nation. Marshall
shared in a spirit of national cultural consensus which
mitigated against cultural provincialism. This cultural
nationalism disappeared during the 18505 for two reasons. 0n
the one hand, a sense of regional identity survived, and on
the other, villagers were increasingly exposed during the
18505 to a mass market which allowed them to draw upon goods,
styles, and ideas from around the world.

This study does not claim to be a comprehensive history
of early Marshall. It is selective and thematic. Many
important issues and events in Marshall between the years
1831 and 1859 are ignored. An examination of political
culture in the village, for example, concentrates almost
entirely on the single issue of temperance and its special
cultural significance. Much of this study also looks outward
from the village toward the vistas which influenced Marshall,
focusing on themes of general interest such as the family,
education, evangelism, and associationalism and their
contribution to cultural development and change.

Villages do not have the same kind or volume of evidence
found in cities. Marshall does have an excellent collection
of local newspapers dating as early as 1838 and journals from

the 18405. Through these, we can culla great deal of

historical information, and we can reconstruct the
"exchanges" through which Marshall editors gathered and
copied information for publication. These tell us much about
local and nonlocal cultural influences. Marshall also
preserves a remarkable collection of early business records,
and through these it is possible to make a close inspection
of nineteenth-century consumption and credit. This study
pays particular attention to the consumption of manufactured
cloth and ready-made clothing, providing an important
compliment to studies of their production in the east.5
During the 18505, scores of Marshall men, women, and
children, took up the pen and wrote for public consumption,
and the great body of work they produced allows us to examine
relationships between domestic, commercial, and cultural
change during that decade.

Because the history of Marshall is unfamiliar to most
readers, it is important to place the village in perspective.
Southern Michigan was settled following the opening of the
Erie Canal in New York in 1825. Settlement stretched
westward across the Lower Peninsula along three Indian and
military trails. Marshall was settled in 1831 on the central
trail, called the Territorial Road. The new State of
Michigan planned to build railroads along these three
roadways, but only the Central Railroad was completed,
providing the villages along its route with special prestige
aand influence. The railroad connected the village with

eastern intellectual and commercial markets. Marshall was

situated on a corridor which by 1847 stretched from Chicago
through southern Michigan and along the Erie Canal across New

York. It was from this transportation, population, and
commercial corridor that communities like Marshall drew much
of their regional consciousness.

This study also addresses a continuing debate about the
frontier. Some scholars argue that the special rigors of
the frontier forced settlers to cooperate and thereby
produced consensus among them.6 More recently, historians
have emphasized conflict, especially between different
cultural groups, which could just as easily be exacerbated by
the vicissitudes of frontier life.7 In Marshall, the
frontier period was too brief to produce long-term
cooperation. It was not isolation which produced consensus
but a rapid integration into popular markets and extensive
local subscription to popular ideas. Marshall also had a
more homogeneous population than that of frontier communities
in the Old Southwest and the Ohio Valley. During the 18305,
as many as three-quarters of village-area immigrants arrived
from New York [See Table 21. The next largest group was from
New England. Cultural conflict in Marshall, when it did
occur, was more commonly between members of the same large

group of transplanted New Yorkers and New Englanders and less

commonly between different cultural groups.

Michigan

New York
Pennsylvania
vermont
Connecticut
Massachusetts
New Hampshire
Maine

Ohio

Indiana
Virginia
Canada
England
Scotland
Ireland
Germany

Other

Table 2

8
ORIGIN OF MARSHALL AREA RESIDENTS

1831-1845

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Figure 1

MAP OF EASTERN UNITED STATES

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/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Railroad Map, ca. 1860

10

End Notes

INTRODUCTION

1

For examples, see: Richard D. Brown, "The Emergence
of Urban Society in Rural Massachusetts, 1760-1820," 1p;
Journal of American History 61 (June 1974): 29-51;
Richard L. Bushman, "American High Style and Vernacular
Cultures," Colonial British America: Essays in the New

History of the Early Modern Era, eds. Jack P. Greene and
J. R. Pole (Baltimore: The John Hopkins Press, 1984), pp.

345-383; Henry Glassie, Patterns in the Material Folk
Culture of the Eastern United States (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1968); Steven Mintz, A
Prison of Expectations: The Family in Victorian Culture
(New York: New York University Press, 1983); Stephen Botein
and David Jaffee, "Printed Expertise in Eighteenth-and
Nineteenth-Century America,” (Unpublished paper, 1984);
David Jaffee, "One of the Primitive Sort: Portrait Makers
of the Rural North, 1760-1860," Steven Hahn and Jonathan

Prude, eds., The Countryside in the Age of Capitalist

Transformation: Essays in the Social History of Rural
America (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina

Press, 1985).

2
Glassie, Patterns in the Material Folk Culture,
p. 33.
3
Jack F. Kilfoil, C. C. Irowpridge, Detroit
Bank 6 M e u to (New York: Arno Press,
1979). p. 62.
4

Whitney R. Cross, The Burned-over District: The

Social and Intellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion

in western New York, 1800—1850 (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1950); Paul E. Johnson, A Shopkeeper's Millenium:

Society and Revivals in Rocheste , New York, 1815-1837
(New York: Hill and Wang, 1978); Mary P. Ryan, Cradle of

the Middle Class: The Family in Oneida County, New York,
1790-1865 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981);

Barbara Leslie Epstein, The Politics of Domesticity:
‘Wbmen, Evangelism, and Temperance in Nineteenth-Centpry

.America (Middleton, Ct.: wesleyan University Press, 1981);

Nancy A. Hardesty, Women Called to Witness: Evangglical

Feminism in the 19th Century (Nashville: Abington Press,
1984).

 

11

5
Thomas Dublin, Women at Work: The Transformation

of Work and Community in Lowell, Massachusetts, 1826-1860
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1979); Jonathan Prude,
The Coming of the Industrial Order: Town and Factory Life

in Rural Massachusetts, 1810- -l860 (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1983)

6
Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, "A Meaning for
Turner's Frontier: Democracy in the Old Northwest,"

PoIiricgl figiencg Qparterly 69(September 1954): 321-353.

7

For examples, see Don Harrison Doyle, The Social Order
0 Fro tier Communit : ack oniv I inoi 825-1870

(Urbana, 111.: University of Illinois Press, 1978); Robert
R. Dykstra, The Cattle Towns (New York: Knopf, 1968); Allan
Bogue, ”Social Theory and the Pioneer," Agricultural History
34(January 1960): 21-34.

8 _

These figures are gathered on residents of Calhoun and
southern Eaton Counties. Figures for the early period came
from two sources and include 361 heads of household; local
histories were used where possible, and survivors of the 1840
census were traced on the 1850 census. As a result, this
column tends to under count poorer groups like the Irish or
Blacks who were more mobile and less likely to remain in
Marshall. The columns for 1850 and 1860 are drawn from
census information.

MATERIAL CULTURE

This case study begins with an examination of material
culture in Marshall. Physical material provides an excellent
medium through which to study culture for two reasons: so
much of it survives, and there is a relatively broad body of
interpretative literature on the subject. Architecture, in
particular, tends to stay in one place, and Marshall
structures have long been recognized as significant by
architectural historians, with one interpretative study
devoted entirely to buildings in the town.1 This chapter
investigates the entire material environment, however,
looking not only at buildings, but at site development,
landscaping, and interior decoration.

The material culture of Marshall was shaped by numerous
influences. It reflected local necessity. Local needs,
materials, and talent affected the shape of things. So did
regional influences. Marshall residents were tied culturally
to their parents to the east during the 18305 and 18405 and
to their children to the west in the 18505. Through the
18405, material objects were self-consciously American in
style as Americans attempted to distinguish themselves from

Europeans and to glorify local talent and creativity. During

the following decade, nationalism itself became parochial,

12

13

and villagers imitated Europeans in taste. Changes in
material culture reflected changes in community and family.
Yards and homes, which were gardens and monuments through the
18405, became shaded lawns and family retreats during the

18505 as a greater concern for the family emerged in the

village.
Marshall architecture communicated the cultural
backgrounds of its immigrants. Mabel Cooper Skjelver, in

her excellent study of nineteenth century Marshall
architecture, delineates the cultural diversity evident in
village structures. Mathew Hasbrouck, for example, arrived
with his family from New Paltz, New York, and the Hasbrouck
house was constructed between 1837 and 1841 [Figure 2].
Hasbrouck was of French Huguenot background, and his home in
Marshall has the character of Huguenot homes in New York.2
According to Skjelver, this French influence was particularly
"visible in the room plan, which is divided so that it is
possible for two families to share the dwelling," thus
producing its double portals and elongated front facade.3
The Schellenbergers were a German family which arrived In
1839. Jacob Schellenberger was a stone-mason and used native
sandstone in the construction of his residence (Figure 3].4
The elevated stairway and placement of the kitchen-scullery
on the lower level were unique in Marshall and may have
reflected German conventions. A third example is sufficient

to illustrate the variety of cultural background evident in

Marshall buildings. Joseph L. Lord was a master carpenter

14

who arrived in Marshall in 1837. Lord was a native New
Yorker, but his wife was from Connecticut, and the New
England Federal-inspired structure he built may have
reflected her tastes [Figure 4]. Skjelver observes the home
"has the trim uncluttered appearance of the Federal style."5
The ethnic characteristics observed so far were not
common throughout the village. Few French, German, or New
England structures survive. One region, however, did exert
considerable influence on Marshall architecture: central and
western New York. A number of Marshall buildings possessed
crow-stepped gables. Gable walls projected above the roof
line and were stepped. Examples included the National House
Hotel, Marshall House Hotel, and the Joseph Sibley mansion
[Figure 5]. Crow-stepping was a Dutch feature which had been
preserved in central and western New York.6 Mary Ryan, in
her study of cultural development in early Utica [New York]
includes a number of such buildings in her illustrations.7
Side entrances, popular throughout Marshall, were another
characteristic of New York architecture, as were the odd
number of pillars employed in the porticos of Marshall
mansions. Marshall builders, predominently from New York,
favored use of five columns as was commonly done there,
instead of four or six as was customary elsewhere in the
East.8 The Jabez Fitch temple-mansion illustrates both of
these characteristics [Figure 6). Fitch was a native New

Yorker who remained in that state until 1838 when he settled

in Marshall. Further research is required to confirm the

15

point, but it is possible the squat, one-and-a-half story
cottages with gable to the street, so popular in Marshall,
were also illustrative of architecture in New York. Even from
this evidence it is obvious, however, the Empire State
exerted considerable influence upon the material environment
of the village.

What we observe here is a legacy of eighteenth century
regional cultures. Historian Richard L. Bushman points out
that during that century increased geographic mobility led to
the development of regional, vernacular cultures such as
those of New York and New England.9 Americans on the move
chose conventions from a number of places and mixed them.
They blended a variety of local elements over extended areas.
Dutch gabling, for instance, became popular among the non-
Dutch in New York. Americans carried stylistic preferences
with them, and elements of those regional styles survive in
Marshall to the present day.

What we observe in those structures examined so far are
stylistic elements, not styles. The Joseph Lord house was
not built in the Federal style, nor was the Sibley mansion in
the Dutch syle. Rather, they were built in the Greek Revival
style, as was virtually every building constructed in
Marshall through the 18405. By the early nineteenth century,
regional characteristics had become only elements of a new,
popular, national style. According to Skjelver, "the Gregg

Revival style followed the pioneer log house in Marshall."

Homes, stores, shops, sheds, churches, and schools were all

16

built in the Greek Revival style. Regarding the Lord house,
Skjelver refers to such Greek Revival features as the gable
returns and the floor length windows of the ground floor.11
To these could be added the shallow pitch to the roof,
another Revival element. In the Schelleberger house, the
architectural historian observes, ”The lower-pitched roof,
the wide entablature boards and the open pediment formed by
return-eaves at the house-ends are Greek Revival
characteristics."12 The entablature is the horizontal board
or tablet below the eaves. The Sibley mansion was T-shaped,
and the gable extension on the front has been removed. It
was elevated, approached by broad steps, which suggests it
possessed a Greek portico.13 What survives posseses a wide
entablature and a low-pitched roof. In the Hasbrouck house,
according to Skjelver, ”The Greek Revival characteristics are
evident in the widened entablature boards beneath the eaves,
which extend slightly around the corner at the gable end, and
the small windows below the eaves across the facade."14 The
Fitch temple mansion is obviously a Greek Revival structure,
for it was a stylized replica of a classical Greek temple.
Village structures from this period illustrated by other
scholars have also all been of the Greek Revival Style.

Since the election of 1840, the log cabin has been an
evocative symbol of the Jacksonian frontier.15 An equally
valid symbol, however, would be the Greek acropolis. In
1832, Isaac E. Crary, a young Marshall attorney, built the

16
first frame structure in the community. It was a one-story

17

temple cottage on the north side of State Street just to the
east of Court House Square. In 1837, Calhoun County
residents constructed a frame court house, the first major
public building in the town, completed at a cost of between
twenty-five and thirty thousand dollars [Figure 7).17 The
Court House was sited on a square around which State Street
divided. The building was a large Greek temple with a Doric
portico at each end. The structure was elevated, reached by a
flight of steps. About the same time, Jabez Fitch and Andrew
Hays began construction of their temple mansions to the north
of the Court House on a hill [Figures 6 a 8).18 The porticos
of those temple mansions faced the Court House. This
collection of Greek temple buildings on or near the square
dominated Marshall architecturally for a generation.
Pioneers stepped from a collection of crude cabins into a
Greek metropolis.

Residents in Marshall from all ethnic or cultural
backgrounds shared an architectural consensus. Greek Revival
reached across ethnic and class barriers, uniting the
community in expression, and the situation in Marshall was
typical of that throughout the United States. Scholars have
found the same dominance of Greek Revival elsewhere.
According to one study of material culture, "Greek Revival
forms dominated the American architectural scene as no other
‘style' before or since."19 Scholar T. F. Hamlin describes

the popularity of Greek Revival in the United States as
20

"universal." Americans identified Greek Revival with

 

’9‘

new

18

nationhood. Architectural historians John Burchard and
Albert Bush-Brown, describe Greek Revival as "a nationalist
style."21 Social historian Don Harrison Doyle reveals how a
spirit of nationalism in Jacksonville, Illinois bridged
barriers between different cultural groups there.22 In
Marshall, a spirit of nationalism inherent in architectural
design had the same effect.

The Greek Revival Style was popularized in New York and
in other eastern states during the 18205. Much of western
New York was settled in the 18205, and most of its buildings,
as a consequence, were constructed in the new, popular style.
By the 18305, when young men and young families left their
homes to journey west, Greek Revival had become a familiar
style strongly associated with family and home. Even a
foreigner like Schellenberger had been exposed to popular
architecture in New York for a number of years after his
arrival from Germany and before his move to Marshall.23 Many
native New Englanders had lived in New York, migrating there
in the 18105 and 18205 before continuing on to Michigan in
the 18305. The Irish, too, followed this pattern. Only
Blacks differed as most of the Black families and individuals
in Marshall had not migrated down the corridor from New York,
but had moved northward out of the border slave states, many
arriving from Virginia and Kentucky.24 They, alone, failed
to serve a cultural apprenticeship in the Empire State.

Greek Revival was the first architectural style of the

new market economy in America. Much of the ornamentation

19

that existed on Greek Revival buildings was mass-produced and
standardized. Lumber suppliers and cabinet makers in Marshall
provided ready made sash, trim, frames, doors, and cabinets
from an early date.25 Houses, however, could not be mass
produced. That would await the popularization of balloon, or
stud construction during the 18505 and 18605. Greek Revival

was the first style popularized since the new prominence of

the printing press which published an increasing number of

builders' manuals which tended to standardize taste
26
nationally. From the 18305 onward, those manuals focused
27
on Greek Revival elements. Carpenters and other

contractors in Marshall built, in large part, like their
grandparents, employing post and beam construction. A5
Skjelver relates: ”The timber frame walls were first
fabricated on the ground, then raised in the traditional
manner."28

The Greek Revival Style mixed traditional and modern
elements in other ways as well, and that mixture explains, in
part, the style's great popularity. Greek Revival was, in a
sense, the last architectural expression of a classical age
in America which extended back through the eighteenth
century. Popular architecture during the eighteenth century
had emphasized balance and order. Harmony was symmetrical.
Windows, wings, ornaments, and chimneys on one side of a
building matched those on the other. Greek Revival, on the
other hand, did not adhere to a symmetrical rigidity, and the

style is often distinguished by scholars as Nee-Classical.

20

It was rational, for it juxtaposed ideal material forms,
such as the circle [column], triangle [pediment], and

29
rectangle or square [facade]. It was not necessary to

balance elements in a Greek Revival building, and greater
freedom in door, window, and wing location was evident. As
we will see, homes of wealthier families tended to be more
symmetrical. The pedimented facades of the Hays and Fitch
mansions are good examples.

Greek Revival was traditional in another important way.
It defined the community vertically, reflecting the
hierarchal values of the eighteenth century. The style
included four different house types which distinguished four
different economic groups in the village: cottage, temple
cottage, mansion, and temple mansion. Temple mansions, for
instance, were appropriate for rich merchants, while cottages
were suitable, according to Skjelver, for "the tailor or the
mechanic."30

Marshall's elite dwelt in temple mansions. These were
two-story structures with Greek porticos at the end or
colonnades along the side. Through such buildings, men like
Governor James Wright Gordon confirmed their status in the
community.31 Temple mansions impressed people. Charlotte
Gorham, wife of a merchant and banker and herself a member of
Marshall's elite, visited the Fitch mansion upon its
completion and reported to her sister how impressed she was:
"I have just called upon Mrs. Fitch, who has moved into her

32
new house, it is very elegant." Such temple mansions were

21

social centers for the rich in Marshall, and their
construction cost certainly ran into the thousands of
dollars. The Fitches were very wealthy; in 1841, they
donated funds to build the new brick Presbyterian Church.33
Descendants of Fitch in the early part of this century
insisted he employed architect Richard Upjohn of New York to
design his home.34 Fitch imported his columns and Ionic
capitals, or crowns, from Detroit, and local carpenters
richly panelled and balustraded the interior.

Stripped of its portico, a temple mansion ceased being a
temple, but it continued to be a mansion. Dr. James P.
Greeves built such a mansion on Mansion Street about 1840
[Figure 91. Greeves was a man of sufficient wealth in 1837
to subscribe $5,000 to Marshall College.35 His house is a
two-story Greek Revival. Its front facade is a square
beneath a triangle. Treatment, however, is far from
symmetrical. The door is not centered. Neither is there an
east wing to match the west. The wing may not be
contemporary with the main structure, but such asymmetry is
common in the period.

Most residents of Marshall, of course, did not reside in
mansions or temple mansions. They lived in cottage-type
homes of the Greek Revival style. The simple cottage in
Marshall was most often one-and-a-half stories tall and was
usually built for shopkeepers or artisans. Chauncey M.

Brewer, for instance, arrived in Marshall in 1836 as junior

partner in a drygoods business. In 1840, he married Emily

22

36
Butler, a young lady of average means. The couple built on

Division Street [Figure 10]. The building's squat, solid

appearance is evident even with the addition of a front

porch. The door, as in the Greeves mansion, is off-center.
The Brewer house is much like the William McCall house and
numerous other cottages around the village [Figure 11).
McCall was a tailor of average means who constructed the
house soon after his arrival and remained there until his
death many years later. The only ornamentations on either
house are the side lights on the doorways, probably purchased
by the builders from a local door, frame, and sash
manufacturer.

The Greek Revival cottage was a builder's home. Its
one-and-a-half story configuration provided an economy of
space and cost. It was an architectural tribute to
simplicity, a virtue popular with young carpenters, many of
whom were not extensively experienced. They bore no more
ornamentation than could be acquired easily from local wood-
working shops. Builders virtually ignored symmetry in door
placement and fenestration, especially on the side and rear
facades. The cottage's geometric shape, wide entablature,
and partial return on the gable end were the only concessions
to the Greeks.

The fourth type of Greek Revival home was the temple
cottage. It was a one-story building with classical portico.
The temple cottage, like the temple mansion, asserted status.

Daniel Pratt built such a structure in 1841 [Figure 12]. Its

23

portico is supported by four Doric columns. The continuous
frieze is decorated with acanthus leaf carving, not visible
in this photograph, and the doorway i5 battered, or leans
inward at the top, giving the structure a distinctive
appearance. Pratt advertised himself as a "Silver Smith &
Jeweller."37 He was an artisan with a good business who came
from a prominent family in Marshall, and his home asserted
those facts.

Elements of the classical world of the eighteenth
century survived in Marshall in the community as well as the
architecture. Churches, for instance, still sold seats, or
slips, in order to raise funds.38 Rich men still held the
most important local and county offices and lived in the
largest and most prominent houses. This old world was
breaking down, however, cracking and crumbling. In 1843, the
Marshall Mechanics' Association began construction of
Marshall Mechanics' Hall on State street east of the court
house. Members built a two-story temple building. Its front
pediment was supported by five Doric columns, similar to the

front of the Hays house. Marshall's artisans, mechanics, and

manufacturers did not build a hall similar to a cottage or

even a temple cottage. They asserted their equality with /'

traditional leaders by imitating them.

Greek Revival shared another important characteristic
with the classical world of the eighteenth century. It made
no stylistic distinctions between architecture in town and

39
country. Architectural principles, like all principles,

‘-

24

were universal. Greek Revival reflected, in important ways,

a Jeffersonian vision of America. This should not surprise

us since Jefferson was the father of the Classical Revival ian‘

40
the new nation. Not until the 18405 would Andrew Jackson

Downing begin to popularize bourgeois distinctions between
village and farm.41

A number of scholars insist that builders, especially in
the west, were entirely derivative in their use of Greek
Revival elements and orders. They were unimaginative and
inflexible. W. H. Pierson, for instance, observes that, "the
Greek style, as it spread into the American back country,
through ever more peripheral stages of diluted
professionalism, became increasingly an architecture of
quotations, of specific details faithfully rendered as they
appeared in books."42 T. F. Hamlin, on the other hand,
insists that Greek Revival was not a revival at all.
American buildings were not replicas of classical structures,
and Americans were individualistic in their architectural
expression.43 An examination of architecture in Marshall
bears both out. Temple buildings tended to be highly
individualistic, while cottage structures exhibited a
simplicity and sameness that were severe. Temple structures,
as already noted, incorporated regional characteristics.
Marshall residents also mixed orders. This is nowhere more
evident than in the side entrance to the Fitch mansion where

two Ionic columns flank two Doric [Figure 13]. In the front

portico of the same building, Ionic capitals set on columns

25

of stubby Doric length. In the pediment is an Adamesque,
Federal fan window. On the Pratt temple cottage, the
acanthus leaves on the continual frieze are of a Corinthian
order, while columns below are Doric. The battered doorway
was an Egyptian feature.44 Wealthier residents of Marshall
integrated a variety of stylistic elements in their temple
buildings. Elements within a building were frequently
eclectic. The great majority of the buildings, however, were
not temples; they were cottages and mansions virtually
identical in their plainness.

During the 18505, tastes in architecture in Marshall
changed. Greek Revival was not replaced by a new style,
however; it was joined by several additional styles. This
was true not only in the United States but in Europe.45
Villagers picked and chose from a number of styles, and all
architecture in the village became eclectic. Local residents
built Gothic, Italianate, Greek Revival, Octagon, and even
Hawaiian homes. Villagers also combined styles in the same
structure. The Hays temple mansion, for example, was
rendered Italianate during this period. Earlier, the wealthy
had combined elements and orders. During the 18505, all
architecture in the village became eclectic. Villagers
shopped for styles during the 18505 as they did for
commercial goods.

The Italianate style was highly fashionable in Marshall
during the 18505. Chauncey Brewer built a second home about

46
1858, an Italianate mansion called Oak Hill. He had

26

prospered in his drygoods business and had become a private

banker. The building [Figure 14] has a bracketed cornice and
bracketed porches, customary of the Italianate style. Sidney
Ketchum's Georgian mansion was purchased by the Trustees of
the Marshall Young Ladies' Institute and remodeled in the
Italianate style [Figure 15]. Here, the bracketing is
dramatic. The house had an observatory, similar to that on
Oak Hill, a common feature of the style. Italianate appears
to have been more fashionable among the elite. Many of
Marshall’s Italianate homes were built for Marshall's
merchants, professionals, and manufacturers.

The middling sort preferred the Gothic style. Where the
wealthy remodeled their Ladies' Institute in the Italianate
style, Marshall's new elementary schools were Gothic. The
Capitol Hill School [Figure 16] was built with steep gables,
emphasized visually by their fancy wood trim, or bargeboards.
Other Gothic features were the pointed window at the front of
the school and the wide overhang of the eaves.47 The
building was also bracketed beneath the eaves, an Italianate
feature. Greek Revival homes were usually built with the
gable end turned toward the street. Gothic and Italianate
homes were built with a side facade to the street. Gothic
buildings frequently centered their doorway and crowned it
with a center steep gable protruding from the roof. The
Henry Tillotson house [Figure 17] was typical. The Tillotson

house also has the pointed window and the dripstone window

lintels characteristic of the Gothic style. Tillotson was a

27

ticket agent for the Central Railroad in Detroit until 1855
when he acquired a small parcel of farm land from his father
near Marshall and moved there.48 Builders liked the style.
They could turn the popular old one-and-half story cottage
around, increase the steepness of its roof, center its
entrance on the street facade, and crown that entrance with
a gable, providing more space for private quarters on the
second floor.

The Gothic and Italianate styles reflected increased
architectural influence from abroad. During the 18305 and
18405, villagers built in a self-consciously American style,
but in the following decade they imitated builders in Europe
and elsewhere. One of the more outstanding buildings in
Marshall is the Honolulu House built by Abner Pratt after his
return in 1859 from the Pacific where he had serVed as U. S.
Consul to the Sandwich Islands.49 Pratt claimed the
structure was similar to one he had lived in while he resided
in Honolulu. Its main floor was elevated making space for a
kitchen, dining room, and servants' quarters on the lower
level where it was cool, an important consideration in the
Pacific.

Marshall villagers built in a new commercial style as
well. Through the 18405, commercial architecture had been
indistinguishable from residential architecture. During the
18505, commercial buildings were turned, like houses, so that

a broad side faced the street. Roofs were flattened

providing useable floor space on a third or even a fourth

28

floor. The Herndon Hotel was built in Marshall in 1858

[Figure 18] It was a four-story structure. Its eaves were

ornamented with brackets and its windows with Italianate

lintels. The roof is trimmed with a Gothic parapet with
battlements. The Herdon Hotel was designed to stand alone, a
tall building in its day. Within a decade, such buildings
would become so common they would abut one another and create
that long brick facade visible in so many midwestern village
business districts to the present day.

Marshall's architecture reveals a great deal about
cultural character and influence. Greek Revival was a
national style which preserved regional or parochial
elements. It was also a local style. Marshall builders were
frequently farm boys handy with a hammer and saw. They
exploited the simplicity of the style, and their moral and

cost-conscious patrons among the middling and poorer classes

approved. During the 18505, Marshall was influenced from MK

abroad. Villagers imported European styles and European
eclecticism. They forgot about simplicity and became
enamored of ornateness and complexity. Builders reacted by
making the fewest possible changes in basic local house
design. Brackets and bargeboards could be purchased from
cabinetmakers. Much of the fanciness of Americans at mid-
century was applique. Villagers could be deferential in
their domestic architecture, selecting either humble or
ostentatious types of homes depending on their background and

wealth. However, in their public architecture such as halls,

29

churches, or even their Poor Farm [Figure 19), they asserted
equality and built mansion-size structures.

Greek Revival and Eclectic accommodated a revolution in
site design necessary for the development of a market
economy. On the domestic level, occupational work moved
out of the fronts of houses and into business and milling
districts while parlors moved into that space. A greater
flexibility in locating doors and windows allowed for greater
flexibility in room design and use in general. In larger
scope, level, the village differentiated itself into
residential, commercial, and milling neighborhoods. In the
traditional American community, economic and domestic
activity took place under the same roof.50 During the second
quarter of the nineteenth century, they diverged not only
into different buildings but into distinct districts. In
addition, differentiation occurred among area farms from
which the village drew much of its income.

Marshall, as a county seat and milling center, was the
center of a much larger community, and it is important to
take a quick survey of farmers and farming, for a rather
remarkable differentiation appears in rural properties. Very
few farmers lived within the village of Marshall because it
was surrounded by a zone of potential subdivision where land
was too expensive to farm. In 1836, Charles Dibble purchased
a farm for his father to the northeast of the village and
paid a premium of $31.15 per acre for the land.51 Few

farmers were willing to pay that much. Surrounding this belt

30

of potential subdivision was another ring of very 1arge~
farms, the foremost being a thousand acres in size. In
October 1840, Horatio Hickok placed the following
advertisement in the Calhoun-County-Patriot:

Farm for Sale. The subscriber offers for sale his

farm of about 1,000 acres of land. It lies two miles

north of the village of Marshall. It has a small

dwelling house, two commodious barns besides several
out-buildings, more than 80 acres are under

cultivation, between 200 a 300 acres are wet

prairie . . .. The residue of the Farm embraces the

largest body of good timber there is within five miles

of the village, and more than 800 acres are enclosed in
fences.52
Regrettably, no price was listed. Like most Michigan
farmers, Hickok built barns and other out-buildings before
building himself a commodious house. In this case, Hickok
was caught short by economic depression. He was a powerful
-Whig in the state and an influential farmer, president of
various agricultural associations and author of widely
53
disseminated literature on farming. He was a cultural
leader and one of a number of prominent individuals living
near the village.

The value of land declined in relation to the land's'
distance from the village, and this had important cultural
consequences. Ten miles out, farms could still be purchased
for three to eight dollars an acre during the 18405. This
had the result of attracting the poorest settlers, creating
the smallest farms, and producing the greatest density of
population on the perimeters of the farming community, not
toward its core. The belt of rich farms in which Hickok

lived was surrounded by another which ranged in size

31

generally from 80 to 160 acres, while still another more
remote zone existed with farms from 40 to 80 acres in size.
This configuration tended to increase the homogeneous nature
of settlement near Marshall. Wealthier, native-born farmers
from New York and New England tended to live near the
village. They patronized Marshall's private schools, Joined
its associations and churches, and wrote for local and
regional newspapers and journals. Cultural outgroups, on the
other hand, tended to live further out. A number of Blacks
and Irish, for instance, settled on small farms in Lee
Township six to ten miles to the north of Marshall,
increasing their cultural isolation which led to tension and
conflict among different cultural groups there, particularly
between Lee Township residents and local Indians.54

Marshall immigrants had been raised in New York where
grid communities and differentiated neighborhoods had already
appeared.55 Frontier conditions impeded such development for
only a short time. The Marshall Village Company platted the
village and offered lots for sale in 1831.56 The grid
pattern was adopted, employing parallel streets and small,
rectangular lots. Settlers purchased lots near the old court
house, then up State Street to the east. State Street was
the old Territorial Road and bore traffic from Detroit to St.
Joseph on Lake Michigan, and soon to Chicago. With
settlement spreading out along only one street, residential,

commercial, and educational functions were integrated. Some

differentiation was still visible, however. Isaac E. Crary,

32

for instance, maintained his law office in one building and
home in another on the same lot.57 Home and business moved
into two different buildings but not two different
neighborhoods. Differentiation became more evident at the end
of the decade as Marshall was drawn into the market economy.

Perhaps the most important zone to emerge was the
milling district at the southeast corner of the village on
Rice Creek and the Kalamazoo River. Here were the grist
mills, saw mills, cooper sheds, foundries, forges, and other
businesses and manufactories dependent on water power. Here
was the most expensive property in the village, both moveable
and real. Marshall's grist mills were its very life's blood.
The first grist mill was built in 1832 by the Ketchum
brothers. It was small, with only two run of stone.58 Five
years later Sidney Ketchum and two partners built a
commercial mill with four run of stone.59 In 1844, H. J.
Perrin built another mill in Marshall, and in 1848, Sidney
Alcott built his at a cost of $30,000.60 Sidney Ketchum
built his in 1838 because he expected the Central Railroad,
which was being laid out of Detroit, soon to pass through
Marshall. Economic crisis and depression slowed its advance,
however, and Perrin built his gristmill in 1844 when it was
visible on the horizon.61 We have no figures for the first
years of grain export, but in 1846, 15,354 barrels of flour
were shipped from Marshall on the Central Railroad, while a
year later, the total climbed to 21,187 barrels.62 The great

demand for barrels turned Marshall coopers into the largest

33
63
manufacturers in the village.
The milling district was especially busy in the fall and
early summer when summer and winter wheat were harvested. An

early account describes the arrival of farmers with their

wheat:

Long before the Civil war it was a common daily
occurrence in the late spring, during the fall, and for
weeks at a time, to see strings of teams and wagons
loaded with twenty to twenty-five bags of wheat waiting
at the elevators to unload. . . . Sometimes they would
be met several blocks out and two buyers would jump on
the same load. This kind of performance delighted the
owner of the wheat, for he knew he would get a little
more money than he expected when he left home.64
With the arrival of the railroad in 1844, the district
included a terminal and roundhouse. Much of the wealth of
the community entered through this district. Buildings were
plain, barn-like structures of brick or wood.

Farmers who sold their wheat in Marshall frequently
spent a good deal of their profits in the business district
to the north. In the autumn of 1853, Marshall boasted a

65
total of 96 shops and stores. The editor of the Statesman
reminded local retailers in the autumn of 1849 of the buying

power of farmers, observing they would receive eighty
thousand dollars from area mills that season.66 Marshall's
business district was a long strip, anchored to the west by
the Court House and to the east by the Marshall House Hotel,
erected in 1838 at a cost of $30,000.67 The Marshall House
was not a traditional tavern like the National House, but a
modern hotel in the tradition of the Tremont House in Boston,

built less than a decade before, and prototype for posh

34

68
hotels throughout the country. It was a three-story
69
building, with a front facade 193 feet in length. At the

center, was a two-story elliptical portico with Ionic
columns. The building flanked out from the portico in wings.
The first set of wings and portico had an appearance similar
to the White House in Washington, D.C. According to an early
description, the structure was
surmounted by an observatory, from which is given a
commanding view of the village and surrounding country.
Independent of family rooms, it has three spacious
parlors, 45 bedrooms, and an assembly room 40 by 60
feet. The dining room, which is upon the first floor,
is 40 by 22 feet. The office, reading room, and public
drawing room is also upon the first floor.70
The hotel advertised that its "rooms are well fitted up for
the accommodation of the traveller, the transient visitor,
or the boarder. The table will at all times be furnished
with the best the market affords, and the bar with the
choicest wines and liquors.”71 Not all buildings on State
Street were as extravagant as the Marshall House. Nearly all
were one or two story, ,barn-like structures with the gable
end pointing toward the street, connected by a boardwalk with
the Court House and Marshall House.72 These structures were
dense, for an 1853 plat of the village reveals that in some
blocks along State Street, the entire front had been filled
with structures [Figure 20).
Residential neighborhoods spread out to the north and
south of State Street. Population in Marshall increased from
a few hundred to more than a thousand in the years 1835

73
through 1837. By 1837, homes were appearing on Kalamazoo

35

Avenue to the north and south of the Court House and on
Mansion and Green Streets which ran parallel to the north and
south of State Street. By 1851, most development occurred
some distance from the business street. An article in the
Marshall Statesman that year observed: "For several years
there has been much change in the general appearance of the
village, the buildings erected have been mostly dwelling
houses situated in the outskirts . . . "74 Lots remote from
business thoroughfares had become marketable. ~ The plat map
of 1853 shows the location of structures and indicates that
development had extended three blocks north and south of
State Street that year when the population of the community
was about twenty-nine hundred.

Within residential neighborhoods, use of site changed.
Until the second quarter of the nineteenth century, houses,
particularly in towns, tended to be built alongside the
roadway, with doors leading directly into the street.75 In
Marshall from the 18305 onward, houses were set back from the
street, one result of which was creation of the American
front yard. These yards were demarcated at the road with a
fence and gate, necessary to keep out stray animals and to
distinguish between roadway and private property.76 Inside
the gate, there was a walkway of brick or stone to the front
door. Some of these yards were quite large. In 1851, the
Calhoun County Poor House was completed, the last major
public structure built in the Greek Revival style, and it was

77
set back from the road "15 or 20 rods." A contemporary

36

description of this building notes that its setback provided

"room for a fine yard in front, which is occupied by fruit

78
and ornamental trees arranged in fine taste." The front
yard was more garden than lawn. It was living space for
plants, not people. The front yard was something to look

upon and admire, not in which to seek recreation. Villagers
of the 18305 and 18405 were not porch builders. Only the
temple mansions of the rich had piazzas. Most villagers did
not look upon yards as domestic space. Porches would become
popular in the 18505 and would increase in size, turning into
the great verandas of the Queen Anne Revival in the 18805.79

Developers in Jacksonian Marshall behaved toward land
much as their late twentieth-century counterparts; they
cleared it before building and landscaping. Early prints
reveal that land around homes had been cleared in the recent
past. Land around the Brewer mansion was cleared. An 1868
aerial drawing of Marshall shows undeveloped subdivisions
which appear free of trees.80 During the 18505, there would
be a movement to preserve mature trees still standing and to
reintroduce native forms of flora, but through the 18405,
landscaping was much more formal, as villagers imported
vegetation and planted it in symmetrical patterns.81 An
early print of the Sidney Ketchum mansion indicates two
circular gardens in front of the house.82

Interest in gardening was high in the village. Soon

after athe family of the Reverend Stephen Mason arrived in

Marshall in 1838, daughter Laura recorded in her diary: "I

37

have commenced my herbarium. Father has commenced making his

garden and I have planted some morning glories and

nasturtions [sic]. I hope to have more of a flower garden,
late as it 15."83 Marshall author Lydia Kingsbury described
a contemporary cottage and its cultivated delights: "We
shall pay a visit to the humble house of Grace Alton.
Nature's fairest, sweetest flowers lifted their blushing

84
leaves beneath the genial rays of a summer's sun."

Florence Hayfield, another Marshall author, described a
similar cottage, with "a few honeysuckle or woodbine
clambering over a board fence, windows blinded with morning
glories and creepers, and the jasmine's ever-green shade, a
walk lined with pinks and tulips, a rose bush or an oak tree
85
perhaps." Such yards were filled with "nature's rarest
86
beauties,” but they were cultivated beauties. John D.
Pierce, a resident of Marshall and Michigan Superintendent of
Education recommended that teachers and parents instill a
love of gardening in their students, insisting,
Every family should cultivate a garden. In this our
highly favored land, scarcely a family need be without
the rich luxuriant productions of a well dressed garden.
These productions combine some of the most beautiful
specimens to be found in the natural world, with the
highest degree of utility. As a matter of health--as
a matter of comfort--as a matter of economy--and equally
of ornament--it is all important to cultivate a
garden.87
Flowers and vines that graced Greek Revival homes were
available from a number of commercial sources in Marshall.
An 1841 invoice for Dusenbury, Brewer, and Butler, a drygoods

store, noted the company had acquired "4 doz. currant bushes

38
88

2.00" and a "Lot [of] Fruit trees $3.50." These were
probably cultivated locally for the market. During the same
month, the company acquired a lot of "bushes" from Charles D.

89
Smith, who owned another drygoods store. In 1845, E. C.
North imported cultured plants for sale in Marshall,
including, ”Splendid Double Dahlias, Just received from Ann
Arbor Garden," and in the same year Marshall, according to

90
the local press, had a commercial florist.

Villagers decorated their homes with ornamental plants
and flowers. Morning-glories which blinded cottage windows
transformed a building's appearance. Fences and walks lined
with colorful flowers presented a bold contrast to white,
architectural cubes, and open, sun-lit lots accentuated that
contrast. Greek Revival homes were not the plain, austere
structures we see today, for much of the vegetation has long
been uprooted and discarded. Pierce noted the decorative use
of flora, observing,

However splendid the mansion, and tastefully its

foregrounds may be arranged and decorated, with a

white-washed finish, if it lacks the various and rich

productions of the garden--there is no completeness in
the picture. The chief ornament of the premises is
wanting. The humble cottage surrounded with herbs,
fruits and flowers, is infinitely more pleasing to the
eye, than the naked walls and high wrought fences of

the place.91
This type of decorating required more time and care than
money. Cottage dwellers could not afford Doric or Ionic
columns for their houses, but they could purchase a few

double dahlias from Ann Arbor.

During the 18505, changes occurred in landscaping as

39

well. Houses continued to be set back from the street. The
cultivation of the space around those houses changed. The
natural look became popular, with flowers and ornamentals
were replaced by grass and shade trees, and residents were
encouraged to plant trees near the street.93 Indigenous
trees were no longer replaced by foreign species. Plants
moved into the house where they were used for internal
decoration. Expansion of the porch drew residents outside
and into yards.

The retreat of houses from the street created change
within the home as well. Business activities moved out of
the front rooms of the house and into the business or milling
district, leaving that space for domestic use. The Hays
family used the entire front end of their mansion for two
parlors where the family congregated and entertained.94 Less
wealthy residents of the village created one parlor. Sally
Stone Hibbard wrote home to relatives in New York in 1838
about her new cottage in Marshall: "I must describe my
home--it is a little white house which sits out of doors
which has a citchen inn [sic] one side and a small parlour on
the other side with a little stove in it and in my
citchen."95 The parlor, not the kitchen, became the family
room. The kitchen generally remained in the rear of the
house, with bedrooms upstairs. Closet space increased and so
did the size of chests of drawers, for there were more items

in the Greek Revival home to store.

Villagers were style-conscious inside as well as outside

40

their homes. During the Greek Revival period, walls were
frequently painted white, contrasted with colorful draperies,
tapestries, and carpets.96 Housewives chose brightly colored
furniture from local show rooms. Burled and curled veneers
were in vogue. Massive, monumental pieces were popular.
Villagers were especially style-conscious in their parlors
where the family lived and socialized with neighbors and
friends. Few individuals made their own furniture. They
acquired pieces or sets from local manufacturers who were
present from an early date. . A local history notes that "In
1833, H. W. Pendleton began the manufacturing of furniture,
chairs, and cabinet-work."97 An advertisement placed in the
local press in 1837 described Jones and Durfee, a typical
furniture-making shop, as having
recently commenced the business of Cabinet Making, on
the North side of Court House Square, in the village of
Marshall, where they intend to keep on hand a variety of
furniture, which they will dispose of on terms very
reasonable. Being thoroughly acquainted with the
Eastern and Southern style of work they feel confident
of giving general satisfaction.98
Jones and Durfee maintained a retail stock and invited the
public to inspect it. They were flexible in their terms, and
they were style-conscious, advertising that they built in an
American style.
Important changes occurred in furnishings during the
18505. Fanciness came into vogue, replacing simplicity.
Furniture became more delicate and ornate. Two sofas owned

by the Abner Pratt family of Marshall illustrate this change.

The first [Figure 21] was made about 1840 and is plain in

41

design, while the second [Figure 22], acquired a decade
later, has a much more fancy back. The upholstery, although
replaced, is characteristic of the period, its design
becoming more elaborate in the 18505. The first is

distinctly American in its plainness, while the second is

more Victorian or English in its design. Cabinet makers

produced in a variety of styles, including traditional,
99

French, and Elizabethan. Villagers again turned to Europe

for inspiration. They painted their interiors in pastels and
earth colors and hung pictures and prints on walls and
covered chests and stands with duaguerreotype and ambrotype
photographs of loved ones.. The house was converted from a
cold and formal place into one that was warm, cluttered, and
busy.

The national style of the 18305 and 18405 weaned
villagers from their parochial identity. It drew them into a
new and larger market of ideas. In that market, they were
exposed to influences beyond their national borders, and in
time they put aside their Americanism as they became facile
consumers in a mass market. The trek from folk ways to mass

culture occurred in stages over decades.

42

Figure 2

HASBROUCK DOUBLE COTTAGE

 

1837-1841

Courtesy of the Marshall Historical Society

43

Figure 3

SCHELLENBERGER HOUSE

 

ca. 1840
Courtesy of the Marshall Historical Society

44

Figure 4

LORD MANSION

 

 

V?

l
g“
l

1838

45

Figure 5

SIBLEY MANSION ROOF LINE

 

ca. 1840

46

Figure 6

FITCH TEMPLE MANSION

 

1841-1843

47

Figure 7

CALHOUN COUNTY COURT HOUSE

 

til;»

. h. .‘R. . ,.

Courtesy of the Marshall Historical Society

1837

48

Figure 8

TEMPLE MANSION

HAYS

 

 

1837-1840

49

Figure 9

GREEVES MANSION

 

ca. 1840

50

Figure 10

BREWER COTTAGE

 

 

ca. 1839

51

Figure 11

MCCALL COTTAGE

 

ca. 1840.

52

Figure 12

PRATT TEMPLE COTTAGE

 

 

ca. 1841

53

Figure 13

FITCH TEMPLE MANSION SIDE ENTRANCE

 

 

1841-1843

54

Figure 14

BREWER MANSION

 

 

 

 

 

1858

M
u

‘

 

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\ \

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‘5.
~\

 

 

55

Figure 15

YOUNG LADIES' INSTITUTE

 

1857

56

Figure 16

CAPITOL HILL SCHOOL

 

1859
Courtesy of the Marshall Historical Society

57

Figure 17

TILLOTSON HOUSE

 

ca. 1856

58

Figure 18

HERNDON HOTEL

 

1858

59

Figure 19

CALHOUN COUNTY POOR FARM

.......

 

l ”If-“Fur . . \‘
95%("‘7953255

 
   

K

1851-1852

 

60

Figure 20

HENRY HART MAP

 
   
 
     

 

flea .
as

333i:

M1,, .m 1.-

 

 

 

. I.
é,‘ m I e
r 4.! w. gLvlfllu

    
  

   

1's

n ‘ a:
‘ :argg-u-
h —L L
.. ..~. .1 ..
' ::.;r 5:!
' ‘ w
. 'lllr
-- "VT—1i
. , ..
III

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'4 Li ' .
a I 7

 

 

   
   
 

 

 

 

 

 

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61

Figure 21

ABNER PRATT SOFA

 

ca. 1840

62

Figure 22

ABNER PRATT SOFA

 

ca. 1850

63

End Notes

MATERIAL CULTURE

1
T. F. Hamlin, Greek Revival Architecture rp

America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1944), pp.
296-297; Alan Gowans, Images of American Living: ngr
Centuries of Architecture and Furniture as Cultural
Expression (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1964) p. 277;
Mabel Cooper Skjelever, Nineteenth Century Homes
of Marshall, Michigan (Marshall: Marshall Historical
Society, 1971).

2

Skjelver, Nineteenth Centur Homes, p. 49.
3 ,

Ibid.

4

Ibid., pp. 50-51.
Ibid., pp. 44-45.
Ibid., p. 51.

Ryan, Cradle of the Middle Clags, pp. 45, 107.
Skjelver, Nin teenth Centur Homes, p. 35.

magma:

Bushman, ”American High-Style and vernacular
Cultures,” pp. 345-383.

10
Skjelver, Nineteenth Century Homes, p. 33.
11
Ibid., p. 45.
12
Ibid., p. 51.
13
Ibid., p. 49.
14
Ibid.
15
For a recent example, see: Charles F. Hamton,
Michigap Log QQbipp ang Hard Cidgr (Brighton, Mi.:
Greek Oak Press, 1984).
16

Skjelver, Nineteenth antury Homes, pp. 54-

64

55. Regretably, the one photograph of this structure
that exists is of too poor quality to reproduce.
17
History of Calhoun County, Michigan, 1830-1877
(Philadelphia: L. H. Everts 5 Co., 1877), p.21.
18
Amelia Frink Redfield, "Days of our Forefathers,"
1931 [unpublished], pp. 35-40, M. H. S. C.
19
Gowans, Images of American Living, p. 268.
20
Hamlin, Greek Revival Architecture, p. 36.
21
John Burchard and Albert Bush-Brown, The
h e u e of Amer : A Soc a and C ltural Histor
(London: Victor Gollancz, Ltd., 1967), p. 48.
22
Doyle, The §ocial Order, pp. 227-259.
23
Skjelver, Nineteenth Centur Homes, p. 50.
24
AcCording to the 1850 census, 27 out of a total of
78 Blacks in Marshall were born in the South, mostly in
Kentucky and Virginia. .
25

Washington Gardner, History of Calhoun County
Mi h an Narrative Account of it Historical Pro ress its

Peoplg, and its Principal Interegts 2 vols. (Chicago: The
Lewis Publishing Company, 1913) vol. 1, p. 237; History of

Calhoun County, 1830, p. 52.

26
W. H. Pierson, Jr., American Buildings and
h h ' he Colonial n Neo- la ical t 1 5
(Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Co., 1970), p. 417.
27

For examples, see Bernard Lafever, Tpe Beauties
of Modern prghitecture (1839), and Asher Benjamin, The

American Builders Companion (1827).
28

Skjelver, Ninete nth Centur Ho 5, p. 49.
29

Leland M. Roth, A Concise History of American
Archirecture (New York: Harper 5 Row, 1979), p. 100.
30

Skjelver, Nineteenth Centur Homes, p. 33.

31
Ibid, pp. 45-48.
32
Redfield, ”Days of our Forefathers," M. H. S. C.
33
Hisrory pf lepggp Copnty, 1830, p. 61.
34

Redfield, "Days of our Forefathers," M. H. S. C.

65

35
Wolcott B. Williams, A History of Olivet
College 3844-1900 (Olivet, Mi.: 1901), p. 153.
36

Gardner, Histor of Calhoun Count , vol. 1,
p. 74.
37
Western Statesman, April 29, 1841, p. 1,
col. 1.
38
"The Congregational Church," Democratic
Ex ounder, July 30, 1841, p. 3, col. 2. "Methodist
Evangelical Church," Western Statesman, November 10,
1842, p. 2, col. 6. "Trinity Episcopal Church," Western
Statesman, May 6, 1843, p. 3, col. 4.
39
Lewis Mumford, Sticks and Stones, A Study of
American Architecture and Civilization (New York: Dover
Publications, Inc., 1955 [1924]), p. 58. Marcus Whiffen
and Frederick Koeper, American Architecture 1607:3976
(Cambridge, Ma.: MIT Press, 1981), p. 164. Both scholars
note the similarity between private and public
architecture.
40
Hamlin, Greek Revival Architecture, pp. 17-21.
41
Andrew Jackson Downing, The Architecture of
Country Houses (New York: D. A. Appleton & Co., 1852).

42

Pierson, American Buildin 5, vol. 1, p. 435.
43

Hamlin, Greek Revival Architecture, p. 35.
44

Marcus Whiffen, American Architecture Since
1780: A Guide to the Styles (Cambridge: The M. I. T.
Press, 1970, p. 48.
45
Carroll L. V. Meeks, "Picturesque Eclecticism,"
Art Bulletin 32(September 1950): 231.

468kjelver, Nineteenth Centur Homes, p. 127.
47
Ibid., pp. 21, 33-34.
48
Ibid., pp. 85-86.
49
Ibid., p. 136.
50
John Demos, A Little Commonwealth: Family Life
in Plymouth Colony (London: Oxford University Press, 1970),
pp. 107-117.
51

Sidney Ketchum to Philo Dibble, April 21, 1836,
Calhoun County Registry of Deeds, Liber 2, p. 169.

66

52
Calhoun County Patriot, October 16, 1840, p. 3,

col. 7.

53

"Address by Judge Hickok before the Calhoun County
Agricultural society, May 9th 1839," Journal of Education
2 (May 1839), pp. 20-21. Horatio H. Hickok, "To J. S. Dutton,"
Western Statesman, September 1, 1842, p. 2, cols. 2-3.
Horatio H. Hickok, "Tarrif," Ibid., November 3, 1842, p. 2,
col. 3. Hickok's correspondence was also published
extensively in the Western Farmer printed in Jackson.

54

Daniel R. Campbell, "Prosperity and Power: The
Success and Failure of Potawatomi Leadership in Michigan,"
The Michigan Archaeologist 30 (September-December, 1985):
132-133.

55
Roth, Concise Histor , p. 103
56
History of Calhoun County, 1830, pp. 52-53.
57
Ibid.
58
Skjelver, Nineteenth Centur Homes, p. 54.
59 .
Histor of Calhoun Count 1830, p. 50.
60
Ibid., p. 52.
61

Ibid. Marshall Statesman, January 4, 1848,
p. 2, col. 3.
62
Gardner, History of Calhoun-County, vol. 1,
p. 238. Willis Frederick Dunbar, All Aboard! A History
of Railroads in Michigan (Grand Rapids, Mi.: William B.
Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1969), p. 53. The railroad
reached Marshall in August 1844. -
63
Histor of Calhoun Count 1830, p. 55.
64
According to the 1860 Census, William P. Grenough,
who had a monopoly, employed 40 men in that trade. The next
largest employer had 12 employees. Grenough produced
150,000 flour barrels a year. United States Census, 1860,
Schedule Five, City of Marshall, p. 1.
65
Gardner, Histor of Calhoun Count , vol 1.

p. 96.
66
Marshall Statesman, December 14, 1853, p. 4,
col. 1.
67

Marshall Statesman, October 10, 1849, p. 3,
col. 1.

67

68
History of Calhoun County, 1830, p. 55.
69
Hamlin, Greek Revival Architecture, p. 112;
Whiffen, American Architecture, p. 169; Russell Lynes,
The Tastemakers, (New York: Harper & Brothers. 1949), p.
82.
70
Democratic Ex ounder, May 20, 1858, p. 2,
col. 3.
71
Ibid.
72
Democratic Ex ounder, January 1, 1841, p. 3,
col. 5.
73

Marshall Village Book, January 12, 1839, p. 9,
City of Marshall.

74
See Table 2.
75
Mintz, A Prison of Expectations, p. 11.
76
Marshall Statesman, April 16, 1851, p. 2, col.
77 3
"1865 History," p. 2, M. H. S. C.
78
Marshall Statesman, August 20, 1851, p. 3,
col. 3.
79
Ibid.
80
Skjelver, Nineteenth Centur Homes, pp. 87,
179-181.
81

"Bird's Eye View of the City of Marshall" (Battle
Creek, Mi.: A. Ruger, 1868).
82
_Democratic Ex ounder, April 30, 1852, p. 2,
col. 3. ”Shade Trees,” Ibid., April 19, 1855, p. 2, col. 3.
83
Skjelver, Nineteenth Centur Homes, p. 130. One
of those gardens is visible in an early print of the
house. The other is blocked by a tree.
84
Laura Mason, Journal, June 14, 1838, M. H. S. C.
85
Lydia A. Kingsbury, "A Scrap of Life's Page,"
Marshall St tesman, May 5, 1852, p. 1, cols. 3-4.
86
Florence Mayfield, "The vacation; or, The Sisters'
Choice,” Mgrgpg11_§rgrggpgp, July 14, 1852, p. 1, col. 5.
87
Ibid., p. 1, col. 5.

68

88
"The Garden," Journal of Education 1 (April,
1838): 9.
89
Dusenbury, Brewer and Butler, Day Book, April 12,
1841, M. H. S. C.
90
Ibid., April 17, 1841.
91
Marghall Statesman, April 22, 1845, p. 3,
col. 1; Ibid., August 5, 1845, p. 2, col. 6.
92
"The Garden," Journal of Education 1 (April,
1838): 9.
93
Dem cratic Ex ounder, April 30, 1852, p. 2,
col. 3. Ibid., April 19, 1855, p. 2, col. 3.
94
Gardner, Histor of Calhoun Count , vol. 1.

Sally Stone Hibbard, Marshall, to Eliza Stone,
Brighton, New York, November 24, 1838, M. H. S. C.
96

Hamlin, Greek Revival Architecture, p. 10.
Laura Mason, Journal, M. H. S. C.,
97
Histor of Calhoun Count 1830, p. 52.
98
Ibid.
99
John Andrews, The Price Guide to Victorian
Furniture (WOodbridge, Eng.: Baron Publishing, 1973), pp.
101 a 149.

REGIONAL AND NATIONAL MEDIA NETWORKS

It is important to understand how settlers in a frontier
community like Marshall shared so many popular ideas and
values with the rest of the nation. Recent historical studies
de-emphasize the theme of isolation on the frontier,
emphasizing instead.rapid social development and integration

into a national market system. Frontier culture was shaped,

in part, by local adversity and the need to cooperate to

survive. It was molded just as much by influences outside
the village. This chapter examines one way in which such
influences reached Marshall; it investigates republican

informational media. Other scholars identify a "village
enlightenment" in New England during the first quarter of the
nineteenth century.2 By the 18305, that enlightenment had
spread as far west as the village of Marshall, and this
chapter closely examines the role and function of information
in its spread.

A variety of media sources is examined here which
constituted a comprehensive informational network by the
18405. Marshall had two newspapers by 1837. Editors of
those papers participated in a news ”exchange" which brought
dozens of newspapers and journals into Marshall from

throughout the United States on a regular basis. They

provided much of the "copy" that appeared in Marshall papers.

69

70

Residents also subscribed to a variety of publications.
Marshall possessed a bookstore and a half dozen lending
libraries by the early 18405. Library collections ranged
from a dozen to several hundred volumes, with most books in
circulation most of the time. Marshall possessed a Lyceum
and a number of debating and literary societies pledged to
the dissemination of information. Marshall villagers were a
well-informed group.

The Marshall press played a key role in the
enlightenment of the village citizenry, since the papers were
established early in the town's history and enjoyed wide
circulation. They were a popular form of literature.
Editors were concerned primarily with commercial and
political news, but their papers also carried a variety of
cultural information. Marshall publishers job printed two
journals in Marshall during the 18405, one dedicated to
educational reform and the other to temperance, and two
during the 18505, both literary journals. The newspapers
brought news from literally hundreds of other American
communities into Marshall. The information network to which
they belonged was national in scale and was the vehicle for
the spread of national cultural ideals.

The history of the Marshall press began in the autumn of
1836 when eighteen year old Henry C. Bunce arrived in the
village. Bunce claimed to be a printer and was probably, at
that age, .a runaway apprentice. Local partisan Democrats

seized upon him, acquired him a press, and on October 2,

71

1836, the Calhoun_County_Patriot_And_Democratic_Expounder
3
appeared as a weekly quarto, or four page paper. Exactly a

year later, 1pg_Marshall Republican printed its first issue.
The Republican was a Whig paper created to challenge the
Expounder. In 1839, The Republican press was sold and became
the Western Statesman, retaining its Whig allegiance.4 In
one form or another, these two papers competed through much
of the rest of the century.5

The local papers were popular in the community, for they

enjoyed a wide circulation. In 1842, the Statesman reported
6
its circulation to be 450. At that time Marshall possessed
7
about three hundred households. Many copies were sold to

farmers or residents of other villages in the county. There
were in Calhoun County about twenty-two hundred families in
1842.8 If the Expounder's circulation was as strong as the
Statesman's, then the two newspapers reached at least a third
of the households in the area. Papers were sold by
subscription only, the standard practice of the time.9 In
1842, the subscription rate for both papers was two dollars a
year for cash payment and three dollars if billed.10 This
figure was not inconsequential, and many families chose to
defer payments and suffer the dollar penalty which proved a
constant source of financial distress for local publishers.11
Cost of subscription and breadth of circulation indicate a
commitment on the part of ordinary villagers and farmers to
acquire information.

Much of the space of these papers was devoted to

72

political and commercial news. Addresses by governors,
presidents, and senators were frequently printed verbatim.
There was news and commentary about New York, Detroit, and
Washington. Important legislation was described, and
partisan positions were rationalized. On the state level,
special interest was paid to appointments by the governor,
taxes, and public works. Newspapers acquainted readers with
candidates for public office at all levels, and they
announced and described county political rallies, caucuses,
and slates. Most important, they harangued voters at
election time to attend rallies and to vote. Commercial news
also received extensive space. Front pages carried a column
of advertisers, a directory of businesses in the county.
Inside, there was commercial copy from all over the world and
two pages of advertisements placed by Calhoun County
businessmen and professionals.

Marshall also carried a variety of cultural news and
commentary. Some was generated in Marshall, but much of it
was copied from literary journals. For instance, during the

month of June, 1842, the Western Statesman carried 212

inches of copy borrowed from Ladies' Qompgnipn, Gogey'g
Lady's Book, and Morning Star. Other popular journals
frequently cited in local papers included Knickerbocker's,
W. Waiting. Md e ' V d. and
Blackwood's. Even the Lowell Offering, published by female
operatives in the Lowell mills in Massachusetts, was copied

12
on October 13, 1842 in the Statesman. This information

73

included fiction, poetry, and social commentary. Marshall
newspapers also carried advertisements for a number of
literary and trade journals. Sometimes editors added a plug

of their own, such as that for the New York State Mechanic on

 

December 12, 1842:
We would call the attention of the Mechanics of Michigan
to the above beautiful quarto paper, which commenced its
2nd volume of the 26th ultimo. It is published weekly
at Albany New York, by Joel Monroe. It is not excelled
for sound logical reasoning, by any mechanical paper in
the Union.13
Marshall editors and publishers saw their role as providers
of a variety of information. When Seth Lewis and S. D.
Simonds became partners in the Western Statesman in 1840,
they announced "To the Public," that "We intend . . . to
devote ourselves to the interesting topics furnished in. the
fields of Literature, Science, Morals, Agriculture, 5 General
Intelligence,” in addition to political and commercial
news.14
Marshall newspapers served as links in a national
information network. On December 1, 1842, the Statesman
reported that it printed 480 copies weekly for "450
Subscribers and 30 exchanges."15 Scholars report that during
the republican period newspapers borrowed from one another,16
but historians do not appreciate the comprehensive nature of
that exchange. The editor of the Statesman exchanged 30
copies of his paper with 30 other papers. It was from these

that he drew most of his news copy. The paper occasionally

remarked on the use of exchange papers. In July 1842, the

74

Statesman observed that, "Many of our eastern exchanges have
lately expressed themselves in strong disapprobation of the
laws of our State."17 Elsewhere, the editor noted, "we cut
the following little story from an exchange paper," or
observed, "We . . . prepared a number of extracts from our
exchange papers."18 Sometimes he noted the absence of such a
paper, as with The New York Evgngelist in August, 1842:
"This excellent paper has not reached our table for some time
past, a circumstance we greatly regret. Will the publishers
please forward again and signify the terms of the
exchange."19 Obviously, terms varied. Thirty newspapers and
journals provided the editor Simonds with a mass of copy.
These exchanges were the first news network in the United
States.

It is possible to reconstruct much of the Statespgn's
exchange. Several papers, such as the Evan elist, were
identified by Simonds. Others are obvious because of the
quantity of print copied from them. The Eypngelist, for
instance, was copied six times in the twelve months between
June 1, 1842, and May 31, 1843, for a total of 174 column
inches. I quantified all news copied in the Statesman for
that twelve-month period in order to determine which papers
were most copied and therefore were likely candidates for the
exchange, and results are reported in Table 3, arranged by
region. The table includes location, total number of

stories, and total number of column inches.

Perhaps the most striking feature about the exchange is

75

 

Table 3

WESTERN STATESMAN,

MIDDLE STATES

New York Tribgne

Journal of Commerce

Midnight Cry
W

New York Commercial Advertiger
New York American

New York Evangelist

Albany Evening Journal
American Mechanic

Genessee Farmers

Rochester Democrat

Buffalo Coppergigl Advertiser
Buffalo Patriot and Journal

Pennsylvania Inguirer

NEW ENGLAND
Boston Cultivator

Boston Currier
Vermont Asylum Journal

SOUTH

Missouri Reporter
New Orleans Picayune
New Orleans Tropic
Cincinnati Gazette

National Intelligenger

NORTHWEST

Wgstern Fgrpgr

Michigan State Journal
Michigan Christian Herald
Marshall Democratic Expounder
Grand Rapids Enguirer

Detroit Daily Advertiser

UNSPECIFIED
Christian Advocate and Journal

Baptist Advocate

EXCHANGE,

1842-1843
Stories

91
28
2
1

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O“)

H

N
NNOOQOQ Midi-“APP :0wa HQN‘IwaO‘N

(”H

.5

CNN

257

 

76

the concentration of newspapers and journals in New York.
Most Marshall residents were from that region. They shared a

regional outlook, as we have seen in architecture. Many had

spent their childhood in New York and maintained strong
family contacts there. A total of seven exchange papers came
from Albany, Syracuse, Buffalo, and Rochester. Marshall
papers carried religious, commercial, and political news from
that region, including election returns on a county-by-county
basis.20

A second cluster of papers was concentrated in New York
City. This reflected, in part, the great commercial
influence of that city. ‘Two of those publications were
commercial journals, including the Journal of Commerce,
described by one scholar as the most important business
publication in the nation at the time.21 New York City
exerted more than commercial influence, however. Horace
Greeley's New rork Tribune was the most quoted paper in the
exchange, copied 28 times for a total of 262 inches. Much of
this was political. National political information was
frequently filtered through New York, giving men like Greeley
and Martin van Buren enormous influence in the West. In
January, 1841, Simonds explained the attraction of
Th e:

There is no paper we receive with more satisfaction than

this. We always expect, and have never been

disappointed in finding a rich treat in the perusal of

its pages. Correct and candid in politics, pure in

morals, and brilliant and chaste in literature, and fresh

with news, it is one of the best papers in America.
We commend it to those who wish a good whig paper from

77

22
the city of New York.

A third cluster consisted of papers in Michigan. Two of
those were in Detroit, including the Detroit Daily
Advertiser, which was the main Whig organ in Michigan. The
Advertiser was second only to the Tribune in influence. A
total of 42 articles were copied, totaling 257 column inches.
This was in keeping with the influence which Detroit exerted
over Marshall politically and economically, for it was
Michigan's capital until 1847. Two other papers were from
Jackson and Ann Arbor, two other Michigan county seats. The
last paper in Michigan was the Qrang Rgprgs Enguirer. Grand
Rapids was a county seat to the northwest of Marshall in a
hinterland just opening to settlement and exploitation and of
keen interest to Marshall businessmen.

Besides these three clusters, there was a scattering of
papers throughout the rest of the nation. The South had five
papers, if Cincinnati is included. Two were in New Orleans,
reflecting the influence of that commercial city.
Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia each provided one which
reflects the relative lack of influence of these cities on
the Upper Midwest. There was a scattering of papers in New
England as well, with two in Boston. The third, the
Vermo t As lum Journal, was a special interest publication.

The exchange of the Statesman was national in scope. It
included papers from all regions of the country. It bound
Marshall not only with Detroit, New York, and Washington, but

with a dozen other political and commercial centers. This

78

helps to explain how Americans developed national interests,
ideals, and identity, for different parts of the nation were
in close contact with one another. The scope of this network
becomes even more impressive when we observe that there was a
total of 135 papers copied by the Statesman during that
twelve-month period. Different papers had different
exchanges. Through its exchange papers, the §tate§man tapped
many more. For instance, on April 13, 1843, Simonds reported
that, ”In the Penn. Inquirer, we find a statement credited to
the Cecil, Md. Gazette."23 In most cases, Simonds would
merely dateline the story with the Gazette. Marshall tapped
the Gazette through the Inguirer. Ultimately, all papers and
journals in the nation were bound together in exchanges.

The Statesman's exchange included more than political
and commercial newspapers and journals. Several of the
papers were agricultural journals, including the Western
Farmer, printed in Jackson, Michigan, which provided 143
column inches of copy. Many readers of the Statesman were
farmers, but all residents of Calhoun County were interested
in agriculture. The exchange also included five evangelical
journals, one of which was 1p; Midni ht Cr , organ of the
Adventist movement which was peaking in popularity at about
this time. The American Mechanic, another exchange journal,
was addressed to artisans and producers in general, while the
Asylum Journal, as already noted, was also dedicated to a
special topic. The exchange included a variety of sources.

This national news network included another important

79

dimension. Many local newspapers were job printers and
job-printed other publications. Beginning in 1837, the
Democratic Expounder, for instance, job-printed the Journal

of Education, published by the office of the Michigan

24
Superintendent of Education. It was edited by John D.
Pierce and Francis W. Shearman of Marshall, both state
25
education superintendents. These editors had access to the

exchange of the Erpounder and created an exhange of their
own, trading subscriptions in their journal for those of the
Family and School Visitor, from Maine; Common School Journal
and Anna;s of Education, both of the City of Boston;
Massachusetts Common School Journal; the Connggticpt Coppgp
School qurnal; Common School Assistant and the Youth's
Penn Pa er, both of New York; and, the Juvenile
Depository.26 Possession of these journals by the
Journal of Education provided access for the Expounder and
its readers as well. The Journal of Education was
distributed to township school inspectors, and consequently
reached every organized township in Michigan. The second
journal job-printed in Marshall was The Michigan Temperance
Advocat , the editor of which was Oliver Cromwell Comstock, a
Baptist clergyman in Marshall. It was printed out of the
Statesman office beginning in 1841, but no known copies
survive.

Marshall newspaper exchanges brought many newspapers
and journals into Marshall, but many of those publications

circulated in the community on their own. Chauncey Brewer

80

subscribed to both the Journal_pf_Commerce and the New

Yorker.27 Isaac Crary subscribed to New England Review,
among other publications.28 A Calhoun County school teacher
reported reading "an occassional Free Press or Advertiser
from Detroit."29 In fact, cheaper Detroit dailies offered

Marshall papers stiff competition, following the arrival of
the railroad in 1844, which compelled local papers to reduce
subscription rates.30 The same teacher borrowed papers and
journals from others, noting they "were like novels to us,
and in reading one of them we were so choice of it, that it
was handled with the utmost care, and returned, when read, as
if it had been a valuable book."31 A favorite of this
teacher was the Philadelphia Evening Post which had at least
one subscriber in the county.32 Laura Mason noted reading
newspapers in her journal.33 Magazine clubs also existed in
the community through which individuals obtained reduced
subscription rates by purchasing in bulk.34

Newspapers were not the only form of literature that
circulated in Marshall. The school teacher told how
newspapers were passed around like books. Most Marshall
residents arrived with a few favored volumes, and there were
numerous places in Marshall to acquire more. Marshall had a
book store at an early date, but that establishment received
competition from the large number of drygoods stores in the
village which also carried books. It was customary for book

owners to pass volumes among themselves, so that virtually

all personal libraries in the community became lending

81

libraries. By the early 18405, Marshall possessed at least
six actual lending libraries, two run by churches, two by
schools, one by the Marshall Mechanics' Association, and the
last by a private entrepreneur. The typical villager in
Marshall had access to a large number and variety of books.

Virtually everyone in Marshall owned three books--the
Bible, the Elementar S ellin Book, and the almanac. The
Calhoun County Bible Society made annual inspections of all
homes in the county and placed Bibles wherever none was
found.35 Spelling books and almanacs were nearly as
ubiquitous as the Good Book. Dusenbury, Brewer, and Butler
made a semi-annual purchase of books from Pratt, Woodford,
and Co., New York, in 1841 and acquired 144 copies of the
Elementary Spelling Book, in addition to "200 farmers
almanacks" and ”100 commercial almanacks."36 This pattern
and volume was common among drygoods businesses in Marshall.
It was Noah Websters's Elementary Spelling_§ook which
standardized spelling in the United States during the years
of the early republic. Its popularity was indicative of a
desire by villagers to conform to national standards.

W. R. Hunt maintained a book store in Marshall as early
as 1838. Laura Mason reported, following her family's
arrival in 1838, that brother ”David has been employed in a
book store, for a short time and I have the pleasure of
gaining access to the books."37 David was either bringing

books home or allowing his sister to browse in the shop, for

Laura had an omniverous literary appetite. Hunt probably

82

stocked everything but textbooks. He would have stocked few
of those, for they were favorites of drygoods shopkeepers.

G. 8. Wright advertised 41 titles of textbooks in one notice

38
in 1840. Frink and Butler, another drygoods partnership,
patronized Pratt, Woodford & Co.of New York in July, 1844,
39
and acquired 234 school books in 14 different titles. In

1853, there were 16 drygoods stores competing with W. R.
Hunt, Bookstore, in the vending of books when Marshall still
had a population of less than three thousand.40 We can
assume from this that the typical family library also
included at least a few standard textbooks.

Early Marshall also had a surprisingly large number of
lending libraries. Two were connected with Marshall District
Schools One and Two. In 1837, parents in District One set
aside "ten dollars for the purchase of books for a district
library."41 Marshall's Methodist and Congregational Churches
both maintained Sabbath School libraries. Reverend John
Watson, minister of the Methodist Church in Marshall,
referred to Sabbath school libraries in 1842, insisting, "the
young reader . . . has access to a library of rich varied
reading, provided with careful reference to his juvenile
taste and capacity."42 The Mechanics' Association also
maintained a library "of well selected books,” totaling
about three hundred volumes.43 This was certainly the
largest collection in the community, and a notice in 1844

advised Marshall residents, ”This library is well worth the

notice and patronage of every lover of learning and of the

83

44
prosperity and best good of our rising village.” A private

subscription library was kept by Charles D. Smith, a drygoods
merchant, who advertised a variety of "Novels, Romances,
Tales, ac.," as well as "Biography and Miscellany."45 Smith
emphasized novels because his may have been the only library
in Marshall which acquired works of fiction. A seventh
library may have been formed in 1838 when the Marshall Lyceum
put out an appeal for books from members in order to create a
circulating library of its own. These collections, though
relatively small, were widely used. Small libraries were
collections of books with a librarian who managed their
movement and kept track of their whereabouts. A Lee Township
library card required qualified patrons seeking books to
appear before the librarian a week in advance and reserve
them.46

Many Marshall citizens were avid readers. Fourteen-
year-old Laura Mason, in particular, was a lover of books and
left a record, though fragmentary, of her reading. A5 a
daughter of a clergyman, Laura's literary tastes were
undoubtedly more pronounced than average; yet her habits are
informative. She moved with her parents and siblings from
Gotham, Connecticut in 1838. Before leaving New England she
donated three books from her personal collection to the
family auction.47 By the end of June, her family was
situated in Marshall, and Laura spent her time reading as

well as gardening: "1 have been reading lately, ‘The Lord of

the Isles,' though not quite so entertaining as Marmion.

84

Some parts are I think very beautiful . . . I am now reading
‘Miss Sedgwick's tales and sketches."'48 When brother David
got his job in the book store, sister Laura exploited the
opportunity. Having gained access to that collection, she
reported, ”I am now reading ‘The Linwoods,‘ by Miss Sedgwick;
and I am pleased with it, so far as I have read."49 Laura
also drew books from the Congregational Sabbath school
library, observing on July 1, ”I took a book from the Library
called Omar, I think it will be interesting."50 Laura used a
variety of sources to acquire reading materials. Her kind of
behavior was idealized by early Marshall writers. Florence
Hayfield wrote of literate heroines in her romances.
Speaking of one, she wrote, "Books, birds and flowers were
her choicest friends."5¥ Books served as bonds between
friends. A female character reminds a male friend: ”Henry,
now don't forget to come and read with me an hour after
tea."52 Books served as properties in courting. In the
meetings of one young couple, ”books were exchanged or
perused together."53

A great deal of information was also dispensed in
Marshall from the lectern. A number of organizations promoted
the dissemination of ideas in the village. Those groups
included literary associations, schools, and churches.
Early literary associations in Marshall included the Marshall
Lyceum, Young Men's Association, Amphictyon Society, and the
Marshall Mechanics' Association. These groups provided

lectures, discussions, and debates on science, government,

85

and the arts.

The Marshall Lyceum was founded in 1838 and held
meetings and programs regularly for the next six years.54
Many of its programs emphasized scientific themes, for early
residents in Marshall were very interested in the sciences.
In the winter of 1840, for instance, Dr. R. B. Bement
provided a series of lectures on chemistry, including the
”Philosophy of Firelings, Steam, and Steam Engines . . . Laws
of combustion, mineral Gems, Light, Colors, [and]
Daguerreotypes."55 Reverend John P. Cleaveland lectured on
astronomy, while Isaac Crary revealed the mysteries of
climate and Daniel Lord the secrets of geology.56 History
was also a popular theme,‘ and one program on Michigan was
repeated by popular request. We possess little information

on the Young Men's Association of Marshall, for the group did

not advertise. John Pierce addressed the organization in

58
December, 1838, on the subject of education. The
Association was called by contemporaries "the most noted
59 .
organization in the northwest." The Amphictyon Society was

created 'by the young men at Marshall College and patterned
itself after the Lyceum. We possess information only on two
of its programs held at the court house in 1841 on the
subject of ”The Characteristics of American Statesman," and
”Physical Education," suggesting that its topics were
probably similar to those of the Lyceum.60 The Free Suffrage

Society was active throughout 1845 and also sponsored debates

on such subjects as the expenditure of state funds on

86

61
education and the constitutionality of redistricting.

The Marshall Mechanics' Association was organized on
January 13, 1838. For the next seven years, members met on a
weekly basis and conducted debates and lectures for
association and community. During that time, there was
hardly a topic which mechanics and their guests did not
discuss. The question of the first debate held on January
27, 1838, was: "Would canals be more beneficial than
railroads?"62 In the second, they discussed whether or not
George Washington was a greater military commander than
Napoleon Bonaparte, and in the third they talked about usury
laws and their possible abolishion.63 This set the pattern
for variety in the years ahead. In the year 1840, they
discussed, among other topics, the effects of romantic
literature on community morals, federal land policies,
missionaries and Indians, temperance, slavery, currency,
female rulers, taxes, the franchise, and the Association
closed the year on the questions "Can Brutes Reason?" and ”Is
the light of nature sufficient to prove a future state of
existence?"64 A variety of lectures was also sponsored.

Marshall residents were beseiged with information from
every direction. On January 18, 1844, Jeremiah O. Balch,
editor of the Statesman, reviewed intellectual activities in
Marshall during the past week. On Thursday, the eleventh,
Reverend Montgomery Schuyler of Trinity Episcopal Church
delivered the annual address for the Calhoun County Bible

Society. On the following evening, Rufus Patch, principal of

87

Marshall Academy, delivered a lecture on education. On
Saturday, Nathan Noyes, a Marshall attorney, lectured before
the Mechanics' Association on ”The Progress of Free
Principles."65 The following Wednesday Judge Henry J. Phelps
addressed the Marshall Washingtonian Society on temperance.
After listing these events, Balch concluded, "Thus has the
intellectual season fairly commenced in Marshall. We are
glad to see the prevalence of so much good taste among us.
There is no deficiency of mental furniture, to make society
both rational and attractive."66

The frontier was rarely an isolated place during the
early nineteenth century. Larger villages like Marshall
established newspapers which tied into information networks.
Marshall newspapers, in turn, circulated in countryside and
hamlets. Robert Wiebe in a recent study argues that national
values of an old colonial elite were eroded by "space" during
the second quarter of the nineteenth century.67 In Marshall,
space was a challenge, not a deterrent. National values were
expressed through a media network national in scope. That
network brought information into the community where it was
absorbed by individuals and passed on through conversation or
the lecturn. Marshall was fortunate to be on the route of the
Territorial Road and then the Central Railroad, and in 1848,
the telegraph arrived, following the rails, diminishing
Marshall's isolation even more.68

By the 18505, railroads carried so much information into

Marshall that they threatened to make local newspapers

88

obsolete. Railroads brought the penny press to the village.
Marshall residents subscribed increasingly to penny papers
from Detroit and cities further east. In addition, local
book stores sold individual issues of eastern newspapers and
journals, making it possible for individuals to purchase
copies without becoming subscribers. Penny papers drew
subscribers away from Marshall's newspapers. The
consequences of new competition were frequently painful.
Jeremiah Balch, a Marshall newspaperman, lamented in 1858:
"The multiplication of presses has produced a competition in
the business, cheapening letter press below its real value,
and consequently lessening the price of labor, in that
line."69 In order to compete with external competition,
local publishers dropped subscription rates from three
dollars a year to one dollar over a decade. This decline in»
income led to low wages in the trade. The editor of the,
Statesman observed in 1857 that, ”If only half the money
which is sent east, for newspapers and periodicals, were
applied in support of our own western country papers, they
would present altogether a different appearance."70 The
editor of ’Expounder requested of villagers, "Before
subscribing for an eastern paper, which will tell you nothing
of home matters, secure your local paper."71 The Expounder
editor identified the one real advantage local papers had
over eastern competitors. They could provide local news.

The Marshall editor pledged in the last issue of 1859, "The

Expounder will enter upon the new year with a determination

89

to give a faithful history of the passing events in our own
county as well as in the rest of the world.”72 One way the
Expounder expanded local coverage during the 18505 was by
reporting on the meetings of the Marshall Common Council,
something Detroit newspapers could not do.

As competition with city papers increased, local papers
became more cooperative. They ceased the savage attacks upon
one another and began to view competition as destructive.
They also began to copy from one another. The Statesman, for
instance, copied the extensive reports by the Expounder on
the Common Council.73 Both local newspapers became active in
the Michigan Press Association which sought to coordinate and
advance the interests of the Michigan press. Addressing that
group in 1858, Balch, praised improvements in the Michigan
press:

No one, whose memory embraces past times not

very remote, can fail to discover great improvements in

journalism--in the ability in which newspapers are

conducted--in the improved courtesy of their language,

and in the more utilitarian character of their

productions. Indeed it is no mean praise that the press

of our State has partaken largely of this improvement.74
Newspapers were more polite. They cultivated better business
practices. They carried more local news and attempted to
provide more useful services in the community.

Newspaper exchanges continued to be the major network

for spreading information during the 18505. In the year
1858, only one wire service story was carried by the

Statesman. It is difficult to reconstruct exchanges for

years other than 1842 for which we know the total number of

90

exchange papers. For the year 1858, all copied material has
been totaled. This material came from 116 newspapers and
journals. These newspapers and journals can be compared with
all the 135 cited in the Statesman in 1842. During the
18505, the Statesman was more likely to exchange papers with
editors in Michigan, Illinois, and Missouri. New states
further west imported presses and exported information.
Influence from abroad also increased, as Marshall editors
copied from foreign journals. The number of papers in the
south decreased, while that in New England dropped
precipitously. Influence from New York also decreased, but

that State continued to loom large in Marshall consciousness.

 

Table 4

COMPARISON OF THE SOURCES CITED IN THE STATESMAN

FOR THE YEARS 1842 AND 1858

Region Year % of Papers % of Copy
Midwest 1842 23 28
1858 50 50
Middle 1842 33 49
States 1858 23 27
New 1842 24 12
England 1858 4 4
South 1842 19 10
1858 16 8
West 1858 11 6
Foreign 1842 4 1
1858 5 5

 

These figures reflect a changing regional identity.

91

Regionalism or parochialism was bound up closely with family.
Through the 18405, villagers in Marshall related to New York
where they had been raised and where so many of their
relatives still lived. By 1858, villagers had as many
relatives living to the west as to the east. Families in
Marshall matured, and sons and daughters left the village and
settled along the Illinois Central Railroad and in areas of
Missouri and Kansas. Companies of young men left Marshall
for the gold fields of California. All who left drew the
attention of Marshall relatives and friends after them.

Figures on newspaper locations suggest significant
changes in cultural attitude. The sense of national interesto//
evident in 1342 disappeared by 1858. The influence of theifil
South faded further than figures suggest. The Republican
editor of the Statesman no longer sought out southern opinion
on issues of the day. He selected those stories most
calculated to prejudice his readers against the south,/
stories of slave beatings and escapes, for instance. New.,
England declined in influence to a position behind Europe. w”
This crumbling of national perspective was replaced by
greater interest in ideas from abroad and a growing sense of
regional importance. English journals, in particular,
circulated in the village and were copied in the Marshall
press. The great concentration of influence, however, was in
New York, Michigan, and Illinois. A sense of regional
identity survived the nationalism of the first half of the

century and became an important ingredient of the

sectionalism of the 18505.

92

93

End Notes

REGIONAL AND NATIONAL MEDIA NETWORKS

1

Richard Brown, "Modernization: a Victorian Climax"
Victorian America, ed. Daniel Walker Howe, (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1976) p. 34. Ryan,
Cradle of the Middle Class, p. 55.

2

Botein "Printed Expertise,” p. 17.

3

Democratic Ex ounder, January 6, 1859, p. 2,

col. 1; History of Calhoun County, 1830, p. 32.

4
Ibid.
5
Ibid.
6 .
Western Statesman, December 1, 1841, p. 2,
col. 5.
7
Extrapolated from the 1840 Census.
8
Ibid.
9

Michael Schudson, Discovgring the News: A Social
Hiptpry of American Newspapers (New York: Basic Books,
Inc., Publishers, 1978) p. 15.

10
we tern St tesman, July, 28, 1842, p. 4, col. 1.

lllbid. Marshall Statesman, January 15, 1862, p.2,
col. 3.
12
Dublin, Women at Work, pp. 123-125.
13
Western Statesman, December 15, 1842, p. 2,
col. 2.
14
”To the Public," Western Statesman, October 1,
1840, p. 3, col. 3.
15
Western Statesman, December 1, 1842, p. 2,
col. 5.
16
Schudson, Discoverin the News, p. 14.

94

17
Western_State5man, July 21, 1841, p. 2, col. 6.
18
Western Statesman, September 15, 1842; Ibid.,
March 9, 1842, p. 2, col. 4.

19
Western Statesman, August 4, 1842, p. 2, col. 4.
20
Marshall Statesman, March 18, 1845, p. 2,
col. 5.
21
Schudson, Discovering the News, p. 19.
22
Western Statesman, January 13, 1842, p. 2,
col. 5.
23
Western Statesman, April 13, 1843, p. 3, col. 1.
24

Hrptory of Calhoun County, 1830, p. 32. In
1838, it was printed in Detroit.
25

Ibid., p. 23.
26
Journal of Education 1 (February, 1839): 1.
27
Chauncey M. Brewer, Ledger A., March 24, 1845,
M. H. S. C.
28
, The M. H. S. C. contains a scrapbook made by Crary
of poetry and articles clipped from this journal.

29Anson D. P. van Buren, "The Log Schoolhouse Era
in Michigan; or, My School and My Schoolmasters During
our First and Second Pioneer Decades,” Michigan Pioneer
and Historical Collections 14(1889):311.

30

Marsha;; gtgregpgn, April 29, 1845, p. 2, col. 3.
31

Van Buren, ”The Log Schoolhouse Era," p. 311.
32

Ibid.
33

Laura Mason, Journal, August 13, 1838, M. H. S. C.
34

The New York State Mechanic, for instance
advertised a reduced, group rate. See Western Statesman,
December 15, 1842, p. 2, col. 2.

35

Western Statesman, February 20, 1840, p. 3,

col. 1.
36

Dusenbury, Brewer and Butler, Invoice Book,

October 14, 1841, p. 52, M. H. S. C.
37
Laura Mason, Journal, June 27, 1838, M. H. S. C.

95

38
Western Statesman, January 30, 1840, p. 4, col. 4.
39
Frink and Butler, Invoice Book, July 24, 1844,
pp. 98-99, M. H. S. C.
40
Marshall Statesman, December 14, 1853, p. 4, col.

1.
41
Gardner, Histor of Calhoun Count , vol. 1,
p. 268.
42
Western Statesman, July 13, 1843, p. 1, col. 3.
43
Western Statesman, March 2, 1843, p. 2, col. 3.
44
Marshall Statesman, February 15, 1844, p. 2,
col. 4.
45
Democratic Ex ounder, January 29, 1841, p. 3,
col. 2.
46
Holmes family scrapbook, M. H. S. C.
47
Laura Mason, Journal, May 22, 1838, M. H. S. C.
48
Ibid., June 20, 1838.
49
Ibid., June 27, 1838.
50
Ibid., July 1, 1838.
51

Florence Hayfield, "The Vacation; or, the Sisters'

Choice," Marshall Statesman, July 14, 1852, p. 1, col. 6.
52

Florence Mayfield, ”A Sketch from Real Life,”
Marshall §tgtg§mgn, July 31, 1851, p. 2, col. 2.
53

Florence Mayfield, "Trials and Triumph," Marshall
Statesman, February 19, 1853, p. 1, col. 3.

54
Histor of Calhoun Count 1830, pp. 62-63.
55
Western Statesman, February 13, 1840, p. 3,
col. 2.
56

Democratic Expounder, March 19, 1841, p. 3, col.
3; Ibid., March 26, 1841, p. 3, col. 2; Western Statesman,
January 26, 1843, p. 2, col. 5; Mar hall State man,
February 8, 1844, p. 2, col. 6.
57

Wegtern §tatesmap, February 9, 1843, p. 2,
col. 2; Ibid., February 23, 1843, p. 2, col. 6.

96

58
John D. Pierce, "An Address," Journal_pf
Education 1(December, 1838):76-77.
59
Williams, Histor of Olivet Colle e, p. 145.
60

Democratic Expounder, January 15, 1841, p. 3,
col. 2; Western Statesman, January 14, 1841, p. 3,

col. 4.
61
Marshall Statesman, January 4, 1844, p. 3,
col. 1; Ibid., October 14, 1845, p. 3, col. 1.
62
History of Calhoun County, 1830. p. 63.
63
Ibid.
64
Western Statesman, December 3, 1840, p. 3,

 

col. 2; Ibid., December 24, 1840, p. 3, col.2.
65
Marshall Statesman, January 18, 1844, p. 2,
col. 3.
66
Ibid.
67

Robert F. Wiebe, The Opening of American

Society: From the Adaption of the Constitution to the
Eve of Disunion, (New York: Knopf, l984),pp. 131-142.

68
Gardner, Histor of Calhoun Count , vol. 1,
p. 238.
69
Jeremiah Balch, "Address Delivered before the
Association of Editors and Publishers of the State
of Michigan," Democratic Expounder, April 1, 1858,
p. 2, col. 3.
70
Ma hall Statesman, February 25, 1857,
p. 2, col. 5.

71
”The Expounder, pemogratlp Erpounder, December
29, 1859, p. 2, col. 3.
72
Ibid.
73

"Common Council Proceedings,” Democratic
Ex ounder, March 21, 1860, p. 4, cols. 1-2.
74

Balch, ”Address," Democratic Ex ounder, p. 2,
col. 4.

LIFELONG EDUCATION

A great deal of information entered Marshall by means of
newspaper exchanges, libraries, and public speakers. The
presence of information, however, did not guarantee its
acceptance or usefulness. That depended on other factors, one
being the level of education in the community, and in
Marshall it was high. Scholars now observe that it was the
first quarter of the nineteenth century, not the second, that
Americans of both sexes entered schools in massive numbers,
and the early history of Marshall confirms that.1 Marshall
settlers were well-schooled, having attended either public or
private academies in New York or New England. They created
a mixed system in Marshall with similarities to the regional
systems they had left behind, but with important
distinctions. Villagers subscribed to new, popular ideas in
education. The result was a variety of schools which offered
a variety of programs, or options, meeting the different
needs for expertise in the community.

Schools were not the only institutions in Marshall
educating villagers, however. Churches and voluntary
associations not only proselytized on behalf of the merits of
education, they provided numerous educational services.

Richard D. Brown, in his study of society in rural

Massachusetts, also observes that associations provided such

97

98
2

"cosmopolitan" functions. Associations were especially
active in the field of adult or continuing education. Much
of their program was devoted to instilling a greater
appreciation in Marshall residents of science, art, and
religion. Churches conducted schools and educational
programs of their own. As college educated individuals,
clergyman were frequently the strongest proponents of new
ideas about the arts and sciences in Marshall.

Like other communities on the frontier, Marshall
residents established a school soon after the first
settlement. In 1831, when there were still less than a dozen
school age children in ‘the village, Marshall residents
”summoned a Miss Brown, from Ann Arbor," who kept school "in
a loft for want of a better place."3 In 1832, a school house
was built on Mansion Street, and Eliza Ketchum of Marshall
was hired as school mistress.4 There is no record as to how
this school was funded, but it was probably through a
combination of donations in the community and assessment on
parents of students. Such formulae made early district
schools both private and public in character.

Village culture was not wholly derivative, and this was
most obvious in the field of education. In 1834, Isaac E.
Crary and John Pierce of Marshall proposed a system of state-
supported education, and the following year, Crary helped
write those proposals ingo law as a delegate to Michigan's

constitutional convention. Upon statehood in 1837, Pierce

was made the first Michigan Superintendent of Education. He

99

travelled extensively, studying schools in a number of other
states and regions. According to one scholar, Pierce was
most impressed and influenced by innovations in New York, New
England, and abroad:

Crary and Pierce combined the best features of the

Prussian system of centralizing school government

under the state; the New York plan of state trustee-

ship of educational lands; and the Connecticut

provision for the investment and disbursement of

school funds.6
The plan brought education under the direction of the state.
State superintendents oversaw schools through county
supervisors and township inspectors. Schooling was free to
all students. A university and state normal school were
planned, and the Journal of Education was published, giving
the ideas of Michigan educators wide circulation.7 Marshall
reformers made Michigan a national model.

In Michigan, a total of 1,506 districts schools existed
by 1840, enrolling 49,850 students in public schools.8 These
were not all new schools, however. Marshall village was
divided into two districts, and District One took over the:
existing school and continued to operate it. District Two
built a school house of its own at a cost of $150, acquired a
library and display case, and hired a teacher, providing
Marshall with a net gain of one school and one teacher.9
Pierce and Crary did not create the system of education in
Michigan as some scholars suggest. They created a component

of that system, and even in doing that they took over the

supervision of numerous existing schools.

100

Education in Michigan had another important element. In
Marshall, private schools unquestionably played the dominant
role through the 18505. In 1837, Marshall Ladies' Seminary

was created to provide secondary instruction for females, and
the following spring the Preparatory School of_ Marshall
College was established to provide the same opportunity for
young men.10 Private instruction on the primary level was
also offered by select schools established by individuals and
groups in the community. By 1838, a select school was taught

by Miss L. A. Seymour, and two years later another was

11
operated by Miss M. H. Wood. In the same year, the
Marshall Ladies's Seminary, also called the Marshall Female
12
Academy, added 3 Juvenile Department. In 1841, a Miss

Langdon opened a third select school, and three years later
still another was established by W. J. Johnson, a male
teacher.13 In 1845, the Marshall Classical Academy opened
its doors, and the following year the Marshall Commercial
Academy enrolled its first students.14

Historians Carl F. Kaestle and Maris A. Vinovskis
observe that in Massachusetts the presence of a significant
number of private schools or private schooling was not likely
in communities with populations of 2,500 or less.15 This may
have been a regional characteristic of New England. Marshall
possessed” a half dozen private schools by the time it was
half that size. Private schools proliferated in Michigan's
numerous Scounty seats and in smaller villages. Albion

16
possessed a number of private schools. Olivet and

101

Vermontville were established by settlers intent upon
creating private academies, and they supported such schools
with only a few hundred residents.17 Marshall and other
Michigan villages depended much more on private
entrepreneurship for their schools than did communities in
New England.

It is possible to develop a rough estimate of the number
of Marshall children attending public and private schools.
Regrettably, township reports for district schools do not
exist for Calhoun County during this period. The 1840
census, however, indicates that Marshall had a school
population of 217 between the ages of five and 15. Two years
later Marshall Township, including the village, had a school
age population of 382, with about two-thirds living in the
village.18 In 1843, a correspondent to a local paper
estimated that there was a population of 300 in the 5-17 age
group, probably a close approximation, and he placed the
enrollment of the District One School at 70.19 District Two
in Marshall was the "larger district," but we do not know the
total number of students enrolled, although it was probably
higher than at District One.20 This total for both schools
constitutes about half the school-age population, leaving the
balance either truant or attending private schools. Most of
these probably did the latter. Laura Mason, for instance,
enrolled in Miss Seymour's select school1 following the

arrival in Marshall of the Mason family. We have no

attendence figures for these schools, but a correspondent

102

writing in 1843 observed, "Generally speaking, the select
school will have from 30 to 40 students."22 Private
academies also drew students from outside of Marshall. The
village was surrounded by wealthy farm families anxious to
place their children in the better private schools. We do
not possess actual enrollment figures for private and public
schools until the year 1866, and as late as then, 300
children, or 27 per cent of those in Marshall schools, were
attending private schools.23 It would be safe to estimate
that during the 18405 as many village children were enrolled
in private as in public schools. In the next decade their
proportion declined, but not dramatically.

In the village, private entrepreneurs not only educated
a significant number of children, they introduced most of the
real innovation and reform in education that villagers
enjoyed during the period. They provided departmentalized,
graded instruction and a variety of educational programs,
elements that public schools would imitate in the 18505. Miss
Wood, for instance, offered classwork in two graded
departments. In the first, she advertised instruction in
reading, writing, spelling, and arithmetic; while in the
second, she offered work in grammar, history, natural
philosophy, geography, astronomy, and rhetoric.24 Students
could also take classes in drawing and needlework.25 Johnson
offered similar instruction in three departments.26 The

Marshall Female Academy provided course work in three

departments similar to that described, but including

103
27

physiology, botany, chemistry, and algebra. Piano and
French lessons were also available for a fee.28 The
Preparatory School advertised a Classical Department with
instruction in Latin and Greek, and the Marshall Commercial
Academy offered, among other things, ”Mezzotint Painting" and
double-entry bookkeeping.29 It was the ability of private
schools to offer such a variety of services which popularized
them in Michigan and probably in New York.

Public schools were an asset to poorer residents of the
community because they were free, but in 1843 Michigan
allowed school districts to assess parents tuition, and
schools took on a more traditional cast, becoming quasi-
private in nature again.3o Poorer elements of the community
took advantage of public schools. Blacks were excluded from
all private schools in the region with the possible exception
of Olivet Institute, an offspring of radical Oberlin
College.31 According to the 1850 census, nine black children
attended school in the village. Seventeen black children,
however, between the ages of five and sixteen, did not attend
school. Of a total of 52 Irish children of similar age, 32
attended classes, performing significantly better as a group
than Blacks, but not as well as other villagers. Perhaps
some wealthier Irish families sent their children to private
schools, but most Irish residents were described by a
Marshall priest as being ”of the labgging class" and

therefore unable to afford such schools. Children of the

laboring classes were least likely to attend, and older

104

children between the ages of twelve and fifteen were the
least likely of those, suggesting that their labor was
sometimes required to supplement family income.

Public schools served children from the most disparate=
cultural backgrounds, Blacks from the South and Irish from
abroad. As state institutions, they were agents of cultural
integration. They introduced children to both regional and
national values. They initiated them into the culture of the
corridor and of the nation as a whole. Provincial culture,
be it in New England or the revivalist "burnt over district"
of New York, was avidly Protestant and anti-Catholic.
American provincialism alienated Catholics around the
country, while American nationalism appealed to them. In
1856, Catholics in Marshall created their own school.33
Reverend P. C. Koopman, a Belgian priest, arrived in Marshall
in 1855. It was Koopman who established the Catholic school
the following year. An early church history introduces
Father Koopman with the statement that ”before he left
Marshall" he became "thoroughly American," which greatly
contributed to his popularity among fellow-Catholics in the
village.34 In rejecting American parochialism, Catholic
families and schools accepted the role of proponents of
American nationalism, a role they shared with public schools.

Both public and private schools used textbooks which
expressed cultural values. Textbook literature of the period

generally expressed national, popular ideals. As one scholar

observes, "The ideas taught in the nineteenth-century schools

105

were not necessarily universal truths, but national truths.
It was the national prototype that was to be embodied in
American schoolbooks."35 This nationalism in Marshall
schoolrooms was tempered by regional perspectives, however.
One historian argues that New England publishers and writers
dominated the national .market in textbooks during this
period.36 That was not the case in Marshall which was
anything but a cultural province of New England. Most
village schoolbooks were imported from New York, where they
had been written and published. A small collection of early
schoolbooks maintained by the Marshall public schools
survives. Out of a total of 15 volumes printed between 1817
and 1859, seven were copyrighted in New York, four in
Philadelphia, two in Ohio, with only two in Boston.
Villagers preserved a sense of regional identity during a
period of strong nationalist sentiment.

Private and public schools co-existed in Marshall, but
not always peacefully. Some villagers complained that local
residents with money sent their children to private schools
and ignored the problems of district or public schools. They
claimed the only way to preserve the public system was to
eliminate private instruction altogether, thereby forcing
wealthier parents to support public schools out of self
interest.37 It was such a claim which led to the most
dramatic clash in Marshall during its early years. Pierce,

as Superintendent of Education, opposed the chartering of any

colleges by Michigan in order to protect the State's own

106

Michigan University in Ann Arbor, and it was Marshall College
which hurled the first challenge to Pierce on the issue.
Marshall College employed Reverend John Payne Cleaveland of
Detroit in 1838, constructed a building, opened a preparatory
division, and petitioned the new state administration for a
charter. Pierce and a Democratic administration opposed the

charter, and the Superintendent presented the state

'F-.'—-..
_, ,_._., .-'-9

legislature with a petition bearing the names of "205

citizens of Marshall" according to one source which had

38
access to the petitions. Pierce himself signed this
document, which stated ”it was unwise to grant charters to
39
private institutions.” These petitioners demanded a

radical break from the past. On March 16, 1839, supporters
of the school countered with a petition ”signed by “110
citizens of Marshall."40 This was followed by another
”signed by 190 citizens of Calhoun county; and still another
signed by 194 citizens of Marshall."41 The latter stated
”that it would be an unwise policy and injurious to the cause
of sound learning to restrict the education of the youth in
this State exclusively to legislative supervision, or to
instruction in the university."42 They supported a
traditional, mixed system. The legislature was moved by
their arguments and Marshall College was granted its
permanent charter.

This conflict has another important dimension. It was

caught up in a political contest regarding the site of

Michigan's permanent capital. It was agreed from the

107

beginning of the legislative debate that the site would be
somewhere in the interior, preferably in the geographic or
demographic center of the state. Michigan possessed three
strings of towns along three east-west roadways, and Marshall
was on the middle of the three. The advance and success of
the Central Railroad by 1839 had greatly inflated the status
of towns along its line. Those county seats along the course
of the Central carved up the major state plums. Ann Arbor
was given Michigan University. Jackson was given Michigan
Prison. Kalamazoo was given the state asylum and made the
location of the normal school, while Marshall was to be

designated capital. A bill to this effect passed the
44 113,”.;

Michigan Senate with a majority of six votes. In the

House, representatives made an issue of Marshall College,
insisting it would compete with the university and cause it
to fail, leaving Marshall with both school and capitol.45
The strongest boosters for the capital in Marshall panicked,
including Pierce and the Ketchums. They not only petitioned
the State, but led a campaign encouraging the college's
subscribers to renege on their pledges.46 Pierce dragged the
issue Of religion into the conflict, pointing out that
Marshall. College was supported by the Presbyterian Synod of
Michigan, a fact which had not bothered him earlier when he
made major personal subscriptions to the school. The
conflict split the Marshall Presbyterian Church. Pierce
walked out “with anumber of sympathizers and formed the

Marshall Congregational church, an act which led to an end of

(v

g. /

108

eeeeeeee

_Wflw 4- H 47
°°ngresati°nsiists _1n_ Michigan. Marshall made such an

the Plan of Union 1“ between, wPresbyterians and

unfavorable impression that legislators tabled for nearly a
decade the matter of selecting a site for the capital. This
conflict points out another important cultural locus on the
frontier, the state capital. It was the State which
chartered banks and colleges, regulated local schools,
dispensed funds for public works, and in 1853, as we will
observe later, began to involve itself in matters of social
and even moral reform. It was through Detroit that Marshall
imported and exported its goods. Marshall was, to a degree,
a cultural satellite of Detroit. Marshall editors copied
heavily from Detroit newspapers and journals, as we have
already observed. At the same time, in education, Detroit
could be a cultural satellite of Marshall.

If the Marshall, system of.mixedq and public_ schools
tended to discriminate against the poor, it also did so
against males, as Marshall females attended school in equal
or greater numbers than males. They had more schools.
Institutes like the Marshall Female Academy continued to
discriminate against young men, while the Preparatory School,
created as a men's school, opened its doors to women in the
early 18405.48 By then, females could attend virtually any
public or private school in the community, while males were
relegated to relatively few. This state of affairs was not
different from that existing in the east. Kaestle and

Vinovskis found that females entered Massachusetts schools in

109

the first, not the second quarter of the nineteenth century,
bringing attendance to high, modern levels.49 In Marshall,
females took courses in philosophy, mathematics, and the
sciences; only classes of a strictly commercial nature
appear to have been closed to them. A female's sphere was,
as we have seen, the residential neighborhood, not the
business district.

Marshall's educated daughters turned, not surprisingly,
into literati by the 18503. These women paid tribute to
women's intellect and education. According to one, village
women possessed "a mind ever thirsting after knowledge."50
Noting the intellectual accomplishments of women, one
Marshall female declared, ‘"America may well be proud of such
daughters."51 A young lady attending a private school in
Albion in 1851 mused that, "It often occurs to me that the
ladies of America in general do not realize how much they owe
to education."52 By 1851, women were already taking their
educational opportunities and accomplishments for granted.

Schools exerted another important cosmopolitan
influence; they attracted educated people to the community.
These included teachers and administrators, as well as
parents seeking opportunities for their children. As a
Marshall father explained in 1846 regarding his choice of
Marshall as a home:

Impelled by the restless spirit of enterprise and

emigration, I left my retired but delightful home in

New York, in 1837, and sought in the West a home and

a resting place. After a somewhat extensive

exploration of this state, I selected Marshall as a
permanent residence. Born in a land of schools, and

110

living from childhood to manhood in a community
eminent for high intelligence and virtue, a love of
learning and a somewhat just appreciation of its
honors, was early and permanently impressed upon my
mind. Being also a father, I decided to settle in
no place where I could not educate my children; and
hence I sought a home among the refined and
educated. In Marshall, I fancied I had found the
society I sought.53

Exposed to good schools in New York, this village father
sought no less on the frontier. Examples abound of specific
persons drawn to the community by outstanding schools.
Marshall College in 1838, for instance, employed Nathaniel
Balch of Bennington, Vermont, to serve as principal of its
Preparatory School. Balch was anativeof Vermont where he
studied at Chester Academy and Middlebury College. He read
law, medicine, and theology before leaving New England.54 In
the“ same year, Reverend Cleaveland arrived in Marshall to
assume the presidency of Marshall College. Hemwas the son 9:.
Dr. Parker Cleaveland of Rowley, Massachusetts, and. the.
grandson of John CleavelandJ oprhebacco- Parish ”in «the
Commonwealth, a ”familiar historical” figure.55 John the

maiflww -‘ _56Ar....m
younger attended Drummond Academy and Bowdoin College. In

HFM... w~n_‘

addition to acquiring a doctorate in divinity, he was an avid
student of astronomy and musicology.57i Schools were a factor
then as now in the decisions by families to select a
community.

Another important type of private school in the Marshall
educational system has yet to be discussed. Marshall

churches sponsored several Sabbath Schools.

Congregationalists‘ created theirs by 1838. Baptists

-..-..o ,‘,...-e- "'

111

established theirs in 1844, and Methodists maintained a

58
third. Such schools had achieved great popularity in the
Burnt Over District of New York during the period of
59
revivals. In Marshall, they provided important tutorial

and remedial assistance, especially for students with
economic or learning difficulties. Children met for class on
Sundays and were given daily reading assignments which they
were to complete throughout the week.60 Parents, mothers in
particular, were vigorously encouraged to participate with
children in these studies.61 The textbook was the Bible, and
therein lay the genius of Sabbath Schools; they taught
children and parents to read or better understand the one
book they all possessed in their home library.62 Sabbath
schools also provided a means for educated wives and mothers
to work in the classroom as teachers. Laura Mason attended
Congregational Sabbath school soon after her arrival and
described her experiences: "I joined the Sabbath School
today, and was placed in Miss Williams's class. The school
is small, numbering about twenty, but Mr. [Jabez] Fitch, told
the scholars that they must find out those who did not attend
the school, and bring them in."63 Following her second

visit, she described the routine. School was "opened with

singing and prayer, after which we are supplied with books,

and recite the lesson. Then the superintendent hears some
part of the lesson, making interesting remarks. The school
64

is then closed by prayer.”

Churches and schools were not the only institutions in

112

Marshall which played an active role in education.
Associations encouraged and facilitated the spread and
assimilation of information. One group which organized to
improve the quality of public schools was the Calhoun County
Common School Association. The group included parents,
teachers, and public officials throughout the county. On May
1, 1839, Issac Crary addressed that organization, encouraging
it to press forward in its work. Crary boasted that in the
past two years there had been a "general interest awakened in

almost all parts of the state" in the cause of public

65
education. Evidence of this was "the great number of
66
school houses erected." Crary claimed the idea that
"education was for lawyers, ministers, doctors, and

merchants, and not for farmers and mechanics and day
laborers" had been overthrown in nearly all the states.67 He
called for a review of textbook literature in all schools in
an effort to improve it, and he urged creation of a state
agricultural school which would teach "theoretical
farming."68

Associations catered particularly to the educational
needs of adults. Early villagers in Marshall viewed
education as a lifelong process. John Pierce addressed the
subject of continuing education in a speech in 1838.
According to Pierce, ”education . . . comprises the whole of
the physical, intellectual and moral culture of the man, from
the first drawings of his existence to the termination of his

69
earthly career.” Pierce insisted education for a person

113

"is not complete until there is nothing more for him to
learn."70 Learning was an important activity among adults as
well as children.

Associations were one of the agencies which provided
continuing education in the community. Historians such as
Richard D. Brown observe that "voluntary associations
encouraged cosmopolitanism and introduced a new heterogeneity
into local communities."71 Brown emphasizes the religious
interests of associations, but they were equally cosmopolitan
in their secular interests. We have already observed
educational activities of the Lyceum, Young Men’s
Association, Amphyction Society, and Mechanics' Association,
all directed toward the adult or young adult community in
Marshall. The preamble to the Mechanics' Association
constitution dedicated that group to ”the diffusion of useful
knowledge."72 It went on to declare that "knowledge confers
true dignity on human nature by exalting the mind to a true
sense of its powers, and leading it to a due perception of
its importance in the scale of things."73 The brotherhood
sought first to improve intellect among members. From that,
all blessings would flow. Even the Calhoun County
Agricultural and Horticultural Society was created, in good
part, "for the purpose72f diffusing agricultural information

throughout the county." That group sponsored, among other

things, lectures on agricultural and horticultural
75
subjects.

Few groups in Marshall were more urbane in program or

114

outlook than the Mechanics' Association which sponsored

debates, lectures, patriotic celebrations, dances, and
concert music. It maintained the largest lending libary in
the village and attempted in 1843 to establish its own
journal.76 "A nation's glory has no brighter jewel than

intellectual mechanics," insisted the association's leader,
Isaac Loomis, in an address of 1843..77 Mechanics should
gather "for debates, lectures, reading of essays, and for
conversation."78 Marshall Mechanics, according to Loomis,
"severally" were "desirous of improving the arts--elevating
the social condition of man--arousing the mental energies--
increasing in scientific attainments,” and "cultivating the
heart."79 In 1844, the Association published a statement
which touched on education, observing, ”It is a fact so
generally admitted, that it has almost passed into a proverb,
that virtue and dissemination of useful knowledge are the
basis on which rests the true happiness of a Republican
people. To spread knowledge among the rich and poor, should
be the wish and aim of all."80 Reverend Cleaveland spoke on
a popular topic in 1840 when he addressed the Mechanics on
"Knowledge, or the cultivation of the mind."81

The Calhoun County Agricultural and Horticultural
Society was another local association dedicated to the spread
of useful knowledge. It performed much the same role for
farmers as the Mechanics' Association did for artisans and

laborers. In an address before the Society on May 9, 1839,

its president, Horatio H. Hickok, called upon area farmers to

115

abandon damaging practices of the past and embrace new
scientific and popular methods of cultivation and animal

82
husbandry. He discussed agricultural advancements in

Europe and the eastern United States, with special emphasis
on crop rotation and soil management.83 Hickok also called
upon farmers to support the growth of manufacturing in the
. United States and Michigan in order to create new markets for
local farm produce.84 Hickok expressed a common theme when
he emphasized the role of information and education in good
farming:

We, gentlemen, have associated to create a more intimate

social and useful intercourse among the fraternity

of farmers; as humble inquirers after knowledge,
reciprocally to impart the results of our experiments

and observations; to inform ourselves of the

improvements which have been made in the art and science

of husbandry, and finally to elevate the standard of
respectability and augment the general weal of our high

and honorable calling. 85
Husbandry was an art and science which could be mastered
through the acquisition and application of knowledge. An
increase in farm production and consumption would raise farm
income and allow farmers to achieve a higher status in
society, a popular theme in early Marshall.

Associations continued to provide adult education
through the 18503, but their character changed. More
frequently these groups were of an occupational type. We
have already encountered the Michigan Press Association.
Common school teachers joined the Michigan Teachers'
Association during the 18503 and conducted county institutes

86
with workshops on professional improvement. The vice

116

president of the Michigan Teachers' Association in 1854 was a”
Henry A. Pierce, principal of the Marshall Union School.87 .’

Many of the ideas for common school reform came from
private schools. In 1851, for instance, the Union School
began "introducing a uniform system of instruction."88
Henceforth, the District Board in Marshall would inform
parents ”what books may be purchased for the use of the
children attending the Union School."89 Until that time,
common school students learned from whatever books the
parents possessed. In 1853, Henry Pierce expanded the
curriculum, attempting to compete with private schools in
class offerings. Four years later the Union School created a
literary journal imitating that published by the Marshall
Young Ladies' Institute, a private school.

Henry Pierce was perhaps Marshall's most important w”
educator during the 18503. He was born in Massachusetts in ,x
1826. Pierce [no relation to John D. Pierce] attended .I

90
Williston Seminary and Williams College while in the east.

 

At the time of his arrival in Marshall, there were three
hundred students in the Union School. During his
principalship, ”Besides the common branches taught, there
were classes in Latin, French, algebra, philosophy, pencil
drawing, vocal music, and calisthenics."91 Pierce was
accompanied by his wife who taught calisthenics, French,
pencil drawing, and vocal music.92 During his two-year
tenure at the school, attendance passed four hundred and

93
approached five hundred. In 1855, he resigned to become

117

principal of the new Marshall Younngadies' Institute. Ab“
private school, the institute enrolled 101 young ladies in
its first term [See early print of the school in Figure 15,
previous chapter].94 Pierce imitated the reforms of other
schools and attempted to compete with select schools and
private academies by making the Marshall Union School as
appealing as its competitors. Pierce graded the school,
placing girls aged nine and ten in a grammar section, and
Mrs. Pierce assumed responsibilty over these younger
students. Pierce published a literary journal filled with
compositions from his students. According to one early
source, the school ”ranked with the best in the state."95
The Pierces remained at the school four years. A student who
attended the school in 1856 and 1857 described Mrs. Pierce:
Mrs. Pierce was a young woman, gracious, self-poised,
and tasteful. One handicap was her misfortune (the
loss of an arm). This was not apparent, save as the
inanimate member gave a tap, tap at one's desk when
passing. This made one tactful, pityingly deferential,
and very quiet.96
The desks the student noted were in "Study Hall," another
innovation of the Pierce's.97
Children at the Union School shared a cultural paradox..
Boys and girls attended school together. They shared the
same sphere. Beyond the schools, they played in the same
residential neighborhoods and shared domestic chores.
Children of both sexes were most frequently under the
influence of women. Young ladies taught in district schools

before marrying. Older women taught in private or Sabbath

schools. At home, the mother was the only parent present

118

during the day. Children of both sexes were nurtured in much
the same manner by parents who expected them to assume
disparate roles upon reaching adulthood. This paradox
created tension which produced significant cultural change.
As they reached adulthood in the 18403 and 18503, these
villagers challenged the simple distinctions of their
parents. It was they who adopted an eclectic taste in the
arts, mixing styles and elements at will, and we will see in
later chapters how they changed men's and women's spheres by

mixing features and elements there as well.

119

End Notes

LIFELONG EDUCATION

1

Carl F. Kaestle and Maris A. Vinovskis, Education
and Social Change in Nineteenth-Centggy Massachusetts
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), p. 40.

2
Brown, ”Emergence of Urban Society”, p. 39.
3
History of Calhoun County, 1830, p. 56.
4
Ibid.
5

Harold C. Brooks, ”Founding of the Michigan Public
School System," Michigan History 33 (December 1849): 295.
John D. Pierce, "Origins and Progress of the Michigan School
System," Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collection
1(1877):38.

6
Ibid., p. 297.
7

Brooks, "Founding," pp. 296-297, 301. Pierce,

"Origins,” p. 41.
8

Gardner, History of Calhoun Count , vol. 1, p. 147.
9
Western Statesman, August 10, 1843, p. 3, col. 1.
10 .

Gardner, History of Calhogn Count , vol. 1, p. 57;

Calhoun County Patriot, April 20, 1838, p. 3, col. 2.
11

Laura Mason, Journal, July 6, 1838, M. H. S. C.
Western Statesman, August 6, 1840, p. 3, col. 3.
12
Western Statesman, April 30, 1840, p. 3, col. 2.
13
Democratic Expounggr, April 14, 1841, p. 2,
col. 2; Marshall Statesman, May 16, 1844, p. 3, col. 2.
14
Marshall Statesman, March 4, 1845, p. 2, col. 6;
Ibid, March 31, 1846, p. 3, col. 1.
15
Kaestle, Education and Socigl Change, p. 22.
16
Albion College, Albion Collegiate Institute, and

120

Wesleyan Seminary were established in Albion during the
18403.

17

Williams, Histor of Olivet Colle e, pp. 12—23.
18

Western Statesman, June 9, 1842, p. 2, col. 3.
19

Ibid., August 3, 1843, p. 2, col. 6.
20

Ibid.
21

Laura Mason, Journal, July 6, 1838, M. H. S. C.
22

Western Statesman, August 24, 1843, p. 2, col. 1.
23

Annual Report of the School Inspectors of the
City of Marshall, 1866, Michigan Archives, Lansing, Michigan.

24

Western Statesman, August 6, 1840, p. 3, col. 3.
25

Ibid.
26

Marshall Statesman, May 16, 1844, p. 3, col. 2.
27

Western Statesman, April 30, 1840, p. 3, col. 2.
28

Ibid.
29

Ibid., February 17, 1842, p. 3, col. 4; Marshall
States n, March 31, 1846, p. 3, col. 1.
30

Van Buren, ”The Log Schoolhouse Era," p. 286.
31
Olivet Institute was a daughter institution of
Oberlin College, the first school in the nation to admit
women and Blacks to its regular curriculum. There is no
actual record of Olivet admitting Blacks before the Civil War.

32
Roman Catholic Journal, p. 13., M. H. S. C.
33
Ibid., pp. 25-26.
34
Ibid., p. 25.
35

Ruth Miller Elson, Guardians of Tradition,
American Schoolbooks of the Nineteenth Century (Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press, 1964), p. 2.

36
Ibid., p. 7.
37

Second Ward, "The Public Schools," Western

Statesman, August 10, 1843, p. 3, col. 1.
38

Williams, History of Olivet College, p. 154.

121

39
Ibid., pp. 154-155.
40
Ibid., p. 156.
41
Ibid.
42
Ibid.
43

Calhoun County Business Directory For 1869-70
(Battle Creek, Mi.: E. R. Rust, 1869), pp. 31-32.

44
Calhoun County Patriot, February 14, 1840, p.
2, col. 5.
45
Williams, History of Olivet College, pp. 165-166.
46
Ibid., p. 156.
47
Frederick Irving Kuhns, "The Breakup of the Plan
of Union in Michigan,” Michigan History 32(June 1948):
161-162.
48
”Marshall Academy and Preparatory Department of
Marshall College," Western Statesman, February 17, 1842,
p. 3, col. 4.
49
Kaestle, Education and Social Chan e, pp. 10-27.
50
Florence Mayfield, "The vacation; or, the Sisters'
Choice," Marshall Statesman, July 14, 1852, p. 2, col. 1.
51
Ibid.
52
The Athenaeum, Editor's Copy Book, 1851,
Albion College Archives, Albion, Michigan.
53
Webster, "Peoples' Colleges" Marshall Statesman,
December 22, 1846, p. 2, col. 5.
54
”Nestor of the Kalamazoo Bar,” Michigan Pioneer
and Historical Collections 11(1887) p. 297.
55
”Reverend John Payne Cleaveland," Ibid. 4(1881),
pp. 434-436.
56

 

 

Ibid.
57
Williams, History of Olivet College, p. 144.
Democratic ExpounderI March 26, 1841, p. 3, col. 2.
Western Statesman, May 18, 1842, p. 3, col. 1.
58
Laura Mason, Journal, July 13, 1838, M. H. S. C..
History of Calhqgn Countyy:1830, p. 61. Western

122

Statesman, July 13, 1843, p. 1, col. 1.

59

Ryan, Cradle of the Middle Class, pp. 85, 97, 100.
60

Western Statesman, July 13, 1843, p. 1, col. 2.
61

Ibid.
62

Ibid., p. 1, col. 1.
63

Laura Mason, Journal, July 1, 1838, M. H. S. C.
64

Ibid., July 13, 1838.
65

Isaac E. Crary, "Remarks," Journal of Education

2(May 1839): 17.

66
Ibid.
67
Ibid., p. 18.
68
Ibid.
69
John D. Pierce, "An Address," Journal of Education

1(Apr11 1838): 12.

col.

col.

col.

70

Ibid.
71

Brown, "The Emergence of Urban Society", p. 9.
72

Histgry of Calhoun CountyI 1830, p. 62.
3

7
Ibid.
74
Western Statesman, February 13, 1840, p. 3,
1.
75
Ibid.
76
Ibid., March 2, 1843, p. 2, col. 3.
77
Ibid., p. 2, col.1.
78
Ibid.
79
Ibid.
80
Marshall Statesman, February 15, 1844, p. 2,
4.
81
Calhoun County Patriot, April 24, 1840, p. 3,
l.
82

Horatio H. Hickok, ”Address," Journal of Education

123

2(May, 1839): 20-21.
83
Ibid.
84
Ibid., p. 21.
85
Ibid., p. 20.

86"State Teacher's Association," Marshall Statesmen,
August 23, 1854, p. 1, cols. 4-5.
87
Ibid., col. 4.
88
”Text Books for the Union School," Democratic
Expounder. May 23, 1851, p. 2, col. 4.
89

Ibid.
90
"Henry A. Pierce," Michigan Pioneer and
Historical Collections 31(1907): 258-259.
91
W. R. Lewis, "Some Early Schools," undated sketch,
M. H. S. C.
92
Ibid.
93
Ibid. "Union School,” Marshall statesman,
March 12, 1856, p. 3, col. 1.
94
"Young Ladies' Institute,” Democratic Expounder,
March 20, 1856, p. 2, col. 5.
95
W. R. Lewis, ”Some Early Schools,” undated, M. H.
S. C.
96
Ibid.
97
Ibid.
98
Balch, "Address," p. 2, col. 3.

POPULARIZING THE FINE ARTS

Marshall villagers had their own ideas about culture.
They believed that culture was acquired. The trappings of
culture were accumulative, like those of a house. Those
trappings could be acquired through education or by exposure
to the fine arts, and villagers not only pursued schooling,
they cultivated the arts. The arts were popularized in
Marshall during the village period, and this chapter examines
the village's changing reaction to music, oil painting,
photography, drama, dance, and more. These forms became
popular, in part, because they met important needs of
existing institutions in the community, including
associations and churches. Music, for example, was used to
add excitement to revivals, temperance meetings, and
association events. Theater, dance, and fictional literature
were discouraged until the 18503, however. Their acceptance
during that decade marked significant cultural change.
Villagers were less inhibited and pursued the arts for
enjoyment's sake. Only recently have scholars challenged the
stereotype of American Victorians, finding them less
inhibited than once presumed.1 The generation which came of
age in Marshall during the 18503 took new liberties in all

forms of artistic expression.

Music enjoyed the greatest popularity of any of the

124

125

arts, particularly during the 18403, because of the approval
and support of local churches. Church-going was undoubtedly
the most popular activity in Marshall. When Reverend John D.V/"
Pierce arrived in 1831, he began preaching to the infantww”
community on Sunday mornings, creating a regular following”,
The Congregational clergyman returned east the following
spring for his family, and when he returned to Marshall in
the summer, discovered that Reverend Randall” Hobart, a
-Methodist, had arrived and usurped his congregation. ,
Villagers resolved the problem when they requested Pierce t0;
preach in the afternoon so they could hear both, and he ,
consented.2 Sally Hibbard, who arrived in Marshall in 1838
from New York, soon informed her sister of the highlights of
her new community:
I shall give you a description of our thriving city of
Marshall. 1, we have a Presbyterian Church, Episcopal
Chh. and Methodist and we have one of the smartest
of ministers Mr. Cleaveland from Detroit[.l we have a
Bible class Saturday evenings Singing Schools Tuesdays
and Wednesdays and Sewing society Thursdays and enough
other things a going on which is of too mutch [sic]
trouble to notice.3
Church and church-sponsored activities were at the center of
her new life. In 1850, a young lady arrived in Marshall to
attend Miss Burgess's select school and wrote home to her
parents, "Here we have the privelege of attending church
regularly every Sabbath while at home we could hear preaching
only once in two weekst.) Yesterday I went to meeting in the
morning the afternoon and the evening."4

The religious climate in south-central Michigan was

126

influenced by that of the "Burned-over District" New York.
Many of Marshall's young adults had come of age in central
and western New York during the revivals there of the 18203.
Anson De Perry Van Buren was a school teacher who settled in
_Calhoun County at an early date. He was raised in Oneida
County, New York, and as a boy had heard Theodore Weld preach
on temperance, Beriah Green and Gerrit Smith on abolition,
and Charles Grandison Finney and Alvin Stewart on temperance
and reform.5 When New England evangelicals like Cleaveland
arrived in Marshall, they preached to congregations which had
been set afire spiritually in New York.

During the 18303 and 18403, that spirit in Marshall was
kindled in part by music. It is impossible to determine the
origins of musical interest, although the evidence suggests
that New England played a significant role here. Studies of
the revivals in the “Burned-over District" fail to report on
the subject of music, suggesting it was not an important
component of revivalism there. Reverend Hobart, on the otherp/
hand, established a "Vermont singing school” in the area.6,
Reverend Cleaveland, who did more than anyone else in the
region to popularize music, acquired his interest and
training in Massachusetts. In south-central Michigan, a New
England interest in music was joined with New Yorker~
evangelism to create a new religious climate and experience.

Music achieved popularity in Marshall during the 18303
but not a great deal of refinement until the end of the

decade. As already noted, Reverend Hobart of the Methodist

127

Church established a singing school near Marshall. According
to an early account of the Allen family of Marengo, Solomon
Allen "thought that the children ought to be taught to sing--
and having the old fashion Vermont singing school in mind,
started out [to Marshall] to find a teacher. He found Elder
Hobart--who was well known by the early settlers."7 We have
also observed that Sally Hibbard of Marshall attended singing
school at her church in 1838. That singing school was
probably conducted by Cleaveland whom Mrs. Hibbard admired so
much and who arrived in Marshall the spring of that year.
The Journal of Education took an early interest in
music, advocating its instruction in the public schools in
1839. One article advisedthat, "Those teachers who are able
to sing, should begin without delay, to teach their pupils a
few hymns and moral songs, to be sung daily in school."8 If
teachers did not know how to sing, then "Choristers or other
capable teachers of music, may be found, who will cheerfully
assist in preparing children for the performance of
appropriate pieces for daily use in school."9 Even here, we
can see the close linkage between music and the church. The
Journal presumed there were trained musicians in sufficient
numbers in Michigan to make such programs practicable. This
article also recommended specific music texts for use in
schools, insisting that "music, if taught scientifically, is
truly and eminently an intellectual branch of education."10

Before 1838, the level of musical talent in the Marshall»/'

Congregational church was wretched, and conditions theretfa

128

probably typified those found in most places. Laura Mason“.
left us commentary upon her arrival in the spring of 1838.?»
Following the first service in her father's new church, she
reported in her journal: "The Congregational church in \
Marshall is very small, and today much crowded. There are no ,-
galleries and the singers [are] scattered promiscuously over W"
the building."11 The following Sunday Laura had still more
criticism: "In the afternoon I must say they cut a poor
figure in singing one tune; only two could join, and it was
with great difficulty, that I could keep from laughing
outright."12 Only two other parishioners could harmonize
with members of the Mason family. The sophisticated
fourteen-year—old had heard much better singing back east.
This terrible state of affairs, of course, was the heritage
of a Puritan church in which the closest thing to music had
been "psalms singing" during which parishioners did not sing
in unison, in key, or even the same melody.13

The largest single influence on the popularization of
music in Marshall was the presence of John P. Cleaveland from
1838 through 1843. Cleaveland loved music and taught
hundreds of children and adults on the frontier to sing some
of the finest European music of the Classical and Romantic
periods. We do not know where Cleaveland received his
instruction in music, but upon his arrival, the Preparatory
School, a department of Marshall Coiiege, began offering

”gratuitous" instruction in voice. It was probably a”

Cleaveland who conducted the singing school noted by Sally r”

129

Hibbard. The educator worked first with the Congregationalt/I
choir and then with Presbyterians. He assembled an w’
accomplished group of singers and used them to train choirs
in other churches throughout the region, and by 1842, choirs
in six different towns organized the Beethoven Society,vf
naming Cleaveland president.15 - r

The Beethoven Society enjoyed enormous popularity in
Marshall and surrounding communities. It was interdenomina-
tional, combining church choirs from Marshall, Albion, Homer,pw
Jonesville, Coldwater, and Union City.16 The only year for
which we have a total of voices was in 1844, a year after~/
Cleaveland's departure, when they numbered 103.17 The 3
Society met monthly, rotating meetings among the six
communities. It held afternoon rehearsals and evening
performances, both open to the public.18 When in Marshall,
the chorus was conducted by Cleaveland in the Court House.
On June 1, 1843, Cleaveland conducted not only voices of the
Beethoven Society in Marshall, but those of the Battle Creek
Singers as well. Accompanying this great chorus, were
thirteen instruments from the Marshall Band.19 Cleaveland
observed that such performances "enthralled" his audiences,
and it is easy to understand why.20 The group's popularity
was noted by the press. One account related:

A corresponding interest has been manifested by the

citizens of the several places where the rehearsals

have been held, manifested not only by crowding the

houses to listen to the musical performances, but by

a very liberal exercise of the rights of hospitality.21

Large numbers of visitors from neighboring communities had to

130

be fed and even housed on occasions. Through such concerts,
Cleaveland reached thousands of county residents.

Cleaveland named his society after the contemporary
composer Beethoven. Cleaveland was keenly interested in
recent music. An early report of the organization announced
that it sought to increase its funds so "that the Board may
be able to keep up with the advancing spirit of the age in

22
procuring music." Cleaveland was a musicologist who looked
upon music as a "science" as well as an "art" and taught its
23
"theory and practice." The clergyman also made much of the
24
”sacred" nature of music. Music was an important part of
worship. It glorified God, and that was important in a
community made up predominantly of evangelical Protestants.
Cleaveland realized that it was through churches that music
would achieve its greatest exposure. The Society was, after
all, a collection of church choirs. The organization
described its program in its 1844 report:

The standard of excellence in the performance of sacred

music, has been we believe in some degree elevated with-

in the circle of its influence. A spirit of laudable
emulation has been excited in various choirs, which we
trust will lead to a more vigorous exertion for
improvement in this divine art and science. A higher
order of musical composition has been, by means of the

Society, introduced among us, which will we hope find its

appropriate place in the worship of the Sanctuary.25
It was in their churches on Sundays that most area residents
would hear sophisticated music and learn its rudiments.

Music appreciation was also cultivated by secular
elements of the community. One important group of musical

promoters in Marshall was its adolescent boys. During the

131

autumn of 1840, federal troops encamped at Marshall while
rounding up Potawatomi Indians to relocate west beyond the
Mississippi River_. The military company had a band, and boys
in Marshall flocked to its rehearsals and performances.26
Thirteen of those boys acquired instruments of their own and
—formed the Marshall Band. Instruments included Clarinets, a
cornet, a trumpet, French horns, trombones, a bass drum, and
a piccolo.27 The group specialized in martial music and gave
its own concerts at the Court House and elsewhere.28
Marshall Band included boys from various classes, such as
Ketchums of banking and milling, and McCalls of tailoring.29
The band enjoyed wide popularity, for it "became noted all
about the country."30

Religious and secular groups both used music to increase
their appeal to the public. The Marshall band, for instance,
gave its first public concert before "a temperance
celebration in Battle Creek, on the 4th of July [1842]."31
That year was one of great temperance excitement throughout
Calhoun County, and some of the excitement was obviously
generated by rousing music. Members of the Ladies Benevolent
Society in Marshall also used the band to increase interest
in its programs. On the last day of 1844 the Society thanked
individuals through the press for assisting at its fair to
raise funds:

The members of the Ladies' Benevolent Society, would

through this medium, tender their sincere thanks to

Mssrs. Duzenbury and Brewer, who so kindly lent them

the use of their spacious store for the late

Fair. . . . And to the gentlemen of the Marshall Band,
whose pleasant music contributed so much to enliven the

132

32
scene.

Likewise, the Marshall Mechanics' Association employed the
services of the Marshall Band to enliven its fair and parade
on the Fourth of July, 1845, during which Marshall Mechanics
entertained the Battle Creek and Jackson Mechanics'
Associations. In a six-part program, the band conducted two
concerts, and two more were performed by another group,
probably the Marshall Harmonic Society.33 Music dominated
the affair and was obviously the main attraction.

The Marshall Harmonic Society was created in 1840 or 1

34
1841 under the direction of A. Collins. The Society

35
combined a number of voices with "One flutist." Collins
rehearsed his group at ”MeChanics' Hall” in 1841, apparently

a rented facility used previous to construction of a

36
permanent building beginning in 1843. The Secretary of the
group was Isaac Loomis, an officer of the Mechanics'
37
Association. It is entirely possible that Mechanics L

sponsored the Harmonic Society, for such an activity wouldr’
have been in keeping with the emphasis of that group on the“
arts and education.

As many Marshall homes housed miniature lending
libraries, they also included small musical groups. In her
cottage on Mansion Street, Emily Brewer apparently acquired

an odeon and an 1841 music book entitled: THE ODEON: A

COLLECTION OF SECULAR MELODIES, Arranged & Harmonized for
four Voices--Designed for Adult Singing Schools. and for
38

Social Music Parties.. Music worked its magic on domestic

 

133

and social levels as well. Not all popular music in Marshall
was sacred. Brewer and her friends could use their talents
to entertain themselves or a circle of friends. Early
Marshall authoresses expressed a high regard for music. A
heroine of one local short story was "as accomplished at the
piano as she was in the kitchen."39 In another piece of
fiction written in Marshall in 1852, "the humble music
teacher of days gone by" was pictured "humming some low sweet
strain" while enjoying her "flowers near the threshhold.”40

Music was popularized in Marshall in such a short time
because it was promoted by so many important institutions. It
was used to invigorate holidays, festivals, and parades.
Music intrigued Marshall villagers because, like architecture
and art, it was scientific, it was theoretical, facts that
appealed to the rational mind. Like the sciences, music
acquainted individuals with certain universal principles. It
was also beautiful and "enthralled" those who crowded into
the large temple building on Court House Square to hear
concerts and rehearsals.

The Journal of Education advocated public instruction in
music for another reason; it strengthened the diaphragm and
therefore improved speech and elocution.41 Elocution was
considered an art form by Marshall pioneers. Stylization of
gesture and voice were cultivated according to set rules. In
October, 1842, "C. Whitney, Professor of Elocution,"
delivered four ”Elocutionary Recitative Lectures” at the

42
Court House. Whitney read exerpts from famous literary

134

43
works and famous speeches. In advance of Whitney's first

lecture, the Statesman reprinted a review of his performances
by the Montreal:Herglgl which described his elocutionary
abilities: "Mr. Whitney's delivery is easy, graceful and
eloquent; his voice is singularly melodious, the expression
of the face suited to the theme, and his gesture and action
conclude the graceful orator."44 Whitney did not merely
speak, he performed. Simonds, editor of the Statesmen, was
not as enthusiastic in his review, finding "some faults,"
but admitting: "We have no hesitation in saying that in our
estimation he ranks among the first of that art, within the
circle of our observation, which has been somewhat
extensive."4s Simonds may have enjoyed extensive exposure to
fine oratory, but he lamented that much of the rest of the
community had not, urging "that it should be more attended
to, especially by all who are designed for public
speakers."46 Simonds did have reservations about Whitney's
performance. He thought him, for instance, histrionic, or
guilty of ”over-action.”47 This, of course, was always a
danger in an art form that was essentially theatrical.

Elocution was also cultivated by local evangelical
churches which encouraged dramatic preaching. Cleaveland,
who was the dean of Marshall ¢Y§09¢licals, was himself an
accomplished orator. Rev. D. M. Cooper of Detroit praised his
elocutionary.abilities:

Dr. J. P. Cleaveland was no ordinary man. I think I may

say that next to Henry Ward Beecher he was the most elo-

quent preacher to whom I ever listened. Between the
two, indeed, there was much similarity, especially in

135

silvery speech and play of the countenance. His whole
soul seemed to shine in his face when he spoke. His
Sunday evening lectures on temperance gave an impetus to
that cause, scarcely realized now.48

Cleaveland employed the art of elocution to help fill his
church and to aid the cause of temperance in Detroit from
1834-1838. Gesture, voice, inflection, expression were all
coordinated and orchestrated by Cleaveland, conductor and
director.

Individuals could conduct and orchestrate private and
social behavior through the practice of manners, and
etiquette became popular in Marshall. Manners also made
individuals better Christians and conferred status. A student
at a county ladies' school wrote in 1849 lamenting the new
popularity of etiquette. She wished she could go back to a
traditional way of doing things "When one could go into
society untrammeled by the countless meshes of the web of
Etiquette."49 Historians have discoverd a cultivated parlor
society among the urban rich during this period.50 Such a
culture existed in Marshall in the 18303 and 18403. Laura
Mason reported in her journal days after her arrival: "I
think we shall have no lack of good society in this place;
for we have had four calls this afternoon."51 Laura
described a new companion of her own: "This evening I made a
call on Mary Ann Batty. She is certainly a lovely girl; she
seems to have such a nice sense of propriety in everything,
and her manners are very pleasing."52 Laura frequently had
tea with Miss Batty and another friend who was "not quite so

53
easy in her manners" as Mary. The tea ceremony was an

136

important part of parlor ritual. Certainly most families in
Marshall consumed tea as evidenced by the large volume
imported by local businessmen. Not all used fancy tea
services, however, for they were not stocked in large
numbers. Mrs. Daniel Prindle, for instance, purchased a tea
set from Gorham,, Brewer & Co. on August 6, 1836, at a cost
of $5.25, a substantial figure.54 The cult of manners

enlisted men as well as women. Delia Hart of Marshall
married A. C. Parmalee of Hastings and moved to that village.
Parmalee was elected to the Legislature in Detroit and wrote
home in 1843. He had been completely seduced by society in

the Capital. Having spent a stint in Detroit, he looked upon
55
society in Hastings as "vulgar and degraded.” He explained

to his wife:

I could not but think as I sat in Church tonight how
much education, refinement, and religion added to the
social state of mankind, I looked around upon the
congregation convened in a nice house, well dressed,
mannerly and apparently devotional, and could scarcely
realize that they belonged to the same race with the
whiteflinhabitants_of_thewoods,“ Every man seemed to
look intelligent and every woman lovely.56

Parmalee informed his wife, ”I find it fashionable to be
polite, almost everybody practices politeness and really I am

getting almost to prefer it to the Hastings way of doing

57
business.” The young father wished that his wife could
bring their daughters to Detroit and expose them to its
58
refinements. Parmalee, by his own admission, was not

typical, at least not in the village of Hastings. He

discovered polite manners in Detroit society, but such

137

society also existed, although on a more limited scale, in
county seats like Marshall.

The Parmalee letter illustrates once more the importance
of Detroit in the cultural development of villages like
Marshall. A number of villagers received exposure to the
arts in that city and imported them to Marshall. Polite
society in Detroit attracted painters, writers, speakers, and
finally photographers who introduced this artistic innovation
to numerous residents from the Michigan interior.

Parmalee's commentary elucidates another important
appeal of the arts in the village; they conferred status.

“It"- .

The fine arts in America had traditionally been cultivated by
a colonial and then a republican gentry class.59 In early
Marshall, typical residents lived in stylized houses with
parlors, wore the latest fashions, cultivated flowers,
practiced civil if not polite manners, sang refined music in
church, and possessed a modest library. Isaac Loomis had
status in mind when he informed fellow Mechanics that they
should depend upon their association "for mental
improvements, for the enlargement of good learning, and the
blessing of social elevation." Loomis and his peers sought

to convert all Americans into ladies and gentlemen. As one

scholar observes, ”Equality was not looked upon as a leveling

process. . . . Equality meant that all men could become
61

gentlemen, not that all gentlemen would be eliminated."
62

Another historian describes this as a "leveling upwards.”

The modern market economy and the republican media made it

138

possible for the common man to acquire the trappings of
respectability. The editor of the Statesman had these points
in mind when he wrote in 1840 that "in the United States,

there is no prescriptive gentility. The only way to be

considered a gentleman is to be a gentleman," and that
required "character" and ”talent," not wealth.63 Talent was
cultivated through the arts and sciences. It was not
inherited.

Another art form which conferred status was portraiture.
Through the 18303, the brush and pallet remained the only
means of creating likenesses of individuals, and as a
consequence, portraiture remained the province of the rich.
During the following decade, however, a revolution in
portraiture occurred with the popularization of the
photograph, the daguerreotype. Thereafter, Marshall artisans
and shopkeepers could display in their parlors portraits of
themselves and their family members.

Scholars observe that by the 18503 Americans were
pictorial in their thinking. Victorians thought in terms of
pictures. For instance, they attempted to make their homes
and yards look picturesque, like pictures they had seen or
imagined.64 One historian asserts that the Greek Revival
style enjoyed popularity a generation earlier for the same
reason; the style was "picturesque."65 This was not the case
in Marshall.

Not all people think in terms of pictures, however; only

those exposed to pictures, and villagers during the 18303 and

139

18403 were not, or at least not sufficiently exposed to
fundamentally reshape their thinking. Rather, their
orientation was tectonic; they thought in terms of mass and
shape. For instance, in 1843 John Pierce addressed the Lyceum
on the Book of Daniel. In that address, .he described _the
Bible in tectonic, not pictorial terms:
In development of character, in simplicity and variety
of composition, in purity of language and beauty of .vzv
style, in sublimity and grandeur of objects presented,’
and comprehensiveness of purpose, nothing equals it in
the productions of human ingenuity and skill.66 -
Here the Bible sounds a good deal like a Greek Revival temple
mansion. This is not surprising since Pierce saw many more
pieces of architecture than he did pictures. His visual
reference was one of mass and shape, of objects. In 1839,
Pierce included an article in his educational journal on the
desirability of instruction in drawing in Michigan public
schools. Teachers were advised to instruct children, again,
to draw objects, not pictures:
Now ten, twenty, or even five small children left .
unemployed, must inevitably cause disorder.--But give
them slates and pencils, with convenient desks to lay
them on, and a great difference will be seen, even if
they are entirely to themselves.--Place before them a
few cards, with well formed letters, words, the
elementary geometrical figures, drawings of familiar
objects, &c., and they will teach themselves something
of drawing . . .67
It is obvious from this that the art of drawing was at a much
more primitive stage in Michigan than the art of music.
Through the 18303, there was a dearth of pictures in the

village home. The rich possessed a portrait or two and the

poor a few cuts from a textbook, almanac, or Bible. The

140

American press had not yet taken on the role of printmaker.

Marshall newspapers owned only one or two cuts, or print

plates. Marshall drygoods store inventories reveal no
prints or pictures. No panoramas or picture shows visited
Marshall. Marshall villagers were as unexposed to pictorial

media through the 18403 as were their grandparents.

Until the 18503, artists and then photographers were
itinerant. The sale of pictures of any kind was not popular
enough to support full-time artists. The first painter of
whom we have record visited Marshall in 1838 and established
a temporary studio in the village's grand new hotel,
advertising in the local press: "Mr. A. Smith, Artist,
respectfully invites the ladies and gentlemen of Marshall, to
call at his room (in the Marshall House, upper town) where
they can see specimens of Portraiture."69 The expression
"ladies and gentlemen" here is not necessarily frivolous. He
did not announce his fees, but they could not have been
inconsequential. It is clear from the advertisement that
Smith sold portraits, pictures of people, not things or
places. Those with money to acquire his services were
interested in a likeness of themselves, not a bowl of fruit
or a forest scene. Marshall itself produced one artist who
painted in oils during this period. Joseph A. Haskell
studied art in New York and resided with the Comstock family
of Marshall for a year while he painted eight family

portraits. Haskell could not make a permanent living in

Marshall at his art and left village and family behind,

141

71
becoming an itinerant.

Sidney Ketchum, one of the richest businessmen in
Marshall, had his portrait painted about 1838 to hang in his
new mansion [Figure 23]. It is a bust. This is a statuesque
pose; it is also classical. Marble busts of men and women of
the gentry had been popular in classical Rome. This quality
is even more evident in a miniature drawing from the
Marshall Historical Collection of a gentleman [Figure 24]. In
this, the chest is stylized or shaped like the base of a
piece of statuary. All that is missing is the pedestal. In
both, nothing appears in the picture but the subject; the
background is flat and empty. Both are pictures of statue-
like people. 1

During the 18403, another visual art form was
popularized in the village. On Friday, February 13, 1840,

Dr. R. B. Bement of Marshall delivered one of his Lyceum

lectures on chemistry. In that lecture, he discussed a

discovery only a few months old, the invention of the
71

daguerreotype camera. Within two years of that lecture,

itinerant photographers were a common sight in Calhoun
County. Rarely has a new invention and art form swept the
public fancy in such rapid order. On November 11, 1842, the
Statesman carried a brief account of "Mr. Rockwell,” who was
producing "Dageureotype [sic] likenesses" in Albion.72 The
editor advised: "He remains but a short time in that town

and we are informed that his success in his delicate and

beautiful art is much superior to that of the generality of

142

73
operators." Rockwell obviously was not the first itinerant

photographer to reach Calhoun County, for residents judged
him against a ”generality of operators."

Photographers produced pictures that looked much like
those created by artists. Rockwell produced "Daguereotype
[sic] miniatures" in Albion, or miniature portraits.74 One
historian estimates that 95 per cent of all daguerreotypes
were portraits.75 As we have already seen, miniature
paintings and drawings were also popular. The miniature
drawing of a gentleman, probably made in the 18203, has been
set at some early date in a daguerreotype case. This mixing
was not altogether capricious, for it underscores the
similarity and continuity between miniature portraits and
daguerreotype miniatures. Historians conjecture that the
similarities between paintings and daguerreotypes were due
to the fact that so many artists took up the trade of
photography.76

The style of early photography in Marshall was
distinctly Neo-Classical. The same classical bust poses
popular in painting were utilized in daguerreotypes. This is
evident in a bust of Justin Woolsey of Marshall, taken around
1850 [Figure 25]. The oval frame rounds off the base of the
portrait and makes it more statuesque. In addition, there was
a juxtaposition of geometric forms, of ovals and rectangles.
As in architecture, simplicity was a major ideal in early

photography. Subjects were photographed against a flat,

neutral background. In bust shots, no props were used.

143

Presentation of the photograph was simple and dramatic.
Early photograph cases were generally plain. Inside, the
left panel included a red velvet or satin lining, while the
right panel included the daguerreotpye trimmed in a brass
oval and frame meant to simulate gold.

Picture-taking during this period was a tense and even
grim proposition. Subjects often had serious expressions on
their faces. This was due in part to the time required to
take a photograph. One early Marshall daguerreotypist warned
Marshall patrons they would need to sit motionless for ten
seconds before an open shutter.77 Serious expressions were
the easiest to maintain. There was another reason, however--
cost. One scholar in a study of Kalamazoo County
daguerretypists observes that individuals acquired one
daguerreotype in a lifetime.78 This is not surprising when
we consider the cost. In 1851, D. C. Snider advertised
daguerreotypes in Marshall "for One Dollar Apiece!" strongly
intimating that they were a bargain at that price.79 One
dollar was then a considerable expense. In fact, prices had
declined nationally from a high of about five dollars apiece
soon after the photographic process appeared.80 One dollar
was equivalent to a day's wages for the typical laborer.
Photographs were not frivolous investments. They were, in
most cases, the only likeness a person expected to acquire of
himself in his lifetime, and creation of a permanent likeness

was certainly a serious, if not a traumatic, experience.

According to scholars, photography had a near-mystical

144

81
impact on Americans in the 18403. Even the dead in

Marshall were photographed so that a likeness could be
preserved, and daguerreotypists advertised such services in
the local press.82 Regard by Marshall residents for this art
form can be seen in fiction written by Marshall authors. In
a short story, Florence Mayfield describes a woman's reaction

to a daguerretype:

One delicate white bare arm rested carelessly across her
black mourning dress, while with the other hand she
clasped a miniature and as she held it up to gaze upon
that face so life-like and lovely, the tears fell

unrestrained upon the gilt case, and she pressed it

involuntarily to her lips, murmuring sweetly, "my

mother."83
Occasionally, very small photographs were made which could
be placed in lockets. In another piece of Marshall fiction,
a mature character describes one such tiny portrait: "You
see I wear it next to my heart, for it is the dearest
treasure I possess. It is the likeness of both my parents,
taken the day they were married--look Eva were they not
beautiful?"84 The art of photography was only thirteen years
old at the time this short story was written in 1852.
Parents of this character could not have been photographed at
the time of their wedding. Photography was such a popular or
familiar form in Marshall by 1852, however, that this writer
presumed it had been around much longer.

The photographic process underwent significant change in
the mid-18503. In March 1856, G. E. Hall, a photographer
from Detroit, dropped off samples of ambrotypes at the office

85
of the editor of the Democratic Expounder. An ambrotype

145

was a photograph on glass, not on copper plate like a
daguerreotype. Hall had recently imported the process from
the Northeast. The Marshall editor found the ambrotype "much
more life like than the common daguerreotype,” and he invited
villagers to patronize Hall if making visits to Detroit.86
Four months later ”Messrs. L. Higgins and L. D. Wetmore, in
this village" advertised their ability to take the new
ambrotypes in Marshall.87 Thereafter, all Marshall
photographers offered the service. In only a year, the
popularity of the ambrotype had spread from New York City,
the center of photographic innovation in the United States,
through Detroit, to Marshall.

A variety of picture media became popular in the
village. Popularity of photographs grew as the price
dropped as low as twenty-five cents a picture and
photographers established permanent galleries in the
village.88 The stereoscope was introduced in the community
during the decade. One local photographer in 1858 advertised
”stereoscopic views of the interior of the Crystal Palace, in
London."89 Newspapers included an increased number of cuts
in their advertising, such as one used for "Manny's
Celebrated Reaper & Mower" in the Expounder in 1856 [Figure
26].90 It is a picture of the reaper in operation in a farm
setting. Use of pictures increased in journals which
circulated in the village. During the 18503, the panorama
became a popular traveling art form. In 1853, "Bullard's

91
Panorama of New York City" visited Marshall. The panorama

146

was painted on 1,200 feet of canvas rolled on spools before
the audience, accompanied by two hours of commentary.92 In
1857, ”The Celebrated Panorama of Pilgrim's Progress"
visited the village.93 This work, executed by four different
artists, was 1,230 feet long and nine feet wide.94 At about
the same time, "The Great Parisian Diorama" was presented at
the Marshall House, which "shows in vivid colors, the landing
of the allied armies in the Crimea, the bombardment of
Sebastopol and many objects of interest connected with the
Russian war, together with splendid Disolving Views of the
places of great interest in Europe, Asia and America."95
Also in 1857, Preston Mitchell, a local businessman, imported
a large number of oil paintings for the purpose of auctioning
them off in Marshall, announcing, "These paintings embrace
landscapes and figure pieces worthy of a place in any
collection."96 As a result of continuing instruction in both
drawing and oil painting, the number of local artists grew.
All of this led to more frequent exposure to pictures and to
an increasing appreciation of the pictorial form.

The presence of so many pictures shaped the arts.
Marshall photography, for instance, became less tectonic and
more picturesque. The attempt to convert photographs into
pictures is visible in an ambrotype of three young girls
taken about 1857 [Figure 27]. The girls were photographed in
front of a painting which was used as a backdrop, and as a

result, they appear as part of the picture. They were not

statuesque in their poses. In an early ambrotype of Lizzie

147

Ingersoll of Marshall, taken about 1856, the same effect is
created by introducing a live bush into the shot [Figure 28].
In a three-quarter shot, which was common during the decade,
Lizzie leans against the receptacle that holds the shrub. In
still another ambrotype of Lizzie's grandmother [Figure 29],
other props are introduced into the shot including a table,
coverlet, book, vase, and bouquet of flowers. Mrs. Ingersoll
is pictured in a three-quarter shot, not a classical bust
shot. In photographs of the 18403, basic forms or shapes were
juxtaposed and contrasted. During the following decade,
properties, subject, and case were integrated into a
complementary whole. Also, in addition to calling their
photographs ”likenesses" and "portraits," photographers began
to call them ”pictures."97

One other visual art form, graphics, was practiced in
Marshall. Graphic artists also adhered to neo-classical
principles, and their art was disseminated by local printers
in both their newspaper and job printing work. The Classical
Revival, for instance, is evident in local bank currency. A
three dollar bill [Figure 30], printed in 1837 for the
Calhoun County Bank, is typical. Figures dressed in
classical attire stand at both ends of the note. At one end,
the figure is Liberty who stands vigilant with her armor at
hand. The other is Liberty victorious, receiving blessings
from her companions. As with builders, graphic artists in
Marshall mixed classical motifs. The winged cherub at the

top of the bill was a product of the Renaissance, not the

148

classical world. It holds a Roman numeral "III," however.
The design is symmetrical with pairs of figures balancing one

another. The bill was printed by Draper Toppin
Lithographers in New York, but it may reflect the taste of
Calhoun County Bank president Sidney Ketchum. Ketchum was a
cultural traditionalist. His mansion, for instance, was a
Georgian mansion.

Much of the graphic art produced in Marshall was highly
simple in design. An address on the occasion of the opening
of Marshall Cemetery was job-printed by Henry C. Bunce of
Marshall in 1839. It was plainly jacketed. Type is
centered, and only different type faces are employed by way
of decoration. Most graphic work survives in Marshall
newspapers. Here, simplicity was also emphasized. The front
page of an early Statesman consisted of six unadorned columns
supporting a horizontal masthead. The appearance is that of
six Doric columns supporting a plain entablature [Figure 31].

Historians observe that during this period a ”national"
art emerged.98 As in architecture, a national, neo-classical
style in all the arts provided all Americans with a common
cultural language. Some forms, like music, had special
appeal to regional or ethnic groups, but most had general
appeal because they possessed an element of delight,
expressed national ideals, and conferred status. They
provided the trappings of gentility and respectability, and
because of changes in the market place, those trappings were

available at a price most persons could afford.

149

Not all the fine arts became popular in the village,
however, by the 18403. There was strong public
disapprobation toward theater, dance, and fictional
literature into the 18503. Later acceptance of these forms
marked a fundamental change in village attitude. Art was no
longer required to save souls or elevate status. It was
expected to entertain. During the 18503, villagers wanted to
be entertained. They sought to cultivate the senses and
emotions as well as the intellect.

With so much theatricality in pulpit and polite
society, we might expect that theater, itself, was popular in
Marshall during the early period. It was not. A sizeable
portion of the community was skeptical about this art form..
Marshall Common Council expressed its official disdain for
theater by imposing a ten dollar license fee for all
theatrical presentations in the community. When Powel & Co.,
a theatrical group, attempted to purchase a license in 1843,
the Common Council turned it down, and actors proceeded to
advertise their performances, scheduled at the Court House
where they had erected a stage.99 The Common Council
dispatched a constable with a warrant for their arrest on
opening night, and he apprehended actors as they exited from
the stage, including "King James . . . and the fair
Ellen."100 Three actors were taken to the jail in the
basement of the Court House and released on fifty dollars
bond, after which they returned upstairs and finished their

101
program. This public farce reflects a deep-seated

150

distrust in the community toward the stage.

Theater did have its fans or patrons in Marshall,
however, or a company like Powel's would not have traveled
there and offered to pay the required fees. One resident of
Marshall angrily criticized the Common Council and local
churches through in the local press, accusing them of being
”blue skins."102 Thereafter, the Common Council relented and
issued licenses when theatrical companies were willing to
pay. Theatrical producers attempted to break through this
wall of hostility by emphasizing, as did musicians, sacred
themes. Powel, for instance, promised a ”moral play" for its
second night.103 In the summer of 1844, Cutter and Company
acquired a license and put on "A Temperance Theatrical
Exhibition."104 However, such gestures did not overcome
doubts in the village. In 1853, a Marshall authoress
commented on the theater in a short story. A young man of
sixteen addressed his aunt and insisted, "I think there can
be no harm, dear aunt, in visiting the theatre this once,"
only to have the relative reply, "There certainly is harm in
attending once. You will doubtless meet with companions far
inferior to you in wholesome principles and exemplary
department."105 The theater presumably generated an
unwholesome and immoral influence.

Drama was eventually accepted in the community, however.
Theatrical companies continued to visit the village, and by
1862, Marshall had a village Dramatic Association, suggesting

Va»... .40”

that a more general tolerance had emerged during the previous

151

106
decade.

Another art form disapproved of by many in the village
was dance. In reporting their refinements, Marshall pioneers
did not even mention dance. Only one reference to the
activity in the village appears in a letter written by a
Kalamazoo man to his sweetheart in Port Huron in 1845 at the
time of the Mechanics' Association fair. The young man
reveals, "I have thought of going to Marshall to attend a
Mechanics' fair and ball in the evening."107 Marshall
Mechanics again were among the leaders in introducing art
forms into the community. It may be significant that the
Marshall House Hotel did not list a ballroom among its
facilities. When Marshall residents entertained inside or
outside the home, they generally dined, listened to music,
and conversed; they did not dance.

Popularization of dance occurred during the 18503. The
Herndon Hotel, built 1856-1858, possessed a ballroom, and
"Professor Kennedy" opened a "Dancing School" there in
1859.108 A year later the school was taken over by. F. A.
Humphrey who offered lessons to youngsters as well as adults,
”instructing Children in Dancing, Polite Manners, Etc."109
Mr. Parmalee had lamented the lack of polite manners on the
Michigan frontier. By 1859, there was formalized instruction
on the subject available at a school in the village. An
editorial comment about dance printed in the Stgtgsmgg on

the last day of 1853 testifies to its growing popularity:

"For the benefit of our friends that are fond of ‘Tripping

152

the light fantastic' too, we publish below a list of the
various dances for the Holidays in this region."110 A
generation which ”tripped the light fantastic" was different
from its parents' generation which had entertained itself
with religious revivals in New York and Marshall.

Marshall residents had problems with still another
artistic form, fictional literature. Romances certainly‘
achieved a degree of popularity in Marshall during the 18303.
Laura Mason reported reading The Linwoods by Maria Sedgwick
in 1838, "a tale of the Revolution."111 Godey's ngy's Book
and other women's literary journals circulated in Marshall
and were copied in Marshall's newspapers. C. D. Smith, in
his private lending library, offered a selection of romances,
although he was probably the only librarian in Marshall to do
30.112 Members of the Mechanics' Association may have had
reservations about romances and kept them out of their
library's collection. In January, 1840, the Association
conducted a debate on the question: ”Are works of fiction
deleterious to the morals of the community?"113 Regrettably,
we have no information on the progress of that debate. The
first piece of real fiction written by a Marshall woman and
published contained a strong attack on romances. In the
story, a young woman, using her local lending library, became
addicted to fiction, ignoring other kinds of literature. It
was a school teacher who remonstrated about the "folly" in:

her ways and convinced her to forswear fiction altogether.

The author of this work appears to have had the last word on

153

the subject for nearly a decade, because it was not until
1851 that there was an apparent change of opinion.

In 1851, taboos against local composition of fiction
disappeared when a Marshall authoress published a serialized
novel in the Statesman. It was a picaresque novel entitled,
Honora Ethling; or The Freaks of Fortune.115 It traced the
numerous and perilous adventures of an orphaned heroine and
the threats against her moral and physical well-being made by
individuals and institutions. The authoress was bold enough
to take her Marshall readers on a tour of a a big city
brothel.116 Once the barriers were down, a flood of fiction
followed as a number of Marshall women submitted dozens of
short stories and novels during the next seven years on
virtually every conceivable subject.

Public acceptance of new art forms in the 18503 cannot
be explained in the same way as those of the 18303 and 18403.
It was not churches and associations which brought them into
the mainstream and provided them with legitimacy. Private
.entrepreneurs'played an increasing role. Hotels, newspapers,
and shopkeepers found theater, dances, and even fiction to be
profitable; they attracted patrons and business. During the
18303 and 18403, the arts were marketed by churches, schools,

and associations. During the 18503, they were marketed by

businessmen.

154

Figure 23

SIDNEY KETCHUH OIL PAINTING

on! a miss minim—5583.573“ 350' a w." a m

n'url

H":- on:-: mu nu. ,.

.Ifl“on

 

ca. 1840
Art ist Unknown
Courtesy of Marshall Historical Society

155

Figure 24

DRAWING OF A GENTLEMAN

 

ca. 1830
Artist Unknown
Courtesy of Marshall Historical Society

156

Figure 25

DAGUERRREOTYPE OF JUSTIN WOOLSEY

 

ca. 1850
Photographer Unknown
Courtesy of Marshall Historical Society

157

Figure 26

NEWSPAPER ADVERTISING CUT

    

4: v 4 J ‘
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1

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1 m

l

\ i

’ mun/rs. ' > '. ~ fl
JOSEPH ”()LLUN £1'2(‘()., “reagents lbr [he ul’mvc Machines i

 

June 5, 1856
Democratic Expounder

158

Figure 27

AMBROTYPE OF THREE GIRLS

 

 

ca. 1857
Photographer Unknown
Courtesy of Marshall Historical Society

159

Figure 28

AMBROTYPE OF LIZZIE INGERSOLL

 

E:
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ca. 1857
Photographer Unknown
Courtesy of Marshall Historical Society

160

Figure 29

AMBROTYPE OF MRS. JOHN INGERSOLL

 

ca. 1858
Photographer Unknown
Courtesy of Marshall Historical Society

161

Figure 30

CALHOUN COUNTY BANK THREE DOLLAR BILL

 

1837
Courtesy of the Marshall Historical Society

162

Figure 31

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November 21, 1939
Western Statesman

 

163

End Notes
POPULARIZING THE FINE ARTS

1

Carol 2. Stearns and Peter N. Stearns, "Victorian
Sexuality: Can Historians Do It Better?” Journal of Social
History 18(Summer 1985): 625.

2

John D. Pierce, ”Reminiscences," Michigan Pioneer and

Historical Collections 12(1888): 355.
3

Sally Stone Hibbard, Marshall, to Eliza Stone,
Brighton, New York, November 24, 1838, M. H. S. C.
4

Journal of student attending Miss Burgess's select
school, May 20, 1850, M. H. S. C.
5

Van Buren, "Log School House Era,” p. 287.

6

Allen Family Papers, M. H. S. C.

7

Ibid.
8

"Vocal Music in Schools,” Journal of Education

1(February, 1839): 89.

9

Ibid.
10
Ibid.
11
Laura Mason, Journal, June 17, 1838, M. H. S. C.
12
Ibid., June 24, 1838.
13

Alice Morse Earle, The Sabbath in Puritan New
England (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1891), pp. 202-
229.

 

14

Williams, History of Olivet Colle e, p. 154.
15

Western Statesman, May 18, 1842, p. 3, col. 1.
16

Mar hall Statesman, January 25, 1844, p. 1,
col. 2.
17
Ibid.

.,.. a

164

18
Ibid.
19
Western Statesman, May 25, 1843, p. 2, col. 6.
20
Ibid.
21
Marshall Statesmss, January 25, 1844, p. 1
col. 2.
22
Ibid.
23
Ibid.; Western Statesman, May 18, 1842, p. 3,
col. 1.
24
Ibid.
25
Marshall Statesman, January 25, 1844, p. 1,
col. 2.
26
History of Calhoun County, 1830, p. 64.
7

Ibid.

28 _

Western Statesman, December 29, 1842, p. 2,
col. 4; Ibid., May 25, 1843, p. 2, col. 6; Marshall
Statesman, July 1, 1845, p. 2, col. 6.

29

2

History of Calhoun County, 1830, p. 64.
30

Ibid.
31
Ibid.
32
Marshall Statesman, December 31, 1844, p. 2,
col. 3.
33
Ibid., July 1, 1845, p. 2, col. 6.
34
Western Statesman, February 25, 1841, p. 3,
col. 1.
35
Ibid.
36
Democratic Expounder, December 9, 1841, p.
3, col. 2.
37
Ibid.
38
Brewer Family Papers, M. H. S. C.
39
Florence Mayfield, "Trust not to Appearances,"
Marshall Statesman, February 18, 1852, p. 4, col. 1.

165

40
Lydia A. Kingsbury, "A Scrap of Life's Page,
Marshall Statesman, May 5, 1852, p. 1, col. 6.

41
"Vocal Music in Schools," Journal of Education

1(February 1839): 89.
42
Western Statesman, October 13, 1842, p. 3,

col. 1.
43

Ibid.
44

Ibid.
45

Ibid., October 3, 1842, p. 3, co. 2.
46

Ibid.
47

Ibid.
48

Williams, History of Olivet College, pp. 144-
145.

49
_ The Athenaeum, Editor's Copy Book, 1849, Albion
College Archives, Albion, Michigan.

50
Laura Mason, Journal, June 26, 1838, M. H. S. C.
51
Ibid., August 4, 1838.
52
Ibid.
53
Ibid.
54

Gorham, Brewer & Co., Day Book A, August 6, 1836,
p. 27, M. H. S. C.
55
A. C. Parmalee, Detroit, to Delia Hart Parmalee,
Hastings, January 7, 1843, M. H. S. C.
56
Ibid.
57
Ibid.
58
Ibid.

59Bushman distinguishes between a High Style patronized
by colonial elites and regional vernacular cultures

cultivated by the common sort. See Bushman, "American High
Style and Vernacular Cultures," pp. 345-383.
60

Isaac Loomis, "An Essay," western Statesman,
March 2, 1843, p. 2, col. 1.
61
Miller, Jacksonian Aristocrac , p. 23.

166

 

62

Botein, "Printed Expertise," p. 28.
63

Western Statesman, April 9, 1840, p. 1, col. 2.
64

C. L. U. Meeks, "Picturesque Eclecticism," The
Art Bulletin 32(September, 1950):226-235.
65
Peter Collins, Changing Ideas in American
Architecture, 1750-1950 (London: Faber and Faber, 1950),
p. 89.
66
Western Statesman, March 23, 1843, p. 2, col. 5.
67
”Drawing in Schools," Journal of Education
1(February 1839): 89.
68
Western Statesman, June 9, 1842, p. 1, col. 6.
69

Calhoun County Patriot, November 2, 1838, p. 3,
col. 3

70
Amelia Frink Redfield, "Tales of By Gone Days,"
M. H. S. C.
71
Western Statesman, February 13, 1840, p. 3,
col. 2.
72
Ibid., November 10, 1842, p. 3. col. 3.
73
Ibid.
74
Ibid.
75
Richard Rudisill, Mirror Images: The Influence

of the Daguerreotype on American Society (Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico Press, 1971), p. 198.

76
David Jaffee, ”One of the Primitive Sort: The
Portrait Makers of the Rural North, 1760—1860,” unpublished
paper, 1985, pp. 30-34.
77

Demgcratic Expounder, February 28, 1851, p. 2,
col. 7.

78
Richard W. Welch, Sun Pictures in Kalamazoo, a
History of Daguerreotyping in Kalamazoo County. MichiqgQL
1839-I860 (Kalamazoo: Kalamazoo Public Museum, 1974), p. 5.
9
Democratic Expounder, December 26, 1851,
p. 3, col. 1.
8O
Floyd Rinhart and Marion Rinhart, The American
Daguerreotype (Athens: The University of Georgia Press,

 

167

1981), p. 53.

 

81
82Rudisill, Mirror Ima e, p. 199.

Democratic Ex ounder, May 14, 1852, p. 3, col. 3.
83

Florence Mayfield, "Nettie Lane; Or, the Lilly
of Floral Hall," Marshall Statesman, October 27, 1852,
p. 4, col. 1.
84
Florence Mayfield, "Trials and Triumph," Marshall
Statesman, February 2, 1853, p.2, col. 1.
85
"Ambrotypes," Democratic Expounder, March 6,
1856, p. 2, col. 3.
86
Ibid.
87
"Ambrotypes and Daguerreotypes," Democratic
Expounder, July 31, 1856, p. 2, col. 6.
88

S. F. Mather opened the first permanent gallery in
Marshall in 1852. ”Daguerreotypes," pemocsstic Ex ounder,
May 14, 1852, p. 3, col. 3. ”Daguerreotypes," Democratic
Expounder, October 7, 1852, p. 3, col. 3.

89

"The Fine Arts," Democratic Ex ounder, January

7, 1858, p. 2, col. 3.
90
”Manny's Celebrated Reaper & Mower,” Democratic
Ex ounder, June 5, 1856, p. 3, cols. 1-3.
91
Marshall Statesman, August 3, 1853, p. 2, col. 3.
92
Ibid.
93

Democratic Expoundsr, August 20, 1857, P. 3.
col. 4

94
Ibid.
95
Marshall Statesman, February 11, 1851, p. 3,
col. 1.
96
”Sale of Oil Paintings," Democratic Expounder,
January 22, 1857,p. 2, col. 3.
97
”New Daguerrean Gallery," Marshall Statesman,
March 6, 1850, p. 3, col. 1. ”Bardwell's Picture Prizes,"
Democratic Ex ounder, Janurary 20, 1859, p. 2, col. 6.
98
Burchard, The Architscture of America, p. 21.
99
Village Record Book, August 1-2, 1843, pp. 87-

168

88, City Hall, Marshall.
100
Western Statesman, August 3, 1843, p. col. 6.
101
Ibid.
102
Ibid.
103
Ibid.
104
Village Record Book, June 1, 1844, p. 109, City Hall,
Marshall.
105
Florence Mayfield, "A Mother's Love," Marshall
Statesman, January 5, 1853, p. 1, col. 3.
106
"Marshall Dramatic Association," Marshall
Statesggn, March 19, 1862, p. 2, col. 5.
Charles W. Fisk, Kalamazoo, to Miss Charlotte G.
Lollick, Port Huron, June 26, 1845, M. H. S. C.

108
Democratic Expounder, December 1, 1859, p. 2
col. 2. ,
109

"Dancing and Department," Flier, M. H. S. C.
110
Marshall Statesman, December 21, 1153, p. 2,
col. 1.
111
Laura Mason, Journal, June 27, 1838, M. H. S. C.
112
"New Books in the Circulating Library," Democratic
Ex ounder, February 19, 1841, p. 3, col. 3. ”Just Received
at the Circulating Library,” Ibid., April 23, 1841, p. 4,
col. 4.
113
Western Statesman, January 23, 1840, p. 3,
col. 2.
114
B. "A Story," Western_§tatesman, August 12,
1843, p. 4, col.2.
115
Honora ‘Ethling; Or, The Freaks of Fortune,
Marshall Statesman, July 2, 1851, p. l, cols. 1-3, July
July 16, 1851, p. 1, col. 3-p. 2, col. 1, July 23, 1851, p.
1, cols. 1-4, July 30, 1851, p. 2, cols. 1-2.
116
Ibid., July 16, 1851, p.1 , cols. 4-6.

VILLAGE PRODUCERS AND CONSUMERS

During the early nineteenth century, basic changes in
production and consumption occurred in many places in the
United States. Production moved out of the home into milling
and manufacturing districts, while consumption moved out of
the home into business districts. Family members separated
during the day and the roles of fathers, mothers, and
children diverged. Children, separated from the shop,
attended school. Mothers became responsible for the home,
while fathers assumed the sole duty of providing an income.
Economic change was basic to cultural change. This system
freed children to spend more time in the classroom. It
converted mothers into guardians of virtue. It turned
fathers into breadwinners and isolated them from their
families. Scholars have focused on the character of
production in the northeast and south, but they have only
begun to study it in the states of the old northwest, while
historians have virtually ignored the matter of consumption
during the early nineteenth century.1

The great volume of surviving Marshall business records
allow us to make a detailed investigation of production and

consumption in the village. The production of goods for

trade did move outside the home, yet women and children

169

170

continued to work as domestic producers. The availability of
cheap, manufactured cloth led to the expansion of family
wardrobes, which placed greater demands upon women and
daughters as home-seamstresses and tailors. Through the
18403, fathers, not mothers, were the family consumers. Men
did the shopping, selecting those goods the family required.
Men's and women's roles diverged dramatically through the
18403. There was little overlap of function. Men worked
away from the home and women stayed away from the business
and milling districts. During the following decade, this
changed as women re-entered the business district as
consumers. Able to buy such new products as ready-made
clothing, typical village mothers enjoyed a modicum of
leisure time. Men, in turn, made business districts more
hospitable to women and families. Prosperity and consumer
credit led to increased consumption among all members of the
community.

In early Marshall, men produced goods for trade and
carried on that trade. The 1840 census noted occupations for
373 males in the village. Of those, 199, or more than half,
were characterized as mechanics or laborers. Perhaps the
largest group was laborers. This group included many young
men who had just left home and had not yet settled upon an
occupation. It also included many carpenters who had no
fixed place of work. In 1850, there were 47 carpenters in
the village. Also in this group were artisans such as

gunsmiths and tailors with their tiny shops, and there were

171

manufacturers such as wagon and ironware makers with their
large buildings and yards. Another 18 per cent of Marshall
males worked in agriculture. A few owned farms, while most
either rented land near the village or worked as farm
laborers on area farms, commuting back and forth from the
village. An additional 16 per cent worked in commerce,
either as shopkeepers or clerks, while the remaining 12 per
cent were professionals, working as lawyers, physicians, or
clergyman.

Early census data illustrate the changing work roles of
adolescents in the village. In traditional households,
parents placed sons as apprentices to learn a trade from a
skilled master.2 Apprenticeship may have persisted in
Marshall in some highly skilled trades such as tailoring,
blacksmithing, and printing, but the institution was quickly
disappearing. The 1850 census noted only one young man in
the village who was engaged in that capacity; seventeen-
year-old Hugh McRoberts was apprenticed to Phinias Adams, a
blacksmith.3 In Marshall, boys attended school into their

teens, then sought employment. Jeremiah Balch lamented the
4
lack of apprentices in the printing business in 1858. Young

men were free to pursue any calling they wished. In an
article in the Journal of Education in 1838, Dr. Andrew Hays

discussed this occupational freedom:

Our country is fortunately exempt from those castes which

society elsewhere place into distinct compartments, to each

of which a peculiar occupation or pursuit, is by law or
custom assigned. Here all professions, trades and
callings are open. The only limitation is imposed by

172

mental and physical ability--and one striking and
important benefit of the liberal education you have
received, is, that it has made you freemen, in the
most extensive sense; for, qualified by it, as you
are, to enter upon any profession--"The world is ALL
before you, where to choose."5

This occupational freedom created problems. Young men
frequently held a number of jobs before settling on a
permanent occupation, a practice Hays considered
disadvantageous. Hays advised young men in Michigan that
they should select an occupation after leaving school and
stick with it:

Regular employment is the price of happiness, and the

first step in general, after taking leave of our

alma mater, is the adoption of a profession. No matter

how bountifully Fortune may have showered her gifts,

some settled occupation is essential to real enjoyment.6
Some men never settled into a permanent occupation. They
moved from job to job, a practice Hays attributed to either
stupidity or indolence.

In traditional households, young men lived with parents
or masters until they married and established households of
their own.7 Some young men in Marshall lived with their
parents until marriage, but many lived in boarding houses,
hotels, or rented rooms from other families. Marvin Putnam
ran a rooming house, and according to the 1840 census, he had
17 males between the ages of twenty and thirty living under
his roof, nearly of all whom worked as mechanics and
laborers.8 The John Stewart household contained 22 such
young men and another four in their thirties, males

distributed evenly among occupations of mechanics, clerks,

and young professionals. Many other young men lived

173

individually with families in the village. During the 18303
and 18403, young families frequently took in a roomer in
order to increase income. In the following decade, the
proportion of bachelors living on their own in the village
decreased. Hotels continued to house a few dozen, and a few
young men boarded out, but most young men in Marshall were at
home, Icontinuing to depend upon the family as they earned
money needed to establish households of their own.

The grandfathers of young men in Marshall had achieved
occupational independence before marriage. Grandsons were
less likely to be independent. The largest occupational
group among Marshall heads of household in 1850 was that of
laborers. One out of six husbands and fathers was not
occupationally independent. Out of 66 such households, 26 of
the fathers were American-born Whites, 17 of them from New
York. Such households were disproportionately likely to be
headed by Irish fathers, 23, or Blacks, 5. Even married men
sometimes remained unsettled about their occupation,
continuing to work for day wages after marriage.

According to Dr. Hays, a young man was limited in
occupational choices only by natural intelligence and
stamina. Hays was wrong. A man's occupational choice was
determined, in great part, by the amount of capital he
possessed. As we will observe, most young men of average
wealth could not afford to go into most of the trades in
Marshall. Entry into many trades required more capital than

most young men in Marshall possessed. The development of new

174

machinery, in particular, made some trades expensive to

enter. The Marshall Oil Mill, for example, was erected in

1840 by Lewis Wilson, "one of our enterprizing fellow

citizens who acquired a lot alongside the Kalamazoo River
10
next to the Cook, Robinson & Co. grist mill. His building
11
was "substantial and spacious." It produced linseed oil,

and an early advertisement described its machinery: "The oil

is extracted from the flax seed flour by a hydrostatic
12
forcing pump, of immense power." The total cost was was
3

”about $6,000.” His plant produced "about thirty gallons

in 12 hours--so that this region of the country can be
14
supplied with that indispensable article.” Daniel Stone

constructed a woolen works at a cost of $10,000, which
produced 7,500 yards of woolens in the census year 1850.15
The Dickey family established a manufactory for producing
fanning or windmills in 1836. We have no information on
initial investment, but they reported $10,000 invested on the
census of 1850. Etheridge and Cole, local blacksmiths, had
$6,000 invested in "Furnace and Machine Shop" in 1850.16

Etheridge and Cole produced farm machinery and horse shoes,

as did Comstock & Halsey, Baker & Nichols, and Campbell &

Co., whose foundries and forges produced most of the pots,
17

pans, kettles, and stoves in the area. Johnson & Burnett,

18
machinists, utilized steam engines to run their machinery.

We have already noted the Kingsbury Furniture Company which
cut the stock for three thousand chairs in one venture and

the coopering trade which serviced local export mills.

175

Acquisition of such sophisticated facilities cost much more
than most villagers possessed.

Men of limited financial resources were restricted in
their choices. Among this group, the most popular
occupational choice was carpentry. There were,‘ as we have
already observed, 47 carpenters in Marshall in 1850, 35 of
them heads of household. Carpentry required a relatively
small outlay for tools, and many farm boys and village lads
possessed rudimentary talent with a hammer and saw. Thomas
Chissolm worked in New York as a farm laborer, raising enough
money to get married and moved to Marshall. There, he set
himself up as a carpenter, living in the village several
years until he made sufficient money to buy a farm.19 The
list of occupations open to young men with modest savings was
not long. They could set themselves up as house painters,
teamsters, and even peddlers, which was a respectable
occupation during the early nineteenth century. Such
occupations could, as Hays insisted, lead to success with
sufficient skill and perseverance; Joseph Lord, a local
carpenter and master-builder, was a case in point. Most

often they did not lead to wealth and status.

The married woman in Marshall did not work outside the

home, yet she was still a producer. In the home and
residential neighborhood, she acquired new duties. She
became solely responsible for the children. She produced
goods for domestic use. The dramatic increase in the

consumption of manufactured cloth, especially cheap cottons,

176

led to greater demand for the production of clothing, which
remained in the home through much of the 18403. The level of
cloth consumption in Marshall is startling. In a 12—month
period in 1854-1855, Dr. Thomas Burland of Marshall and his
wife charged 598 yards of fabric at Brewer & Co. Elias Alley
and Thomas Knight were more typical with charges of 244 yards
and 206 yards, respectively. During the same period, Orison
Grant, a black farmer living north of Marshall, charged 91
yards at Brewer's store, and William Barney, an Irish laborer
in the village, placed 61 yards on account. Brewer & Co. was
one of sixteen drygoods stores in Marshall selling cloth in
1854, and shoppers at Brewer's charged more than ten thousand
yards of fabric that year.20

All of this fabric had to be converted into clothing and
other domestic articles such as bedding and towelling by
mothers, daughters, servants, and seamstresses. This required
a great deal of time, expertise, and effort, and women took
the task very seriously. We have already observed that Miss

Wood offered instruction in needlework in her school and

Sally Hibbard attended her sewing society on Thursday

evenings. Marshall authors also noted demands made on local

women, and the typical heroine could be found "alone in her
21

parlor with her needle-work." The revolutionary

grandmothers of Marshall pioneers had elevated the spindle
22

and loom as symbols of national independence. Marshall

women from the 18303 onward elevated the needle.

Cloth consumption tells us much about the pattern of

177

women's work inside the home. Like men's work, it also
tended to follow the seasons. The day books of Chauncey
Brewer reveal daily charges at his drygoods store. This
author has extracted all charges for fabrics for the twelve
months between June 1, 1854 and May 31, 1855 [See Table 5].
During that period, a total of 10,979 yards were charged.
Families purchased most of their cloth during the months of
May, June, October, November, and December. These were times
when farm income was highest because of harvest of winter and
summer wheat. Women acquired lighter cottons in the summer
months, such as gingham, summer stuff, and lawn. During
winter months, they purchased heavier fabrics such as
flannel, woolens, and De Laine. Customers purchased general
utility cloth, such as sheeting and shirting whenever funds
were available.

Women were most busy making clothing in the late fall
and spring. Finer fabrics for clothing were not purchased in
bulk. Mrs. Robert W. Pendleton visited Brewer's store on one
occasion in 1855 and charged a pair of girl's gloves, a yard
of drilling, two yards of checkered cotton, and a quarter
yard of silk. She obviously intended to make her daughter
a new suit. This was generally the way most cottons,
woolens, and silks were purchased, to make a specific garment
or set of garments. Women made basic garments such as
dresses, pants, jackets, and vests in the spring and fall to

improve wardrobes for the coming season. During other times,

178

 

Table 5

MONTHLY FABRIC PURCHASES
[Brewer & Co., June 1854-May 1855]

Total
Sales
Fabric Per
Sale
Sheeting*
Calico

Shirting
Denims
Flannel
Gingham
Cambrick
Drill

De Laine
Crash
Lawn
Summer Stuff
Muslin
Satinet
Ticking
Factory
Linen
Silk
Woolens

JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT

1246
92

14

731
71
10

188
189
72
28
7
30
27
19
6
11
1

18

14

573
64

162

NOV

611 1100 1400

65

OHUll'Olml

H

71
16

284

104
14

451

 

‘! I

179

Table 5 [contd.]

DEC JAN FEB MAR APR MAY

Total 1261 835 485 538 893 1306
Sales 120 86 61 61 90 116
Fabric Per 11 10 8 9 10 11
Sale
Sheeting* 426 266 96 103 168 153
Calico 209 170 78 75 173 192
Shirting 24 36 8 81 112 88
Denims 19 41 45 34 108 70
Flannel 53 59 17 15 3 -
Gingham . 12 18 9 10 47 121
Cambrick 57 14 l7 13 15 21
Drill 27 9 19 11 ll 39
De Laine 66 25 31 23 2 22
Crash 6 18 2 - - 3
Lawn '- - — - — 112
Summer Stuff - - - - - 57
Muslin 52 - l - 6 5
Satinet 13 6 12 - 3 -
Ticking 66 - 9 15 30 25
Factory - 1 66 31 79 68
Linen 6 7 1 10 9 5
Silk - 2 1 2 - 12
Woolens 37 26 26 8 11 23

*All fabrics are rounded off to nearest yard.

 

180

such as mid-winter, they produced sheets, pillow cases,
ticks, aprons, shirts, undergarments, and other articles
which had to be made in multiple numbers. They dressed their
children for school, their husbands and sons for work, and
the entire family for church on Sundays.

As wardrobes expanded, simplicity of pattern came into
vogue. When Marshall was first founded, fashion was shaped
by the classical revival.24 Women's clothing draped freely
from shoulders similar to that on the women depicted on the
Ketchum bank note of 1837 [See Figure 30]. The simple
patterns of this style appealed to women who were faced with
increased demands of dressmaking. During the late 18303, the
Sympathetic look became popular in the village. Thin,
willowy waist lines and bell-shaped skirts came into vogue.25
These remained very simple through the 18403. Women in the
18503 transformed this design by decorating it with a variety
of fancy trims, buttons, and accessories. That change can be

seen in Brewer's business records. During the 18303

virtually no fancy trims, laces, or fringes were charged;

26
only a few "silk twists” were purchased. Women used bright
colored fabrics in simple designs. Red and blue were
27
particularly popular in Marshall. Women kept the

sympathetic look through the 18503, choosing more muted
colors and covering garments with galloons, fringes, and
laces. Women had much in common with carpenters and other
artisans. They changed patterns as little as possible; the

stylistic changes they made were those which were most easy

181

to execute or apply.

Women's duties increased as wardrobes increased and
domestic goods became more abundant. Women had to launder
the clothing and other cloth products. They tended the
family flower and vegetable gardens, the harvest of which
they cooked and preserved. Pioneer women had always done the
cooking, but the typical housewife now enjoyed a greater
assortment of imported foodstuffs from which to shape her
meals and a new interest in the quality and variety of
cooking became evident in the culinary claims of local
hotels.28 Their families were smaller than those of their
grandmothers, but many. village families took in boarders
during the 18303 and 18403. Mrs. Stewart was undoubtedly
kept busy with the 39 individuals in her household. A total
of 65 Marshall households in 1840 appear to have taken in
roomers and boarders. The plight of women in the family of
one innkeeper was typical. He turned away new arrivals one
day in 1835, explaining "his women folks were worn out
already with extra work."29

Daughters were also engaged in domestic production. The
Journal of Education printed a composition by ”a very young
lady" of the village on the subject of the "Education of
Young Ladies."3o She advised other young ladies that they
requirgo "a thorough knowledge of every branch of house-

work." She ranked a young lady's duties, insisting:

”First, she should understand all kinds of needle-work, that
32
she may be able to keep her wardrobe in perfect order." As

182

with her mother, the greatest demands upon her time were made
by the needle and thread. Girls learned to sew while young,
and by the time they were in their teens, they were expected
to produce their own wardrobes, taking that responsibility
off their mothers. The quality of a young lady's clothing,
more than anything else, revealed her domestic skills, or the
lack of them, to suitors, relatives, and neighbors. Second
on the list of this very young lady was ”domestic cookery, &
everything belonging to the kitchen department."33 She had
to master the art of cooking, to help her mother produce the
meals the family and boarders required.

So far we have examined production. Marshall residents
were also consumers, and patterns of consumption during the
early nineteenth century have been all but ignored by
historians. Men were the primary consumers in the village
during the first half of the century. They brought goods
into the community. In 1840, a total of 60 men were engaged
in commerce and trade in Marshall according to census
information. It was Chauncey Brewer, not his wife Emily, who
made the semiannual trip to New York to select his seasonal
stock. Men also did most of the shopping in Marshall. They
were, after all, in the business district most of the day.
Marshall's seamstresses and widows were the exceptions.

Chauncey Brewer's business records make it possible to
determine who did the shopping in the village, for the

shopkeeper noted who made the purchases on credit, whether it

was the father, or whether it was a wife, child, or servant,

183

 

Table 6

THE CHARACTER OF CUSTOMERS
[Brewer & Co.]

Family Members Years Per cent of Purchases
Husbands 1836 94
1854 90
Wives 1836 2
1854 7
Sons 1836 3
1854 3
Servants 1836 1
1854 0

 

and in later years in particular, the great majority of sales
were made on credit. All sales were totaled by this author
for the first month of business beginning June 16, 1836, and
the same was done for the corresponding month in 1854. These
figures confirm the dominant role men played as consumers.
They made at least nine out of ten family purchases in both
years. Most village men spent six days a week in the business
district, and it was convenient for them to pick up such
family staples as dried fish, raisins, nuts, tea, coffee,
sugar, and salt. Women made the purchases on three per cent
of all occasions in 1836 and seven per cent in 1856. On such
occasions, women shopped on their own. They may have been in
the store when their husbands made other purchases, but their
presence was not reported. Many sales were made to farm
families. Farm women seem invariably to have gone shopping

with their husbands, riding into town with them when they had

184

business in the village. At the store, the incidence of
wives doing the shopping more than doubled between 1836 and
1854. A woman's behavior depended partly on the nature of
the goods purchased. For example, women, shopping on their
own, made one quarter of all purchases of fabric. When women
wanted domestic goods such as cloth, they went shopping with
their husbands in 1836. A generation later village women
were more likely to shop for such goods on their own.
Children infrequently did the shopping in the village.
Girls almost never ventured into Brewer's store on their own.
If families needed to dispatch a child to the store, they
sent a son. As many sons did the family shopping in 1836 as
mothers. Daughters almost never did the family shopping.
This suggests a bias in the village against unchaperoned
females in the business district. Sons continued to run
family errands to the business district in the 18503.
Servants were almost never sent. Most households did not
have servants, but even those which did kept them at home,
depending on the father to bring home the staples and the
mother to purchase the fancy goods. Unless chaperoned by
parents, children were banned from the business district. An
Albion school catalogue of 1843-1844 made that clear.
Numerous young people in Marshall attended the nearby school.
The catalog informed students that they should visit ”no
taverns, groceries, or other public places,” and it
"earnestly advised" parents ”that students at the Seminary

34
have very little need of pocket money." They needed no

185

money because they were prohibited from visiting places where
they could spend it. Children were cloistered in domestic
neighborhoods.

Young men entered the business and milling districts as
laborers and clerks at about the age of sixteen. They
entered these districts as producers, not consumers, however.
They were expected to save their money in order to acquire a
home and family. Some were profligate, spending their funds
on liquor at the village's grocery stores. Sufficient
numbers were profligate enough to earn the disdain of other
villagers. Joseph C. Frink, a village businessman, expressed
that scorn in an 1838 toast at an Independence Day banquet:
”The Batchelors [sic] of Marshall--an incorrigible horde of
bipeds, like Nebuchadnezzer, they should chew grass till they
diligently search and speedily find heaven's last best gift
to man."35 Young women entered the business district as
consumers when they married.

One reason women did more of the shopping was that they
had more free time because of the appearance of ready-made
clothing on the market which finally relieved Marshall
mothers of some of their labors. In 1847, C. P. Dibble & Co.
advertised garments for children, including, "Woolen Coats,
Hoods, Gloves, Hosiery, Caps, Shoes, Etc. just received."36
In the spring of the following year, George Frain, owner of a
drygoods store, advertised: "Just Received, a good assortment
of Spring and Summer Clothing."37 Brewer did not begin

importing ready-made clothing until 1851, but in the

186

following year on his buying tour in the east he committed 26
per cent of his financial resources to such garments. This
is remarkable because the sewing machine was not patented and
marketed until 1854.38 Such demand existed for ready-made
clothing that entrepreneurs addressed the need before they
possessed the technology. They probably did so by employing
immigrant labor at low wages, as the Northeast was then
aflood with victims of the European potato famine.

The appearance and popularization of ready-made clothing
created a new kind of business in Marshall which developed in
different stages. In October 1851, the Emporium Store

introduced the ”Clothing Sales Room," and a year later George

Frain introduced Marshall residents to "G. Frain's Clothing

39
Store." The specialized clothing store had arrived in
Marshall. In 1853, a business inventory of the community
40
listed three clothing stores. In a traditional dressmaker

or tailor shop, clothing was tailored to the customer,
produced after the client appeared for selection and fitting
and purchased it. In the new clothing store, a large stock
of garments was kept on hand from which customers could pick
and choose. In October, Frain announced, "I have now in hand
a large assortment of Ready-Made Clothing."41

Like most manufactured goods, much of the ready-made
clothing consumed in Marshall was produced there. As in
other industries, entrepreneurs were quick to compete with

eastern manufacturers. Frain, when he opened Marshall's

first clothing store, advertised "Ready-Made Clothing of my

187

42
own manufacture." His inventory included overcoats, frock
43
coats, sack coats, and "Black and Fancy Cashmere Pants."
Ingersoll & Pratt provided Frain with competition. In July

of 1852, they announced, ”We have now in our Store a good
assortment of Clothing of our own Manufacture."44 The
businessmen informed patrons, "The Manufacturing Department
is conducted by William R. McCall, who is associated with us
in the same."45 McCall worked by hand, assisted by "a
Journeyman Tailor from New York City,” who was probably
familiar with production techniques in the Northeast.46

The making of apparel was one of the last trades in
Marshall to operate on a traditional basis. As late as 1852,
McCall employed a journeyman tailor as his assistant. His
shop was small. McCall worked by hand as had tailors for
generations with a "Stitch, stitch, stitch, Band and gusset
and seam," to quote one of McCall's favorite ditties.47 That
was not because McCall preferred traditional techniques; he
was quick to jump at a chance to modernize when it appeared.
During the spring of 1856, McCall entered into a new
partnership and acquired a sewing machine at a considerable
cost. A correspondent to the Expounder described a visit to

his new manufactory:

We, yesterday, dropped in at the clothing establishment
of McCall & Dickey in this village, and were shown the
process of manufacture of wearing apparel, according to
the most approved plan. The proprietors have in
operation one of the American Magnetic Sewing Machines,
which is as much in advance of the usual method of
sewing by hand, as the locomotive is ahead of the
wheelbarrow.48

The popularity of the sewing machine spread like that of the

188

daguerreotype and ambrotype. Within two years of its
patenting, Marshall businessmen exploited it locally.

Much of the clothing carried in Marshall stores during
the 18503 was for men. Women continued to make their own
apparel or to visit dressmakers. One clothing store
advertised "A splendid assortment of Over-Coats, Business and
Sack Coats, Vests, Undershirts, and Drawers for sale at great
bargains."49 Another announced that it had acquired a spring
stock of "Men and Boy's Clothing."so Even the drygoods
stores generally carried only men's apparel through the
18503. For instance, during the period between February and
April, 1855, Brewer sold pants, coats, over coats, shirts,
overalls, vests, drawers, and pantaloons, but no women's
apparel, except for furnishing goods such as gloves and
handkerchiefs. Men were still the most active shoppers during
the 18503, comprising the lion's share of the buying market,
and manufacturers catered to them.

Men were style-conscious customers. On June 24, 1836, a
week after opening, Gorham, Brewer & Co. received a shipment
of ”satin beaver hats" for men which they placed on sale at
$4.00 each.51 Four were purchased the first day and another
seven were acquired before the end of the week by local
businessmen, tradesmen, and farmers.52 Marshall supported
two tailor shops throughout the 18303 and 18403. With the
advent of ready-made clothing in the 18503, however, more men

were able to purchase garments for themselves, and they did

C
so with an eye toward stylishness. A student at Marshall

189

Union School commented on local men in 1857, observing "they
have their pants made so tight that they can't hardly pull

them over their boots, and so they have straps on to hold

them down."53 Men's sleeves were "about two feet and a half
in circumference. In this fashion they follow the
ladies."54

Local men's stores put out quality products. One

advertised "fine blue Dress Coats, fine Black Doeskin and
Fancy Cassimere Pants, all kinds of Marseilles and Linen
Pants, Black and Fancy Silk Vests," and much more.55 Growing
style awareness among men was reflected in the name of an
emporium for fathers and sons opened in 1857 by L. Lamsfrom
of New York and called The Temple of Fashion.56 Such a name
would have been considered irreverent a decade earlier;
Women also became more style-conscious. The wealthy had
always been more aware of fashions and patronized
seamstresses who followed the latest designers. Mrs. D.
Peabody, a dressmaker in Marshall, for instance, announced in
1842 her partnership "with Miss Barnes, a Fashionable
milliner and Dress-maker from Western New York."57 Mrs. J.
McCall advertised "the latest fashion," while a third
competitor in the village advertised the "newest fashions."$8
By the 18503, if we are to believe reports, typical villagers
were as fashion-conscious as residents of cities. One
adolescent male assumed the role of clothes critic in the

Marshall Union School Journal in 1857, observing:

We can find fashion enough without going to Turkey,

190

or any other foreign country; if you think you can't,
just go around town some afternoon and see the

fashionables, parading up and down the sidewalks, with
their skirts wide enough to cover the whole walk, and

about two feet on each side besides. Perhaps you will

try to pass this traveling millinery shop without
stepping off the sidewalk, but if you do, you will feel

a steel hoop cutting your leg through your pants, or

else you will find yourself in the gutter—~it will

happen according to the speed the lady is going.59
Another student surveyed the Marshall scene and lamented,

60

”Fashion is the ruler of the world.” Women became
progressively more daring as well. Jewelry and perfumes
became more prevalent, and necklines fell. In 1858, faculty
from Olivet Institute attended a concert put on by young
ladies at the Marshall Young Ladies' Institute. Olivet was a
daughter institution of Oberlin College in Ohio and was
taught by the same kind of religious perfectionists.
Olivet's teachers were shocked by what they saw in Marshall:

We think the worthy teachers could not have been

consulted by the mothers in the matter of dress

(judging from their example) or some of them would

have had an extra piece of lace over their shoulders,

or did they get tardy and leave before their toilet

was completed? We do abominate this fashionable

exposure of person and limb.61
According to this letter, daughters followed the example of
mothers in assuming new freedom in dress and deportment,
which offended more prudish visitors from Olivet.

Villagers could afford to be more style-conscious.
Following economic recovery in 1843, wheat prices remained
high for decades. Marshall lost out on its bid to become the
capital in 1847, but it remained an important stop on the

Central Railroad and continued to service Central rolling

stock. An article in the Statesman in the first issue of

191

1850 described the economic well-being of Marshall:

Our village, during the past year, has been steadily

improving. The new and elegant Railroad Eating House,

Depot Shop, Engine Stable, Machine Shop, Store Houses,

&c. have created a village in themselves, and good plank

walks unite and intersect our entire village. A Lard,

Soap and Candle Factory, by Phelps & Faulkner; a Woolen

Factory, by Dana Stone; a Planing Mill, by Church &

McPherson--these bear testimony to the progress of our

village.62
After the economic shocks of 1839-1843, Marshall enjoyed
steady growth, and many villagers prospered.

Villagers could afford to be fashionable for another
reason. During this period of prosperity, there was a steady
increase in consumer credit in Marshall. Most records kept
by early businessmen were credit-related, and surviving
records allow us to reconstruct the history of credit in the
village. Before the economic depression, the level of
consumer borrowing was low. Most credit originated in banks
and was directed toward real not toward personal property.
The collapse of the banking system during the depression led
to the growth of private banking in the village. Shopkeepers
and merchants became private bankers and used their resources
to stimulate the sale of consumer goods in their shops and
stores. Families took advantage of this credit and purchased
more goods for the home and table.

Before the depression of 1839-1843, credit in Marshall
originated from three sources, the most common being family
and friends. An early history of the area observed, "very

many of the settlers borrowed money from friends in the east

in order to get a start, and as fast as any money was to be

192°

63
had it was sent east to pay these debts." Paul E. Johnson,

in his study of early Rochester, New York describes a system

of credit interlocking families and friends eastward from
that city along the Erie Canal.64 That interlocking, private
system moved westward with Rochester's children. For
example, Sidney Alcott, one of Marshall's richest men,
.depended financially upon family connections in Rochester.65

Credit also originated in Marshall's banks. The Calhoun
County.Bank opened its doors in 1836, circulating $100,000 in

currency [See Figure 30], while the Bank of Marshall

66
circulated $400,000 beginning in 1837. The Calhoun County
Bank was closely associated with the Bank of Michigan in
67
Detroit. Marshall residents turned to banks outside the

village at times. John Pierce acquired a mortgage of $20,000
on his grist mill in Ceresco from the Albany City Bank.68
Many banks collapsed during economic hard times, including
the two in Marshall, leaving villagers without a chartered
fiduciary institution for two decades.69

Some shopkeepers also offered credit. Many customers
received income on a seasonal basis and did not always have
cash or goods with which to make purchases, and some
shopkeepers extended credit until payment could be made.
Gorham & Brewer recorded the disposition of receipts, whether
money collected was for goods or for payment on accounts.
For the period of December-January 1837-1838, a total of 59

per cent of receipts was applied toward goods purchased, 33

per cent to accounts, and eight per cent toward notes,

193

mortgages, and judgments [See Table 7]. This reveals a

relatively high level of cash business due to the large

 

Table 7

ALLOCATION OF CASH RECEIPTS, 1837-1838
[Gorham & Brewer]

Years Goods Accouts Notes,
Mortgages,
& Judgments
1837-1838* 59% 33% 8%
1843-1844** 32 34 34
1852-1853** 20 16 64
1858~l859** 13 21 66

*Based on fragmentary reporting in the cash books for
14 days during December and January.

**Based on complete reporting during the months
October-March.

 

amount of currency circulating. Most customers were able to
pay in cash, and the debt, as we will observe below, was
relatively low and short-term. Gorham & Brewer allowed
customers to borrow more during economic hard times when
customers had far less cash to spend. Brewer reported
$1,188.03 in cash receipts for the month of October 1837
before the economic down swing. For the same month in 1843,
the figure stood at only $357.13. Little of this was spent
on goods, only 32 per cent during 1843-1844--less than a
third of the money received was for goods purchased. The
rest was for payments on account. Thirty-four per cent was

applied on non-interest bearing, short-term accounts. The

194

remainder was divided between notes (27 per cent) and
judgments (7 per cent). The number of judgments was
exceptional due to economic hard times.

Gorham & Brewer could extend credit in Marshall because
they received it in New York from commercial wholesalers.
Village shopkeepers converted more of their accounts to
interest bearing notes which served both as private currency
and as a source of collateral in New York and elsewhere. In
1845, for instance, Brewer received $5,093.99 in credits from
wholesalers, primarily in New York, against stocks purchased
by Brewer. Given time by these wholesalers to pay, Brewer
could afford to do the same with residents of Marshall.
Another dimension appeared in 1847. Wholesalers in New York
provided Brewer with drafts to spend in the City in any way
he pleased. Ralph Mead & Co., a grocery wholesale business,

provided Brewer with $846.40 toward its own stock and $689.01

70
in drafts in 1854. During the same year, Reid & Sprague,
hardware wholesalers, provided him with $3,667.06 in
71
drafts. This allowed Brewer not only to expand his

purchases, but to extend his credit, for he could use these
drafts to pay off other notes which had become due.

Brewer borrowed more in New York and lent more in
Marshall. An examination of borrowing during 1852-1853
reveals significant expansion. The proportion of receipts
applied toward notes and mortgages increased to 60 per cent,
while that spent on goods declined further to 22 per cent,

and that paid toward noninterest accounts decreased to 18 per

195

cent. By 1852, 78 per cent of all cash receipts were applied
toward credit debt, not goods, and much of that debt was
secured by notes and mortgages. Thirty—seven per cent of all
receipts were applied toward notes, 21 per cent to longer
term mortgages, and only 2 per cent toward judgments.
Brewer's drygoods records allow us to develop a credit
profile of typical customers in his store. In 1836, the
average customer at the drygoods store charged $25.63, which
represents a relatively substantial amount, since the company
opened in June of that year. Extending credit was obviously
a means of winning business away from other drygoods
merchants. C. P. Dibble & Co., which opened about the same
time, refused to give credit, claiming they could hold down
costs and sell things cheaper.72 The level of customer
borrowing at Gorham & Brewer declined during the depression
and remained relatively low during early years of recovery,
increasing after 1847, reaching a high of $96.41 in 1858
[Table 8]. Not only did the amount of borrowing increase
over time, but individuals borrowed for longer periods of
time. This factor can be determined by fixing a bench mark,
in this case account balances as of December 31. In 1836,
the balance was only $8.01, indicating a rapid turnover in
credit. Gorham & Brewer allowed customers to borrow small
amounts frequently, but they were expected to pay just as
promptly, and as a result, account balances remained low.

This figure rose through the 18403 and 18503, reaching a peak

of $85.05 in December 1857, a year when the average customer

196

borrowed $60.93. In 1858, the typical customer made payments
on debts more than a year old! It is possible to determine
the annual rate of payment as well as debt. This has been
done for the years 1845 through 1859. Payments on account
rose from a low of $7.78 in 1846 to a high of $148.31 in
1856. The percentage of accounts deferred in notes and
mortgages also increased from a low of 3 per cent in 1846 to
a high of 80 per cent in 1858. About a third of all
customers signed notes or mortgages in any calendar year
after 1848. More than half did so during the economic down
swing of 1858. Those deferring payment were more likely to
be wealthier customers,‘ but most individuals occasionally
took advantage of this privelege. The typical customer at
Brewer's store borrowed more and more money and took more
time paying it back. The typical customer at Brewer's store
borrowed significantly greater sums of money for more
extended periods of time. His credit balance increased
steadily through the 18503. During the 18503, he did not use
credit merely to tide family over between harvests or jobs,
he used credit to expand his purchasing power throughout the
year.

Brewer extended credit to all classes and groups of
people in the village. The Irish borrowed at his store until
Jeremiah Cronin, a fellow Irishman, established his own
drygoods business and attracted Irish families in Marshall.73

Orison Grant was a black farmer living on his own land in Lee

Township to the north of Marshall who took advantage of

197

 

Table 8

DISPOSITION OF CREDIT

Year Average Total Average Accout
Borrowed per Year Balance as of
December 31

1836 25.63 8.01
1837 ~ 39.09 17.83
1838 41.51 24.48
1845 21.26 10.93
1846 16.66 16.63
1847 37.35 19.32
1848 56.18 35.80
1849 38.06 57.33
1850 54.11 57.81
1851 42.11 39.93
1852 45.07 40.75
1853 45.28 57.04
1854 86.62 63.37
1855 90.77 87.49
1856 91.46 72.87
1857 60.93 85.05
1858 96.41 60.14

1859 40.76 51.30

 

198

credit opportunities at Brewer & Co. In 1850, he signed a
note for $51.67 at the store, three years later signed

another one for $129.19, and a short time later acquired a

 

Table 9

DISPOSITION OF PAYMENTS ON ACCOUNT

 

Year Average Per Cent Deferred Per Cent of
Annual In Notes 5 Accounts
Payment Mortgages Deferring

1845 16.56 - 16 10

1846 7.78 3 6

1847 40.99 6 11

1848 46.01 54 24

1849 18.81 22 17

1850 57.97 71 30

1852 41.26 52 21

1853 32.97 36 15

1854 114.25 48 26

1855 68.25 46 25

1856 148.31 51 18

1857 71.75 48 26

1858 136.14 80 52

1859 66.70 37 32

74
mortgage of $249.75 from Brewer on his farm. These were

paid the following year by cash from his crops and extensive
labor of Grant and his sons, by clearing land owned by
Brewer, which perhaps Brewer acquired through mortgage
defaults.75

Brewer was not the only shopkeeper in Marshall who
extended credit. The typical consumer in Marshall borrowed

at more than one store. Credit records for two drygoods

stores exist for the years 1839-1840, Gorham & Brewer, and A.

199

G. Butler & Co. According to the 1840 census, there were 311
households in Marshall in that year. Of those, 193 received
credit from Gorham & Brewer, while 92 received credit from
Butler. Gorham & Brewer extended credit to 62 per cent of
the families in Marshall while Butler serviced 30 per cent.
Of the 92 individuals who received credit from Butler, 84
also received credit from Gorham & Brewer, or from more than
one drygoods merchant at a time, and these were probably not
the only drygoods stores in Marshall extending credit in
1840. Villagers borrowed from a variety of stores, as
Marshall's drygoods merchants were not the only ones to
extend consumer credit. All of the village's iron foundry
men and forge operatorswho manufactured tools and ironware
appear to have done so, for in 1852, Oliver C. Comstock, Jr.,
an attorney, advertised "The Notes and accounts of Mssrs.
Etheridge & Co., Shepard & Campbell and A. Campbell & Co.
have been placed in my hands for collection, and I am
directed to close the same forthwith."76 E. T. Wakefield,
who manufactured and sold boots and shoes, placed a similar
announcement in the papers in 1843, when he sold out to C. H.
Cook & Co.77 William Hunt extended credit in his
bookstore.78 The extent of credit can be gauged by an
announcement in 1853 of ”Something New" by E. Butler's Cash
Store.79 Butler explained, ”As I am doing a Cash Business,
my customers will not have to pay our pooregebts contracted

in consequence of doing a credit business.” Butler was not

unique, however; C. P. Dibble had always avoided extending

200

credit, advertising in 1843, "No credit given in any
instance."81 G. S. Wright, another drygoods merchant,
advertised a cash-only business as early as 1840.

Businessmen like Brewer, Gorham, Dusenbury, Butler,
Shepard, and Campbell were private bankers. They performed
much the same function as chartered banks. Charles Gorham
sold out to Brewer in 1841 and entered the field of private
banking full time. In 1865, he received a charter for the
First National Bank which is now the Michigan National Bank,
the oldest National Bank in Michigan. Two other drygoods
merchants were officers in the First National Bank: Charles
P. Dibble and George S. Wright.83 Merchants such as these
filled the gap between the first banking system of the 1830s
and the second of the 18603. As shopkeepers, private bankers
used their capital to stimulate consumer sales.

As a commercial milling center, Marshall developed
several distinct neighborhoods. At the same time, men and
women developed distinct spheres of activity and influence.
Through the 18403, men remained in business and milling
districts from sunrise to sunset, while women rarely ventured
out of residential neighborhoods unless chaperoned by
husbands. During the 18503, village women re-entered
business districts as consumers and began a process of
redefining their roles. They were benefited in the process
by credit expansion which made increased consumption

possible. During the 18503, villagers produced fewer goods

at home and depended more on local shopkeepers for both the

201

necessities and fineries of life. As men and women bought

more consumer goods, they became more fashion-conscious and
fancy, condoning behavior which would have been condemned by

their parents.

202

End Notes

VILLAGE PRODUCERS AND CONSUMERS

1

The most prominent example of studies of production
is probably Alan Dawley, Class and Community: The Industri_l
Revolution in Lynn (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1976).

2

Demos, A Little Commonwealth, pp. 70-72.

 

BUnited States Census, 1850, Schedule One, Calhoun
County, Michigan, Marshall Township, p. 259.

4

Jeremiah Balch, "Address,” Democratic Ex ounder,
April 1, 1858, p. 2, col. 3.

5 .

Andrew Hays, "Young Men,” Journal of Education
1(November 1838): 70.

6

Ibid.

7

Christopher M. Jedrey, The World of Joh
Cleaveland: Family and Community in Eighteenth-Century
New England (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1979,
pp. 73-84.

8

i3

 

 

1840 United States Census, Calhoun County,
Michigan, Marshall Township, p. 129.
9
Ibid., p. 133.
10
"Marshall Oil Mill,"Western Statesman, May
28, 1840, p. 2, col. 5.

11
Ibid.

12
Ibid.
13
Ibid.
14
Ibid.
15
1850 United States Census, Schedule Five, Products
of Industry, Calhoun County, Michigan, Town of Marshall,
p. 61.

203

16
Ibid.
17

History of Calhoun County, 1830, p. 53.
18

1850 Census, Schedule Five, p. 61.
19
Histor of Calhoun Count 1830, p. 131.
20
"The Village of Marshall,” Marshall Statesman,
December 14, 1853, p. 4, col. 1. ‘

21
Florence Mayfield, "The Vacation; or, the
Sisters' Choice," Marshall Statesman, July 14,
1852, p. 1, col. 5.
22

Mary Beth Norton, Liberty's Daughters: The

Revolutionary Experience of Americsn Womeny_l750—
1800 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1980),

pp. 10, 18-20.
23
”Marshall House," Democratic Ex ounder,
January 1, 1841, p. 3, col. 5. "Marshall House,”
Msrshall Statesman, December 18, 1847, p. 2, col. 1.

Democratic Expounder, May 20, 1858, p. 3, col. 2.
Ryan, Cradle of the Middle Class, p. 198.

 

Haltunen, Confidence Men, p. 75.
25
Ibid., pp. 72, 75, and 79.
26
Gorham & Brewer Day Book, pp. 233, 261, 264, 267,
and 272, M. H. S. C.
27
Ibid., pp. 1, 3, 6, 7, 9, 12, 13, 17, and 22.
28
"Marshall House,” Democratic Ex ounder, January
1, 1841, "Marshall House" Marshall Statesman, December 18,
1847, p. 2, col. 1. Democratic Ex ounder, May 20, 1858, p.
2, col. 3. Bellona Frink, ”Tales of By Gone Days in Marshall,"
M. H. S. C.
29
Gardner, History of Calhoun County, vol. 1,
p. 240.
30
"Education of Young Ladies," Journal of
Education 2(February 1840): 94.
31
Ibid.
32
Ibid.
33
Ibid.
34

Catalogue of the Officers anngtugents of the

 

 

 

 

204

Wesleyan Seminary at Albion, Michigan,_l843-l844
(Marshall, Mi.: Democratic Expounder, 1844), p. 21.
35
Calhoun County Patriot, July 6, 1838, p. 2,
col. 5.
36
Marshall Statesman, January 25, 1848, p. 4,
col. 1. September 20, 1847 was the date of posting for
the advertisement.
37
Ibid., April 25, 1848, p. 3, col. 4.
38
Grace Rogers Cooper, The Sewing Machine: Its

Invention and Development (Washington, D. C.: The
Smithsonian Institution Press, 1976), pp. 35, 40-42.

39Democratic Expounder, December 26, 1851,
p. 3, col. 5. Advertisement placed October 19, 1851.
Marshall Statesman, October 27, 1852, p. 4, col. 4.
40
Marshall statesman, December 14, 1853,
p. 4, col. 1.
41 _
Marshall Statesman, October 27, 1852,
p. 4, col. 4.
42
Marshall Statesman, October 27, 1852,
p. 4, col. 4.
43
Ibid.
44
Ibid., p. 4, col. 6. Date of posting was July
31, 1852.
45
Ibid.
46
Ibid.
47

History of Calhoun County, 1830, p. 54.
48

Democratic Expounder, April 17, 1856,
p. 2, col. 5.
49
Democratic Expounder, December 26, 1851,
p. 3, col. 5.
50
Ibid., April 16, 1857, p. 2, col. 4.
51
Gorham & Brewer, Day Book, June 24,
1836, p. 4, M. H. S. C.
52
Ibid., pp. 5, 6, and 14.
53
Marshall Union School Journal, 1(August 1857):

205

4-5.
54
Ibid.
55
Democratic Expounder, April 16, 1857,
p. 2, col. 4.
56
Ibid.
57
Western Statesman, January 6, 1842, p. 4,
col. 1.
58
Western Statesman, June 10, 1841, p. 1,
col. 4. and p. 3, col. 5.
59
Marshall Union School Journal 1(August 1857): 4.
60
N. L. T[illotson], ”Fashion,” The Oak Leaf
2(February 1858):7.
61
Marshall Statesman, July 28, 1858, p. 1.
col. 4.
62
”Our Village,” Marshall Statesman, January 2,
1850, p. 2, col. 4.
63
Edward W. Barber, The Past and Present ofsEaton

County, Michigan (Lansing, Mi.: 19—-), p. 41.
64

Paul E. Johnson, A Shopkeeper's Millennium:

Society and Revivals in Rochester, New York, 1815-1837
(New York: Hill and Wang, 1978), pp. 20-25.

65
Calhoun County, Michigan, Registry of Deeds,
September 2, 1833, Liber 1, p.83.

66
Gardner, Histor of Calhoun Count , vol. 1,
p. 246.
67
Kilfoil, Q, s. Irowbsldge, p. 97.
68

Calhoun County, Michigan Registry of Deeds,
February 12, 1844, Liber 15, p. 9, February 12, 1844.
69
History of Calhoun County, 1830, pp. 18, 54.
70
Brewer & Co., Ledger A. [Commenced 1845], pp.
556, 574, M. H. S. C.
71
Ibid., pp. 559, 558 [sic].
72
Western Statesman, August 12, 1843,
p. 4, col. 6.

206

73
Amelia Frink Redfield, "Pioneer History,” undated,

M. H. S. C.
74
This information extracted from Brewer & Co.
Ledger Books.

 

75
Ibid.
76
Marshall Statesman, October 5, 1852, p. 4, col. 4.
77
Western Statesman, August 12, 1843, p. 4, col. 6.
78
Western Statesman, November 11, 1842, p. 3,
col. 3.
79

Marshall Statesman, December 14, 1853, p. 4,
col. 4.

80
Ibid.
81
Western Statesman, August 12, 1843, p. 4, col. 6.
82
Western Statesman, January 30, 1840, p. 4,
col. 5.
83

Histgry of Calhoun County, 1830, p. 54.

LITERARY CULTURE

Marshall villagers were producers as well as consumers
of literature. During Marshall's three decades of village
life, not only Marshall men wrote for public consumption, but
also women and children. They wrote a great volume of
articles, poems, short stories, and novels, making them more
prolific than any other generation in Marshall's history.
Local women and children entered the literary market
tentatively in the 18403 and in a significant manner during
the following decade. Their entry signifies changing roles
for men, women, and children within the community, with that
change most pronounced during the 18503, and this examination
of local literary culture investigates that change.

From the first decade of settlement, men, women, and
children in Marshall were consumers of literature. Teachers
required that children recite from books in the family and
school libraries. Sabbath schools introduced children of
both sexes to a more didactic, morally oriented literature.
Fourteen-year-old Laura Mason read more than books. She
noted in her journal, "There is an account in the newspaper
of a kind of paper manufactured from a coarse kind of grass,
growing around Cape Cod."1 She read newspapers and journals
to which her father subscribed as a clergyman. Laura was

encouraged by her family, church, select school, Sabbath

207

208

school, and bookstore to read a variety of materials.

Children were also taught to write during the first
decade of settlement, but not for publication. Schools
taught students to compose poetry and prose as well as to
read it. The essay on the educational needs of young ladies
published in the Journal of Education was written by a girl
in a local school. It was passed on to the editor, probably
by the teacher. Editor Pierce admitted to subscribers that
it "was never intended for publication by its author."2
School compositions were more commonly read to classmates or
to the community at school exercises. Children like Laura
were encouraged to keep private journals and to compose
personal correspondence. Women were also active
correspondents .with family members elsewhere. Their
correspondence, however, was not reprinted in newspapers as
was frequently the case with that of men.

Men alone wrote for publication in Marshall during the
village's first decade of settlement. With rare exceptions,
adult males composed the copy of newspapers, journals,
pamphlets, and books. They contributed to local, regional,,
and national markets. Horatio H. Hickok published
extensively in the Western Farmer, printed in Jackson,
Michigan. Pierce's Journal of Education was exchanged with
editors back east who copied from it, providing Pierce with a
national forum. Newspapers and journals accepted and
published correspondence from male contributors.

Four groups of men were most likely to publish. Men of

 

209

considerable wealth wrote for Ipublication. Andrew Hays,
whos; wtemple mansion overlooked the Court House, wrote for
the Journal of Education, as did Isaac Crary and Horatio
Hickok. Hays was a physician and speculator, while Crary was
an attorney. Hickok was a gentleman-farmer. All were among
the richest taxpayers in the county.3 Th9 second group of
writers was the clergy, whose correspondence and public
addresses were frequently printed by the local press. The
clergymen were also professionals, although generally not as
wealthy as men like Hays and Crary. Another group which
wrote for publication included secretaries of associations.
These men reported upon the activities of their groups in the
local press. They included men of wealth like Dr. Greeves,
secretary of the Calhoun County Total Abstinence Society, and
artisans like Isaac Loomis, a local builder and would-be
architect who served as secretary at various times to the
Marshall Mechanic's Association and to music and temperance
groups.‘ The fourth group was editors. These were
tradesmen, individuals like Bunce and Balch who learned the
trade of printing and art of writing through apprenticeship.
Balch served his apprenticeship under David Everett, editor
of the BostonIPatriot.5 Pierce was perhaps the most
published man in early Marshall. Although he was from a
family of modest means back east, Pierce was a clergyman and
an editor and quickly became one of Marshall's richest

citizens, and he exploited all these opportunities to
publish.

210

These men wrote on a great variety of topics. Hickok's

favorite subject was government protection and support of
6

American farmers and manufacturers. Dr. Hays liked to give

personal advice, as in an article titled ”Young Men” which
appeared in the Journal of Education in 1838.7 Loomis wrote
in praise of artisans and artists; he considered artisans to
be artists. Crary employed his pen on behalf of public
education and Democratic politics, while Pierce supported
public schools and in 1843 attacked Millerism, or Adventism,
in Marshall.8 Editors like Bunce and Balch wrote on any and
all topics, reporting most frequently on politics and trade.
These men wrote as neo-classicisists, frequently
assuming pen names from the classical world such as Cato,
Junius, and Civis.9 Dr. Joseph Sibley, who lived in the
crow-stepped mansion and operated the most elegant drygoods
store in Marshall, appears to have written under the name
Unus Parvus, M. 0., meaning ”the little doctor."10 They were
rationalists, appealing always to reason and never to
emotions. Dr. Hays informed his young male readers that
earthly success was nothing less than the "splendid triumph
of mind over matter."11 Loomis wrote of "intellectual
mechanics,” and "intelligent laborers."12 Pierce was
particularly concerned about the minds of students in
Marshall and Michigan, insisting that "we cannot doubt that
the naturai3 tendency of every mind is to improve its

faculties." Pierce saw himself as steward of that

tendency. Marshall writers insisted that men failed when

211

they lost sight of reason. According to Dr. Hays, such young

men became "indolent," prone "to kill time and squander
14
money." As a consequence, they became "wretched" and
15
"despised." As rationalists, Marshall writers viewed

individuals and communities as abstractions, rarely becoming
specific or personal in their prose. The use of pen names
heightened the sense of the impersonal.

Male writers in the village were very confident in their
outlook. Dr. Hays insisted that if reason were applied to
occupation the result would be personal success.15 Pierce
argued that the tendency of the mind was toward nothing less
than "perfection."17 In 1861, Pierce reminisced about this
period and spoke of its optimism: "One thing was favorable;
it was a day when all was astir with activity and life,--the
watchword was progress and improvement."18 Historian
Barbara Leslie Epstein observes that American men during this
period can be distinguished by their confidence. They
rejected the pessimism of Calvinist doctrine because it ran
"counter to their own view of themselves."19 They attributed
success to personal effort, not to God, and therefore had
”more confidence in human efforts."20 It was male writers in
Marshall who excited so much interest in 1843 over the Second
Coming of Christ, the apotheosis of progress and
perfection.21 Pierce attacked Millerism in a series of
addresses, one of which was published in 1843, in which the
Marshall clergyman and businessman predicted the end of the

22
world in 1866. Pierce did not deny the apotheosis; he

212

merely delayed it another generation. Marshall men were

confident in their personal and social prospects.

Epstein also argues that men were more optimistic than
women. Women tendedto be more pessimisticIIaIIndIpietistic.23
In Marshall, this appears to be the case. When women began

to write during the 18403, they concentrated on themes of

- .q.. .. -a— - ’ .-. ---v.nr- 0
§-_.

1033 and bereavement. In their romances, personal effort was
not always sufficient to obtain success or happiness. Ann
Douglas, it must be acknowledged, argues that women were more
optimistic due to their new role as consumers, which led them
to reject Calvinist pessimism.24 Such could not have been
the case in Marshall, .where men were the primary consumers.
If consumption or participation in the market had a
liberalizing effect, it would have appeared strongest in men,
and indeed it probably did.

Early Marshall writers were also sentimental. Douglas
observes that sentimental fiction became popular during the
18403 and remained so through the 18803.I25 Even before this,
however, sentimentalism was evident in Marshall letters in
the prose of Marshall men. Their rhetoric could easily be
mistaken for that of later romance writers. Reverend Mr.
Samuel Buel, for instance, described Marshall's dead in 1839
as "flowers of paradise."26 Marshall Washingtonians sought
to achieve temperance, according to their by—laws, through
"charity, kindness and brotherly love."27 Reverend J. V.
Watson of the Marshall Methodist Church wrote that Sabbath

school teachers could "give an upward direction to the light

213
28

of the infant angel." Watson had special praise for women,
noting:

Matrons and misses here find an inviting opening to

employ themselves usefully; and the peculiar charms, the

tenderness, the mildness and modest sweetness of the

female character may here give attraction and beauty to

lessons of righteousness, and most genially induce "the

young idea to shoot" heavenward.29
Reverend Cleaveland appears as a character out of a
sentimental romance. He was said to possess a "fiery,
impetuous nature."3o People were moved by his "silvery
speech," claiming, "His whole soul seemed to shine in his
face when he spoke."31 Mrs. Cleaveland was described as "a
lovely woman, who exercised a wholesome restraint over her
husband."32 Mrs. Cleaveland died after a brief illness on
October 1, 1843, and Cleaveland reacted with an expression of
public grief. He resigned the presidency of Marshall College
and left the community, or, to quote a contemporary: "Broken
hearted and dispirited, he resigned his position, and, with
his resignation the college adventure came to an end."33 He
sacrificed a school and career on the bier of his grief over
the death of a beautiful wife, an action writers of later
sentimental fiction might appreciate and praise. Sentimental
fiction did not create a sentimental outlook among villagers,
it grew out of one.

Sentimentalism emerged when men applied republican
principles to the home and family. One of these was romantic

in character. Early Marshall writers argued that all things

were conceived in a state of grace and therefore naturally

214

gravitated toward perfection. Unus Parvus, M. D. observed
that many residents of Marshall believed they could escape
illness by discovering its source and avoiding it; doing
that, they could achieve a state of ”esto perpetuz [sic],” or
perpetual well-being.34 Pierce believed that if freed of
ignorance, the minds of children naturally gravitated toward
perfection. Marshall men argued that the American republic
had been founded in a state of grace or virtue.35 When
Reverend Watson referred to children as infant angels he
merely followed an intellectual convention. Marshall writers
borrowed this premise from European romantics such as Sir
Walter Scott, whom Dr. Hays liked to paraphrase.36 Conceived
in a state of nature,‘ man and his children were born in a
state of grace, not sin. The fact that such opinion was so
common indicates how much Marshall men had rejected Calvinist
pessimism.

Marshall writers employed a premise from the Enlightment
as well. As empiricists, they believed that innocence, good
health, and virtue were corrupted by certain identifiable
influences. This premise was most apparent in a controversy
in 1839 over an epidemic which killed a number of Marshall
children. Pierce observed, ”The past fall has been a season
of an unusual number of intermittent and bilious fevers."37
Pierce insisted that the contagion was caused by the
influence of damp soils. It was not caused by God, but by

"local causes; such as the raising of a mill pond, the

breaking away of a mill dam in the heat of summer, the

215

draining and drying up of a marsh at an improper season of
the year."38 Pierce's opinion was widely shared by
villagers. Unus Parvus observed, "Nearly all those who were
called upon to give their opinion concerning the causes of
the sickness . . . attributed it to the effluvia rising from
the mill ponds and marshes--laying considerable stress on the
former."39 Good health was undermined by "the influence of
marsh effluvia."4o Understanding this, it was possible for
rational individuals to remedy the problem by avoiding the
source. . Most villagers suspected the new mill dam of Dr.
Sibley and Andrew Mann, and they rioted, attempting to
destroy that dam and pond. Cooler heads marched into the
court house and filed suit as ”The People vs. Sibley and
Mann."41 Sibley did not disagree with the premise of his
neighbors, that sickness was caused by damp soils. He merely
argued that his particular millpond was not the culprit,
insisting,

It is an error to suppose that millponds or even marshes

and swamps are the only sources from which the

deleterious myasm eminates. It is a fact admitted by

nearly all medical writers, that those efluvia may be

thrown out from every mudhole, and from damp woods

and moist land.42
All Marshall writers during the 18303 and early 18403 spent a
good deal of time and ink identifying pernicious influences.
According to Hickok, prosperity was threatened by foreign
competitors and political indifference. Pierce believed that
children's minds were cloyed by ignorance. Hays insisted

that the good life was threatened by (indolence, while a

patriot argued that a virtuous republic was being undermined

216
43
by the influence of evil men and corrupt principles.

If physical and moral well-being was threatened by
identifiable influences, it was abetted by positive
influences such as the Bible, temperance, knowledge, and
women who were acknowledged as morally superior to men.
Reverend Buel identified the spirit of the dead as an
elevating influence. He was an advocate of rural cemeteries
where visitors could commune with the souls of the departed
in a state of nature, insisting, ‘"Such intercourse is pure
and elevating. It is exercise of friendship freed from the
debasing influence of our connection with these tenements of
clay."44 Freed of worldly influences, the soul floated
heavenward with a natural buoyancy.

These republican premises explain a great deal of the
appeal of the associational movement during the period.
Societies were created to expose individuals to positive
influences and to shield them from negative ones. The Bible
Society attempted to expose everyone to the influence of the

{N

Good Book, whilegReverend Cleaveland sought to expose all of
south-central Michigan to the sacred effects of music through
the Beethoven Society.n Temperance societies sought to spare
the community problemswof drunkenness and provide individuals
with the positive reinforcement of sympathetic companionship.
Association increased the positive influence of individuals.
As a Marshall editor observed: ”Association, even where only
two or three are gathered together, is more potent than

45
individual effort alone." It was only natural for the

217

patriot who decried the influence of evil men and principles
to declare to other virtuous men that "one thing is certain,
we must organize to have our influence felt."46 Isaac Loomis
expressed similar sentiments when he informed fellow
mechanics that ”union among individuals, interested in any
worthy enterprise, seems to be the only way in which great
achievements can be accomplished among men.”47 The union of
good men made the influence of each man stronger. Sufficient
union would overwhelm corruption and restore grace.

In these republican premises also lay the seeds of
sentimental thought. Villagers had much to gain by exposure
to beauty, religion, virtue, and art. They had much to lose
by exposure to liquor, ignorance, indolence, and mudholes.
Things that were beneficial were distinguishable from those
which were deleterious. Children, marriages, and republics
were conceived in a state of grace. Women were morally
superior because, isolated in residential neighborhoods, they
were not exposed to corrupting influences. These were major
ingredients of the sentimental fiction which would be written
in Marshall a decade later. Sentimenalism was created by
male producers who needed to believe in the efficacy of human
effort.

In 1841, villagers began to publish poetry. On April
19, the editor of the Democratic Patriot noted a public
complaint that "Marshall and vicinity seemed to produce no
poets."48 The editor insisted that "this is a mistaken idea,

as all will acknowledge, after a perusal of the following

218
49
lines." The "following lines" were written by a poet in
Marshall, sex unknown, "for publication," a fact stated in
50
the opening line of the untitled work. The poet described

a boating experience of a man and a woman on a river. As to

the heroine, "Dame nature" made her "a paragon beauty, while
51

he was "a high minded soul." They were caught in a fierce

storm and saved themselves, with the result that he fell in

love with her. She moved westward with her family, leaving
52

him "mournful." This poem was similar to the many which

would follow, generally emphasizing themes of nature,

separation, and death. This poem dwelt on nature, on the
river "Which rolls its pure waters into the blue sea," and on
the night with its "thunders" and "treacherous lightnings."53
It also dealt with separation and loss in spite of survival.

The first local poem identifiably written by a woman was

published by the Western Statesman on January 20,1842. The

54
poet signed herself, ”Miss E. M. A." Its title was
”Farewell" and its theme was war and death in which the poet
55
lamented in her opening stanza, ”We meet but to part." The

young man goes off to war with the blessing of his mother and
with the affection of his sweetheart. In battle, he dies, as
"the tyrant death . . . veils the glance of the sparkling
eye."56 For the mother and girl friend, ”warm tears tell of
our anguish deep as we breathe ‘farewell."'57 Miss E. M.
A.'s attitude may well have been more pessimistic than that
of the men we have observed, for she wrote of loss, not gain.

Writing poetry in Marshall was not without its

219

liabilities. Newspaper editors could be harsh critics. In
1843, one editor observed:
Poetry from E. S., on the ”Grave,” is so blindly written
that we are entirely unable to make out several
principal words. It may be very good for all we know,
but we love our eyes better than poetry, and we have put
the manuscript among the things to be burned. Write
plainer or not at all.58
This poet was undoubtedly grateful that he or she remained
anonymous by using initials, as was the custom among local
poets.

In 1842, the first literary journal was published in
southern Michigan, The Michigan Litersry Gem and Parlor Com-
panion, printed in Kalamazoo. Its editor advertised for
subscribers and contributors in Marshall and Calhoun
County.59 No issues have been located by this author, but it
may have provided an outlet for women writing outside the
medium of poetry. Three years later students at Albion
Female Collegiate Institute began publication of
The Athenaeum, a literary journal of their own. Numerous
young ladies from Marshall attended the Institute during the
six or more years the journal was published. An editor's
copybook for the years 1849 through 1851 survives. During
those years, young ladies contributed a good deal of
expository prose on a great variety of topics. They
displayed in a public forum the talents acquired in school.

These authors were adolescent and provide us with

insights into their world. They discussed their place in the

world. They were accutey aware of the existence of men's and

220

women's spheres. Men, for instance, possessed physical
strength and dominated the political world. Women also had
strengths. As one student observed in 1851, "In physical
strength she is the weaker vessel. In intellectual she is
perchance his equal, but in her moral capacity (as phrenology
and history will testify) his superior and here lies the
importance of her mission."60 It was her duty to teach "the
young heart the principles of benevolent practice and mercy,"
to "mould” the minds of children.61 In 1851, young women did
not perceive this role as limiting. ”This may seem to some
to be a narrow contracted sphere,” wrote one student, "but it
is as broad as the Jeruselem [sic] of society itself."62
Women could work through the home, church, and association
"to revolutionize the moral world."63 Already, young ladies
viewed their domestic and social responsibility as wide-
ranging. Their sphere was as broad as their literate
imaginations could make it. They expressed confidence, as
well, that they would bring about such a revolution. They
were, perhaps, more confident than their mothers. The world
held out numerous promises and rewards to them. Personal
effort was promising.

In 1851, Marshall women began to publish novels and
short stories and during the 18503 enjoyed intellectual
prestige in the village. Romance writers assumed pen names.
One such author, Eva Elwood, described the life of a village

writer like herself. In the short story, ”The Wife's

Devotion,” Stella Hill, a married woman, wrote to supplement

221

64
family income. Hill's work received great praise, although

the real identity of the author remained unknown. She took
secret satisfaction in the praise her works received at home
and in the community. She enjoyed the "rich ecomiums

bestowed upon the unknown writer” and her works, even by her
husband, who "found leisure to glance them over, recommend
their perusal to others, and speak of their perfection to his
wife."65 Henry Hill, the husband, found time and opportunity
to read and discuss local writers, even though "Henry was
busy, so busy in his store."66 He may well have discussed
local authors in his store with clerks, fellow shopkeepers,
and customers. Writers, male and female, did achieve status
in the community. They had their followers. Lena, who wrote
poems frequently for the Democratic Ex ounder, wrote one to
”J.” in January 1858 only to win the heart of "H."67 "H."
dispatched the poem "To Lena" to the Expounder, admitting:

”Fair Lena! when I heard thy strain, So sweetly sung by you

to J., I longed for someone like yourself, To cheer me o'er

68
life's toilsome way." Lena was to this reader the "fair
69
one" full of "brilliant song." Marshall writers had a
local audience. Lena, like Pierce, acquired a wider

audience. In March 1859, the Expounder announced:

Our fair correspondent, whose poetical productions have
for a long time graced the columns of our paper, and the
merits of which have been fully appreciated by us, has
at last, without deserting us, bestowed one of her
pleasing contributions to the columns of The New York
Mercury (of the 25th).70

Marshall women drew on romantic strains in their

fiction. As in their poetry, they dwelt on themes of nature,

222

separation, and death. In the Eva Elwood story, Stella wrote
and published in order to earn money and make it unnecessary
for her husband to work such long hours and remain away from
her. Elwood wrote that "long evenings, after baby-boy was
snugly stowed away in his little bed, the wife was alone in
her room . . ."71 Writers such as Elwood frequently wrote of
nature. They delighted in descriptions of flowers, birds,
cottages, old women, and children. Where men chose their
noms de plume from classical antiquity, women drew theirs
from nature, creating such names as Florence Mayfield, Flora
Stanhope, Eva Elwood, Flora A. Forrest, Lillian, Lily Lea,
Lina Linwood, and Bell Billow.

Village women also drew from a sentimental tradition.
Their husbands were, after all, sentimentalists. Female
sentimentalists such as Lydia Sigourney were widely
popularized by 1851. Marshall women employed the standard
sentimental formulae in their fiction. Marriages were
conceived in grace; a man and women entered marriage upon
”the altar of their bliss."72 Children were born innocent,
artful, and virtuous. This description of Myra, a young
child, is typical:

Myra was the sunlight of her grand-parents' hearts.

Whether sporting with her silvered locks, and lisping in

her ‘little flute-like voice' some happy, childish air,

or bounding over woodland and meadow in search of

flowers and butterflies, she was ever bright as a

sunbeam, and from her large beautiful eyes gleamed those

whole souled qualities so characteristic in innocent

childhood.73

Such health and beauty could be destroyed by the influences

223

of liquor, bad company, indolence, the theater, emotional
indifference, and even prostitution. Village women
chronicled in their stories the struggle to preserve the
health and sanctity of their homes and families, to isolate
their children and to minister unto husbands and sons who
were exposed to pernicious influences on a daily basis.
Village women were deeply concerned about the impact of
the market place upon their husbands and families. That
market divided families, separating members. Florence
Mayfield made this the central theme of one short story, ”The
Neglected Wife,” the title of which describes the
consequences of the market economy on village women.74 In
that story, a husband earned a liberal income but was never
satisfied, for, ”as wealth increased, he became wholly
absorbed in worldly matters and seemed to forget the fragile,
tender plant that he had torn from other hearts."75 In the
Elwood short story, as we have seen, Stella Hill spent hours
at night alone writing, trying to make it financially
possible for her husband to spend more time with her. In one
piece of local fiction, a wife found that her husband had
"grown cold by prosperity."76 In another, hard work and
wealth had made a man "cold-hearted" and "arbitrary."77 Such
men ignored their children as well. They frequently drank,
and when they did pay attention to the family, the results
were likely to be more destructive than constructive. Lydia

Kingsbury described one indulgent father: ”We were daughters

of a wealthy merchant, a stern man, yet no wishes were

224

ungratified,--nothing withheld that tended to render us
flattered and admired by the thoughtless, gay circles in
which we moved."78 This man did not share his wife's concern
about good behavior and bad company. He reinforced his
daughters' bad habits. He carried bad influences into the
home. Unable to spend time with his children, he spent money
on them and indulged their whims. Such behavior led not only
to indulgence, but to sickness, death, and ruin. In one
Mayfield short story, a husband became so distant and cold
that his virtuous son, exposed to his casual presence,
sickened and died.79
Wives did not share the unbounded optimism of their
husbands. They expressed reservations about home and
society. Isolated in their residential neighborhoods,
ignored by their husbands, they questioned progress and
perfection. They felt anger toward business and toward their
spouses. Florence Mayfield did not hesitate to lecture her
male readers on their domestic responsibilities. To young
men seeking a wife, she counseled, "Consider, young man, the
vows thou art making to that faithful one, whose heart is all
thine own, and let her never have cause to weep in sorrow for
thy neglect."80 Her advice to husbands was angry:
What sorrows have been heaped upon the innocent head,
what pangs have crushed her noble heart by inconsiderate
man! Then think, husband, upon thy rashness, and strive
to heal the wound that thou art making, to soothe the
heart that has ventured its all so fondly upon thy care,
love and protection.81

The world of village women seemed a grim place at times, in

spite of its flowers and fences. It was a world in which

225

women cared for their children during the day and sat alone
evenings with their sewing, reading, or writing--a11 silent
habits that would not disturb the children stowed away in
their beds. They waited for husbands, older sons, and
roomers to return after the business and milling districts
closed at night. It was a world starkly different from that
of their grandmothers in which families had been united
throughout the day.

Not all women railed against the market place. One
Albion student wrote that women as well as men were
"constantly straining to outdo their neighbors."82 Many
attended church to be seen, lacked sincerity, and performed
or expressed "an endless series of unmeaning civilities."83
Some were quite content with the struggle to out-do their
neighbors. Marshall fiction was littered with women who
failed in the struggle for virtue, who kept frivolous
company, visited cities, attended gay parties, became vain in
their appearance, and inevitably experienced tragedy in their
marriages and families. Florence Mayfield wrote a short
story comparing two sisters, called "The Vacation; or, The
Sister's Choice."84 Gertrude and Nina planned vacations at
the end of the school year. Nina went into the country to
visit relatives, while Gertrude visited relatives in New
York. Gertrude was neither domestic nor scholarly.
According to Mayfield, "She did not really love school, nor

did she wish to remain at home." Mayfield was distressed

as she described Gertrude's vacation: "But how was

226

Gertrude's vacation spent]--Hours were thrown away upon
laces, silks, and ribbons, idle gossip, parties of amusement,
the dance, theatre, &c." A few weeks in New York induced

Gertrude to drop out of school and ultimately to pursue "her
87
foolish desires" for the rest of her life. On the farm,

Nina was present at the death of their brother Arthur, who
was sent to the country in hopes he might recover from an
illness. In the country, Nina encountered men and shared
intimate domestic experiences with them. In the country,
there was no separation of men and women. This may explain
why the countryside was such an evocative symbol in the
romances of village writers.

Young ladies were particularly susceptible to being led
astray because they had spare time on their hands. They had
opportunity to investigate and to experiment. In 1843, the
Western Statesmen criticized ”Idle Daughters" in an article

88
which objected to leisure time and indulgent parents. The
article deferred in judgment to one Mrs. Ellis:

It is, says Mrs. Ellis, a painful spectacle in families,

whose mother is a drudge, to see daughters elegantly

dressed, reclining at their ease, with their drawing,
their music, their fancy work, and their reading;
beguiling of the lapse of hours, days and weeks, and

never dreaming of their responsibilities; but as a

necessary consequence of the neglect of duty, growing

weary of their useless lives, and laying hold of every
newly invented stimulant to rouse their drooping
energies, and blaming their fate, when they dare not

blame their God, for having placed them where they
are.89

This image is not altogether undeserved. Young ladies in the

village were expected to assist at home, to perform such

227

duties as sewing their own wardrobes. They had time for
school and they took additional time for themselves. Laura
Mason took time out to visit friends, to garden, write, sing,
and read one book after another. Young ladies did experience
leisure time in the 18403, especially if mothers and fathers
were willing to take on extra duties at the risk of becoming
drudge-like for the sake of their children.

Women, though more pessimistic than men, were more
realistic. In the family, there were no panaceas. The
family was always under threat of impoverishment or
dissolution. Its members were continually exposed to
alarming influences. Village women consequently felt a
special attraction toWard realism when it began to appear in
English and American literature during the 18503. In 1857, a
member of the local literary community praised literary
realism in a review of Charles Dickens's Little Dorrit for
the Democratic Expounder. The critic admired Dickens a great
deal, especially his ability at "characterizing" and
"description."90 Characters and settings were fascinating
because they appeared "real" or "drawn to the life."91
Characters were more subtle, more ambiguous, not black and
white. Good and evil were less distinct. The Marshall
critic observed, "If it were possible to write a novel with
neither hero nor heroine, we should say that this story
furnishes an example."92 This critic praised Dickens for

turning his back on a classical tradition. Heroes and

heroines were no longer in vogue. The honest portrayal of

228

individuals had come into style.

Marshall writers paid English writers the compliment of
imitation. Marshall romances became realistic about the
middle of the decade. During the first years after 1851,
characters had been abstractions, symbols. Myra was not a
real but an ideal child. When mothers appeared as characters
in these stories, they appeared as they were supposed to
look, as they were expected to look by the community, not as
they actually were. Gradually, however, Marshall women began
to write about actual people and situations. Lenore, popular
in 1855 and 1856, was not only a realist but a humorist. In
the story, "Incidents Connected with Life in the West,"
Lenore described a preacher and the spirit of revivalism he
engendered in a community while visiting it.93 The drama did
not center on saving souls, fighting intemperance, or
striving for worldly perfection; rather, the clergyman
struggled with an old woman who insisted upon filling him
with cups of "pepper tea."94 The clergyman was perplexed by
two factions in the community which insisted upon
interpreting his sermons in diametrically opposing ways. The
preacher was also vexed by the moral dilemma of rats in a
poor family's cottage where he found temporary quarters. If
he shooed rats from his room at night, he sent them into
someone else's sleeping quarters, someone more humble than
he.95 In another short story, "My Brother's Wife," Lenore

wrote of Nellie who "was fond of a joke, and when an

opportunity presented itself she could hardly withstand the

229

96
temptation to tease." The surrender of this character to

temptation did not lead to her moral destruction and that of
her family; it led to humerous moments with a man in church
and with a duck waiting to be plucked. Lawrie, in another
short story called "An Hour with a Coquette," questioned the
hallowed sancticity of beauty. She employed the metaphor of
a rose: _"It opened with the morning, and perfection had
tinted its petals. I raised it to my lips, and oh! an ugly
worm lay coiled in its very heart."9‘7 In a real world, there
was no such thing as perfection. Mrs. N. H. Pierce [probably
a pen name] wrote a story in 1858 in which she attacked women
who possessed inflexible standards. A teacher refused to
bend rules and locked a child out of the school house in
winter because he was late to class, and the child died as a
result of exposure. The author found such uncompromising
consistency on the part of the teacher "abominable."98
Marshall women became more honest in their characterizations,
and universal truths gave way to a growing relativism.

In literature and in architecture, Marshall villagers
turned abroad during the 18503 for ideas and styles.
Historian David D. Hall observes that American intellectuals
turned toward England during the two decades roughly between
1845 and 1865, and he calls this phenomenon "The Victorian
Connection."99 Scholar Steven Mintz also argues that
Americans became Victorian at this time because of t3:

development of ”a transatlantic system of values.”

Whether or not Marshall villagers became Victorian during the

 

230

18503 is a subjective question. They did share tastes in
fashion, architectural style, art, and literary culture with
Europeans. A Victorian connection did exist.

The Year 1857 _33132-3megrtant... one _ £9: Younger- ._-Y'.'~' iters

 

in Marshall. Both the Marshall Ladies' Institute and the

Union School established literary journals which published
poetry anderOSe by students. The Oak Leaf, printed by the
Institute, ”received favorable reviews in the local press and
in such faraway publications as the Chicago Journal.101
These students also discussed the changing role of
adolescence. One writer in The Oak Leaf observed that the
existence of good private schools and journals signfied a
change in the homelife of young ladies: "Domestic arts no
longer usurpI her whole time and attention, to the utter
starvation of her mind."102 Young women now had time to
"retire to some lonely spot" to reflect and compose.103
Students writing in the Marshall Union School Journal also
noted new Opportunities for young people, calling such years
”those golden hours," and observed, "Our parents, when they
were young, did not have the advantages that we now
enjoy."104

The young people who wrote for these journals were

‘_M~—-m
13,—H -—-~

 

w--

influenced by the new realism. Fewer wrote in the heroic
style evident inThe Athenaeum a decade earlier. In February
1858’,” ”AT'H’.’ ”published an article in The Osk Leaf entitled
"The Experience of a Country School Teacher.” At eighteen

years of age, the author had acquired a job as a teacher and

231

"repaired to the little Eden that I had pictured to
myself."105 Appearances were deceiving, however, for "Eve
could .not have been more astonished at the change she had
experienced when she was banished from Paradise."106 She
roomed and boarded round with school families and sometimes,
in cramped quarters, found herself in bed with several
children, compelling her on one occasion to sleep in a
107 108
chair. She was given bad victuals. Among her real-
life experiences, she encountered a Board of Inspectors who
”presented me with a certificate without knowing any more of
my qualifications for teaching than the man in the moon."109
A. H.'s description of a young teacher's experiences was
honest, not idealized.‘ She was a realist.

If women did not invent sentimentalism in the early part
of the nineteenth century, they did give it a more sober cast
in the 18503. They made it more realistic. They noted the
worm in the rose and the error in the rule book. At the same
time, their careers as sentimentalists marked a change in
their own lives. By the 18503, the market and community
seemed a less forbidding place for women. They were no
longer excluded from the business district and its commerce
and discourse. Men, as we will see, made real efforts to
reform themselves and to improve homelife, to become more
domestic. As a result, women became more confident. As
human effort provided them with opportunities and status,

they became more confident in personal effort as their

husbands had become a generation before. Realism was the

232

voice of a tempered confidence and a muted pessimism. It was
less sanguine than republican or heroic sentimentalism and
consequently more appealing to Marshall women.

Dating. *7"? “1.9393 and. mueh._-o£-,..then.1m.05..--emen. 6109.-....99'09."
viewed their spheres asImutuallymdistinct.I Women stayed out
of business and other public concerns, while men deferred in
matters of parental responsibility to their wives, admitting
their superior virtue. By the 18503, these spheres had
changed. Women entered commercial and literary markets. Men
spent more time at home. The seeds of this change lay in
the character of adolescence during the 18303 and 18403.
Young ladies were taught to read, write, and to think. Laura
Mason observed a rainbow and mused in her journal: "I saw a
beautiful rainbow this evening, it was small but very
brilliant. I wonder if there were any rainbows, before the
flood; there must have been the same, [natural] causes
produce them."110 Rainbows were produced by natural causes
which existed before the flood, while Scripture taught that
God created the rainbow after the flood. Laura preferred
scientific opinion. Her intellect was not intimidated by
authority. Laura and other young women and men of her
generation had time to investigate and to ask questions.
Boys and young men spent most of their time in a domestic
environment under the influence of their mothers. When Mrs.
Mason became ill in i338, it was David, not Laura, who was

”obliged to cook.” As a son and brother, he was not

spared domestic responsibility. He performed domestic duties

233

even if his father was occupied elsewhere. It was young
people such as these, the product of education and republican
ideology, who came of age in the 18503 and assumed more

androgynous roles than their parents.

234

End Notes
LITERARY CULTURE

1
Laura Mason, Journal, August 12, 1838, M. H. S. C.
2
”Education of Young Ladies," Journal of Education,
2(February 1840):94.
3
All were members of the upper decile of taypayers in
the first surviving tax list, for 1844.
4
”Mechanics' Association," Western Statesman,
December 31, 1840, p. 3, col. 2. "Calhoun County Total
Abstinence Society,” Democratic Ex ounder, January 29, 1841,
p. 3, col. 2. "Marshall Haromic Society," Democratic
Expounder, December 9, 1841, p. 3, col. 2.
5
Balch, "Address,” Democratic Ex ounder, April 1,
1858, p. 2, col. 2.
6
Horatio Hickok, "Address, Delivered before the
Calhoun County Agricultural and Horticultural Society,"
Journal of Education 2(October 1839): 57.
7
Hays, ”Young Men,” Journal of Education 1(November
1838): 70.
8
John D. Pierce, "Events in History in Connection
with the Productions and Periods of the Prophet Daniel,"
Western Statesman, March 23, 1843, p. 2, col. S-p. 3,
col. 6.
9
Cato, "To the Friends of Temperance," Democrstic
Ex ounder, February 19, 1841, p. 2, cols. 6-7; Junius,
"Temperance,” Democratic Ex ounder, March 10, 1842,
p. 3, cols. 3-4; Civis, "Boston Schools,” Western Statesman,
August 3, 1843, p. 2, col. 5.
10
Unus Parvus, M. D., "The Late Sickness, Marshes and
Mill-Ponds," Western Statesman, November 21, 1839, p. 3,
col. 1.
11
Hays, ”Young Men," Journal of Education
1(November 1838): 70
12
Loomis, "An Essay,” Marshall Statesman, March

235

2, 1843, p. 2, col. 1.
13

John D. Pierce, "Journal of Education," Journal
of Education 1(June 1838): 25.
14
Hays, "Young Men,” Journal of Education,
1(November 1838): 70.
15
Ibid.
16
Ibid.
17
Pierce, "Journal of Education," Journal of
Education, 1(June 1838): 25.
18
John D. Pierce, ”Origins and Progress of the
Michigan School System,” p. 39.
19
Epstein, The Politics of Domesticit , p. 49.
20
Ibid.
21
John D. Pierce, "Periods of the Prophet Daniel,"
Western Statesman, March 23, 1843, p. 1, col. 5-p. 2,
col. 6; W. A. Bronson, ”The Prophetic Periods. A Review of
Mr. Pierce's Lecture," Western Statesman, May 18, 1843,
p. 1, cols. 1-4; Evangelicus, ”Is the World to be Burned?”
Ibid., p. 2, cols. 1-2.

22

Pierce, ”Periods of the Prophet Daniel," p. 2, col. 2.
23

Epstein, The Politics of Domesticit , p. 8.
24

Ann Douglas, The Feminization of American Culture,
(New York: Avon Books, 1978), pp. 12-13.
25
Ibid., p. 72.
26
Samuel Buel, Address, Delivered on the Ocassion
of the Opening of the Marshall Cemetery (Marshall:
H. C. Bunce, 1839), p. 12.
27
"Constitution of the Marshall Society of
Washingtonians," Qemocsatic Expounder, February 10, 1841,
p. 2, col. 7.
28
Rev. J. V. Watson, ”Address on the Moral Tendencies
of Sabbath Schools," Western Statesman, July 13, 1843,
p. 1, col. 3.
29
Ibid., col. 3.
30
Williams, History of Oliyst Colle e, p. 162.

 

236

31
Ibid., p. 145.
32
Ibid., p. 162.
33
Ibid.
34
Unus Parvus, M. D. "The Late Sickness, Marshes and
Mill-Ponds," Western Statesman, November 21, 1839, p. 3,
col. 1.
35
Whig, "County Address," Western Statesman,
August 29, 1842, p. 2, col. 4.
36

Hays, ”Young Men,” Journal of Education
1(November 1838): 70.
37
John D. Pierce, ”The Present Condition and Future
Prospect of Michigan," Journal of Education 1(December
1838): 76.
38
Ibid.
39
Parvus, "The Late Sickness,” Western Statesman,
November 21, 1839, p. 3, col. 1.
40
Ibid.
41
Ibid.
42
Ibid.
43
Whig, ”County Address,” Western Statesman, August
29, 1842, p. 2, col. 4.
44
Buel, Address on the Opening_9f Marshall Cemetery,
p. 10.
45
"Benefits of Association," Marshall Statesman,
March 5, 1840, p. 3, col. 1.
46
Whig, "County Address,” Western Statesman, August
29, 1842, p. 2, col. 4.
47
Isaac Loomis, "An Essay Read before the Marshall
Mechanics' Association,” Western Statesman, February 18,
1843, p. 2, col. 1.
48
Democratic Ex ounder, April 19, 1841, p. 3,

237

51
Ibid.
52
Ibid.
53
Ibid.
54
"Farewell," Western Statesman, January 20, 1842,
p. 1, col.1.
55

Ibid.
56
Ibid.
57
Ibid.
58
Western Statesman, May 25, 1843, p. 2, col. 5.
59
Western Statesman, February 24, 1842, p. 2,
col. 3.
60
”Woman's Sphere," The Athenaeum 7, 1851, [Copy
Book], Albion College Archives, Albion, Michigan.
61
Ibid.
62
Ibid.
63
Ibid.
64
Eva Elwood, ”The Wife's Devotion," Marshall
Statesman, February 1, 1854, p. 1, col. 5.
65
Ibid.
66
Ibid.
67
H. ”To Lena,” Democratic Ex ounder, January 21,
1858, p. col. 6.

68
Ibid.
69
Ibid.
70
"Lena," Democratic Expounder, March 17, 1859, p. 2,
col. 3.
71

Eva Elwood, "The Wife's Devotion,” Marshall
Statesman, February 1, 1854, p. 1, col. 5.
72
Florence Mayfield, "Trust Not to Appearances,"
Marshall Statesman, February 18, 1852, p. 4, col. 1.
73
Eva Elwood, "The Harp of Memory, or Woman's
Faithfulness,” Marshall Statesman, p. 1, col. 3.

238

74
Florence Mayfield, ”The Neglected Wife,"
Marshall Statesman, June 16, 1852, p. 1, cols. 3-5.
75
Ibid., col. 3.
76
Mayfield, ”The Neglected Wife,” Marshall Statesman,
June 16, 1852, p. 1, col. 3.
77
Florece Mayfield, "Jenny Scott, or, Clouds and
Sunshine," Marshall Statesman, March 17, 1852, p. 3,
col. 3.
78
Lydia Kingsbury, "A Scrap of Life's Page," Marshall
Statesman, May 5, 1852, p. 1, col. 4.
79
Florence Mayfield, "The Broken Promise," Marshall
Statesman, June 22, 1853, p. 1, col. 4.
80
Mayfield, "The Neglected Wife," Marshall Statesman,
June 16, 1852, p. 1, col. 4.
81
Ibid.

 

 

82 ~

"Oh for the Good Old Days,” The Athenaeum, 1849,

[Copy Book], Albion College Archives, Albion, Michigan.
83

Ibid.
84
Florence Mayfield, ”The vacation; or, The Sister's
Choice," Marshall Statesman, July 14, 1852, p. 1, col 4.-p. 2,
col. 1.
85
Ibid., p. 1, col. 4.
86
Ibid., p. 1, col. 6-p. 2., col. 1.
87
Ibid., p. 1, col. 6.
88
”Idle Daughters,” Western Statesman, March 2, 1843,
p. 2, col. 3.
89
”Little Dorritt, and its Author," Democratic
Expounder, August 27, 1857, p. 1, cols. 1-2.
90

Ibid., col. 1.
91

Ibid., col. 2.
92

Ibid., col. 1.

93
Lenore, "Incidents Connected with Life in the West,"

Magshsll Ststesman, May 16, 1855, p. 1, cols. 3-4.

239

94

Ibid., col 3.
95

Ibid., col 4.

96Lenore, "My Brother's Wife," Marshall Statesman,
March 26, 1856, p. 4, col. 1.
97
Lawrie, ""An Hour with a Coquette," Marshall
Statesman, March 18, 1857, p. 1, col. 4.
98
Mrs. N. H. Pierce, "A Mother's Experience in Schools,"
Marshall Statesman, June 16, 1858, p. 1, col. 4.
99
David D. Hall, "The Victorian Connection," in ,
Victorian Amsrics (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania ./
Press, 1976), pp. 81-94.
100
Mintz, A Prison of Ex ectations, p. 8.
101
”Opinions of the Press," The Oak Leaf 2(February
1858): 5.
102
”Are We the Editors?” The Oak Leaf, 2(July 1858):
12. . “—"—__———-
103
Thetta, "One Pleasant Afternoon," The Oak Leaf
2(July 1858): 14.
104
”Memories of the Past," Marshall Union School
Journal 1(August 1857): 3.
105
A. H., "The Experience of a Country School Teacher,”
The Oak Leaf 2(February 1858): 1.
106
Ibid.
107
Ibid.
108
Ibid.
109
Ibid.
110
Laura Mason, Journal, July 10, 1838, M. H. S. C.
111
Ibid., July 18, 1838.

POLITICAL CULTURE

Marshall was founded during the presidential

administration of Andrew Jackson and was settled during the
1

period of America's second party system. Politics, like

education, art, and trade, was a major interest of
villagers. Politics was closely bound up with education,
art, and trade. Marshall, like Calhoun County, was generally

Democratic through the 18403. The Whig Party disintegrated

-- .-.
‘ ~ m «- _...,‘.——- —--"

following' the preSIdential election of 1852, yet by mid-
decade, a fusion party made up of old Whigs, Know Nothings,
and other groups controlled the Common Council, and by 1856,
Republicans outpulled Democrats in the village and; county.
This occurred because Whigs were so adept] at exploiting
education, the arts, and other ostensibly apolitical
institutions and activities in the village, including
churches. "“193_191!§f§9311{m§? elsewhere, lost theIstruggle

—_,_.__-1

to control their government while winning the contest to
__- ............... 1._“12. “llwfl_m_, ..
shape their culture.

This chapter investigates politics in Marshall by
examining the most strenuously debated issue in the village,
temperanoe: Marshall was not unique, for according to

historian Richard Jensen, ”the prohibition question was the

paramount state or local issue, year in and year out,

240

241

3
throughout most of the Midwest." Jensen alludes to the

18803, but the characterization is also true for earlier

decades. Marshall experienced two tempszsncs_9F9§9§?$_991199

 

Table 10

CALHOUN COUNTY VOTE RETURNS IN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS

Year Democrats Whigs Republicans Others
1840 50.3% 49.7%

1844 49.1 43.7 7.2*
1848 42.7 36.0 21.3**
1852 45.0 44.1 10.9**
1856 37.3 60.6 2.1***
1860 37.1 61.7 1.2****

*Liberty Party

**Free Soil Party

***Prohibition Party

****Southern Democrat and Constitutional Union Parties

 

its 28 years as a village, one during the early 18403Iand the
other a decade later. The two were different in character.
In the first, crusaders emphasized voluntarism, avoided
issues A of religion and politics, and identified
philosophically with the Democratic Party. In the second,
temperance advocates called for government enforcement of
temperance. Allied with Whigs, they became successful
because they worked through churches, schools, and the media,
and they made the popular issue of the family central to
their crusade.

The Marshall Temperance Society, the first temperance

242

group in Marshall, was organized in 1839 with Jabez Fitch as

_HEFA "“M..
f"

its first president. Clegysland, who, had lectured_ on
temperancem extensively Iwhile ,10 Detroit, was an .active
member. The society was bound closely to the Presbyterian
Church and advocated total abstinence from alcohol, insisting
that church and government play a more active role in
achieving temperance.6 Their efforts bore fruit, for on July
7, 1840, William McCall introduced a resolution in the
village Common Council to prevent the sale of hard liquor and
wines in the village by the glass.7 The resolution passed,
and patrons of Marshall's hotels and grocery stores then had
to content themselves with beer and hard cider.

The Temperance Society was allied closely with local
churches and with them proclaimed that temperance and
religion were inseparable issues. Reverend Oliver Cromwell
Comstock, minister of the Marshall Baptist Church and
President of the Michigan State Temperance Society, insisted
the drunkard ”is not to be taught that he can break off his
inveterate habit of intoxication, conquer his corrupt
appetite, defeat all his foes external and internal, without
the friendship of God and man."8 Comstock described the
activity of local clergy in the cause:

Learned and devout ministers often made the horrors

of drunkenness the theme of their sermons. They

marshalled the withering curses of Almighty God, along

the crooked and polluted path of the drunkard. They
pronounced the fearful woes of Jehovah upon him.9

Comstock called upon temperance advocates to enter the field

of education, arguing, "It is all important that children be

243

early and sedulously instructed, by the tuition and
discipline of parents and preceptors, to shun the danger, and
to revolt at the physical suffering, mental agony, and awful
death of the drunkard."10

Temperance Society people were evangelical. Like
Comstock, they believed that temperance was essentially a
religious matter. They came from Presbyterian, Baptist, and
Methodist Churches, each evangelical, each denomination
attempting to convert the entire nation to its particular
creed. Those churches believed that society,I like the
individual, should be redeemed, and by the early 18403, they
identified schools as important instruments in the crusade
for redemptidn.l Sabbath schools, in particular, provided an
opportunity for evangelicals to testify to children. In early
1840, the Marshall Methodist Church established a Sabbath
School Temperance Society which sought to ”Deeply imbue the

minds of the rising generation with temperance principles,

and the victory is gained, for the generation following will
11
be temperate." The local Whig press highlighted the

Temperance Society, reporting an incident involving students
from the Sabbath school:

A few weeks after the formation of this Sabbath school
temperance society, two of the scholars who had signed
‘the pledge,‘ went, in company with a number of others,
on a sleighing pleasure party. The company called at a
tavern in a neighboring village to take tea; while
there, and before the refreshments had been prepared,
the wine cup was passed around, and by the gentleman
who waited upon the company, it was handed to William
and Mary, the two Sabbath school scholars. At first
they modestly refused, ‘No thank you,‘ he insisted,

‘it will do you good, being exposed to the cold,‘ and
presented the cup again. Then with a degree of

244

firmness, which would have reflected honor upon their

superiors in age, they replied, ‘No sir, we belong to

the temperance society.'12
Sabbath schools were not child nurseries. They enrolled
children of all ages and were sometimes successful in their
campaign to produce a temperate younger generation. William
and Mary [last names unknown] refused to comply with the
custom of social drinking, a custom which existed even among
teenagers.

At about the same time William, Mary, and others were
participating in sleigh rides and pleasure parties, a
significant event occurred in Marshall on March 3, 1840 at
the Court House. The community took part in a mass
temperance rally, the first of several held in the village
that year. (We do not know what role the Temperance Society
played in this rally, but it was undoubtedly the sponsor. The
Society anticipated endorsement of its program but ran into
opposition. The majority considered such "modern temperance
methods as too violent and proscriptive.”13 The Statesman
reported on the rally and its wide spectrum of opinion:

A mass meeting of the citizens of this village, was

held at the Court House, on Tuesday evening last, for

the purpose of discussing the subject of temperance.

As might have been expected, the meeting was composed

of men entertaining a great variety of sentiments on the

measures proper to be adopted.14
A compromise of sorts emerged in four resolutions. The
Society succeeded in two of its objectives. The rally
endorsed total abstinence and sngported the use of the excise

to discourage liquor traffic. Those who considered the

means of the Society too violent also succeeded in two

245

resolutions. They won support for "moral suasion," not
16
"force" in the campaign to achieve a temperate citizenry.

They also called upon vendors of spirits "VOLUNTARILY TO
ABANDON THE BUSINESS."17 The evangelical position was not
popular in the village in 1840. The majority of the
community, as we will observe, sought to achieve temperance
through voluntary means.

The temperance debate was not without political
overtones. The Whig press printed favorable Iinformation
about th9. Society, Iwhile the Democratic paper Iabused- it.
Historian Ronald P. Formisano, in his study of political
culture in south-central Michigan, observes that evangelicals

tended to be Whigs while Democrats were likely to be non-
evangelicals. Daniel Walker Howe, in his recent

examination of Whig political culture, suggests that
evangelicalsII were Whigs "at prayer."19 Jabez Fitch,
president of the Marshall Temperance Society, was IWhig
candidate for governorIin 184220 Fitch's religious zeal was
such that he donated most of the funds to build the Marshall
Presbyterian church.21 The Whig Statesman praised young
temperance cadets such as William and Mary, while
correspondents in the Democrat's Expounder were critical.
One correspondent to that paper criticized the Society,
signing himself as Cato, who had been a savior of the Roman
republic. Cato insisted that men had the right to exercise
”choice."22 He declared: "That spirit of liberty which is

in every human breast instinctively rebels against all

246
23
dictation as to what a man shall sell or use." The central
issue dividing Temperance Society Whigs from their detractors
was voluntarism. Whigs were willing to use church, state,
and schools to achieve their ends. They tended to intimidate
their opponents, as did the clergymen described by Rev.
Comstock who violently berated drunkards from the pulpit,
attempting to frighten them into reform.

Temperance people did achieve victories on the political
level. They convinced the Common Council to prohibit the
sale of distilled spirits and wine by the glass, so William
and Mary need have no fear of gentlemen innkeepers in
Marshall, for it was illegal to sell cups of wine. A number
of Whigs may have shared a basic ambivalence regarding
distilled and fermented liquor. They may have been willing
to prohibit one but not the other. Whigs in the village and
county did, after all, conduct a ”hard cider" campaign for
William Harrison later that year.24

Democrats may have been less ambivalent about total
abstinence than Whigs. The majority of villagers were
Protestant and evangelical. One historian observes how
virtually allMichigan Presbyterians and Congregationalists
were [of the New School persuasion.25 Until 1841, both
denominations worshiped together in Marshall under the Plan
of Union. The Reverend Mr. Pierce disagreed strenuously with
New Schoolers about the social gospel. Pierce described

himself as "orthodox" and ”evangelical" and opposed such

religious ultraisms as anti-Masonry, temperance, and

247
26
Adventism. He led local Congregationalists out of the
Presbyterian Church in 1841. Evangelicals joined .both
parties. Political divisioanccurred in Marshall not only

between evangelicals and non-evangelicals; it was also

,—~""

between ‘evangelicals who embraced voluntarism and those who
did not. Within a context of voluntarism, many Democrats were
more- active proponents of total abstinence than were Whigs.
They opposed the consumption of alcohol in any form, but they
also opposed government and church coercion. In 1840, they
merely lacked an organization which could express their
views.

Such an organization appeared in Marshall in 1841. The
Society of Washingtonians formed in Baltimore, Maryland in
1840 when a group of drinkers instituted a self-help and
mutual support program which avoided religious and political
issues.27 Washingtonians enjoyed .SFRSme popularity IIin
Marshall. In 1842, the Expounder described that popularity:
"OvefMMTWO HUNDRED NAMES were added to the Temperance Roll--
already 12 or 15 feet in length, and numbering between 700
and 800 names to the Marshall Society alone!"28 This figure
is remarkable. for a community of about fifteen hundred
residents and undoubtedly included farmers and some women.
The constitution of the Marshall Society of Washingtonians
included ”All men, women, and youth."29 Even if its
membership included these groups, it appears that the great
majority of housesholds in the village and vicinity were

represented. In the spring of 1842, with some justification,

248

one local resident called the effort at reform by the group,
30
"the most successful ever made.”

Marshall Washingtonianism was based on principles of

31
voluntarism. It counseled "self-reformation." . The

movement claimed to reform men, not through force, but by
32

"charity, kindness, and brotherly love.” Members

encouraged one another to become sober and remain sober.

Washingtonianism was successful, in part, because of popular

faith in associations. The popularity of associations with

their programs of self-help was at its peak. Local

Washingtonians levied no fines or fees, thus denying
33

membership to none. Washingtonianism made as severe demands

upon its members as did the Temperance Society. In their
pledge, members promised

to abstain from the use of all intoxicating drinks

as a beverage, and that we will not, in any manner,

countenance the use of it, in our families, or in

society, either by vending it, or offering it to
our friends, or to persons in our employ.34
Individuals who violated their pledge would be visited by
sympathetic members after the first violation and expelled
35
after the second.

Washingtonians were adept at combining popular features
in their program. They were a self-help society at the
height of the associational movement. Their programs were
highly entertaining, employing parades, rallies, orations,
music, and personal confessions. They employed popular,
patriotic rhetoric, promising to rid Marshall of "King

36
Alcohol.” The first concert at which the Marshall Band

249
37

played was a county-wide "temperance celebration" in 1842.

Personal confessions were undoubtedly the most popular
feature of the program. The Demogsatic Expounder printed
several. Confessors shared intimate details with the entire
community. William Hall's confession was repeated by popular
demand. Hall was a native of New York where he remained
until his move to Michigan after his marriage. The reformed
drunkard informed his audience that, "When I was ten years

old my father wanted me to go and live with a neighbor who he

38
said would make a lawyer of me." For a while, the young
William complied with his father's wishes. Eventually, he
returned home, refusing to go back to his master. After an

argument with his father, Hall left home in Cayuga County and
went from "place to place" obtaining work.39. He was typical
of the young men in Marshall at the time who had left home
and abandoned traditional means of making a living. Hall
found himself in bad company, for they encouraged him to
drink. He married, reformed himself for a while, and then
fell into bad company again on a business trip. Hall and his
acquaintances got drunk and he leaped through a window into a
woman's estate room on a river steam boat. Her "screams"
alerted the captain, and Hall and his friends were put off
the boat.40 Mrs. Hall, who was a member of a temperance
society in New York, threatened to leave her husband unless
he reformed, and he did for a while, taking the pledge the
first time.41 This society was undoubtedly a church-related

group like that in Marshall. The couple moved to Michigan and

250

a number of years passed. Hall needed funds during the
depression and "went to logging" away from home at which
endeavor he again fell under the influence of bad company.42
His wife vehemently disapproved of his behavior when he
returned home, solemnly informing their six year old son in
front of the husband, "Your father has come home drunk."43
Hall continued to drink until he stumbled one night into his
son's sick bed. Then he went to a Washingtonian meeting and
took the pledge a second time.44 His public confession had
all the elements of a sentimental novel, and as a result it
had obvious appeal. Washingtonians were resourceful in making
such appeals.

Washingtonians employed a different approach toward
drunkards than from that used by men and women in the
Temperance Society. As already noted, Society people berated
them, frightening them with the spectre of ruin, death, and
damnation. J. Randolf of Marshall described the approach of
Washingtonians: "It is the principle of this society ”to
assist the inebriate in his efforts to reform, and to
encourage him in his praiseworthy object.”45 Randolf
insisted that the secret of the movement was "kindness,"
claiming, ”the old societies fell into a sad mistake on this

46
subject." If the Whigs had been sympathetic toward the

Temperance Society, Democrats . were” drawn toward
Washingtonians who received much of its publicity in the
Democratic press. The Expounder provided Washingtonians with:

as much space as the Statesman provided the Society. The‘

 

251

Whig Statesman did not acknowledge the existence of
washingtonians until the spring of 1842, a year after they
organized in the village.47 washingtonians were
philosophically allied with Democrats. Both emphasized
individual, moral autonomy. Jeremiah Balch was typical when
he entered the Marshall Washingtonians, ”espousing the
Democracy of the old Jackson type."48 Personal liberty was a
keystone of their program.

The emergence of two contemporary campaigns in the
village against intemperance leads us to speculate just how
serious a problem intemperance was in Marshall. Many in the
village were temperate drinkers. The Reverend Mr. Comstock

condemned such habits, insisting, "Temperate drinking is an

evil most deplorable," for it ”essentially supports the

49
liquor business.” Most liquor in Marshall was consumed in
moderation. The Western Statesman conceded as much in 1840

when it reported, "The general temperate habits of our
50
citizens are acknowledged." Severe intemperance was less
common but more visible. Sometimes the spectacle of
drunkenness in the village was outrageous, as an 1844 news
account reported:
Our village was disgraced by a most shameful riot on
last Sabbath. It being Christmas, twenty or thirty
Rail Road hands assembled at a grocery, misnamed a
tavern and warmed their souls, on the birthday of the
Prince of Peace, into all the fury of war.51
Young men were getting drunk at the local grocers. Even
before this incident, the Common Council grew exasperated

enough to prohibit the sale of liquor to "drunks" or to those

252
52
”known in the habit of getting intoxicated." Many in

Marshall drank to such excess as to alarm the villagers.

It is possible to trace alcohol consumption in the
village by investigating the liquor traffic. Extant business
records from the period show that it was substantial. In
1844, for instance, Frink and Butler, drygoods merchants,
made their annual fall purchases in New York, making
acquisitions at S. M. Pike and Company. Their invoice listed
128 gallons of gin, 80 gallons of brandy, 33 gallons of
Madeira wine, and 20 gallons of "Sicily."53 Frink and Bulter
were one of a number of drygoods and grocery businessmen in
Marshall selling liquor by the bottle and jug. They did not
purchase whiskey in New York because it was distilled in
Marshall. M. A. Allen's distillery produced 1,555 gallons of
whiskey in November 1844 which was marketed throughout
Calhoun County.54 Such volumes were cause for concern in the
community.

Marshall Common Council was not silent on the temperance
issue during this period. In the summer of 1842, the Council
placed an "an excise of five dollars” on all vendors.55 A
year later it prohibited the operation of "any Distillery or
Brewery in the limits of the . . . village."56 None of these
measures, not even the demand by the Council that grocers and
hotel owners stop serving drunks, threatened the principle of
voluntarism. The Council insisted that Marshall residents go

about their drinking more respectably, not that they quit
drinking.

253

By 1843, popular interestin Washingtonianism had all
butIvanished. -HThe entire temperance movement had gone into
eclipse. Comstock lamented in 1845 those "who have fallen
away."57 Temperance passions of the early 18403 proved to be
little more than a fad. Formisano observes that the

,—- fi—r—vs’fi‘-

temperance movement of the early 18503 had elements of a
"nationwide 'fad."58 That was true of both movements. They
emerged, enjoyed significant popularity for a few years, then
subsided. A short attention span is characteristic of
popular cultures. Popular ideas and fashions were shared
over a wide area and changed rapidly over time.59 The
popularity of Washingtonianism spread from Baltimore to
Marshall in a few months, and disappeared just as
dramatically.

Public interest between 1843 and 1853 shaped the second
temperance movement: WoezEAQWMISQS, “villagers were lexcited
about predictions [of the _Advent7 by ,William Miller, an
easterner. He insisted that the Second Coming of Christ
would occur between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844. The
Marshall Statesman acquired The Mlggight Cry as part of its
exchange, a Millerite organ from New York. A Marshall
resident reported, ”In the forties or thereabouts, Millerism
troubled the minds of many, and it was prophesized the end of
the world was soon to come."60 In May 1843, Jeremiah Balch,
Jr. died, and his obituary reported: " Recently . . . he
attended the Protracted Meeting in this place, with

intense interest, and evinced a subdued and subtle spirit, in

254
61

no ordinary degree." Young Balch had attended local
revivals which encouraged the excitement that year.
Jeremiah's father may also have been converted, for it was at
that time that he embraced the social gospel and switched
political parties, leaving the party of Andrew Jackson
behind.62

In this air of public excitement, Reverend John Pierce
"was called upon to deliver a series of lectures on the
Prophesies of which he was a great student."63 Pierce
"delivered two lectures” a Iweek for a time," using, the
Marshall Lyceum as a forum, and one of his lectures, "Events
in History in Connection with the Productions and Periods of
Daniel," which [attacked the predictions of Miller, was
printed in the lbcal press.64 This was followed in the paper
by two rebuttals written by local men. Pierce, a Democrat, a
man out of sympathy with the social gospel, led the attachon
the Millerites. Informed by a body of popular literature on
the subject, Pierce insisted that according to prophesies in
the Book of Daniel, the Advent could not occur before 1866.65
His disagreement with Miller was not fundamental. Pierce
embraced fewer of the ultraisms of his time than other
evangelists, but it was possible to be an evangelical without
being a Millerite or a temperance man. Fascination with the
Advent expired with the year, for by March 22, 1844, Miller
was proven wrong.

During the late 18403, interest in Marshall focused on

W
two related issues, schools and the family. It was during

. r," -. -_- h—d‘ ‘W ' ‘I—h—I.

255

this period that Marshall's school districts were
consolidated, creating the ”union school,- and the village
began “to copy the curriculum of local private academie and
institutes.664 It was also during this period that Marshall's
male and. female populations equalized. Families were
established, and the quality of education became an important
issue. The high level of emigration from Marshall to areas
further west also put a strain on the family and created
domestic concern.

Concern for the family can be seen in an important
incident which occurred in the village on January 28, 1847.
Four Kentuckians appeared in Marshall with warrants for the
arrest of a family of Blacks residing in the village,
claiming they had escaped from slavery in Kentucky, which
indeed they had. The Kentuckians, led by Francis Troutman,
attempted to take possession of the Adam Crosswhite family
early in the morning, but neighbors alerted the community,
and about two hundred citizens assembled. The Kentuckians
were arrested for breaking and entering, and the Crosswhites
were provided opportunity to escape.67 Troutman returned to
Kentucky, complained, and the Kentucky legislature accused
the residents of Marshall of being an "abolitionist mob."68

This characterization of Marshall was unwarranted, and
Marshall residents objected strenuously.69 The issue, as far
as they were concerned, was the family. On February 1, the

Marshall Statesman reported, ”On Wednesday morning last our

orderly and peaceful town was thrown into great excitement by

256

an attempt, made by four Slave catchers from Kentucky, to
seize and carry away a family of colored people, whom they
alleged to be slaves."70 According to the account, local
residents were particularly upset by Troutman's "violent
breaking into the house."71 A Marshall resident complained
the Kentuckians had "forced themselves" into a "peaceful
home" in the village.72 During the actual confrontation,
someone pointed out that the youngest of the Crosswhite
children had been born in Marshall and could not be enslaved.
When Troutman agreed to leave the infant behind, his gesture,
which would have split the family, only further incensed the
crowd. Charles T. GOrham, who was later prosecuted for his
attempts to save the Crosswhites, admitted he

could not calmly have looked on and listened while

the old man told his little ones to put on their

garments and prepare to accompany him back to

bondage--when the youngest one, yet a babe, born

in a free state and therefore a free person, had to

left behind by its mother, a stranger, helpless and

homeless, or be carried to a slavery from which the

law had exempted it.73
Gorham was a Democrat at the time, not an abolitionist,
although he would leave the Democratic Party soon after the
incident.74

Temperance again became an important issue in the
village by 1853. The Sons of Temperance organized in
Marshall and lobbied the Statefor enactment of the Maine Law
in Michigan. Maine had a prohibition law which prohibited
the production, sale, or consumption of alcohol. Michigan

legislators yielded to public pressure and authorized a

257

75
referendum on the question in June 1853.

Whig/evangelicals, who supported prohibition, employed the
customary popular exercises, such as rallies, music, and
sermons in their cause, but they also exploited new
opportunities. They seized the issue of the family, and they
took advantage of new, popular literary markets.

Preservation of the family was a central issue in the
temperance movement of the 18503. In May 1853, Reverend S.
W. Hall, Presbyterian, preached a sermon on behalf of the
Maine Law which was printed in the Marshall Statesman, in
which he emphasized the family. He informed his parishioners
that prohibition would make Marshall a ”safer" place "for
husbands and for sons."76 Hall described how the village
would appear following the achievement of general temperance,
with ”--quondum drunkards and paupers being coverted into
good citizens and tax payers . . . returning to their homes
to bless their never so happy wives and children."77
Temperance would create civic and domestic bliss. Three weeks
later the same newspaper printed a short story by Florence
Mayfield titled "The Broken Promise." The heroine is
Frances, who extracted a promise from her fiance that he
would never drink again. Leslie, the fiance, objected
strenuously, but his bride-to-be insisted, binding her
husband-to-be by his word. They married and had children.
In their marriage, Frances discovered ”it remained for the

mother alone to instruct aright the unfolding of that

precious intellect" in her children for Leslie became "so

258

engrossed in business that few hours could be spent at

78
home." During the early 18403 drinkers had been ruffians

on the streets; a decade later thewaere genteel fathers who
hid their drinking even from family members for years.
Leslie eventually accepted a drink at a wedding and renewed
his taste for liquor. As a result, "Late evenings from home
became frequent, a cloudy brow and cold, indifferent, and
sometimes cruel became his manners, and finally the truth
burst upon73er mind in all its reality--her husband was an

inebriate!” Leslie suffered business failures, and his

family moved to a simple cottage. Their son became ill and
80
died, symbolically suffering his father's "disgrace.”

Historian Daniel walker Howe observes that it was Whigs

'1'

who cultivated didactic literature and put it to effective
81 ”'
use.I Hall and Mayfield are cases in point. Mayfield's

short story was thinly disguised propaganda, as the following
passage indicates:
Thus passed a few more months, until the glorious
temperance reform made its way into the hearts of the
people. With what inexpressable gladness the wife
hailed its first approach. She felt assured that upon
the passage of the Maine law hung all her hopes of her
husband being saved from the drunkard's grave.82
The Maine Law was passed. Leslie was saved, and "Frances was
again happy. The promise renewed was never again broken, and
83
Leslie became a co-worker in the glorious reformation."
Mayfield's story, like those of other Marshall authors, was
didactic.

Women played major roles in this _new ,Whig/evangelical

offensive. The [Whig newspaper printed prose by women like

u-r ' ~

259

Mayfield that counseled men on how to vote. By the early
18503, women in Whig families had entered the political
sphere as propagandists. The Whig press in Marshall for
years featured fiction written by local women. Women in
Democratic families played no such role. The Democratic
press printed little prose by women. The few exceptions were
insipid pastoral literary exercises. Historian Nancy A.
Hardesty insists, "Nineteenth-century feminism was deeply

84
rooted in evangelical revivalism." In Marshall, Ithat

feminism was also rooted in Whig political culture. ,Whigs
reached beyond the political arena into areas where their
wives and daughters proved to be valuable assets, areas such
as Sabbath schools, private schools, revivals, literary
markets, and more. Mayfield expressed a strain of
nineteenth-century feminism when she declared rather
melodramatically, "When woman's heart is bleeding, shall
woman's voice be hushed?"85 For Mayfield, that was a purely
rhetorical question. As a Whig, she had a right and a means
to speak.

We might expect that, given the remarkable support of
the Washingtonians and the principle of voluntarism in the
early 18403, Marshall voters would resoundingly repudiate
coercive prohibition in 1853 at the ballot box. They did
not. They voted in favor of_theMaine Law by 80to 20 per
cent.86 Prohibition passed in Calhoun County by a whopping
plurality‘ of" 1,753T81MWThe county reversed itself on this

fundamental issue. The appeal of evangelicals like Hall and

260

Mayfield was significant. Marshall men voted in near
unanimity not to save themselves but their homes. They
invited the state to coerce them in a popular campaign to
save the Marshall and Michigan family.

The Washingtonian and Maine Law movements illustrate the
unifying effect new, popular ideas had upon villagers.
Washingtonians exploited a variety of cultural opportunities
in 1841-1842 and created near consensus on the need for
voluntary temperance in the village for a while. Maine Law
advocates created near consensus in 1853 on the need for
government coercion. The Whig manipulation of the issue of
the family produced this change. Whigs turned toI popular
literature for ideas and issues.” They [manipulated ,new,
popular markets and enjoyed success.

Whig political culture expressed itself through a number
of non-political channels. Whigs worked through religious,
commercial, legal, educational, and literary means.88
Politics was only one of the vehicles by which Whig culture
attempted to influence the community. They Whig Iparty
disintegrated between 1852 équ;85§ in Marshall; however,
Whig political culture outlived the party} Because those
other channels were so “vital, Whig political culture
survived, achieving goals and shaping the culture which
followed. Daniel walker Howe speculates that, while losing
elections, Whigs ”probably contributed more to shaping the
new industrial society of Victorian America" than anything

89
else. They left a greater legacy than Democrats.

261

During the 18503, Democrats retreated from this new
arena. They went on the defensive, responding to appeals of
evangelicals with attacks on the local clergy, condemning
"political parsons" and ”political preaching."90 They
demanded separation of church and state and perpetuated the
separation of men's and women's roles. A decade earlier
Democrats had attacked Whigs for ‘ultraisms,’ but by the
18503 they were engaged in ultraism of their own. Democrats
retreated into political perfectionism, while Whigs explored
new means of achieving their agenda.

The political culture of Marshall was imported from New
York, from the "Burned-over District." Villagers shared a
real sense of regional political identity. We have already

observed the dominance of New York newspapers on Marshall's

exchanges. Martin van Buren and Horace Greeley enjoyed wide
exposure in villageInewspaper311.1Whig editorsin Marshall
lionized Greeley and his ideas. It was to Albany and New
York City that Marshall turned for pdliticalguidance and
inspiration through the 18403, not to washington, D. C.
During the 18503, however, that political region grew larger.

In 1842-1843, the states of the Old Northwest provided 23 per

cent of all copied news on the exchange of the Western

Statesman. Fifteen years later their share increased to 4071Lf

per cent, and Abraham Lincoln's Springfield Republican became
the most copied paper on the Marshall Statesman's exchange.
States and territories further west provided another 11 per

cent of such copy. The west loomed large in the consciousness

262

of villagers because so many of their family members moved
there. The attention of villagers was directed westward at a
time of crisis over the question of slavery in the west.

One could argue that a Whig cultural victory during the
18503 suggests that villagers became more, not less

inhibited. That was not the case. Whigs wereJ cultural

-~—-— -—F-'
p-F“

innovators, while Democrats remained culturally traditional
or conservative. Whigs supported the arts and sciences,
built numerous schools, and welcomed women into the fields of

p.-

literature and politics. [wWhigswwere as Stylish in their
dress“ and in their homes as Democrats. They were also as
worldly. Their relationship with popular culture had an
effect on them; it not only made them successful in
spreading their ideas, it softened them. They preached a
gospel of change and were changed by it. As the fifties
passed, they became fascinated with subtlety and complexity.
They became suspicious of or indifferent to perfection. They

remained supported, however, by a boundless faith in religion

and family, and they exercised new freedom in each.

263

End Notes

POLITICAL CULTURE

1

See: Richard P. McCormick, The Second American
Party System: Party Formation in the Jacksonian Era (Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1966).

2

Daniel Walker Howe, The Political Culture of
American Whigs (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1979), p. 3.

3

Richard Jensen, The Winning of the Midyest:
Social and Political Conflict, 1886-1896 (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1971), p. 70.

 

4
Calhoun County Patriot, January 3, 1840, p.
2, col. 5.
5
Williams, History of Olivet golleqe. p. 145.
6

Democratic Expounder, January 29, 1841, p. 3,
col. 2. ”Temperance Meeting," Marshall Statesman,

March 5, 1840, p. 2, col. 5.
Village Record Book, July 7, 1840, p. 21, City Hall,
Marshall. ""“ “ " “* ‘
e, 3“
Oliver C. Comstock, "Temperance Address," Marshall
Statesman, April 8, 1845, p. 1, col. 5.
9

Ibid., col. 3.
10
Ibid., col. 6.
11
”Sabbath School Temperance Society," western
Statesman, April 22, 1841, p. 2, col. 6.
12
Ibid.
13
”Temperance Meeting,” Western Statesman,
March 5, 1840, p. 2, col. 5.
14
Ibid.

264

 

 

 

15
Ibid.
16
Ibid.
17
Ibid.
18
Ronald P. Formisano, The Birth of Mass Political
Parties: Michigan, 1827-1861 (Princeton: Princeton ./
University Press, 1971), p. 138.
19
Howe, The Political Culture of American Whigs,
p. 18.
20

Michigan Election Retgrns and Canvass, 1835 to
1843, vol. 1, p. 175, Michigan Archives, Lansing, Michigan.
21
Skjelver, Nineteenth Centgry Homes, p. 35.
22
"To the Friends of Temperance," Democratic
Expounder, February 19, 1841, p. 2, col. 6.
23

Ibid.
24
History of Calhoun Cognty, 1830, p. 23
25 3 _
Michigan Pioneer and Historical Collections j‘V/
12(1887): 351. J
26
Ibid; Kuhns, ”The Breakup of the Plan of Union,"
p. 161.
27
Norman H. Clark, Deliver Us from Evil: An
Interpretstion of American Prohipltion (New York: W. W.
Norton & Company, 1976), pp. 32-33.
28
Democratic Expounder, February 24, 1842, p. 3,
col. 1.
29
"Constitution of the Marshall Society of
Washingtonians," Democratic Ex ounder, February 10,
1841, p. 2, col. 7.
30
Junius, "Temperance," Democratic Ex ounder,
March 10, 1842, p. 3, col. 4.
31
”Constitution" Democratic Ex ounder, February
10, 1841, p. 2, col. 7.
32
Ibid.
33
Ibid.
34
Ibid.

265

 

 

35
Ibid.
36
”Marshall Washingtonians," Ibid., p. 3, col. 1.
37
History of Calhoun County. 1830. p. 64.
38

"Marshall washingtonians,” Democratic Expognder,
February 10, 1841, p. 3, col. 1.
39
Ibid.
40
Ibid.
41
Ibid.
42
Ibid.
43
Ibid.
44
Ibid.
45
”Marshall washingtonians," Western Statesman,
February 17, 1842, p. 3, col. 1.
46 '
Ibid.
47
Ibid.
48
"Obituary of J. O. Balch," ulchigan Pioneer
and Historical Collections 2(1878): 263.
49
Comstock, "Temperance Address," Marshall
Statesman, April 8, 1845, p. 1., col 5.
50
”Temperance Meeting," Western Statesman,
March 5, 1840, p. 2, col. 5
51
Marshall Statesman, December 31, 1844, p. ADD
52
Village Record Book, April 19, 1844, p. 105, City
Hall, Marshall.
53
Frink & Butler, Invoice Book, S. M. Pike & Co.,
August 1, 1844, p. 89., M. H. S. C.

54
This information abstracted from Moses A. Allen
Distillery Account Bogk, 1844-1845, M. H, s. c. ~---——-~
55~ueuww-HM~M””‘ ‘c-~-~.Mlme ,_,_..... ~w

Village Record Book, August 13, 1842, p. 67, City
Hall, Marshall.
56
Ibid., p. 83, June 3, 1843.
57
Comstock, ”Temperance Address," Marshall

266

Statesman, April 8, 1845, p. 1, col. 5.
58
Formisano, Birth of Mass Political Parties, p.
119.
59
Glassie, Pattern in the Material Folk Culture,
p. 33.
60
Mrs. Frank A. Kingsbury, "Early Marshall,"
undated, M. H. S. C.
61
Western Statesman, May 25, 1843, p. 2, col. 6.
62
"Obituary," Marshall Pioneer and Historical 3x
Collections 2(1878): 263.
63
Kingsbury, "Early Marshall," M. H. S. C.
64
Rev. John D. Pierce, ”The Prophetic Periods,"
Western Statesman, March 23, 1843, p. 2, col. 5-p. 3,
col. 6.
65
Ibid., p. 3, col. 2.
66
History of Calhggn Copnty. 1830, p. 57. Gardner,
History of Calhoun County, vol. 1, p. 266.
67
”Kentucky Slave Catchers!" Msrshall_§tatesm§n.
February 1, 1847, p. 2, cols. 2-3. '
68
Gardner, Histor of Calhoun Count , vol. 1, p. 55.
For details, see John H. Yzenbaard, "The Crosswhite Case,"
Michigan History 53(Summer 1969): 131-143."“"" “"'
69
”The Slave Trial,” Marshall Statesman, July 18, 1848,
p. 1, col. 3.History of Calhogn Copnty,_l830, p. 24.
70

”Kentucky Slave Catchersi", Marshall Statesman, February
1, 1847, p. 2, col. 2.
71
Ibid.
72
Ibid., July 11, 1848, p. 2, col. 3.
73
Ibid.
74
Portrait and Biographical Album of Calhoun
gggnty, Mlghigsp (Chicago: Chapman Bros., 1891), p. 192.
75
"Maine Law Correspondence," Marshall Statesman,
October 27, 1852, p. 2, col. 5. "Calhoun County," Marshall

Statssman, June 29, 1853, p. 3, col. 1.
76
"S. W. Hall, "A Sermon for the Times," Marshall

267

Statesman, June 1, 1853, p. 4, col. 2.
77
Ibid.
78
Florence Mayfield, ”The Broken Promise," Marshall
Statesman, June 22, 1853, p. 1, col. 4.

 

 

 

 

79
Ibid.
80
Ibid.
81
Howe, Political Cultgre of American Whigs, p. 3.
82
Ibid., col. 4.
83
Ibid., col. 5.
84
Hardesty, Women Callsg to Witness, p. 9.
85

Florence Mayfield, "The Neglected Wife," Marshall
Statesman, June 16, 1852, p. 1, col. 4.

 

86

Marshall Statesman. June 29, 1853, p. 3, col. 1.
87

Ibid.
88

Howe, Political_Culture_of_American_Whigs, p. 3.
89 .

Ibid.
90

Alpha, ”Political Preaching," Democratic
Expounder, June 4, 1857, p. 2, col. 3; ”No More Political
Parsons," Ibid., October 21, 1858, p. 2, col. 4; ”Political
Priests,” Ibid., October 28, 1858, p. 2, col. 4.

CONCLUSION

The village of Marshall was always cosmopolitan. People
from a variety of backgrounds lived there. The village
welcomed immigrants from abroad and from all regions of the
United States. The attention of villagers was frequently
directed outward. Marshall was a county seat and the center
of a county community. Villagers kept track of events in
Detroit, the center of politics and commerce in Michigan.
Marshall residents also had a regional outlook, sharing a
sense of identity with relatives in central and western New
York through the 18403 and in Illinois and Missouri during
the 18503. Marshall residents were nationalistic. They
looked upon themselves as citizens of the republic and took
interest in all regions of the nation. By the 18503, they
looked abroad for fashions, styles, literature, fads, and
ideas. By then and by a complicated route, villagers had
become consumers in a mass market.

The style of culture in Marshall changed during the
village years. During the 18303, taste was influenced by the
Classical Revival. The arts in the village were neo-
classical, based on rational and universal standards, and
simplicity and vivid contrasts were ideals. During the
18503, however, tastes became eclectic. In architecture,

furniture, clothing, photography, and other material ~art

268

269

forms, villagers mixed styles, eschewing uniformity and
consistency. In literature, they became realists,
acknowledging the fact that the world was not only more
complex, but more subtle, ambiguous, and comic than their
parents had imagined.

Changes in culture and the family in Marshall were
related. During the 18303 and 18403, men's and women's roles
or spheres were distinct from one another. Boys and girls,
however, performed similar functions through childhood and
much of their adolescence, occupying the same sphere, sharing
schools and leisure time. When they reached maturity, they
did not accept sex roles as their parents had defined them.
During the 18503, young adults, especially from evangelical
and Whig backgrounds, mixed elements from both spheres. Men
became more domestic and women more worldly. They also
mixed politics, religion, education, and art. A new kind of
childhood and adolescence created a population increasingly
eclectic in its interests and tastes.

The decade of the 18503 was a watershed in Marshall's

cultural development. Styles in the material culture of the

community changed. Information flowed into Marshall from
throughout the world. Educators emphasized excellence in
schooling. Consumers became more fashion-conscious and took

advantage of consumer credit to increase their purchases.
Villagers became consumers of the arts, paying to be
entertained, enjoying the arts for their own sake. Marshall

writers and artists looked abroad for their models, adopting

270

more realistic views about themselves and their world.
Villagers were willing to experiment with roles of all kinds.
There was a new sense of freedom, a new outlook, as
challenging ideas flowed in from everywhere.

This cultural change was arrested briefly during the
Civil War. In a period of crisis, villagers reached back to
more promising and secure values, creating an Indian summer
for the Classical Revival. Following the war, however,
classical restraints dissolved, and villagers renewed contact
with the world. The result was picnics, parasols, bustles,
humorists, French Mansard roofs, and High Victorian
architecture and art.~ This freedom and worldliness was not
new, however; it was a continuation of trends visible in the

18503.

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