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Source 286 – David Irwin

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URL: http://www.migenweb.org/kent/townships/byron/Pioneer%20Sketches/irwinD.html
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David Irwin, was born 9 May 1851. He was the earliest settler now living in Byron township. His father came here in 1844, and bought the farm where the stone house is, and where he lived when David, Jr., was born. He helped his father build the stone house.

On this farm the first schoolhouse in Byron township was built. Afterward a new log one was erected on the McKenney’s Corners. His first teacher was Jane Lovejoy, later she married Alonzo Green. David was then only three years old and he remembers how she used to curl his hair, and make a bed on the seats for him.

Lansford Barney, William Fleetwood, Judson and Junius Mc Kenney and Mrs. Lewis Cooper, among others were his school mates.

In his younger days, he built the first regular road, running north and south of Byron Center through the swamps. H. Colwell worked with him on the south road, but the first half mile he built alone.

Mr. Irwin and his brother, Dan, used to go hunting quite a bit for small game, but left the deer hunting to his father who kept the family in venison in the early days.

Mr. Irwin, Sr., fought in the Mexican War in 1847 and enlisted in the Civil War at its beginning, in the 22nd Michigan Cavalry. David, Jr., was then 10 years old.

In 1871, he drove a team from Allegan County to Traverse City through the woods, over what was called the “Old State Road”, but not much more than a cow-path. Wolves and other wild animals were plentiful. This was at the time of the Chicago Fire.

His mother died in 1857, and the following summer, he, with his father and brother, Dan, and sisters, traveled by covered wagon to Kansas, where they settled on a homestead. That year the hot winds killed all the crops and they returned to the old home the following autumn. Part of this trip was made by ox teams. Mrs. William, the sister, took her mother’s place on this trip.

The homestead his father settled on in Kansas was on the old Santa Fe Trail where several covered wagons, drawn by three, and as high as five yoke of oxen passed every day; also many home seekers with cows drawing their wagons loaded with their families and furniture. The trail was a dozen tracks wide in some places with ruts a foot deep. While here Mr. Irwin saw herds of buffalo roaming the plains; his father would hunt buffalo.

David Irwin was married to Mary Burdick in 1890. He bought the old homestead and made many improvements. After he built the new barn, he tore down the old one his father had built sixty-three years ago. At this first barn raising, his father barbecued a large deer.

When David, Jr., rebuilt this barn, he killed a fat sheep and invited the old settlers, some who helped to erect his father’s barn. About 130 were present at this barn raising. Tables were made in the yard: for dinner she served mutton, baked beans, doughnuts, ginger bread, pumpkin pie, rolled jelly cake and corn bread. All had a good time even it if was all work.

He lived on this homestead until 1919, when he moved to Byron Center, in the house originally owned by Samuel Tobey. While yet a young man, he helped Mr. Tobey build this house, and at the request of Mrs. Tobey, set out the chestnut and walnut trees, and put a large elm tree, now standing on the corner of the lot which he wheeled there on a wheelbarrow; Jud Skinner assisting him by holding up the top.

Mr. Irwin loved to hunt, fish and traveled a lot, taking his family with him coast to coast and from Canada to beyond the Mexican border.

Mr. and Mrs. Irwin had no children, but took a great niece of Irwin, Rebecca, who took the place of a daughter and she lived with them. She traveled with them where ever they went. He loved adventures and also climbed Mt. Hood, also rode in an airplane.

Mr. Irwin united wit Halcyon Lodge, No. 244, fifty-three years ago, and is the oldest Odd Fellow in the township.

He took great pride in his gardens. To live well, he said one must have many interests. To live long, we believe an intense interest in all growing things, which is life itself, is necessary. It is not vital to travel far in order to discover the mythical Fountain of Youth; you who have followed the lives of these pioneers, know that many like Mr. Irwin, have discovered it right here in the township of Byron.

Transcriber: ES
Created: 7 April 2014
URL: http://kent.migenweb.net/townships/byron/PioneerSketches/irwinD.html

Source 285 – News Article: Regarding Charles R. Thomas, Adventurer

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Title: Adventurer Reminisces. C.R. Thomas, 91 Monday, Recalls “Lustiest” Era in America
Book/Periodical: Grand Rapids Press
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Date: approximately October 1953
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Repository: Jan Fisher?
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Adventurer Reminisces

A Grand Rapids man who once shared a tent with William F. (Buffalo Bill) Cody when both were Indian scouts in the Dakotas, will be 91 years old Monday.

Charles R. Thomas of 878 Sixtieth St SE, who enjoyed every minute of the “lustiest era in American history” as a circus roustabout, a lumbering man, a railroad worker and a cattle rancher, will be feted with an open house from 2 to 4 pm Sunday at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Martin Hoorn of 883 Sixty-First St. SE.

Thomas, who lives alone and does his own cooking and housework, left his farm home in North Dorr when he was 18 to join a circus. He lived in the life of an adventurer from then on.

Recalls Highlights

Some of his experiences: running logs down the Mississippi river, negotiating with members of the Blackfoot Indian tribe when the Redmen were enthusiastic about going on the warpath, holding in one arm the most famous midget who ever lived and the midget’s wife in the other and carrying them through a milling circus crowd, being wiped out by hoof and mouth disease as a cattleman in Texas and Tennessee.

These were highlights. But brighter memories for Thomas are events which occurred while he was pursuing what was one of the roughest, toughest occupations in the world – lumbering in Michigan and Minnesota in the 1880’s.

Government Estimator

Thomas was a professional lumber estimator for the government and he says he can still tell within a few board feet how much lumber is in any given 80 forest acres. In this capacity he lived six years in northern Minnesota in the woods with another man, closer to Indians than any whites. It was here he rode logs down the Mississippi.

“But the Mississippi log runs were tame, compared with those on the Muskegon river,” says Thomas. He recalls the time he mounted his first log on a Michigan river run – and promptly fell in. It was far from funny, Thomas says, trying to survive in a rushing river full of grinding, bumping logs. But when he dragged himself out, veteran lumbermen just laughed and told him to try a smaller log next time. Small logs, he learned, were far easier to ride than big ones.

It was during his lumbering days in Michigan that Thomas became the friend of a famous rowdy of that brawling era, “Silver Jack” O’Driscoll, who had built an almost legendary reputation for proficiency at gouge-as-gouge-can fist-fighting.

Wasn’t Half Bad

And Thomas wants to do a little something toward sweetening “Silver Jack’s”memory. “He wasn’t half as bad as people thought,” says Thomas. “He was always decent to me.”

Thomas stayed two months with the circus, which he joined in Kalamazoo. It was, of course, P.T. Barnum’s “Greatest Show on Earth”.

One day, when Thomas was standing near the stable tent, watching a huge crowd gather around a circus barker across the way, he felt a tug at his sleeve. It was Mrs. Tom Thumb, wife of “General” Tom Thumb, the midget who was Barnum’s headline attraction for years. The midget’s wife, even smaller than her famous husband, wanted Thomas to carry her and the “General” through the crowds so they wouldn’t be trampled on their way to another tent. Thomas complied, carrying “General” Tom Thumb on one arm and Mrs. Tom Thumb on the other.

“They were cute little rascals,” Thomas recalls.

After leaving the circus, Thomas drove mules for grading work on the now defunct Clover Leaf Railroad between Toledo, Ohio, and St. Louis, Mo.

Then came a stint as Indian scout in northern Minnesota and the Dakotas where the Blackfoot Indians were “feeling their oats in deadly fashion.”

The night he spent with Buffalo Bill, says Thomas, didn’t leave much of an impression. “He was just another scout then,” he says. After enough adventure to fill an ordinary lifetime, Thomas came back to Michigan and immediately entered the lumber trade. He was a lumberjack, a buyer and a transporter, in addition to being an estimator. When the lumbering era began to fade after the turn of the century, Thomas, then married, bought a cattle ranch near East Jordan.

In 1921, when his wife’s health failed, he moved his family to southern United States, where he engaged in cattle-ranching in Tennessee and Texas.

At one time, he says, he had a sizable outfit, but hoof and mouth disease, on one of its periodic rampages, struck down his herd and for the next few years Thomas and his family lived in almost every state in the southwest while he worked at a variety of occupations.

In 1931, the family returned to Grand Rapids where Thomas was employed by a local contractor. He retired for good in 1933.

Thomas’ wife, Iva, died in 1947. He has two daughters besides Mrs. Hoorn. They are Mrs. James St. Arno of Detroit and Mrs. Harry Hine of Cadillac. He has a son, Robert of Detroit, also 11 grandchildren and a great-grandchild.