The following is an excerpt from “Remember Solon: a Community & Family History of Solon Township Area” compiled by Carol Drzewiecki.
Most farmers during the early settlement of the county were dedicated to their local governments and were intent upon making laws that would benefit their own community.
They felt that local government, being closest to the people, was by far the more important level of government. The ethnocentrism of each struggling community, with a church, school, railroad or store as a focal point, served to bond the people of the outlying areas into one loyal, enlarged village unit. Interest was not confined to the village proper but reached into the surrounding countryside to involve all the governmental policies and general welfare of the community.
An integral part of Solon’s extended community were the veterans who obtained homesteads at the close of the Civil War. Many of the men who came to this part of Michigan had spent most of their lives in Solon, Ohio, the community near Cleveland that was built by migrating New England farmers.
In the spring of 1866 three young friends, Charles Hannaford, Moses C. Cate, and Joe Dickerman, decided to leave their Ohio homes and take up homesteads in Michigan. With a few household possessions, the men and their families boarded a “propellor” at Cleveland, traveled through the waters of the Great Lakes, and finally landed at Glen Haven off Sleeping Bear Bay. At that time there was a rough ox trail cut through the wilderness between Glen Haven and Traverse City.
The three families traveled over this trail, some by ox-cart and some one foot, as far as the Kasson Freeman house where they spent the night. Kasson Freeman was a Michigan surveyor who welcomed travelers and offered free hospitality for as long as they wished to stay.
The following day the three families, after locating their chosen homesteads or “main road” began the tasks of providing shelter for their families and a clearing spot for their gardens. Between the stumps of the trees that were cut to build the first log shelters, the men loosened the rich forest soil and planted the vegetables that would sustain and the families through the first winter. The whole county was dense with forest and there were no open fields, so, following the methods used on other pioneer farms, the men girded the trees during the first summer. The following year sunlight could penetrate through the dead branches to the first floor where crops could be planted.
Many more settlers filtered into the area while it was still a wilderness with only occasional clearing and primitive buildings.
Many Civil War veterans came to Solon, and many moved from Solon, Ohio, when letters reached them telling of the richness of the soil and excellent quality of the timber.
The Hewitts, the Harringtons, the Depews and the Iles were veterans and their families who arrived late in 1866. Two years later John White and James Good brought their families from Solon, Ohio. They were followed in a few weeks by their friends, the Henry Sill family, also from Solon, Ohio. Most of the people who arrived during this period traveled by steamboat as far as Glen Haven, rented ox-carts or walked to the location they had selected for their new home, often carrying all of their possessions on their backs.
Early life in rural Solon was difficult but not unpleasant. Each brought to the community talents and compassion which he gladly shared with his neighbor. With their knowledge of carpentry and masonry, the Lautner brothers were present at each barn-raising or houseraising. Shoes for the children and adults, harnesses, and other leather goods were hand-crafted by Moses Cate.
Mr. Cate was also a homeopathic doctor with herbs and nostrums cared for the sick and injured. Compassionate neighbor women cared for their friends during childbirth, and the entire community joined a family to grieve at a time of death.
Responsibility for the poor and orphaned was considered a part of each man’s obligation to his neighbor, and from the time of the formation of the county in the time of the formation of the county in 1863, a commission was selected to appropriate money for the care of the unfortunate and destitute. Women of the community shared in the production of necessary clothing and bedding.
At quilting “bees” some carded washed wool while other stitches “comforters” by hand. Yarn was spun by the German women who used a different kind of spinning wheel, turned by means of a foot pedal.
Caps, stockings, and mittens were hand-knit from homespun yarn. Most of the farm women made work trousers for the men from heavy grain-bag material. Furniture was made by the men of the family who were skilled in cabinet making, an art considered commonplace in early times in America.
Lifestock was scarce in the early days at Solon not only because of the great cost of each beast, but because of the difficulty of bringing the animal into inland regions.
Most farm wives, however, took pride in the flocks of chickens that scratched in the farmyards.
Extra money for the provisions during the early years was earned by loading lumber and cordwood in Traverse City.
