.�
I •
I drove, an company � ith the Hon.
L. B. D Voignes, the prob te jud e of
the county, r, x nnett Thr her,
a ne paper .riter, and r, Je e W.
ladrey, the latter one of the mo
pro perou colored f rmer in the county,
from C polis in th direction of
Calvin to n hip, e soon n goin
throu h ell-cultivnt d f rm and p t
comfortable-look in f rrn-houses, The
farm , for the mo t p rt, in their en­
eral ppe ranee comp red favorably ith
th av r e farm e av in Michig n.
M ny of the hou ere 1 rge, attr ctive,
nd well built. 'The yards -ere made
beautiful ith ,hrubbery, and fto -
er The b m , tock, poultry, and other
farm attachments ere in keeping ith
every thin el that ea. In our
drive of nearly ten hour, in hich e
covered thirty miles of territory, through
Calvin to n hip nd part of Porter, the
adjoining to n hip, e sa little to indi­
cate that e ere � a egro to n except
the color of the face t the people.
. They � ere up to the aver e of their
white neighbor. There are perhap. fe
township in the South among the agri­
cultural classes that would compare favor­
ably with thi one.
In a few cases it was inter ting to
standing on the me premises the mall
cabin in hich the people began life
years ago, and then to see near it a
modem frame cottage. conta,ining six or
seven rooms. To me it as interesting
and encouraging to note to what an extent
these people "lived at home," that is,
produced what, ' �. Consumed. My visit
took me throug he community during
the harvesting season, and at that time
most of the farmers 'ere engaged in
threshing wheat and oats. On one (arm
we saw a large, modern steam thre her
at work. Around it ere employed some
twenty men. This complicated piece of
mac inery beinl operat d holl b
, or Ui ere! n ,
... 0 ned by a negro by the name of
Henry L Archer.· Mr. Archer not only
threshed grain for the negro farmers in
his township, but for' the white farmers
as well '
In speaking of the extent to which these
people U keep themselves," I want to say
that their home-raised and home-cured'
pork I, Ithout any re ervation, the best
I ever tasted. I as particularly struck with
this when visiting the home of Mr. Allen,
of Porter township, the negro stock-raiser
and stock-trader. " Bill" Allen has as
high standing for probity and shrewdness
among the people in the Chicago stock­
yard as the average white man. His
many well-filled barns and the large num­
ber of valuable horses, cows, pigs, and
sheep he owns were among the most
interesting sights that I saw. '
; William Allen was born in Logan
County, Ohio, but his parents were free
colored people from North Carolina. To
• speak in more detail about Mr. Allen, I
found that he owns seven hundred acres
of land, and that the taxes which he paid
last year in the two townships of Calvin
and Porter amounted to ,191. When I
vi ited his farm, he had fifty head of catt e,
ten horses, three hundred sheep, and
twenty-five hogs. All of his property is
paid for. Mr. Allen is one of the few
men I have heard of as resigning a political
office. He was a Justice of the Peace for
eighteen years, and resigned because it
took too much of his time away from his
Iarm.
lt wa rather remarkable to learn that
Samuel Hawkes, a fine specimen of the
race, pays the largest tax of anyone,
white or black, in the township of Calvin.
His tax this year was '154.36. In, addi­
tion to this, Mr. Hawkes paid over 'SO
B
A HI CTO
'1 C. . C dler
taxes on property which is in his charge
as an drninistrator, He own about five
hundred acres of land, free of encum­
brance. He is highly spoken of by every
one hom I aw, of both race, including .
the coulUy offtcials and the cashier of the
bank at Cusopolis, who aid hi cr dit
was good at that institution. I as told
on good authority that Mr. Hawke is
orth '50,000. He has perhaps learned
the lesson that not a few hite people
have learned-not to give in all of their
property for the purpo e of taxation.
Sam Hawk as born in Not _ly
(Aunt,; I , I 1 . I 1837
moved to Jacklon County, Ohio, and r
mained there until he. came to Calvin in
1853. He is entirely a elf-made man,
beginning ork for himself at the age of
sixteen, cutting cord ood. He had saved
up enough money so that when he came
to Calvin in 1853 he as able to buy the
eighty acres of land on rhich he still
live ,paying for it ,800 in, as he expresses
it, "gold and silver." He then ent back
to Ohio and orked there six year
longer before he came to Calvin to live
permanently on his farm. For the last
quarter of a century. )ff. Hawkes has
devoted him elf to the zeneral manage
ment of his property, loaning money, and
dealing in real estate.
Cornelius Lawson, the Supervisor for
Calvin; is a native of North Carolina,
whose parents' moved to Cass County
after an intermediate residence of some
years in Indiana, He has lived in Cal­
vin since 1853. He was elected a Justice
of the Peace in 1878, and retained the
office until the present year. In 1899 he
was elected Supervisor, and has been re­
elected every year since. Mr. Lawson is a
farmer, and lives about a mile from lI'rhe
Corner "-the official center of Calvin,
He is the first colored man to be elected
to the County Board of Supervisors.
It would be difficult for me to give a
better idea of the industry and prosperity
of these! people than can be obtained from
reading the following extract f.rom a letter
which I received not long after my visit
to Cas County!' The letter is from one of
the most reliable colored men in the county,
and, I ought to add. was written with no
thought that it was to be published :
.... nry L Archer WI. tM great
grand uncle of Denn Archer,
who I. now I olndldat. for
Mayor Of Detroit and form.rIy
.4H'Wd • I Michigan uprem.
Court Juetlo ••
HAU. IN CALVIN, WITH THI't �UP£"VISOR, TOW CLERK, AND TWO OTKa
One que tion th t i often deb ted is
to the ability of the n 0 for If· v­
ernm nt from a political point of vie ,
and I extremely anxiou to t infor­
marion on thi. In Calvin to n hip in
1900 th re . 'ere 759 negroes and 512
\ rhites, I m de dili nt inquiry to a er­
t in if ther a any friction between the
h 0 rae , and could find no evidence
th t there a. J ud e Des Voigne and
other county officer informed me tb t
there ere no reports of cheatin t the
ballot-boxes, nd th t the aft ir of the
town hip ere conducted as ell politic l1y
a any in the county. For some years,
the J u id, it had been the bo of
the negro tax collector of Calvin that
s one of· the first collector to secure
nd p y into the county treasury all of the
to nship taxes. On 'one recent occa ion
it wa aid th t when another to n w.
trying to beat Calvin in thi , and the
Calvin tax-gatherer's report was delayed,
largely through the tardiness of one negro
taxpayer, hose tax � only three dollars,
r ther than have Calvin 10 e it reputation
for promptnes a number of the public­
spirited negroes" chipped in" and paid
the tax of the delinquent.
/
CORNELIUS LAWSON
Su� of the tOWl hip of Calvin.
,
Cassopolis. Mlchlpn, Nov mber 3,1902.
JJfr. Boo/:lr T. IVask;IIlloN:
Dear Friend=-I will impo e upon your pre­
cious time only long enough for you to read
th is, as no an wer is nece sary.
I wanted to tell you that I thrashed those
stacks of grain that you saw when at our place.
Mr. Archer did the thrashing in-one day-944
bushels of oats and 884 bushels of wheat. I
paid him '41.«. On the 29th I hipped a car­
load of hop and sheep of my 0 n raising to­
Chicago. I received '707.30 for the same. I
have 167 sheep �e!t and about 80 head of hOI i
this includes all sIzes ....
Your humble servant. .
J. W. MAJ>KEY ••
I found that there was another colored
man in the township, Mr. C. W. Bunn, who
owns two sawmills and much other real
estate. He is said to be worth ,50,000.
In several cases I noticed that the car­
pets on the Boors of the home of the
'people wer� of the home-made kind, but
they were hand ome and substantial. A
considerable numbet of the colored people
- in Calvin township own their homes, and
many of those who are renting are doing
so from negro landowners. I n a few
case. hite people in the county are rent­
ing property owned by negroe ••
There are, I believe, eight schools in
Calvin, four of them taught by colored
teachers. ' Not only are the teachers col­
ored, but the schools are controlled by
negro school, officials f�r the most part.
As we drove through the to mship I found
a copy of the following .not�ce posted:
ANNUAL SCHOOL MEETING
State of Michigan
NOTICE is hereby given to the qualified
Voter of School Di trict No.8 of the Town·
ship of Calvin that the Annual Meeting of
aid Di tric:t will be held at the Schoolhouse
on Monday evenin�t the 1st oay of September,
A. O. 1902, at 8 0 clock, for the :1ection of
School Di trict Officer., and for the transac­
tion of such other buslne a shall lawfully
come before it.
Dated thi.15th day of Aug� t, 19�2.
C. F. NOltTHROP, Director.
Mr. C. F. Northrop is a neg-roo 'So far
as I could judge by the appearance of the
teachers and the chool building , they
compared favorably with other in that
part of the State. In addition to the
negro teacher. and ministers, there are
two negro phy iciana in the township.
Each township in the county is entitled
to one representative on the County Board
of Commissioners which has the control
of the affairs of the. entire county. The
representative of Calvin is a black maa,
and I was told by everal white people
of the county that the negro Commissioner
voted intelligently and conservatively. So
far as I could find evidence, there had
never been in the township any "scan­
dal " growing out of the misuse of money
by public officials, notwithstanding, as I
have said, that each township levies and
collects its own taxes for schools and
other public enterprises.
TO BE CONTINUED
"To me it
was
interesting
and
•
encouraging
to note to
what an
extent these.
people
"lived
at home,"
that
is, produced
what they
consumed. "
- BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
.peaklng In 1102 of tM
rulel ... of Calvin Twp.