Marine City High School - Mariner Yearbook (Marine City, MI)

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And about the Indians? Oh, they were harmless enough; indeed they were quite sociable! If they came calling (and they didn’t knock politely at the door; you might be reading or stirring a cake and look up to see one peeking in the window), and you didn’t gorge them with doughnuts, they would call you “nigy ’ — stingy. Sometimes they would stay all night and “bunk” on the floor. ’Twas a simple life then. Medicine was made of herbs gathered in the woods and dried in the attic. There were no water works; water was carried from the river, but then the water was not polluted by factory towns up the river. There was no mayor; a president held that honor. The Wards really made the town, and ran it. The auditorium was the First Methodist Episcopal Church and all the town stopped working to help raise the church. The people all lived and worked together — like one big family. There was a surprising lack of hard feelings and enmity. They did not have much of this world’s goods, but what they had more than sufficed. Would you like to hear about how loyally Marine City stood by the cause of the Union during the dark days of the Civil War? A Methodist minister, Carlton by name, recruited a company of soldiers from here, but later when marching under a bridge a loose plank fell and beheaded him. He accomplished the miraculous feat of raising a company in twenty-four hours. Excitement was rampant. Patriotic companies were organized who with lights on their caps, dubbed “wide-awakes,” paraded the streets with fife and drums. You would think from their talk that they were going to go South and whip the rebels over night. Young boys enlisted, so young that some of them later literally died of home-sickness. Everybody was down at the docks to see the leave-taking. Men were stationed on the border be- tween Canada and the U. S. to prevent rebels from coming across. You see, Canada was Southern in sympathy, and furnished money and supplies to the South. (On the other hand, many Canadians joined the Northern forces.) But, worst of all, many Union men enlisted, grabbed their bounty, and skipped over the border to Canada. At home the women did the hard work — plowing, hauling timber, and heavy barn work. One woman resting from hauling timber was knitting socks for the soldiers as she rested. In Red Cross work they lacked modern sanitary conveniences. The women scraped linen, and used the lint as a sort of cotton batting to be made into bandages. The men who served from here now living are Charles Basney, Charles Farmon, William Kiddle, August Horn, Alex Stern, John Kuhn, Jerry Hyatt, George Hornbustle, and John Hawthorne. — By Ruth May . 11

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Aunt Emily Ward’s house was like a palace — at least so thought the children. A fine garden, a strawberry patch were by the house. Her brother, Eber Ward, was a rich man and kept her supplied with the pecuniary necessities for running the household on such a vast scale. Fishing was one of the chief industries. Aunt Emily Ward said that many times alter teaching school all day she would go down to the fishery and scale fish. As I have said before, Aunt Emily Ward was a mother to everyone in Marine. When anybody was sick, she was the first to be there. In the days when doctors were a luxury, she was doctor and nurse combined. Children as well as older people were always welcome at her home. Just before the Civil War she moved to Fort St., Detroit. The annual outing to Detroit to visit Aunt Emily Ward there was the “thrill of a life-time.” We will now take a brief survey of the hamlet as it was in the “fifties.” There were no sidewalks — only planks, and the children going barefooted sadly felt the need of both shoes and sidewalks. It is said that people would walk to town barefooted, wash their feet in Belle River and then put on their shoes before enter- ing the “metropolis”; all this so as to save shoe-leather. The only kind of light was candles. Mrs. Hawthorne well remembers when the family bought their first oil lamp. The children were cautioned to beware the lamp as they would a dangerous animal. The only means of conveyance was by horse and buggy, wagon, or oxen The rides on the first street cars — pulled by horses — was an epoch-making event. When Mrs. Hawthorne moved here the family and furniture were transported on a scow, which landed at Roberts’ Landing, then Haywood’s, for there was then only a shift at Marine for cross-water traffic. They were forced to live three weeks in a ware-house because no houses were available, and the few that were were were mostly shacks. Finally they secured a house which was where the Odd Fellow Hall now stands. Marine was then but a hamlet, and even then all the people were congested in a very small area, and empty houses were scarcer than diamonds. It was all woods beginning where Capt. John McDonald now lives on West- minster. Much of the land had not yet been cleared off. There were woods and woods everywhere. The boats were made out of wood and carried wood. In fact, WOOD made Marine City. Where the stone road of Backus Ave. now runs was the plank road, which ran over and met the bridge. A toll gate was at the end of the bridge, and more than death took its toll. On the other side of the river was a marsh. Here much game abounded — turkey, pigeons, squirrels by the crock-fuls! The captured wild meat was salted, for there were no meat markets in those days. But all was not work; there were memorable picnics and 4th of July cele- brations, at which barrels and barrels of lemonade were drunk (not to say what else). The woods teemed with game, and wild flowers sprang up everywhere. 10

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THE SCHOOLS OF YESTER-YEAR By Olive Lobes Because the school is such a large part of our life and that of our community, we sought, in carrying out our plan for the “Mariner” to give some idea of what schooling was in former years. We couldn’t find a teacher who had actually taught in our M. C. schools in the earliest days, but we were able to find one, Mrs. Wm. Gardner, who had taught in the rural schools near here, and so I asked the volley of questions which usually accompany an interview. First, she replied, in regard to the education of teachers, that they were usually students with perhaps an eighth grade education who were trying to earn their way through High School or college. As to her own education, she received the greater part of it in the school house located in the township of East China, in St. Clair Co., Michigan. From an early age she was taught by her parents at home, and by the time her real school days began in 1855, her age being 10 years, she was able to read in the second reader. Of course, at that time the pupils were not graded at all, but began in one book, and went straight through. This applied to reading, arithmetic, or any other subject they might take up. Seldom were there even two pupils in the same place in the text book, because the progress of the student depended only upon individual ability. When asked about the school house where she studied, she gave this de- scription: “It was an old building, 24x30, having windows with small lights of glass on the north and south side of the school room, also one outside door on the west end for the entrance of the scholars, and an entry to a small shed where fire-wood was kept. Each side of the room was furnished with a long desk facing the wall, one for the boys and one for the girls. A space of six inches at the top of the desk was allowed for books, slates, pencils, pens, and ink. The sloping part of the desk was nearly two feet wide. A long bench, the length of the desks, was used for a seat, and the pupils had to step over it, studying with their faces toward the walls, or windows. A smaller bench near the teacher’s desk was used for the recitations of the pupils. The east end of the room was taken up by a platform six inches above the floor, on which the teacher’s desk stood. The “seat of honor” stood near this, and the entire w all space behind the desk was taken up by a blackboard.” The text-books used by scholars in 1860, she explained, were the “U. S. History,’’ “Parker’s Rhetorical Reader,” “Sill’s Grammar,” “Davis’ Arithmetic,” “McNally’s Geography,” with writing, and spelling books. Particular attention was paid to plain writing and spelling. On the boys’ side of the room bookkeeping was taught. The average attendance in the different localities was approximately twenty- five. When asked to tell about the amusements and the attitude toward study at that time, she surprised me by telling that their attitude was entirely different then from what it is now. “The children daily told me of the work done for their parents on certain days, and of what they were going to do on the next day. I enjoyed the teaching of these children, who were a pleasure to their parents.” That this industrious attitude made a good foundation for future careers was shown by the fact that one student, who became a congressman from Wisconsin, had obtained the fundamentals of the learning which brought success from one of these little schools. Similarly two lawyers, and three physicians who left the school house in East China completed their education in high school and college, but never forgot the “little old school house.” 12