Fun at Bean Creek 100 Years Ago

Nearly 100 years ago in 1924 these kids knew how to have fun.  Looks like the place near the county park, where the water circles into a shallow pool that my friend Peggy Verdon showed me in the 60's.  It sure feels good on a hot day.  L to R Robert Distler, Donald Guss, Paul Distler, Robert Guss, Eugene Scott, Eudora Griffith and Alice Guss.  From a scrapbook at Lenawee Historical Society Museum.

Girls:  Margaret Distler, Ellen Rhoads, Alice Guss, Alene Turbitt, Anna Shadbolt and Helen Guss.  Boys not labeled. From the same scrapbook at Lenawee Historical Society Museum.

John Chris' Red Brick Store

The Medina Store as we today remember it, this photo circa 1950's.  Built circa 1883 by John Christophers, former tanner and partner of Chas. C. Morse; later they became partners and made their fortunes as millers at Tiffin Mills saw and grist mills.  John Chris as he was called died in 1895 leaving no heirs,  and the store became the property of the local Masonic chapter.  It was reopened as a general store in the early 1900s. Photo from Hudson Museum.

Business district circa 1906--because that's Abner Griffith in white shirt on the porch of Old White Store, beyond left to right is red brick store, Macabee Hall and with the bell tower is Baptist Ladies' Hall, formerly Masonic Hall, and Temperance Hall Photo from Hudson Museum.

Business district from Mill St. (Bothwell Hwy.) looking east, after the Carter Blacksmith shop was gone.   On the right is the home of Chas. and Katie Gaskill, next to that going east is home of shoemaker Mac McGibbon, and beyond that is home of cheese maker Fred Bryan.  Notice the town pump in right foreground.  Photo from Hudson Museum.

Another great one from the late Jim Findlay, the back of the previous picture post card.  I think you will be able to make out what it says as it's from Sarah Burnett Darr to her grand daughter Vella Moyer, who is apparently staying in Detroit with her parents.  Looks like postmarked July 1908. Post card from Hudson Museum.

And finally this article in 1963, Hudson Post Gazette:

Annis' and John Chris' birthday was Dec. 6.

Medina Extension Club 1958

Ron Hauter writes:

Thought maybe you would enjoy looking at a picture of the Medina Extension Club that my mother Cara Lou Hauter belonged to.  Pretty sure the extension club was sort of a Michigan State University homemaker group.  The picture was taken by mother and includes Eudora Griffith Wotring from 1958 when the group made their own hats and then modeled them for the photo.  

The Extension Club  picture was believed to be taken at the Oliver and Betty Keller residence on Warwick Rd. on the hill about half way from Medina Rd. and the bridge south side.  Pictured from left to right:   Eudora Wotring (back arm on sofa), Betty Keller, Jean Rowe, Mickey Shadbolt, Marge Double, Ruth Elleanor Nye, Imogene Wilson and Mrs. Don Huff.  

THANKS TO RON HAUTER

Looks like Easter time!

The Great Mill Towns

Medina Village Grist, Saw and Wool Carding Mills, photo circa 1900.  Grist and saw mills built by Mr. Ripley 1837; at that time the grist mill was one and a half stories and a smaller footprint.  Later expansion time unknown. Also unknown when carding mill came in but probably after Mr. Bassett closed the Tiffin carding mill 1854 or earlier.  Photo taken by Perley Lord of Hudson from the collection of Joyce Longo.

This is believed to be a portion of the Medina Village grist mill (above photo) before demolition in early 1900's, found in Armstrong family photos of Hudson.  One of the Armstrong's married Pearl Allen, daughter of hotelkeeper George Allen at the main four in Medina.  She grew up next to the mill and it's my guess that she had something to do with the taking of this photograph.  Otherwise I don't know where or why it was taken as these snapshots were usually taken with a purpose.  Photo donated to Hudson Museum by Barbara Rupp Brockway in 2021.

Everything in 1830's rural Michigan centered around the saw and grist mills--lumber was needed to build elegant homes and barns, and, of first importance, was getting the grists ground into bread flour and corn meal for sustenance (also coarse grind for animal feed).  Medina, Tiffin, and Canandaigua were beautifully situated in oak openings on the Tiffin River, more commonly called Bean Creek.  Great milling enterprises were started at each hamlet.

Canandaigua got the first saw mill, built by Laban Merrick of the Merrick family of Adrian.  Laban had been swindled out of his share of $5,000 by a building partner in the East, and so he was eager for the work.  That saw mill was completed in 1836 and immediately that year residents started building permanent houses.  Dr. Increase Hamilton built his 2-story and wing house at the head of Chapel Street in Canandaigua, and John R. Foster built his house on Section 3 across from the future Tiffin Mills.

John R. Foster house built 1836, photographed in 1873.  Section 3 Medina Township, across from the Tiffin Mills.   Photo:  David V. Tinder Collection of Michigan Photography, Wm. L.Clements Library, University of Michigan

Dr. Increase Hamilton house built 1836, the house that was moved from Canandaigua, shown circa 1920 with Eudora Griffith on right with friend at left (Griffiths lived in the house at the far left in this picture, lot 14 Sec. 9.) Both houses no longer exist.; Dr's house was at lot 13 Sec. 9.  Photo from a scrapbook at Lenawee Historical Society Museum. Eudora's friend in this photo is Euletta Shaffer and may have lived in the Hamilton house.

Around 1840 Lauren Hotchkiss went to Tiffin Mills area and purchased land from C.P. Warner, who had acquired it from the land patent of Dr. Caleb Ormsby and Addison J. Comstock of Adrian.  Ormsby and Comstock recognized the excellence of the water power in the region and had invested there early on, later selling to their early Adrian colleagues Warner and in turn to Hotchkiss.  Ebenezer Daniels also later acquired a part of the Tiffin Mills farm, and Lauren Hotchkiss built a saw mill there in 1840.  Nathan Bassett had come and built a wool carding mill that operated until around 1854 when he moved out; then Lauren Hotchkiss converted it to a grist mill, presumably increasing the height of the building.

Mill at Tiffin converted/expanded by Lauren Hotchkiss in 1854, later owned by Charles C. Morse and John Christophers--later still by Morse's sons who ended the milling operations at Tiffin, or Pegtown.  Photo from my collection, later donated to Lenawee Historical Society.

Unfortunately there are no known photos of the mills at Canandaigua.  There were numerous grist mills as one very expensive grist mill caught fire (Apparently the grind stones must be calibrated precisely or they get extremely hot and set the product on fire--they are not really supposed to touch each other I have read.  I do not know the exact cause of the big fire at Canandaigua grist mill.)

It was eventually replaced.  There was also a saw mill and these were situated on the Bean Creek to the west of Canandaigua.  They are marked on the 1857 map and I will write more about them in the future.