BAY COUNTY HISTORY

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SYDNEY S. CAMPBELL

Or Judge Campbell, as he is generally called, was unquestionably the first to locate in Lower Saginaw and effect a permanent settlement, after the town was projected. He was born at Paris, Oneida Co., N. Y., February 29, 1894. In 1830 he emigrated to Michigan and settled at Pontiac, whence he removed to Cass River, Bridge I the Spring of 1836. Here he laid out a town and called it Bridgeport; his partner in the business being Mr. G.D. Williams. A postoffice was established and Mr. Campbell was appointed postmaster. But Bridgeport was blighted by the hard times, and in the Winter of 1838 he was induced by Mr. Fraser to remove to the new city on the Saginaw, and start a hotel. Some of his Saginaw friends who know his love of ease when not on a chase for deer said that “Syd” was too frequently disturbed while at Bridgeport by travelers coming along and requiring entertainment, and that he had opened a tavern at Lower Saginaw where he would not be disturbed in that way. However, he removed here with his family in the Spring of 1838 and opened the Globe Hotel, as related elsewhere in this work. He arrived here on the first day of March, and the following day killed a large buck on the opposite side of the river, the last one that he saw for five years. That month, March, 1838, is described by Mr. Campbell as being as warm as is usual for the month of June. In addition to the lot on which the Globe Hotel was built, and still stands, he purchased several other lots which he was wise enough to keep. He had married, March, 1830, Miss Catharine J. McCarty, of Schenectady, N. Y. They have had three children, two of whom are still living. Edward M. Campbell, who died in 1879, was the first boy born in Lower Saginaw, or in what is now Bay County. He was the first supervisor of Hampton Township, and held the office for several years. He was probate judge of the county for sixteen years after its organization. In 1873 he built a brick business block just north of the Globe Hotel, on Water Street, which he rents. He and his wife now live on Woodside Avenue, and twice every day he visits the Globe Hotel, which he has owned for forty-five years, though it has been considerably enlarged and improved since it was first built. The incidents of Judge Campbell’s early connection with the place appear at different places in this work. For forty-five years he has

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Been a witness of the changes which, in history, link the bustling metropolis of the present with the desolate opening in the wilderness nearly half a century ago.

Upon arriving here the 1st of March, Mr. Campbell's family occupied the block house for a short time until the "Globe" was finished, when they took possession and opened the first tavern in Lower Saginaw. In those days supplies were not ordered through telephone, nor yet by stepping out to some market place a block away, and often Mr. Campbell would paddle a canoe sixteen miles to Saginaw for a pound of tea. In 1862 the old hotel building was enlarged to its present size, and endowed with the name "Globe Hotel."

A year or two after settling here, Mr. Campbell borrowed the government oxen, and plowed a piece of land near where Folsom & Arnold's saw mill now stands, which he sowed with buckwheat. When the time came to gather it he would take his canoe, his wife accompanying him, and go down to the field. On the way he would shoot ducks for their dinner. Spreading a sail cloth upon the ground, Mrs. Campbell would bring the bundles of buckwheat together, and he threshed it out on the sail cloth. After winnowing it with a shovel it was put in bags and taken in his canoe to the hotel, where it was emptied into a bed-room up-stairs. The following Winter there was a scarcity of flour, and in February the supply in Lower Saginaw became exhausted. None could be had at Saginaw or Flint, but people in those days did not starve. In this instance Mr. Campbell's harvest of buckwheat was opportune. Fred Derr, who lived in the "Wild Cat" building opposite the "Globe," had a big coffee mill, and it didn't take the settlers long to study out a way to get flour. Each one as he needed would visit the buckwheat pile, and taking what he needed, grind it in Mr. Derr's coffee mill. In this way, the only flour used in the settlement for three weeks was made, and it is not recorded that the avoirdupois of the place diminished, or that the bloom of health was dulled.

"Yankee" Brown, as he was called, kept boarders in the black house, and Cromwell Barney was living in the old log house, previously occupied by Leon Trombley. Fred Derr was working with Cromwell Barney, while the Globe Hotel was being built. He afterwards married Miss Clark, who taught school a short time near where William Peter's mill now stands. They were the first white people in Lower Saginaw to unite for better or worse, but they went to Saginaw City to get the solemn sentence pronounced. She died in about a year after they were married, but he is still living East. Mrs. Derr was the second person buried in the burial place selected for that time, as described elsewhere.

The first white child born in the county was Elizabeth, daughter of Cromwell Barney, and the late wife of A. G. Sinclair, now of Bay City. She was born in the log house in May, 1838.

During 1838, the bank building was built nearly opposite the Globe Hotel, on what is now the corner of Water and Fifth Streets. The reasons why this building was never used for a bank have already been given. The warehouse also was built on the river. During the Summer Mr. Campbell borrowed the government oxen of Leon Trombley and plowed a piece of ground, but the operations of the place were not extensive, and the hotel business did not exceed the facilities.

With 1838 the operations of the Saginaw Bay Company ceased. Its affairs went into chancery, and Lower Saginaw was under a shadow more dismal than that of the surrounding wilderness, for two or three years.

There is a story told in connection with the wreck of the Saginaw Bay Company that illustrates the ups and downs of life. At the time of the crash, Theodore Walker was a tailor in the city of Brooklyn, and had a claim against one of the bankrupt stockholders of the company. Having nothing else left at his disposal, he turned over to Mr. Walker a strip of land in Lower Saginaw. It was not supposed to be of any value, either in reality or expectancy, but Mr. Walker accepted it because nothing better was to be had. He kept it, and some years later came to Lower Saginaw, and died here, but not until after his worthless land had become very valuable. Mr. Walker used to tell this circumstance during his residence here.

Judge Campbell kept the Globe Hotel for three or four years, and then moved into a house still standing on Water Street, just below Third Street, that James Burly had built, but lightning dashed into the clearing one day and gave an exhibition on that building, leaving it in tatters. Judge Campbell fixed it up and occupied it is a residence. The Globe then had several proprietors. Col. Garrett kept it for a while, then Capt. Benjamin Pierce, who came here on the schooner "Maine, and afterwards a man named Tait.

About 1841 the forces that were to enter into the future development of the place were being gathered together. It was about this time that the scrip for most of the land owned by the Saginaw Bay Company came into the possession of James Fraser, Dr. D. H. Fitzhugh, James G. Birney and Theodore Walker. In 1840 Dr. Fitzhugh had purchased several parcels of land bordering on the river, opposite Lower Saginaw and Portsmouth. So that practically the

PROPRIETORS OF LOWER SAGINAW

Were James Fraser, James G. Birney and Dr. Daniel H. Fitzhugh, of whom we make the following biographical sketches.