Centerville's Years of Struggle

The years between 1861 and 1866, made an exhausting drain upon the energies of the people of Centerville. While the country was fighting battles for the preservation of the Union, Tuscola County was the battle ground of numerous and exciting contests over the location of the county seat. In that struggle Centerville was enlisted without limit as to term of service, and its captains slept with their armor on. The history of this contest is to be found elsewhere in this work.

The final triumph of Centerville in the county seat controversy was the event that shaped the destiny of this aspiring village, and fulfilled the ardent expectations of such of its people as had labored long and unremittingly to accomplish that purpose. The board of supervisors, at the October session in 1865, voted to remove the county seat from Vassar to Centerville, and that action was subsequently ratified by the electors of the county. The population of the entire township of Indian Fields at that time could not have been over 400, as the year previous the census returns reported it at 249. Section 3, now the corporation of the village of Caro, contained the following inhabitants and buildings. Beginning at the lower end of State, at the southwest corner of the village, was a house occupied by Daniel Delling. A few rods to the northeast was the house of Lewis Miller, on the opposite side of the road; the next building was the district school-house, afterward sold and converted into a dwelling; next were the mills, and beyond, the house of William E. Sherman. S. R. Cross kept a hotel about where the post office now stands, and opposite was a small store kept by J. C. and Charles Montague, a portion of the building being occupied by them as a dwelling. Melvin Gibbs kept a hotel called the American House north of the Montague store, on what is known now as Almer Street, while opposite was the store of Joseph Gamble, who lived in the upper part of the building. North of that and near by, lived L. D. Welch, in a shanty. Not far away lived S. P. Sherman, and east, on what is now Frank Street, lived Charles Austin. Following northeast from S. P. Sherman’s was the house of M. B. Gibbs, then X. O. Smith, and opposite, the house of Horace Montague. The next house was that of P. D. Bush, and with that the enumeration of Centerville in October 1865 ends.

In December 1865, P. D. Bush, S. P. Sherman, Melvin Gibbs, S. R. Cross and Charles Austin, made and platted the village, and soon commenced selling lots for building purposes. Theretofore the land had been worth about $15 an acre, and the first lots were sold at $15 and $25 each.

In the spring of 1866 the frame of a Universalist Church was moved down from Almer, and preparations made for the reception of the capital, as narrated on another page. That spring and summer witnessed quite an immigration and considerable building . So flattering were the prospects that early in the summer William E. Sherman platted about fifty acres as an addition to the village. Up to September 1866, no new streets had been opened, and building was confined to the State road and quarter-line roads. In September J. W. Spencer, broke ground for his dwelling-house, where he now lives, and in October, John Kelsey commenced building a house on Burnside Street.

It should, perhaps, be noted that Centerville had its salt and oil epoch, and slight attempts were made for both, but without success.