"Jones School Dist. Described in Interesting Manner" By Margaret Gordon

I came to Amber Township in October 1884. My husband drove through from Chase a few days before hand with an ox team and a wagonload of odds and ends of a miscellaneous nature. He had been here a few weeks previous and purchased a piece of land. I came on the train. Scottville seemed to be a collection of houses scattered around with a street running North and South or rather a winding trail between the stumps. My husband was there to meet me with the wagon and oxen so I just climbed in with the baby and we started for our new home. The day was typical of "October's bright blue weather", warm and not a cloud in the sky.

We came to our place along in the middle of the afternoon. There was a log house where the people we bought from were still living and alongside a frame house partly completed so we had to drive about a quarter of a mile farther on to a house that had just been put up and enclosed where we were going to live until our own house was made habitable. The day was Saturday so we had a busy time trying to adjust things so we could start up house keeping. Sunday morning we had our first caller. A man knocked at the door and we bid him come in. I thought he was the most peculiar man with the most peculiar voice and the most peculiar name I had ever encountered, his name, Marshall Eoff. He was very sociable and asked a good many questions about where we came from etc, He told us he had once owned the place we had bought and-gave us a good deal of information about the community.

We soon got acquainted with the neighbors around and found we had gotten into a place where the people were all kind hearted and ready to help one another in any emergency. Which goes to verify the quotation "Kind hearts are more than coronets, and simple faith than Norman blood'!.

We had very few conveniences in those times. Our conveniences were mostly of the washboard.and scrubbing brush order. Very few people had pumps, even the open well and the "Old Oaken Bucket" was the familiar sight. The clearings were not large, 10 or 20 acres on most places. The cows pastured along the road sides or went to old clearings people had made years before and had left them.

Theron Oliver and Frank and August Arndt used to start out about 3 p.m. to bring home the cows and would get back about dark with them. there were no places of amusement to go to but a neighbor would drop in in the evening and chat for an hour or two. There was not an organ or piano in this neighborhood but there were several men who played the violin.

The Jones school house was a new building, had only been built a year or two and was very compact and comfortable. Oren Eaton was the teacher, a quiet serious talking young man who was working his way to study medicine. There was a good attendance of large boys and girls going to school. The school term was divided into two terms about four months in the winter and three in the summer, she pupils got the fundamentals for an education very thoroughly. The schoolhouse also served as a place of worship. The Free Methodist persuasion was popular here.

There was Sunday school held at the school house and John Hill organized a "Band of Hope" for the Young People. It was decided that the Sunday school and Band of hope have a picnic the first picnic held at Crystal Lake. The Scottville Sunday school was asked to join with the Jones people which they readily agreed to. The Band of hope sent away for a banner and the Sunday school made one for themselves. It was of white material with a blue fringe with a cross painted on one upper corner and an anchor on the other. The inscription was Faith, Hope and Charity. There was a heart painted on it also. The date was set and the day arrived at last. Old and young were equally enthusiastic. Anyone in Scottville who could scare up an old delivery horse and wagon drove. Those who could not walked.

John Bryant brought his band out to furnish music. The farmers built tables for the occasion or at least one long table but the Scottville ladies decided they did not want to mix with the tillers of the soil so they took one end of the table for themselves. The young people of the neighborhood who were waiting table would go just as far as the moss backs sat and John Schriner and Art Towns saw to it they went no farther. They would call out "switch off" and the girls would go no farther. But they got quite a kick out of it.

We had a bountiful dinner and everyone enjoyed it to the fullest extent. Perhaps many of the younger generation will wonder how the people lived with such small clearing. Well in the winter the men would cut bowl blocks which they would work at the mill. There was always a demand for stove wood in Ludington and any one who was fortunate enough to have a quantity of hemlock on their farm peeled tanbark and the logs could be sold for lumber. And for $5.00 worth of butter and eggs you could bring home from Ludington enough groceries to last a small family for a month.

If I live until next October I will have resided in Amber Township 56 years. I have no tale of woe or hard luck story to tell. What the people lacked in conveniences they made up for in ingenuity. There were not many of the farmers who had a college education but they made up for it in good common sense. Nearly everyone was on a common footing. They were not bothered by procedure or precedence, there was no jealousies among them. Those things came later with the quack grass and potato bugs and other pests. Everyone worked hard the men changed work clearing land and cutting wood and other work. Money was not too plentiful and the people knew what the poet meant when he said: "To catch Dame Fortune's fickle smile, Assiduous wait upon her And gather gear from every guile That's justified by honor."

Amber Old Timers

"Threshing -- Old and New" by Cyrus Hackert

AMBER - Mr. Cyrus Hackert experience inthreshing about sixty years ago. The first threshing outfit was tramped out with horses, the sheaves were laid on the floor. The next device for threshing was a four horsepower sweep, driven by horses. The next outfit and eight-horse power, horses furnished the power for the seperator (sic). The next outfit was a twelve-horse power. The next was a steam power threshing outfit. It was the first steam outfit in Amber Township, purchased by the Hackert family. The next one was a fifteen horse power, Port Huron Wind-stacker up-to-date threshing machine. The first steam engine owned by Hackert is located in the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit.

History of Amber Township 1860 - 1880

C.W. Jones and Napoleon Wallace named Amber after their home town in Indiana. Charles Mears lumbered around Crystal Lake. It was then called Mears lake, later named Crystal because the water was so clear. In 1861 Eugene Schriener settled on what is now John Conrad's farm. They were Germans, their only neighbor were the Potowattomie Indians who had camps with in 1/2 mile of their home. Their daughter, the late Mrs. Minnie Pittard told how one stormy night the Indians came and said they were cold and hungry and they let them in to get warm and gave them something to eat thinking they would leave afterwards but after eating they dropped down behind the stove and went to sleep.

Although they seemed friendly the family didn't get much sleep that night. ` In 1862 Joseph Hubbard and E, Chipman and families came and settled on what is now known as the Geo. Felt and Prine farms. In August 1863, Wm Baker, John Holmes, Charles Hackert and J. Hyght came from Berrian county bringing their families and household goods in covered wagons with oxen. Then they got to Grand Haven the roads being so rough the women and children came to Lincoln by boat.

They camped at Crystal lake in the Peters and Mears logging camp until their` homesteads could be located and houses built. Mrs. Hackert being a great lover of flowers brought slips, seeds, shrubs and bulbs which the planted at Crystal lake. She took up some and planted in her home garden but until just a few years ago some of the roses and honeysuckle were still growing at the lake.

Later the same year came Wm. Barter, J.L Towns, Burnette and Drake families. In 1864 Charles Dahn, FredTetzloff came. In 1865 John and Eli Chinnery, James and Isaac Flora, Michael Moore, Daniel Prindle, James Reed, Dr. Knox, Jessie Neidig, James and Andrew Nail and their families. 1866 to 1870 Geo. Martin, H.B. Rickey, Warren Robinson., Jensen Beaties, Charles Wolf, Rufus Penny, James Conrad, Silas Hazzard, Charles Barclay, Henry Huber, Rushtons Pulsifier families. The first wedding was Fanny Holmes and Andrew Neil, Sept. 19, 1865. They were married by Dr. Knox. The village of Amber was plotted on land belonging to August Miller. The township of Amber was organized about 1867. The first town meeting was held in the Evans school house. The following officers elected: Supervisor, Oranzo Rice; Clerk, Jessie Towns; Treas., James Flora; Justices of Peace, H.H. Woods, John Jensen, Oren Rice, Jacob Hoover; Highway Commissioners, John Chandler. James Conrad, Charles Hackert; School Inspectors, Joseph Hubbard, Charles Hackert and C.W. Jones.

The first cemetery (Evans) was located by the first school house a few rods south of the present site of the Amber Station school. There were about 25 buried there. In 1872 the deeds were signed for the north and south cemetery, they were later called the Towns and Rickey. The land once belonging to these men. The Evans cemetery was discontinued and the bodies were moved to the north and south cemetery. In 1865-66-67 flour was $18.00 per barrel, sugar 25c a pound and calico 25¢ per yard. Many ground corn for meal in coffee mills and roasted corn and rye for coffee, some using chicory to make it brown. Fruit was preserved in gallon jars sealed over with beeswax.

The woods were so dense and the swamps had no drainage there were swarms of mosquitoes so thick that men wore sunbonnets to keep them out of their ears. Despite the hardships of these early pioneers most of them lived to a ripe old age. Charles Hackert, Sr., was born in Pisa, Germany, and had he lived a few months longer he would have been 100 years old. J. Hackert his son who will be 88 in July has lived here continually for 77 years.

Those still living in Amber who can be truly called early pioneers are Mrs. Anna Hackert Pappe Mrs. Mary Miller Conrad, Mrs. Ada Robinson Hazzard, Mrs. Maud Pittard who is passed 90, Charles Tetzloff, John Harding., Ed and Bert Chinnery, Delbert Reed, Homer Carter. Mr. And Mrs. Flynn lived in the woods, Often Mr. Flynn was going to work, his little daughter Kattie went with him a little ways and then came back. One day when Mr. Flynn came home at night Mrs. Flynn asked him where Kattie was, he told her she had returned as usual, but she had disappeared.

The men all turned out to search for her finding her 2 or 3 days later. A bear had picked her up and carried her off. Asking her if the bear had hurt her she said some times he hugged her too tight and then she would slap him, they lived on berries. Some thought the bear might have lost her cub and took the little girl in its place. Some people say the bear was shot by John Hedricks, others say they didn't kill the bear:

"William Miller Tells Experiences"

There was a Grangers hall in front or just south of the boardinghouse. Pittard's hall was built much later. It was used as a dance hall. There was the Record blacksmith shop, Record and Barron's cooper shop and Mr. Fairbanks, father of Fred Fairbanks, had a wagon shop. Another building built by Dell Reed's father adjoined the Pittard hall.

The only families living here before the railroad came through were John Holmes, Mit and Art Evans. These men gave the land for the town. August Miller lived on the Prettyman place, the late Mr. Prettyman bought it from the heirs and on the north were the Jess Weidig and A1 Carter places.

The Granger's hall was a nice large two story building. The first floor was the grocery run by Record who kept groceries, flour, meat, etc. It was 40 feet long and about 24 feet wide. My father sold dressed pigs to him. The building had 4 good sized windows in front. Later it was taken down and moved to Scottville. My folks lived there about 5 years before the railroad was put through. All of August Miller children are living but one, who was Mrs. Dora Upper. They are Mary, Kate, August and William.

"Tells About Rickey School District" By Mrs. Otto Pappe

The first school that I remember and which I attended was the Rickey school. It was organized in 1870 and was built on its present location, when it was voted to build a special meeting was called and this, a log school house - but later a vote over ruled. It was decided then to have a frame school house and that is the building that is used today.

The lumber to build the school house was borrowed from James Flora. The next year the district raised $250.00 to pay him for this material. The land the school house is on was purchased from George Martin for $12.50 but later more land was bought from him making the school ground its present size. Nearly every year money was raised to improve the school until now it is as modern as many of the schools that were built at a much later date.

In the early days a tax of $2.00 a scholar was raised to pay the teacher's wages and it was left to the school board to decide whether a man or woman teacher should be hired. Usually they hired a man for the winter and a woman for the summer term. The winter term usually consisted of 3 months and the summer term 2 months, but this depended on the voters and varied until gradually the school term has become a standard nine months term. At first the teacher "boarded around" among the scholars. If a man had a large family the teacher boarded at his home longer than if there was a small family of children. The teachers' wages averaged in those days $20 but it was not always the same. One year they paid as low as $16.50 a month.

Among the early teachers were Frank Kurn, Jimmy Flora, Russ Parker, Riley Gonder, Madeline Rhode, Laura Conrad, Claude McClellan, Franklin Cope and others. Fuel for heating the school house was bought 1/4 cord for each pupil at first. This was later raised to 1/2 cord per pupil. It cost from 90¢ to $1.50 a cord.

These early settlers who sent their children to the Rickey school for the most part homesteaded their land. These lands have changed hands many times and the only ones whose descendents are living on these farms now are the Chinnerys, Tetzloff, Hackerts, Pittards and Conrads. In those early days there were no doctors here so Mrs. Charles Hackert, Sr. was called on for help in nearly every case of sickness in the community. With her knowledge of medicine and her nursing ability she was in great demand and gave freely of her time and skill to these early settlers.

The men in this community for the most part worked on their farms in the summer but when winter came they went to the woods to work where they stayed until spring. Many of these farmers had sugar bushes and every spring found them busy making Maple Syrup and sugar for their own use. White sugar was very scarce and maple sugar was used exclusively. Besides making their own sugar most of these early settlers made their own soap. A day was set aside for this work and most people made a barrel at a time.

The only means of getting around were by horses and wagon or oxen and wagon or by walking. When my father wanted to go to Lincoln to buy groceries he walked following a path through the woods and carrying his groceries in a sack on his back.

In 1871 Michael Moore was foreman when they cut down the trees and cleaned the land for the Flint and Pere Marquette Railroad. It was 1874 when they run the first train. The first woman and child to ride over the new railroad was Mrs. Charles Barclay, Frank Barclay's mother and his brother Robert Barclay now of South Custer. Mrs. Barclay had been visiting in the southern part of the state and came back to Reed City on the train expecting to find the passenger trains running by that time to Ludington but on arriving found out they were not.

There was a train running to Ludington with supplies and the engineer who had boarded with Mrs. Barclay told her she could ride with them in the caboose. She got off at what was then known as Jordon located on the Carter farm and one and one-half miles east of Amber. The first depot was located about 80 rods west of Amber crossing on the south side of the track on 40 acres owned by the railroad company. The first agent was George Brown. Because they couldn't get the right of way south to Hart and north to Manistee the depot was moved to Scottville and Mr. Brown was transferred there.

They then made a flag station of Amber. Mr. Johnson of Ludington was in charge for a while. There was a store and postoffice near the depot building where Fred Fairbanks and later Keeb Chinnery ran the store and was postmaster. The first postmaster in Amber was Orval. Knocks. In 1884 the railroad company gave the depot building to Joe Darke if he would move it. They had to move it on Sunday when there were no trains. The neighbors all turned out to help raise it and get it ready to move. John Conrad was one of them. Some one from Ludington moved it charging $50. The section boss in Scottville came and set flares in case a special would come along.

It was moved on the north side of the track near the crossing and a year or so later moved it to where it still stands. When it was moved Mr. Darke already had a store and he became postmaster and depot agent. Several years later they moved to Ludington so the children could go to school. Frank, Maud, Esther and Grace were his children. Frank was the only one at that time who was ready for a higher education. Mr. Darke sold out to Mr. and Mrs. Graves. Later on, they in turn sold it to Mr. and Mrs. Johnson. Finally it was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Wm. Upper who also had a general store besides running the postoffice and depot.

Mr. and Mrs. Michael Moore bought it from Uppers. After Mrs. Moore's death in 1896 her daughter Mrs. Fay Parmelee and family moved there. In 1899 Mr. Parmalee built a blacksmith shop. Later the township libraries were moved there, all making quite a little business center. An interesting note is mentioned here in connection with the way the mail was put on the train. The mail pouch was thrown on the train into the baggage car the train slowing up a little, sometimes it missed. But later the company put up a mail crane. It was an iron arm on the mail car that caught the mail bag when it was hung up fastened at the top and bottom. This crane caught it and pulled it into the mail car.

Mrs. Parmelee had a dog named Wise who would watch the passenger trains and get the railroad mail which was just thrown off the train. One day the dog slipped under the wheels and lost a leg. After it healed he got the mail as usual.

On March 2, 1908 the Postoffice was discontinued and W. Robinson started to carry mail to the patrons in the eastern part of the township. The western part having had R.F.D. several years. Mrs. Parmelee continued to sell tickets until 1928 then that was discontinued. Has a flag station for a while, passengers flagging the train, later that was-discontinued. The old building has been remodeled as a dwelling house and is now owned by Mrs. J. Cooper. The Library was divided amongst the rural schools in 1937 and that finished all the activities of Amber.