Joseph Callar

HE PLOWED THE FIRST FURROW

by Dorothy Siegel

Joseph Callar was a French-Indian hunter who had immigrated from Canada. In 1905 the Howard City Record featured Callar as one of the area’s seventeen “Plucky Pioneers”, (Click here) those who had lived in the area over thirty years. The paper’s editor at the time was James B. Haskins who bad spent his childhood in Ensley about a mile and a half from Callar’s farm. The subtitle of the pioneer sketch read: “CLAIMS TO HAVE PLOWED THE FIRST FURROW AND BUILT THE FIRST SHACK.” Joseph Callar was born May 15, 1823, in Toronto and spent his childhood in Lake Simcoe, Ontario. He had only one week of formal schooling, after which, his step-father took him out of school to work. In June 1852, he came to Croton where he worked in a saw mill for a summer. He returned to Ontario where he married Phoebe Ann Sedore. Re brought her back to Croton, and then to the southeast corner (Northwest corner of Beech and 104th) of section 2 in what was to become Ensley Township, where he earned his living farming and hunting.

Map of Ensley Township around 1860's

(this map was a growing document)

(Map courtesy of Ensley Historical Society)

 

According to neighborhood tradition, Callar hunted for miles around. It is said that he once saw a herd of 78 deer on the highest point in Newaygo County, later known as “Hillman's Hill” (about a mile west of his farm), and that he killed a total of 412 deer in this township. He told the Record’s editor that he first hunted in the township in 1854, and that one year he sold $250.00 worth of vension to one buyer. While hunting, he found a tract of land which he marked off. It had a clearing - an oak opening - where deer pastured. Re built a cabin (his “shack”) where he stayed while hunting. In 1855 he moved his wife to the cabin from their home in Croton Township about five miles distant. In the spring he plowed the clearing, and the next year he went to lonia and paid cash for the land.

Joe Callar's Property (Beech and 104th)

First Property Farmed in Ensley Township (Spring of 1855)

(Picture taken by Verduin Webs)

It is not certain how long Callar was married. On March 16, 1865, he enlisted in Company D, 16th Michigan Infantry, from Ensley. He was injured in service, but, when the war was over, did not stay to document his disability. After his return to Ensley, complications from his injuries flared up. To pay the doctor bills, on April 22, 1870, he mortgaged his farm at the going rate of ten per cent interest.

During the years he developed and improved his farm. He decorated his fence along the road (now Beech Avenue see below) for a quarter of a mile with deer antlers.

(Picture taken by Verduin Webs)

The 1865 assessment roll shows his farm as the sixth most valuable piece of property in the township. That year, with 46 resident taxpayers, only five paid more real estate and personal property tax than Joseph Callar:

Ensley, Benj.      $66.92

Hillman, Wm. S. $22.30

Lawler, John       $18.56

Lewis, P. M.         $13.80

Crandall, J. V.     $12.15

Callar, Jos.          $10.88

On June 9, 1870, Joseph Callar married Cornelia A., daughter of James and Zelia Conover (for whom Conover Lake was named). (A cousin of Cornelia’s, Sarah, J married John, son of Jacob and Hannah Graff Ensley.) On April 23, 1873, after he had lived in Ensley almost twenty years, Callar sold his farm (to pay off the mortgage), and bought land on the Muskegon River in Croton Township (section 15). They raised seven children: Eliza, Alfred, Julia, James, Zelia, Charles and Etta.

Zelia married Benjamin, son of John and Christine Heiss. Mrs. Dickerson remembers her as a pretty young bride who enjoyed having the “big girls”, on their way home from school, stop and visit. When the first baby was eight days old, both the mother and baby died. Mrs. Stanton helped “lay them out”, and they were buried in the Crandall Cemetery, March 1898. Ben remarried, but, at his request, when he died, he was buried beside his first wife.

            

(Pictures taken by Verduin Webs)

The Federal Census of Civil War Veterans taken in 1890 lists Joseph Callar in Croton Township. He and his wife subsequently separated; she moved to Charlotte and he, near Howard City. At the time of the “Plucky Pioneers” interview he was a Civil War pensioner. His veteran’s file in Lansing shows that on June 21, 1909, he went to the Soldiers’ Home in North Park (Kent County). He lived there until his death on May 26, 1911, and was buried in their cemetery. He is in Lot 5, Row 9, Grave 25.

Joseph Callar may have been the township’s first settler.