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Formatted by U.S. Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott
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History of Manistee, MASON and Oceana counties, Michigan
H. R. Page & Co., Chicago - 1882

-71-

                         TOWNSHIP HISTORY
                        FREE SOIL TOWNSHIP
                      
      The township of Free Soil is one of the three original townships
   erected at the time Mason County was organized.  It comprised all
   of the county lying north of the division line between Townships 19
   and 20 north.  The first township meeting was held at the house of
   CHARLES FREEMAN, at Free Soil mills, in the Spring of 1855.
      The population of the township in 1880 was 318, and total vote
   ninety-five.
   [see Biographies for S. E. Hutchinson]
      In September, 1870, a resident of Free Soil wrote to Ludington
   Herald about the township as follows:
      "Though located in the extreme northeastern portion of the
   county, we have as fine a country, as fruitful a soil, and as honest,
   industrious citizens as can be found in any part of our county.  A
   large portion of our township is heavily timbered with beech and
   maple, while in the northeast portion there are some fine tracts of
   pine, and along the streams are found a variety of other timber.
   Owing to the large amount of railroad lands in our county, which,
   until recently have been excluded from market, our township,
   like many other portions of the county, is yet sparsely settled, but
   its agricultural resources are being rapidly developed.  We have as
   rich and fertile a soil as can be found in this or any other state.
   In proof of this fact the evidence is at hand, though the dry weather
   of the present season has been somewhat unfavorable to a portion of
   late crops.  Farmers in this vicinity have all threshed their wheat,
   which yielded on an average from twenty-five to forty bushels per acre.
   * * * We advise every one taking up a new farm to make it one of
   the first points to set out an orchard, which will soon become
   one of the most productive sources of profit on the farm."
      The "Free Methodists" have a class, and have held religious
   services in "Riter's" schoolhouse since 1880.  Their present pastor
   is Rev. L. T. JACKSON.
      The Methodist Episcopal Society also hold religious services in
   the schoolhouse, there being no church edifice.
      The present supervisor is J. EDWIN SMITH, and the town clerk is
   WAYLAND HASTINGS.
      Free Soil is bounded on the north by Manistee County; on the
   east by Lake County; on the south by Sherman, and on the west by
   Grant.  The Manistee branch of the F. & P.M.R.R. runs through
   the western portion of the township, in a northwesterly direction
      
   
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