ANTRIM COUNTY. 387 



ANTRIM COUNTY. 



This county was originally laid off under the name of Meegisee by act of 

 'the Legislature, approved April 1st, 1840. The name was changed to Antrim 

 by an act approved March 8th, 1843. The organization of the county was 

 effected in pursuance of the provisions of an act approved March 11th, 1863, 

 which provided for the election of the proper officers at the township elections 

 on the first Monday of April following. 



The name of the town of Meegizee was changed to Elk Eapids on March 

 11th, 1863, and the county seat located there. 



In May, 1839, Rev. John Fleming and Rev. Peter Dougherty, missionaries 

 under the auspices of the Presbyterians, located at the point subsequently 

 known as Elk Rapids, but soon removed across the east arm of Grand Trav- 

 erse bay to Old Mission. 



In 1845 A. S. Wadsworth left Ionia, Michigan, in a small boat, in which 

 he passed down Grand river to its mouth, and thence coasted northerly along 

 ■the east shore of Lake Michigan to Grand Traverse bay. After stoj)ping a 

 few days at Old Mission he crossed the arm of the bay to the mouth of Elk 

 river, where, in 1849, he and his family became the first permanent settlers 

 in Antrim county. His original purpose was lumbering. He was soon fol- 

 lowed by others. 



Attention was, at an early period in the settlement of the Grand Traverse 

 region, attracted to the fact of its peculiar adaptation to fruit growing. So 

 obvious were its advantages in this respect that at an early period Professor 

 Alexander Winchell was engaged to examine its capacities in this direction, 

 and a fund was raised by private subscription for the purpose. His report 

 was very favorable, and proved an effective means of attracting public atten- 

 tion in this direction. 



At the meeting of the State Pomological Society, held at Traverse City on 

 October 8th to 10th, 1873, during the annual fair of the Grand Traverse 

 Union Agricultural Society, a beautiful exhibit of fruit was made from this 

 county which was noticed as follows by the late J. P. Thompson, secretary of 

 the State Pomological Society: ''We find George E, Steele in charge of a 

 fine collection of fruit from this county, consisting of seventeen varieties of 

 apples and one of pears. The Baldwin was well colored, and so were the Spy 

 and King. The Rambo was the largest of that sort in the hall, and the 

 Greening was perfection itself. Mr. Steele, who is a surveyor, informs us 

 that seven-tenths of the timber of Antrim county is sugar maple, and that 

 there are miles of water-protected fruit lands in the county. Mr. L. R. 

 Smith has been a resident of Antrim county for eighteen years. He was a 

 dealer in nursery stock many years ago at Grand Rapids. From the nursery 

 at that place, which he sold to G. 0. Nelson, Esq., he brought trees to 

 Antrim, and here exhibited the fruit gathered from those trees. In this col- 

 lection were ten varieties of pears, the chief of which were the White Doyenne 

 and Stevens' Genesee. His apples were the Spy, King, Greening, Fall Pip- 

 pin, etc. Other gentlemen from Antrim were Richard Knight and J. J. 

 McLaughlin, and their fruit told its own story." 



R. Sherman, of Elk Rapids, in September and October, 1876, contributed 

 to the Centennial exhibition of the Michigan State Pomological Society, at 

 Philadelphia, a choice collection of apples. 



