Moseley

At the turn of the century (1899), a railroad was built from Lowell to Belding with plans for a depot near Alton.  However, at the final moment the depot was built on Four Mile Road near the John O. Wingeier farmhouse instead because the railroad company said “the terrain was too steep for the train to stop and start near Alton.”   Shortly after the railroad was completed, the Moseley brothers from Grand Rapids, who were produce buyers, built a potato warehouse next to the siding. They also built a house for the manager. This venture gave the name “Moseley” to the depot and the new village.

Moseley Train Depot

By 1905, the Pere Marquette schedule shows four trains leaving Lowell for Belding and Greenville every day, passing through Moseley.  It became part of the Saginaw main line from Greenville to Belding, on to Lowell, Elmdale and Grand Rapids.

A grocery store was built west of the warehouse by Fred Condon and later operated by George Whitten.  In 1908, Charles Jakeway built a warehouse for potatoes and beans and a stockyard near the siding.  The Gleaners built a large hall, but soon sold out to Frank Keech who opened a grocery store.  At one time, Moseley had a saloon, blacksmith shop, apple dryer and a creamery.  The creamery was later turned into a cheese factory by the Swiss farmers of the area.  The Jakeway warehouse was eventually sold to C.H. Runciman around 1920 and used a short time before it was torn down.
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By 1932, only Frank Keech, grocer, and W. G. Miller, flour miller, are listed in the business directory.  Miller retired in 1932 and Keech operated until 1946.  Automobiles and trucks replaced the railroad as the preferred mode of travel and Moseley, like the popularity of the locomotive, faded.

Alton

Alton was originally settled in 1839 and was first known as the “Godfrey Settlement.” Elder Newcomb Godfrey preached his first sermons in a barn until a small log school was built. The Christian Church Society was formed in 1842, the Adventist Church in 1850.  No church building was erected until the Alton Community Church was built in 1868.  The use of this church was shared by two congregations on alternate Sundays as well as the Swiss settlers during the week for Revivals.  A gristmill with a dam and millpond, originally built in 1865 operated until 1932.  A general store was built the same year that the gristmill began serving the growing community.  Around 1870 Edmund Ring began his “Ringville” businesses with a sawmill, a carriage shop, a rake factory and a picket mill.  At one time, there were three blacksmiths.
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During the late 1880s and early 1890s, a large influx of Swiss immigrants, including the Blasers, Wittenbachs, Wingeiers, Farhnis, Bieris, Reussers and Kropfs settled Alton and greatly influenced the culture, language, and lifestyle of the village.  Swiss contributions included a Swiss band and several cheese-making operations.

Cutting ice on one of the lakes around Alton

Alton Train Depot

The demise of Alton began in 1900 when the railroad from Lowell to Belding was built, and the depot was built a mile away in what became Moseley. The Alton townspeople were angry! They had previously met with railroad officials and agreed to all their demands.  A Lowell Ledger columnist from Alton wrote:

“They have not dealt fairly with us.  First, we must give to them the right of way and everything else they see fit to demand, even to food and labor free of charge, then we must change the name of our village, next buy and deed to them a place for the depot and then they must needs build it a mile further off ....”
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And that was the end of Alton as a commercial center.  Most businesses closed and moved to Moseley, the exceptions being the church, cemetery, and the mill.  The post office finally closed in 1909.

Fallasburg

Today Fallasburg is a glimpse into the past….
When young John Wesley Fallass arrived from New York in 1837, he selected land on the Flat River that included the perfect location for a sawmill and gristmill.  His brother, Dr. Silas Fallass and their uncle, Arad Melvin joined him.  Together they built a three-story sawmill (1839), with a chair factory on the third floor of the mill. This was one of Kent County’s first furniture companies.  Next, they built the first bridge across the Flat, ensuring the stagecoach runs would pass through town. That meant an opportunity to build a tavern and inn.  Silas Fallass built a general store.  John Wesley next built a gristmill 30’ downstream and was soon taking nine barrels of flour to Grand Rapids each week.  He platted the village in 1841 and built his home, a frame house that still stands today.  He then went back to NY to marry and bring back Fallas and Brown families to settle the town.

Business boomed.  By 1850, millions of board feet of pine were being floated down the Flat to mills in Lowell, Grand Rapids and Grand Haven.  With a population around 100, the community “boasted a hotel for loggers, an inn, two general stores, two shoe and harness shops, two blacksmiths, a distillery, a post office and eighteen other dwellings.”  The inn was a regular stop on the stagecoach route from Grand Rapids to Ionia.
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In 1858, the railroad tracks were laid through Lowell instead of Fallassburgh.  From then on Lowell grew, Fallassburgh declined.  The population peaked at around two hundred residents in 1870.  By the time of John Wesley Fallass’ death in 1896, many people had moved away.

The abrupt failure of Fallasburg (the second “s” and “h” were dropped in 1893) was fortuitous for us because it provides a ready-made glimpse into the past.  You can still visit the surviving buildings in the village and understand why John Wesley decided to stake his claim here.

Fallas House 1842

Fallasburg Covered Bridge

Bowne Center

Bowne Church

Homesteaders began settling on farms around the center of Bowne Township, Bowne Center, in 1838.   In 1840, the first burial in the township occurred here in the wilderness  in what would later become the township cemetery.  Trees had to be felled onto Ashael Kent’s grave to keep the wolves from digging his body up.  Bowne Township was organized in 1849 and the community continued to slowly grow. A post office, general store and cemetery followed soon thereafter.  By the 1870s, a hotel had been built and several physicians lived in the small town. However, the residents voted against a tax to build a Township Hall, a signal that they wished to keep things small and simple.  When the railroad tracks were laid to the north through Alto in 1888 and the post office moved there, the “city center” lost its main reasons for existence. The population peaked during that decade and, although the Ladies Aid building was erected in 1909, for all intents and purposes, Bowne Center ceased to exist as a “town.”

What is now at the crossroads of Alden Nash Ave. and 84th Street is what remains of a once-thriving community: a cemetery, a church, a schoolhouse, the Ladies Aid Hall/Museum, the Township Hall and a couple of houses. In its forty years of existence, Bowne Center never counted more than fifty inhabitants at any one time.  However you can still feel the pioneer spirit passing through with each breath of the wind.

Elmdale

Elmdale was a railroad town.  Originally called “Richardson’s Crossing” after Charles Richardson, a local landowner, Elmdale was the beneficiary of train tracks passing through. At Elmdale, the tracks of the Lowell & Hastings Railroad crossed the Grand Rapids, Lansing & Detroit line. A large depot was constructed in 1889 to service the important new junction.

General Store

Just two years later, three passenger trains per day carried 19,787 passengers through Elmdale on the Lowell & Hastings Railroad alone.  By the turn of the century, Elmdale had a fancy hotel with fourteen guest rooms, stained glass windows, a carpeted lobby and staircase, and a ballroom.  Elmdale also boasted a large grain elevator, general store, restaurant and an apple dryer.  When the Pere Marquette Railroad took control of the L & H line in 1900, they upgraded the services available at the Elmdale stop because the line was extended to Saginaw via Belding.

Grain Elevator

The population continued to increase into the new century, peaking in the mid-1920s.  However, the Great Depression, a series of fires at both the depot and grain elevator, and the increased use of the automobile spelled doom for Elmdale. By the late 1930s, the general store had closed and the post office was closed by 1940.   With the closing of the hotel shortly thereafter, the only action that remains today is the occasional passing train, the reason the village came to be in the first place.

South Boston

Present day White's Tavern

South Boston Grange Hall

In 1836, a group of men from New York established the first settlement in South Boston, calling it the English Settlement.  They built one log cabin and returned to New York to retrieve their families.  Upon their return, a State Road was created from Ionia to Kalamazoo that passed through the new settlement.  Timothy White opened a “house of entertainment” called White’s Tavern, where travelers could spend the night.

A post office called Boston was established in 1839 with Timothy White, a Democrat, as postmaster.  In 1841, the Whig administration removed White and appointed Worchester English who retained the title of postmaster only until Tyler became president.  Residents had to go to Lowell or Saranac for mail for several years!  The post office reopened in 1849 as South Boston, and was renamed Chandler in 1879.  However, the village itself was always called South Boston. 
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In 1874, the South Boston Grange was organized and two years later “the finest grange-hall in the State of Michigan” was constructed. The Grange was enormous, capable of hosting 400-500 people in its second floor assembly room.  The ground floor held an “Old Folks” assembly room, a grocery store for members, a kitchen and dining room.  Attached to the hall were sheds for 128 horses.  The Grange was in constant demand for public gatherings, exhibitions, dramas and dances, making it truly the cultural center of South Boston and the surrounding area.

Waterville

In 1836, Robert Hilton, of Grand Rapids, made large land purchases along the Grand River Valley.  Convinced a turnpike would run through his properties, he platted a village near his mill site and christened it “Waterville.”  To give the town a start, he donated land to J.J. Hoag on the condition that Hoag build a sawmill.  Hoag also opened a general store and the partners awaited the surge of travelers.

To facilitate its progress, Hilton and Hoag decided to host a grand ball, forcing the guests to forge a road through the forest to Waterville for the event.  They came from as far away as Bowne Center to enjoy the festivities.  From then on, there was a road leading from Bowne Center to Waterville.  Though their scheme for a road worked, the hordes of settlers never traveled their turnpike. The Memorials of the Grand River Valley stated that “Waterville only existed as a map and sawmill, and Saranac at the mouth (of the Grand) sprang up instead as proof that not men, but circumstances, change the sites of towns....” 
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In the end, the town never numbered more than ten inhabitants. Hoag stayed on, though, remaining until his death in 1851, killed by a falling tree.  The mill still stands at the corner of MacArthur and Morrison Lake roads…(2008)

Waterville Sawmill