Pioneer Settlement
It is very evident from the history of the Indians and their settlements that these people were content merely to utilize the natural resources of their area for their simple day-to-day living. With the advent of the white settler, however, the same natural resources were utilized to provide permanent homes, develop services and establish business, and industry.
They naturally built their first homes along the flat river beds for here there were no forests to clear. Oak was most predominant in the growth on the steep banks outlining the valley and there was also beech, maple, basswood, and elm in abundance. Log cabins were rolled up until the day they could get the timber cleared and sawed to make their frame houses. Sawmills, planing mills and all kinds of woodworking plants were to utilize this lumber in later development.
Waters were fresh and clear in the rivers and sturgeon were said to be abundant and of immense size. The rivers in the very first years were much easier to travel by canoe, boat or raft than the overland trails which had to be widened before the wagons and teams could go through. And they knew that some day the water power of these two rivers would be harnessed to serve them.
Their greatest concern in the 1830's was for food-what to do when the flour and pork and especially the salt ran out. This was a real wilderness and our pioneers were a hardy lot to endure all the hardships while clinging to their dream of establishing a thriving city here.
There are very few pictures available of the earliest settlers, but the ' biographies and pictures of Almeron Newman and his niece, Mary Newman Rice, represent two outstanding pioneers.
MARY ELIZABETH NEWMAN RICE
Mary Elizabeth Newman Rice, daughter of James Newman and Rebecca Hixon Newman, and granddaughter of Elisha Newman, was born October 23, 1837. She was the first white child born in Portland. Her written account of her early pioneer life has been used for many school reports and is one of the few "on the spot" accounts that is available.
Her father operated the Newman flouting mill and upon her marriage to Napolean Bonapart Rice, a Portland school teacher, he was taken into the business. The Newman's had one daughter, two sons, Charles C. and Hiram Elwin. The daughter died in 1883 and the sons both became millers. Both N. B. and Mary Rice were respected and beloved by the entire community. They were active in the work of their church and N. B. also served as supervisor and assessor for many years. N. B. Rice died in 1912, the son Elwin in 1919 and Mary Rice in 1927.
ALMERON NEWMAN
Almeron Newman was born February 26, 1804, in Gorham, New York. By the time he was 21, he had established a woolen mill at New Fane in Niagara County, New York. When his father, Elisha Newman and halfbrother, James Newman migrated to Michigan in 1836, Almeron, his wife, Laura Berry Newman, and three children aged six, four, and one accompanied them.
The brothers built a saw mill and flouting mill which went into operation in December of 1836 on the south bank of the Looking Glass River. Later Almeron bought up the mill machinery from a mill that was never operated on the Grand River. He developed a carding machine factory at the Newman location on the Looking Glass. In 1868 he was associated with the Portland Woolen Mill built on the north bank of the river.
Almeron Newman was prominent in public affairs, having been elected township clerk at the first township meeting in 1838. He was justice of the Peace for nearly forty years, served as Associate judge of Circuit Court, State Representative, and was always interested in school development. He was prominent in the affairs of the Universalist Church, and he and James financed much of the cost of the building. Five of the nine children born to the Newmans survived their parents: Jane, Franklin, Frederick, John and Asa. Mrs. Newman died in 1875 and Almeron Newman in 1876.
To present the settlers in the order of their appearance, we must go back to the year 1833.
THE FIRST MERCHANTS
Philo Bogue and his son, William W., settled on the west side of the Grand River flats north and downriver from the point where the Looking Glass joins the Grand. They came in November 1833 and immediately set up a tent and started trading with the Indians, supplying them with pork, flour and whiskey. Mr. Bogue later erected a dwelling house into which he moved his wife and family who had been staying in Lyons. He also built a small frame building at one side which he used as a store. He made several trips to New York to make purchases of goods and he followed this occupation of merchant until he died in 1839. Records show that his son, William W. Bogue, had a general store at the southeast corner of Bridge and Kent Streets (Peake Electric Company in 1969) for a good many years so the Bogues were the original merchants providing services for the many new families coming into the area.
THE FIRST FARMERS
James Milne came to Portland in December 1833 and this biographical sketch from the Portrait and Biographical Album of Ionia and Montcalm Counties (1891 ) gives us a good picture of the hardships encountered by our pioneers:
"James Milne and his son, John, came to America in 1833 from London where he had been a baker. Eventually their travels through the wilderness area by Indian trails brought them into Ionia County. Finding the land they wanted they went into the White Pigeon land office to 
secure the tract in Section 20 (to the north of the later incorporated village). They traveled to Detroit to purchase teams and tools and upon their return they were accompanied by Mr. King, Mr. Shepard, Mr. Friend, Mr. Inksman and Mr. Selah Arms. Mr. Inksman died from exposure as they were overtaken by winter while on their way and he was buried without ceremony and without a coffin. They reached their destination in mid-winter and pitched their tent on the banks of the Looking Glass River to stay until spring, completely worn out.
The party finally obtained the help of some Indians in erecting a house which was the first cabin ever constructed in Ionia County. They cleared about ten acres on which they raised corn and potatoes so they were prepared for the next winter. In the fall of 1834 the wife and seven children of Mr. Milne joined him in the new home. While making the journey to Buffalo on the canal boat, one of the children became ill with smallpox and the mother and oldest daughter remained behind with him while the other children were sent on in the care of a friend. They lived in the log cabin for fifteen years and then later moved (reluctantly it is written) into a more commodious frame building which they had erected."
It is recorded that the first crop of wheat raised by them was trodden out by oxen and taken to Ionia to be ground, going by the Grand River in Indian canoes, a trip of one week."
Selah Arms of that party settled on Section 25 of Orange Township as its first pioneer and built the first frame barn there. He also made sap buckets and did coopering.
So these people were our first farmers.
No other mention is made of Mr. King or Mr. Shepard so it is believed they did not settle here. John Friend had started to get out lumber for a sawmill, but the bears and wolves frightened him out of his tent dwelling and he left. Friend Brook still bears his name.
Ezra Perrin and wife came in July 1834 and sent the ox team back to Shiawassee County to transport Mr. and Mrs. John Knox and sons, Alanson and Harvey, who had been stranded there for lack of transportation. Mrs. Knox was the former Sally Moore, sister of Mrs. Philo Bogue, and their father, William Moore, had earlier settled in Lyons so the Knox family lived there with them before buying a farm two and one-half miles west of Portland during the winter of 1836.
The Perrins spent their first winter in a shanty a little way up the river on the west bank and the next year this was converted into the home in which they lived for twenty-five years.
THE FIRST MILLERS
On the 24th of May 1836, the Newman families arrived to take possession of the land that Elisha Newman had been the first to buy in June 1833. In this party there were Elisha and his sons, Almeron and James, their wives and children, and Mr. and Mrs. Lyman Bennett and their children. The Newman family history (published 1967) names the following people who accompanied them: Joseph Wood (Elisha's father-in-law); Mrs. Almeron Newman's sisters, Jane and Janet Berry; and her brothers, John and Asa Berry; John Berry's daughter; Mary Pugh; Izetta Berry Storms; and a niece, Rose Goodsell. (Matilda Gardner is mentioned in History of Ionia and Montcalm Counties as being a servant in the family of Almeron Newman when they arrived in Portland.)
Almeron Newman's firsthand account in the History of Ionia and Montcalm Counties (1881) describes problems of supply:
"We did not bring many of our goods and but few provisions with us, but shipped them around the upper lakes to Grand Haven thence up the river to Lyons, Grand River being navigated at the time by a pole-boat called the "Napoleon". Time passed and provisions grew less. We heard nothing of our goods, and it was therefore determined that Lyman Bennett and myself should take a trip to the mouth of the river to see what we could learn and lay in some supplies if necessary. Accordingly we procured a heavy, clumsy square-toed white man's build of a canoe and started down stream with a Chicago merchant in with us who had been to New York after goods. The river was high and with a strong current. With little exertion on our part we made very good headway, and in due course of time arrived at Grand Haven. There we found a man who was running a vessel on Lake Michigan, from whom we learned that he had seen in Chicago some goods answering the description we gave of ours, and he thought, too, the goods were likely to stay in Chicago some time unless sent for. I instructed him to get them and forward them to Lyons, and then Bennett and I started for home. We shipped our canoe as far as Grand Rapids on the "Napoleon" and at the Rapids took in a supply of flour, pork, etc., and then poled away for home. I poled and Bennett pulled-that is, he walked in the river or on shore ahead of the boat and towed with a rope, while I poled. By the time we reached Ionia we were both utterly exhausted, and leaving our craft there, we put off overland for Portland, whence we dispatched fresh recruits to bring the vessel up."
After building a double log cabin in which to live, the Newmans concentrated on the trade which they had practiced in New York State. They dammed the Looking Glass River, dug a race some 60 rods long, erected a sawmill, put in a run of stone and were in business by the end of December, making the first bolted flour west of Pontiac.
Later the Portland Woolen Mill was developed by Almeron Newman while James stayed with the flouting business. So the Newmans brought industry to the settlement.
According to Mrs. Mary Newman Rice, daughter of James Newman (Early History of Portland- 1908), her maternal grandfather, Abner Hixon, came from the East in the fall of 1836 bringing his wife and eight of their twelve children and stayed in the double log house with the James Newman family.
Also from this account is the story of how Portland was named:
"Shortly after their arrival the settlers were called together for the purpose of naming the village so that letters might reach them more readily. My father asked my uncle Abram Hixon who was visiting us to go with him to the meeting, which he did. When it came to handing in the names there were so many that it staggered the assembly. The names suggested were Johnstown, Jamestown, Boguetown, Boyerville and Newmanville. During the silence which followed, Abram Hixon said to father, "Why not call it Portland? I think that's a nice name." "Suggest it", said father, but he declined. Father then said the name of Portland had been suggested to him and he thought it very appropriate as there certainly was a fine landing where all the passing boats stopped. All present were pleased with the name and so Portland was named."
