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Marvil Secord (1801-1886)

Marvil Secord has a small but notable place in the history of Chesaning, being remembered for erecting the first frame house in the village, and although his time in residence here was very brief, the life he lived was so remarkable that it merits a closer look.

He was born in Brantford, Ontario on October 16, 1801, to parents Isaac Secord (1779-1872) and Sarah Wellman (1787-1834).

It appears that Marvel’s grandfather was an American Loyalist who fought for the British side the Revolutionary War, and was rewarded for his service with a grant of land in Canada.

Isaac Secord was pressed into the British army during the War of 1812, but made his escape across the border and enlisted in the army of the United States.  One later newspaper account describes him as an “Indian fighter, intelligence operator for the colonies in the last war with England.”

Isaac eventually ended up in Michigan after the war, and spent several years in the Detroit area before moving to the recently established village of Ann Arbor.   In 1836 he acquired a large farm near Owosso where he would spend the rest of his days.

Marvil Secord accompanied his father and the rest of his family for most of his life, although he occasionally struck out on his own from time to time, including an early visit to the Saginaw Valley.

As near as he can remember, he first visited Saginaw in 1826, acting as the guide of Mr. Millington, of Ypsilanti, when that gentleman bought the tract of land on which Saginaw City now stands. At that time there was not a white woman in the valley. He was here when the first white woman – Mrs. Jewett – arrived. She came on horseback from Flint, accompanied by two Indians guides. When Mr. Secord first came to Saginaw there was no habitation occupied by a white settler except McDonald’s Indian trading post, where is now Saginaw City.

The Saginaw News, October 29, 1883.

He was also one of our own earliest pioneers.

It was in the fall of 1841 that the Big Rock Indian Reservation was first opened to white settlement.  Two brothers from Massachusetts, George Chapman (1812-1881) and Wellington Chapman (1814-1887) become the first settlers to purchase land in what would later become the village of Chesaning.  The pair then returned to their home in New England, where they began to recruit more settlers from among their friends and family.

Meanwhile, another group arrived here from Washtenaw County, led by a Methodist Minister named Benjamin North (1779-1848), and two of his son-in-laws, John Ferguson (1800-1842) and John Watkins.

The three men soon recruited a crew of workmen to help them construct a sawmill and a dam across the Shiawassee River, and both projects were completed by April of 1842.

One of these workers was Marvil Secord.

He may have traveled here all the way from Washtenaw County, but it’s more likely that he was already living in Owosso by this time, as most of the construction crew seem to have been recruited from thereabouts.

Secord is described as a blacksmith, and was employed as a mechanic and caretaker at the mill.

He seems to have made plans to settle here here permanently, as he purchased a plot of land from his employers that was just north of the newly constructed sawmill.

It was here that Marvil Secord built what is said to have been “the first frame building projected for a dwelling house in the township.”  The Secord family lived here for a time, even though the home was never fully completed, and was instead “roughly boarded over, and occupied”.

This is the home that Marvil Secord built for himself while living in Gladwin County.
Was the Secord home in Chesaning of a similar design?

Secord eventually left Chesaning and moved back to Owosso, where he would continue to reside for almost two decades.

He operated a wagon and carriage shop there for many years, and was also a talented gunsmith.  At an early age he invented and manufactured a single barreled, muzzle loading gun, with which he shot twice with one loading.

In addition to his knowledge of firearms, he also possessed a wide variety of other skills necessary to survive out on the frontier.  This helps lend some credence to the unverified reports of his apparently extensive record of military service.

Several biographies mention that “as a small lad he accompanied his father into one of the Indian wars of the northwest,” although this would be only the first of several campaigns.

The old gentleman has been through three wars, and carries some scars which tell that his experience in them was of a very rough character. His first engagement was against the Blackhawks in Illinois and Wisconsin, he then acting in the capacity of a guide. A tomahawk wound received in an engagement crushed in his skull and left a bad mark. After the Blackhawk war was ended he went with a brother into the Mexican war as a member of the Fourth Michigan Cavalry, under General Taylor. Here he was unfortunate enough to get a cut from a sabre in the hands of a Mexican which nearly proved fatal, but his antagonist fared much worse. When the war of the rebellion broke out Mr. Secord volunteered his services, and came out with slight injuries.

The Saginaw News, October 29, 1883

Marvil Secord was married four times while living in lower Michigan.

His first wife was Parmelia Leland (1808-1837), with whom he had two children.  When she died, he married his wife’s sister, Laura Leland (1815-1860), and the couple went on to have six children together.

The next wife was Betsy Wheaton, although this union does not appear to have produced any children and ended in a divorce.  He then married Mary Goodwin (née Lewis) (1829-1881), becoming a stepfather to her three children.

Marvil Secord, looking every bit the pioneer.

Marvil Secord had became a well established member of the community in Owosso, but his carriage business eventually began to falter, apparently due to increased competition from the Jackson Wagon Company.

It was time to look for greener pastures.

In 1861 he and his son Jerome set out on a hunting and trapping expedition in the virgin pine forest of Central Michigan. They came up the Tittabawassee River by canoe, which was hewn from a large pine log. They carried with them all necessary equipment as axes, cross-cut saws, guns, traps, clothing, bedding, and food supplies. On the west bank of the Tittabawassee River at the mouth of the Sugar River they built their hunting lodge. This place was called Dick’s Forks, because a man by the name of Dixon had owned the land, and also the fork in the waterway was there.

Marvel Secord had found the trapping more profitable in the Gladwin area than his business had been in Owosso. He decided to return to Owosso, and get his family and move them all to Dick’s Forks. With his family he went from Owosso to St. Charles by wagon and steam “Little Nell,” to Saginaw from hence to Midland up the river on the noted steamer “Belle Seymour” owned by John Larkin, and managed by J. N. Bean, Captain, and Dan Osborne, pilot for a number of years. While in Midland getting supplies, Mr. Secord was bitten on the hand by a dog. Due to this accident he could not use his hand and after some persuasion he hired two Indians to take his family to Dick’s Forks, a 35-mile journey. After a week’s journey in a canoe during which many hard trials were passed and a large portion of time spent in cutting floodwood from the stream they landed at their destination.

Gladwin County First Settler Centennial, 1861-1961, Bernice W. Ritchie.

Gladwin County had already seen its fair share of visitors from the more settled areas of Michigan, but this was a mostly transient population of hunters, trappers and lumbermen.  Marvil Secord is now commonly regarded as being the first person to settle there permanently.

In 1864 Marvel Secord entered the homestead upon which he resided until death. He constructed a large log house, cleared several acres of land, planted an orchard, and his place became known as Secord. Many of the early lumberman made this their headquarters for meals and lodging, especially during the spring drives when the logs were floated down the river to Saginaw and Bay City.

Because of Mr. Secord’s popularity with the lumberjacks, he became well known and served as Supervisor of Gladwin Township in 1879 and Judge of the Probate in 1883.

Gladwin County First Settler Centennial, 1861-1961, Bernice W. Ritchie.

Secord later described the first five years of his life at Dick’s Forks as the most pleasant in his existence.

Marsh hay at this time became a valuable commodity, bringing $40 per ton, and Mr. Secord spent the summer season in cutting the hay and the winters trapping, with assistance of his boys and hired help, earning sometimes $600 per year from the hay, besides quite a snug sum from trapping.

A gun and dog where his constant companions, and with them he seemed to have no further desires. A very successful method of killing deer was by floating down the river on a rough raft, from which he shot with his gun, and by means of which he has killed as many as seven of those gentle and fleet inhabitants of the forest in on night.

During his second winter in the woods, while 15 miles from homes, he accidentally shot himself in an ankle, and was carried home on litter. A doctor was brought from Midland, but he was not able to extract the ball, which was never taken out.

One of the much looked for and pleasant events was the yearly trip of the family to Midland, which was made in a large white canoe, and took for the down trip a long day. Upon their entrance at Midland the ladies of the family, being good singers, made the town ring with their musical voices.

The family were left at Midland, while Mr. and Mrs. Secord went to Saginaw to dispose of furs and lay in supplies, trading chiefly with the firm of R. Boyd & Co. The return trip took from three to four days and all hands had to paddle both ways, but the children worked harder going down than back, as they were more anxious to reach their destination.

The Saginaw Weekly Courier, October 21, 1886.

Despite the many injuries and hardships he had endured throughout his long life, he was able to maintain a surprising degree of physical activity throughout his later years.

He is, as he himself expresses it, as lively as a cricket, seldom uses glasses except to read fine print, can shoot as accurately as he ever did, thinks he could stand it to walk thirty or forty miles in a day, and believes he will be able to recount his first experiences in the valley for a number of years to come.

The Saginaw News, October 29, 1883.

It seems somehow appropriate that a man who so embodied the frontier pioneer spirit should die to a blow from a tomahawk.  It was not a weapon that was being swung in anger, however, but one that he using to perform some mundane task when he accidentally cut himself in the knee.

The wound became infected, and he spent a number of weeks in poor condition before finally succumbing on September 16, 1886

REFERENCES

Secord Family (2025), Wikimedia Foundation.
Gladwin County, Michigan (2025) Wikimedia Foundation.
History of Ingham and Eaton Counties, Michigan (1880), Samuel W. Durant.
History of Shiawassee and Clinton Counties, Michigan (1880), D. W. Ensign & Co.
History of Saginaw County, Michigan (1880), Clarke & Leeson.
Place of the Big Rock (1966), Mark & Irma Ireland.
Gladwin County First Settler Centennial, 1861-1961 (1961), Bernice W. Ritchie.
The Ann Arbor Times News
The Saginaw Weekly Courier
The Saginaw News

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