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Muzzy: A peculiar man

By CRAIG JACOBS / Special to the Niles Daily Star
Friday, August 29, 2008 5:35 PM EDT

NILES - In the years that led up to the Civil War, local newspapers were rife with political, often politically incorrect, commentary. Slavery, territorial expansion, and states rights, were all issues discussed in nearly every edition, and among the more vociferous anti-abolitionist advocates was local lawyer, Franklin Muzzy.

Born in Searsmont, Maine, on Dec.22, 1815, Muzzy grew up amid a backdrop of intense sectionalism debate. When he was but four years old, Maine became a state, a result of the Missouri Compromise settlement that provided for an equal number of slave and free states.

Muzzy attended a Methodist school in nearby Reading before entering Middleton College in Connecticut - now called Wesleyan University. Although Middleton had developed quite an abolitionist reputation, Muzzy did not share that sentiment.

Following graduation, he worked for two years in the law office of Hannibal Hamlin while the popular Maine Democrat was serving a term in Congress. Hamlin, bothered by the slavery issue, would later switch allegiance to the newly formed Republican Party and serve a term in the U.S. Senate before becoming Lincoln's first vice-president.

Meanwhile, Muzzy, for reasons long forgotten, came to Niles in July 1846. A lifelong bachelor, he moved into a home on South Third Street, property that is now coincidentally the site of a law office.

"In Berrien County he soon became a prominent actor in all the busy scenes of life and it was not long before he stood at the head of the bar," wrote his good friend and Democratic Party ally, Darius Cook, editor of the newspaper with the conflicting name, The Niles Republican.

"In intellectual endowments he had no superior in the State, when accused he was as unconquerable as a lion. Few were the men at the bar that did not fear to come in contact with him. Judges have counselled with him and the bar, everywhere, have looked up to him for advice."

In 1858, Muzzy was elected to the State Senate and on Feb. 11, 1859, stood up before the Legislature in Lansing to deliver a speech that left no doubt as to his racists convictions.

At issue before the Legislature was whether blacks should be allowed to participate equally with whites in school district meetings. Muzzy conjured up every nonsense argument ever put forth to justify his position.

His words were extremely racist and would not be tolerated today in any publication.

Two weeks before the 1860 election. the entire text of his reprehensible speech was printed by the Republican newspaper, the Niles Inquirer. Muzzy was not re-elected and, even more to his dismay, Lincoln had won the presidency.

Although Lincoln captured Michigan's six electoral votes, he lost in Niles, mostly due to heavy support for Stephen A. Douglas in the first and second wards and Muzzy was not without influence.

In May, Muzzy had traveled to Charleston, S.C., as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. Douglas was an unacceptable candidate for southern Democrats who opt for Kentuckian John C. Breckenridge. When the deeply divided party failed to produce a nominee, Muzzy returned to Niles singing the praises of Douglas. The convention reconvened in June, the commitments of Muzzy's law practice kept him home. One F. H. Stevens, Esq., a "tried and true democrat" and ardent supporter of Douglas, was appointed to take his place.

Although defeat in the State Senate race derailed Muzzy's political ambitions, he continued to speak out in defense of his twisted principles and re-emerged on the political scene in April 1869, when elected to the first of four one-year terms as mayor of Niles. The Niles Republican, by then actually a Republican newspaper, complained that Muzzy had "played the railroad card" to swing the election.

"For Mayor, a number of Republicans were deceived into the belief that our eccentric but amiable and Christian friend Muzzy could bring a railroad from any county and 'dump' unmentionable treasures into their back yards."

The following year, as the Air Line railroad was under construction, Muzzy was accused of bringing in some the workers from Cass County to vote illegally. Then too, there was a certain uneasiness among some Democrats over the 15th Amendment that was ratified just days before the election. The new law supposedly guaranteed voting rights to all males regardless of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

"The importation of railroad men, prejudice against the negro, and the consolidation of the whiskey influence, elected Muzzy;" the Republican observed, "only this, nothing more."

Muzzy refused the nomination in 1873 and continued to practice law in Niles. On Thursday night, March 12, 1879, he was "stricken with paralysis" and taken to his home where he died the next day. Perhaps the attack was brought on by news that former vice-president Schyler Colfax was coming to Niles to deliver a speech about Lincoln.

"The poor of this city will now find they have lost a noble hearted friend," wrote Cook, now editor of the Niles Mirror. "Baskets of provisions found at their doors, they not knowing the donor, will not be found there now. His generous heart, his gigantic mind, is forever stilled."

Cook did not say if Muzzy's good-hearted Christian charity was extended to the poor who also happened to be black.

Either Muzzy thought himself immortal or was too busy to write out a will. His brother Horace came here from Maine to pay respects, as did a sister, Martha Allen from Chicago. Neither seemed to have much interest in his estate and the settlement would drag on for years.

Local lawyer, Theodore Beaver, was appointed as a special administrator to handle Muzzy's cases that needed the most urgent attention. When Beaver failed to show up for a hearing, Adeline Dare, Muzzy's housekeeper for 30 some years, took over the estate.

Somewhere along the line, Thomas Gaines, a local American Express Co. Agent, was given administration. He disposed of some property, collected various sums of money, then left the state, causing the matter to be switched from Probate to Circuit Court.

In 1882, Dare's daughter, Julia Doward, took over as administrator and in the summer of 1886, she petitioned the court to sell what remained of the estate, that being some property near Barron Lake, to cover outstanding expenses and hopefully buy a marker for Muzzy's grave.

According to Silverbrook Cemetery records, Muzzy is buried in City-38,1,6, a grave for which the estate paid $3. There is no marker.

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