Leonard Farwell

Leonard Farwell ran an early haberdashery in Kalamazoo.

Farwell had already lived a long life when he came to Michigan. Born in Dunstable, Massachusetts in 1768, he had moved to Randolph, Vermont, by the early nineteenth century.  He may have already had children by a first marriage when the Justice of the Peace officiated his marriage to Fanny York in 1807. Thirteen years later, the farming household consisted of nine people. Tragedy struck the large family in 1821 when Fanny Farwell died. Leonard Farwell stayed around until at least 1830, but by 1841 he had arrived in Kalamazoo. He may have arrived in Michigan with one or more of his adult children. Perhaps he came alone.[1]

Struggling farmers in New England had made ends meet with large families and smaller lots of farmable land, but Farwell was less of a shoemaker and more of an entrepreneur who sometimes made shoes. As early as the 1790s, Farwell imported English and West India goods. In 1798, he announced the opening of a Linseed Oil Mill on the White River in Randolph. By 1803, he advertised leather "A large quantity of good leather" as well as "a good assortment of English and West-India Goods." He preferred cash or trade in flaxseed, grain, or beef cattle, but often he had to extend credit to his customers or make no deal at all. Throughout his business career he faced an uphill battle collecting payments, and threatened his debtors again and again in local newspapers. By the early nineteenth century, he may have sold his store and mill. He tried building a turnpike, but faced the usual problems collecting enough tolls to cover his costs. He then tried farming before selling his farm. He tried Jacksonian politics. He even tried hosting a shooting match. Entries cost $1 per shot. On the one hand, Farwell seemed to fail at everything he tried. On the other hand, he came out of each disaster with a new idea to make ends meet. Eventually that idea was to move west and try boots, clothing, and leather goods again.[2]

When Farwell arrived in Kalamazoo, he opened a store at the corner of Portage and Main Street across the street from the Kalamazoo House. "The subscriber offers for sale," he wrote in 1841, "Cassimers, Sattinets, Sheetings, Thick Boots and Shoes of a superior quality for farmers use, which he will sell cheap for ready pay in Cash, Hides or Wheat." Unlike the Campbell family's general store, Farwell avoided extending credit unless "two or three responsible farmers join together and buy by the piece." In those instances, Farwell agreed to take one half "by the first of January next" with the remainder due in one year."[3]

Farwell worked in shoes, leather, and clothing to the very end. At 77 years old, he was one of the oldest people buried on West Street and his life spanned from the Townshend Acts of the British colonies to Manifest Destiny and the eve of the Mexican-American War. He would have been one of the few people in Kalamazoo in the 1840s who may have remembered the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War, General Washington, and the turmoil that followed between revolution and republic. It went unrecorded if local townspeople in Kalamazoo asked him to speak or to march in parades on Independence Day in Kalamazoo.

There were many shoemakers in the early nineteenth century. While in many ways Farwell was much more than a typical shoemaker, his estate offers a look into the life of someone who worked, as he advertised, in "leather, cloth, boots, and shoes." His personal estate amounted to a little less than $330 in 1845. This included buckskin gloves and shoemakers tools, valued at $0.37 and $8.00, as well as the raw materials from which Farwell worked a craft. Taken together, the sole leather, upper leather, sheep, calf, and other animal skins, as well as pairs of boots and shoes for men, women, and children accounted for more than half of his personal estate.[5]

[1]. 1820 U.S. Census; 1830 U.S. Census.

[2]. "Wanted," Vermont Journal, January 24, 1792; "Public Notice," Vermont Journal, October 14, 1796; "Linseed Oil for Sale," Vermont Journal, November 13, 1798; "Leonard Farwell," Weekly Wanderer, April 2, 1803; "Take Notice," Weekly Wanderer, September 3, 1804; "Take Notice," Vermont Journal, August 12, 1811; "A Good Bargain," Vermont Republican and Journal, August 8, 1814; "Shooting Match," Vermont Journal, January 31, 1820; "Democratic-Republican Convention," Vermont Patriot, May 28, 1832.

[3]. "Leather, Cloth, Boots & Shoes," Kalamazoo Gazette, October 29, 1841.

[4]. Leonard Farwell, probate journal, Vol 36, A-285 Kalamazoo County Probate Court, RG 94-309, Zhang Legacy Collections Center, Western Michigan University