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184 CADiLLAC—the Battle of sherman had little to do with the Civil War or the general by that name, though the town was named for him. the battle instead had everything to do with where Wexford County would have its county seat and builditscourthouse.thepoliticalmaneuveringandeventual physical confrontation gave rise to a local mythology that is part and parcel of the story of its courthouse. the county was first platted in  and named Kantawaubet. in  it was renamed for land in the southeastern portion of ireland. it was relatively unsettled until the Legislature organized it on May , , attaching neighboring Missaukee County to it. sherman, a town on the western edge of the county, was named the county seat. County offices first were located in the respective homes of the officers. Circuit court was first held at the log hotel of sylvester Clark. in January  the board of supervisors approved a $, budget for county buildings. they hired architect William Holdsworth sr. of traverse City and builder J. H. Wheeler. the grand Rapids & indiana Railroad donated land for the project. that summer, the frame of the building was erected. it was completed in  along with a jail. the court was a two-story frame wood building with a pitched roof and a small tower. the same year, Clam Lake first tried to get the county seat but the supervisors voted it down. Clam Lake would grow into the city of Cadillac, which is named for Detroit’s founder, Antoine de la Mothe, sieur de Cadillac. Clam Lake faced a greater margin of defeat in  because the sherman faction swelled its number of votes by persuading the Legislature to add Cleon township of neighboring Manistee County to Wexford. Wexford reportedly traded drinks in saloons for signatures on local petitions that the Legislature required before it would reassign Cleon. Fictitious names supposedly made their way onto the list of signatories too. sherman did have the argument that Cleon was a mere six to eight miles from Fremont, whereas the county seat in Manistee was twentyfive miles away through a difficult swamp. Cleon remained part of Wexford until . Clam Lake learned a valuable lesson about manipulating townships and the Legislature to gain board of supervisor votes. Manton, which was named for an early settler, joined the fray and began agitating for a move along with Clam Lake. Both towns quickly outstripped the population of sherman. When Clam Lake was poised to become the city of Cadillac, it stood ready to gain three votes on the board of supervisors. to counteract that change, sherman moved to admit new townships sympathetic to its cause. A gag rule limiting debate at a contentious meeting was employed. soon the three-way contest between sherman, Manton, and Cadillac led to divide-and-conquer strategies and uneasy alliances and suspicions. Manton won the requisite two-thirds majority of supervisor votes to move the county seat, but the popular vote in April  rejected the proposal  to . But soon there was yet another vote. Cadillac was ready to support the vote,figuring that wrestling the seat away from sherman would mean eventual victory for Cadillac. sherman supWexford County WexFoRD CoUNty 185 ported the proposal too, figuring that Manton might lose the popular vote again and, even if the vote prevailed, preferring a move to Manton over Cadillac. the public spoke in  and resoundingly approved the move to Manton , to . Now Cadillac moved to send the seat down the final leg of its march from sherman. Cadillac pressed for new townships to swell its votes on the board. its representative persuaded the Legislature to assign Cleon back to Manistee and thus reduced sherman’s votes on the board. the board met on Valentine’s Day , and anything but love and romance was in the air. the new township representatives were seated, and questions about their membership were referred to a committee. the nineteenth resolution in Wexford’s history to move the county seat passed  to , just barely meeting the two-thirds requirement. in April the popular vote endorsed the removal , to . Manton had not even finished erecting county buildings . the courthouse was a shell of a building measuring twenty-two by forty feet and hastily put together. it was roughly partitioned for county offices, but there was no courtroom just yet. For a time, records were kept in various locations around Manton, including once in a barn where a wagon was used as a desk. Not wanting to defend against injunction proceedings, Cadillac sent...

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