Adult Life
Manistee was in desperate need of a new lawyer about this time. With a legal library of books (suggested by Martin) Ramsdell set out with a horse and a small one seated sleigh in the winter of 1860 for Manistee. Manistee was then a very remote town and it took Ramsdell a week to make the journey to Manistee from Muskegon, Michigan. There were no roads going there north from Whitehall - only a blaze trail, which made it a tedious journey. At times his horse would give out and they would have to stop and rest. One time he traveled the complete night and progressed only five miles toward Manistee.
Manistee was a wild, lawless frontier. History records that lumbermen wrote their own contracts, resulting in numerous legal problems. There were accounts of men walking all the way to Traverse City (over 50 miles) just to get a document that would get them out of the Manistee County jail.
Ramsdell was welcomed by the entire whiskey-drinking community, which treated him with great respect. Because of the reverence they had for him, he was never asked to drink with them. He rode the law circuit with Judge Littlejohn and was known as the father of the circuit. In the Fall of 1860 he was elected to the Michigan state Legislature.
Ramsdell married a Manistee school teacher named Nettie Stanton on September 7, 1861. They had nine children, five boys and four girls. Many of these children grew up to became famous in their own right.
Ramsdell pursued many projects in the 1860s in addition to his law practice in Manistee. In 1861 he was elected to the Michigan State House of Representatives. Ramsdell was also a member of the Manistee school board for eighteen years. In addition to these ventures he served as the Manistee County Treasurer and as well for several terms being a local Prosecuting Attorney.
Read more about this topic: Thomas Jefferson Ramsdell
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