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1875–1885 · the directory evidence at full strength
The 1875 patrons' directory of the Illustrated Historical Atlas (Harris Township, p. 103) is this era's roster-within-the-roster: the farmers who paid to print their own lines — Jacob D. Byrer, farmer, Section 17, settled 1862; Dan N. Dressler (the atlas prints "Dressier"), stock farm, Section 16, settled 1861; A. J. Foster, farmer, Section 19, also county superintendent of schools; Mathew Griffith, grain and produce farm, Section 7; John W. Griffith, produce and stock farm, Section 10, settled 1866 as printed; Jacob Hofterbert, as printed and flagged uncertain in the People leg, produce farmer, Section 16, settled 1865; Charles Lutlweg, as printed and likewise uncertain, produce farmer, Section 15, settled 1857; John W. Smith, farmer in corn, wheat and oats, Section 21, settled 1835; and Susan Krupp, produce and stock farm, Section 9, settled 1853 — a woman heading a farm entry in her own name, carried again in the women sweep below. James Lowry Jr. belongs to this bucket at full strength: 350 acres across Harris and Milton Township, Michigan, on the 1875 directory's Section 11 line — and a money-lender besides, on Howard's sketch; he died in February 1904. Isaac Shetterly — the mason's trade worked alongside an 84-acre farm, Section 8, from about 1872. John M. Shimp — "the Burr Oaks," 60 acres, Section 11, from 1870, and president of the St. Joseph County Farmers' Mutual Insurance Company after eight years as its director: a farmer-run insurer of this ground, and the era's one named financial chief. Jacob Slaughterbeck — 270 acres all but fifty in Harris, cleared by his own hands; he died 8 August 1894, and his son's named farm stands in the next bucket.
The station village, on Polk's evidence, printed whole. The 1880–81 listing (Polk's Indiana State Gazetteer, vol. I pt. 1, p. 290) describes Granger as a post-office station "the residence of only two families," and names one trader: Henry A. Shaffer (the gazetteer's optical text reads "Shas"; its classified lists print "Shaffer H A, Granger") — postmaster, railroad and express agent, justice of the peace, and grain dealer. The 1884–85 listing (vol. III, p. 289) shows the village four years grown, at the junction of the Chicago & Grand Trunk and the Chicago, Wabash & Michigan railways, and names eight: Franklin E. Lowry, postmaster — Lowry Franklin E, grain and general store; Metzger & Lowry, grain and live stock; E. A. Metzger, feed mill (the Ed. A. Metzger of the 1875 patrons' line above, at Section 11); Beiny Levy, saloon (the name as printed; the optical text of the gazetteer is imperfect and the reading is flagged, not corrected); Eldridge & Robbins, lumber; H. E. Hain, grocer; Samuel Inks, livery; C. H. Smith, druggist; and W. K. Walrath, railroad agent — an agent, not an owner, entered as the station's trade line at that strength. Franklin E. Lowry is the bucket's central figure and the village's trade founder: Howard's sketch has him come to Granger village in 1882 after twelve years teaching, build the mercantile business from 1883, the grain dealing and the elevator, and large landholdings, with thirteen years as postmaster — Polk's 1884–85 lines are the directory corroboration of that course, name to firm. John F. Curly — grist-mill, Section 23, Clay Township, owner in Chapman's 1880 account with the mill idle that year; the mill had been built by Jonas Harris, who stands in the Undated bucket. The railroads that made the village are themselves a corporate-owner succession on this ground, and it is printed here at owner strength: the Peninsular Railway (incorporated Michigan, 3 October 1865), which built through Harris Prairie in the 1871 season and reached South Bend 11 September 1871; its Indiana sister, the Peninsular Railway Company of Indiana (14 October 1869); the Peninsular Extension Company (3 January 1868) for the southward build; the consolidation of 15 August 1873 into the Chicago and Lake Huron Railroad; the Grand Trunk Railway of Canada's purchase in 1879 and the Chicago and Grand Trunk Railway (1880), under which the through Port Huron–Chicago line opened 8 February 1880; the Elkhart, Niles and Lake Michigan Railroad, built 1882 from Niles to the Granger junction, then absorbed by the Cincinnati, Wabash and Michigan, the Big Four, the New York Central and Conrail; and the Grand Trunk Western Railway of 1900, absorbed with its Canadian parent into Canadian National in 1923, under which the line trades today as CN's South Bend Subdivision. The interurban test belongs here too, as a negative at owner strength: the South Bend and Southern Michigan Railway (the Fruit Belt Route) crossed Clay Township's western tier from 1903 to 1934 but never entered the Granger frame — no interurban owner ever held a line on this ground.