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Harry P. Guy

Ragtime Piano: Echoes from the Snowball Club (1898)

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Harry P. Guy was born July 1870 in Zanesville, Ohio to Samuel (b. 1843, Ohio) and Lucy A. Guy (b. 1847, Virginia), he was about eight years old when he began the study of piano, violin, and pipe organ. As a youth, he peddled the black-owned Cleveland Gazette, and along with his brother Erin and sister, Ella M. Guy, he participated in a variety of musical events sponsored by his school, Hill High (class of 1886) and church, St. Paul A. M. E. He apparently had the opportunity to meet members of Donavin's Original Tennesseans when they appeared in Zanesville, including the black tenor and composer H. M. Wilson, as well as Alexander Luca of the famed Luca Brothers.

"During that period when Detroit was known as the 'City Beautiful' and 'where life is worth living'" wrote historian and Afro-American reporter Fred Hart Williams in his unpublished memoirs on Detroit, "Harry P. Guy was one of Detroit's unique and unusually gifted musicians. Guy's extreme modesty, his obvious efforts at self-effacement withheld from him the fame and wealth which should rightfully have been his. His superb arrangements of music compositions, his ability to infuse them with the magic of his inborn melody and harmony of tone, quite often were the measure of success of an otherwise mediocre composition. He was equally at home with arrangements of serious dimensions and with so-called popular forms of musical output. Harry P. Guy was the soul of music. Money seemingly mattered little. It was nothing unusual for him to neglect to place his name on manuscripts as the arranger. In consequence scores of musical successes carried only the name of the composer and lyricist."

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Old Settlers

The "Old Settler" families arrived in Michigan from different places. They came from Canada through "The Underground Railroad," and from Payne's Crossing in Ohio as "free" people. The draw was to homestead land made available through the Homestead Act of 1862 which allotted homesteaders 160 acres. The Underground Railroad was the most dramatic nonviolent protest against slavery in the United States beginning in the Colonial Era and reaching its peak between 1830 and 1865. An estimated 30,000 to 100,000 slaves used the "railroad" to get to Canada and eventually came back to the states and Mexico. A large settlement stayed in Ontario, Canada.

Doraville Whitney was the first Black settler to Isabella County in 1860, and in Mecosta County, Michigan was James Guy. His deed was signed by Abraham Lincoln. He obtained 160 acres in Wheatland Township on May 30, 1861. Lloyd & Margaret Guy were the first Black settlers in Montcalm County in 1860. The Homestead Act of 1862 allowed each settler up to 160 acres in Michigan. By 1873, African-Americans owned 1,392 acres in the three counties of Isabella, Mecosta, and Montcalm. In the 1860's most of the land in Remus was owned by the Old Settlers.

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Old Settler Dedication

Instead of disappearing into the dust that swallowed many other Black rural areas, the old settlers of Mecosta, Isabella, and Montcalm Counties prevailed. They came there in 1860 and they're still here. Some have moved to the larger cities of Lansing, Grand Rapids, Flint, and Detroit. There is compiled data and drawn maps of Black households in nine townships in Mecosta and Isabella Counties. In 1870, the nine-township area had 41 Black households; 86 in 1975, and 106 in 1994. The website was created to remember our ancestors who were the trailblazers making us who we are. We have become enriched, enabled, and elevated because of the ample regard and gratitude for the work of our ancestors. This site is dedicated to the Old Settlers.