Few fiddlers made more of a lasting mark on the county and local histories of Michigan than Fidius “Fid” Stocking. Fid was one of the early Michigan pioneers and was a central figure in providing music for dancing from the 1840s on. Below are historical accounts from local history and newspaper about Fid Stocking.
These county history segments and publication info come from the University of Michigan “Michigan County Histories and Atlases” collection: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/micounty/
Musical Accounts of “Fid” Stocking from County Histories:
Title: History of the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan … : (With an appendix–History of Lowell, Michigan)
Author: Baxter, Albert, 1823-1905.
Publication info: New York,, Grand Rapids, : Munsell & company, 1891.
“Reverting to early musicians-undoubtedly the first bugler in Grand Rapids was Alanson Cramton, in 1835, and he appears to have held the field some five years, so far as entertainment of the public with bugle music was concerned. Robert M. Barr was the first fiddler, and after him were John Ellis, Fidius Stocking, John Powell, Chester B. Turner, and others-these, with a few associates, furnishing music for dancing parties here and about until the town grew to city stature. Mortimer Jeffords was with them, with flute, fife, piccolo or cornet, as occasion required.”
Title: History of Kent County, Michigan ; together with sketches of its cities, villages and townships … biographies of representative citizens. History of Michigan …
Publication info: Chicago,: C. C. Chapman & co., 1881.
“Fidius D. Stocking was born Dec, 24, 1824, at Pontiac, Oakland Co. His father, Jared Stocking, was a wheel-wright by trade, and was known as a superior mechanic. He moved to Saranac, Ionia Co., in 1838, located at Grand Rapids in 1848, and died at Chicago in 1862. F. D. Stocking is perhaps better known in his old line of business than any other man of the same craft in the State. He has been an expert with the “fiddle” from boyhood, has been in demand in season and out of season wherever the disposition to “tread the mazy,” as Dick Swiveller puts it, reigned dominant, and, presumably, the resonant echoes from Stocking’s fiddle occupy more than a respectable proportion of illimitable space, where the scientists tell us all dispersed sounds are wandering. His remembrances of the foot shaking incidentals would make an interesting volume. He has a sample invitation to a dance written at ‘ Flat River” in 1848, by Mr. J. M. Matthewson, now a lawyer at Lowell, which is a curiosity. A pioneer dance possessed its own individuality, for it included everybody, irrespective of size, age, shape or position, and the incongruous assemblages, when the strenuous duties of the times made relaxation imperative, would cause the dainty beaux and belles who grace the ” German” and glide in ” Galops ” to regard the experiences of their ancestors with respectful consideration. Mr. Stocking exhibits his fiddling account, aggregating from first to last about $12,000. He has worked for $6 a month and swelled his profits on duty nights, to $34. He has lived in Lowell 40 years; was’married in 1,57 to Clarinda RRobinson, a native of New York, born in 1831, and came to this State in 1835. She is a member of the ” family Robinson ” 44 of whom took passage for Michigan, in 1835, on one boat. One of Elder Eaton’s first jobs in Lowell was tying the matrimonial knot between Mr. and Mrs. S. They have two children-Rodney D., born Oct. 23, 1863, and Addie May, born Aug. 24, 1864. Mr. Stocking has been operating for the last seven years as agent for the Watertown Fire Insurance Company with success.”
Title: History of Kent County.
Publication info: [Dayton, Ohio] : National Historical Association, Inc., [1926].
“Mr. Stocking was born at Elk Rapids, Antrim county, Michigan, October 23, 1863, and is a son of Fidius and Clarinda (Robinson) Stocking, both representatives of families that early made settlement in the Lowell district of Kent county. Fidius Stocking was a son of Gerard Stocking, who was born in Ontario, Canada, of English ancestry, and who became a skilled workman at the trade of cabinet maker. Gerard Stocking lived in Michigan in the pioneer days, and within the course of his active life he resided at various places in this and other states. In the pioneer days he became a successful builder of mills to be operated by water-wheels, belts for the machinery having been made of ropes. This sterling and versatile pioneer was a resident of Chicago at the time of his death. Fidius Stocking had exceptional skill as an old-time violinist, and in the pioneer days in Michigan his services as a fiddler at dances and on other occasions were widely in demand. He was familiarly and affectionately known as “Fid” Stocking, this title having been an abbreviation of his personal name, though many persons took it to be significant of his skill as a “fiddler.” Mr. Stocking was called to many different places through western Michigan in connection with his musical interpretations, and it is a matter of record that he even made horseback trips to Lansing to appear as a fiddler at popular assemblies in the capital city in the early days. He made a journey from Detroit to Grand Rapids with wagon and ox team, and at times had to cut a way through the forest. Mr. Stocking developed a farm near Elk Rapids, and later he erected a house at Lowell and here established the family home. This sterling pioneer and popular musician had no dearth of adventure in the earlier period of his residence in Michigan, and in this connection it may be recorded that on one occasion he made a trip on snowshoes from the straits of Mackinac to Grand Rapids. He sailed an open boat from Elk Rapids to distant points, and after establishing his home at Lowell he became successfully engaged in the fire insurance business, in which he was succeeded by his son, Rodney D., immediate subject of this review. Fidius Stocking had several brothers and sisters, and his brothers became Indian fighters on the western frontier. His brother, Winfield, gained fame as one of the cattle kings of the west, and on one occasion sold 35,000 cattle in one lot-the largest sale recorded in the cattle industry up to that time. Fidius Stocking was a resident of Lowell at the time of his death, which occurred when- he was about seventy-four years of age, and here his wife died at the age of about seventy-six years.”
Title: History of the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan … : (With an appendix–History of Lowell, Michigan)
Author: Baxter, Albert, 1823-1905.
Publication info: New York,, Grand Rapids, : Munsell & company, 1891.
“When the young man finished his task a little earlier than usual, his face betrayed his anticipation of accompanying his favorite girl in the pleasures of an evening party somewhere in the settlement. It was not all dancing; often some other sport opened the entertainment, and usually all in the house participated in the amusements —”, children of larger growth” as well as the stalwart young men and the blithesome maidens. Few or none were too dignified for that. They had no stock on hand of quadrille bands and string orchestras, but seldom were they without a fiddler — not a “violinist,” but an all-alive fiddler, whose head and shoulders and heels would mark time with the cadences of the fiddle and the bow. Sometimes the boys would pay him two shillings each, more or less, according to the number present or the condition of their finances. The fiddler was perched in one corner, perhaps adjacent to the big fire-place, or in the doorway between two rooms, if in a double log house. The entertainment would begin with a march to some such refrain as “We’re marching onward to Quebec,” the company promenading by couples about the room. Some one would be placed within the circle, whose duty it was to choose a partner from the promenaders. Then there was the forfeit of a kiss and another must take his place. And the play was so timed as to give each a kiss before a change was made in the programme. There was the “grab” play, when at the word each one would grab for some other’s partner, sometimes creating much mirthful confusion; or “hurl-burly,” in which each would attempt to do something according to instructions that had been given in a whisper, and with collisions or tumbling over each other the scene would be one of “confusion more confounded.” Men and matrons of sixty years or over will remember numerous ludicrous incidents connected with those harmless plays which now seem so silly and frivolous. But the winding up, with dancing, as men and maidens of those days did and could dance — even now something more than the mere remembrance of it is demonstrated whenever the Old Residents have a reunion party or picnic. There is probably no keener nor more satisfying enjoyment in the modern promenade, or quadrille, or waltz, than was theirs when Robert Barr called “Down the outside!” in the Opera Reel; when John Bemis prompted, “Swing once and a half round!” and “Forward six! ” in the Money-musk, or when Chester Turner, or Fidius Stocking, or John Powell, sang out, “All hands round!” or “Grand right and left! ” The olden times are gone, but many gray-headed men and women love to look back upon the hours when “Old Zip Coon” or “Molly put the kettle on” gave the key-note and inspiration to their recreations, as among the happiest in their lives.
In calicoes and jerseys clad,
What cared they for silks and laces?
In friendship’s ties they all were glad.
They had stout hearts and smiling faces.
Title: History of the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan … : (With an appendix–History of Lowell, Michigan)
Author: Baxter, Albert, 1823-1905.
Publication info: New York,, Grand Rapids, : Munsell & company, 1891.
Fidius D. Stocking, born at Pontiac, Mich., Dec. 25, I824, removed to Grand Rapids with his father’s family about I847, and came to Lowell a few years later. As a violin player in his younger days, he was known in all the country round, and no’ party failed to be lively and interesting under the inspiration of his music. He is yet a resident. He married, in I857,- Clarinda Robinson, daughter of Rodney Robinson, one of a pioneer family.
Obituary, unknown newspaper:
“Fidius D. Stocking
Died at his home in this village, Sunday morning Jan. 6th, 1895, aged 70 years and 12 days.
F. D. Stocking was born in Pontiac, this state, Dec. 25th 1824, and was the eldest of eleven children, only four of whom survive him. At the age of 12 years, in 1836, he came to Ionia with his parents and in 1838, to Saranac, and in 1840 helped to clear the first road from Saranac to Lowell on the south side of Grand River, the same year he, with his father, built the first dam at Saranac. This year 1840, he led the procession in the Fourth of July Celebration furnishing the inspiring music for the march with a violin which he had made for himself. From Saranac he moved to Otisco, and in 1846 to Gd. Rapids, where helped to build the first bridge across Grand River at that place. In 1854 he went to Elk Rapids and to Chicago in 55, where he went into the grocery business but the following year moved the stock to Elk Rapids, where he built and opened the Elk Rapids House. In 1877 he came to Lowell and married his faithful wife, Clarinda Robinson, daughter of Rodney Robinson and one of our very earliest pioneers and took her with him to the Traverse regions. In 1863 they returned to Lowell where they have since resided. In 1842, while still at Saranac, he with Octavius Claflin, organized the Stocking & Claflin string band, which has probably furnished more “heel music” than any similar organization in Michigan. Some twenty years ago he took up fire insurance, and has since written a successful and prosperous line of insurance, Early in the forties he crossed Michigan from Detroit to Grand Rapids on snow shoes alone, with a pack on his back, and his only guide being a small compass with which he laid his route through an unbroken wilderness.
On his trip to Traverse region in 1856 he was a passenger with the late Ex. Gov. Austin Blair, forming an acquaintance which lasted till death. He was also acquainted with Gen. Lewis Cass.
Four brothers, Winfield, of Ft. Benton Mont., Clark, of Denver, Col., Timothy, of New Mexico, and Perry, who resides in Illinois, and one sister, Mrs. Geo. H. Fergus, of Chicago, but who was absent in Washington at the time of his death, survive him.
There were born to him and his faithful spouse, two children, Rodney D., in 1862, and May, wife of N. G. King of Ionia, in 1863, both of whom and his bereaved wife survive him and have the sincerest sympathy of their many friends.”
