In the Treaty of 1821, the Federal government granted five specific tracts of land to indigenous people. One of these was four square miles at the Native American village of Nottawa-seepe, which included the Village of Mendon.
However, it was a farm girl born there in 1849 who really put the village of Mendon on the map. Emma Peek and her sister, Myrtle, earned quite a reputation as equestrians riding in county fairs and in local horse races. In fact, Emma’s ability to gracefully manage a horse was one reason Patrick Henry Charles Marantette fell in love with her.
The Marantette family, around since the 1700s, were French Canadian Catholic with certain standards and expectations. These expectations didn’t include horse racing or Protestant Emma as a wife for a man like their son. Not to be deterred, he and Emma married secretly, and naturally his family soon found out. Charlie, as he was known, was eventually pressured to end the marriage and it was annulled. However, Emma came out of it just fine – she was then free to literally ride off to fame and fortune.
According to a 2021 article in the publication Untacked by Anna Sochocky, in 1882 promoter D. H. Harris swept into Mendon and carried Emma away to ride for the circus. Styled by Harris as Madame Marantette, she toured Europe three times, reportedly appearing before assorted royalty. She toured throughout the U.S., traveling in her own Pullman rail car with her dogs, horses, and special buggy. When she performed in Saudi Arabia, she purchased two horses, Sunflower and Chief Geronimo, which she schooled to go through their act responding to specific music rather than commands from their rider. While in Ireland, she purchased her famous jumping horse, St. Patrick, and with him set a high jump record – while riding sidesaddle – of 7 feet 10-1/2 inches during a 1904 performance at what is now the Kalamazoo County Fairgrounds. And somewhere along the line she acquired a trotting ostrich named Gaucho, who when harnessed with one of her running horses made the half mile in 1 minute, 2-1/2 seconds.
She performed in the Barnum & Bailey Circus and Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, among others. She eventually married D. H. Harris and toured extensively as the Harris-Marantette Troupe. It was this troupe that performed on the streets of Vicksburg in 1908.
Madame Marantette purchased a farm on the north side of Mendon, naming it Evergreen Farm and returned there between seasons to rest and train her horses. She retired at age 70 and disposed of her private rail car and all her animals except the ostrich and Chief Geronimo, who died on the farm before her death at age 73 in 1922. She is buried along with her dog in Mendon Township cemetery.
And Gaucho the ostrich? He was kept on the farm for a while and cared for (and endured) for the sake of the girl who had loved him. But being a very bad-tempered beast, he bit the hand that fed him one time too many and was put down.
A Detroit News article noted that after Madame Marantette’s death, a circus train stopped for an hour on the siding at Mendon while the troupers walked to the cemetery to leave a wreath on her grave.
