BY DONALD C. HENDERSON

BY ALEXANDER B. LEEDS

BY C. D. RANDALL

BY S. S. WALKER

Heman Thomas, of Eagle, Clinton county, died July 10, 1885. He was born in Middlebury, Ky., in 1810; he moved to Clinton county and settled on the farm, where he has always lived, in 1834, being one of the first settlers in the county. He was ever a strictly honest, upright, and temperate man, a true husband, and a kind and indulgent father.

Charles Turner, one of the earliest pioneers of St. Johns, died at his home, July 22, 1885. He was born in New Jersey in 1801, and when a 0039 27 young man moved to Geneva, N. Y., and from there to St. Johns in 1855. He was a member of the Congregational Church, and an exemplary man.

Mrs. M. V. Brown died September 8, 1885. Her maiden name was Fannie Hewitt, and she was born in De Witt in 1836, was married in 1853, and moved to St. Johns in 1864. Mrs. Brown was a faithful member of the Methodist Church, a devoted wife, and a highly esteemed member of society.

August 23, 1885, Geo A. Britten, of Essex township, committed suicide by shooting himself. September 6 his father, Jacob Britten, died at the age of seventy-six. September 7, his brother, Nathaniel Britten, died, aged forty-two. All were pioneers of Essex, having settled there in 1853, and were among the most respected citizens of that township.

Joab Baker, one of the pioneer lawyers of Clinton county, died at his home in Muskegon, September 24, aged eighty-six years. He settled in De Witt in 1847. In 1850 he was elected prosecuting attorney of Clinton county under the new constitution. When the county seat was removed to St. Johns, in 1857, Mr. Baker settled here; he moved from here to Grand Haven, and then to Muskegon.

Alonzo Plumstead, one of the pioneer business men of St. Johns, died November 4, 1885, at his home in that place. Mr. Plumstead was born in Clinton, Dutchess county, N.Y., in 1808. In 1835 he moved to Detroit; in 1836 to Northville, where he was engaged in the boot and shoe business till 1855, when he moved to St. Johns. For a long time he was one of the most prominent merchants in that place, and was identified with all the enterprises for its early development. For several years he was express agent. He was a genial, intelligent, and honorable citizen, and will be missed by a wide circle of friends.

Stephen Hill, the oldest pioneer of the township of Watertown, and a member of this society, died at his home the 5th of November. He purchased of the government and settled on the farm where he died, in 1837. By patient labor he made from the wilderness one of the finest farms in the township. He was a kind neighbor, and an esteemed and honored citizen.

Charles Coleman, a highly respected citizen of St. Johns, died December 29, 1885. He was born in Orange county, N. Y., and moved to Livingston county, Michigan, where he lived several years; thence he removed to St. Johns about twenty-one years ago. Mr. Coleman was not a member of any church, but believed in and practiced the religion of an honorable life.

Barney Bond, for the last thirty-one years a resident of Essex township, Clinton county, died at his home December 31, 1885, in his seventy-seventh year. He came to this county from Monroe county, N. Y.

Mrs. Catherine Chase, wife of Daniel Chase, of Essex, died January 10, 1886. She came with her husband to this county from Cayuga county, N. Y., some twenty-five years ago.

Geo. W. Kinney died January 17, 1886, at the age of sixty-six. Mr. Kinney settled in the township of Watertown in 1847, and has resided there ever since. He has been respected and honored by all as a kind, obliging, and honest man, and a public spirited, useful citizen.

Mrs. Anna Richards, of Duplain township, died March 7, 1886, at the age of sixty-two years. She was born in Yates, Monroe county, N. Y., and came to Duplain in 1846, where she was an estimable christian woman.

Micah D. Pope died in Clinton county, March 10, 1886, at the age of seventy-seven. He was born in Vermont and brought up in New York State. In an early day he worked in Rochester in the foundry of Jethro Wood, the first maker of iron plows. He moved to Ohio, and from there at the close of the war to Michigan. He was of a genial and social nature, always looking on the bright side of life.

Edward W. Higbee, of Watertown, died April 17, 1886, aged seventy-one. He was an old pioneer, having settled in Eagle in 1837, and has resided in that township and Watertown ever since. He was an honest, intelligent man, and his death is universally regretted.

Mrs. Maria Nichols, of Bengal, died April 22, 1886. She was born in 1803, moved from Genesee county, N. Y., to Oakland county, Michigan, in 1825, and came to Bengal in 1864, where she has since lived.

Mrs. Mary Van Sickle. of Greenbush township, died May 9, 1886, aged seventy. She had been a resident of the county forty years.

Mrs. Rice, of Bingham township, died May 8, 1886, at the age of seventy-eight years. She had been a resident of the county forty-one years.

Wm. Besley, one of the earliest pioneers of Clinton county, died May 10, 1886, at the age of seventy-eight years. He was born in New York State, and settled in this county forty years ago. He was one of the charter members of the Clinton County Pioneer Society and took great interest in its meetings, and was also very much interested in the State Pioneer Society. In his later years he delighted in telling stories of his early life in Poughkeepsie, N. Y., and of Martin Van Buren, with whom he was personally acquainted. He was an intelligent and honorable citizen.

BY M. D. OSBAND

BY DAVID B. HALE

James I. Rogers died in the township of Eaton Rapids, September 26, 1885, aged ninety-three years, ten months, and two days. He was born in the township of Zone, Massachusetts, November 24, 1791. April 11, 1819, he was married to Miss Savina Lowell, reared a family of ten children; seven children are still living. He buried his wife January 24, 1876. Deceased was a pensioner of the war of 1812. He participated in the battle of Fort Erie and witnessed the burning of Buffalo. He came to Michigan in the summer of 1838, and settled in Eaton Rapids, where he resided until his death.

Francis Champlin died in the town of Hamlin, September 8, 1885, aged seventy years. Mr. Champlin was born in Stafford, in Genesee county, New York, May 15, 1815. He settled in the town of Tyler, now Hamlin, in 1843.

Lorilla Pierson died in the township of Hamlin, October 20, 1885, aged eighty years, four months, and twenty-eight days. Born in Batavia, Genesee county, May, 23, 1805. Her maiden name was Lorilla Clark; was married to Josiah Pierson in 1832. Moved to Michigan in 1836 or 1837, and settled on section 14, now town of Hamlin.

David Osborn died in the city of Eaton Rapids, September 3, 1885, aged seventy-four years. He was born in Somerset, in the State of Maine. He married Miss Eliza Dexter in June, 1838, and settled on land he had located the year previous in the township of Tyler (now Hamlin), in Eaton county, Mich. He continued to reside on the same farm until about a year prior to his death, when he moved to the city of Eaton Rapids.

Eliza Osborn died in the city of Eaton Rapids, December 7, 1885, aged sixty-five years, six months, and eleven days. Her maiden name was Eliza Dexter. She was born in Weathersfield, Vermont, May 18, 1820. She settled with her husband, David Osborn, in Eaton county, when a large portion of the county was an unbroken wilderness.

Amos H. Munson died in the city of Charlotte, April 1, 1886, aged sixty-six years. He was born in Salsbury, New York, June 13, 1819. He located in Charlotte in the fall of 1854. Mr. Munson was united in marriage with Miss Lydia White, February 3, 1840, who died November 20, 1853. He was again married, January 1, 1856, to Mrs. Sarah L. Cushing, who survives him. He was engaged in the hardware business at the time of his death; he also owned a large farm near the city of Charlotte. He was a man much respected for his sterling worth, whose character was above reproach.

Luther Hartson, died in the city of Charlotte, August 22, 1885, aged seventy-six years and seven months. Deceased was one of the early settlers of Eaton county.

Benjamin Bartlett died in the city of Eaton Rapids, November 27, 1885, aged seventy-four years. Born in Washington county, Ohio, September 29, 1811; was married in 1843 to Miss Eunice Hunt, came to Michigan in 1853, and settled in the township of Eaton Rapids.

Wm. R. Kingman died in the township of Benton, March 19, 1885, aged sixty-four years. He was born in Virgil, Courtland county, New York, in 1822, and came to Michigan in early manhood. Settled in Charlotte, where he resided about one year, then to Benton, where he continued to reside 0043 31 until his death. He was elected clerk and deacon of the Baptist Church at the time of its organization in Charlotte in 1855.

Ira Hitchcock died in the township of Carmel, January 11, 1886, aged eighty-one years and six months. He was a resident of the township between thirty and forty years.

James Surene died in Vermontville on the 2d day of October, 1885. He was born in Kent, Putman county, New York, in 1814. In 1837 he was united in marriage to Miss Nancy Hough, who survives him. He moved to Shiawassee county Mich., in 1855, and in 1870 moved to Vermontville, where he died.

Zelotes Searles died in the city of Charlotte, November 17, 1885, aged seventy years, four months and four days. He was born in Wales, Erie county New York, July 13, 1815. He came to Michigan when a young man.

Edgar D. Brackett died in the city of Charlotte, January 24, 1886, aged forty-one years. He was born in Eaton county, in which he resided the whole of his lifetime.

Robert Dunn died in Carmel, Eaton county, on the 31st day of May, 1886. He was born in Essex county, State of New York, and was seventy years old at the time of his death. He settled in the township of Carmel in 1837. The town meeting was held at Mr. Dunn's house in 1840, and he claimed the honor of casting the first vote in the township.

Mrs. Hannah Ross died in Eaton, January 14, 1886, aged eighty-eight years. She has been a resident of the county for over forty years.

Roger W. Griswold died in Vermontville, May 31, 1886, at the age of seventy-four years. He was born in Benson, Vermont, in 1812. He was one of the original members of the “Vermont Colony,” and settled in Vermontville in 1836, just half a century ago, and settled on the place where he spent the greater part of his life. He returned to Vermont in 1837, and was married to Miss Abigail Stor Bascom, who returned with him to his new home in Michigan. He took an active interest in the advancement of the public interests of his town and county, and ever labored for the best interests of society.

John Dow died in Vermontville, September 30, 1885, aged eighty-one years and eight months. Mr. Dow was born in Somerset county, New Jersey, in 1804. He moved to Michigan in 1837, and settled in the township of Roxand, being one of the earliest settlers of the township. In 1838 he was elected supervisor, and held the office in that town for thirteen consecutive years, when he moved to Sunfield, and was elected supervisor of that township for thirty years, until old age and declining health compelled 0044 32 him to decline farther responsibilities in that field: He removed to Vermontville a few years before his death.

William W. Wolcott died on the 12th day of October, 1885, aged seventy-eight years and nine days. He was born in Austerlitz, Columbia county, New York, October 3, 1807. He was married on January 29, 1832, to Miss Elizabeth Baldwin, who survives him. Mr. Wolcott moved his family to Michigan in the summer of 1837 and settled on the land which he had located two years previously to that time, and where he continued to reside until his death. He reared a family of six children, five sons and one daughter. Mrs. Wolcott and five sons are still living. He was a model farmer and successful business man, respected by all his acquaintance.

Emily Robinson was born in Bennington, Vermont, March 31, 1806, and was married to W. N. Martin at Bennington, August 26, 1835, with whom she removed to Vermontville, Michigan, May 25, 1838. She died December 17, 1885. Mrs. Martin was a woman of firm and independent mind, of few words, but full of good deeds, a beloved wife, an honored mother. Unselfish to a fault, her life was spent in the service of her Master in Heaven, her family, to which she was devoted, the church she loved so well, the poor in her town, and all claims of society of right aims.

BY J. W. BEGOLE

BY E. O. GROSVENOR

In making a report of the deaths of pioneers in this county since date of my last report, which, I believe, was in 1884, I am unable, owing to the very large number who have passed away, to give more than the name, age, time of death and residence. Some of them were members of the State Pioneer Society, most of them members of our county society, and all were residents of the State and county.

Some of them have filled prominent positions in the county and State, and deserve more than a passing notice. In such cases I doubt not you have received and placed on file suitable obituary notices, which have appeared in our local and State papers.

This makes the large number of one hundred and fifty-four pioneers who have died in this county from June 1, 1884, to May 31, 1886—two 0053 41 years. Of the whole number but six are named who died under fifty years of age, and these are included because, being children of early settlers, their entire lives have been passed in this State, and most of them in this county. A tabular statement is given below, in periods of ten years, showing relative number who died within the ages named, and the average age of the entire number:

Died under 50 years of age 6

The oldest died in his 99th year. Average age of entire number, 71½ years. Aggregate age of entire number, 10,987 years.

Since the foregoing was written, the following has been received for insertion in connection with this report:

BY C. B. STEBBINS

The following are statistics, such as I have been able to gather, of pioneer residents of Ingham county who have passed away since our last meeting:— 6

Of these twelve were over 70, ten over 75, one over 80 years of age. But four were under 50 years. Six were natives of foreign countries; but two were born in Michigan.

BY HAMPTON RICH

The following biographical sketches have been collected by me for the past year:

BY CHESTER TAYLOR

BY HENRY BISHOP

To the Pioneer Society of the State of Michigan :

The delegates from The Old Residents' Association of the Grand River Valley respectfully report that Robert Hilton, the President of that Association, who was also one of your Vice-Presidents, has deceased since your last meeting and with your permission present a copy of the memorial and resolution adopted, on motion of Thomas B. Church, on the occasion of his funeral, on the 16th day of July, A. D. 1885.

BY FRANCIS A. DEWEY

One hundred and five pioneers have died in Lenawee county during the last twelve months, and we can most truly record that they were among the most estimable citizens of Michigan. The average age of the one hundred and five was seventy years. The oldest was Mrs. Mary Lapham, of Rome township, aged ninety-six years; there were thirty-two who died between eighty and ninety years of age; four over ninety.

BY PETER WHITE

Mrs. Mehitable E. Everitt, wife of Philo M. Everitt, was born at Concord, N. H., December 8, 1818, and died at Marquette, December 1, 1883. She came to Michigan in November, 1840, and settled at Jackson, where she lived ten years. She resided at Marquette from 1850 to the time of her death.

BY O. POPPLETON

The following pioneers of Oakland county have died since the last meeting held in June, 1885: —

I have been enabled to collect the data and report the names of 51 pioneers whose deaths have occurred during the past year in the county. Aggregate number of years, 3,778. Average age, 74 1–13. Oldest, Mrs. Harriet Cox, 96. Next oldest, Ira Toms, 92.

BY CHARLES W. GRANT

BY H. H. RILEY

BY JOHN BAKER

(Secretary of Tuscola county Pioneer Society)

All of these were early pioneers in this county. Their ages ranged from 56 to 82 years.

BY EATON BRANCH

BY D. LAY

The average ages of the deceased are as follows:

Over 100 years of age 1

There are none of those persons that have died within the last year who were members of this society, but some of them were members of the Washtenaw county pioneer society, and the following three persons were prominent persons in society in the county:

Hon. Edwin Lawrence, of Ann Arbor, died June 26, 1885, aged 77 years; resident of Ann Arbor for 50 years. He had been circuit judge of that district for several years, and had held other important offices besides. being one of the best counsellors in the county.

James McMahon, died July 10, 1885, aged 65 years; resident of Ann Arbor 48 years. Mr. McMahon had held the office of county clerk one or more terms, supervisor several years, circuit court commissioner and other offices in the county, and almost all the time was called to fill some important office in the county.

Alien Crittenden, died May 10, 1886, aged 76 years, resident in Pittsfield 55 years. Mr. Crittenden had held the office of supervisor 15 years, and was one of the directors of the Washtenaw insurance company for several years, was frequently called upon to settle estates, and was one of the ruling elders in the Stony Creek Presbyterian Church for several years; and was one of the elders of the Saline Presbyterian Church at the time of his death.

BY PHILO PARSONS

BY PROF. HENRY A. FORD

In the early days of August, 1860, I came to Michigan by the happy accident of acquaintance with the Hon. John M. Oregory, the Superintendent of Public Instruction; to become a teacher in the business school of his brother, Mr. Uriah Gregory, at Kalamazoo. My interest in education here has since been steady and earnest; my labors in its behalf frequent, and I trust, notwithstanding many errors, not altogether ill-directed. It has been a good State for that kind of work—its people kind and helpful, the leaders in education for the most part hospitable and friendly, in the spirit of that liberality which a so-called liberal education implies.

In the year of grace 1860, many capable, and some eminent men, were, or very recently had been, in pedagogic service here. Dr. Gregory, as I have noted, was leading the common school host with great efficiency and success, though with many hindrances and under many severe labors. Mr. C. B. Stebbins, then alone sufficient for the clerical duties of the office, was his deputy, and remained at the post for twenty-two years. Dr. Tappan, clarum et venerabile nomen , was at the head of the State university, on the roll of whose faculty were the distinguished names of Frieze, Williams, Boise, Winchell, Wood, White, and others. Adams, now President of Cornell University, was an undergraduate at Ann Arbor. A. S. Welch was principal of the State Normal School, aided by Sill, his latest successor, Ripley, Carey, Pease, still teaching there, Mrs. Aldrich, Miss Susan Tyler, 0105 93 of the famous family, and perhaps others. Dr. T. C. Abbot was Professor of English Literature, and L. R. Fiske of Chemistry in the Agricultural College, of which the former, still connected with the school, was so long the distinguished head. Dr. J. A. B. Stone and his accomplished wife, who are even yet at work in the higher education, but in quiet, private ways, were in charge of the Kalamazoo College, and among their teachers were Olney, the renowned mathematician, and the young Prof. L. E. Holden, now a Cleveland millionarie. The celebrated Asa Mahan was president of Adrian College, whose buildings had been opened but a few months before. Thomas H. Sinex was in the executive chair of the Wesleyan Seminary and Female College, now Albion College. E. B. Fairfield, then considerably in republican politics, and lieutenant-governor of the State for one term, was president of Hillsdale; M. W. Fairfield at Olivet. Prof. Hosford, since, and for eight years, State superintendent, held, as he still holds, the chair of mathematics at Olivet. Louis McLouth, who came to be a large figure in Michigan education, had just completed his first year in charge of the Lapeer Academy. Burrows, now the eloquent and influential Congressman, ruled the Richland Seminary in Kalamazoo county; Rev. T. J. Poor, the Dickinson Institute in Romeo, from whose building the public schools have but recently been removed; the lamented Rev. E. J. Boyd, the Young Ladies' Seminary and Collegiate Institute at Monroe; Mr. O. Moffat, the Colon Seminary; James Cochran, the Disco Academy; and Herr F. Vireoke, the German-English School in Detroit. The since famous Female Seminary in that city, of which J. M. B. Sill was Principal for years, had been started but the year before by the Rev. J. V. Beers, of Worcester, Massachusetts. The Michigan Female College at Lansing, so pleasantly remembered by many ladies of the older generation, was admirably conducted by Misses A. C. and Delia Rogers.

The growth of the high school system has caused most of the old time academies and seminaries to disappear. The names of those that still survive will be readily recognized. On the other hand, the college system has grown. The only colleges then in existence in Michigan were the State university and those at Hillsdale, Kalamazoo, Olivet, Adrian, and Albion. The Detroit College (Roman Catholic), and the schools of this character at Battle Creek and Holland (Hope College), are of later growth. The theological departments of Kalamazoo, and perhaps of other denominational colleges have, however, disappeared. Naturally, the faculties and the several corps of students have greatly strengthened.

The university in the academic year 1859-60, had but twelve full professors, two assistant professors, three instructors, and 519 students, of whom 90 must 0106 94 be credited to the law department organized at the beginning of that year. The same institution, twenty-five years after (1884–85), had more than 80 members of its several faculties and 1296 students in its various departments, of whom 196 were women. I need not add, but still desire to put on record in this rapid survey, the fact that this great school is the most worthy of the “university” name of any west of the Alleghanies.

Twenty-five years ago, Detroit had no superintendent of Public Schools, in the present acceptation of the term, and had not until Mr. Sill's accession in 1864. The larger school buildings, however,—there were only the old capitol, now the high school, the Bishop, and the Barstow,—were in the competent hands of such men as Chaney, Nichols (who survived to be the oldest graded school teacher in the State by continuous service, and died full of years and honors); and Olcott, who is still on duty, but in the Upper Peninsula. Among the primary teachers were two young ladies who have since achieved distinction as principals of ward schools—Miss Sarah Russel, just retired, but temporarily, we may hope, from one of the most remarkable pedagogic careers any woman has had in this country; and Miss Caroline Crossman, of the Barstow School, almost the sole survivor in Detroit schools of the teachers of 1860. The entire corps in the city then numbered but 63, against about 300 at the present time. The total attendance of pupils was then 4,490; it is now 21,325.

In those days J. B. Danforth, later and now one of the foremost educators in the Empire State, for some years its deputy superintendent of public instruction, and since in charge of the Elmira schools, was directing the teachers at Grand Rapids. Estabrook, so long and still in valuable service among us, was in command at the Ypsilanti Union Seminary, the fine central school building then new and much admired, and even yet an ornament to that centre of public education. Putnam, an eminent name in our efforts to this day, which should stand at the very head of the Normal force to the hour of his death or retirement, was head master at the “Old Union,” then the new one in Kalamazoo. Daniel B. Briggs, since superintendent of public instruction for two terms, now living in retirement in Detroit, had just closed a brief term of superintending in Ann Arbor, where his next predecessor had been Claudius B. Grant, at present a distinguished judge in the Upper Peninsula. Professor Payne, a young and strong man, had the schools at Three Rivers, where his work is still vividly and affectionately remembered. It was about this time that a conversation with Dr. Gregory, as they rode together on some professional errand, opened to him the fruitful field of the philosophy of education, in which he has since become the foremost worker west of the mountains. Sadler was at 0107 95 Sturgis; Bellows, now our well-known Normal professor and mathematician, was about to return to the Constantine schools from a year or two of teaching in northern Indiana; Silas Betts was at Niles; McGowan, since a congressman and now a Washington lawyer, was then, or soon after, Principal of the Coldwater high school. Frank G. Russell, a Normal graduate, now a Detroit attorney, had in charge the “Middletown union school” at Lansing. S. M. Cutcheon, also a prominent Detroit lawyer, and for some years United States district attorney, had been at the head of the Ypsilanti high school, but returned in the summer of 1860 to Springfield, Illinois, to begin legal practice. Edwin Willits, who, so fortunately for himself and the State, has returned to educational service, had dropped into law and politics at Monroe, and was about to be elected prosecuting attorney for his county. George Willard, who had been a professor in Kalamazoo college, was a low church Episcopal clergyman in the Burr-oak village. Horace Halbert was principal of the high school there.

A few day after I came to the State the ninth annual meeting of the State Teachers' Association occurred in Ypsilanti, and I was priviledged to attend that meeting. It was presided over by Principal Poor, of Romeo, in the absence of E. J. Boyd, of Monroe, and was attended by an excellent representation of the pedagogic force of the State, and by many intelligent citizens. That great and now venerable thinker and worker in education, the Rev. Thomas Hill, then President of Antioch College, Ohio, and for a time at the head of Harvard University, was the sole distinguished visitor from any other State, and in an evening address presented his original and practical views on “The True Order of Studies,” which have since been made widely familiar through various publications. Principal Welch, of the Normal School, had also one of the main addresses of the occasion, on “The Natural System of Instruction,” and a lecture was delivered by the Rev. Dr. Hogarth, pastor of the Jefferson avenue Presbyterian Church in Detroit, on “The Use of the Affections as a Mental Stimulus.” Papers upon various topics were read by Prof. Olney of Kalamazoo, and Carey of the Normal School, Superintendents Danforth of Grand Rapids, Sadler of Sturgis, and Betts of Niles, and by Miss A. C. Rogers. The address of welcome to the association was given by the late Chauncey Joslin, Esq., who was said as a boy of sixteen (in 1829) to have delivered the first lecture ever pronounced on free schools in the United States, endeavoring to establish the proposition that universal education should be maintained by universal taxation. Reports from committees were made on “Text Books” by Prof. Abbot of the Agricultural College, and on “Reforms in School Laws,” by State Superintendent Gregory. An interesting discussion was 0108 96 had upon the subject of “School Prizes,” in which Dr. Hill and Mr. Danforth favored the system, and Messrs. Putnam, Estabrook, and others also joined in the debate. They were able men who were present at this meeting, most of them in the prime of life, and full of manly vigor and enthusiasm. The most vivid impressions left upon my own mind, aside from the personnel of the convention, relate to the philosophy of child nature, especially to the early development and culture of the perceptive faculties, as underlying first procedures in all rudimentary branches by means of object lessons. Dr. Hill's address and Mr. Danforth's paper on “Elementary Instruction,” with many remarks in other addresses and papers, and in the discussions, opened a new world in education to me, and helped to new departures in my own work. Dr. Gregory's presence and active participation in all transactions were also exceedingly inspiring and helpful to the young auditor.

The roll of officers-elect at this meeting adds some names to those of our previous summary of the Michigan educators of twenty-five years ago. They were:—

President —Prof. E. L. Ripley, then of the Jackson public schools, afterwards a teacher at the Normal.

Vice-Presidents —George H. Botsford of North Adams, afterwards county superintendent of schools in Hillsdale county; Superintendent Sadler of Sturgis, L. J. Marcy of Detroit, Messrs. Abbot, Olney, Poor, Danforth, Wm. Travis of Flint, H. A. Pierce of Owosso, H. Bross of Newaygo, and J. G. Everett of Ontonagon.

Recording Secretary —John Richards of Albion.

Corresponding Secretary —D. Putnam of Kalamazoo.

Treasurer —J. M. B. Sill.

Executive Committee —Messrs. Hosford and Welch.

Writing but sixteen years afterwards of the history of this association, Professor Putnam indulged in this reflection: “One is forcibly reminded of the fact that most of the active members of that time have disappeared from our ranks, and many of them from our State. The compensation is found in the new and fresher blood, which, from year to year, has flowed in to give a quickened life to the current.” The meetings of the society were steadily maintained amid the alarms of war, and have never, I believe, been intermitted. It has justly been regarded as prominent among the educational forces of the State and as ranking fairly in the ability of its members, and the strength and freshness of its work with any similar body in this country.

To the State association, indeed, may be placed the beginnings of several important reforms in our system of popular education that, ultimately, were 0109 97 crystallized in legislation. The county superintendency of schools, undoubtedly the most efficient plan of local supervising yet adopted in any State or county, and which was the Michigan plan from 1867 to 1873, had its rise in this State in discussions by and reports to this association, beginning as early as 1855 and running through no less than twelve years. After the failure of the superintendency through serious defects in the organic act, and very likely in the administration of the officers appointed to execute it, various tentative efforts have been made to find a satisfactory system of examination of teachers and inspection of schools, issuing at last in the present scheme of county boards of examiners. The course of legislation in this matter does not require extended review.

On the 3d day of July, 1869, appropriately just before the celebration of “Independence Day,” the educators and more intelligent citizens of Michigan rejoiced in the abolition of the rate bill—that relic of barbarism, as Dr. Gregory had long before called it. The act of repeal took effect on that day, and thenceforth the public schools of our State have been absolutely free and open to all comers from the district in which the school is situated. But the repeal was the result of agitation which had been maintained ever since 1850, the year of our present State constitution, which plainly contemplates a free school system, and of efforts by the State association, dating back at least eleven years, to the Niles meeting of 1858.

Compulsory school attendance was ordained by the State legislature, in 1871, with no important effect; and sundry later attempts at amendment and strengthening of the law have not produced appreciable results in the increase of figures of attendance in our school reports. It may be doubted whether the conditions exist in Michigan, or indeed in any American State, for the general enforcement of a compulsory education, or more properly school attendance law.

These are the principal measures of legislation bearing upon our common school system during the last quarter century. Within little more than half that period, the next most notable changes have occurred at the State university. In January, 1870, the following resolution was adopted by the governing board of that institution:

Resolved ,—“That the board of regents recognize the right of every resident of Michigan to the enjoyment of the privileges afforded by the university, and that no rule exists in any of the university statutes for the exclusion of any person from the university, who possesses the requisite literary and moral qualifications.”

This peculiarly worded resolve had but one intent and purpose, which might 13 0110 98 have been more bravely and distinctly expressed—to open the doors of the university at once, and it may be hoped, for ever, to the admission of women. The first graduate under this just and liberal provision, now Mrs. Madelon Stockwell Turner, of Kalamazoo, has proved a noble exemplification of the capacity of woman to receive and her ability to apply for the benefit of society a thorough-going university culture.

The later establishment at Ann Arbor of a chair of pedagogy, the first of the kind in any similar institution in this country, and its continuous occupation by the original incumbent, Professor W. H. Payne, have been truly efficient forces in the general uplift of the teaching profession, and so of popular education in this State.

A brief paragraph must be given to educational journalism in Michigan. In 1860, the Michigan Journal of Education had been published for nearly seven years, most of the time in the editorial care of Dr. Gregory. The various arrangements of the State Teacher's Association for its continuance, including one prevailing in 1860, for its management by twelve editors, one for each number of a volume, did not tend to its strengthening or permanence, and a really useful publication ceased to exist near the close of the next year. The issue of the Michigan Teacher began in January, 1866, at Niles, as the personal venture of Professor W. H. Payne and C. L. Whitney. John Goodison, H. L. Wayland, and H. A. Ford, were successively added to its staff, and at the opening of 1871, just before his retirement from the county superintendency, it fell exclusively into the hands of the last named, by whom it was sold to the Educational Weekly, of Chicago, at the close of 1876. Another monthly, entitled The School, edited and published by Professors of the Normal School at Ypsilanti, was issued from January, 1872, to the end of 1876. In about four years thereafter, the Michigan School Moderator was started at Grand Rapids, since removed to Lansing, and now, as a semi-monthly in the hands of Professor H. R. Pattengill, lately appointed to the faculty of the Agricultural College, it has become one of the ablest and most useful journals of the kind in the land. Several other but minor and generally unimportant attempts have been made in school journalism in a sporadic and transient way, calling for no detailed notice here. During the brief period of the county superintendency some spirited and well-intentioned little papers were published by superintendents to forward their local work, in which much matter of permanent value appeared.

In 1860 there were but 94 union or graded school districts in the State; twenty-five years afterwards, by the official returns of 1885, there were 440. The graded and ungraded districts numbered 4,094, against 6,492 of ungraded 0111 99 districts alone last year. Of children of school age 246,684 were enumerated, against 595,752, or a little more than twice as many, in 1885. The enrollment in public schools was but 192,937, against 411,954. The number of men teachers in the schools was 2,599, against 3,876; of women teachers 5,342, against 11,482. The ladies have evidently been forging in force to the front in the pedagogic profession, relatively regarded. The respective totals of public school teachers are 7,941 and 15,358. The aggregate wages of teachers were $467,286.50 in 1860, and $2,785,280.16, showing an increase quite out of proportion to the numerical increase, being, indeed, more than three times as great. The average number of months taught in the schools for the year grew from 6.2 in 1860 to 7.6 in 1884, which unaccountably decreased by one-half of one per cent in 1885.

I must pause here, for I did not set out to write a volume, but only a preliminary essay or outline sketch, which some one may some day fill. The changes in the teachers' institute system, and some other reforms, are too well known to need notice. The condition of both the popular and the higher education in our Peninsulas may be regarded as exceedingly fortunate, and the State is to be congratulated, in general, upon its educational men and measures. The university, the colleges, the few old-time seminaries and academies that remain, and the public schools of all grades and no grade, are for the most part competently officered and intelligently conducted according to standards increasing in efficiency and practicality year by year. We have one man in education—Professor Payne of the State university—who is named in high eastern quarters as “in a position to become a national authority”—a high honor, truly, for any man or any State. In the Rev. Dr. Nelson we have a superintendent of public instruction, who, if continued in office and measurably restored to health, may revive the glories of the Gregory regime. We have many others who are reputably known in the councils of the National Association and in the ranks of text book, and miscellaneous writers or compilers, and are likewise distinguished in their home work. Michigan is a felt influence in the education of the country, but more importantly in her own colleges of the people, the free public schools. I am glad to have lived upon her soil, and to have labored in and for her most of the years of the last quarter century; and am thankful to the authorities of the State Pioneer Society who have kindly allowed me thus to put on record some of my impressions and reminiscences.

BY F. R. STEBBINS

Thirty-five years ago. These words awaken in the minds of the young people of to-day, no personal memories of the past, and have to them only the significance of a mention of the times of “long ago,” the times away back of their first look upon this fair land, the region of the great lakes.

Our children listen to the simple story of our experiences thirty, forty and fifty years ago, with great interest, but can never realize the full import of our narratives; but to such of us as have been, during these years, the actors in this labor of moulding and working out, in fact largely creating the great material, social, and political grandeur of this fair home of ours, which we found a wilderness, these words awaken many memories. How does the mention of these years bring to our minds a flood of recollections, of the sorrows and the joys, the failures and the successes, the toils of all, and the resting from their labors of so many, who once aided us in this great work of founding a new and noble State. Now, as we look around our well-furnished homes, our smiling farms, our stores, our manufactories, our schools, and school-houses, and churches, our railroads and wagon roads, the memories of the times of forty and fifty years ago seem a dream only, and a record of those times, as they pass, only a page from the romance of the novelist; and yet how that page glows and enlarges, and how even romance is dimmed by the stranger realities, as the individual experiences of those years are related in the many volumes of our pioneer collections, you all know. I have, in this paper, no strange tale to tell, no startling romance, and perhaps very little interesting reality to record; but, thinking that the incidents of a trip to our truly great lakes in 1851 might not be entirely devoid of interest, I present them on this occasion.

Early in the month of August, 1851, it was my good fortune, through the kindness of Sheldon McKnight, in company with my wife and two young daughters, to find myself and family pleasantly settled in a good stateroom on board the steamer London, one of McKnight's line of boats, at Detroit, bound for Sault Ste. Marie, where we were to be transferred to a “propeller” 0121 109 of his line on Lake Superior. The charm of such a trip to these then new and wild sections of our State, for the first time, to our party, can hardly be described: but that such a tour, with quiet water on the lake, was one of pure enjoyment, I have no doubt many pioneers present, who have taken such a trip, can easily believe. The few isolated settlements, with their rude wharves, and scattered and cheaply-constructed houses along the St. Clair River, and the land on the south and west shores of Lake Huron, to our eyes gave little promise of their present beauty and population, Port Huron was just beginning to be recognized as a stopping place of a few of the lake steamers, and Lexington and Sand Beach were of no account to mariners, with Forester, Forestville, and other points, now visited by nearly all the coasting steamers, either having no existence at all, or being usually avoided as dangerous localities for steamers.

On the west shore of the lake, beyond Saginaw Bay, the wilderness was still more unbroken. Where now stands Alpena, with its thousands of population, and its great lumber and fishing enterprises, a solitary pioneer, or fisherman's shanty, marked the spot—the Indians having prevented all attempts of settlement—and there, as along the coast, the great pine forests came down to the water's edge. All was unbroken wilderness, with its wealth of timber. A small and very rude settlement only at Cheboygan and Duncans.

What a world of memories of the traditions and the romantic histories of the far-famed Mackinaw regions came over us as we steamed by beautiful Bois Blanc, and came out in view of old Mackinaw, Point St. Ignace, and the gem of all, the peerless Mackinaw Island. All was new to many of our company, and save the fort and framed houses, and the rude wharf and modern vessels, instead of Indian wigwams, and the beach lined with bark canoes, much the same as when Marquette first looked upon the same scenery nearly two hundred years before. It did not detract from the interest I took in this beautiful island, when I remembered how, in my boyhood, in the old school-house spelling bees, in Vermont, so many of us used to wrestle with the old name “Michilimackinack,” and I am not sure that I can spell the word correctly even now. After a short stop we steamed away for Detour, and entered the river St. Mary. By this time our passengers became pretty well acquainted with each other, and we could call the roll for the then Governor John S. Barry, Auditor General John Swegles, John Harmon, a State senator, A. Harvie, Mr. Harris, editor of the Cleveland Herald , and we were joined at the SauIt by Hon. Mr. Henry, from Vermont, and Hon. Truman Smith, U.S. Senator from Connecticut. The fact that four of us were staunch whigs, and four dyed-in-the-wool democrats, 0122 110 did not mar in the least our pleasant intercourse during the trip. Governor Barry, from his sedate countenance, in the early voyage, had been set down by the stranger passengers as a missionary to the Indians, on the way to join his charge, and we had to joke the governor on his missionary work, all of which he took without offense. To those of us who knew John Harmon in those days, I need not say he was not taken for an assistant missionary, although a listener might sometimes hear him exclaim, “I assist.”

At the “Soo” we left the London and took quarters at the hotel, waiting a day or two for the arrival down of the propeller Monticello, upon which we were to take our voyage on Lake Superior. During our stop I had the pleasure of catching a string of speckled trout, in the rapids, fishing from the shore. The population of the village of Sault Ste. Marie at that time was made up largely of Chippewa Indians and French and Indian half-breeds, and a few soldiers at the United States military post, and contained very little enterprise or trade beyond saloons, and stores for Indian supplies. There was no canal, and all transit to Lake Superior, and from the lake to the river, around the rapids, was overland about one mile, by teams, or by a train railway, with platform cars; and the two and only steam vessels on Lake Superior had been taken over this portage from St. Mary's river. What a contrast with to-day, when it is stated, on good authority, that the tonnage of grain, metals, ores, merchandise, etc., through the great locks at St. Mary's, was during the last year, larger than that passing through that great world's highway, the Suez canal. The next morning, after leaving the Sault, we were in sight of the Pictured Rocks. And who can describe the sensation of a traveler whose eyes for the first time rest upon these wonderful pictures of nature's handiwork? And who shall describe the pictures as they appear? Weird, wonderful, beautiful is all we can exclaim. Passing Pictured Rocks, we tied up to the shore of Grand Island. Here was one house and a little clearing, where a solitary family was struggling for a living, by cultivating a few vegetables and furnishing fuel for the propellers on Lake Superior.

Gov. Barry was here taken with a fainting attack; but he was taken on board and soon recovered, and we proceeded on our way.

Our next landing was at the present site of Marquette, then called “Carp River.” A settlement had just commenced there, but the bluff was covered with pine and spruce trees, with a few modest cabins, the whole presenting as dismal a looking pioneer beginning as one could find anywhere. A little iron ore had been quarried and smelted there, but the greatness of this industry and mineral wealth, since developed under the fostering care of protection to home industry, was not dreamed of, even by the most sanguine 0123 111 of the enterprising men who even then saw great things for the newly-discovered mineral wealth of the Lake Superior region. Seeing Marquette, as I did then as Carp River, with no wharf, almost no settled population, a mere opening in the wilderness, I was not prepared for the wonderful change I saw when I visited it some thirty years afterwards, in the great ore, docks, and an almost continuous line of cars, discharging into the boats the rich ore from Negaunee and Ishpeming, and the busy, beautiful city, with its brick blocks, costly residences and iron works, and other industries. To no one man, probably, has Marquette more reason to be grateful for her wonderful growth and prosperity, than to a member of this society, and one who has often added to its interest in recitals of accidents connected with the early settlement of the Upper Peninsula, the Hon. Peter White.

Giving Carp River a parting gun from a small cannon on our deck, we steamed away up the lake to Eagle Harbor. This was also a very small beginning of a settlement, with a few rude buildings scattered among the pine trees. Our next stop was at Eagle River. Here was no harbor and no wharf, and the steamer anchored some distance from shore, and the passengers went ashore in row boats. Here the steamer “landed” some cattle, which was done by pushing them overboard at the gangway, the cattle swimming ashore. Eagle River was the landing place for the Cliff and North American copper mines, which were located some three miles away, the road to the mines passing over a high land ridge some six or seven hundred feet in height. The Cliff mine that year was thought to have done a great work in the shipment of 1200 tons of copper. Another mine, since that, has shipped 18,000 tons in one year.

Another parting gun, and we headed direct for La Pointe. Soon after starting, we met and saluted heartily the other steamer on the lake, the propeller Manhattan, little dreaming of the coming events of our next meeting.

Our approach to La Pointe was one of great interest to many of our party, the larger part having never before visited the region of the Apostle islands.

On shore we saw the old mission house, a large trading house, a few other buildings, with a large sprinkling of Indian wigwams. From all parts of the little settlement we saw coming towards the landing a few white men, and a motley crowd of Indians, including squaws, and young and older children, all clad in Indian costume, or a mixture of Indian and white men's clothing, the advent of a steamboat being at that time an uncommon event at La Pointe.

We were much pleased to learn that old Chief Buffalo was at home, and that a hundred or more wild Chippewas were encamped in the woods near 0124 112 by, adding no little interest to our visit. We were soon all on shore, and exploring the settlement.

Of course the first objective point, for a few of us, was the Indian wigwams, made either of skins or bark, with the usual architecture of Indian skill, and the usual decoration of dirty blankets, kettles, and skins. Meanwhile the dancing portion of our party were entertaining a large party of the natives with a white man's dance, in the trading house, which soon suggested an Indian dance; the first intimation of which I received by the arrival of the lord of a wigwam, the interior of which I was inspecting, who turned me out of his “castle,” peremptorily, with the excuse, imparted mostly by signs, that he wished to dress for the war dance. We found when we recognized the gentleman of the woods later, at the dance, that his “dressing” consisted in taking off what few clothes he usually wore, and painting his body with all manner of devices, rudely made with his several fingers for a paint brush.

We all lost no time in gathering at the mission house before which, on a wide lawn of short grass, the dance was to be held. Ere long we heard in the direction of the woods, where the wild Indians were encamped, the peculiar thump of the “tom-tom,” or Indian drum.

The excitement of the white tourists now became intense. We all knew we were to look upon a genuine war dance—all but the war—not by some mountebank company, but principally by the woods Indians, who so far had refused to be civilized and Christianized into doubtful saints, at the Jesuit mission stations. We all moved outside, and arranged on the wide platform in front of the house, which from a gentle elevation afforded a fine view of the dance ground. On one part of the platform were placed chief Buffalo, seated in the only arm chair to be found, with Governor Barry and the other dignitaries on either side of him. Chief Buffalo could only express himself through an interpreter, and he sat in stoical silence, without a movement of facial muscle during the whole dance. The rest of our party were standing on the other part of the platform, with our ladies in front, all in eager anticipation of the appearance of the Indians; and certainly not the least interested in the coming procession were our tourists who enjoyed the front seats, where nothing could obstruct a free vision of the warriors. On came the red men. First is seen the motion of the elevated staff adorned with large eagle feathers, borne by an aged warrior; next an old torn American flag; and soon, with steady tread, to the measured beatings of the Indian drum the whole band comes in view. Now came a new sensation. The ladies had not been informed of the peculiar features of the elaborate ball 0125 113 dress of the Indians, and no sooner had the much-painted warriors come in sight, than the longest-sighted lady, shading her eyes with her hand for a moment, to get a better view of the details, was suddenly taken ill, and, hastily pushing our rear ranks of gentlemen asunder, she fled into the house. Nearer came the Indians, and another lady was attacked with the same disorder, and escaped inside. Thump, thump, launder sounded the tom-tom, nearer and nearer came the Indians, when another lady was attacked with the strange contagious disease, and then another, and another, quickly followed by a stampede of every lady on the platform, for which was made an open rank movement, and we, the men, were, left alone on the platform to admire Indian warriors' toilets. Now the motley band halted before us, the tom-tom ceased, and the naked loveliness of these forest dancers appeared, even to the most short-sighted beholder. Notwithstanding our great interest in the display, we could not help being anxious about our ladies, in the house, whose sudden illness was depriving them of an equal share in the entertainment. Our great regrets were uncalled for; and if we had in those earlier years of life known what riper experience has taught us, that the ladies, although timid at the start, on any great and unusual display of strange forces will always find a way to overcome the timidity, and push again to the front, and be the last to leave the conflict, our anxiety for these would have been less. And so it was on this occasion. My mind, reverting in sympathy to the unfortunate indisposition of our ladies, I naturally cast my eyes back towards the windows of the room in which they were concealed, just as the drum commenced to beat again for the grand dance; and what was my astonishment to see six distinct female faces instantly dodge back from six window panes, they were plainly and closely pressing. Soon, another fair face appeared, looking over the shoulders of the gentlemen in the doorway. The gentlemen naturally made way for the fair one to get a better view, and the lady improved the kindness. Another lady filled her place, and soon, in her turn, advanced for a better view; occupying the place of the first lady, who had now moved on nearer the front, and this movement went on by the ladies, until, in succession, as quickly, as they had been attacked by the strange disorder, the invalids were all recovered, taking their old positions in the front, “fighting bravely until the last gun was fired,” and then complaining that the battle of the “breech-cloths” did not last longer.

The warriors in this dance, as they moved around in a circle in close single file, presented a variety of dress enough to suit anyone. Very many of them had no dress, save the breech-cloth, and paint. One old warrior was dressed in a wolf skin, with the wolf head forming a head covering. Another, with spare spindle shanks, trotted around with a bright scarlet 15 0126 114 shawl on his shoulders, worn folded, with the corner points dangling at his heels. One nobly-formed savage wore, suspended on his bare breast, two large silver medals, presented by the U. S. Government in 1825, one stamped “peace and friendship,” the other, “John Quicy Adams, President of the United States.” The old men simply gave an occasional grunt, as they moved around with measured tread of spare and tawny limbs unclothed, in solemn dignity. The younger braves were profuse in grotesque postures and whoopings, barkings, wolf howlings and discharging their guns in the air. Some were dressed only in deer-skin breeches, with the usual ornaments of beads, tassels and feathers, and some had red shirts only.

After the dance the great Buffalo signified his desire to have a talk with Gov. Barry. State Senator Harvie introduced the Governor, who said: “The great chief of Michigan is glad to meet the great chief of the Chippewas. He desires to meet him as a friend and a brother, but not to confer upon political subjects. Let this meeting be one of friendship between the people of the great chief of Michigan and the people of the great chief of the Chippewas, and nothing more.” This was repeated to Buffalo in the Chippewa language, sentence by sentence, by the interpreter.

The great Buffalo replied, through the interpreter, as follows: “My father, I am glad to meet you here, on this land where my fathers lived, and the land which they have left me, and where their bones repose. Especially am I glad to meet you at this time, when on account of some things, my heart is sad. I was told I should be paid off here, in this place, twenty-five years ago; and now, before the time is half gone, I am told I must go to Sault Ste. Marie. It is a great way; I am old and cannot go. The man who sold these lands was but a child. Buffalo did not do it. My father knows the ways of the white man and the ways of the red man. In view of all this, the great Buffalo feels sad. I wish you to look at these papers.”

Here the chief took from beneath his dress a copy of a treaty with the Chippewas and handed it to the Governor, who, after looking at the title, handed the papers back to the chief, and replied:

“The chief of Michigan is only chief of another great tribe, and has no power in the matter of this treaty. He will do all in his power to promote justice and right, and he advises the great Buffalo to do as his great father, the President, directs, as he will do right.”

The same old “taffy,” as the boys now call it, always dealt out so liberally to the Indians. The “great father” at Washington no doubt “did right,” by enforcing the wrong in the bogus treaty with the “child,” of whom Buffalo spoke. As Buffalo told Gov. Barry, “he knew the ways Of the white man.” I think we all know pretty well of the wrongs so many times 0127 115 enforced in accordance with the terms of fraudulently obtained treaties with the Indians by the government, which the wronged natives are told “always does right.”

The pipe of peace was then passed around, and the “talk” was over. At this point John Harmon and the mercurial Senator Harvie had concluded the scheme of a little joke upon a peculiar financial characteristic of Gov. Barry. It was well known that the Governor, although wealthy, was very prudent with his means, in his expenditures of money, and it required very adroit management to open his purse strings on any common occasion. But here was a very uncommon call, and when John Harmon suggested to the Governor that it was customary in such cases to make some small present to the Indians, the Governor, thrown off his guard by the excitement of the dance, and the Words small present, in Harmon's suggestion, replied: “Very well, gentlemen, make them such a present as you think suitable for me.” Harmon and Harvie sped away to the trader's store, and the small present speedily distributed to the red men and their squaws, would have insured the Governor at least six votes each from the braves had they resided in Chicago or New York at the next election. But when, just before we were to embark for our departure, the bill, to the amount of some forty or fifty dollars, was presented to the Governor, those of you who knew him can imagine the pent up wrath which his dignity, before another great chief, restrained from explosion; but it cast over his dark features a look which reminded one of a black thunder cloud which seemed just ready to burst asunder with terrific lightning and thunder. He paid the bill in portentious silence, and said not a word; but had he, about that time, caught John Harmon and Senator Harvie alone, I think I would decline to record the merited rebuke he would have given them in his well known vigorous language, when occasion called for it. The clouds of the affair hung over him a long time; and when we landed at Ontonagon, the Governor would not go ashore, for fear, I suppose, of more Indians, to receive “small presents.”

We left La Pointe with regret, having our time so much occupied by the red men that we had no time to thoroughly explore the locality where Marquette was located about 1669, when only thirty years of age.

We were obliged to anchor nearly a quarter of a mile from shore, at Ontonagon, on account of the shoal water; and a part of our company went ashore in row boats. An old barn-like warehouse, a low double log house, one or two other log cabins, and a small frame house in process of construction, was all there was of Ontonagon; and we were soon on board and steaming down the lake.

We made two other landings on our way back, and as the last sunset we 0128 116 would be able to enjoy on Lake Superior bade us a golden good night, we gathered around the cabin lights, and congratulated each other upon the unvarying beautiful weather for the entire week we had passed upon this great water; and retired to our state rooms for peaceful rest, and the landing in the morning at the Sault. It was a beautiful starlight night, and when about five miles off Whitefish point, at midnight, we were all awakened by a terrific crash, and concussion of the boat, which nearly threw us out of our berths. Such of us as were thus rudely awakened, supposed we had struck a rock. On entering the cabin from my state room, I found the floor around the dining room table strewn with broken crockery, food, and glassware, which the collision had thrown from a table where the captain and the choice spirits of the passengers were having a farewell supper; and the passengers were running to and fro in great alarm. We soon found we had come in collision with the other and opposition steamer on the lake the Manhattan, but did not know for a short time of intense suspense if one or both steamers would go to the bottom, which was soon found to be beyond soundings. Very soon, we heard our captain, Jack Wilson, call out to Capt. Colwell, of the other steamer, “For God's sake hurry your passengers aboard my boat, for you, are sinking.”

In the midst of intense excitement, the few men, women, and children, were hurried from the sinking Manhattan, and lifted from the small boats on board the Monticello, nearly all of them in their night clothes, barely escaping with their other garments in their hands.

We saw the doomed steamer gradually sinking deeper and deeper in the water, and waited with anxious eyes for the moment, soon expected, when she would take the final plunge. She was soon down to the upper deck, and just as we held our breath to see the water engulf her, some one cried out, “She floats!” And so it proved. The boat was heavily loaded with lumber and wood, and, just sinking to her upper deck floor, floated from the bouyancy of the loading. We took the wreck in tow, and the next morning, within a few miles of the landing at the Sault, I saw her keel plow into the sand bottom, in twenty-two feet of water, and the rest of that season, “our line” had no opposition.

It is often very amusing, even in the midst of events full of ruin and disaster, to witness the ludicrous acts of individuals.

A lady was brought on board our boat, who sank upon the cabin floor, in her night clothes, and, clasping her hands as if in utter despair, exclaimed, “Oh, dear! my trunks are all lost, and my two new silk dresses in them and I have been way down to Massachusetts to get them; but I don't care if I can get my new teeth! I left two new sets in my state room, and I must 0129 117 have them ! Do tell somebody to get my teeth before the boat sinks. If I can only get my teeth, I don't care for anything else!” One man came through the cabin; crying out to the passengers, “Get out of the way; she has powder on board, and will explode in a minute!”

As we all knew that powder was, at that time, ten feet under water, he did not alarm us much. But it was very touching to see the mothers clasp their children in their arms, when they realized their safety, and with tears streaming down their cheeks, thank God for their deliverance from the sinking boat. There were many tearful eyes in that cabin, besides those of the rescued. Before we left the wreck aground, I went aboard and found the stem of our boat had struck the Manhattan about midship, and almost at right angle, cutting completely into her hull and deck some seven or eight feet. As a piece of naval war practice, this collision would have been a great success. But as a peaceful meeting, on the broad, deep lake, on a bright, starlit night, I suppose the courts must have decided on its merits. I never learned the subsequent fate of the Manhattan.

We found the London at the wharf, below the St. Mary's Rapids, and the tram railway soon transferred us to the new quarters on board. We took a direct course for Detroit from Mackinaw, in the face of a strong wind; and the next morning, when somewhere off Thunder Bay, it was blowing a gale, and the waves made our boat groan in every joint. The captain very prudently put about and made for Presque Isle harbor, where we remained all day, until the storm subsided. There was one board dwelling house at Presque Isle, and the old unbroken forest came down to the lake shore.

A pleasant ride down to Lake Huron, and we entered the River St. Clair, at Fort Gratiot, in the afternoon, well contented to enjoy the beautiful quiet waters of the river, after the somewhat uncertain waters of the lake; and at night we went to our state room for our last sleep on the steamer, before we should again walk the streets of Detroit, with its already known dignity as a city, and rejoicing that on our now fast closing tour we had safely escaped all the perils of collisions, the wild Indians, and wilder waves of the great lakes. But events proved it is not judicious to balance your books before your accounts are all posted. In my berth that night, while quietly enjoying the steady movement of our boat in the still water, I heard a low grating sound coming up from the bottom of the boat, and by a little attention soon discovered it was the keel of the boat scraping acquaintance with the gravel of the shoals in Lake St. Clair, and I was rather enjoying the novel entertainment, when, all at once, there came a crash below our room that shook the boat as if a torpedo had been exploded under us.

You may well believe the satisfaction I felt, at that moment, in the knowledge 0130 118 that the solid earth was not six inches below our boat's keel was of no little magnitude, and as the wheels soon began to move, and the boat evidently was again on her course, we kept our berths, and slept until morning, counting two collisions on one trip of no small importance in the list of our adventures, for we found, in the morning, we had collided with the bowsprit of a large schooner, breaking it off, and it in return completely wrecking the cook room and pantry of the steamer.

The pleasant memories of that two weeks trip to Lake Superior, in 1851, are green in my memory yet; but with them is mingled the sad reflection that of the twelve persons of our party mentioned in this paper, only three remain, John Harmon, my oldest daughter, Mrs. Colvin, of Adrian, and myself. Oh how our pathway through the departed years is shaded by the many willows we have planted along the way, over the graves of our friends and loved companions. Fellow pioneers, our turn to stop and rest, as these have done, is not far away. May our lives be such that when it comes, kind hands may plant the cypress and the willow over our resting places with the same sincere regard we have cherished for the dear ones who have gone before us. On through the coming years we seem to see the unclouded brightness of the pathway, for those who shall fill our places; but let our children remember that an unbroken line of the cypress and the willow will follow them, as it has followed us, as the years move on, until we all gather on that shore, where there can be no shadows, because there is no sun; “for the Lord our God is the light thereof.”

BY JOSEPH BUSBY

While on a vist to my old friend, Judge Albert Miller, of Bay City, in the fall of 1885, we were talking over matters of “Auld Lang Syne,” as we were accustomed to do whenever the opportunity occurred. He suggested that I should write something of my early experience as a pioneer of Michigan, and as I have always taken a deep interest in the pioneer movement, I 0131 119 readily consented to do so, and in doing which I may have to speak often of myself, but hope not to be thought egotistical.

My father kept cows, sold milk, and kept a store for the sale of butter, cheese, and eggs, etc., in London, England, for many years. His life was a laborious one; often during the summer he would have to rise at midnight and ride six or eight miles, to milk his cows, as pasture could be obtained better and cheaper at that distance; he would get home with the milk by five or six o'clock in the morning, then he would have to serve the milk to out-door customers, and that would take two persons (my father and younger brother), until nine o'clock; then, if he could, he would have one or two hours' sleep, and after a lunch or early dinner, would have to start again to milk, and on his return would go round again to serve the milk, as his customers all expected to he served twice a day. I was apprenticed at that time and lived away from home. My mother attended to the store and house affairs; they kept one servant of all work. As I said before, it was very hard on father, and it was not so easy to change into any other business then. In the early part of 1830, a gentleman from Canada was visiting a friend of mine, and from him I received a glowing account of that country. I also secured books and pamphlets, written by William Cobbett and others, relating principally to farming interests in the United States, and advising persons to go there instead of to Canada. I used to read these works to the folks at home, and urged my father to sell out and try his fortune in that new, distant, and to us unknown country, as I felt badly to see him work so hard, and thought he might do better there, and finally he advertised and sold out his business, and after bidding all our friends farewell, we sailed for New York (quite an undertaking in those days), in what was then considered a large vessel, a packet ship of 500 tons. We were forty-four days upon the water, and sometimes pretty well shaken up. I have seen it so rough that nearly every one was sea-sick, even the animals, for in those days they always took a cow, sheep, pigs, and poultry. I remember well the, turkeys were sick, also the cow. Every day or so they would kill a pig or sheep for fresh meat. I could tell of many incidents of the voyage, and the perils, etc., but I will only mention two. Once there was an alarm of fire, which caused quite a commotion for a time, but it was soon extinguished, to our great relief. A ship on fire at sea is something awful to think of. It was caused by ashes from a pipe carelessly thrown among some inflammable matter. At another time we were nearly run down by another vessel in the night, and were only saved from a terrible disaster by the vigilance of the captain. The vessel was coming down before the wind, and was near cutting us in two, as our ship was tacking, and was within a ship's 0132 120 length of us, but the captain happened to come on deck in the nick of time, and got the ship round so that only the rigging of the two vessels became entangled. It was a very providential escape. My mother was very sick all the way over. She felt very badly at leaving all her family, father, mother, brothers, and sisters behind, without any prospects, as she supposed, of ever seeing them again. A voyage across the broad Atlantic in those days was a great undertaking, and especially to come to an unknown country, among entire strangers. Now we can cross in comparative ease in less than seven days. I could tell a great deal more about our journey, but it is unnecessary here, as I started out to tell of our early experience as pioneers of Michigan, but thought it might be interesting to some to know why we left our native land.

We were very glad to set foot on terra firma once more, and were delighted with New York (what we saw of it), but did not stay long, as my father's intention was to get a farm; so we started for Utica (I believe one of our fellow passengers was going there to a brother), where he made a short stay, and there heard that in Michigan eighty acres of good land could be purchased for one hundred dollars. Father thought that was just the thing, so he concluded to go there. Emigration then was setting that way. Very few now living can realize what traveling was in those early times. In the first place, on leaving New York, we took steamer from there to Albany; then by the Erie canal (which had been finished just five years) to Buffalo, and from there to Detroit by lake steamer. We crossed the lake in the old Superior, and arrived in Detroit without mishap. It was the only way we could go, as there were no railroads then. Time from New York, over two weeks; now it takes twenty-three hours. It was a long and tedious journey with a family of seven, and very expensive; no competition. My father hired the half of the house, I think on Woodward avenue, just above Jefferson avenue, as it was cheaper than going to a hotel, and he had to economize. We then began to look around and make enquiry about the country, and after waiting a day or two, father and I started out to “view the land.” We were advised to go westward, and went on foot to Ypsilanti (30 miles). The country and roads were new; the road muddy, with a clay soil, which made it heavy walking. We passed several small houses on the road, occupied by new settlers, and I think in every house we found some one sick, and in one or two the whole family were down. We stopped for information, but it was very discouraging to find so much sickness; but we kept on, as we intended to go as far as Ypsilanti, and perhaps farther, if we liked the country. But night overtook us about six or seven miles from our destination, and a darker night I think I never saw. And what made it worse, 0133 121 it commenced to rain in torrents, accompanied with thunder and lightning, and the road was horrible (wet clay), with a dense wood on each side. The lightning showed us our road occasionally, and what made it still worse, we heard the howling of wolves, first on one side, then on both sides, and also behind us. We had heard and read about wolves, but never had them so unpleasantly near before, and I must confess we were somewhat alarmed—not knowing what they might do. It was so dark we could not see them, but I carried a loaded fowling piece, and intended to give them a warm reception if they came too near; but they did not molest us, and in due time we arrived at the tavern in Ypsilanti, and related our experience, before a rousing fire, such as we had never seen before, and after getting a good supper, instead of making one for the wolves, and drying our clothes, we retired to bed, and made up our minds we bad seen enough on that road and the next morning started back to Detroit rather discouraged. We then became acquainted with a Mr. Lawson (an Englishman), living about four miles out on the Pontiac road, who had a log house on his farm that was unoccupied, and which he offered to us free of rent until we could decide where to locate,—the offer was gladly accepted. We also had the privilege of cutting what firewood we needed, and also if we chose to cut cord wood, for which we were to be paid. I remember going out with my father one morning to cut down our first tree. We selected a good sized one, probably fourteen inches in diameter; we cut into it and all around it, without any idea which way it would fall. Mr. Lawson came up while we were at work and told us we were in danger, and explained to us how we should do it, but we did not make much headway at that kind of work and gave it up. Father, by Mr. Lawson's advice, leased a house on Woodward Avenue, a few doors below the Grand Circus, or rather where the Grand Circus is now. At that time it was a mud hole, and after a heavy shower the water would cover the road. I remember one Sunday afternoon seeing a young Irishman and his sweetheart who wanted to go across and he took her on his back and carried her over. We fitted up the house during the winter for a hotel and moved into it in the early spring, raised the sign with a spread eagle on each side and called in the Eagle Tavern. That was in the spring of 1831. We had a good run of custom, all we could accommodate (the house was not large), and sometimes more. Some days all the hotels would be crowded, and people would come in and be content to lie even on the floor rather than stay out of doors all night. Detroit then was a small place of about 2,200 inhabitants, and had few of the conveniences of modern times. No water-works. I had to take the horse and cart and empty barrels every morning and drive down to and into the river, and then with a pail fill the barrels, which, 16 0134 122 by the time I got home, would not be more than two-thirds full, owing to the rough road, and sometimes I would have to go twice in one day. How different now. The roads of Detroit were bad. There was a stage ran from there to Pontiac, on a very fair road in summer, but in the spring and fall almost impossible to get through with an empty wagon, and often the stage would stick fast in the clay soil up to the hubs, and the driver would have to get help to pry it out, the passengers having to get out at the worst places and walk. It was a standing joke, at the time, that the passengers had to carry rails with them to help the stage out of the mud. I will mention an incident that occurred while keeping tavern (I might relate many others but it would occupy too much space). It was customary for father or myself to meet the steamers as they came in from Buffalo and to take passengers to our house. Sometimes they would land thousands in a day, and on one occasion he brought a lady and infant a few weeks old. She said her husband left the boat for a few moments to procure some necessity, and got left behind, but that he would take the next boat. So the next day she left the child at the house and went to meet her husband, as she said he would not know where to find her, and that was the last we ever saw or heard of her, so the baby was left on our hands. Of course we did not want any babies, and should have sent it away, but one of the guests who had no children of her own took pity on the little thing, and agreed to take it and bring it up, and in a few days left with her husband, Mr. Spare, for Saginaw. I believe it lived for one year and then died.

My father succeeded very well that year, but the next year, 1832, the cholera broke out and raged fearfully in Detroit; business generally was stagnated and a great number left the city. I remember well one man and wife (strangers) came there. He left his wife and went to look for a place in the country. He came back in three days. In the meantime his wife had died and was buried. And one gentleman, a resident of the city, sent his family away, but stayed himself to attend to business, but all his family died except himself. There were also many cases of small-pox and bilious fever. I was taken down with the fever and was very low indeed, and not expected to recover, and it was a long time before I regained my strength. The doctor who attended me died himself of cholera. About this time the Black Hawk war broke out, It caused quite an excitement in Detroit, and they drafted about three hundred men who went to join the forces against the Indians. My brother James volunteered to go with them. They were in command of Colonel Brooks, and were encamped on the common, back of our house, and made it quite lively for some days. That company went about sixty miles and then received orders to return. I afterwards saw the chief and his sons, 0135 123 and some more of the Indians in Detroit. In the early part of 1833, my sister was married to James Fraser, who afterwards concluded to remove his family to Saginaw, where he had bought land, and he prevailed on my father to do the same. So in the fall of that year he sold out the tavern business and accompanied the Frasers to Saginaw, then a very new country, and but few white settlers there. I, and a young man named Edward Brown (whose family were to be neighbors) went out first and took a drove of road (it might have been four); I am not certain now where we stopped or how we fared the first part of the road, but when we got to Flint we stopped with John Todd, the only house we could stop at. There were two other houses and I think that was all. The next day we drove to the Cass river, not much more than a trail through the woods. We arrived there after dark, the cattle and horses very tired; we could not see whether we had them all or not. An old Frenchman (I think his name was Campau) lived across the river, and we called him to bring over his canoe, and after taking the bridles and saddles off the horses we let them go and crossed with the Frenchman, and got supper, and then laid down on the bare floor in front of a good fire, and being tired slept soundly till morning, and then, after breakfast, crossed the river again and found horses and cattle all there. They had been too tired to go away far, so after swimming them over we started on our journey again, and after going eleven miles arrived at Green Point. Here the river was wide,—the Shiawassee and Tittabawassee rivers make a junction with the Saginaw, about two miles above the city of Saginaw,—and here I met for the first time my good friend, Judge Albert Miller, and his brother-in-law, Mr. E. Jewett. Mr. Miller was then a young man and lived with his mother (a most estimable lady, whose kindness of heart and hospitable welcome to new comers was well remembered and highly appreciated). We received very great and timely assistance from Messrs. Miller and Jewett in swimming our cattle across the wide stream. We then proceeded on our way and arrived at our destination on the Tittabawassee before the dark. My father had purchased the place opposite James Fraser's (now the Paines farm), so the families could be near each other. There was a house on the place adjoining occupied by a family named Tuft, with whom we stayed until we could get a house up on father's place. In the meantime my brother James had come out to assist me, and we cut logs for a house 20 by 30, and hewed them on two sides, and then invited the neighbors for miles around (and it took about all there were) to the raising, and we got the walls up that day and began to feel proud of our house. We obtained shingles from Detroit by water, and split out oak ribs to nail them to, so we had a good 0136 124 tight roof, and then we had plank floors. I think the Judge has said something about that in an article written by him. He spoke of being a part of the first saw mill in the country; well, I was the other half. I believe we two sawed the first plank ever sawed in the Saginaw valley. He was pitman and I was top sawyer. We sawed plank for two floors out of green pine (the saw my father brought from England with a number of farming implements that my father brought from England with a number of farming implements that he had better have thrown overboard, as the freight from New York cost more than they were worth). It is needless for me to describe the building of the chimney (of sticks and clay) and finishing of the house, as these things have so often been described before. Suffice it to say we received great and timely assistance from Judge Miller all through, and when it was done we felt proud of it, and if you could have been at the house-warming and witnessed the dancing, and heard the singing, I think you would have said we were a happy family. I never heard my father utter a word of regret at leaving England; he seemed perfectly contented. My mother felt very badly at times, the separation from all her family, with very little prospect of ever seeing any of them again in this life. But after a time those feelings wore off and she became perfectly reconciled. While I and my brother were staying at Tuft's (who was a very superstitious man) he awoke us one night in great alarm, and called to us to get up and come down, for the world was coming to an end. Of course we got up at once and went out and witnessed a very beautiful sight, the meteoric shower of 1833. We watched until daylight, it was indeed a sight worth seeing and never to be forgotten. I have never seen anything so grand since, and would not have missed it on any account. My brother James was married in that house to the eldest daughter of Captain Malden, and Judge Miller married them (the first couple he ever married), and we had a rousing party on that occasion, such as had never been seen in that part of the country before. My brother, who had learned the carpenter trade in Detroit, went with his wife to reside there.

We were very much annoyed at times by the wolves, and often kept awake at night by their howlings. Sometimes there would seem to be fifty or more at once, generally when they were chasing deer. The bears also were troublesome at times, and would kill our hogs. One of our neighbors, D. McClennand, heard one night a great commotion among his hogs in the pen, and getting up to ascertain the cause, saw by the light of the moon a large bear making off with one of his fat hogs weighing about 200 lbs. which he had taken out of the pen. He immediately seized his gun and went out through the snow just as he got out of bed, but the bear dropped the hog (which he had killed), and made for the adjacent woods, but the next day the Indians followed the tracks and killed the bear. Speaking of hogs, I never but 0137 125 once saw a real drunken hog (I mean a four-legged one), and that was at the raising of a log barn or shed on Fraser's place; it was customary in those early days to furnish liquor at all gatherings, especially at raisings, as the neighbors turned out to help without pay, and that day a large tin pail of whisky was brought and set down a short distance off by the fence, when, on turning my head that way, I saw a hog with his head in the pail, and before we could prevent he had imbibed the whole, and it made him quite frisky. He would jump around something like a dog after his tail, then he would fetch on his nose, stagger, and fall and squeal, in fact was drunk; but I don't know if he suffered from headache afterwards, as he never mentioned it.

We were never molested by the Indians, but always on friendly terms with them. We would trade with them occasionally for venison, fish, or cranberries. Once two strapping fellows came to the house late in the evening and wanted some whisky, and made us understand that his squaw had got little papoose. We very seldom let them have liquor, but as that seemed to be a special occasion we let them have some, but they did not seem in any hurry to go home, but laid down on the floor and slept until daylight. They were very quiet. Sometimes they would pitch their wigwam near the house and then we could get very little sleep. They would have a pow-wow, and keep it up all night, with a monotonous drumming and singing (after their fashion), but beyond that we were not disturbed. There was one thing we missed very much and that was religious instruction; we had no preaching for about two years, and sometimes I would find parties at work who did not know what day of the week it was until I told them.

I used frequently to go from the farm to Saginaw, on Sunday, to the post-office for mail matter. The mail carrier used to come on horseback from Flint once a week, and cross the river at Green Point, the only crossing at that time. I remember meeting him once, and as he had some errand to our house I accompanied him. He did not want to be troubled carrying the mail bag there and back, so he pitched it into the bushes until he returned. At that time the mail was not a heavy one.

We underwent many privations in those early days of the settlement. We had to get our supplies from Detroit, and as they could not be brought by land they came by water, and only one small vessel, the Scrage, at that time. If late in the season it would get frozen in the ice in the bay, and then we would have to wait until the ice would bear a team. Meanwhile, we would be out of flour and meal, etc., and would have to borrow from those who were more fortunate, who always divided cheerfully with those who had none. I have pounded corn in a mortar, made from a hollow log cut off and set up endwise, and a pestle fixed to a spring pole fastened across under the beams. 0138 126 I can't say the meal was very fine. We would blow away what chaff we could and the rest we had to eat in the mush. Sometimes we would use a large grater, but that was too slow a process; and then to make the flour hold out we would boil potatoes and mix with the flour, half and half, which did very well. One thing we had plenty of — good milk and good appetites. In the winter we would make up sleighing parties, and the ice on the river being sound we would make eight or ten sleigh loads and go ten, fifteen, or perhaps twenty miles, and call on a neighbor, and all get out and have a dance, and then come home by moonlight. I have had my fingers frozen driving but we enjoyed the sport.

In 1835 my father left the farm and moved to Saginaw and opened a boarding house. A great number had moved there from the east, which made business lively. I took the farm to run on my own account. I had some very choice crops in the ground which looked well and promising, but the water rose and overflowed the banks of the river and destroyed them. I waited until the ground became dry enough and replanted, but the water rose a second time so I could take my canoe and paddle all over the ground. I then became discouraged and gave up farming, and went to Saginaw and engaged in other business. About this time there was quite an excitement caused by the advent of the first steamboat ever seen in those waters. We heard that the Governor Marcy was actually coming up the river with a large company on board. And on she came, sure enough, and everybody was out to see her and give her a welcome. I went on board with a number of others and we went up the river, and up the Tittabawassee, until she touched bottom just below John Brown's (Scotch Brown's), for we had two John Brown's, and to distinguish them called one Scotch and the other Yankee Brown.

There are one or two things I forgot to mention before. The early settlers will remember what a pest the blackbirds were, and what a trouble we had to keep them from destroying the crops, especially the corn, just when it was soft and milky. They would flock there by the million, and it would take all our time and attention, until the corn got hard, to keep them off. Day after day, from daylight in the morning until the middle of the day, and again from two hours before sundown until dark, I have had to run up and down the field, until as wet with the dew as if I had been in the river, firing at and hallooing at them to keep them from alighting, and by doing so would succeed in driving them over; but they would come, one flock after another. We would build stages some distance apart, and take an empty barrel, and beat with a stick, or anything to make a noise. Only by such means could we get a crop. If we could keep them on the wing, they would 0139 127 pass over to the wild rice fields till towards evening. I have known whole fields destroyed in a day or two by neglecting it. Another great pest was the mosquitoes. They were very thick and troublesome, and we had to make fires around the house and keep them off by the smoke; but sometimes it seemed they could stand as much smoke as we could. Then came the fever and ague, brought on by exposures (and I don't wonder at it). Almost every new comer would have it at some time. I had it, at one time, for two months, and would shake every other day; one day I would go to work, and the next shake, but I finally shook it off. I never had it more than three or four days at a time after that, and then quite light. I will merely state further that I continued to reside in the Saginaws until the fall of 1839; in the meantime, learned the carpenter's trade. I helped to raise the first saw mill (the Williams mill), and worked on a number of the best houses of that time, and could have had plenty of business, but there was a great scarcity of money. I finally raised enough to carry me to New York, where I resided until the spring of 1846, when I bought and removed to Williamsburgh, now Brooklyn, Eastern District, where I carried on business as a builder, part of the time in partnership with my brother James, until in 1869 I went into the real estate and insurance business, from which I retired two years ago, and since that time have been traveling through this country and some parts of Europe.

In conclusion, I would say that I am much interested in the pioneer movement, and in reading the reports and doings of the society. I write from memory, having no notes to refer to. I often regret not having made some memoranda at that time, but what I have written is too deeply impressed on my mind ever to be forgotten. I should have been very much pleased to have attended your next social gathering, but expect to be in Europe at that time; but if spared another year, shall endeavor to be present. I take great pleasure in reading the volumes of “Pioneer Collections.” Many of the names and incidents I am familiar with. And now, wishing the society every success, I must bring this paper to a close.

In reference to the preceding paper, Judge Albert Miller, of Bay City, has furnished the following:

Many of the incidents mentioned in the foregoing article I well remember. The “Eagle Tavern” must be remembered by the early settlers of Detroit, and by those who traveled north from Detroit in 1831 and 1832. The difficulties incident to travel in those days are well described. I remember the trouble we had in swimming the cattle (mentioned by Mr. Busby), 0140 128 across the Saginaw river. In swimming, cattle are prone to follow a leader; there were quite a number in the drove mentioned, and they were all driven into the river together, and, following their instincts, instead of striking for the opposite shore, they formed themselves into a circle and swam after each other, till with great difficulty, we succeeded in breaking the circle and heading one animal for shore, where he landed, followed by the rest of the drove, after having been drifted by the current far below the regular landing place.

Mr. Busby mentions the sawing done by him and myself as being the first done in the county. He is mistaken in that; for there was hand-sawing of lumber done by the U. S. troops long before he or I ever saw Saginaw. In mentioning the subject in my address to the pioneers of Saginaw, I said it was the only saw running in that locality at the time mentioned. The house raising, chimney building, house warming and wedding, are well remembered by the writer.

Albert Miller

BY THE REV. FRANK A. O'BRIEN, OF ST. AUGUSTINE'S CHURCH, KALAMAZOO

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen —

The Diocese of Detroit is no small factor in the history of the Catholic Church in the United States. Not only on account of present importance, but on account of its history as well, dating as it does, a long way back. The Catholic settlements in Michigan were very early, and the annals of that church are unique. A diocese means a certain territory assigned to the spiritual jurisdiction of one bishop. He is the head of all within his diocese, accountable to God and Rome only for its administration. Detroit, and its adjacent territory, which meant all the northwest, was successively under the jurisdiction of Spanish, French, English and Canadian bishops till the 0141 129 establishment of the See of Baltimore in 1789, when it became a department of that See. Then, as the church grew, and new Sees were erected, it became subject in succession to Bardstown, Ky., and finally to Cincinnati. So rapid was the growth of the church, or rather, so much had been done by the early missionaries, that the northwest seemed to be an enigma to the bishops who had not visited it. Scarcely would one See be created, but the new bishop would inform his seniors that more were needed; that his share was too large to manage properly. So it was, in a particular way, with Michigan, which was thought to be outside the limits of civilization; not only in Europe, either, as it is so thought there, in some localities, even now, but in our own country, especially “down east.” Bishop Fenwick was consecrated Bishop of the Diocese of Cincinnati in 1823, and assumed control of Michigan as part of his diocese. In the following year, in making his episcopal visitations, he was astonished at what he saw in Michigan; churches were where he had not thought of, schools flourished, alike for white and Indian. The Indian schools at Green Bay, Mackinaw and L'Arbre Croche were wonders. The latter had put on the airs of an academy, and the good Bishop, on examination, found several of its scholars fit for the university. He immediately volunteered to defray the expenses of all of this class who felt like enjoying the benefits of such a course. Two Indian youths availed themselves of this offer, William Maccodabinese and Augustus Hamlen. Bishop Fenwick sent them immediately to the University of the Propaganda at Rome, where they were received with open arms. They were studious, and profited of the chance given them, as many testimonial letters to Bishop Fenwick testify. Among the warm friends whom they found in Rome was a young priest, of rare talent and remarkable ability, who took them under his protection, and gained for them many favors, which otherwise they would not have had. This person was Father Frederick Reze, afterwards the first bishop of Detroit. William Maccodabinese studied for the priesthood, but died before ordination. Augustus Hamlen returned to his tribe an accomplished civil engineer. Perhaps they are the only natives that ever completed a university course. Bishop Fenwick, after his five months' visitation tour in the Michigan portion of his diocese, returned convinced that Detroit must have a bishop. He made this the object of a trip to Baltimore. He consulted with the bishops of Baltimore, New York, Bardstown, Philadelphia and Charlestown, and from the arguments he used, they agreed to unite with him in a petition to Rome for a division of his diocese with Detroit as the See city. They united in commending Father Gabriel Richard as a suitable candidate for its first bishop. Rome, it seems, was fearful that the Church was spreading too fast. Its creed is to make haste slowly. It was, no 17 0142 130 doubt, astonished to receive this petition, which was but a repetition of what had come when Cincinnati was erected into a diocese only three years previous. Its answer of April, 1826, was gracious, but decidedly unsatisfactory to Bishop Fenwick, who counted on relief. The letter went on to state that, while they felt that Detroit would one day be a See, yet they were doubtful if the opportune time had arrived. Father Richard was known at Rome; his zeal, piety and labors were held in high esteem at the Roman court, and they felt sure he would do honor to the position. Still, Rome did not possess sufficient knowledge in regard to Michigan to make this important move. Would Bishop Fenwick and the other bishops be so kind as to send along the number of Catholic churches, priests, and what sources of revenue there were for the support of a bishop in a becoming manner, who is always a prince of the church. Rome also called their attention to the fact that there should be some order followed in the nomination of bishops, who were increasing in America. The nomination of a single individual, no matter how worthy, was not in keeping with the laws and customs of the church. Hence, they suggested that, as it must come soon, let it begin with Detroit, that the bishops nominate in the future three worthy priests for a vacant or new See, saying which was worthy, more worthy, and most worthy, and Rome would select one of the three. In this case Gabriel Richard's name must be one of the three. This method suggested for the election of the first bishop of Detroit was the one adopted by the Second Provincial Council of Baltimore and observed even till our own day.

Good Bishop Fenwick was disappointed; his work was growing; his co-laborers were not numerous enough; each of them was doing double work. The spiritual affairs of his vast district he could manage by delegating, to a great extent, but the continually growing temporal interests were almost too much. A visitation trip consumed, as a rule, six months. At every step he was greeted with, “Will you send us a priest?” What could he do? When he returned home, business which had accumulated during his absence kept him very busy, so that, finally, instead of going from place to place, as had been his wont to execute deeds etc., he gave power of attorney to individuals for each specific work. A specimen of such a power of attorney may be of interest, the original being in the Bishop's own handwriting.

“Know all men by these presents, that I, Edward D. Fenwick, Bishop of Cincinnati, have made, constituted and appointed, and by these presents do make, constitute and appoint Michael Cummins, rector of St. Antony's Church, Monroe, Mich., my true and lawful attorney, for me and in my name and in my place and stead, to sell, lease, let or devise so much of that 0143 131 parcel of ground conveyed to me by Martin Nadeau, trustee of St. Antony's Church, as comprehended between the road leading to the upper settlement on the north side, and the River Raisin on the south, being one chain 89½ links along River Raisin, and then to the track confirmed to Jacque and Francois Leipelle on the east, and that owned by Gabriel Richard on the west, that is between the middle of the sixty feet broad road leading to Rocky River and aforesaid tract owned by Gabriel Richard. The money arising from lease, sale, rent, or devise of aforesaid, to be employed in finishing the new brick church of St. Antony.

“In witness whereof, etc., etc. Edward D. Fenwick .”

This mode of proceeding aided him somewhat, but he felt the burden was too great to bear alone. He concluded to go to Rome in person to state his case, in preference to visiting each bishop again, as the time consumed would be about equal. He had also in view the augmenting of the number of clergy in his diocese by volunteer missionaries of Europe, whom he could solicit in person, and also the funds which he might collect to aid along works of charity in his rapidly growing diocese. He accordingly set sail, and met with a very favorable reception from the Holy See, who spoke encouraging words, endeavored to enlist volunteers in his service, and furnished him with aid for his missions, but his favorite theme, the new Diocese of Detroit, was referred to a council of bishops, which Rome desired to meet in Baltimore as soon as the time would permit. While in Rome a young Hanoverian priest, whom we have before mentioned, of noble family, who had graduated with the honors from the Urban College, an institution of the highest standing, visited him and stated he had concluded to return to his diocese with him. Bishop Fenwick at this announcement was surprised as well as edified. Young Reze was looked up to in all circles and promised great things for the future. His talents and gentle bearing had won for him a high position in church circles at its very centre. Naturally he could look forward to all the honor the church could give, and to see him willing to forsake all for the wilds of the northwest astonished the good Bishop of Cincinnati. Before leaving Rome, January 13, 1827, Bishop Fenwick officially appointed him his chancellor and vicar general. Bishop Fenwick returned to his diocese, having arranged before leaving Rome, that Father Reze was to go on a collecting tour through Europe.

In this he was very successful. Many clergymen listened to his earnest appeal for more laborers and cast their lot with him. The number of church ornaments he collected helped materially to adorn many a church in the northwest. The works of art, paintings, etc., he gathered form the 0144 132 treasure of a number of churches. Among such works is a masterpiece of Van Dyke, “The Crucifixions” now in the bishop's private chapel, in Detroit. Besides these items he succeeded in collecting very large amounts of money. His great work was the organization of the Leopoldine Society in 1828, at his home, which gradually spread through the whole of the old German Empire. The object was the aid of the poor American missionaries. Everybody joined it. The dues were a penny a month, and it took like wildfire. This idea was not original with him, however. The French had such a society organized in 1822, called the society of the “Propagation of the Faiths” which is still in existence. with its headquarters at Lyons, and subdivisions in every quarter. The latter society collected for many years from $500,000 to $1,000,000 annually, about $250,000 of which went each year to the poor American missions from the formation of the society till about 1850. In 1830, much of what came to America was used in Michigan. The society organized by Father Reze was named after the Archduchess Leopoldine of Austria, who became its protectress. The Archduke Rudolph and the Archbishop of Omulty heartily endorsed the movement and for many years this society furnished from $15,000 to $25,000 a year to the American missions, the bulk of which was distributed by Father Reze. If it was not for the help thus obtained from Europe the schools, etc., could not be maintained; the missionaries would be without support, lands which were required for the future could not be had, few churches would be erected, and our glory today would not be. Time and again had missionaries and bishops applied and petitioned for aid to the United States government, for the Indian schools, but it was steadily refused till about the advent of Bishop Reze in 1833. Then the government allowed $1,000 yearly, payable quarterly for the maintenance of all Catholic Indian schools in the northwest, which cost more than ten times that sum. The lack of co-operation on the part of the government, was the reason why the school books, dictionaries, etc., of our schools at that time were printed at Layback, Illyria. While speaking of these societies it might be well to state what was received one year, as a criterion. Take a year at random, 1834, for instance. From the society at Lyons, $14,000, from the Leopoldine's society, $20,000. This was all used in the DetrOit Diocese and will account for such buildings as Ste. Anne's, old Trinity Church, about which there has been so much talk recently, and other churches in the Diocese, paid for by foreign money.

But to the subject. Shortly after the return of Bishop Fenwick to America he made a pastoral visit to the northwest, presumably to get the required information for the council soon to assemble at Baltimore. He was at this time more than six months on the trip and visited nearly every nook in that 0145 133 region. He was received at each Catholic settlement with great eclat. At L'Arbre Croche a total abstinence society of forty-two members, in regalia, came quite a distance to meet him. The attention of our temperance people is called to this society, in existence twenty years before the advent of Father Matthew, or the beginning of the temperance work in America. The first Provincial Council of Baltimore met in 1829. Bishop Fenwick earnestly advocated the erection of the Diocese of Detroit, and the nomination of a bishop for it. The council recommended it unanimously and nominated candidates. The documents were duly forwarded, but the answer was a “long while a coming.” In the meantime Bishop Fenwick redoubled his energies in working for the new diocese. Father Reze had arrived with missionaries and funds, and a new fire, as it were, was enkindled all along the line. Father Reze himself became an active worker; he soon mastered the Indian language, as well as the English, and labored zealously in the cause. He established several new missions, and became the great favorite of the Pottowattomies. He began a school and church at Pokagon settlement, and attended it for some time, as well as doing the work of Vicar-General during the absence of Bishop Fenwick from his See. The last visit of this venerable prelate to his favorite field was in the spring of 1832. His register tells of his visits to the different schools and with what affection he was greeted, and what care he administered to his cherished flock. The number of confirmations are also recorded, viz.: 105 at Green Bay, 84 at L'Arbre Croche, etc., etc.

His arduous trip over rough ways, his duties of encouraging, advising, rebuking, and the hardships he underwent on this trip, aided to bring on a severe attack of dysentery. Upon feeling symptoms of ill-health he immediately started for home, but the cholera overtook him a short distance from Cincinnati and he died amid strangers, September 27, 1882, without the consolations of the faith he served so well, and before he saw the realization of his cherished desire. He was an earnest, zealous soldier of the Cross, and his name will be ever held in benediction.

Father Richard, too, during the year before the Bull reached him, which would make him a prince of the church in the country he loved so well, laid his life on the altar of sacrifice, for his flock. Father Reze became administrator of the Diocese of Cincinnati, and all the Northwest. While filling this post with credit, he received from Rome, under date of May 18, 1833, the particulars of the canonical erection of the new Diocese of Detroit, and his appointment as Bishop of the newly erected See. The diocese comprised that territory bounded on the east by Lakes Huron, St. Clair, and Erie; north, Lake Superior and Hudson Bay territory; west, Mississippi River, and 0146 134 south by a line from the mouth of the Maumee River until said line intersected the Mississippi; in other words all of which is at present Michigan and Wisconsin, part of Minnesota, and a small portion of what is now Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, as may be seen from the accompanying map, which has been copied from one issued by the Society for the Propagation of the Faith in 1835. Father Reze was consecrated Bishop of Rt. Rev. Dr. Brute, in Cincinnati, October 6, 1833, seven days before the consecration of the late Archbishop Purcell. He immediately left Cincinnati for the Second Provincial Council of Baltimore, held that year; after which he came to Detroit and labored indefatigably for the welfare of the diocese committed to him. To be brief. The great work and care of this large province from 1833 to 1837 proved too much for the physical strength of the Bishop. The exhaustion was so great that he was unable to attend properly to the business of the diocese for at least a year before the assembling of the Third Council of Baltimore, in April, 1837. He determined to surrender the charge which had made him a physical wreck. On the assembly of that body he declined to sit at its private sessions till his resignation would be acted on. It was as follows:

“Most Reverened Fathers, in Provincial Synod assembled:

“It is known that I reluctantly accepted episcopal consecration, and as I soon learned by experience, that the erection and administration of the new diocese, with its numberless difficulties and cares springing up on every side, were a burden too great for me to bear, I have accordingly frequently entertained the intention of resigning my diocese into the hands of His Holiness, the Sovereign Pontiff, or at least soliciting a suitable coadjutor from the Holy See. This intention I desire to carry out by these presents, and for this purpose I have empowered my actual vicars-general Rev. Messrs. Baden and DeBruyn, to exercise joint jurisdiction in my absence and until further arrangements are made. * * * * I beg you to aid to the fullest extent in your power to obtain the successful realization of my desires, if it shall seem good to our Lord. Your brother. etc.,

“ Frederick Reze , “ Bishop of Detroit .”

The council resolved unanimously to recommend the acceptance of his resignation to the Pope, and made provisions, in ease of its acceptance, for a successor. Rome refused to accept the resignation, and ordered Bishop Reze to Rome to stare his reasons in person for so requesting. He obeyed the order and arrived in Rome in very feeble health in 1839. A softening of the brain was threatened, or had already set in. On seeing the condition which he was in, Rome immediately retired him, but never took away his title as Bishop of Detroit. Although he lived for more than thirty years thereafter he was ever Bishop of Detroit. He remained in Rome with his mind so shattered that he was hardly able to attend to any business till the 0147 135 0148 136 revolution of 1849. He then returned to his home, where he died in 1871, a lunatic. He was cared for at the expense of his diocese. Rev. J. M. Odin was appointed bishop administrator of Detroit in December, 1840, but a position that had crazed a worthy man was not to be thought of by him. He positively refused it. The Bulls, so tradition says, were sent to another whose name I have not been able to learn, who also declined. They were sent for a third time to Rev. Peter Paul Lefevre, a zealous, worthy missionary, with a premonitory order that no refusal would be entertained at Rome: He governed the diocese prudently and well for nearly thirty years. During his reign several divisions were made without weakening the parent diocese. He died universally beloved in 1869. Father Hennaert ruled the diocese well during the interval from the death of Bishop Lefevre till the advent of the present incumbent. Rt. Rev. Dr. Borgess, a native of Prussia, who came to this country when a child, and is so thoroughly imbued with American principles that we may consider him to the manor born. The Diocese of Detroit has grown wonderfully under his management. A native priesthood has been introduced, the diocese divided, many new churches and institutions erected, and we have learned the great lesson of being able to take care of ourselves. No foreign money is now being used whatever. To-day Detroit stands in the front rank, and no more prosperous or less burdened diocese exists in the United States. The children that have gone out from her in the shape of new dioceses have prospered amazingly and reflect new glory on their honored old mother, Detroit, for whom they have the kindliest feeling, and of whom they have good reason to feel proud.

Bishop Lefevre, although governing Detroit for more than twenty-eight years, was never Bishop of Detroit, only Bishop administrator. Bishop Borgess was consecrated Bishop administrator, but succeeded to the title of Detroit on the death of the first bishop in 1871. The seal of the diocese consists of an A and M interwoven, surmounted by a cross and the usual episcopal insignia, the letters meaning “Under the protection of Mary.” The personal seal of the first Bishop of Detroit were the emblems of faith, hope, and charity; his motto, the words. Bishop Lefevre used only the official seal. When Bishop Borgess was consecrated, the remarkable coincident occurred of adopting as his seal the same emblems and motto of the first bishop, of which at the Time he was entirely unconscious. The Diocese of Detroit at the present time comprises the counties of the Lower Peninsula south of Ottawa, Kent, Montcalm, Gratiot, and Saginaw, and east of the counties of Saginaw and Bay. It has 156 churches, one bishop, 133 priests, a Catholic population of about. 110,000. A retrospective glance of what Detroit was when it set out for itself as a new diocese in 1833, and 0149 137 what it is, or rather what the territory it occupied at the start, is, to-day, as far as the growth of. Catholicity, is concerned, may be comprehended better by a few statistics. In 1834 we had in the diocese of Detroit one bishop, 30 priests, and 20,000 of a Catholic population. In 1885 we had in the territory comprising the diocese of Detroit in 1833, two archbishops, nine bishops, 920 priests, and a Catholic population of 802,000. This growth will be a matter of astonishment to many, but it is as near accurate as can be got at. The hundred fold yield of the good seed sown has been more than realized.

BY JUDGE ALBERT MILLER

One object of these publications is to give some idea of the manners and customs of the pioneers of Michigan, and of the lights and shadows of pioneer life. In former articles I have mentioned the propensities of the pioneers of the Saginaw Valley for social enjoyments; but there were rougher sports participated in only by the male portion of the inhabitants which deserve notice.

Aside from the few families located at the fort and vicinity there were a number of employés of the Messrs. G. D. & E. S. Williams and of the American Fur Company that were an element in the community that must have their recreations.

Christmas in the west, especially that portion of it that was earliest settled by the French, has always been observed as a holiday to be celebrated in a manner that is congenial to the tastes of those celebrating.

My brothers-in-law, Jewett and Rumrill, as well as myself, had been raised in New England, in a locality where but little attention was paid to Christmas, Thanksgiving day being the great holiday of the season in that locality. On Christmas day, 1833, we had been at work till near the close of the day, when we took a large canoe and paddled down the river two miles, from Green Point to Saginaw or to the Fort as Saginaw City was then usually 18 0150 138 designated), where we had business at the store of Messrs. G. D. & E. S. Williams. On entering the store We found we were in for it. We had no sooner passed through the door than it was locked and a guard placed to prevent our egress. Jewett, understanding the situation at once, gave us the wink to be ready to escape the moment an opportunity presented. On looking around we found that all the male portion of. the inhabitants, after carousing all day, had gathered in the store to have a night of it. We entered into their sport with such pretended zest that they soon relaxed their vigilance over us, and we stood together at the door when it was opened and we darted out and ran for our canoe. We were no sooner outside of the door than a dozen men were after us, and the foremost one was about laying his hand on the prow of our canoe as we shoved off the shore, and being determined to prevent our escape he waded into the water in pursuit till it reached his waist, which, under ordinary circumstances, at that season of the year, would not be considered very fine holiday sport, but, failing in his attempt, a large canoe was soon maned and started in pursuit of us; no steamboat had ever disturbed the placid waters of the Saginaw at that time, and I will venture to say that no water-craft had previously passed over the two miles' space in a shorter time than those two canoes on that Christmas night. It was an even race, we keeping the start we had gained at the outset. and when we landed, instead of going to our houses we ran to the woods, where we remained till the noise of our pursuers frightened the inmates of our houses. when we came out and faced them. I had recently built a frame house, and one of the party seized a club and commenced hammering the siding, calling to me to come out or he would tear my house down, it would only cost him five or six hundred dollars. They undertook to force us into their canoe to carry us back to finish the night. but we entered into a good natured scuffle with them, and after a while that, with the exercise of paddling their canoe, sobered them, so they were willing to enter their canoe without us; and they returned to their respective homes, where they peacefully retired to spend the balance of the night in repose, instead of making it hideous with their orgies.

That was my initiation into the mysteries of a Saginaw “train.” as those drinking bouts were usually termed, but between that time and 1838 I witnessed many scenes of conviviality, usually participated in by a more select party, whenever there might be a seeming occasion for them, The arrival in the place of some friend of a resident, or of a distinguished stranger, or of some individual contemplating settling there, an advantageous sale of property, etc.. were considered fit occasions for convening a champagne party. They were nor entered into so much for the love of drink as for a desire for social enjoyment, and for keeping up the reputation of the place 0151 139 for hospitality and good cheer, which was proverbial. The flow of champagne would soon loosen the tongues for song, anecdote, repartee, and smart speeches, and the conviviality would continue till “the wee sma' hours ayont the twal,” when the company would disperse and spend the next day suffering with a “sair head,” as the Scotchman would say. The last one of the series participated in by the writer was in February, 1838, soon after his marriage; gotten up expressly to “lay him out” as the phrase was. On the morning after a night spent in social enjoyment with a large party at the opening of the Webster House, at Saginaw City, I was awakened by a number of voices calling to me from the outside of my house. Suspecting what was intended, I was too well-acquainted with the company to think of shirking the ordeal. I quickly arose and met the company of about a dozen men at the door, when they took me into Jewett's hotel, which was next door; and presented me with a bottle of champagne; not waiting to uncork the bottle I broke the neck of it on the stove and put it to my mouth and allowed the contents to run down into my boots. I told them if they would allow me to finish dressing I would go with them wherever they desired. We started in sleighs and drove to every place in town where liquor could be obtained. I generally took the lead, called for the bottle, and prepared myself with a bumper of cold water ready to drink with them when they had their glasses filled. I reigned drunkenness, which I could easily do, for I had plenty of patterns before me, and in the afternoon when I went with the company to my own house to partake of some choice wines that I had, my wife and mother were greatly surprised and shocked at my apparent condition of inebriety, but not more surprised than they were a short time afterwards when I returned without a show of liquor about me. I had scarcely swallowed a drop of liquor during the day, and was not in the least under its influence, but my companions were all ready to retire from the field before night. I became convinced of the folly of such operations, and as the hard time came on, after the great financial crash of 1837, the people generally, if they had the disposition to do it, had not the money to spend foolishly.

After the great temperance reform inaugurated by Father Matthew, in Ireland, the Catholics generally throughout the United States took up the theme. and their priests distributed the Father Matthew pledge among their people in almost every community. About the year 1844, I think it was, Father Kundig, of Detroit, came to Saginaw, and instituted a series of temperance meetings among the Catholics. a large number whom took the pledge. and, so far as my observations extended, religiously kept it. I have two notable instances in my mind, Louis Major, a Frenchman, who had been 0152 140 a former employé of the American Fur Company, and had previously been employed by the Hudson's Bay Company, when he married an Indian woman and came to Saginaw, where he had a large family of respectable half-breed children, but himself had become so besotted that he daily became a loath. some spectacle, living on the streets, sleeping off the effects of the large draughts of whisky that he had taken and was no longer able to carry. He took the pledge from Father Kundig, and all the ingenuity of rum sellers and former drinking associates could never induce him to break it. He lived many years, faithfully attending the ferry at Saginaw City, till he was injured by a vicious horse and thrown from his ferry boat and drowned. The other was an Irishman, Barney McArdle, an honest and industrious man till the demon alcohol got full control of him and bound him so fast that there was no hope of his escape, but he took the pledge and was as firm as a rock in keeping it. He was a character in his day, full of Irish wit and quaint sayings; he lived to a good old age, and passed away respected by all who knew him.

The Protestant portion of the community, not wishing to be outdone by their Catholic fellow-citizens in so laudable an undertaking as a temperance reform, inaugurated total abstinence societies at the city, and in all the school districts in the vicinity. The Washingtonian temperance move was in vogue about that time. One of the original Washingtonians, who signed the first pledge at Baltimore, settled at Saginaw.

An effort was made to enlist the young on the side of temperance so they would grow up without acquiring a taste for intoxicants. I recollect an instance where I met a neighbor's son, a lad about fifteen years old, at a temperance meeting at a country school-house, whom I knew had never drank liquor, and I advised him to sign the pledge so that he might never have a desire for it; be willingly did so. but the next morning his father came to me with wrath in his countenance desiring to have his son's name taken from the paper, he wanted him to have the privilege of drinking when he desired. The father's request was granted. and the son, thinking it such a great privilege to drink whisky, soon acquired the habit of it; and the last act of that father before retiring to his bed in his last sickness was to rescue his son from a drunken brawl that he had been engaged in during the night. The son two or three years afterwards was accidentally killed, which probably saved him from a drunkard's grave.

BY THE RT. REV. G.D. GILLESPIE

Note .—This history of St. Andrew's Church, Ann Arbor, is from a sermon of the Rev. G. D. Gillespie, November 7, 1869, then the rector of the parish (now bishop of Western Michigan). The occasion was the last service in the old parish church building just prior to taking possession of the new and more commodious stone edifice just completed, and the history was given as follows:—

This building is so identified with the history of the parish that it seems appropriate that as we are leaving it as our usual place of worship, some notice should be taken of the past of our existence as a parish. My materials are too meagre to allow of a full sketch, since I have to rely chiefly on the reports of the various rectors as they appear in the convention journals, and it has been prepared in the hurry and anxiety of arrangements for the convention. *

The earliest notice I find of the parish is in connection with the labors of the Rev. Richard F. Cadle, in Detroit. In 1824 the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society appointed the Rev. Mr. Cadle its first missionary in Michigan. His labors succeeded those of the Rev. Alanson W. Welton, the first clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the territory, and who removed to Detroit in 1821, but in the providence of God was permitted to exercise his office in that city but a few months when he was removed by death. Mr. Cadle repared to the scene of his future labor in the summer of 1824, and there served the Church with fidelity and success for the space of five years. During this time he was the only Episcopal clergyman in the Peninsula of Michigan. In his labors the church and her institutions were planted with judgment and nurtured with care. Though residing in Detroit, and chiefly officiating in that city, his valuable labors were extended. to various places in the adjacent country. Washtenaw county participated in these missionary tours. In an article published in the Spirit of Missions, 1837, it is recorded: “At Ann Arbor and other places in that county he found many scattered members of our communion. The stated services of 0154 142 a missionary there seemed to be loudly called for, and a prospect of much usefulness to be presented.” In the spring of 1828 St. Andrew's Church, Ann Arbor, was organized, the third parish in Michigan. Mr. Edward Clark, the only survivor of the participants in this formal planting of the vine in which we now rejoice, now resident among us, * furnishes us with the following particulars.

After the organization lay reading was sustained for six months by a candidate for orders, named Merchant Huxford, in the southeast corner of the Chauncey S. Goodrich, built by Judge James Abbott, of Detroit, in 1824 or 1825, on the southwest corner of block one, north of Huron street, and range five east. Probably the orders referred to, when in the report of the Bishop of Michigan, 1829, it is Stated, that they have agreed to appoint a missionary to Ann Arbor as soon as the person who has been selected by the members of the church there shall obtain ordination.

The Rev. Mr. Bury, the successor of Mr. Cadle, in St. Paul's, Detroit, reports having visited the parish in 1830, preached to a congregation of fifty in a brick building, which he calls the Academy.

The Rev. A. H. Cornish furnishes memoranda of the early services, in a letter to a member of the parish, dated Pendelton, S.C., April 9, 1859. Renewed solicitations were now made for a missionary to be established in Washtenaw county. Whatever nursing care, it was said, should be extended to it would be amply repaid in the enlargement and prosperity of the church, and by the sure foundation which would be laid for the permanent support of the principles of truth and order. The first regular services seem to have been under the Rev. S. W. Freeman, who in 1830, became the missionary to Ann Arbor, Dexter, and Ypsilanti. In these places, and others in the vicinity, he officiated for about three years. In notes of the history of the church in Michigan, in the Spirit of Missions, it is recorded, “Mr. Freeman appears to have devoted himself with much zeal to the work entrusted to him. Yet the end of that ministry was not in death, but in the awful discipline of the church. He was deposed for intemperance. From the few documents in my hands, I gather the following names of early churchmen: Mr. Edward Clark and his mother, Mrs. James Kingsley, Philip Brigham, M.D., William A. Fletcher, Henry Rumsey, Edward Munday, Matthew F. Gregory, George W. Jewett, George Miles. Robert S. Wilson. Andrew Cornish, W. G. Tuttle, Gideon Wilcoxson, Zenas Nash, Charles Tull, Win. G. Brown, Olney Hawkins, David Cleveland, Samuel Denton, E. Platt, A. Platt, Elisha Belcher, Marcus Lane, Nathaniel Noble.

In May, 1834, Rev. John O'Brien reports to the convention, having spent 0155 143 some Sundays in Ann Arbor. To the same convention Rev. W. N. Lyster reports: “I have preached at Ann Arbor four times and baptised six persons, one of whom was an adult; also administered the holy communion.” To the convention held in Detroit, in 1834, May 3, the following delegates were elected of whom the two first named were present, George W. Jewett, Henry Rumsey, Charles Tull, William G. Brown, and Philip Brigham.

In August, 1834, the Rev. John I. Bausman, of the Diocese of Ohio, became the missionary at Ann Arbor and other places. He resigned in October, 1835. His only report, made June 13, 1835, states that on his arrival here, he found the church in a weak and languishing condition. Few came to her solemn feasts. Her gates were desolate and she was in bitterness. To be instrumental in effecting a change, he has endeavored, in season and out of season, both publicly and from house to house, to teach and preach Jesus Christ, and although unable to state any immediate fruit of his labors, he humbly trusts that they have not been in vain in the Lord. Laboring under great disadvantages in regard to a convenient place of worship, he has urged upon the people of his charge to erect a church as early as practicable. To accomplish this very desirable object about $1,500 has been subscribed. and the delightful hope was entertained that before this period the work would have been considerably advanced. “His hope has not been realized, and when the head stone shall be brought forth with shoutings, grace, grace unto it, is altogether uncertain. A Sunday school has been established but is not flourishing.” The number of communicants at this time was twenty. Several months since there fell into my hands a subscription list with this heading, “The members of St. Andrew's Church in Ann Arbor have with great exertion obtained subscriptions at that place amounting to $1,300 towards the expense of erecting a church edifice. the cost of which is estimated at about $2,000. For the difference between these two sums they rely upon the sister churches in the diocese, but more particularly upon the well-known liberality of St. Paul's Church in Detroit, and they take this method, through their pastor, Rev. Mr. Bausman, to declare their wants in the hope that their expectation will not be disappointed. February, 1835.” The sum subscribed on the paper is $267. Of the twenty-four subscribers only six remain to this day, among them, the first on the list, Mr. C. C. Trowbridge of Detroit, $50, of whom it has lately been written, “Next to his bishop he is gratefully recognized as the father of the diocese,” and I may add, this generous contributor of thirty-four years ago was one of those who most kindly and liberally met my late application in Detroit for provision for students pews.

The Rev. Mr. Bausman died in Baltimore a few months since. When 0156 144 making a collection of photographs of the former rectors in 1862, I addressed him a letter and received one in reply, and in a communication made to the same parishioners, who were addressed by Rev. Mr. Cornish, he gives some particulars of his ministry here.

During the vacancy in the missionary charge the diocese received her first Bishop. As early as 1827, Bishop Hobart, of New York, visited Detroit, and laid the corner stone of the church, and in August, 1828, he again visited that city and consecrated the church, on both occasions administering confirmation. His visit was confined to that city. At a later date, probably in 1833, the diocese which had been organized in 1832 was placed under the charge of the Rt. Rev. C. P. Mcllvaine, Bishop of Ohio, The first and only Visitation the Bishop made was in April, 1834. In his address to the convention the next month, he states that, leaving Detroit for a visitation to Troy, where he was brought at the close of day, over a most difficult and dangerous road, he was seized with a return of the ague and fever in consequence of the fatigue of the journey. Returning next day the carriage was overturned, and the consequent exposure immediately renewed the fever, so that the whole plan of visitation was deranged. He adds in reference to “the parishes of Ann Arbor, Dexter, and Ypsilanti, it was exceedingly painful to think of omitting them after having come so far to visit them.” At the annual convention at Tecumseh, June, 1835, the Rev. H. J. Whitehouse, D. D., of Rochester, N.Y., was elected Bishop of Michigan. He having declined, a special convention in November of the same year, finding itself canonically incompetent, by reason of clerical removals, to elect for itself, made application to the house of Bishops to elect a Bishop for the diocese. The Rt. Rev. S. A. McCoskry. D. D., rector of St. Paul's, Philadelphia (the expressed choice of the diocese), was thus elected and was consecrated in that church July 7. 1836. When in the following September, the newly elected chief pastor visited the infant churches, he found St. Andrew's, Ann Arbor, under the charge of the Rev. Samuel Marks, as a missionary, dividing his time between this place and Dexter. Mr. Marks had come out with the Bishop from Philadelphia, and on arriving here in August found the church but just enclosed. “The basement was filled with shavings, and boards, and stones, and brickbats.” He adds in the letter from which this statement is taken. “these were cleared away, and a floor laid, and you would have smiled at the primitiveness of my pulpit.” Mr. Marks left before the church was finished. In his report to the convention, October, 1836, he states: “At Ann Arbor I found sixteen communicants; five had been added since I came. I cannot close my report without the remark that I have reason to bless God for having led me by His Providence into this new and rapidly 0157 145 increasing diocese. Too often the minister of the gospel is left to grapple with poverty, and to groan under the weight and care of an increasing family. Here, to the praise of our parishioners be it spoken, those fears are removed, and those complaints silenced. Nothing has been left undone by the people of my parishes and others, to raise my spirits and spur me on to the faithful performance of my duty. These remarks are not made with a view to flatter, but to encourage the laborer to sow in hope and the laity to continue in well doing.” In his subsequent report he thus refers to the commencement of his ministry here: “Until we could procure the basement story of the church we were subjected to much inconvenience, and somewhat retarded in our progress. I found but few attached to the church from an enlightened and conscientious belief that the ministry, doctrine, and discipline were according to the Scriptures and apostolic times. In fact, my prospect was dim and my congregation few in numbers. My head hung down and my heart was discouraged. Honor to the sacred name of God, the prospects of my parish have brightened, the house is full, and my person is well sustained. I can truly say 'the lines have fallen to me in pleasant places.' It was expected that our church would be consecrated at this convention, but owing to adverse circumstances it must now be delayed to the middle of November next. The room of our edifice will accommodate about three hundred, and for neatness, we think will not be exceeded by any in our village. It gives me great pleasure to say that between the members of our own church and other societies. there exists the kindest of feeling. It is with pleasure I add that, connected with the church is a Sunday school well indoctrinated. Communicants, twenty-six; marriages, six; baptisms, ten; funerals, eleven.”

Mr. Marks resigned in 1838, removing to. Clinton. In 1840 or 1841 he accepted the charge of Christ's Church, Huron, Ohio, and in a parish which to-day only numbers thirty-three communicants. and pays a salary of only four hundred and twenty dollars, he has spent nearly twenty-five years; a beautiful instance of calm contentment in doing good in an humble sphere—lesson to the restless pastor—and a fact that will answer, in some degree, the charge of instability in the ministry. Had I the space I would quote in his honor Timothy Dwight's lines. “The Country Pastor.” You will be gratified with me to learn that this almost father of the parish will; God willing, be with us on Wednesday next. In October, A.D. 1838, the parish came under the charge of the Rev. F. H. Cumming. From this time the church assumes more the due proportions of a parish. In his report to the board who had commissioned him he thus gives his first impressions: “The congregation is a highly respectable one. As to size it bears a fair proportion 19 0158 146 to others in villages of the same class with that in which this would be ranked. Myself and family have been treated with much kindness by the inhabitants of the village generally. The village is healthy, and beautifully situated, inhabited by an enterprising and intelligent people and is fast rising into consequence.” The communicants were reported to be fifty-four. Two interesting services marked the commencement of this rectorship—the institution of the new rector, Sunday, November 13, 1838, and on the same day the consecration of the new church. It is noteworthy that the consecration of the first church took place just thirty-one years ago less eight days. This must have been indeed a happy day to the little flock. In the previous period we traced their services in the southeast corner of the Goodrich House, in a school-house on Fourth street, near where, until a few years since, the old academy stood; in a mansion or store then on Main street, which, after sojourning for several years on Huron street, opposite the Presbyterian Church, was not allowed to pass its advanced years in peace, is now rejuvenated, and is the dwelling of our fellow-citizen, Mr. A.M. Schoff; in the court house, the common home for all infant parishes; in a little building fitted up for services with a temporary pulpit, near the site of the Congregational Church; and finally in the basement of this edifice. The first collection for this building was probably that referred to in the heading of the subscription paper dated February, 1835, already read. I have no means of ascertaining the cost of erection, as the record book of the vestry in my hands only dates from 1843. As our narrative follows the track of time we shall find this edifice undergoing various changes and enlargements until it reaches the condition in which it is now left by us. The Bishop, in his address, referring to the consecration. states: “This congregation has made a praiseworthy effort in relieving themselves from all embarrassment. and in securing to their rector his support independent of the miserable system. which has been heretofore pursued, of relying upon subscriptions oftentimes from those who feel but little interest in sustaining the ministers of Jesus Christ.” In 1840, the rector is happy to state that the temporal affairs of this parish are in a much better condition than they have ever been. The debt with which it was embarrassed (amounting to about $2,800), has been entirely liquidated by the efforts exclusively of the parishioners. A parsonage house is nearly-finished. towards which they have contributed about $600. Our services have been well attended, with marked seriousness on the part of the congregation generally. In 1841 we are told: “The parsonage alluded to in the report last year, I am happy to state, is entirely finished and is universally admired for its beauty and convenience, and for the economy observed in its construction.” I may remark in passing that it is one of the least happy 0159 147 traditions of the parish, that this, its only rectory was sold, and the money diverted to other purposes. I venture to say that every subsequent rector, subjected to the inconveniences of the hired house, and perhaps compelled to secure a house from which he might not be expelled, has sighed for that rectory. The report continues: “The ladies of the parish have, by most untiring exertions, succeeded in raising money enough, principally by means of the needle, to procure a very handsome silver communion set. The act was certainly creditable concerning the position of the parish. Probably there are not to-day six silver communion sets in the diocese.” Mention is also made of the sacred edifice having been very seriously injured by fire, and an appeal made to the friends of the church at the east having been promptly and generously responded to so that it has been entirely repaired. The organ, too, bad been rebuilt and very much improved. The Bishop, in his address, speaks of the church as “one of the most beautiful edifices in the west.”

The years 1842–43 added to the property of the parish a bell costing $320, probably the same that now summons us to the house of prayer, and a fence around the church as the lot then was. In October, 1843, Dr. Cumming resigned, removing to Grand Rapids, where his remaining years were spent, dying August 26, 1862. His five years told on the stability and growth of the parish. As one test of growth he found twenty-eight communicants and left seventy-six. Coming to an unfinished edifice he left a church properly equipped for service. Other statistics of his ministry are: Baptisms, adult, 13; infants. 38; confirmed, 48; marriages, 20; funerals, 43, contributions, $4,065.69. His remarkable missionary activity made the church known in all the neighboring region. In the language of one of the numerous obituaries his death called forth: “Dr. Cumming was no ordinary man. United to great respectability of talents and acquirements he possessed a native energy of character which contributed to his success in the ministry. Whatever objects he thought worthy of his attention he pursued with an unfaltering purpose and the most untiring industry, and seldom failed of their attainment. As a preacher he was sound, direct, plain, and forcible. There was an earnestness of manner both of preaching and conducting the services of the church that could not fail to arrest and hold the attention of a congregation. As a parish minister he had few equals in the church. His supervision of his flock was most faithful. His parish work was wonderfully systematized, and he had the happy faculty of enlisting his people in his plans and securing their cordial coöperation in their execution. In the chamber of sickness, in the house of mourning, and in the dwelling of want he was a frequent and welcome visitor. While the death of such a man is a loss to the whole church, to, the Diocese of Michigan it is one that cannot 0160 148 soon be repaired.” Upon the resignation of Mr. Cumming the Rev. W. N. Lyster supplied the church with ministerial labor about one half the time for five months. The parish may well be proud of having thus in the roll of its shepherds, one whose record is so noble. Coming to this country in 1833 from his native land, Mr. Lyster has not only given his energies with apostolic zeal to building up the church in this Diocese, but his purse, once ample, has been freely opened to lay her foundations. Ever a missionary by choice he has dignified that noble name. Faithful even to the end in his chosen lines, to-day, at an advanced age, he serves at his missionary posts. I know no more beautiful illustration of simple, self sacrificing devotion in the vineyard of our Lord. There are records of the ministry that will be read by a greater number, but few that more deserve to be known and perpetuated.

For entries in the vestry minutes, I judge that this interregnum was a period of weakness and embarrassment. When will vestries and congregations learn the injury to their parishes of long vacancy in the rectorship? Scarcely a parish can bear to be subjected to this trying ordeal. The Rev. Mr. Lyster having declined the permanent charge, the vestry extended a call to the Rev. Charles C. Taylor of Rhode Island, who accepted and entered on his duties July 22, 1844. His first report records the payment of a floating debt of $700. His report for 1845–6, mentions the parish having raised $400 for additional land to improve the church lot, $120 for a well at the rectory, the adoption of a plan of weekly collections on Sunday morning, the need of additional pews, and that God. in a peculiar manner, was following with His blessings, the solemn fastings and services of Lent. That for 1846–7, improvements on the church, and a parochial singing school, and repeats the demand for more and better accommodations for the comfort and convenience of those who wish to attend our services. That for 1847–8, the expenditure of $250 in repairs; on Sunday afternoon after prayers an hour devoted to catechetical instruction and singing; more than one-half the present number of communicants added during the last four years; the prevalence of an unusual, alarming, and fatal disease, by which some of our most efficient members have been removed from the church militant. The Bishop in his address remarks of Ann Arbor: “Here a new church is much needed, or else an extension of the old one.” “There is a limit now placed to growth by want of church room.” The report of 1848–9 notes the interest taken in the Sunday school, Bible class, and catechetical instruction. That for 1849–50 speaks of a debt of $200 to $300, which has assumed such a form that it can no longer be neglected without great peril to the prosperity of the parish. It has also this important record: “The parsonage has been 0161 149 sold and the payments amply secured or safely invested, to be held in readiness as a sacred fund for the erection of new buildings at some future day When needed. In the sale of the parsonage, the vestry were influenced by the consideration that the house was suffering for the want of extensive repairs, and was neither conveniently located nor occupied by the rector.” For the years 1845–6–7–8 I have no sources of information but the parochial reports, for it is a singular and painful fact, that instead of minutes of the vestry, there are blank pages left. Some indifferent scribe probably made his minutes loosely and was never at the pains to transcribe them.

Mr. Taylor resigned in 1850, and the tone of all his reports is encouraging, and it is evident that under his ministry the parish had been flourishing. Yet it is also evident that, whether by force of circumstances or want of due liberality, the parish was struggling with pecuniary difficulty. Inadequate means is the keynote of the vestry proceedings. This explains the very peculiar position in which St. Andrew's was placed on his removal. The report to the convention of 1850 made by Mr. John A. Willis states: “Since the resignation of the rector, Mr. Taylor, there has been no settled pastor in this parish. In the interim an invitation has been extended by the vestry to the Rev. George P. Williams of the university. He has faithfully and gratuitously performed the services and all the various duties appertaining to the sacred office, notwithstanding his arduous professional engagements, and he has in this way become the largest contributor toward the payment of a debt of $460 incurred some years since.” This debt of gratitude remains to this day wholly unimpaired. And this is only one of the very many acts of kindness and liberality for which this parish is indebted to this esteemed brother. His residence here has been parallel with four rectorships. To his unsparing exertion, to his diligent care I doubt not that it is owing that the parish has been sustained in long vacancies. Never formally an assistant minister, he has been, I can well believe, to others what assuredly he has been to the present incumbent, the truest assistant, in his warm sympathy, his generous effort, and his wise counsel. His name is indeed brightly inscribed in the annals of your parish.

The report from which the above extract is taken proceeds: “The parsonage fund, amounting to $720, is safely invested in bonds and mortgages, and with the avails of lots valued at $250, will be applied to the sole purpose for which the money was originally given. In addition to the present church lot which can hereafter be used for the parsonage, the parish owns an acre of ground adjoining, which is designed for a new church.” (I presume this is the lot purchased in 1845–6 for $400.) “The subject of building one worthy the place is now beginning to be agitated. Is it not worthy of consideration 0162 150 on the part of the church at large whether we should be assisted to enlarge the place to an extent which will accommodate with free sittings such of the students of the university as may be inclined to attend the services of our church.” Thus was the policy we have followed, marked out nearly twenty years ago by a wise layman interested-in the parish, now entered into his rest.

The following year, 1852, finds the late rector, the Rev. C. C. Taylor, returned to the flock, and “the parish are contemplating an immediate effort for the erection of a new church.” Prior to his return, the parish had made no less than four unsuccessful attempts to secure a rector. The report of the returned rector for 1852–3 is very favorable. Nearly $200 have been raised by the ladies of the sewing circle. About $150 have been received by the rector and his family, in donations. The Easter report showed that for thirteen months preceding, there remained not one cent of repudiated or unpaid rents for pews. Every pew was rented—two-thirds of them occupied by more than one family. The income of the parish had equaled its expenditures; it was free from debt; the parsonage fund was $900; the ladies had $450, for the purchase of an organ. The rector states that, during his connection with the parish, nearly as much has been expended in repairs and improvements upon the old edifice and organ as could now be realized by the sale of them. He also remarks: “Half enough to build a new church might have been expended in enlarging and repairing the present edifice had I not ever conscientiously and earnestly disapproved of the measure.” Notwithstanding the favorable circumstances enumerated, the rector closes his report with the mention of his resignation. Probably the cause is to be found in this statement: “The greatest, and I might say the only, cause of discouragement to me has been the doubtful prospect of the erection of a church adequate to the importance of the position and the wants of the community.”

Mr. Taylor then gives the statistics of his ministry: Baptisms, 144 (adults, 41; infants, 103); confirmations, 91; marriages, 21; burials, 80; number of communicants, 98; contributions, $2,667.25. Mr. Taylor died at Kalamazoo, February 1, 1855. No doubt a just estimate of his character and labors is furnished in the funeral discourse of the late Rev. D. T. Grinnell, D.D. In the vacancy following, the parish seems to have been partially supplied by the Rev. A. S. Hollister, then without parochial charge. The Rev. David S. Lumsden, of Connecticut, was called, and entered on his duties, March 12, 1854. In his first report the new rector states, “We have taken the preliminary steps towards erecting a new church, and are now waiting for the architect to place in our hands his plans and specifications. 0163 151 The building is to cost $8,000, of which $6,000 is now subscribed, $1,000 is promised, and the remainder is in a fair way of being obtained.” The purpose of erecting a new church must have been subsequently changed to that of enlarging the present edifice, as we find the vestry, April 9, 1855, taking action in these premises, and the church, as enlarged, was consecrated May 18, 1856. The report of 1855–6 records: “Our liabilities seem to be about $4,700 to $5,000, the organ and furniture included. The ladies furnished, nearly $600 for the organ and $200 for lamps and carpets. The vestry records show the organ to have been built by F. G. Merritt, of Detroit, and to have cost $1,000. The report of 1856–7 has nothing worthy of mention. That for 1857–8 mentions sixty-five persons confirmed. An extraordinary religious interest had pervaded the country, in which this place and parish had participated.

I must add, as my own conviction, that it is well that a new church was not erected at that time. Doubtless it would have been an improvement upon the present edifice in size and architecture, but it could scarcely have been equal to the structure now erected. Architecture, even fourteen years ago, was far behind what it is now, and the probable result would have been an edifice inferior in character, and yet not susceptible of marked improvement. Let me add I have heard it remarked that sufficient had been expended on this structure to build a new church. I think that this is a mistake. Of course in thirty years there has been a large expenditure in the way of ordinary repairs, but, as far as I can judge, the several enlargements have not exceeded in cost $6,000, and all this has been judiciously expended. Of the number of confirmations in 1857–8 less than one-fourth now remain in connection with the parish. Some of them are among the most earnest communicants, yet a review of the list only confirms the impression to which I have been led, that while in those so called revivals souls are undoubtedly awakened to a permanent interest in eternal realities. they tend to a mere excitement which, while it wears the appearance of Divine grace, is often no more than animal sensibility. A minister's position is very painful at such a time. With the utmost care and wisdom he will fail to discover what is of nature and what is of grace, and often he feels compelled to admit to holy profession those of whom he stands in doubt. It is not strange that with such an addition, many of them from without, the rector should speak—“it is now time again that we should enlarge our house of worship.” Building a transept for the students is the plan proposed, and a strong and just appeal is made to the church in the diocese and abroad to accomplish the measure. The report of 1858–9 mentions the death of Dr. Ticknor, of the U.S. Navy, “one whose place will never be filled, a man devoted to the Gospel 0164 152 of Christ, full of faith and good works.” In the previous twelve months, resort was had to a subscription to pay a pressing indebtedness of $430, and the erection of a parsonage on the church grounds was agitated. Mortgaging the land on which the parsonage should be built and the whole church property, for a loan of $2,000, was proposed, but the plan it seems did not invite investment, and the object failed. The vestry records show that gas had been put in the church at an expense of about three hundred dollars.

Mr. Luresden resigned at Easter, 1861. A grand step onward had been made in the enlargement of the church, for which he had earnestly labored. Probably this was accomplished at no less sacrifice and exertion on the part of rector and people than our late enterprise. The Bishop thus notices his removal: “Since my visitation the rector, after seven years of laborious and active duties, has resigned the charge of this parish. To him we are indebted for the neat church edifice, and for the many evidences of taste in and around the building, and I hope also for the addition of many to the fold of Christ. The statistics of Mr. Lumsden's rectorship are: Baptisms, adult, 64; infants, 71; confirmed, 120; married, 47; funerals, 48; communicants increased from 98 to 119. The contributions are not uniformly furnished.

My own ministry commenced October 10, 1861. I do not design to speak particularly of my relations to the parish. The annual discourses have informed you minutely of our parish progress, and the personal observations of most of you have extended over this period. The church edifice has been twice enlarged; first, by the removal of the organ from between the doors, thus giving room for ten new pews, and the improvement of the chancel, and subsequently by the building of the porch, which, if it has not added to the beauty of the structure has afforded an ample vestibule and a very useful room over it. The expense of these improvements was about seven hundred dollars. Chancel chairs have been purchased for $53.50 and a font by the Sunday school for $61.35; also furnaces for $270. In 1863 a floating debt of several years standing, amounting to $600, was paid. The statistics to the date of the last convention, June, 1869, are: Baptisms, adults, 49; infants, 187, total 236; confirmed, 110; communicants admitted, 120; marriages, 74; funerals, 141; contributions, exclusive of pew rents and the cost of the new church, not yet reported, are $7,769.84. The number of communicants has increased from 119 to 181. I trust that it savors more of thankfulness than of pride, when I say that under my charge the parish has grown. It ought to have grown, the place has increased. I have endeavored to throw my whole self into the work, and God has given me health and strength. I speak now as a man. And much has been owing to the good common sense, gentlemanly Christian tone of the vestry. We have had no bickerings, no 0165 153 obstinate individual assertion. For myself, ever wont to give my own counsel with freedom which may need the apology of fervent interest in the parish, I have ever been listened to with the utmost respect. My counsels have been allowed weight fully up to my wishes, especially in the erection of the church; placed on the building committee with no experience or knowledge of the task, I have been consulted in all details. I shall ever look back with pleasure to my intercourse with the vestry and the building committee. Had there been a different spirit in the board of control, any individual or clique spirit, I verily believe that this church stood not there to-night. And much has been owing to the determination of the rector and congregation, each to keep within his own lines. You have recognized me as over you in the Lord, as in virtue of office, of experience, of responsibility, competent and entitled to assume the direction of the parish in all its arrangements for edification. That my judgment has always been yours, was not to be expected, yet you have left me to pursue my path. And so I, on the other hand, have never meant to interfere in what belonged to you. The result has been peace, and peace is closely allied with prosperity.

Thus have I traced the way the Lord has led you on as a parish for more than forty years. Many reflections are suggested, especially to those whose lives have run parallel with the church's being and progress. To my mind, the history of this parish, while not without its clouds, is by no means a dark one. I account it a note of prosperity that the parish has, in general, had long rectorships: Rev. S. W. Truman, three years; Bausman, fourteen months; Marks, nineteen months; Cumming, five years; Taylor (with an interval of sixteen months), six years and seven months; Lumsden, seven years, and the present incumbent, eight years. One of the great satisfactions of my own ministerial life is, that I have, in general, labored long in each spot of the vineyard assigned to me, and I am well persuaded that, under ordinary circumstances, those parishes are built on sure foundations, and have in them the elements of stability and growth where the shepherd has long kept the flock. Frequent clerical changes entail weakness upon the parish, and they sadly impair ministerial usefulness. While at times the church edifice has been insufficient, enlargement has eventually come. There have been no very serious reverses in the parish; the parish has, in the usual proportion of our churches, kept pace with the church.

We are led to reflect on the good this parish has accomplished. In its long existence, how many souls have been brought under the influence of the church. There have been successive congregations. Consider two items, baptisms, nearly 500, and confirmations, nearly 400. I have not the data for calculation, but you may conceive how large, how great a number 20 0166 154 have communed at this altar. The parish, considering the constant incoming and outgoing of young men, is especially entitled to this reflection. We often lose sight of this consideration, and value a parish merely for what it is—what is shows to-day. In this review, we are reminded of what is due to former pastors. Our present is a consummation attained by their labors, their sacrifices, their prayers. The Master would tell him who addresses you, “One soweth and another reapeth. Other men labored and ye have entered into their labors.” I trust that, in this day of rejoicing, we are all mindful of the former shepherds of the flock. It is touching to read the reports of Bausman and Marks, showing their hearts in the day of early struggle. The meek Bausman, the untiring Cumming, the erudite Taylor, have entered into their rest. We know not but that in spirit they shall be with us. But in all our gratification we shall commemorate their work and the days when they went in and out among you, when their voices were heard within these walls.

I can but remark, in closing this sketch, that our satisfaction is unalloyed by what is the common experience of a congregation erecting a new church. Many of us have very tender memories connected with this spot. A deep shade of sadness would pass over our spirits, were we to rise and leave this place with a final farewell, were this the last service within these walls, and the place was to become as a house of God no more forever. We shall yet worship here; we shall often come hither for some of our most tender services, and henceforth this church will be dedicated to the sacred purpose of leading the lambs of the flock in the green pastures of God's truth and the Church's ways.

And now, beloved, suffer the word of exhortation. We have been engaged in a great enterprise. It has had its difficulties; it has tried the hearts and wearied the hands of those engaged in it, and it is an enterprise which has allowed much difference of opinion. And as in all such enterprises, all views could not be met. Sometimes opinions have come in conflict. There may have been some heart burnings, some irritations. But now, the good hand of God upon us, our work is done. Let us lay aside as to any wrath or anger, or malice, or bitterness, or evil speaking, all Prejudice, preference, complaint. Let us sink all these in a feeling of pleasure among ourselves and gratitude to our God. Could they who early struggled to plant this vine look down upon it in its stately proportions, how would they bid us dismiss any other thought than of unity, peace and gratitude. Let us go into that temple an Israel of God at unity in itself: Let its gates open to receive us, a band of earnest Christians; or earnest churchmen, with new thoughts of devotion to the church; of service to Jehovah with generous impulses, with 0167 155 the deep feeling that we are candidates for a temple not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, for which all the ministrations of this house we have builded is to prepare us.

“The Lord our God be with us, as he was with our fathers; let Him not leave us, nor forsake us; that He may incline our hearts unto Him, to walk in all His ways, and to keep all His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, which He commanded our fathers.”

was born in Athens county, in southern Ohio, June 2, 1810, and therefore is seventy-six years of age. He professed religion and joined the Methodist Episcopal Church when he was ten years of age. He was a student for some time in the Ohio University at Athens, and entered the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in connection with the Ohio Conference, in August, 1829. That year he was appointed to Nicholas circuit on the head waters of the Big Kanawha, in West Virginia, which was then a new country. At the next conference, in September, 1830, he was appointed to the Ann Arbor circuit, which then for the first time appears on the records of the church, as junior preacher, with Henry Colclazer. This was the only time in an active ministry of more than fifty years when he was in a subordinate position. Mr. Pilcher has done a good deal of pioneer work. At one time his circuit took in all the settlements in the west half of Washtenaw, all of Jackson, Calhoun, Branch, Hillsdale, and Lenawee counties. He has carried an axe, blazed his own way where there was no road. He swam his horse across rivers, wallowed through marshes and swamps, and has slept in the woods, being serenaded by the wolves.

Mr. Pilcher's first district, as presiding elder, in 1838, extended over Hillsdale, Branch, Calhoun, Jackson, Ingham, Eaton, Barry, Ottawa, Kent, Ionia, Clinton, Shiawassee, the west half of Genesee and the west half of Lenawee counties, making thirteen full counties, with no cross roads to connect the northern territorial road with the south. The esteem in which he has been held is shown in the positions he has occupied. He has been stationed at Adrian four years, at Jackson, Battle Creek, Kalamazoo, Ann Arbor five years, and in Detroit First or Woodward avenue, two years. He has served as secretary of the conference for nine years and a half; and as presiding elder of a district for twenty-one full years, and four fractional years, bringing him into the bishop's cabinet for twenty-five years. He represented his conference, as delegate to the General Conference, for five sessions, and served as one of the book committee of the Western Book Concern for four years, and might have been appointed another term had he not declined in favor of another.

Dr. Pilcher received the degrees of M. A. and D. D. from the Ohio Wesleyan University, and M. D. from the University of Michigan; he was admitted to the practice of the law at Adrian in 1846. He identified himself with the cause of education at an early day. He, with Dr. B. H. Packard and H. Colclazer, as early as 1834, originated the idea of a Methodist institution, which has culminated in Albion College, and served as one of the trustees of that institution for many years, and drafted its present charter. He was appointed a regent of the University of Michigan in 1845, and served for six years. He made the first move towards breaking down the old “branch system.”

Dr. Pilcher has been a man of indomitable perseverance and zealous for the cause; and a successful evangelist as well as pastor, and a wise administrator in the presiding eldership.

He made the tour of Europe and the Orient in 1868–9, and corresponded for the Detroit Tribune weekly during the time. His letters were considered a valuable contribution to literature. His other articles published in various periodicals are voluminous, besides his large volume, entitled “Protestantism in Michigan.” And now that he is laid aside by paralysis of the entire right side, he continues to write, having learned to write a beautiful hand with his left hand.

In many respects Dr. Pilcher has been a remarkable man. For thirty-three successive years, prior to being taken down with paralysis, April 5, 1882, he has lost one Sabbath for the want of health. He has four sons. One a book merchant; one an eminent surgeon in the city of Brooklyn; another a missionary in China; and the youngest is a surgeon in the United 0169 157 States Army. The three last are graduates of universities. Dr. Pilcher, by his writings, was the principal instrument of securing the constitutional provision for the establishment of the Michigan Agricultural College.

I will close this sketch of Dr. Pilcher by relating the following incident: The writer was stationed at Jackson in 1839. The Doctor was his presiding elder. The first quarterly meeting for the year was hold in a small brick school-house on the east side of the river. At the close of the services on Saturday, the presiding elder gave the notices of the Sabbath services, consisting of lovefeast, public preaching, sacrament, etc. The lovefeast was to commence at nine o'clock sharp. He urged the people to be present at the hour appointed, and stated that the rule of discipline would be carried out, and that those who wished to enjoy the meeting must be on hand or the doors would be closed, and to emphasize his exhortation, said that he should not blame the preacher in charge even if the presiding elder should not be on time, if the doors should be closed against him. The time came for the meeting to commence, but the presiding elder was not in sight or hearing. The preacher opened the services promptly at the hour appointed. The brethren and sisters were all present in obedience to the urgent request of the presiding elder. After the preliminary forms had been observed, as was the custom, the doors were opened to admit any who were waiting. A few came in, but the presiding elder was not among them. We were of course surprised knowing, as we all did, his habits of promptness, and our surprise was greatly increased in consideration of his affectionate exhortation of Saturday. The doors were again closed not to be again opened even for a bishop. The speaking commenced. The members in relating their christian experience had become somewhat joyful, forgetting apparently that the presiding elder was not present. But they were soon apprised of the fact that the presiding elder was at the door seeking admission, but the preacher in charge said he must comply with the rule and he did, and probably for the first time in the history of the church a presiding elder was shut out of a lovefeast by the enforcement of the law of the church. At the close of the lovefeast the presiding elder came in with a smile upon his face, and commended the preacher for his promptness in enforcing the rule, though the presiding elder was a sufferer thereby.

The reason given for his tardiness was the strange fact that the clock where he was staying had put itself upon its dignity and had adopted standard time, which was half an hour behind the Lord's time. The Methodists of those days in their ignorance supposed that His time was the governing time.

Rev. Mr. Clark was one of the most laborious and useful ministers in those 0170 158 early days in this county. Rev. Charles Grandison Clark, one of the pioneer ministers of the Presbyterian church in this State, was born in Preston, Conn., April 8, 1796.

He was the only son of Shubael Clark, a sea captain, and Esther Tracy Clark. His father died at Charleston, S. C., when the subject of this sketch was an infant. At nine years of age he went to live with a farmer in his native town, where he remained until he was fourteen years of age, when he was apprenticed to learn the carpenter's trade. Working a short time at the trade he met with an accident, which nearly deprived him of the sight of one of his eyes. Afterward he went to live with his uncle, Edward Clark, a retired sea captain, at Plainfield, Conn., where he received a common school and an academic education. After he was twenty-one years of age he spent some years in teaching a select school near Fredericksburg, Va. At the age of twenty-five years he was converted, and immediately commenced studying for the ministry. He received his college education at Amherst College, Mass., where he graduated in 1827, and soon entered the Auburn Theological Seminary, and completed his education in 1829. He was ordained Sept. 9, 1829, by the Oneida Presbytery, at Madison, N. Y. He was offered several desirable positions in the state of New York, but he preferred a new field of labor, and on the fourteenth day of September, 1829, he left Auburn for the new Territory of Michigan, arriving in Detroit, Saturday, September 19. He preached his first sermon in that place on the following day. From Detroit he went to Monroe where he stayed about one month, when he came to Ann Arbor. After supplying the Presbyterian pulpit in the little village of 400 inhabitants for a few weeks in the absence of the pastor, he located in the town of Webster, November 27, 1829, and made his home with S. H. Mathews. January 17, 1830, a Presbyterian church was organized in that town and he became its pastor.

On the 30th day of August, 1830, he was married at Ann Arbor to Miss Elizabeth Platt. She was a woman of rare christian attainments, universally esteemed by all who knew her, as a model friend, companion, mother, and pastor's wife. Much of the success of Mr. Clark as a minister was due to her quiet, consistent, earnest and beautiful life, during a period of more than twenty-eight years. He continued pastor of the Webster church until February, 1848, when he tendered his resignation. During the next two years he labored at Kensington and New Hudson in Oakland county, residing on his farm in Webster. Returning to his home in Webster in the spring of 1852, he soon after received a call from his old church to again assume the pastorate, which he did, remaining with them until the spring of 1858, when he was obliged to resign on account of failing health, and his active ministry ceased.

While pastor at Webster his labors extended to all the adjacent towns, and many of the churches in this and adjoining counties were organized by him. When he arrived in the Territory, in 1829, there were but four Presbyterian and Congregational ministers within its bounds, and he was fully identified with the pioneer work in this vicinity. As a minister he preached the gospel he believed with simplicity and earnestness, laboring to give his hearers pure doctrine rather than for worldly popularity, and although he was instrumental in bringing a large number into the church, the burden of his life was that he was never able to do more for the Master. From the very first he was a leader in the temperance cause and was always ready to do all in his power to forward any good work. He was a man of strong and earnest feelings, quiet and unobstrusive in his manner, and universally estimated and loved by those who knew him best. In 1860 he removed to Ann Arbor that he might better enjoy social and religious privileges in his declining years. He died October 2, 1871, aged 75 years.

His dear friend and associate in the ministry, Rev. Ira M. Wead, of whom a biographical sketch was given in a former paper, preached his funeral sermon.

I regret that I have not the material with which to give a more extended sketch of Rev. Henry Colclazer, one of the most eloquent and useful ministers among the early Methodist preachers in this county. Of his early history I know but little. He was born in Georgetown, D.C., September 1, 1809.

In Dr. Pilcher's history I find the following statements: “At the conference in September, 1830, Ann Arbor appears in the list of appointments for the first time. Henry Colclazer and Elijah H. Pilcher, the former only twenty-one years of age and the latter much younger, were appointed to it. The church felt that it was supplied with boys indeed. But though they were young they were zealous, and filled the appointments, and had some revivals and accessions to the church.” In further speaking of these young men the Doctor says: “In the first week in October, 1830, two well dressed young men, well mounted on horseback, carrying all their wardrobe and library [the library consisting of a well-worn and well-read Bible, a Hymn book, and Discipline, and not much else.— Writer ] in their saddlebags, might have been seen towards evening riding into the new and scattered village of Ypsilanti, inquiring for the house of Eleazer Smith, with whom they expected to find entertainment, and from whom, when found, they received a cordial welcome. These young men had come, one from central Ohio, the other from the mountains of West Virginia, having been appointed 0172 160 together in Ann Arbor circuit, which included Ypsilanti. They were Henry Colclazer and Elijah H. Pilcher. They were the only ministers who rendered regular services in Ypsilanti at the time. Very soon after Mr. Colclazer commenced his ministry in the Territory he took a leading position in the church, and among his brethren in the ministry he held and maintained that position during his entire connection with the conference.”

Mr. Colclazer had not the advantages of a liberal education, which of course was somewhat of a hindrance to his success, but he made the best use of his limited attainments in this respect, and in all his public ministrations he succeeded in securing the attention of the learned as well as of the less informed. His language, always pure and well chosen, was clothed with the most beautiful rhetoric, and never failed to convey his thoughts in a manner to interest and captivate his hearers. In short, as a pulpit orator, he was the peer of any preacher in the country, and had he been blest with a liberal education, would have become one of the most eloquent preachers of his time.

During his ministry in this State he filled all the offices of the church, except that of Bishop. He was a delegate to the general conference at a number of its sessions. He was the first librarian of the university, when all the books might almost be packed in a traveling trunk.

He filled the pulpits of all the important places in the conference, and during his ministry in Michigan, served the church faithfully and well. I will close with the following amusing incident: Mr. Colclazer, as presiding elder, held a quarterly meeting some thirty miles north of Ann Arbor. In those days the quarterly meetings commenced on Saturday, with a sermon. People from all parts of the circuit attended them, and it was the custom to entertain the people over Saturday night, and it often happened that the limited dimensions of the houses were not favorable for great comfort and convenience. The love feast was held early Sunday morning, making it necessary for the friends to be astir quite early.

Brother Colclazer was to stay with Brother Boutwell. There were also many of the brethren and sisters stopping at the same place. When the time of retiring arrived, Brother Boutwell took the presiding elder to his room for the night, which was at the head of a ladder, in a log house, with sheets hung up for partitions. Mr. Colclazer thanked the good man for his good bed. Mr. Colclazer said good night, said his prayers, took off his wig—for he was quite bald—and hung it on the bed-post at the head of his bed, and soon composed himself to rest. Mr. Boutwell was the first up in the morning, and stepped up the ladder to call his daughter, who occupied a room in the chamber, to get up quickly, for they had so many to get breakfast for. He was so 0173 161 near the top of the ladder that he saw the elder's wig on the post, and it being the only one he ever saw, he was badly frightened, and thought that the Indians had scalped the minister. So he halooed, “Oh, the Indians! the Indians!” This aroused the presiding elder, who was also, greatly alarmed, and rose up quickly in bed, forgetting his bald head in his fright. This was too much for Mr. Boutwell. He now was sure that the Indians had been there, and, scared almost to death, he screamed murder! murder! at the top of his voice, which brought all the family from below, and the guests from above, to the scene. When all was explained, and the unoffending wig placed in its legitimate position, all were merry at Brother Boutwell's expense. Poor man; he was so chagrined that he rushed below, and did not appear at breakfast, or at the meeting that day.

Dr. Pilcher is a member of the Detroit conference, and resides at No. 4, Monroe street, Brooklyn, N. Y. Mr. Colclazer died in Philadelphia, December 16, 1884. He was a member of the Wilmington conference at the time of his death.

The only apology, if one is needed, for the length of these sketches of three of our pioneer ministers, is that their labor and usefulness demands it.

BY F. A. DEWEY

When we look back to the scenes of over fifty-seven years ago, although a pleasure, it requires deliberation to bring the mind to bear on scenes and incidents which transpired when the writer was eighteen years of age. Long shall I remember the bright and beautiful day, the first of September, in the year 1829, when I left the pleasant and historic village of Buffalo, which had been my home for several years, and took passage on the steamboat “Enterprise,” Captain Miles, for the celebrated lands of Michigan. The steamer carried about thirty cords of four foot wood to make fire with instead of coal, as at the present day. Several landings were made on the route to change freight and take on fire-wood. The weather was delightful 21 0174 162 on the lake until we neared Sandusky Bay, then the winds appeared to roar and howl; many passengers were sea-sick. Capt. Miles very gracefully said to those who were sea-sick, “this change of weather and the loosening of bile will save each of you a hundred dollars' doctor bill when you get to the low lands of Michigan.” The third day we were safely landed at the small wharf in Detroit. Thence taking the marked out road, on the line surveyed in the year 1824, called the United States military road, between Detroit and Chicago, I was led to Ypsilanti, where I found very good fare at the log tavern kept by Mr. Whitmore, thence west through the Saline River, near the salt springs. On the west side of the river were remaining parts of the military barracks built by a portion of General Harrison's army in 1814, with a square plot of ground of about one acre, cleared from every grub and stump for parade. Here, in the winter of 1814 and '15, a regiment was stationed to keep the Indians back. From this place I took the Indian trail, past the house of Orrin Parsons, through the dense timbered lands, going twelve miles without finding a house, then I came to the admired and fertile oak openings of Tecumseh, where my father, Simon Dewey, two months previous, had bought, one mile west of this forest hamlet, six eighty-acre lots of land, comprising four hundred and eighty acres of land with a log house and ten acres of clearing, but no laid out road within a mile. Here I was to stay until October, when my father's family was expected to come. I would here say that in 1832 the U. S. LaPleasance Bay military road was surveyed and made the great turnpike, passing through the centre of the lands. It was my good privilege here, with dog and gun, to range the woods where game was plenty. At the present day what was the wild wood forest fifty-seven years ago, now comprises the beautiful, productive, and well managed plantations of our highly esteemed citizens, Walter Adams, the widow and son of the late L. D. Dewey, also of Samuel Bryan, W. K. Waldron, Thomas Boyd, and Marvin Howard, men not surpassed in farming, all of whom are pioneers of Lenawee county.

My boarding place was with the family of William H. Hoag, who was afterwards one of the side judges of the circuit court, and also had large contracts in making military roads. After making my home there until November first, and not hearing from my father, I took a seat with Joseph Camburn in a lumber wagon, drawn by two yoke of oxen, for Detroit, the third day we arrived and stopped at Campbell's tavern. November 10 I took passage on the staunch top-sail schooner “Commerce,” Captain Simeon Fox, for Buffalo, we had a favorable trip of three days to the grand old harbor of Buffalo, and there learned that my folks had been gone two days on the “United States,” schooner, Captain Whitaker. I will here state, that large 0175 163 vessels were thirteen days on the lake without going into harbor until they reached Detroit. My mother said it was a great relief to get on the land once more. November 19, Captain Fox, of the “Commerce,” said his vessel was loaded for Detroit, but it being Friday, he would not start until after twelve o'clock at night, though the wind and weather were favorable. I had a good berth in the cabin, and after a sail of over 200 miles on the lake, a great gale began at midnight, which swept the decks of the loading, smashed in the stern windows, and a deluge of water came into the cabin, upset the stove, broke the jolly boat loose from the davits, and seemingly made a general wreck, the storm of wind and snow being fearful. The Captain did not hesitate to open his mouth in the use of some of the most tremendous words, that were never learned in the spelling book. The close reefed fore-sail was all the vessel could stand up under. After five days in this wild, terrific snow storm, buffeting the big waves, and trying to make a harbor in that desolate Canadian region, near Long Point, at night the anchor was dropped in Buffalo Creek. The next morning we saw that ice had formed, and boys were already skating. It now seemed, as the Captain said, that the end of navigation on the lakes, for 1829, had come. Thus do I look back to those scenes as the perils of the inland seas. Now it seemed to me my only chance was to take the land route, so I made up a small bundle of shirts and stockings, with a good pair of shoes, a pair of boots, and a fair traveling suit, not omitting a few dollars in money. Thus equipped, on November 25, on foot and alone, I started over the cold and long road, through Pennsylvania and Ohio for Michigan. The second day I reached a farm house west of Dunkirk. In the morning my feet showed signs of enlargement as a result of the rough traveling, the fourth day I passed through a forest of chestnut trees, where was a plenty of nuts on the ground. At evening there came a fierce snow storm. I called at a log house where they had a splendid fire, but where I was very modestly told that there was but one room and one bed in the house, but a quarter of a mile west was a house with more room. I reluctantly went on, which seemed a full mile in that fierce evening snow storm. That night I slept on the floor. After a wearisome travel on foot of over two hundred miles, I reached the far-famed village of Cleveland, December 5. Here the only bridge over the river was of floating logs.

At Huron there was a large number of wagons and teams on the common, resting for the night, loaded for Columbus. They bought twenty bushels of corn to feed the horses that night. I took a few days' rest at what was sometimes called the “Doctor's Cabin.” One bitter cold midnight there came a loud rap on the door. The doctor got up and admitted a man, who came in, sat down on the floor before the large, open fireplace, and said that he had a 0176 164 tooth to be examined. A jug was placed by his side and he was told to take a drink; the irons were warmed by the fire, and the doctor then placed the man's head between his knees, and, by the light of the fire, put the instruments in his mouth, and suddenly the tooth was out. The doctor put some salt in his mouth, and told him to take another drink, then start for home, and not to stop until he had got home. My cot was close to the fireplace, and I could see and hear all the prescriptions. This was Ohio doctoring. At Milan river I took two hours' time to view the large circular embankments, full fifteen feet high, which are supposed to have been built more than a thousand years ago. Thus did the lone traveler pass over the romantic and secluded forest road, frequently waiting many an hour for a boat to cross the river, until the noted and historic village of Monroe was reached. Here my sleeping room at the tavern was in a chamber without a window, and as a consequence, I remained in bed late in the morning. Starting again, I took the River road for Kedzie's Grove. I was somewhat encouraged to know that I was in Michigan, and with a quick step I hastened towards home. As evening came on and the sun went down behind the trees, there were still six miles, through a dense forest, with a blind trail, mostly covered with leaves, until a house could be reached. It was difficult to keep the line without stopping every few rods to brush away the leaves. Thus I pursued this lonely trail for nearly two hours in the dark, with howling wolves on both sides and seemingly but a few steps behind me, when, through the glimmering branches of the trees in the distance, I saw the welcome and cheerful light from the large open fireplace of Mrs. Kedzie's log house. Here I was cordially entertained. She had a family of four or five house. Here I was cordially entertained. She had a family of four or five dutiful and intelligent children. Her husband had died a few months previous. Long shall I remember that pleasant evening. After a refreshing rest at Mrs. Kedzie's, I resumed my journey for Adrian and Tecumseh, with the cherished thoughts of meeting my brothers and sisters, with the ever kind mother. About noon I got to Mr. Dean's tavern, in Adrian, which was on the ground where the commodious and well furnished Lawrence hotel now stands. In the afternoon I stopped with my esteemed friend for half an hour, Hon. Darius Comstock, at the valley. Mr. Comstock had, previous to his coming to Michigan, been employed by the New York State Canal Commissioners to superintend a large force of men in blasting the Niagara ledge of rocks at Lockport, for the waters of the Erie canal, which took four years to accomplish. It proved a great benefit to the State, and he received several thousand dollars for his ‘most’ excellent management. At his Pleasant Valley farm he had about six acres enclosed with posts about ten feet high to keep the wolves from his cattle and sheep. He was really 0177 165 and truly a philanthropist among the pioneers, and also was the main contributor toward the building of the first church erected in Lenawee county, which was dedicated to the Friend's Society. A little after sundown, I got to the house of Musgrove Evans, in Tecumseh. He was one of the first settlers of the county, and was a true friend to all. He said that our family was at the log house, and that they were greatly worried as to what had become of “the stray boy.” Several vessels had “gone to Davey's locker” in the great gale on the lakes, and they feared that I had gone on one of them. With a cheerful step I walked beneath the spreading branches of the giant oaks, until within ten rods of my father's house. Here, on this serene December evening, nature seemed to smile from the bright starlit sky upon the great forest and the little log house, and I sat down for a moment by a tree, and calmly reviewed and mused over my long and wearisome journey. A few rods distant the candle burned brightly near the four-lighted window. I got up with my small bundle, brought by hand from Buffalo, and, with a firm step, went to the door and rapped. I was bid, “Come in.” I answered, “Will you please open the door?” Then, at least four were there to welcome me home.

In conclusion, permit me to say, that I have cherished memories of Musgrove Evans and family. They were the first residents, and built the first house in Lenawee county. We fondly retain warm and lasting recollections of those who first settled in and around Tecumseh. For general intelligence and high moral character, no better or more deserving citizens were ever found in a new country. A large number here to-day have passed many years in Michigan, and have noted the changes in clearing away the forest and plowing for plantations. We have seen and harvested the bounteous fields of grain; also, in our midst villages and cities have been built, not omitting to keep pace with the improvements of the age. We have seen large and most excellent families grow up, and, with cheerfulness, we see some of them here to-day. (And, for myself, I look forward to the annual pioneer meetings with great pleasure—one of the most enjoyable times of the whole year.) An eloquent orator said but a few years ago: “I have lived longer than Methuselah; for, in his long journey between the cradle and grave, he did not see such changes as we have lived to witness.” The wilderness has been cleared away by the woodman's ax, and in place of the birch bark canoe on our rivers and lakes, there float the beautiful iron steamers; also, the marked and lonely trail through the dense forest, which was the Indian's path, was quickly obliterated, and in its place magnificent railroads have been built, that carry our products to every part of the globe. Here also are admired and princely residences, which take the place of the 0178 166 log house, on many a fertile and productive plantation. Fifty years ago we wrote with quill pen to friends, and waited months for an answer. Now we can touch the electric wire, and back flashes the reply, even from across the broad Atlantic. We welcome, cherish and revere the pioneers of Michigan; they honor us by the history of their eventful lives. We are glad to commemorate them in their prosperity and beautiful homes. From the fathers and mothers, whom communities ought to be proud of, they have descended, and stamped intelligence, love and faith upon all; they infused a spirit of integrity into our public institutions. Our state is worthy of the citizens who founded her. The praise we render to those pioneers who have gone before is only gratitude for the blessings we now enjoy.

BY EPHRAIM WILLIAMS

In a former article (published in Vol. 8 of Pioneer Collections), I gave a sketch of the location of Major Oliver Williams (my father), with his family upon the bank of the beautiful lake, which he named Silver Lake. In the fall of 1818 he purchased 320 acres of government land at two dollars per acre, one-fourth down, the balance in five years. Before the expiration of five years the government reduced the payments, so that he had only to pay one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre. In the fall of 1819, or summer of 1820, he caused to be framed and raised the first frame building in Oakland county, a barn, 40 by 40 feet, and it now stands upon the old homestead in good condition. The beams of this barn were 40 feet long and 12 by 14 inches of pine, which we drew from a small pinery about one and a half miles from Silver Lake, at the head of what then was known as Three Mile Lake. We drew from this pinery the logs to make the shingles, boards and plank to enclose and finish this barn. The shingles were made on the farm by the Graham boys (Benjamin and William Graham). Plank and boards were sawed on the farm with whip saw by Sykes and Batchelor, two discharged 0179 167 U.S. soldiers from the 5th regiment, stationed at Detroit, in 1815 and 1816. They lived with father a number of years. After this time the Pontiac Company put a party of men into this pinery and cut and cleared off the entire pinery, and drew the logs to their saw mill at Pontiac. Thus ended Uncle Sam's pinery at the head of Three Mite Lake. The pioneers of those days, and for many years, felt at liberty to make free to use what they wanted of Uncle Samuel's timber (he being a very clever old gentleman, and no one to say “why do you so?” This little pinery created a desire among the few first settlers to look about for more pine timber.

North of Silver Lake (the old homestead) we could see a height of land, or a small mountain, that appeared covered with pine ('twas called the “little pine knob”), appearing to be some miles distant. The subject was talked up by the family (and by us boys more particularly), that we would take a trip to little pine knob and see what it was for pine. Accordingly one of father's hired men (David Corbin) and myself, being the oldest of the boys, decided to explore pine knob and its surroundings. After due preparations and all necessary arrangement for the great exploration, provisions cooked and provided by my good mother, one bright morning, with a little snow on the ground. Corbin and myself started (this was the winter of 1820 or 1821), with blankets. provisions, hatchets. pocket compass, etc., we took our course for pine knob. About noon we came to a small stream running from east to west. and joining Clinton river a few miles below. This creek was afterwards called the Shaw-she-bah, after an old Indian by that name. We crossed the stream, and in about one or two miles we arrived at pine knob. Ascending to its summit we found only a clump of small pines covering the entire surface, perhaps two or three acres of scrub pines. Disappointed, and a little fatigued, we struck a fire and took a lunch, and surveying the surrounding country from our little knob (which was quite a hill or a young mountain), we discovered in an easterly direction, and to the right of our line, what appeared a long stretch of pine timber running easterly several miles. We observed what appeared to be a large, heavy body of pine timber. After lunch we set our compass and made a bee line for the same. We found it located upon the creek we crossed on our way out, and in a valley of beautiful heavy timber, intermixed with large and very fine pine. this valley ranging from half to one mile wide. This valley and surrounding country in after years became one of the finest farming portions of Oakland county, and is now. It was known as the Shaw-she-bah settlement. We examined about and found we had struck into a splendid body of pine, which proved afterwards to be about the best of the long range of splendid pine, which proved a very useful element in the improvement of Oakland county, and some 0180 168 others. We marked many of the largest and finest trees with our Totems (as the Indian says), and as was the custom to mark bee trees when found, being a preemption or possession. We were, probably, the first whites ever upon these lands except, perhaps, the U.S. surveyors, and they in their field notes in the land office, in Detroit, had returned these, and all of Oakland county, as barrens and tamarack swamps.

We now, proud of our success, took our course for home, leaving the timber and pine lands. We soon struck the openings rising from the valley, upon quite high land, some distance east of our line out. Arriving upon the high land we saw two men, who had just come upon this high land, stood amazed, looking over this valley of pine, which they also had been led to explore pine knob . We found them our neighbors, Col. Calvin Hotchkiss and his father. They lived, perhaps, a mile below Pontiac, and were some of the earliest settlers of Oakland county. We told them what we had found; they were satisfied with our description. We then agreed to keep the matter a secret for our mutual benefit. They agreed to come the next day to Silver Lake and make such arrangements with father as might be thought best for securing what pine we wanted unbeknown to others.

The colonel and his father came to Silver Lake, and arrangements were made to start from Silver Lake and go north across Three Mile Lake at a narrow place and put a number of hands immediately to cutting logs, before hauling any out of the pinery, as the Pontiac company were on the look out for more pine timber. After securing a fine lot of logs, taking only the choicest, we commenced drawing on to the openings, in as secret places as possible, and convenient for drawing to the saw mill of Williams & Phillips at Waterford. About this time the Pontiac company found. or mistrusted father's men and teams, and Hotchkiss's men and teams and themselves and several laboring men in the neighborhood were missing from home, sent out men to search for our road, and in a few days found it. and followed it into our camp in the pinery where we were hard at work. It soon became known pine had been found; parties from Detroit and other places began to buy up the pine lands. We got our logs all off their lands, and working day and night, having bright moonlight, we soon were all right. Some mornings, when we happened not to have worked the night previous. we would find our logs marked with red chalk the name of a pretended purchaser, and with the words “touch not these logs;” but in twenty-four hours the logs would be one or two miles nearer the mill they were destined for, and on Uncle Sam's land, which we claimed as much right to as any one until purchased. Parties from distant parts of the county, in a few instances, moonlight nights, with teams, would load up some of our longest and best logs, 0181 169 draw them to Pontiac mill, or to their homes for shingles. Father found two of our best and longest logs at the Pontiac mill, left to be sawed; he made an arrangement with the sawyer that on a certain day he would take his men and teams and draw the logs on to the log way, and when sawed, load the lumber and take it home, nothing said; the one in possession in those days was the owner and best fellow; these transactions made any amount of fun and excitement. We had a fine run of sleighing that winter, which enabled us to bring about much work. Many's the night we boys and hired men and teams worked all night to secure our logs. We, however, succeeded in getting a fine number to the Pontiac mill, and to Williams & Phillips's mill at Waterford. We had a number of men and teams when we moved for the mills, often six or eight teams, for it became a little uncertain at times who would hold the logs. I recollect one morning we missed two very large fine logs for shingles gone from our number; being snow we took their track. After two or three miles, we came upon the logs: their Sleigh had broken down, from being overloaded; they had left them beside the road and put for home. We reloaded them and took them home. The fellows who stole our logs lived near Birmingham, then called Piety Hill (a very pious place in those days). Next spring and summer pine lumber was in great demand, commanding good paying prices. Our logs had been sawed at Williams & Phillips's mill, and prepared for market. Parties came from Ann Arbor and purchased all our lumber, provided we would deliver it on the bank of the Lower Huron river, opposite what was then the old Wallrod house (a large log house), on the site o