Pioneer history of Ingham County, compiled and arranged by Mrs. Franc L. Adams, secretary of the Ingham County pioneer and historical society.

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PIONEER HISTORY OF INGIIAM COUNTY

loosely on the horse's back, for there on the ground by the elders
was a hideous black face staring up at me, and on a level with my
eyes was a black hand waving slowly up and down.
"I gave one unearthly shriek, the horse jumped ahead-and
then oblivion. I came to my senses just as the horse stopped in
front of the barn at home. He was breathing hard and covered
with foam.
"The next morning I was up betimes and determined to find
out what had unnerved me so, and took the first car north. Getting off at the crossing nearest the place where I had my fright,
I ran up the hill where were my tracks of the night before, no one
having passed there since I did, and I could plainly see where the
tragic scene occurred. There on the side of the road where the
negro had leered up at me, the farmers had dumped their rubbish, and what had seemed to be a face the night before was only
an old tin steamer, I believe it is called, rusted to a reddish black,
lying upside down in a patch of snow. Only three of the six
holes in it were visible, owing to a length of gas pipe lying across
the others, and this formed the mouth to the face. Two holes
made the eyes and one the nose, and the snow background made
it very vivid in the dark.
"Beside this grew an elder, and some farmer had thrown an old
canvas glove, blackened with coal dust and age, and it had caught
in the elder, and this swaying in the breeze was the black hand I
had seen the night before."
EARLY NEWSPAPERS.
Angus Barnes, of Alaiedon township, has in his possession two
of the first papers published in Ingham county, of which the following is a detailed description:
The Ingham Herald was of the date of January 9, 1845. The
Herald was the official Whig organ of that day and was published
by Child & Stillman. Later Stillman left the firm and edited the
Ingham Democrat. The Herald, according to some of the old
residents of Mason, met its fate at the hands of irate citizens, who
were angry because it was published only when remunerative legal