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 INGI-AM COUNTY

where C. E. Eaton now resides, heard a strange noise in his barn.
Taking his lantern, and in company with a neighbor, he proceeded to the barn, where in the middle of the floor sat a huge bear
holding in fond embrace after the bruin style Mr. Drew's dog.
The men beat a hasty retreat after reinforcements, but before
firearms could be obtained the bear had escaped.
The same year while walking in the woods near where-Huntington's sawmill now stands, just across the creek, we were faced by
two bears. We turned to run, and either the prodigious strides
that we made or the timely arrival of a man with an ox team frightened the animals, and they scampered off into the woods.
In the winter of 1860 a very large wild cat was killed by a
farmer, who had suffered the loss of several lambs and hens before
he discovered what the marauder was.
In March, 1862, three large wolves that had taken up their
abode in a swamp in Alaicdon, four miles from Mason, committed
great depredations and were hunted by a band of Ingham county
men. Farther north and east in the county it was no unusual
thing to meet these animals in the woods.
Indians were frequently seen in Mason. The old settlers will
remember Johnny Okemos, arrayed in his war paint, seeking a
dram at the saloons and bars, but it rarely happened that he could
succeed in getting a "nil)." On one occasion, however, he succeeded in purloining a bottle of fire-water, and the next morning
was found between two buildings covered with ice, and frozen to
the ground dead-drunk.
PETER LOWE,
The first secretary of the Ingham County Pioneer Society, in
June, 1874, tells some facts concerning the early history of the
county in which he rather contemptuously corrects some of the
statements made by D. B. Harrington and Peter Linderman in a
previous issue of the Ingham County News. (This only proves
how difficult it is in 1920 to get the early history perfectly accurate, when even the pioneers living in the very time of those
events failed to make the facts exactly coincide. Ed.)