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

ALAIEDON TOWNSHIP AND ITS HISTORY

247

dropped the kernels of corn into each hill thus made. "And it
was the biggest corn I ever raised in my life," he adds. There
was no such thing as a plow, and although they were only half a
mile from neighbors, who lived across the swamp, they were on no
broken road, and only a path through the woods guided them to
friends.
"Were you lonesome," was asked of the bride of 58 years.
"Well, sometimes I got pretty blue." she answered, "but you
know there is something fascinating about developing a farm
from the wild, every little thing you do, a tree chopped down or
a flower bed planted, everything adds just so much to the home
you are making, so I did not often mind."
And as the years rolled on they added room after room to the
little one-room log shack of their first housekeeping days on the
old farm until they had quite a spacious dwelling. This in turn,
however, they also outgrew and the time came when they moved
out of the old log house and into the new commodious building
which now stands on the place.
HELPED TO BUILD M. C.
Mr. Steinhoff vividly remembers the building of the Michigan
Central Railroad through this section of the country. Indeed,
he helped to score the timbers for the building of that first road,
and both remember the day when the first train passed over the
road.
All wheat had to be brought to Mason, then little more than a
four corners, to be ground into flour. "I remember working all
one week hewing timber for two bushels of wheat at $3 a bushel,"
he said with a smile, as they mentioned the high cost of products
nowadays, which with perhaps two exceptions, tea and calico,
are at the present time higher than they have ever known. "Of
course in Civil War times, things were high, but not like they are
now, although I did pay 45 cents a yard for one calico dress, and
from a dollar to a dollar and a half a pound for tea," Mrs. Steinhoff
said.
Ten shillings in money, a couple of pigs, and a few hens composed the young couple's wealth beside their farm and little home
when they set out to conquer the wilderness. "Folks were
friendly in those days, one neighbor was not different than an