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

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of Ingham. Here, near the little village, a murder had been committed, and Mr. Ketchum, a nine year old lad, was present when
the murderer rushed in with his bloody ax, and when he went with
a band of men to look for the body of the man he had killed.
The boy attended the ensuing trial, heard him convicted and sentenced to life-long imprisonment at "The Tamaracks," as Jackson
prison was then known, owing to its high stockade of tamarack
poles.
When ten years old young Levi went to work for his uncle,
William Ketchum, who took up land in Alaiedon Township in
1837. This uncle had a contract with Jackson prison to supply
logs, which the prisoners could make into scythe snaths, the
idea of keeping the inmates of the institution usefully employed
being in force even at that early day. It was to drive a team of
oxen to and from Jackson, with its load of logs, that the youth was
hired.
It was about this time, while he was still a boy and with a boy's
love of excitement in him, that news came to "Jefferson City"
that Barnum's Great Circus was coming to Jackson.
It was probably the first time the circus had visited Michigan,
but its fame had traveled far ahead of it, and with all of youth's
enthusiasm young Ketchum and a boy friend decided to go to the
circus. The fact that they would have to walk there and back,
about twenty-eight miles each way, was no damper to their
anticipated pleasure. To save shoe leather, they hung their boots
over their shoulders until they reached the city. They could
only scare up twenty-five cents between them in the way of
currency, but they saw the circus and returned home safe and
sound.
Another unusual event which lived with especial clearness in
his mind was the great tornado which passed through that section
in 1858. This windstorm lowered trees, tore down buildings, killed
much stock and one man. To those present at the Canaan school
school reunion in 1914 Mr. Ketchum traced the path of the
storm fifty-six years before.
He well remembered Chief Okemos, the Indian of great renown in Ingham county. Many of his childhood playmates were
Indian lads.
Mr. Ketchum married Katherine Harris in 1858, and to the