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

350

PIONEER HISTORY OF INGHAM COUNTY

room except the space for the door and another one on the opposite
side which was reserved for a puplit. Before that time all meetings had been held in Uncle Martin's house.
Samuel taught in different places after that, and when he
reached manhood he studied medicine, graduated at the U. of M.,
and settled in Unadilla, Livingston county, and became a trusted
physician. He had a remarkable memory, and a brother physician once said that he always liked to have Dr. Dubois for counsel
for if he once knew a thing he never forgot it. Coming down to
more recent events in the family, one of Dr. Dubois' grandsons has
spent four years teaching in the Philippines, three as superintendent of a certain number of schools which he had to visit once
in two weeks, and the fourth year as a city teacher. He then
came home and entered the U. of M. as a medical student.
The girls of the family all taught school more or less. Jacob D.
Dubois lived for a time in Alaiedon, and his two brothers, Matthew
and Conrad, also lived in this county. Their father, Martin
Dubois, was a great uncle of mine, and found his last resting place
in the Fitchburg Cemetery in Bunkerhill. Grandfather and
grandmother and six sons were now in Michigan, all but one
within the space of a mile.
The story of one pioneer home in the making must be very near
like all, and I know of only one, and that only by having the story
told to me. One wagon could not bring a family and very much in
the way of household furnishings. A small rocking chair was all
the chair there was room for; the forest furnished the rest, and
they were hewed and whittled out by father and the hired man by
candle light, or perhaps the light of the fireplace. Bedsteads and
tables were made by the same hands. After some years a carpenter came in and brought a turning lathe. Now was a chance to
get some nice bedsteads made! Father got out some curly maple,
had the posts and rails sawed four inches square, and made four
bedsteads. That was before the days of castors, and I will leave
the rest to your imagination, only saying that that was the smallest
size they would tolerate in the city of Brotherly Love when he
went down the Delaware with a raft load of lumber a few years
before.
A shelter for the family was the first in order for newcomers;
then clearing the land for crops came next with a plan for an orchard