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' INGHAM COUNTY

East called it. There was only a cattle path through the woods.
They lived in a little shanty with a stick chimney, and I have often
heard my mother say that almost every day she would have to
carry water up on the roof and put out the fire as it would catch
from this primitive chimney. The first bedstead was made by
putting poles in between the logs and building a stationary frame;
the trundle-bed for the children was pushed under the pole bedstead. There was always room for one more, and no one was
ever turned from the door. In that little new home my father
had two or three men logging and helping clear the land. For
those men my mother did all the washing in a deep trough hewed
from a log and a washboard made by herself with the butcher
knife. That outfit was used for five years. The cooking was done
by the fireplace, which for the first ten years of Michigan life was
all the stove my mother had. I have often heard her tell of her
first stove and her first chair.
After a few years of shanty life my father built a split log house,
which was talked about a great deal and considered something very
grand, and house warmings were very common in that new house.
Neighbors would come from miles around for an evening's visit.
After a social time, with supper, the fiddlers would tune up, a
set would form on in the nice big chamber, and they would trip
the light fantastic toe until the "wee sma' hours." Those were
happy days; all were working for a home but they took their good
times as they went along.
I think it was in 1847 that the Capitol was located and named
Lansing. My father helped cut the underbrush so they could
play ball where the Capitol now stands. When a certain saw mill
was built in Lansing all the men in Delhi who could went together
and cut the tallest tree they could find, left all the limbs on and
then hitched all the oxen and horses in town to it, and dragged it
to mill.
They had so much fun pulling each other off the tree as they
were going that my mother often told how she sat up all night to
make a new pair of pants to take the place of the ones my father
wore to the saw mill.
It cost twenty-five cents to send a letter, and when one came
from the loved ones in the eastern home it was hailed with delight.
The Indians came to the homes occasionally and asked for