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

INGHAM TOWNSHIP AND ITS HISTORY

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workbench, while the justice of the peace occupied a splint chair
in the corner. Law suits were not frequent, but when they did
occur general interest was manifest, everybody being active on
one side or the other of the case. I remember one case which
involved an accounting between the parties. One item charged
was the pasturing of a yoke of oxen over night, and a stuttering
witness was called to prove the value of the pasturage. He was
very reluctant to set the figure, but when pressed by the attorney
said, 'It's w-w-w-worth two and six a week, you've g-g-got your
pencil and you can f-f-f-igure it up to suit yourself.' "
JAMES SWAN, AN INGHAM PIONEER.
Now In His 85th Year, Hale and Hearty, Had Many Interesting
Experiences in the Early Days of This County.
From the Ingham County News of March 18, 1909.
A remarkable old man is James Swan, of Ingham Township,
four miles east of here, who claims the proud distinction of having
called off the first cotillion ever danced in Michigan west of Detroit. He celebrated his 84th birthday on the 27th of last October, but his snow white hair and slightly bowed shoulders are the
only signs that age has laid on him. He can dance as nimble as
any youth in the country, and on a brisk cold winter day not long
ago he led his son-in-law, John A. Davidson, with whom he lives,
a merry 'cross country chase on foot over twelve miles of rough
country on a hunting expedition. And his hand has not lost its
cunning with a fiddle. You have only to hear him play Money
Musk, Speed the Plow, or Durang's Hornpipe, and call off the
figures of the Scotch Reel, Lady Washington, or Sicilian Circles
to realize what he and his violin must have been to the pioneer
settlers in a time when musicians were as scarce as are now the
bears and wolves which were then the nightly visitors of the
clearings.
Mr. Swan first came to Michigan from Orleans county, N. Y.,
his birthplace, when he was 16 years old. He came by boat to