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 INGHAMI COUNTY

We, as a nation, are not unmindful of our own founders. For
example, John Smith and his associate settlers in Virginia. Wm.
Bradford and his associate founders of Plymouth Colony are
enshrined in our memories.
The pioneer belongs to the same class. His theatre in general
is not so conspicuous. IHe is only the founder of a county, a town
or a city, perhaps, but he is a founder, and if a true founder of
prosperous municipalities he is forever blessed. I have no praises
to bestow upon those who live in the woods and the wilds because
they prefer rudeness to civility, and the haunts of savage life to
the abodes of civilization. I commend those heroic spirits who
brave the privations and dangers of the howling wilderness, in
order to make it the home of civilization and refinement. These
are effectual proclaimers in the wilderness of the glad tidings of civilization. These are missionaries indeed, in deeds more than words.
They are planters of institutions which grow to become States,
or counties or towns, according to the reach of their operations.
The founders of Ingham county gave another, and as we now see,
an important municipality to the State.
The planting of new communities in the wilderness is not
accomplished without heroism and toil. There are heroes and
martyrs, too, in the army of pioneers. It is common for heroism
to be admired by mankind in proportion as the events with which
it is connected are striking or conspicuous. The chief who leads
the army to victory is much more generally admired and applauded than the common soldier who exhibits the same virtue in
equal degree. Noble deeds are not limited to persons of high
rank or position. Noble qualities and thrilling incidents are
found in the lives of the Inconspicuous as well as in the exalted,
though unnoticed and unrecorded. This is true of the unwritten
life of the pioneer.
I have always admired the virtues while I contemplated the
lives and history of these early founders. I knew them well and
was a witness of their courage and endurance, and in some degree
was a sharer of their labor and their pleasurcs.
Take a common case. I have many similar ones in mind. A
young man of twenty-two has just married a wife of twenty, in
one of the eastern States. They decide to seek their fortunes in
the unsettled west. They leave that parental roof, bid adieu to