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

REPORTS OF PIONEER HISTORICAL MEETINGS

51

two o'clock in the morning and went to Judge Danforth's and
crawled into bed with him.
R. F. Griffin, of Mason, gave an interesting account of his
father's early experience in a little one-story shoe shop, where now
stands the finest three-story building in town. He also related
an incident connected with his mother, in which she thought she
had discovered a bear in the woods at night as she was passing
along, but when she called for help her would-be rescuer found it
was only a black stump.
John J. Tuttle, of Leslie, said he hardly felt at home trying to
make a speech, but if it was an auction he would feel different
about it. Ile said, "If you had to wait three or four weeks before
you could raise 25 cents to get a letter out of the post office from
your father, as I had to in my early pioneer days, you would notice a contrast between the value of money now and then." Ite
gave a vivid description of life in the woods when a team would
not pass his home oftener than once in two or three months." IIe
alluded in an amusing manner to Hon. O. M. Barnes mnaking black
salts with which to pay for his education; how he and his brother
John went to Jackson to sell them and became so smitten at the
sight of a young girl on the way (not seeing them very often at
home) that they let the ox team run away and dump the salts in
the mill dam. He said women did not have to get down on their
knees and scrub floors then as they do now, for oftentimes they
did not have enough floor on which to make a grease spot.
Smith Tooker, who built the first shanty in Lansing, was called
upon for a speech but declined on the ground that he was not a
natural orator.
A resolution was presented and adopted, which designated pioneers as those having lived in Michigan thirty years and in Ingham
county twenty-five years.
The fourth annual meeting was held May 23, 1876, at the M. E.
church in Mason, at which time a committee was appointed to
consider changing the time of meeting, and it was voted that in
the future it should be held on the second Tuesday in June.
The president, W. A. Dryer, gave a very interesting address in
which he noted the many changes that had taken place in the
northern part of the county where he settled in the fall of 1836.
He said, in addition: