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

LANSING TOWNSHIP AND CITY, WITH HISTORY

597

door. Without a thought of fear, my mother, thinking my father
had returned as the Jackson stage passed by the house, opened the
door. Instead of my father, there stood a middle-aged man who
calmly asked her "if she had a good sharp butcher knife handy,
and would she let him take it for a few minutes." When she
handed it to him he took it with a "thank you" and a smile that
in the moonlight looked rather leary, and went away round the
house to the front gate.
She and her sister went to the window, cautiously lifted the
window shade, trying to see where their visitor had gone, but the
moon had hidden under a passing cloud, and they could see nothing. In a half hour they heard the man coming to the door again.
When my mother answered his knock a second time, he handed
her the knife with a "thank you, ma'am," and an explanation that
he was going to St. Johns to market and his harness had broken,
"so I jest tinkered it up a bit."
Ella Rice Westcott was one of the first members of the Universalist church, a charter member of the Lansing Woman's
Club, and of the Daughters of the American Revolution; a member of the State Pioneer and Historical Society, and for twenty
years was secretary of the Lansing Industrial Aid Society, when
Mrs. Irma G. Jones was its president.
In the winter of 1903 she removed to Birmingham, Ala., to be
with her son Harry W. Here she lived again in the past, and
never thought of claiming a home in the southland; it was always
"Lansing, my home." She passed away at the home of her
daughter in Birmingham Oct. 31, 1914.
B. F. DAVIS.
B. F. Davis, of Lansing, is of English extraction, his greatgreat grand parents having come from England at a very early
day. William Davis was born in London, England, in 1764, and
died in his 45th year in the city of New York, and his wife was
born in London in 1769, and she died in New York of cholera in
the 65th year of her life. Mr. Davis had their pictures in a good
state of preservation.
Nothing is told of his grandparents or greatgrandparents, but