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 INGIIAM COUNTY

EARLY PIONEER HISTORY OF DANA FAMILY.
By E. L. DANA.
Dear Readers:
Perhaps you will not clearly understand pioneer history or life
after reading this unless you lived at that time. I will do the
best I can to tell you some things that I hope will interest you.
My grandfather, Captain James Dana, was born near Cambridge, Mass., about the year 1755. He served as a soldier
during the Revolutionary War. After the war was closed he
settled in Genesee county, state of New York, and married a
young widow who was the mother of two children, Orren and
Hiram Dana. Hiram Dana, my uncle, went to the West Indian
Islands for his health in 1833 and died soon after his arrival
there. My father, Orren Dana, lived in Genesee county until
the autumn of 1837. September 5th of this year he and my
mother, a young woman twenty-four years old, started with a
yoke of oxen, one cow, and their two little boys for Michigan, a
country unknown to them, to make a home in the wilderness.
When they arrived at the village of Detroit they had five dollars
in wild cat currency left. This proved to be good. After traveling five days in a western direction, they came to the town of
Lyndon, Washtenaw county. My mother stayed here and father
followed the section lines north and west into what is now Leroy
Township, Ingham county, to locate the land he had bought from
the United States Government. He found two other families in
the township but not near enough to be neighbors. He made
their acquaintance and they helped him build a small shanty on
his land and cover the roof with bark in place of shingles. There
was a place for a door and window, but no door or window nor a
floor except one of earth. When he got his shanty finished, he
went back to Lyndon for his wife and two boys. After fording
two or three streams and cutting his road wide enough for his
wagon, he arrived at his shanty October 20, 1837. The first
winter the cow and one ox died of starvation. They missed the
cow most as it was their only means of support. I was born May
25, 1838, and mother did not have any cow for milk. My birth