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 INGItAM COUNTY

mained quiet until my companion returned and soon dispatched
him. There was scarcely a night that we did not hear wolves
around the house.
We sold our farm in Plymouth and bought in the township of
Leroy, in Ingham county, in 1836. We built a house and moved
into it in January, 1837. The snow was then eighteen inches
deep, and we had to cut and break our road for eight miles through
a wilderness, with not a house to be seen. We stayed the first
night at Knickerbocker's. We started at eight o'clock the next
morning and were until sundown going eight miles.
About midway on this day's journey we crossed a creek when
the ice broke and I got my feet completely wet. I was forced to
walk in order to keep my feet from freezing, for my stockings froze
stiff. I suffered very much with the cold and was glad to reach
our home where I could get warm and rest my weary feet, even if
it was in the midst of a forest. The next morning I looked out on
a wilderness inhabited only by Indians and wild beasts.
It was not long before I saw two Indians, one standing on a
stump and looking in the door. They wanted to know if we had
any whiskey, but I told them we did not keep the vile stuff. They
often came and traded with us. Among them would come
Okemos, their chief. I traded once with him. He was then an
old man. He looked fierce and savage, and had deep scars on his
face. I was not much afraid of the Indians, they never did us
any harm.
We brought some hogs to our farm the first summer, and a bear
caught one of the best of them as we sat at dinner one day. The
men heard the hog squeal, and went with a gun in the direction of
the noise, but the bear had killed it. They shot the bear though,
which was a large one and yielded five gallons of bear's oil. The
other hogs ran away, and we got no trace of them until fall.
They had strayed miles away onto a man's premises, and he had
fattened them. He gave us one.
We had a neighbor one mile away, the only one within six miles
of us. He came into the woods soon after we did. I remember
one time our cows strayed away, and the men folks started after
them and did not return that night. I had prepared wood for
the morning and gone to bed. I had been in bed but a short time.
when the wolves began to howl and came nearer and nearer to