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

718

PIONEER HISTORY OF INGIIAM COUNTY

rolls were spun and colored, the mother would give each girl her
knitting stint to do, and in order to prevent her cheating would
mark the work with a white thread so the number of rounds could
be easily counted. The girls would race to see who could be done
first, and often dropped stitches were the result, and this always
brought punishment.
Mrs. James' parents lived next door to David Rodgers, and she
remembers hearing him tell about the Indians that were in that
section when he settled there.
TRIP MADE IN 1846 TO NORTHERN MICHIGAN.
Notebook of Henry Wheaton Tells of Incidents Reniniscent of
Very Beginning of Civilization in Northern Portion of Michigan.
Mrs. Bertha Bravender, of Stockbridge, has handed us an article telling of a trip to the northern part of Michigan, made in 1846,
by her father, Henry Milton Wheaton. In the old days Mir.
Wheaton, who for many years, lived on a farm near Pleasant
Lake, which he took up from the government, was surevyor. He
died June.30, 1873. His parents were natives of Genesee county
and moved to Michigan with the fleet of pioneers who settled the
territory from New York.
It is sometimes hard to realize the character of the wilderness
which confronted the pioneers who came to Michigan sixty years
ago. The cleared farms, the well-cultivated country, are far removed from the dense forests which then covered the country.
When one stops to consider the day's works which have been put
on the land to reclaim it from the wilderness, the sight of an oldtime rail fence gives one the backache-and the mere making of
miles upon miles of these, which have since been supplanted by
their unpicturesque predecessors, the wire fences, was but the
edge of the work.
Henry was born in Canada, while his parents were making their
way to Michigan. As a young man he followed the occupation
of surveyor, and it was as a member of a party surveying the
lands along the south shore of Lake Superior that this memoir was
written. It is a little leather-bound pocket book, convenient for
carrying in the pack of the pioneer surveyor, and the entries were