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

VEVAY TOWNSHIIP' AND ITS HISTOlRY

737

began to appear on the backs of many in tile community, I shall
have to get some information from old letters which I have which
will take us back to 1843 to bring us up to the time of my own
memory. Then again I am handicapped, for since 1875 I have
not been a resident of Vevay, but I can plead in extenuation of
this absence that I have been back every year for a visit, or a call,
of from one or two days to a couple of weeks, and so I have noted
the coming of new neighbors and the second and third generations of old neighbors that have come on.
During the dozen years preceding 1875 there appears to have
been plenty of activities going on about here to keep a small boy
busy-for instance the coming of the " Jackson, Lansing & Saginaw Railroad," of which I have watched every operation from
the surveying to laying of rails and ballasting of the roadbed for a
mile at least each -way from Eden. I doubt if the Calubra cut of
the Panllama Canal would impress me more than the deep cut
through the Harris farm just north of Eden. At this period of
the coming of the railroad was the passing of the stage coaches,
which were making their trips, with mail and passengers from
Jackson to Lansing, along the state road one-half mile west of
Eden. My earliest recollections are of going after the mail at
Uncle Iarrison Horton's, who was postmaster, and watching the
stage drive up and exchange mail, or rather the mail bag would be
opened and the packet for Eden taken out and mail to be
despatched put in and return the bag to the stage.
With the coming of the railroad commenced the building of
Eden. Geo. Curry's was the first house and a blacksmith shop
across tle street was the first activities of Eden, then came a store
on the corner facing south. I cannot say who opened the first
store, perhaps it was S. S. Dewey, who came to Eden about this
time and located on the forty acres that Almon Chapin now owns,
which was then a wilderness from the corners to where the electric
road runs.
Another event which many will recall was the long drought of
the summer and fall of 1871 (the Chicago fire year), which terminated with the burning of the forests from Leslie to Eden, Great
efforts were made to stop the fire at the Laxton, Chase and our
(Chapin) sugar bush, but to no avail.
Well, these are comparatively recent events. Let us go back
and dig up what we can of history events of eighty years ago.