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

VEVAY TOWNSIIIP AND ITS HISTORY

769

not worth the paper it was printed on. There are some who remember those times. It was all the money we could get in 1836-37.
Our neighborhood extended 30 or 40 miles. We often went
great distances to raisings. The hardest raising I ever went to
was four miles north of Mason. It was a saw mill of Mr. Lewis,
father of Nicholas Lewis, our townsman. The place was then
called Jefferson. We got the mill up about dark, and got home at
two o'clock in the morning.
Folks of this day know nothing of hard times. If they had to
pay 10 bushels of wheat for one axe, $?25 for a barrel of flour, $40
for a barrel of pork, $2 for oats, 22 cents a pound for fresh pork,
and 50 cents for butter, and other things in proportion, with money
that would not hold its own over nighlt, they might cry hard times.
In 1895 MIr. Rolfe made some additions to the foregoing story
that are of enough importance so that it seems wise to add them to
the first story written in 1873. He tells that he was born August
31, 1820, and his wife, Lucy Page was born February 22, 1825,
and they were married October 26, 1843.
As he has already told the family went to Lansing in 1844 to
repair a mill which the men of the family run until the Capitol
was located there.
He says: The first lumber we used was bought in Eaton Rapids
and rafted down the river. The first frame house built in that
city was on the block where the Franklin House, formerly the
Seymour House, now stands.
The first Fourth of July celebration was held at lower town in
1845 when the first liberty pole was raised. There were not white
men enough to raise the pole so the Indians assisted. There
were plenty of Indians in that section at that time. The first
white child born within the city limits was W. Marshall Pease,
son of George and Orselia Pease, on July 4, 1845. The first white
woman who settled in the township of Lansing was a sister of
mine. She settled there in 1838, and buried three husbands, J. E.
North, Geo. Chapel and Alexander McKibbin. She died in March,
1893. The first death in the city was that of John W. Burchard,
who was drowned in Grand river.
The first hotel conducted was at North Lansing, and it was the
log house so often mentioned in early history. It was a hotel,
boarding house, law and justice office. The first election held