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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PIIONEER HISTORY OF INGHAM COUNTY

child. He in his early manhood went to New York state. There
he taught school winters and worked at the carpenter trade summers. Ile became acquainted with Miss Amanda Freer in Ontario county, N. Y., and they were married in 1831. Her grandfather fought in the Revolution, and her father in the War of
181W. In 1835 my father and his young wife came to Michigan
and settled in Washtenaw county. They were veritable pioneers,
as they came here when Michigan was a wilderness, inhabited by
Indians and wild animals.
They experienced many hardships while carving out a home for
themselves. Although the Indians were friendly my mother
never overcame her fear of them. To my parents eleven children
were born, one dying in infancy. In the spring of 1863 my father
sold his farm in Washtenaw county and moved to Ingham, leaving
the old home on the 15th day of April and stopping in Stockbridge
over night, where the accommodations were not what they are
today.
We reached our new home on the afternoon of the 16th, and
what a place! As I look back on it today, I do not wonder that
my sister did not want to leave the wagon and enter it. I had
never seen but one log house, and that a deserted one, for my years
were not many and I had never journeyed so far before, but there
were many of them along the road we came. And such a one as we
had to call home! Dilapidated and filled with vermin, and all the
scrubbing and scouring my mother and sister did could not make
it presentable.
My father bought what was known as the Storey place, which
Mr. Storey's father had taken or bought from the government.
It was three and one-half miles west of Mason on the Columbia
road. The house was one of the oldest in the neighborhood, and
had a chip pile half as high as the back door, which my father soon
drew away. The next winter was called the cold winter of 1863-64,
and I have never since seen its equal. A fireplace and heating
stove in the living room failed to keep us comfortably warm, or
even keep our eggs from freezing. Father got out lumber for a
new house that winter, for he said we could not live another winter
in the old house. It was in war time and help was hard to get.
One set of carpenters would enlist and make room for another