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

CHAPTER XVIII.
WHITE OAK TOWNSHIP.
Early days in White Oak and Stockbridge, by G. K. Stimson; pioneer poem,
"Don't Go West"; G. W. Holland's story of White Oak.
First White Child Born in Ingham Tells of First Michigan Pioneering-Mrs. Abby Clark, of This City, Has Spinning Wheel Used
to Clothe Family.
Creaking to a standstill, broken under the terriffic strain to
which the continual wrenching of the chaotic floor of Michigan's
wilderness had subjected it, the immigrant wagon of Daniel
Dutcher came to a halt.
Come, my steam-heated friend, leave the contemplation of your
obesity and the thought of consternation for your legs, grown defective with too much trust in gasoline and let us journey back into
the roadless woods of Ingham county 85 years ago, and watch the
proceedings attendant on the coining of the first white folks to our
county.
Hear the patient oxen, the breath issuing almost resonantly
from their tense nostrils. How small and inconsequential the
few human voices now raised seem in that silence-clogged wilderness, as they counsel what to do. The breakdown is decisiveand there is little need to talk. Miles on, through the trackless
woods, the Dutchers must go. The young mother climbs down
from the wagon, and taking one child by the hand and carrying
the soon-to-be first white child of Ingham county under her heart,
goes forward. The father carries the youngest child. Night is
fast closing down, but on, through the dark, the Dutchers make
their way. Simple little procession, indeed, to the undiscerning,
but tremendous in its import when considered as the beginnings
of an empire.
FIRST STOPPING PLACE.
Persistence on the part of the travelers took them eventually to