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

812

PIONEER HISTORY OF INGHAM COUNTY

almost to a fault, of things their mothers had taught them. It
was almost no time at all before white bread was made and
somehow or other they very early managed to see to it that a cow
came to the frontier. Milk they would have. Mrs. Clark well
remembers setting out a huge loaf of bread and a pan of milk for
some hungry Indians one day when her parents were away.
"We threw the remains of the food away," relates Mrs. Clark,
from which one may gather that Indians impressed children, even
in those days, as being, as we would say. "insanitary." That the
pioneers had it in them not to sink to the level of conditions, as
they found them, but were willing to battle for their standards of
life is instanced in the fact that they would rather travel back to
Detroit for white flour than to sink to the level of the Indian way
of living. It deserves to be said in passing that the big round
loaves of those days were baked in a "bake kettle," long extinct
contrivances that used to be buried in coals raked from the fireplace. The cover had a rim or collar to keep the hot coals atop
the kettle.
"NORTH TOWN" NOT STARTED.
Preceding the Dutcher family, in their new White Oak home,
was the Lowe family, of which Heman Lowe was the head; but
this did not make it otherwise than that both families were on
the actual frontier of Michigan. Mrs. Clark says that, so far
as they knew, there were no white people beyond them, so far as
the wilderness extended. The beginning of Lansing had not been
made. The saw mill at "North Town" was not yet up.
One of the terrors of Mrs. Clark's young life was the wolves,
and this terror she says was shared by her mother. Nearly every
night before the family could find sleep the wolves had to be
frightened away with burning brands from the fireplace. The
Indians never gave any trouble to mention, except a little thieving,
even though quite a good many of them lived nearby. An Indian
trail was the only pathway the Dutchers and their neighbors
knew. Lowe Lake of today was a popular Indian resort.
How strikingly those old timers took to the ways of civil government. Almost before their cabins were built they planned on
township and county government. The Dutchers settled just
north of Stockbridge Township in 1835 and the next year Stock