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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PIONEER HISTORY OF INGHAM COUNTY

battle flag may still be seen in the Capitol rotunda. Those were
grave, dark days, and can the reader wonder that tears still well
up in the eyes of Mrs. Clark as she remembers?
It was in connection with her widow's pension that she made her
first trip to Detroit, by stage from Stockbridge to Dexter, where
she took the first steam cars she had ever seen.
There is a wealth more to tell of Mrs. Clark's experiences, but
all cannot be given space here. She came to Lansing to see the
first Capitol when it was completed and never came again until
fairly recently when she came to live with her son. One circumstance, however, fully characteristic of the times and as marking
Mrs. Clark unmistakably as a daughter of Eve, must not be
omitted. Hoop skirts came in along about the beginning of the
Civil War. The young Mrs. Wilson (then) had to have some too,
but thrift was written in big letters in those days. She improvised to meet the style by sewing wild grape vines inside her
skirt. Oh, those early pioneers were nothing if not American.
After her second marriage, to Elias Clark, they lived for a long
time in the village of Stockbridge amd prospered there. Mrs.
Clark is the mother of 5 children, grandmother of 19 children and
greatgrandmother of 9. Her children were Daniel and Sadie
Wilson, the former deceased, the latter Mrs. Burch, of Detroit,
and Electra, Will and Lon Clark. Electra is Mrs. Edward Bushnell, of Fowlerville, Lon Clark lives near Unadilla and Will G.
in Lansing, is related. The sisters of Mrs. Clark are Mrs. Emery
Secord, of Howell, Mrs. Patience Van Buren, of Lansing, and Mrs.
Charles Carpentier, of near Stockbridge.
Indeed, there seems to be few living today who have so fully
and characteristically contributed to the raising of Michigan from
a wilderness to what it is today. G. K. STIMSON.
A PIONEER POEM'
The following was sent to the Ingham County Pioneer and
Historical Society by G. W. Holland, of White Oak, and is copied,
not so much for its beauty as to show the opinion people had of
Michigan in earlier days. This was written in 1849 by a man long
since dead, and is now owned in the family of Mr. Holland. It