History of Oakland County Michigan a narrative account of its historic progress, its people, its principal interests / compiled from the official records of the county, the newspapers and data of personal interviews, under the editorial supervision of Thaddeus D. Seeley.

HISTORY OF OAKLAND COUNTY

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to a character well known in the days when the country was a wilderness and for many years after it had become developed into prosperous
communities, but because it furnishes pen pictures of the trials and
hardships endured by the men of the compass and tripod who run those
lines through forest and swamp which must always precede the purchase of lands and the guarantee of permanent homesteads.
RECOLLECTIONS OF BENJAMIN O. WILLIAMS
Major Oliver Williams was one of the first half a dozen settlers to
make Oakland county his home (he located on Silver lake) and, as
noted by his son, Benjamin O., in an address at one of the pioneer reunions he himself "thought himself the first settler in the county." The
bulk of the address is given, as follows:
"Having never considered it a fortunate circumstance to have been
reared in a new country, deprived of most of the advantages enjoyed
by those brought up in well educated communities and surrounded by
highly cultivated people and works of art, I have never felt any especial
pride in having been raised a pioneer in the backwoods of even old
Oakland county. I would have greatly preferred that fortune should
have permitted my parents to have remained where nearly all of their
children were born, and, although not quite among those who, according to John G. Saxe's facetious remark df those born in Boston, 'need
no other birth,' yet would gladly have been sufficiently near to have
received a good education-the greatest blessing to mankind, except
it be that 'second birth.' But fate would not have it so, and most of us,
at least while young, had to submit to her sway. And fully believing
that 'there is a divinity that shapes our ends,' I have ever felt that my
honored parents, did all in their power, under the circumstances, to
make their children happy, while aiding somewhat to develop the resources of Michigan while a territory.
"With her eight children my dear mother arrived in Detroit sixteen days before the county of Wayne was, by the proclamation of
Governor Cass, organized and named. She, with my father, had selected
their farm while it was still in the county of Wayne, and moved their
family into a large, well-built house in less than two months after
the governor, by proclamation, organized and named Oakland county,
as your county history shows.
"Presuming that it is well known that I have contributed to the
history of this county in the State Pioneer and Historical Society's Collections, and fully believing that my father was the first to break through
the almost impassible woods and swamps back of Detroit, by clearing
and opening a road from the end of the Leavenworth road to this place,
and to his farm in the fall of I818, before the county was named, the
Pontiac company formed, or their land selected; and, no doubt, in entire ignorance of the fact that the Grahams, Mr. Hersey, Mr. Hartsough, and possibly the Hoxies, had followed up the Huron river from
Mt. Clemens and formed a settlement, as did my father from another
direction, before the boundaries of the county were fixed or its name
given, he very naturally thought himself the first settler in the county.