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

56

But, Mr. President, I have already occupied too much time on this unimportant subject, and should not have alluded to it but for the fact that
you sent me, last year, a list of the first entries of land made in the county,
taken by yourself from the books of the United States land office; and
why my father's or brother's entries of land did not appear under their
proper dates, is to me, a mystery. For I do know that, quite early in
the fall of I818, the lands were selected, and that improvements were
commenced and the house built, and do not believe it was left subject
to entry by others at the land office, until the time, by your list, it appears to have been purchased.
"Instead of the above I might have described to you the sickness,
privation and hunger endured; the killing by the tyrant chief, Kishkorko and his band, of one of Mr. Austin Durfey's valuable oxen in
front of the house on Drayton plains, and of the fight or the breaking
of Capt. Archibald Phipps' leg, near Allen Durfey's house, a little south
of Drayton Plains station, and of the surgical skill of our family physician, who, upon arriving at the house, decided that it was not necessary to set the limb before the inflammation subsided and the muscles
relaxed, for which about one week's time would be necessary; of the
hopeless look of the captain when he heard it; of our sending for
Doctor Richardson and carrying Phipps home on a litter, and, the
same day or the next, myself extending the limb while the doctor adjusted it to the great relief'of all present. Of the great number of
rattlesnakes; while mowing a marsh one day, we killed twelve before
noon and none of us wore boots; Mr. Harvey Durfey was barefoot and
wound a twisted rope of marsh hay around both feet and legs and worked
in safety. One massasauga the same day stuck its fangs into brother
Ephraim's tow pants and was dragged several rods before discovered
and shook off. Of the wolves we killed without thought of bounty, and
of their depredations on our sheep and swine; of the pigeons by the
million, and their digging acorns out of the deep snow; of the ducks
and geese that blackened the surface of the lakes,; of the bee-trees
from which we took hundreds of pounds of honey from a single tree;
of the pine trees and logs we borrowed from 'Uncle Sam,' and how we
rafted the lumber down the Huron river to Ann Arbor from the Walrod place; of my father, Doctor Thompson, and Judge LeRoy, at a
very early day, going in our large canoe with an Indian guide down the
Clinton river to Orchard lake, and borrowing from the island a boatload of apple trees in the spring of the year-most of these died from
having their roots in the water too long-and of Captain Hotchkiss'
first drill of militia by platoons, saying he wanted them to wheel to
right or left just as his big barn door swung around; or of the lynching of a tramp who robbed his benefactor, Acker Toule, of about $800,
all the money he had, and that he had just returned from the east with.
(You may be sure that the thief gave up the money.) And of three
Indians one day after concluding the sale of skins, furs and beeswax,
exhibiting seven skins, stretched nearly round, with the remark, as the
oldest man drew from his medicine bag, that 'he didn't suppose my
father would care to buy them'; they were once worth five dollars a
piece.