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

61

THE LIFE BEQUEATHED BY THE PIONEERS
"As we look about us today, where are the men whose names I have
mentioned as pioneers of Oakland? Here is their magnificent work, but
where are they? The institutions they have founded are the admiration
and pride of their successors, but they themselves are gone.
"An association of the pioneers who settled in Oakland county in
or prior to the year I830, is proposed. Alas, how few would be the
names upon the roll!
"Watch the pictures again. The forms and faces there, all but a
few are stark and still. They breathe not, speak not, move not. Men
call them dead. They are not dead; they live in all that we behold
about us-their glorious work. They live in the only true life-the
only life that is deathless-and they will live thus until civilization shall
cease from among men. As we read their names upon the tomb, we
call that the shadow in the picture. In the true sense, there is no shadow
there. This living work of theirs that is all about us is their truest
life. It is the true light of the pictures, and no shadow of death is
there. All is light immortal, and its framework is of pure gold, tried
in the fire.
"Even so may the other picture become when it shall hang at last
in the sunset!"
FIFTY YEARS AGO AND NOW
(Written by S. B. McCracken for the Oakland County Pioneer Society,
1887)
Those of us who have passed middle age seem to stand on the
divide between two worlds. On the one hand we can view, in memory,
what has been; we can live anew in recollection the scenes of fifty years
ago; on the other hand, we can realize as a present certainty the things
that are. We can appreciate something of the contrast between the life
of fifty years ago and now. I select fifty years ago as the point of comparison for manifest reasons.
First, it is convenient as a round number. Second, it is a period
within the clear recollection of those who still linger among us as pioneers.
Third, while it does not comprehend the earliest period of pioneer life
in Michigan, it is its representative epoch. Fourth, fifty years ago
marks, comparatively, the beginning of that era of marvelous development and discovery in mechanism and in science that has planted this
generation so greatly in advance of any in the world's history.
To have pictured to the youth of fifty years ago the methods of
life that attain today, would have seemed like a fairy tale. To relate
to the youth of today the methods of life of fifty years ago would seem
like exaggeration, and, but for the confidence that youth happily reposes
in the lessons of age, would scarcely obtain credence.
CONTRASTS OF LIFE
Let us glance briefly at some of the contrasts of life afforded by the
two periods, because they will be not only to our edification but to the