History of Saginaw county, Michigan; together with ... portraits ... and biographies ... History of Michigan ...

SAGINAW CITY.

661

unteers, of Bath, N. Y., passed through the village with a part of a
company of recruits, on the way to Buffalo, em route to join General Scott's army in Mexico. Mr. Foote, who had already
acquired a slight knowledge of the Spanish language from "Ollendorfi's Spanish, in Six Easy Lessons," and a good many romantic
ideas from other sources, needed only this opportunity to start on
the way to test by experience his boyish notions of adventure. In
July, 1847, though not yet 16 years old, we went to Buffalo and.
enlisted in the regular army to serve during the Mexican campaign. He continued in the service until late in 1848. As he
never attained to any higher rank in the army than that of " Lance
Sergeant," it is to be inferred that the result of that Democratic
war was not much affected by his services. His love of adventure was rather stimulated by it, as we find him the next srummer,
sailing from New Bedford in the barque " Persia," a whaler,
bound on a cruise, first in the Atlantic and then around Cape
Horn. The ship went to Azores (Western Islands), Madeira,
Porto Praya, and finally round the Horn to the Island of Juan
Fernandez, Society Islands and Callao. At Callao he took French
leave of the old barque and tried life for awhile in and about Lima.
In less than a year he was again at sea, where he continued, with
the exception of a little time devoted to mining and stage-driving
in California in 1852, until the fall of 1854. He served in the
meantime for one cruise on the" Jamestown, a sloop of war, on the
coast of Afiica and on the Brazilian station; and afterward visited
Hong-kong, Wampoa, Canton, and the islands in the Chinese seas,
doubling Cape Horn in all three times, and the Cape of Good
Hope once. He was in Cuba, in the brig " Halcyon," during the
Lopez expedition.
He came to East Saginaw in November, 1854, and falling in with
Mr. George Judson, of Mundy, Genesee Co., he hired out to teach
the winter school in his district, and succeeded well as a teacher.
He had, however, had some experience as a school-teacher, for
some months in the navy, while in the receiving ship "North
Carolina." He was married to Miss Elizabeth Grattan, at Fox
Lake, Wis., in November, 1854, and in April, 1855, came to the
tp. of Tittabawassee, and camped on 80 acres of land on the west
side of the river in the woods, over a mile from any clearing or
road. He gave himself industriously to the work of clearing up a
farm; though just a little awkward in handling an ax, he made
up in courage and qualities of endurance what he wanted in skill,
and in three years had 40 acres cleared and fit for cultivation, the
sole work of his own hands. For the next four years he taught
school during the winters and studied law during the long winter
nights under the instruction and encouragement of the Hon. J. G.
Sutherland. When he first went to sea he carried with him all
the books he had used in school, including Davies' algebra and
similar books, and subsequent results showed they were carried
for use, as the only schooling he ever had was in the district
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