History of Ingham and Eaton counties, Michigan, with illustrations and biographical sketches of their prominent men and pioneers.

CITY OF CHARLOTTE.

381

house, where a sermon was preached by Rev. Mr. Bennett,
some years since superannuated. Her house consisted of
one room, plainly furnished, which was made to accommodate the thirteen members of the family. It answered also
for post-office, court-house, church and tavern, and truly
the pioneer family of Charlotte was not without occupation
at all times.
The following account of the settlement of the Messrs.
Searls was read by E. A. Foote, Esq., at the meeting of the
Eaton County Pioneer Society, in 1877:
"Jonathan and Samuel Searls- found their way through from Bellevue in October, 1835. They left Mrs. Samuel Scarls at Bellevue until
they could cut a track through for a team. They worked five days cutting this track, and then hired a team to bring Mrs. Searls and the household goods through. This track followed the Indian trail from Bellevue to the Indian village in Walton, and then followed the ridge along
the south side of Battle Creek until it reached the north-and-south
section-line road running south from Charlotte. This was for a long
time the only passable route between here and Bellevue.
"Jonathan and Samuel had no team to work with for one year after
they came. By their own unaided strength they had to cut and move
to the spot the logs for Samuel Searls' house, and then raise those logs
to their places on the building. When those two men rolled up those
logs alone there was not another house or family within eight miles
of here. In this house which they built twelve or fifteen persons lived
at one time after people began to come in. But these two men worked
alone, bare-handed, laying the foundation of our city, until the first
day of February, 1837, when Japhet Fisher came in by the way of
Bellevue, leaving his trunk there, and hired out to Uncle Samuel and
Jonathan, and went to chopping for them. IIe was there at Uncle
Samuel's in June, when Ruth Searls, the wife of Uncle Samuel, died,
with the quick consumption, leaving an infant eight or nine months
old. But by that time another family had come,-there was one more
woman here,-Stephen Kinne and his wife, and Amos, his brother,
who had come through on the first day of January, 1837, from Gull
Prairie, by the way of Bellevue, following the track cut out in 1835
by the two Searls. The nearest house then to this place was Mr.
Shumway's, in Walton, two miles southwest of where Olivet is now
built. Stephen and Amos Kinne built a log house sixteen by sixteen
about a mile south of here.
" Mrs. Ruth Searls died about sundown. No one was in the house
when she breathed her last. Japhet Fisher, little Isaac Parish (an
adopted child), Uncle Jonathan Searls, and Uncle Samuel, the husband, were all out at work. They came in and found that her spirit
had left them. Stephen Kinne and wife, crossing Battle Creek upon
a fallen tree, and going northeist across what is now the fair-ground,
reached the house of mourning about dark and remained there all
night. As no coffin was to be had here, she had to be taken to Bellevue for a decent burial, sixteen or eighteen miles away. Before daylight, Japhet Fisher started for Bellevue to prepare for the funeral.
They put bedding into the box of the lumber-wagon, upon which
they laid the lifeless form and fixed it as well as they could, and
Samuel and Jonathan, with their oxen drawing the wagont along the

rough roads, and fording creeks, went on to Bellevue, while Stephen
Kinne and wife remained to take care of the children.
"Uncle Samuel was very badly dressed for such an occasion. 1ie
had worn out all of his clothes working hard to build a home for that
woman. Iis corduroy pants were in tatters clear to his knees. His
' wa'mus' was very ragged. A fragment of an old woolen cap was on
his head. But Japhet Fisher sent his trunk of clothes by David
Kinne, then on his route here, to meet Samuel on the way. They
met at the Indian village in Walton, and Uncle Samuel dressed in a
becoming manner for the funeral. The hearts of the Bellevue people
quickly responded to the call of Japhet Fisher. They turned out to
meet the ox-team. The women took hold and laid her tenderly in a
coffin, and the next day the last sad rites were performed.
"Although Uncle Samuel had to take the young babe back to New
York, though his home and hopes were blasted, he did not give up.
lie brought back his sister Julia to keep house for him. They had
built a house for Uncle Jonathan further west, on Searles Street [as
the Eaton Rapids road, on which the Searls brothers lived, was
known]. Jonathan went East, and brought back his wife, Aunt Sally
Searls. This was in November, 1837; on their way from l[ellevue
here they stayed overnight at Capt. Hickok's, in Walton.
"It was this log house of Uncle Jonathan's that became for a time
the headquarters of the county. They held caucuses and conventions
and county canvasses there. They most always stayed overnight.
Aunt Sally had them all to wait upon. She did the county cooking
for years. 'We had a great deal of men's co mipany in those days,
said she, ' but we seldom saw a woman.'"
The oldest building now standing in Charlotte, and the
first frame house erected in the place, is one which was
built in 1840, by Simeon HIarding, then county treasurer.
It is at present the wing of William Piper's house, on Lawrance Avenue, next west of the new Congregational church.
In 1837 or 1838 a log house was built on the south side of
the same avenue, east of the site of the Methodist church,
where Charles Piper's residence now stands. This was the
first building erected properly on the prairie, the house of
Jonathan Searls having been built in the edge of the timber, at the southeast corner of the prairie. The logs were
cut by Samuel Searls, David Kinne, and Stephen Kinne.
Jonathan drew the logs, with his brindle oxen, and the
Messrs. Searls roofed the dwelling with shakes. It is remarked that none of the settlers could compete with Jonathan Searls in splitting those necessary articles for roofing,
and as hewers of wood the Searls brothers and David
Kinne were unapproachable. Mr. Foote says:
"The Eagle, when laid up and its corners dove-tailed. looked like
cabinet-work. With their broad-axes they would roll off broad shavings as thin as paper, leaving the surface perfectly true and finished,
without an axe-mark to be seen. The puncheon-floors which they
hewed were as level and smooth as floors of sawed lumlier. You
would not know them from plank. Those men did the work of sawmills for the early settlers. Uncle Stephen Searls, who built and settled on Searls Street in 1838, was really a valuable accession. In
Erie Co., N. Y., he stood as a master millwright. Among 300 mechanics, who worked on Kingman & Murphy's grist-mill at Black
Rock, then considered the best built mill in the State of New York,
Uncle Stephen Searls was the master workman in wood. lere, among
the settlers, he was ready to apply his great skill to the humblest
work to give them shelter and homes. Uncle Jonathan was nearly
his equal with the broad-axe, but not such a complete mechanic, and
David Kinne, now called the best hewer in California, was'close upon
the heels of either of them."
The first log house, previously mentioned, was occupied,
soon after its completion as a dwelling, by Stephen Davisj

* From Mrs. L. H. Dunton, daughter of Jonathan Searls, we have ascertained the following facts: Jonathan and Samuel Searls calne to
Michigan in 1834, and visited various points in the southern and western part of the State, remaining during the following winter at Allegan.
George W. Barnes, of Gull Prailie, Kalamazoo Co., who owned the
site of Charlotte, induced the Searls brothers to come here, and accompanied them, and showed them the land they afterwards purchased.
Jonathan Searls died in 1841, and Samuel about 1867-68. Allen
Searls, a half-brother to the above, has in recent years returned to
Syracuse, N. Y., where he is now living. Stephen Searls, the other
brother, is now a resident of St. Joseph, Berrien Co., Mich., and is in
the eighty-ninth year of his age. His daughter became the wife of
Damon A. Winslow, a former prominent lawyer of Charlotte.
t Since he penned this account of the death and burial of Mrs.
Searls, Mr. Foote has been informed by various old settlers that they
recollect distinctly of seeing the remains brought to Bellevue in a sled,
drawn over the bare ground, and thinks perhaps this latter version is
the correct one, although some have stated that it was a wagon. But

whatever the vehicle used may have been, the journey was a sad and
solemn one, and the fireside of Samuel Searls was made desolate.
t Mrs. Nathan Johnson, of Charlotte, who is a daughter of Stephen