Father got our road laid out and districted for a mile and a half on the north and south section line. One mile north of our place it struck the Dearborn road. Father cut it out, cut all the timber on the road two rods wide. After it was cut out I could get on the top of a stump in the road, by the side of our place, and look north carefully among the stumps, for a minute, and if there was any one coming, on the road, I could distinguish them from the stumps by seeing them move. In fact we thought we were almost getting out into the world. We could see the sand hill where father finally bought and built his house. Father was path-master for a number of years and he crosswayed the lowest spots and across the black ash swales. He cut logs twelve feet long and laid them side by side across the center of the road. Some of the logs, that he put into the road on the lowest ground, were more than a foot through; of course smaller poles answered where the ground was higher. We called this our corduroy road. In doing our road work and others doing theirs, year after year, in course of time we had the log way built across the wettest parts of the road. When it was still I could hear a cart or wagon, coming or going, rattling and pounding over the logs for nearly a mile. But it was so much better than water and mud that we thought it quite passable. We threw some clay and dirt on to the logs and it made quite an improvement, especially in a dry time. But in a wet time it was then, and is now, a very disagreeable road to travel, as the clay gathers on the feet of the pedestrian, until it is a load for him to carry. This gave it, in after times, the name of the "Hardscrabble Road." When it was wet it was almost impossible to get through with a team and load. At such times we had to cross Mr. Pardee's place and go around the ridge on a road running near the old trail. Now the "Hardscrabble Road" is an old road leading to the homes of hundreds. Sometimes there may be seen twelve or fifteen teams at once on the last half mile of that road, besides footmen, coming and going all in busy life. They little know the trouble we once had there in making that road.
Father had very hard work to get along. He had to pay Mrs. Phlihaven twenty-seven dollars every year to satisfy her on the mortgage, as he was not able to pay the principal. That took from us what we needed very much. If we could have had it to get us clothes it would have helped us, as we were all poorly clad. Some of the younger children went barefooted all winter a number of times. I often saw their little barefooted tracks in the snow.
As we had no team we had to get along the best we could. Father changed work with Mr. Pardee: he came with his oxen and plowed for us. Father had to work two days for one, to pay him. In this way we got some plowing done. There was a man by the name of Stockman who lived near Dearbornville. He had a pair of young oxen. Being a carpenter, by trade, he worked at Detroit some of the time. He would let father use his oxen some of the time for their keeping, and that he might break them better, as they were not thoroughly broken. They would have been some profit to us it they had not crippled me.
One day I was drawing logs with them. I had hitched the chain around a log and they started. I hallooed, "Whoa!" but they wouldn't stop. They swung the log against me, caught my leg between the log they were drawing and the sharp end of another log and had me fast. It cut the calf of my leg nearly in two, and tore the flesh from the bone, but did not break it. I screamed and made an awful ado. Father and Mr. Purdy heard me and came running as fast as they could, they took me up and carried me to the house. It was over three long months before I could take another step with that leg. This accident made it still harder for father. I know I saved him a good many steps and some work. I am sure he was pleased when I got over my lameness and so I could help him again. I took a great interest in everything he did and helped him all I could.
Finally father got a chance to work by the day, for the government, at Dearbornville. He received six shillings a day in silver. He said he would leave me, to do what I could on the place, and he would try working for Uncle Sam a part of the time. In haying and harvesting he had to work at home. He cut all the grass himself and it grew very stout. We found our land was natural for timothy and white clover. The latter would come up thick in the bottom, of itself, and make the grass very heavy. It was my business to spread the hay and rake it up. In this way we soon got through with our haying and harvesting. We had already seeded some land down for pasture. We went to Dearbornville and got hayseed off of a barn floor and scattered it on the ground, in this way we seeded our first pasture. Father sometimes let a small piece of timothy stand until it got ripe. Then took his cradle, cut it and I tied it up in small bundles and then stood it up until it was dry. When dry it was thrashed out; in this way we soon had plenty of grass seed of our own, without having to buy it. We began to have quite a stock of cows and young cattle. We had pasture for them a part of the time, but sometimes we had to let them run in the woods. At night I would go after them. When I got in sight of them I would count them, to see if they were all there. The old cow (which had been no small part of our support and our stand-by through thick and thin) would start and the rest followed her. When they were strung along ahead of me and I was driving them I would think to myself: now we've got quite a herd of cattle! From our first settlement mother wanted to, and did, raise every calf.
Father worked for the government what time he could spare. He had to go two miles morning and night. He carried his dinner in a little tin pail with a cover on it. When the days were short he had to start very early, and when he returned it would be in the evening, I recollect very well some things that he worked at. The arsenal and other buildings were up when we came here. They built a large brick wall from building to building, making the yard square. The top of the wall was about level. I think this wall was built twelve or fifteen feet high, it incloses three or four acres. There thousands of soldiers put on their uniforms and with their bright muskets in their hands and knapsacks strapped upon their backs drilled and marched to and fro. There they prepared themselves for the service of the country and to die, if need be, in defending the old flag of stars and stripes which waved there above their heads. Little thought they that the ground under their feet, so beautiful and level inside that yard was made ground, in some places for six or eight feet deep, and that it was done at Uncle Sam's expense for the pleasure of his boys in blue. It was their school yard in which to learn the science of war. My father helped to grade this enclosure. They drew in sand from the sand ridge back of the yard, from where the government barn now stands, with one-horse carts.
Father was very fond of Indian bread which he called "Johnny cake." When mother had wheat bread for the rest of us she often baked a "Johnny cake" for him. One day he took a little "Johnny cake," a cup of butter and some venison, in his little tin pail, for his dinner. He left it as usual in the workshop. At noon he partook of his humble repast. He said he left a piece of his "Johnny cake" and some butter. He thought that would make him a lunch at night, when his day's work was done and he started home. He went for his pail and found that his lunch was gone, and in place of it a beautiful pocket knife.
He said there were two or three government officers viewing and inspecting the arsenal and ground that day. He said they went into the shop where he left his dinner pail and lunch. He was sure they were the ones who took his lunch. He said they knew what was good, for they ate all the "Johnny cake" and butter he had left. The knife was left open and he thought they forgot and left it through mistake. But I think more probably they knew something of father's history.
He was one who would have been noticed in a crowd of workmen. I have no doubt the boss told them that he was a splendid workman. That he had had bad luck, that he lived on a new place, two or three miles back in the woods, that he had a large family to support and came clear out there every day to work. "Here is his dinner pail" one says, "let's look in it" and what did they see but a piece of Indian bread and some butter? Methinks, one of the officers might have said: "I have not eaten any of that kind of bread since my mother baked it down in New England. Let's try it." Then took out his knife, cut it in three or four pieces, spread the butter on and they ate it. Then he said, "Here is my knife, worth twelve shillings, I will leave it open; he shall have it. I will give it him as an honorary present, for his being a working man, and to compensate him for what we have eaten. It has reminded me of home." Now if the view I have taken is correct, it shows that they were noble, generous and manly; that they felt for the poor, in place of trifling with their feelings.
After father finished working there, he sold some young cattle and managed in some way to buy another yoke of oxen. We had good hay for them. Father went to the village and bought him a new wagon. It was a very good iron axletree wagon, made in Dearbornville by William Halpin. We were very much pleased to have a team again and delighted with our new wagon.
We had very good luck with these oxen and kept them until we got a horse team, and in fact longer, for after I left my father's house (and I was twenty-two years old when I left) he had them. Then he said his place was cleared up, and the roots rotted enough so that he could get along and do his work with horses. He sold his oxen to Mr. Purdy, and they were a good team then.
The dark portentous cloud seemed to hang above our horizon. It looked dark and threatening, (and more terrible because the disputants were members of the same family). We thought it might break upon our heads at any time. The seat of war being so near us, the country so new and inhabitants so few, made it look still more alarming to me. I asked father how many inhabitants we had in our territory and how many the State of Ohio contained. He said there were as many as fifteen or twenty to our one. I asked him if he thought the Michigan men would be able to defend Toledo against so many. He said that Michigan was settled by the bravest men. That almost every man owned a rifle and was a good shot for a pigeon's head. He thought they would be able to keep them at bay until the government would interfere and help us. He said, to, that Governor Mason was a fearless, brave, courageous man. That he had called for militia and volunteers and was going himself with General Brown, at the head of his men, to defend the rights of Michigan.
One day, about this time, I was at Dearbornville; they had a fife and drum there and were beating up for militia and volunteers. A young man by the name of William Ozee had volunteered. I was well acquainted with him; he had been at our house frequently. Sometimes, in winter, he had chopped for us and I had hunted with him. He had a good rifle and was certainly a sharp shooter. I found that he beat me handily, but I made up my mind it was because he had a better rifle and I was considerable younger than he. I saw him at Dearbornville just before he went away. He told me to tell my folks that he was a soldier and was going to the war to defend them; that Governor Mason had called for troops and he was going with him. We heard in a short time that he was at Toledo. We also learned that Governor Lucas, of Ohio, with General Bell and staff, with an army of volunteers, all equipped ready for war, had advanced as far as Fort Miami. But Governor Mason was too quick for the Ohio Governor. He called upon General Brown to raise the Michigan militia, and said that his bones might bleach at Toledo before he would give up one foot of the territory of Michigan; said he would accompany the soldiers himself, to the disputed ground. He, with General Brown, soon raised a force of about a thousand men and took possession of Toledo; while the Governor of Ohio, with volunteers, was fooling away the time at Fort Miami. When we heard that Governor Mason had arrived at Toledo, we wondered if we should hear the roar of his cannon. Sometimes I listened. We thought if it was still and the wind favorable, we might hear them, and we expected every day there would be a battle.
But when Governor Lucas learned how determined Governor Mason was, and that he had at his back a thousand Michigan braves, and most of them with their rifles in their hands, ready to receive him, he made up his mind that he had better let them alone. We afterward learned that Governor Lucas only had six or eight hundred men. The conclusion was, that if they had attacked the Michigan boys at Toledo, they would have gotten badly whipped, and those of them left alive would have made good time running for the woods, and would have wished that they had never heard of Michigan men. Perhaps the Ohio Governor thought that discretion was the better part of valor. He employed his time for several days, watching over the line. May be he employed some of his time thinking if it could be possible that Governor Mason and General Brown were going to subjugate Ohio, or at least a part of it, and annex it to the territory of Michigan.
Let this be as it may; while he seemed to be undecided, two commissioners from Washington put in an appearance and remonstrated with him. They told him what the fearful consequences, to him and his State, would be, if he tried to follow out his plan to gain possession of the disputed territory. These commissioners held several conferences with both Governors. They submitted to them several propositions for their consideration, and for the settlement of the important dispute. Their proposition was this: that the inhabitants, residing on the disputed ground, should be left to their own government. Obeying one or the other, as they might prefer, without being disturbed by the authorities of either Michigan or Ohio. They were to remain thus until the close of the next session of Congress. Here we see the impossibility of man being subjected to and serving two masters, for, "He will love the one and hate the other, or hold to the one and despise the other."
Governor Lucas was glad to get out of the scrape. He embraced the proposition, disbanded his men and left the disputed ground. Governor Mason considered himself master of the situation; Toledo and the disputed territory were under his control. He would not compromise the rights of his people, and he considered that it rightly belonged to Michigan. He disbanded a part of his force and sent them home, but kept enough organized so that he could act in case of emergency. He kept an eagle eye upon the "Buckeyes" to see that our territorial laws were executed promptly and they were executed vigorously. In doing it one Michigan man was wounded, his would-be murderer ran away to Ohio and was protected by Governor Lucas. The man who was wounded was a deputy-sheriff of Monroe County. He was stabbed with a knife. His was the only blood spilled. Some few surveyors and Ohio sympathizers were arrested and put into jail at Monroe. But Uncle Sam put his foot down, to make peace in the family. He said if we would submit, after awhile we might shine as a star in the constellation of the Union. So we were promised a star in a prominent place in the old flag and territory enough, north of us, for a State. To be sure it is not quite so sunny a land as that near Toledo, and our Governor and others did not like to acquiesce in the decision of the government, yet they had to yield to Uncle Sam's superior authority.
Then they did not imagine that the upper peninsula was so rich a mining country. They little knew at that time that its very earth contained, in its bosom and under its pure waters, precious metals, iron, copper and silver enough to make a State rich. Finally our people consented and the Territory of Michigan put on her glory as a State. Became a proud member of the Union; her star was placed in the banner of the free. It has since sparkled upon every sea and been seen in every port throughout the civilized world, as the emblem of the State of Michigan.
In the excitement of the Toledo war we looked upon the Ohio men unfavorably. We were interested for ourselves, and might have been somewhat selfish and conceited, and, maybe, jealous of our neighbors, and thought them wrong in the fray. We had forgotten that there were then men living in Ohio, in log houses and cabins, some of them as brave men as ever walked the footstool; that they came to Michigan and rescued the country from the invaders, the English and savages, long before some of us knew that there was such a place as Michigan. When Michigan was almost a trackless wilderness they crossed Lake Erie, landed at Malden, drove the redcoats out of the fort and started them on the double quick. They made for the Canadian woods, and the British and Indians, who held Detroit, followed suit. They were followed by our brave William Henry Harrison, accompanied by Ohio and Kentucky men to the Thames. There, at one blow, the Americans subjected the most of Upper Canada and punished the invaders of Michigan, who had the hardihood to set their hostile feet upon her territory. It seems as though it must have been right that the strip of country at Toledo was given to the brave men, some at least of whom long years before, defended it with their lives and helped to raise again the American flag at Detroit.
In about five years from the time of the Toledo War, William Henry Harrison, of Ohio, was nominated, by the Whig party, for President, and John Tyler, of Virginia, for Vice President, of the United States. The intelligence spread like wild-fire. It went from town to town and from county to county, through the brand-new State of Michigan. General Harrison appeared to be the coming man. The Whigs of Ohio and Michigan met and shook hands, like brothers, over the difficulties of the past; now they had a more patriotic undertaking before them. In union with the rest of the Whig party of the United States, they were to elect the old farmer of the West, the good man who loved his country. In its defence he had won imperishable honors. After he laid down his armor he resided in a log house and was often clad in the habiliments of a husbandman. Now he was nominated for President of the United States. With such a candidate for the presidency men's hearts leaped for joy in anticipation of a victory at the ballot-box in the fall of 1840.
The nomination of General Harrison raised quite an excitement throughout the entire country. Even in Dearborn, what few Whigs there were in the town united as one man, entered upon the campaign and banded themselves together to work for the good of the Whig party. Alonzo T. Mather was one who stood at the head of the party in Dearborn. He was a man noted for his good religious principles, and was one of the most prominent and influential citizens of the town. He was sent to the Legislature, at Detroit, for Wayne county, one term and held other offices of trust and honor. He was the chieftain of his party and one of the prime movers in getting up a log cabin in Dearborn. This log cabin was built on large truck wheels. When finished it appeared somewhat the shape of a log car. It was thought necessary to have something on board to eat and drink. It was desired to make all typical and commemorative of the veteran, pioneer, farmer and general who had escaped the bullets of the savages at Tippecanoe, although he was a special mark for them, without a scar and the loss only of a lock of hair, which was clipped off by a bullet. This, too, was the man who shared his own supplies with his soldiers when they were reduced to the necessity of eating horse flesh. Now, in honor to such a man, the Whig bakers of Dearborn made a "Johnny cake" at least ten feet long and the width of it was in proportion to the length. They patted it with care, smoothed it over nicely and baked it before the fire. It was a good, plump cake, and nothing like it was ever seen in Dearborn, before or since. Careful hands put it on board the log cabin, also a barrel of hard cider was put on board.
At this time, although the country was new, politics ran high in Dearborn. A friendly invitation was sent around to the farmers to come, at a certain time, with their ox-teams and help draw the log cabin to its destination and accompany the Whig delegation with it to Detroit. I knew one Democrat who, when invited, refused to go. He appeared to be rather eccentric. He said, "I allow that my oxen are not broke to work on either side, and they are too Democratic to pull on both sides of the fence at one and the same time." He considered the excitement of the people, their building log cabins and baking such "Johnny cakes" boyish and foolish. He said, in fact, that those who were doing it were "on the wrong side." Many of the Democratic frontier men admired General Harrison for his great worth as a man and liked his having a national reputation for bravery. They said he was an honor to America as an American citizen and soldier, but that he was on the wrong side.
At that time I was in my teens and looking anxiously forward for time to help me to the elective franchise. Perhaps, I should state here that father was a Democrat as long ago as I can remember. In York State he was a strong Jackson man and coming into the woods of Michigan did not change his political principles. He was an irrepressible Democrat and remained one. Jackson was his ideal statesman. When he went to Dearbornville to attend town meeting or election, he almost invariably carried a hickory cane, with the bark on it as it grew, in honor of "Old Hickory." He was always known by his townsmen as a staunch Democrat. It was natural for his young family, to claim to be Democrats in principle, in their isolated home.
The first settlers in our neighborhood, on the Ecorse, were Democrats, with one exception, and that one was Mr. Blare. He often visited at our house, and to tease my little brother, then five or six years old, told him that he must be a Whig, he would make a good one, that he was a Whig, he appeared like one and so forth. Brother denied it stoutly and said that he would not be a Whig for any one. This amused Mr. Blare very much for some time. Finally, when he called one day, he said he was going to have company, he could see plainly that J.S. was changing to a Whig very fast. J.S. denied it as strongly as ever, but it was evident that the idea of being a Whig troubled him greatly. One morning (a short time after Mr. Blare had been talking to him) he was crying bitterly. Mother said she thought it very strange that he should cry so and tried sometimes, in vain, to persuade him to tell her what the trouble was. Finally she threatened to punish him if he did not let her know what the difficulty was. At last he said he was afraid he was turning to be a Whig. Mother assured him that it was not so. She said there was no danger of her little boy changing into a Whig, not in the least. J.S. has often been reminded, since he became a man, of the time Mr. Blare came so near making a Whig of him.
But back to that cabin. There were plenty of men who volunteered and took their teams. They hitched a long string of them, I think twenty-two yoke of oxen, to the trucks. Quite a large crowd, for Dearborn, of old and young, were on hand to witness the start. Most of them appeared very enthusiastic. Each gave vent to some expression of admiration like the following: "The General is the man for me;" or, "He is one of the people, one with the people, one for the people, one with us and we are for him." That's my sentiment, said one and another. After such exclamations and the singing of a spirited campaign song, the order was given to start the teams. The large wheels rolled and the log cabin began to move. Nearly all appeared to be excited and there was some confusion of voices. Cheer after cheer arose clear and high for the honest old farmer of North Bend. I learned afterward that the march to Detroit was one continued ovation.
As a matter of course, I didn't go with them. I was too busy, at that time, taking lessons and studying my politics, and all that sort of thing at home in the woods.
In the spring of the year when the ice broke up, in the creek, the (pike) or (pickerel) came up in great abundance from Detroit River, and they were easily caught. At such times the water was high in the creek, often overflowing its banks. Sometimes the Ecorse appeared like quite a river. We made a canoe of a white-wood log and launched it on the Ecorse. Sometimes we went fishing in the canoe. At such times it needed two, as the pickerel were fond of lying in shallow water or where there was old grass. By looking very carefully, on the surface of the water, I could see small ripples that the fishes made with their fins while they were sporting in their native element. By having a person in the back end of the canoe, pole it carefully, toward the place where I saw the ripples, we would get up in plain sight of them, and they could be either speared or shot.
I think the most successful way was shooting them, at least I preferred it. If the fish lay near the surface of the water, I held the gun nearly on it, and if it was six inches deep I held the gun six inches under it, and fired. In this way, for the distance of two or three rods, I was sure to kill them or stun them so that they turned belly up and lay till they were easily picked up with a spear. In this way I frequently caught a nice string. I have caught some that would weigh eight pounds apiece. Sometimes I stood on a log that lay across the creek and watched for them when they were running up. I recollect one cloudy afternoon I fished with a spear and I caught as many as I wanted to carry to the house. Sometimes they would be in a group of three, four or more together. I have seen them, with a big fish below, and four or five smaller ones above him, swimming along together as nicely as though they had been strung on an invisible string, and drawn along quietly through the water. I could see their wake as they were coming slowly up the creek keeping along one side of it. When I first saw them in the water they looked dark, I saw it was a group of fishes. It looked as though the smaller ones were guarding the larger one, at least they were accompanying it. They appeared to be very good friends, and well acquainted, and none of them afraid of being eaten up, but any of them would have eagerly caught the smaller ones of another species and swallowed them alive and whole. I do not know that they devour and eat their own kind, I think not often, for nature has given the pickerel, when young and small, the ability to move with such swiftness that it would be impossible for a larger fish to catch them. They will be perfectly still in the water, and if scared by anything they will start away in any direction like a streak. They go as if it were no effort and move with the rapidity of a dart. I have cut some of the large pickerel open and found whole fish in them, five or six inches long.
But I must finish describing that group of fishes! As they were swimming up, the smaller ones kept right over the large one. I stood until they got almost to me and I killed four of them at once and got them all. It is known that it is not necessary to hit a fish with a bullet in order to get it. It is the force of the bullet, or charge, striking the water that shocks or stuns him, and causes him to turn up.
These fish ran up two or three weeks every spring. Then those which were not caught went back again into the Detroit River. Father made him what he called a pike net which had two wings. By the time the fish were running back, the water was settled into the bed of the creek. Then father would set his net in the creek, stretch the wings across and stake it fast. The mouth of the net opened up stream. This he called a funnel; it was shaped like the top of a funnel. It was fastened with four hoops. The first one was about as large around as the hoop of a flour barrel, the next smaller, the third smaller still, and the last one was large enough for the largest fish to go through.
When the net was fastened around these hoops it formed a tunnel about four feet long. Then we had a bag net eight or ten feet long. The mouth of this was tied around the first or large hoop of the tunnel, so when the fish came down and ran into that they could not find their way out. Father said when the fish were running back to Detroit River, it was right to catch them, but when they were going up everybody along the creek ought to have a chance. I never knew him to put his net in, so long as the fish were running up. When they got to going back, as they most all run in the night, in the evening he would go and set his net, and next morning he would have a beautiful lot of fish. In this way, some springs, we caught more than we could use fresh, so salted some down for summer use. They helped us very much, taking the place of other meat. For years back there have hardly any fish made their appearance up the Ecorse. Now it would be quite a curiosity to see one in the creek. I suppose the reason they do not come up is that some persons put in gill nets at the mouth of the Ecorse, on Detroit River, and catch them, or stop them at least. It is known that fish will not run out of a big water, and run up a small stream, at any time except in the night.
These denizens of the deep have their own peculiar ways, and although man can contrive to catch them, yet he cannot fathom the mysteries that belong alone to them. Where they travel he cannot tell for they leave no track behind.
It is seen that I used a hunter's phrase in my description of holding the gun while shooting fish. The hunter will readily understand it as given. If he has seen a deer and it has escaped him, and you ask him why he didn't shoot it; he almost invariably says, "I couldn't get my gun on it before it jumped out of my sight." To such as do not understand that phrase I will say, the expression is allowable, as the bullet or charge of shot flies so swiftly (even in advance of the sharp report of the gun). The distance of twenty rods or more is virtually annihilated: Hence the expression, "I held the gun on it," (though it was rods away.) If he sighted his gun straight toward the object he wished to hit whether it was in the air, under water, or on the ground, he would claim that he held his gun on it.
I said that the bullet flew in advance of the report of the gun. That is true, on the start, or until it struck an object. If the object was at a reasonable distance, but if the distance proved too far, it of course would fall behind the sound. The bullet is the bold—fearless—and often cruel companion of the report of the gun, and loses in its velocity the farther it flies, being impeded and resisted by the air, and at last is left flattened and out of shape, a dead weight, while the report of the gun passes on very swiftly, and dies away in the distance to be heard no more. I have often heard the reports of guns very plainly that were fired at ducks on Detroit River, six or seven miles away. With what velocity their sounds approached me, I leave Dr. Derham to determine. According to his calculation it must have been at the rate of eleven hundred and forty-two feet per second. It has also been ascertained with what velocity the ball leaves the gun and pierces the air. The following is the practical result ascertained by the experiments of Mr. Robins, Count Rumford, and Dr. Hutton: "A musket ball, discharged with a common charge of powder, issues from the muzzle of the piece with a velocity between sixteen and seventeen hundred feet in a second."
I often rode in my canoe when I did not go fishing. I took one ride in it that I shall always remember, at least the remembrance of it has forced itself upon my mind a number of times, in the days gone by, and I expect to think of it a few times more. Of course my oldest sister, Rachel, who is now Mrs. Crandell, of Dearborn, became acquainted with the young ladies of the neighborhood. One fine afternoon, in the spring of the year when the water was high, two of her friends came to see her. They were considered very fine young ladies. One was Miss Lucy Lord, the other I will call nameless, but she is an old resident and lives near by. If at any time this should meet her eye she will vouch for the truth of it. They came to spend the afternoon with sister.
Of course (as all young men do, I believe) I felt a little flattered, and thought, no doubt, one object of their visit was to see me. Whether my humble self was once in all their thoughts, when they were making their toilet that day or not, I gave them the credit of it. I thought I had never seen one of them, at least, look any better than she did that afternoon. Her hair was arranged very nicely and she was very graceful. Of course, when my sister told me they wished very much for a boat ride, I could not very well to refuse to go with them. I hoped to let them see with how much skill I could manage my canoe. But alas for my skill! The flat was covered with water from our little ridge to the creek, a distance of twenty rods. It looked like a large river. The canoe was anchored near the ridge; the young ladies got in and we started from the landing. I had to look out for the stumps and hummocks so as not to run against them nor run my boat aground. I had my passengers aboard and I stood in the hind end of the canoe, and with a hand pole I set it along with greater rapidity than it could have been paddled. We glided over the water, on the flat, amid the joyful acclamations and gleeful laughter of my fair companions. One said, "I haven't had a boat ride before in Michigan." Miss Lucy, who sat on the bow end of the boat, waved her handkerchief and said, "Oh, bless me! isn't this pleasant, sailing on the water!" Another said, "How nice we go!" Of course I propelled along with considerable speed. I thought I had one of the nicest, prettiest and most intelligent load of passengers that had ever been in my canoe or on that water, and I would give them a nice ride.
At last we got round as far as the creek. There the water ran more swiftly than it did on the flat. I told the young ladies I thought we had better not try to navigate that, but they all said, "Let us ride up the creek!" I thought I was master of the situation and could manage the canoe. I did not want to tell them that I was afraid, for fear they would say I was fainthearted. I thought that would be very much against me, and as I had such a brave crew, I made up my mind to go up the strong current. I turned the bow of the boat up against the current, as much as I could with one hold, but could not get it straight against the current. It shot ahead its length or more, then I moved my hand pole to get a new hold. Now we were over the creek and the water being four or five feet deep, it was impossible for me to get my pole down to the bottom again in time to save us. While I was trying to do that, the current being stronger than I supposed, turned the boat sidewise. I saw that we were gone for it. The girls sprang to one side of the boat and down we went, at one plunge, all together into the water. My craft was foundered, filled with water and went down, (stream at least). Miss Lucy Lord was the heroine of the occasion; luckily, she saved herself by jumping, though she got very wet. She got on to a little hummock on the bank and was on terra-firma.
As soon as I took in the situation, I exerted myself to save the rest of the crew. The nameless girl's head came in sight about the same time my own did. As soon as she could halloo she said, "Lord have mercy! Lord help!" Miss Lucy held out her hand and said, "Come here and Lord will help you." I helped her and my sister to the bank as quickly as possible. I had to be very lively in securing the white pocket handkerchief that had been our flag while sailing.
After they got fairly out, they started like three deer, as three dears they were, for the house, each one for herself. The way they made three wakes through that water was something new to me. I had never seen the like of that before. Miss Lucy went ahead full of life. They went through the water from one to two feet deep all the way to the ridge. There were father, mother and all the rest, to witness their safe arrival on the shore, and join them in their merry, though I think sad laugh. I knew it would all be laid to me. After I watched them to the house and knew they were very jolly, I started for the canoe. It had gone down in the water to a large log that lay across the creek and lodged against it.
I was as wet as I could be, and I jumped in again, drew it from the log and pulled it along full of water, up the creek, until I got where the bank was a little higher. Then I drew the front end up and the water ran over the back end. When it was so that I could tow it, I took it across the flat in front of the house, and left it there in its place.. Then I went in the house. They had coined a brand new title for me; they called me "Captain." They said I had come near drowning my passengers. Mother said it was not safe for young ladies to ride with me on the water. Father said, he thought I was not much of a sailor, that I did not understand navigation; and I made up my mind that he was correct, that I was not much of a water-man.
Our prospects began to brighten a little, and it is needless for me to attempt to describe what our feelings were, when we got a strip of the primeval forest cleared away. Our clearing now extended across the two lots, being half a mile east and west. It was about eighty rods wide on the west side, running this width to the east a little over half way, and it was forty or fifty rods wide on the east line. It contained about sixty acres mostly logged and cleared off, but a few logs remained lying on some of it.
We had burned the wood all up on the ground, as there was no market for it, it was worthless. We burned up out of our way enough timber to have made five thousand cords of cordwood. Father's big ax, which he brought from the State of New York, and mine, by striking innumerable blows, had been worn out long before this strip was cleared. The heavy, resounding blows of those axes had been heard, and before them many trees had fallen. They stood before the blows and trembled and swayed to and fro and at last fell with a thundering crash, to the earth, to rise no more. Some of their bodies broken, their limbs broken off, wounded and bruised, and stripped of their beautiful foliage. The noise of their fall and the force with which they struck the earth made the ground tremble and shake, and let the neighbors know that father and I were chopping, and that we were slaying the timber.
The grand old forest was melting away. The sides of many a tree had been cleft, and the chips bursted out, and they had disappeared all but their stumps. The timber was tall, I cut one whitewood that was about a foot through at the butt, and measured eighty-three feet to a limb. It ran up as straight as a liberty pole. I think our large timber was about one hundred feet high. It was, to me, a little singular that the smaller timber should run up so tall, equally as high as the large timber. All appeared anxious to look at the sun, bask their green tops in his rays and nestle and wave, in ruffles of green, above the high arching boughs of the trees. Once I saw them wave, arrayed in a different coat. Beautiful workmanship of nature was displayed in the growth of that timber.
It is not always necessary to peer through glass slides in order to take a panoramic view of the brilliant scenes dame nature presents, her varying pictures and beautiful face. Her handiwork as exhibited by herself is the most enchanting. Sometimes, the spectacle after a storm of rain and sleet is grand and sublime, but the effect of such a storm is not often seen as we view it now.
Early one spring, after nature had covered her face with a mantle of snow and appeared to repose, she aroused from her winter slumber, and adorned herself in a silvery robe. It was formed by drops of cold rain showered down upon the little snow that was left, upon the trees and, in fact, upon everything not under cover. Every bush and little twig was loaded and hung down its head. The bodies and limbs of the trees were alike covered and the boughs bent down under the heavy load of icy armor. Icicles, glistening like jewels, hung from the eaves of the house, from the fence rails, and from the limbs of our little fruit trees. The currant brush, the rose bushes, the briers and prickly ash were all encased in ice. From the points and ends of all the boughs, small and large, icicles formed and hung down like tapers. To the point of each was hanging a silver-like gem which had been frozen fast while in the act of dropping.
Some of the trees were loaded so heavily that the limbs broke off and went tearing down to the earth in a heterogeneous mass. The limbs broke in pieces and their icy coat and icicles broke up like glass.
The next morning the "Whirl-dance of the blinding storm" of sleet had passed away, but it had left its impression behind. There was formed a crust on the little snow left which gave it a shining coat, transparent as crystal. It was most beautiful. The sun shone clear and bright and cast his golden rays across the face of nature. The trees and tree-tops, the bushes and shrubs shone and glistened like so many thousand diamonds and the earth was dazzling to look upon. It appeared mystical as a silvery land, everything aglow and sparkling with radiant hues. The trees and earth seemed vying with each other in most charming beauty like many of earth's pictures.
It was a scene too bright and strange to last. A change was soon caused by the warming rays of the sun. The icicles, which hung down like jewels, melted, let go their hold and fell to the earth. The icy covering of the trees began to melt and fall like tears. Very soon the snow and ice were all gone and the ground left bare. Father said that he thought the trees were more beautiful when clothed in green leaves than when covered with ice though they were ever so bright. But to the clearing again.
Now finally I thought we had quite a clearing. I could stand by our house, and look to the west, and see Mr. Pardee's house and the smoke of his chimney. I could see Mr. Pardee and his sons when they came out in the morning and went to their work. I could look to the east and there, joining ours, was the clearing and house of Mr. Asa Blare, and he could be seen. Then it began to seem as if others were living in Michigan, for we could see them. The light of civilization began to dawn upon us. We had cleared up what was a few years before, the lair of the wolf and the hunting ground of the red man. The Michigan bird of the night had no more chance to make his nest in hollow trees or live there, but had to go back to the woods. There we could hear him almost any evening hallooing. "Whoo! whoo! whoo!" His nearest neighbor would answer him, "Whoo! whoo!" then they would get together and have a great talk about something. Whether they were talking about our chickens, or our clearing off their woods and driving them away, or something else, I cannot say as I did not understand what they said.
Father said: "Now our best wood is worth something, as the road," which is now the Michigan Central Railroad, "has got as far as Dearborn, and they are building it farther west." He thought we could cut some of our best timber into cord wood and sell it to the managers of the road, and make something from it. We drew some of the first cord wood that they used on the railroad, and continued to furnish a share of it for years. We had learned what day the first steam car was expected out to Dearborn. I went to see it, as it was to be there at a certain time of day. I was in time and with others waited anxiously for its appearance. While we were waiting I heard that there was to be a race from Mr. Conrad TenEyck's, a distance of one mile, to Dearborn. William Cremer, a young man who lived at TenEyck's, had made up his mind to have the race on his own hook and let the people of Dearborn see him come in. He got his sorrel, white-faced pony, had him saddled and bridled, and wailed in readiness, so that when the iron horse came opposite he could try him a race to Dearborn, and likewise try the speed of his pony. I don't suppose the railroad men knew any thing about his arrangement. As the TenEyck tavern, where he started, stood within twenty rods of the railroad, no doubt some of the railroad men saw him when he started. Toward the village the roads ran nearer and nearer together for about a hundred rods, then came side by side for a short distance. As he had a little the start, and came to the narrows first, he must have been in plain sight of the men on the cars. It is easy to imagine how the puffs of the iron horse scared the little sorrel and gave him, if possible, more speed. The passengers who saw him might have thought it was another "train band captain, John Gilpin," running after his wife. Nearly all the people of Dearborn (who were but few at that time), had gathered in front of the arsenal, in the Chicago road, at the side of the Dearborn House and were anxiously waiting. From this point we could see half a mile down the Chicago road east, and we could see the smoke of the engine beyond the TenEyck place …
The time appointed was up and we were very impatient, waiting and looking, for the least sign of the approach of the long-talked-of cars. As we were waiting some one said the cars would stop for Mr. TenEyck, as he was the richest and most influential man there was in the town, and the road ran a long way through his farm. Some said, "of course they will stop and take him on." At last we could hear a distant rumbling like the sound of a thousand horses running away, and we saw the smoke. As they came nearer we saw a long string of smoke disappearing in the air. The cars were approaching us rapidly, and stopped for no one. When they got opposite Mr. Thompson's tavern, sure enough, there on the Chicago road came William Cremer, like a streak, with his hat off, waving it in his hand, looking back over his shoulder at the cars, hallooing like a trooper and his horse running for dear life. He had beat them for the mile. Of course, before Cremer got up to us, we all started for the railroad, which was about twenty-five rods to the south, to see the iron horse come in. He came prancing and pawing upon the iron track, and he disdained to touch the ground. His body was as round as a log. His bones were made of iron, his veins were filled with heat, his sinews were of brass, and "every time he breathed he snorted fire and smoke." He moved proudly up to the station, little thinking that he had just been beaten by a Dearborn horse. "With his iron reins" he was easily controlled and held in subjection by his master. His groom pampered and petted him, rubbed him down, oiled his iron joints and gave him water to drink. He fed him upon the best of cord-wood, as he relished that very well, and devoured it greedily. The contents of his iron stomach seemed to be composed of fire. While he was waiting he seemed to be very impatient, letting off and wasting his breath and seeming eager for a start. He was sweating profusely. The sweat was falling in drops to the ground. When all was ready, the cry was, "All aboard!" and away he went snorting at every jump.
[Illustration: FIRST RAILROAD CARS IN WAYNE COUNTY, MICH.—-DETROIT TODEARBORN, 1837.]
I went home and told the wonderful story of the sight I had seen. There was but little talked about, at our house, except the cars, until the whole family had been to see them. We thought, surely, a new era had dawned upon us, and that Michigan was getting to be quite a country.
There were two stately trees which stood near the center of the place. In view of their antiquity it seemed almost wrong to cut them. One was an elm which stood on the flat of the Ecorse. The other was what we called a swamp white oak. It stood in a little hollow at the west end of the ridge (where we lived) about twenty rods north of the elm. They appeared as though they were about the same age. They were nearly the same size. They were five or six feet through at the butt.
Father often said that the tree recorded within itself a true record of its own age. After a tree was cut down, I have known him frequently to count the grains or yearly rings and from them extract a register by which he learned how many years old it was.
How my mind reaches back forty years and views again that venerable old oak and elm. Trees whose history and lives began before the first settlement of America. How familiar still their appearance to me, as they stood with their arms stretched out bidding me the most graceful salutations. They seemed almost like friends, at least there was some companionship about them, their forms were very familiar to me.
On the west side of the elm, just above the ground and running up about six feet, there was a huge knot which grew out of the side of the tree. It was large enough to stand upon, when upon it, but there was not room enough for us to stand upon it and chop. We had to build a scaffold around the tree, up even with the top of the knot to stand upon. In that way we were able to cut the great tree down. It was a hard job and was attended with danger. When the tree started we had to get down very quickly and run back to a place of safety, for the tree was very angry in the last throes of its dissolution. It broke other trees down, tore other trees to pieces, broke off their limbs, bent other small ones down with it as it went, and held their tops to the earth. Other trees went nearly down with it but were fortunate enough to break its hold and gained again their equilibrium with such swiftness that their limbs which had been nearly broken off, yet, which they retained until they straightened, then their stopping so suddenly, the reaction caused the fractured and dry limbs to break loose, and they flew back of where we had been chopping. They flew like missiles of death through the air, and the scaffold upon which we stood but a minute before was smashed into slivers. In the mean time we were looking out for our own safety.
No man, unless he has experienced it himself, can have an adequate idea of the danger and labor of clearing a farm in heavy, timbered land. Then he knows something of the anxieties and hardships of a life in the woods: the walking, the chopping and sweating, the running and the dodging like Indians behind trees. He trusts to their protection to save him from falling trees and flying limbs, although he is often lacerated and bruised, jambed and torn by them. I knew a man and a boy in our town who were killed by falling limbs. Sometimes he is cut by the ax and is obliged to go home, over logs, between stumps and through brush, leaving a bloody trail behind him.
Father's farm was rescued from the wilderness and consecrated to the plow and husbandry through sweat and blood. We ofttimes encountered perils and were weary from labor, often times hungry and thirsty, often suffered from cold and heat, frequently destitute of comfortable apparel and condemned to toil as the universal doom of humanity—thus earning our bread by the sweat of our brows.
Father and I labored some years in sight of the great elm stump. It appeared like a giant, with a great hump on his back, overlooking the surrounding stumps. It was about eight feet high. But it was doomed to decay, and entirely disappeared long years ago.
The oak tree was more fortunate and escaped the fatal ax, a number of years after all the timber around it had been chopped and cleared away. On account of its greatness, and its having so nice a body, father let it stand as monarch of the clearing. But few came into our clearing without seeing his majesty's presence. His roots were immense. They had been centuries creeping and feeling their way along, extracting life from mother earth to sustain their gigantic body. The acorn, from which that oak grew, must have been planted long before, and the tree which grew from it have been dressed many times in its summer robe of green, and it was, doubtless, flourishing when the "Mayflower" left the English Channel. When she was slowly making her way from billow to billow, through the then almost unknown sea, bearing some of the most brave and liberty-loving men and women the world, at that time, could produce; when the hearts of the Pilgrim Fathers were beating high with hopes of liberty and escape from tyranny, when their breath came low and short for fear of what might await them; when they landed on the American shore—yes! when that little band of pilgrims were kneeling on Plymouth Rock, and offering up thanksgiving and praise to the Almighty, who had brought them safely o'er the trackless deep, that oak was quietly standing, gathering strength to make it what it was when we came to Michigan. There it had stood, ever since the days of yore, spreading its boughs over the generations of men who have long since passed away. Around it had been the Indian's camping and hunting ground. When we came to plow and work the ground near it I found some of their stone arrows which had been worked out very beautifully. Their edges and points showed very plainly where they had been chipped off in making. We also found stone hatchets, the bits of which were about two and a half inches broad and worked to an edge. They were about six inches long. The pole or head was round. From their appearance they must have been held in the hand using the arm for a helve. For an encounter with bruin or any other enemy, it is possible they bound a withe around the pole and used that as a handle. Much ingenuity and skill must have been required to work out their implements when they had nothing better with which to do it than other stones.
I often picked up the arrows and hatchets and saved them as relics of past ages, knowing that they had been in other hands long years before. I have some of them now (1875). The stones from which they were made must have been brought from some distance as there were few other stones found in this part of the country.
If that oak could have talked, what a wild, wild story it might have told, not only of lost arrows and hatchets, but also of their owners, about whom the world has little knowledge. It might have told also of the hundreds of years it had stood there and showered down its acorns upon the earth, enough in one season to have planted a forest of its own kind; how often its acorns had been gathered by the Indian youth, and devoured by the wild beasts of the forest; how many times its leaves had been changed by the autumn frosts from a green to a beautiful golden hue; how the cold wind swept them off and they flew down in huddled races to the ground, carpeted and cushioned the earth, protected the roots and enriched the soil. How, after it had been shorn of its leaves, its life current had been sent back through the pores of its body to its roots and congealed by the cold freezing frosts of winter; how the wind sighed and moaned through its branches while it cracked and snapped with the frost. But there was to be an end to its existence. The remorseless ax was laid at its roots and there is nothing left of it, unless it be a few old oak rails. There are some moss-covered rails on the place yet that were made at an early day. How my thoughts go back and linger round that oak whose branches gave shelter to the deer, furnished them with food, protected the Indian and his home—the place where I, so long afterward, advanced to manhood.
It is no wonder that Boston men are so careful in protecting their trees. With their usual care and foresight they have guarded the celebrated elm on Boston common. Thousands of the American people from every State in the Union, even from the Pacific coast, visit the beautiful city of Boston but are not satisfied until they visit the ancient elm, read its history, as far as known, from the iron plate, and gaze with admiration on the wonderful tree and the fence that surrounds it.
The full history of that tree is not known, but it reaches back prior to the settlement of Boston. It was a good sized tree in 1656. "A map of Boston made in 1722 showed the tree as one of the principal objects." That tree is a sacred relic of the past. Its branches waved over the heads of honored colonial ancestors.
Trees are our most beautiful and best antiquities. "It was a beautiful thought," says Ruskin, "when God thought of making a tree and giving it a life so long." Another says: "What vicissitudes mark its life, almost tender with suggestion. Trees are the Methuselahs of nature. The famous Etna chestnut is a thousand years old. There is a cypress tree in Mexico, over forty feet in diameter, whose zones record nearly three thousand years. The baobab trees of the Green Cape are fully four thousand years old. The great dragon tree at Ortova, Teneriffe, (recently said to be dying), is said to be five thousand years old—a life that runs parallel to almost the entire period of human chronology." No doubt some of those trees will last as long as time. Is it any wonder that I claim some companionship to trees, since I passed so many years of my youth among them? Trees often prevented sharp eyes from seeing me, secreted me and helped me to luck, which was very gratifying to me. Trees, when it rained and the wind was piercing, have often protected, sheltered and kept me dry and comfortable for hours.
I frequently when at some distance from home, hunting, and night coming on, began traveling, as I supposed, toward home. I often came to tracks in the snow which, at first, I thought were made by some one else, but, upon a more particular examination, would find that they were my own tracks. Then I would know that I had been circling round and round, that the "wigwam was lost" and I had the gloomy prospect of remaining in the woods all night—"out of humanity's reach." Then I would trust to the trees, look at them, take their directions and start again in a new course. This would seem wrong to me, but I always came out right. Trees never deceived, but showed me the way home.
When I have been in the woods, hungry, trees furnished me food. When thirsty, they often supplied me with drink. When cold and almost freezing, trees have warmed and made me comfortable. Trees furnished most of the material for father's "bark-covered house," which sheltered us for more than two years.
If trees have done so much for one, surely all humanity have derived great good from them. The earth itself is adorned and beautified by trees.
Father commenced chopping cord-wood and he said I could draw it as fast as he could chop it. I was so much engaged that, when the moon was in its full, I often started with my load of wood a little before plain daylight. Of course I felt cheerful, I thought we were doing some business. Sometimes I walked by the side of the team and load and sometimes behind them. Hallooing at my team, driving them, singing, whistling and looking into the woods occasionally, occupied my time until I got to Dearbornville.
One morning I met William Ozee. I told him I had seen two or three deer as I was coming along. Told him where they stood and looked at me and the team, until we were out of sight, and that I thought they were there yet. He said he would attend to them. He had his rifle on his shoulder, and he said he would go for them. I saw him afterward and he said he had taught them better than to stand and look at anybody so impudently as that. He had killed some of them.
I made up my mind that if I could get a good rifle, I could make as much, or more, with it than father and I both could make cutting and drawing wood. Father said I might have a new one made. Accordingly I went to John W. Alexander and selected a rifle barrel, from a pack of new barrels that he had. I tried to select as soft a one as I could, as I considered those the best in frosty weather. I selected what I thought was about the right calibre, and told him I wanted him to make it with a raised sight so I could shoot any distance. I told him to make a buster for me, one that couldn't be beat. He said he would try and do it for twenty dollars. I told him I wanted him to make it as quickly as he could; in a short time he had it done. I thought it was a beautiful rifle. The name of the maker was inscribed on the barrel. I took it home feeling very good. I tried it shooting at a mark; shooting the distance of ten rods at a mark the size of a two shilling silver piece. With a rest, when there was not much wind, I could hit it every time and did do it five or six times in succession. Frequently when shooting the bullet holes would break into one another, and sometimes two bullets would go into the same hole. The only way I could tell where the last shot struck was by plugging up the old holes. Often the little white paper would fly away, the pin in the center having been shot away.
I made up my mind I had a splendid rifle, one that it would be hard to beat. That same rifle now stands in my bedroom. It was made over thirty-five years ago, with the bright name of John W. Alexander on it. He is now an old resident of Dearborn, a useful and ingenious man, and fills a prominent place in society; if he were gone it would be difficult to find a man capable of filling his place.
But I must return to my drawing wood. The place where we heaped it was on the north side of the railroad, about fifteen rods east of where the postoffice is now kept. The woodyard, including the depot, I should judge, was not more than one hundred feet square. Here we piled our wood, sometimes ten feet high. We were to have seven shillings a cord for it and if we chopped and hauled three cords a day we thought we did well. I drew it as fast as I could, sometimes I got to Dearborn just as the old Solar made his appearance in the east. The Lunar had already done her work toward helping me, veiled her face and disappeared. When we had drawn a lot of wood in father had it measured up and got his voucher for the amount. One time when he went to Detroit to get his money I went with him. We went on the cars. The depot and railroad office, where father did his business, stood where the City Hall now stands. I thought the railroad was a splendid thing. We went in so much nicer, easier and quicker than we could have gone on foot, or with our ox-team.
Now we were going to get some money of the railroad officers, I thought we would have money to pay the interest on our mortgage and help us along. Father got his pay in Michigan State scrip, a substitute for money. It was good for its face to pay State taxes; but to turn it into money father had to sell it for six shillings on a dollar. Here it will be seen, that what we really received for our wood, was a little over sixty-five cents per cord, and that when we drew in three cords a day (which was as much as father could chop, and all that I and the team could draw) we made a little over a dollar and ninety-five cents per day.
What would some of the workingmen of the present day who get together and form "Union Leagues," "Trade Unions," strike for higher wages and conspire against their employers and their capital, doubtless thinking such a course justifiable, think of such wages as that, and provisions very dear, as they were at that time? I began to think myself rough and ready and was able to grapple with almost anything and do a good days' work. Father, I and the team all worked hard and with the wood thrown in we all together did not make two dollars a day.
As father had a small job in the building of the railroad and some of the time I was with him, I will describe as well as I can, how the railroad was built. They first graded the road-bed and made it level, then took timbers as long as the trees would make them, hewed them on each side and flattened them down to about a foot in thickness, then laid them on blocks which were placed in the bed of the road. They were laid lengthwise of the road, far enough apart so that they would be directly under the wheels of the cars, and the ground graded up around them. In this manner they continued until the road-bed was finished.
The next thing was to get out the ties. These were made from logs nine feet long, which were split open through the heart, then quartered and split from the heart to the center of the back, until the pieces were about six or seven inches through on the back. Then the backs of the ties were hewed flat, making them about three square, when they were ready to be used on the road. They were placed back down across the bed pieces and spiked fast to them. They were laid about three feet apart the length of the road. Over those sills, in the upper edge of the ties, they cut out two gains. In those gains they laid two stringers running directly over the sleepers. These stringers were sawed out about four by six inches square. They were laid in the gains of the ties, spiked fast and wedged with wooden wedges. Then the woodwork was finished and everything ready for pulling on the iron. They used the strap rail iron. The bars were two inches and a quarter wide and half an inch thick. These bars were laid flat on top, and next to the in-edge, of the stringers and were spiked fast to them. In this way our railroad was built. The cars running away west on it, penetrating Michigan as the harbinger of civilization, opened up a way for the resources of the country.
The strap iron which they used first proved to be very poor iron. In after years, if a spike came out or the bar cracked off at the spike hole, the bar would turn up like a serpent's head and if not seen in time it was liable to throw the train off the track and do damage. I was at Dearborn at one time when an accident, of this kind, happened to a freight train, a little west of the village. There was considerable property destroyed, barrels broken in pieces and flour strewed over the ground, but no lives were lost.
Father said the railroad was a good thing for us and our country, and that they would soon have one, and the cars running on it to the State of New York. Then I reiterated my promise to mother. I said if the cars ran through our native place, we could go back there without crossing Lake Erie, the thought of which chilled me every time I spoke to mother about going back to make a visit. Time sped on, days, months, and some years had passed, since the first of the Michigan Central Railroad was built, and the cars running east and west loaded with passengers and freight, when one morning I heard a strange noise. It was terrible and unaccountable to me, as much so as it would have been if I had heard heavy thunder at mid-day, from a clear sky. I heard it from the direction of Dearbornville; It appeared to originate there, or in the woods that way. I heard it two or three times, several days in succession.
If there had come a herald from Dearbornville and told me that the man of the moon had stepped out of his old home, and down on to our earth, at Dearborn, and that he had a great horn, twenty feet long, in his hand, and that it was him, I had heard, tooting on his horn to let us know, and the inhabitants of his own country, that he had arrived safe on the earth, I might not have believed what he said in regard to the arrival of the supernatural being and his visit to us; but I could have believed almost anything wonderful in regard to the horn for I had heard its thrilling blast myself.
Father, mother and, in fact, none of us were able to think or imagine what it could be. It came through the woods as swift as lightning and its shrill and piercing voice was more startling than thunder. It echoed and re-echoed across our clearing, from woods to woods and died swiftly away in the distance. What on earth could it be? Could it be the voice of a wild animal? That seemed impossible, it was too loud. I thought such an animal would need lungs as large as a blacksmith's bellows, and a voice as strong as a steamboat, to have raised such an unearthly yell.
It was enough to scare all the bears and wolves to death, or at least, enough to make them hide away from the voice and face of the dragon. But there was a man, who lived one mile south of Dearbornville, by the name of Alonzo Mather; he was a little more sensible and courageous. He thought he knew what made the strange noise. When he came out of his house one morning, all at once, the terrible sound broke upon his ear. He had heard it two or three times before, about the same place in the woods, toward Dearbornville. He said to his hired man, a Mr. Whitmore, who was utterly astonished and seemed to be all in a fright, "Hear that! I know what it is! It is a bear, and he lives right over there in the woods. I have heard him two or three times in the same place. Don't say a word to anyone; not let the hunters know anything about his being there and I'll shoot him myself.'" He took down his rifle immediately, and started on the double quick, followed by the hired man, who could help him in case of trouble.
He went through the woods looking carefully in every direction, scanning the old logs and large hollow trees and searching from top to bottom to see if he could find a hole large enough for a bear to crawl in. In this way he looked all around, near the railroad, where he thought the noise originated, but he could not find a track or sign of Mr. Bruin, for the bear wasn't there, so, in disgust, he gave up the hunt.
About the next day after Mr. Mather's hunt, he and all the rest of us learned what had caused the excitement. It was a new invention, the steam whistle of the cars; something we had never heard before.