RECOLLECTIONS OF A PIONEER OF EARLY MICHIGAN.

BY JUDGE ALBERT MILLER.

Editor Sunday Times:

Your article "Sixty-two Years Ago," published in the Sunday Times on March 5, 1893, brings to my mind so vividly some of the scenes and events of that early date in the history of Michigan, that I am inclined to jot down a few items which you can publish if you think they will be of any interest to your readers. One of the items in the article referred to, signed by John Farmer, was dated on the twenty-first anniversary of my birthday (May 10, 1831.) I had then been eight months a resident of that portion of the territory of Michigan that is now Genesee county. The old map you refer to was quite familiar to me in those early days. The surveyed portion of northern Michigan included the mouth of the Saginaw river and the forks of the Tittabawassee. I think you will find on that map a tract of country about Port Huron marked Desmond. I believe the territory referred to had been set off into a township by that name. Mr. Farmer gives the boundaries of the territory of Michigan as it existed in 1831, but it was greatly enlarged in 1834 by the addition of all the territory belonging to the United States lying north of the state of Missouri and west of the Mississippi river. By an act of the legislative council of the territory of Michigan, dated Sept. 6, 1834, that territory was set off into two counties-Dubuque county comprising all the territory north of a line drawn west from the south end of Rock Island; and DesMoine county, the portion lying south of said line to the northern line of the state of Missouri.

The population of the territory of Michigan as constituted in 1830 (the census being taken after I became a resident of the territory) numbered 31,000 and some hundreds. Detroit then contained 2,222. The territory that is now Genesee county, where I then resided, contained seventy whites, and between the Flint river and the Straits of Mackinaw there were twenty-eight.

I was well acquainted with John Farmer, the author of the map

referred to. In 1837, when I was a managing director of the Portsmouth company, we employed him to survey the ground and make what is known as "Farmer's plat of Portsmouth." Farmer's plat of Portsmouth." At the time of the publication of the map referred to in your article the story was that Mr. Farmer was employed by Orange Risdon, a United States deputy surveyor residing in Washtenaw county, to copy the minutes of his surveys and prepare the matter for a map which he (Risdon) intended to publish; that while Farmer worked for Risdon during the day, he made a copy of his work at night and forestalled Risdon in the publication of a map. Risdon afterwards published a map but it had but a limited sale and Farmer had a monopoly of publishing maps of Michigan and Wisconsin for many years. I knew Mr. Risdon very well; he surveyed the United States military road between Flint and Saginaw. I met him at the laying of the corner stone of the State capitol; he was then the oldest Free Mason in the State.

During the winter of 1831-2 I taught a school in Grand Blanc, which was the second term of school in the lower peninsula of Michigan north of Oakland county, and during the winter of 1834–5 I taught a school at Saginaw, which was the first school taught between Flint river and Mackinaw. In November, 1832, I assisted Judge Jewett in navigating a raft of sawed lumber, which was manufactured at the Thread river and hauled across to the Flint and run down that river to the drift wood, and during the winter of 1832-3 was hauled on sleighs to a point opposite Green Point. That was the first raft of sawed lumber that ever floated on any of the tributaries of the Saginaw river. In the summer of 1833 I erected a frame dwelling with a portion of said lumber, which was the first of the kind outside of Saginaw city that was ever erected between Flint river and the Straits of Mackinaw. In the summer of 1834 I assisted Charles A. Lull, late of Bridgeport, to cut boards by hand to lay floors in the log house he then erected near where South Saginaw now is, when there was not a saw-mill within forty miles of the Saginaw river.

In February, 1833, I removed from Grand Blanc to Green Point. I had never lived within twenty miles of a voting place after becoming of age and had never voted. I did not attend the spring election at Saginaw, but was elected to an office that constituted me a member of the board of inspectors of elections and held that position for fifteen years in succession-during the first five years of which time I handled all the votes that were cast on the lower peninsula between Flint river and the Straits of Mackinaw.

Saginaw county was laid off by proclamation of Gov. Cass in 1822,

including four townships now in Midland county. In the winter of 1830-31 Saginaw township was organized embracing the territory of Saginaw county as it then was. Previous to that the whole of northern Michigan to Mackinaw was in Oakland county and under the township jurisdiction of Pontiac. In March, 1831, after the organization of Saginaw township, the four townships referred to were set off into Midland county. In February, 1835, Saginaw county was organized with the boundaries as they then extended. Upon the organization of the county I was appointed to the office of judge of probate, the first to hold the office on the lower peninsula north of Oakland county, and I think my commission bears the earliest date of any person now living in Michigan that has held that office. Hon. Oka Tonen, of Allegan, who is living still, was commissioned to that office a months later. One of the first estates I undertook to settle was of a person who died in my own town of Saginaw, but in the territory that had been set off to Midland county. It was soon discovered that the estate although in the township of Saginaw was in Oakland county and it was afterwards settled in that county.

In July, 1836, I projected and laid out the town of Portsmouth which was the first move towards building a town at this end of the river, and erected on said plat a saw-mill, which was the second put in operation in the Saginaw the Saginaw valley. In February, 1837, I was appointed postmaster of Portsmouth, the first appointment of the kind in the lower peninsula north of Saginaw.

In February, 1839, I united with the First Presbyterian church of Saginaw, it being the first and then the only religious organization in the valley. In 1850, with my business partners, I erected at Portsmouth a small edifice to be used for religious purposes, which was the second in the valley that was ever dedicated to the worship of God, the first being the Indian mission church at Kawkawlin. I was a director in the company that procured the building of the first railroad to Bay City and procured the organization of the second company that manufactured salt in the valley, and I caused to be thrown up the first embankment with a view of reclaiming the marsh lands from the overflow of the waters of the Saginaw river.

I was president of the first Pioneer society organized in the Saginaw valley and the first president of the Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society. This is not what I intended to write when I commenced, but I mention these facts to show that I am entitled to the appellation of Pioneer which I have assumed.

Bay City, March 10, 1893.

PIONEER.

A RESPONSE TO DR. WIGHT'S ANNIVERSARY SERMON.

BY JUDGE ALBERT MILLER.

[Published in the Bay City Tribure, June 16, 1885.]

The parish meeting of the First Presbyterian church was held on the evening of June 15, at which the annual pew renting took place. There was a large number present. During the evening there was a discussion regarding the proposed new church, in which several took part and advanced their views.

A very pleasant part of the meeting was the response of Judge Albert Miller, on behalf of the congregation, to Rev. Dr. Wight's anniversary sermon, delivered on the preceding Sunday. Following were Judge Miller's remarks:

OUR DEAR PASTOR-I have been deputed to address you in behalf of the church and congregation and your friends present; but before commencing, I wish to say a few words outside of and preliminary to the subject in hand. During your long acquaintance with these people you have probably observed a propensity they have, especially the ladies, for scattering flowers along the pathway of life. They omit no opportunity of performing some benevolent act that will conduce to the happiness of those with whom they are associated. For instance, their efforts in preparing for the anniversaries and gatherings of the church and congregation for social enjoyment, and not long since their benevolence prompted them to give a pleasant surprise to a member of the church by extending to him pleasant greetings and congratulations on the anniversary of his seventy-fifth birthday, and they succeeded so admirably in their undertaking and made such a green spot in the declining years of that individual, that they have determined to extend their greetings to one far more worthy of their attention. So we now greet and congratulate you on the twentieth anniversary of your pastorate, which has been a pleasant, peaceful, and highly successful one. Twenty years is a long time, and in these days of unrest and change but few pastors and people in all our broad land have maintained

that pleasant relation for so long a period, and among them all I doubt whether there has been one where it has been so pleasant, so peaceful, with so little thought or desire for a change on the part of either party. You were with us in our poverty and weakness, and to some of the older members of us who had been accustomed to hear complaints from the pulpit on account of an inadequate pecuniary support, it is a wonder how you trusted us so fully in the beginning, but in all these years we have never heard one complaint from that source, and to those who have had a different experience that has been a source of pleasure. You have rejoiced with us in our prosperity and sympathized with us in our sorrows and afflictions, and you have been unwearied in your efforts to mitigate the sorrows and promote the happiness of your people, and we wish you to feel that you have done your whole duty. We are satisfied, aye, more than satisfied, for your instructions from the pulpit have been such as few congregations, be they where they may, are permitted to receive. Your discourses are gems of thought that attract the attention by their brilliancy and retain a hold on the mind by their practical common sense. We are not only greatly interested in the course of their delivery, but they furnish us food for thought during the week. Under such preaching we must grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, and if we do not grow in grace it is not your fault. Your pastorate has been a successful one, for aside from the good it has accomplished, which will take an eternity to reveal, your long continuance with us has redounded to the honor and material prosperity of the church. Your wise counsels in presbytery and synod have added to the efficiency of those bodies with which you are connected and have conduced toward extending the gospel to points north, east, and west of us, which were waste places in the wilderness when you commenced your pastorate. Your residence among us and your efforts for her spiritual, moral, and material improvement have redounded to the honor of our new and thriving city. Your genial, pleasant, and instructive writings serve to adorn American literature. But these pleasant associations cannot always remain, like time, with us all. They must sooner or later have an end, and that thought would produce an unmitigated sorrow were it not for the bright hope that brings a full assurance that they will be renewed under far more glorious circumstances, for it is one of the brightest anticipated joys of heaven that we shall meet, know, and be associated in eternity with those who are near and dear to us in time. Now when the summons shall come that calls