We need more and more to remember that we are but trustees for God and humanity of all this wealth and of all these privileges.

MICHIGAN AND THE NATION.

The people of Michigan have ever been loyal and liberty loving. Their free frontier life, somewhat isolated by their geographical position, made them independent in spirit and hostile to the aggressive demands of slavery.

Michigan answered the Fugitive Slave Law with her "Personal Liberty Act."

When slavery declared war on the nation, Michigan stood loyally by her faith and her allegiance.

She offered her manhood in no stinted measure and poured out her best blood, a free libation, upon the altar of liberty and union.

At the call of Abraham Lincoln, president of the United States, she put into the field more than 90,000 men, organized into thirty regiments of infantry, eleven regiments of cavalry, fourteen batteries of artillery, one regiment of engineers, one regiment of sharp-shooters, one regiment of colored troops and many independent organizations.

There was scarcely a battlefield of the great war where Michigan men did not take a conspicuous and honorable part.

Of these troops 358 officers and 14,497 enlisted men were killed in action, or died of wounds and disease during the war.

What a story of valor, of struggle, of achievement and suffering and death is summed up in those figures!

More precious than the piled up millions, dearer than riches of mine, or forest or factory, to Michigan, now and evermore, is her wealth in manhood and womanhood, the priceless heritage of her

daughters.

sons and

The future of our beloved State we can only dream. But the past is secure. The future will depend much upon this generation and the

ideals upon which we build.

Truly the lines have fallen to us in pleasant places. However appropriate the inscription on the great seal of the State may have been when it was adopted, fifty-seven years ago, it is more appropriate now. "Si quæris Peninsulam Amanam Circumspice."-" If you seek a beautiful peninsula, look around you!" It is indeed beautiful, and it is also great, and flourishing and rich.

Laved on the east, north and west by the great "unsalted seas," bearing a commerce unequaled in ancient or modern times; treasuring in her bosom inexhaustible mineral wealth; clad with a native forest

growth that has been and is a source of vast wealth in itself, and bespeaks the richness of the soil from which it springs; with luxuriant fields of grain unsurpassed in richness; with flocks and herds counted by millions; with manufactures of almost endless variety and extent; with an educational system the equal of any in the world; and a university abreast with any in excellence and the foremost on the continent in numbers; with State institutions for the defective and the unfortunate that are models of their kind, Michigan enters upon the second half-century of her statehood, proud of her past, confident of her future, and thankful to God for all that He hath wrought in her behalf.

It is for us, citizens of the State to remember that opportunity brings responsibility, and that of those to whom much has been given will much be required.

PIONEER HISTORY OF THE SETTLEMENT OF EATON COUNTY.

WRITTEN BY EARLY SETTLERS.

[Taken from the Saturday Journal, Eaton Rapids, Mich. Frank C. Culley, Editor.]

JESSE HART.

I was born in the township of Springfield, Portage county (now Summit), State of Ohio, April 27, 1814, and lived there with my parents until I was twenty-three years old. I then married Miss Rachel Richards, July 16, 1837; and about the 10th day of the next October, we started for Michigan with two light yoke of oxen and one wagon. We got along well until we came to what was called "black swamp;" then of all the roads I ever saw or traveled over that road through that swamp was the worst. Suffice it to say that I worked hard for eight days to get thirty-two miles.

We arrived at Joseph Bosworth's, on the 6th day of November following. He lived then in what is now the township of Walton, Eaton

county, Mich. He had moved there two or three weeks before, and had built him a shanty in the woods. My land was four miles from there, in a northeast direction, right through the woods, it being the north one hundred acres of the northwest one-quarter of section seven, in town one north, of range four west, now the township of Brookfield, and a part of the farm I now own. As Mr. Bosworth was the nearest one to my land I made arrangements to stay with him until I could build a shanty, and eut a road to it; and I got him to help me. We got the body of the shanty up, about three-fourths of the roof on, and the door cut out; but no door nor floor in the shanty. Then we moved in. It was here, in this partly built shanty, on the 12th day of November, 1837, that my wife and I first commenced keeping house. It was four miles to the nearest neighbor, with no road, only a crooked track I had cut through the forest, and the whole county almost an unbroken wilderness. The screech of the owl, and the howl of the wolf, was our music by night, and the Indians our callers by day. The first night we made our bed on some split pieces of basswood in one corner of the shanty, built a fire in another, hung up a blanket for a door, and some on the wall around the bed; and it seemed quite like home, and we had a good night's rest. I soon made a pole bedstead, hewed out and put down a puncheon floor, built a stone back and stick chimney in one corner, made a clay hearth and the shanty was finished without a nail, with the exception of what was in the door. We lived in that shanty nearly two years. Oh yes, happy two years! The happiest two years of my life were spent in that shanty. There was something grand and romantic about it I very much enjoyed.

The grand old forest yielded up enough almost for our support, of its wild fruits, its honey and venison. It was in this shanty that our first child was born, March 20, 1839, cradled and rocked in a sap trough, and is now the wife of Dr. Derby of Eaton Rapids. It was in the fall of 1839 that our shanty was swapped for a new log house, which we built about fifty rods east of the shanty. My hogs slept west of the shanty, next to the woods. The second night after we had moved into our new house, about twelve o'clock at night my wife woke me and said she heard a hog squeal. I got up, took my gun and ran over to where the hogs were, and found a bear had caught the old sow and was about killing her. When I came near enough so I thought I could hit him I fired. He let go of the hog and ran into the woods. It being quite dark I could not tell whether I had hit

him or not; but I went out the next morning and found the bear dead and the hog alive, but very badly hurt.

One more bear story: This was in the fall of 1841. I had built a log hog-pen about eight rods from the house, and a lane west from the hog-pen to the woods about fifty rods. My cattle were kept in the lane near the hog-pen. It was not far from the middle of night when I heard a hog give a short squeal, and then the cow bells commenced to rattle. I got up and stepped to the door. I then heard something running in the lane toward the woods, and it was not more than a minute before I heard a hog squeal on the edge of the woods at the end of the lane. (It seems the bear had caught the hog near the hog-pen, and the cattle had driven him off; then he had chased the pig into the lane west to the woods before he caught him again.) My rifle being loaded I caught it up and ran, just as I had got out of bed, to save my hog. When I got to the end of the lane I saw that he had caught the hog under some tops of trees that had been felled when I cleared. I got into the topmost one and started out on it to see if I could not shoot him in that way; but as I started my dog ran under and went to barking at him; then the bear took the hog and started into the woods with him. I called back the dog, who took his place behind me, and then I started after him. I ran as fast as I could in the brush and dark, and went some twenty or twenty-five rods before I got near enough so I thought I could hit him. When I was within ten or twelve feet of him I shot at the black spot, for that was all I could see. As the gun went off he dropped the hog and ran off three or four rods and all was still. I loaded my rifle and could hear nothing of the bear. I was so near him I knew if he stirred I could hear him, there being dry leaves on the ground. I made up my mind that I had hit him, and that he was sitting and looking at me, or else I had killed him; so, to find out, I told the dog to "take him." The dog went to where he was, off aways, and went to growling and snuffing around, but I could hear nothing of the bear, so I concluded he was dead. I went to where the dog was and there lay a monstrous black bear, stretched out dead enough. His fore paw when pressed down would cover a common breakfast plate. When I went back I met my wife in the lane coming with an ax. She said she was afraid I had got into trouble.

In the spring of 1842 I built a frame first frame building built in Brookfield. old log house for a new frame one, out roads laid out then. In the spring of

barn, 30x40 feet. It was the And in 1851 I swapped the on the road; for there were 1863 I rented my farm and

moved to Charlotte, where I have lived ever since. We have had ten children, five of them having been laid away in the silent grave, the youngest lives at home, three near by in Charlotte, and one at Eaton Rapids.

FRED SPICER.

FRIEND CULLEY-Learning that you desired the old settlers of Eaton county to give a brief history of early days and the settlement of our county, I will attempt to pen what I know in the matter in my humble way. I came to Eaton county with my father (Amos Spicer), mother, and two sisters, Mrs. Benjamin Knight and husband, Eunice J. Spicer, now wife of J. L. Holmes, of Jackson, my uncle, P. E. Spicer, and cousin, Daniel Bateman, all from Middlebury, Portage county, Ohio (except Benjamin Knight and wife, who were from Kyshockton, Muskingum county, Ohio), on the 3d day of June, 1836, landed at Spicerville about 8 o'clock p. m., and found a double log house, which my father and uncle, P. E. Spicer, Daniel Bateman, Benjamin Knight, Charles Hanchett and son, and others, had built without a door or a window, with puncheons for a floor below, and boxwood bark for the upper floor, which material they procured from the forest without the help of a saw-mill, for there was no mill of any description nearer than Clinton, about fifty miles from us, nor even a neighbor nearer than twelve miles, save the red man's wigwam.

Michigan was then a territory, and without a road, except the old Clinton road, which my uncle, Sam. Hamlin, and C. C. Darling had cut through from Clinton to the Thornapple river, in the northwest part of our county, the fall before for the government, which had just been completed and accepted when Father, P. E. Spicer and Daniel Bateman arrived at Jackson, in the the fall of 1835.

Father told my uncle he had come out to look out a home, and would like to find a good water power, as he proposed to build a saw and grist-mill if he could find a desirable spot. Uncle Sam and Mr. Darling told him that Grand river and Spring brook were both good powers. So as soon as Aunt Liddia Holmes could bake some pork and beans for the journey, each took his grub and knapsack and started for the north woods, without any guide save the blazes the surveyor had made when the country was cut up into counties and towns. The party consisted of Amos Spicer, P. E. Spicer, Samuel Hamlin, and C. C. Darling, now of Lansing, and Daniel Bateman, who lives at Spicerville on the land he located about forty years ago.