USA > Michigan > Lenawee County > History and biographical record of Lenawee County, Michigan, Volume I > Part 40
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HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
and settled in Adrian township, and afterwards moved to Rome, this county, where he died April 5th, 1866. Her mother was born in Penfield, New York, December 23d, 1818, and died in Rome, this county, June 21st, 1869.
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OHN JERMAIN JR., was born March 22d, 1796, at Say Harbor, Suffolk county, (Long Island) New York. His father, John Jermain Sr., was born in the Province of New Brunswick, May 20th, 1758, and when a boy he came with his parents to the State of New York, and settled on a farm at White Plains, Westchester county. His parents afterwards returned to New Brunswick, and John went to Sag Harbor, Long Island, New York, and engaged in the mercantile business. During the war of 1812, he had command of the fort at Sag Harbor, when the British navy threatened to destroy the town. He died at Sag Har- bor, February 17th, 1819. His wife, Margaret Pierson, daughter of Sylvanus Pierson, son of Josiah, was born at Bridgehampton, Long Island, New York, March 19th, 1764, and died at Albany, New York, March 30th, 1833. John Jermain Jr., the the subject of this sketch, received a good common school educa- tion at Sag Harbor, and was brought up in the mercantile business, living most of the time with his father -- except about two years which he passed in his brother's, S. P. Jermain's store, in Albany -until 1817, when he went to Ovid, Seneca county, New York, where he commenced business on his own account. In the fall of 1823 he emigrated to Michigan from Ovid, and landed in Detroit, with his wife and one child, in December. He made the trip from Buffalo to Detroit on the schooner Red Jacket, Capt. Walker. He went immediately to Pontiac, Oakland county, and engaged in the mer . cantile business. He remained in Pontiac three years, when-in 1826-he went to Monroe and formed a co-partnership with Dan B. Miller, and engaged in a general mercantile, milling and ship- ping business. This firm-Miller & Jermain-shipped the first flour from Michigan over lake Erie to Buffalo. The firm also owned a little vessel called the "Kite," which they employed in the flour trade between Monroe and Detroit, and continued doing business until the spring of 1828, when Mr. Jermain sold his in- terest to Mr. Miller, and returned to the State of New York, and engaged in business at Albion, Orleans county. During the years 1835-6, he returned to Michigan and located 20,000 acres of land,
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OF LENAWEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
mostly in Hillsdale county, largely in the towns of Adams, Mos- cow, Litchfield, Reading and Wheatland; also tracts of land in Branch and Lenawee counties, and Lucas county, Ohio, for himself. and parties in Albany, New York. In August, 1837, he again re- turned to Michigan, with his family, and settled at Jonesville, Hillsdale county, and gradually disposed of these lands at from $2,00 to $2,50 per acre, and lived there until 1863, when he re- tired from business, and made Adrian his temporary residence. April 30th, 1820, he married Miss Sarah Delevan, daughter of Dr. Tompkins C. and Esther Delevan, of Ovid, Seneca county, New York, by whom he had four children, as follows: Sylvanus P., born at Ovid, Seneca county, New York, November 16th, 1821, and died at Chillicothe, Ohio, May 9th, 1870, and was buried in Oakwood cemetery, Adrian. Tompkins D., born at Pontiac, Terri- tory of Michigan, April 30th, 1824, now a resident of Adrian ; Alanson, born in Monroe, Michigan Territory, July 16th, 1827, died at Jonesville, Michigan, September 4th, 1859, and was buried there. Margaret Esther, born at Ovid, Seneca county, New York, July 15th, 1830, now Mrs J. C. Ladue, of Detroit. Mrs Sarah Jermain was born at Ovid, Seneca county, New York, November 9th, 1800. Her father, Dr. Tompkins C. Delevan, son of Timothy Delevan, was a native of Dutchess county, New York. He died at Jonesville, Mich., August 5th, 1861. The ancestor of the Delevan family was one of that unhappy number who fled from his native country (France,) upon the revocation of the edict of Nantz, because devoted to the Protestant religion. This ancestor left ten sons, nine of whom served in the American Revolution ; the tenth son being a soldier under "Mad Anthony Wayne" in his Indian campaigns, and took part in the great and decisive battle upon the rapids of the Miami, and participated in the victory with his companion-in-arms, then Capt. W. H. Harrison, (afterwards President of the United States,) aid-de-camp of Gen. Wayne, and Capt. Solomon Van Rensselaer. Her mother, Esther J. Delevan, was born at Green's Farms, Connecticut, in 1778, and died at Jonesville, Mich., August 8th, 1839. Mr. and Mrs. John Jer- main are now in Detroit, (with their daughter, Mrs. J. C. Ladue,) at the mature ages of 84 and 79. The two eldest sons of John and Sarah Jermain, Sylvanus Pierson and Tompkins Delevan, in the spring of 1840, then not of age, were the founders of the Jonesville Expositor, a weekly newspaper, Whig in politics, which strongly aided in the successful campaign of "Tippecanoe and Tyler too." In September, 1843, through the solicitation of prominent citizens of Adrian, owing to the recent demise of the Michigan Whig, they removed their office and material to Adrian,
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HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
and called their paper the Michigan Expositor. The printing ma- terial was taken to Hillsdale by teams, and from there by " horse cars" over the Michigan Southern railroad, as far as Hudson, and from there by " steam cars " to Adrian. The paper was published as a weekly until about 1851, when T .D. Jermain, (during the temporary retirement of his brother, S. P., from the firm, owing to ill health) established The Tri- Weekly Expositor, in con- junction with the Weekly Expositor. During the summer of 1852, S. P. and T. D. Jermain erected a four story brick building on Maumee street, known as the " Expositor Building," and occupied it. They brought the second steam-power press to Michigan, in 1847, (the first being operated in the Daily Free Press office in Detroit, by Bagg & Harmon, then State printers.) June 17th, 1848, Jermain & Bro., issued from their office a very neat semi- monthly quarto publication entitled The Pledge of Honor, it being the organ of the Order of the Sons of Temperance of Michigan. It was edited by the Rev. E. McClure, then the talented pastor of the M. E. church of Adrian. The year following, The Pledge of Honor was changed into a folio weekly paper and called The Dollar Weekly, which had a wide circulation throughout the State, as a family temperance paper. In the spring of 1857, T. D. Jermain sold his interest in the Expositor establishment to his younger brother Alanson ; and in July, the same year, removed to Milwaukee, Wis- consin, and associated with him Horace Brightman, (formerly of the firm of King & Brightman, founders and machinists of Adrian,) in the purchase from Gen. Rufus King & Co., of the Milwaukee Daily, Tri- Weekly and Weekly Sentinel, then, as now, one of the leading Republican newspaper and printing establishments in the West. Jermain & Brightman published the paper until 1871, when they sold out to a stock company and retired from business, and after spending two years in Europe, Mr. Jermain returned to his old homestead at Adrian, where he now resides.
EORGE A. WILKINS, JR., was born in Orange county, New York, March 20th, 1812. His father, George Wil- kins, was born in Orange county, of Irish parents. He was a miller, and always run a mill until his death, which occurred in 1812. About 1798 he married Miss Lydia . Booth, daughter of William and Mary Booth, of Orange county New York, by whom he had seven children, George A. being the youngest and only
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OF LENAWEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
survivor of the family. Mrs. Lydia Wilkins was born in Orange county, New York, in 1784. She came to Michigan in 1832 and settled in Macon, this county, where she died March 18th, 1874. George A. Wilkins, Jr., moved with his mother to Lodi, Seneca county, New York, in 1812, where he resided, and received a com- mon school education, until 1832, when he came to Michigan and settled in Macon, this county. He was twenty years old at that time, when he commenced working for the settlers by the month, and continued until he earned money enough to purchase eighty acres of wild land, it being the s. p. of the w. } of the n. w. 4 of section 28, in Macon, where he now resides. He commenced in the dense woods, but to-day he has a good farm under good culti- vation, with all necessary buildings and conveniences. When he commenced keeping house he made his chairs and bedsteads out of hickory saplings and basswood bark. He bought a team on credit, but lost it before he had paid for it. He suffered greatly from sickness, and his last cow was taken for a doctor bill. He was a soldier in the "Toledo war" in 1835. July 5th, 1835, he married Miss Hannah Winter, daughter of Samuel and Charity Winter, of Franklin, this county. They never had any children, but have adopted and brought up two boys, as follows: James K. Graves, now a farmer of Monroe county, Michigan, and George W. Graves, son of James K. Graves. George W. now resides with Mr. Wilkins. Mrs. Hannah Wilkins was born in Delaware, Pennsylvania, April 20th, 1812. Her father and mother were born in Pennsylvania, her father of German and her mother of English parents. They came to Michigan and settled in Franklin, this county. Her mother died there in 1834, and her father died in New Jersey in 1856.
EN. WILLIAM H. MONTGOMERY was born in the township of Ovid, (now Lodi) Seneca county, New York, August 8th, 1805. He is the oldest of four brothers : Augustus, a farmer residing in Ridgeway, this county; John H., a physician in Marshall, Mich., and Jehial H., a druggist in Decorah, Iowa ; and three sisters, Mrs. Mapes, Mrs. R. M. Pelton, and Mrs. W. Tillotson, all of whom are the children of Henry Montgomery, who emigrated from near Boston, Mass., and settled in Seneca county, New York, in the year 1800, and was married to Frances, daughter of Judge Silas Halsey, October 24th, 1802. William H. Montgomery came to Michigan in the spring of 1827, and traveled
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HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL, RECORD
from Detroit to Monroe, thence up the river Raisin to where Adrian is now situated ; thence by way of Darius Comstock's, to Tecumseh, stopping with General Brown several days, and then passed on to Saline, Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti and Woodworth's Grove, stopping to view the country in the several localities, which at that carly day was mostly in a wilderness state. He did not pur- chase, but returned to the State of New York and bought a farm on the banks of Seneca Lake. He was married to Sarah W. Lefferts, December 10th, 1829, and in the spring of 1831, made another tour to Michigan, and bought 378 acres of land adjoining the Macon Reserve, on the river Raisin, and commenced an im- provement. He moved on with his wife, in the spring of 1832, built a shanty and prepared to build a house. He got up the frame, when his carpenter was taken sick, and not being able to finish building, moved to Monroe to spend the winter. Returning early in the spring of 1833, he procured the establishment of a postoffice, and was himself appointed postmaster at West Raisin- ville. Mr. Montgomery has endeavored to render some service in a civil capacity. He was teacher in New York and in Michigan, some nine years; was school inspector twelve years, justice of the peace sixteen years and was elected Representative from Monroe county in 1837. He was elected County Judge in 1849, supervi- sor of of the township of Raisinville in 1839, and of the township of Dundee in 1851. He was elected State Senator in 1854, and was appointed County Drain Commissioner in 1860 ; served two years as one of the Executive Committee of the State Agricultural Society, and one year as President of the Monroe County Society. He moved to Hudson, this county, in 1862, and has followed the business of a druggist during his residence there. He has also figured somewhat in a military capacity ; first as Adjutant in the 128th regiment, of New York State Militia, in 1831 Was com- missioned as Captain of the Dundee Rifle Guards, by Gov. John S. Barry, May 18th, 1842; commissioned Colonel of the 17th Regiment, 9th Brigade, 5th Division, Michigan Militia, October 25th, 1842; commissioned as Brigadier General of the 9th Brigade 5th Division, Michigan Militia, by Gov. John S. Barry, February 10tl, 1844 ; commissioned as Major General of the 5th Division Michigan Militia, by Gov. William L. Greenly, Marchi 16th, 1847. Having lived fifty years of married life, forty-seven of which have been spent in Michigan, cleared and improved two farms, with buildings, orchards, &c., raised a family of six children, all well married, except the youngest daughter, he will celebrate his Golden Wedding, on the 10th of December, 1879, at which time the daughter will also be married to Mr. Willis Tracy.
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OF LENAWEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
HITMAN RIPLEY was born in ,Hoosick, Rensselaer county, New York, March 14th, 1801. Jonathan Ripley, his father, was born in Rhode Island, probably, in the year 1770, and was a farmer. His wife was born in the same State, in the year 1774. At an early day they emigrated to the State of New York, and settled near Lake Champlain. In the year 1813, he moved to Spafford, Onondaga county, and purchased a farm, where he lived until his death, his wife dying about four years later, both being buried in Spafford. By this marriage ten children were born, Whitman being the fifth child. He lived with his parents until his fifteenth year, when he went to live with Lauren Hotchkiss, a merchant of Spafford, where he stayed for three years when he went to Skaneateles, and stayed three years more, and learned the carpenter and joiners' trade. He returned to Spafford, and in the year 1821, married Thankful L. Barber. Here he continued to live until the year 1827, working at his trade. That same year he moved to Geneva and stayed through the winter and moved, in the spring of 1828, to Lyons, Wayne county, where he lived with his family, until the year 1835. During part of that time he was engaged with a Mr. Taft, in the carpenter and joiner's business, selling agricultural implements, etc. He intro- duced the first threshing machines ever sold in. Canada. In the fall of 1835, Mr. Ripley moved to Michigan, and settled in Adrian. His first work there was hewing timber for the Erie and Kalama- zoo Railroad Company, his household goods being yet in Monroe, himself and family boarding with Isaac French, at the hotel, pay- ing seven dollars per week. In December, 1835, he rented the west lower room in the house now owned by W. A. Whitney, where he commenced house-keeping, renting the house of Lauren Hotchkiss. The upper rooms were occupied for church and school purposes, and the east room was used by Miss Nancy Gouldsbury, now Mrs. Fish, for millinery. About the first of January, 1836, Mr. Ripley took the contract for building the First Baptist church, situated on Broad street, it being the first brick church built in Adrian. He finished the same and it was dedicated in the month of February, 1837. In 1837, Mr Ripley and Lauren Hotchkiss purchased property in the village of Medina, this county, and moved there, where Mr. Ripley lived until the year 1839, and sold out his interest to Mr. Hotchkiss. While living in Medina, he was employed to build a saw-mill and grist-mill for the Company owning the village. The mills are yet standing. In the fall of 1839 he moved upon his new farm in the township of Rome, and he cleared it up and lived until the year 1845, when he sold his farm to James Smith with all the the crops thereon,
51
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HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
and purchased another of Mr. Henry Taylor, in the same neigh- borhood. He owned the Taylor farm until the year 1859, and sold out to Martin Poucher. In the month of March, 1860, he moved to the city of Adrian, and purchased the house on the south-east corner of Maumee and Mixer streets. After coming to Adrian, he commenced working at his trade, building houses. In 1861, he " bossed the job" of building Floral Hall on the Lenawee County Fair Grounds, he working for Miner Finch, who had the contract. In 1862 he assisted in building an addition to the Baptist church, Mr. Barrows having the contract. In the fall of 1862, he opened a grocery store on Main street, and soon after sold out to Mr. Grandy, and went to clerking for R. M. Bailey, in the grocery business, where he remained for six years. In 1870 he sold his house and went with his wife, to California, and in the spring of 1871 returned to Holly, Michigan, where he resided about a year, since which time he has lived in Eaton county, Corry Pennsylva- nia, and Rome, this county. In 1876 he came to Adrian, where he has lived ever since. Mr. Ripley is the father of five children, as follows : Arminta A. M. F., born in Spafford, Onondaga county, New York, April 4th, 1825, married Norman Taylor, of Rome, this county, in 1844, and died there; James M , born in Spafford, July 6th, 1827, married Abigail Stoddard, March 5th, 1851. She died the same year, and he went to California, where he married Hattie Adams, January 4th, 1862, and still resides in California. Mary L., born February 26th, 1834, in Lyons, Wayne county, New York, married to Whitman K. Stoddard, December 24th, 1857, and resides in Eaton county, Michigan; Lauren H. born in Medina, this county, January 19th, 1840, married Florence C. Slade, and resides at Holly, Mich. Antoinette M., born in Rome, this county, January 19th, 1843, married Rufus P. Merrick, Jan- uary 19th, 1870, and now resides in Adrian. Mrs. Ripley was born March 24th, 1803. She was the daughter of Samuel and Thank- ful L. Barber, of Rhode Island, who afterwards moved to Spafford, Onondaga county, New York. He died in Plymouth, Indiana, in 1838, and she died in Westfield, New York, 1869.
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IMON D. WILSON was born in Thompson, Windham county, Connecticut, November 7th, 1804. His father, Capt. David Wilson, was born in Bellingham, Massachusetts, Jan- uary 3d, 1766, where he resided until he was ten years old, when he moved with his parents to Thompson, Windham county, Con-
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OF LENAWEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
necticut, and died there, in August, 1839. He was always a farmer, and a prominent man in his township. He was for several years captain of a militia company, of Thompson. About the year 1798 he married Miss Lucy Davis, daughter of Capt. Simon and Mary Davis, of Thompson, Connecticut, by whom he had seven children, Simon D. being the third son and fourth child. Mrs. Lucy Wilson was born in Thompson, Connecticut, July 18th, 1770, and died there February 22d, 1836. Her father was born in 1747, and died in Thompson, January 10th, 1821. Her mother was Miss Mary Knight, and was born in 1755. Simon D. Wilson lived with his parents until he was ten years old, when he went to live with an aunt, Mrs. Lydia Ford, of Berkshire, Massachusetts. He lived in Berkshire until he was twenty-one years old, and only received a limited, common school education. At the age of twen- ty-one, he returned to Thompson, Connecticut, where he worked on a farm, and taught school until 1834, when he came to Michi- gan, and settled in Seneca, this county, taking up from the govern- ment the n. w. { of section 30. He lived on this farm, and clear- ed it up from a dense wilderness, building a good house, barns, etc., until 1866, when he moved into the village of Morenci, where he now resides. He was elected the first clerk of the township, in 1836, was re-elected several years afterwards. He was also elected the first school inspector, and held the office for fifteen years. April 27th, 1830, he married Miss Millicent C. Baldwin, daughter of Ephraim and Tryphena Baldwin, of Windsor, Massachusetts, by whom he had three children, as follows : Eliza A., born in Thomp- son, Connecticut, March 31st, 1831, wife of Henry Clark, of Seneca. She died in October, 1864; Charles B., born in Thomp- son, Connecticut, April 11th, 1833, now a farmer on the old home- stead, in Seneca ; Lucy D., born in Seneca, this county, in 1839. Mrs. Millicent Wilson was born in Windsor, Massachusetts, in August 1804, and died in Seneca, in February, 1864. November 7th, 1864, he married Mrs. Alcinda Hooper, daughter of Asa and Lydia Dillon, of Culpepper county, Virginia. In 1844 she was married to Isaac Hooper, of Belmont county, Ohio, by whom she had seven children, as follows : Sarah E., born in Wheeling, Bel- mont county, Ohio, August 17th. 1845, now the wife of John Shay, of Morenci ; Maria L., born in Wheeling, Ohio, September 23d, 1847, now the wife of Peter Coddington, of Seneca ; Della, born in Union, Knox county, Ohio, July 14th, 1851; Horatio F., born in Richland, Steuben county, Indiana, December 23d, 1852; Isaac N., born in Gorham, Williams county, Ohio, October 31st, 1857; two sons died in infancy. Mrs. Alcinda Wilson was born in Wheeling, Belmo :. t county, Ohio, January 31st, 1827.
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HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
ILLIAM M. CORBET was born in Villanova, Chautau- qua, county, New York, May 22d, 1826. His father, Ziba Corbet, was born in New York, in 1785. He was brought up a farmer, and lived in Chautauqua county, New York, until 1830, when he emigrated to Michigan, and arrived at Detroit July 4th, on a schooner, after a week's sail from Buffalo. At De- troit he secured ox teams and moved his family to Adrian, arriv- ing there about the middle of the month. He at once located eighty acres of land near the village of Adrian, and did a little work on it, during which time another settler had gone to Monroe and entered the same land, and Mr. Corbet was obliged to vacate. He afterwards took up eighty acres on section twenty-six, in Pal- myra, where he lived most of the time until his death, which oc- curred April 28th, 1859. He was a soldier in the war of 1812, and was promoted to captain, and participated in the battle of Sacketts Harbor, which was under command of Gen. Jacob Brown. About 1810 he married Miss Emma Noble, by whom he had eleven children, William M. being the fourth son and tenth child. Mrs. Emma Corbet died in Palmyra, this county, April 16th, 1840. William M. Corbet lived at home until the death of his mother, when he went to Monroe and lived with W. G. Powers for several years. He spent a part of three or four years in school during this time. On the 9th day of January, 1843, when he was seven- teen years old, he commenced as a locomotive fireman, on the Mich- igan Southern railroad, J. H. Cleveland superintendent, on a loco- motive called the "Hillsdale," Edwin Reese, engineer. He acted as fireman about two years, when Thomas G. Cole, then superin- tendent, promoted him, he at once becoming a full-fledged engi- ncer of the old locomotive "Ypsilanti," the first that ever ran on the Michigan Southern road, it having previously been used on the Michigan Central, but was shipped from Detroit to Monroe by vessel. He ran on the Michigan Southern for about six years, when he went into the employ of the Michigan Central and re- mained there nearly a year. He then returned to the Michigan Southern and run a locomotive until 1853, since which time he has run but little. During the ten years of his services as fireman and engineer, he was in several accidents, including two collisions. The most important event, and the one most vivid in his mind, was a collision near Lenawee Junction in 1851. He was bringing a freight train from Monroe to Adrian, and Leonard Nufer was taking a similar train from Adrian to Monroe, both trains "being under orders" and having the "right of way" until they met at the curve just west of the Junction. No lives were lost, but both loco- motives and a large number of cars were destroyed. After the
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OF LENAWEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
collision it was noticed that the telegraph wire was under the boiler of one of the locomotives, showing that in the great crash it had been sent into the air at least twenty-five feet. Some idea of the wonderful force of a train of cars under full motion may be ob- tained from the fact that from the point where the engines went together to the point where they landed after going into the air, was seventy feet parallel with the track to the east. At the point where the collision occurred, the track and road-bed were depressed at least one foot. In the spring of 1853 he purchased the Jared Pratt farm, just west of the village of Blissfield. In 1860 he sold to W. G. Powers, and purchased the Fitch Dewey farm, about two miles north-east of the village of Blissfield, "down the river," where he now resides. June 25th, 1850, he married Miss Susan C. Spaulding, daughter of Obadiah and Clotilda Spaulding, of Monroe, Michigan, by whom he has had ten children, as follows: Rollin S., born in Monroe, Michigan, April 28th, 1851, died Sep- tember 30th, 1862; William P., born in Monroe, March 27th, 1853, of Riga, Michigan; Mary E., born in Blissfield, November, 4th, 1854, died September 17th, 1862; Eliza M., born in Bliss- field, April 23d, 1856, wife of Hudson Orr; Frank B., born in Blissfield, April 4th, 1858, now of Colorado; Addie L., born in Blissfield, May 17th, 1862, died March 24th, 1864; Burton O., born in Blissfield, February 25th, 1866, at home; Mattie B., born in Blissfield, August 4th, 1867, at home; Susan M., born in Bliss- field, January 26th, 1871, at home; Anna C., born in Blissfield, April 3d, 1872. Mrs. Susan C. Corbet was born at Athens, Brad- ford county, Pennsylvania, March 3d, 1831, and came to Michi- gan with her parents in 1833, and settled in Monroe city. Her father was born in Sheshequin, Bradford county, Pennsylvania, August 11th, 1790, and died in Monroe, Michigan, December 3d, 1847. Her mother was born in the same place in 1797, and died in Monroe, Michigan, September 3d, 1834, of cholera.
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