USA > Michigan > Oakland County > History of Oakland County, Michigan, a narrative account of its historical progress, its people, and its principal interests, Volume I > Part 11
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HISTORY OF OAKLAND COUNTY
INDIAN NEAR DEATH
"Mrs. Hodges first pronounced them scalps. My father's face was terrible to look upon as he first took in the situation and the insult. and I have ever thought that Indian was as near death that moment as he had ever been. My mother, who stood in the door laid her hand on father's shoulder and bade him come into the house at once. I will give you my reasons for that belief. Having often heard my father relate that on the second day after General Winchester's defeat and the massa- cre, while walking on Jefferson avenue in company with one French gentleman and an English officer, meeting a band of painted Indians all carrying scalps on sticks or at the end of war clubs or tomahawks, one of the tallest and heaviest looking struck my father in the face with the fresh scalps, torn from those unfortunate Kentuckians, and he al- ways turned pale and had the same look of horror and rage as he related it that I then saw on his face. The Indian quickly replaced the scalps, but not before we had all seen to whom they must have belonged- two men, one woman, a girl, two boys and a fair-haired child or babe, as we judged by the length and cut of the hair. Those Indians belonged to the Grand river bands, and were probably Ottawas. ] I never saw them afterwards.
DEAR OLD OAKLAND, THE BEST OF ALL
"Since then it had been my lot to traverse the valleys, hills and mountain ranges of California: to see those valleys covered with beau- tiful flowers in all their pristine loveliness; to climb the basalt capped and snow covered mountains ; have ridden over the grass covered wide savannahs; clambered up and down and viewed the wild savagery of the Andes; crossed and recrossed the awe-inspiring Cordilleras of Cen- tral America, whose forests are filled with the progenitors of Darwin; witnessed on its plains on the night of April 12, 1850, the birth of a volcano, standing at a safe distance; watched through a long, tropical night the grand display of nature's fire-works, and upon the land felt the throbbing of its mother earth. And of all these grand and beautiful scenes none have left more lasting, vivid and pleasant remembrances than did the grand old forest, shining lakes, hills, valleys, flowered covered plains, musical with the hum of bees and the song of birds, of old Oakland as we found and lived among them. Nor will the others ever make as happy homes, or sustain as dense populations. And I now look back and endeavor to recall the often suffering faces of the many respected pioneers by whose kindness, example, friendship, instruction and admonition I was enabled to profit I find of their num- ber nearly all have crossed the river that we, too, must soon be ferried over. That we shall meet again, retaining full consciousness of our lives and friendships here, it seems to me that no intelligent persons should doubt if they have studied well the past and present history of the world and the life and death of the King of mankind-He who spoke and is still speaking to us as never man did before or ever will
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again, when He bade us love one another. Let us all try to keep that precept."
A PICTURE OF MEMORY
The following address was delivered by John M. Norton at the so- called "supervisors' picnic" ( a misleading term, as he says ), held .August 24. 1892; also at the meeting of the Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society, June 7, 1803:
"Mr. President, citizens of Oakland county: Once more under bright skies, in health, in prosperity and in peace, we exchange greetings at our annual county reunion. It is termed the 'Supervisors' picnic,' but its meaning and its nature are broader than its name. This yearly assemblage imports something more than a mere summer's day outing for a set of township and ward officers. It signifies something nobler than the atmosphere of office; its dignity is higher and deeper.
"This annual picnic is the yearly refreshment of a great people's heart. Its issues are the brightening of thought, the rekindling of health- ful emotion, the rejuvenation of life. Cords of union and affection which else might ravel and break, are here strengthened and renewed. For the hour, each individual is transfigured-all utterance is true, every pur- pose is unselfish.
"Two pictures are hung before the eyes of this multitude today. One is traced by the pencil of hope, and it hangs against the sunrise of the future: the other is painted by the brush of the memory, and it leans against the purpling sunset of the past. Not one of us sees them both. Upon the former look all the young, as upon an opening vision of prophecy ; upon the latter look all the old, as upon the closing of the gate called Beautiful. Each picture is circled with a glowing frame- the one new and fair, unscathed by the flame and sword of life's battle ; the other is bruised and scarred, but is of gold tried in the fire.
"I am one of the old. Providence has bounteously granted me the full three score and ten years, with two years grace. Come now. my companions in the 'silver gray,' and look with me for a moment upon our picture-the picture painted by memory, and which leans against the sunset in the frame of gold. To your eyes and mine the figures in this picture are clearly drawn, and of life size. The coloring is faultless and the perspective is so perfect that it seems to speak to us like a living voice. All this is partly owing to the skill and integrity of the artist, but chiefly to the fact that the picture was painted from life.
"The background of this painting includes, in a general way, all of the southeastern portion of the lower peninsula of Michigan north of Detroit : but all of its special detail and development are confined to Oakland county, as lines and limits were established by Governor Lewis Cass. in his executive proclamation of the date of March 28, 1820. and as the same now are. In the misty distance this beautiful county appears as a land of forest and stream, of hill and vale, fresh and wild as it came from nature's hand, in the possession of savage beasts and more savage men. The Jesuit priest and the French voyager push through the great lakes and up the Clinton river, and open communication with the imperial Pontiac and the rude nations subject to his vast survey.
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One lifts the holy cross and the sound of the mission bell echoes across the quiet waters of the lakes along whose borders we encamp today. The other opens his store of trinkets and traffics with the Indians for his furs and peltry.
ADVENT OF THE PIONEER
"But nothing is accomplished towards the settlement and genuine improvement of the country until the advent of the man who came with the axe and the plow-the enlightened pioneer who came to subdue the forest and to make a home-the man who came to stay.
"The first man who built a house within what is now Oakland county, and cut an opening through which the sun might shine upon it, was Alexander Graham. That was within what are now the corporate limits of Rochester, in the township of Avon, and the house he built stood about twenty rods southeasterly from the present 'stone store,' and east of the present Main street. He brought with him his son, and with them came Christopher Hartsough. They all 'came to stay.' That was in 1817.
"Then in the next year, 1818, came Col. Stephen Mack, Maj. Joseph Todd, Deacon Orison Allen and William Lester, settling at and found- ing the town of Pontiac. The Grahams were also encouraged by the settling in Avon, in 1818, of Ira Roberts, George Postal, Daniel Bronson and William Bronson.
"In 1819 the Pontiac colony was enlarged by the coming of Calvin Hotchkiss; and Major Oliver Williams bought and settled upon land near Silver lake, Waterford, and built thereon the first barn properly such, in the county. Avon was also gladdened in 1819 by the immigra- tion of Judge Daniel LeRoy, Dr. William Thompson ( the widely famed and eccentric 'Dr. Bill'), John Miller, Nathaniel Baldwin, John Meyers and Amozi C. Trowbridge.
"In 1820 and 1821 the tide increased. Such well known settlers as Judah Church, Abner Davis, Alex. Galloway, Joshua Terry. Judge Steven Reeves, Capt. Hervey Parke, Enoch Hotchkiss, and Rufus Clark, came to Pontiac and its vicinity, while Linus Cone. Daniel Fowler, Cyrus A. Chipman, and Walter Sprague made Avon their home, and Troy was settled in 1821 by Johnson Niles. 1822 found Almon Mack, Joseph Morris, Asa Murray, Capt. Joseph Bancroft, Schuyler Hodges, and Geo. W. Galloway residents of Pontiac, and S. V. R. Trowbridge, Ebene- zer Belding, George Abbey, Joshua Davis, P. J. and Jesse Perrin, Aaron Webster, William and A. W. Wellman, Ira Jennings, and Silas Sprague had followed Joshua Niles to Troy. Champlin Green, Gad Norton, Wil- liam Burbank and Smith Weeks came into Avon, and more than half the townships in the county had by this time one or more families.
"From this date population increased rapidly. In 1824 Nathan and John Power, David Smith, Geo. W. Collins and other representatives of the denomination of Friends, or 'Quakers,' most excellent and highly intelligent people, made important and substantial beginnings in Farm- ington.
"Your present speaker (John M. Norton) came with his parents to
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Avon in the spring of 1824, aged then only four years, and has ever since resided in the county. My mother died the next year, and my father in June, 1832, when I was but twelve years old. My own health and strength were my only resources. These I used as best I could, and with such degree of success as has enabled me comfortably to pro- vide for and educate my family, with a sufficiency remaining for the declining years of myself and of her who has been through all so faith- ful an helpmate. The latch-string of our home is out today, as it was in the early days, and we shall always take pleasure, not only in enter- taining those of our friends of both this and the former generation, but also in showing them the evidence that industry, integrity, and pluck are sufficient for success in this free and fertile country. As I review the long list of my acquaintance, my observation teaches me that an inherited fortune is more often a curse than a blessing, and leads more frequently to ruin than to the substantial success and happiness-not to mention the usefulness-of its possessor.
"More and more rapidly the incoming settlers followed each other into the country, until, by 1830, Oakland county was practically redeemed to civilization. Pontiac was by this time a center of trade for all the region lying north and northwest of it as far as the Saginaws, and dur- ing the close of navigation even to the mouth of the Saginaw river. Oakland county had five thousand inhabitants in 1830, and Pontiac was known commercially throughout the eastern states.
"Until about this period the roads between Detroit and Pontiac, and especially between Detroit and Royal Oak ('Mother Handsome's'), were indescribably bad, often absolutely impassible for anything except ox sleds, mud carts, and similar conveyances. For this reason the settlers of Avon and Troy made their journeys to and from Detroit quite as often as otherwise via Mt. Clemens, that is, by team to Mt. Clemens, and thence by boat down Clinton river to Lake St. Clair, thence through that lake and Detroit river to Detroit.
RAILROAD AS A FUN MAKER
"As an evidence of the growing commercial importance of the cap- ital, the Detroit and Pontiac Railroad was chartered by the legislature of 1830, and, although this immediate enterprise failed, it was followed in 1834 by the incorporation of the company which actually built and oper- ated the road. As a fun-maker, the old Detroit and Pontiac Railroad Company probably surpassed any comic minstrels ever organized. Its directors were inveterate practical jokers and fun lovers, and if Mark Twain would write the true antics of these 'innocents at home,' stating only facts, the work would eclipse all the fiction of his 'Innocents Abroad.' "Improvements, in all the meaning of the term, characterized the county henceforward; splendid farms, fine residences, improved high- ways, enterprising towns, multiplied upon all hands, until it has now become 'Old Oakland' and ranks as one of the finest counties in the nation.
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HISTORY OF OAKLAND COUNTY
THE LIFE BEQUEATHED BY THE PIONEERS
"As we look about us today, where are the men whose names I have mentioned as pioneers of Oakland? Here is their magnificent work, but where are they? The institutions they have founded are the admiration and pride of their successors, but they themselves are gone.
"An association of the pioneers who settled in Oakland county in or prior to the year 1830, is proposed. Alas, how few would be the names upon the roll !
"Watch the pictures again. The forms and faces there, all but a few are stark and still. They breathe not, speak not, move not. Men call them dead. They are not dead; they live in all that we behold about us-their glorious work. They live in the only true life-the only life that is deathless-and they will live thus until civilization shall cease from among men. ' As we read their names upon the tomb, we call that the shadow in the picture. In the true sense, there is no shadow there. This living work of theirs that is all about us is their truest life. It is the true light of the pictures, and no shadow of death is there. All is light immortal, and its framework is of pure gold, tried in the fire.
"Even so may the other picture become when it shall hang at last in the sunset !"
FIFTY YEARS AGO AND NOW
(Written by S. B. McCracken for the Oakland County Pioneer Society, 1887)
Those of us who have passed middle age seem to stand on the divide between two worlds. On the one hand we can view, in memory, what has been ; we can live anew in recollection the scenes of fifty years ago ; on the other hand, we can realize as a present certainty the things that are. We can appreciate something of the contrast between the life of fifty years ago and now. I select fifty years ago as the point of con- parison for manifest reasons.
First, it is convenient as a round number. Second, it is a period within the clear recollection of those who still linger among us as pioneers. Third, while it does not comprehend the earliest period of pioneer life in Michigan, it is its representative epoch. Fourth, fifty years ago marks, comparatively, the beginning of that era of marvelous develop- ment and discovery in mechanism and in science that has planted this generation so greatly in advance of any in the world's history.
To have pictured to the youth of fifty years ago the methods of life that attain today, would have seemed like a fairy tale. To relate to the youth of today the methods of life of fifty years ago would seem like exaggeration, and, but for the confidence that youth happily reposes in the lessons of age, would scarcely obtain credence.
CONTRASTS OF LIFE
Let us glance briefly at some of the contrasts of life afforded by the two periods, because they will be not only to our edification but to the
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instruction of the rising generation and those that will come after. Fifty years ago the children of the pioneers studied their few books either by the firelight from the open fireplace, or by an open lamp made by placing some grease and a cloth wiek in a broken saucer, or at best, the light of a tallow candle. Now, we have the kerosene lamp, the gas jet. and the electric light. Then, friction matches were unknown; fire was produced by the flint and steel, and when the fire went out on the hearth, those who were without this device had to send to the neighbors for a coal or a brand. The present generation knowing nothing of the pleasure of watching the burning logs in the fireplace and noting the shifting panorama of warriors, winged chariots, camels, and rampant lions. Nickle plated stoves, or the furnace in the basement, supply the warmth without the pictures. The modern youth, who treads on carpets or on marble tiles, hardly realizes that his grandfather's floor was very likely made of basswood logs split through the center. Our cooking utensils then consisted of a frying pan, bake kettle, dish kettle and din- ner pot, and the teakettle, that no longer sings the song that it used to sing. Those who were the better able, sometimes had a brick fireplace. and a crane on which their cooking utensils were hung over the fire. Generally, however, the "lug-pole." with some hooks attached. served the purpose. The bread was baked in a round iron kettle ( shaped very much like a large cheese ) with a cover, the kettle being placed on coals drawn out on the hearth, with live coals on top, and good bread they made, too. Our spare-ribs and turkeys were suspended by a tow string before the fire for roasting, and there are those who will say that no such roasts ever came from an oven. And then, the act of making a tow string ; every well regulated family kept a hutch of tow, which was indispensable not only to good housekeeping. but to good husbandry. I don't believe there is a young man of twenty today, with all the learn- ing of our modern schools, who knows how to make a tow string. We had neither silver nor cut glass goblets in those days, and not always tin cups or dippers, the "noggen" or gourd supplying their place. Our carriages were ox sleds. Fifty years ago there was probably not a threshing machine in Oakland county, all grain being threshed with the flail, or trodden out by horses on the barn floor, where they had horses and barns. Of course there were no reapers, mowers, wheat drills, or cultivators. There were few fanning mills. Grain was separated from the chaff by holling up a shovel full in a stiff breeze and sifting it off by shaking the shovel.
Wheat was wholly cut with the cradle, which was a great advance upon the sickle that preceded it, and the hand scythe was the only means of reducing the grass. All grain was sown broadcast, and those who were boys fifty years ago, and retain a vivid recollection of the horrors of riding a horse to plow corn, will appreciate the advantages of the cultivator. Most farmers raised more or less flax and hemp. The flax culture was simply a relic of that domestic industry, which, in for- mer years, expressed itself through the distaff and the manufacture of linen for family use, but which, like many similar arts, has become obso- lete through the operation of machinery. The music of the spinning wheel is now unknown, and the doubting maiden today is not permitted
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to know whether she will have a handsome husband or not as the well deserved reward of her efforts to build the yarn systematically upon the spindle ; nor is the boy now required to break his arms and his back by making a reel of himself for granny to wind her yarn from.
In the lesser affairs of life we find striking contrasts. The boy of fifty years ago was happy to possess a pair of indifferent skates that he could strap to his stogy shoes and skim over the crystal surface of some of our lakes or over the mill pond, which looked a great deal larger then than it does now, and many of the older boys will remember the vexation of trying to make the heel corks stay in place. Now they have patent fastenings and they go on of themselves, and they skate in rinks, and go on wheels as well as runners, and where we used to slide down hill on a board, we now have the toboggan. In the matter of music. too, pianos are almost as plenty now as jewsharps used to be, while gingerbread as the classic feed on training days is wholly unknown, as are training days, too, for that matter.
India rubber was first coming into use fifty years ago. It was then made into a coarse overshoe, wrought into webbing for suspenders, and also relieved from embarrassment the modest young lady who blushed to speak of her garters, which thereafter became "elastics."
And then the average boy was happy if he could get a bit of rubber as a foundation to build his ball upon. Now it would require many folios to indicate the infinite variety of uses to which it is put. Next to rubber, perhaps, if not before it, in the variety of its modern uses, is paper. Fifty years ago it was used only for writing and printing, and in a very coarse form for wrapping. Now it is found in all grades of service, from the collar of the dude to the coffin of the sage.
There are other contrasts between the long ago and now. Then, if we wished to communicate with a friend at a distance it could be done only by letter with a mail once a week and postage two shillings. The letter must be folded and sealed by its own fold, as no envelopes were in use. If the letter comprised more than one piece of paper, even if not overweight, the postage was two shillings on each piece. As quarters were distressingly scarce in those days, it may well be con- ceived that friendly letters were comparatively few. Visits of a few miles were made on foot. Persons frequently passed a period of sick- ness and were dead and buried before friends at a short distance even were apprised of their condition. Now we are in instant communica- tion with friends far away, by telegraph or telephone, while the railway places us by their side in a few hours even though hundreds of miles distant.
I have sometimes queried whether affection is as strong now as in the olden days, and whether the sentiments of love were not more deep and abiding when the distance was greater between us and the objects of our regard. Human emotions are drawn out by trials, and it seems as though the yearning for communion with friends that can be gratified only at rare intervals, if at all, serves to tone and intensify the affec- tions and attachments. The lady who is the possessor of a pair of singing birds knows that the music can be got out of them only by their separation. We are mixed up with so many more people in modern
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life, that the divine love within us seems spread out so thin that it is sometimes difficult to find it at all. The old song so remarkable for its doleful pathos, "When shall we three meet again?" could hardly have been written in an age of railways, as the three would scarcely care whether they met again or not, as they would meet some other three the next day or the next hour. Nor do I think that the highly drawn character of Jennie Deans, in her lonely pilgrimage on foot from Edin- burgh to London in behalf of her sister, who was in extremity, as por- trayed in Sir Walter Scott's charming romance "The Heart of Mid- Lothian," could have been given us in an age like this. Think of the devoted Jennie taking her seat in a railway car with her bundle in her. lap, surrounded by the rush and clatter of moving humanity at the present day, and being whirled over the distance in three or four hours' time. All the poetry and adventure would be lost, and poor Jennie's heart could hardly have been attuned to the pitch necessary to the suc- cessful prosecution of her mission.
We might pursue indefinitely the array of contrasts between the things of long ago and the now, with reflections upon the changed state of affairs, but in addressing a local society of pioneers there seems a propriety in discoursing of things more local in their character.
There needs no apology on my part for a reference to my own fam- ily. Personal history forms the very essence of our pioneer annals, and this personal history can only be supplied ( in most cases at least), by the relatives of the subjects themselves.
"GRANNY" MCCRACKEN
There are many still living in the county who will remember my grandmother, who was familiarly known as Granny MeCracken. Al- though she died when I was less than six years old, I remember her very well, and many incidents associated with her. 1 have always had her in mind as a little old Scotch woman, short, but of sturdy frame. Her lineage. however, so far as I am able to trace it, gives but a small percent of direct Scottish blood. Her family name was Hutchinson, one of the regicide judges who condemned King Charles to the block. The family were, at that time, of quality and some antiquity in England. Although Colonel Hutchinson was included in the act of amnesty after the restoration, he afterwards fell under suspicion, was arrested and died in prison. Some of his descendants, either from political or other causes, went 10 Ireland, and it is from thence that this branch of the family is immediately derived, through Thomas Hutchinson, my great grandfather, who came to this country prior to 1740, and settled and married in Philadelphia, where my grandmother was born.
The old residents who remember Granny MeCracken will be im- pressed the more especially by her bright, quick mind, and her strong physical powers. To go back a little as illustrative of these traits, it may be remarked that during the War of the Revolution, being a resi- dent of Pennsylvania, she was an active patriot, being on confidential terms with General Washington and other leading officers of the army, and not infrequently acting as a bearer of important intelligence. She
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