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 12
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came to Michigan with my father's family in 1824 or '25. She built a little log house for herself a few rods from my father's cabin, cutting the logs for it herself, and at the "raising" she carried up her corner, in pioneer phrase, equal to the next man, and she was equal to the average man for a day's work in the field.
Though somewhat blunt in her ways the old lady was peculiarly tender in her disposition, and with her naturally strong mind, of marked intelligence considering the limited opportunities which the country then afforded for education and instruction. A few books that had been her companions found their way into our pioneer abode. Among them I remember Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," a work entitled "The Holy War." and a polemical work, "An Antidote to Deism." Passing over all questions of ethics or of tenets as represented by these works, their titles show the indifference in the class of reading that was deemed the most valuable at that day as compared with the present. I remember also a romance, "Charlotte Temple," and a copy of Scott's "Lay of the Last Minstrel." as forming a part of our limited library. The latter work I had at my tongue's end, and could repeat the most of it from memory before I had ever seen the inside of a schoolhouse. Elsewhere I may advert to the manner in which myself and brothers acquired what little of early education we enjoyed.
You will pardon a further brief reference to the dear old lady whom I remember with tender affection. It was a favorite way with her to reply to inquiries and salutations in rhyme, and to carry on a conversa- tion and relate incidents in the same way. My excellent friend, the lIon. B. O. Williams, of Owosso, relates this of her: "An occupation in which she was expert was making straw bee hives. Being thus em- ployed on one occasion, working in the barn at the residence of Mr. William's father, one of his brothers, in her absence, tried his hand at the business. Not succeeding very well, in deep disgust he threw his piece of botch work over the bay in the barn. When Granny returned to her work she discovered it, and gathering the boys about her as an audience, told the story in rhyme, ridiculing the lad's efforts to steal Granny's trade, and closing with the couplet,
"'And if you're inclined to have some fun, Just look in the bay and see what he's done.'"
Grandmother died March 5, 1830. A notice of her death, probably written by Elder Ruggles, was published soon after in the Detroit Gazette. The notice is preserved in a valuable collection of clippings by Capt. T. \V. Hall, of Detroit, to whom I am indebted for a copy. I reproduce it as bearing out the estimate which I have myself placed upon my be- loved ancestor. The reference to her descent confirms my early im- pressions, and varies somewhat from the pedigree before outlined, but it is hardly worth while to try to reconcile the variance at this time. The notice is as follows: "In Pontiac, March 5. Mrs. Mary Mc- Mrs. McCracken was born in the United
Cracken, aged eighty-two. States, of Scotch parents. She was endowed by nature with a healthy constitution, and uncommon powers of intellect. She educated herself. and through life discovered a great fondness for reading. At the age of thirty, she united herself with a church in Pennsylvania, and about Vol. I-5
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four and a half years since connected herself with the church in Pontiac. Fler life was a life of prayer, and evinced that she had much at heart the glory of God and the salvation of souls."
Of my father's ancestry I know but little. The family were, 1 be- lieve, from the north of Ireland, and were probably emigrants from Scotland under the severe policy of the British government after the establishment of the Orange dynasty. The name is unmistakably Gaelic. and has the same root as Craig, Craik, Cregg, Cragen, etc., meaning literally, son of the crags, or son of the rocks. My father's parentage on both sides was of the rigid Scotch or Irish Presbyterian stock, that became a distinguishing element in the emigration to portions of Penn- sylvania, Virginia and the Carolinas during the first half of the eighteenth century. My father's father died from camp fever contracted in the patriotic army in the War of the Revolution.
FATHER AND MOTHER MCCRACKEN
My father represented in a marked degree the mental and physical characteristics of his mother. Like her, he was self-educated. Prob- ably to his relation to this mother in her widowhood, is due to the fact that he married late in life, about the age of forty-three, I think. He came to Michigan in 1824 or '25, and located on a piece of land on section 23, in the now town of Waterford. During the first few years he chopped and cleared, as I now survey the area by the mind's eye, some twenty or thirty acres. He planted an orchard, and I remember very well that he had a small nursery of young apple trees. An increas- ing family and an invalid wife made the struggle to subdue the forests and at the same time make it yield a subsistence, a hard one. He found more immediate returns in working for others, and this gradually be- came his preference, to which possibly a naturally convivial tempera- ment contributed, especially when his work lay in the village. A sec- ond marriage, on the death of my mother, in 1835, proving anything but satisfactory, he sold his place and removed to Pontiac in the fall of 1837, relying upon the income of a laborer for his support. But with a man past his sixtieth year, and with a constitution, however strong, impaired by hardship, the situation was one in which the best of men would find themselves in the descending rather than in the ascending scale. It is in this situation that a recollection of my father dwells more in the memory of those now living than as a pioneer seeking to hew a home out of the forest after having started upon the down grade of life's journey. It was from this situation in his life that the compilers of the Oakland county history derived the information that led them to speak of him as "a queer genius, whose time was spent more or less in writing rhymes," etc. His rhyming was come honestly by, was incidental, merely, and was a pastime and amusement. Two editions of the rhymes in small pamphlet, were published by him. His dedication, in one or both of these editions, should be a sufficient apology, if apology were needed, for the matter of his poetical effort :
"And as you read, don't judge too hard Of your unlearned and simple bard,"
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covers the whole ground. Some person or persons, for purely mercenary purposes, some years ago made a republication which was wholly withont the knowledge or consent of those who had at least a moral right to be consulted in the matter.
I remember my mother as a meek, suffering woman, who withered and died at a comparatively early age under the labors and cares inci- dent to a large family, and to the hardships and privations of pioneer life. She was of more than average education for the time and the con- dition of the country, and of exceptional refinement and delicacy. Her family name was Bromley. She was, I believe, a native of Connecti- cut, but removed from there to western New York. She died in the fall of 1835.
THE SCHOOLS OF FIFTY YEARS AGO
I promised to say something about the educational methods of fifty years ago, and especially how my brothers and myself came to our first knowledge of the rudiments of book learning. There was a little school- house on the corner where the road leading south from the old Car- man place strikes the Elizabeth lake road. It was a modest little frame building, that I remember to have passed many times, though I was never inside of it. It was a mile (more or less) from our dwelling, and as the school was usually open only during the winter season, we could not attend. I have often thought, however, that the instruction received at the hands of iny father and mother was of greater value than that which we would have been likely to receive at the school. The four older boys formed a little class, and in some cases the older taught the younger. A boy belonging to a neighboring family also formed a part of our little school for a time. Our text-books were Webster's elementary spelling book, the old English reader, and the New Testament. A work called the American Selection, printed on dingy brown paper, was also among the household treasures. Con- fined at home, and largely to the house, during winter, with these few books only for companions, their contents became as household words, much of which I could repeat from memory. And here we may fairly raise a question as to whether the multiplicity of books and printed matter at the present day affords as good a mental discipline as the more thorough study of a few carefully selected books would do. It is fairly a question whether so much literature, and of such a varied character, does not affect the mind in a way analogous to that in which food in too great quantity and in great variety affects the stomach, and whether we do not suffer from a mental dyspepsia. It is also a ques- tion whether. under the modern development of our schools, education, as it is called, has not become too cheap a commodity to be adequately valued.
MORMON VISITATION OF 1832
There is one episode in the local history of the county that I am not aware has been placed on record. I refer to the Mormon visitation about the year 1832, the successful proselyting, and the exodus from the county of people who cast their lot with the Mormon church. My
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father became possessed with a copy of the Book of Mormon, and was deeply interested in it. Two Mormon missionaries came into the neigh- borhood to expound the doctrines. The spread of the new faith seemed to be a contagion ; neighborhood meetings were held every day, and new converts announced. Some of the converts claimed to have received a new inspiration and to speak in unknown tongues. My father be- came an early convert and was received into the church. My mother, either from a feeling of sympathy with my father's action, or yielding to the importunity of the preachers who visited us, was also baptized. I remember the occasion very well. As my mother sat in the chimney corner arranging a change of habit that she could use after her im- mersion, by the light that shone down the chimney, the Mormon elder was the chief spokesman, as if eager to add mother to the sacrifice, and impatient at the necessary delay, repeated the question several times, "Are you going to join this Gospel?" The preparations being at length completed, the procession, including my father and mother and the two Mormon elders, started for Watkins lake, about a mile (listant. It was a cold day in winter. About a quarter of the distance on the route to the lake was a small pond or cathole. Upon reaching this, the shepherds of souls concluded that it was as good a place to make a new saint as the lake would be, and accordingly a hole was cut in the ice and the sacrifice made there. I was of course too young to realize the shocking inhumanity of the act, or to feel the just sense of indignation that I have since felt in reflecting upon it. It may be asked why my father permitted or stood sponsor at such an outrage. The answer can only be found when we discover the mystery that underlies and inspires fanaticism, those phenomenal epochs in the moral world when the best of men do unwise things. Neither my father or mother maintained a connection with this movement for any considerable time. but quietly withdrew from it by leaving it out of their thoughts and actions.
It may be wondered why new ideas and new theories sometimes seem to take root and flourish in isolated neighborhoods, affording a moral analogy to the phenomena of wild shrubs that occupy given areas. Probably at the time of which I am speaking, people thought more deeply and intensely on religious subjects than now. The people of the county were directly descended from localities and times in which religious thought was paramount. Isolated in their cabins in the forests, their religious feeling was rather elemental and one of sentiment, than syste- matic. It was not crystalized in church connections, but was ready to be moulded into form, and to center around the light that first appeared. even though the light might be a false one. Living substantially in the woods, each family by itself, seldom seeing any other persons except their immediate neighbors, every new voice was to them a charm, and every new face a revelation. These Mormon emissaries coming among and mingling with these people, pretending to bring a religion not op- posed' to, but in fulfillment of what they already believed; coming in this guise and under these circumstances, it is not strange that they found ready eredence and willing proselytes. And it should be noted also that the Mormon agitation was then but just begun, and had given
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no intimation of embodying the one feature which has within the past thirty years placed it under the bane of both social and legal outlawry.
I believe, however, that one of the earliest developed fancies or pur- poses of the Mormons was the massing together of the faithful and the building of a new Zion; that idea of unity and oneness of purpose that has been the touchstone of the wonderful growth and power of the Mor- mon church. As showing the firm hold that the new gospel, as it was called, acquired upon its devotees, a good many families, numbering more than fifty persons in all, in and around Pontiac, abandoned their homes and committed their fortunes to the guidance of the fatal star that hovered first over Nauvoo and subsequently over Salt Lake City. Thad- (leus Alvord, an uncle of mine by marriage, his first wife having been a sister of my mother, with his family, were among the converts. I remem- ber hearing Mrs. Alvord ( his second wife ) repeat what seemed to be a prophecy among them, namely, that they were to acquire their new Canaan either by purchase or by blood, and if by purchase, they were to be persecuted from synagogue to synagogue and from city to city. This prophecy has not been wholly unfulfilled. The Mormons were certainly not left in peaceful occupancy of their first location at Nauvoo, and they will claim that they are now being persecuted in Utah and the western territories. Whether the other portion of the prophecy, that an acquisi- tion by blood shall ensure them immunity from persecution thereafter. implies a struggle of arms on their part in the future, we will have to refer to those who receive inspiration and direct the counsels of the church.
Among those who cast their lot with the Mormons at that time within my own knowledge, were Thaddeus Alvord and his family, includ- ing two or three sons-in-law and families. Mrs. M. A. Hodges, in a recent letter, kindly supplies me with the names of a number of others, as follows: Ezekiel Kellogg, Seville Harris, Jeremiah Curtis, Nahum Curtis, Joseph Bent, all with their families, and the Stevenson family, one of the latter, Edward Stevenson, being now an elder in the church of Latter Day Saints; also the widow and one or two daughters of Col. Stephen Mack, one of the members of the original Pontiac company, the founders of Pontiac. The Bents, Mrs. Hodges informs me, subse- quently left the Mormons and settled in St. Louis. Of those going away, she says, all were members of churches, some Baptists, some Presbyterians and others Methodists, and all except the Bents continuing in the faith. We dismiss this topic, trusting that the attention given it will not be deemed an unprofitable expenditure of time viewed in the light of local history.
AUBURN AND THE YOUNG PIONEERS
In glancing at the excellent history of Oakland county published some years ago, I was struck with the account there given of the village of Auburn in the earlier days of the county, of its commercial enter- prise and its business men, and I reflected somewhat wonderingly upon the number and character of the young men who in the early days cast their lot in the little hamlets that sprung up in the woods. They were men
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of keen business faculties, quick, intelligent, and as it seemed to me more generous, of broader views aud higher principles than the average of the young men of the present day. I say it so seemed to me, although with- out disparaging the young men of the present, we can find a solution of the seemingly discrepancy in the thought that the young mind is more susceptible to favorable impressions, and is less critical than the more mature mind. But with what buoyant hopes and ambitions the young men of the former time have left their eastern homes for the untried west. The young men of the two periods certainly differ in so far as this, that the young men of the present. accustomed to the attraction of city life, and to follow the modern channels of commerce, would hardly delve into the forests with the same courage and pluck as did those of the former generation. Alas! how many blasted hopes have left their trace upon the pages of our western local history, either written or un- written. How many wrecks strew the pathway of time in its march of fifty years. It is after all but the repetition of the processes of all human progress. Life is but an experiment. Its failures count as a thousand to one of its fruitions. The young men who laid the foundations of our civilization did not in all cases judge adequately of the work that they were undertaking. The land of promise did not in all things develop equal to their sanguine hopes and anticipations. The place where in imagination they had builded cities shriveled and withered under the necessary reaction upon an abnormal growth and the exacting laws of commerce. Many of the actors succumbed to the diseases incident to a new country. Others yielded to financial disaster. Others sought new fields. Some rusted out, while others weathered the storm, and have left their visible impress upon the things with which they had to do. In the great aggregate of life, in the final balancing of accounts, let us not say that one shall have more honor than another. The comforts and the blessings that we enjoy today are the consensus of their lives and their sacrifices. So let us hold in pleasant and in grateful memory the young men of fifty years ago. The history of Auburn is that of many a western village. In the early days the rival of Pontiac, we need not rehearse the causes that have made it simply a quiet little hamlet, the abode of a num- ber of worthy citizens.
SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
As connected with those causes. however, we may refer in closing to the social and industrial revolution that has especially marked the half century. The application of steam has rendered of much less value the water power that is so abundant in the county. The adaptation of machin- ery brings the best economic results by its aggregation in large manu- factories. The construction of railroads, affording unlimited facility for distribution, makes large concentrations of capital and machinery. and the consequent immense production practicable. The local factory and the local mechanic no longer exist. The effect of this change upon the distribution of population is shown by the census returns. In 1790 the per cent of the whole population of the country residing in cities was 3.3. In 1830 it was 6.7, and in 1880 it was 22.5.
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These facts suggest problems in political economy that appeal both to the present and the future. They connect themselves with the past only by comparison and contrast. These problems are the most vital, we had almost said, of any now engaging the public attention. They are vital, nevertheless, for on their wise solution may depend our very civili- zation itself. But it does not become me to prophecy of evil at this time. Let us hope only for the good now and always, and that the benign influences that have advanced us so immeasurably within the past fifty years will continually beckon and invoke us to come up higher.
CHAPTER VI REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS AND "DAUGHTERS"
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COUNTY'S FIRST SETTLER, A REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIER-THE GRAHAM FAMILY-NATHANIEL BALDWIN-GEORGE HORTON-STEPIIEN MACK -COLONEL LACK'S FAMILY-JOSEPHI TODD AND PARTY-ITHAMAR SMITH-WILLIAM NATHAN TERRY-JOSHUA CHAMBERLIN AND ENOCH HOTCHKISS-ELIJAII DRAKE-EZRA PARKER-JEREMIAH CLARKE-BENJAMIN GRACE-CALEB BARKER MERRELL-LEVI GREEN -JOEL PHELPS-ELIAS CADY-SAMUEL NILES-SILAS SPRAGUE- ESBON GREGORY-ZADOCK WELLMAN-CALEB CARR-HOOPER BISHOP -DERRICK HULICK - CALEB PRATT - SOLOMON JONES - LYDIA BARNES POTTER-JAMES HARRINGTON AND JACOB PETTY-JOHN BLANCHARD-ALTRAMONT DONALDSON-JOSEPH VAN NETTER-
BENJAMIN BULSON-NATIIAN LANDON- GENERAL RICHARDSON CHAPTER, D. A. R .- THE REVOLUTIONARY GRAVES MARKED MEM- BERSHIP OF THE DAUGHTERS
By Lillian ( Drake ) Avery
There is, perhaps, no section of the state of Michigan where so great a number of the soldiers of the Revolution settled as in Oakland county ; certainly in no other county of Michigan has so many of them been found and their names and burial places noted.
General Richardson Chapter. Daughters of the American Revolu- tion, has succeeded in reviving the memory of these men: has placed markers on the graves of nineteen, and will continue the work until all whose last resting places can be found shall be honored with their official insignia. In some instances, where there were no headstones. they have applied for and placed, government markers.
COUNTY'S FIRST SETTLER, A REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIER
James Graham, the first permanent white settler to plant his home in old Oakland, was a Revolutionary soldier, whose father, a Scotch-Irish gentleman, came to Pennsylvania several years previous to the Revolu- tion. Ilis Dutch neighbors called him "Grimes" and his enlistment is recorded under that name.
James Graham, born in 1749, was one of a large family, and there is a tradition that when he emigrated to America he sold himself. as
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was quite customary, into service to a physician of New York City, to pay the necessary passage money thither. After the term of his service expired, the war was on and he enlisted April 15, 1777, for one year, in Pennsylvania, as a member of Captain Hewitt's Company, Colonel Den- nison's Regiment of Connecticut troops, and served in that company till Captain Hewitt's death at the battle of Wyoming. He was then attached to Captain Spalding's company in Colonel Butler's regiment and was discharged at the expiration of his enlistment.
His home in Pennsylvania, at least after the Revolution, until 1810. was at Tioga Point, on the Chemung river. At that time he moved to Canada, on the site of the present city of Ingersoll. Mr. Graham must have been in the enemy's country all during the War of 1812, but as soon as peace was declared in 1816 he crossed the border and took up his residence first at Mt. Clemens.
THE GRADIAM FAMILY
His two sons, Benjamin and Alexander, started out during the sum- mer to look up a suitable location for a home. Following up the Clinton river, they passed beyond the site of Rochester for a mile or two and concluded they had found what they were seeking. They cut hay in the open meadows along the stream, built a little hut and returned for their family. The following spring, their father, his sons and son-in- law, Christopher Ilartsough and John Hersey, arrived on the 17th of March. They paid their homage to good St. Patrick by rolling up the first log house in Rochester for Alexander Graham.
James Graham stayed for a short time with his son, then took up a squatter's claim on section 21. He lived here only a year or so when he removed to the farm now occupied by William Graham, who inher- ited it from his father, Benjamin Graham.
The wife of James Graham was Mary Van de Mark. a native of Holland, and his family comprised nine children; James, David, John, Alexander, William, Benjamin (b. March 23, 1808; d. Oct. 13, 1864; m. Nov. 18, 1832; Mary Postal b. March 23. 1808; d. Jan. 20, 1845 in Avon, dau. of George Washington and Lydia ( Fulham ) Postal of Avon, Mich.), Chester, Martha and Mary.
The Oakland County History ( 1877), tells us that Alexander Gra- ham married a Miss Hawkins and lived on the east side of what was afterwards called Main street in the house mentioned, where his eldest son, James, named in honor of his grandfather was born early in the year 1818, and who was also the first white child born in the county. The proprietors of the village subsequently gave the lot on which the pioneer baby was born to the youngster, who owned it till his decease when it passed to its present owner, which at the date mentioned ( 1876). was John Barger.
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