DISAGREEABLE MUSIC.
It was night, in the Spring of 1834, when we arrived at Detroit, and we
made our way to the "United States Hotel" which stood near where the old
post office was and where the "Mariner's Church" now stands, on
Woodbridge street.
The next morning I was up early and went to view the city. I wished to
know if it was really a city. If it looked like Utica or Buffalo.
I went up Jefferson Avenue; found some brick buildings, barber
poles, wooden clocks, or large watches, big hats and boots, a brass
ball, &c., &c.
I returned to the Hotel, satisfied that Detroit was actually a city, for
the things I had seen were, in my mind, sufficient to make it one. After
I assured myself that there was a city, so far from New York, I was quite
contented and took my breakfast. Then, with our guns on our shoulders,
father and I started to see our brand-new farm at Dearborn. First we went
up Woodward Avenue to where the new City Hall now stands, it was then
only a common, dotted by small wooden buildings.
Thence we took the Chicago road which brought us to Dearbornville. From
there the timber had been cut for a road one mile south. On this road
father did his first road work in Michigan and here afterwards I
helped to move the logs out. The road-master, Mr. Smith, was not
willing to allow full time, for my work; however I put in part time.
Little did I think that here, one mile from Dearbornville, father
would, afterwards, buy a farm, build a large brick house, and end his
days, in peace and plenty.
From this point, one mile south of the little village, we were one mile
from father's chosen eighty, but had to follow an Indian trail two miles,
which led us to Mr. J. Pardee's. His place joined father's on the west.
We crossed Pardee's place, eighty rods, which brought us to ours. I dug
up some of the earth, found it black and rich, and sure enough no stones
in the way. Late in the afternoon I started back to mother, to tell her
that father had engaged a Mr. Thompson (who kept tavern in a log house,
half a mile east of Dearbornville) and team, and would come after her in
the morning. When I reached the Chicago road again, it seemed anything
but inviting. I could just see a streak ahead four or five miles, with
the trees standing thick and dark either side.
If ever a boy put in good time I did then. However, it was evening when I
reached Detroit, and I had traveled more than twenty-six miles. Mother
was very glad to see me, and listened with interest, to her boy's first
story of Michigan. I told her that father was coming in the morning, as
he had said; that Mr. Joseph Pardee said, we could stay with him while we
were building. I told her I was glad we came, how nice the land was, what
a fine country it would be in a few years, and, with other comforting
words, said, if we lived, I would take her back in a few years, to visit
her old home.
The next morning father and Mr. Thompson came, and we were soon all
aboard the wagon. When we reached Mr. Pardee's his family seemed very
much pleased to see us. He said: "Now we have 'Old Put' here, we'll
have company."
Putnam county joined the county he came from, and he called father "Old
Put" because he came from Putnam county.
Father immediately commenced cutting logs for a house. In one week he had
them ready, and men came from Dearbornville to help him raise them. He
then cut black ash trees, peeled off the bark to roof his house, and
after having passed two weeks under Mr. Pardee's hospitable roof, we
moved into a house of our own, had a farm of our own and owed no one.
Father brought his axe from York State; it weighed seven pounds; he gave
me a smaller one. He laid the trees right and left until we could see the
sun from ten o'clock in the morning till between one and two in the
afternoon, when it mostly disappeared back of Mr. Pardee's woods.
Father found it was necessary for him to have a team, so he went to
Detroit and bought a yoke of oxen; also, at the same time, a cow. He paid
eighty dollars for the oxen and twenty-five for the cow. These cattle
were driven in from Ohio. The cow proved to be a great help toward the
support of the family for a number of years. The oxen were the first
owned in the south part of the town of Dearborn. They helped to clear the
logs from the piece father had cut over, and we planted late corn,
potatoes and garden stuff. The corn grew very high but didn't ear well.
The land was indeed very rich, but shaded too much.
The next thing, after planting some seeds, was clearing a road through a
black ash swale and flat lands on our west section line, running north
one mile, which let us out to the point mentioned, one mile south of
Dearbornville. We blazed the section line trees over, cleared out the old
logs and brush, then felled trees lengthwise towards each other,
sometimes two together, to walk on over the water; we called it our
log-way. We found the country was so very wet, at times, that it was
impossible to go with oxen and sled, which were our only means of
conveyance, summer or winter. When we could not go in this style we were
obliged to carry all that it was necessary to have taken, on our
shoulders, from Dearbornville.
We had many annoyances, and mosquitoes were not the least, but they did
us some good. We had no fences to keep our cattle, and the mosquitoes
drove the oxen and cow up to the smoke which we kept near the house in
order to keep those little pests away. The cattle soon learned, as well
as we, that smoke was a very powerful repellant of those little warriors.
Many times, in walking those logs and going through the woods there would
be a perfect cloud of mosquitoes around me. Sometimes I would run to get
away from them, then stop and look behind me and there would be a great
flock for two rods back (beside those that were around me) all coming
toward me as fast as their wings could bring them, and seeming only
satisfied when they got to me. But they were cannibals and wanted to eat
me. All sang the same song in the same old tune. I was always glad when I
got out of their company into our own little clearing.
[Illustration: THE BARK COVERED HOUSE--1834.]
But Mr. Pardee was a little more brave; he said it was foolish to
notice such small things as mosquitoes. I have seen them light on his
face and run in their bills, probe in until they reached the fountain of
life, suck and gormandize until they got a full supply, then leisurely
fly away with their veins and bodies full of the best and most benevolent
blood, to live awhile, and die from the effects of indulging too freely
and taking too much of the life of another. Thus at different times I saw
him let them fill themselves and go away without his seeming to notice
them; whether he always treated them thus well or not, I cannot say, but
I do know they were the worst of pests. Myriads of them could be found
any where in the woods, that would eagerly light on man or beast and fill
themselves till four times their common size, if they could get a chance.
The woods were literally alive with them. No one can tell the wearisome
sleepless hours they caused us at night. I have lain listening and
waiting for them to light on my face or hands, and then trying to slap
them by guess in the dark, sometimes killing them, and sometimes they
would fly away, to come again in a few minutes. I could hear them as they
came singing back. Frequently when I awoke I found them as wakeful as
ever; they had been feasting while I slept. I would find bunches and
blotches on me, wherever they had had a chance to light, which caused a
disagreeable, burning and smarting sensation.
Frequently some one of us would get up and make a smudge in the room to
quiet them; we did it by making a little fire of small chips and dirt, or
by burning some sugar on coals, but this would only keep them still for a
short time. These vexatious, gory-minded, musical-winged, bold denizens
of the shady forest, were more eager to hold their carniverous feasts at
twilight or in the night than any other time. In cloudy weather they were
very troublesome as all the first settlers know. We had them many years,
until the country was cleared and the land ditched; then, with the
forest, they nearly disappeared.
As I have said our oxen were the first in our part of the town. Mr.
Pardee had no team. Father sold him half of our oxen. They used them
alternately, each one two weeks, during the summer. For some reason, Mr.
Pardee failed to pay the forty dollars and when winter came father had to
take the oxen back and winter them. The winter was very open, and much
pleasanter than any we had ever seen. The cattle lived on what we called
"French-bogs" which grew all through the woods on the low land and were
green all winter.
We found wild animals and game very numerous. Sometimes the deer came
where father had cut down trees, and browsed the tops. Occasionally, in
the morning, after a little snow, their tracks would be as thick as
sheep-tracks in a yard, almost up to the house. The wolves also, were
very common; we could often hear them at night, first at one point, then
answers from another and another direction, until the woods rang with
their unearthly yells.
One morning I saw a place by a log where a deer had lain, and noticed a
large quantity of hair all around on the snow; then I found tracks where
two wolves came from the west, jumped over the log, and caught the deer
in his bed. He got away, but he must have had bare spots on his back.
One evening a Mr. Bruin called at our house and stood erect at our north
window. The children thought him one of us, as father, mother and I were
away, and they ran out to meet us, but discovered instead a large black
bear. When they ran out, Mr. Bruin, a little less dignified, dropped on
all fours, and walked leisurely off about ten rods; then raised again,
jumped over a brush fence, and disappeared in the woods.
Next morning we looked for his tracks and, sure enough, there were the
tracks of a large bear within four feet of the window. He had apparently
stood and looked into the house.
[Illustration:]
The first Indian who troubled us was one by the name of John Williams. He
was a large, powerful man, and certainly, very ugly. He used to pass our
house and take our road to Dearbornville after fire-water, get a little
drunk, and on his way back stop at John Blare's. Mr. Blare then lived at
the end of our new road. Here the Indian would tell what great things he
had done. One day when he stopped, Mrs. Blare and her brother-in-law,
Asa, were there. He took a seat, took his knife from his belt, stuck it
into the floor, then told Asa to pick it up and hand it to him; he
repeated this action several times, and Asa obeyed him every time. He,
seeing that the white man was afraid, said: "I have taken off the scalps
of six damned Yankees with this knife and me take off one more."
When father heard this, with other things he had said, he thought he was
the intended victim. We were all very much frightened. Whenever father
was out mother was uneasy until his return, and he feared that the
Indian, who always carried his rifle, might lay in ambush, and shoot him
when he was at work.
One day he came along, as usual, from Dearbornville and passed our house.
Father saw him, came in, took his rifle down from the hooks and told
mother he believed he would shoot first. Mother would not hear a word to
it and after living a year or two longer, in mortal fear of him, he died
a natural death. We learned afterward that Joseph Pardee was the man he
had intended to kill. He said, "Pardee had cut a bee-tree that belonged
to Indian."
According to his previous calculation, on our arrival, father bought, in
mother's name, eighty acres more, constituting the south-west quarter of
section thirty-four, town two, south of range ten, east; bounded on the
south by the south line of the town of Dearbon. A creek, we called the
north branch of the River Ecorse, ran through it, going east. It was
nearly parallel with, and forty-two rods from, the town line. When he
entered it he took a duplicate; later his deed came, and it was signed
by Andrew Jackson, a man whom father admired very much. Mother's deed
came still later, signed by Martin Van Buren.
This land was very flat, and I thought, very beautiful. No waste land on
it, all clay bottom, except about two acres, a sand ridge, resembling the
side of a sugar loaf. This was near the centre of the place, and on it we
finally built, as we found it very unpleasant living on clayey land in
wet weather. This land was all heavy timbered--beech, hard maple,
basswood, oak, hickory and some white-wood--on both sides of the creek;
farther back, it was, mostly, ash and elm.