THOUGHTS IN CONNECTION WITH FATHER AND EARLY PIONEER LIFE.
I follow father, in my mind, to his last farm which he bought in 1849,
where he lived out his days. It was not cleared up, as he wished to have
it, and he continued to labor as hard as ever before, trying to fix it up
to suit him and to get it in the right shape for his comfort and
convenience. The soil was as good as the place he left. He raised large
crops on it. One day I went to father's and inquired for him. Mother said
he was down in the field cutting corn. I went to him; he had a splendid
field of corn and was cutting it up. The sweat was running off from him.
I told him it was not necessary for him to work so hard and asked him to
let me take his corn-cutter, as though I was going to cut corn. He handed
it to me, then I said I am going to keep this corn-cutter: I want you to
hear to me. Let us go to the house and get some one else, to cut the
corn; so we went to the house together.
But it was impossible for me or anybody else to keep him from hard
labor, although he had plenty. He had become so inured to hard work
that it seemed he could not stop. He finally got all of his farm cleared
that he wanted cleared. A few of the last years of his eventful life, he
let some of his land to be worked on shares and kept his meadow land and
pasture. He needed all of that, for he kept quite a stock of cattle,
sheep and horses and took care of them himself, most of the time, up to
his last sickness.
He was a great lover of good books; and spent much of his leisure time
reading. He did not often refer to the hardships which he had endured in
Michigan; but often spoke of the privations and endurance of others.
Thus, in his latter days, not thinking of what he had done, he seemed to
feast on the idea, that America had produced such and such ones, who had
been benefactors and effectual workers for the good of our race.
Most of those men who came here in the prime of life, about the time that
father came, are gone. The country shows what they have done, but few
consider it properly. Some know what it was then and what it is now and
know also, that it has arrived at the exalted position it now occupies
through the iron will, clear brain and the steady unflinching nerve of
others. Yet they pass on in their giddy whirl and the constant excitement
of the nineteenth century, when wealth is piled at their doors, and
hardly think of their silent benefactors.
Who can think of what they have done and not feel their heart beat high
with gratitude, admiration and love to the Giver of all good, in that he
ever raised up Such glorious people as some of the Michigan pioneers
were? So enduring, so self-sacrificing, so noble--in fact, every element
necessary to make beings almost perfect seemed concentrated in them. I do
not say it would be right, for me to wish the pioneer to live forever
here, and labor and toil as is the common lot of man. He might be
surrounded by friends and loved ones and plenty of this world's goods,
and have time to look back upon his past life and see what he had been
through and accomplished. He had gone into the forest, built him a house,
cleared up a farm, and lived where a white man had never lived before.
I would say to him as Daniel said, 2426 years ago, to King Darius, who
visited, very early in the morning, the cavern where he was confined. The
king asked him, in a mournful voice, if his God, whom he served, had been
able to deliver him. Daniel said, "O King, live forever!" It has been the
belief of good men, in all ages of the world, that they were going to
have a better and happier existence in the future after this life had
passed away. Darius had spent a restless and sleepless night fasting. No
instruments of music were brought into his presence, his mind was too
much troubled thinking of the prophet, who lay in the lions' den.
Thinking how his faithful servant had been divested of his scarlet robe,
golden chain and office, and might be devoured by the lions. In the early
gray of the morning the king hurried to the cavern and cried out in a
sorrowful voice to his friend and said, "Daniel, O Daniel, servant of the
living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver
thee from the lions?" Daniel answered the king and said, "O King, live
forever. My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths."
Daniel was aware that the King wished him no evil, but had set his heart
on him to deliver him and that he had labored hard to save him. He knew,
that the king had been caught in a snare which was set for him by the
crafty princes. That he had been persuaded by them to sign a decree,
which according to law could not be changed. It was gotten up, through
jealousy and envy, for the purpose of taking Daniel's life. When Daniel
heard the doleful voice of the king, calling him, he answered, and with
an honest heart exclaimed; "O King, live forever!"
This was not wishing, as some might suppose, that the king might live
forever, on the earth, in his natural or mortal state, or forever reign
over his kingdom in this world, but this acclamation was "Live forever."
As it was evident he could not live long in this world, Daniel wished him
a better existence in a future state.
Man has not been able to find, in this world, the land of perpetual youth
or spring of life. Nearly all the veteran pioneers, who have fought with
the forests of Michigan, and labored for themselves and others, until
they grew old, and wrinkled and their heads were silvered o'er with gray,
have passed from the storms of life.
They failed to find such a land as Ponce de Leon, looked for in Florida,
in the year 1512. He was so delighted with the variegated flowers, wild
roses, ever green and beautiful foliage, and the fragrance of the air,
that he thought that these woods must contain the fountain of life and
youth and that that must be the place upon the earth where men could live
and never grow old.
When I was quite young, a few years after our settlement, I think in
1838, Mr. Elijah Lord came and settled about a mile and a half
north-west of father's. He came down with his oxen by father's place to
get small, hard-maple trees, out of the woods, that he wanted to take
home and set out on his place. He was then about a middle-aged man. He
set out the trees on both sides of the road, running through his place,
for about eighty rods, in front of his house. I asked him if he expected
to see them grow up; he said he did not set them out for himself, but for
the benefit of other people, for the good of the generations that would
follow him.
Some years after that, I visited Mr. Lord in his last sickness. He looked
very much older than he did when he planted the trees. He looked careworn
and sad; his locks were gray and he was very feeble. He was fighting his
last battle of life and he soon went to that bourne, whence no traveler
returns. He was a good man, a deacon of the Presbyterian church at
Dearbornville at the time of his death.
The hard maple trees, which he set out, are grown up to be large trees.
When leaved out, they have the most beautiful tops, with the most perfect
symmetry that could be imagined. They make splendid shade for the road.
In summer weather, when the rays of the sun were very hot, thousands have
enjoyed walking under their protecting boughs. The poor horses and cattle
that travel that road alike enjoy the benefit of those trees. The farmer
as he is going or coming from market and stops his team, to rest under
their shade, enjoys their cooling and refreshing influence. The
pedestrian, who sits down by the fence to rest his weary limbs, takes off
his hat and with his handkerchief, wipes the perspiration from his brow,
as he fans himself with his hat talks to his neighbor about the price of
things and the beautiful shade, that is around and over them. Neither of
them know anything about the benevolent man, who over thirty-five years
before set out the maple trees, whose shade they enjoy and which protects
them, from the scorching rays of the sun, and makes them so comfortable.
Now, in looking at the shortness of human life, which is compared to a
hand's breadth or to the vapor, which appears in the morning is seen but
a little while and then vanishes away to be seen no more; and thinking
that the pioneers stopped but so short a time to enjoy the fruits of
their toil and the labor of their hands, I would exclaim again in
language similar to that of the good man of old, "O, pioneers, pioneers,
live forever!"
O, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
Like a swift fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
Man passes from life to his rest in the grave.
The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,
Be scattered around and together be laid;
And the young and the old, and the low and the high,
Shall moulder to dust and together shall lie.
So the multitude goes, like the flowers or the weed
That withers away to let others succeed;
So the multitude comes, even those we behold,
To report every tale that has often been told.
For we are the same our fathers have been;
We see the same sights our fathers have seen;
We drink the same stream, and view the same sun,
And run the same course our fathers have run.
The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think;
From the death we are shrinking our fathers would shrink;
To the life we are clinging they also would cling;
But it speeds for us all like a bird on the wing.
Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,
We mingle together in sunshine and rain;
And the smiles and the tears, the song and the dirge.
Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.
'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath,
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud,
O, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?
--_Selected._
It appears to me that it will be interesting to men, who in the future
shall live along the Ecorce and enjoy their beautiful homes and farms, to
know who were the brave, sacrificing, benovolent men who first settled
the country, and were a few of the many who have made the State of
Michigan what it will be to them.
I give together the names of some of those early worthies whom I have
mentioned before in this sketch. They were the first settlers of the
southeast part of the town of Dearborn. Their names are arranged
according to the time of their settlement along and near the Ecorce with
the years and seasons of their settlement in the wilderness.
Joseph Pardee--Fall of 1833.
John Nowlin--Spring of 1834.
Asa Blare--Fall of 1834.
Henry Traviss--Summer of 1835.
George Purdy--Fall of 1835.
Elijah Lord, about--1837 or 1838
Let these bright names be imperishable! Let them be indelibly written, in
letters of gold, on leaves as white as snow and live in the light. Let
them be handed down through future ages, in the archives and annals of
the country, until the end of time.
Of the six, whom I have mentioned here, only one survives. That one
is Mr. George Purdy. He lives on the Ecorce yet and owns a good
farm. (1875.)
Recently a wise man said to me: "We can engrave the names of our kindred
and the friends of humanity upon stately monuments of marble and they
will crumble to dust, be obliterated and rubbed out by the hand of time;
but, if inscribed upon the flat surface of a written page, their names
will live."
Men of all ages have delighted to honor their heroes and to perpetuate
their names. It is right to give honor to whom honor is due. We cannot
tell how many of the names of the good and great of the earth's true
philanthropists were engraven upon tablets of dead stone, who have long
since been forgotten and the knowledge of them lost in the past.
The blight--mildew--blackness and creeping moss of time have hidden their
names from earth. How few, in comparison to the many, have been handed
down to us in history.