Read by Addison M. Brown.
When I was a few weeks turned of eleven years old, my father, then
forty-four years of age, became infected with the western fever then
well on its way of depopulating New England, and, selling his rough
Vermont farm at a better price than it would fetch now in the same
extent and condition, entered upon what at the time was thought not
unfairly to be the serious journey to the wilds of Michigan. Accordingly
early in September, 1837, we set forth, making altogether an emigration
of nineteen persons, one being Miss Julia Hatch, who became Mrs.
Hamilton Scott a little later on. Following advice, we took with us our
entire household effects, including a large cook-stove of the Woolson
patent, one of the very earliest to succeed the huge fire-places over
which our mothers and grandmothers back to the Mayflower in unbroken
line roasted, baked and stewed themselves along with the meals they
prepared. There must have been a Puritan toughness of texture in this
stove, for it served right on unremittingly for not less than thirty
years, as valiant, irascible and friendly a creature as ever woman had
at need. All effects were packed in boxes, and the ingenuity of the
Twenty-mile Stream valley was sorely taxed to fit boxes to the
furniture, or, more properly, the furniture to the boxes, since there
must be a limit to the dimensions of the latter. This difficulty was met
by sawing off any contumacious limb or projection from articles of
unreasonable size, such as tables and bedsteads,--a rough surgery from
which no subsequent care ever quite restored the afflicted members,
leaving them rickety and rheumatic ever after.
Conveyance through New England was then by wheel, and so we moved over
the Green Mountains to Troy, my uncle Zaccheus Bates driving the wagon
wherein jolted my three brothers and myself, a cargo of youngsters
irrepressible and volatile to such a degree that when he handed us back
to the parental care after two trying days, my uncle must have thanked
God and breathed freer.
The passage from Troy to Buffalo was by the Erie Canal, then the great
thoroughfare from tide-water to the lakes. It swarmed with two kinds of
boats, distinguished as line and packet, the latter drawn by three
horses moving at a trot and conveying passengers exclusively, with light
luggage. These were for the more exalted and wealthy travelers, who
desired speedier transit and better accommodations, while boats of the
line, moved by two horses at a walking pace, were suitable for emigrants
like ourselves, and crowded to an over fullness with a miscellany of
men, women, children and household freight. My recollections of this
portion of the journey are of exceeding roughness and discomfort. The
youngsters were not greatly regarded in the general disarray and
scramble. I remember the coarse, scanty fare of the second table, to
which the children were relegated, wherein vile smelling boiled cabbage
figured as a steady quantity, and oppressive nights in a stifling berth
at the very end of the crowded cabin, the horror of it augmented to my
sensitive olfactories by the foul broom which the cabin-maid
persistently kept hanging on the partition at the head of my bunk. Among
the seniors there was more disregard of annoyances, an heroic
determination to make the best of everything, a spirit of good
fellowship and kindly mutual helpfulness, and a hearty open air freedom
of speech and action. Songs were sung and stories told which infringed
the delicacy of the politest circles but were not really offensive to
healthy minds, inconveniences were ignored and pleasant trifles
magnified, a small joke created large merriment, and the hearty and
robust expansiveness of frontier life, in which resides a peculiar charm
unceasingly felt by all who have ever fairly come under it, was
beginning at the very entrance of a new world of nature and of man.
Absurdly prominent stands out my wonder at being called Bub for the
first time, followed by conjecture what the word could mean and where it
came from. But all light, momentary afflictions passed like distempered
dreams when once we were afloat on the blue waters of Lake Erie, in the
steamboat Daniel Webster, bound for Toledo. I had not thought there
could be anything so grand in all the world as this little, fussy,
splashing side-wheeler, to me a veritable floating palace. An event of
moment occurred on the passage. On the wide divan under the cabin
windows of the stern I noticed a delicate man of refined features, much
in contrast with the body of the voyagers. He had several books lying
beside him, and, as I approached in shy curiosity, asked me in kindly
wise, would I like a book, and tossed apart on the divan a copy of
Irving's Sketch Book. I lay there stretched at length, absorbed and
lost, until the waning light dulled the bright page of this delightful
author. Who can explain why the generation succeeding his own so
neglects him?
The red-painted warehouse at the steamboat wharf in Toledo was also a
terminal station of a strip of steam railway to Adrian, now a part of
the Michigan Southern system. We were transferred directly to the cars,
and, while this magical sort of locomotion must have impressed my boyish
fancy, I am unable to recall a single incident until we were undergoing
the discomfort of crowded and wretched quarters in Adrian, waiting to
engage wagons to transport our party and its effects the remaining
distance.
I recall being taken into a room to see a stalwart man undergoing an
ague fit. He was fully dressed and seated in an arm-chair, convulsively
shivering and writhing. The door of the room stood open, and people came
and stared and commented, and went away to make room for fresh arrivals.
The scene was so grotesque, and the spectators seemed so amused, that I
was not certain the victim was not acting a part for the general
entertainment, until he informed us with clattering teeth that we saw
what we were all coming to, when a kind of mysterious dread possessed me
of what lay in wait in the _terra incognita_ before us.
At length, after much searching and haggling, an insufficient caravan
was provided, the household goods bestowed, and, the women folk sitting
on them as did Rachel in the Old Testament story, we set forth through
the oak openings, over the unvarying level, to the music of two or three
rifles in the hands of the adventurers attached to our party, who found
good and unaccustomed sport in the small game frequent among the glades
of the vast continuous forest. We moved slowly, and on the second day
were overtaken by Mr. Edwin H. Lathrop, riding alone in a buggy drawn by
a pair of free-going horses, on his return from Adrian, where he had
left his wife so far on her way to visit eastern friends. Our numerous
colony naturally drew his attention, and after much exchange of speech
he urged me to ride with him and go on before our party, promising to
have me at his house the next morning, and to see that I reached
Schoolcraft in good condition. This request was referred to my mother,
who felt much misgiving and was disposed to see in the honorable
gentleman a sort of brigand on wheels, plotting to carry off the
firstling of her flock to his fastness, and there either torture or hold
him for ransom; but the object of her distrust having established his
claim to be a civil sort of person, and nowise associated with any band
of robbers, drove away with me, somewhat to the terror of my brothers
and after much excellent advice from my mother, quite as if leaving her
for an indefinite period on a risky adventure. Indeed, after getting
into the great solitude of the woods, quite out of sight and hearing of
the cheerful stir of the caravan, I began to feel not quite at ease as I
glanced from time to time at the countenance which all who knew Mr.
Lathrop will recall as one in its steady seriousness unprovocative of
glee in the heart of childhood; but all discomfort of feeling wore away
under the kindness of my host, and there has always remained with me a
sense of enjoyment in that long drive over a road unobstructed by rocks
and bordered by virgin forests. We lay that night in a room of the
unfinished house of Mr. John Smith of Three Rivers, then an exceedingly
crude, confused and unfinished hamlet wrapped in malarial airs, where
Mr. Smith was engaged in building a flour-mill or saw-mill, I am
uncertain which. We were up with the dawn and drove swiftly to the
residence of Mr. Lathrop, where we breakfasted, and at my urgent request
I was allowed to make my way to Schoolcraft on foot. And so I set out
from the southern border of the prairie, with elastic step and quick
beating heart, eager for the goal of this long pilgrimage.
The east was flushed with the glory of a perfect Sunday morning, the air
crisp and clear, the green of the native grass still lingered in an
autumn of unusual mildness, and many flowers still bloomed. A flag
flying from the frame-work of the belfry of the recently raised
schoolhouse soon became a guide to my course, but I could not then
understand why my rapid pace did not consume the distance at a greater
rate, so near appeared remote objects in that transparent atmosphere
over the level plain. I suppose I am not correct in saying that I did
not pass an enclosed spot, nor step on ground ever cultivated by man,
but such is my recollection.
The longest way comes to its ending to the most impatient, and well
before the sun attained its meridian I stood upon the black road before
the village tavern. I had heard that the younger James Smith had the
extraordinary habit of throwing up his head and staring upward at quite
regular intervals, and there, like a weatherwise little sea-man,
actually stood a grave lad winking familiarly at the sun. Making myself
known to him I was soon among the friendly faces of his family, where I
waited for the slow caravan which arrived the following day. The journey
from Vermont occupied fifteen days.
Thus was I transplanted to the soil where I grew to my appointed
stature;--a kindly soil and habitat wherein not a few fibers of my
affections are left infixed.