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HISTORY OF ALPENA COUNTY BY WILLIAM BOULTON IN 1876
Life in the wild woods has been no romantic dream, but a life divested of almost every poetical sentiment. It was a life of hard work, chopping, clearing, logging, and planting, and this amidst swarms of mosquitoes and black flies, with scant supplies, and ofttimes with no covering but a brush tent. It was a heroic life, full of unconquerable energy, with no one to witness or applaud, but the pioneer knew he was working for an independence, and what will nerve a true man more than the hope of obtaining a home for his wife and family, and a place where he may spend his last years in peace and plenty.
When a person has determined to take up a piece of land under the homestead laws of Michigan, his first plan is, generally, to obtain the services of some land hunter, who for a small money consideration shows him the desirable vacant lands, and if the intending settler is satisfied with the location and qualities of the land shown him, he gets from the land hunter a description of it, or as the written description is called, "the minutes. " The charge for this will be about ten dollars. The settler next proceeds to enter the land. under the homestead laws, which will cost him five dollars more, and entitles him to eighty acres of State land. To homestead government land will cost a few dollars more. At the end of three months he is obliged to make a sworn affidavit to the proper parties that he has taken actual possession, and state what improvements he has made on his homestead. At the end of five years he applies for a deed of his homestead, making affidavit to the fact that he has made the improvements required by law. The State officers then forward the settler a deed of his homestead.
ALPENA COUNTY MICHIGAN
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