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BATTLE CREEK BY A. D. P. VAN BUREN
Mr. Goddard sold his prairie farm to Dea. Joseph Young and built a house on his lands on the east side of Goguac Lake, which property he sold to Mr. Jennings, and removed to Southern Wisconsin. His daughter, Mrs. Wm. Reese, now a resident of Battle Creek, is the only one now living in this part of the country.
DORRANCE WILLIAMS.
Dorrance Williams came to Goguac Prairie late in the fall of 1831, from
Ohio, and settled upon what is now the Foster farm. He built his log house on the south border of the prairie near the woods. He owned in all some four hundred acres of land, a part of it lying between Battle Creek and Goguac. Mr. Williams lived and died a bachelor. By those who knew him best he was called a good man. Yet he was a peculiar man. He considered himself a gentleman even in the chivalrous sense of that term, held the highest opinion of his honor, and his word no man must gainsay. Here we undoubtedly get a clue to the real difficulties that attended him through life. His nice sense of honor, justice and right did not square with human nature, which he found in his dealings with mankind a pretty crooked stick at the best. Dorrance Williams was naturally of a suspicious nature, and was afraid every man he dealt with was striving to cheat him. This kept him at feud with somebody most of his lifetime. Probably his memory comes down to more people through a lawsuit than by any other channel.
Michigan
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