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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF JUDGE BAZIL HARRISON BY A. D. P. VAN BUREN
After the Indiana border was crossed there were no cornfields in sight until the outskirts of Fort Wayne were reached, and occasionally Indians gave them
salutations on the road.
A day's halt only was made at Fort Wayne to gather some information concerning the new country to which they were bound. Fort Wayne was then upon the border of settlement and civilization. The course of our pioneers thence was northwest, and they had scarcely any road but Indian trails.
It would be an interesting picture to gaze upon now, in the, light of modern times, that pioneer colony wending their way through the forests primeval— the almost trackless wilderness. We can see them in our mind's eye as they left the last haunts of civilization, halting a moment before plunging into the unknown wasts of wilderness, the end of which was unknown, and the shadows of the dark and mysterious land already thrilled them with vague forebodings. With a fervent prayer to the ever protecting Father, and with something of that feeling which Cortez felt when he burned his ships on the coasts of the New World, determined to conquer or perish, this little band strike into a trail that leads them into woods without roads, for a destination
for which they as yet had no fixed idea. Very slowly they pursued their way, meeting with obstacles and obstructions continually sometimes following a. stream' for hours before a safe crossing could be found; often stopping to remove great trees they could not go round, and almost numberless difficulties which we have not space here to detail. In one instance it took them seven days to go around a swamp that lay in their path, and sometimes when they halted for the night they could look back and see the smoke rising from the embers of the camp fire they had left in the morning.
Michigan
Page 12
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