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Michigan Select Michigan Counties
In the summer of 1835 I saw William B. Hill at Barney's tavern with his rifle shoot at a wild deer standing on the opposite bank of the Kalamazoo river; fortunately for the deer, the shot did not take effect. At that time deer were as plenty inside as outside of the present city limits. In the summer of 1836 the grounds now occupied by the Advent College and Health Reform Institute was one great strawberry bed, and often did the writer of this go out of his way to enjoy his solitary strawberry festival.
In the spring the Indians would set fire to the dry leaves, which would spread over vast tracts of country, when everything on the earth's surface that would burn would be consumed, leaving only the large timber standing. Afterwards, when the warm summer weather came, the surface of the ground everywhere would be clothed with beautiful green, interspersed with varied colored wild flowers. Michigan never appeared so beautiful as in the early days. Every one who came here, when the country was new, could give some incidents worthy of record.
Professional and learned men ought to be the conservators of history, and our doctors and lawyers could furnish a great many facts connected " with the early experiences that would be of great interest to Battle Creek, and I make this statement for the purpose of saving from oblivion the fact that medical as well as legal men came here with the early settlers.
Michigan Counties
Page 56
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