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Michigan Towns Select Towns
It is more than can be expected, that in an article like this we should mention all the early settlers, and perhaps, after all, some may have escaped our minds who deserve more than a passing notice. Thomas Chisholm and Robert Church, at whose pleasant places we are as we leave Marshall, going east on the territorial road-the former still living on the old place, but the latter many years since deceased-now come to our minds as the earliest settlers.
Having given brief sketches of the first settlers in town, who settled on what was afterwards known as the "territorial road," although nothing was there when they came but an Indian trail, we will go with the first settlers to where the village now stands, and for a full and complete description of the journey to this place, the country at that time, and its early settlers, as well as the objects and aspirations of the pioneers, we refer with pleasure to the following interesting reminiscence of early times, written in 1850, by Mrs. Geo. W. Dryer, of Marengo: " In the spring of 1833 the western fever was raging in our vicinity, almost equal to the California fever of the present day. It is unnecessary here to detail the causes that first induced us to seek a new home in the (as it was then called) 'far west.' Suffice it to say, that the glowing accounts given by Mr. S. S. Allcott, of Calhoun county, and the valley of the Kalamazoo, gave my father and husband a strong desire to at last visit that El Dorado of the west.
Michigan
Page 51
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