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Michigan STARTING LIFE ANEW IN THE WOODS
During the winter of 1836, my brothers went to an evening party on Goguac Prairie. About midway through the woods they met a large bear directly in their path. Seeing that he was not disposed to get out of their way, they advanced toward him swinging their hats and yelling at the top of their voices. He grumblingly moved aside, and they passed on, well satisfied to get on so easily.
CALHOUN AND KALAMAZOO COUNTIES IN 1831.
Calhoun and Kalamazoo counties have each a pioneer citizen who came to the territory of Michigan more than half a century ago. Dea. Simeon Mills, now of Gull Prairie, settled at Ann Arbor in the spring of 1824. Rumsey and Allen, with their families, located there but a few months before he came.
Hon. Erastus Hussey, of Battle Creek, somewhat later in the same year, settled at Plymouth. He was among the first settlers there.
As our reminiscences, in this paper, have much to do with 1831, a year so rich in pioneer experiences in Calhoun and Kalamazoo counties, let us take a passing glance at the settlements in these counties at that time. The one on Prairie Ronde was then but three years old, Judge Basil Harrison with his family, having arrived there Nov. 6, 1828. Abram I. Shaver and others soon followed. The settlement at Kalamazoo was a year younger; Titus Bronson having reared his log shanty, "roofed with rails and covered with grass, " on the banks of the gentle, murmuring Arcadia, in June, 1829. The next settler was Wm. Harris. The settlement on Toland Prairie was some three months younger that that at Kalamazoo; as William Toland built his log cabin there in the fall of 1829, Ralph Tuttle, N. Matthews, and Sherman Comings soon followed him.
Early Michigan
Page 9
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