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Michigan BRANCH COUNTY
That year James M. Burdick came too, and spent the summer at Allen's, followed in a few months by his uncle, Mr. John Cornish, with his wife and six children, who remained over winter at Allen's prairie.
On New Year's day of 1831, Mr. James M. Burdick tramped through the snow along the Indian trail to a point north of Coldwater, where he built a little shanty for himself, and split rails for Mr. Bolton, and made, he says, the first thousand rails and fenced the first eighty acres in the county.
In the spring, John Cornish and family moved to Girard. Joseph C. Corbus, of Allen, exchanged farms with his brother Richard, and also moved to
Girard.
This same year several other points in the county were increased by new '
arrivals from the east.
The year 1832 witnessed two memorable events in our county. First, the laying out of the city of Lyons. Who laid it out? Messrs. Allen Tibbits and Joseph Hanchett. The name was afterwards changed to Coldwater, and it became the county seat in '42 by an act of the Legislature. The other event was the Black Hawk war. In May a man came from the west on horseback as fast as he could ride, with his horse white with lather and foam, yelling at the top of his voice, "Black Hawk and his red skins! they are coming, murdering men, ' women, and children. " All the settlements were thrown into a state of frenzy and terror.
Gen. Joseph W. Brown ordered Major Beniah Jones, Jr., to call out his mili-
tia, consisting of one company from Hillsdale and two from Branch county.
BRANCH COUNTY MICHIGAN
Page 27
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