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INCIDENTS IN THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE SAGINAW VALLEY BY JUDGE ALBERT MILLER
The next day we passed on to Flint, where we found the snow had all disappeared and we were obliged to get wagons with which to pursue the remainder of our journey. Between 1830 and 1834 many families had settled on the road between Flint and Pontiac, and several houses had been built expressly for the accommodation of the traveling public; one I recollect built by Mr. McOmber (a lawyer from the State of New York), in Groveland, where the halfway house was so long kept on the old stage route between Flint and Pontiac. We stayed at Mr. McOmber's over night on our way going to Pontiac, and again on our return. Mr. McOmber was a genial, pleasant landlord, and as we sat by his cheerful fire, built under a stick chimney on one side of his log house, cracking our jokes with him and with one another, we had no more idea of hardship in our mode of travel or in our way of life, then the favored traveler of the present day has as he is driven with lightning speed over the same route in a magnificent palace. The place which all travelers going over the route north of Pontiac at an early day most delighted to tarry at was the residence of Major Oliver Williams, which was situated on the bank of Silver Lake, three and one half miles north of Pontiac. Major Williams settled on his farm in 1819, having brought his goods on the first wheeled vehicle that ever penetrated to that part of Oakland county, and to reach his location from Detroit at that time he had to go by the way of Mount Clemens. In 1830 Major Williams' farm was under a fine state of cultivation, with a good two-story block house and two large
barns on it large apple and peach orchards, with a garden in which grew in I abundance all kinds of vegetables and small fruits, the sight of which greatly encouraged those who were pushing into the wilderness to make new homes for themselves.
Michigan
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