Identifier: historyofinghame00indura (find matches)
Title: History of Ingham and Eaton counties, Michigan
Year: 1880 (1880s)
Authors: Durant, Samuel W. cn
Subjects:
Publisher: Philadelphia : D.W. Ensign & Co.
Contributing Library: Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center
Digitizing Sponsor: Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center

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own 1 north, of range 4 west, now the township of Brookfield,and is a part of the farm I now own. As Mr. Bosworth was thenearest one to my land, I made arrangements to stay with him untilI could build a shanty and cut a road to it, and I got him to help me.We got the body of the shanty up, three-fourths of the roof on, andthe door cut out, but had no door nor floor; then we moved in. Itwas here, in this partly-built shanty, on the 12th day of November,18.37, that my wife and I first commenced keeping house. It was fourmiles to the nearest neighbor, with no road but a crooked track Ihad cut through the forest, and the whole county almost an unbrokenwilderness. The screech of the owl and the howl of the wolf was ourmusic by night, and the Indians our callers by day. The first nightwe made our bed on some split pieces of basswood in one corner ofthe shanty, built a fire in another, hung up a blanket for a door andsome on the walls around the bod, and it seemed quite like home, * Obscure.
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BROOKFIELD. 431 and we had a good nights rest. I soon made a pole bedstead, hewedout and put down a puncheon floor, built a stone back and stick chim-ney in one corner, made a clay hearth, and the shanty was finished,without a nail except what were in the door. We lived in that shantynearly two years,—yes, the happiest two years of my life were spentin that shanty. There was something grand and romantic about it Ivery much enjoyed. The grand old forest yielded up for Dur supportof its wild fruits, its honey, and venison. It was in this shanty that our first child was born,* March 20,1839, cradled and rocked in a sap trough; and she is now the widowof Dr. Derby, of Eaton Rapids. It was in the fall of 1S39 that saidshanty was swapped for a new log house ; said house was built aboutfifty rods east of said shanty, and my hogs slept west of the shanty,next to the woods. The second night after we had moved into ournew house, at about twelve oclock, my wife waked me up and said sheheard a

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