The Bark Covered House Part 12

I would say to him as Daniel said, 2426 years ago, to King Darius, who visited, very early in the morning, the cavern where he was confined. The king asked him, in a mournful voice, if his G.o.d, whom he served, had been able to deliver him. Daniel said, "O King, live forever!" It has been the belief of good men, in all ages of the world, that they were going to have a better and happier existence in the future after this life had pa.s.sed away. Darius had spent a restless and sleepless night fasting. No instruments of music were brought into his presence, his mind was too much troubled thinking of the prophet, who lay in the lions' den.

Thinking how his faithful servant had been divested of his scarlet robe, golden chain and office, and might be devoured by the lions. In the early gray of the morning the king hurried to the cavern and cried out in a sorrowful voice to his friend and said, "Daniel, O Daniel, servant of the living G.o.d, is thy G.o.d, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions?" Daniel answered the king and said, "O King, live forever. My G.o.d hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths."

Daniel was aware that the King wished him no evil, but had set his heart on him to deliver him and that he had labored hard to save him. He knew, that the king had been caught in a snare which was set for him by the crafty princes. That he had been persuaded by them to sign a decree, which according to law could not be changed. It was gotten up, through jealousy and envy, for the purpose of taking Daniel's life. When Daniel heard the doleful voice of the king, calling him, he answered, and with an honest heart exclaimed; "O King, live forever!"

This was not wis.h.i.+ng, as some might suppose, that the king might live forever, on the earth, in his natural or mortal state, or forever reign over his kingdom in this world, but this acclamation was "Live forever."

As it was evident he could not live long in this world, Daniel wished him a better existence in a future state.

Man has not been able to find, in this world, the land of perpetual youth or spring of life. Nearly all the veteran pioneers, who have fought with the forests of Michigan, and labored for themselves and others, until they grew old, and wrinkled and their heads were silvered o'er with gray, have pa.s.sed from the storms of life.

They failed to find such a land as Ponce de Leon, looked for in Florida, in the year 1512. He was so delighted with the variegated flowers, wild roses, ever green and beautiful foliage, and the fragrance of the air, that he thought that these woods must contain the fountain of life and youth and that that must be the place upon the earth where men could live and never grow old.

When I was quite young, a few years after our settlement, I think in 1838, Mr. Elijah Lord came and settled about a mile and a half north-west of father's. He came down with his oxen by father's place to get small, hard-maple trees, out of the woods, that he wanted to take home and set out on his place. He was then about a middle-aged man. He set out the trees on both sides of the road, running through his place, for about eighty rods, in front of his house. I asked him if he expected to see them grow up; he said he did not set them out for himself, but for the benefit of other people, for the good of the generations that would follow him.

Some years after that, I visited Mr. Lord in his last sickness. He looked very much older than he did when he planted the trees. He looked careworn and sad; his locks were gray and he was very feeble. He was fighting his last battle of life and he soon went to that bourne, whence no traveler returns. He was a good man, a deacon of the Presbyterian church at Dearbornville at the time of his death.

The hard maple trees, which he set out, are grown up to be large trees.

When leaved out, they have the most beautiful tops, with the most perfect symmetry that could be imagined. They make splendid shade for the road.

In summer weather, when the rays of the sun were very hot, thousands have enjoyed walking under their protecting boughs. The poor horses and cattle that travel that road alike enjoy the benefit of those trees. The farmer as he is going or coming from market and stops his team, to rest under their shade, enjoys their cooling and refres.h.i.+ng influence. The pedestrian, who sits down by the fence to rest his weary limbs, takes off his hat and with his handkerchief, wipes the perspiration from his brow, as he fans himself with his hat talks to his neighbor about the price of things and the beautiful shade, that is around and over them. Neither of them know anything about the benevolent man, who over thirty-five years before set out the maple trees, whose shade they enjoy and which protects them, from the scorching rays of the sun, and makes them so comfortable.

Now, in looking at the shortness of human life, which is compared to a hand's breadth or to the vapor, which appears in the morning is seen but a little while and then vanishes away to be seen no more; and thinking that the pioneers stopped but so short a time to enjoy the fruits of their toil and the labor of their hands, I would exclaim again in language similar to that of the good man of old, "O, pioneers, pioneers, live forever!"

O, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

Like a swift fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud, A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave, Man pa.s.ses from life to his rest in the grave.

The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade, Be scattered around and together be laid; And the young and the old, and the low and the high, Shall moulder to dust and together shall lie.

So the mult.i.tude goes, like the flowers or the weed That withers away to let others succeed; So the mult.i.tude comes, even those we behold, To report every tale that has often been told.

For we are the same our fathers have been; We see the same sights our fathers have seen; We drink the same stream, and view the same sun, And run the same course our fathers have run.

The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think; From the death we are shrinking our fathers would shrink; To the life we are clinging they also would cling; But it speeds for us all like a bird on the wing.

Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain, We mingle together in suns.h.i.+ne and rain; And the smiles and the tears, the song and the dirge.

Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.

'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath, From the blossom of health to the paleness of death, From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud, O, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

--_Selected._

It appears to me that it will be interesting to men, who in the future shall live along the Ecorce and enjoy their beautiful homes and farms, to know who were the brave, sacrificing, benovolent men who first settled the country, and were a few of the many who have made the State of Michigan what it will be to them.

I give together the names of some of those early worthies whom I have mentioned before in this sketch. They were the first settlers of the southeast part of the town of Dearborn. Their names are arranged according to the time of their settlement along and near the Ecorce with the years and seasons of their settlement in the wilderness.

Joseph Pardee--Fall of 1833.

John Nowlin--Spring of 1834.

Asa Blare--Fall of 1834.

Henry Traviss--Summer of 1835.

George Purdy--Fall of 1835.

Elijah Lord, about--1837 or 1838

Let these bright names be imperishable! Let them be indelibly written, in letters of gold, on leaves as white as snow and live in the light. Let them be handed down through future ages, in the archives and annals of the country, until the end of time.

Of the six, whom I have mentioned here, only one survives. That one is Mr. George Purdy. He lives on the Ecorce yet and owns a good farm. (1875.)

Recently a wise man said to me: "We can engrave the names of our kindred and the friends of humanity upon stately monuments of marble and they will crumble to dust, be obliterated and rubbed out by the hand of time; but, if inscribed upon the flat surface of a written page, their names will live."

Men of all ages have delighted to honor their heroes and to perpetuate their names. It is right to give honor to whom honor is due. We cannot tell how many of the names of the good and great of the earth's true philanthropists were engraven upon tablets of dead stone, who have long since been forgotten and the knowledge of them lost in the past.

The blight--mildew--blackness and creeping moss of time have hidden their names from earth. How few, in comparison to the many, have been handed down to us in history.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

FATHER'S NEW HOUSE AND ITS SITUATION--HIS CHILDREN VISIT HIM.

I have said that I tried to persuade father to take life more easily and not to labor so hard himself on the new place he had bought. It was a new place to him; but in an early day it was the oldest place south of Dearbornville. The first log house built south of Dearbornville, in the town of Dearborn was built on it by John Blare in the year 1832 or 1833.

It was one mile south of Dearbornville. So there was a house standing there when we were slowly making our way to Michigan. When we came, it was the first house south of Dearbornville. Mr. Joseph Pardee, who crossed Lake Erie, with his family, the fall before when father came viewing, built his house a mile south of that. These two houses were the first ones, south of the village of Dearborn, in the town of Dearborn.

When we came in and built, our bark covered house was the next.

It was at this house of Mr. J. Blare that the Indian, John Williams, threw his knife on the floor and commanded Asa Blare to pick it up. There he sat in his chair, flourished his knife, looked at its frightful edge and told what it had done. If the Indian told the truth, it had cleaved the locks and taken off the scalps of six of the Anglo Saxon race--some body's loved ones. It had been six times red with human gore, and was going to be used again, to take off one more scalp, one of the few who was then in the woods.

This house of Mr. Blare's had long since been torn down and had disappeared. I could now go within five rods, and I think less, of where the house stood. When Mr. Mather bought the place he built him a frame house across the road, beyond where Blaire's house stood. It was built on a hill, on five acres of ground, that he owned there by itself as a building spot.

Mather sold these two places to Barnard and Windsor and father bought the places of them, and moved into the Mather house. Father talked, from an early day, that when he got able to build a house, he would like to build it of brick or stone. He said if he had stone, he could build a house for himself. I have no doubt that he would have built his house himself, if he had had the stone, as old as he was, when he got the money to do it with.

He thought himself quite a stone mason, at least he thought he could lay a stone wall as strong as any one. I stated that I had seen where he had built stone walls. The walls I had reference to then were walls for fence. I saw where he had built one large out door stone cellar and arched it over with stone; I also saw where he had built a smaller one, that opened into what was styled a cellar kitchen. He also built the three walls of the kitchen, on the back side and two ends, of stone; the front of the house being wood.

[Image: HOUSE BUILT 1854.]

The practice of laying stone, in his early life, made him want to build him a stone house in Michigan. If he had settled in another part of Michigan, he might have done it; but he found that stone were hard to get here, being too far away. So he made up his mind, he would build him a brick house. He said brick buildings were safer, in regard to fire, and were more durable, that they did not require so much repairing, were warmer in winter and cooler in summer than wooden buildings.

So he went at it, and built him a good, substantial plain, brick farm-house in 1854. Not so palatial as some might admire, but a good substantial house; a brick bas.e.m.e.nt under the whole of it, with two stories above. He set it right facing the "Hard scrabble road" and right in front of his door yard was the junction of three roads. He lived on the corners and, by looking south, he could see to the place where he first settled in Michigan, from his own door. He built across the front side of his house a double stoop or piazza, running the whole length of the front. There he could sit, in the cool of the day, and rest himself, accompanied by some of his family. Two of my sisters yet lived at home; the rest of the family had gone for themselves. While sitting there he could see people pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing, coming and going in every direction. What a contrast it was to our early life in Michigan. Now he could sit on his veranda in the twilight, when it was pleasant, and when the shadows of evening were spread over the face of nature, he could peer away into the distance to the south and southwest, for a mile and more, and see lights in different places glistening and s.h.i.+ning like stars through the darkness. They were the lights of lamps and candles, burning in his distant neighbors' dwellings and s.h.i.+ning through their windows. He could go to his north window and see lights all along, from his house to Dearbornville, for he was in plain sight of the village. Now he lived in what might be styled, if not an old country, a thickly inhabited part of the country.

A few years before, when father and I were out and could not get home until after dark, we frequently walked through the woods a mile or two without seeing a light. When we came to our clearing we could see one light, and that was mother's lone light in the window waiting for us. It was three or four years, after we settled in Michigan, before the light of any neighbor's window could be seen, from our house. Father's situation was very different when he was comfortably settled in his new house. When he had it built he told me that he lacked a very little of paying for it. I asked him how much he needed. He said, "Not more than a hundred dollars." I told him I could let him have it as well as not. So I gave it to him and he sat down and wrote me a note of a hundred dollars, ten per cent interest per annum. I told him I didn't want any note. He said I must take it if he took the money. So I took the note, looked at it, saw that it was upon interest and told him that I would not take any interest of him. But I took the note home and laid it away. I was pleased to think that father had so good a house and was so well situated. He built him a very strong house and located it upon a commanding eminence overlooking the country in every direction. From its very solid appearance shortly after it was built it was called "Nowlin Castle;" it is now known to many by that name.

Father and mother enjoyed their new home very much. They usually invited their children, and their companions home all together once in a year or two. They often got into their carriage and rode down to see me and I was always glad to see them. I usually counseled and consulted with father when I thought of transacting any business of importance.

After a year or two father spoke to me about the hundred dollars; I told him I didn't want it, that he could keep it just as long as he wanted it, until he could pay it just as well as not and it wouldn't cost him any interest.

Time pa.s.sed on until about five years were counted after father built, when he came down one day, on foot, to see me. He brought in his hand a little leather bag of silver money--mostly half dollars. He said he had come down to pay me that note, that he didn't need the money at all and wanted me to take it out of his way. I looked up the note, sat down by the table, turned out the money and counted it. I saw there were just fifty dollars; then I looked at the note and saw it had been given about five years before.