DEATH OF MR. MCWILLIAMS.
The family that remained were an old couple with a young son of seventeen years. The old couple felt the journey too long for them to take so preferred to remain all winter. Father and mother tried hard to persuade them not to remain, but go home, but they would not go so they prepared to pass the winter at a place called Birch Point, a cold, bleak shore, where the foot of a white man seldom ever came in winter at that time and very seldom the Indian hunters except on their hunting expeditions. Our goods had been sent on to Manistique and we were to follow in a few days in our boat. Just before we left father took us all down the shore to see the old couple that were to remain all winter and try to persuade them to come with us to Manistique. The name of this family was McWilliams. We found the old gentleman very sick. Mother told me afterwards we were with them two weeks. The old man died. Father made the casket. We buried him on that lonely shore in a quiet little nook where he loved so much to sit and watch the waves roll in upon the white sandy beach. Buried him where the blue sea waves might chant a requiem to his grave.
Sing on, sad waves, your sound shall toll
A solemn requiem to the soul
Who sleeps so peaceful on that shore
Till time shall wake to sleep no more.
My people tried hard to have the mother and son go with us but nothing could induce them to leave the lonely grave of their loved one. Time was passing, father was anxious to reach Manistique at once. They told me it was a great sorrow to leave the mother and son alone, and to make it more lonely the wolves and bears were so numerous we could hear the howl of the wolves and growls of the bears just as soon as it became dark every night. They would sit at our doors and snap and growl at each other. They were so hungry we could hear their teeth snap together. John McWilliams picked brush and wood, keeping a fire around his father's grave until he could build a strong fence of logs around it.
AGAIN IN OUR BOAT ON LAKE MICHIGAN.
One still, cold morning in November our boat was prepared and we started to Manistique, ten miles distant. Charley and I were again placed in among warm blankets. Our little puppies of the springtime had grown to be great, large dogs and watched over little brother and me like two faithful sentinels. The day was cold and still. Father and the boys rowed while mother steered. We kept close to the shore. Little brother and I were half asleep most of the time. I can hear my father even now singing his old hymns, "Rock of Ages" and the "Evergreen Shore". Many times I imagine I can hear the sweet music of his voice. Mother, too, sang her French glee songs, the boys joining with her. French was our mother's language. Father could not speak it, but understood nearly everything. French and Indian were the languages spoken by almost everybody in those days around the western islands and shores. The men that came from eastern homes soon learned to speak the language of both French and Indian as it was necessary to carry on their trade.
ARRIVING AT MANISTIQUE.
As we neared the shore Mr. Frankle and his men stood ready to meet us and catching hold of our boat we were landed safely out on the dry land. Our house was all warmed with a nice fire burning in the great stone fireplace. Lights were lighted and supper was soon ready for us all. Beds were put up and soon we felt we were at home.
Mr. Frankle had some friends visiting him from York State who had delayed their going home until they had seen my mother in regard to preparing some sturgeon for them. Sturgeon were so plentiful in the river they could be pulled out with a gaff hook. Mother contracted with them for several tons of smoked sturgeon. The Indians from their village, three miles distant, agreeing to catch the sturgeon, the fish were prepared and smoked, but the season closed too early to ship them that fall, so they had to be packed and kept over until the following spring for shipment to New York.
The river was so full of suckers that the mill had to shut down many times while the men scooped the fish out with a large scoop-net and loaded wagons with them, which were hauled a distance down the beach and piled upon the sand.