The red-painted warehouse at the steamboat wharf in Toledo was also a terminal station of a strip of steam railway to Adrian, now a part of the Michigan Southern system. We were transferred directly to the cars, and, while this magical sort of locomotion must have impressed my boyish fancy, I am unable to recall a single incident until we were undergoing the discomfort of crowded and wretched quarters in Adrian, waiting to engage wagons to transport our party and its effects the remaining distance.
I recall being taken into a room to see a stalwart man undergoing an ague fit. He was fully dressed and seated in an arm-chair, convulsively shivering and writhing. The door of the room stood open, and people came and stared and commented, and went away to make room for fresh arrivals. The scene was so grotesque, and the spectators seemed so amused, that I was not certain the victim was not acting a part for the general entertainment, until he informed us with clattering teeth that we saw what we were all coming to, when a kind of mysterious dread possessed me of what lay in wait in the terra incognita before us.
At length, after much searching and haggling, an insufficient caravan was provided, the household goods bestowed, and, the women folk sitting on them as did Rachel in the Old Testament story, we set forth through the oak openings, over the unvarying level, to the music of two or three rifles in the hands of the adventurers attached to our party, who found good and unaccustomed sport in the small game frequent among the glades of the vast continuous forest. We moved slowly, and on the second day were overtaken by Mr. Edwin H. Lathrop, riding alone in a buggy drawn by a pair of free-going horses, on his return from Adrian, where he had left his wife so far on her way to visit eastern friends. Our numerous colony naturally drew his attention, and after much exchange of speech he urged me to ride with him and go on before our party, promising to have me at his house the next morning, and to see that I reached Schoolcraft in good condition. This request was referred to my mother, who felt much misgiving and was disposed to see in the honorable gentleman a sort of brigand on wheels, plotting to carry off the firstling of her flock to his fastness, and there either torture or hold him for ransom; but the [objectchanged from objct in original] of her distrust having established his claim to be a civil sort of person, and nowise associated with any band of robbers, drove away with me, somewhat to the terror of my brothers and after much excellent advice from my mother, quite as if leaving her for an indefinite period on a risky adventure. Indeed, after getting into the great solitude of the woods, quite out of sight and hearing of the cheerful stir of the caravan, I began to feel not quite at ease as I glanced from time to time at the countenance which all who knew Mr. Lathrop will recall as one in its steady seriousness unprovocative of glee in the heart of childhood; but all discomfort of feeling wore away under the kindness of my host, and there has always remained with me a sense of enjoyment in that long drive over a road unobstructed by rocks and bordered by virgin forests. We lay that night in a room of the unfinished house of Mr. John Smith of Three Rivers, then an exceedingly crude, confused and unfinished hamlet wrapped in malarial airs, where Mr. Smith was engaged in building a flour-mill or saw-mill, I am uncertain which. We were up with the dawn and drove swiftly to the residence of Mr. Lathrop, where we breakfasted, and at my urgent request I was allowed to make my way to Schoolcraft on foot. And so I set out from the southern border of the prairie, with elastic step and quick beating heart, eager for the goal of this long pilgrimage.
The east was flushed with the glory of a perfect Sunday morning, the air crisp and clear, the green of the native grass still lingered in an autumn of unusual mildness, and many flowers still bloomed. A flag flying from the frame-work of the belfry of the recently raised schoolhouse soon became a guide to my course, but I could not then understand why my rapid pace did not consume the distance at a greater rate, so near appeared remote objects in that transparent atmosphere over the level plain. I suppose I am not correct in saying that I did not pass an enclosed spot, nor step on ground ever cultivated by man, but such is my recollection.
The longest way comes to its ending to the most impatient, and well before the sun attained its meridian I stood upon the black road before the village tavern. I had heard that the younger James Smith had the extraordinary habit of throwing up his head and staring upward at quite regular intervals, and there, like a weatherwise little sea-man, actually stood a grave lad winking familiarly at the sun. Making myself known to him I was soon among the friendly faces of his family, where I waited for the slow caravan which arrived the following day. The journey from Vermont occupied fifteen days.
Thus was I transplanted to the soil where I grew to my appointed stature;—a kindly soil and habitat wherein not a few fibers of my affections are left infixed.
REMINISCENCES OF THE LIFE OF A YOUNG PIONEER
BY H. P. SMITH.
Read by Miss Isa Smith.