county. It was late Saturday night before the plaintiff heard of the intentions of his debtor to remove, and before he could get to the justice's office and have the warrant made out it was past 12 o'clock, and Sunday morning had come. On Monday the process was served and the defendant brought into court. The plaintiff was notified of the arrest and he appeared promptly with his counsel, a portly, grave young lawyer who had recently come to the place. The defendant had also employed counsel, and the case being called, a motion was made on the part of the defendant to dismiss the proceedings because the warrant was issued contrary to the statute and was therefore void. The counsel for the defendant, in support of his motion, opened the statute and read the clause prohibiting the issuing of process in civil cases on Sunday, then closed the book and threw it upon the table.

The counsel for the plaintiff took up the book, but not being familiar with the statute, and that having a very imperfect index, he was unable to find the law referred to by defendant's counsel, and quite promptly told the court that there was no such law. This plain contradiction surprised the justice, and he requested the counsel for the defendant to read the law again, as he wished to understand it correctly.

The counsel readily complied, being familiar with the statute, and again read in a very distinct manner the law prohibiting the issuing of process in civil cases on Sunday, closed the book and threw it with an air of triumph and defiance upon the table. The justice turned to the counsel for plaintiff and said that the law appeared to be plain. The counsel for the plaintiff hastily took up the book and asked the counsel for defendant from what page he read. The counsel for defendant replied that if he was fit to conduct the suit he ought to be able to find the law without being told where to look for it. The counsel for plaintiff became irritable and declared there was no such law. The counsel for. defendant replied tartly there was, and that he had read it correctly. The plaintiff's counsel replied that it was a lie. Upon that defendant's counsel took up the statute and threw it into the face of his opponent, and with great rapidity hurled two more books at his head, at which the justice arose from his seat and commanded order. Upon which the counsel for defendant replied to the justice very coolly and deliberately that there was nothing out of order, that the young man was there attending law lectures, and that they were being delivered to him a volume at a time.

INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF MR. EBER WARD, FATHER OF CAPT. E B. WARD OF STEAMBOAT FAME AS RELATED TO MRS. E. M. S.

STEWART IN THE SUMMER OF 1852

Read at the annual meeting of the State Society, June, 1883

In the autumn of 1818 I started with my family from Vermont to go to Kentucky. When we reached Waterford, Pa., my wife was taken sick and in twenty-four hours was a corpse, leaving me grief-stricken among strangers with four little children to care for, Emily the eldest only nine years old. I had relatives at Conneaut, Ohio, and concluded to go there; so I took my motherless children and went as far as Erie in wagons, then hired a small boat and went on to Conneaut. I went to housekeeping and got along very well through the winter. The following spring my brother Samuel was going to Michigan, so I made the best arrangement in my power for my children to remain at Conneaut, and came to Newport on St. Clair river with my

brother and his family, early in May, 1819. We came in a small flat-bottomed schooner called a Salem packet. Our ship was wind-bound at Pt. Au Chien and Sam took his family and went ashore. He found some young apple trees that the Indians had planted, pulled them up and brought them to Newport and planted them; they lived and bore fruit.

In the autumn of 1818, Sam had bought some land there, in company with Father Richard the Catholic priest at Detroit, and built a house on the bank of the river, so when he moved his family he had a home ready for them.

James B. Wolverton, Messrs. Fraser and Knapp, and their families, moved in about the same time. Mr. Wolverton began his log cabin on Thursday and moved into it on Saturday.

My brother Samuel was worth about $3,000 when he moved to Newport, quite a large fortune for those days.

A year and a half after I came to Newport, I made a contract to deliver at Detroit 100 cords of hemlock bark for tanning. J. B. Wilson was building a saw-mill twelve miles below Fort Gratiot, and I went up there in a small open boat with food, bedding, a jug of whisky, and a mat made of bulrushes for a roof to my shanty. My boy, Eber B., went with me. We had plenty of food and would have been very comfortable, but for the gnats; they were intolerable.

I cut down the hemlock trees, peeled off the bark, and sent it to Detroit in small vessels or scows.

Mr. Wilson could not get help to build his mill-dam, so when my contract was filled I went to work with him, and we two found it a task which was not completed till the summer was almost over.

When the hot weather came on, Eber B. was taken sick with fever; I hired some Indians to take him to Newport in a canoe, but I could not persuade them to travel at night, so the poor boy lay all night on the ground in a burning fever.

Usually, when we went up and down the St. Clair, we would draw the boat out of the water, take out everything, turn the boat over, and sleep under it. In the autumn of 1822 I moved my household goods from Conneaut to Newport, bringing with me two of my motherless children, Emily, and Eber B., leaving my other two daughters with their friends in Ohio. We were three days making the trip from Conneaut to Detroit in the steamer Walk-inthe-water. We went from Detroit to Newport in an open boat, and I told the children they would probably live to see a line of steamers on the river.

My brother's family invited us to move in with them. I accepted the invitation for a short time, and then moved into a little log cabin. I soon built an addition to it, which gave us two rooms to our house, and we were very comfortable. At that time there were at Newport, William Gallagher, James B. Wolverton, Bela Knapp, Samuel Ward, and myself and our families. Five families at Newport and on Belle River there were five or six French families, all enterprising people, and all owners of farms.

The first year we got all our grinding done at Mt. Clemens, and went to Detroit for our dry goods and groceries. We had plenty of wild meat, and used hulled corn instead of bread till we got very tired of it. Emily was my little housekeeper, she was then about twelve years old, and Eber B. was two years younger. In 1823 my brother Sam, and William Gallagher built a sawmill and grist-mill, the first mills in that section of country. The same year

my brother also built a schooner of three tons burthen, and named it the St. Clair.

There were a great many Indians passing and repassing on the river during the season of navigation, and quite a large band of Ojibwas had their camp near us, but they were all friendly except Kishkauko and his band; they were very abusive. Kishkauko generally passed through here twice a year from Saginaw to Detroit. He would go into any man's house and take whatever he wanted, and no one dared refuse him; he always had a body guard of desperate looking Indians.

After I had been here four years, my daughter Sally came on from Ohio, and soon after, one day when I was not at home, Kishkauko stalked in and asked for some whisky; we had none, and he went to the barrel of vinegar, turned the faucet, and left the vinegar running, took some bread, and as he and his guard were leaving the house, Kishkauko took his rifle rod and whipped Sally very severely. He was a chief of the Chippewas.

In 1829 I was appointed lighthouse-keeper at Bois Blanc Island, Lake Huron, and soon after my appointment I took my family back to Conneaut, and spent the winter there. In the spring of 1830 I left my daughters at Conneaut intending to take Eber B. with me, but by accident he was left, and I went on to Bois Blanc, and remained on that desolate island alone for two weeks.

There were four or five families on an island about eight miles off, but they could only be reached by water. Eber B., then in his seventeenth year, came to me in his uncle Sam's vessel, Marshal Ney, on her first trip to Mackinaw, and remained with me on Bois Blanc Island till he was of age. We did all our own work except washing, that we sent to Mackinaw. We had quite a large library of historical and scientific works, and plenty of newspapers, and here with what instruction I could give him, Eber B. received most of his early education. Our mails were regular once a month, summer and winter. We always drew our wood in winter on sledges with dogs; the first winter we drew all our wood with one dog. Indians often came on the island to fish, but were never troubesome, nor were we afraid of bands of forty or fifty drunken Indians that came sometimes.

We raised our own potatoes and some for market, and caught about 100 barrels of fish a year.

In the spring of 1833, Eber B. being of age, left the Island, came to Newport and hired out to his uncle Sam. I was alone on the Island a part of the summer and a part of the time a Frenchman and his squaw wife were living not far away. In the autumn of 1833 Duncan Stewart, the Revenue officer, a kind and worthy man, gave me permission to spend the winter with my daughters at Conneaut. This was the first time I had been off the Island to stay over night for eight years. My two daughters Sally and Abby were married, and when I returned to Bois Blanc in the spring of 1834 Emily went with me and remained till 1842, only leaving the Island three times in all those years. Once she was carried to Mackinaw sick and twice she visited her sisters at Conneaut.

In 1842 I exchanged light-houses with Mr. Church at Ft. Gratiot, and moved there. After we moved to Ft. Gratiot Emily had a young girl with her part of the time, I also adopted an orphan boy. I kept the Ft. Gratiot light-house three years Emily remaining with me all the time, then we moved back to Newport where we have lived ever since."

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF ONESIMUS C. PIERCE

BY LEVI BISHOP

Read before the Wayne County Pioneer Society, in May, 1872

This gentleman was born in the town of Potsdam, St. Lawrence county, N. Y., on the 16th day of August, 1809. His immediate ancestors were from the State of Massachusetts, those on his father's side were originally from England.

While Mr. Pierce was a boy the county of St. Lawrence was still to a great extent a wilderness, and while schools were not numerous, yet he received a good common school education. When he arrived at sufficient age, he engaged in teaching, which had a tendency to complete the education thus begun in the public schools.

His father was a farmer and Mr. Pierce has himself followed that honorable occupation to the present time. He frequently engaged in fishing on the St. Lawrence and its tributaries, and sometimes went down the river to Montreal on the large lumber-rafts, which were extensively used in that part of the country during the fore part of the present century.

In the fall of 1833, Mr. Pierce, with a span of horses, wagon, and harness, that being all the property he had except a little money to bear his expenses, came to Michigan. He drove his horses and wagon by way of Buffalo, round on the southern shore to Lake Erie, through the then small towns of Cleveland, Sandusky, and Toledo. The region about Sandusky and Toledo was then a vast wilderness with the timber barely cut for a road, and with no work roads, while residences of settlers were few and far between.

Mr. Pierce had a brother-in-law by the name of Luther Wait, who had moved into the town of Redford, Wayne county, Michigan, three years before, and he concluded to follow and settle there. Redford was then a part of the town of Dearborn, but in the autumn of 1833 it was organized as a separate township.

He came by way of Detroit, which was then a muddy frontier village of two or three thousand inhabitants. He went out from Detroit on the old Ann Arbor road as far as Conrad Ten Eyck's old tavern and from there through the wilderness to Redford. He bought a farm containing fifty-five acres, of a Mr. Peaslee, in section 18, about a mile and a half west of the present Redford Centre, where he settled himself for a permanent home. Though about twenty families had then moved into the town, had got up their log houses and commenced their clearings, yet there was much unsold government land in the vicinity, and the whole town was almost one unbroken forest. There is now (May, 1872) one man living-Mr. George Norris,-who moved into the town in the year 1829.

The following persons, now dead, were among the early settlers of that township: Joseph Green, Benjamin Green, Charles Bell, Isaac Bell, George W. Ferrington, Thomas Gilard, Ebenezer Pate, George Boise, John Piersall, Jacob C. Dubois, Z. Dubois, Mr. Hartsouph [Christopher Hartsough], Luther Wait, Mrs. Amasa Nelson, John Morris.

The following persons now living (1872) were among the early settlers of Redford: George Norris, Samuel Danes, Mrs. Samuel Danes, Ephraim Danes, R. R. Kinner, Mrs. Charlotte Logan, Amasa Nelson, Laura L. Wait, Alva Pate, Mrs. Lucinda Morris, Charles Smith.

In those early times there were scarcely any public roads in Redford, while it now has more public highways than any other township in Wayne county. Wild animals, such as deer, wolves, foxes, woodchucks, beavers, muskrats, and minks were plenty in the neighborhood, and once in awhile a black bear would honor the early settlers with his presence. Wild turkeys, partridge and quail, and most other birds such as belong to this latitude were also plentiful. The streams abounded with fish, such as the mullet, sucker, pike, and pickerel. Among serpents the striped and milk snakes, but principally the massasauga, were numerous. The massasauga resembles the rattlesnake; it was generally about two feet in length and while its movement was slow and logy, it could jump nearly or quite its length, striking its fangs into an opposing object at the same time, the effects of which were about as poisonous and dangerous as those of the rattlesnake. The Indians often passed through Redford in going to and from different parts of the territory, but none of them were permanently settled in the township.

The early population which contained a number of French, Irish, German and Scotch, was of a steady, industrious, and frugal character. Generally each man owned his farm, and all went to work to clear up the new country of their adoption, and they and their descendants have succeeded in making it one of the best and most productive townships in the State. As a general thing the town is nearly level; it has scarcely any waste or poor land in it, and it is now thickly settled with a thrifty and intelligent population. It is nearly all cleared, there being now no more timber reserved than is actually necessary for future use.

Primary schools were started in the town at an early day, and it now has ten in all. The schools are generally kept from eight to ten months in the year; they are well sustained, well attended, and are in a flourishing condition. There is probably no better educated town in the State.

Mr. Pierce has held nearly every township office provided by law, and he has been in office nearly forty years. He had a taste for the military; was captain in the "Toledo war," and has held every military rank in the militia from captain up to colonel. He now has his commissions of Lieut. Colonel and of Colonel, which he received from the still well-remembered Stevens T. Mason.

Mr. Pierce now resides at the village called Redford Center. This village has about one hundred and fifty people, and is situated about one mile and a half from the Detroit and Lansing Railroad. The whole town has about two thousand inhabitants. There are four churches in the town, belonging to the Baptist, the Methodist, the Catholic, and the Presbyterian denominations.

Mr. Pierce is now (1872) a member of the legislature, and is an advocate of woman's suffrage. As a member of the legislature, he is always at his post, and is attentive and careful in the public business. He has acquired a handsome property, and is now in easy circumstances.

His wife, whom he married after he came to Michigan, is now living. He has had nine children-three sons and six daughters, of whom five now survive. He has always sustained a good character. He had a good constitution and has generally enjoyed good health, and though the frosts of three score years are now creeping upon him, we hope he may still long remain among us as one of the early pioneers of the State.