History

Overland to Michigan in 1846

“BESIDE his cheery hearthstone on the banks of the old St Joseph there sits a man of four score years and five to whom through the magic of the fire's bright glow come pictures of boyhood days. Shadowed in the swiftly flowing Susquehanna he sees the White Deer mountain, forestclad the old stone house in the valley with its great fireplace and deep windowsills, the high roomy barn, the deerlick, the clover grown meadows, or slowly moving down the dusty country road a little cavalcade of covered wagons carriages and horseback riders- men, women and, children- “out on the sunset road” journeying west to Michigan.

As the old man recalls the months of preparation preceding their departure,- the planning, the packing, the baking, the choosing of taverns and overland routes, he remembers the newspapers of the day with their marvelous stories of the West and the letters from enthusiastic relatives and friends, especially the letters from his brother Samuel,- and as he recalls these the old man smiles,- there flashes before him the inciting moment of a domestic drama which had far reaching results." (Source: Michigan History Magazine, Volume 5, Sue I. Silliman, p. 424)

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