The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1871-01-20
of the True Northerner.
LOCAL HISTORY.
Refas Rsc0llectf0ns and "Reminiscences
OF the EariB Settlers.

We have picked up so much interest
ing history for your columns that we
are really at loss this week where to
begin. Seated in John Rosevelt's mod
orn mansion in the rich township of
Keller we are listening to the amin ting
stories of Mr. Tobias Byers. Here on
this very ground he boarded in Mr..
Keeler's Hotel, a very unpretending
building, in those early days. AS | look
around me at these walls of pure white
kalsomine and the elegant woodwork of
black walnut and butternut finish, and
the rich furniture and Wilton carpets
of this elegant structure, it is hard to
believe that such luxury and abundance
have grown out of the small beginnings
Of 1885. In that year Mr.. Byers, like
many another restless young man, found
business too slow in old Livingston Co.,
n. Y, and started out alone to find a
"new heaven and a new earth" He
had heard very fattoriDg accounts of the
Territory of Michigan, but was resolved
not to stop until he had found the best
place. With that view he spent several
months looking, first stoppingin Medina
Co, Ohio, about two weeks, and thence
to Branch Co Mich, near Coldwater.
Not yet finding the beau ideal" of his
day dreams he went to the northern
part Of Illinois From his starting
point in New York State he rode to
Buffalo, with man moving to the far
West with horse team and wagon -
FROM Buffalo to Cleveland, a distance
Of two hundred miles, he travelled in the
stage, very cheap, as there was an op-
position line his fare was but two cents
per mile, or four dollars for the entire
journey. Though in mid.winter and
excessively cold the stage was a wheeled
vehicle. Mr. Byers first stopping place
ir Illinois was near Joliet, then looking
still farther he halted at Peoria, village
hen of few hundred inhabitants. He
Was pleased with the country and its
fertile lands, but realized one great lack
and that Was the entire absence of tim
Der except on the river banks. He
could not imagine any comfortable way
for q farmer to live without plenty of
ready material to build fences, houses,
and barns, and with the tall trees of
Michigan in bis minds eye, he turned
his steps once more eastward, not finding
a supply of this great want on the prairie
as large as all out doors"
On his return trip, which was nearly
all the way on foot, he stopped at a little
village of seven or eight hundred inhab-
tants, located in a mud hole on the
shore of Lake Michigan, called Chicago
The last six or seven miles he had wad.
ID in water, from one to four inches
leep, to reach this pitable huddle. If
he could have known what be does now
IN investment of his few hundred dol
ars then, in this land under water,
would have---never mind but in
1860 Tobias Byers would have been
millionaire. But it is all for the best.
for he would not have been the plain,
bOnest farmer, that he is now, with the
'amiliar and affectionate title of I" Uncle
Toby" that comes to everybody's lips
rs they see him pass with his slow white
'orses, on his way to the Decatur mar
'et with his hundreds of bushels of wheat |
very year. His real worth is more
han half dozen city nabobs, and so we
now it is all for the best-that he hon.
silly thought he would not take the
Thols institution as a gift and be oblig |
ID to live there. The sale of public
ands in that immediate neighborhood
vas within two days of the time Mr..
}yers left but it was a farm he was
ookng for and not goose pond so he
I'd not stay to purchase. On the first
chooner that unfurled her sails for St
oseph he took passage and turned his
ack towards the now great commercial
mporium of the West In all of those
cars, from that time to this, every port
n the eastern shore of Lake Michigan
as sent out its heavy laden vessels with
building timber, lumber Of every de.
cript'on, and railroad ties, and all of