“Recollections of A Busy Life”

By Eli Fayette Ruggles

H. L. Ruggles & Co., Publishers

(published circa 1904)

Transcribed by Peggy Barriskill Perazzo, December 2005

Dedicated to My Faithful Wife, Viola who has been my companion and helpmeet through storm and sunshine; loving and kind, she has been a most faithful and devoted mother to our children who love, and adore her.
 

On the 19^th day of August 1904, after a brief illness of ten days, Father Ruggles was laid to rest in the beautiful Forest Home Cemetery, at Oak Park, Illinois.  It is a beautiful spot - an eminently fitting place for one of the noblest characters the world has ever known.

Father Ruggles was a good, upright, honest Christian man, one of God’s own sons, and to know him, was to love him for his sterling qualities.   

Always ready with a kind word and a helping hand for those in distress, and ever charitable to the hungry wayfarer that knocked at his door. 

He uncomplainingly and willingly sacrificed his own prospects and aims, so that his children might secure that education and those advantages which would so well fit them for the battle of life.

The inheritance that he leaves is the riches - the knowledge of his pure character, the remembrance of his unfailing devotion, and his lasting love.
 

 Chapter 1
 

The journey of life has been likened by some one to a man beginning to climb at the base of a double ladder and at the top, forty-five years later, is in his best manhood - then begins the descent, and when at its base is an old man, and the grave receives him.

This view of life may do for an old bach. or maid, but does not meet my case - for on this journey I have taken a companion to share my joys and sorrows, and I call her my wife - Viola - and at the time of reaching the top of the ladder we are surrounded with five children, and have buried one on the way.  And now you, my children, want to know of my life from earliest recollection to this time.

My beginning in life was just the same as yours, so far as life is concerned.  Somebody found us a little bundle of humanity nestling close to a fond mother, and she turns a light covering back and somebody looks and looks again at that infant face and tries to reason about that baby.  What does the little thing know? - nothing.  Where did he come from? - and you can’t answer your own question.  Neither can the wisest man that ever lived.  Your only source of information is what is revealed in the Bible, and even that is but faintly told - for that is of God’s secrets.  There is nothing in God’s creation that so fully reveals the wisdom of God as a baby.

When I was 21 years of age my mother gave me for a birthday present a little lace nightcap that she said I wore when a baby.  That is my mother’s evidence that I was once a baby.  That baby, as he grew in stature and strength to hear it, received the name of Eli Fayette Ruggles.  How the name of Fayette was chosen I can only surmise.  LaFayette was not of this country, but came to it in her hour of greatest need, and found in many a hard battle till its life and existence was safe, and then returned to his native land.  So as he was but a part of us I received but part of his name.

I had a chance of seeing other mothers as they came to visit and take tea, and the earliest reasoning I had was that of all the mothers I had seen mine was the quickest.  How quick, she would whirl the table into the middle of the floor and make the dishes rattle in their places!  You see, I had an interest in that.

Then, as I grew to be quite a boy, I noticed the cat and dog were lying with their hind feet close together, and, a string being handy and a little fun wanted, I tied their hind feet together and soon the dog concluded to be off - and such a yelling of dog and cat and rattling of chairs as they tumbled pell-mell - and mother was on hand quick, I assure you.  She grabbed me up and put some good, solid spanks on me as quick as I had ever known her to do anything in the way of business.

One day father said to mother:  “I guess I shall have to get some glasses, for that cataract is affecting my sight so I see but dimly,” and mother looked in his eye and said, “Surely it is growing, and I fear it will spoil that eye.”  Father was both carpenter and farmer.

Father had been hewing timber in the woods to build a barn, and it was on a side hill.  One very frosty and slippery morning he was driving the cows over this spot to prevent their going to the prairie and picked up a chip and threw it at the cattle; his feet slipped from under him and he fell face down, striking the affected eye directly on a dry stub or stick that was standing directly upwards, penetrating the eye - forced the eyeball out on his cheek and broke off, leaving a piece some eight inches long outside the face, beside what was in the head.  A doctor was called, and can you imagine what must have been the agony when that stick was pulled from his head?  Then the torn flesh was stitched up after the eyeball was replaced, but father always carried the scars.

But another baby boy has come to our home, and he is named Joseph Westley.  This home and of what I write is in the country, not far from Milan and Norwalk, Ohio.

To speak to you about a railroad, you think of long trains of cars being whirled over a nice smooth track at the rate of forty or sixty miles per hour, and the passengers in perfect ease and comfort.  About the days of old of which I write the first railroad was then building through our vicinity.  Straps of iron nailed on long timbers and car or large box with four wheels under it - three quarters of the car for freight, and drawn by a span of horses - that was our railroad.

Later steam began to be the power, but uncontrollable.  No person dare ride on or with it save the experimenter, and it took years to perfect it and control it safely.

Living not far from our house was father’s father and mother.  I was full of boy antics when I could see grandpa and grandma come to our house.  Grandma was blind, but she always brought something good to us children, and grandpa was always so good-natured that I came to love them both.  Grandma would knit and mother spin.  But grandpa got too old to do his work, and it was arranged that one of his sons should have his property and care for them as long as they lived.  But they lived longer than this son thought they would, and the son and his wife (they laid it mostly to the wife) figured it out that they had kept them as long as they ought to have lived, and they could not afford, and more than that, they would not keep them longer.  They were adding farm after farm to their home farm, and were becoming idolaters to wealth.  It is said that they would skim milk the third time and then give it to their hired men to drink.  Uncle Eli, living in Milan seeing that his father and mother were so unwelcome by his brother, told him to bring their parents to his house and he would care for them, which was done, and there they remained content and welcome till they died, at a ripe age of near 90 years.  All honor to Uncle Eli, after whom I was named!

In this vicinity lived most of father’s brothers and sisters, and here I give their names:

Sara.  Married Josiah Drake.  One son lives yet in Norwalk and has a livery stable.

Daniel.  Became a rich farmer, and his children still live near Milan.

Polly.  Married Benjamin Jackson.  Moved to California about 1858.  Joel, their son, went with Fernando and Lyman, 1849.

Peter.  Moved to St. Joe, Mich., about the time we came to Michigan.  Later he built a saw and grist mill ten miles south of St. Jo.  Sally and Emma were his daughters.

Martin was a ship carpenter.  Worked in Milan and Sandusky.

Salmon.  Ship carpenter.

William.  Carpenter.  Moved to Chicago.  Burned out by the great fire of 1871.  Later moved to and died in California.

Eli.  Carpenter and wheelwright at Milan.

A disease called bloody murrain has been very fatal with horses and cattle in all this portion of country for a long time, and father has lost some of his, and he has a pair of beautiful black horses with a star in each forehead, and he has been giving preventives - but those fine blacks have to go just as others have gone, and father is very much discouraged.

Fernando has been in Michigan the past year and writes a glowing letter of the blessings of good health, rich soil, etc.  Father decides to move to Michigan, and arranges accordingly.  Gets canvas and bends long strips of wood over two wagons, puts on the canvas, sells off furniture and makes ready.  But here comes a wagonload of folks and stops in front of our house, and here is grandpa and grandma and Uncle Eli and Auntie and many others of the relatives.  Well, Joseph, I hear that you are going to the far west.  Well, I can’t blame you much, but we are awfully sorry to have you and your nice family of boys leave us.  See how many have you now - Fernando, Freman, Martin, Lyman, Lewis, Eli and Westley - seven all told.  Well, they are a nice lot of healthy fellows, too.  But how about mother?  You ask where did she come from.  Mother’s people lived just across the state line, in Pennsylvania.  Father, when a young man, was teaching school and also singing school in that vicinity, and became acquainted with and later married Sylvia Brown, that since became our mother.

Now, let us have some singing - and grandpa and the older boys take the bass and Grandma takes soprano and father the tenor, and they sing, “The morning sun shines from the east and spreads his glories to the west.”  Then Sherborn was called for, and again they sing, “While Shepherds watch their flocks by night.”

Oh, it would have done you good to hear that soprano and tenor.  Grandma sat with head thrown a little back and her sightless eyeballs raised as if seeing the unseen - hands clasped together and her thumbs playing round and round each other.  Oh, it was grand singing.  Then grandpa and all the rest knelt before God while he implored the Good Shepherd to be with his son Joseph and his family as he journeyed to the far west.  And here I wish to say that I sadly regret that I did not long years ago write down what I have heard father tell when on the old farm in Michigan about his people from his earliest recollection to the time of which I now write when he was to leave Ohio.  My father was of the fourth generation of Ruggles’.  Joseph Ruggles the first was from Scotland, and the name was transmitted from father to son.  My father being the fourth, I will here give part of a clipping from a Chicago paper of the past year.

[NOTE:  It has been documented by Ruggles family researchers that the above information on the ancestry is only partially correct.]

“Havana, Ill., Feb. 9

“General J. M. Ruggles, an old settler and veteran of the Civil War, died here this morning at the Hopping Sanitarium.  General Ruggles was born March 7, 1818, in Richland County, Ohio, and was of noted ancestry, his great-uncle being Brigadier Timothy Ruggles, who was president of the first congress which ever met in America in New York in 1755.”

Another great-uncle, John Ruggles, was three times elected United States Senator from Maine, and another uncle, Benjamin, was first United States Senator from Ohio, serving eighteen years, from 1818.  His father, Judge Spooner Ruggles, was State Senator in Illinois from Ogle and Winnebago counties in 1842.  General Ruggles came to Illinois in 1833 with his parents.  From 1852 to 1856 in the State Senate.  He drafted the first platform on which the Republican party of Illinois was organized.  At the outbreak of the Civil War he was appointed lieutenant of the First Illinois Calvary by Governor Yates.  When mustered out, in 1864, he was lieutenant-colonel of the Third Illinois Cavalry.  He was Master in Chancery for Mason County for several years after the war.  This record tells us that we have relatives in Illinois, if we wish to hunt them up.

The two wagons have had their white canvas tops for a few days and some neighbors have called to say good-bye, and Aunt Aurelia, father’s oldest sister, that married Mr. Whitford, and Aunt Sarah, that married Mr. Drake, and Aunt Polly, that married Benjamin Jackson, Uncle Martin and Salmon and Orrin and William and Uncle Eli all live in this vicinity, and called to see the family off to Michigan.

One wagon takes the family, the other the household goods, such as bedding, etc.  To the outside of one wagon box is attached a chicken coop.  Good-bye to associations of many years to father and mother, good-bye to Milan and Norwalk, and away we start for the then far west.

It was slow traveling with muddy roads and oxen.  We sleep in the wagon, and that is all right, but I wish they had left those chickens at the old home, for every morning long before day that rooster is calling - time-to-get-up-up.  I wish he would shut his yaup.  But the older members of the wagonhold said it is all just right, and they feed the cattle and build a fire out of sticks and brush, and mother gets us a good breakfast for good appetites.

When near Kalamazoo, Mich., Lyman says to father, what prevents our locating here?  See this small prairie of about 300 acres surrounded with timber.  Take 160 acres about half prairie, then all we need to do is to get a home started and then hitch to a plow and your land is already cleared, and fine land it is, too.  I knew by the looks of the road.

But Fernando had been writing home about the fine streams of water and springs boiling up clear as crystal, and such beautiful black walnut and white wood, and sugar maple trees, where you can make your own sugar and cattle can live all winter on browsing the brush, while you clear the land.  So on we go, and in a two week’s journey arrive at a farm three miles southwest of our destination.  But that three miles is through an unbroken forest.  It will take too long to cut a road through for the wagons, so a tree is selected that has a forked shaped crotch, and this is, when made, about eight feet long, with stakes at the three corners - the front rounded up from the bottom so as to run over any small logs and dodge around trees anywhere, and on this is piled part of the goods, with mother and Baby Westley on top.

We came to Mill Creek, and here we had a hard time to cross.  But it is finally accomplished, although there is more water on board than is for comfort.  But mother is crying, and I don’t recollect to have ever seen her cry before.  What is the matter, mother, that makes you cry?  To think of going away into this forest to begin life over again?  ‘Tis a hard prospect, that is a fact.  But we finally arrive at a log house, and are made very welcome by the good people, who say we can spread our beds on the floor and make ourselves as much at home as possible.  After we had been refreshed with a good supper and the fire played antics around the logs, sending up ten thousand sparks to cheer us, we quite forgot the hardships of the day.

During the evening stories were told of this new country - some laughable, some fearful.  Next day was spent in selecting the eight acres selected by Fernando.  Then a place was chosen near a boiling spring, pure and cold, and near by was running a small creek.  Here they cut away the brush first, then the trees, till enough was cleared on which to build.  Then a road was made, and the wagons brought in.  There was a road through the woods to the east and north, but none to the southwest till these wagons came in.  One yoke of oxen and wagon was sold as payment on the land.  The land is on record as the E. ½ of the S.E. ¼ of Sec. 31, Township No. 3 South, Range No. 16 West.  The township was then without a name, but later was called Hartford, in Van Buren County, Michigan.  The oxen just sold were named Dime and Jerry; the oxen we kept were Maje and Brady.  Maje was a docile fellow that would let anything be done with him that the occasion required.  When the farm was partly cleared father made a yankee harness for Maje and used him as a horse to plow corn.

First Settlers of Hartford

There was at this time but four settlers in the township, namely:  Ferdino Olds, Henry Hammond, B. A. Olney and Thomas Conkling (Hartford family histories and cemetery records show spelled as Conklin).  My older brothers have been traveling through these woods some - have been to these neighbors’ houses, and each evening as the log house is being built they tell of what discoveries they have made during the day.  These hard-beaten, winding paths all through the forest are made by the deer.  Nearly every day some of the family have seen the white flags of the deer as they bound away, and are soon out of sight.  Last night Fernando brought home a fine buck, and we younger chaps had to wonder at and admire his beauty.  One large tree was noticed, being but a shell of a tree, and the bark all scratched and torn, that proved to be where bears lived.  The howl of the wolf was often heard.  Then a path was commented on that was a little wider than the deer path, but not trod so deep and hard.  That proved to be an Indian trail leading from one settlement to another.

Chapter II

The Log House Home

The first requisite in building a log house is a man or men filled with a hearty dinner, such as a new country gives.  Then determination - grit - pluck - perseverance.  You must go five miles through the woods and get the only blacksmith there to make your axe, hammer, butcherknife or frow (a variation of froe, meaning a cleaving tool having a heavy blade set at right angles to the handle.)  Then when your axe is ground you have used up one day at least.  Your axe is the principal tool for such carpentry.  Straight trees are cut into logs and rolled up one above another, the corners hewed together till the house is high enough, and now the roof.  Long poles are placed on top three feet apart, then short logs cut three feet long and split into shakes six inches wide, one inch thick; these laid on the poles and fastened by laying another pole on top; this, when put together with right pitch, formed the roof.  Then openings are cut in this crib - for doors and windows, and you make the first floor of split logs, and when you sweep it with a splint broom made from a hickory bush two inches of more in diameter.  You have now, strange to say, a house without the sound of hammer or the driving of a nail.  Later, at Waterford, a few boards were bought for the upper floor.  The family are now in the house, and the men are chopping the trees down just outside.  One large tree leans but a trifle from the house, and as it is near ready to fall the wind springs up towards the house and a great yell comes from the men to get out of the house quick for your lives.  Spring poles are cut in a terrible excitement and placed against the tree in this fashion.  Two are placed, and when the wind is stillest the men pull down on the poles, then lift up the center of the pole, the victory is won, the house is saved; but we had a big scare, I can assure you.  But a boy likes the new country life - to cut down the brush and pile them up and play they are little haystacks; then when a little dry to set them afire in the evening and see the bright flames leap and dance and the sparks, like the stars on the great flag, are glorious to look at, and so numerous.

Soon as a clearing was made, the spring of 1839 was made so gladly welcome, potatoes were planted with fine sticks and leaves and a little dirt for a covering, and a garden of all the vegetables were planted and no weeds to be subdued for the entire season, and in the fall such potatoes, and such vegetables and watermelons - it makes my mouth water now to think of it.  Potatoes when baked would pop open - white and soft, like flour - no potato bugs then to hinder their growth or spoil their flavor.

In the autumn of this year father and Martin were felling trees near by, and father’s eyes were getting dim, and Martin had put his arms around the tree, putting his hands in the chopped place on the opposite side.  Father, not seeing his hands, began to chop, his axe cutting Martin’s left wrist half off.  Oh dear, oh dear what shall be done now!  But one thing can be done - doctor, hospital and nurse are all within the family or nowhere.  Martin was seated in a home-made chair about fifteen feet from the door and Freman was nearest to being a doctor.  Sticks were taken, bandages applied and tepid water was the medicine for the first day; then an ointment of mutton tallow and spignut (also known as bitternut hickory) root completed the healing.

That evening, while mother was caring for Martin and the rest seated sadly around the big fire, a hew-ou-ou-ou!  Hear that wolf howl, will you!  He smells blood, and there is another, far away they seem at first, but they come nearer - yes, they gather near and now we hear the young whelps whine and snarl; yes, they are at our very door and licking up the blood where Martin sat, and they quarrel for the best chance.  Fernando says, “now, I will put an end to your fun.”  He picks up a fire brand with the tongs, opens the door quickly and hurls it among them, and such a scampering and rustling of leaves you never heard.  To protect against wolves Fernando bought a large white dog.  When, after that, a wolf would howl Bose would mock him.  But not a rod did he go in pursuit.  When pigs had grown to hogs in a log pen was built with a floor above and corn put on the upper floor.  One day Fernando told Bose to drive a pig from the door yard, but would he do it?  Not much; he just dropped his long, bushy tail to the ground and trotted off back of the house to enjoy the shade.  Bose was a perfect coward.  Fernando started in pursuit with blood in his eye.  I’ll fix Bose, old chap, see if I don’t - grabbed Bose by the nap of his neck and started for the hog pen; raised the trap door and pitched him in headlong among a lot of Michigan Shark hogs, shut down the door and said:  “Now, Bose, you fight or die.”  Bose yelled and bounded from one corner to another, and yelp, yelp goes Bose.  Finally the tune changed and the swine began to squeal; here and there the strife rages and the hogs squeal lustily.  Fernando raised the trap door and called, “here, Bose” and out he jumps a conqueror.

You are fond of the pure maple sugar, but may not know how it is made.  Beginning with the first thawing in February the troughs, or buckets or pails, are placed one to each maple tree.  Then spiles (a wooden plug; a bung. a spigot used in taking sap from a tree) are made one foot long, with a small hole burned in te center; then a three-quarter inch hole is bored in each tree, the spile driven in tight so that the sap is forced out the burned hole, runs down a groove in the spile and drops off the end of the spile into the bucket.  After the trees are all tapped you may have to hurry and hitch the oxen to the sled, on which is placed a cask that holds, say ten barrels, and with a pail in each hand and perhaps a yoke on the neck and shoulders the sap is gathered, then emptied into a large trough; then away after another load.  But while one man gathers sap another must be boiling the sap.  Two or three large kettles are hung on a pole and logs rolled up on each side, the fire started with small wood, and soon the sap is boiling, and as the sap boils away it is replenished by more being poured in by the pail full, or better make a yankee device and have a small stream running into each kettle all the time and the fire hot enough to keep it boiling.  Keep this up twelve hours and the kettle of sap is getting rich, and then boil down till it is syrup, empty, let cool and strain.  Then occasionally you will enjoy a sugaring-off party, either in the sugar camp or at the house.  Boil the syrup till thick, then pour it on snow for wax, and set your teeth in it and try to talk, and see what ridiculous work you make of it.  Then dip the warm sugar into scallop tins, tea saucers, eggshells, etc.  Then play snap and catch ‘em, and promenade four, and see your gal home through the woods, or that may be a sled load drawn by Buck and Star.  If it does not freeze nights the sap will keep running and the boiling must be kept up all night; many a night have us boys changed at midnight, and that is always just when a fellow is in a sound sleep.  But precious sleep must depart and heavy eyes must wake up and the tired sleeper must go out into the dense forest and may have to work till the next midnight.  Yes, sugar is sweet, but it is often obtained by weary bodies and sleepy eyes.  Mother was mixing bread one day and a faint rap was heard on the door.  Mother told me to open the door; I pulled the latch-string, opened the door and slammed it shut and said, “Mother, there are Injuns at the door.”  But mother was not so scared and opened the door cautiously, and then a squaw says, “Buzhoo, buzhoo (how do you do, how do you do)?”

And there were two squaws and three papooses, and they had baskets of all sizes and colors, so mother exchanged flour, pork and beans for baskets.

Chapter III

First School

Education is a natural characteristic of a Ruggles, find them where you may.  But no school for many long miles.  This is a result of one day’s work by father.  Mrs. Thomas Conkling (Hartford family histories and cemetery records show spelled as Conklin) agreed to teach the children of the neighborhood at a price named, and the children came to her log house, and there I learned by a, b, ab’s.

One day father said to us boys, “You may do your chores early to-night, then go and stay all night with Mr. Manley’s boys.”  “Good!  Good! we said, “won’t we have fun.”  We met Mrs. Manley going to our house.  Returning next morning, we met Mrs. Manley and Mrs. Ferdino Olds.  “Good Morning, boys,” and they laughed, “you can’t guess what you will find when you get home.”  But we started on a run and rushed in at the door, but stopped short.  “Oh, mother are you sick?”  “Not very, my boys.”  “But you are so pale.”  “Come here, boys,” and she lifted a light covering and there was just the nicest little baby we ever did see.  And mother said, “that is your little sister.”  “Sister! we all said at once.”  “Isn’t she nice, though; we never had a sister before, did we?”  The reader may ask, but where is the doctor?  No doctor to be had, and nobody thought it necessary.  And this was repeated at intervals of about two years, when our family numbered seven boys and three girls.

Labor a Blessing

Most men at the present time look with pity on the man who has to chop down the trees, pile up and burn the logs, split the rails, (all honor to Abe Lincoln, the rail-splitter!), build the fence, plow among the roots.  Ha! ha! keep your pity to curl your hair with; he might not accept your kindness if you offered to exchange places with him.  He has a pleasure you may be a stranger to. Enjoys a hearty meal and needs no aid to digestion, and his laugh rings out on the morning air as clear as the robin’s song.

Larger Family - Larger House

More room is needed for so large a family, and we have help enough of our own, so let’s build another house while the logs are near by.  Yes, yes, and another log house is built, ending against the first house and ten feet distant, and then a leanto built back of both, and under that cellar dug that was always dry, for only a few rods back ran the creek, and the houses were on the bank, some twelve feet above the creek bottom.

This house is built near the center of the farm, north and south, and some twenty rods east of the west line.  Freman had bought land west of us and had one piece cleared and fenced, and Lewis was plowing there, and was stopped by the terrible squealing of a hog in the edge of the woods - a bear has got that hog, I believe.  He ran to the house, got dog and gun, and before he got near here comes bear and dog after him in full speed.  They passed in front of him, but too far to shoot.  Dog gains on bear, and Mr. Bear leaps up a tree.  Lewis runs, but as the bear sees him coming he loosens his fore paws, swings head down at the dog.  They have a rough and tumble battle, but dog gets a terrible cuffing, and just as Lewis was near, ready to shoot, away goes Mr. Bear.  He was one of the lean kind, and could both run and fight.  But the dog’s head was bloody and sore, and he would not give chase.

A neighbor has moved in joining us on the east and south, and he lives by hunting, while his wife and children do the little farming.  Lewis told him of the bear.  “I’ll get that bear,” he says.  “Tomorrow about 2 o’clock he will return to finish his meal of that hog, then I shoot him.”  George Springer was his name. He climbed a small tree where the hog was in plain sight, and at the time stated Mr. Bear appears very cautiously, stops, looks around and proceeds to help himself to pig meat.  Springer takes, as he always does, a good aim, and bang goes the gun and away runs the bear, not so much as touched.  Bear fever.  Even though a hunter his nerves were excited.  You may think that no boys or girls had good times till you lived.  But how would you like to go into the woods after the first heavy frosts and gather a pail full of fat beechnuts?  Then go down the creek bottom and gather bags full of butternuts?  Then go to the higher land and fill more bags with walnuts?  Then let the long winter evenings come on and crack the dried nuts, throwing the shucks into the great log fire, and see the sparks go upwards as the meats go downwards.  Then sing, “Let the wide world wag as it will.”  After the second log house is built - in place of a piano is a spinning wheel and instead of the library a loom, and in place of some rich picture with gold frame is the gun and powder horn.

Barn Built

In the winter of ’41 and ’42 logs were cut and hauled to Waterford, and the lumber drawn home to build a barn.  Black walnut logs were cut six feet long, stood up endwise, and on these the barn was built, and in the gable end was cut in the boards and is still there the year 1842.  The first going to a grist mill was at Paw Paw, twenty-miles; also the first wool carding machine.  Sheep were necessity, and every farmer had his flock.

Father, Freman and Martin were charter members in the organization of the Town of Hartford, and are so on record there now, and always will be.  Father was the first supervisor.  Later he was a justice of the peace.  Father has one blind eye and the other has a cataract started, yet he does pretty good work on the barn and farm. 

Chapter IV

Mother

I wish you to know more about mother, and as the sheep have been sheared and the wool washed and she is to begin the making of garments for the family it will be a good time to see her at work.  She is small or of medium size, weighs 120 pounds.  Not pretty, but looks good; hair curls on each temple - says they are her scolding locks; brown hair, and she has a double right to that, for her name was Brown before marriage.  She takes a chair and then picks up some cards.  What you say?  She isn’t going to play cards?  Yes, watch her and see if she don’t.  She takes a card in left hand with handle from her and covers it evenly with wool, then takes a card in right hand, cards the wool till both cards are even full, then with a reverse motion the wool is taken from the cards and made into rolls some two feet long.  It takes some days, besides the housework, to card the wool into rolls.  And it is not uncommon for her to work till midnight, while others are snoring in bed.  Now she brings out her spinning wheel and gives it a whirl, puts on some coon’s oil, tightens the band, picks up a roll, and, placing one end on the spindle turns the wheel slowly till the wool fastens to spindle.  Then the wheel begins to sing as only a wheel can sing when driven by a master hand - energy, vim, satisfaction - all expressed in look and action, for she knew full well that no one could excel her at her work.  When the spindle is full of yarn it is reeled off into skeins, then spooled, then when the warp is in the loom and the spool placed in the shuttle the weaving begins, and right and left goes the shuttle and bang, bang, goes the loom as yard after yard is made - some in square checks of red and blue for dresses or brown satinette for pants and coats (roundabouts).  So on the farm is produced and in the house is made all the wearing apparel, for mother does the cutting and making without a sewing machine, for none are yet made.  But each and every last one of us boys have served our apprenticeship in helping mother indoors.

Many at time have we boys been glad to see company come, for then we could go out to work with the men on the farm.

But I want you to see her more as she prepares to feed that throng of men that raise our barn.  The great loaves of bread, the Johnny cake bread, the pies, etc.  Then a fatted pig is dressed clean.  Then the oven is made ready.  Not a stove oven, for that was nowhere but an oven built outdoors on top of two short logs made of split pieces of wood and fastened together with a clay mortar.  Size, 4 x 5 feet, 2 feet high, with door at one end and opening at back end to give draft.  The fire is built inside and kept going till it is a white heat, then the wood and ashes are removed and the oven swept clear.  Then in goes that pig, standing in a large tray, a pan, with a cob in his mouth (just for fun), and stuffed full of dressing, and the door is shut.  Later in goes the bread, pies and cakes, and when the men sit around that long board table they have a feast fit for a king.

Our Spring

The men are at the table this hot day and send me to the spring for a pail of that pure cold water.  A log some five feet long, very hollow, only a shell, and some two and one-half feet in diameter has been sunk at the spring with a hole cut in the middle so it is half full, then the water runs out to the creek.  I placed my knee on the edge of the curb and was just reaching to opposite side when a hawk flew among the hens and their furor caused me to look to the scene of trouble and my hand failed to reach the opposite side of the curb, and do you see how nicely I pitched, head first, into the spring?  The next knowledge I had I was standing up in the spring.  I realized the cooling sensation of the water as I took my first dive, but I did not reason about how to get out; the law of nature went to work when reason failed.  I went to the house like a wet rat and my hair filled with dirt instead of taking a pail of water.

Martin and the Hard Winters of 1842

Martin was a runaway boy.  Ran away several times in Ohio.  This autumn of 1842 he slyly tied up his belongings, went to Waterford, engaged to go up north with Mr. Moffat, and sailed from St. Joe to Muskegon, Mich.  When it was known where he had gone father and mother wrote him a very affectionate letter to return home, where a warm welcome awaited him.  When Martin received the letter the last boat of the season had just sailed for St. Joe.  That was just as Mr. Moffat intended, for he wanted to keep Martin all winter.  But Martin was just as determined then to go home as he was to go from home.  He again tied up his belongings, and with food, blanket, flints and punk started on foot through forests and plains, over and through rivers alone.  At night he clears away the snow in a fallen tree top, strikes his flints together till the sparks fly into the punk and soon has a fire.  Matches were not yet made.  Next day got in with two men that in his sympathy helped to materially lighten his lunch box.  Bade them good-bye and trudged ahead through the snow that was falling every day, and fast at that, so it is getting to be hard work to travel.  Nearing night, he comes to three men in a hut, who urge him to stop with them.  It’s a hard looking crew, but he stops, and is again relieved of nearly all his lunch, and the men are near starving.  They urge him to stay and trust to luck, but no, we will all starve and I shall  go ahead.  That day he sighted a very large bear not far away.  Luckily the wind was right, and Bruin did not see or smell him; and Martin had a good view of him, but says, “I would feast on his flesh, but if we should meet I am not sure which would have the feast,” and he is willing the bear should pass on without a knowledge of his presence.

Again he builds his fire, and another night passes with the whistling wind and the moaning trees for music, but not a mouthful to eat and clothes not dry, for he has already waded and swam several rivers, and there are two more yet, but this bitter cold may freeze them over.  The snow has now reached a depth of three feet, and it is slow, hard work.  It is getting dusk and the storm is wild and furious, and he comes to a haystack, so weak that it is an effort to get ahead in the deep snow.  He digs a hole into the stack, but that is slow work, and he reasons, if I go to sleep will it not be my last sleep, and it is now dark; but joy, oh joy, in the dim distance is a light.  Starts for the light and it is across a large marsh, and the storm of wind and snow, and such biting cold; he moves but slowly, and now he begins to feel warmer.  But why do I feel warmer?  I’m freezing, I’m freezing, that’s why I do not feel the terrible cold.  He stops and stamps down the snow to make it hard, jumps up and down, wraps his arms around him with all his might.  But now on he goes lest those people go to bed and the light is put out, and what then?  Almost exhausted and reason almost gone, he comes to the door and falls against it, and reason has fled.  The door is opened and the unconscious boy drawn in and restoratives applied.  It was late in the night before he became conscious, and then told of the men he left in the woods, that must perish if not rescued.  I remember well when Martin came home and how excited we were to hear of his terrible journey from Muskegon.  That was his last runaway.

Chapter V

Part of a New Country Song

This wilderness was our abode some fifty years ago,

and if good meat we used to eat we caught the buck or doe;

For fish we used the hook and line, we pounded corn to make it fine;

On Johnny cake our ladies dined, in this new country.

The Indians sometimes made us fear that there was danger nigh,

And the shaggy bear was often where the pig was in the sty;

The rattlesnake our children dread, and oft some fearful mother said.

Some beast of prey will take my babe in this new country.

At the time of which I write the Indians were still hunting in these woods and had settlements in Silver Creek Township, south of us, and in the north part of Hartford Township, where there is now quite a colony of Indian farmers.  Simon Pokagon was their chief when I moved from there, and it is that same tribe that yet lay claim to some land on which Chicago is built.

One day four Indians came to our house and made signs that they were hungry.  The pot was soon on the crane and they soon were motioned to our home-made table, where milk and the steaming mush was ready.  Chinese made a terrible supping noise when eating any liquid.  But these Indians made no noise, and with bows for thanks and in their moccasins they moved away to the woods as still as though they were but embodied spirits.

Marriage of Fernando

Fernando had bought the eighty acres joining ours west and Freman the next west of that.  Fernando has cleared some of his and is building a house, and that looks suspicious, and is the cause of many a joke, for there is yet to be the first wedding among seven boys.  But he took the horse one day and four days later he drove up to the door with a tall lady that he introduced as his wife, and showed his certificate, that stated that Fernando Cortez Ruggles was married to Leonna Ringleton* at Niles, Mich., January 14, 1842.

[Please note:  The name she was known by was Leanna not Leonna.  Peggy B. Perazzo.]

Conscience Not Always Obeyed

You have heard the story how the enraged Quaker took off his coat and laid it on the ground, saying, “Lay there, Quaker, while I lick this man.”  ‘Twas Sunday morning, but the sound of the church-going bell these natives and woods never heard; but Lewis heard the quack of turkeys near the field that Freman had cleared.  Lewis hesitated a moment.  Father can’t see much, and mother is upstairs making beds, and somehow the gun got into his hands and we shied around the house till on the west side, where the stick chimney is built outside; there is no window.  Now we are safe, and away we run.  We near the lot and can hear the turkeys call; that is well.  Lewis creeps low and as still as possible comes up behind a window and I keep back a little.  Lewis raises slowly and brings the gun to his face.  Bang goes the gun, and away fly turkeys.

Lewis is all excitement, and said, “I just believe I killed three turkeys that shot, for they were sitting on the fence and one rail was just in line with me, and a lot of turkeys on it.”  Here is one, anyway, and a minute later here is another, and I believe there is another somewhere, and we kept hunting.  I heard a little stir in the leaves under a bush and there was the third turkey, not yet dead.  “Ain’t those nice fellows, though, and won’t we have a big feast?”

“Here, Eli, you carry the smallest and the gun and I’ll carry the two.  Jolly, but ain’t they heavy, though?  But what will pa and ma say?  I don’t know, we’ll have to run the risk.  I don’t think it’s awful bad; we didn’t disturb anybody, and I guess nobody heard the gun.”  The gun was stood near the chimney outside and we laid the turkeys near the door and mother saw us.  “Why, why my boys, what have you done, this is Sunday?”  Lewis eagerly presents his arguments - that he heard the turkeys call and thought we might better have one to eat than have them scratch up the wheat that had just been sown.

Well, lucky for our hides we didn’t get tanned that time.

Sister Melvina

I have mentioned the little sister that came to our house.  She was named Sylvia Mariah; the second, Alvira Melvina; the third, Lucretia Ardilla.

Mrs. Williamson, living some five miles east of us, often came to our house to visit, and had a great liking for Melvina, and often took her home with her, but said Melvina will not live to womanhood; she is too mature for her years, or, in other words, too good for this world.  She was the red-head of the family, though all except Fernando and Lyman had more or less the red shade.  But it was nearer right than to call it auburn.  Red hair is now the desideratum; then it was brown of black.

Melvina was near seven years old when taken sick.  Doctor Sikes came from four miles south with his pills and herb medicine bag strapped to the back of his saddle.  Took a bowl of blood from her arm and poured out on half a dozen papers a pile of medicine and another pile of pills, telling mother, one side, that she might have to hold her nose to compel her to take the medicine, and he would come in two days, and continued to come for a week.  Mother had watched with a mother’s care as she saw her darling growing worse and weaker every day.  She said, “Doctor, I fear you have made a mistake in diagnosing her case,” and explained wherein.  The next day the doctor came and after watching the little on in her fever and delirium said, “I guess you are right about her case.”

It was a sad home then as we saw life ebbing away, and knew that those beautiful eyes would soon be closed to this world and to us forever, the gentle sister that captured all our hearts would soon be gone.  Her eyes were fixed and the expression that speaks when the voice cannot tell us that she saw something, a somebody just out of her reach, and all were sobbing as though hearts would break, and I took a pail and went to the spring for water, for I didn’t want to see sister die.  As I started back I thought of what I had read and heard, that spirits left the body and went up to heaven and I kept my eyes on the housetop, hoping that I might get a glimpse of Melvina as she took her upward flight.  On entering the house I found that the spirit had flown, and I had not seen it.

The New House

About the time of which I now write father and Freman had built a new frame house near the center of the farm, and a little later, after Melvina’s death, they had a well dug twenty-two feet deep and stoned with a thick stone wall from bottom to top.  Father could do but little now, for he was getting quite blind.

One thing connected with living in the log house you may think a little chilly.

A shake roof may be water-proof, but not snow-proof at all.  The wind will drive the snow up under the shakes, and we boys got accustomed to sleeping with the bed quilt over the head, except the nose and mouth, and in the morning be careful to roll the quilt back so the snow would not get into the bed.  Then the floor was all very white and nice, with snow to stand in while we put on our pants.

Chapter VI

Hurrah For the Railroad

One day surveyors were crossing our farm and driving stakes.  Yes, a railroad is to be built from Detroit to Chicago via St. Joe, and a depot will be built not far from our farm.  Hurrah! won’t we be rich?  But weeks later we learned that St. Joe was so sure the railroad would come there that they wouldn’t give favors or money.  Niles did both, and got the Michigan Central, and St. Joe was left with bleak winds of Lake Michigan for company for many years later.  Then Dowagiac and Decatur came into being, among oak stumps, trees and brush.

Log Houses Go Up in Flames

Very soon after moving part of the goods from the log houses I was partly awakened in my sleep and looked out the window just enough to see great flashes of light and heard what I thought to be distant thunder.  I covered my head with the bedding, in hopes to get to sleep again before the great storm reached us.  Westley was the first one outdoors in the morning, but soon came running, all excited, saying, “Oh, mamma, the log houses are all burned down.”  The lightning was the flames, leaping high; the thunder was the falling of the logs.  Soon we were all at the scene of our desolation, for but little had been moved out, and there was the loom, and wound around the beam with the cloth that was to make our wearing apparel for the whole family the coming winter, that was near at hand - fifty bushels of potatoes in the cellar half burned, tallow, lard, butter, all gone.  But father says, “Westley, there is a potato pile out near the barn, that will keep us from starving,” and says, “Mother, let’s bring water and save some of that barrel of pork.”

First Stoves

Well do I remember when stoves were first talked of.  Some believed they were safe and some believed they would burst.  About this time horses began to take the place of oxen on the road.  Lyman took a load of wheat to Dowagiac (eighteen miles), and brought home a cook stove.  Most of us stood well back when the match was applied, and we almost held our breath, but - but it didn’t burst.

The Eagle’s Upward Flight

An eagle one day attracted Lewis’ attention by sailing round and round and going up, up.  He called my attention to it, and we both declared we had never seen the like before, but it was hard on our necks.  So we lay flat on our backs, and still he circles round and up, up, as if he had bidden good-bye to the earth and thought to soon be to the sun.  He passed beyond my vision.  “Lewis, can you see him yet?”  He answered, “I can almost see him.”

The Building and Growth of A New Country

You have perhaps read “The Building of a Nation.”  And that was done by an accumulation of the littles.  So has it been in this great forest.  Families have bought land and made their beginning here and there.  The roads have been chopped four rods wide and cleared two rods wide.  School houses have been built here and there, and ministers or messengers of the Gospel have come to us and taught us of the God that created and the Savior who redeems.  Brothers and sisters have attended school here, where at first was the log school house with but one room and a row of seats around three sides, the door and blackboard occupying one end.  Back of the door was usually three beech gads.  Scholars sit on a high seat made out of a log with stakes driven into a bored hole for legs; all small scholars could not touch the floor, their feet left to swing like the clock pendulum.  Bench runs whole length of one side of the room.  Scholars sit with back to the center of the room and teacher face to the logs and in front, and fastened to a log is a long board, on which the books are placed.

This log house has had its day and given place to the frame schoolhouse and its improvements.  As we grew older we took our turns in being sent out to Paw Paw or Niles or Ann Arbor, not only to get what the schools could do for us, but to rub off some of our woods’ habits and put on a little refinement as well.

Wealth in 1848 Versus Wealth in 1902

One Sabbath day at a meeting at the school house a stranger was present, large, portly and attractive in appearance.  Who can he be?  For we knew every man for ten miles round.  Why, that is a Mr. McNitt, and they say he has got ten hundred dollars in cash.

“Oh, he can buy everything he wants to, can’t he?”  Ten millions now would attract no - not so much attention.

The Pretty Cub

The table was surrounded by the men who were clearing land.  I was helping mother and was sent out to get wood and chips (chips were a great feeder to a fire in those days).  I heard a man hollering with all his might far away in the woods; the evening was then approaching, and what little air was stirring came from the same direction of the calling.  I reported at once, and out came the men and listened - yes, yes, that man is certainly in great trouble and a long way off.  Martin, Lyman and Rus Parker took dog, gun and axe and away they ran.  there was a wagon road in that direction to Waterford.  About twenty minutes later the hollering stopped and an hour later the men returned, saying they could not find him, that they got near to his calling, then the calling stopped, and they called and hunted, but to no avail.  Next day from school we got the report and later got this statement from Gilbert Conkling:  “I was returning home from Waterford on foot with a bundle of groceries tied in my bandanna (silk handkerchief) when a smallish animal came into the road in front of me, and I said to myself, what kind of a chap are you, anyway?  It’s a little cub, sure as you are born, and a pretty cub you are, too.  I believe I will catch you and take you home with me.  So as I grabbed him he ran, took a short circle in the bush and just crossing the road again when I grabbed him.  He squealed, and then I heard a rustling of the brush and leaves a few rods ahead, and there sprang into the road the mother bear, coming with mouth open, showing two rows of sharp teeth.  Now, it’s fight or die with me, and no club at hand and not a second to lose I sprang up a sapling; climbed with vengeance, and a bear climbing for vengeance was tight at my heels.  I thought to kick her head, but she might grab my foot in her mouth; then I broke off a limb and pounded her head, but she only climbed a little closer to me.  I yelled a long time, but only echo answered.  Finally the bear tired of hanging to so small sapling and climbed down, went two or three rods distant, stood up on her haunches, opened her mouth, reached out her fore paws as if to say, ‘I’d just like to hug you.’  Her eyes shone like balls of fire, for it was then getting dark.  She then climbed a maple tree that rent right over the road where the cubs had preceded her.  Then I climbed down, but dare not go that way home, but took to my heels for Waterford; every moment would look back to see if that black brute was on the chase.  Next morning men with guns and dogs returned with me to the scene of battle.  There was the much scarred sapling, there was shreds of my red bandanna handkerchief, but where are the groceries?  The dogs took trail and the bear was killed not far from Coloma.  I arrived at home a tired man, with stiff and sore legs.”

A New Country Fourth of July

It was agreed that the Fourth of July should be celebrated in our neighborhood.  Ground was selected in Thomas Conkling’s woods near the road.  We all met there and cleared away the brush and rubbish and built the platform for orator and singers.  The farmer men and boys and girls, some mated and some mis-mated, in four-horse and two-horse wagons; occasionally a gentry with his best gal in a buggy, some afoot and cross lots, but they came, and the cannon came clear from Paw Paw.

Philotus Haydn (sic) was orator, and he orated as well as it is done even in this enlightened age.  The cannon had announced the rising sun, the coming of the orator, and now salutes the thirteen states.  On the stand, attuning their voices to “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee,” and “Hail, Columbia,” are three Conklings, two McNitts, five Ruggles’ and five others.  Sisters Mariah and Lucretia are there.  P. J. Adams leads with his clarinet.

The orator had got down to earth again from his flights of fancy, and again bang goes the cannon, and a cry is raised, some one is groaning, and it proves to be the gunner, the tallest man in the crowd, George Washington Williams; his thumb is gone and hand badly mangled.  But in a little while all is glee again, so long as it is not me or my son John.

Freman and Our Blind Father

When Freman came home from his carpenter work in Hamilton Township he would occasionally bring one or two apples in his pocket; these were paired very thin and divided to each his or her share, and soon there will be apples in abundance here, for large orchards are set.  But father is in total darkness - cannot tell daylight from the darkest night.

There is a noted oculist in Rochester - Dr. Munn - and Freman takes father to him.  Father is seated in a common dining chair.  The doctor sits astride his lap, so they face each other, then takes a needle, inserts it in the side of the eyeball till it reaches the center, then works the needle up and down till the cataract is cut away from the retina, then withdraws the needle and the work is done.

In two weeks they return, and Freman is not leading father, but has to walk lively to keep up with him.  “Oh, father can see us; the Lord be praised,” and hugs and kisses and tears intermingled.  And father says that Sylvia looks natural, but these, my girls, have grown so fast.  It has been over a year since he could see them to tell much how they looked.  By the aid of an eyeglass father read his Bible through and the Morning Star paper once a week.  About a year later father took a severe cold that affected his head, then settled in his eyes, for many days his eyes were so inflamed that dark bandages had to be used, and when the inflammation subsided and dark bandages removed sight was again a blind man for eighteen years.

The Breaking Team and Plow

Fernando sold his farm west of ours and bought a new farm in Keeler Township, and I want you to see him among oak grubs and trees and how a farm is cleared there.  We drive eight miles, and what kind of panorama is this approaching us on the left?  “Well, I declare, that is the longest string of oxen that ever I did see,” you exclaim.  Yes, or probably ever will see again.  You count till you find there are sixteen yoke of oxen attached to that one plow.  Oh, such a monster plow, some twelve feet long, and cuts a furrow two fee wide and seven inches deep.  the sharp steel shier will cut off a grub four inches in diameter and not stop the onward march of that string of oxen at all.  It has been said that grubs six inches in diameter have been cut with that team and plow.  but I question the state