CHAPTER VII.

More Personal History--Suffering and Trials in Early Life--Missing the
Opportunity to Go to School--Learning Trade as a Blacksmith--A New
Start to Seek for Education--Arriving at Cleveland, O., to Find His Old
Friend, Rev. Alvin Coe--Visit with Rev. Samuel Bissell, of Twinsburg,
O., Principal of the Twinsburg Institute--Attending School--Returning
Home--Advocating Citizenship for His People--Delegated to Detroit and
to the State Legislature--His Pleasant Visit with State Authorities--
Again Delegated as Councilor to the New Treaty, 1855.


The first winter we lived at Little Traverse as a permanent home was in
the year 1828, and in the following spring my own dear mother died very
suddenly, as she was burned while they were making sugar in the woods.
She was burned so badly that she only lived four days after. I was
small, but I was old enough to know and mourn for my dear mother. I
felt as though I had lost everything dear to me and every friend; there
was no one that I could place such confidence in, not even my own
father. So my father's household was broken up: we were pretty well
scattered after that. He could not very well keep us together; being
the least one in the family, I became a perfect wild rover. At last I
left Little Traverse when about 13 or 14 years age. I went to Green
Bay, Wis., with the expectation of living with an older sister who had
married a Scotchman named Gibson and had gone there to make a home
somewhere in Green Bay. I found them, but I did not stay with them
long. I left them and went to live with a farmer close by whose name
was Sylvester. From this place I was persuaded by another man to go