We all sat down by the side of the house and talked pretty fast telling our experience on our long journey by land and water, and when the sun went down we were called to supper, and went hand in hand to surround the bountiful table as a family again.  During the conversation at supper father said to me—­“Lewis, I have bought you a smooth bore rifle, suitable for either ball or shot.”  This, I thought was good enough for any one, and I thanked him heartily.  We spent the greater part of the night in talking over our adventures since we left Vermont, and sleep was forgotten by young and old.

Next morning father and uncle took the horse and little wagon and went out in search of Government land.  They found an old acquaintance in Jackson county and Government land all around him, and, searching till they found the section corner, they found the number of the lots they wanted to locate on—­200 acres in all.  They then went to the Detroit land office and secured the pieces they had chosen.

Father now bought a yoke of oxen, a wagon and a cow, and as soon as we could get loaded up our little emigrant train started west to our future home, where we arrived safely in a few days and secured a house to live in about a mile away from our land.  We now worked with a will and built two log houses and also hired 10 acres broken, which was done with three or four yoke of oxen and a strong plow.  The trees were scattered over the ground and some small brush and old limbs, and logs which we cleared away as we plowed.  Our houses went up very fast—­all rough oak logs, with oak puncheons, or hewed planks for a floor, and oak shakes for a roof, all of our own make.  The shakes were held down upon the roof by heavy poles, for we had no nails, the door of split stuff hung with wooden hinges, and the fire place of stone laid up with the logs, and from the loft floor upward the chimney was built of split stuff plastered heavily with mud.  We have a small four-paned window in the house.  We then built a log barn for our oxen, cow and horse and got pigs, sheep and chickens as fast as a chance offered.

As fast as possible we fenced in the cultivated land, father and uncle splitting out the rails, while a younger brother and myself, by each getting hold of an end of one of them managed to lay up a fence four rails high, all we small men could do.  Thus working on, we had a pretty well cultivated farm in the course of two or three years, on which we produced wheat, corn and potatoes, and had an excellent garden.  We found plenty of wild cranberries and whortleberries, which we dried for winter use.  The lakes were full of good fish, black bass and pickerel, and the woods had deer, turkeys, pheasants, pigeons, and other things, and I became quite an expert in the capture of small game for the table with my new gun.  Father and uncle would occasionally kill a deer, and the Indians came along and sold venison at times.