The history of Gershom Waring was one of every-day occurrence.  He was born of a family in humble circumstances in Massachusetts, a community in which, however, none are so very humble as to be beneath the paternal watchfulness of the State.  The common schools had done their duty by him; while, according to his account of the matter, his only sister had fallen into the hands of a female relative, who was enabled to impart an instruction slightly superior to that which is to be had from the servants of the public.  After a time, the death of this relative, and the marriage of Gershom, brought the brother and sister together again, the last still quite young.  From this period the migratory life of the family commenced.  Previously to the establishment of manufactories within her limits, New England systematically gave forth her increase to the States west and south of her own territories.  A portion of this increase still migrates, and will probably long continue so to do; but the tide of young women, which once flowed so steadily from that region, would now seem to have turned, and is setting back in a flood of “factory girls.”  But the Warings lived at too early a day to feel the influence of such a pass of civilization, and went west, almost as a matter of course.  With the commencement of his migratory life, Gershom began to “dissipate,” as it has got to be matter of convention to term “drinking.”  Fortunately, Mrs. Waring had no children, thus lessening in a measure the privations to which those unlucky females were obliged to submit.  When Gershom left his birthplace he had a sum of money exceeding a thousand dollars in amount, the united means of himself and sister; but, by the time he had reached Detroit, it was reduced to less than a hundred.  Several years, however, had been consumed by the way, the habits growing worse and the money vanishing, as the family went further and further toward the skirts of society.  At length Gershom attached himself to a sutler, who was going up to Michilimackinac, with a party of troops; and finally he left that place to proceed, in a canoe of his own, to the head of Lake Michigan, where was a post on the present site of Chicago, which was then known as Fort Dearborn.

In quitting Mackinac for Chicago, Waring had no very settled plan.  His habits had completely put him out of favor at the former place; and a certain restlessness urged him to penetrate still farther into the wilderness.  In all his migrations and wanderings the two devoted females followed his fortunes; the one because she was his wife, the other because she was his sister.  When the canoe reached the mouth of the Kalamazoo, a gale of wind drove it into the river; and finding a deserted cabin, ready built, to receive him, Gershom landed, and had been busy with the rifle for the last fortnight, the time he had been on shore.  Hearing from some voyageurs who had gone down the lake that a bee-hunter was up the river, he had followed the stream in its windings until he fell in with le Bourdon.