CHAPTER I.

TALKING OF MICHIGAN.


My father was born in 1793, and my mother in 1802, in Putnam County,
State of New York. Their names were John and Melinda Nowlin. Mother's
maiden name was Light.

My father owned a small farm of twenty-five acres, in the town of Kent,
Putnam County, New York, about sixty miles from New York City. We had
plenty of fruit, apples, pears, quinces and so forth, also a never
failing spring. He bought another place about half a mile from that. It
was very stony, and father worked very hard. I remember well his building
stone wall.

But hard work would not do it. He could not pay for the second
place. It involved him so that we were in danger of losing the place
where we lived.

He said, it was impossible for a poor man to get along and support his
family; that he never could get any land for his children there, and he
would sell what he had and go to a better country, where land was cheap
and where he could get land for them.

He talked much of the territory of Michigan. He went to one of the