I have heard of Indians helping the pioneers and of cooperation between them. One cold winter night an early pioneer heard a knock at his door. Because there was no law in the early years one answered his door with gun in hand. At the door was a nearly frozen Indian family that just wanted to get warm. The settler to protect his family tried to stay awake all night to keep his eyes on the Indians but towards morning he fell asleep. When he awoke the Indians were gone. He looked around saw that his family was OK. They were still sleeping peacefully and nothing was missing. When he opened the door he found that the Indians had left him a present fresh venison enough to feed his family for several days.
At times Indians and settlers helped each other. At times they fought each other. Many Indians were beggars. Some were proud and honest. One could not blame the Indians for distrusting the white man. After all he stole and cheated them out of their land, caused Indian groups to fight each other and disrespected Indians in general. The Europeans often hunted for sport not for food which killed off many animals. Many Americans and Europeans had massacred Indians and their wives and children.
Some Indians learned the culture of the settlers and lived in peace. Their reward was to be killed, starved or evicted from the very land that was promised them.
Ma the cow fell into the well!
And you think we have problems today. What would you do? There was no 911 to call. Wells were dug for water but the problem with open wells was that both cattle and people fell into them. In our area twenty feet was usually successful. How do you get a cow out. They had no rope or chains. If the cow died would the water be any good?
Grandma and the bear. One day
when we were away from the cabin a bear got in to it and was
rummaging around. Grandma did not have a gun but fought
the bear with an ax. She won and we had bear meat for several
days.
One of the settlers was walking in the woods without his
gun and was attacked and killed and partly eaten by wolves.
Grandma
Bunert stated they often heard the howl of wolves in the woods where
Macomb College is now.
Other pioneer children reported that they could see wolves in the moonlight thru the openings between the logs of log cabins..
On August 17, 1877 an earthquake scared the local horses. Some people reported a rumble noise. This area has not had a devastating earthquake for thousands of years.
What was that mysterious big tower by the Brick St Clement Church? It had a Windmill next to it. I had a very vague foto of it for a year and everyone was uncertain until I noticed a reflection of it in the window of St Clement Grade School. Turned out to be the tall wind powered water cistern.
In September of 1881 another devastating fire struck the Thumb area of Michigan making the skies dark for days. Hundreds of families were lost everything and 282 died.
In 1918 there was a huge snow storm that absolutely
isolated Warren for several days. It was
just impossible to go anywhere. There was little if any snow
removal equipment anywhere. People were digging out for weeks.
And they did not have snow shovels or show ploughs.