THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR, Bulletin of the The Sebewa Center Association, Bulletin of The Sebewa Center Association, October 1967, Volume 3, Number 2:

PEACECORPSMAN HOME FOR A SHORT VISIT

     Richard Thrams returned from India via Singapore, Burma, Viet Nam, Hong Kong and Alaska in late August.  His plans call for a return to Viet Nam in early October to work as agricultural advisor in a refugee camp northwest of Saigon.  He will work for the International Rescue Committee Inc. of New York.  He plans to stay one or two years.

     On Richard’s visit home he showed his slides of India to visitors and to groups at Portland, Ionia, Sunfield and at the Sebewa Township Hall. 

THE DROUGHT By Richard w. Thrams, AJMER, RAJASTHAN, September 1966, PEACE CORPS

     The setting at Ajmer (population 196,000) is the same as at Udaipur (89,000) with hills all around and temples on the hilltops.  Just a little way from Ajmer is the second most holy place for Moslems—the first, of course, is Mecca in Saudi Arabia.  Ajmer is one of the oldest cities in India.  It has been the center of many Raja states.  It is now divided into several districts.  The state of Rajasthan at one time was five Raja states.  The Rajas today are no longer government officials but are generally respected by the citizens of their former holdings.  Some are elected to office and then have the same position as any other official.  Nearly all the Rajas still have large land holdings, often forest regions where the hunts for big game are held.

     Farming conditions at Ajmer are very poor.  Normal rainfall ranges from 15 to 30 inches per year.  In 1918 they had only four inches.  So far this year they have had eleven or twelve inches with the growing season nearly over.  The soil is mostly rock and sand and reminds me of a worked-over gravel pit.

     One of the summer projects here is the digging of wells.  One of the Church relief funds has sent over a jack hammer and blasting powder.  This saves days digging through many layers of rock.  Most of the wells are from 60 to 100 feet deep.  C A R E, U.S. A I D and the Oxford Farming Relief Program are all working in this area.  The fields have little vegetation and look more like piles of rocks with sand to make hills.  The grass on the valley floor is poor and filled with weeds.  While I was there it smelled like curing hay although no grass had been cut.  Bad as agricultural conditions are here, the states of Bihar and Orissa are said to be worse.

     One of the best looking temples in Ajmer is that of the Jains.  The Jains are a religious sect who respect the life of everything; thus they wear masks over the mouth to keep from inhaling insects and they sweep the path in front of them so as not to harm any life underfoot.  They are strict vegetarians and will not eat any grain that has not been fully ripened in the field.

     Twenty-nine degrees Fahrenheit is the lowest temperature here while summer temperatures average 90 degrees with a 129 degree record set in the hot season.

     Ajmer’s history is recorded since the 7th century A. D.  It has been the site of many wars in India’s turbulent history.  At one time it was the center of Akbar’s empire and later was part of the Mogul empire. 

REMINISCENCES OF THE SEBEWA CENTER SCHOOL By the late Lydia Sindlinger Watkins

     As I look back through the visita of years that passed since my first experience at the Center, I recall a slender slip of a girl, with books strapped on the handle bars of her bicycle, riding up to the steps of the schoolhouse.

     I remember very vividly of ringing the old bell, which, to me, had always seemed the most musical of any bell I have ever rung—though I have rung a good many in Ionia County.

     As I have said, I remember of ringing the bell at nine o’clock while my heart was beating time something like the music of a snare drum, for if I remember rightly, the enrollment was something near to the forty mark.

     I recall my 8th grade, which I believe was composed of the following members:  Bertha Demary, Beulah Gunn, Don Estep, Edna and John Luscher.  So many years have passed, that I am not sure of the members of the other grades, though I do remember some of my beginners—Cora Brownfield, Cora Oliver and Ray Cross; Carl Gierman and Alton Gunn in the first grade and Ross Tran in the second.

     One little incident I will remember in my first grade—I was trying to teach the little folks to pronounce the word “dog” (to rhyme with fog) instead of “dawg”.  A few days after, Ray Cross, a timid little fellow, while reading, stopped when he came to the word.  He studied a moment, then he looked up at me and with a questioning inflection in his voice said “dag”?

     But so many years have intervened since then that I have forgotten many of the pranks of the kids.

     I also remember with pride that during that winter we were honored with a visit from Hon. Henry R. Pattengill, then Superintendent of Public Instruction, who accompanied Mr. Burhans, our school commissioner, to our school.  Very vividly do I recall that as I sat writing at my desk in the early morning with the thirty-five or forty children all standing around the stove, in stepped Mr. Burhans and Mrs. Pattengill.

     Well, at 9 o’clock I rang the bell, not without some misgivings to be sure, while my heart beat so loud that I feared, lest Mr. Burhans would hear it, as he stepped up to me and said kindly and reassuringly “Now Miss Lydia, you just let Mr. Pattengill take charge and we’ll have a splendid time.”

     I remember, and suppose many of the pupils do, how he taught us to sing “Rig-A-Jig-Jig” and with many other songs and stories we were entertained until the first recess, when they took their departure.

     Also, that year was the time we bought our organ, something possessed by very few district schools at that time.  I found hearty cooperation among my pupils in this project and proved the loyalty of both large and small for every one was interested.  Well, the outcome was—we obtained the organ and paid for it ourselves with the exception of a few dollars, which the school board---composed of Richard Bickle, L. A. Brown and Emory Gunn—generously made up for us.

     Leaving my  first experience at the Center at this point, I will mention briefly my experience during the school years of 1917 to 1921 when I again took up my work at the Center of teaching “The young ideas how to shoot”.

     This time I drove my car to school and had as daily companions, Clare, Marian and Clifford Davids, Louise Showerman and Charles Hoffman.  As Clare was an expert at driving (his father having once owned a garage) he was the driver most of the time.  He drove about as fast as the old Ford would go and many were the times that the girls and I screamed as we rounded the corner near Harry Meyer’s.

     During my second year, Mrs. Nellie Gierman and Mrs. Edna Sears visited my school one day and suggested that we have hot lunches during the winter—something we had never had at the Center before.  This we decided to do.  My mention of this is just bring out a humorous incident:  One day we were to have hot potatoes and milk gravy.  The Davids children were to bring a dish of the gravy—Mr. Davids took us to school that morning and---talk about getting there in a hurry—well, at any rate, Clare had to hold the dish of milk gravy and as luck would have it, he spilled nearly half of it over his trousers as the old Ford rocked to and fro over the rough road.

     Well, we didn’t laugh—of course not—no well-mannered school kids do that—but something which sounded strangely like an old fashioned war whoop emitted from the car.

     Then along toward noon, one of the pupils, whose duty it was to prepare dinner that day, put a dish (a small pail with a tight fitting cover and filled with gravy) on top of the old Waterbury furnace to heat but forgot to remove the cover.  After a while, while we were in the midst of a very interesting subject, the cover conceived a notion of removing itself and did so by flying off and hitting the ceiling.  Also some of the gravy accompanied it on its journey, it also, choosing the ceiling as its landing place, and leaving a mark to remind us the rest of the year of the day we had “potatoes and milk-gravy” for lunch.

     I wish also to speak of one other little reminiscence which I have never forgotten.  This occurred in the second or third grade among a class of very young children.  Gladah Oliver, an exceptionally bright little tot, could always see the point of the ridiculous.  One of the pupils in the class made a ridiculous pronunciation of some word while reading.  Gladah looked up at me and pursing her little lips, said in a loud whisper—“Oh, My Soul”.

     One of the pleasant things I love is to remember my last year at the Center, was the rendition in concert, (which occurred frequently) of our 8th grade classic, for that year “The Building of the Ship”.  I can truly say with William Wordsworth, the English poet:  “For oft when my couch I lie, In vacant or in pensive mood”.  I can still hear Clare, Louise, Charlie and Gerald as they gave the recitation:  And Everywhere the slender graceful spars Poise aloft in the air and at the masthead White, blue and red.  A flag unrolls The Stripes and Stars.  Ah! When the wanderer, lonely, friendless in foreign harbors shall behold that flag unrolled, ‘Twill be as a friendly had Stretched out from his native land Filling his heart with memories sweet and endless.  And again—Thou too, sail on, O Ship of State, Sail on, oh Union, strong and great!  Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, Our faith triumphant o’er our fears Are all with thee And all with thee. 

WHAT WAS THIS OLDTIMER DOING?

     From Branch’s 1917 History of Ionia County is this excerpt about Henry Probasco:  Henry C. and Mary (Raymond) Probasco came from New Jersey to Ohio and then on to Michigan.  They settled in Sebewa Township in 1856 and then went to Lyons Township where he engaged in the cooperage business.  During the earlier period of his residence in this county he was engaged in hauling between local points and Detroit, going to Detroit with his wagon loaded with salaratus and returning laden with merchandise, the hauling rate for which was one dollar the hundred pounds.  He died in Muir November 12, 1862.  End of quote.

   Now that quickly raises the questions of where did he get his saleratus, what was it and who wanted it.  Checking with the knowledgeable oldsters did not bring any very satisfactory answers.  Finally Websters Dictionary, that source of a great deal of man’s knowledge, unfolded the story this way.

SALARATUS – Formerly bicarbonate of potash with more carbon dioxide than is possessed by pearlash, manufactured from pearlash by exposing it to carbonic acid gas (carbon dioxide); now, sodium bicarbonate (baking soda).  It is of importance in making bread, to neutralize acetic or tartaric acid and render the bread light by the escape of carbonic acid gas.  It was sometimes used in glass manufacturing.

PEARLASH – A somewhat impure carbonate of potassium, obtained by calcining potashes upon a reverberatory hearth.

POTASH – Pot and Ash, from being prepared for commercial purposes by evaporating the lixivium of wood ashes in iron pots.  The strong liquid is called lye, and the crystallized substance pearlash.

LIXIVIUN – Lye-water with alkaline salts leached from wood ashes.

CALGINE – To reduce to a powder by the action of heat.

REVERBERATORY FURNACE – A furnace in which ore, metal or other material is exposed to the action of flame, but not to the contact of the burning fuel.  The flame passes over a bridge and then downward upon the material, which is spread upon the hearth.

     Thanks to Webster, we can now see quite a number of the pioneers of Ionia County, perhaps ever here in Sebewa, setting up boxes, barrels, hollow logs and hewn troughs to leach the potassium hydroxide (lye) from the wood ashes that everybody accumulated for Henry Probasco to haul a load of it to Detroit.  The ladies there used it in their baking and the local people had a little cash to buy some of the merchandise that Mr. Probasco hauled on his return trip.

     Henry was an older brother of Benjamin Probasco, who also had a cooper shop in Sebewa.

    Of course, nobody sold his lye or pearlash until he had satisfied his own need of it in making his own soap. 

AN INTERVIEW WITH ADELBERT NORTHRUP

     This interview with Mr. Adelbert Northrup was tape recorded about 1957 at his home near the northeast corner of Sebewa Township.  He died in 1961. 

Question:  When were you born?

Answer:   In 1866, June 5th and I have always lived here on this farm. 

Question:  Can you tell us something of your grandfather, John Maxim, of his coming to Sebewa?

Answer:  I cannot tell you the exact time but he came from Danby over here.  He lived over on the Grand River in Danby and then moved from there over here.  He built a log house and lived in that.  I cannot tell you how many years but quite a while.  I can remember the log house that he had.  Then he built this part here.  He bought the land here of the Government—the land in Sebewa.  On the north side of the road he bought of Watson Merchant’s father---$1.25 per acre he gave for that, the same as what he paid for the land he got from the government.

He had 40 acres on the river in Danby and the family was sick most of the time.  The doctor told him that if he wanted to live, he would have to get out of there.  He traded that for 160 acres over in Westphalia.  After he got it he found out that it was nothing but swamp.  He never went near it, never did anything with it.  He bought this land in Sebewa and then moved over here.  Now they say his Westphalia land has become one of the nicest farms over in there.  I have the original deed of the place.  I could probably tell the dates by looking them up. 

Question:  When you were a young man you must have worked at the Pierce sawmill.  Can you tell something about that sawmill.

Answer:  On the start they were making fellies, spokes and sleigh runners.  They used to ship the spokes and fellies by the carloads.  They bought the oak timber that they could get around here.  They did quite a business there for a while.  Then the mill burned down and they quit the manufacturing and just ran the sawmill there doing custom sawing.  The factory must have been 40 by 70 feet and it was two stories.  The sawmill was on the side of the factory.

  Several men who worked there lived nearby.  On that flatiron up there across from the mill there were three families living on that and there was a house on the mill yard where one family lived and then some of the neighbors worked there who lived close by.  I should say there must have been 15 or 20 working there at one time.

     Pierce’s bought 80 acres across from the Slater place (section 14) and that was mostly oak.  They cut the oak off and drew it here to the mill and it was worked up.  The timber used in the spokes and fellies was all oak—swamp oak and white oak.   They bought it wherever they could get it.  I don’t think they did buy any other land outright.  I worked at different things.  There was sawing, working in the yard, putting logs on the trucks, part of the time buzzing slabs, part of the time taking lumber away from the saw and things like that.  To shape the fellies they were put in a steam-box and steamed and after that they were put into a press and bent. 

Question:  You have had a sugarbush on this farm for quite a while.  Will you tell about it?

Answer:  I was 13 years old the first year that I made sirup and sugar.  I have not missed a year yet.  I think around 300 trees were the most I ever tapped at one time.  On the start we got from 6 to 8 cents a pound for the sugar.  The first sirup we sold we got 75 cents a gallon.  From that it went to $1, $1.25, $1.50, $3.00 and now it is up to $5.00.  Some get more than that.

     If I can make sirup this year I think it will make me 78 years.  Late years I have not had horses, just carried the sap.  I have not tapped a great many trees lately.  I have tapped some but not what I did.  When I made so much I had to have help and you cannot get help now if you wanted it.  If you did, it would cost you so much you would not have anything left when you got through.  Sugar runs now as high as $1.00 a pound.  The trees are mostly second growth.  There are a few of the old ones.  There are a few there that I tapped when I first started in.  I have 400 in there now. 

Question:  Do you recall any Indians in Sebewa?

Answer:  The first I can remember was seeing them going west here to the huckleberry syrup.  They used to go in there to pick huckleberries.  I think they came from Shimnecon.  They were riding their ponies.  I can remember that.  They were right in line, one ahead of the other.  They never rode side by side, you never saw an Indian that did.  The swamp was a mile and a half west of here.  Part of it was on the place that Larry Bowers owns now where there were tamarack swamps in there just west of the Sunfield Road.  Lots of people went there and picked huckleberries.  There were about 160 acres at the time. Fire got in there and burned it over, burned it all down.  That was all tamarack and black ash. 

Question:  What about wild game when you were young?

Answer:  There was lots of game then and only a few hunters.  There was only one hunter in those days where there are a hundred now.  I remember wild turkeys and squirrels—a hundred squirrels where there is one today.  There were lots of partridge.  I can remember the passenger pigeons.  I have seen them go here when they would be between you and the sun and you could not see the sun any more than you could through a cloud.  When the farmers sowed wheat, someone had to stay and keep the birds off the ground until they could get the the wheat dragged in.  Then they would pick it up as fast as you would sow it.  The pigeons nested north of here around Stanton and Edmore.  Men used to go north to trap them.  They are all gone now.  They had a large nest and they would prop that up on one side and on three sides they would stake it down to the ground and the other side they would prop it up.  They would scatter wheat down under the net and would have strings to the prop.  When the pigeons get inside they would pull the prop out and have the pigeons in it.  They shipped them to New York and Chicago.  I never saw it but P have heard them tell about shipping them right in a box car, not dressed nor packed or anything.  I have seen the pigeons though, thousands and thousands of them.  John Goodemoot, George Goodemoot’s father, used to trap pigeons.  He had a net and used to go up around Stanton to trap pigeons. 

Question:  Did you spend much time hunting wild turkeys:

Answer:   No, I never got a wild turkey in my life.  They used to go just east of the house.  They lived in the swamp south of here.  Every morning they would go north into the woods here to get beechnuts and acorns and at night they would go back.  They stayed in the swamp at night and went to the woods to feed in the daytime.  A few people hunted them.  If a person wanted a turkey, he went out and got one and went home; but they were soon gone.  The turkeys would run about as fast as a horse would run.  They roosted in trees at night.  They looked a good deal the same as the bronze turkey that is raised now except they were darker, nearly black with a little bronze color to them. 

Question:  What do you think of today’s farming methods?

Answer:  I don’t know, but maybe it is all right if it suits them.  I do think though that some of them try to follow the College way of farming and they are worse off than if they left it alone.

Question:  Your Grandfather Maxim used to be quite a gardener.  Did you help him?

Answer:  I used to have to help in the garden.  You take a good hot day—quick as we got our dinner eaten he would always say “Come on, now, get your hoe, it is time to kill the weeds”.  Maybe he was right but it was a little warm to suit me.  The only way they had of keeping the vegetables for winter was canning and drying them and I don’t think they did much of that.  Potatoes, cabbage and stuff like that they put in pits and buried them and kept some in the cellar. 

Question:  Do you remember when you started for school?

Answer:  No, I don’t know as I do.  The most I can remember is being there at the Pierce School.  Ed Buck was one teacher.  We never carried the teacher out or anything like that.  When I went to school there were scholars there up to 22 or 23 years old.  They used to get into fights once in a while. 

Question:  Do you remember the Hopkins Nursery?

Answer:  It was a quarter mile south of the Knox Schoolhouse on the east side of the road.  There were apples, cherries and evergreens and stuff like that.   A few of the neighbors did not like to buy the stock but helped themselves.  When somebody told Hopkins about it he said “Oh that is all right, they want some apples just as well as other people”. 

Question:  How did you harvest the grain in the old days?

Answer:    The first I can remember they cut most of it with the cradle.  Next they got a binder they used wire in, to bind instead of twine.  That lasted only two or three years before they started using twine.  They had reapers after the cradles.  It was thrown off in bundles and then bound by hand and then came the binder with the wire.  The wire did not go well when the stock ate the straw.  I have the same cradles I used to use. 

FOR SALE AND DIRT CHEAP---MAYBE

   Lyle and Mildred Ingall are remodeling their house and in doing so they are replacing several windows.  They have a number of frames, windows and storm windows that have been in use since 1940 that could be of use in some type of building.  Give them a ring at 374 8425 Lake Odessa Route 3.

   The Ingall house is the one pictured in Schenck’s History of Ionia and Montcalm Counties (1881) as the one belonging to the Goddard family.   An insert shows the log house it succeeded.  Lyle says the house was built in 1864 and was once used as an inn.  The upstairs rooms were small and off a long hallway to accommodate the maximum number of guests.  This seems to be another indication that State Road south from Ionia once avoided the mucklands on the township line and swung into Sebewa Township on the high ground before going south from Woodbury.

     Woodbury was not much of a settlement at that time.  It developed after the C.K. & S. (Chicago, Kalamazoo and Saginaw) Railroad joined the Pere Marquette at that point.     

LOCAL BOY MAKES GOOD

     One of Sebewa’s young men of the 1870s was Ephraim Shay.  He was a nephew of Ephriam Probasco and thus also a nephew of Benjamin Proasco, a cousin to Gene Probasco, who was the father of Ben Pobasco, who now lives on the Centennial Farm on Sunfield Highway.

     Ephraim once lived with his family on Casssel Road and later he owned land in the northwest corner of section 21.  He was employed at the Gunn Brothers sawmill when it operated in section 22.  He is remembered as being dreamy and thoughtful.  At home his talents expressed themselves by his rigging up a treadmill for an ox to power the family churn.  Another turn of mind caused him to ease some of the shock of winter by lining the seat of the family privy with fleecy sheepskin.

     In the township records the name Ephriam Shay appears as Township Clerk in 1867.

     By the early 80s the Gunn Mill had finished with the choice timber of this locality and it was moved north to Wexford County.  Shay went with it.  In the years that followed he developed a steam engine for logging on a narrow gauge railway.  His engine proved better than similar designs.  A company in Ohio was licensed to build the engines.  One of the Shay steamers is in a permanent logging display in a park at Cadillac.

     Again Shay went north—this time to Harbor Springs where again he was a lumberman.  Today at Harbor Springs as you enter from the east you can see a large boulder on the north side of the road with a metal plaque inscribed “Shay Memorial Park”.  Through this little park is the roadbed of Shay’s old narrow gauge railway.  Before the logging in that area was ended, Harbor Springs had become a tourist center.  Tourists began asking for the 30-mile ride on the logging train—even with the loaded cars of logs.  Ephriam soon accommodated the tourists with some passenger coaches and made regular runs many miles back into the logging country.

     At Harbor Springs, Shay built a house and office that was known as the 8-sided steel house.  The office in the upper part of the house commanded a view in every direction.  The logging business prospered and Shay became a millionaire.  One expression of his affluence was a Sears Roebuck automobile.  Actually it was a motorized buggy with hard rubber tires and a stick for steering.  It served the purpose of the times.

     The fortune did not last long after Ephriam’s death.  Heavy investments in a truck company at Traverse City that never paid a dividend nor returned the capital investment and scarcely produced a  truck; left the bulk of it depleted.

     Although now Ephriam is long gone, his out-of-the-ordinary house remains and can be seen next to the Harbor Springs Indian Museum.  It now houses the fashionable Adelaide Dress Shop of Harbor Springs and Florida. 

MERCURY VAPOR LIGHT COUNT TO 36

     New lights installed at the farms of Ben Probasco and Sydney Brown bring our mercury vapor light to 36. 

FUN AROUND THE OLD SCHOOLHOUSE ABOUT 1910 By Elmer Gierman

     In the late fall and winter months after baseball was over, several games came out that are almost unknown to kids today.  Anti-I-Over, tag and pull away would each take a paragraph to describe.

     A thaw of winter snow then snowballs would pack easily, often resulting in a game of Dog and Deer.  The dogs were it and had to get the deer by hitting him with a snowball.  The deer were allowed to get a small start and, if necessary, ran toward the church and church sheds, Fred Gunn’s buildings or Henry Whorley’s buildings with a dog or two in hot pursuit.

     The fastest runners at that time were Ray Cross and Arlow Aves.  Ray was a very elusive runner—could sidestep most attempts to touch him.  Arlo was a determined runner and eventually got his man.  One noon-hour in a dog and deer game, Arlo chased Ray a half mile northwest across patches of ice and snow but I believe they got back in time for the bell.

     The old church sheds with their open fronts were our inside gym in bad weather.  The stalls were separated by 8” x 8” timbers laid on stones.  I got a damaged kneecap from a fall there one day, which was so painful it made me sick and weak all over.

     The teachers in those days were Ruby Smith and Gladys Shetterley.  Their discipline, allowing pupils off the school grounds, was not so severe as that of some of their successors.  But, as I remember, they were well liked by the boys who wanted lots of room to run off their energy. 

LOCAL ZIP CODE NUMBERS

     In this immediate area the Zip Code numbers all begin with the number of 488 with two other numbers to indicate the particular post office.   

EARLY CHATTEL MORTGAGES IN SEBEWA

     Until the State Legislature changed the procedure a few years back, all chattel mortgages given on property within the townships were recorded for a small fee by the respective Township Clerks.  From the clerk’s records in the Sebewa Township archives we have these entries beginning with the first mortgage recorded.

     Gilbert S. Ostrander April 17, 1867—mortgage given to Sanford A. Yeomans $84.00 due September 11, 1867 covering one yoke of oxen (red), 1 2-year-old steer, 2 2-year-old heifers, and 1 yearling heifer.

     E. Shay, J. S. Gunn, Josiah Smith and Theodore Gunn on January 8th, 1869 gave mortgages to C. & J. Cooper & Co. totaling $2,425.42 on the following items:  One portable steam engine 10-inch bore, 16-inch stroke, 25 h.p.,  Steam gauge and whistle, boiler 12 ft. long, 40 in. in diameter, 67.2 ½ in. flues, chimney 16 ft. long.  52 & 30 in. left hand circular sawmill, 30 ft. carriage, 60 ft. track, screw head etc.  Lumber wagon and harness, sawing machine.

     Charles Deatsman May 6, 1869 gave Murray Bromley a mortgage for $190.00 on one threshing machine in P. G. Cook’s barn.

     J. D. Perry May 6, 1869 gave Darius Ford a mortgage for $150.00 on one threshing machine, one separator and one set of trucks.

     Ralph Cherry October 1, 1870 gave mortgage to L. A. Olry and A. C. Green for $60.00 covering one 4-horsepower and one cider mill.

     James N. Pierce and Henry Pierce gave on October 13, 1870 to Chas. Rogers a $1,260 mortgage on third part of sawmill, spoke and handle factory and tools belonging to same.  One third of horse team belonging and used around the mill and one third wagon, trucks and bob sleds and stock.

     George Shay on July 6, 1871 gave to Royal P. Case a mortgage for $577.75 covering one threshing machine and separator, one yoke of red oxen 5 years old.  One span of colts three years old, also four yearling colts, four red cows, 5 years old and one wood sawing machine.  Also one light brown mare seven years old.

     C. L. Halladay and Alonzo Evans on Feb. 10, 1873 gave to John Friend a mortgage for $1000.000 covering one sawmill and fixtures complete.

     Renewed Holmes Dec. 24, 1873 gave mortgage to O. W. Kibbey on one set blacksmith tools.

     Silas Mann and Chas. Gott on Feb. 2, 1874 gave Almeron Newman a mortgage for $80.00 on one Fowlerville Horsepower for ten horses.

     Joseph Robertson on November 22, 1872 gave to A. W. Up-the-Grove a $113.00 mortgage on one peddling wagon and one set of double harness, one pair of horses and one set whiffletrees.

     Ephrain Probasco on July 15, 1874 gave Tristan Freeman a $450.00 mortgage on one evaporator, 400 sap buckets, wheat in the field, one hay rake, 4 plows, 1 cultivator, 1 square drag, 36 teeth, 4 trace chains and 1 red yearling heifer.

     The chattel record goes on and on for three quarters of a century.

A REMINDER

The first of the series of travelogs at Lakewood is on Saturday, October 14, 1967. 

PROGRESS IN REBUILDING THE SCHOOLHOUSE FRONT is not reported because there has been none.  However, we expect to have the front closed in before winter.  The watched pot is slow to boil and the pot is without a fire under it seems to do nothing either. 

DISPOSAL OF THE SEBEWA CORNERS METHODIST CHURCH BUILDING

     Because of the union of the Sebewa Corners Methodists with the Sebewa Center Methodist Church, the building at Sebewa Corners now belongs to the Sebewa Center Church organization.  Some attempt  has been made for a disposal of the building.  It was found that the building was too large to get a permit to move it intact, as was considered by the Carr Church in Odessa.  The expense of wrecking the building has kept that method from being used.  Presently it stands—a building without a use demanding insurance premiums and some maintenance. 

REDUNDANCY

     We did not really mean to repeat some of the chattel mortgages listed—maybe you forgot some of them too. 

APACHE SUMS IT UP

July 19, 1882—Single blessedness doesn’t prove to be very satisfactory this season, as there have been three cases of coalition in Sebewa where the parties had separated and one or the other had sued for divorce.

   THE SEBEWA RECOLLECTOR

   Robert W. Gierman, Editor

   R 1

   Portland, Michigan   48875 U. S. A.