Wednesday morning we were on The Banks of Plum Creek, a place made famous by Laura Ingalls Wilder. The plum in the photo is from a bush that is only a step or two away from the site of the dugout where the Ingalls family lived in 1874.

Tuesday I had hoped to ride my bike to this site as well as get in a 100-mile ride. But it didn’t quite happen. More on that another time, as I have only a slow internet connection at the moment. (I will mention, though, that I need to describe how I was given shelter from a thunderstorm that ended my riding for the day.)

I haven’t tried to connect the Plum Creek site to the Black Hawk story, but it seemed like an appropriate destination given that the Little House books were an inspiration for my historical bike riding. The inspiration didn’t really come so much from this site; rather, it was from the transition of DeSmet, South Dakota from prairie to farms and town, as described in later books in the series. But I had never before been to the Plum Creek site, and a visit to this site was compatible with other family activities this week.

The next quarter-section to the north of the Caroline Sharpsteen place was settled by Joseph P. Markham, the other of the two original settlers in Pennfield Township who was still alive in 1891. The barn is now somewhat the worse for wear. (The photos are from Sunday’s ride.)

The 1891 biography has the following information about Mr. Markham and his farm:

When, in the fall of 1836, Mr. Markham determined to come to the Territory of Michigan, he started from his former home with an ox-team, and reaching Buffalo took passage on a boat, bringing his cattle with him. He landed at Detroit and continued his journey with the team, arriving at his destination September 29. He entered a tract of land upon which he is still living, and which is somewhat remarkable from the fact that it has never had an encumbrance upon it. When taken by Mr. Markham it was covered with heavy timber and his first labor upon it was to clear a small piece and build a log house. His humble home was 18x 24 feet in dimension and seemed quite a commodious dwelling. In it he lived about a quarter of a century, then built his present fine two-story residence. This house cost over $3,000, being all hand work, even to the planing of the lumber used in its construction. This commodious residence, with its pleasant surroundings, is represented by a view on another page.

When Mr. Markham reached this county he found in Battle Creek one store and a shoeshop. There was not a settler within many miles of his place, but Indians were numerous thereabouts and various wild animals abounded. The red men used frequently to come to his home to get their knives ground and their guns fixed, paying for their work with meat. Mr. Markham went to Marshall to mill and paid $16 for the first barrel of flour he bought here. He was one of the first Commissioners and helped to lay out all the roads in this vicinity. During the first years of his residence here he cleared the entire one hundred and forty acres of his now finely-improved farm and built log houses all over the country, commanding good wages for his work. He has been very successful financially, has fitted up his own farm at great cost, and has given upwards of five hundred acres of land to his children. The granaries, barns, etc., which stand upon his farm are conspicuous even in a locality where good buildings are the rule. The four large barns are painted red, and show well against the background of fields and roads.

The house is still being kept up rather nicely.

This is the portrait of the place from the 1891 history.

The current barn seems to have been an old post-and-beam structure. At least one beam is showing where the wall is tumbling down. The arrangement of doors is roughly the same as on the main barn in the 1891 portrait, but the building seems to have been enlarged since then. And somewhere along the line it got a hip roof.

Today’s commuting mileage: 17. Year-to-date mileage: 153.5. I was somewhat dismayed to still be tired and stiff for my commute to and from work, but finally, on the last few miles before reaching home, I started to feel stronger again, and more energetic. It was a pleasant surprise.

It has been almost a month since I last had a bike ride. Today I finally did the one I talked about two weeks ago.

The first place I was looking for was the homestead site of William A. Bishop, who had served in the Black Hawk war militia in 1832. His home was just on the other side of the farmstead above, which is in the extreme southwest corner of Battle Creek Township, Calhoun County. In the county histories he was said to have been the first person to build a cabin in LeRoy Township. It was in the extreme northwest corner, which is just ahead in this photo. He probably hadn’t lived here at the time of the Black Hawk war, though I suppose it’s possible. The county histories said he came in 1832 or 1833. Before coming here he had lived in Prairie Ronde township in Kalamazoo County, 20-some miles away. His wife, Martha, was a daughter of Bazil Harrison, first settler in Kalamazoo County. The captain of the militia company he served in was one of his many brothers-in-law. It was mustered at or near Schoolcraft. But there would have been no closer militia company for him to serve in, even if he had lived here already in May 1832.

I hadn’t really expected to find a home on the site. Maps and aerial photos didn’t show one. But I wanted to come take a look anyway.

I made a couple of cemetery stops on my ride, but didn’t find his grave. I’m not sure how long he stayed here, but so far I’ve found him listed in both the 1840 and 1850 censuses. This country was still sparsely enough settled that are not too many pages to look through. In 1850 his age was given as 39, and Martha’s as 35. They had three children, aged 16, 14, and 1/2, and he owned $1800 worth of real estate.

His wife’s brother, Billy, had settled not too far from here, so one of the places I looked was in a cemetery north of Climax where a number of his descendants are buried. (At least I think they’re his descendants. Bazil Harrison left a lot of descendants; many of the current ones still live in the area.) If the family connection was strong, I wondered if perhaps William and Martha would have been buried near Billy. I didn’t do an exhaustive search, but I didn’t find them.

I did have better luck with some of the other people I was looking for on this ride. I’ll get to them another time.

Miles for the day: 34. Total for the year so far: 101.5. On my last climb out of the Kalamazoo River valley, close to home, my legs were starting to get just a bit rubbery, even though I picked one of the easiest routes up the side of the valley.