A few articles ago (”Slept Here“) I posted a photo of Lydia Lucinda Wight’s gravestone. She is the person who recalled that Black Hawk slept in her family’s log cabin in 1830. I got a comment from somone who posted under the name “Gravestones and Monuments,” which seems to be a maker of gravestones in the UK. S/he said, “I love to see old gravestones and read their inscriptions.” I was going to reply, but then read the inscription more carefully myself.

It reads: Lucinda, wife of Roscius M. Southworth, Died June 26, 1838, Aged 22 yrs.

1838! That can’t be right. The Lucinda I knew about lived a lot longer than that.

It’s a good thing I also took a photo (shown above) of the other side of the gravestone, even though it isn’t as good a photo as the first one I posted.

It looks like the Lucinda in the first photo was Roscius’s first wife. A couple of years after she died, at age 22, he married another Lucinda, this time the one who as a young girl had encountered Black Hawk. Her name is given on the gravestone as Lucinda L. She was born in 1819 and died in 1898. I had thought her full name was Lydia Lucinda, but now I’m wondering if it was the other way around. In any case, she seems to have gone by Lucinda rather than Lydia. I guess that saved Roscius the potential embarrassment of ever calling his 2nd wife by the name of his first.

Allen is on the way to a lot of places I liked to ride to, so I should have an opportunity to get a better photo of the side that memorializes the Lucinda I was looking for. I think that’s the south facing side, too, so there should be an opportunity to get it in good light.

BTW, I’ve transcribed her reminiscences that were recorded in the 1879 Hillsdale County history and have put them at wiki.spokesrider.com. They are also at another wiki at www.hawkroost.com, but I’m moving everything that was at hawkroost.com to spokesrider.com. It’s all such a mess right now that I hate to even mention it, but Lucinda’s story is too good to pass up. (BTW, her memory was imperfect when she told her story. She got some of the details wrong, and she greatly exaggerated the number of people in Black Hawk’s party. More on that another time.)

]]> http://www.spokesrider.com/2009/12/02/two-lucindas/feed/ 1 http://www.spokesrider.com/2009/11/29/slept-here/ http://www.spokesrider.com/2009/11/29/slept-here/#comments Sun, 29 Nov 2009 07:49:42 +0000 Spokesrider http://www.spokesrider.com/2009/11/29/slept-here/

Ken Steinhoff’s new blog reminded me of this photo. It’s one I took on July 27, at the end of a two-day tour that took me down to the extreme northwest corner of Ohio. At the end of the ride back I stopped at the cemetery in Allen, hoping to find the gravestone of Lucinda Wight Southworth. I had looked for it in other cemeteries a few months earlier, with no success.

Lucinda Wight was a girl of perhaps twelve in 1830 when Black Hawk slept in her family’s cabin, near Jonesville. She told about it later in life. Her story is the title chapter to my project, “Black Hawk Slept Here.” Over the past dozen years or so I’ve made many stops at the site where I take the cabin to have been. I have also visited the site down the road where her family moved shortly thereafter. But it was not until this year that I thought to look for the farm where she lived as a married woman. It turned out to be easy to find. And it was not until this year that I thought to look for her gravestone. After having no luck at a couple of cemeteries near her home, I thought to look in Allen. I found it almost immediately, and took the above photo. (Maybe it’s appropriate that the cemetery lies right next to Black Hawk’s usual route through southern Michigan.)

In the eastern U.S. there are many places that claim, “George Washington Slept Here.” I long ago decided that the places visited by Black Hawk deserved that kind of recognition, too, and that even the gravestones of the people who encountered him deserve a visit of my own.

So it shouldn’t be surprising that I enjoyed the article in Ken Steinhoff’s new blog, “President Taft and I Both Visit Cape Girardeau.” Cape Girardeau is Ken’s boyhood home and is where he learned how to be a newspaper photographer. He’s now digitizing a lot of his old photos and putting them on a blog called “Cape Central High Photos and History : Coming of Age in Cape Girardeau.” Those are especially interesting for those of us who were in high school at the same time Ken was.

He also posted a recent photo of a mural commemorating President Taft’s visit to the town a hundred years ago this year. Unfortunately, I don’t know if President Taft really spent the night there. I hope he did, or that he at least took a nap there. Either one would easily qualify for the designation, “President Taft Slept Here.” And even if he did neither, it’s still worth a mural.

Maybe someday someone will make one for Black Hawk’s visit to Lucinda Wight’s home, too.

Before Michigan became a state, a national military road was built to connect Chicago with Detroit. Territorial roads were also built. I presume they were financed by the federal government because there was no state government at the time, but I must confess that I don’t know quite how they were financed. I’ve seen old newspaper notices from the early 1830s that solicited bids for construction of the Chicago Road (i.e. the Chicago-Detroit road). I don’t know if the Territorial Roads were handled similarly.

Territorial Road

The Territorial Road in the photo, now a county road, runs parallel to the Ohio border in Hillsdale County, and only a half mile from it. It seems a strange place for one of the first roads in the state. Roads didn’t usually just run along the border — they tended to connect centers of activity – or future centers of activity. The 1879 history of Hillsdale County says it was established in 1832, at the same time as the Black Hawk war. There are other, more authoritative sources of information about early roads, but none handy to me at the moment. So for now I’ll just have to add this to my long list of questions to wonder about.

My youngest son and I rode along this road on a Sunday afternoon in June 2000. We came on an Amish buggy towing three young men on roller blades. Two of them were being towed by tow ropes at any one instant, while the 3rd coasted. They would hand off one of the ropes to the one coasting in a sort of braiding-the-ropes sequence, the one coasting would give himself a big boost with the tow rope, and then hand off to the next one coasting. A girl was driving the buggy for them. We followed them a long ways, it seemed, finally catching up to them when they stopped by the side of the road to catch their breath. “Looking good!” I told them as we passed by. One of them nodded and smiled in acknowledgement. The Amish people who live here are more conservative than those further west, to judge by their clothes, but that doesn’t mean not having fun on Sunday afternoons.

More from two Saturdays ago.

I was tired enough after setting up camp, but there was still daylight and rain was forecast for the next day. Time to go get some photos while the weather was suitable. So I had a nice five-mile ride unencumbered by all that weight in my panniers.

The sun had already set on the east-facing slope of the valley.

Moscow would look even more like Sleepy Hollow if the decrepit general store building down at the bottom, on the right. was still standing. It was a building that crowded the road, and somehow made the place seem like it was of a different time. But it burned down 5 years ago, and has been replaced by a little convenience store back from the road. This was the first time I had been there since the old store was gone. I missed it, but do have a photo of it somewhere.

James Fowle served in a militia company from Blissfield, and probably came through here in 1832. I don’t know of any marks he left on the landscape, here or near Blissfield. But two of his brothers settled here near Moscow. One of them even owned the old tavern for a while. The brothers left several marks on the landscape, including the name for “Fowle Road.”

This is at the top of the valley, just west of Moscow. There was still sunlight up here.

Fowle Road is a gravel road, easy enough to ride on. It was also a road I had never taken before. It was a good enough excuse for a ride.

When Black Hawk came through here in the 1820s, on his way to Fort Malden, there was no Moscow. On his last trip, in 1830, there would have been a new, log-cabin tavern. When the militias from Lenawee County and the Detroit area came through here in 1832, on their way to defend the territory from Black Hawk, the town had already gotten off to a start. The log-cabin tavern was then being replaced by a large, frame building, just across the Kalamazoo River from where I stood when I took this photo. The builder/owner was Silas Benson, who also served in a militia company, as did his brother Peter. The place is now an empty lot.

I don’t have the date for this newspaper clipping, but it pre-dates 1970, the year when the tavern was torn down. It served as an antique shop in its last days. It was given to me by a woman who married into the Benson family, though if memory serves her husband was descended from yet another Benson who came to the area a little later than Silas and Peter. She also gave me a typescript of a journal that her husband’s Benson ancestor had kept on the journey to this place. I have it on file somewhere.

Moscow (Michigan) was the destination for last weekend’s bike ride. I hadn’t been there for several years.

It’s on U.S.-12, Black Hawk’s old route, in the northeastern part of Hillsdale County. The militias from Lenawee County and the Detroit area passed through here in 1832, during the Black Hawk war. A hotel was under construction when they came through — a building that was torn down in 1970.

The photo here is looking west. The road has been improved considerably since 1832. Actually, it has been improved since I last rode here. Now there is a wide shoulder to ride on, although that part ends when you get to the top of the valley on the other side of town. It looks like that part may be slated for resurfacing, too, though. When I first rode on Black Hawk’s route in 1997, there were portions that were wretched to ride on, and not that great for driving, either. But now most of it is a decent route for bicycles.

Moscow is at the bottom of a valley formed by the Kalamazoo River, which is just a small stream here. I don’t think I’m the only person to have thought of the village as a Sleepy Hollow sort of place. Sundown comes early down at the bottom.

This is a scene from my last ride in Hillsdale County, almost a year ago. I’m hoping for another one tomorrow, even though there is a chance of rain in the forecast.

I don’t know if I’ll do any solo touring this year or not, but I haven’t done a lot in past years, either. This photo is from a long-weekend ride to Grand Rapids, Ohio in July 2003. It’s at a private campground west of Hillsdale, and shows the cooking gear I was using at the time. I liked being able to camp on the high, relatively open site at this campground, but this tenting area has since been made into more space for RV campers.

I don’t always go out for bike rides on major holidays (too many drunk drivers) but I did a history ride on Memorial Day. The destination was Jefferson Township in Hillsdale County. I was hoping to find the gravesite of Peleg Pettis and/or his son.

About 70 miles from home I had already checked out two cemeteries with no luck. I came across these Amish horses. It looked like they had been turned out into a new pasture. They were too busy enjoying the fresh, tall grass to pay much attention to me.

A mile or so later I found myself on a gravel road where a couple of horseback riders were coming my way, in my lane more or less. I slowed down so I wouldn’t spook their horses, and also to see if they planned to move over so I could get past them on the right, or whether I would have to squeak around them on the left. Finally, they moved out of the way and I rode past. We said our hellos. They were a couple of tall men, shirtless, bareheaded and reddish. The latter was more from drink than from sun, it looked like. They seemed to be handling their horses easily enough, though. A little ways past them I heard behind me a booming “Where ya headed?” with a timing and a voice that removed any doubt about their state of inebriation.

I was still thinking about them as the road started to pass through a swampy area with water about level with the road on both sides, and perhaps a bit higher along some edges. They were fairly big guys or at least seemed so up on their horses — probably a foot taller than me and at least 20 years younger. But I was also thinking how my reflexes were probably working a lot better than theirs at the moment.

The road had been deserted except for them, but now a small pickup was coming my way. It seemed to have stopped so I could get around a muddy spot that made the road too narrow for the both of us. But once I was past the puddles, I saw that the driver was flagging me down. He wanted to know if I had seen a couple of guys on horseback, drunk, and whether they had turned off the road. Yes, I had seen them, maybe a half mile back, definitely drunk. I didn’t know which way they had gone but I told him he could probably still find them back there.

Instead of taking off after them, he told me he wished he knew which way they had gone, that they had abused his wife verbally (his exact words), had been riding onto private property causing trouble, and that they had been blocking the road so drivers couldn’t get past. When one driver complained, they told him to perform acts of sexual intimacy with himself and refused to get out of the way. And so on. I told him they were probably still back there on the road, that their reflexes weren’t very good, and that they had got out of the way for me. This man didn’t seem inclined to go and confront them, though. Maybe he just wanted to keep track of where they were. I rode on.

In the end, I had to chalk it up as the highlight of the day because I never did find the Peleg Pettis gravesite, even though I searched five cemeteries. As the afternoon had worn on, I had been watching extra carefully for drunk drivers. I didn’t see any of those, but I did encounter drunken horseback riders.

Other photos:

The day’s ride was just under 80 miles, but I felt slow and weak the whole way. I wasn’t two miles from home when I was already trying to figure out what was wrong with myself. I stopped for this turtle, and told the dog’s owner that I was out enjoying the road like the turtle was. That was true in more ways than one. I just couldn’t get any oomph into my riding — not even as much as on previous rides this year. I kind of expect to feel like that when I’m 75 years old, but it’s alarming to be that way now already. And I didn’t even have the wind working against me. For what it’s worth, I felt stronger riding later in the week, even though I couldn’t tell a bit of difference in how I felt off the bike.

I tried a different route between Homer and Litchfield. I think it’s called 26 Mile Road. I had meant to take 27 1/2 Mile Road, which also would have been a change, but somehow did this instead. My Universal Map doesn’t show it all as being paved, but it was paved all the way to the Hillsdale County line. The pavement in many places wasn’t in good enough shape for fast riding, but it was about right for the way I was feeling. And there were very few cars. I may make this my regular route between Homer and Litchfield when I don’t need to be in a great hurry.