Tuscola Memories

Contributed by Barb Shannon.

BIOGRAPHY OF THE GAUNT FAMILY, Part 1

Written by John George Gaunt

(father of Howard Gaunt)

**1932**

1. Sarah, born June, 1812, Married and had two children, Died in England

2. James (my father) born Sept. 9, 1813. Died 1895.

3. Benjamin, born January, 1815. Married in England. Three children born there. Came to this country in the same boat with my father and his sister Ann. Two children died and were buried at sea. A daughter Margaret, the oldest, survived. She died in Evert at the age of 70. Benjamin died at Evert at the age of 86.

4. Henry died in infancy.

5. William. Married, no children. Died in England

6. Mary. Never married. After she grew up, she became insane at intervals until her death in England.

7. Betsy. Born June, 1818. Died Feb. 12, 1887. Married to Thomas Osgerby in England. Came to America about 1852 and settled in Iowa. Five children (four boys and one girl) were born to them. Vis: John J. who died from cancer of the stomach about 1912. The twins, Miles and Giles, both living. William, who died from brain fever. Prof. J.K. Osgerby, Tawas City, Michigan. (four children living, one dead). Lizzie, who married John Manning and died about 1905, leaving two children.

8. Joseph. Married in England. Came to this country about 1849 and settled in Detroit. There were nine children, vis: John H., James, Charley, Lizzie, Joseph Jr., William, Eliza, George and Rose. Four now living in 1932.

Ann. Came to America in the same ship with my father and his brother, Benjamin. She settled in Milford, Michigan, where she married Samuel Garner. Soon they moved to the English Line, near Vassar, onto 80 acres of fine land. Their eldest son, William, was only three months younger than I and we were great chums. It was the most ideal family I ever knew. I used to think it a great privilege to visit them. They lived 6 miles from us. Eight children lived to grow up, vis: William, Lizzie, Eliza, Samuel, Ida, Moses, Hattie and Agnes. The two younger died single, Hattie at about 18 of pneumonia, and Agnes about 16 from bronchitis. Eliza also died single about 1912 from cancer of the stomach. William, born July, 1852. Married Lucy Whidded in 1878. Died from hip disease in 1887, leaving three children, vis: Stella, married Clarence Shipley—they have six children; Arthur married Clara Frahm (a German girl)—they have four children; and Hattie, married to a blind man, Frank Goodrich. They have one child. Samuel married Jessie Lewis, Oct. 12, 1885. They have four living children: Lewis, Orrie, Austin and Ruth. Lewis married and had two children by his first wife; Orrie married and had one child; Austin married Meta VanPatten. Moses, first wife, Kittie. Four children: Lee, Ralph, Vera and Helen. Second wife, Katie Green. Three children: two girls and one boy. Lizzie married Tomas Wilson. Both dead. Left four children: Samuel married in the West, wife became insane, one child grown to manhood. Mae married to M.W. Musser, who is dead. Veva, married to Moses Garner, Sr., and William, married a widow in Chicago, one son. All living in 1932.

James Gaunt, my father, was married to Charlotte Ann Grantham in 1842. She was a cultured and refined girl, but physically not strong. One son was born to them but he died about 1845. The mother grieved so much that she never rallied and died about a year later, 1846.

My father married again in 1848 to my mother, Phobe Wilkinson. When they were married she was 33 and my father was 35. A son was born April, 1849, and they emigrated to America in June, 1850, taking a boat at Liverpool and arriving in New York with a very sick boy. He contracted bowel trouble on shipboard. He died in October 1850, about the time a second son was born, named Joseph. He later died of pneumonia about the time of my birth, April 16, 1852. Both children are buried in Milford, Michigan. The sickness of the second son was caused by the hired girl’s taking him out of doors and staying too long when my mother was sick in bed with me.

They came through New York State on the Erie Canal. It was a very hot summer and an open boat. My mother was sick too. When on the canal boat my father saw a woman milking a cow near the canal. He ran out and bought a quart of milk. Mother tasted it and said it was sour. Father asked the Captain, "Do you cows give sour milk in this country?" "Oh yes," he replied, "anything to get money".

Father’s brother Benjamin and family came on the same boat. When they got to Detroit theyhired a livery to take them to Milford. The first man they tried to deal with sought to take advantage of them, told them there were no liveries in the city, but that he would take them, asking more than twice the usual price. Both brothers, James and Benjamin, worked for John Crawford at Milford, in his store. Also drove his team gathering ashes and taking pay in goods from the store. After the ashes were worked into black salts, they were made into saleratur. They took the ashes to Detroit and exchanged them for more goods. I met Mr. Crawford’s daughter at the Chelsea Methodist Home, near Detroit, not long ago. She is still living, about 90 years old. She remembers my folks working for her father and seeing me as a babe in my mother’s arms. My father worked one summer on a farm for Captain Thompson, south of Milford. The last summer he was there he worked a farm on shares for John Harper.

The second year Benjamin bought a farm in South Lyon and moved there. Five boys and another girl were born to them there, vis: William, Alfred, Walter, Joseph, Lincoln and Cora. About 1875 the family moved to Evert, Osceola County, where most of the children lived and died. The eldest son William went West. Was a storekeeper and for some time Mayor of a Colorado town. He died about 1922. Left wife and two sons in Brighton, Colorado just north of Denver. One son publishes a county paper, the other is a lawyer in Denver. All other children died in Evert vicinity.

My father’s family moved from Milford to Tuscola County in the late Fall of 1853. He bought 40 acres of land from the government located three-quarters of a mile west of Carrs Corners, paying for the land, $1.25 an acre. It was sandy land covered with the best of pine. He built a shanty covered with hollowed basswood and having a dirt floor, a very primitive home. My two sisters were born there, vis: Mary Elizabeth, born Feb. 22, 1854, died in Detroit Dec. 1908; Phoebe Ann born May 9, 1856. Now is the Methodist Home in Chelsea.

In moving to this location from Milford, he hired a two-horse team and a cow. I do not know where we lived while father built the shanty. The logs for it was soon rolled up, the roof was made of smooth logs about a foot in diameter, split in half, hollowed out and laid side by side and covered by the same. There was only one room, about 12x18. Later it was chinked, filled with moss and cemented with clay. Father chopped what trees he could during the winter. The cow lived on the brouse of basswood and elm. He brought enough provisions with him for the winter. In the Spring he planted corn and potatoes among the logs and stumps. Harvested very little. He said he did not know what they would do to live through another winter. But that Fall he was notified there was a registered letter for him at the Vassar Post Office. He got it and found it contained $20 but there was no signature to say who sent it. He afterwards found it was sent by Mother’s cousins, George and Charley Wilkinson from Livingston County. He tried to make the money go as far as possible, so he bought a half a ton of cornmeal for $10 and some other necessary things with the balance. It was a saying of his that he wanted six months provisions ahead. He felt better now as he had meal enough for at least six months. He was so different from most men who would have bought wheat flour or something else they liked better, but which wouldn’t have lasted so long. He despised ‘johnny cake’ but knew it would go farther then wheat flour. He learned to like ‘johnny cake’ fairly well before spring. We attended some of Wilkinson reunions. This Fall (1932) it was held near Reese. Will Wilkinson lives there.

Father carried on his back one bushed of corn every other Friday afternoon to Watrousville to have it ground. He was late one time and did not get his grist until dark. After going one mile West he came to the end of the road that was chopped out, so he laid down under a tree until morning. I do not know how Mother felt with no word from Father all that night. Once it stormed so hard he could not go, and they broke the corn up between two stones and lived on it for two weeks.

We lived there three years and in the meantime Father had exchanged the home 40 acres for a 60 acre hardwood land two miles North. We moved to it in the Fall of 1856.

Some things I distinctly remember before we moved. When I was three years old, about July 15, 1855, my father left his ax where I found it. He had gone to Vassar with Matthew Wilkinson to bring a trunk belonging to Betsy Woodard, Mrs. Wilkinson’s sister who had arrived from England. She afterward married Alexander Casebeer. Left three children. Upon this occasion I took the ax and chopped around the gate sill. My sister Mary was with me, she put her hand on the sill to show me where to chop, and I nearly cut three fingers off from her hand. Mother and Mrs. Baker did it up the best they could, but she always had a crippled hand.

Another time Mother left me alone for a while, and when she returned she found me standing on the table feeding cake to my dog. (By the way, we did not have much cake in those days.) Another time our folks were on the way to Sunday School at Mrs. Case’s when we came upon a mother deer and a little fawn. I was going to pick it up when my father told me to let it alone or the doe would knock me over. There were many deer in the woods at that time. My father built a roost about 10 feet from the ground in the woods, and he would sit there moonlight evenings and shoot deer as they came to feed.

The second Fall after moving there, there was an influx of deer mice, and they ate up nearly everything the settlers raised. The second summer there our only cow, along with John Baker’s oxen, wandered away, they were gone for three weeks, they were found five miles West of Reese. The cow had dried up so they were without milk the balance of the year.

About this time an Indian family loved to kneel in front of our house. The family consisted of father, mother, two children and a babe less than a year old. They had a tent for a home. The mother pounded black ash poles and stripped the wood to make baskets. They colored them with berries they found in the woods. To rock her baby she made a hammock of bark and swung it back and forth. The father spent his time mostly hunting deer and other animals. When they killed a deer they hung all the lean strips to dry in the sun. I remember seeing the dried strips hanging in their wigwam.

Before we moved to the new farm in the Fall of 1856, just before the raising of the new house, Father saw three timber wolves run by on a runway, but he did not molest them. On the new farm he built a two-story log house, chinking it between the logs with split timber, then crowding in moss and plastering with mud. Thus it was quite warm. He also built a fireplace. They also had a stove which they had brought from Milford. For light they used candles. Sometimes they could not buy candles. Then Father would burn shavings for light so Mother could sew by it. Father chopped the timber and piled the brush for a fence. He planted some peach pits around the stumps and a row of hazel nuts, these having been brought from Oakland County. There were no insects to hinder and they furnished up children with a small amount of fruit, although there were no apples.

In the Fall of 1858 my father was chopping down a basswood tree to bet brouse for a cow while we went to Matthew Wilkinson’s for a New Year’s dinner. A lodged tree fell on Father and broke his leg above his knee. He had to crawl on hands and knees over two brush fences. Mother went to find someone to go to Vassar for a doctor. Dr. Brockway came and set it but he was no surgeon. He put no weights on the leg and the result was that it was half inch shorter than the other.

Continued on page entitled, Gaunt Family, Part 2.

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