By Mrs. Lyman (Rizpah Auten) Hunt - About 1921
Montcalm County, Michigan
TKS NOTE: Rizpah Auten was the daughter of Nathaniel Auten and
Nancy Lepper, issue of Thomas Auten, Rizpah Irvin and
John Lepper, I, Ann Crawford.
In August 1870, my father came to Douglass Township and bought 40 acres of land situated just
across the road from the Entrican Schoolhouse, on what is now the John Clement farm. He went
back to Kalamazoo, (Michigan) where we then lived and told my mother he had bought a farm
and we would move the next day. They packed all our goods on two wagons and some men
drove those through, while mother, my brother and sister and myself rode with Eli Hunt in a two
seated buggy drawn by two horses. Father walked behind and led the cow. It took us two days to
make the trip. We stopped at mother's sisters' and stayed overnight, arriving in Douglass
Township the next day about suppertime.
We were acquainted with the Aaron Hunt family who had preceded us here from Kalamazoo
about eight years before, so we went there and stayed until the wagons came with our goods. I
felt terrible and didn't want to come, while my sister was delighted that we were going to the
"Pinery" as we then called this part of Michigan, having heard so much of the pine forests here.
But after we arrived I liked it here, while my sister was homesick to go back to Kalamazoo.
I went to school in the old log schoolhouse. Miss Foster of Stanton was our teacher and she
boarded with Mrs. Aaron Hunt. Miss Vine Cary was our next teacher. Some of my early
schoolmates were Agnes and Margaret Aldrich, Dennie Blumberg, Lewis, Drucilla and George
Lee, all of whom have passed on beyond.
The Aldrich home was just the other side of the schoolhouse and ours was just on this side, and
often at recess time Agnes Aldrich and I would go to either her home or mine to visit our mother's
cookie jars. All the houses were then built of logs. That same fall we moved here they built the
first town hall down on the northeast corner of what is now the Frank Mack farm.
The next spring my father tapped the maple trees on his land and he and my mother made 1150
pounds of maple sugar and they gathered all the sap in pails hung on a yolk which they put over
their shoulders.
My mother and I went after blackberries -- great large ones. We became so interested in finding
such large berries that when we had our pails full we discovered we had lost track of the trail
where we entered the woods. That was on land now owned by Ed. Demorest. We walked and
walked trying to find our way out. We climbed over logs and trees torn out by the roots and
fireweed nearly as tall as I was, until I became tired and said I was going to throw my berries
away as I was too tired to carry them any farther. I well remember my mother saying "No, don't
do it, we may have to camp here over night". But after a while we came to a vacated lumber camp
and found a road leading out from there. We met my father, who, becoming alarmed at our
prolonged absence, was out looking for us.
One day that summer, Maggie Aldrich (who later became Mrs. John Clement), and I walked to
Stanton and took dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Tichener, who formerly owned the land my father
bought. On the way home Mr. Buttes, who I think was Mr. Lucian Palmer's grandfather, overtook
us with his horses and wagon and we rode to the corner with him.
The first few winters after I was married we ran a lumber camp and one winter I baked sixteen
loaves of bread each day. The men used oxen in the woods but they used horses to draw the logs
to the Flat River. In 1874 we bought the farm where I still live and it was all woods. Mr. Hunt
cleared a small piece of land and built what we styled our "Shanty". It was only 18 x 18. He later
cleared the rest of the land.
Mr. and Mrs. George Carpenter were our nearest neighbors, but you couldn't see anyone's house
for the woods. Every Saturday night Mrs. Carpenter would come down and stay with me while
Mr. Carpenter and Mr. Hunt walked to Westville to get our mail. I wonder what the young
people today would think to only get news of the outside world once a week and then walk two
miles after it. I once rode to Westville on a "toad" drawn by oxen to have a tooth pulled.
My father, Nathan Auten, helped mark out the Entrican Cemetery and Mr. Entrican was the first
person buried in it. The first store in Entrican was owned by Mr. Murray. Dr. Entrican was the
first doctor. The first minister after we moved here was Mr. Williams. Aaron Hunt set out the
first orchard in Douglass Township and Mary Hunt and Jacob Miller were the first people to be
married in Douglass Township.
Mrs. Lyman Hunt, Stanton, R.R. #1
tkschulte@sbcglobal.net
Terry Schulte - Grand Rapids, Kent County, MI
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