Newton County Biography Life Incidents by Albert Murphy In the beginning this brief sketch of my life I will go back to when my mother's great grandfather Aaron Jenkins and his son Aaron helped to explore the wilds of Pennsylvania, and leading a colony from Loudon County Virginia to take possession of the beautiful land they had found. They both served in the Revolutionary War, and built a fort that saved the lives of the colony from the Indians. In that fort my grandfather William Baldwin Jenkins was born October 4, 1783. On account of his mother's failing health they moved to Tennessee when he was about fourteen years old. Part of the family, with the stock traveled as much as possible by boat, but he and his mother drove across country. They were caught in a rain from which she took cold and died on the way. They returned, taking the body to Tennessee. Four years later on account of slavery in Tennessee they moved to Greene County, Ohio. After the Indians ceded the Territory of Michigan to the United States, and the Cary Mission was established on the west side of the river near Niles, my grandfather William Baldwin Jenkins, in the company with five other men left Ohio to explore southwest Michigan in 1823. All except my grandfather became discouraged and turned back at Fort Wayne, Indiana. He came on alone and was delighted with Pokagon Prairie, and selected a tract of land, including the Crystal Springs Campgrounds. He came again in 1825 and planted and cultivated a corn crop in an old Indian field, his only farm implement being a hoe. After his corn, and wild hay were in shock he returned and rented out his property, including a saw mill and grist mill. Then with grandmother and seven children in company with Benjamin Potter and wife, they started on the first day of November for their new home with five fat hogs and thirty-six cattle, including 6 work oxen. On account of being delayed on the way, and an early snow storm they spent the winter in an old Indian wigwam. While he (Baldwin) was gone the Indians burned his hay. He met Mr. Markham, who wished to return to Ohio and bring his family in the spring. He arranged with him to take his oxen and wagon for that purpose. Then with his small bunch of fodder and what hay he could get from Uzziel Putnam, and by felling trees for the cattle to browse, the most of the came through the winter. My mother being eleven years old that spring watch the cattle from straying away or getting mired, and helped her mother milk seventeen cows, which was the beginning of the first dairy in the St. Joseph Valley. When the Indians returned from the north that spring, grandmother and the woman that had occupied the wigwam, met at the spring. She gazed at grandmother, then dipped up water with her hand and as she let it fall back slowly, said "neen bish" (my spring); and began to weep. Grandmother wept with the broken hearted woman that had lost her home. Grandfather's were the second family to settle in Cass County. The only bread they had the first few months was from corn grandfather carried on his back eight miles and ground on a hand mill at the mission. There had been a great change in the face in the face of the land between main street and the railroad in Niles since my grandfather made marsh hay near where the Depot now stands. He became one of the three first supreme court Judges of the Territory of Michigan, and helped to frame the constitution of the State. My mother, Eliza was their second child, April 12, 1815, and died January 26, 1893. She being only ten when she came to Michigan, her school privileges ceased, and she learned to write from copies set by her brother Erastus after she was forty years old. She was soon writing poems on the lives of departed friends, and later in life wrote a historical poem on 121 verses, now on record concerning her kindred, beginning before the Revolutionary War and ending after her last living child and a foster son were married and comfortably situated. My father , Isaac Murphy, the son of Charles and Elizabeth Hayden Murphy was born in Virginia September 21,1811, and died January 21, 1893. He came with his widowed mother and six brothers and sisters to Ohio when he was five years old. His mother married William Michael, and her daughter Polly, married his son Adam. After father was nine years old he made his home with Adam, and came with him to Michigan in 1830. He and my mother Eliza Jenkins were married April 9, 1834 and took immediate possession of their unfinished log cabin and cooked against a log until they cleared land and planted a spring crop before they built a fireplace and chimney. The first thing I remember after coming into the world, May 10, 1845, is sitting on Ann Michael Boons lap, and drinking milk from a bottle. Next is the endearing words of father as he carried me to the old three cornered cupboard for lunch. The next is when I met him with a stalk of the first little corn I had ever seen, expecting to delight him with it when he came out to the end. But her said "O, you have pulled up a stalk of corn", and he put me on the shovel plow and took me around with him, and when he set me off he said, "Now, don't pull up any more corn." It was near the time when I ran away from home to go to aunt "Prudas" about two miles through the woods, but when about half way was met by Henry Robinson on horseback who took me up and brought me home. I became quite anxious to be rich, and was very contentious for my own interests when quite young. On one occasion an elder brother had a contract for a fifty cent job, and hired me at two cents a day to help him, but after the first day I was fired without pay for bad conduct. I took the case to the supreme court at dinner time. I proved the contract and that I had worked one day. The "judge" handed down a decision of two cents in favor of the plaintiff. The burst of laughter in the court room, angered the defendant, and his little sheep was sold at the "sheriff sale" and brought 12 cents. Wild life had become scarce, except for the millions of wild pigeons that I helped keep off the fresh sowed wheat. Their appearance as they moved across a field in a long line is hard to make plain, to one who never witnesses such a sight. The thousands that were constantly getting in the rear and flying over the line to get in front gave the appearance of a huge object rolling across the field. They were caught in nets in great quantities and shipped to Philadelphia. Wild game and wild fruit together with outside range for stock did much to make pioneer life enjoyable as well as possible. Hogs could root their way through the Summer and fatten on beechnuts and acorns in the fall. By the time to take them in they would be "wild hogs" and the owner would build a pen around their sleeping place and close the gap when they were all in, It was common in those days for women when going to their neighbors to knit as they walked along the way. My mother when riding in and out from Niles, eight miles, would knit a pair of mittens. My schooling began in a log schoolhouse nearly two miles from home when I was five, and ended in Miss Browns select school in Niles on front street when I was nineteen. But the Liberty schoolhouse was built near home when I was ten. I greatly enjoyed the spelling schools of those days, but especially the exhibitions at the end of the school term. When I was nearly eighteen a girl who had lately moved to the adjoining district had been invited to join our school in an exhibition. We met on horseback as she was on her way to borrow an old fashioned dress for the occasion. The exhibition gave us the topic for our first conversation. There was something about her modesty and bright eyes together with her easy manner of conversation that made her the most admirable person I had ever met. I left that scene with a purpose that took five years to accomplish. I carried mail on horseback from Niles to Shanghai before the Civil War, when father was postmaster at Berrien Center. I was one of the three fifers in the Berrien Center martial band that mad music for the great mass meetings that preceded Lincoln's election in 1864. Cyrus Shearer and Averit Michael were the other two. Mortimer Michael was bass drummer, Erastus and Isaac Murphy tenors. At the great celebration in Niles, July 4th, 1865 when the 300 yard foot race with eight contestants for cash prizes of $25.00, 15.00 and 6.00 was the chief attraction of the day. I won first prize, John Winn second and Edd Houghlin third. B. Frankenburg was treasurer and David Ullery timed the race 35 seconds. At the age of 21 I went to western Missouri and bought cheap rich prairie land, intending ton "grow up with the country". But I lost my health the second year and returned home. Although treated by Dr. E. J. Bonine I was nearly a year regaining my health. Then on January 14, 1869 I married Sarah Jane Ensign, the girl that won my heart five years before. Both of us descendants of the Mayflower, she of Edward Doty on her mothers side, and I of John and Priscilla Mullins Alden on my father side. We spent two years near Galien. Then in March 1871 we moved to Newton County, Indiana taking with us our livestock and Ella Glen, our bright baby girl. On the following December 9th we moved into our unfinished house on our wild prairie farm, having planned for a lathing and plastering bee on the 12th, but the arrival of Cora Adel, another baby girl on that day defeated our plan. Then soon came a blizzard followed by the coldest weather in all our experience. With all the care possible by the kindest of friends and a red hot stove night and day, wife suffered on frozen foot. Four other children were born to us later, two of them living to maturity, Julia DeEtta and Nimrod Albert. I was Secretary-Treasurer of the Pleasant Valley Grange, and sent mail orders to Montgomery War when his store was known as the Grange Store in Chicago. I accessed the property in Jackson Township in 1877. In February 1876 we were strangely moved to become christians. I complied with what Jesus taught in Luke 14, and readily received a fulfillment of his promise as recorded in John 7-17. We joined the United Brethern Church, and I was soon elected class leader where I served until 1882 when we moved to Shiloh in Benton County, and found I had been elected class leader before we arrived. My ministry which began with my conversion was mostly of a pioneer character in schoolhouses and tents where I "preached the word" by reading scripture and witnessing to the truth and sharing its blessings with the hearers. While we were at Shiloh I was given a ministers license, but I never took a theological course. In November 1895 we moved to Virginia and returned to Michigan in November 1928. My wife departed this life in great peace December 20, 1929 after we had spent nearly sixty-one years together. She was born in Medina, Ohio September 21, 1847. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by other organization or persons. 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