134 RURAL MICHIGAN 



ilie loss of wliich miglit be irreparable, must be 

 carefully recorded and preserved. Sickness and ac- 

 cident must be endured as best they might. Yet 

 these men were the pioneers of civilization in Michi- 

 gan, as they forced their way through the dense forest 

 and across the morasses and water-courses of the 

 inter-morainal depressions, as they labored in the 

 shadow of giant trees and the deep silence of the 

 wilderness, and slept to the howling of the wolf and 

 the hooting of the owl — if they slept at all. They 

 were laying the foundations of rural life in Michi- 

 gan. ^ 



The United States lands having been surveyed, 

 their sale or other disposition by the Government 

 was in order. At various points in the State land 

 offices were opened according to the center of gravity 

 of the business : at Detroit, White Pigeon, Ionia, 

 Sault Ste. Marie, and Marquette, where last all land 

 office business for the State has been centered with 

 the discontinuance of all other offices at less strategic 

 points. The Marquette office still (1919) has 73,000 

 acres of United States land at its disposition, mainly 

 in the northern section of the State, the largest 

 holdings being in Schoolcraft and Chippewa counties 

 and on Isle Eoyale. In the pioneer period, the 

 journey to the "local'' land office was often long and 

 arduous, yet it was rarely undertaken, for did not 

 two hundred dollars possess a man of a quarter 



'An interest injj account of tlie life and work of a U. S. 

 purveyor is found in "Midi. Pioneer and Hist. Soc. Collec- 

 tions," V. XXVII, 306, written by C. S. Woodard of Ann 

 Arbor. 



