THE BROCKWAY BOYS. 



MICHIGAN IN '49 MY FIRST TURKEY. 



THERE seemed to be no end to them. The woods 

 were literally full of them of Brockway boys, I 

 mean. Boys, and girls also, from babies to men 

 and women, they were everywhere I went. This ceased 

 to be surprising after my uncle, Erastus Brockway, had 

 driven mother and me from Monroe to his home at East 

 Ogden, in Lenawee county, Mich., and after crossing the 

 county line pointed out each house for miles as being 

 owned by one of "his numerous kinsmen, until it seemed 

 to my boyish fancy that all Michigan must be peopled by 

 Brockways. 



The fact is that mother's two brothers, older than she, 

 had emigrated to Michigan in the early thirties, while it 

 was yet a territory; each had a large family, and at this 

 time they had grandsons older than I, for their many sons 

 had followed the parental example in the matter of replen- 

 ishing the earth. 



Mother was an invalid, and the journey from Albany 

 to Buffalo was made by canal, and from the latter place to 

 Monroe by steamer. The packets which carried 'passen- 

 gers on the canal had been about killed off by the railroad, 

 and we had good quarters in a large freight boat, the cap- 

 tain giving up his cabin to us and a woman with two boys. 

 It was an ideal trip. In 1875 I had frequent occasion to 

 go from Lynchburg to Lexington, Va., up the James 

 River and Kenawha Canal, and it is my mature opinion 



