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debrate his 106th birthday today, with his son John Hulet la Barrett, great-grand daughter Mrs. Allie Taylor, and grea a Taylor.of thechild-nher’s uffled relax-s the lother child, ealthy tierits, :h the ly. IIand was married when quite young to | Miss Lucy Bennett. There were born i to them two sons and three daughters.I His wife died while the youngest child ! i was an infant. He then began reading t his Bible with care and soon experi-i enced religion. He attended school for ! a time and preached the Gospel 1 among his neighbors, doing this for the love of the Master and his fellowHe married for his second wife Elizabeth Bryant and raised another family of seven boys and three girls, all of whom are still living, except the ! youngest boy, who died at the age ofIn 1861 his two sons by his first wife, John and Henry, enlisted in the army and the father offered his services, but | was rejected on account of his age.I Later, arrangements were made to accept him as a sharpshooter, as he was known to be an excellent marksman, b n the night before he was to start, while preparing kindling for the morning fire, he cut his knee so severely j that he was disabled for more than a ; year. Henry, after about a year’s service. died of typhoid fever, but John served until the close of the war.The other boys were now old enough j to do the work of the small farm and [the father w'ould take his rifle and go the “south woods,” as it was | called, and spend the hunting season, j When the season passed he returned I home with his knapsack filled with | jerked venison, and a grand old Christ-| mas dinner they would have together,| with enough left to purchase their winter clothing.! The price of land was now so high j that it was impossible to get a home j there and he began to talk “home-i stead,” and was the first person to j vote for a homestead lawr. In the fall iof 1866 he took the last boat of the season at Ogdensburg, N. Y., and with I his family of eleven persons came to jLeland. He hired a team for $50 to | take his family to Traverse City. He came to Franklin Taylor’s, where some time was spent with two other families in a room 16x24, which speaks well j for the temper of the women. He was i now 20 miles from Traverse City, with !no store or post office nearer. The ! snow was now about a foot deep. Thethat night. He told one of his sons the secret of his wonderful preservation—he prayed for Divine protection, and God protected him.Since that exposure he has walked to Traverse City several times. He thinks now that he is too old to be moving from place to place and has made arrangements to live with his son, Samuel. His health is reasonably good and the prospects are bright for his living several yeara tr come.J. M. Blakeslee left this morning for Grand Rapids, where he is called on business.JOHN HULET IS100 YEARS OLDIS CELEBRATIN GCOMPLETION OF CENTURY TODAY.HE HAS 130 DESCENDANTS, AMONG THEM ARE 15 GREAT-her GREATGRANDCHILDREN.In His 95th Year He Was Lost in the Woods and Remained Out All Night Although It Snowed and Froze.Few people in the United States have attained the years of John Hulett. sr., who lives with his son at Kinsgley, i who is celebrating his one hundredth birthday today. Still fewer are those who can count as many generations of descendants. Mr. Hulett has had seventeen children, nearly all of whom are living; fifty grandchildren, (twen-ty-flve boys and twenty-five girls) forty-eight great-grandchildren, and fifteen great-great grandchildren. Hale and hearty as a man of seventy in spite of the hardships endured in his e arly days in Grand Traverse, he is an ‘■xample of the sturdy pioneers who have made Michigan one of the foremost states in the union. The following interesting account of his life has been secured from members of his family:| John Hulett, Sr., was born in Canton. St. Lawrence county, New York, Feb. 2Mrd, 1805. His father died when be was t wo and a half years old and his mother died about three weeks later at the birth of her sen Benjamin, le aving four orphan boys and one girl.| This girl, 15 years of age, kept the [ family together two years. Then John’s | grandfather took him to Major Bar-num's. He remembers that his grand-I father Clark, then nearly 100 years old, drove a white horse. His Grandfather Hulett, a still older man, came to visit I him a great many times while he lived | at Major Barnum’s. He lived with the | major until he was 14 years old, when j he moved with him to Ogdensburg, j where he worked for two years in a butecher shop.He spent a short time at De Kalbafternoon of his arrival at Mr. Taylor's he took his rifle, went out and killed two deer, stayed all night alone in the woods and got home the next day at noon.He located a homestead on Sec. 6, T. 24 N. of R. 10 west. He built his cabin and In two weeks slept under his own roof. Hannah, Lay Co. kept the only supply store in the country and he was his own conveyancer. During the winter, with the help of his boys, 12. 14 and 17 years of age, he cut down 20 acres of timber. The money was gbne and no work to be had except once a week to load or unload a vessel at Traverse City. No stove, no chairs, no bedstead in the house, but with devout hearts they thanked God for what they had and courageously worked for a better condition of things.In the spring of 1867, when the five feet of snow’ had melted off, he planted corn and potatoes among the logs. The crops grew well, but the expense of milling the corn made it cheaper to grind it at home, so he made a grist mill out of a maple block and ground his own corn. Truly, “necessity is the mother of invention.”The mill did fair work, and with his own family supplied, he could help his | less fortunate neighbors.! Game laws were not known then ; and they killed their meat as they I needed it. When winter came again I the family’s clothing wras worn out and ! was renewed from the hides of the I deer killed during the winter, and | “they wore like buckskin.”1 In 1884 his wife died and he lived! alone for several years on the oldj homestead. During this time he passed | many of his lonely hours in writing for | his ow n amusement. One of his sons j got hold of a scrap of paper on which was written,“Tis not the aged and gray,Nor yet the young and the gay.Nor do I idolize the witty or the wise But in this world which I passthroughadmire the kind andBrothi day n ber oiParktelephtendelt;FoiAbt fi\oodsew years after the death of te lived among his children, most of his time in reading i' isionally hunting rabbits, ears ago, while huntinghis hoiuld not get home. The family missed him at dark and spent the night in search for him, but they were often so near that he could hear them call but could not make his answers beard. The night was so cold that it loth snowed and froze. When found in the morning he was within one-half mile of home. And this in his 95th year. He said he had spent a great many nights in the woods, but never came so near dying as he did
Newspaper Details
Traverse City Evening Record
Traverse City, Michigan, US
Thu, Feb 23, 1905
Page 4
Full Page
Clipped by
Traverse A.
MI, USA 06 Aug 2024
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