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The following passage appears in "Water Over the Dam, Vicksburg Then and Now", text by Grace Molineaux and Special Writers, published in 1972 by the Vicksburg Historical Society.  Many of the early Harrison Family Reunions were held at Lemon Park.
 


page 51:

   "Monarch of the Stage Coach Drivers was Jacob Lemon, pioneer settler at Indian Lake.  Lemon had been forced at the age of eight to provide for  a widowed mother and family.  He left Orange County, N.Y., in April 1835 at the age of twenty with $2.50 and one linen knapsack containing a suit of homemade clothes and one shirt.  Arriving in Ann Arbor with one cent in his pocket, he hired out to Alanson Holcomb for $11 a month, and by fall he had saved enough money to buy a forty-acre farm at Grass Lake.

    In December, 1835, he hired out to Platt, Hughes, and Gilias, of Detroit to drive the first stage coach from Detroit to Chicago by way of the Territorial Road.  As he neared Chicago, two branches of the Calumet River had to be crossed, a danger point for the great, lumbering coach.  (On later runs he often stuck in the quicksand as they forded the river).

    Great was the excitement in the little hamlet of Chicago when the first stage rolled into the village, with the four strapping horses under the long ribbons and longer whips of the driver, with the splendid crank of the harness and the thunder of the vehicle.  Seated high on the box was Mr. Lemon--short, stocky, young, strong, clear of eye and steady of nerves.

    Mr. Lemon remained on the route for about a year, after which he became an agent for Frink and Walker of Chicago, driving to Springfield and central Illinois and forming the acquaintance of Abraham Lincoln.

During this time he pre-empted a tract of eighty acres on the Potawotomi [sic] Nottawa Seepe Reservation in Brady and built a small cabin there.  Here he returned in 1844 and began converting a veritable wilderness into an attractive farm.

    Twice married, he was the father of 16 children, whose mothers were sisters.  In 1838 he wed Miss Amy Spicer, who died in 1843; in 1847 he married Hannah Spicer.

    He was a member of the school board of Tiffany School after 1844, a supervisor, and a Mason.  At the time of his death in 1900, he was the oldest living settler in Brady Township.  Hale and hearty until his death, he was survived by Mrs. Charles Moon and Mrs. Seymour Richardson of Pavilion and Fred, Sanford, and Frank Lemon of Vicksburg.

    At the request of his friends, he opened up some of his land for the resort on Indian Lake known as Lemon Park.  Here friends from Vicksburg spent their summers and later, after the railroad, great groups from nearby towns held picnics there.  It was the setting for big railroad picnics--with trains bringing special coaches from Port Huron and Chicago."
 


This web page is authored by Scott Duncan.  All information listed without a reference should be verified.

 
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