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- Richmond Lake, son of Joseph Lake and Sallie Norton, was born 4 Mar 1816in German Township, Chenango Co., New York, and die 28 October 1896 in Penn Township, Cass Co., Michigan, married Hannah Brakeman Crandall,daughter of Tanner Crandall and Hannah Brakeman, 02 Jun 1839 in Chenango Co.., New York who was born 21 Mar 1818 in Chenango Co., New York, U.S.A.and died 19 Feb 1886 in Penn Township, Cass Co., Michigan, U.S.A. Notes for RICHMOND LAKE: Left Chenango Co., NY in 1844 with his wife and sons William H and James M.., ages 4 and 2. They settled in Cass Co., MI. At the end of the 6th year he, his wife and their 5 children went back to NY and home of Hannah's's father. They stayed one year and came back to Cass Co. They bought l80 acres in La Grange Twp. then 98 acres in Penn Twp. At this point Hannah's father Tanner Crandall came to live in MI. ================================ From The History of Cass County by Glover, JAMES MADISON LAKE LAKE,CRANDALL,SPRAGUE,SIGERFOOS,SLIPPER,FERREL,TRIPP J. M. Lake, living on section 7, Penn township, where he owns and controls ninety-seven acres of good land, his home being known as ' Stone Abutment Farm,' was born in Chenango county, New York, March 23rd, 1842.His father, Richard Lake, was a native of the Empire state, as was the paternal grandfather of our subject, Joseph Lake, who, however, spent his last years in Michigan. He lived for some time in Cass County, where his death occurred in Niles, this state. It was in the year 1844 that Richard(Richmond) Lake took up his abode in Cass County, locating on Section 18, Penn Township. As this fact indicates, he was a farmer by occupation, his life being given to that pursuit, wherein he provided a comfortable living for his family. He married Miss Hannah Crandall, a daughter of Tanner Crandall, who was born in New York. In the family of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Lake were seven children, three sons and four daughters, namely: Harrison H.; James M.;Charles N.; Mary, wife of Byron Sprague; Sarah J., wife of Clayton H.Sigerfoos; Rosetta, wife of B. Frank Slipper; and Emma, wife of Henry Ferrel. The father died in the eighty-second year of his age, while the mother lived to be about sixty years. J. M. Lake was but two years old when brought by his parents to Michigan and upon the home farm in Penn Township he was reared. At the usual age he entered the public schools and when not busy with his textbooks his time was given to farm labor. After leaving school permanently he gave undivided attention to farm work on the old homestead up to the time of his marriage, which occurred in 1873, the lady of his choice being Miss Anna Tripp, a daughter of Chester Tripp. She was born in Barry County,Michigan, and died in 1892, leaving a little daughter, who died in 1894.Mr. Lake has a farm of ninety-seven acres, which he has improved with modern equipments and which he now rents. It is largely devoted to the production of fruit and he has five hundred trees of peaches and apples upon the place. His trees produce quite abundantly almost every season and the fruit shipped from his place yields a good financial income. Mr.Lake has been a resident of Cass County for sixty-four years, with the exception of one year, which he spent in Pennsylvania, and is therefore well informed concerning the history of the county and the progress it has made from pioneer conditions to its present advanced state of cultivation and improvement. He has been a life-long Democrat,interested in the growth and success of his party, and has served as school director. He formerly belonged to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. More About RICHMOND LAKE: Burial: October 1896, Penn Twp., Cass Co., MI The account below is from the book 'History Of The Crandall And Lake.'written by Crayton H. Sigerfoos about 1914. A copy is in the possession of Donald R. Coy, E-mail: don3127wa@@juno.com Richmond Lake, the eldest child of Joseph and Sallie Lake, married Hannah B.. Crandall in 1839, and after five years of hard work in Chenango County in 1839, New York, got the western fever. His wife's father, Tanner Crandall, tried all his powers of persuasion to get him to give up the idea of leaving his home and people to live in a distant land and among strangers, where he pictured all kinds of hardships, and talked about how he would, in all likelihood, never see his Hannah again, for he was much attached to her, and being quite old no doubt it would be a great sacrifice to him. But Richmond was of a more optimistic turn, and met his father-in-law with arguments of a more encouraging spirit, and finally promised the old gentleman if he would give his consent he would keep him informed of their welfare, and also that hr would bring his beloved daughter back to him in six years, a promise which he faithfully kept. In the year 1844, he, in company with his wife and two sons, William H.H. and James M., aged four and two years, started for the far west, and that fall they landed at Geneva, on the banks of Diamond Lake, Cass County, Michigan, and stopped with the family of William Allen and stayed with them until they could find a place to move into. They finally moved into a log cabin on the Duncan McIntosh farm. At that time there were the McIntoshs', the Moons, Jone's, and Alexander scattered over Young's Prairie. Mr. Lake, being of a very industrious nature and always lively and full of pleasantry, soon worked himself into the good graces of these first settlers of the land. Always not only ready and willing but anxious to work at any thing to make an honest living and always to do an honest day;s work, he soon established an enviable reputation for honesty and integrity and he was, therefore,always in demand for all kinds of work. At one time, when helping harvest wheat for a Mr. Alexander, it was his work to rake and bind after a cradle, as was the custom in those days,and he was working along trying to get every straw in his own swath and always on the lookout for here and there a few straws that the other workers would leave. Finally his employer saw what he was doing and gently admonished him not to be so particular with his work and instead he should leave an occasional handful and when the harvest was over he should rake a field and have all he got from raking, and he declared he had more wheat that fall, just from the rakings, than he ever knew any of his people to have at any one harvest in the east. At first, when he began sending letters back home, instead of writing himself, having never had but three weeks in a school room, he employed Asa Kingsbury to write for him. Of course, he sent back very glowing accounts of the new country to his folks in the east, but there being such a difference in the two localities, Mr. Crandall was very skeptical. Knowing Richmond as he did, or thought he did, he did not know how to take to the stories sent to him. Finally, he wrote him to write his own letters and he would believe what seemed to them almost incredible stories. At the expiration of the sixth year, he loaded his family, which now was made up of the wife and five children, and started back to the fatherland. At the end of the journey, when they halted in front of the Crandall home, the father, who was reading in his Bible, that being a daily custom of his, came rushing out with his Bible under his arm and his glasses astride his nose, overjoyed at the unexpected arrival, and exclaimed, 'What shall we Do! What shall we Do!' They made the trip with horses and wagon, stayed a year and came back to Cass County the same way. Soon after coming back, he bought eighty acres in LaGrange, Cass County, where he lived until he bought ninety-eight acres in Penn township, Cass County and moved onto that, later buying an adjoining forty acres. It was while living on the LaGrange township eighty that his wife's father came to Cass County to live. Richmond had been writing about the wonderful crops raised by himself and neighbors until, finally, the old gentleman decided to make this his future home. When Mr. Lake Learned to a certainty that he was coming, he wrote him that he had corn growing that had two ears to the stalk and he could hang his hat on the lowest ear. Well, he came, and after dinner the old gentleman slipped out of the house unobserved, as he supposed, and went direct to the cornfield. The corn was in the shock, but they had left, here and there, an unusually tall stalk. Walking up to the first stalk, he squared himself right up to it, and looking up at the ears, he began to shake his head. He was avery tall man, but the corn was eighteen feet tall and the first ear was ten feet from the ground and the top one, eleven feet. All this time he was being watched by the family. The old gentleman owned that he was beat. He said that it was hard to believe much that they had told him,but when they told about the big corn, that capped the climax. We think it would be proper, before going farther, to describe the average house of that time. Usually, it was built of logs, one above the other, and the cracks fitted with strips, called chinking; these, inturn, being plastered up with a kind of mortar made of clay and water.The chimney was built at one end, from the ground up, with an opening on the inside forming a fireplace, and was nearly always built of sticks and clay. On the inside of the fireplace was fastened a wooden or sometimes iron bar, horizontally, , called a crane. On this crane were iron hooks on which to hang kettles for cooking. The window was a square hole cut in one end, through the logs, and a sheet of greased paper to to let in the light. The door was made of hewn boards and hung on wooden hinges with a wooden latch and a wooden catch on the inside. The door knob consisted of a leather string fastened to the latch, and stuck through a hole a few inches above the latch, so when anyone on the outside wanted in, they would pull the string and the latch would be lifted out of the catch,opening the door. Here is where the saying 'Our latch string is alwaysout' originated. The floor was hewed boards, called puncheon, and the roof consisted of shakes or shingles split out of short logs. The Furniture was usually about as follows: Three beds across on end of the room, which were made by nailing a strip, the width of the bed, from each corner out into the room, then setting two posts, dividing the space into three equal parts,and nailing strips or poles from side walls to post and between posts,making three bedsteads across the room. The rest of the furniture would compare favorably with this, but would vary according to the needs and ingenuity of the family. Such was one of the first houses occupied by Richmond Lake, as described by Mrs. Isabell Osborn, wife of the late Jordon P. Osborn, and daughter of Eber Root, as she found it while teaching the Geneva school, and she made the statement that she never slept more comfortably than she did on one of Mrs. Lake's feather beds and on the pole bedstead,. And Mr. Lake often remarked that the happiest days of his life were spent right there. At one time, when he was clearing some land, he made a wager with Silas Young, who was working with him, that he could chop a cord of stove wood an hour for six consecutive hours. He chose a large maple tree, cut it down and squared the but of it the day before, and had everything in readiness. He made arrangements with his good wife for her to hang a cloth on the line at the end of each hour, so he could tell just how hard to work, as the boys would keep it corded up as cut. At the end of the six hours he had chopped just seven cords of wood.
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