DISBURSEMENTS.

Paid from General Fund:

for postage, express, copying and filing papers, and expenses of annual

meeting 1884..............

Paid for portrait of Captain Marsac..

Expenses of Executive Committee.

Paid from Publication Fund:

for expenses of Committee of Historians.

W. S. George & Co., for printing.....

Paid for copying...

Telegram.

Forbes & Co. for lithographing..

C. B. Stebbins for proof reading on Vols. 5 and 6, Pioneer Collections....

Total disbursements..

Balance on hand June 15, 1885.

$101 28

50 00

166 52

$317 80

173 32

1,462 15

50 00

80

41 13

200 00

1,927 40

$2,245 20

199 42

$2,444 62

The Committee of Historians of the Pioneer Society of the State of Michigan have reason to congratulate its membership and citizens of our beautiful Peninsula upon the success that has crowned the efforts and aims of this society in securing from the first settlers of our Territory and State, authentic and reliable material which shall furnish for the historian of the future information upon which reliance can be placed. Historians generally give prominence to eminent men who have attracted attention by their ability and statesmanship, leading and directing the public mind and institutions of our country; prominence to those who have led our armies to battle and to victory; prominence to those who have figured largely in political

revolutions. But the object and aim of this society is to give the material for full, accurate and graphic descriptions of the actual condition of the first settlers; the men who first cleared our forests, many of whom, without public notoriety, have laid the foundations of the prosperity and blessings we now enjoy; the hardships they endured, the wonderful development of resources through their agency, the broad views entertained in laying the foundations for our schools and educational institutions which they not only founded and fostered, the progress made in Christian civilization which has attracted the attention and admiration of not only our sister States, but has elicited complimentary commendations from the government and institutions of the old world.

The able report made in June, 1884, reviewing the transactions and achievements of this society previous to that time, in collecting, examining, and arranging papers for the Pioneer Collections and superintending the publication of the first four volumes, obviates the necessity of further reference thereto.

During the past two years this society has received and published histories of the Michigan State Agricultural College, by T. C. Abbot; of Hillsdale College, by John C. Patterson; of Michigan Female College, by Mrs. Eliza C. Smith; manuscripts from Pioneers of the early history and settlement of Allegan county, Alpena county, Branch county, Calhoun county, Ingham county, Ionia county, Kalamazoo county, Kent county, Mackinac county, Macomb county, Monroe county, Ottawa county, St. Clair county, St. Joseph county, Saginaw county, Washtenaw and Wayne counties.

History of the Black Hawk war, by Henry Little.

Poems referring to early life in Michigan, by Wm. Lambie, E. N. Wilcox, Mrs. Emma Tuttle, Rev. R. C. Crawford, W. E. Ransom, and Dr. W. Campbell.

Memorial discourses on the life and services of Erastus O. Haven, D. D., LL. D., former President of our University.

Memorial discourses on the life and services of Rev. Geo. P. Williams, Professor for so many years of our University.

Autobiography and perfect likeness of Hon. J. W. Begole, ex-Governor of Michigan.

Autobiography of Geo. H. Greene, our worthy corresponding secretary, and Wm. A. Burt, one of our commissioners of internal improvement and surveyor of the upper peninsula.

Time would fail me to enumerate the valuable articles contributed to this society during the past two years, fraught with great interest relating to the

early settlement of the different towns in the lower and upper peninsulas, that constitute the 5th and 6th volumes of Pioneer Collections and the compilation for the 7th volume, now ready and prepared for the press, which your committee commend to your favorable notice, feeling assured that you will not only be agreeably entertained in their perusal but that you will derive valuable information that can be gained from no other source.

Your committee take pleasure in announcing the fact, that by correspondence with friends in Germany we have procured a negative, taken late in life, of the late Chancellor Tappan-the first chancellor of our University, to whom the citizens of our State are so largely indebted for his instrumentality in laying the foundation and superstructure of our University, which has challenged the admiration of the civilized world. Our committee is also assured that we shall soon be presented with a manuscript of a Philanthropic Poem which the Chancellor had devoted many years of the latter part of his eventful life in composing, but never issued to the public. That in addition to the eulogy by Prof. Frieze, now in the possession of the society, we shall be favored, in time for the forthcoming volume, from the pen of Mrs. Bruno, the daughter of the Chancellor residing in Germany, his history subsequent to his resignation of the Chancellorship which will be highly prized, especially by the graduates of the University by whom he is remembered with great affection and gratitude.

While the services of the officers of this society are appreciated and highly prized by those who have examined the published volumes and have been interested in the proceedings of this society, it is nevertheless to be regretted that a very small proportion of our citizens appear to have any correct knowledge of the aims and purposes this society has in view, but because they have not had their attention attracted thereto, they, rather, suppose the object is to procure a soft place for a number of old gentlemen with a salary and little to do, that they have an annual jubilee and feast, and all at the expense of the State. When, if they would seek correct information, they would find that the officers pay an annual fee of membership, but not one dollar, from the organization of this society to the present time, has been appropriated or used in payment for salaries or services. But we are mindful of the fact that the original pioneers are fast passing away, that in the next decade nearly all, if not all, will have gone to their rest and the sources of information with them. On the contrary, the officers of this society have voluntarily contributed their time and services and will feel amply

3

compensated, believing as time passes the result of their labor will be more and better appreciated and highly prized by future generations.

All of which is respectfully submitted.

This well-known citizen died in Otsego Thursday, April 30, 1885, of a complication of diseases, chief of which was chronic diarrhoea, contracted in the army, from which he had suffered extremely since the war. Captain Stark was in the regular army over forty-five years ago, was stationed at Fort Dearborn (Chicago) when that place was a small burg, and took part in the Black Hawk war. In the Union army he commanded Company G, Sixth Michigan infantry, afterwards artillery. He had a high reputation as a soldier, and was one of the first to enter New Orleans at the head of his company. The deceased was a man of excellent good sense, well informed, of blameless moral character, kind-hearted, and of good social qualities. He was a native of Vermont, and a descendant of John and Mollie Stark of revolutionary fame. He came to Otsego about thirty-five years ago, and at his death wanted only a few days of being seventy years of age. He leaves a widow and one son, Arthur T. Stark. A large concourse of people attended the funeral at his late residence, five miles from the village of Otsego, on Sunday last. W. G. Eaton Post, G. A. R., of Otsego, came down with the

band and some fifteen members of C. J. Bassett Post went up from Allegan. The pall bearers were members of his regiment, and six of his comrades, with arms, acted as guard. On arriving at the village the soldiers marched at the head of the procession to the cemetery. Rev. E. Andruss of Cooper, who was

chaplain of the Sixth Michigan, officiated at the funeral, and spoke in the highest terms of Capt. Stark as a soldier. The burial was conducted by the G. A. R. Post with the ceremonies of the order.-Allegan Journal and Tribune, May 8, 1885.

At the Reunion of the Sixth Michigan Infantry, held at Benton Harbor, August 26, 1885, Dr. Milton Chase, of Otsego, spoke of Capt. Henry Stark as follows:

Comrades, our veteran Captain died at his home in Otsego, Michigan, April 30, 1885, after an acute attack of the old ailments that came as a legacy of his army life on the borders of the pestiferous swamps of Louisiana. He lacked but a few days of being seventy years old. He was an orderly sergeant of a company of U. S. Infantry in 1833, and stationed at Chicago when it was the western outpost of the United States. A year or two ago Long John Wentworth, President of the Chicago Historical Society, spied him out and invited him to Chicago as the guest of the Iroquois Club of that city. He was escorted from his hotel to the club room by millionaires and trod with his granger boots a Brussels carpet laid from his coach to the club-house door, and the first ladies of Chicago sought the honor of a promenade in the hall with him. The next day the officers of the club were his auditors as he tried to point out the location of old Fort Dearborn and its surroundings and told of the old settlers of 1833.

Of his history and worth while in our Sixth Regiment I need not to tell you. Not one of you but remembers his straightforward honesty, his dauntless courage, his conscientious attention to every detail of his duties as a soldier of the U. S. A., and of his kindness to the men under his care. He was one of the officers who always addressed the members of his company as men, not boys. I need not say more of this which you know. I do want to say something to you of his life as a member of society and a citizen of the State since 1865. In this capacity he was a model that any of us would be proud to have our sons copy in nearly everything. He was scrupulously honest in his financial affairs. He had as one of his mottoes to live by, that would avert a national death from the crush of millionaires or the chaos of communism. It was this "I don't believe in taking any man's dollar until I render him an equivalent for it in goods of the market, and I don't believe in parting with a dollar of mine until I get a dollar's worth of goods of the