Brighton Area Historical Society

"Run and get Aunt Betsy, Elmer! It’s time!" Elmer, 10, know his mother was expecting another child. His father had gone to Ann Arbor the day before with a wagon of grain to be sold to the mill. He would bring back flour, sugar and other essential items the family needed. It was not anticipated his mother would deliver the baby before this father would return.

The midwife was not his aunt; everyone called her Aunt Betsy. Not a possessor of any special training in medicine, she had gained experience going with her mother on many other medical emergencies when she was younger and was often called upon to serve as midwife. She was also capable of setting bones, reducing fevers (of which there were many in this swampy part of Michigan), and closing and treating wounds.

The family had settled in Livingston County, Michigan Territory, only two years before. The log home had been made quite weatherproof and the fireplace served to cook food and furnish warmth. A small garden supplied produce during the summer and potatoes, onions and carrots for the winter. (Maybe this winter they wouldn’t have to eat acorns again.) The cow, chickens and pigs allowed them to put eggs, meat and milk on the table.

As Elmer hurried along the faint path through the woods and fields he imagined an Indian was following. That shadow ahead must surely have been a bear or wolf. With his father gone he knew his mother depended on him so he conquered his fear and ran faster. When Aunt Betsy saw him coming she knew what had to be done. Gathering her supplies she gave Elmer an apple (a treat since they had no apple trees yet) and the two hastened back to the cabin. He had heard Pa tell Aunt Betsy that when they next butchered he’d be sure she was paid with some meat. How Elmer wished there was a doctor nearby as in the eastern New York town from which they had come.

"For several years after the first settlers entered Livingston County there was no physician located in all its territory." Franklin Ellis, the writer of the 1880 History of Livingston County, goes on to say that settlers living in the southern part of the county depended on doctors of Washtenaw County. Those in the north called on Dr. F. Curtis who had settled in Rochester in 1832. Shortly after he moved to Kensington, at the east Livingston County line. Patients came all the way from Livingston Centre (Howell) when they needed the services of Dr. Curtis, about 1835.

As settlers move to the area in the 1830s and 40s they left behind cultural and educational oppoturnities, family ties and anyone with any medical training. Maybe that wasn’t all bad. The lack of understanding of the human body and the many ills which might befall it allowed horrifying treatments to take place. The fixing of leeches to a wound to get rid of putrefied flesh or the letting of blood to combat an illness are sufficient examples for our readers.

The cholera epidemic of the early 1830s ensured that settlers did not linger long in heavily populated areas as Detroit on their journey west. Families had little with which to fight the dreaded plagues. Other terrifying diagnoses included scarlet fever, measles, diphtheria, typhoid, tuberculosis, whooping cough, ague (malaria) all took a heavy toll on the population; especially, it seemed, where many lived in close proximity. Little knowledge of how disease spreads and the lack of sanitary water and facilities often decimated the hapless settlers. Being born and surviving was a major accomplishment.

We hear of the pioneers who lived well past their 80th birthday and might be misled to believe those were the ‘good old days.’ A short tour of an old cemetery soon dispels that opinion. The numbers of graves of those who never lived to their 5th birthday is disheartening.

These brave people seldom went to seek a doctor but when there were more sick people in the family than well, there was little choice. Dr. Samuel W. Pattison, in 1836, located in Fentonville (Fenton) relates, " I was guided to many of these places (in the northern part of the county) through timbered openings by marked trees and often following Indian trails . During the months of August and September the intermittent and remittent fevers - diseases peculiar to low or flat countries - prevailed to any alarming extent. The well were the exception: whole families were down, many became discouraged and some fled, but it was remarkable that most of these returned to Michigan."

With a doctor several hours’ horse or buggy ride away, the mother of the family was expected to be able to treat the patient. Researching the remedies used is almost as revolting to the imagination as studying the illnesses. A mixture of lard and turpentine rubbed on the chest treated a chest cold. A mustard plaster or one of hot fried onions in a bag on one’s chest was the remedy for more severe congestion. And a caring mother couldn’t let her family approach Spring without a dose of caster oil to ‘clean out the system.’