So the multitude goes, like the flowers or the weed That withers away to let others succeed; So the multitude comes, even those we behold, To report every tale that has often been told. For we are the same our fathers have been; We see the same sights our fathers have seen; We drink the same stream, and view the same sun, And run the same course our fathers have run. The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think; From the death we are shrinking our fathers would shrink; To the life we are clinging they also would cling; But it speeds for us all like a bird on the wing. Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain, We mingle together in sunshine and rain; And the smiles and the tears, the song and the dirge. Still follow each other, like surge upon surge. 'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath, From the blossom of health to the paleness of death, From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud, O, why should the spirit of mortal be proud? --_Selected._ It appears to me that it will be interesting to men, who in the future shall live along the Ecorce and enjoy their beautiful homes and farms, to know who were the brave, sacrificing, benovolent men who first settled the country, and were a few of the many who have made the State of Michigan what it will be to them. I give together the names of some of those early worthies whom I have mentioned before in this sketch. They were the first settlers of the southeast part of the town of Dearborn. Their names are arranged according to the time of their settlement along and near the Ecorce with the years and seasons of their settlement in the wilderness. Joseph Pardee--Fall of 1833. John Nowlin--Spring of 1834. Asa Blare--Fall of 1834. Henry Traviss--Summer of 1835. George Purdy--Fall of 1835. Elijah Lord, about--1837 or 1838 Let these bright names be imperishable! Let them be indelibly written, in letters of gold, on leaves as white as snow and live in the light. Let them be handed down through future ages, in the archives and annals of the country, until the end of time. Of the six, whom I have mentioned here, only one survives. That one is Mr. George Purdy. He lives on the Ecorce yet and owns a good farm. (1875.) Recently a wise man said to me: "We can engrave the names of our kindred and the friends of humanity upon stately monuments of marble and they will crumble to dust, be obliterated and rubbed out by the hand of time; but, if inscribed upon the flat surface of a written page, their names will live." Men of all ages have delighted to honor their heroes and to perpetuate their names. It is right to give honor to whom honor is due. We cannot tell how many of the names of the good and great of the earth's true philanthropists were engraven upon tablets of dead stone, who have long since been forgotten and the knowledge of them lost in the past.