Copyright USGenNet Inc., 2013, All Rights Reserved U.S. Data Repository Please read U.S. Data Repository Copyright Statement on this page: Transcribed and submitted by Karen D. Foster for the US Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ ========================================================================== U.S. Data Repository NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization. Non-commercial organizations desiring to use this material must obtain the consent of the transcriber prior to use. Individuals desiring to use this material in their own research may do so. ========================================================================== Formatted by U.S. Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott All of the above information must remain when copied or downloaded. ========================================================================== SOURCE: History of Genesee County, Michigan pub. Everts and Abbott - 1879 Page 191 - 192 FREDERICK A. BEGOLE Prominent among the most successful and intelligent farmers of Genesee County, and as a representative man of the rich township of Flint, is the gentleman whose name stands at the head of this brief biographical sketch. His grandfather, one of that steadfast band of French Huguenots who were compelled to leave their native land for the enjoyment of religious liberty, came to America during the last quarter of the eighteenth century, and settled in the quiet town of Hagerstown, Md.; and there, in the year 1786, was born his son, William Begole, who, in 1802, emigrated northward with his father, and settled in the remote wilderness of Livingston Co., N. Y. The son, William, was then a youth of sixteen years, the possessor of health and an energetic spirit, but, beyond these, having little or nothing, in hand or in expectation, to aid him in the battle of life which he was then about to commence. He chose the vocation of agriculture, and entered upon it with an industry and persistence which at last brought their inevitable reward, though not until after several years of hard labor and privation. In the war of 1812 he entered the army as a soldier, and served his country with credit, though not without serious detriment to his business. In January, 1814, he was married to a daughter of Capt. Bolles, formerly of Maryland, who had emigrated thence to Livingston County with the elder Begole. The fruit of this union was ten children,--seven sons and three daughters,--all of whom he raised to maturity except one son, who died in youth. Three of these sons he afterwards established upon farms in Genesee Co., Mich. He died in Livingston County, June 28, 1862, aged seventy-six years. Frederick Augustus Begole, the second son of William, was born at Mount Morris, Livingston Co., N. Y., on the 11th of March, 1817. The early years of his life were passed amid the labors of his father's farm and the disci- ========================================================================== Page 192 pline of the common school (such as it was) until his twenty-first year, when he left the paternal roof to seek a fortune for himself in the wilderness of Michigan, to which a strong tide of emigration was then setting from Western New York. His destination was the then recently organized county of Genesee, where, two years before, his father had purchased for him the northwest quarter of section 31, in the present township of Flint. In due time, the young pioneer reached the spot which was to be his future home; and if at first view the prospect seemed to him a discouraging one, it is not to be wondered at, for, although the soil was deep and fertile, it was covered by a dense growth of the heaviest timber, and long years of severe labor must intervene before this wilderness could be made a productive farm. In the seven weary miles which lay between him and Flint River, on the east, there was only one solitary cabin, but to the westward at a distance of a few miles was the house of a settler, at which he took board while engaged in underbrushing a few acres of his land during the first season after his arrival. In the succeeding winter he worked by the month at the settlement of Flint River, and having saved a small amount of money, he returned in the summer of 1839 to his property, on which he built a log house, but could not cover it for lack of shingles. These he split out and shaved during the winter of 1839-40, and in the spring of the latter year, after having roofed his cabin (though as yet it had neither door nor windows), he returned to his father's farm in New York. On the 23d of February, 1841, he married Angeline, daughter of James Chapman, of Livingston County (who afterwards removed to Clayton, Genesee Co., and died there at the age of seventy-one years), and in May, 1842, returned to his lands in Michigan, sawed out a door and windows to his cabin, established his family within it, and planted a few potatoes among the stumps to help eke out his scanty means of subsistence during the following winter. Then he commenced in earnest the work of clearing his farm, and by dint of hard labor succeeded in preparing a field of about four acres in time to sow it with wheat the next autumn. In this work of clearing he lay under most discouraging disadvantage, for, being entirely without money to purchase stock or team, for his early farming operations he was compelled to hire the latter at the rate of three days of his own labor for each day of team work with wagon, and at the same time was obliged to labor for others to procure the necessaries of life for his family. Thus times continued to be exceedingly hard for the young settler, and he found the struggle for a livelihood to be a most arduous one through all of the first season and the succeeding winter and spring, until his first crop of wheat was ready for harvest; but from that time scarcity gave way to plenty, and his privations were succeeded by a prosperity which has never since been interrupted. The heavy forest has been driven back from his pioneer clearings, field after field has been added to his tilled acres, the log cabin has long since given place to fine and substantial farm-buildings, and the addition of an adjoining tract has given him a farm of two hundred and forty acres, as fertile and highly cultivated as any in the county of Genesee. Mr. Begole has never been a seeker after public position, but has several times been called to township offices, among these being that of justice of the peace, which he has held during more than twenty consecutive years. His children--two sons and a daughter--are married, and well established in life upon farms adjoining the homestead. ==========================================================================