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PIONEER HISTORY OF HURON COUNTY, MICHIGAN
by Florence McKinnon Gwinn
Huron County Pioneer & Historical Society, 1922

[page 37]

CHAPTER III
EARLY TOWNSHIP HISTORY
HUME TOWNSHIP

      Coming up the shore we find a well known town-
 ship, that of Hume, named after WALTER HUME, who
 came some time in the 'fifties.  He has been called the
 DANIEL BOONE of this portion of Huron County.  He mar-
 ried MARY SCHILLING, a daughter of an early pioneer of
 
 
[page 38]          PIONEER HISTORY OF HURON COUNTY 

 Sebewaing township and built the first house and opened
 the first clearing in what is now Hume.  He also built
 a hotel at the mouth of the Pinnebog river, which was
 probably the first structure for that purpose in this part
 of the county.  He owned at one time over 1,000 acres
 of land near here.  The Indians called him their friend
 and many a day he spent in their wigwams.  The only
 roads were Indian trails and the nearest neighbors were
 miles away.  The next setters to come were ANTHONY
 ETZLER and two brothers who located a half section of
 land.  There were no families as well of the men men-
 tioned were single.  No improvements of any kind with-
 in five miles of their location.  All supplies were obtained
 at Port Austin.  Obstacles of a formidable type were the
 rule not the exception and not the least of these were
 the wolves with which the forests were infested.  It
 often happened that the early settlers were beset with
 these fierce creatures as they traveled back and forth to
 the settlements to get the necessities of life.  Mr. ETZ-
 LER had a thrilling experience on returning one time from
 Port Austin with a bag of flour on his back.  Part way
 home he discovered three wolves on his tracks.  The
 forest was dense, making rapid progress almost impos-
 sible and the burden on his back increased the danger.
 He finally had to drop the bag of flour and make the best
 time possible.  Only the urgency of his peril which had
 grown clearer with every step saved his life, for the sav-
 age animals were close upon his heels when he reached
 the little log cabin exhausted and worn in the race with
 his foes.
 
      This township was heavily timbered with pine,
 hemlock, cedar, beech and maple.  The soil is a clay
 loam except that bordering the bay.  It is drained by the
 Pinnebog river which for many years was the principal
 means of transporting logs to the saw mills at Port
 Crescent.  As fine a body of pine as was ever seen once
 shaded this land but it has fallen before the sturdy axe
 of the pioneer, been manufactured into lumber and be-
 come a factor in the construction of many of the cities of
 this country.  Over the ground where the Indian chased
 
 
[page 39]          PIONEER HISTORY OF HURON COUNTY 

 the red deer and elk, and th wolves and lynx held nightly
 vigils may be seen the prosperous farms and villages of
 today.
 
      Among the men who located land in Hume town-
 ship was JONATHAN A. STOCKMAN, a prominent Michigan
 land owner who purchased here in 1849.  This later
 became a mill site where many logs, cut in the valley
 of the Pinnebog river, were converted into lumber in
 the early days.  The drainage of about five townships
 is carried by this river into the lake.  Its headwaters are
 near Wadsworth.
 
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