Michigan Spirit Quest #55 - Bray Cemetery Traditional Cache

The Michigan Spirit Quest series of geocaches will take you to a number of historic cemeteries built by MICHIGAN pioneers. This series is inspired by and is a continuation of the Indiana Spirit Quest caches created by SixDogTeam.

This is a small wooded pioneer cemetery located near Stoney Creek or La Riviere aux Roche as it was called by French traders. Even though this cemetery is small, it holds many interesting stories from pioneers who first settled this area to Civil War soldiers to even a crew member from one of Michigan's most famous shipwrecks, The Alpena.

When the first pioneers came to this very spot, this area was heavily forested. Wolves and bears were numerous and bounties were offered for their skins.  These early pioneers had little reason to stay in such a vast wilderness, far removed from railroads and seemingly cut off from civilization to the east by long stretches of forest. Some of the first settlers couldn't live in such a harsh environment and left. In the 1840s when these pioneers arrived, Bengal Township was considered the most worthless township in the Clinton County--away back in the woods and outside the boundaries of civilization. The land was of no value because no one wanted to buy it; planting crops were not worth raising because they could not be shipped; cattle weren't worth raising because it was too far to drive them to market; sheep couldn't be raised because the wolves would eat them up. However, through all these hardships many of the pioneer families stayed and prospered and their names can be found on the headstones here. William and Susannah Clark, Edward and Lois Jones, Emmons and Sarah Blakeslee, the brothers Royal and A.C. Lyon with their families and Adam Laughlin.

Adam Laughlin came to Bengal Township in 1836 from Ashtabula County, OH. He was young and single. He bought 40 acres of forest from David Farley and paid Farley by chopping and clearing 10 acres of forestland for Farley. When his debt was "paid", his first task was to cut down a large Beech tree which stood on a corner of his land. This tree served as a back-log for his campfire in which he camped in front of for three nights in the open even though the forest was full of bears and wolves . During the day he worked hard at putting up a log cabin to live in. His log cabin was made of split logs, shanty roof covered with shakes, a door was made from packing boxes and for a window greased paper took the place of glass. After clearing 10 acres he went back to Oakland County, married, and brought his family back to live in the wilderness.

Buried here are war veterans from as far back as the War of 1812. Among them are Samuel D Nichols who was a veteran of the War of 1812 and was at Buffalo, New York when it was burned by the British. Also buried here are 14 Civil War veterans, two of whom died during the war. These veteran graves are marked either with a flag or a special Grand Army of the Republic marker. The marker is patterned after the membership badge of the GAR.

The Alpena was a side wheel steamer that left Grand Haven, bound for Chicago, on Friday October 15, 1880. It was a warm Indian summer evening with temperatures near 72 degrees. At about 3:00am Saturday October 16th, the "worst gale in Lake Michigan recorded history" swept across the lake. The wind struck with such a force that sails were ripped from their masts and thermometers dove to freezing. Daybreak found close to 100 grounded, foundering or tattered vessels littering the lake and shoreline. The last time she was seen was about 8:00am, in heavy seas, lying on her side with one of the paddlewheels out of the water. It was speculated that her large cargo of apples shifted in the storm and led to the capsizing. On the 17th, debris including a piano came ashore in Holland while apples and wood debris were found at Saugatuck. After several days of futile searching, the boat was declared lost. All 80 people on board died including crew member, Frank F. Pope who is buried here.

The cache container is a 35mm film container. BYOP. The cache is not located near a grave. As always, please be respectful, and cache in, trash out. Say a prayer for our brave troops, fighting overseas. God Bless America.

MSQ caches are brought to you by the following fellows of GEOMSQ: SixDogTeam(Earthdog Patrick, Lead Dog, Wheel Dog), Wolverine Warriors, The Outcaches, SafariBob & Tweety, PairOMedicChick, Cyclops, Son of Cyclops, The Herd, Menstown1, Ali Kat, Geo's Loulog, MIChickenlegs, Jagman714, TeamMina, MiTuCats, happyasaclam and Gnarly TuTrack. If you are interested in spreading the Quest to your neck of the woods AND WOULD LIKE TO JOIN US, email Wolverine Warriors.

** THIS IS A GENUINE MICHIGAN SPIRIT QUEST CACHE**