In 1872 William and Laura Dougan came to Ashland township, Grant Mich from Rock Creek Ohio, in a covered wagon drawn by a team of horses. It took nearly three weeks to make the trip. The roads were little more then trails, except for some roads where you had to pay a toll. They brought there ten month old son George with them. There were highway robbers around them because it was thought that people who traveled had money. So William slept under the wagon with his shot gun near.

They arrived at Grant where they were met by Lauras parents and brothers who had come here a year earlier. They stayed with them until they found a place of there own.

The lumber industry was at its peak then. Records show that two and a quarter billion feet of white pine lumber was manufactured in Michigan that year, and fifteen thousand people were employed in the business. William worked in the shingle mill, but it was not an easy life for them, clearing the land, raising food for there family, cutting wood for the long cold winters, and everything had to be done by hand.

The Indians who lived near by would bring them hand made baskets and asked Laura to trade a piece of salt pork for one, and she never refused. In 1910 they built a new home on eighty acres of land they cleared three miles west of Grant in Ashland township.

William raised and trained horses to sell because all of the farming was done with horses, and all the travel was done by surrey of carriage..

Taken from Rymes and Reminisces by Carmen Carter.
( granddaughter of William and Laura Dougan) submitted by Linda Dougan, gggrandughter.