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NAVIGATION
Michigan
Histories
Clinton County
Biographies
Online Biographies
Illinois
Histories
Also see [Railway Officials in America 1906]
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E. V. CHASE, of Elsie, Clinton Co., Mich., was born in the township of Gustavus, Trumbull Co., Ohio, Sept. 16,
1833. His parents were poor, and had a hard struggle to support their family. His father was a millwright, and
would have educated the son to the same trade, but for an accident which nearly crippled him for life. This determined
the father to put his son at school that he might lay the foundation for a profession. Mr. Chase taught school
as soon as he was competent, and thus assisted himself until he had acquired not only an academical but also a
professional education. He read medicine three years with Dr. G. W. Willey, of Spencer, Ohio; attended lectures
in Michigan University; and in the spring of 1857 settled in the small village of Ovid, Clinton Co., on the Detroit
and Milwaukee Railroad. He married, in the fall of 1857, Miss Emily Wilkinson, an estimable young lady, to whom
his success may, in a measure, be attributed. In the spring of 1860 he removed to the village of Elsie, where he
resided until the commencement of the civil war. He enlisted as a private in the First Michigan Cavalry, was promoted
to the rank of first lieutenant, and at the close of the war went with the regiment across the Plains to Salt Lake
City, Utah. In the spring of 1866 he was mustered out of the service, and returned to Elsie, where he has since
resided, in the active discharge of his professional duties. He has been six years supervisor of the township in
which his village is located. In the fall of 1876 he was elected representative to the State Legislature, by the
Republican party, from the first district, Clinton County. So well did he serve his constituents that he was re-elected
in 1879. He served upon several committees, among them that on insane asylums, in which he held the office of chairman.
His duties necessarily called him away much of the time from the representative halls, but when present he was
arduously engaged in duties which rank him among the foremost, always striking at the heart of any measure to which
he was opposed sharp and effectual blows, that produce more effect than the bold speculations and fantastical theories
which, to a certain extent, characterize many of the representatives.
Upon the eastern portion of the east half of the southwest quarter of section 33 are traces of a group of mounds,
the largest of which was probably twenty five feet long, twenty feet wide, and three feet in height. Rows of other
and smaller mounds appear to have joined the base of this large mound, and south of the latter was a clearly defined
oblong mound two and a half feet high, twenty two feet long between east and west, and fourteen feet in width between
north and south. Southwest of the principal mound about twenty feet is another pretty clearly marked one, three
feet high, twenty-five feet long, and fifteen feet wide. Near at hand is a circular mound about twenty feet through,
from which human bones have been unearthed. Recent excavations in these mounds have brought to light human skeletons
as well as miscellaneous bones, and in one of them
evidences pointed to the existence, at one time, of altar-fires and possibly human sacrifices thereon.
On the northeast quarter of the southeast quarter of section 33 were a number of small mounds, of which there is
now no trace. Upon the farm of H. B. Smith, on the southeast quarter of section 27, is shown the site of a now
obliterated large mound. Where it once stood two peachtrees now grow. Mr. Smith recollects that the mound was more
than thirty feet in diameter and four feet high; that several second growth maples adorned its sides, and that
heavy timber surrounded it. Evidently these mounds served as burial-places, since in each have been found human
bones, but whether the burial places of Indians or members of a prehistoric race, as some savants claim, is simply
matter for conjecture.
FROM:
History of Shiawassee and Clinton Counties, Michigan
With Illistrations and Biographical Sketches
of Their Men and Pioneers.
D. W. Ensign & Co., Philadelphia 1880
Press of J. B. Lippincoff & Co., Philadelphia.
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