Stewart, David.  Born at Ballylane, Ireland, 1763; died at Southfield, Michigan February 24, 1852, aged 84.  In Ireland he married Ann, daughter of John and Margaret Porter.  He came to White Lake, Orange County, NY in 1800, settling near the farm of John Porter, who had come to America some years before.  For 31 years David Stewart tilled the somewhat barren, stony soil of Orange County and raised his family of seven children, Mary B., John Porter, Margaret (Mrs. John Parks). David Jr., Betsy (Mrs.  Andrew Taylor) and Ruth (Mrs. A. Bell).

 

In the fall of 1831, when the tide of immigration was moving

toward the Michigan territory, David Stewart resolved to go to the new country.  His friends said, "You are too old a man."  Despite his almost sixty-five years, he came and picked out a farm for himself, now opposite Caleb Jackson's in Southfield, together with other holdings.

He also chose a farm for his son-in-law, John Parks, farther south.  In the spring Mr.  and Mrs. John Parks, their almost four year old daughter Margaret Ann, Mrs. David Stewart and Miss Mary Robb (Mrs. Cornelius Brooks), niece of David Stewart, came from New York City and Orange County.

David Stewart, always a devoted Covenanter and a man of clear

insight and business tact, gathered the early settlers together in

religious meetings held in log barns and houses.  In 1834 the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Southfield was organized with David Stewart as

one of the elders.  (In the churchyard lies buried five of the persons who were present:  David and Ann Stewart, Mary B. Stewart, Mrs. William Connery and Margaret Ann Parks Thompson.) After some hard struggles a small church was erected on the acre of land donated by John Parks.  It contained no seats for some length of time.  David Stewart, an old man over seventy, had to walk from home to home in the woods with a subscription begging for money to seat the church.  In a recent conversation with Mrs.  Rachel McClelland, she told the writer what David Stewart said to the head of the family in her hearing when the opportunity to help was not eagerly seized upon.  The tall spare man with snow white hair meaningfully and regretfully waved his hand toward the walls of the room in which he was seated and said; "People who live in their fine, comfortable ceiled houses will let the house of the Lord go without seats."  Has the species died out?  Indifference to public good must have pained the heart of the old man many times.  He contributed often beyond his means and endured endless personal sacrifices.

It is said that his Irish homespun wedding coat of 1795, with its brass buttons, long swallow tails and high Revolutionary style of collar, was worn for over fifty years as a "church coat" in order that he might provide for others and the public good.  His sacrifices were not in vain, for he lived to see the church grow and flourish.  He was not only interested in religion, but education as well, and donated a site for a schoolhouse on the southeast corner of his farm.  Here stood the low plank schoolhouse for many years.  If anyone said a disparaging word concerning Michigan in those early days, David Stewart's reply always was, "Give it time."

 

February 24, 1852, David Stewart fell asleep to dream of his beautiful Michigan to be, and to realize his highest ideals in the

 

heavenly country beyond.  Beside the church amidst the stumps and trees they buried him, the first grave there.  At his head a big broad slab they set, around his body a heavy iron fence was placed.  On the slab deeply chiseled are these significant quotations:

 "Mark thou the perfect and behold the man of righteousness:

  Because that surely of this man the later end is peace."  Psalm 37:37.

   "Watch and pray."   Mark 14:38

   "To the law and to the testimony."  Isaiah 8:20

 

Sixty years have flown.  The Michigan wilderness has blossomed into a beautiful country--the prophesy of David Stewart come true.

Sleep on, on grand old man of invincible courage, of high ideals, of fertile mind, of kindly heart and gentle.  Well have you taught your lesson to the earth children plodding below.

 

     Ann, daughter of John and Margaret Porter, was born in 1758 at Ballylane, Ireland, and died November 24, 1865, aged 106 years, 4 months.  Her parents died in Orange County, N.Y., John Porter, November 1826, and Margaret Porter, December, 1829.  After their deaths she came to Michigan with the family of John Parks in 1832 to join her husband, David Stewart.  To Ann Stewart, David Stewart owed much of his success in life.  She not only brought up her own large family of seven, but raised her husband's niece and a granddaughter as well.  Many a logging frock she supplied to the visiting ministers, stopping over from one week to another, when they could not be restrained from helping to log.  After a very long life she died and is buried just south of David Stewart.

 

 John Porter Stewart, son of David and Ann Stewart, was born at Ballylane, Ireland, 1799, and came to Orange County, New York, with his parents in 1800.  He did not come to Southfield, Mich. from New York City until some years after his father.  He was a bachelor and from the time of his arrival always lived at home and worked his father's farm, buying one of his own immediately went on the northeast corner of the Twelve Mile and Evergreen Road.  After his father's death in 1852, he worked hard to keep up a home for his aged mother.  From her death in 1865 until his death December 10, 1880, with the exception of a few weeks, he lived alone in the old home and endured many privations, being an old man of eighty-two at the time of his death.

 

     John P. Stewart, or "Uncle John as he was known by all, was a man of quiet, intellectual tastes and a natural born collector of books. Some of his books, as well as those of his father's and mother's, go back before the time of the American Revolution.  The Stewart Collection, together with the early Baptist library, kept at the home of the late George Jackson just over the way, was a reading center for the town in early days.

 

                              "AUNT MARY'

 

     Mary B. Stewart, eldest daughter of David and Ann Stewart, died June 11, 1887, aged 90 years.  She was born in Ballylane, Ireland, 1796, and came to America in 1800.  She grew up to be her father's right hand man and remained with her parents until the end.  In 1833, she came to Southfield, a year later than the rest of the family as she wished to remain to settle up her business as a weaver.  During all her long life in Michigan she wove cloth, blankets, carpets, etc. and a master weaver she was.  John Bodine, late tailor of Birmingham, said that he never put scissors in finer cloth than what she wove and her niece, Margaret Ann Parks-Thompson spun.  "Aunt Mary" as everyone called her, could chop down a tree as well as any man of those times; in fact, could plow and help her father in every way.

 

     On long winter evenings she loved to go "paring bees" or visit the homes of her relatives.  With her pipe in her mouth she would sit by the firelight's glow and fashion, with the chips from the morning firewood, a little basket for her niece or whittle out from a stick a quaint little flour scoop, perhaps.  How the children liked her and watched for her coming.

 

     Thirty years ago the writer, when nearing the Covenanter Church on Sabbath morn, always looked for the "skeleton" and old white horse at the end of the shed.  It was always there and the owner, Aunt Mary, was ever in her place at the eastern window in the end of the front amen seat next to the pulpit.  As a little child I thought she constituted as permanent a part of the church as the pulpit itself.  There she sat during all the scripture measure service - a morning  sermon, lunch time, Sabbath School, afternoon sermon, 10:00 AM to 2:30 or 3:00 PM -

in her dress of black, shawl and hood of same, fine boots and heavy cane, over each eye a little ball of hair, and a face with  ninety years of care.

  But one day the old white horse didn't come through the

flats and up over the brow of the hill, turn into the churchyard and stop at the post at the end of the shed.  No Aunt Mary looked out of the eastern window through the old iron fence at the resting places of her father, mother, and brother.  She had joined them and taken her heavenly seat at the eastern window of heaven where she joyously welcomes her nieces and nephews today.

 

     Aunt Mary was nature's noblewoman and belonged to the royal house of Stewart (David).  She was one of the bravest, cleverest, best big- hearted woman that ever lived.  She gave away more than enough to care for a half dozen little cemeteries.  Perhaps some despicable small souls took advantage of her trustfulness and generosity at times, but Aunt Mary will be remembered long after such specimens of mankind and their memories have faded from the earth.  The average age of the four Stewarts was ninety years, six months.  They all worked hard;  were temperate in all things, read by candle light (only two wore glasses),

and never went South.

 

    Did not copy poem "Old Aunt Mary" by James Whitcomb Riley. (M.E.T.)

 

     On the south end of the David Stewart lot are buried his two fine young granddaughters, daughters of Andrew and Betsy Taylor.  Mary Taylor died September 28, 1863, aged 20 years.  Margaret died October 5, 1863, aged 17.