July 6 - The Green Thumb

The Thumb of Michigan is full of rich farmland and wonderfully tended and prosperous farms. The crops are beautiful and seem weedless and bountiful. The farmyards are neat and painted and lovely.

Our first stop was Unionville where we found the graves of my grandmother's grandmother, Amaressa Scoville Beattie and her parents Oliver T. H. Scoville and Mary Burke Scoville. Oliver was a veteran of the Civil War. The graves are left to right, Amaressa, Lizzie, Mary and Oliver.

Next we drove to Huron City where we found Amaressa's Husband and my great great grandfather John Beattie.

Huron City doesn't really exist anymore. But there is a wonderful museum which is a collection of houses, a church and some barns from the period. The weather was cool and the scenery pastorially perfect!

We drove on down to Port Huron and across the St. Clair River in to Ontario, Canada. We got a pretty stiff interview while crossing the border, even with our passports.

Our next destination was south of London, Ontario where we found, by pure luck, the Pond Mills Cemetery. We had hoped to find John Beattie's parents, William and Martha Beedon Beattie, there but were unsuccessful. We did find John's brother William though. It was such a beautiful place and so thrilling to be where they were.