Whitmore Laka End The State Encampment

As any good, sober, straightforward crow would fly, the state encampment ground is fifteen miles southeast of Howell, and ten miles north of Ann Arbor. On account of the devious windings of the Toledo, Ann Arbor & North Michigan railroad it is several miles farther by rail. The lake is also reached by means of the Michigan Air Line railroad, a branch of the Grand Trunk system, an illy-kept, wandering path from Jackson to Pontiac and back the next day. Whitmore lake, named after the first white settler in that neighborhood, is a handsome sheet of blue water, lying in a deep hole about a mile across, dug by the original architect according to the most approved plans and specifications. Part of it issituated in the township of Green Oak, Livingston county, and part o: it in Northfield township, in Washtenaw, about two-thirds of it lying in the latter county. So far from its being a part of the Winans reser vation or in any wise attached to the governor's hen roost, it is not, bu is at least seven miles from the gubernatorial habitation at Ham burg. People have been living along the shores of Whitmoae lake and fishing :or the roach and speckled bass more than three score years and ten, and in point of antiquity the place is surpassed by few settlement in central Michigan. The town itself skirts the western shore of the lake, and consists of two hotels, a half dozen stores, and a number of summer cottages and farm residences. In winter the town loses its vitality to a certain extent; but in the suramer the inhabitants wax fat upon fresh fish and succulent summer boarder. Ann Ar_bor people make the place their favorite holiday ground, and many a prodigious fish story has been incubated along the pebbly borders of the limpid lake. F. M. Lumbard, minstrel and bard, famed throughout a hundred townships, has reared his home upon the northern margin. The lake is surrounded by a shady road, and several steam and sailing craft ply its waters, while rowboats innumerable can be secured for a stipulated consideration from half-a-dozen boat ïouses. Fronting this pleasant sheet of water is . the farm house of Frank 3arker, upon whose land the state roops wili pitch their tents during he coming state encampment, 3ack through a pleasant lane, across he railroad half a mile, are the camp grounds. Here are ninety acres of level meadow land, bounded on the west by an inviting forest. 'Dead" lake lies to the south and west in convenient proximity to the encampment grounds. Upon the east are "pleasant fields and pasures green," and on the north the highway. The Spring Lake ice company has a mammoth ice house uil to the rafter3 with the congealed roduct of Whitmore lake. It is conveniently located within ioo rods of the camp grounds. Water for culinary purposes will be piped from an adjacent flowing spring, and Dead lake furnishes a splendid jeach for bathing. Adjutant General Farrar, Gen. 3. B. Lothrop, C. S. Hoag, quarermaster of the First regiment, and other members of the state military )oard, were on the grounds recently )lanning for the work of fitting the jrounds, which work has been commenced this week. When locating the encampment grounds the military board visited sland Lake, but concluded that Whitmore offered the best advantages generally. The fact that the Toledo & Ann Arbor road crosses every east and west railroad in the state, and thereby renders the grounds more easy of access to the people generally, was an inducement to lócate the grounds there. -