Jex Bardwell, Once Of Ann Arbor

In a recent Sunday News Tribune "The reminescences of Jex Bardwell" are given, containing some reference to the early history of Ann Arbor and vicinity, which will be of interest to the Argus readers, particularly so to the older ones. After stating that he was born in the outskirts of London, Eng., and describing his early school experience he says: "My father, having been somewhat prominent, became disgusted, settled up his business and carne to America, to find a home more suited to his democratie ideas. He decided to settle at Ann Arbor, and sent for my motherand family. To this circumstance I owe the glorious fact of my becoming an American citizen. "We landed in Detroit in the early part of the year 1834. We left the "Steamboat hotel" one forenoon, on a stage coach and reached "Sand Hills" that evening. I remember my father carried a fence rail on his shoulders part of the way to help the coach out of the mud. We reached and stayed the night at Plymourh. The next day we landed in Ann Arbor and stayed with "Uncle Kirby," who kept a tavern in the southwest corner of the public square. As soon as our home was ready, we left Uncle Kirby. We took a farm two miles north of the village where we lived till misfortune overtook my father. We moved to the village, and in 1834 my father gave up his contest in this world. A kinder father, a better husband, or citizen, never lived. My father had not a dishonest hair in his head. During the ensuing period I attended school at the old "Academy." There were two teachers, one whose name was O'Neil, was tall and thin; the other, quite the reverse. Some of us boys had been reading Dickens, and we undertook to reaiize one of incidents described, viz., the blowing up of our teacher. So one day we placed a lot of powder under his chair, which was placed on a platform, by the side of the desk, at which O'Niel sat, we laid a train of powder to the end of the platform. When all was ready we bribed a small boy to light the train. As soon as lighted it fizzled towards the chair. O'Neil caught a glint of the fíame, and as he turned his head to see the occasion thereof, up he went! School was dismissed and the little boy badly punished. As the boys and girls in the plot kept "mum," nothing further was discovered. 'Idelivered papers for the old Ann Arbor Argus until my father found it out and put a stop to that by placing me in the office of Dr. Brigham, a good physician and as fine a gentleman as ever lived."