Ninety-sixth Birthday

Mrs. Mary P. Davidson celebrated her ninety-sixth birthday Monday and is receiving the congratulations of her numerous friends and relatives. Mrs. Davidson resides at 119 N. Fifth avenue, with her daughter, Miss Josephine Davidson, and is not only the oldest female resident of the city, but is also one of the oldest residents, having come here in August 1832.

A visit to Mrs. Davidson Monday found her enjoying remarkably good health, although the infirmities incident to old age begin to weigh heavily upon her and af she is not now as strong mentally or physically as she was a year ago. Still she remembers remarkably well incidents of her first trip to Michigan from New York state and the impressions made upon her by the scenes upon the road and in Ann Arbor on her arrival. She made the trip with a party of neighbors who were coming west to make a home and the first part of the trip was made on a canal boat to Buffalo. Mrs. Davidson has a vivid remembrance of this part of the journey as the idea of breaking the old home ties caused such a homesick feeling that the captain of the boat induced his daughter to sing for her to enliven her up and she still remembers the words of the old hymn, which was the one beginning:

"Gently, Lord, O gently lead me, Safely through this vale of tears."

The trip from Buffalo to Detroit was made by boat and at Detroit the stage was taken for Ann Arbor. The trip was a long one then and they Ieft Detroit before daybreak, taking breakfast at Dearborn, dinner at Plymouth and arriving in time for supper, which they took at a hotel which stood on the site now occupied by the St. James dry good store.

Ann Arbor was but a small hamlet then and the streets were not even named. The University campus was a cornfield and the citizens had no thoughts of its location among them. Mrs. Davidson early connected herself with the Presbyterian church, which then stood at the corner of Huron street and Fifth avenue. Since then she has witnessed the laying of the cornerstone of three churches of that denomination, new ones being built as the old ones were outgrown. At that time the M. E. church had not been built and she saw the logs drawn for the first building erected by that denomination on the lot now occupied by the Unity block. After her marriage she became a member of the Baptist church, her husband being a member of that denomination, and attended services in their first building, which was located on Wall street.

She says that the post office was located at the corner of Fourth avenue and Ann street, that on the Athens theatre corner was located a hotel called "The Exchange" and that a frame house was a novelty only a few being in the city. She remembers the building of Judge Kinne's residence which was the most pretentious in the village then and was owned by a man named Thompson, who was one of the solid men of the place.

Mrs. Davidson was born in Pennsylvania, her father being a German and her mother of Holland descent. Her grandfather was a soldier of the revolution and she well remembers the stories he used to tell of the battles he took part in. She went to New York at an early age and distinctly remembers the celebration of the finishing of the Erie canal.