of business and enjoy, for a time, peaceful and
quite surroundings, a little vacation on the old
reliable Detroit, Grand Haven & Milwaukee
railroad will fully supply such want.
Making the trip from St. Johns to Detroit, for
instance, will furnish a reasonable amount of
change and relaxation. Leaving St. Johns at 8:05
a.m., a comfortable hour for departure, you
pass through fertile farms for seven miles until
Shepardsville is reached, where the first halt is
made and a little chat held with the station agent
about crops, weather prospects, was in Europe,
etc. Two or three miles further east you reach
the limits of Ovid where the speed ordinance
slows your train to right miles an hour, enabling
the engineer to come to a gentle stop at the
station. Ovid is a pretty, prosperous town, well
worth looking at.
Getting under way again we pass through some
of the finest farms in Michigan, and about five
miles east reach Burton. Burton is not a large
place, but there are a lot of good people around
there and sometimes one of them takes the
train. Five miles more and we pull up for the
M.C. crossing at Owosso Junction. The trains-
men will not let you off at Owosso Junction if
they can avoid it, for it might enable you to
catch a train on the Michigan Central or the
Ann Arbor that you would otherwise miss by
getting off at the station a mile farther east.
Owosso also has a slow up ordinance, and as
the corporation limits are generous, it gives one
plenty of time to read signs on the casket and
furniture factories and observe what is going on
in our neighboring city.
From Owosso we make a run of three miles
without stop, unless per chance we are side
tracked to permit a freight to pass, arriving at
Corunna and McCurdy's court house, this
being a county seat town. A little halt and we
go soon arriving at Vernon, the center of the
sheep feeding industry, with big red sheep
barns on every hill side.
Another effort and we reach Durand, three or
four miles further on. Here we hesitate, first in
the yard, than later at the station. A delightful
half hour or maybe three quarters is spent here,
where trains are arriving from St. Johns,
Chicago, Ann Arbor, Frankfort, Port Huron,
Detroit, Saginaw, etc. While waiting you
observe long lines of stock cars loaded with the
cutist little pigs with curly tails and train loads
of ham, bacon and lard, reminding one of Lord
Byron's little poem about the Aisles of Grease.
There is lots of going on here and you have
plenty of time to see it. Here one of those
impossible individuals who are sometimes
allowed to travel alone, was heard to remark
that if one was traveling very far on the Grand
Trunk he would die of old age before reaching
his destination.
Regretfully we finally leave Durand and make
friendly calls at Gaines, at Linden [this not the
Linden where the sun is low and all bloodless
lay the untrodden snow that was a Linden in
Dutchland], the getting off place for Argentine,
where Clinton county people go fishing; Fenton
and Holly, where the 57 varieties are displayed
on a series of bright yellow buildings, lending
color and splendor to the scene. We also cross
the Pere Marquette here, calling at four or five
more towns before reaching Pontiac. Tamarack
swamps, streams, beautiful lakes surrounded by
green fields suggest the close relation of the
loaves and fishes, brown fields, the bronze
leaves on the oak forests, gravel pits and ice
houses make memorable scene.
Davisburg,at Drayton Plains and Andersonville,
who would want to go running along through
such a country at reckless speed, frightening
hens away from the right of way so they would
not lay an egg for a week, thus inviting damage
suit by the farmers.
We arrive at Pontiac. Here we took a good rest,
the passengers wondering whether the agent had
gone up to the asylum to engage another train
crew to take us in under the Adamson eight hour
law or whether we were waiting for a chance to
be switched on the P.&O., or the air line, or
both, to avoid holding up the freights. When we
did leave Pontiac, we ran along beside the paved
way between that city and the City of the Straits.
This was a down grade trip, winding around the
hills creating the sensation experienced on a
roller coaster. We see automobiles pushing along
at reckless abandon at a speed of twenty miles
per hour, but they do not tempt us from the
pleasant security of our vacation journey.
Birmingham, Royal Oak and twenty miles of
town lots staked out, intervene before reaching
Milwaukee Junction and a half hour later Detroit.
It is almost 1o'clock United States time. If our
train is on time, almost 2o'clock and supper time
by Detroit time but we have had a ripping good
time, every minute a delight.
Returning from Detroit you leave at 3o'clock
and are supposed to arrive at St. Johns at 8 p.m.
Quite frequently of late the train reaches here at
9 p.m., but who would let the mere matter of a
train schedule interfere with the joys of a
vacation trip? How disappointing it is to stroll
down to the depot a few minutes late for the
evening train west and be brusquely informed
that the train leaves at 8 p.m. How much nicer it
is to have the smiling agent say "Kind sir, no
passenger train has gone west this evening; we
are expecting a train, if not today's train, maybe
yesterdays train will come soon. Make yourself
comfortable. This winter we have a latch on all
the doors, and we can keep them shut to exclude
the cold."
But going into Detroit in the evening, you can
leave St. Johns at 4:08, change on the train from
Chicago at Durand and get into the city at 7:30,
standard time. Dear old delightful D.&M. We
sing thy praises. Nowhere else can you get so
much ride for your money----every freight train
dodged, safe, peaceful, secure. For vacation
trips you have them beat a mile.
P.S.---If you belong to that disagreeable class of
beings who are always in a hurry and think that
the chief purpose of taking the train is to get
somewhere, instead of taking the 12:03 from St.
Johns for Detroit, you can stay at home for
dinner, leave at 1:10 on the electric, stay 22
minutes in Lansing and take the Pere Marquette
for Detroit, reaching there five minutes sooner
than the 12:03 which left St. Johns an hour and
eight minutes earlier.
This story was in The Clinton Republican dated
December 7, 1916. There was no clue as to who
the writer was. I added the post card view of the
St. Johns depot that was there at this date. This
depot was constructed in 1868 & 69. It was
destroyed by a tornado in 1920.
halt" at Shepardsville 7 miles east of
St. Johns. The photograph on the left
is a view of Shepardsville station in
1907. Wm Shepard, a prominent
resident of the village, donated five
acres of land for depot purposes back
in 1866 when the village became a
flag stop on the Detroit & Milwaukee
Railway. The section crew with their
dinner pails on board are ready for a
days work along the line. From left to
right is: station agent Bill Drum, Ramon
Deitrich, Albert Longcor, section fore-
man Alex Olson and Bill Decker.
Hotel at Owosso Junction.
Photograph from Mark Worrall
post card collection.
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