This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: DAMON, NORTON Classification: Biography Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/SRB.2ACE/11932 Message Board Post: Obit: HAGAR PIONEER LIVED ALMOST FULL CENTURY Oscar Damon, Sr., Dies at 98, one of Berrien's Oldest Men Oscar damon, Sr. passed away at his hone in Hagar township last evening. Had he lived another two years he would have rounded out a full century. The deceased was 98 years old having been born March 20, 1826. He had been a resident of Hagar for 66 years, a record, it is believed, no other living Hagar resident enjoys. He is survived by his wife, Ida and two children, Mrs. Carl Dingman and Oscar Damon. There are also several grandchildren. Funeral services will be held Monday afternoon at 2 o'clock from the Riverside town hall, Rev. T. W. Bellingham officiating. Burial will be in the Hagar cemetery. From "A Twentieth Century History of Berrien County, Michigan, Page 419-421, by Judge Orville W. Coolidge, Lewis Publishing Co., 1906 OSCAR DAMON,living in Hagar township, is one of the honored pioneer settlers of the county and is familiar with the entire history of development of this part of the state. The people of present, enjoying the advantages which civilization has brought, cannot realize the conditions that confronted the pioneer settler a half century ago. At the time Mr. Damon arrived he lived among the Indians, who still regarded this part of the state as their hunting ground. There were no railroads and few white settlers had penetrated into this region to plant the seed of civilization here. The district was cut off from the older settlements of the east by dense forests that grew in their primeval strength and the rivers were unbridged and the only roads were the old Indian trails. Mr. Damon is a native of Fredonia, Pomfret Township, Chautauqua county, New York, his birth having occurred on the 20th of March, 1826. His father, Martin Damon, was a native of Vermont and died when the son was but nine years of age. The mother whose maiden name was Eliza Norton, was born in Fredonia, and died when Oscar Damon was but a lad of seven years. He made his home with different families until fifteen years of age, when, having an aunt in Ohio, he walked to that state. He remained in Ohio and Pennsylvania until twenty years of age and worked at farm labor and other kindred employment until his marriage. He here broke steer, matched them and sold them at a profit and this gave him his start. On September, before he was twenty years of age, Mr. Damon was married to Miss Kate Stevens, a native of Pennsylvania. The wedding was celebrated in 1845 and during the next seven years they resided in Ohio and in the Keystone state, Mr. Damon being largely employed at farm labor by the day and month. Attracted by the opportunities of the west, however, he came to Michigan in 1852, settling on section twenty-three, Hagar twonship, Berrien county, trading his Ohio property for the land which he secured in Michigan. There was not a stick cut upon the place. All was wild and unimproved, but with characteristic energy he began the development of a farm. He purchased a team of young horses and built a hewed log house upon his place. He then began to clear his land and as this did not bring him in any ready money he began to trap, making wooden traps. He soon found that he could realize considerable money from the occupation and he hunted deer, foz, otter, mink and other animals w! hose skin could be utilized as a marketable commodity. He has made as much as one hundred dollars per month in trapping, and this made him a living, while in the summer months de devoted his attention to clearing his land. He has lived upon his farm for fifty-four years and owns eighty acres, which he has cleared and brought under a high state of cultivation. He burned up valuable timber, although he sold some at three dollars per thousand in the boom at St. Joseph. He has kept up his trapping to the present time, following it now more as a source of recreation than for profit.