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Note: History of Isaac Llewellyn Nunn
--by Winifred Edith (Nunn) Labian
My father told stories of his father similar to the other stories told here so I'll not repeat them. His first memories were of being in Flint. They moved from Canada here when he was four years old. He thinks they had a house close to the Flint River on what is now the corner of Paine and 3rd street. He told me many times of his delight to ride logs up and down the Flint River and how he would get spanked for getting wet.
His older sister Ida he remembers as being so afraid to go and get the milk from the
Hamiltons' farm. There were wild cats along the road and they would follow her. Their father Isaac Brock Nunn was a teacher and a Baptist minister, and also had studied to be a carriage painter. He was a circuit rider and rode horse back many miles. His territory took him into the woods as far as Tuscola.
He buried, married and baptized many people in these areas. Two or three years later they moved from Flint to Sanilac County in the Thumb area. There they started farming and clearing land. My Father
told me many stories of life there. He tells of the great fire that swept across the Thumb area in 1872. The sky first grew black, then the sparks and hurling piece of branches in the air. The trees would bend and scream. On their farm they had just ploughed about 20 acres of land close to their house. This is what saved them. About 20 people, neigbours, ran to Grandfather's house (my grandfather, my father's home). They laid on the ploughed ground as the fire swept over them.
My Father who was only nine years old had to tear most of his clothes off as the sparks and pieces of wood flew around him. It was hard to breathe. You had to lay close to the ground. One Chris Armstead begged my grandfather to pray for him. He said the end of the world was coming. Grandfather said, "No time for prayers, get a shovel and go to work." The men there tore most of the shingles off
the roof of the house to keep it from burning down. Eighty-nine people in Sanilac County lost their lives that day. The first relief they had after the fire was a father of 4 coming through from Bay City with a wagon load of supplies. He went berserk when he found his wife and four children all had perished.
He told the funny one about digging their well. They had to hand dig it and line it with rock as they dug. The night before they had dug about 20 feet hauling the mud and sand and rocks down with a bucket. The next morning grandfather looked down and saw what he thought was surface water. My grandmother and father (a boy of six) lowered him down in the bucket with a kitchen chair and a water pail to dip the water out. Grandfather carefully put the kitchen chair in the water where it stood perfectly. He stepped out of the bucket and on the chair only to find there was about 8 feet of water in the well. They had hit a
spring the night before. As grandfather always wore a white shirt and coat the sight of him bellowing, screaming and hanging on to the bucket sent both my grandmother and my Dad into peals of laughter. They laughed so hard they couldn't pull him up. It took a neighbour to finally get him out. They had the best well in the county.
They lived their young life in Argyle, Sanilac County on the farm. Close neighbours were the Peters and Armsteads. Grandfather was the teacher and preacher. The boys did most of the farm work. Eugene was 21, my Dad 19, and Will 17. After prayers were said this particular evening Grandfather said, "You three boys don't think you are going to go upstairs and crawl out the window, go down that tree and go to that dance. I know where you went last night. Eugene you are all right. You had a Baptist Church girl but you Lew had one from the Methodist Church and Will you had Eliza Peters, a Catholic. I'll have no more of it.
Either be home every night or pack your clothes and leave." My Dad (Lew) and Will packed their clothes and left. My Dad
(Lew) went to Bay City and hired on the boats. Will was too young to get work so he bummed around and ended up by marrying Eliza Peters. He went to Hale where he homestead a 160 acre farm. Some of their 10 children are still on it. My Dad (Lew) followed the boats until he was 36 years old. He got to be a wheelsman on the sailing boats. Sailing from Duluth, Minnesota with wheat down through the locks and into Buffalo. They usually tied up there for winter.
The winter of 1900 they had a strike. They struck for 18 hours of work per day and $20 a month. They lost the strike (men were brought in from Italy to man the boats) and they were black listed. My Dad had an English bicycle and he rode that all the way from Buffalo to Emery Junction. He was going to Hale. His father had sold the farm in Sanilac County and with Eugene, Ed, Nellie and Albert had
moved to Hale. There Eugene had bought 80 acres and Grandfather had over 260 acres.
Gene had plotted the town. He had started a hardware store on the corner of Hale and sold lots, named streets after his wife and children. Grandfather had helped establish the Baptist Church and was preaching the gospel. They owned all the land from the corner of Hale for one mile east,
south side of the road. Nellie had married Fred Jennings and owned 260 acres across the road from her father. Here my father met and married my mother. He bought the 40 acres just east of Eugene's piece and here he lived his life out. He was a politician and I never saw him without a white shirt and suit coat on. He served on the school board and built or worked on many of the schools in the Hale area. He was supervisor of the Plainfield Township for many years. He built the first community
building during the depression. He built it in cooperation with the WPA (Work Progress Administration) getting the lumber by cutting trees and building from scratch. The cemetery established there was largely done through his efforts. Roads were built and land surveyed and mapped through his ability. He was as he said, the man of the community and people (a second Jesus Christ) while in office. He died of a heart attack when he was 73 years old. He is buried in the cemetery he helped establish.
Of the Nunn family I have great respect. They were all for education. Many of them were teachers, some judges, lawyers, preachers, surveyors, and excellent mechanics. I was proud to be one of them. From them I got my love of mathematics, my keen mind and ability to lead a life of service. I was well equipped to deal with life's problems when I was born a Nunn.
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