Notes for: Margaret Bodine

In E. P. Bodine's book, she is listed as Elizabeth Lanning. They had three children. The only male was a George Lanning. His first name, James, came from an email message from Jan Alpert. She listed Elizabeth's name as Margaret. Jan's source came from "Pioneer Families of SE MI." It also gave Margaret's father's name as Peter. Her name is Margaret in Peter's will.

Someone has read her stone as saying she died on January 18, 1808, not July as in the article below.

From Ronny Bodine:

From Portraits and Biographies of the Governors of Michigan and of the Presidents of the United States, 1885, p. 798 (partial transcript only).
JAMES LANNING. Among the venerated citizens of Raisin Township no name is more worthy of perpetuation than that which stands at the head of this sketch. He is widely and favorably known throughout this part of Lenawee County, as having been one of its pioneer settlers and representative farmers. He came to the Territory of Michigan in the fall of 1833, and secured a tract of land from the Government, upon which he expended years of labor and thousands of dollars, and built up one of the most valuable homesteads in Raisin Township. This property is located on section 6, and Mr. Lanning still occupies the land upon which he first settled, but which to-day bears little resemblance to the condition in which he found it. Mr. Lanning began his operations in the wilderness, one of his first duties being the erection of a shelter for his family. He selected one of the pleasantest spots on his new purchase, and put up a small log house, which he covered with clapboards and in which he laid a puncheon floor. The oldfashioned fireplace occupied nearly one end of the building, and the chimney was put up outside of mud and sticks. This structure served as a shelter for the little household several years, and then a more modern one was substituted.

Mr. Lanning, however, in putting up his first residence, accidentally placed his house across the line on land belonging to other parties, so that he was obliged to either remove it or to purchase. He chose the latter alternative, and after considerable strategy, in order to get ahead of another party, added forty acres to the eighty he had already secured, and which transaction, by the way, he has never regretted. After he had his land paid for there was only $5 left to him with which to begin the necessary improvements. He made an occasional dollar as a huntsman, being quite expert with the rifle, and upon the present site of flourishing farms and beautiful homesteads, has many a time killed three or four deer in a day. He had brought with him two pounds of lead and one pound of powder, and this he economized in such a careful manner, that it did service in the slaughter of fifty deer, besides numbers of small game.

The subject of this history was born in Huntington, Sussex Co., N. J., Oct. 5, 1810, and is the son of Cornelius and Charity (Young) Lanning, natives of the same county as their son, and the parents of nine children, three sons and six daughters. Of these three are now living and residents of Lenawee County. Cornelius Lanning carried on farming [in Sussex County, where both parents spent their entire lives, and where the father died in 1825. The mother survived her husband ten years, and also passed away at the old homestead, her death taking place in 1835.

James Lanning continued in his native State until a youth of nineteen years, then repaired to Ovid, Seneca Co., N. Y., where he remained working on a farm by the month, until the fall of 1832, when he removed to this county. The second year of his residence here, he and his family were at one time on the verge of starvation for the want of flour, the nearest mill being at Tecumseh, to which point people came from forty miles away, and everybody was obliged to await his turn in grinding. The Lanning family were reduced to potatoes and pork, and Mr. L. finally agreed to assist the miller twenty-four hours if he would get out his flour for him. The miller complied, and slipping the grist in between some others about 3 o'clock in the morning, the troubles of our subject for that time were at an end. This was only one of the many difficulties to which the pioneers were subjected. They complained but very little in those days, however, each man being determined to make the best of circumstances, and Mr. Lanning in this high resolve was not a whit behind any of his neighbors. In due time perseverance brought its rich reward, and he could look around him upon a comfortable home, with the satisfying reflection that for it he was indebted to no man, but that he had honestly earned it by the sweat of his brow.

Our subject before reaching his twentieth birthday, and while a resident of Seneca County, N. Y., was first married to Miss Margaret, daughter of Peter Bodine, of Ovid, and their first child, a son, named George, was born there Aug. 6, 1831. He is now a resident of Raisin Township, this county. The next, a daughter, Rachel Ann, was born Feb. 18, 1833, and became the wife of William Allen, a well-to-do farmer of Lenawee County; Mary E. was born March 30, 1837, and is the wife of William Mattis, who owns a good farm near Franklin, in this county; Peter B. was born Feb. 20, 1840, and died the 5th of June following. The mother of these children, who was born in Ovid, Seneca Co., N. Y., July 18, 1808, died at the homestead in Raisin Township, this county, Feb. 25, 1840.

From Michigan Death Records:
James Lanning, farmer, son of Cornelius and Charity Lanning, born in New Jersey, died 4 June 1888 in Raisin, Lenawee County, aged 77 years and 8 months.

From Michigan Federal Census Records:
1850 Raisin Twp., Lenawee County: James Lanning 40 NJ farmer, Maria 36 NJ, George 18 NY, Ann 17 NY, Elizabeth 13 MI, Martha 2 MI.
1860 Raisin Twp., Lenawee County: James Lanning 50 NJ farmer, Maria 44 NJ, George 27 MI, Martha 10 MI, Joseph 5 MI.
1870 Raisin Twp., Lenawee County: James Lanning 60 NY farmer, Maria 53 NJ, Joseph 17 MI.
1880 Raisin Twp., Lenawee County: James Lanning 69 NJ farmer, Maria D. 65 NY wife, George 49 NY son farm laborer, Eliza 40 NJ sister paralytic