Samuel Preston

The second settler in Oneida Township was Samuel Preston. In 1835 he located in Lenawee County. In the fall of 1836 he paid Stephen Perkins twelve dollars to locate and purchase 160 acres of land for him in the Grand River Valley. Early in January 1837, Samuel left to visit his new purchase. Once reaching Chester Township, he stopped overnight with Robert Wheaton. At that time only nine families had settled on the route between Jackson and Mr. Wheaton, a distance of forty-five miles. The next day the two men went on to Preston’s land, which was covered with a thick growth of "gigantic trees."

The next day Samuel Preston returned to Lenawee County. Shortly thereafter on February 2^nd, he set out with his family and two ox-teams, including all his household effects, for their future home in Oneida. They followed paths previous settlers had cut through the forests. After three days they arrived in Chester Township at Asa Fuller's near Mr. Wheaton's. Aided by the two men, Preston began cutting a new roadway for his oxen through the wilderness to reach his new land. Mr. Preston would later write:
"Night coming on we clustered ourselves into a cave dug in the snow, after
giving our ox-team a supper of tree-tops. Here, in the depths of a snow-bank,
surrounded by almost interminable forest, we cooked, ate, and finally retired to
our beds. About ten o'clock of the second day from Mr. Fuller's we reached the site we were in quest of, and, after clearing away the deep snow, some logs, and underbrush, commenced the work of building a log cabin”
Cabin building was a new experience for Preston, but with the help of his new neighbors they built a fourteen-by-eighteen foot cabin; only the second one constructed in Oneida. Preston writes:

“After this feat, of course, we had the honor of its first occupation over-night. Some time during this eventful night it commenced snowing, and before two o'clock the following day we had an addition of another foot of snow. Judging it to be a matter of prudence to seek some safer asylum, and depositing our implements in the newly-made cabin, we commenced our retreat. Mr. Fuller's home was a full seven miles distant, and it was still snowing. When within about two miles of his place the snow rose so high over our floundering sled that we were compelled to abandon it altogether, and trust to our weary legs for the remainder of the way, arriving about nightfall at the house of my kind friend, Mr. Fuller”
As of yet the cabin was still in need of floors, doors, windows and a chimney. But once, after several days, the snow had settled, Fuller and Wheaton assisted Preston in moving his family into the unfinished shelter. As Preston wrote: “In this unfinished condition we all went into it-self, wife, and a brace of little ones-on the 4th day of March, 1837”