Detroit Free Press , March 22, 1873 Life in Plymouth during the 1800s wasn't the creature comfort mecca that it is today. Bucolic, surely, but not exactly the upper crust ease known by modern residents of the city. This story of a unnamed man and his dog roughing it in the woods in 1873 attests to that fact. Working in the employ of Esbon Blackmar cutting cordwood he made a makeshift bed of leaves within makeshift walls of stacked wood and covered himself with a blanket. A continuous fire blazed beside his humble abode and a copy of the Bible warmed him throughout the bleakness of a Michigan winter.