Nathaniel I. Daniels, son of William D. amd Mary (Irish) Daniels, was born May 4, 1808 in Scipio, Cayuga County, New York; died Mar 13, 1899, Wacousta, Clinton County, Michigan. He attended the district schools, afterwards attending the academy at Rochester, N. Y. his time was spent between work on the farm and teaching, until Feb 9, 1832, when he married Lucinda Read, of his own township. She was born in 1805, who was also a teacher. Before she was two years old, her father and two brothers, all the males in the family died of typhoid fever.

May 1st, following their marriage, they left for their new home in Michigan, locating in Bloomfield, Oakland County, then the far west, four miles south of Orchard Lake where their seven children were born. Their nearest neighbor was John H. Sutton.

The winter of 1832-33, Mr. Daniels taught school in Birmingham. In 1840 he was chosen clerk of the house of representatives, then situated in Detroit. He was post-master during ten of the fourteen years he lived in Oakland County. In the fall of 1846 he sold his farm and removed to Detroit, and tw years later removed to Wacousta, settling on the farm where he died.

In 1850 he was appointed deputy United and was sent on an important mission by the Government to Muskegon, Mich. to look after tresspassers who were pelfering the pine from the Government lands. He made the journey on horse back through the wilds of Michigan, using only a pocket compass for his guide, his extraordinary judgment and marked ability in this undertaking was highly commented upon by the Attorney General and others having charge of the interests of the Government. He took the census of Clinton, Gratiot and Isabella Counties. Afterwards in 1859 he was appointed to be one of three commissioners to lay out a State road from Sault Ste. Marie to St. Ignace in which he spent a summer of the most arduous labor, not to mention being devoured by mosquitoes and black flies.

In 1867 he was a delagate to the convention in Lansing to form a new constitution. In 1870 he was appointed to take the census of the south half of Clinton County. He was justice of the peace in his township twenty-four years and while doing a large share of the business of five or six townships and paying into the county treasury by far the largest amount in fees of any justice of the county, it is fact peculiarly gratifying to him he never had a judgement reversed in the upper court.

He was a born teacher and student and took the deepest interest in all matters pertaining to education and the history of his county and state, keeping fully informed on all subjects, and taking an active part in their discussion. In fact his mindtended to the great things of life and the details of business were distastful to him.

In politics he was early in life a whig and later a republican. As a neighbor he was generous, as a man, fearless and out-spoken inwhat he believed to be right and always in favor of perfect justice.

He retained his vigor of mind to a remarkable degree, almost to the end.
His wife died in 1885 and later he married Mrs. Susan Stansell who survived him.

Nathaniel had the following children:

1) Cornelia N. Daniels, his eldest daughter, married in 1857 to Dr. Stanton E. Hazard, a physician of Wacousta, born Jan 1832, in Farmington Township, Oakland County. He studied medicine with Dr. Aanson Hudson, long known as a skillful physician in Oakland and Wayne Counties, and after completing his studies at the U. of M., commenced practices in 1854 in Wacousta. No physician could have been more beloved than Dr. Hazard. He died in 1880.

2) Ann Daniels married and went west to live.
3) Louisa Daniels married Franklin E. Davis;married 2nd to Mr. Parks, and is living, aged 94 at Wacousta.
4) William Daniels was Professor of Chemistry in Madison College, Wisc.
5) Mary Daniels married Mr. Escott.
6) Cary R. Daniels, the youngest of the family was proprietor of the Wacousta Mills.