Thurston Wells was born in Attica, Genesee County, N.Y. in 1819. Lived there until 1854, when he came to Michigan. He remaiend in Pontiac for a short time and in the fall of that year bought forty acres of land in section 3, Rich, to which he afterward added eighty more. His farm now consists of eighty acres, having sold forty. Since he has been in Rich he has been a lumberman as well as a farmer. He was the first actual settler in the township, and the trip from Piersonville, in Marathon township, to his land took a week to accomplish, a journey that can now be made in less than two hours. In coming to his land he had to follow section lines and cut his way through a dense wilderness, being the first pathmaster in this section, an office he has since held. He was married in 1856 to Mary Miles, a native of Grand Blanc, Genesee County, Mich. They have had four children, of whom three survive. The eldest, a daughter named Jane, was born in 1858, and is now a Mrs. George Cole, of East Saginaw. The two others are a son, Olin, born in 1862, and a daughter, Clara, born in 1866; live at home with their parents.