Pioneer history of Ingham County, compiled and arranged by Mrs. Franc L. Adams, secretary of the Ingham County pioneer and historical society.

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PIONEER HISTORY OF INGIHAM COUNTY

In the political world the never resting question of southern
slavery was becoming more and more a burning issue. Early in
1856 the Republican party was organized, a Presidential campaign of unusual excitement and bitterness ended in the election
of James Buchanan. Then came four years of shameful truckling
to the slave power, followed by the election to the Presidency in
1860 of the great and good Abraham Lincoln. Now the threatened cloud of war broke upon us in fury. Many, many of the
best of our young manhood were sacrificed, but our brother,
after three years of severe service, partly spent in the dreadful
experience of a southern prison, came home to us safe and unwounded. With the people at home those were times of hard
labor and gruelling anxiety, and my poor mother grew worn and
aged, though the safe return of her dear son was as cordial to her
soul and my father's also. They were climbing toward old age,
but still capable of efficient work. My mother always loved and
raised flowers and always her garden was a mass of lovely bloom
from spring to the late autumn. Father was a reader and thinker
and his memory was well stored with facts relating to the history
of our country, the fluctuations of politics, the characters and
careers of our prominent men and their influence on the country
and its progress.
The old home, log house, must have been built some sixty
or sixty-one years ago, and though so humble and small scarcely
could any home be pleasanter, and many of my fondest recollections are clustered around it and its surroundings. It is a lovely
memory now. MARY RIX DIETZ,
Daughter of Hiram and Emily Rix.
We moved into this log house in November, 1858. Father and
mother were married in New York, December 23, 1836, and the
following spring moved to Michigan, coming across Lake Erie.
I do not remember anything I may have been told of the trip,
except of a foreign woman with several children who were passengers, and mother said she gave each child a bath beginning by
washing their feet and so on up ending with their faces, but
mother said they looked very clean when she finished.
John Conghran and wife, who were relation by marriage, came
with them and both settled in the same house. It was a log