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

726

PIONEER HISTORY OF INGSIAM COUNTY

where there was no county buildings the business should be done
at the nearest farm residence. This explains why the first county
canvass was held at my father's house." So much for Sydney J.
Parker's letter.
Hiram Parker started one day to vote at his polling place in
the Rolfe settlement, four miles south of Mason. A blinding
snow storm hindered his progress, and finally hid the blazed trees
on the section line he was following, so that he lost his way. He
turned to retrace his steps, and found that the snow had effaced
his earlier trail. Later in the afternoon he reached home, having
lost a whole day in a vain attempt to reach a polling place six
miles away.
The price of Mr. Parker's land, $1.25 an acre, was a much
larger sum, or, at least it meant much more then than it would
now; for money was exceedingly scarce in those days of "wildcat
banks." The settlers found it a hard matter to pay even the small
taxes that were then levied. For the first ten years the taxes on
the 160 acres Mr. Parker then owned averaged $4.50 a year; but
in 1865, after the Civil War, they jumped to $57.97.
Hiram Parker died 25 years previous to this writing, at the age
of 84, and his wife died in 1907, at the age of 94. Sydney J.
Parker spent practically all the 72 years of his life, before the
writing of this sketch, on the farm taken up by his father, and has
seen this region change from a trackless wilderness to a well-tilled
farming country. He remembers when the first highways were
laid out and graded, leading in most cases from one settler's cabin
to the next, which accounts mainly for the crooked roads in the
eastern part of the county. He remembers when the railroads
first went through, and he was one of a jolly crowd that rode to
one of the first state fairs at Jackson in a box car. He had a serious fall several years ago, and his neck was permanently injured,
so that his last trip on the cars, 22 years ago, was such a painful
experience that he never cared to take another. Since the death
last summer of his sister Eliza, who had always lived on the farm
with him, Mr. Parker has been the only one of the family here,
and now that he has sold the farm he will go to make his home
with Mrs. J. S. Brush, of Manchester, Vt., his youngest sister,
and the only other member of the family now living.
Died 1915. ROY W. ADAMS.