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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7PIONEER HISTORY OF INGIHAM COUNTY

The stove was one of the old-fashioned kind, a box stove, set
in a box of sand.
As far as known Mrs. Pitt Ellsworth, of Mason, is the only one
now living who attended the first term of school in this building,
and to the best of her recollection there were but eight or ten
children who were in the school at first.
No records of the district earlier than 1890 can be found, but
residents of the district remember when the old building having
outlived its usefulness it was decided to replace it with a new one,
and about 1887 the officers of the district hired Chas. Phillips
to build the house still in use. The old building was moved a
few rods east of the school house lot and made into a dwelling
house, and is now used as a shed on the farm of Chas. Price.
The last teacher in the old building and the first one in the new
one was Miss Leora Drake, of Mason, now Mrs. Dwight Cole, of
Grand Rapids. The present teacher is Miss Mildred Ellison,
and there are 15 pupils enrolled. The highest enrollment as far as
known is 26, and the lowest 4.
From the time the first school house was built until about 25
years ago religious services were held there, with Sunday school
through the summer months. Elder Tallman, whom all Vevay
pioneers remember, and Elder Swift, equally well known, were
the principal ministers for many years.
For years the roads in this district were quagmires in the spring,
but now state reward roads traverse the district from east to west
and north to south.
The district can boast of having one factory, when E. D. Lee
raised peppermint on the farm in the southeast corner of section
13 in Aurelius, which is best known to early settlers as the Wm.
Brodie farm, later owned by John McRobert, and now the home
of Harry Freshour.
Here for two years Mr. Lee manufactured peppermint oil, but
the adventure not proving a financial success it was given up.
Had it been possible to have procured the books which the
moderator, the late Homer Ellsworth, had kept for 35 years, a
much fuller history might have been given.