Argyle Township is located between Cass City and the Lake Huron shoreline. On a dirt road among the trees is an old cemetery that goes by several different names: Hillside, Cole, and Wheatland. In the middle of the old cemetery is a large marker memorializing some of its inhabitants and the first people to be laid to rest in the cemetery. They were victims of the Great Fire of 1881. The marker reads:
“In Loving Memory of John M. Cole and his wife Susan Seder Cole. Pioneer settlers who homesteaded this farm in 1866 and started this cemetery by finding and burying victims of the forest fire Sept 5, 1881. He was a Union soldier serving in the 61st Vol Inf Co, 8th Mich Cav Vo G.
Erected by Their Children, most of whom were born on this farm 40 rods south of this point.”
I can’t imagine what it must have been like for the Coles after the devastating fire. It must have been an enormous hardship, but they still took the time to locate the bodies of their neighbors and bury them.
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