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This is another great site for local history.
From 1830 to the 1880s, lumber was king in Michigan. The white pine, with it's straight growth and majestic height, was a prized tree, and millions of board feet of lumber were shipped from Michigan ports and railroad depots to feed the insatiable need of a growing country. Lumber from Michigan built farm homes in the Dakotas, graced mansions in New York, and rebuilt Chicago after the devastating fire.
It was a time of growth and expansion for Michigan, with busy ports all along the lakeshore, pioneering families clearing the interior for farming, and workers laying hundreds of miles of railroads to connect it all. But progress, as it often does, also brought the seeds of destruction. The rapacious lumber industry felled the white pine, now our state tree, nearly to extinction. The waste from the lumbering activities - the piles of branches, limbs, leaves and needles known as 'slash' - were common throughout the countryside. It was a dangerously hot, dry summer that year of 1881, with no rain for months. The fields lay baking under the sun, and the piles of slash became tinder-dry.
A spark was all that was needed, and it came. Perhaps from lightning, perhaps cinders from a train, perhaps a small fire used to clear brush, but it happened. In early September of 1881, an enormous fire burned across the state. A nightmare of roiling black smoke and pillars of flame, the fire roared through the Thumb region of Michigan's lower peninsula, destroying everything in its path. Vast portions of Huron and Sanilac counties were burned, over a million acres blackened. People fled to the lake, into basements, and down wells. Many died, unable to escape the hellish heat, flame, and smoke. Ubly, Tyre, and Argyle, small villages near this location, were completely destroyed. When the firestorm finally passed, the survivors were left to bury their dead and prepare for the onslaught of winter with little food and no shelter.
This cemetery was started by one man, John Cole, who with his wife Susan had survived the fire. They chose this spot on their farm to bury the dead they found, friends and neighbors who could not escape the flames that tragic day. A large rock marks the final resting place of these victims, not far from where John and Susan were laid to rest.
Though a little overgrown, this cemetery is still in use. Please enjoy the scenery and history in a respectful manner.
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