Project Scroll Research Note 2026-45: The Pioneer Society's families at the building of the cabin, 1923: the officers of 1873 and the speakers and givers of Cabin Building Day

The Cass County Pioneer Society was founded at Cassopolis, Michigan, in 1873; fifty years later its revived successor built the Pioneer Log Cabin on Stone Lake. The cabin's own history names the people of Cabin Building Day, 23 May 1923, without saying who they were. The county histories and newspapers show that many were the Society's own children. Its first assistant secretary in 1873, John Tietsort, was the son of Abram Tietsort Jr., who in 1830 "built a small log cabin on the east bank of Stone Lake"; John's widow, Addie, was present on Building Day. Its first treasurer, Joseph Smith, was almost certainly the county's Major Joseph Smith, from whose homestead the cabin's first log came. The village president who spoke that day, Asa K. Hayden, was a son of James G. Hayden, one of the Society's officers in 1917; the other speaker, Charles H. Kimmerle, was a son of Henry Kimmerle, very probably the Henry Kimmerle who was the Society's president in 1888. Joseph K. Ritter, who later helped reopen the cabin, was the son of Charles A. Ritter, the revived Society's treasurer in 1924. And Katherine Armstrong Morgan, who gave casings for the cabin's doors and windows, was almost certainly the only child of the givers of its first log, Mr. and Mrs. A. N. Armstrong. Project Scroll Research Note 2026-45, version 1. The note sets out the record quoted, where it is held, what it changes, its limits, and what was searched before calling it new. Web version: projectscroll.com/discoveries/notes/2026-45/.