Behr Hampson
In August 2005, I entered the Shearer Cemetery for the first time. It took 15 minutes, beating through brush and vines, to reach the middle where only the gravestone of Martha Lee was found. A few weeks later, I discussed the experience with my Michigan History students. They were quite interested in checking it out. After my class visited the cemetery, two students returned having discovered the buried stone of Hiram Jerome Tibbits. Hiram died August 23,1832, before reaching the age of ten. This stone was our first major find and would spark continued interest among my students in restoring this Pioneer site.
Twice during our research we acquired outstanding primary resources. The first was from Mr. James Curtis, who owns the original Tibbits’ house in Plymouth. He sent us a speech that Mr. John S. Tibbits gave to the Pioneer Society of Michigan on July 27,1873. The second resource was a random needle in the haystack. As I was looking through the Plymouth Mail in the Plymouth Historical Museum in the summer of 2006, I spotted a letter to the editor by John S. Tibbits, the same letter that is placed on the final page of our story. These two primary resources provided enough information to carve out a story of Plymouth’s past. From there our main objective was to help our younger students learn about our community from the original work of our older students. Our book attempts to show “how communities change over time.”
With the support and financial assistance of both the United States Department of Education’s Smaller Learning Communities Grant, and Teaching American History Grant, we were able to fund this project. Numerous books were purchased and donated to each of our eighteen elementary schools. Additionally, copies have been provided for our middle and high schools, Plymouth and Canton Public Libraries, and the Plymouth and Canton Historical Societies.
This project was successful because of the support of teachers like Pam Dean, Marybeth Turner, Patrick Persons, Jordan Brun, Judy Webb, and Tim Bolster. Additional help came from EMU student teacher, Heather Dallas; Plymouth Historical Museum (PHM) Director, Liz Kerstens; assistant archivist (PHM), Gerry Packard; and Kathleen Reddy-Butkevich. Additional enthusiasm and assistance came from Salem students John P. Truesdell, Andrew Dooley, and Plymouth student Meghan Miller, in addition to all the great 2nd and 4th grade students in Judy Webb’s and Tim Bolster’s classes. The real vision and actualization for the project rests in the hands of the two lead authors, Kelly Behr and Leslie Hampson, and our wonderful artist, Jill Hakala. These three students devoted countless hours to ensure that every detail was checked and that every aspect included in our book reflected historical accuracy and insight. These three students deserve all the credit and appreciation for their amazing work.
Enjoy the book,
Darrin H. Silvester
Salem Michigan History Teacher
September 2007
Early one foggy morning in the fall of 1889, Aly Shroeder cast her line into the shallow water. The fish were scurrying around the bait as Aly patiently waited. She had often fished at Tonquish Creek and learned how cautious its residents were. After finally catching a nice, plump fish, she packed up her things and walked past Blackmer Hill to begin her journey home. As she was passing by the old cemetery, lost in her own thoughts and looking around at the familiar surroundings, she suddenly saw something! A shadowy figure was looking over one of the graves. Aly dove behind the nearest gravestone, shivering as she held her breath. "It must be a ghost!" she thought. Although she was frightened, Aly’s curiosity got the best of her, and she slowly crept forward to get a better look.
