Grand Ledge
Grand Ledge Historical Society preserves local artifacts
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Cindy Langenberg plays an important role within the Grand Ledge Historical Society. Reporter Ben Edwards sat down with her to see what her roles are all about.
Arts & Entertainment
U.S. Grant slept here, so Detroit house targeted for rescue
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By ERIC FREEDMAN
Capital News Service
LANSING – During the Civil War, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant helped save the Union. Now the push is on to save the historic Detroit house of the future president, one of only two who lived in Michigan before going to the White House. Gerald Ford of Grand Rapids was the other. “This is not just any president. It’s U.S. Grant, who was the principal general that saved the nation, who then as president took his oath of office completely seriously and tried to enforce the Reconstruction amendments,” said state Historical Commission President Jack Dempsey, a lawyer in Ann Arbor.
News
Soldier's journal sheds light on Civil War conflicts
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By ERIC FREEDMAN
Capital News Service
LANSING – William Horton Kimball’s Civil War experience lacked the eloquent congressional debate or the grand-scale carnage of the award-winning movie “Lincoln.”
Rather, Kimball’s Civil War — carefully recorded in a handwritten journal — reflected the on-the-ground vantage point of a Michigan soldier who confronted Confederate guerillas and hostile Southern sympathizers. A new book, “Among the Enemy: A Michigan Soldier’s Civil War Journal” (Wayne State University Press, $24.95) tells the story in Kimball’s own words of three years in uniform far from the family farm in Spring Arbor Township, west of Jackson. The journal was found in the Detroit Public Library’s Burton Historical Collection. The conflict was 5 months old when the 18-year-old enlisted in the First Michigan Engineers and Mechanics in September 1861. The book’s editor, Mark Hoffman, has researched the regiment for more than 20 years.
Elections & Politics
Boy governor, new state faced grown-up politics
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By ERIC FREEDMAN
Capital News Service
LANSING – Politics is a tough business in today’s era of massive campaign spending, instantaneous electronic sliming, dirty tricks, deceptive advertising, bribes and voting fraud. But it also was a dirty, corrosive business in the earliest days of Michigan’s statehood, according to a new biography of its first governor, Stevens T. Mason. When it came to politics, the American frontier was no Eden and politicians were no angels. The Virginia-born Mason moved to Detroit and became secretary of the Michigan Territory when President Andrew Jackson, a fellow Democrat, appointed him at age 19 – too young to vote. He replaced his father in the patronage post.
Transportation & Roads
Trains, writers tie Michigan legacies together
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By ERIC FREEDMAN
Capital News Service
LANSING – For novelist-to-be Maritta Wolff, the stone train station at Grass Lake near her grandparents’ farm in Jackson County represented escape from small town living. Twenty years ago, and shortly before her death, Wolff returned to her hometown by Amtrak for the dedication of the restored depot that inspired the title of her first best-seller, “Whistle Stop.”
For Pulitzer Prize-winning Civil War historian Bruce Catton, the train that served his Benzie County hometown of Benzonia sparked a restlessness. It also sparked nostalgia later in life that Catton captured in a best-selling memoir, “Waiting for the Morning Train.”
For Robert Frost, the future American poet laureate, arrival in Ann Arbor by train marked his becoming the University of Michigan’s first “fellow of the arts.”
These three writers were linked by Michigan ties, eventual renown as writers – and trains. “Ink Trails: Michigan’s Famous and Forgotten Authors” (Michigan State University Press, $19.95) by brothers Dave and Jack Dempsey, tells the stories of Wolff, Catton and Frost, as well as 16 other writers who were born or lived in the state. The others range from the well-remembered, such as Carl Sandburg, Ring Lardner and John Voelker, to the once-famous-now-forgotten, such as George Adams, Eugene Ruggles and Carroll Rankin.
Agriculture
Archaeologists shed new light on ancient farming, university history
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By LAUREN GIBBONS
Capital News Service
LANSING — On the surface, Michigan might not seem like the nation’s most historic place. But to many archaeologists and other experts, the state holds a wealth of evidence about the past and remains an important player in providing insights to the past. For example, new developments in the archaeological world include research on ancient farming practices in Michigan and elsewhere in the region. “We’re doing a lot of things that other places haven’t done yet,” said Lynne Goldstein, an anthropology professor at Michigan State University, which hosted the latest Midwest Archaeological Conference. Findings gathered from archaeologists suggest that ancient farmers implemented several domesticated foods and agricultural practices much earlier than previously predicted, said MSU anthropology professor William Lovis, who curated the farming exhibit at the conference.