A REAL PIONEER GONE.
THE LAST OF OUR EARLIEST REPRESENTATIVES PASSED AWAY.
Mrs. Almanza Phillips of Summit died Tuesday night at her home on the Claybanks. She was the last survivor of those hardy pioneers who broke their way into the wilderness of western Michigan before the sixties. The LaBelles, the Quivillons, The Kings, Caswells and those others who first sought homes in our primeval forests, have preceded her and gone on to their other home, their last.
Mrs. Phillips was born in 1820 at Petersburg, N. Y. When 18 years of age she was married to Jeremiah Phillips whom she has survived, he having passed away seventeen years ago. They came to Michigan in 1849 and moved onto their farm in 1851. Few people now living here can grasp the full import of that last sentence but let them, let the younger generation, merely think how much American history, how much Mason county history has transpired since that date, and let them remember that it is the stock from which the Phillips have sprung that has been most instrumental in making this, stock in which the foremost qualities and sterling character, stern regard of duty and honesty of purpose.
Last Saturday afternoon Mrs. Phillips slipped on the doorstep and sustained injuries from which she did not rally as she would have done in the plentitude of he powers and which were the cause of her death. She leaves behind one brother in New York, a sister at Montague, and one daughter, Mrs. Dorleska Hull. The funeral will be held Friday afternoon at two o'clock from the Phillips school house.
Source: Ludington Record-Appeal, Ludington, Michigan, Thursday Afternoon, September 12, 1901; Pg. 7, Column 3
