Project Scroll Research Note 2026-44: The keepers of the Pioneer Log Cabin, 1930–1965: Peter Eby, Charles O. Harmon's uncle, and Arthur and Till Nixon, grandson of the man called the Pioneer Society's "father"

Published accounts of the Pioneer Log Cabin at Cassopolis, Michigan, name its builder, Charles O. Harmon, but not the people who kept it open after him. In June 1930 the South Bend News-Times wrote that "Peter Eby was chosen caretaker and although he has passed the four score mark is still on duty to welcome old residents and to explain the exhibits," and pictured him with Harmon before the cabin. Glover's county history of 1906 lists the children of the Porter Township pioneer Gabriel Eby, beginning "Catherine, the widow of John B. Harmon … Peter," and Harmon's obituary names his parents as "John B. and Catherine Eby Harmon": the caretaker was almost certainly Harmon's uncle. The cabin's last numbered log, No. 144, was given in 1923 by "Art Nixon for Nixon Estate." A Jones family genealogy of 1951 shows Arthur K. Nixon, born at Cassopolis in 1883, as a son of Phineas Nixon and grandson of Esther (Jones) Nixon, wife of the John Nixon whom Mathews in 1882 called "the father of the Cass County Pioneer Society"; it adds that in 1949 Arthur and his wife Till lived at Cassopolis, "where they supervised Cass County Historical Museum." The museum directories of 1961 and 1965 name "Mrs. Arthur Nixon" as the cabin's director. Project Scroll Research Note 2026-44, 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/2026-44/.