Wixom-Wire House

This house was built in the early 1850s by Lucy Wixom, widow of Ahijah Wixom, one of the town’s founders. Its first residents were the Reverend and Mrs. Samuel Wire. He was the pastor of the Free Will Baptist Association of Commerce. The house originally consisted of a parlor, a bedroom, a loft and a basement. The Wires used their home for church and funeral services. Caskets rested in an alcove in the parlor, whose wide door on the north was added so that the caskets could easily be moved to the cemetery across the street. In 1897 the Tiffin family purchased the house. They added the kitchen and porch in the 1920s. Sons William and Charlie continued to live in the house until 1975, when they died at the ages of 95 and 105. In 1975 the Wixom Historical Society acquired the home for restoration and the creation of [a] museum.