Imagine for a moment that you are a pioneer in Farmington Township. You have left your past behind and moved away from family and friends in a well settled area in New York to a vast unpopulated wilderness in an unknown spot in a new land. In your new home there are few roads, no police, no courts, no churches, and no stores. The nearest settled areas are miles away over primitive roads that are often impassable. So when there was enough population to legally form an independent township, the inhabitants took a day off from their daily chores and met to hold a township meeting where they were…

When Farmington Township was first settled in the 1820s, there was no Detroit Edison, or Consumers Energy. Virtually all the power needed was supplied by the pioneers themselves, in the form of muscle power from either animals or people. Houses, wagons, clothes, shoes, furniture, plowing the fields and more were all built and accomplished through sweat and hard work. The first businesses set up in what would become the Village of Farmington included a shoemaker, blacksmith, and wagon maker, all completing their tasks by hand effort. But not everything could be done by hand. The principal …

In thinking back to all the hardships the pioneers faced in settling this area, one aspect can be easily overlooked: The public services we take for granted today were totally absent. There were no police or fire departments to look after the safety of the settlers. Even after the roads were improved, the area lacked a formal fire department, and even the simplest of fires often completely consumed the buildings. In fact, buildings were designed with this in mind. Doors and window shutters, which were expensive items, were often mounted on two-leaf hinges, which allowed them to be lifted off …

One of the popular ways to travel to the Northwest during the pioneer surge was by steamboat. Today, we think of that mode of travel as a leisurely sail across lakes and rivers on a quaint craft out of a Huckleberry Finn story. The following excerpt from a book titled (in part) Remarkable Shipwrecks of the World, by R. Thomas, A.M. published in 1852 gives quite a different image: LOSS OF THE HELEN McGREGOR. The following is a description, by a passenger, of one of the most fatal steam-boat disasters that has ever occurred on the western waters. "On the morning of the 24th of February, 1830, …

If you read early histories of the Farmington area you will often see references to Farmington Township. But today the term is not used at all. So, what did become of Farmington Township? Here is the story: The Northwest Territory, which included present day Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan, was ceded to the United States as Part of the 1783 Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War. The British, however, never handed over the area until 1796, then took it back again during the War of 1812. We finally took permanent control of the land after the war in 1815. In order …

The 19th century development of Power’s Settlement in Farmington Township followed the fortunes of the roads it was built upon. At first, a couple of stores, a post office, a public house, a shoemaker and a blacksmith shop were all that existed at the settlement’s original center at Shiawassee and Farmington Roads. The settlement grew, keeping pace with increasing road traffic until the Plank Road Act of 1850 relocated the town center south to Grand River. Once the plank road was in place, traffic increased and so did the local businesses. The number of residents also increased, resulting in …

“Burnet’s Notes On The Northwestern Territory”, written by Jacob Burnet (1770 – 1853), provides very interesting insight into the surrender of Detroit and is quoted below. He was a circuit rider judge who was a personal witness to many significant early events in Michigan’s history. His book was published in 1847 based on a series of letters he wrote starting in 1837. The Revolutionary War ended with the Treaty of Paris, signed in 1783, which granted the Northwest Territories to the United States. Since there was no pressure from the local inhabitants to hand over Detroit, and since most of …

In the days before the railroad, the most popular one of the most popular ways of travelling was by stage coach. The following excerpt from Charles Fenno Hoffman's 1835 book “A Winter In The West. By A New Yorker.” is provided to give a clearer idea of what stagecoach travel was like in this era. Hoffman resigned his position as editor of the Knickerbocker in 1833, and decided to tour the new Northwest Territories. "The clock was striking three, when at the call of the porter I rose and descended to the bar-room. The attentive landlord, himself in waiting, was ruminating before a large coal-…

I have often told of the wonderful daily life details that are so beautifully preserved in the writings of the pioneers. These are the types of detail that will never be found in history books. One of the very best pioneer authors was Gustaf Unonius, who left his native Uppsala Sweden in 1841 to become a pioneer settler in Wisconsin. His book A Pioneer in Northwest America details his many interesting adventures. Here he describes a trip he took during the building of his cabin to go to Milwaukee to pick up his new stove: “The chinking and mudding nevertheless took time, and Polman and I had …

After a life of non-stop small suburban home dwelling, I decided to take a new direction in 1980. I wanted to move to an older farmhouse on acreage in a rural setting. It needed to be reasonably close to possible work locations and have ready access to major highways. All of these needs were met on 13 Mile Road in Farmington Hills. Life there was indescribably idyllic throughout the '80s, and I would like to share some remembrances of those rare old times to try to give you an image of what living there then was like. The area had a great percentage of unpaved roads, no sidewalks, no strip …

During the early pioneering days in Farmington Township, the primary travel routes were the existing Indian Trails, since no formal roads had yet been built. Of the three trails that passed through the area, the greatest of them was the Grand River Indian Trail. Located on this trail, between present day Inkster and Middlebelt Roads, was a small Indian Village called Pojomoka, and this became a stop-over point for the early pioneer settlers. The Westons built an inn there in 1836, which became the nucleus of the white settlement which took root there. This inn was bought by Stephen Jennings …

Many of you have heard of the Great Farmington Village Fire of 1872. It devoured several blocks of buildings along Grand River, east of Farmington Road, and destroyed many of the original township records. It was not a good time for fires. The Great Chicago Fire took place in the fall of 1871. These fires can be traced to unusually dry weather and human carelessness. There is another fire, not quite as well known, but with a story well worth telling. We were home enjoying a pleasant summer afternoon in 1991, when a couple of our young children came running into the house yelling that our …

As I noted earlier, antique books written by the early settlers can be an excellent source of interesting detail not available anywhere else. One of the greatest such books is A New Home—Who’ll Follow, written by Mrs. Mary Clavers, who was in reality Caroline Stansbury Kirkland (1801 – 1864). The book was published in 1839 based on her actual experiences in pioneering Pinckney, MI in 1837. In her book, Pinckney was called “Montacute”. She was an energetic groundbreaking author and mother of seven. So here is the framed home building process of the 1830s as described in this excerpt from Mary …

1980 was a very tough year for me. I had to helplessly watch my father succumb to the grip of cancer and slip away from me and the rest of my family. It caused me to reassess my place in this world and reconsider some of the choices I had made. I had always loved history and valued antiques for their beauty, their craftsmanship, and for the story they held about the people and times that brought them into existence. I decided on the spot that I would rededicate myself to these values, and locate a fine historic home to restore, love, and live in. So, I contacted a real estate agent and asked …

Read Part I of this article. Very shortly after the death of his third wife, likely around the time their son Darius was born in 1838, Welcome married Maria Bateman on February 15 1839 in Farmington. She had two children from a previous marriage, Lucy Cordelia Bateman (1828 – 1853), and James D. Bateman (1831 – after 1880). Welcome and Maria had a daughter together, who appears to have died before 1845. Her name is unknown. The Garfields were Baptists, and were members of the Baptist church located on the corner of 12 Mile Road and Halsted Road. He was part of a group of church members who …

Once the War of 1812 ended, and Michigan was once again clearly a part of the United States, there was a rush to induce settlement in the new lands. Large numbers of U. S. citizen settlers would help anchor the area in the Union and discourage invasion and seizure by England. In order to get the settlers to come, the land needed to be put up for sale, and before this could be done, it had to be surveyed so customers could know exactly what they were buying. The surveying of Michigan began in earnest in 1815, and land prices were set by an act of Congress in 1820 at $1.25 an acre. This meant …

The various cemeteries in Farmington today all had their roots in early pioneer Michigan and were born out of the tragic reality of life. Here is a brief look at the cemeteries, known and unknown that were part of the early settlement of our area. The oldest cemetery is the Utley Burying Ground, known today as the East Farmington Cemetery. It is located on the north side of 12 Mile Road between Middlebelt and Inkster Roads in the northeast quadrant of Farmington Township. It is on land that originally was part of the Utley farm, and which was donated by Peleg S. Utley. Sanford M. Utley …

Shortly after Fort Sumter was attacked in April 1861, President Lincoln called for volunteer troops to help preserve the Union. When the First Michigan Volunteer Infantry arrived in large numbers nearly 150 years ago, Lincoln was heard to exclaim “Thank God for Michigan!” Eventually 23 percent of Michigan’s male population would serve in the Union Army during the American Civil War. The idea of volunteers banding together for the defense of their country in North America is as old as the Mayflower. These volunteers made up the ranks of the “Minutemen” of 1775. And the early pioneer settlers …

An interesting description of pioneering new land in Michigan was recorded by the Frenchman Alexis De Tocqueville in his book Memoir, Letters, and Remains of Alexis De Tocqueville London: MacMillan and Company, 1861. During his visit to Michigan in 1831, he stayed at a Pontiac Inn and told the Innkeeper he was interested in settling in Michigan, when events turned as follows: He instantly took us into another apartment, spread out with due solemnity a map of Michigan on the oaken table in the middle of the room, and placing the candle before us, waited in silence for our inquiries. I shall …

As we have seen in earlier articles I have published here, settlers to southeast Michigan Territory in the late 18-teens and 1820s found a vast virgin first-growth forest crossed by a few small rivers and some Indian trails onto which was forced a logical, un-yielding rectangular grid of section boundaries delineated by lines of blazed trees. With no internal roads, this was not easy country to travel through. New settlers would arrive with livestock and wagon-loads of belongings with no way to get them to their new land. The system of sections and townships resulted in neighboring properties…