actual settlers are said to have come two years later from the same counties;61 before 1830 settlers had arrived from Vermont and Connecticut.62 The point was early known as the "Thread River settlement," being on the Saginaw Trail where it crossed the Thread River, a small branch of the Flint. In many early records it is referred to as Grand Blanc, a name still borne by the township.63 The Northwestern Journal, mentioning it by the latter name April 21, 1830, credits it with "a hardy industrious and enterprizing population on large well cultivated farms," and Blois describes the vicinity as "thickly settled."64 Another settlement, apparently on the Thread River, is mentioned in the same issue of the Northwestern Journal as Le Roy, credited with a store and a tavern. Blois locates Le Roy about one and a half miles from Flint, and its sawmill and flouring mill seem to have superseded the mill built at the earlier site.65 The trading operations of Smith, and of his successor Todd, of Pontiac, have been noted as the direct antece 61. History of Genesee County, 34. The first settlers, Jacob Stevens and his two sons, are said to have come in 1822. Ibid., 33. 62. Ibid., 34. 63. 64. The name is said to have been derived from a large halfbreed Indian associated with the settlement. Gazetteer of Michigan, 291. See also Mich. Hist. Colls., VII, 392, for rapid increase of population after 1830. 65. Ibid., VII, 242. The place had about fifteen families in 1838, Gazetteer of Michigan, 311. A small settlement is said to have been made on the Flint River about 1833, derisively called the "Cold Water settlement," because its members were opposed to the use of intoxicating liquor. Apparently it was independent of Grand Blanc and Le Roy. dents of Flint village;66 yet while both men were somewhat more than traders, the real beginnings of village life at that point came with the same impulse in 183536 that marked a new era in the settlement of Saginaw. In 1835 was recorded the first plat of Flint village,67 and the county seat was secured, located on land said to have been recently purchased from John Todd;68 its availability was enhanced by its central position in the recently established county of Genesee.69 In 1836 a second impulse to the centralization of population there was given by the acquisition of the land office recently established for the new District of Saginaw.70 It was commonly known as the "Genesee Land Office.' Both its name and that of the county were significant of the large early immigration from the "Genesee country" in western New York. Much unhealthful speculation in town lots ensued. Four additional plats are said to have been recorded on lands adjoining the original one" before the close of 1837. Owners of real 66. The name was first given to the river, the "River of the Fire Stone," called by the French "Rivière de la Pièrre." Though the river has a rocky bottom, it is not clear what suggested Flint. The site of the Indian village appears to have borne an Indian name meaning "open plain, burned over," though the site is said to have been originally heavily forested. History of Genesee County, 16, note 119. 67. History of Genesee County, 124. 68. 69. 70. Mich. Hist. Colls., I, 163.. Todd is said to have bought a section of land there in 1830 for $800. History of Genesee County, 121. Territorial Laws, III, 1,416. It appears to have remained a center of land operations until its removal to East Saginaw in 1837. Mich. Hist. Colls., XXXV, 370. 71. History of Genesee County, 124. On one of them was laid out the village of "Grand Traverse." estate on the north side of the river apparently held prices so high as to drive settlers to the other side of the river, and with them went the main part of the settlement.72 75 The relative importance of the village is indicated by its early designation as "the Flint River settlement;"'73 yet up to 1838 there are said to have been only four houses in its neighborhood.74 The first store. of consequence seems to have been built in that year. In the same year an energetic influence came to its settlement from Mount Morris, Livingston County, New York, in the person of Mr. Todd's successor in the village hotel.76 In 1838 Flint had “a banking association, an edge tool manufactory, a sawmill, two dry goods stores, two groceries, two physicians, a lawyer and the land office for the Saginaw land district." An estimated population of three hundred people is recorded, being a hundred less than for Saginaw.77 72. Mich. Hist. Colls., III, 441. 76. History of Genesee County, 122. 77. Gazetteer of Michigan, 287. The vicinity of Flint is favorably mentioned in 1837 in Michigan House Documents, No. 9 (E), 53. In 1845 there appear to have been about 170 resident tax-payers in the villages of Flint and Grand Traverse. History of Genesee County, 126-127. In 1855 these rival settlements were organized together as the city of Flint, neither having had village organization separate from the government of the township. Mich. Hist. Colls., I, 163; III, 438; History of Genesee County, 128-129. The population at that time is estimated at about 2,000. Clark's Gazetteer (1863), p. 309, records that the city is to be considered for beauty of location, health, substantial wealth, educational facilities and good society. On Kearsley Creek, a branch of the Flint River east of the Thread, a settlement worthy of special mention was made in 1837 by a colony of nearly thirty families from Clarence Township, Erie County, New York, who located almost directly east of the Grand Blanc settlement in what is now the township of Atlas.78 This was apparently the nucleus of the later village of Goodrich. Along the creek there was much speculation in 1835-36. It is said that of 113 land buyers within the limits of the present Davidson Township prior to 1837 only fifteen became actual settlers.79 On the upper course of the Flint River east of Flint village an important settlement was located on the excellent power site at Lapeer. A village was platted there in 1831.80 The Detroit Free Press, May 31, 1832, mentions to its credit six families, a good saw mill, the possession of the county seat, and the environment of an excellent farming country. According to Blois the county buildings had not yet been built in 1838. He mentions a sawmill and two stores, with four more stores in process of construction.82 Apparently the growth of Lapeer had been very slow from 1831 to 1837, if it may be measured by the statement of Blois that its small group of settlers represented an increase of "ten fold the past season.' 19183 78. Mich. Hist. Colls., XVII, 414. Atlas Township is said to have had twenty-two voters in 1836. Ibid., XVII, 414. 79. Ibid., XXII, 543. 80. 81. Ibid., I, 219; III, 549; Michigan House Documents (1837), Territorial Laws, II, 807. 82. Gazetteer of Michigan, 310. 83. He mentions also a village of Newbury, containing two stores, on the north fork of the Clinton, about twenty The first purchase of land on the Shiawassee River was made in the same year as that on the Thread, and the settlements at Byron and Grand Blanc on the sites of these purchases were the earliest in that region. A relation to the older centers of settlement is seen in that the date of the purchases, 1824, marked also the beginnings at Ann Arbor and Dexter in Washtenaw, and that the purchase on the Shiawassee was made by the founder of Dexter. 84 His purchase was speculative, and like that at Dexter covered a power site, at the junction of the east branch of the Shiawassee River with the main stream where it was crossed by a fork of the Grand River Trail. While there could have been little or no actual settlement at Byron, by 1825, yet it appeared on Risdon's map of that year as a village, probably because it had been fixed upon as the site of the county seat of the recently established county of Shiawassee. It was apparently a county-seat village speculation. The early prominence of Byron on the map, and its possession of the county seat, as well as its position on the Grand River Trail and its excellent water power, made it a well-known point among early settlers; yet its settlement seems to have been slow, even after the wave of speculation in 1835-36. This was owing partly to the rearrangement of the boundaries of the county made by carving Genesee from its territory. It was 83. Con. miles from Flint. Gazetteer of Michigan, 332. This was probably a "paper town," though there appear to have been settlers in that vicinity early. Mich. Hist. Colls., III, 549. 84. Samuel Dexter of Boston. Mich. Hist. Colls., II, 475; Michigan Biographies, 227. |