tion of counties and townships there. In 1822 when the garrison was established at Saginaw in consequence of the Indian treaty of 1819, the whole of the Saginaw region was divided into the counties of Lapeer, Shiawassee and Saginaw, all with extensive boundaries.161 It has been estimated that in 1830 there were not more than a hundred people in the three counties,162 none of which had sufficient population to call for separate county government until 1835163-Shiawassee not until 1837.164 The increase of population in the vicinity of Flint and Grand Blanc is indicated by the establishment and organization of Genesee County in 1835-36, out of territory originally in the older counties.165 Livingston County, established in 1833, was organized but a few days later than Genesee.166

The first township government organized in the Saginaw country was significant of the beginning of settlement at the future site of Saginaw City. This was the township of Saginaw, coextensive with the county as laid out in 1822.167 At the first township

161. By proclamation of Governor Cass, September 10, 1822. Territorial Laws, I, 333-334. The boundaries of Saginaw County were readjusted March 2, 1831. Territorial Laws, III, 872.

162. Mainly in the neighborhood of Flint, and most of these were probably French-Canadian trappers and traders. Mich. Hist. Colls., I, 359; VII, 232, for the settlers along the Saginaw trail north of Pontiac. The barest beginnings had been made in the southern part of Livingston County. History of Livingston County, 19-20.

163. Territorial Laws, III, 1348, 1349.

164. Session Laws (1837), 106.

165. Territorial Laws, III, 1416. Session Laws (1835-36), 66. 166. Territorial Laws, III, 993; Session Laws (1835-36), 65. 167. July 12, 1830. Territorial Laws, III, 818.

meeting in the spring of 1831 there are said to have been cast only a few over a dozen votes;168 two years later, the vicinity of Flint and Grand Blanc was recognized as a growing center of settlement by the organization of the first township south of Saginaw169-the name of Grand Blanc for the township points probably to the settlement on Thread River as being in contemporary opinion more important than the one at Flint. In the following year (1834) the settlement in the southeastern corner of Lapeer County secured organized government as Mia (Bristol) Township;170 and there was apparently scattered settlement elsewhere in Lapeer County, as in the same year the remainder was organized in the large township of Lapeer.171 In the meantime the population of Saginaw Township, as recorded in the History of Saginaw County purporting to give the census of 1834, had increased to 303.172

The year of the cholera epidemic (1834) was not auspicious for the beginning of the new settlements in Livingston County, but in the spring of 1835 three townships were organized in the county, which indicates apparently that settlers had come in rapidly.173 The

168. Mich. Hist. Colls., XXII, 451, 453. The meeting took place after the readjustment of the boundaries in March, 1831. See Territorial Laws, III, 872.

169. March 9, 1833.

170. March 7, 1834.

Territorial Laws, III, 985.

Ibid., III, 1277. The name was changed to Bristol in December of that year, after its most prominent settler. Ibid., III, 1333.

171. December 30, 1834. Territorial Laws, III, 1339. The southeastern corner was included in Grand Blanc Township the preceding year.

172.

p. 457.

173. March 17 and 26. Territorial Laws, III, 1368, 1404. The southwestern township of Unadilla included the present northwestern township of Washtenaw County (Lyndon, organized March 23, 1836).

position of these townships shows that the settlements were mainly in the southern part of the county, though settlers are said to have entered the northern part in 1834.174 In the following year (1836) along with extensive speculations, the population is said to have increased more than five-fold;175 and the spring of that year, before the opening of active immigration, saw three new townships organized-two of them in the south and east.176

177

The organization of other townships in 1836 shows an increase of settlement on the Flint and Shiawassee rivers. In that spring was organized Shiawassee Township, coterminous with the county.' The settlement at Flint became the center of a new township north of Grand Blanc,178 while south of the latter the settlement at Fenton was recognized in the township of Argentine.179 The formation of Atlas and Hadley townships shows increasing settlement in the south and southwest of Lapeer County, which had apparently spread eastward from Grand Blanc and northward from Oakland.180

By the spring of 1837 the growth of settlement called for separate township government in several parts of all of these counties, excepting Saginaw. In Lapeer

174. History of Livingston County, 20.

177. March 23, 1836. Ibid., 78. A year before, the settlements there had been attached for township purposes

to Grand Blanc (March 26, 1835). Territorial Laws, III, 1404.

178. March 2, 1836.

Session Laws (1835-36), 67.

179. July 26, 1836. Ibid., 80. 180. March 23, 1836, Ibid., 77.

County the township of Lomond completed the row of townships along the south bordering upon the northern townships of Oakland County.181 Another township, Richfield, was added next to the older settlements of Genesee County.182 The central and northern parts of Lapeer County seem still to have been comparatively unsettled. According to the State census of 1837 the county contained 2,602 people.183

On the Saginaw Road in Genesee County the large townships of Flint and Grand Blanc were in 1837 subdivided, the latter taking the area of a surveyed township and containing by the census more than a fourth of the population of the county, about half as many people as the total of Shiawassee;184 but a comparison with the population of the Flint settlement is only roughly possible on the basis of the census, since that township had exactly six times the area of Grand Blanc. 185 The third important center of settlement in Genesee County, with double the area of Grand Blanc, 181. March 11, 1837, Session Laws (1837), 39.

182. Ibid., 35.

183. Exclusive of the township of Richfield. The population is not given by townships. Michigan Legislative Manual (1838), 71. According to Michigan House Documents, No. 9, (E), 52, the tract of country between Lapeer and the St. Clair River was entirely unsettled.

184. Grand Blanc, population 691. Its area was reduced by the formation of Mundy Township, March 11, 1837. Session Laws (1837), 36. The population of the latter, containing double the area of Grand Blanc, was 234. igan Legislative Manual (1838), 71.

Mich

185. The large township of Flint occupied the center of the county, having been reduced by the formation of Vienna Township at the north. Session Laws (1837), 42. Their populations were respectively 1,288 and 107. Michigan Legislative Manual (1838), 71.

contained about two-thirds as many people.186 The total population of the county was somewhat larger than that of Lapeer on the east, which had double the area; and it was about twice that of Shiawassee on the west, whose area was about its equal.

If the creation of townships may be taken as an indication, the population of Shiawassee County had increased rapidly within a year, and the relative size of the township suggests that the greater number of people were in the southeast along the river. Two settlements there were of the area of surveyed townships.187 The township of Burns in the southeastern corner included the oldest settled lands in the county, and the township of Vernon188 immediately above it included the settlement about "Shiawassee town." The remainder of the southern half of the county retained the name of the original township, while the northern half was organized as the new township of Owosso, 189 The population of Shiawassee County was a little more than that of Saginaw, which still had but one township for the whole county, with less than a thousand people.1

The population of Livingston County by the same census was 5,029,191 more than one-half of which was in the southeastern quarter. Settlement was sparsest in the northwest, about equal in the northeast and 186. Argentine, population 434. Population of the county 2,754. Michigan Legislative Manual (1838), 71.

187. Session Laws (1837), 38.

188. Ibid., 40.

189. Ibid., 36.

190. Shiawassee, population 1,184; Saginaw, population 920. Michigan Legislative Manual (1838), 75.

191. Ibid., 72.