From the oil painting in the State Capitol, supposed to have been done by an English artist, Alvin Smith, about 1836.-Mason became Acting-Governor of the Territory on the resignation of Lewis Cass in 1831. Being then only twenty years old he became known as the He was elected first "Boy Governor'' but he proved to be a man in thought and action. governor of the State and was the dominant figure of the transitional period.

schoolhouse was built in 1837, where school is said to have been held in the summer of that year with eight pupils. 215 The village was not platted until 1838.216 In February of that year "a sawmill (frozen up), a few houses and surrounding forest is all it could boast of."217 Blois credits it with "a store, tavern, saw mill, and several buildings."218

Ingham County had in 1837 three organized townships219 and a population of 822 people.220 If the size of a township were not often deceptive it would appear that the greater number of settlers were in the extreme southeastern corner, in the township of Stockbridge, which was at that early date but six miles square. 221 The whole western half of the county containing the sites of Lansing and Mason made the one large township of Aurelius.

New York appears to have been the source of more of the first settlers of this county than was the case with many other counties in Michigan. One of the influential proprietors of "Biddle City" is said to have been a cousin of ex-Governor Horatio Seymour, of Utica, and at the time of the purchase, president of a

215. History of Ingham and Eaton Counties, 211.

216. Ibid., 205.

217. Mich. Hist. Colls., I, 190.

218. Blois, Gazetteer, 222; Cowles' Lansing and Ingham County, p. 34, mentions Vandercook's Past and Present Life of Mason.

219. Session Laws (1835-1836), 79, and (1837), 35, 41. ·

220. Mich. Legislative Manual (1838), 71.

221. The area of Stockbridge was that of a surveyed township

from its organization in 1836, when it could have had but a small population. It was obviously not necessary to make it larger, since only the untenanted forest extended about it. Session Laws (1835-36), 79.

bank at Rochester. 222 The representative of the Monroe Company who became the first promoter of Mason seems to have come from Orange County, New York.223 The township of Lansing is believed to have been named for the Lansing in what was then Tompson County, New York.224

Clinton County, which lay at the north on the outskirts of the Grand and Saginaw Valleys had about half as many settlers in 1837 as either of the counties. immediately west of it.225 Either of the counties south of it had a population considerably more than one-half larger. This population was distributed in two equal townships whose longer axes extended north and south,227 but the lines of natural association of settlements apparently did not extend in that direction; they extended east and west—at the south, along the Lookingglass River and at the north, on the Maple River. In the interior between these two lines there does not seem to have been many settlers until very much later than 1837.228 There had been a goodly amount 222. History of Ingham and Eaton Counties, 122. 223. Michigan Biographies, 216.

224. Cowles, Lansing and Ingham County, 113, 115. For a list of the first settlers of the townships of the county see Mich. Hist. Colls., VI, 283; XII, 393; XVII, 633; XXVI, 643-644:

225. Shiawassee, population 1,184

Ionia,

Eaton,

Ingham,

Clinton,

1,028

Michigan Legislative Man

ual (1838), 75-76.

227. Session Laws (1837), 140. The townships were Dewitt and

Watertown.

228. It is significant that the next subdivision took place in the western half of the county, and in a way to separate the northern from the southern settlements. Session Laws (1837-38), 83.

of land purchased, as is shown by the Tract Book; but the bulk of these purchases appear to have been for speculation. The county appears to have been generally less settled than many other counties where the same quantity of public land was sold. Blois 229 mentions no villages in the county. There appear, however, to have been a number of nuclei of settlement forming in 1837 which were to develop village life, and there were a number of "paper towns" at promising power sites on the Lookingglass and Maple rivers, principally at Dewitt in the south and in what was to become Duplain Township in the northeast.

Speculative enterprizes in the county began on a large scale in 1836. Land was first bought in the south along both sides of the Lookingglass River. A specially favored spot on this river was at its junction with Prairie River, crossed by an Indian trail leading from Pontiac to the lower Grand River, which it was thought might develop into a highway of trade and travel. The landscape is said to have possessed great beauty and the soil and timber to have been excellent. Water power in abundance was at hand to develop these resources. In 1836 a cluster of villages began there, platted mainly by New York parties as the names would suggest (Dewitt, Middletown, New Albany) and the usual means were adopted to attract settlers; among others the streets were named from principal eastern cities. Notwithstanding the promising outlook the financial crisis presently reduced these embryo villages all to the same plane; a few years later 229. Gazetteer, 218.