ORGANIZATION OF THE TOWN. Previous to 1837 this township was attached to the town of Allen, but in the winter 1836-7 the Legislative council of the Territory (Michigan being a territory then), passed an act authorizing the organization of the town, and appointed Samuel Riblet, who was then a justice of the peace in the town of Allen, to select and qualify an election board, and preside over the first election, and there the town was organized on the first Monday of April, 1837. There were about twenty votes cast at the first election, and nearly every man got an office. NAME. A meeting was notified and held in the winter of 1836, to petition the Legislature for an act of organization, and to select a name. Several names were proposed, among which were Pulaski, Smithfield, Rives and Columbus, all of which were successively voted down but Columbus, which name was sent to the Legislature in the petition, but a small portion of the minority, headed by Henry Stevens, who was a turbulent man and always wanted his own way, got up another petition with the name of Litchfield,—a name that had not been proposed at the meeting,— and Mr. Stevens went with it to Detroit, and by the free use of liquid, and other arrangements, prevailed on the Legislature to adopt that name. ASPECT OF THE COUNTY BEFORE SETTLEMENT. Nothing can exceed the beauty of the plains and openings on the north side of the river, when in its natural state. The fires that had annually swept over the surface had kept down all the under-brush and trimmed the trees to the height of about fifteen feet, above which were large spreading tops. On the surface was a rich carpet of grass, ornamented and intermixed' with a vast profusion of flowers of various colors and fragrance, and strawberries were so plenty that the cows often came home with their feet stained with the juice of that delicious fruit. On the south side of the river, where the fire had not run so much, there was an almost impenetrable thicket of hazel, plum, and thorn bushes interwoven with grape-vines and woodbines; and west of Sand creek is where we got our blackberries. Thus Litchfield has had a steady and solid growth in wealth and agricultural improvements, but never took a very high rank as a commercial center until the completion of the N. C. M. R. R. and the publication of the Ready-Pay Reporter, which called the attention of the public to its peculiar advantages. HOUGHTON COUNTY. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Michigan: SECTION 5. All that portion of the State embraced between the north boundary of township 49, the line between the ranges 37 and 38 west, and Lake Superior, together with the islands in said lake west of the county of Schoolcraft, shall be laid off as a separate county, and be known and distinguished as the county of Houghton. Approved March 19, 1845. Houghton county was named from Douglas Houghton, the talented geologist and first thorough explorer and describer of the mineral wealth of our Upper Peninsula. He came to his death by drowning, in 1845, deeply lamented. Houghton, the county seat, on the south side of Portage lake, was laid out in 1852. It has had for several years past a school house which cost $40,000, and had, in 1873, 600 scholars in attendance. HURON COUNTY. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Michigan: SECTION 32. That portion of the State lying north of the line between towns 14 and 15, northeast of range 8, and of the center of Saginaw bay, and south of the lines between towns 20 and 21 north, extended to the national boundary line in lake Huron, shall be a separate county, to be known and designated as the county of Huron. Approved April 1, 1840. SECTION 1. The People of the State of Michigan enact, That the county of Huron shall be organized, and the inhabitants thereof entitled to all the rights and privileges to which by law the inhabitants of other organized counties of this State are entitled. SEC. 2. The county seat shall be established at a place to be designated by three commissioners. The Governor shall appoint three disinterested persons, non-residents of said county, as commissioners, who shall, before July 1, A. D. 1859, meet at such time and place in said county as he may designate, and after being duly sworn, faithfully and impartially to discharge the duty assigned them, shall examine the several places that may be proposed in said county for the county-seat, and take into consideration all the circumstances, and shall establish the county-seat at such place as a majority of them consider for the best interest of the county. They shall transmit a certificate of the location made of said county-seat to the Governor within ten days thereafter, under their hands and seals, and the Governor shall thereupon cause the same to be recorded in the office of the Secretary of State, and said location shall thereupon be the lawfully established county-seat of the county of Huron; and notice of the same shall be given in a paper published at Lansing, and in a paper in general circulation in said county. Each of said commissioners shall be allowed three dollars per day for every day necessarily employed as aforesaid, and ten cents per mile for each mile's travel by the usual route going to and from said county; which sums shall be paid by the county of Huron. SEC. 3. There shall be elected in November, 1860, upon the day appointed for the general election in the State of Michigan, all the county officers to which, by law, said county is entitled; and the clerk of the township of Sand Beach shall give notice of said election, as required by law to be given by the sheriff in fully organized counties. SEC. 4. The board of canvassers of said county, under this act, shall consist of the presiding inspectors of election from each township therein; and the said inspectors shall meet at the place designated by the commissioners as the county seat, on the first Tuesday after the election, and organize by appointing one of their number chairman and another secretary of this board, and shall thereupon proceed to discharge all the duties of a board of county canvassers, as in other cases of elections for county and State officers. SEC. 5. The sheriff and county clerk elected under the provisions of this act, shall designate a suitable place for holding the circuit court in said county, and suitable places for the several county offices, which shall be as near as the circumstances will admit to the county-seat established under the provisions of this act; and they shall make and subscribe a certificate in writing describing the places thus designated, which certificate shall be filed and preserved by the county clerk. The places thus designated shall be the places of holding the circuit court and the county officers until the board of supervisors provide suitable accommodations for said court and county officers. SEC. 6. The said county of Huron, when organized as aforesaid, shall be attached to the sixth judicial circuit, and the judge of said circuit shall hold courts in said county, as by law in such cases made and provided. SEC. 7. All suits pending in the circuit court of Sanilac or Tuscola counties, at the time this act shall take effect, in which the plaintiff or defendant are residents of the said county of Huron, shall continue in said circuit court as though Huron county had not been organized. SEC. 8. The board of supervisors of said Huron county may employ a suitable person to transcribe the record of deeds and mortgages from the records of Sanilac and Tuscola counties, so far as the same relate to lands in Huron county, which person shall have access to the books in the offices of the register of deeds in said Sanilac and Tuscola counties for that purpose. Such transcribed record shall be taken and received in all cases and have the same legal effect as the original record. SEC. 9. The county officers of the counties of Sanilac and Tuscola shall continue to perform all the duties appertaining to the said county of Huron, in the same manner as though this act had not passed, until the county officers provided for in this act shall have been elected and qualified. HURON-a tribe of Indians, also called Wyandots. They were dispersed by the Iroquois in 1649. A fragment of the Hurons settled at Detroit in 1680. The phrase "Quelles hures" (what heads) was applied by an astonished French traveler to the Wyandots on seeing their fantastic mode of dressing the hair. From hures was derived Huron. County seat, Bad Axe. The county offices were removed to this place in 1873. INGHAM COUNTY. Be it enacted by the Legislative Council of the Territory of Michigan: SEC. 2. That so much of the country as is included within the following limits, viz.: north of the base line, and south of the line between townships four and five north of the base line, and east of the line between ranges two and three west of the principal meridian, and west of the line between ranges two and three east of the meridian, be and the same is hereby set off into a separate county, and the name thereof shall be Ingham. Approved October 29, 1829. SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Michigan, That the county of Ingham be and the same is hereby organized, and the inhabitants thereof entitled to all the rights and privileges to which by law the other counties of this State are entitled. SEC. 2. All suits, prosecutions, and other matters now pending before any court, or before any justice of the peace of Jackson county, to which the said county of Ingham is now attached for judicial purposes, shall be prosecuted to final judgment and execution; and all taxes heretofore levied shall be collected in the same manner as though this act had not passed. SEC. 3. The circuit court for the county of Ingham shall be held on the first Tuesdays of June and November in each year; and until convenient buildings be erected at the county seat, at such place in said county as the supervisors of commissioners thereof shall direct. SEC. 4. There shall be elected in the said county of Ingham, on the first Monday of June next, all the several county officers to which by law the said county of Ingham is entitled, and whose terms of office shall severally expire on the 31st day of December next ensuing, and said election shall in all respects be conducted and held in the manner prescribed by law for holding elections for county and State officers. SEC. 5. The board of county canvassers under this act shall consist of one of the presiding inspectors of said election from each township; and said board shall meet at the dwelling-house nearest the county seat of said county, on the Thursday next after said election, at or before three o'clock P. M. of said day, and organize by the appointment of one of their number chairman and another secretary of said board; and thereupon proceed to calculate and ascertain the whole number of votes given at such election for any individual for either of said offices, and shall set down the names of the several persons so voted for, and the number of votes given to each for either of said offices in said county, in words at full length, and certify the same to be a true canvass of the votes given at such election in said county, and that the person receiving the highest number of votes for either of said offices is duly elected to said office; which certificate shall be signed by the chairman and secretary, and delivered to the clerk of said county, to be filed in his office. SEC. 6. This act shall be in force and take effect on and after the first Monday of June next. Approved April 5, 1838. INGHAM COUNTY.-Named from Sam'l D. Ingham, Secretary of the Treasury in Jackson's cabinet from 1829 to 1831. The seat of justice for the county is at Mason, settled in 1838, and became an incorporated village in 1865. |