Settlers....Pioneers
of Shiawassee County Michigan

Evidence of prehistoric habitation in the county was found in 1947 when a farmer unearthed three enormous teeth. These were identified as Mastadon teeth. Other archaeological findings indicate that man inhabited the Shiawassee area over 2,000 years ago. Sometime before 1790, Chippewa Indians settled here after driving the Sauks from the region. The Shiawassee River became a canoeing route for Indians traveling to the Saginaw River, many of whom were heading north to hunt and trap. The county is named for this principal river, thought to be an Indian word, the story goes that early settlers met a band of Indians and asked them where their camp was and they replied something that sounded like "shia-wah-see" meaning "down the river straight ahead".

A fur trader named Henry Bolieu set up a temporary trading post on the Shiawassee River around 1816. A few years later an Indian reservation was created in Shiawassee County, with Whitmore Knaggs appointed by the U.S. government as an Indian agent. He built a trading post at the present-day site of Knaggs Bridge, which has been officially recognized as the first white settlement in the county.

A great influx of immigrants came in 1836, with settlements beginning on the Shiawassee River and gradually spreading throughout the county. Many of these early pioneers were subsistence farmers who grew wheat and potatoes and raised cattle and sheep.

Today, Shiawassee remains a prominent agricultural county with over 2,000 farms producing soybeans, beans, oats, winter wheat, corn for grain, hay, peppermint, dairy herds and poultry. Manufacturing concerns are diversified, including a 100 year old brick plant at Corunna, one of few in the state. There are a few other factories and retail establishments who can boast "over 100 years in business" in the county such as Wolverine Sign Works and Woodard Furniture Company.

Shiawassee was first recognized as a separate county when Lewis Cass found it expedient to grant that status on September 10, 1822. At that time Shiawassee included parts of Ingham and Genesee counties. On March 23, 1836 Shiawassee County's boundaries were changed and organized into one township, with Hosie Baker the first Supervisor. The county seat was moved from Byron to Corunna, which then consisted of only one log cabin, located a mile from the nearest Indian trail.

At the first election, which was held at Baker's in Newburg, the following were elected:

Until the first court house was completed in 1839 in the County Seat Square, the body politic met at the Old Exchange, Shiawasseetown, Corunna and Newburg. The 20' X 36' court house, constructed by Stephen Hawkins for $345.00, proved to be too small from the beginning, and rooms had to be rented for the courts. A brick court house was built in 1851 and, with two additions, served the county until the present structure was completed after the turn of the century.

Just two centuries ago Shiawassee County, then the wilderness home of the Indian, became a part of Canada under the Quebec Act of Parliament (1774). Prior to that this land belonged to a vastness owned by France. Under the treaty of Paris (1783), which ended the American Revolution, Shiawassee County became legally part of the United States. In actuality, the British Forts still controlled Michigan.

With the signing of Jay's Treaty (1795), Shiawassee became part of Wayne County and the Northwest Territory.

Shiawassee County was at various times home to the Algonquin speaking peoples, Ojibway-Chippewa, Ottawa, Sauk, Pottowatomi, Shiawassee and Fisher Indian tribes. Their principal villages were located near Chesaning, Owosso, Shiawasseetown, Knaggs Bridge area, Laingsburg and on the Looking-Glass river in Antrim township.

Narrow Indians trails criss-cross the county, all eventually leading to Shiawassee's two most important places: Ketchewaudaugonink and Shigemoskin.

When white settlers came in loaded with supplies on pack horses, they began to widen the paths made by the Indians. Next came oxen drawn wagons that needed even wider roads.

Many of our major roads today are built on or next to old Indian trails. I-96, which runs from what is now Detroit to Grand Rapids, follows alongside the Great Sauk Trail. This route was used centuries before the discovery of America.

The Settlers

The settlers began to fan out into Michigan. In our area the Beaubein, Knaggs and Godfoy families of Detroit came to Ketchewaudaugonick as traders, to open an inn for travelers, to operate a school for the Indians and to meet other conditions of the Treaty of 1819. Whitmore Knaggs was at the signing of that Treaty and served as deputy interpreter for the United States. He later started a trading post near Knaggs Bridge.

Over 160 years ago Josiah Begole wrote this about Ketchewaudaugonink:

"I arrived in Shiawassee County in the late afternoon, just before dark. I was greeted by the hundreds of Indian camp-fires that were burning along the river for over a mile. John Knaggs, son of Whitmore, was in charge of the store....(he) gave me a hearty welcome and a place to sleep."

Henry Bolieu, a French voyageur, came from Mackinaw to open a trading post at Owosso. He was called Kasegins by the Indians because he wore leather stockings. The voyageur brought his Indian wife and their daughter, Angelique, was born and raised in the log cabin at Knaggs Crossing. Bolieu built his log home with an elaborate French chimney, an ostentatious landmark for the anxious traveler.

Alfred and Benjamin Williams, brothers from Oakland County, opened a trading post at the edge of Ketchewaudaugonink, which by the time of their arrival in 1831 had been surveyed by Sylvestor Sibley and designated as a 3,000 acre Indian reservation. Their post was called the Old Exchange and it's first business was trading pelts with the Indians as agents for Jacob Astor's American Fur Traders Company. Without the kindness and efficientcy of these men, the pioneers probably would not have survived their first winter in the wilds of Shiawassee county.

The Indians at this time had, for the most part, become good neighbors. If the settlers were friendly, so too was the red man. During the Byron massacre, the Indians surrounded the home of a settler who had cared for an injured Indian. The family was not permitted to leave their log house, nor were they hurt. The rest of the settlement did not fare as well. Stories are told of kindness shown to a settler's family while he was away on business. Such a trip could last more than a month if rain washed out the trail.

PIONEERS

Shiawassee County 150 Years Ago was a wilderness with just a few cabins and a trading post at the Old Exchange. The only roads were narrow paths which wound through the forests.

When Hosea Baker was elected this county's first Supervisor in 1836, he found himself responsible for about seventy-five families, almost all of whom had settled along the Shiawassee and Looking-Glass rivers. The farther you lived from a river, the farther you had to carry water. Also the river was used for traveling in those early days and for fishing. So why live several miles away?

Most of Shiawassee's early settlers were natives of New York, though a few gave Massachusetts, Vermont, Ireland and Scotland as their place of birth. Michigan had the largest percentage increase in population of any state or territory in this country in 1836. A few pioneers bought land here by studying land surveys in Detroit and then walking here to find out what they bought. Many had come from developed towns and cities, only to find wilderness and now had to adapt to a new way of life.

Obed Hathaway came to Middlebury township with his wife, children and all his earthly goods loaded in a lumber wagon drawn by oxen. He followed the Grand river trail to Blood's Tavern and then a trail to Leach's trading post. Here he hired Henry Leach to blaze a path to his land in the "howling wilderness." The family lived in the wagon for four weeks, until the cabin was finished. That summer the Hathaways raised carrots, rutabagas and potatoes, which were stored for the following spring when they would come back to their home in the forest. The winter was spent with their relatives in Washtenaw county. When they returned, they found everything stolen and had to start over again.

The early pioneers brought seeds, medicinals, carpenter tools, shoemaker kits, dishes, needles, books, a bible, an iron kettle or two and other household supplies. Farm implements, crude but strong by today's standards, were tucked into the wagons. The saw, axe and shovel were frequently used along the trail. A span of horses and a team of oxen were necessary and the fortunate family had a cow, afew pigs and best of all, chickens. These had to be put into a safe crate at night and not let out to wander too far during the day.

Those who came prepared suffered the least. And the Indian, who came without a wagon, for he had contempt for the wheel, could survive here comfortably, while the pioneers looked out in the vast fields of wild artichokes and starved.