This second of a series of notes on farms and the names given them, will be concerned with the Ernest M. Crippen Farm, Springdale Farm. Located just north of the Charles Jacobs farm, which was described last month, it was also on Ore Creek.

Ernest, the youngest son of Ansel and Marilla Crippen, was born on April 14, 1842 in the family home on Hacker Road, 1/8 mile north of Grand River. His parents had settled in that SW ¼ of Section 18 in Brighton Township a few years earlier. By the time he reached maturity he had served in the Civil War – 9th Michigan Volunteers, Co. I. Ernie married Helen Luce July 4, 1870. They farmed there until moving into Brighton in 1904. Earnest Crippen died in Brighton March 15, 1920. Helen died in 1912.

How might the farm have acquired the name Springdale Farm? The barn was located at the top of a steep hill above Ore Creek. A small shallow pond (locally called Moss Lake) lay just north. One night, during an unusually heavy rainfall, an enormous gully was formed in the hill below the barn. The next day a large spring was discovered flowing from the gully. This spring, undoubtedly, was the source of Moss Lake. The lake’s water level was greatly lowered and never resumed its former size. The spring ran strongly for years providing an abundant supply of water for the live stock and for cooling cans of milk in preparation for shipment to the dairy for bottling. The dam on Ore Creek, which formed Woodland Lake, has obliterated all evidence of the spring.

At that time, Grand River continued north on Hacker Road making a sharp left turn at Bendix to skirt a large hill before continuing west toward Howell. More research is necessary to determine when the cut was made through the hill providing an easy curve instead of the original sharp turn.

During the ‘30s, perhaps earlier, Crippen’s barn became a clubhouse for a real estate venture. High school proms and other parties were held there. The barn is believed to have burned in the mid 1950s. The house still stands.

Ore Creek now quietly flows under 1-96, under Grand River (south of Cross Street) and into Brighton’s downtown where another dam forms the Mill Pond.

Compiled from Bill Pless memories, Mrs. Myron West’s scrapbook, 1915 Livingston County Atlas. Marieanna Bair.

The Crippen saga continues. When Ansel and Marilla (Paddock) Crippen came to Brighton Township from Penfield, New York in 1835, they brought with them two sons; Millard Fillmore (1832) and Henry L. (1835). Isaac (1837), Harrison (1839), Ernest (1842) and Emma (1844) later joined the growing family in the Crippen home on Hacker Road. (Take a look when you drive by.)

Hiram Paddock (perhaps a brother of Marilla) with his family, had joined the Crippens on their move to this wild land in the west. Often, when coming to the unsettled, unpeopled lands of woods and swamps, with wolves and bears as neighbors, several families would unite to make the trip. Can one imagine the courage needed to make this venture? With the nearest merchant many miles away everything a family needed had to be brought along in the wagons.

In the 1859 Atlas Hiram Paddock’s name is on property just south of Hacker Road on both sides of the Grand River Trail (a trail in every sense of the word at that time.) This old Indian Trail, from Detroit to the wilderness, lay along the property selected by members of these two families when they arrived. (by 1859, John Paddock had 120 acres in Sec. 11, Marion Township, south of Howell; Richard had 40 acres in Sec. 15, Brighton Township (in Pleasant Valley).

By 1875 Henry L. Crippen had purchased 40 acres on the west side of the Trail, in Genoa Township, from Hiram Paddock. It was this piece, later owned by Henry’s son, Ben and his wife Georgia, where a house was built and they farmed Oak Ridge Farm. Any oaks there now?

When Henry L. bought this piece the Trail was a toll road and had been planked for a more dependable thoroughfare for travelers and freight. However, the completion of the railroad between Detroit and Lansing greatly reduced these needs. It must be remembered this was now the main road between Detroit and the State Capitol.

At the time when Ben farmed, c. 1900, the toll had been removed and most of the planks replaced with gravel. It would be 1924 before M16 became a hard surfaced road. The 1915 Atlas indicates Ben owned land south from Oak Ridge Farm to Challis Road.

Compiled from Milt Charboneau’s collections of obituaries, 1880 history of Livingston County, Atlases and Norman Catrell’s genealogical records. Marieanna Bair.