By the mid 1850s many of the settlers coming to the area had immigrated from Germany. Among these were carpenter/farmer Henry Becker, born 1831 and his wife Margaret and John, a farmer, born 1834. It will be assumed they are brothers since they have the same town of origin, Willofs and came to the United […]
It was 1841 when George E. Pless grandfather, Henry Andrew (Frederich Heinrich Andreas) Pless purchased 240 semi improved (somewhat cleared) acres on the Grand River Indian Trail, west of Brighton in Genoa Township. (Section 11, SW NW ¼, north of Hughes Rd.; sec. 12, E ½ SW ¼, Euler Rd.; Sect. 13, W ½ NW […]
John Sutherlands grandparents, Col. Castle and Nancy Ann, were both born in New York in the last decade of the 18th Century. His father, Solomon, was the youngest of 11 children. By 1828 Castle and Nancy Ann were in Washtenaw County in Ann Arbor and Scio, where Solomon was born, 1833. By 1834 Castle owned […]
A Brighton native and resident for seventy-eight years, Persis Cook died Tuesday, October 4, 1983, in Clearwater, Florida, where she had been living since retiring from her second teaching career in 1968. She was 93 years old.
Henry Maltby’s Oakwood stock farm has its origin in the very early days of the settling of Brighton, Genoa and Green Oak Townships. His father, Almon and Uncle Maynard (both teachers) were among the first to take up land in these townships. Born in New York, they came to the area in 1832. Within two […]
A newspaper clipping (c 1900) contains a list of 41 farms, almost all in Brighton Township. From that list & research on background of these farms should show what life was like at that time. The Lamart Hicks Farm on Skeman Road is the subject of this issue.
Henrys father, Jacob, came to the U.S. in 1832, with brothers Phillip and Charles and sister, Mary Magdelene as very young children. Their parents, Charles C. and Maria Catherine Nadig came by sailing vessel, an ordeal of which our imagination is incapable. In the early 1830s German immigrants constituted a major portion of the stream […]
Of the early settlers to the Brighton Area, many were of a moral caliber, which assumed a responsibility to the community and the young state. Among them was John Gilluly, son of Irish-born parents, Thomas and Ann. John was born in Massachusetts. Research indicates John taught in the Brighton School District in 1845, 46,57, 59. […]
When husband William Henry died at 48 in 1835, it may be assumed his mercantile business in Hamburg, Germany, was sold. Perhaps the proceeds enabled Henrietta to bring her family to America. She and the children, William H. (21), Emma (15), Edward G. (11) and Charles E. (8) spent 10 weeks crossing the briney deep.
