Emerging from Wilderness: Formation and First Settlement of Pittsfield Township, Michigan (Footprints in Time Series: History and Historical Locations of Pittsfield Township, Michigan)

Pittsfield Township, long the home of native peoples, also has been part of land claimed, fought over, and governed by a succession of countries, colonies, provinces, territories, states, counties and townships. The boundaries of Pittsfield Township were surveyed in 1815, and the 36 square mile sub-divisions (sections) were surveyed by Joseph Wampler in 1819. The first land in Pittsfield Township was acquired from the General Land Office in Detroit during May 1824, and the first two log cabins were under construction in June – at a time when there were only two log cabins being constructed in Ann Arbor and a year before Ypsilanti was established. . (Only Woodruff’s Grove had been established east of the Huron River and south of Michigan Avenue in 1823.) The first two log cabins in Pittsfield Township were erected by Ezra Maynard (northwest of todays’ Packard and Platt Roads) and Oliver Whitmore (southeast of Packard and Platt). These families had long connections, dating back to Conway, Massachusetts in the aftermath of the French and Indian War. The community they helped form here became known as Mallett’s Creek Settlement, and most residents coming in 1824 and 1825 established farms within two miles of the Packard and Platt intersection. Here they constructed the first school in Washtenaw County. And for the collective security of the expanding community, they formed the Pittsfield Rifles Militia. This book explores the evolving ownership and governance of this land and establishment of the first community near Packard and Platt Roads, as Pittsfield Township literally was Emerging from Wilderness.