The Nankin Township Historical Society

Detroit Free Press , August 18, 1897 As stated previously, if Elizabeth Soop was a witch she practiced in her spare time. Her day job for many years likely consisted in aiding her husband and family in their many business enterprises from the Hawkins House in Ypsilanti during the Civil War, to his dining Hall on Washington Avenue to the Cass Avenue Hotel venture which he retired from in 1895. Detroit Free Press , September 5, 1897 Mrs. Soop and her daughter-in-law launched the Imperial Cafe in the summer of 1897 at 214 Griswold Street. I couldn't fi nd much on the enterprise though there were several other Imperial Cafes in the area during this time, as well as before and after. All seemingly on Cass Avenue and at various addresses. Whether they were related or not is inconsequential though it's doubtful that they were a franchise. Detroit Free Press , December 24, 1899 I still haven't found any incidents of seances or black magic rituals by Mrs. Soop. Maybe she only be...

What does the grave of Elizabeth Soop have to do with the Eisenlord House in Detroit? I'll fill you in as inertia allows. Much of what I research is absolutely happenstance meanderings that have no pattern. This entire several hour gleaning began with a simple search for Rawsonville after similar searches for "Eloise", "Catville" and others failed to bring up anything.    The Northville Record , October 18, 1889 Up popped the brief snippet of Soop Cemetery being located in Rawsonville from The Northville Record from 1889. A nothing mention which conjures up the mysterons of the internet who chase hobgoblins in the wind and whose flitting intellects necessitated me to start my own groups to get away from them. While I love the ideal of haunted locations and believe that I have had so-called paranormal experiences I also think that they have more to do with psychological reactions to locations and not free-wheeling entities known as ghosts. Anyhow, Elizabeth Soop...

From what I can deduce of scant second hand info floating about the internet, feather parties originated in the 1920s in the Eastside Detroit Polish community. This was at the peak of the city's immigrant influx when most churches were often teemed with parishioners and the Archdioses couldn't erect the next structure quick enough to meet the needs and demands of the new arrivals. Since many were poor and culturally inhibited by the customs of their new country, which they earnestly tried to assimilate into, and often couldn't afford the lavish American holiday dinners, the churches held live turkey raffles to ease their burden, hence the "feather party" was born. Along with the king fowl they raffled off some ducks, geese, chickens, rabbits, and even small pigs as well. For an excellent blog post concerning the first feather party check out Creative Gene . As for this party sponsored by the Huron River Post of the Ladies Auxiliary VFW, along with Philips Super Se...

Detroit News ?, June, 1940 What's outside the purview of Nankin? Not Belleville or any municipality touching the border of a border town of Nankin or the township which formed from its original fracturing. So basically Wayne County and then some. Since I don't really know anything about Belleville I'll let the article concerning the origins of some main roads and streets to this newspaper article from 1940. Which I believe was from The Detroit News but definitely came in a packet of paper ephemera from a Dearborn estate sale several years ago. Some of the street, family and other names and entities mentioned in the article include Liberty Street, Main Street, Church Street, Charles Street, Henry Davis, William Brain, Henry Street, Davis Street, Savage Road, Huron River Drive, Wayne County Road Commission, Clark-Diggs Road, Columbia Avenue, Sustera Lake, River Road.

This photo of the Milatz family east of Rawsonville, MI was taken on May 30, 1917. Rawsonville is a defunct town that mainly lies beneath Belleville Lake and the eastern portion of Van Buren Township. I don't know the geography of that area that well but I would assume that the body of water in the background is the Huron River.