The Nankin Township Historical Society

Detroit Free Press , May 24, 1893 I almost gave up on my many Romulus searches based solely upon it not being Nankin specific and had I done so would have missed out on this very important article concerning a place which is meaningful to many of us, William Ganong Cemetery. During a tornado outbreak on May 23, 1893 the farm of Frederick Kugath was hit by a heavy windstorm and he was struck by a board blown from one of the buildings and died from his injuries. Also damaged was the early skeleton of the newly built Henry Sustedt Furniture store Weston Building which was completely destroyed though eventually rebuilt. The barn of S. R. Kingsley was blown from its foundation with windows blown out and fruit and forest trees damaged. Other locations hit with damage were Dexter, which was slammed by a tornado, Howell, Ypsilanti, Jackson, Holly, Fenton, Benton Harbor, Lapeer, Adrian and Rogers City.

Plymouth Mail , May 17, 1907 Death was in the familial framework of Newburg in the May 17, 1907 edition of the Plymouth Mail . The most prominent one belonging to Emma Smith Knickerbocker who passed way at the age of 55 and was buried in Newburg Cemetery. The Rev. W. G. Stephens eulogized her, reading from John:14:18, "I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you." Other names mentioned are Mrs. William King, Mrs. Alan Gier, Mrs. Sarah Royal, Mrs. Walter LeVan, Mrs. James LeVan, Harry Bassett, Mrs. Reuben Barnes and Glenn Smith.

There'll be some jumping around here because that's what I do. This photo of Earl Trinkhaus by photographer Edwin P. Baker of Plymouth is currently available on eBay for $150. It's a great photo but...a little too rich for my tastes. I could only find incidental mentions of Trinkhaus in the newspapers but am told that he was a carpenter who lived in Northville and is buried at Riverside Cemetery. Baker was a longtime photographer in the village having worked there most of his 60 years in the profession. He died at the residence of his granddaughter Mrs. C. H. Rauch in P lymouth. He was married to Marie Marshall in 1853 and they had two children. All three preceded him in death. He is buried in Riverside Cemetery. The Plymouth Mail , November 19, 1915 As is Ephraim Partridge, who I assume had a much more eventful life than having been the father-in-law of Laura Ruppert Partridge , the schoolteacher who went insane and drowned herself in the lake at Eloise. Mr. Partridge...

Yes, Ypsilanti is outside the periphery of Nankin Township but being where it is in proximity to the general area of said place it has many ties to the community. As such, anytime I have an opportunity to pick up relics from the town I will do so and feature them here. I've had such opportunities numerous times in the past year and took full advantage of the fact. I don't know the campus of Eastern Michigan University very well and it's probably a hate crime to post these vintage photographs of EMU coeds "misappropriating the heritage" of the Huron Indian tribe but I would assume that they were just having fun, somehow, in the age before cell phones. I don't recognize the buildings and those who attend the campus and would have knowledge of such claim none. So until somebody happens upon this with pertinent information we're stuck assuming that these are former buildings of the Eastern Michigan University campus. The EMU jersey screams the 1970s but that...

Detroit Free Press , July 8, 1934 In the Bible Tubal-Cain, the blacksmith, is said to have been the last surviving member of the race of Cain after the flood and the Supreme Hierophant or High Priest of commerce. Which, in the Masonic tradition, would be laboring to acquire truth and not worldly possessions or so says they. Tubal Cain Owen of Ypsilanti may have just been following in that true path. Except for the fact that he was a millionaire and the well dug (which by the way was 808 feet deep; ironically enough in the Encyclopedia of Freemasonry and Its Kindred Sciences from 1912 the entry for Tubal Cain--a significant name in the Masonic Ritual (skilled craftsman)--appears on pg. 808) on his Ypsilanti property on Forest Avenue was meant as a drinking source, in a city of dark and foul-smelling water, but instead became a mode of commerce for the ambitious man. The Ypsilanti flood came in a crystal clear water reservoir that when exposed to the air turned black but after a few min...

I bought these first two carte de visites, among a lot of nine, from an eBay dealer who apparently purchased them from a Livonia or Plymouth, Michigan estate sale. They have a possible relation to a man named P. Galt Miller. Beyond that they remain unnamed. A short biography of Stephenson along with some example of his other work gleaned from across the internet will follow this next CDV.   "Jerome J. Stephenson was born in 1847 in Michigan. He married Betsy Frazier in 1871 and bought Edwin P. Baker’s studio in 1872. He operated his studio in Ypsilanti until he sold it to Frank P. Ford in 1903. At one point during his operations, for a limited time he offered a free cabinet card photograph to anyone over sixty years of age. It seems like he was a man before his time by being one of the pioneers of  'senior discounts'." "This cabinet card portrait features a young girl intensely staring at the camera in a studio in Ypsilanti, Michigan. The child is wearing a dark...

While national politics lead us away from our lives and towards war, local politics generally fortify us despite the divisions in philosophy, or so we'd like to think. Which is why I've long been enamored with local history over national and global histories. All are important but the local is severely undervalued and largely ignored. "Oh, Ypsi girls are very fine girls, With codfish balls they comb their curls." Gundella's connections to Marcello Truzzi, EMU professor and sc holar, have piqued my interest in Ypsilanti and the university in its many permutations.  While looking for information on the Michigan State Normal College News from the late 1800s I found this interesting spat between coeds from that institution and "Michigan Men" from 1940. An article in the Michigan Daily , a student newspaper, claiming that the girls of Normal College weren't as pretty as they used to be sent a throng of coeds to Angell Hall in a bus to protest the ...

Detroit Free Press , November 3, 1890 Halloween in the latter quarter of the 19th century and the first quarter of the 20th century was more of a mischief-making opportunity than a candy-gathering holiday. Boys and young men were prone to various forms of vandalism and pranks. A favorite past time in college towns was painting the facade of homes and businesses, re-working the painted signage, dislocating fence gates from their post and hanging them elsewhere, upsetting horseblocks and the classic hanging of cab bage heads. A practice which I may revitalize this year with the full knowledge that I'd likely be charge with a hate crime of some sort. Eh, stuff it, cabbage heads! In 1890 Ypsilanti had its share of autumnal revelry. Dr. F. K. Rexford had the front signage of his practiced changed to "Waiting and James" (whatever that means!). While Dr. James Houston (or Heaston?) had "New York" painted on his home front. Others suffering paint jobs were the Lad...

Detroit Free Press , September 15, 1848 I'm not sure why of all the stories that I've come across recently the one about Rawsonville and a Whig party meeting there in 1848 would draw me in but such is the case. Namely because the town is no more and likewise the political party. Furthermore, a Democrat derisively wrote the piece and within it he mocked the two young men from Ypsilanti who made the trek with an old wagon to the meeting on September 2, 1848. Being that these two young speakers, one a son of Dr. P of Ypsilanti and the other a son of Mr. P., were approximately 18 years of age--one had never voted and the other couldn't--the organizer of said meeting called it off and rescheduled for a few days later. On that day only 8 Whigs, including the aforementioned 3, and 18 Democrats showed up. The two young men spoke and at the end the Democrat felt sympathy for the supposed pitiful display of Whiggery.  Two months later Zachary Taylor became the second and final Whig...