The Historic Townships of Detroit

[Dexlin]

I've done some searching through the archives concerning the boundaries of the city of Detroit over the years before it ceased annexing in 1925-1926. But, a few questions remaing that I didn't find an answer to and I was hoping that you guys could help further, specifically of the historic townships east of Woodward in Wayne County.

1. Does anyone have a map showing the boundaries of the townships east of Woodward around the turn of the century? What I'm looking for in particular is either a map or a description of where the boundaries of Hamtramck, Gratiot, and Grosse Pointe townships met.

2. Related to that, I know that Detroit eventually ate up all of Hamtramck Township save for the part that incorporated as the city of Hamtramck, but not knowing the eastern borders of the township, my question is if Detroit ever ended up annexing any parts of Grosse Pointe and Gratiot Townships, or are all of the areas that made up those two townships currently in the Pointes and Harper Woods?

3. Was Grosse Pointe Woods [[first incorporated as the Village of Lochmoor) incorporated from Gratiot or Grosse Pointe Township?

[Hermod]

Townships are squares with six miles to a side. Eight mile road is the "baseline" for Michigan. Come south six miles from 8 Mile Road to the southern boundary of the northern tier of townships in Wayne County. That will be Joy Road. Come across Joy Road in a straight east-west line to get the southern boundary of the township tier. I believe that the north-south township boundaries are as follows: Haggerty Road, Inkster Road, Greenfield, Dequindre [[extended south into Wayne County), and Hayes. Subtract from the old townships any land annexed by Detroit as of that date.

[animatedmartian]

All of Wayne County in 1916. Hope this helps.

http://www.historicmapworks.com/Map/...uide/Michigan/

[Blueidone]

Looking at that map, the townships in the upper left corner certainly weren't six miles on a side. I don't think anything in this area followed the "rules"

[DetroitPlanner]

Six by six is a typical township. There are not typical townships in areas around lakes or in areas plated under pre-Jeffersonian State-Plain systems. Around Michigan that means french ribbon farms. Therefore the earliest settled areas around the lakes do not conform. You see this particularly along the Detroit River and in Monroe.

The township my cottage is in is enormous. It is about 80 square miles, or more than two typical townships in size.

[Dexlin]

All of Wayne County in 1916. Hope this helps.

http://www.historicmapworks.com/Map/...uide/Michigan/

Thanks. This is exactly why I asked the question, because the townships can get quite irregular when you get near the lakes, and particularly taking into account Detroit's old ribbon farm layout. I knew particularly once you got east of Greenfield Township things would start to get crazy given the existing borders of the Pointes.

Looks like a line down Hoover used to be the border between Hamtramck and Gratiot Townships until you got to Outer Drive [[or is that Harper?), then it went down McClellan until Mack, and then the border looks to go east along either Charelvoix or Vernor, but I can't really tell.

Looks like Harper Woods and Grosse Pointe Woods were entirely carved out of Gratiot Township.

It also looks like Tireman, as opposed to Joy, used to be the southern border of Greenfield on the westside, but the border jumpes back up to Joy when you get to Redford.

BTW, can anyone tell the streets that intersect at the settlement of North Detroit on the upper eastside? Never knew about the old settlement up that way. Looks like maybe 6 Mile and Van Dyke, or 6 Mile and Mound?

[Brock7]

Wayne County 1905 > Gratiot and Grossepointe
I can't make out where the borders are, but I have a slow connection and haven't scanned it carefully.

Wayne County 1905 > Townships and Cities

[animatedmartian]

Thanks. This is exactly why I asked the question, because the townships can get quite irregular when you get near the lakes, and particularly taking into account Detroit's old ribbon farm layout. I knew particularly once you got east of Greenfield Township things would start to get crazy given the existing borders of the Pointes.

Looks like a line down Hoover used to be the border between Hamtramck and Gratiot Townships until you got to Outer Drive [[or is that Harper?), then it went down McClellan until Mack, and then the border looks to go east along either Charelvoix or Vernor, but I can't really tell.

This is going back in time but...

http://www.historicmapworks.com/Map/...ake+St++Clair/

It looks like it does follow Hoover but then it zig-zags once it gets to the ribbon farms. It really was a mess when you got to where the farms and the grid met. The only part that isn't there today is where it breaks south off Conner before Gratiot. That's where city airport was built. Whoops, just noticed you can overlay the map.

But then if Grosse Pointe was all one township, how/why did they split into Gratiot and Grosse Pointe? I'm not familiar with township laws.

Looks like Harper Woods and Grosse Pointe Woods were entirely carved out of Gratiot Township.

Detroit looks like they could have completely annexed all of Gratiot Township to Mack but they didn't get the chunk north of Moross and east of Kelly [[where Harper Woods is). Interestingly, this map shows when it was still Gratiot Township before incorporating into Harper Woods. Except wikipedia says it happened in 1951. The map is dated 1955.

http://www.historicmapworks.com/Map/.../Wayne+County/

BTW, can anyone tell the streets that intersect at the settlement of North Detroit on the upper eastside? Never knew about the old settlement up that way. Looks like maybe 6 Mile and Van Dyke, or 6 Mile and Mound?[

The diagonal road that comes up from Highland Park is Davison. The other crossroads should definitely be 6 mile and Mound.

[Brock7]

http://www.detroityes.com/mb/showthr...066#post139066
Another interesting old neighborhood is Norris Town founded by Philetus W. Norris. It is at Mt Eliot & E Nevada [[4 blocks east of Mound between 6 & 7 mile road).

Wayne County 1905 > North Detroit

[Hamtragedy]

Since brock7 identified NorrisTown, was there ever a village of Fairview, near the area of Fairview St near Mack , roughly where Southeastern High School is?

[English]

What a fascinating thread. So when did most of the ribbon farms disappear?

[Novine]

There was a HOF ribbon farm thread on DY but it may have been on the old site. I believe there were remnant farms in the Pointes up until the 1900s but there are experts on these farms who can better answer that.

[gazhekwe]

Townships all have borders in six mile increments from the east-west baseline and the north-south prime meridian. Those on the water may be differently shaped due to the water, but the borders are still in the same six mile increments. The Baseline is good old Eight Mile, aka Baseline Road. The Prime Meridian starts on the St. Mary's River in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan [[there is a marker), and runs straight down through Jackson to the state line. In some places you can see roads following it, named Meridian Road, usually. Townships have official names like T1W, R1S, which indicates the first township west of Meridian and South of Baseline.

Township governments today are affected by the annexation of lots of land by cities and villages. Royal Oak Township, for instance, comprises the remaining unannexed land of RO Twp, but occupies only a tiny area. RO Twp as a geographic feature still includes the land from Greenfield to Dequindre, Eight Mile to 14 Mile.

[English]

Novine: was this it? http://atdetroit.net/forum/messages/...tml?1180288955

[Sandhouse]

Remember that surveyors' townships [[6-mile squares identified by town and range) are different from civil townships, which are units of government that may be any shape, as dictated by natural features, political disputes, or, in northern Michigan, lack of enough people to support a government. Some civil townships in the U.P. are many hundreds of square miles, containing 6 or 8 nominal townships. Along the Detroit and St. Clair Rivers, the civil townships include the long-lot farms.

As to when did the French farms go away - they never will. Just look at a street map.

[Brock7]

Since brock7 identified NorrisTown, was there ever a village of Fairview, near the area of Fairview St near Mack , roughly where Southeastern High School is?

Wayne County 1905 > Fair View Village

[Brock7]

In northeast Detroit platting land into subdivisions happened from the early 1890's through the early 1930's. This 1936 map shows ribbon farmlands in Harper Woods that don't appear to have been turned into residential subdivisions by that time. In the early sixties there was a farmhouse with a barn and a horse remaining from the farm that Eastland was built on.

[animatedmartian]

What a fascinating thread. So when did most of the ribbon farms disappear?

Primarily during WWII and shortly after, I'd say. It also depends on which town you're looking at. I was surprised to see that while Detroit had already fully developed all the way to 8 mile, parts of Grosse Pointe Farms and Harper Woods were still farmlands up until 1956 as development came at a slower pace than within Detroit.

http://www.clas.wayne.edu/photos/ap_index.htm#detroit


I assume the last ribbon farms within Detroit city limits were developed once they were annexed by Detroit. There's a farm house on Cadieux across the street from Finney High School that's dated 1883 that has managed to survive modern development.

http://g.co/maps/3jm7f

[English]

Thanks. Surprised to see that house in such good condition, all things considered.

[Danny]

3. Was Grosse Pointe Woods [[first incorporated as the Village of Lochmoor) incorporated from Gratiot or Grosse Pointe Township?

Up to the early 1900s, Gratiot TWP. used to be part of Grosse Pointe TWP. When Detroit annex parts of Grosse Pointe after 1920. Grosse Pointe TWP. was downsized from Mack Ave. Harper St to E.8 Mile Rd. to Lake St. Clair. Then by 1927 Detroit annexed more parts of Grosse Pointe TWP. Then Grosse Pointe TWP. decided to break away parts of its TWP. from Harper Rd. and E. 8 Mile Rd. to Kelly and Moross Rd. and became Gratiot TWP. Folks who live at the upper northeast corner of Grosse Pointe TWP. decided to break away and form Lockmoor. By the 1950s to prevent Detroit from annexing what's left of Gratiot TWP. residents rushed to vote turning Gratiot TWP to Harper Woods. It's was named after Walter Harper who was the founder of Harper Hospital in Detroit.

[Novine]

English: I believe that's it. There may be others on the old site.

One thing that some people are forgetting is that the ribbon farms predate the Township system of subdividing land. The baseline and the 6 square mile townships were a product of the Northwest Ordinance, which was passed in 1787. Detroit was founded in 1701. Between the founding of Detroit and the surveying of townships in Michigan, which didn't start until 1815, there was over 100 years of land ownership and land grants which took place before the township system of was put in place. When those township lines were finally drawn, they had to take into account the existing land ownership in the area, not only in Detroit but all along the Detroit River and south into Monroe. You won't find the squared township lines in Detroit and other areas along the river due to this fact.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_Survey

[gazhekwe]

The surveyors were not swayed by property lines. Property can reside on both sides of the line. There are towns that straddle county lines, too, as we have been reading here. So, the surveyed townships do not zig and zag along pre-existing property lines.

[MikeM]

1. Does anyone have a map showing the boundaries of the townships east of Woodward around the turn of the century? What I'm looking for in particular is either a map or a description of where the boundaries of Hamtramck, Gratiot, and Grosse Pointe townships met.

Try these from 1904:

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/micounty...Wayne;q2=Sauer

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/micounty...Wayne;q2=Sauer

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/micounty...w=pdf&size=100

2. Related to that, I know that Detroit eventually ate up all of Hamtramck Township save for the part that incorporated as the city of Hamtramck, but not knowing the eastern borders of the township, my question is if Detroit ever ended up annexing any parts of Grosse Pointe and Gratiot Townships, or are all of the areas that made up those two townships currently in the Pointes and Harper Woods?

Yes, Detroit annexed parts of Grosse Pointe Township in 1917, 1918, and 1926. Detroit annexed parts of Gratiot Township in 1917, 1923, and 1925.

3. Was Grosse Pointe Woods [[first incorporated as the Village of Lochmoor) incorporated from Gratiot or Grosse Pointe Township?

From Grosse Pointe Township.

For more Township history read pages 1559-1594 here:

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/micounty...2.001?view=toc

Gratiot Township is on p. 1564, Grosse Pointe and Hamtramck Twps starting on p. 1577.

[jackie5275]

Anyone know when Monguagon Twp turned into Southgate, Riverview, etc?

[RO_Resident]

Another source is the SOM General Land Office Plats. There have got a lot more online since the last time I used the site.
http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/1,1607,7...1058--,00.html

You can use the township/range descriptions above to find the subdivision plats for Wayne County.
http://www.dleg.state.mi.us/platmaps/sr_subs.asp

For example, Northville Twp is 1S 8E; Grosse Pointe Shores is 1S 13E.