The Forgotten Places of Chesaning - The Chesaning Argonaut

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The Forgotten Places of Chesaning

In the time before modern roads and modes of transport, traveling even relatively short distances could prove difficult or inconvenient, especially in inclement weather.

This meant that early settlers had to establish smaller communities between the larger villages and towns that could provide them with a nearby source of goods and services.

The importance of these locations began to decline as transportation technology and infrastructure began to improve, leading to their eventual disappearance.

Many of these places never even existed in any formal sense to begin with, as before the creation of a standardized address system, residents would need to devise their own system of geographic markers to help orient themselves in the landscape.

These local names rarely made it onto official maps, and faded into obscurity over time.

ALICIA

Alicia is a former community centered on the modern day intersection of Alicia Road and Bishop Road in Albee Township, in an area known to locals as the Prairie Farm.

The Owosso Sugar Company purchased the Prairie Farm in 1903 in order to grow sugar beets, and began a project to improve the land for farming. It also established several settlements to house their workforce and serve as centers of operation.

Alicia...could boast a population of 300 to 350 in the summer...and about 75 in the winter. It contained 80 yellow framed cottages, a general store, a boarding house, an assembly and dance hall, several large barns for stock and other buildings for machinery, wagons, and tools, a post office, and a large grain elevator and mint distillery which were situated on a spur track connecting the farm with the railroad six miles away. It was a company town, and the old photos suggest that it was as drab and dull as you might expect a company town to be.

It was said that the inhabitants of Alicia led an isolated and monotonous life, especially at flood time. Many of the workers were immigrants from Europe who, as soon as they had a stake of a few hundred dollars, would move on. It is further said that when World War I cut off this supply of ambitious European peasants (many of them Slavs) the Sugar Company began hiring Mexicans, and were the first to do so in Michigan.

Alicia was located one mile from “Mosquito Road” entrance to the farm. The name tells you something too.

A History of the Owosso Sugar Company

The town was named Alicia after the eldest daughter of William Lewis Clause (1858-1931), president of Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company and a major stakeholder in Owosso Sugar.

CARBON

Carbon was located on the north side of Verne Road, about halfway between Beuche Road and East Road in Albee Township. It was established in 1899 by the Consolidted Coal Company to service its mine shaft that was located just across the road.

The town consisted of a post office, store, boarding house and other small dwellings, and an extension line was built to connect it to the nearby railroad.

Carbon existed for only a short time, as the mine ceased operation after a boiler explosion in November of 1903 killed two miners and injured several others.

CLAUSEDALE

Clausedale was located out on the Prairie Farm, at the corner of Clausedale Road and Fry Road in St. Charles Township.

Clausedale was smaller than nearby Alicia, and was established to serve the farm’s sheep herding operation. It was named in honor of the aforementioned William Lewis Clause (1858-1931), president of Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company.

DUTCHTOWN

The existence of a place named Dutchtown can be inferred from the presence of Dutchtown School, a country schoolhouse that was located on Gary Road, just east of Bear Creek.

The name suggest that this area was home to a significant number of German-speaking settlers, and may be the location that appears in the following news item from 1871:

...In the Michigan fires, a settlement of Germans, near Chesaning, was almost annihilated. Twenty out of the twenty-six houses were destroyed, and the farms nearly ruined...

Wyandot County Republican, November 9, 1871.

EASTON

Easton could be found at the intersection of Easton Road and Cram Road, about five miles southeast of Chesaning in New Haven Township.

The community featured a general store and a blacksmith shop, and a post office operated there from 1887 to 1903.

FERGUS

Fergus was a station on the Michigan Central Railroad located at the intersection of Fergus Road and McKeighan Road, about three miles south of St. Charles.

This station appears to have been established to service a stave mill operating at this location, and the name appears in records as early as 1879. Fergus post office was open from 1882 to 1933.

This area was previously known as Spencerville.

GROVETON

Groveton was a freight station on the Michigan Central Jackson to Saginaw Railroad about 3 miles north of Chesaning, just north of where it crosses West Burt Road.

It appears that Groveton occupied more or less the same location as Pine Grove Station. The last recorded use of the name Pine Grove Station dates from 1880, while the name Groveton first appears in 1882.

HAVANA

Havana (or Havannah) was located in the southeastern portion of Chesaning Township, where Ditch Road crosses over the Shiawassee River.

It’s founder was Israel Parshall (1815-1865), a miller’s son from Long Island, New York whose older brother Isaac Parshall (1798-1858) had founded the town of Parshallville down in Livingston County.

Israel left Parshallville in 1855 with the intention of establishing his own business in the family trade. He settled on a site about four miles south of Chesaning, where he dammed the river and built a flour mill on one side of the dam, and a sawmill on the other.

This new settlement became known as Parshall, and sometimes Parshalls Mills, but the name was changed to Havana when a post office opened there in 1860, possibly to avoid confusion with Parshallville.

The post office was only open from 1860 to 1868, and while the name Havana continued to appear on later maps, local residents began referring to the location as Parshallburg.

HINKLEY CORNERS

Hinkley (or Hinckley) Corners was a local nickname for the intersection of Corunna Road and Ferden Road, just south of the village of Chesaning.

It was named after Walter Hinkley (1821-1888), who owned a farm on the northeast corner of the intersection.

INDIANTOWN

Indiantown was located near the intersection of Fergus Road and Turner Road in St. Charles Township, about seven miles north of Chesaning.

This was once the site of an important Chippewa settlement called Angwassag, which is said to have meant “snags floating in the river.”

The location was important because it was the last dry ground before the start of the great Shiawassee wetlands that once covered the entire area between here and Saginaw. The village also lay on an old Indian trail that ran between the Shiawassee and Flint Rivers.

The indigenous inhabitants of the village appear to have weathered the arrival of European settlers comparatively well, and surviving land ownership records from the late 1800s include many names that clearly belong to persons of Native American descent.

This area was also sometimes referred to as Sunlight Corners.

LUCE

Luce was located at the corner of Gasper Road and Burt Road, right on the border between St. Charles Township and Albee Township.

Named in honor of Michigan’s twenty-first Governor, Cyrus Luce, a post office operated there from 1890 to 1914. It’s postmaster was William Craig (1850-1934), a longtime resident of the area who operated a general store and a blacksmith shop on this corner.

The post office and blacksmith shop were both closed about the same time as Craig and his family left for Minnesota, but the general store remained open for at least a few more years

It appears that Luce owed its existence entirely to William Craig, who likely operated the post office as a way to bring traffic to his general store.

MCARTHURVILLE

McArthurville was located near the railroad tracks about 3 miles north of Chesaning, just past where it crosses West Burt Road. The settlement was centered around a sawmill owned by the firm of A. McArthur & Son.

Three miles north of Chesaning we came spat upon McArthurville, which place is owned wholly by Alexander McArthur Esq., of Corunna. The hum of busy industry here greeted our ears; the sound of the ace, hammer, and saw, and the whizzing of the engine, bespoke this a place of business. There were surrounding us, huge piles of first-class lumber, rendering it evident that a vast lumber trade was carried on. Chauncey McArthur Esq., has charge of the mill, and the chicken fixings, which he freely dispenses to revive the drooping spirits of the dusty traveler.

East Saginaw Courier, September 27, 1860.

The sawmill appears on maps as early as 1858, and predates the coming of the railroad by several years. Once the rail line was completed, Pine Grove Station was opened at this site, and that name superseded McArthurville on later maps of the area.

MCDONOUGH CORNERS

McDonough Corners sits at the intersection of Bishop Road and Fergus Road in Albee Township. It was named after landowner Blakely McDonough (1830-1904), who settled here in 1863 and owned a large farm on the northeast corner of the intersection.

There was general store here for many years, and a post office that operated from 1892 to 1903. Other businesses at this site were a tavern, a pickle harvesting station, and a dance hall that was also used for weddings and even the occasional vaudeville show.

MICKLEVILLE

Mickleville was the original name of what would later become known as Oakley. It was named after Philip Mickle, who opened a tavern there in 1842 and helped to establish the new community.

The Mickleville post office opened in March of 1856, but was later moved to the nearby settlement of Havana in April of 1860.

The town was later renamed in 1868, in honor of Judge Thomas Jackson Oakley (1783-1857), a congressman from New York and the uncle of a local resident.

There appears to have been another location just up the road from Oakley that became known as Micklesville.

It stood along Mickles Street (modern day Nivers Road), and was just across the Shiawassee River from Parshallburg (Havana).

The exact relationship between Mickleville and Micklesville remains to be determined.

NORTHAMPTON

Northampton is the original name of both the village and the township that later became known as Chesaning. The name was supposedly chosen because Northampton, New Hampshire was the hometown of several of the early pioneers that settled here.

The name was later changed to Chesaning (meaning “Place of the Big Rock”) in 1853, in recognition of the area’s Native American history.

PARSHALLBURG

Parshallburg is located in the southeastern portion of Chesaning Township, where Ditch Road crosses over the Shiawassee River.

This location had previously been known as Havana, but after the post office was closed in 1868, local residents began referring to the place as Parshallburg. Israel Parshall (1815-1868) had founded the original settlement by damming the river and building a flour mill and a sawmill here back in 1855.

The end of the lumber boom led to the closure of the sawmill, although the flour mill remained in operation until 1968.

The old Parshallburg mill.

Despite attempts to preserve this historic building, the empty mill was torn down in 1982 and today the site serves as a boat launch and scenic river overlook.

PINE GROVE STATION

Pine Grove Station was located along on the Lansing & Saginaw Railroad about 3 miles north of Chesaning, just north of where it crosses over West Burt Road.

The station was established to service a sawmill owned by the firm of A. McArthur & Son.

The last recorded mention of Pine Grove Station comes from 1880, and shortly thereafter the name was changed to Groveton.

PITCAIRNIA

Pitcairnia was located out on the Prairie Farm at the intersection of Bishop Road and Fry Road in Albee Township. It was named after Edward Pitcairn, then vice-president of the Owosso Sugar Company, which had purchased the land in 1903 to grow sugar beets.

Pitcairnia had been established by the company to serve the farm’s peppermint growing operation. It featured a peppermint disillery and housing for the labor force.

The farm was later sold to a collectivist group from New York named the Sunrise Corporation for the purpose of developing a utopian community.

The ownership included about 500 tradesmen, small merchants and non-descripts from every walk of life in the ghetto. With special pride they styled themselves “Collectivists” and proceeded with enthusiasm to the fourteen-square-mile farm where they took possession of the three well equipped villages of Pitcairnia, Alicia and Clausedale. Pitcairnia, the capital as it were, possessed lodging facilities after the manner of barracks together with commissaries, shoe repair shop, nursery, school, bakery and other essentials implementing the purpose of the “Sunrisers.“

A History of the Owosso Sugar Company

The Sunrise Corporation lasted from 1933 to 1940, at which point the federal government foreclosed on the mortgage and took ownership of the farm. The land was then divided up and sold off to private individuals.

SHAKO FLATS

Shako Flats consists of a small, low-lying section of the Shiawassee River floodplain that sits just below Wildwood Cemetery, a few miles south of Chesaning.

This was once the site of a native settlement, and the local chieftain Shako made his camp here on several occasions, hence the name. Just across the river to the south was Ponto Flats, another small section of floodplain that was named in honor of a different local chief.

Shako Flats and Ponto Flats became a popular destination with local inhabitants for picnics and other such outings, but this now bucolic setting was once the site of a battle between Shako and his rival Osceola, son of the aforementioned Ponto.

You can read an account of the battle HERE!

SPENCERVILLE

Spencerville was the name given to the area surrounding the intersection of Fergus Road and Carr Road in St. Charles Township. It was named in honor of George H. Spencer (1818-1909), a local farmer who first settled here sometime in the 1850s.

It’s most notable landmark was the J. J. Campbell heading & stave mill, which was located alongside the railroad tracks at the intersection of Fergus Road and McKeighan Road.

The rail stop established to service the mill was called Fergus, and that name eventually replaced Spencerville.

SUNLIGHT CORNERS

Sunlight Corners was an area roughly centered on the intersection of Fergus Road and Turner Road in St. Charles Township, about seven miles north of Chesaning.

This was originally the site of a Native American settlement called Angwassag, and later became known as Indiantown.

It appears that local residents first began referring to the area as Sunlight Corners sometime during the late 1870s, as the increasing number of European settlers began to change local population demographics.

This settlement long known by the smoky title of Indiantown, has arrived to the dignity of a high toned name, and well it deserves the change; for now but few of the aborginees remain, and thrifty farmers are taking their places.

The Chesaning Argus, December 12, 1877.

WHEELERVILLE

Wheelerville was located about seven miles south of Chesaning, at the modern day intersection of State Road and Henderson Road in New Haven Township.

Wheelerville was named in honor of Humphrey Wheeler (1796-1860), who arrived in New Haven Township in 1838, becoming one of it’s earliest pioneers. He spent many years making a living from farming, before building a hotel on his property in 1855.

The Wheeler Tavern became an important stopping point for travelers along the State Road, and a post office was open there from 1857 to 1865.

Traffic along the State Road started to decline after the arrival of the railroad in 1867, and the family closed the hotel, putting an end to Wheelerville.

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4 Responses

Randy Neumeyer says:

January 25, 2023 at 2:42 pm

Too bad older folks didn;t have pictures of those places.

Reply
Susan Beldyga says:

January 25, 2023 at 3:59 pm

I’m interested in knowing if there are any pictures of “Luce”. I’d love to see them.

Reply
Carolyn Harp says:

January 26, 2023 at 5:41 pm

Mickle is the name of the creek that winds around Oakley and connects with the Shiawassee River.

Reply
Jim Methe says:

February 2, 2023 at 5:07 pm

I went to school in chesaning lived in brant went into the army in 85 I am learning a lot of cool stuff and really makes me miss home

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