Category

2008-May-25

• 05.28.08
  School in Albion Township
  2008-May-25, Calhoun County MI, Schools (0)

  More from my May 17 ride to Moscow. Almost any excuse will do for a stop along the way. This old schoolhouse in Albion Township caught my attention. It doesn't seem to have been converted into a residence, like so many old one-room schools have. But do the two front doors mean this was a two-room school? It's not as large a building as the two-room school I attended in rural Nebraska. I'll call it a one-room school. This schoolyard still has the frame from a swingset and teeter-totter. That's not something one sees very ...
  
  
• 05.27.08
  Old bicycle maps
  2008-May-25, Eaton County MI, Schools (0)

  Over at the phred bicycle touring list, there was a request for an Ordnance Survey map from England. A list member offered one that was published in 1959. I got to thinking that for my bicycle rides, I often look for maps a lot older than that. Sunday afternoon's ride was guided in part by an 1873 atlas of Eaton County, Michigan. The part I was interested in -- the northeast part of Hamlin Township, is shown above. (The atlas is online at Michigan County Histories and Atlases.) When I saw from the map that in 1873 John Montgomery ...
  
  
• 05.26.08
  John Montgomery
  2008-May-25, Day Rides, Eaton County MI (2)

  For yesterday's bike ride, I looked for a destination in Eaton County. The wind forecast suggested that would be a good direction. I searched the county histories, and came up with a Black Hawk anecdote that was new to me. From the 1880 history of Eaton County, page 477, is the following material (which seems to have been taken from some other source): He began his military career soon after coming into the county, in Washtenaw County, as a minute-man. He had been there but one year when the Black Hawk war broke out. He was ...