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Calhoun County MI

• 08.25.09
  Stone Builders and Fire Keepers
  Calhoun County MI (0)

  I thought I had a story from F Drive North in Emmett Township from last Sunday's bike ride, even if the photos weren't particularly interesting. It was vaguely related to the story of the 1832 cholera epidemic that I was following. But now I see that even the photos I have don't fit the story. I was about a quarter-mile off. So I'll save that one for another time, after I take the correct photos. I had ridden past this old, stone house less than a mile before reaching that one. A house like ...
  
  
• 08.23.09
  Isaac N. Hurd
  Calhoun County MI (0)

  Today was cloudy and not such a good day for picture-taking, but cool enough for a pleasant 30-mile bike ride. The theme of today's bike ride was the 1832 cholera epidemic that came with the Black Hawk war. The final stop was at Oakridge Cemetery in Marshall, MI. I had hoped to find a handful of graves of those who died from cholera, as well as that of a woman who recovered from it, but found only the one pictured above. The insription reads: "Erected to the memory of Isaac N. Hurd who was born at ...
  
  
• 07.29.09
  Dry Prairie in Athens Township
  Calhoun County MI (0)

  In all the times I've ridden to Athens, until last Saturday I don't think I had ever taken the county road that follows the north edge of the prairie that drew settlers there in 1831. The photo is at the east end of the prairie (which they called Dry Prairie) at the place marked by the blue diamond in the map below. This is the pre-settlement vegetation map of Athens township, from the Michigan National Features Inventory. The land entered by Warren Nichols is shown by the two black rectangles. The prairie is shown in yellow. ...
  
  
• 07.29.09
  Cholera epidemic hits Athens
  Calhoun County MI (0)

  ` Last weekend was my second overnight, self-contained tour of the year. I started this one the same as the last one, by heading south to Athens. The above is a mile or two north of town. In the spring of 1832 the town was only a year old. A world-wide cholera epidemic reached the town that year, having come with the soldiers from the east who were on their way to Chicago from where they were going to join the forces fighting Black Hawk. The soldiers didn't come here to Athens ...
  
  
• 07.15.09
  Minimum maintenance road
  Calhoun County MI, Minnesota (0)

  Last week in Iowa and southern Minnesota, we saw a lot of road signs that seem to be a new feature of the last several years. It seems that as the countryside gets depopulated, it is no longer necessary to maintain all of the section-line roads. There are no longer any children living on them who need to get to school in winter, etc. So they're now designated as "Minimum maintenance roads." Some of the signs also say something about winter, or about traveling at your own risk. Myra suggested grabbing one and ...
  
  

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