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St. Joseph County MI

• 03.17.08
  Goodrich Prairie
  St. Joseph County MI (2)

  Today I rode to Goodrich Prairie just south of the St. Joseph River in St. Joseph County, Michigan. Well, technically it's already Monday now. It was a Sunday afternoon ride, my first ride of the year other than commuting to work this past week. I've been to this area many times before, but had never before turned right on this gravel road just after crossing the bridge over the river in Colon Township. This road cuts through the entire length of Goodrich Prairie, not that it's that long. One of the Black Hawk ...
  
  
• 03.05.08
  English Prairie and Samuel Burnell
  Huntington - 2004, LaGrange County IN, St. Joseph County MI (0)

  This was another stop on my morning bike ride near Mongo. English Prairie in Greenfield Township, LaGrange County, was so named because many of the early settlers came from England. Their neighbors later noted that they had for some time kept their English ways, such as the men wearing knee breeches and stockings instead of trousers like American men usually wore. The 1882 history of LaGrange County says it this way: "English Prairie" received its name from the fact that many of the first to locate there had just come from England. People, in speaking of the ...
  
  
• 03.02.08
  Gage and Langdon war story
  Huntington - 2004, LaGrange County IN, St. Joseph County MI (1)

  In mid-October 2004 I did a ride to Huntington, Indiana and part-way back. It was a three-day outing. We camped the first night at a recreation-area campground near Mongo on the Pigeon River, in LaGrange county. I got up early to take photos at Brighton and Mongo while Myra was still sleeping, then came back to help take down camp before I proceeded on my ride to Huntington. I may have spent too long on my early morning ride, because Myra was impatiently waiting when I got back to the campground. (It ...
  
  
• 02.06.08
  Making it difficult to buy land from the government
  Calhoun County MI, Kalamazoo County MI, St. Joseph County MI (0)

  This is the house that Andrew and Clarissa Hays built in Marshall, MI in the 1830s. At the time of the Black Hawk war they were still living in a log cabin. It was not at this site, though possibly it was as near as a block or so away. (This photo is from a July 2005 bike ride.) The house was built a little afterwards. Andrew Hays was a physician. He came to Michigan with money, which he invested in land. He later told that when the militia company from Marshall had gone ...
  
  
• 01.08.08
  Not quite on the prairie
  St. Joseph County MI (1)

  I got a little more work done on the St. Joseph county map. Here the prairie areas (as determined by the Michigan Natural Features Inventory) are shown in green. The lighter green areas are oak savanna. The earliest land entries, i.e. those made at the Monroe land office prior to 1831, are shown in gray. Q. Why are none of these early land entries in Mendon Township? After all, the good prairie land extends up into Mendon and Leonidas townships. A. It's because that land was not for sale at that time. ...
  
  

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