1820/30 - 2004-12-02 09:17:42
Pittsfield pioneer Ezra Carpenter arrives in Pittsfield Township in 1826 and promptly buys land. He's one of the county's earliest settlers.
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The slanting road at top right is Washtenaw.
* * * * * * * * * * * * 1856 - 2004-12-02 09:19:31
After Ezra split his land in 1840 with Horace, presumably his son, here's the Carpenter holdings in 1856.
* * * * * * * * * * * * 1865 - 2004-12-02 09:20:00
(You saw the map on the front page in which Carpenter's Corners enjoyed its heyday).* * * * * * * * * * * * 1874 - 2004-12-02 09:21:00
Changes afoot: a mere sliver belongs to "N. C. Carpenter" (?--am I reading that correctly?).
* * * * * * * * * * * * 1915 - 2004-12-02 09:26:01
By 1915 the Carpenter holdings had been sold...although the Carpenter name lives on. Today at Carpenter's Corners there's Thrifty Florist, two gas stations, and a White Castle. Next time you drive through, think about old Ezra bumping into Pittsfield Township all those years ago.
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Laura blathering on - 2004-12-02 10:47:19This map is particularly clear and good. In it, you can see a Chas. Leverett bought the old Carpenter place, on both sides of Carpenter Road just south of Packard. You can also see the old Carpenter School in the westward portion of the old Carpenter holdings.
Another interesting info-tidbit in this map is the big Ellsworth farms just south of the old Carpenter holdings. Sitting right on, surprise, what's now Ellsworth Road. I also note a Platt to the west, on (guess) modern-day Platt road. I love this stuff.* * * * * * * * * * * * Laura laura laura - 2004-12-02 10:52:33
Look at Washtenaw--it's all farms with no exception. I'm trying to imagine seeing that. I'm also trying to imagine telling my granddaughter that, yes, once Freedom Township was almost all farms with no exception. Except for the non-bustling Fredonia (consisting of one tiny store) on Pleasant Lake. These plats are manna for the imagination.* * * * * * * * * * * * Anna - 2004-12-02 13:06:56
It makes me sad that most of Southeast Michigan has been aesthetically ruined, especially when I've gotten out of the Washtenaw-AA-Ypsi trek and looked around areas that are still (but probably not for much longer) farmland.
I don't know why many states on the East coast managed to escape that fate -- maybe because the farmland stage ended earlier and the land had time to go back to woods before housing developments were plopped onto them? Maybe because there wasn't as much room for ugly post-WWII tract developments due to older, more graceful developments from the 1900s and 1920s (not to mention houses dating back to colonial times, etc.)? More careful control of where box stores can and cannot be plopped? It's curious.* * * * * * * * * * * * Laura - 2004-12-02 13:16:58
Anna: it's true, McMansions are chewing up the first ring of farmland around AA...but the western north-south tier of Washtenaw townships is remarkably wild and beautiful; I love it out there. Wild, scraggly woods, farms, abandoned buildings--it's beautiful to me, I really lose myself out there.* * * * * * * * * * * * Murph - 2004-12-03 13:17:52
Anna, having lived on the Route 1 corridor in NJ for a year and half, I can say that definitely not all states escaped the fate of SE Michigan--really, I'd say that SE Michigan still has a chance to escape the fate of the Newark/Elizabeth/Trenton/Camden corridor, which in my view is far worse than what we have here. The Wash-Balt area is also pretty bad. Long Island had the very first post-WWII tract houses (Levittown), and NYC area in general is pretty farflung (a number of people are known to commute 2 hours from Pennsylvania). But otherwise I'll acknowledge your point. :) I'd suggest that perhaps part of the explanation is time of development. The towns of the east coast did much more of their development before the rise of the automobile, meaning that much larger portions of them are designed around pedestrians and transit, while metropolitan areas like Detroit or any of the Sunbelt cities are almost exclusively auto-oriented. Having a large ratio of non-car to car focused development in an area makes it easier to make further development that's compact, vital, and people-oriented. Much harder to retrofit a city that was totally designed around the car in the first place.* * * * * * * * * * * * Laura - 2004-12-03 14:59:32
That's quite a clear and interesting summation, Murph: thank you for posting it.* * * * * * * * * * * * add your comment: