Farmington Section from Durant's 1877
History of Oakland County Michigan
Farmington is one of the southern tier of townships in Oakland
County, and is joined on its north, west, and east, respectively,
by West Bloomfield, Novi, and Southfield. In its northwestern part
the land is in a few places inclining to be swampy, but the
remainder of the township has a fine rolling surface and a most
productive soil, which gives to Farmington a rank with the best of
the townships in the county.
It is watered by several small streams, all following in a
southeasterly direction, and all eventually joining their waters
with those of the Rouge river. The principal of these takes its
rise near the northwest corner of the township, and flowing
obliquely through it, past the village of Farmington, turns the
wheels of the different saw- and grist-mills of the town, and then
passes out through the southwest quarter of section 36.
Signs of very old Indian occupation are found in various parts
of the township; perhaps the most noticeable of these was a place
of ancient graves upon the farm of J. B. Francis, in the southwest
quarter of section 19, near the Novi town line. At this place seven
skeletons were found in a single grave, while over another was
growing a tree of nearly two feet in diameter.
Probably, however, there were no large established Indian
villages here. The township was originally covered with dense
forests, which were highly prized by them as hunting-grounds; and
through here, too, passed their long path, known as the Shiawassee
trail, over which they came and went on their predatory or hunting
expeditions; but the margins of the limpid lakes that lay farther
north and west, and gave them fish in unlimited supply, these were
the places where they preferred to plant their lodges, rather than
in the comparatively unwatered region of which we write.
|
