1833-34: Original land patents

Land patents recorded the initial transfer of land titles from the Federal government to individuals. They can be looked up online at the Bureau of Land Management, Government Land Office Records web site.

The January 1950 issue (PDF) of Impressions, a publication of the Washtenaw County Historical Society, describes the process of acquiring land from the local land offices. First, a new settler would visit the land office and look over the plats not yet sold. He'd find a plot of interest, and follow old Indian trails to get as close as possible to a section line blazed by the surveyor. Then,

"When he found a quarter section to his liking, he would come to the nearest section corner and note what  corner it was by reading the surveyor's scribe marks on the trees, if  there were any."

The first plots of land cost $1.25 an acre. Much of the land was purchased by speculators who turned around and sold it shortly after purchase. The original patent holders of land in Lodi Twp., section 5, are sketched on the rough image below; the red line shows the approximate location of Centennial Lane.

The lots on Centennial Lane are largely located in the two portions of land acquired by Horace H. Notingham (actually Nottingham, it is mispelled in the patent database). His patent for the 62.8 acreas of the west half of the northeast quarter section (where the street is now) was dated April 4, 1833; a PDF copy of the patent can be downloaded here. The patent for the east half of the northwest quarter section was dated September 10, 1834; a PDF copy of this patent can be downloaded here.

See the post Land changing hands, 1856-1976 for subsequent land owners.

Land changing hands, 1856-1977

As noted in the previous post, Horace Nottingham bought the property in Lodi Township that would one day be our neighborhood. His two land patents were dated April 1833 and September 1834. In 1838, he also acquired the oirginal land patents of three parcels in Livingston County. This is apparently where he decided to settle, since he appears in The History of Livingston Co., Michigan as arriving and settling in Deerfield Twp. in 1836.

The only early records I've researched so far to trace ownership are mortgage records and plat maps; the latter were probably not produced annually in early years. Presumably if land was given away, no mortgage was recorded which may account for what look like gaps in the mortgage records (land being purchased from people that did not appear as owners in earlier records). It's also possible that the lenders listed did just loan money to the mortgage holder and did not own the land to begin with. Therefore, I've not listed the mortgagee as actual landowners.

The next mortgage on our land was acquired by Peter Kern in May 1842. He paid  A. and A.L. Peitsch [actually, Pietsch]. Araminta Caroline Pietsch (1813-1864) and Adelaide Louisa Pietsch were the stepsisters of Kern's first wife Charlotte Pietsch. They married in 1831 but she died in 1836. Kern apparently remarried by 1839, but he is listed as in the 1845 Michigan census in Lodi Twp.

Araminta  was married Moses Riksecker (see below) in 1849 in Bethleham, Northhampton Co., PA. They resided in Ann Arbor in the 1850 and 1860 censuses.

I've not discovered if there was a transaction between Notthingham and the Pietsches.

Next we have Jacob Aprill acquiring the property from Moses Riksecker in October 1852 (looks like the Kern/Pietsch/Ricksecker bunch kept the land in the family for awhile). The plat map from 1856 (viewable here or here) shows that Jacob Aprill has acquired most of the northern half of section 5 (a total of 189 acres); his pre-Civil War homestead was across what is now Scio Church Road in section 32 of Scio Township. It is still there today.

1856 plat map of southern portion of section 32 of Scio Twp., and northern
portion of section 5 of Lodi Township. Current Centennial Lane runs south
from Scio Church Road approximately throught the "b" in "Jacob."

The Washtenaw County Historic District Commission produced surveys of historic properties in the late 1990s, and the following information in italics is from the Aprill survey. "...by the time the 1870 census was taken [Jacob Aprill's] farm was valued at $17,500 and his personal belongings at $5,000. Both values are generally double that of the surrounding farms for Scio Township. By this time, Aprill owned 150 acres of improved land, 40 acres of woodland, and 160 additional acres of unimproved land, and two farmhouses on the north side of the road [note the property included Scio Township land]. ... Crops grown on the farm are typical for the time: wheat, corn, oats, and hay." The survey notes he grew also grew barley, which was unusual, and the 150 sheep among the livestock was a high number at the time. The farm sold wool, butter, and orchard and forest products.


A number of plat maps and county atlases can be viewed at Historic Map Works. We see that in 1874, Jacob Aprill still owns the part of section 5 that includes the future Centennial Lane. He has sold off the westernmost portion of this property to S.E. Hirth.

1874

Jacob largely retired from farming and by 1876 passed the farm to his son George Aprill (b. 1853). The 1880 census, according to the historical survey, notes the properties, including those in Scio, consisted of 200 acres of tilled fields, 80 acres of permanent pastures and orchards (mostly around the houses, including 7 acres of apples), 60 acres of woodland, and 149 unimproved acres. George is shown as owner on the 1895 plat map (below) and the 1915 plat map (Jacob died in 1899).

1895

George died in January 1934 and the land passed to his son George Aprill, Jr. You can read more about the interesting operations of the farms by the two Georges on the page Original landowners, and the full history of the Aprill land in the survey report downloadable via the map on the eWashtenaw website.

1957

In 1959, George Aprill sold his farm to Elton Frey, a.k.a. Alton E. Frey.

1960

Frey sold off his dairy herd in 1967 and retired to Tuscon, AZ. He did sell about 10 acres of land to Robert McFarland, his son-in-law, as shown in the 1975 plat map.

1975, a strip of land which now backs the properties on the east side of Centennial
Lane is now owned by the McFarlands.

More information on these landowners can be found on the page Original landowners.

The next owner was Centennial Homes, which developed the neighborhood.

Historical land use

We've seen from the data gleaned from the original survey of the township and the re-creation of the habitat types from pre-European settlement that our neighborhood was wet prairie and oak savannah/barrens. What was our land used for once it was acquired by the first European landowners?

The earliest aerial photo of this part of the township is from 1949.

1949

Here is an aerial photo of the land in 1960, with the future (current) lots superimposed on the photo.

The land in 1960.

Apparently, there were never any homesteads or other structures built on this land. Once again, we can look at the map from the Michigan Dept. of Environmental Quality GeoWebFace that superimposes historical habitats on the neighborhood, with the pink being wet prairie and green being oak barrens.

Clearly, the drier former oak barrens -- formerly relatively flat or rolling terrain comprising of some trees on open grassland-savannah-prairie maintained by fire by Native Americans -- was used for cropland. The lots on either side of Centennial Lane where houses now stand were hay or crop fields.

An additional 20 acres or so on the west side of the street was also once oak barrens, and still shows a hint of that in the 1949 photo: a more open area with scattered trees, now filling in. There is evidence that this was once used as pasture.

The pink area, which was once wet prairie, shows as what was once fairly open and now completely wooded, with a core area that is clearly lower and wetter. I assume this area was always too wet to farm. Part of it may have been used as pasture, but for the most part was likely more or less undisturbed by agriculture throughout its history -- a remarkable find!

For more on how we determined that part of this land was pasture, see Old fences tell stories.