Clinton Township Historical Commission

GREATER CLINTON TOWNSHIP HISTORICAL SOCIETY

The GCTHS partners with the Clinton Township Historical Commission to run the museums in the Historical Village.
Here are videos of past programs.

Programs will start again when the library reopens.

Clinton Township, Michigan USA

The current members of the Clinton Township Historical Commission are:

Jim Hungerford, Chairman
Jim Kowalski, Vice Chairman
Maxwell Heiderer
Paul Gieleghem, Twp Board Representative
Jason Brown
Sharron Butala
Geoff Hoerauf

For more information, type a topic in the search on the left side of the screen. Example: canal , mills , barns , river , or Moravians .

Moravian Hall

The Township Hall more commonly referred to as Moravian Hall, was located on Moravian Drive about 1/2 of a mile south of the Clinton River. In 2001 the Township Hall was moved from the Moravian Drive location to the Townships Historical Village near Canal Road & Romeo Plank Road. After repairs and updating it was re- dedicated on July 14, 2003.

The Clinton & Kalamazoo Canal

When Michigan became a state on January 26, 1837, it was a land of vast forests and marshland which made travel to the interior extremely difficult. In order to help the movement of new settlers inland, the state legislature passed the Internal Improvement Act, which provided for three railroads and two canals. The most ambitious of these improvements was a canal 216 miles long from Mount Clemens to a now extinct village named Singapore at Lake Michigan. Approval of the canal construction was popular because many who came to Michigan traveled by way of the newly completed Erie Canal and understood the advantages of canal travel. Clinton Township and the Clinton River were, in fact, were named after Governor DeWitt Clinton of New York who was instrumental in the construction of the Erie Canal.

The History of Clinton Township

The History of Clinton Township Michigan http://archive.org/stream/diaryofdavidzeis01zeis#page/n3/mode/2up On July 22, 1782 David Zeisberger and his followers founded the first settlement in Clinton Township. He described the site of "New Gnadenhutten" in his diary, "founded on this side of the river a fine place to lay out a town on a height ... between the river and the height, there are many springs with many separate little brooks that flow into the river and have exceedingly good water. The land on the site of the town is so sandy ... the lowlands are very rich with heavy timber. We chose this place before all others for our town site ... heavily laden boats can go even to the fork, a half-mile higher up ... and canoes can go much further. We are glad and thankful to have found such a good and healthy a spot for a town site nothing was lacking. We found traces that long ago an Indian town must have stood on this place."

Links

The web page for Clinton Township's Tomlinson Arboretum is a sub domain of the Historical Commission site. Click on http://arboretum.ctwphc.org
Hit reload to change the random pictures. This site contains a search on the left side. Enter the topic such as barn , festival , village , Indians , etc.
There are many pictures of the Clinton Township Fire Department on this site. Use the search on the left side of the screen.
Here is a Youtube program about the Mount Clemens Rose Gardens.
This is the link to an oral history for our recently deceased friend, Paul Klosik. He was a POW during the Korean Conflict and held captive by the Chinese.
The following links may be of interest to those who seek information about local and Michigan history as well as general topics:

Detroit Pix (memories from the past) It is worth a look.
Early Michigan History.
the David Rumsey Map Collection. This is good reading and should keep you up at night.

Also, if you want to learn more about the history of the area, you can pay a visit to the Don Green Local History Room at the Clinton Macomb Public Library. Give the reference librarians your library card, and they will give you a pass key.

Moravians

This is an account by the Historian Henry A. Ford.(Not the Henry Ford of automobile fame): http://www.ole.net/~maggie/macomb/moravian.htm. Also feast your eyes on the Michigan Pioneer Series. Pages 38-46 mention the Moravian Settlement in what is now Clinton Township The complete set is found in the Donald Green Local History Room in the Clinton - Macomb Library.

Thomas Dean

This is the exciting account of Thomas Dean. He traveled in 1817 from New York to the Ohio River and northeast on the Wabash and eventually to Detroit. There are 77 pages to the series.
To see them all type "dean" in the search bar. With luck they will be in the proper order.

p1 1817 Journal Thomas Dean

The Moravians

The Moravians was a nickname given to the religious group by Count Zinzendorf in 1727 while seeking refuge on his land. They pioneered worship in the vernacular, Scripture as the rule and source of all life, congregational hymn singing, and education for both sexes. In 1741 they established their center of operation in the New World at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania for their mission to work among the Native American Indians.