Person:Amos Adams (1)

HISTORY OF LIVINGSTON COUNTY, MICHIGAN / HOWELL

Page 139

A short address made by Alvin L. Crittenden

Arriving within about a mile of the present village of Howell, I came to a wagon-track, it could hardly be called a road, for it went crooking around the trees and swamps. I soon came to a log house, which if afterwards learned was occupied by Mr. John Pinckney and family. Here I was directed to take the left-hand road near the lake. traveling about a mile, I came to a house in the midst of the woods, several large trees standing near enough to have fallen on the house if they had fallin in the right direction. (this was Amos Adams' tavern-house) I went to the place for a door, and shoved aside some boards that were set up for a door, and inquired of some mechanics at work on the inside of the building for the county seat of Livingston County, and recieved the reply that it was right here. I inquired for some old friends who had settled near there, and was informed of their whereabouts, but the men thought I would find them half a mile west raising a barn. Going out of the house I looked around, and there was not another building in the village. There were plenty of stakes standing in the woods in every direction to designate the several blocks, lots, and streets of the village, which was afterwards named Howell, for as yet the town was not organized or the village named.

Page 151

The erection of the old Eagle Hotel ( or tavern ) by Crane and Brooks, and its opening as a public-house by Amos Adams, in 1835, has already been mentioned. Originally it was about 20 by 40 feet in size, but was afterwards increased by additions until it became, during its day, the largest public-house in Howell. Besides its legitimate purpose as a house of entertainment it was made to do duty in its early years as a place of holding elections and public meetings of various kinds, and religious worship, and at different times, it also contained the post-office of the village, some of the county offices, and a store, the last named being kept in it by Mr. F.J.B. Crane, who put in an exceedingly meagre stock of goods, and after continuing for a very short time, abandoned the project. The tavern was sold to many different owners and was burned September, 1857.

Page 175

The first fire which inflicted severe loss upon the village occurred in the evening of Monday, Sept. 28, 1857, and swept away the Eagle Hotel, the first building erected on the original plat of the village in 1835, and nearly the entire line of buildings on the south sideof Grand River Street, between Walnut and East Streets.

Page 189

The first township meeting was held at the tavern-house of Amos Adams on the first Monday in May, 1836. Sugar-bowls, borrowed from the landlady, were used for ballot-boxes, Amos Adams was elected Town Clerk.

Page 197

A public house in the township was opened on the south side of the Grand River Rd, just west of the bridge over the Shiawassee, by Amos Adams, in or about the year 1838, soon after Joseph H. Steel had succeeded him in the Eagle Tavern, in Howell Village. This old tavern on the Shawassee was kept by Mr. Adams until his death, in May, 1855, and after him it was kept by Jesse Childs. Afterwards it was moved to the north side of the plank-road, and is still standing there.

Page197

The first manufacturing establishment in Howell outside the village limits was a saw-mill, erected in the year 1838 by Joseph Porter and Amos Adams, on the Shiawassee River, a little to the north and east of the centre of section 27. Mr. Adams had been the proprietor of the Eagle Tavern in the village which had been recently been sold to Joseph H. Steel, leaving Mr. Adams free to engage in this new project. The mill was later owned by Enos B. Taylor and Amos S. Adam's, son of Amos Adams.

FOWLERVILLE/MICHIGAN PLACE NAMES page 208

Fowlerville,Livingston County: Chilson Sanford, of Washtenaw County, made land entries here in 1834, but the first permanent settler was Ralph Fowler in 1836, and it was he who instructed Amos Adams to plat the village in 1849, given a post office named Cedar on April 5, 1838, with Elijah Gaston as its first postmaster, the office was renamed Fowlerville on May 10, 1853, with tavern keeper David Lewis as postmaster; first incorporated as a village in 1871 (Mrs. Bernard Hamlin Glenn; PO Archives).

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2} Ancestry.com. 1850 United States Federal Census. (Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2005).

   Online publication - Ancestry.com. 1850 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2005.Original data - United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Seventh Census of the United States, 1850. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1850.M432, 1,009 rolls. Howell, Livingston, Michigan, roll M432_356, page 341, image 35.