(P.11) The year 1833 may almost be set down in this township as a period of exploration. The recently erected but unorganized county drew many parties who went over this township in search of homes. Among these were John D. Pinckney, S. N. Warren, George T. Sage, Moses Thompson, Orman Coe, Checkly S. Palmer, C. C. Trobridge and John J. Eaman. The four last named have the honor of being the first to locate land in the township, the last two selecting eighty acres on section thirty-five and thirty-six respectively, or a part of the present village of Howell. It is in the exploration of Messrs. Pinckney and Sage and their party however that we are most interested as the first settlements in the township resulted from their trip. Mr. Pinckney was an energetic butcher of Hughsonville, N.Y. Not being entirely satisfied with his advantages he determined to emigrate to the then undeveloped west to which his father and brothers had preceded him. A trip by the Erie canal and Lake Erie landed him in Detroit, from where he went to Salem, Washtenaw County, which was then the home of his people. George S. Sage who was upon the same errand as Mr. Pinckney, joined him at his (P.12) father's and in company with Mr. Pinckney's brothers they set out together along the Grand River trail, for the new unorganized county of Livingston, as the most promising government territory upon which to build a home. They built a temporary hut with a bark roof, about where the palatial home of Thorne & Farnsworth now stands, and spent a week prospecting. The timber was mostly oak openings and the soil although not so strong as that of heavy timberd land, was of good quality and because of the lighter timber, was quicker available to the pioneers for homes. Along the creeks and low places coarse grass grew more luxuriantly than after fire had burned over the ground in early day. Often growing to the height of a man's head, to these marshes seeming blemishes upon the face of the country, the pioneers were glad to go for sustenance for their stock, finding them truly blessings in disguise. The beautiful lakes and complete wildness of their surroundings made up a series of picturesque scenery for those early pioneers over which the artists of Howell to-day would go completely wild.

     Mr. Sage selected a homestead a little west of their prospector's cabin and Mr. Pinckney one near Thompson's lake at its southeast extremity. After making their minutes of the land selected for themselves and several other tracts, they returned to Salem and Messrs. Pinckney and Sage went at once to the land-office at Detroit, and located their land, after which (P.13) they returned to their homes and began active preparations to move to their new land. On May 14th, 1834, Mr. Sage and his father James Sage came with their families and settled upon the land selected by Geo. T. Sage as noted above. James Sage's log house was erected upon the site now occupied by the elegant residence of Wm. McPherson Jr., while George T. Sage's was across the Grand River trail to the south, or nearly in the center of what is now Grand River street. This was the first settlement in the township.

     Mr. Sage Sr. only lived about five years after settling here. He died June 29th, 1839. The children of James Sage were George T., James R. and Chester A. George T. Sage died in Marion township, August 21, 1852. He was married to Miss Louisa Austin (later Mrs. Rev. G. W. Genks of Brighton,) a short time before settling in Howell. Mrs. Sage's father, David Austin, and family came from Salem and settled on section 35, on land selected by his son-in-law, in June of 1834. Mr. Austin lived upon his farm until February 1, 1847, when he died. His wife followed her husband about a year afterwards. The oldest son of David Austin, David Jr., did not come to Michigan. Mr. Austin's other children were Johnathan, Louisa, wife of Geo. T. Sage, Melvina, afterwards Mrs. George Sewell, and Sally T., afterwards Mrs. Merritt S. Havens. Johnathan Austin who came with his father, located what is now the Gilks farm and lived there for a long time, but afterwards (P.14) moved to the Upper Peninsula, he was very prominent in school and other local matters.

     John D. Pinckney settled business matters in the east and bringing his family as far as Salem left them with his people there while he came with two men he had employed, to erect a house for them, and arrived here soon after the others. He was in much better shape financially than most of his contemporaries In Howell, and his capital soon made him very comfortable as compared with those about him although his house was the regulation one room cabin of pioneer days. He brought with him a team of horses, the first to come to this section. His family came on in December of that year. In 1842 Mr. Pinckney moved to the Village of Howell, from his farm, and died here, Feb. 11, 1861.

     The trials to be met and difficulties to be overcome by these first settlers are not to be estimated by us. Occasional trips into new sections of our country at the present day may furnish the basis of in estimate. With ox teams, little capital and very few conveniences of life, they commenced the work of civilizing this wilderness, Elisha H. Smith described the situation in the following words. "The nearest inhabitants from the center of the township, at the settlement of this place, were eighteen miles away. In a westerly direction, it was about forty miles to the nearest settlement. The nearest mills were eighteen miles distant."

      (P.15) As the year 1833 could be set-down as a period of exploration for Howell township, so the year 1835 should be classed as the year of settlement. The rush for homes in the new county was fairly on by opening of spring and the township was full of prospectors and the settlers coming to the land located in the previous two years.

     The first new settler was a bouncing boy who came into the home of George T. Sage on January 23, 1835 announcing himself to be the first white child born in the township of Howell. A pointer of the hardships in the life of these early pioneers is a little remembrance of Mrs. John D. Pinckney in connection with the event of Mr. Sage's birth as told by her in after years. Johnathan Austin, a brother of Mrs. Sage, was sent to Kensington, after a doctor for the event. Mr. Austin stopped at Mr. Pinckney's to borrow a horse to make the journey but the team were away and he was obliged to go afoot to secure the services of Dr. F. Curtiss. of that place, who was physician to every family in Livingston County at that time. It would take a good walker about half a day to make the journey through the January snow, over the Grand River trail, and the doctor nearly the same time to return.

     Among the earliest settlers of 1835, to arrive in the township from the east, were Villeroy E., John W. and Elisha H. Smith, three brothers who came from Ontario county, New York, in May of that year. The (P.16) last named lived here until quite an old man. For many years he was active in the county pioneer society and took great delight in recounting his experiences in the early days here. He wrote a history of Howell which had quite a local circulation, about the time of its publication.

     Probably the next to arrive in 1835 was Moses Thompson and Ezra J. Munday. Mr. Thompson with his son Lewis and daughters Rachel, (afterwards Mrs. Houghtaling, later Mrs. Preston) and Lucinda, (Mrs. Ezra Frisbee), left Herkimer County in April, traveled through Canada in a double buggy drawn by the second team of horses brought to Howell, and reached Detroit, on May 25th. The remainder of the family, Mrs. Thompson, Morris, Edward and Maria, Elizabeth and Jane, afterwards Mrs. Clark, Mrs. Slader and Mrs. Crittenden, respectively, with Mr. Munday, left Herkimer County about a month later and after a trip of over a week by the Erie Canal and lake Erie, landed in Detroit, on the 7th of June. Three days later the entire party left Detroit, with their horse team and five yokes of oxen which Mr. Thompson had bought in Detroit. The family stopped several days at Lyon while Mr. Thompson came on and commenced his house. Part of them arrived on June 23 and stopped at Geo. T. Sage's until their own house which stood just up from the bank at the north end of what is now known as Thompson's (P.17) Lake, was ready for them, which was about July 4th. The rest of the family came about that time.

     By this time the settlement inside of what is now the village of Howell, or rather the home of John D. Pinckney, had come to be called Livingston Center, and as a matter of almost necessity, Mr. Pinckney's house had come to be almost a hotel for prospectors.

     On the 2nd of July 1835, Alexander Fraser the the father of Mrs. Pinckney, sold from the land located by Mr. Pinckney for him, the west half of the southwest quarter and the southwest quarter of the northwest quarter of section 36, to David Wetmore and Edward Brooks of Detroit. Later in the same year, after two or three deeds, the title to these tracts rested one-third in Flavius J. B. Crane and two-thirds in Edward Brooks. These gentlemen proceeded at once to plat this 120 acres into the village of Howell The old public square was reserved in their plat for public use, it being the idea of the founders of the village to have the county buildings located upon it. The prospective village was named Howell. Mr. Crane cited as his idea for the name, his friend Thomas Howell, son of Judge Howell of Canandaigua, N.Y., but his most intimate friends were sure that Mr. Howell's pretty sister was the real person whose name the town bore. The name of Livingston Center was applied to the village for some years afterward. As noted above, the house of John D. Pinckney had become almost the primitive hotel and Mr. Pinckney (P.18) secured a contract from Crane & Brooks that they would erect a hotel upon their plot. Consequently they commenced drawing lumber from Woodruff's saw mill in Green Oak, soon after their plot was recorded, in November, 1835, and erected a two story frame house, 20x40 feet, in size, the first in the township, on the site now occupied by the Opera House. On December 1, 1835, Amos Adams came in from Geneseo, N.Y., and opened the hotel under the name of the "Eagle Tavern." F. J. B. Crane, and Alexander Fraser at once became boarders at the tavern who with Mr. Adams' family became the first settlers within the original village plot as it existed before the additions were made.

     The Eagle Tavern at once became the center of population for all business matters of the pioneer settlement. It was there that religious services in the township commenced. Alvin Crittenden, a young man afoot and alone, arrived in Howell before a door was hung in the village and on Nov. 24, 1835, hired to Geo. T. Sage for a year. It is largely to remembrances of this pioneer, father or the author of this history, as he was wont to tell them in his latter days and to copious notes of a series of most interesting visits with the late William McPherson sr. that the events herein contained are due. Among others of these remembrances was the story of the first religious services which my father told as follows:

     "Deacon Branch who had settled in Marion, thought (P.19) he could not live without religious meetings, even in the wilderness, and hence he took it upon himself, to commence them. He went to Esquire Adams our noble landlord who kept the hotel in the village--for by this time the house was nearly finished, and Amos Adams occupied it for a hotel-and obtained consent to have religious meetings held in the sitting room. At that time the hotel was the only building in the village. Notice was accordingly given, and on Sabbath morning, I cannot give the date but I think it was in the month of December, 1835, the people assembled, some coming four or five miles, and the sitting room was pretty well filled. Deacon Branch conducted the meeting, reading one of Dr. Payson's sermons. At the close of the services he called for a volunteer to close by prayer. No one come to his help but the deacon was not discouraged and gave notice for a meeting the next Sabbath. On the second Sabbath I volunteered to close the meeting with prayer. Thus it happened that I was the second person who took part in a religious meeting in Howell. After that, if the deacon had to be away from the meeting any Sabbath, he brought to me a volume of Payson's sermons with a request that I should conduct the services which I did several times that year. On one of these occasions I read a sermon from Wesley instead of the one Deacon Branch had selected and he never called upon me to perform the service again.

     Several others who afterwards became prominent in (P.20) local matters, arrived during that year. Elisha H. Smith in his History of Howell published in 1869, summed up the settlement at the close of 1835, as follows:

     All of these earliest pioneers rest from their labors, and to-day enjoy the blessings which their hardships have secured to us.