As the logical repository of items of historical value the Society has acquired a listing of  local farms and the names given them.  The listing gives no clue as to date or origin, compiler, reason for compiling or how these names were determined or bestowed.

Other questions arise.  How were farms selected for inclusion?  Many major farmers are not listed.  Why are most of those listed in Brighton Township with only a few from Genoa and Green Oak Township?  With no information as to location our only clue is “Charles Jacobs – Pleasant View Farm, Brighton”.  Some of our senior residents may know but not many have that information unless they grew up in the neighborhood of the Jacobs’ farm.

Research of the 1915 Livingston County Atlas has located most of those listed.  The Atlas index of names includes the section in which property is owned.  Knowledge of contemporary road names is vital: no roads carry names in the atlas.  At the time, locals knew the location of the Crippen Place, the Kelly farm, or the Hacker Farm.  Even when rural Free Delivery was inaugurated in October 1, 1896, road names were not necessary.  Mail merely required you name and post office.  The advent of electricity and Edison’s need to properly bill customers brought about designated road names and numbers for properties.

The index of 1915 atlas records that Charles Jacobs owned 80 acres in Section 19 of Brighton Township.  From this it can be deduced that Pleasant View Farm was located on the south side of Hilton Road, east of Grand River, about ¼ mile west of Ore Creek where Hilton Road crosses it.  Facing north, one sees that dam across the stream and Woodland Lake north of it.

From Charles Jacobs’ obituary it can be learned he was born in 1846 in Brighton Township and died in 1924 in Brighton Village.  He and his wife, Eunice Bidwell, whom he married in 1868, had moved into town a few years earlier.  A leg wound, received during the Civil War Battle of the Wilderness, plagued him for many years.  Three children were born to them: Seth B., publisher of the Brighton Argus at the time of his father’s death, and two daughters, Mrs. J.L. Taylor and Mrs. W.J. Donaldson, all of Brighton.  Eunice died in 1931.

Compiled from: Newspaper clippings, 1915 Atlas Livingston county and obituary listings book compiled by Milton Charboneau.  Marieann Bair.