In the 1870 census of Livingston County we find the first evidence of Myron West living in Brighton Township. He is working for Hiram Nichols who has 120 acres in Section 35, SE ¼ (The present side of Brighton Hospital. The house, which formed the nucleus of the hospital was moved to its present location from a site much closer to the Grand River Trial.)
By 1895 West owns 80 acres about one mile north, FAIR VIEW, Section 26, N ½ SE ¼. Robert Edgar, from Ireland and wife, Nancy Whalen, of Livingston County, N.Y., had purchased this 80 acres from the U.S. government by 1835. One notes a house on the site on the 1859 atlas. (its likely the lumber was sawed at the nearby Woodruff Mill on Pleasant Valley Rod.) In 1879 this was transferred by Robert, who died the next year, to his 24 year old son Emery. His widowed sister, Mathilda Hudson, and her three children are living there, as is his 71 year old mother Nancy. At this time Emery is farming. It would appear brother Walter (wife Sarah and one year old Margery) are probably living in the smaller of the two houses, just south of the larger. All are dependent on the farm.
Myron West, born in Farmington February 12, 1851, was the second of five brothers. By the time he is recorded as the owner of this 80 acre farm, he had married Katie V. Ferguson, a neighbors daughter, January 5, 1881. He did general farming, raising grain and livestock. When the milk factory was established in Brighton, he as many others, switched to dairy farming.
Their only child, Carrie Viola, married Rufus Darlington Christmas Eve, 1913, and lived in the smaller house until after her mothers death in 1935. Carrie was still on that farm well into the 3rd quarter of the 20th century. The present barn is not the original. That burned in c. 1930 as a result of Carries son, Vern, playing with matches.
Myron, who died in 1923, Katie, Carrie and Rufus are buried in the Kensington Cemetery as are Robert and Nancy Edgar. The small house is presently in a state of disrepair. The larger appears to have been undergoing repairs for some time.
Compiled by Marieanna Bair from Early Land Owners and Settlers & obituaries by Milton Charboneau; Early census records, atlases and interview of Herb Warner.