A newspaper clipping (c. 1900) contains a list of 41 farms, almost all in Brighton Township. From that list & research on background of these farms should show what life was like at that time. The Lamart Hicks Farm on Skeman Road is the subject of this article.
Lamarts parents, Wheaton and Sallie, came from Cayahoga, New York, in 1859, with nine year old Lamart and his siblings: Eugene, 15, Lois, 13, Ross 10 and Sarah 7. For many years Wheaton served the Township as J.P., School inspector and Supervisor. His sons continued this tradition.
The first owner of NW1/4 Section 21 was Cornelius Meisse of Orange, N.Y. A road angles through the 160 acres, which border on Warner Lake. The 1859 Atlas has Wm. Brown as owner; Wheaton probable bought from him. The symbol of a building probably a house shows, along the road, on the 1875 Atlas. By now Dan Skeman owns 80 acres in Sec. 16, from which we can assume the road gets its name. (The lake was changes names: Warner to Hicks to School, the site of which shows on the 1895 atlas.) Wheaton died in 1899 and Lamarts name appears as owner.
Lamerts farm was named Lakeside Stock Farm. A stream (Carters Drain), draining the Central northern part of the township ran through a corner of his property. That and the lake across the road would provide sufficient water for plenty of livestock. Altho some of it was very rolling, sufficient land was flat enough for crops.
By 1935 the old house is gone, the land across the road is becoming subdivision with cottages springing up along the shore. In the 1961 Atlas one learns a religious organization has developed a campground on the entire quarter section. 1998 finds the cottages are becoming year round homes and developments called Sand Pointe and Pine Creek have filled those once productive agricultural acres with home sites for later settlers.
Compiled from Atlasses, Charboneaus obituaries, Wests scrapbooks, 1880 History of Livingston County and Pauline Chenoweth. Marieanna Bair.