VEVAY TOWNSHIP
VEVAY TOWNSHIP
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The Rolfe family in early Vevay Township The first settlement in Vevay Township, outside of Mason, was known as the "Rolfe Settlement". It occupied the territory where Barnes and Tuttle Roads now cross and south on Tuttle Road and east on Barnes Road. In the summer of 1836, three families of Rolfes (Nathan, Ira and Benjamin) came to Michigan from New York and settled in Vevay Township, making the trip by foot from Buffalo to Detroit, then by ox team from Detroit to Saline. It took them five days to go from Detroit to Saline, for the road had to be cut through wilderness. Within a year, three other brothers came; Ephraim, Hager and Manasach. All settled in sections 29, 30, and 32, near the brothers who first came. Manasach was a physician and subsequently moved to Eaton Rapids, where he died from the effects of a dissecting wound. When the Rolfes first came to the township, the only improvement was a log house built on a small clearing in Mason. Ira Rolfe built a log house in the Rolfe settlement and left his family in Saline, Washtenaw County, and did not become a permanent settler until 1838. The other brothers settled in the one neighborhood in the midst of a dense forest. Their cabins were made of log sides with split shakes for the gable ends. The roof was made of peeled bark. The floors were basswood logs split into planks and laid on the ground. They edged them off with an ax-like tool, which made them quite smooth. The first person to die in the township was Fannie Rolfe, on April 7, 1837. She was buried in her own door yard. |
Copyright © 2000 Vevay Township
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