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Please add profiles of those who were born, lived or died in Gratiot County, Michigan.
Official Website
The county is named for Captain Charles Gratiot, who supervised the building of Port Huron's Fort Gratiot.
The original founders of Ithaca and of Alma were settlers from New England, "Yankees", descended from the English Puritans who settled the northeastern coast of the new continent in the 1600s. The Gratiot County settlers were farmers who headed west into what was then the wilds of the Northwest Territory during the early 1800s. Most of them arrived as a result of the completion of the Erie Canal as well as the close of the Black Hawk War. They arrived to virgin forest and wild prairie, but laid out farms, constructed roads, erected government buildings and established post routes. They maintained their customs, such as passion for education, and abhorrence of the existing slave trade. They were members of the Congregationalist Church or the Episcopal Church. In the 1890s, German immigrants began settling in Gratiot County.
Adjacent Counties
- Clinton County
- Saginaw County
- Shiawassee County
- Ionia County
- Montcalm County
- Isabella County
- Midland County
Cities, Towns & Villages
- Alma
- Ashley
- Breckenridge
- Bridgeville
- Ithaca (County Seat)
- Langport
- Ola
- Perrinton
- St. Louis
Other Townships & Communities: Arcada, Bannister, Beebe, Bethany, Edgewood, Elba, Elm Hall, Elwell, Emerson, Forest Hill, Fulton, Galloway, Hamilton, Lafayette, Middleton, New Haven, New Haven Center, Newark, North Shade, North Star, Pine River, Pompeii, Rathbone, Riverdale, Sethton, Seville, Sickles, Sumner, Washington and Wheeler
Links
Gratiot County Historical & Genealogical Society
National Register of Historic Places
Michigan Family History Network
