Elkland Township

Town of Elkland

This town, comprising township 14 north, of range 11 east, lies in the northeast corner of Tuscola County, having Huron County upon the north, and Sanilac on the east. The town of Elmwood bounds it on the west and Novesta on the south. The north branch of Cass River flows across the southeast corner of the town, about fourteen hundred acres lying south of the river: viz., all of section 36, and parts of sections 13, 24, 25, 26, 34, and 35.

The surface of the country north of the river is generally rolling; the soil a clay loam, with more of a gravelly and sandy character along and south of the river. The natural growth is beech, maple, elm, basswood, and along the river pine and hemlock.

The pioneers of civilization in this town were Messers. Cooper and Wright, whose logging operations brought in those who, pleased with the character of the country and its apparent healthfulness and fertility, located lands and alternated their labor in the logging camps in the winter, with the chopping, logging and clearing of their lands in the summer.

Among the earliest settlers of the town were Andrew Walmsley, Hugh Seed, William Edgar, John H. Bird, William Jacobs, Charles W. Smith, David Winton. Of these, Walmsley, Seed, and Bird, are still residing in the town; Edgar, Jacobs, and Winton are dead, and Smith removed from Elkland several years ago.