DOVER TOWNSHIP
This Township is generally level, with a clay soil and well improved lands. It is one of the foremost agricultural districts in the County, embracing 14,491 acres of improved land, valued at $1,175,597. Its productions in 1870, as given in the census tables, equaled $257,057, and its yield of wheat was given at 38,409 bushels. The aggregate of real and personal property of Dover is $1,409,040. The first entry of land we can find on the records for this Township was made by Isreal Pennington, May 27, 1830. Samuel Warren, of Ontario County, New York, entered the second piece only four days later. In 1834 Mr. Robb kept a tavern near the centre of the town, on the road from Adrian to Kidder’s Mill, -- a log house of two rooms; and an “old settler” who stopped there says they had no bedsteads, but slept on the floor, and that half a dozen persons filled the entire sleeping apartment, except the corner in which stood the whisky barrel, their apology for a bar, -- the other room being used jointly as kitchen and dining room. Things have changed some since those days. Now as fine farms and residences are found there as can be shown in the County.
Clayton Village, on the town-line of Dover and Hudson, with about equal portions in each, contains some 500 inhabitants. It is on the Michigan Southern Railroad, eleven miles west of Adrian. It was first settled in 1836, and incorporated in 1870. The shipments are mostly agricultural products, including butter, cheese, eggs, and live stock.
Copyright Ed Van Horn, 2006, Port St Lucie, Florida