MACON TOWNSHIP
The prevailing soil of the Township is a black, sandy loam, with some clay. Crops, in quality and yield, compare favorably with any of the other townships. The railroad facilities consist of the Adrian and Saline Railroad, now in course of construction the road-bed being graded through the whole Township. One of the earliest settlers was John Pennington, who moved into what is now Macon with his family, from Raisin, in 1831, and entered the first land. The town was named in the winter of 1833, after a creek which flows through it from the northwest to the southeast. Israel Pennington and Dr. Joseph Howell circulated a petition at that time to have the town set off from Tecumseh, the present towns of Macon, Tecumseh, and Ridgeway then being one. The first religious services were held by Joseph Bangs, a Methodist minister, in a log house near Pennington’s. The first frame house was built by Dr. Howell. Mary White was the first white person to die in the Township, in the spring of 1833. James and Gabriel Mills were the first to bring a stock of goods into the town to sell. Israel Pennington was the first postmaster. Among the earliest settlers not before named were Samuel Niblack, the first justice of the peace, James Collins and his sons, Wm. Hendershott, and Peter Sones. The last named (“honest old Peter”) broke the first ground in the Township. When Ira Stewart came in 1833, he had to cut his road for four miles through the woods to reach his place. Peter Miller, who settled in 1833, caught a deer by the horns while it was asleep, and in trying to hold it was dragged through the woods until his clothes were torn to shreds. Simeon Davidson, Peter Van Vleet, Daniel Clarkson, Wm. Cadmus, Abram and James Wheeler, Burtis Bird, Asa Russell, and Captain Isaac Miller may be mentioned also as early settlers of Macon. The valuation of farms, etc., of this Township is $1,066,050, and of its productions, $250,000 annually. Its school facilities are first class. There are three churches in the town, viz., Methodist, Baptist, and Reform. The eastern portion of the town is well watered by artesian or flowing wells, some of which throw their waters twelve or fourteen feet in the air. A ridge runs through Macon nearly from northeast to southwest, which has indications of having once been the shore of a large inland lake.
Macon Village is a small hamlet in the northeast corner of the Township. Lake Ridge post-office is located near the center of the town.
Copyright Ed Van Horn, 2006, Port St Lucie, Florida
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