Pioneer history of Ingham County, compiled and arranged by Mrs. Franc L. Adams, secretary of the Ingham County pioneer and historical society.

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PIONEER HISTORY OF INGIIAM COUNTY

roads authorized by Congress, and that through the intercession
of Father Richard, who went before Congress and pleaded for
roads in Michigan.
The result of this pleading was national turnpikes leading from
Detroit to Chicago, Toledo, Fort Gratiot and Saginaw. These
were crude beyond description, there being many miles of corduroy, of a type unknown to the generations of today. There were
no bridges at first, and the primitive roadways had along their
course sloughs almost impassable, deep sand, and widened Indian
trails, later to be succeeded by plank roads in various parts of the
State.
In 1832, after the government had awakened to the need of
better roads, Congress directed the President of the United States
to appoint three commissioners to lay out a road from Detroit
through Shiawassee county to the mouth of Grand river, and
during the next two years there were 10 miles of this built at a
cost of $2,500. Two years later $2,500 more was expended in
building bridges over the Rouge, Huron, Shiawassee and Cedar
rivers. This road was 100 feet wide, and before Michigan was
admitted as a State the road had been built to the present site of
North Lansing.
Road building continued, and improvements were suggested
as time passed on, until in 1845 an act was passed authorizing the
use of certain taxes from non-residents for improving the Grand
river road between Howell and Justice Gilkey's home in Ingham
county. The session laws of that day show a road was ordered
through the county seat of Ingham county in 1837, and one month
later two others were laid out, through the same village. In
1839 a road running east and west was ordered through Leslie,
and one from the Clinton county line through Lansing south to
Mason. In 1848 roads from four different directions were ordered
built in Ingham county, and it was that year that 3,000 acres of
State land were set aside to contribute to the improvement of a
State road running from Dexter to Mason by way of Stockbridge.
The good roads movement received a wonderful impetus about
that time, and the number of roads increased by leaps and bounds
until in 1861 we find Lansing connected with Bay City, while
1,920 acres of State land were set aside for road improvement in
Ingham and Clinton counties. By 1848 saw mills as well as grist