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 INGHAM COUNTY

EARLY HISTORY OF ONONDAGA.
By MnR. WILL BYRUM.
By an act of the Legislature, approved March 6, 1836, Town
1 N, Range 2 W., then a part of Aurelius, was set off and organized
into a township named Onondaga. The boundaries had been
surveyed in 1824-25.
The first recorded town meeting was held at the home of Barney
Johnston the first Monday in April, 1838. Amos E. Steele was
elected supervisor. Early history shows that many of the first
settlers came from Onondaga county, N. Y., among them Orange
Phelps, to whom is given the credit of naming the village. It is
an Indian name and has various pronunciations. The first land
entry was made by Oliver Booth, from Gaines, Orleans county,
N. Y., May 26, 1834, and included all of section 29.
Just one month later he settled in what is now the village, this
being the first settlement in the township. Mr. Booth lived about
a year after he came, and his was the first death of a white man in
the township.
Just seven days after Mr. Booth came to Onondaga Peter
Cranson, a young unmarried man, arrived. He came from
Cayuga county, N. Y., and made the second entry of land, section
20, on June 26, 1834. He was one of the inspectors of the first
town meeting, and the second meeting was held at his home.
Later he located the farm now occupied by his son Emmett.
Henry Allen, a son-in-law of Oliver Booth, moved his family into
the township in 1834, and settled south of the Cranson place.
His son William was the first white child born in the township,
June, 1834.
Mr. Booth returned to New York on business soon after he
settled, and Jeduthan Frye, from Massachusetts, returned with
him in October, 1834. He lived for some time in the Booth family and in February, 1838, he married Harriet Booth, the first
marriage in the township, and their daughter, Harriet, born December 25, 1839, was the first white female child born here. The
Frye home was originally west of Onondaga village. The only de