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

WHEATFIELD TOWNSHIP AND ITS HISTORY

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in 1839, and this neighborhood organized the first road district,
called No. 1.
The first school in the township was kept by Susan Cochran, in
a log building on the west half of the northeast quarter of section
34 about 1840. Another early teacher was Saphronia Worden, a
niece of Mrs. David Gorsline. The school house in the Whitcomb
neighborhood was built in 1841 or 1842. It was a shed roofed
log building, the second one in the township. The third was
probably built about 1846, in what is now District No. 3. Mahala
Blanchard was the first teacher.
There had never been a church edifice erected in the township
until the present M. E. church, but religious services had been
held for many years in various school houses. The religious
denominations presented in the township are Methodist Episcopal, Wesleyan Methodist, Baptists, Congregationalists, Catholic,
and perhaps others. Many of these attend religious services in
Williamston. The first Protestant minister who visited the township is said by the oldest settler to have been Elder Fiero, a prominent Baptist clergyman.
WHEATFIELD TOWNSHIP.
By DR. F. N. TURNER, North Lansing.
The township of Wheatfield was rightly named, for fifty years
ago it was one vast field of wheat. It had a virgin fertile soil
adapted to growing this grain, and the farmers got good return,
for their labors. From 1866 to 1890 wheat was the money crop.
During the decade preceding 1890 the great wheat belt of Dakota
was opened up and many of the Michigan wheat growers went
there.
The millers were compelled to put into their mills the roller
process, instead of using the old-fashioned mill stones, to grind
their hard wheat. Bakers bought the new process flour for it
would absorb more water and they could get more loaves from a
barrel of flour. The competition that followed lowered the price
of winter wheat, and the farmers of Wheatfield were forced to
raise other grains. The large wheatfields of the township vanished with the pioneers.