History of Oakland County Michigan a narrative account of its historic progress, its people, its principal interests / compiled from the official records of the county, the newspapers and data of personal interviews, under the editorial supervision of Thaddeus D. Seeley.

HISTORY OF OAKLAND COUNTY

219

DOCTOR RAYNALE, DELEGATE TO 1835 CONVENTION
In 1835 Dr. Ebenezer Raynale of Bloomfield was elected a member of the convention (as will be noted in the lists published) to form
the state constitution, and in the fall of the same year was elected to
the state senate for the term of two years, through which he served ably
and faithfully. At the first meeting of the legislature, a part of its
business was the election of a United States senator, concerning which
there was a warm contest, though not between different parties. as there
was really but one party, the Democratic, represented in that first legislature. Doctor Raynale sustained the candidates who proved successful. During his senatorial term a great amount of work was done.
among which was the establishment of the common school system, of
the state university, the lunatic asylum and the state prison, the framing of a new code of laws adapted to the wants of the people and the
commencement of a system of internal improvements.
At the expiration of his term in the senate, Doctor Raynale settled
on a farm in Bloomfield, where he remained for two years, and then
settled in Birmingham, resuming the practice of his profession in 1839.
In 1850 he was elected a member of the convention to form a new constitution, and he served faithfully with that body also.
Doctor Raynale, only son of Ebenezer and Mary Raynale, was born
in Hartland, Windsor county, Vermont, on October 2I, I804. His
father, who died in September of that year, had done a little farming
and had added to this the professions of teacher and land surveyor.
Three years after her husband's death, Mrs. Raynale removed with her
two children, Harriet and Ebenezer, to Brooklyn, Susquehanna county,
Pennsylvania, where a year later she married Jonathan Sabin, and soon
after they removed to the township of Ovid, now Lodi, Seneca county,
New York. Here they remained but a short time and removed to Reading, Steuben county, New York, where they resided until I819, when
they made another move, this time to Cambria, Niagara county, New
York. Here young Raynale lived with his stepfather until he reached
the age of nineteen years, when he went to Brooklyn, Pennsylvania,
his former home, and there for four years devoted himself unremittingly to his preparation for the duties of a professional life, which he
had decided upon entering.
At the expiration of this time, with certificates of three years' medical study in his pocket, he returned to Cambria and gave another year
to hard study in the office of Dr. Darius Shaw, after which he was admitted to the practice of medicine and surgery, under the laws of New
York, which at that time were very rigid in this particular.
In the first part of May, 1828, having decided to emigrate to,Michigan, Doctor Raynale took passage on the steamboat "Henry Clay" at
Buffalo, for Detroit, where he arrived on the 5th of May, and after
a short stay in the city, proceeded to the place which is now the village
of Franklin, in Southfield township, and there he established and commenced business in the line of his profession on the I2th of May. He
was then the only physician in Southfield, and his nearest professional
brethren on the east and west were Dr. Ezra S. Parke, at Piety Hill,