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.

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HISTORY OF OAKLAND COUNTY

The original forest of Bloomfield was not as dense, nor was the timber
as heavy as in such townships as Southfield and Farmington. It had
much the character of "openings," especially in the more uneven parts
toward the west and north.
A GOOD,MANY DEAD INDIANS
As elsewhere in the county, the country in the vicinity of the fishproducing lakes of Bloomfield township was a favorite resort of the
Indians. When they made their semi-annual journeyings to Detroit to
receive their government annuities, they made their camps on their
shores or on the banks of the Rouge river. There are traditions, too,
that this region was once the theater of great battles between the rival
tribes. In particular, it was related by a centenarian French voyager
named Michaud, whom Edwin Baldwin and other old residents of the
township remember well, that on one occasion, long before the coming
of the government surveyors, as he passed through these woods on a
fur-trading expedition, he came to a fresh battlefield on which still lay
unburied fifteen hundred dead Indians; and that this bloody spot was
none other than what has since been known as "Swan's plains," a short
distance north of Birmingham. Doubtless battles were fought within
the limits of Bloomfield township between warring savages-but fifteen
hundred dead Indians are a good many!
FIRST LAND ENTRY
The first settlers of Bloomfield township came into the country the
year before it was created, civilly and politically. The first land entry
within its limits was of the northwest quarter of section 36, made on the
28th of January, I819, by Colonel Benjamin H. Pierce, an army officer
and a brother of Franklin Pierce, afterward president of the United
States. Colonel Pierce visited his land several times, but never settled
upon it.
FORMATIVE TOWNSHIP PERIOD
The first township meeting was held at the house of John Hamilton
May 25, 1827. The board of inspectors consisted of Samuel Satterlee,
Laban Jenks and Elijah S. Fish. Mr. Fish was the moderator and Ogden
Clarke was the clerk for the day. Lemuel Castle was the first supervisor, and continued to serve continuously until 1830, the year that the
township acquired its present area, when John W. Hunter was elected.
Ezra S. Parke was township clerk from 1827 to 1834; so that he was
also in office during this formative period.
The first schoolhouse in Bloomfield township was a small log building erected on the farm of Dr. Ziba Swan, less than a mile north of the
village of Birmingham. Captain Hervey Parke, the surveyor, commenced the first term therein about December I, 1822.
The first district school in Bloomfield was taught by Rev. Lemuel
M. Partridge in the winter of 1834-35, in the old log house of John
Hamilton, at Birmingham. In the former year the district system of