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

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prietor, Roswell T. Merrill. Willets' plat, northwest quarter of section
25, was laid out in 1837; Hunter's first and second plats, northeast quarter
of section 36, 1840 and 1842, respectively; Hamilton plat, southeast
quarter of section 25, 1846, and William Torrey's plat, on section 36, in
1856. These were all the plats recorded previous to the incorporation
of the village in 1864.
OLD TIMES AT PIETY HILL
One of the prominent citizens of Birmingham, who did much to
stamp the community as a religious one, was Deacon Elijah S. Fish, who
in January, 1820, established his homestead on the northeast quarter
of section 23. He was a stanch Presbyterian, and it was at his barn
and house that the first meetings of that denomination were held and
the first society organized. His daughter, Miss Fannie E. Fish, presented a paper to the Oakland County Pioneer Society, in i888, describing "Piety Hill" and vicinity as the Fish family found it in its earliest days, and, although the matter is somewhat personal, it gives so
graphic a picture of the region and the times that it is here republished.
"No spot on the face of the earth," she writes, "has for me more
pleasant associations than Oakland county. I sometimes wonder if we
fully realize how fair a dot on the earthly ball it is. There may be, and
doubtless are, thousands of places of more romantic scenery, of more
historic interest, but I have seen hundreds, if not thousands of places
without a tithe of its attractions. Its almost innumerable little lakes,
crystal clear, have come to be appreciated by all lovers of the beautiful. And there is many a wooded knoll and many a country road, fragrant in early summer with brier rose and clover, and later, gay with
golden-rod and aster, bitter sweet and sumach, that would delight a
poet's heart. But it is not so much to what it is, as to what it was, that
I wish to invite your attention. We gather here year after year to recall with loving memory the incidents of the early settlement of this
county. Let us spare a moment to glance at some of the beautiful
features of that early day that belong as irrevocably to the past as do
the sturdy settlers, who, we will believe, at the bottom of their stout
hearts, appreciated the beauty it was their mission, in part, at least, to
destroy.
"The little opening in the forest north of Birmingham must have
suggested the cleared farms that were to be in the future. Though not
great in extent, it was dignified with the name of 'the plains,' and was
a pleasant break in the monotony of endless trees. The willow fringed
brook on the west sang contented on its way, but told no tales of the
past, and of the future only remarking that it was fully able to furnish
power for sawing lumber or grinding grain, and was quite at the new
comers' service. A few oaks had stepped from their dense neighborhood and secured elbow room in this open space. Painted cup and
lupine were glad of a little more sunshine and flourished here accordingly.
"And the old road, too, the Indian trail that led from I know not
where, possibly Saginaw, to Detroit. Detached fragments of it remained intact for many years. Doubtless it grew in loveliness after it