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.

CHAPTER XXX

ROYAL OAK TOWNSHIP
ORIGIN OF THE NAME-GOVERNOR CASS "SEES FOR HIMSELF"-SETTLERS
OF I822-I826-TOWNSHIP ORGANIZED-ROYAL OAK VILLAGE CORPORATION RECORD-ROYAL OAK SCHOOLS-CHURCHES SOCIETIESURBAN REST AND FERNDALE ROSELAND PARK CEMETERY.
The township of Royal Oak is the gateway to Oakland county. The
government surveyors laid out the road in 1819 over which the eastern
emigrants traveled from Detroit, with their families, and finally found
homes in this section of the state, after the slanders about the country
had been laid to rest by actual travelers and observers.
ORIGIN OF THE NAME
Judge Drake furnishes the authentic explanation as to the origin
of the name in a speech which he delivered in I860. It runs in this wise:
"On the 5th of December, I819, Governor Cass, by proclamation, established a road, which had been previously run out by commissioners
which he had appointed for that purpose from a point in the city of
Detroit on Woodward avenue to the end of the road built by the United
States troops, thence westerly to a large oak tree, marked H, near the
Indian trail, thence westerly along a line run by Horatio Ball, to the
main street in Pontiac village, thence along that to the end thereof.
This was the first road established leading from Detroit to the interior.
The oak tree was near the line run by Ball, from Pontiac to Detroit,
and was probably marked H on that occasion. The tree stood on the
plains and the north and east side of the trail that was traveled from
Detroit to Pontiac, by the way of Chases, and a little to the west of the
line of the road from Niles corner to Detroit. After the issuing of
the governor's proclamation the tree commenced to be observed, and
being of some magnitude it was called the Royal Oak, and from the
tree the name was applied to the country about, and thence to the township at its organization."
GOVERNOR CASS "SEES FOR HIMSELF"
Among those who refused to believe the report of the early surveyors that all this part of the country was a morass or a wilderness
was Governor Lewis Cass, and soon after the road was surveyed he
428