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.

460

HISTORY OF OAKLAND COUNTY

which year the pulpit has been supplied on Sunday afternoons by clergymen chiefly from Detroit and Pontiac. By 1853 the Universalists of the
village had also gained sufficient strength to warrant the building of a
church; but they have had no society for years.
THE MASONIC LODGE
Farmington has still a flourishing Masonic Lodge (No. I51), which
was chartered January 13, 1865, with Oliver B. Smith as master, B.
Weiderick, senior warden and H. H. Jackson, junior warden. The
first place of meeting was the hall in the stone building of Worthy Master Smith, which was destroyed by fire, with all the records of the lodge,
in October, 1872. Meetings were then held for a time in the wooden
building of Norman Lee, and afterward in the hall in Warner's block.
There the lodge continued to have its home until the new Masonic hall
was dedicated in the upper story of the town hall, on the 27th of December, I876. Since 1872 the masters of the lodge have been James
Baldwin, R. W. Crawford, 0. L. Murray, H. A. Green, A. A. Murray,
William Harlan, Aaron Avery, T. J. Davis, J. E. Wilcox, Wallace
Grace, C. J. Sprague, John H. Thayer, A. J. Crosby, B. C. Northrop, F.
J. Lee, Isaac Bond, E. A. Drake, J. L. Hogle and A. F. Allyn.
CLARENCEVILLE AND NORTH FARMINGTON
A small cluster of buildings on the electric line, in the extreme southeast part of the township, a mile and a half from Farmington, is what
remains of one of the old settlements of the region. In 1836 Stephen
Jennings built a tavern at that point for the accommodation of travelers
over the old Detroit and Howell plankroad. He also opened a general
store, and this "sixteen mile station out of Detroit" became quite a favorite stopping place. But Clarenceville, as it was called, collapsed with
the discontinuance of the old-time stage lines.
In I850 a postoffice was established a mile south of the north line of
the township to accommodate the people of that section. Its location
was then at Wolcott's Corners, and Chauncey D. Wolcott was postmaster. At his death, about I865, the office was moved up to the town line,
in the northeast quarter of section 4. John H. Button, the last resident
postmaster of North Farmington, lived in that locality from 1831 to
1872, when he moved to Genesee county, Michigan, where he died four
years later.