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

485

an absence of three or four days the party returned to Detroit, carrying
many specimens of the shrubs and flowers of the region, and early in
the year 1819, Major Williams formally entered the land he had selected.
On the 6th of March, I819, at noon, \Iajor Williams and his fanily,
consisting of his wife and eight children, arrived at the town of Pontiac,
which then comprised a little log house sheltering three families and a
few workmen. They took dinner on boards laid across some barrels,
but everybody was in hearty spirits and appetites were at a premlium.
The Williams family then went on, arriving at the site of their future
home on Silver lake at four o'clock in the afternoon.
WATERFORD VILLAGE Fou ND E )
The same year of the Williams' settlement on Silver lake also marked
the coming of Alpheus Williams, the Major's brother-in-law, and Captain
Archibald Phillips, a Detroit merchant, who settled at the place where
the Detroit and Saginaw trail crossed the Clinton river, or the site of
the present village of Waterford. Alpheus Williams also made the
first purchase of land in the township of Independence, section 33, adjoining his Waterford purchase on the north.
The Williams's were both prominent in the annals of the township
and the county. Before they came into this new country they were
Detroit merchants of established reputations, and continued to be known
in Oakland county as men of business ability and public spirit. Their
sons and daughters married into the old solid families of the region and
continued the substantial reputation of the family name.
In partnership with Alpheus Williams, Captain Phillips built a dam
and sawmill at Waterford on the Clinton river. They erected the first
houses there, and lived in the locality to the last. At the death of Mr.
Williams, in 1828, his property, including the sawmill, passed into other
hands, and finally was owned by Mrs. Elizabeth Windiate, whose husband, William T. W\indiate, had laid out the first village lots of Waterford in 1845. At that time the old paper town of "New Philadelphia,"
platted by Josiah H. Cobb on the northeast quarter of the northeast
quarter of section 5 in I836, had long since become extinct. About
1835, at the completion of the Detroit and Saginaw turnpike and the
establishment of a mail-route between these points, a postoffice was
established at Waterford. Captain Phillips, who had opened the first
hotel in I830, was appointed postmaster.
In 1844 Dr. George Williams (unrelated to either Oliver or Alpheus),
who was Waterford's first physician, built grist mills both at that point
and at Clintonville.
SCHOOLS AND CHURCHES
In 1840 a school was taught southeast of the village, and subsequently
meetings were held in the schoolhouse by the Episcopalians. A frame
schoolhouse was built in Waterford in 1848, but it was not until 1872
that the two story Union brick house was completed.
The first religious meetings of any consequence were held in the
village ly the \Methodists as early as 1838. Previous to this time a