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.

14

HISTORY OF OAKLAND COUNTY

ated in the Maumee valley in Indiana, passed across the southerly part
of Oakland county and thence southwesterly into Ohio and Indiana and,
in its course commingling in this county with the eastern moraine of the
Saginaw glacier, greatly complicated the surface geology of this locality.
The numerous lakes of Oakland county are only a fraction of the
number that must have existed at the time of the final melting away and
retreating of the last glaciers. Some of these, extinct lakes must have
been quite large, for otherwise it is hard to account for the existence of
such broad, sandy, gravelly plains as Sashabaw Plains and those found
in the township of Commerce, and in Orion and other parts of the county.
Those level, sandy, gravelly stretches of land, so common here, clearly
show that they have been leveled and the soil assorted and laid down in
shallow wave-washed lakes and ponds.
But a still greater force leveled and planed down the southeasterly
part of this county, including the townships of Troy and Royal Oak and
parts of Farmington, Southfield and Bloomfield. That force was the
great glacial lakes known as Lake Maumee, Lake Whittlesey and Lake
Warren. Those lakes all disappeared many thousands of years ago.
Probably no human eye ever saw any of them, but to distinguish them,
after generally conceding the evidence of their former existence to be
conclusive, geologists have given them the above names.
As the Maumee glacier began to melt back from its southerly end in
the Maumee valley the lands southwest of the terminus, in Indiana, being
higher than the land under the glacier, a lake was formed at the foot of
the retreating glacier, which is known as Lake Maumee, the outlet of
which was at first at Fort Wayne, Indiana, and the drainage from the
lake passed thence into the Wabash and Ohio rivers. When the glacier
had melted back as far north as Imlay City, in Lapeer county, another
outlet was formed at that place through which the waters of Lake Maumee
passed across, near North branch, into the Cass river, thence across Genesee, Shiawassee and Clinton counties into the Grand river, and thence
by way of the present site of Chicago to the Mississippi river. Lake
Maumee is supposed to have kept both outlets for a time and until the
Imlay outlet had lowered so as to carry off all its flood waters, when the
outlet at Fort Wayne ceased. The glaciers continued to melt back farther until a still lower outlet was formed across the "Thumb" in Huron
county at Ubly, to Cass river, known as the Ubly Outlet; and as this outlet deepened the lake quickly lowered and shrank on its southerly and
westerly sides and continued to extend northerly with the retreating
glacier. Lake Maumee, after the close of the Fort Wayne and Imlay
outlets and while its outlet was across the "Thumb" at Ubly, has been
given the name of Lake Whittlesey.
The glaciers continued to retreat farther north until finally a still
lower outlet for Lake Whittlesey was formed around the end of the
"Thumb" or across the north part of it and by way of the Saginaw valley
and along Maple river, in Shiawassee and Clinton counties, to the Grand
river at Pewamo, a short distance east of Ionia. That last stage of Lake
Maumee, the one when its outlet was at the last mentioned place, has
been given the name, Lake Warren. This lake continued to exist until