Up until the year 1800 virtually nothing was known or recorded of the features and nature of the interior lands of Michigan although the waterways and shorelines had been mapped to some extent, but only for the purposes of the explorers and traders and the locations of Indian villages and the identification of those Indians.

The first white man to have reached Michigan was Jean Nicolet, a French explorer. He traversed the shores of Lakes Huron, Michigan and Superior, and then returned to the Straits of Mackinac. The two main Indian Centers were at Michilimackinac (Mackinaw City) and St. Ignace. Nicolet went back to France and then returned in 1604, with a Jesuit, Father Claude Dablon, and a small force of French soldiers.

To the northeast, in New France (Canada), the area was controlled by the Algonquian Indians, in the northern part of the Lower Peninsula the Ottawas were in command. The Ojibwas occupied the Upper Peninsula, while the Pottawatamies held the southern part of Michigan. Father Marquette established a mission at St. Ignace and also operated out of Old Fort Mackinac. A small settle­ment was established at the head of the rapids on the St. Mary's River and became Sault Ste. Marie. A trading post was set up on Mackinac Island and was accepted by all Indian factions as neutral ground. Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, the French colonial governor of North America, in 1694 moved from Nova Scotia to Old Fort Mackinac and took command. In 1701 Cadillac moved much of the garrison at Fort Mackinac to Detroit, where the outlet of the upper great lakes flowed from Lake St. Clair into Lake Erie.

In 1760, near the end of the French and Indian Wars, Major Robert Rogers made an expedition westward to capture French forts for the English. He met with Pontiac, Chief of the Ottawas, to gain their assistance. The Treaty of Paris, signed in 1763, ended the French control in Canada and to the west.

Using the confusion that followed, Pontiac took this as an opportunity to re­gain the Indian domination of their lands. He formed an alliance of the Algon­quian nation, and the Ottawas, being reinforced by Wyandots, Pottawattamie and Ojibwas, stormed Fort Detroit on May 10, 1763. Pontiac was unsuccessful and retired to the Maumee in Ohio. From here he continued his attacks and destroyed and massacred the garrisons of Sandusky, Presque Isle and Old Fort Mackinac. In 1780 Old Fort Mackinac was moved to Mackinac Island.

During the War of 1812, an American force under General William Hull sur­rendered to a much smaller Canadian garrison at Fort Detroit. In 1813, the Americans suffered another defeat in a battle on the River Raisin near the site of Monroe. Finally, with the victory of Captain Oliver Perry on Lake Erie, General William Henry Harrison's forces were able to push back the British who burned Fort Detroit and retreated into Canada. Harrison pursued them and de­feated them on the River Thames north of the present Windsor, Ontario. In this battle Indian Chief Tecumseh was killed.

In 1803 Ohio was admitted as a state. It included a large area of undeveloped land (Michigan, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota), and was called the Huron Territory. The area in the extreme southern part of what is now Michigan began to become developed first around Detroit, Monroe and Tecumseh and then westward along the old Sac Indian Trail between Detroit and Chicago. By 1833 there were only scattered settlers, trappers, etc. in the extreme southeast of Michigan. The U.S. Government sent a regular survey team to that area and a coordinate system was set up for the subdivision of land. As of 1835 the whole area north and west of Saginaw was still just a blank on the map. Northern Michigan was a wild and undeveloped area. However, a few settlers were beginning to drift into the Southern Michigan area which would later become known as Ridgeway Township.

Lower Michigan sought identity as Michigan Territory and admittance to the Union. When this succeeded, Ohio was forced to cede that area and the surveys of the Public Domain were just underway so that the southern boundary of Michigan, as it was then defined, ran eastward and would have cut the new settlement of Toledo in half east and west. A reference to a map will show that the east portion of the south boundary of Michigan extends farther south than the west portion. The eastern line extended south ten miles. Ohio and Michigan went around on this and it looked like the River Raisin would become a battleground in a two state civil war. Finally Ohio offered Michigan the northern part of the Huron Territory (the Upper Peninsula) in return for the south five mile strip in the Toledo area. Also, Michigan would administer the balance of the Huron Territory (Wisconsin and part of Minnesota).

Michigan was admitted to the Union in 1837 and then came the chore of or­ganizing it and subdividing it into counties and townships for administration, with Detroit being named the state capitol. The northern part of the Lower Peninsula was not surveyed until the early 1840's.

General Lewis Cass became Michigan Territory's first governor. He urged the building of five military roads in Michigan but only three were started ­one north to Saginaw, another west to Muskegon and the third followed, the Sac Indian Trail to Chicago (present U.S. Highway 12).

In 1840 the first state geologist, Douglas Houghton, and John Burt, a government surveyor, went into the western end of the Upper Peninsula and the Keweenaw where Houghton delineated the vast copper and iron deposits of the area. Burt made his plans for the survey which was carried out from 1843 to 1845.

With the Treaty of LaPointe in 1843, this area was ceded to the U.S. by the Ojibwas (Chippewas) and the first copper mine was opened on the north end of the Keweenaw in 1843 with Fort Wilkins being established at Copper Harbor to protect the miners.

In the 1840's and 1850's railroads were being experimentally pushed west­ward to Ohio and south into the plantations. The first railroads were poorly constructed, narrow gage and only took the most accessible routes, often bypassing more lucrative areas. The first big trade was in passenger service and for the mails.

At the time of statehood (1837) there were an estimated 90,000 people in the whole territory. By 1850 there were just fewer than 400,000. By 1860 the population had swelled to 750,000 and by the end of the Civil War, in 1865, the number was about one million and Michigan had furnished just fewer than 100,000 men to the Union armies. Railroads had been established to Detroit and across the lower end of the state to Chicago. A few branch lines extended north for short distances to some of the numerous but small communities.

After the Civil War nothing eventful took place other than the nation trying to readjust after that terrific upheaval. Then two unrelated events took place. On October 7, 1871, a forest fire started in the vicinity of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, near Green Bay. On October 8, 1871, the great Chicago fire started, which leveled practically the whole city. While 400 lost their lives in Chicago, some 1200 died at Peshtigo. All of a sudden the vast white pine stands of Lower Michigan and that of Northern Wisconsin brought to attention by the Peshtigo conflagration was the center attraction and the mad rush was on for the lumber to rebuild Chicago, first, and the burgeoning demands of the rapid growth and settlement of the Midwest. The first sawmills sprouted up along the shore of Lake Huron around the "thumb", into Saginaw Bay and on up towards the Straits of Mackinac. Water was the prime source and means of trans­porting the pine logs which floated readily and for the shipment of lumber on barges and hookers around into Lake Michigan to Chicago and to most other ports along the Great Lakes.

The vast timber stands which were proclaimed as being of a size to last "forever" were largely depleted by 1890. During the two decades between 1870 and 1890 the rush to the north brought multitudes of people who settled there and benefited by the heyday of this new industry and railroads extended into all parts of Lower Michigan and small towns cropped up allover this area. Lower Michigan did not have a corner on the white pine stands in Michigan and in the 1870's the more venturesome timber men moved into the Upper Peninsula and exploited the heavy stands which occurred in the eastern and western portions.

With the first development of the copper lodes in the extreme northern tip of the Keweenaw in 1843 the occurrence was traced in a southwesterly direction for 100 miles with the significance dwindling in that direction. By 1850 mining companies were organized and controlled all of the property. The iron mines on the Marquette range were being developed and the Menominee and Gogebic areas were being explored. At the time of the Civil War most of the world's copper and nation's iron was coming from Northern Michigan.

The basic connection between the Upper and Lower Peninsulas was that of railroad traffic which was transferred across the Straits of Mackinac on huge rail car ferries, the most memorable of which was "Chief Wawatam". When automobiles came into existence, the cars would crowd into any available space on the ferries. Later, smaller ferries were built for automobiles and passengers and then trucking. Still later, the big suspension bridge was constructed between Mackinaw City and St. Ignace and rail traffic dwindled to a virtual standstill.

This, then, together with reference maps, should give you a pretty clear picture of what Michigan was like when the family of James Getty came on the scene and for a time thereafter. It all began less than a century and a half ago.