Genesee County History

In 1894 William Ray Perry built this house on the farm that was purchased by his father in 1829. The Queen Anne house displays Eastlake ornamentation. Perry’s forbearers had arrived in New England in 1650. In 1825 Edmund Perry, William’s great-uncle, moved his immediate family from Rhode Island to the Grand Blanc area; other family members followed. The Perrys were the township’s second pioneer family, and this vicinity became popularly known as the “Perry Settlement”.

The central portion of this handsome Victorian home was built in the late 1850s. Several prominent Flint families lived in it before Robert J. Whaley purchased it 1884. Whaley, a local lumberman and banker, remodeled the house extensively. Three bays, the library alcove, and a west-end addition were among the exterior changes. The interior was enhanced by adding ornate woodwork and colorful tiled fireplaces. In 1925 Whaley’s wife endowed the house, making it a home for elderly women. In 1975 it became a public museum.

Flint, platted in 1836, became known as the “Vehicle City.” The production of road carts reached 150,000 annually. Due to the foresight of its vehicle manufacturers, Flint has become second only to the Detroit area in production of motor vehicles.

Starting December 30, 1936, this building was occupied for forty-four days by striking members of the United Auto Workers. The strikers, acting in concert with other plants that were closed or to be closed by sit-downs, asked for recognition of the union as sole bargaining representative for all hourly rated employees of General Motors Corporation.

On February 11, 1937, the strike ended as General Motors recognized the UAW as bargaining agent for its members. This represents one of the most significant events in labor history. In 2005, the marker was moved to Sitdowners Memorial Park off from Executive Plaza Drive, Penbrook Lane and W. Atherton Road - behind UAW Regional Office. Original location was the 300 block of Chevrolet Avenue.

A new era in American labor relations was born as the old open shop policy of industry gave way to a more modern labor-industry relationship designed to promote justice, stability, and mutual interests.

One year after Warwick Hills Golf and Country Club opened in 1957, Waldo McNaught used his unique position as club president and public relations director of the Buick Motor Division of the General Motors Corporation (GM) to organize a golf tournament here. The collaboration between Warwick Hills, Buick, and the Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA) Tour resulted in the first Buick Open, held in June 1958.

The November 9, 1872, edition of the Flint Wolverine Citizen newspaper reported the near completion of this house for retired army colonel Thomas Stockton and his wife, Maria. The newspaper called it "elegant" and "among the most stylish and spacious of the many first-class houses in our city." The four and one-half-acre treed "pleasure grounds" on which the house stood, had a mineral spring that inspired the Stocktons to name their home Spring Grove. While he lived in this house, Stockton worked as a commission merchant dealing in lime, plaster, coal, and stucco.

The Reverend Daniel Brown came to this area in 1839 to help form a new Episcopal parish. He became the first rector of St. Paul’s in 1840 when it received canonical sanction. The congregation met in a temporary chapel and then in a small church before the present structure was started in 1872 through efforts of the Reverend Marcus Lane.

In 1834 Daniel O’Sullivan, a teacher from Ireland, moved to Flint and began teaching religion to students after school. Together with two traveling priests he convinced Bishop Lefevere to build a church in Flint. That church became St. Michael Roman Catholic Parish. In 1848 the parish completed its first church on land donated by Chauncey S. Payne.

Six hundred nineteenth-century graves are marked by rustic tree trunk monuments, obelisks, tablets and pedestaled urns.

Simeon Perry purchased this land in 1829 and built the central part of this house in 1834. The west wing was probably added soon after the house was built; the south wing came much later. The hand-hewn beams and Greek Revival style validate its age. Simeon and Sarah Perry raised their six children in this house. Their oldest child, Isabel, was the first child born in what was once called “Perry Settlement” because so many members of the extended family of Simeon’s father, Edmund, lived here. T

Sarah Emma Edmonds (1841-c. 1898) left her New Brunswick, Canada, home in 1858. Escaping what she feared would be a life of “enslavement” as a woman, she took on the identity of a man, Franklin Thompson, and found employment selling books. When Thompson came to Flint is unknown; however, on May 25, 1861, he enlisted in the Union Army. In 1863, Thompson became ill and left the army. His true identity remained a secret until Edmonds applied for a combat duty pension from the U.S. Army twenty years later.

On May 3, 1858, the Reverend Henry Banwell held Fenton’s first Episcopal service for the Ladies Mite Society. The society formally organized as Saint Jude’s Episcopal Church on July 18, 1859. In 1860 members built their first church on this site, which was deeded to the parish by William and Adelaide Fenton of Flint. The present Romanesque Revival church, designed by Pratt and Koeppe of Bay City, was completed in 1893.

During the mid-nineteenth century a small number of African Americans settled in Genesee County where they found cheap land and employment as barbers, laborers, farmers, carpenters, and domestics. At this time differing opinions in Genesee County reflected growing tension nationally. The Genesee Weekly Democrat ran articles unsympathetic to Blacks, but also printed editorials opposing slavery. The Genesee Whig promoted abolition. In 1841 residents formed the Genesee County Anti-Slavery Society and held meetings at the courthouse, which became a venue for national figures who lectured about the evils of slavery.

Founded in 1875 and named in memory of Paul Quinn, the fourth bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Quinn Chapel is the oldest black congregation in Genesee County.

Many of Fenton’s early developers, politicians, businessmen, and veterans are interred in this cemetery, which was established in 1834. Clark Dibble, who made the first land purchase in present-day Fenton in 1834, and Dustin Cheney, who accompanied him to Fenton, are buried here with their families. Phillip McOmber Sr., the first Genesee County prosecutor, and Daniel LeRoy, Michigan’s first attorney general, are also interred here.

Flint automotive giants William C. Durant and J. Dallas Dort donated this land for a Methodist Episcopal church on Flint’s growing north side. Between 1900 and 1910, the population tripled, spurred by the formation of General Motors in 1908. The Reverend Frank M. Field organized the Oak Park Methodist Episcopal Church on July 18, 1909.

In 1848 the Michigan legislature established the Michigan Asylum for Educating the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind. Flint was selected as the site for the new institution. The first student arrived on February 6, 1854. After the School for the Blind opened in Lansing in 1880, the Flint facility began serving only deaf children. The curriculum, which combined academics and practical training, emphasized “market gardening and general farming.” Boys studied carpentry, printing, tailoring, and farming, while girls learned the sciences of cooking, sewing, darning, and patching.

The Methodist Protestant Church Association laid the cornerstone for this church in 1893 on land later purchased from the John Berry family. The building was finished in 1895. Membership declined over the years, and in 1917 the church trustees sold the deteriorating building to Duncan Berry, who repaired it and deeded it to Montrose Township. Locally known as the “Church on the Hill,” it became a venue for Memorial Day ceremonies, funerals, weddings and church services.

In 1891 the Reverend Daniel Webster Hammond and seven members chartered the Methodist Episcopal Church of Montrose. The next year a church was erected on this site; however, a growing congregation demanded a larger building. The present church was constructed in 1924.

Completed in 1911, this building has housed lodges including Flint 23, Fellowship 490, Genesee 174, Charles A. Durand 533, Morningstar 556, the Shriners, York Rite, Scottish Rite, Order of the Eastern Star, and other Masonic bodies that devote themselves to charitable works that benefit the Flint Community. Many of Flint´s most prominent citizens have been Masons.

The First Presbyterian Society of Linden was founded under the direction of the Reverend Thomas Wright on May 8, 1860. It had eight charter members and was the first religious society to be established in the village of Linden.

The Linden Mills were a vital source of this village’s economic growth. The first mill, located on the land granted to Consider Warner, was used to cut lumber. From 1845-50 Seth Sadler and Samuel W. Warren, local residents, erected both a saw and grist mill. Operating along with the earlier facility, this complex was called the Linden Mills.

This house was built in stages between the 1860s and the 1930s. In 1889 Dr. John B. Laing and his wife, Harriet, purchased the house. Raised in Vermont, Laing (1846-1908) came to Otisville in 1871 as one of the village’s earliest physicians, and became one of Otisville’s most important citizens.

The first permanent structure erected on this site was probably the trading post built in 1819 by Jacob Smith, the founder of Flint. Fluent in English, French, German, and a half-dozen Indian languages, Smith represented the Chippewa nation at the Great Council held in 1819. At that council, the Indians ceded 6 million acres of land to the federal government. Five sections of that land, including this site, were reserved for Smith’s children.

Near this site stood the home of Henry Howland Crapo (1804-1869). Born in Massachusetts, Crapo in 1858 moved his family to Flint, where he had invested in timberland. Here, he developed a prosperous lumbering business, which became one of the largest and most successful in the state. In 1863-64 Crapo turned his attention to railroading. He was instrumental in the construction of the Flint and Holly Railroad and served as its president until 1868. Originally a Whig, Crapo became a Republican early in his political career. He became mayor of Flint in 1860 and a state senator in 1863. In 1864 he was chosen as Michigan’s thirteenth governor.

In 1835 Rufus and Sarah Harrison settled on this property, traveling by ox team from Detroit. It was said their farm was the first in Flushing Township to be cleared.