Next to the Shiawassee River in Owosso, not far from Curwood Castle, is an old log cabin. This was not the original location of the old historic cabin. It was moved here after it was discovered while demolishing the Comstock House in Owosso.  The historical marker on the front of the cabin tells some of its story It reads:

This one-room log cabin, built in 1836, was the first permanent residence in the settlement that became Owosso. It was the home of Judge Elias Comstock and his wife, Lucy Lamson Comstock who were married fifty-nine years when Judge Comstock died in 1886. In this frontier settlement, the cabin was the site of the first church services (Baptist) as well as the first school classes and the place where newly arrived settlers could stay until their cabins were built. Each cabin required the owner to fell forty logs after which the men of the settlement would gather to erect a cabin in one day. Comstock cabin’s original site was south of Main Street near the river. To preserve the cabin from urban development, it was moved to Bentley Park and finally to this site in 1969 as a project of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Owosso with the aid of Alvin Bentley III.

The sign does not tell “the rest of the story” as Paul Harvey would say.  After the original log cabin was built, the Comstocks continued to build onto it. Eventually, it was completely framed in by the house they lived in until their deaths in 1886 and 1890. The home sold a few times until the property was purchased in the 1920s for the location of a gas station. When the house was demolished the original log cabin was discovered as part of the home and used as a living room. That is when it was moved to Bently Park.

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Built by Henry & Luella Clements in 1890 on Historic Center Ave in Bay City. Henry worked with his father James and brother William at Industrial Works, designers of a rail-mounted shovel and cranes employed at the Chicago Columbian Exposition and the Panama Canal. His house is unusual in Bay City because it is one of the few Queen Anne Style homes built of brick. Instead of ornamental trim, bricks are placed in decorative patterns to accentuate the structure’s shape and composition. The first floor plate window is framed with a distinctive Romanesque arch of rusticated stone, displaying the Victorian tendency to mix styles. In 1913 Hector McKinnon, president of McKinnon Boiler and Machine Co., purchased the house, followed in 1920 by Judge Samuel Houghton, who prepared the charter that united Bay City and West Bay City

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If you have ever traveled through the central Lower Peninsula on M-46 you have probably seen the ornate Victorian mansion in St. Louis. The massive white wooden castle-like home was constructed by Colonel John Elwell. He invested in the Chicago, Saginaw, and Canada Railroad and made a fortune when he turned the company around after it had been struggling to make a profit.  John Elwell rose to the rank of Colonel for his service to the civil war and he moved to St Louis in 1875. He purchased the whole block on Delaware Street in 1880 and finished construction of his elaborate home in 1884. He lived in the home until his death in 1910.

P.S. I saw this house about 5 years ago on a trip to my son’s cross country meet and it inspired me to do this website. I have been looking for old and interesting houses and places ever since.

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South of downtown coldwater I saw this ornate brick mansion and in doing a little research I found out some history on it. The Italianate house was originally built by Alvin Lanphere. He was born in 1834, and manufactured lightning rods in Coldwater. In about 1870, he began work constructing this house. By 1875, the house was reportedly not completely finished, and Lanphere exchanged houses with Jacob Franklin Pratt who was born in 1829, and moved to Coldwater in about 1855. Pratt was part-owner in a tannery and boot manufacturer. Later, Pratt founded the Coldwater Cutter Company, which manufactured sleighs and children’s sleds.

Pratt lived in this house until his death in 1907. Pratt’s son, Allen J. Pratt, inherited the house, and also became president of the Coldwater Cutter Company. Allen Pratt lived in this house until 1933, when the firm went bankrupt during the Great Depression. After learning a little bit of the home’s history it makes me think of Rosebud. The house is still privately owned.

P.S. I wish there was some snow on the ground of the “sled house” but it’s Michigan and I gotta deal with whatever weather we get when I am out exploring. I will have to take another trip back down to the Coldwater area in the winter and summer. There are a lot of interesting and historic places to see.

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This Italianate home in Flint was built in 1872 by Civil War Colonel Thomas Baylis Whitmarsh Stockton and overlooks a natural spring that the Stockton’s nicknamed, ‘Spring Grove’. While he lived in this house, Stockton worked as a commission merchant dealing in lime, plaster, coal, and stucco. In 1921 the Sisters of St. Joseph acquired the house and established a hospital, enlarging the building several times to accommodate the growing medical needs. The house served as a hospital until 1936. Today the house is used as a museum and currently undergoing restoration.

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“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.” J.R.R. Tolkien

I saw this Hobbit hole not in the shire, but near the Mill Creek in Yale. It’s on private property, but you can see it from the road and that is where I took this photo from.  It’s amazing the things you find when you are out wandering the Mitten State. Now for my favorite Tolkien quote ” Not all who wander are lost”

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