Sharing Personal History One Life at a Time

Tag: Joseph Watson (page 1 of 1)

Montgats: Finding Joseph Watson

Anton van den Wyngaerde (1510-1570). Panoramic view of Barcelona from Montjuic Mountain 1563. Pen drawing. (today the site of Montjuic Castle in Barcelona, Spain, which was built in 1640), Courtesy of Vintage City Maps.com
Montjuic Castle, Barcelona, Spain, 2023. Courtesy of Wikipedia.com

In the first chapter of my new book, Pioneers of St. Clair County, Michigan, I share the early history of the southeast corner of Military and Water Streets in Port Huron, Michigan, which today is the site of the City Flats Hotel. The land where the hotel stands started out as a ten thousand square foot lot that was situated within an 80 acre plat of land in Section 10 purchased by Joseph Watson from the U.S. government in 1818 which he platted out as the town called Montgats. In 1835 he sold the first lot to Michael Kerley on which he built a store and wharf.

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The First Land Sales in Port Huron, Michigan

Edward Tiffin Portrait
Edward Tiffin

Tiffin and Michigan Land

After the War of 1812, the federal government conducted surveys of land to be used for military bounties in parts of the Northwest Territory for soldiers who fought in the war.  Each soldier to be given 160 acres.  Edward Tiffin, Surveyor General for the Northwest, issued a letter dated November 30, 1815, to Josiah Meigs, Commissioner of the General Land Office, in which he reported unfavorable conditions in the Michigan Territory describing the land as “so bad that there would not be more than one acre out of a hundred, if there would be one out of a thousand, that would in any case admit of cultivation.”

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