In May 1817, Thomas
Squire, a Canadian and reputedly the first resident
of Utica, Michigan moved west along the Clinton River from near Mt. Clemens,
until
he came to a high point of ground where the river
and two Indian trails crossed. Here he built a cabin, somewhere
near where the
Jean
Ridge
now stands.
By the end of the summer newcomers had built two more
dwellings.
The rapidly growing settlement was variously called McDougalville,
Hog Hollow and Harlow.
The first plat of the area was made in November, 1829,
by Joseph Stead, under the preferred name of
Harlow
.
The grant was signed by President James Madison. Yankees from
New York
State
,
attracted to this region
after the English had relinquished control of the area to the
United States
, changed the name of the village
to
Utica
,
after the name of the
city in their home state.
Directly after the legislature of the new state had
passed an act permitting the incorporation of villages in March, 1838,
Utica
became one of the first half dozen
Michigan
towns to take
on this status. It was re-incorporated in 1877 with smaller limits to allow
certain farm properties to enjoy lower township taxes. In the pioneer days
the history of
Utica
was interwoven with the
development of the
Clinton
River
and the initiation of the ill-fated
Clinton
-
Kalamazoo
Canal
. It was the river
that attracted the early settlers, and it was the projected and partially
built trans -
Michigan
canal, in 1837, which
was responsible, together with the strap-iron railroad
to
Detroit
,
for the great boom in 1838.
The Wildcat Bank of
Utica
was organized and flourished, and an
enormous, three-story Railroad Hotel was built, both near the terminus of the
railroad on the west side of the river. Grim history relates that
within a year or so the bright bubble had burst, the canal project had
gone bankrupt, the bank had gone broke, the strap-iron railroad
had failed and the hotel had gone up in smoke.
On a brighter side, a small group formed the Methodist
Church Society in 1823. Two of the founders of
Utica
's
first church, the forerunner of
Utica
United
Methodist
Church
, were
Utica
's first settlers, Nathaniel and
Jemima Squires. Utica Methodist Church, was built in 1839. It was
later cut in
half and moved in two sections from its original site on Brownell near
Summers to Cass and Stead.
The first industry in
Utica
, aside from farming, was the
manufacture of pickets by William ("Picket") Smith, who became the
first postmaster. The first school was a log cabin, near the site of the
present
Eppler Jr. High, started in the winter of 1820. The
graduating
class of 1884 donated the large rock in the front of Eppler.
In 1904 and again in 1905, (both on Sundays) fires swept
through the village, destroying most of the business section, many
residences and the renowned Exchange
Hotel.
In 1905, Charles Ward built a power-house on the bank of
the canal basin and furnished
Utica
with it's first electricity.
The waterworks was built in 1926, gas mains were brought
in from
Mt.
Clemens
in 1930; and sewers were laid
in 1937. By the summer
of 1938 most of the city's streets were surfaced, either with
concrete or asphalt. On August 20, 1937,
Utica
became a
fifth-class city.
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