Wednesday, May 12, 2010

The Rivard Farm In Detroit

"The History of Detroit...," by Silas Farmer included a "Descriptive list of French farms or private claims." Antoine Rivard's claim was #181 with 74.88 acres (the number of acres were mostly taken from Aaron Greeley's 1810 map of private claims):



A Detroit plat map circa 1818 illustrated the French "ribbon" farms which were typically long and narrow in order for each to have riverfront property. The Rivard farm would have been included in the area of the map below.


Hog Island, in the Detroit River on the map above, is Detroit's present day Belle Isle Park.

The property below was once part of the Rivard Farm:

Wayne Co., MI, Deeds
92-126
28 October 1859
Daniel Young, of Liberty, Ohio
Quit Claim Deed To
Mrs. Frances Young of Detroit, Michigan

To Lot 40, south side of Fort Street in Antoine Rivard Farm...
Witnesses: W. H. Moore & Martha Chroninger
[From Early Land Transfers of Detroit....by the WPA]

A Daniel Young & wife Hannah, of Liberty, Henry Co., Ohio were found in the 1850 census. Martha Chroninger married Thomas Ireland in Henry Co., Ohio, on March 3, 1864.

A general land description of the Antoine Rivard Farm can be found in this lawsuit regarding Lot 89 in the Rivard Farm:

Adler v. Katus, 190 Mich. 86 "... the following described property, to wit: Lot numbered eighty nine (89), plat of part of P. C. 181, north of Jefferson Avenue, Antoine Rivard farm, subdivided into lots 1841, said lot being situate on the northwest corner of Macomb and Rivard streets...".


The general area of Macomb & Rivard Streets on a present day map can be found here.

6 comments:

Quit Claim Deed said...

It's always neat to see old parcel maps, thanks for sharing.

PalmsRV said...

The Detroit map with the ribbon farms is one of my favorites.

Cathy

Unknown said...

There is a problem with how Detroit ribbon farms are described. If you compare the land claims in 1796 on the Collet map and compare them to the Greely map of 1810 there is a huge difference. In 1796 there are very few plats outside of the city. But in 1810 the claims made for land were astronomical and made by people who were not farmers or even worked the land. They were mostly speculators.

PalmsRV said...

Thanks for the additional information, Brian. I learn something new every day. Cathy

Maria_Maraki said...

I am a Rivard family member and the funny thing is, I went to Wayne State University on the Rivard farm 1400 Chrysler between the service drive and Rivard) for a very long time BS and MS both) and until I learned about my lineage from Ancestry.com, I never made the association.

PalmsRV said...

Maria, love the connection! BTW, I'm a Wayne State University graduate, too. Cathy