Mount Morris Township, Michigan, USA (Mt. Morris)
1916 - Mt. Morris

MT. MORRIS

"THE VILLAGE OF Mt. Morris, six and one-half miles north of flint, on the lines of the Pere Marquette railroad and the Bay City, Saginaw & Flint interurban railway, was known in early days as the "Coldwater Settlement," its pioneers being opposed to the use and abuse of intoxicants. It is generally conceded that Benjamin Pearson was the pioneer of Mt. Morris. With other settlers who emigrated to the West from Livingston County, New York, he has come to Flint river in 1833 and devoted some weeks to "land-looking." After selecting land in this locality and purchasing it form the government, Mr. Pearson erected the first dwelling every built in Mt. Morris township. During the succeeding year he was joined by other arrivals and a settlement was effected, a school was opened, a society of Presbyterians organized and the "Coldwater settlement," as it was known, disseminated and practiced in their midst the principles of temperance. Later the settlement was named Mt. Morris, deriving its name from the early home of many of the settlers, Mr. Morris, Livingston county, New York.

However, there was nothing to indicate this settlement as a village until 1857, when the Flint & Pere Marquette line had been surveyed and active operations commenced, when quite a number of families settled upon the site of the prospective village.

The following item appeared in the Wolverine Citizen of Flint on January 25, 1862: "The Flint & Pere Marquette railway was regularly opened for passengers and freight traffic in connection with Boss, Burrell & Company's line of stage coaches on Monday last. The railway is now completed from East Saginaw as far as Mt. Morris station, with six miles of Flint. The company has iron on hand to continue the track to Flint as soon as the season opens." In 1867 an act incorporating the village passed the state legislative body.

Mt. Morris in the year of 1916 has a good business district of well built, up-to-date stores, a private bank, and three churches, the Methodist Episcopal, the Baptist and St. Mary's Catholic church, with Rev. Fr. Thomas Luby as priest. The Mt. Morris consolidated schools, under the management of William J. Maginn, rank among the best of the village schools in the state. Mt. Morris also has a large elevator and a number of attractive residences, and is a progressive village, with a population of seven hundred and eighty."

History of Genesee County, Michigan, Her People, Industries and Institutions
by Edwin O. Wood, LL.D, President Michigan Historical Commission, 1916



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