We are taking a moment to expound on an incident in the life of John Pray that remains with us to this day. It seems that when Pray decided to build his mills on the island just off the village townsite, the island was occupied by “a man named Granger.” Assuming Granger owned the property he offered to buy the Island. Granger accepted his money and moved elsewhere and John built his mill as planned. Later, on a visit to the Federal Land Office he discovered that Granger had never owned the island so he had to buy it again. So who was Granger? Nothing in the literature provides any information and he remains the mysterious “a man named Granger.” Did he have family? We don’t even have a first name. Squatters were common on every frontier. These were people who had little interest in “civilization” and were happy to live independently on the frontier until it became too crowded or someone bought the land they were living on, then thy moved on to a new frontier with plenty of vacant land.

So it seems the island on which Granger was living was known as Granger’s Island, as islands are commonly named for the owner. This one was owned by many different people over the years but most locals still referred to it as Granger’s Island. It was Dodd’s Island for years as part of the Dodd Farm and even more recently owned by our own Herb Mericle, but it appears on maps from the 1840 and 1960 to present as Granger Island. Now owned by the Lucas County MetroPark System it is still Granger Island, where there are tree houses for camping. So our island just off our riverside park bears the name of “a man named Granger” who never even owned it and has disappeared from our history.

A MAN NAMED GRANGER