Why is our Village Named "Manchester"? Part One of Two

by Ray Berg and Alan Dyer

Authors note: The authors have dedicated significant time to determining and documenting the “true” history of the Village of Manchester, beginning with older published materials and then using modern research tools to locate original source documents and other resources which were not conveniently available to earlier researchers. This research has emphasized the roles played by founder John Gilbert, the Fargo brothers, the Kiefs, the Roots and others from New York State in creating our village. This work has also challenged some of the findings of earlier historians, particularly in the motivations of these pioneers.

At a Manchester Area Historical Society meeting, the naming of Manchester Village was questioned, and conflicting theories were offered as to the source of this name. The generally accepted opinion was that the name derived from Manchester, New York, because, as previously stated in an earlier village history, “it was the home of many of our earliest residents”. A second theory, that the village was named for Manchester, England, the world leader in industrial production in the 1830s, was also suggested. Perhaps we are named after Manchester, New Hampshire, also an early industrial center of that era.

The authors pursued this debate using both traditional printed histories and on-line resources such as Google Books. On-line searching allowed several new sources and viewpoints to be identified. While the conclusion we arrived at is not beyond discussion, we offer to you and future researchers our analysis, and leave it to you to agree, disagree or possibly supplement.

Figure 1 – Downtown Manchester, Circa 1868

Introduction

The earliest written evidence of the use of “Manchester” as it referred to our village occurred in 1833, when surveyor Hiram Burnham was hired by John Gilbert to prepare the first plat of the “Village of Manchester” (see Figure 2). Other early references to “Manchester” include 1833 entries in the Manchester Fargo and Fargo General Store ledgers, and a gazetteer listing of Manchester as one of the Michigan Territorial post offices in 1834. John Gilbert’s founding role in Manchester was based purely on the profit potential of the significant water elevation drop of the River Raisin through the town, and the various industries this hydraulic power could support. He never lived in Manchester, preferring to have his son Harry Gilbert live here during the mid 1830s as overseer of his interests. The platting of Manchester corresponded with the “Michigan Fever” period, when land was expensive in the East and the Erie Canal had made travel to the west affordable for most. Thousands of settlers from New York and New England seeking cheaper land and the opportunity it provided for a new life flocked to Michigan. With its potential water power and the fertile “burr oak opening” farm lands surrounding Manchester, Gilbert believed the new village would act as a magnet for these settlers.

Gilbert settled in Ypsilanti and devoted much of his time to his extensive store, mill and government duties in that place. He also developed other “startup” towns in lower Michigan, including Jefferson in Jackson County, which were intended to be replicas of Manchester. The creation of these water-powered industrial towns was clearly motivated by Gilbert’s and his financiers’ desires to earn a profit. This dream began to unravel in 1837 when a national banking crisis occurred, and Gilbert was caught up in a financing scandal created by his son-in-law in Ypsilanti, causing him to lose most of his assets.

While we are confident that John Gilbert was primarily responsible for the naming of Manchester Village, Stephen Fargo, a close associate of both Gilbert and his financial backers in Detroit and New York from the mid-1820s onwards, may have also influenced the decision.

Figure 2 – Hiram Burnham’s 1833 Plat Survey of the Village of Manchester

Why Did John Gilbert Choose the Name “Manchester” for the Village?

The authors approached this research from four directions:

1. Are there any personal papers or records of John Gilbert, his family, the Fargo brothers, or Hiram Burnham the surveyor, which might provide a direct “first-person” answer?
2. What records exist that provide a “second-person” answer, i.e., recollections of early settlers who were not present when the decision was made, but learned of it at a later date?
3. What other published records exist which might point to the reason?
4. What is a reasonable answer to the question based on contemporary events of 1833?

First Person Reports

The papers and correspondence of John Gilbert located to date are scattered among the Burton Historical Collection in Detroit and the Ypsilanti Historical Society archives. None of these documents indicate any reason for the selection of Manchester as a name. Nor do any of the Fargo Brothers records shed light on the question. Hiram Burnham was a well-known and prolific surveyor, and many of his surveys survive. He relocated to Battle Creek by the 1840s, but died in Sacramento, California in 1852 in the “gold rush” and, if his personal papers survive, they have not yet been located.

Second Person Reports

Question 2 sent us on a search for evidence from contemporaries of John Gilbert and his partners, who may have laid claim to knowledge of the answer. To date, we have uncovered only one second person account, and that is of limited value. An unpublished paper prepared by Dr. Bennett F. Root in the early-mid 1870s, presumably intended for delivery before the Pioneer Society, suggested that James H. Fargo proposed the name of Manchester in 1837 for the new township that was created by separating off the western half of Bridgewater Township. Dr. Root had settled in Manchester in 1834 and, as a physician, became a respected member of the small community. It is logical to assume that he was present during the discussion with Fargo that led to the selection of the township name, but he failed to address the earlier naming of the village in 1833.

Incidentally, the decision to name Manchester Township after its resident village was a common practice at that time, and frequently adopted by the Michigan Territorial legislature during the 1830s.

Another account of our village’s naming was found in a February 23, 1903 Manchester Enterprise article. One of the village’s teachers asked her students to attempt to determine the origin of Manchester’s name.  As she reported, although aspects of the early history of the village had been scrutinized over the years, its name remained shrouded “in doubt and obscurity” due to the lack of any “authentic record.”  The teacher suggested that her students consider whether the village was named after a pioneer family, or Manchester, England, or one of the many towns in the United States called Manchester.  Apparently, no new information was uncovered, or if it was, it regrettably never entered the annals of Manchester history.

However, this school project was not a total loss, thanks to a Mrs. Sarah Weir.  Sarah was the daughter of Simon or Simeon Spencer, who arrived in Manchester in 1836 or 1837.  Sarah was born in 1840 or 1841, and married Charles H. Weir who died at some point previous to 1880.  In 1903, she was living in Ypsilanti, and happened upon the description of the students’ assignment that appeared in the Enterprise.  She communicated her thoughts to Mat Blosser, which he published in the April 23, 1903 issue.

A short time ago the question was asked how this town come [sic] to be named Manchester.  Mrs. Sarah Weir of Ypsilanti saw the item in the Enterprise and gives this explanation.  “The old inhabitants claim that on account of the excellent water power here—three dams with a combined fall of nearly 35 feet—they hoped the place might become a great manufacturing city like Manchester England, so they named it Manchester.”

Mrs. Weir’s statement is quite clear, but does deserve some scrutiny.  Since she was born about 1840, she would not have been present at, or a part of, the naming of Manchester and thus, her story is only hearsay.  She was 63 at the time she reported on the event, and long term memory often proves to be a faulty historical tool, not so much from the result of age itself, but simply due to the passage of time.  She claimed the “old inhabitants . . . . [named] the place . . . . Manchester”. But as noted earlier, the Manchester name is first found on John Gilbert’s 1833 plat map. It also stretches belief to assume that Gilbert polled the few residents of the village at that time (six or so, but probably less than ten) in search of a name, when he was so deeply involved in land speculation and town development for his own profit. Consequently, it appears that Mrs. Weir’s statement that “they [the citizens] hoped the place might become a great manufacturing city like Manchester England” refers more to the Fargo Brothers’ plans around 1837 when the township was named. They essentially “owned the town” at that point, having purchased the village lands from Gilbert in 1835.

Figure 3 – Water-Powered Industry - The Manchester Roller Mills, from a 1903 Enterprise Ad

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by Ray Berg