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Lawrence Township and Village
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A Short Nineteenth century history of Lawrence
In June 1835, John Allen of Ann Arbor, Michigan, entered a forty-acre tract of land on section ten in Lawrence Township on the south side of the Paw Paw River. He laid out a village, naming it Mason in honor of the state’s governor and sent a manager to build a log cabin. By November of 1835, Allen and his family arrived and built the second cabin and the village’s first sawmill. The town grew slowly, with only ten families resident by 1843. In 1846, John R. Baker, a lawyer from Paw Paw, came into possession of much of the village in foreclosure from Allen, and he replatted and renamed it Lawrence. Baker devoted block number six to public purposes and it has remained the village park. By 1869 the village was incorporated by an act of the Michigan legislature. The town hall, built of brick, remains facing St. Joseph Street, to the west of the 1894 Water Works building.
Rowland, Captain O.W., A History of Van Buren County, Michigan: A Narrative Account of its Historical Progress, its People and its Principal Interests. The Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago and New York, 1912, 558-562
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Related Links:
history of Lawrence Twp., MI
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Page Last Updated: 7/15/2003
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