Gratiot County, Michigan: History
Gratiot County, Michigan is named for Captain Charles Gratiot, who supervised the building of Port Huron's Fort Gratiot. It was described by the Territorial Legislature in 1831. By 1837, the Territory had been admitted to the Union as a state; in 1855 the State Legislature authorized the organization of Gratiot County – the death year of the county's namesake.
Gratiot County was a New England settlement. The original founders of Ithaca and of Alma were settlers from New England, "Yankees", descended from the English Puritans who settled the northeastern coast of the new continent in the 1600s. The Gratiot County settlers were farmers who headed west into what was then the wilds of the Northwest Territory during the early 1800s. Most of them arrived as a result of the completion of the Erie Canal as well as the close of the Black Hawk War. They arrived to virgin forest and wild prairie, but laid out farms, constructed roads, erected government buildings and established post routes. They maintained their customs, such as passion for education, and abhorrence of the existing slave trade. They were members of the Congregationalist Church or the Episcopal Church.
In the 1890s, German immigrants began settling in Gratiot County. See List of Michigan county name etymologies. Emil Lockwood, a noted Michigan legislator, represented Gratiot County in the Michigan Senate from 1963 to 1970, much of the time as Senate Majority Leader.
There are six Michigan historical markers in Gratiot County:
Alma College
Gratiot County
Jackson Weller House
Lumberjack Park
Michigan Masonic Home
Saginaw and Gratiot County State Road / Saginaw Valley & St. Louis Railroad