Ferry-Morse Garden Seeds Have Rochester Area Roots

If you started vegetables or flowers from seed this spring, you may have used seeds from the Ferry-Morse company currently headquartered in Norton, Massachusetts. If so, your seeds have long historical ties to Michigan and the greater Rochester community. In 1852, Dexter Mason Ferry came to Detroit with plans to attend college and began a night job as a bookkeeper for a small seed house. Four years later he became a partner in the firm, and in 1867, he and other investors took over the … [Read more...]

Christmas 1942 in Rochester, Remembering the Fight and Loss of the War

Virginia MacLeod and Christmas 1942 in Rochester  Seventy-five years ago, Rochester’s Christmas season was a memorable one – for a tragic reason. The end of the first year of the Second World War brought with it rationing restrictions, worries about absent loved ones, and the shock of a wartime-related death that happened not overseas, but right here at home.  There were no big, bright holiday lights on Rochester’s Main Street in December 1942. The news from the fighting fronts was … [Read more...]

The Battle for Avon Township, Rochester and Rochester Hills, A Tale of Two Cities

As we celebrate the founding of Rochester during 2017, we must also note that Rochester Hills shares the same anniversary. Both Rochester and Avon Township - today’s Rochester Hills - received their first non-native settlers in 1817. Some of the founding Graham family members built their home in what is now the City of Rochester. The rest of them moved out to the area that is now the intersection of Avon & Livernois Roads, becoming the first white settlers of what would become Avon … [Read more...]