Comparative Farming, Bay City 1831

This story’s true, or true enough, except the perspective’s mine.

    Leon Trombley was the first white man to permanently settle in what is now Bay City, Michigan. In 1831 he cleared a half acre on a high bank where the Saginaw River was wide enough for easy navigation. He built a small log house, set up a garden and marked off a campsite for the Indians. He was a government farmer. The Treaty of 1819 called for the …