Ann Arbor Area Convention and Visitors Bureau

A Brief History of Ann Arbor, Michigan

In 1823, a group of pioneers passed through a fur trading post known as Detroit, and pushed on along the banks of the Huron River in search of a location for a new frontier community. Among the settlers was a Virginian named John Allen and fellow pioneer, Elisha Rumsey. Some forty miles west of Detroit, in the slopes that bounded the Huron River, the pioneers established their settlement. On February 12, 1824, they registered their claims in Detroit, Allen for 480 acres and Rumsey for 160, each paying the prescribed price of $1.25 per acre. On March 6th of the same year, Governor Cass designated Ann Arbor as the county seat for Washtenaw County. By May of 1824, a name had been chosen for the town and brings us to the point of the two theories as to how Ann Arbor got its name.

It is generally agreed that because the wives of the two founders were named Ann and Mary Ann, respectively, the town was named, in part, for them but here the theories part. The first theory views the wives enlarging and beautifying the wild grape arbor on the bank of a creek where they spent long afternoons together knitting, mending and eventually the whole settlement was called Ann Arbor. If it is difficult to imagine pioneer women with that much time on their hands, the second theory might be more acceptable. That theory sees Allen as first considering the name of Annapolis (to honor his wife) or perhaps the name Allenville, but deciding that the word Arbor (or "arbour" according to Allen's spelling) best described his new town of great Burr Oaks and thick, lush vegetation. At any rate, on May 25, 1824, when the Wayne County Register of Deeds recorded the plan for the village, the name was written officially for the first time, "Annarbour." The settlement began to grow and in 1837 the University of Michigan was moved to Ann Arbor from Detroit and established on a forty-acre site.