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Bloomfield Blossoms: p. 084-085

Smith, Kay, 1925-

Bloomfield Township Public Library

Genealogy -- Michigan -- Bloomfield Township

Bloomfield Township (Mich.)

Forman House (Bloomfield Township, Mich.)

GB01a044

part of 'Bloomfield Blossoms' by Kay Smith

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THE INTERTWINING OF CENTENNIAL FAMILIES If we trace just four of our many Centennial families we immediately see that there were many intermarriages among them when the Township was sparsely settled. For instance: William Forman sailed from England with his wife Harriet and six children in 1854, and after two years in Ohio settled in Bloomfield where another six children were born. Samuel Gaylord Forman's birth occured on September 15, 1858, in the house now occupied by Mrs. Leland Forman and her son Gaylor at Franklin and Quarton Roads. Cooper Pickering and his wife Elizabeth arrived in Michigan also from Lincolnshire, England, as did Thomas and Rosanna Allen. Each family had a number of children, and eventually all three families settled in sections 30 and 31 in Bloomfield, all before 1860. Nathaniel Higby came to West Bloomfield in the late 1830s and his son Elmore was born there and moved later to Bloomfield. Henry C. Beardslee was born in Independence Township August 28, 1846, and came to Bloomfield Township in 1879, settling on 88 acres in Section 9 south of Hickory Grove between Lahser and Franklin Roads. SamueJ G. Forman married Jennie Pickering. Sarah Pickering married Elmore Higby. Charlotte Forman married George Pickering. Floyd Beardslee married Aurilla Higby. Ermina H. Forman married Robert Allen. The Beardslee daughters, Mrs. Donald S. Brownlee and Mrs. John Malcolm, still own the Beardslee house on Square Lake Road, although they live elsewhere. The Centennial families, branching in all directions with double Centennial ancestry, are a tiny percentage of our 48,000 families today, but they represent the best of early Bloomfield.