Buying the Farm

Around the year 1835, Booth Perry, a farmer originally from Connecticut, arrived in the sparsely populated Michigan Territory seeking to start a new life. He and his wife likely came from New England to western New York via the Erie Canal, which had opened up only ten years prior. From the canal's terminus in Buffalo, they then would have crossed Lake Erie to reach Michigan. Booth Perry had in his possession a document granting him ownership of a 40 acre parcel of land west of Detroit. This was a land grant provided by the United States Government.

The plot of land is described in this grant as "the North East quarter of the North West quarter of Section Twenty Seven, in Township Two". Township Two was Nankin Township, which was divided, like most of the lands in the Midwest, into 640 acre sections. Each section was subdivided into 16 forty acre parcels. Booth Perry now owned one of these parcels of fertile farmland.

Ten years later, in 1845, Booth Perry, for whatever reason, sold this land. I found the record of this transaction in the microfilmed Deed records of Wayne County, Michigan. (Wayne County Deed Book 26:137; FHL 947,901) On 26 November 1845, Booth Perry sold the same 40 acre parcel of land to Mitchell Raymo of Nankin for the price of $500. This was Mitchell's first transaction in the property records of Wayne County.

At that time Mitchell Raymo was 32 years old and married to his second wife, Margaret (Denniston) Mains. He had two daughters by his late first wife Laura, and two young sons with Margaret; four year old Theodore Raymo and his little infant brother Leonard Raymo.

In this 1876 map of Nankin, Michigan you can see "the North East quarter of the North West quarter of Section Twenty Seven" was by that time owned by T(heodore) Raymo and was the site of the Raymo farmhouse.

The Raymo Ancestry - Mitchell Raymo

I will take a break from the photographs for a few posts in order to share some of the genealogical material I can add to the Raymo family history.

Mitchell Raymo of Nankin, Michigan, was the father of Theodore Raymo and grand father of Arthur Elsworth Raymo. Mitchell was born in Detroit, then part of the Michigan Territory, on 25 February 1813. He was born as Michel Rémond and later in life adopted an anglicized version of his name.

The registration of his birth can be found in the records of the Ste. Anne de Détroit Catholic Church (found in the database of the Institut Généalogique Drouin). Ste. Anne's was the primary church for the French Canadian Catholics living in the Detroit area at the time.

My best transcription and translation:

Michel Rémond, né avant hier du legitime mariage de François Rémond et de Rose Lemai, a ete baptisé par nous pére sousigne aujourdhui, le vingt sixième jour du mois de fevrier de année mil huit cent treize. Le parrain a ete Théophile Lemai et la marraine Jeane Chauvin, epouse de Charles Rouleau, les quel ont declare ne savoir signer de ce enquer. 
--(Signe) Gabriel Richard, pére.

Michel Rémond, born yesterday of the legitimate marriage of François Rémond and Rose Lemai, was baptised by the undersigned priest today, the twenty-sixth day of the month of February in the year One Thousand Eight Hundred and Thirteen. The godfather was Théophile Lemai and the godmother Jeane Chauvin, wife of Charles Rouleau, who have declared they are unable to sign this register.
--signed, Fr. Gabriel Richard

Mitchell, at the age of 22, married a teenaged Laura Drake (b. 1819) in 1835. Laura gave birth to two daughters, Mary Elizabeth Raymo (b. 1836) and Rhoda Ann Raymo (b. 1838). Laura died sometime after that of undetermined causes. Mitchell, a widower with two young children, soon remarried. In 1840, he wed Margaret (Denniston) Mains (b. 1812), also a widow, who had recently arrived in Michigan from New York with her father Samuel Denniston, an Irishman from Longford.

Together, Mitchell and Margaret had five more children:

• Theodore Raymo, born 1841
• Leonard Reuben Raymo, born 1844
• Newton Raymo, born 1847 (died in childhood)
• Rebecca Raymo, born 1849 (believed to have died in childhood)
• Owen M Raymo, born 1854

Theodore was the progenitor of the family documented on this blog. Leonard settled in Missouri and is the ancestor of many of the Raymo lines there. Owen remained in Wayne, Michigan and left no known patrilineal descendants.

Mitchell first appears in the U.S. Federal Census in 1840 as the head of household in Nankin, Michigan. He is listed here as Michael Raymo.

In 1850, when the U.S. Census began to enumerate all members of a household, he is listed as Mitchell Remoo.

The John enumerated here is Mitchell's step-son John Mains, son of Margaret and her first husband, the late Robert Mains. Margaret's father Samuel is also listed here.

Finally, in 1860, he is enumerated in Nankin as Mitchel Ramo.

In 1870, Mitchell is absent from the census rolls. Margaret is listed as head of household. I have not located a death record for Mitchell so I do not know if he died prior to 1870. However, in 1880 there is a Mitchell Raymo in the census records for Goshen, Indiana, listed as born in Michigan in 1813, but married to a woman named Lucy. It appears likely that Mitchell left his family sometime after 1860 and resettled in nearby Indiana.