Lisa's Home Page:Information about Hon. Franklin Severens
Hon. Franklin Severens (b. October 01, 1811, d. March 03, 1897)
Notes for Hon. Franklin Severens:
An excerpt from "Fennville Area" by Kit Lane
He was a lawyer and first came to the area on business for the railroad when it was being built through Pearl in the 1870's. He bought up many acres of the surrounding countryside, selling just a small portion of it to A.M. Todd to form his vast Campania farm. A native of Vermont, Severens moved to Michigan in 1860 moving to Kalamazoo. After an unsuccessful bid for a congressional seat in 1867 (he was a Democrat) he received appointment by President Grover Cleveland to the U.S. Court for the Western District of Michigan in May of 1886. He was of English ancestral stock and it was said that an ancestor was the legal barister in charge of defending the ill-fated monarch Charles I of England. At his agricultural peak Severens had six farms in Clyde Township: Teeter Town (sometimes called the Highland Farm) between Pearl and Bravo; Section 8, on section 8 south of Fennville; Lakeview and Sunnyside, in the Crooked Lake-Little Tom Lake area; the South Swamp, south of 116th Avenue; and the Island Farm on 118th Avenue. Mint farming was introduced into Allegan County by Judge Henry F. Severens who, by 1896, was reported to have "the largest peppermint field in the world," nearly a mile long on the Severens Marsh, reclaimed swamp land south of Fennville in the Pearl-Bravo area. He had two stills located on his 1000 acre plus farm, and shipped more than 200 barrels of raw oil as early as 1892. Realizing the potential in the swampy land, Severens bought up large tracts on speculation. In August of 1895 A.M. Todd became one of his best customers, purchasing more than a thousand acres of land (840 acres in Ganges Township, and 320 acres in Clyde Township) near the Black river and began the laborious process of ditching and draining it in preparation for setting his first mint crop. After the Judge's death the land was under the direction of his son-in-lay, James Bird Balch, and leased, on strict terms, to a series of tenant farmers. In 1951 nearly all of the lands that had been owned by Severens except the South Swamp farm, became part of the State Forest and Game Area.
More About Hon. Franklin Severens and Elizabeth Pulsipher:
Marriage: 1834
Children of Hon. Franklin Severens and Elizabeth Pulsipher are:
- +Jessie Severens, b. April 25, 1856, Vermont, d. September 25, 1890.