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Oliver C. Comstock Jr. / Oliver C. Comstock Jr.

Oliver C. Comstock Jr. / Oliver C. Comstock Jr. is a Michigan historical marker in Marshall, Calhoun County, dedicated 1980.

203 South Marshall Avenue, Marshall

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Oliver C. Comstock Jr. (1806-1895) built this Gothic Revival house between 1849 and 1856. Comstock, born in Fairfield, New York, migrated to the Marshall area in 1836. He left a well-established medical practice in Trumansburg, New York, to start anew on the Michigan frontier. Later that year, he erected the first brick business building in Calhoun County on Exchange Street. It housed his pharmacy and office. Oliver C. Comstock Jr. served as the state’s third superintendent of public instruction (1843-45). In 1847 he was one of the abolitionists who prevented Kentucky slaveholders’ taking the fugitive slave family of Adam Crosswhite. In 1848 he and several prominent Marshall citizens were convicted and fined for conspiracy to harbor the fugitives. Comstock was superintendent of the construction of the Michigan Central Railroad between Jackson and Kalamazoo and a founder of the Michigan Pioneer and Historical Society.

Maps this old were drawn largely by eye, so places on them can sit miles from where they really are. The pin is ours and marks the marker's location today.

TodayHistorical map

Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

Historical maps covering this location

1796 · N. W. Territory. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1819 · Ohio & Indiana (H. S. Tanner, 1819) (Barry Lawrence Ruderman Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1820 · Ohio (Bourne & Kilbourne, 1820) (Barry Lawrence Ruderman Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1823 · Ohio (1823) (Barry Lawrence Ruderman Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1826 · Ohio (A. Finley, 1826) (Barry Lawrence Ruderman Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

N. W. Territory, 1796, covering the location of Oliver C. Comstock Jr. / Oliver C. Comstock Jr., with a pin at the marker's coordinates — N. W. Territory, 1796, covering this location. David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries. The pin is ours, placed from the marker's coordinates.

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Marker data: Michigan History Center
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