Hamburg / Edwin B. Winans

The Potawatomi spent summers in this area for centuries before the 1831 arrival of the first Euro-American settlers—Felix Dunlavy, Heman Lake, Jesse Hall, Calvin Jackson, Cornelius Miller, and their families. In 1835 E. F. Gay and Amariah Hammond purchased land along Horseshoe Creek and built a dam and the area’s first sawmill. They later sold their interests to the Grisson brothers—emigrants from Hamburg, Germany—who added a gristmill, a store, and a hotel later known as the Hamburg House to the village. A fire destroyed the hotel in 1968. In the 1880s the Ann Arbor and Grand Trunk Railroads laid tracks through Hamburg. This spurred economic growth and drew tourists to the nearby lakes. In the 1950s and 1960s, the development of I-96 and U.S. 23 prompted an influx of residents that made Hamburg Township the largest municipality in the county. Edwin B. Winans Edwin B. Winans (1826-1894) was the first Democrat to be elected governor of Michigan after the Civil War. Serving a two-year term starting in 1891, he instituted the secret ballot system. A New York native, Winans had moved to Livingston County, Michigan, at the age of eight. He attended Albion College before leaving the state to join the California Gold Rush. After success as a miner, he became a banker there. In 1858 he returned to Michigan and purchased a four hundred acre farm in Hamburg. Winans enjoyed an active political career. He served as state representative (1861-65), constitutional convention delegate (1867), township supervisor (1872-73), probate judge for Livingston County (1877-81), and as U.S. Congressman (1883-87). On July 4, 1894, he died at his Winans Lake home in Hamburg Township, where he had lived for thirty-six years.