1836 - Owosso's first permanent residence
This one room log cabin, built in 1836 according to the Midland design style, was the first permanent residence in the settlement that became Owosso. It was the home of Elias Comstock and his wife, Lucy Lamson Comstock. Over his long life, Comstock was a merchant, school teacher, justice of the peace, township supervisor, judge and county clerk.
When Alfred Leonzo Williams and his brother Benjamin Oliver Williams started to recruit special people to to help them get their settlement established at the Big Rapids on the Shiawassee River, Elias and Lucy Comstock became the first permanent settlers. In July 1835, the Comstock party including the Van Wormers, The Overtons, The Finleys and the Bedells, made their way to the Big Rapids. The women and children were mounted on two wagons drawn by ox teams with several cows in tow. Most of the way they followed native American Chippewa trails, sometimes having to navigate their own way. In 1836, the Van Wormer in Overton families cleared the land and felled forty logs, after which the men gathered to erect the cabin in one day. When Elias and Lucy Comstock moved into their cabin, Main Street was only a path through his farmland and the only way to cross the Shiawassee river was on stepping stones.
Comstock was a deacon in the Baptist Church and the first church services and school classes, in what would later become Owosso were held in this cabin. It was also a refuge for newly arriving settlers to stay until their own cabins were built.
Over the years, the Comstock’s made frame additions and added a long front porch to the cabin. The cabin itself became the living room. Lucy and Elias Comstock were married for 59 years when Elias died on October 23rd, 1886. Lucy died on April 2nd, 1890 and the home passed to the Leitch family, then the Corey family until a discovery by an oil company in the 1920's uncovered a historical treasure.
