Ecorse Township, Michigan
Ecorse Township was a
township in
Wayne County in the
U.S. state of
Michigan.
Although
French explorers, missionaries, and traders frequented the area, the first existing record of a white settler owning land dates to
1776, when the
Pottawatomi ceded a large tract of land to
Pierre St. Cosme. One boundary of the ceded land came to be known as "St. Cosme Line" and later became part of the route of Southfield Road. In the late 1700s, many land grants in the area were awarded by the French crown. The first known permanent settler in what would become Ecorse Township was
Pierre Michael Campau, who arrived in 1795. Although some records indicate settlers near the mouth of the
Ecorse River as early as
1764.
The township was established on
April 12,
1827 along with eight other townships by the
Michigan Territorial Legislature in a major reorganization of Wayne County.
As initially formed, Ecorse Township consisted of 54 square miles (140 km²) including two small islands in the
Detroit River on the east. The west boundary was Telegraph Road. The northern boundary was the south bank of the
River Rouge. It extended south to what is now known as Pennsylvania Road, which was the boundary with
Monguagon Township (from which
Grosse Ile Township, Michigan and the cities of
Trenton,
Riverview and
Gibraltar were created).