Michigan · St. Joseph River Valley
Branch County
Chicago road prairies on the upper St. Joseph and the Coldwater River.
Project Scroll is an independent local-history website. This is not an official page of Branch County or of any township, city or village in it. For official business, contact the county or local offices directly.
Welcome
Branch County, Michigan
Branch County lies on the Indiana line in south-central Michigan, crossed by the old Chicago road and drained by the Coldwater River and the upper St. Joseph. The territorial council created it on October 29, 1829, and named it for John Branch of North Carolina, Andrew Jackson’s Secretary of the Navy; it was organized as a county on March 1, 1833. The county seat went first to Masonville and then to Branch before it was fixed at Coldwater in 1842.
About 45,000 people live here today (44,862 at the 2020 census), in Coldwater, Quincy, Union City, Bronson and the farm townships around them. Pick a place to begin.
Cities and villages
BronsonCity · The county’s first settlement, on Bronson’s Prairie.
ColdwaterCity · The cold-spring prairie on the Chicago road that won the county seat.
QuincyVillage · A Chicago road tavern stop that the railroad made a village.
SherwoodVillage · A railroad village named for Sherwood Forest, near the St. Joseph’s bend.
Union CityVillage · Where the Coldwater meets the St. Joseph, and hoped to be a port.
Townships
Algansee TownshipTownship · Woods, drained swamps and the Stiles–Crater mill of 1837.
Batavia TownshipTownship · Taverns on the Chicago road and a name from western New York.
Bethel TownshipTownship · Snow Prairie and the Elizabeth that became Bethel.
Bronson TownshipTownship · Jabe Bronson’s burr-oak plain, the first settlement in Branch County.
Butler TownshipTownship · Wooded, wet and settled late, by families from Butler, New York.
California TownshipTownship · Hall’s Corners and the felling of the first tree in 1835.
Coldwater TownshipTownship · Coldwater Prairie, the Morse tavern and the first county seat at Branch.
Gilead TownshipTownship · Bishop Philander Chase’s ‘charming, limpid lake’.
Girard TownshipTownship · The level prairie of an old lake bed, settled from 1829.
Kinderhook TownshipTownship · Named in jest for Martin Van Buren’s birthplace.
Matteson TownshipTownship · Named for its oldest settler, on the old Kalamazoo trail.
Noble TownshipTownship · Hickory Corners and the ‘Dutch settlement’ in the southwest corner.
Ovid TownshipTownship · Coldwater Lake and the settlements along the Coldwater River.
Quincy TownshipTownship · Horris Willson’s tavern on the Chicago turnpike and a name from Massachusetts.
Sherwood TownshipTownship · Named for an English forest: Dry Prairie, the territorial road and the Air Line.
Union TownshipTownship · Where the Coldwater meets the St. Joseph: Union City and the Hodunk mill.