The story
Welcome to Batavia Township
Batavia Township, west of Coldwater, was organized in 1836 and named, at William Reynolds’s request, for his former home of Batavia in western New York. The Chicago road crosses its southeast corner, where the Taylor House and the New York House stage station served thousands of emigrants before the Michigan Southern Railroad drew the post office to the hamlet of Batavia.
Batavia is surveyed Township 6 South, Range 7 West. By an act approved March 23, 1836, townships 6 and 7 south of range 7 west were set off from Prairie River as Batavia, with the first meeting at the house of William Reynolds; the southern half became Elizabeth (later Bethel) in March 1837. Johnson says the petition was resolved on at a meeting at the New York House in 1835–36 and that the name was chosen at Reynolds’s request after his former home in western New York. The first town meeting, in April 1836, elected Martin Olds supervisor.
Mill Creek runs from northeast to southwest through the township, and settlement favoured the oak openings between it and the Chicago road. Wallace opened the first public house in 1832; under Leonard Taylor from 1837 it became the well-known Taylor House and later the Batavia House. Jeremiah Tillotson built the New York House, a log tavern and stage station on section 33, in 1833; about a dozen houses gathered around it, and the first town meeting was held there. Abel Olds settled on section 24 in 1834 and his brother Martin, later probate judge, the same year.
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John Woodruff opened the first blacksmith shop on section 28 in 1835, and on Mill Creek in the same section the Reynolds brothers built the first sawmill in 1836, later the Woodard mill; nearby was the paper town of Lawtonville, whose lots were sold in the East. The first school was built on section 13 in 1835. Samuel H. Cary, who opened a tavern on section 34 in 1838 and gave his name to Cary’s Lake, became the first postmaster in 1840. In October 1837 Batavia had 357 people.
When the railroad was built, the stage station community broke up and the post office moved to the little hamlet since known as Batavia. The 2020 census counted 1,323 people in Batavia Township.