The story
Welcome to Fabius Township
Fabius has more water than any other township in St. Joseph County, with Corey, Pleasant, Clear and Long lakes scattered among wooded knobs west of Three Rivers. It began as part of Buck’s Township and took its classical name in 1841.
Fabius covers surveyed Township 6 South, Range 12 West: about 20,950 acres of land and 2,100 acres of water, the most of any township in the county. Its surface is broken by hills and knobs, prairie and timber. Corry’s Lake, now Corey Lake, the largest, was named for Joshua Corry, a pioneer who settled near it, and Mohney Lake for Abraham Mohney, on whose farm it lay; Boot Lake took its name from its shape. Johnny Cake Prairie, small and round, lies in the east near Three Rivers.
The first permanent settler was Garrett Sickles, who came with his family in 1830 and opened the township’s first farm on Johnny Cake Prairie in section 13. In October 1832 William F. Arnold and his father’s family settled in section 26, when only four families lived in the township; Deacon William Churchill and his sons followed. The first marriage joined William F. Arnold and Rose Churchill, and their daughter Lydia, born February 28, 1835, was the first child born in the township. A log schoolhouse was built in 1833, and Mishael Beadle built the first sawmill near the mouth of Lake Run in 1835.
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In the winter of 1832–33 the territorial council set off the land of present Fabius and Lockport from White Pigeon as Buck’s Township, named for George Buck; its first election was held at Hiram Harwood’s house on Johnny Cake Prairie in the spring of 1833. In 1840 Lockport was set off, and in 1841 the remaining township was renamed Fabius, a Roman family name, and held its first township meeting on April 5, 1841, at the house of Alfred Poe.
The lakes drew summer visitors early. The 1877 county history pictured the Kaiser Lake House, kept by Charles F. Kaiser, and in 1869 the Michigan Air Line Railroad chose a route through Fabius rather than through Constantine. Township meetings were held in homes and schools for about fifty years, until a township hall on Broadway Road was finished in 1895. The 2020 census counted 3,311 people in Fabius Township.