Northfield Township, Michigan
township in Washtenaw County, Michigan
Northfield Township is a civil township of Washtenaw County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 8,514 at the 2020 census.
Communities
Emery is an unincorporated community located within the township at 42°21′36″N 83°40′59″W. Emery was settled as early as 1831 by Joshua Leland from Madison County, New York. He named the settlement after his son Emery Leland, who much later served as Northfield Township Supervisor and county judge. Emery was renamed Leland in 1884 when the Toledo, Ann Arbor & Northern Michigan Railroad built a station named Leland in the community. Despite the name change, a post office opened in the community under the name Emery on February 20, 1884, and operated until March 31, 1903.
Gravel Run is a former settlement that was founded by Roswell Curtis in 1842, and he became the first postmaster when the Gravel Run post office opened on May 18, 1850. He served in this capacity until he died in 1870. The community was named after the stream where the community was located. The post office was transferred to and renamed Northfield on October 2, 1860.
“Northfield Township, Michigan” enters the record as township in Washtenaw County, Michigan. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Northfield, Township and Michigan can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Northfield Township, Michigan” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Northfield, Township and Michigan provides the most credible route into that argument.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7059403. Authority coordinates are 42.401, -83.743. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2020, 1831, 1884 and 1903.
A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Northfield Township, Michigan”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Northfield Township, Michigan primary sources, Northfield Township, Michigan archive and Northfield research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Northfield Township, Michigan”?
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- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Northfield Township, Michigan” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.