Where Did All the Shops Go? Ransom, Michigan: 1840-2020s
I have a difficult time trying to pigeon-hole a name for the village of Ransom.
Is it a ghost town? Not really.
Thriving? No.
Any business section?
Nope.....but it is still a cool, old-fashioned little southern Michigan town to drive through.
If you drive through Ransom, near sunset, in October or November at a time when the leaves have fallen from the trees, it can be a creepy experience. There are scary-looking twisted trees and old buildings standing empty and the town is at the end of a dirt road.
Backstory:
The Rowland Bird family settled the area in 1836, and more soon followed. The village was founded in 1840 and by 1847 a post office – called “North Rowland” - was established to handle mail for the ever-growing population, now at 200 residents.
In 1848 the village was re-named “Ransom” after Epaphroditus Ransom, the governor of Michigan from 1848-1850 (“Epaphroditus”? Yeah, I didn’t believe it at first either).
In 1849 the citizens of Ransom successfully got the town name changed to “Bird”, but thankfully it was changed back to ‘Ransom’ in 1850.
Business in Ransom seemed to be doing very well; it had a bank, two blacksmiths, boot shops, a central office, four churches, drug store, harness shop, hotel, the Ransom Cornet Band (13 members with only 12 instruments), the Rebekah Lodge Building, sawmill, schoolhouse, shoe shops, two wagon shops, and around five other shops and stores. This place was happenin’ all those years ago!
The post office closed in 1936.
The Ransom Cemetery was just west of the still-standing Ransom Congregational Church on property that is now farmland. It's been noted & recorded that some bodies were transferred to the Burt/Evergreen Cemetery...but does that mean there were bodies left behind and are still buried on the current farmland?
Ransom is now a shadow of what it once was in the mid-to-late 1800s; but there are still a nice handful of homes south of the old downtown section. The town seems peaceful and the current residents are content to live hidden away from big-city life...and who can blame them? You'll find the village in the center of Ransom Township, Hillsdale County.
