Origin Of The Name Ann Arbor

Judge Cheever's Explanation is Substantiated

I prepared an article for the American Real Estate Exchange Journal, which was published in the Argus August 11, 1902, in which I endeavored to give the correct origin of the name of our city. The introduction of the article was as follows:  "the first settlers were John Allen and Elisha Walter Rumsey who came to Ann Arbor in February, 1824, and settled here. Their wives, Mrs. Ann Allen and Mrs. Ann Rumsey, came and joined their husbands in October of the same year. There is something quite poetical and romantic about the origin of the name Ann Arbor. The given name of both of the wives of these first settlers was Ann. One story is that when their wives came here, Mr. Allen and Mr. Rumsey, aided by there wives, built an arbor out of small trees and bushes on the west side of the block where the Ann Arbor Savings Bank now stands, for a temporary home, and the men put a sign upon the front of the arbor naming it "Ann's Arbour," and the village when organized was given that name."

On August 26, the Washtenaw Times published an interview with David Hackett, an old settler of Ann Arbor, giving an entirely different origin of the name. The story given by Mr. Hackett is very romantic and interesting, but I feel  very confident that the facts will not support his version of the origin of the name of our city. 

On September 15th, I received a visit from Mrs. Ruth E. Havens, formerly daughter of Mrs. Ann Rumsey, by her second husband. Mrs. Havens tells me that her mother first married Elisha Walter Rumsey; that Elisha Walter Rumsey died within a few years after he settled in Ann Arbor and her mother then married William Van Fossen. Mrs. Havens says that she was born in Home, Mich., in 1838. I think during her childhood she moved to Indiana, then to Ohio; that now she lives at Fort Scott, Kansas. Mrs. Havens is now visiting with Mrs. C. L. Stevens, of Ypsilanti, who came with her to my office to talk over the early history of our city. Mrs. Havens said she had talked with her mother a great many times about their early settlement in Ann Arbor and the origin of the name of our city, and she always told the story substantially as given above. I think that this evidence ought to conclusively settle the question of the real origin of the name of our city.

Joseph Wilsey, a farmer formerly of Pittsfield, but now living in Ann Arbor, came to my office after this discussion appeared in the papers, and corroborates Mrs. Havens' story and the statement in my first article quoted above in regard to the origin of the name of our city. Mr. Wilsey is now 78 years old, came to Ann Arbor when a boy, about the year 1832, and has lived in or near the city since that time. He has been familiar with the early history of our country and city, and his recollection is valuable and of much weight in regard to these early events. 

Very respectfully,

Noah W. Cheever.

Ann Arbor, Sept. 22, 1902