Part of the fun of Michigan roadtrips are discovering towns and villages you never knew existed. What is even more interesting – for me, anyway – is finding postcards that were actually issued by these little communities, in the hopes of attracting more people to come settle.
One such village is Marengo, found in Calhoun County. The first official land purchases were made in 1831 by four separate settlers. These men – and others that soon followed – all met in the home of the first settler, Seeley Neal, for the first town meeting.
Neal was elected the first town supervisor. Next up was the question, “what should we name our new town?” How they came up with and why they decided on the name is anyone’s guess: they decided to name the village ‘Marengo’, after the famous war horse of Napoleon, that lived from 1793-1831. Maybe it was due to their admiration of the horse’s durability; Marengo was wounded eight times in his war career, and carried Napoleon through most of his battles, including his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo.
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In 1842 the village of Marengo got its first post office with Jim Winters its first postmaster…