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Any photos not otherwise credited are from the personal collection of Frank Passic, Albion Historian.
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Morning Star, June 12, 2026, pg. 5 Albion City Directories are excellent resources to consult when doing historical research. They printed information that would not be acceptable today. Depending upon the year, you could get information about the name of the person, the name of their spouse, the names of their children with birth years, their place of employment, whether the rented or owned, and in the case of the 1923-24 directory, the kind of car they drove, such as a Chevrolet or Ford. One lesser-known directory for Albion is the 1873 Albion Village Directory, part of the Calhoun County Business Directory for 1873. It was issued by E. Darwin Porter of Grand Rapids, and published by the Ann Arbor Printing and Publishing Company. 280 pages long, this hard-cover directory is filled with information about the communities of Calhoun County, including each township. Albion addresses are listed utilizing the original 2-digit numbering system used in Albion until the mid-1890s when we went to three digits. Few full first names are listed with each surname. Instead, the first initials of the person are given, thus, "Adams, J.Q." The initials' "theme" also carries over into businesses. In the listing for Augustus Gale for example, we find his place of employment printed as: "H. G. & O. C. G. & E. W. H." If you don't know (and you probably don't), that stands for "Horatio Gale & Oliver Charles Gale & Eugene W. Hollingsworth," a local hardware store. Although the directory is titled a business directory, it is actually a full directory giving the names of the head of households (mostly men, but not all), their addresses, and places of employment. What is handy about this directory is that there are name listings (mostly farmers) in alphabetical order for each township, listing the number of acres they owned as well as the Section where their land was located. For example, on page 269 we read that Sylvester Abbott owned 258 acres in Section 34 of Sheridan Township. You can easily cross-reference this Directory with the 1873 Atlas of Calhoun County. There are governmental office holder listings for each community, school board officials, church officials, masonic officials, and other titles. An actual business directory is included for each city/village, listing by classification the businesses by topic, such as furniture dealers, hardware stores, photographers, and others. From our Historical Notebook this week we present the page entitled "Albion Village Government" (Pg. 159). Here we see listed the Village officials, including the Village President Frederick W. Sheldon. At the bottom of the page are found the officials of the Corporation of Albion College, their places of residence, and their term expiration year. I noticed that only one person, banker James W. Sheldon, Esquire, lived in Albion. All the other five directors lived in the Detroit area. Also illustrated here is the title page of the book. Area libraries should have this in their collections. How many of our readers have consulted the 1873 directory before?  1873 Albion Village Directory
 1873 Albion Village Directory, "Albion Village Government" (Pg. 159)
All text copyright, 2026 © all rights reserved Frank Passic | Artwork copyright Maggie LaNoue © 2026
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