Milford Township and Proud of It

There was a mention of a traffic accident at the tree site just a few days earlier and when the information on this incident is discovered, one questions just how much of a haz- ard to navigation the tree really was. A driver, southbound, had attempted to pass the tree on the left, at the last second he saw a northbound car approaching, he violently turned his vehicle to the right and in doing so he swung the back left of the vehicle into the tree and dumped a passenger out of the vehicle causing some injury to that person. And so the story goes. Ol' Milford farmer wonder: it may be that the fear of death that keeps us from living, not from dying. Two Churches in Milford Twp For more than twenty years there were two churches in Milford Twp. Pleasant Grove is well known but the other church, almost unknown today, is the Campbellite or Chris- tian Church which stood in the very NW of Sec 18. It is on the earliest maps (not on Andreas) but disappears from the maps shortly after 1900. It apparently was in existance from circa 1880-1905. When the property was being sold in the twenties, it was found someone at the church had issued, or been issued, a nonvalid title of ownership and this caused some legal problems. On one map, it was listed as AME, but it is not believed to be affiliated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

Wakefield Woods is at the southeast corner of E-29 and Dayton Road in the northwest corner of Sec 19. Wakefield Woods is an approximately 10 acre plot of ground donated to the County by the Wakefield family in 1988. It was created at the same time as the reconstruction of the curve and intersection of Dayton Road and E-29.

This 1917 Hanson photo shows this uniquely shaped tree. Although not in Milford Twp., it was a landmark for the people of northwest Milford Twp.

This picture, from the First World War era, depicts the famous "H" tree in its prime. This landmark (in the very south central part of Sec 30- Howard Twp) is actually a mile north of the Milford Twp - Howard Twp border but it is so well known to the people of Milford Twp (particularly northwest Milford Twp) that it is included in our research of Milford Twp.

Local legends talk of this tree receiving help in attaining its shape from Indian lads tying two good branches of two different elms together. One is a red (slippery) elm and the other a white (American) elm. The resulting profile of two individual trees becoming one and producing yet a third was too much of a symbol to be missed and thus was created the legend of this beautiful area as an Indian wedding tree. Estimates are that the trees began their lives in the mid 1700s, long before the appearance of European man in the early 1850s in this area.

Some have stated that this is a “tree that moved an interstate” as I-35 now ventures to the east a half mile. That probably was not the case because the tree stood on the proposed flood plain and would have