Ghost Town

Fowlerville is listed as a ghost town . . . not Fowlerville, Michigan . . . but Fowlerville, Oklahoma.

That town, which was located in the southeast quandrant of the state, predated Oklahoma becoming a state. There used to be a post office there, but it was later moved to Idabel, Oklahoma. But it would appear the town no longer exists, unlike our Fowlerville.

But, then curiosity tickled at my brain and I went in search of more towns named the same possibly in other states. I came across a Fowlerville, New York, just south of Rochester. There are two other Fowlerville, New York, locations in other counties, but oddly enough, the first one I found is also located in a Livingston County, and was settled by Wells Fowler.

Okay, this is sounding a bit like a parallel universe situation. We live in Fowlerville, Michigan, located in Livingston County, and was settled by Ralph Fowler.

Reading a bit about their history also paralleled the richness of our village's history. But there are some differences.

Fowlerville, New York, was one of seven hamlets in the Town of York. At the time it was founded by Wells Fowler and William Taylor, in 1816, it contained two churches, two stores, a post office, one hotel, a harness/blacksmith/wagon shop, and an agricultural works, with a population of 375 to 400, including transient boarders (as described in an informational article about York).

The town still exists as far as maps indicate, but all the information found led me to York's history and statistics of it and the surrounding area. Theirs is a population of about 3,000, whereas I have heard numbers bantered around of 8,000-10,000 in Fowlerville and its surrounding areas.

So, there you have it. They say everyone has a twin somewhere in the world; maybe that goes for villages also.