1873 W.W. Starkey

One of the earliest references I found of the Starkey Stave Factory was around 1873. It was listed in a State of Michigan Gazetteer and Business Directory as "Starkey, W.W., stave and heading factory, near depot." A great deal of the early history of Fowlerville centers around the successes of W.W. Starkey and the Palmerton family. In my book, The Fowlerville Chronicles, a lot of that has been shown. But by the mid-1890s both of these families no longer lived in Fowlerville.

The Starkeys and many of the Palmertons lived in Saginaw, but they would come back to town for numerous visits throughout the years.

One such visit was noted in several short articles The Fowlerville Review in the spring of 1896 as follows:

W.W. Starkey, of Saginaw, was the guest of friends at this place the last of last week.

Mrs. W.W. Starkey and Mrs. F.G. Palmerton, returned to their home, at Saginaw, on Monday, accompanied by Mrs. J. Palmerton (widow of Samuel Palmerton), who will spend some time visiting relatives and friends at that place.

And then, Mrs. H. Greenaway gave a very pleasant informal 'at home' on Saturday last in honor of Mrs. W.W. Starkey and Mrs. F.G. Palmerton, of Saginaw. Elegant refreshments were served to about 30 of her friends.

I've gathered a ton of materials on the Starkey enterprise and will plan on posting it at a later date.