Brownstown Township, Michigan
Near Detroit, Michigan
Brownstown Township takes its name from one of the stranger figures on the early American frontier: Adam Brown, a Virginia boy captured by the Wyandot tribe as a boy, who grew up to become an important Wyandot elder. He gave his adopted name to the territory. The area saw two battles during the War of eighteen twelve, when the Wyandot allied with the British and Tecumseh.
After the British defeat and Tecumseh's death at the Battle of the Thames, Adam Brown left for Canada with the retreating Wyandot. Settlement followed quickly. New York and New Jersey families arrived via the Erie Canal and Lake Erie steamships after the war, drawn by cheap farmland.
The Michigan Territorial Council designated it a township on April fifth, eighteen twenty-seven.
