Grovenburg Community
In 1842, Henry W. Grovenburgh and his three sons, Harry, Jerome, and Frank came to the area by ox team over a long and difficult trail. Once here, they cleared land of the dense forest, built log homes, and formed a settlement. They were the only inhabitants for some distance and they gave the settlement the name Grovenburg. Varying spellings are prevalent in the community, including Grovenburg, Grovenberg, and Grovenburgh (as the patriarch spelled it).
The settlement is located in the southwestern corner of Delhi Township, taking up the better part of sections 19, 20, 29, 30, 31, and 32. On the 1859 map at right it is shown that much of the land holdings in the area were held by H.W. Grovenburgh and his sons.
Geographically and geologically, Grovenburg is marked by a glacial esker and a bend in the Grand River which traverses the area.
Historically, the dirt trail that linked Delhi Center and Grovenburg didn’t follow what we now know as Holt Road. Instead, that path of Holt Road, continued heading east from the Center, taking a slant southward at modern day Washington Road (referred to by the locals as the ‘north’ road because it headed north). At an angle the dirt road connected around what we now know as the area of Grovenburg and McCue Roads, and proceeded south.
In the 1840s, the community began losing children and residents and formed a burial ground. The earliest marked grave in the cemetery is that of Florellow Grovenburg, daughter of H.W. Grovenburg and Betsey Jane Blodgett Grovenburgh, who died in 1849 at age 9. The grave yard does not appear on maps until 1874, but before that it was a private family cemetery for the members of the tight-knit Grovenburg community for more than a quarter century. Ultimately, the land was owned by Spencer Markham, who, in 1880, formally gave the land to the community as a cemetery. On June 4, 1880, the deed for the Corporation of Markham Burial Grounds” was filed. The original plat of cemetery land was surveyed for $8.00 in 1881. The cemetery has carried the name Grovenburg Cemetery and in modern day it is known as Markham Cemetery after its original benefactor. Markham Cemetery was maintained by the community for more than a century. In 2002, the community deeded the ownership and maintenence to Delhi Charter Township.
Spencer S. Markham (1808-1894) bought the southwest quarter of section 32 of Delhi Township, totally 160 acres, in 1836 from a land company without ever setting eyes on it. This was before H.W. Grovenburg and family reached the area. However, Markham didn’t arrive at the land until the 1840s and he when he did his reaction with to leave with disgust over the poor quality of his land. He thought it too swampy to occupy or use, however after later closer inspection it proved just fine and he ultimately built a home on the highest point of the property in the late 1840s. Markham is described as a man with zeal for life with “wooden peg teeth.” Spencer and Amanda Markham had no biological children but adopted C. Bert Gilbert, William P. Brown, Charlie Rich, and Sarah B. Blanchard. Upon his death, the Markham land was split equally among the four adoptive children.
The youth of Grovenburg began attending school somewhat informally around 1842, shortly after the area was settled. Classes were held in homes initially until a district was formed - Delhi District No. 3 - in 1843, and a log schoolhouse was built on the east side of modern Grovenburg Road in Section 29. By 1866, John and Mary Fisher deeded a half-acre for a new school to be built in Section 30. The new frame school was used by the Grovenburg School for nearly a century. In 1952, Grovenburg and Holt voters approved the annexation of the Grovenburg School District into Holt Public Schools. The old schoolhouse was sold in 1954 to the Grovenburg Seventh Day Adventists for use as a church and it continued in that use for several decades. Today, the old school building still stands abandoned on Grovenburg Road.
Early on, the Grovenburg family and other neighboring settlers sought Sunday School and established offerings in short order. Circuit riding preachers came through Grovenburg to offer services in the earliest years, hosted by Jerome Grovenburg. Jane Grovenburgh was instrumental in the founding of the Grovenburg Sunday School, which was chartered in 1862 with 18 members. The Grovenburg Methodist Protestant Church, as it was then known, had its first pastor from 1861 to 1864 in Rev. Andrews. The church building was erected in 1886 by father-son carpentry team Stephen and Henry Pratt. That building underwent extensive renovation through the decades, with five additions in the twentieth century. It served the community and congregation until 2019 when the congregation dissolved and the historic building was razed in 2022.
A West Delhi post office was formed in 1856 and lasted just over a decade through 1867. At that time, local mail from the Delhi Center (later Holt) post office was brought by wagon to the Grovenburg community for easier pick up by residents in the era before mail delivery. After the establishment of Rural Free Delivery (RFD) in 1896, another post office was established in the area in 1899, this time known as “Westholt.” The new West Holt post office was located on modern Grovenburg Road with postmaster Samuel Haley in charge. Carrier Birt Wilson carried mail from Holt to West Holt by horse and buggy. Postmaster Haley then delivered mail along the RFD route by horse and buggy. The Westholt post office was discontinued in 1902.
Other early settlers in the Grovenburg community include those outlined below.
The family of John McKeough came to the area in 1848, when the patriarch purchased 40 acres of land in Section 19 of Delhi Township from the Federal government’s General Land Office in Ionia. John was an Irish immigrant and married Melissa Grovenburg, daughter of Henry and Saviah (Smith) Grovenburg, the original settlers and namesake of the community. John McKeough died in 1860 and was originally buried on a knoll on his land before later being moved to Markham Cemetery in an unmarked grave; and Melissa died in 1870 in Orange, Ionia County, where the family moved after John’s death. John and Melissa had ten children including the oldest son Royal J. McKeough, who returned to southwest Delhi after his mother’s death. Royal’s son Guy McCue remained on the family land. Through the generations, the name McKeough became McCue (pronounced the same), and the family name is now on McCue Road which crosses through the Grovenburg area and passes by much of the family land which laid along what is now McCue Road.
John S. Allen and Janette (Hogle) Allen bought their farm on Nichols Road in 1856 and originally lived in a log house. In 1879, they built a new frame house and had a barn moved from the corner of Onondaga and Columbia Roads to their farm.
Reuben Hart was born in England in 1821 and came to the United States as a cook and nurse on a ship in 1844, with two brothers, one which died on the voyage. He settled near Mason in 1851, before coming to the Grovenburg area. Reuben married Ida Mae Allen, daughter of John and Janette Allen, in 1876, and had six children.
In 1875, the Stephen J. Pratt family moved from New York to Grovenburg and purchased the 80-acre Baker farm on the north side of Harper Road. Stephen and Susan (Steves) Pratt had five sons Henry, Dell, William, Charles, and Mervin. They were a family of builders. Their son Charles had a cidermill and feedmill. Locals would bring him their apples which he pressed into cider. Mervin Pratt worked for the Jessup Dairy in Lansing and delivered milk with two white ponies. Charlie Pratt had a blacksmith shop, and continued his father’s building trade when he built the Mud Lake bridge. In 1885, Stephen and his son Henry built the Grovenburg Methodist Church building. Patriarch Stephen was a veteran of the Civil War, having served with the 13th Michigan Infantry out of Otsego, Michigan, and later belonged to the Dimondale G.A.R. post
Harry and Jane Grovenburg
Wallace Fisher
"Grovenberg" community members holding pennants.
Grovenburg had features by special correspondents in the State Journal and Ingham County News, just as all the small local communities did.
Delhi District No. 3, Grovenburg School, circa 1940s.
Grovenburg Methodist Church, circa 1910.
Grovenburg United Methodist Church, circa 2020.
Making The Case for a Ghost Town
What qualities make a locale a ghost town? There can be many factors. Nationally, ghost towns are identifiable by their abandoned commercial districts with no populations, but in Ingham County there is different criteria. Key elements are there having been a population center, post office, school, church, and cemetery. Grovenburg had all of those. There remains a population in the area and the cemetery is among the few physical remnants of the community, along with the abandoned schoolhouse, all along the road that bears the settlement’s name - Grovenburg. The West Holt (formerly West Delhi) post office ceased to exist in 1901. The Grovenburg School, or Delhi District No. 3, ceased to exist in 1952 upon its annexation into Holt Schools. And, finally, the Grovenburg United Methodist Church closed in 2019. Historically, Grovenburg has not been classified as a ghost town, but it fits much of the regional criteria. Perhaps the biggest strike against such a classification is the still active community members in southwest Delhi Township who call Grovenburg home. We’ll let you make the call.
