Croswell House / Governor Charles M. Croswell
Charles Croswell helped his guardian and uncle, Daniel Hicks, build this Greek Revival house. He and his first wife, Lucy Eddy, bought the 1840s building from his uncle’s estate in 1853. The house remained in the family until Elizabeth Musgrave Croswell Merrill, his second wife, donated it to the Lucy Wolcott Barnum Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1927. The Mary B. Hopkins Memorial funded the 1949 addition. In 1972 the house was listed in the National Register of Historic Places.Charles Miller Croswell (1825-1886) was born in New York. A lawyer and civic leader, he was secretary of the Republican Party’s founding convention in Jackson. He also drafted Michigan’s act ratifying the XIII Amendment to the U. S. Constitution. Croswell served as Adrian’s mayor and led both the state senate and house before becoming Michigan’s seventeenth governor (1877-1880). As governor, he oversaw the completion of Michigan’s 1879 capitol building.
Plaque via Michigan History Center