| George Pack | |
|---|---|
| Born | about 1800 New Jersey |
| Died | April 15, 1875 Pack's Mills, Michigan |
| Nationality | USA |
| Occupation | Businessman |
| Spouse(s) | Maria Lathrop |
| Children | Louisa M. Pack George Willis Pack Byron Pack Lorinda Pack Angeline Pack Helen Pack Albert Pack Greene Pack Josephine Pack Emma Pack |
George Pack (b. 1800, New Jersey; d. April 15, 1875, Pack's Mills, Michigan) was a businessman, landowner, sawmill operator, and postmaster in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. The town of Pack's Mills of which he was also postmaster, was named after him.
Pack had moved to Michigan from upstate New York in 1848. Born in New Jersey, Pack had moved to Madison County, New York to be near the parents of his wife, Maria Lathrop. After a few years "near Maria's father, Abram Lathrop, in Madison Clounty; they then moved twelve miles away to Peterboro",[1] about 25 miles east and south of Syracuse. In search of new opportunities, he used proceeds from the sale of a farm near Watertown, New York to purchase 80 acres just outside of Lexington, Michigan.
With ten children in tow, the Packs boarded "an Erie Canal sidewheeler [and] rode it to the end of the line at Buffalo and from there headed up Lake Erie to Lake Huron, disembarking at Lexington, on the eastern shore of the Michigan thumb, overlooking Lake Huron."[2]. They spent 13 years there; and it was there that George Pack made his first investment in timber, "when he paid $1,600 for 720 acres of timberland near the Black River. The acreage was located ten miles north of Lexington, near a town called Farmers, now known as Carsonville".[3]
Pack opened his first sawmill in Washington Township in 1856. The second was opened just a year later in the same township. The milltown of Pack's Mills was established nearby. A grist mill and then a flour mill followed soon thereafter. By 1876, "sixteen hundred acres would be in the Pack name"[4]
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