Land Records, Wexford County, Michigan Liber 132 page 328

I am posting information gleaned from land records in the areas where our family’s ancestors resided. You can read more about this project in the overview. You may also check my deed record listing, which I will update with each post.

This little deed is an odd ball of sorts, it does not really fit in any category. I collected it because my grandparents, William and Winnie (Kaiser) Yearnd were the purchasers of the property.

Esther M. “Elsie” Caulkins was a resident of Cadillac, Wexford, Michigan for some portion of her life, and on the 1910 census of the city in the household of her widowed mother, Maria Caulkins at 447 Chapin Street. Her sister Mamie was also in that household. At some point, the Caulkins family moved to Illinois, where by 1920 they were residents of Chicago, Cook County. Maria M. Caulkins died died on December 7, 1937, age 77 years, 10 months, 2 days, her residence was Woodstock, Illinois. The informant was Clay Colcord (Mamie Caulkins’ husband), of Woodstock Illinois, and burial was in Cadillac, Michigan on 12 December 1937.

Perhaps another search of the deeds would show a transfer of the property to Elsie, or a deed recorded to settle the estate of Maria. Whatever the case, The Caulkins family turned to their “relatives” in Cadillac to dispose of the property after their mother’s death.

You can see a map of the Home Building and Realty Company Addition to the city of Cadillac on the Michigan subdivision site.  When I compared the subdivision plat to the current Google map, I can see that the two lots in question reside in the 600 block of Chapin Street.  I do not know if this was a different house from the one the Caulkins family lived in at the time of the 1910 census, or if the numbering of the houses has changed.
View Larger Map