NORTHVILLIANS,

• Northville’s Farmers Market enters October (LAST month of the season), offering Michigan goods and produce…Every Thursday from 8AM –3PM at 7 Mile & Center.
• There are Skeletons (120 of them!) on display around the Ville through Halloween…come see them all.
• Celebrate Art, Music & local flavors at Northville’s Art House’s Halloween Art Crawl – Saturday, October 23^rd, 5PM – 8PM.  For more info: 248 344-0497 or go to https://northvillearthouse.org/

• Merck said Monday it is seeking US Food and Drug Administration emergency-use authorization for its experimental antiviral Covid-19 treatment. If authorization is granted, the drug, made by Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, would be the first oral antiviral treatment to fight Covid-19.  It comes in capsule form. (CDC)

We will continue our “Fall Series” next week featuring Autumn Colors and where to find them, and then we move on to HALLOWEEN IN THE VILLE.  Let’s take a look at the local historic cider mills…

1873 – Northville’s Parmenter’s Cider Mill (Baseline Road) was established by two Civil War vets and has been going strong ever since.  It’s the oldest cider mill in the area, and its Cider press was originally powered by a team of horses walking in circles.

1898 – The Northville area was by this time noted for its apples, and during this particular week in 1898 The Record noted that at the Northville train station, 12 railroad cars were filled with barrels of local apples for shipping. Their destination? ALL OVER the country.

1909 – The apple crop in & around Northville proved to be one of the best in history. Thousands of barrels of apples were shipped out this year.

1918 – The 2^nd annual Wayne County Fair (largest Fair in the State) at Northville Downs hosted citizens from southeastern Michigan who sampled local apples, cider and preserves from our orchards.

1919 – Northville’s Orchard Heights was named that because it was an area of town historically populated by apple, peach, pear and cherry trees.  It ran from Rogers to Clement, and 7 Mile to Main, which was originally the old Eaton Orchards. 

1998 – Foreman’s Orchards (7 Mile and Ridge Area) were beginning to be transformed into the Maybury Crossing subdivision.

We’ve had MANY orchards in the area, including Parmenter’s, Eaton’s, Foreman’s, Obstbaum, and Three Cedars Farm. I was asked about the Apple Crest Orchard during my History Lecture at the Community Center last week.  Located at Haggerty/8 Mile close to Meijer, Apple Crest had an old estate home on the grounds that burned in 1979 before the new shopping area was developed there.

I grew up in Orchard Heights and continue to live there today. I can attest there are still some of the original trees from the Orchard days in the vicinity (apple, cherry, pear and peach trees).

You can see that the Northville area (including Novi and South Lyon) was a real hot spot for fruit and cider in days past.  Take a trip down to Parmenter’s Cider Mill and think of the apple press being turned by a team of horses and farmers from the area bringing in their apples to sell. Enjoy a stroll down memory lane on a crisp fall day, and refresh with some local cider & doughnuts.