Riggs Park grew from homesteaders to farm to part of subdivision deal

Peter Riggs received his large tract of land in southeast Van Buren Township by purchase from the government at $1.25 an acre in 1836, not by a land grant like many of the other pioneers.
The Peter Riggs family can be traced to an unnamed ancestor who departed England as a stowaway on a sailing ship in 1665, about the time of the Black Plague in London, according to Van Buren Township’s history book “Water Under the Bridge.”
Peter and his wife Harriet lived in New York and Pennsylvania during the first years of their marriage. Nine children were born to them during this time. Then they made plans to go west and settle near Minor and Clarissa Savage in Van Buren Township. Clarissa was Harriet’s sister.
In September 1836 they took the Erie Canal to Cleveland, then traveled across Lake Erie to Gibraltar, then overland to Van Buren Township, where they stayed with Clarissa Savage and her family for the winter.
At the age of 58, Peter began the difficult task of clearing his land and built a home of rough logs to shelter his family.
A letter from Peter dated Jan. 22, 1837 and found in a barrel in the attic of a relative in Waterloo, NY, detailed the first months in Van Buren Township.
Peter Riggs harvested his first crops in Van Buren Township in the fall of 1838. He traveled to the water-powered mill at Rawsonville on horseback several times that year to have his sacks of corn ground into meal to feed his large family. With the sale of subsequent crops, the family prospered.
In 1839 tragedy struck the Riggs family. Harriet suffered a paralytic stroke. She never fully recovered and the main burdens of both farm and family fell to Peter from that time on. It is believed Peter began construction of the family’s permanent wooden home, directly across Haggerty Road from the log house, in about 1850.
Harriet died in her new home in 1862 at age 69. She is buried in Hillside Cemetery, along with her huband Peter who died May 5, 1863.
The couple had a total of ten children and each went to raise families of their own. William built the brick home at 13320 Haggerty for his wife Harriet Bull, who he met after his first wife died in childbirth.
This brick home has continuously been occupied by the Riggs family for more than 100 years. Albert Richardson Riggs was born in 1908 and in 1944 married Anne Silvenis, who at the time was living in the first wooden house built by Peter. Eventually, the two lived in the brick home built by William and raised their family.
For many years, the extended Riggs family farmed a large area of southeastern Van Buren Township and its many family members built and populated the area.
In the early 2000s, about 27 acres of a Riggs farm at the corner of Martinsville and East Huron River Drive north of the railroad tracks was deeded to the township for a park as part of a deal with the developers of Country Walk subdivision.
Country Walk was designed to be the biggest subdivision in the township with 536 units planned. Its Planned Residential Development (PRD) was first approved in 2002 and changed several times. The development has yet to be fully constructed.
The 140-year-old brick home on the park property, called the Riggs Park Heritage Farm House, was built by Loren Riggs, a member of the pioneer family. It was marked by a cupola on the third floor, where family members could watch for the farmers coming home from the fields to eat.
The township had considered making a mini Greenfield Village there and moving other old homes from the township to the site. Riggs Park and a walking trail was established. The township put a new roof on the house, had hazardous materials professionally removed, and then fenced it in. The renovations never moved forward.
The township demolished the house in 2016. The demolition was paid for with the $30,000 the township got in insurance money when the large barn behind the house burned on Thanksgiving 2013.
Now the whole acreage is a natural parkland with a walking path, restroom, picnic tables, and benches. The new Iron Belle Trail skirts the northern end of the property.
The former sign that used to tell the story of the Riggs pioneer family has been removed.
Van Buren Township Parks and Recreation Department Director Jason Locke said he is working on procedures for others to buy memorial benches, but it is too early to announce that yet.