By Bob Wessel
A trip from Petersburg to Blissfield is measured in minutes today. This was not the case when George Giles made the trip in 1826.
Giles was obliged to cut a 13-mile-long road through the wilderness and wetlands along the River Raisin to reach his new home in Blissfield.
Anyone looking across the lower eastern part of Lenawee County — over the land between the River Raisin and the Ohio state line — would never know that this flat picturesque area did not start out as the rich and productive farmland we see today. This land was once an untamed swamp, home to a wide range of wildlife and providing a fertile hunting ground for native Americans and newly arriving white settlers.