Yankees and Yorkers.

That’s the term used to describe settlers in the years when Michigan was a new state.

Many of the Yorkers were such only temporarily – they were originally New Englanders who had moved to the state of New York, and then moved on again, further west.

The Census of 1850 revealed that about one half of Michigan’s residents had come from New England or New York. The next Census showed that over one-third of the state’s residents had been born in the state.

“Of those born elsewhere, by far the largest number claimed New York as their native state,” wrote historian Willis Dunbar. “More than one-quarter of the people in Michigan in 1860 were born in the state of New York.”

The easterners caught “Michigan fever” and liked the idea of good, available land that was not unlike that to which they were already accustomed. The climate was also similar.

Thomas Kelderhouse’s father had moved the family from Albany County, N.Y., to Buffalo when he was a child. As adults, Thomas and his brother, John, both “scouted” northern Michigan.

John stayed in Buffalo, but Thomas relocated in Leelanau County at Port Oneida. He became the patriarch of what became a rather sizable clan and a familiar local family name.

David Henry Day was born in Ogdensburg, N.Y., but work with steamship companies acquainted him with Leelanau County, where he, too, opted to stay.

Glen Haven, originally a “wooding station” for lake steamers, became Day’s personal domain and he embarked on a variety of enterprises – always looking to the future and what was locally sustainable.

Following the pattern, Day’s grandfather had moved the family from Vermont to New York.

In 1878, Glen Haven was a primary wooding station for a 24-ship fleet of ships running between Chicago and Ogdensburg, N.Y. A first class ticket between the two ports cost $12. Over the course of time, fewer and fewer ships stopped at Glen Haven, but steamers continued to stop there for years after Glen Arbor had been dropped as a “port of call” about 1918.

The Rev. Peter Dougherty, who in 1852 moved with his “flock” from “Old Mission” to “New Mission” (Omena), was born in Plattkill, N.Y., in 1805.

And Albert Tracy Lay, sometimes called the “founder” of Traverse City, was born in Batavia, N.Y., in 1825. Hannah and Lay ships connected the various Grand Traverse Bay ports – including Leelanau’s – in the second half of the 19th century.

Quite a few of the individuals holding important jobs with Hannah and Lay were born in New York. To name but one, the “Mercantile Operations Manager” for Hannah and Lay was Smith Barnes, who was born in Madison County, N.Y., in 1827.

Other “mercantile” operations that were concurrent include Bahle’s in Suttons Bay, and Hamilton and Milliken in Traverse City.

Although the Bahles were Norwegian, Hamilton and Milliken were Yankees from Maine who once purportedly asked themselves, in a “frontier” settlement still abounding with stumps, “what are we doing here?!”

They did, however, stick it out and established businesses that endured for generations.

And then there was Stephen E. Wait, who was born in 1834 in Fairmont, Vt. In the winter of 1851-52, he taught “school” to a handful of young men aboard the schooner Madeline, laid up for the season in Grand Traverse Bay. A replica of this ship now winters at Heritage Harbor in Greilickville.

In his 2004 book, Grand Traverse Legends, author Robert Wilson tells where each of his subjects was born and it is remarkable how many (“by far the largest number”) of them were born in New York.

“My hope is that readers will come away with a greater understanding and appreciation for Grand Traverse Legends,” Wilson wrote.

And the contribution that the “Yankees and Yorkers” made to the region, we might add.