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One Harry Monroe settled there in 1860 and to him goes the credit of
putting Woodville on the map for the place we know now by that name was
first called Monroeville. This name was shown on the 1873 Atlas of Michigan. Five miles north of Monroeville, a mile east of where the Big Jackson school now stands, was a little settlement known as Home, and in 1867 the Federal Government established the Home Post Office there. Then, in 1874 they changed it's name to Woodville. A year later, 1875, this postoffice, name and all, was shifted to Monroeville and this latter name was dropped and written off. Incidentally, when Woodville moved in 1875, Home got a new postoffice all it's own. The railroad and the pine trees made Woodville just as it made many other mushroom settlements in the county, most of which were to sprout, bloom and fade to nil, all within the span of a few hectic years. When the pine was gone, they went too. A few of these places, blessed with other resources, hung on a while longer before the roof fell in. Such was Woodville, thanks mostly to it's geographic location and the lowly spud. It's location, about half way between the larger towns still keeps it alive tho since 1936 have given away to the rubber tires, The post office died in August, 1935. But miles and miles of old roadbeds threading thru the woods and around the hills stand mute evidence of the once marked activity that supported a population of upward of five hundred people. |