Michigan's County Courthouses

Iosco County

78 TAWAS CiTY—The original name of iosco County, Kanotin, means “in the path of the big wind.” it derives from a Native American legend about an upset great spirit blowing through the land and uprooting trees. That same wind may have been unleashed when a small boat from ioscocarried,ironically,themurderedcorpseof thecounty’s most notorious convicted murderer all the way around the Thumb and into Canada some  miles away. in  Kanotin was changed to iosco, which means “water of light.”it was organized as a county on February , , with the seat at Ottawas Bay. The name either referred to the Ottawa tribe or to the Ojibwa chief named Otawas. its name was later changed to its current form, Tawas City. The board of supervisors in  ordered that circuit court would meet in the second story of G. O. Whittemore & Company store. The Whittemore family was prominent in the early history of iosco, at one time holding six of the seven county offices. it donated land for public use on which the current courthouse sits overlooking the bay. The county spent $, on stone and brick in  for a courthouse, but work gave way to votes rejecting the project . Finally voters approved a scaled-back project, at least in terms of building materials. A wooden court was built on the high land by the shore. it was finished on February , . The jail was in the basement, which was made of limestone from Kelly’s island in lake Erie. Offices were on the first floor. The lofty and spacious circuit courtroom with chandeliers was on the second floor. it was in session whenever judges from Bay City could catch a sailboat. vaults of brick that stood on independent foundations were said to be fireproof because of double doors of boiler iron and four inches of air space on all sides. The exterior featured front and rear porticos, arched windows, a triplet east window, and a dome capped with a flagpole. An effort to move the county seat to East Tawas failed on April , , by a vote of  to . up to that date the county spent about $, on its buildings. The twelve steps below an entrance to the courthouse were used for many group photographs over the years. The courtroom also served as a community gathering place for events such as graduation exercises. The first county fair was on the courthouse grounds in . Between  and March , it split circuit court sessions with the O’Toole Block in Au Sable. Several years earlier, grisly murder visited the county. The murderer years later turned murder victim and was discovered in dramatic fashion. Henry B. Farrington was a jeweler in the area who reportedly did not do much legitimate business. He was convicted of killing a local butcher, whose head was split by a single blow from an axe on October , . Though the butcher was robbed of $, he had just collected from a lumber camp, the motive for the murder reportedly emerged from a love triangle. Suspicion turned to Farrington, and a local deputy sheriff found a frozen pool of blood and red icicles below Farrington’s kitchen floor, which had been scrubbed clean. Officers discovered the murder weapon, which fit the wound it gouged in the victim. Farrington was convicted despite his claims of innocence and his “rabid outburst” after the verdict was read. He received a sentence of life in Iosco County iOSCO COuNTY 79 prison. He made a number of desperate escapes that led to recapture before he was sent to Jackson prison for solitary confinement. Governor Begole, believing that only manslaughter was proven and that Farrington had served enough time, pardoned him. With a record expunged of his murder conviction, he returned to Tawas City in May . He was arrested again on the word of a saloon keeper for conspiracy to kill the old jailer who had foiled Farrington’s earlier escape attempts. Back in jail,Farrington befriended his cellmate,and the two escaped on the morning of June , . it is believed that Farrington fashioned a spoon into a key to break out. The next day a fisherman reported his rowboat stolen from Tawas Bay. That same boat washed ashore in a storm over a hundred miles away in Forest, Ontario, which means that it had to have looped around the Thumb. Farrington’s corpse was inside, tied to the boat. At first his discoverers figured that he tied his midsection to the boat to stay afloat and was killed by the...