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By: Jim Fitzpatrick |
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Email: jim@nunica.com |
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Local Farmer in Polkton Township writes for the Coopersville Observer. |
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Along Brandy Creek By Jim Fitzpatrick
The Coopersville Observer May 1, 2006- - No. 71 |
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Where is Brandy Creek, anyway? Well, like old Art Allen once said; "it's right there where it has always been since the beginning of time". He had a little smirk on his face, too; as he answered the question. He lived one farm north of here. Spent most of his life there, went off to the "great beyond" some years back.
That not so famous stream isn't very wide, not deep in most places either. It runs through the back of the farm. Most folks around here are not even aware that there is a name connected with this interesting little stretch of water. Most of the year it doesn't hurry along in any big rush. It is a fascinating place for a kid to find frogs and turtles and crayfish and water bugs during the warm months of the year. Some winters it is a good place to hike back to with your ice skates. Come March and April, however; it flows on it's Westerly course at a pretty good clip. That is when Brandy Creek overflows its banks. It will flood the gully bottoms that it follows on its meandering course to Crockery Creek. The headwaters, if you can call them that; make there appearance in the low areas, ditches and drains, over and around the Dennison area.
The name Brandy Creek, where did it come from; who's idea was it to call it that, why? Could the stream be named after some special lady of long ago? Was it the color of the water flowing over a rocky shoal in the morning sunlight? Or, could there have been at one time some clandestine operation in business along its banks; deep in the woods at the back of someone's farm?! Old Art should have been asked if he had ever heard of anything like that. |
