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To Hell and Back!

Content Created: July, 1999 / Updated: July 13, 1999

Yes, I've been to Hell, and survived! Take a look at the picture below!

Trust me, you really should take a look at this picture. It was very dangerous to acquire!

There I am, on the right. My co-adventurers are the other two figures.

There's actually an official Hell, MI web site!

The following is an article I came across that tells about Hell, MI. It is unattributed and undated, unfortunately. It seems to bave been written in the early 1960's.

The Place Called Hell

Now that Hell actually appears on the new official road map of Michigan many people are asking again, how did the town get that name? The tales have been many and varied but "it was just one of those things." It is no secret that today, as in the early days, many residents were very unhappy about the name. There are those who enjoy the humorous publicity and whether they are residents or tourists, seeking the novel place to live or to visit, would not change the name for anything.

Long before Hell appeared on the map it was making headlines across the country; a very cold day in Hell or a heatwave would bring reports of the temperature there as compared to other localities.

Back in the early thirties Postmaster W. C. Miller at Pinckney, received numerous requests from stamp and postmark collectors for cancellations, there being no post office in Hell and Pinckney being the nearest office, barely three miles away. On July 15th, 1961 a Postal substation was established at Hell.

Other stories, notwithstanding, the naming of Hell was an error long regretted by the man responsible for it - the man who most loved and built the scenic and busy little community many years ago - Squire George Reeves. His choice and find name for the place was really Reeves Mill just as today's residents prefer Hi-Land Lake.

More than one hundred twenty-five years ago George Reeves came to Michigan from New York state with the flow of migration westward. He came via the Erie Canal in 1837 just about the time Prof. Wm. Kirkland of Utica, N.Y. had finished platting the village of Pinckney. Reeves and a partner by the name of Minot opened a store in one of Kirkland's buildings and operated it there until 1841 when Reeves took over the interested of Solomon and Bignall in the large saw mill at Hell Creek. At the same time he acquired about a 1000 acres of land along the creek and soon built a flour mill and a distillery, damming up the creek for power. The three industries flourished for years.

Soon after erecting the flour mill, the story goes, Reeves built a general store near his farm which by this time had seven houses occupied by people who worked for him and a district school which was to have as many as 70 pupils at one time. The work of building the village practically completed, Reeves was sitting one day with a group of friends in the general store when someone asked him, "What are you going to name your town?" He hastily replied, "I don't care, call it Hell, if you want to." The name stuck from that moment on. All efforts to claim Reevesville or Reeves Mill as official names failed and Hell it remains to this day. It is said George Reeves regretted his levity to his dying day. Outsiders always used the name in derision, though the adverse publicity did not seem to hinder progress and business in the community. Indian nostrils will locate the presence of liquor, as surely as the hound follows the scent of the fox and the Indian was not slow in discovering whiskey at the tavern and distillery at Hell, as a result, the brawls that usually resulted from the Indian expeditions, made the name of Hell, seem quite appropriate for the tiny community.

The flour mill reportedly produced over 100 barrels of flour a day; there was more wheat available than needed, even in those days, at the mill so Mr. Reeves distilled the surplus into whiskey, much in demand by area farmers at harvest time, barn raisings and other gatherings and the various tribes of Indians that made good use of the distillery for their pow wow's.

It was a custom, old timers report, to take the first bushel of wheat threshed to the distillery to be made into whiskey. The distillery sold whiskey in barrel lots and at one time, two teams were kept busy on the road with deliveries in the early sixties. Following the Civil War, the government raised the tax on whiskey to such an extent that it was no longer profitable to distill it. The Hell distillery sold it locally as low as 10c per gallon, when it was tax free. After the tax was added, Indian runners usually appeared well in advance of the revenue agents, the whiskey would be dumped in hogsheads in the nearby lake until the government agents departed and would then be recovered for sale. This popular item probably added vigorously to the name of Hell.

The distillery finally closed, the flour mill burned down; the saw mill stopped after all the timber was cut down. Mr. Reeves died in 1877. His wife and seven lovely daughters survived. The Reeves farm was sold in 1924 to a group of Detroiters, the dam was raised and old Reeves pond became a beautiful lake. They named it Hi-Land Lake, still objecting to any mention of Hell. Summer resorters loved the splendid fishing and cool shady shores of the lake. Blue gills abounded and still do.

Today, Hell or Hi-Land Lake, as you please, is a peaceful scenic community of pleasant homes with many year around residents. A recreation area where the happy shouts of children in the swimming hole above the dam, attests to the fitting description of a "summer paradise."