Thomas Shaw was born in the village of Wysall, Nottinghamshire, England, on March 4, 1786. He married to Hannah Daft Hopkinson in the nearby village of Hickling, on February 22, 1819. Hannah was born in Hickling on June 19, 1782.
They had three children bore to their marriage: Ann, Eliza and John .
Thomas worked as a tenant farmer, for two small farms in the village of Wysall. He was also supervisor of the poor and a warden in the church.
Shaw heard that land in American would be purchased cheaply and that an individual could be his own master. Therefore, on March 4, 1836, at the age of 50 years, Thomas brought his family to America. (His wife, Hannah was 53 years old, daughter Ann was 16, daughter, Eliza was 14, and his son, John was 11.)
First they went by river boat to Liverpool, England then by sailing ship to New York, and next by river steamer up the Hudson River to Albany, New York, where they took a barge along the Erie Canal to Buffalo. They than traveled on the steamer General Macomb to Detroit. In the Springwells area, of Detroit, they purchased a yoke of oxen and a lumber wagon. They then started for Indiana, where they had heard that land was cheap.
The first day, they covered 18 miles, much of it along what is now Ann Arbor Trail. They stopped for the night with another family, Andrews. They were laid over from rain for three days, and it was at this time that Andrews convinced Shaw to settle in Livonia. He would be much closer to a large city market, Detroit, and land was as cheap here as any place.
Thomas purchased 80 acres of land on what is now Six Mile Road, then Section 18, just west of Newburgh Road. The land had originally been purchased by Clark Griswold of Oneida County, New York, on July 20, 1827, however there is no record as to whether or not Griswold ever settled the land.
The Shaws first built a log cabin home, but with hard work they were able to build a frame house starting in 1843. This was Livonia's first frame house, which had spiral staircase built in such a small space, it was almost perpendicular.
From time to time, daughter, Ann had kept a diary, which is now housed in the Livonia Historical Museum.
On June 1, 1855, she wrote that her father had purchased a farm, "19 years ago today." She went on to tell of the family leaving Wysall, and arriving in Liverpool. On March 9, 1836, they were on board the "Macon for New York." They arrived in New York on May 11, 1836. Where she noted "the green beauty and the scenery of the Hudson River Valley, equally impressive."
Before leaving England, Ann had been engaged to a young man, who promised to follow her to America. She waited for him but he never came. She had several offers of marriage, however she refused them. One on behalf of a widower in the church, that she didn't even know.
Eventually on December 22, 1859, she did marry Carmi G. Briggs, a recent widower, and the son of Pardon and Betsey Briggs, early settlers of Livonia. For a short time they lived in Hillsdale, Michigan, but returned to Livonia. They bought a farm on Six Mile Road east of Newburgh Road, and built a new house. Unable to have any children of her own, they adopted an orphan girl, Emily Maltby, who became Emily Briggs. Emily later became a teacher in the Union School in Northville, and died of pneumonia at the age of only 23.
One of Emily's brothers, Fred Maltby was adopted by the Warner family of Farmington. Fred later became a governor of the State of Michigan.
Carmi Briggs died in 1875, at the age of 47, and Ann continued to operate the farm until her own death in 1891.
Eliza Shaw, the second daughter of Thomas and Hannah, was fourteen when she left her home in England for America.
At the age of 30, she married Charles Milroy, September 1, 1851. After the birth of their first two daughters, they moved to Detroit where Charles worked as a butcher. The attended St John's Episcopal Church and were considered the best dressed family in the parish.
Being unhappy in the city, the family returned to Livonia where Charles started a farm at the corner of Six Mile Road and Inkster Road. His father had a farm just across the street from them. At this time, Inkster Road was often called Milroy Road. Eliza later had 2 more daughters and one son, between the years of 1852 and 1866. She lived to the age of 75 years.
James Andrew Milroy, the father of Charles, had been a professor of Mathematics at the University of Scotland. In 1833, when Charles was 14 years old, his father migrated to the United States, with his wife, Mary (Grey), and one other son, James. The following year, they purchased a farm in Livonia.
John Shaw the youngest child and only son of Thomas and Hannah was 20 years old when his father died. The farm operation then became partly his duty, which he enjoyed and apparently had success with, as six years later, he purchased and additonal 60 acres in 1850.
The same year, he married Mary Ann Maiden, of Redford. She died in 1875, leaving three children; Emma, John and William. The following year, John Sr married Myra Hodge of Plymouth. She was a welcomed addition since William was attending his last two years of highschool in Northville. (Livonia had no highschool at this time.)
John Sr continued to work his farm until the age of 80 years, and at the time had owned 260 acres of land. In 1904, he bought a house in Plymouth where he lived until 1916, when he died at the age of 91 years old.
His youngest son, William then inherited the farm and the house in Plymouth, and had already been a successful business man in Ovid, Michigan. Upon his father's death, however, he moved back to Plymouth. Here he became manager and secretary of the Plymouth Home Building Association, and a director of the Plymouth United Savings Bank, and active member of the Presbyterian Church.
In the early 1920's, he sold his farm to a Mr. Millard, which had been in the possession of the Shaw family for over 100 years.
Thomas Shaw died only one year after moving into their new home, on July 24, 1844, at that age of 58 years, of "dropsy and diseases of the liver." Hannah lived until September 26, 1856, and died at that age of 74 years.
There had been 110 descendants of Thomas and Hannah Shaw in 1958, one, Robert Doane Shaw became an author of the family history.
