The general behind the name Macomb

Half a million people live in places named Macomb, and most have never heard of the man. Alexander Macomb was born in Detroit in 1782, when it was still a fur-trade town, and grew up to become one of the young republic’s ablest soldiers. In September 1814, badly outnumbered at Plattsburgh, New York, he out-generaled a British invasion force in one of the decisive American victories of the War of 1812 — Congress struck him a gold medal for it — and in 1828 he was appointed Commanding General of the United States Army, the military’s top job, which he held until his death in 1841.

Michigan’s territorial governors honored the hometown hero early: Macomb County, organized in 1818, was just the third county established in the territory, back when its farms fed the Detroit garrison. The name spread to the township, and eventually to the schools, roads, and the community college half the county seems to have attended. It’s a fitting patron for the county that became metro Detroit’s blue-collar backbone — a Detroit kid who showed up, did the work, and won.