The town named for a word carved on a shanty log

Marlette’s name comes with a local story. The township’s adopted master plan says two brothers arrived from Ontario intending to build a mill and establish a village. They built a shanty across from William Rudd’s farm and carved their mother’s family name, Marlatt, into an end log. Their plans failed, and they returned to Canada.

The carving outlasted them. When residents needed a township name, the same account says Rudd suggested a variation of the word on the log: Marlette. The master plan dates the township’s founding to 1856, after a settlers’ committee petitioned the Sanilac County Board of Supervisors that October.

That makes the tale worth presenting as the township preserves it, not as a proven transcript of what happened at the shanty. The official record supports the names, the failed mill plan, and Rudd’s suggestion. The memorable part is simple: a word left on a log became the name on the map.