John D. Standish was born October 1, 1817 (others say 1818) in Granville, Washington County, New York, and was a descendant of Captain Miles Standish, the noted Pilgrim.  He came to Detroit in 1837 and settled in Oakland county where he established a private school near Birmingham.  In September, 1841, he married Emma L. Darrow at Pontiac, Michigan, and soon after entered the mercantile business in both Pontiac and Romeo.  The winter of 1856-57 his business was destroyed by fire and he removed to Detroit where he became a successful merchant, pork packer and lumber dealer.   He soon acquired extensive pine forests in the Saginaw Bay area and, in 1871, founded the town of Standish, Arenac county, where he built a saw mill and made other improvements.  From 1880 until his death he served first as city assessor and then as a member of the board of assessors of Detroit, and was president of the old Detroit Market Bank and a director in the Detroit Fire and Marine Insurance Company. He died at Detroit on December 2, 1884.  See:  Charles Moore, History of Michigan, Lewis Publishing Co. (1915), Vol. II, p. 892.