Judge Bethuel Farrand, II was the son of Bethuel Farrand and Rhoday Smith.

Married first, Fanny Marilla Shaw in 1811.

Children:
Lucius S. Farrand
Jacob Smith Farrand
Caroline B. Farrand
Clinton Bethuel Farrand
Anna Marilla Farrand

Married second, Deborah Osburn 3 May 1822 in Port Byron, Cayuga Co., NY

Children:
Aaron Kitchel Farrand
Sarah Farrand
James Benjamin Farrand
Dr. David Osburn Farrand.

Lived 69 years

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Hon. Bethuel Farrand was born in the parish of Whippany, in the town of Hanover, in the State of New Jersey, June 12, 1783. He was a direct descendant of Nathaniel Farrand, whose name appears as one of the planters who came to Milford, Conn., in 1645. A portion of this family by the year 1667, with others from Branford and Guilford, removed to Newark, New Jersey, forming the "New Work Settlement" (as it was for some time called), where only Church members were admitted to citizenship. Each one of the settlers of this company had a six-acre home lot besides broad meadow lands along the Passaic, and woodlands back of the town. Before 1710 a few of these Newark pioneers had pushed up the Passaic and settled on the banks of the Whippenong, west of the great mountain Watchung (now Orange mountain). This settlement so begun was called the Parish of Whippany, and the strip of territory between the two rivers was called Hanover Neck.

Here many years of his boyhood and early youth were passed in the family of his uncle, Hon. Aaron Kitchel, of whom it is recorded, in a memorial over his grave, that "he was for 36 years a member in the State and National Councils." From this uncle he learned the blacksmith trade, and soon after becoming 21 went to the then new section of Cayuga county, New York, where he was for several years employed by the Montezuma Salt Works Company, as overseer.

He purchased a farm in the town of Aurelius (then a portion of Auburn, New York), and was married in 1811 to Miss Fanny Marilla Shaw, of the same town. From this union were born—Lucius S. Farrand, who will be remembered as a pioneer of Washtenaw county; Jacob S. Farrand, long a well-known resident of Detroit; Caroline, the wife of the Hon. D. C. Whitwood, of Detroit; Marilla, who married the Hon. Andrew Parsons; and Bethuel Clinton, who is one of the pioneers of St. Clair county, residing at Port Huron.

In the early part of 1821 he was by the death of his wife left with the care of his young family. In 1822 he was married to Deborah Osburn, of Cayuga county, by whom he had 3 sons—Kitchel, who engaged in mercantile business and died in Dexter some 26 years ago; James B., who was an engineer in the U. S. Navy during the war of the Rebellion and since that time has been a merchant at Port Huron, and David Osburn Farrand, who was a Surgeon in the army during the last year of the late war, and who since that time has been a well-known physician of Detroit.

Mrs. Farrand is now in her 87th year and resides in the family of one of the sons in Ann Arbor. Mr. Farrand remained upon his farm in Cayuga county until the spring of 1825. In the early part of that year his attention was attracted to the then new Territory of Michigan, and with a view of obtaining a contract or entering into an arrangement for supplying the city of Detroit with water. In January of that year he traveled on foot by the south shore of Lake Erie from Aurelius to Detroit, and on Feb. 17, 1825, he submitted to the Common Council of that city his proposition for supplying the city with water. "A meeting of the Freemen of the city " was called and held in the council-house on the 19th and 21st of February, 1825, and the matter duly discussed and considered, and on the 22d day of the same month was passed "an act granting to Bethuel Farrand and his legal representatives the sole and exclusive right of watering the city of Detroit," after which Mr. Farrand, having succeeded in his object, returned to his home on foot, going through Canada. In May, 1825, he, with one Rufus Wells, arrived with their families in Detroit and entered at once upon the construction of their work for watering the city. In the fall of 1825 Mr. Farrand transferred to Mr. Wells his interest in the enterprise and removed with his family to Ann Arbor. The removal was made in a Scow or flat boat, with which he came down the Detroit river as far as Flat Rock, and then up the Huron river 20 miles, at which point further proceeding with the scow was found impracticable, and a wagon and oxen were obtained and the journey to Ann Arbor by the Huron river, through what is now Ypsilanti (which then had but two families), was completed. At Ann Arbor before his coming were settled about 14 families. Temporary quarters in two small rooms were obtained for the family and effects, in which they remained until a shanty could be erected into which to repair until a dwelling house could thereto be added.

Mr. Farrand was the first Probate Judge elected in Washtenaw county, and the first session of that court was held on the 2d day of April, A. D. 1827, at which he presided as Judge. At the first meeting of the Presbyterian society of Ann Arbor, held on the fourth Monday of September, A. D., 1827 (as it appears by the records of that society), Mr. Farrand was chosen Moderator, and when that society was organized he became one of its Board of Trustees and was elected Treasurer.

In the spring of 1828 he purchased a farm two miles east of Ann Arbor, on the Dixboro road, and in the fall of that year removed with his family to the farm where he lived till his death, which occurred in July, 1852.

In connection with farming, he attempted making successful the culture of silk; with this end in view he set out about eight acres of land with white mulberry trees, which were so cultivated that a very vigorous growth was obtained, and in about the year 1837 he produced and manufactured about 30 pounds of sewing silk of excellent quality. In order to encourage him in the matter of silk manufacture, the State of Michigan, by an act of its Legislature, loaned him the sum of $800 without interest. With this money he obtained skilled labor and approved machinery from Connecticut, which was then a silk-producing State, and faithful trial was made to ascertain whether the climate and soil of Michigan were adapted to the production of silk. The climate was soon found to be too severely cold for the mulberry tree, most of his trees dying in the winter of 1837-'8, and he felt obliged to give up the business of producing silk and turn his attention to crops known to be compensating; he paid up from the product of his farm in 1840 the $800 loaned him by the State for the silk experiment. Mr. and Mrs. Farrand were among the original members (of whom there were 17) of the First Presbyterian Church of Ann Arbor. Mrs. Farrand has, for many years, been the sole surviving member of those Church pioneers. She yet retains her faculties for conversation and remembering extremely well, and still enjoys letterwriting to an unusual extent. Mr. Farrand, soon after the organization of the Ann Arbor Church, became one of its elders, and so remained till the time of his death, a period of more than 21 years. He was liberal in his religious views, generous and hospitable to friends and neighbors, honest and fair in all his business transactions, and as a citizen, was exemplary and much esteemed.*

Quoted from, The History of Washtenaw County, Michigan, 1881, pp 998-990