The Clinton River is a

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of w ...

in southeastern

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

in the

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. It is named in honor of DeWitt Clinton, who was governor of New York from 1817 to 1823. The main branch of the river rises from wetlands and coldwater tributaries from within Independence, Brandon and Springfield Townships. A series of dams create a number of small lakes west of Pontiac, the last of which is

Crystal Lake Crystal Lake or Crystal Lakes may refer to: Lakes Canada * Crystal Lake (Saskatchewan) * Crystal Lake (Ontario), drain into the Lynn River, which drains into Lake Erie United States * Crystal Lake, California, a mountain lake in Nevad ...

. The river is piped under downtown Pontiac, re-emerging to the east of downtown. The north branch and the middle branch rise in northern

Macomb County Macomb County ( ) is a county located in the eastern portion of the U.S. state of Michigan, bordering Lake St. Clair, and is part of northern Metro Detroit. As of the 2020 Census, the population was 881,217, making it the third-most populous co ...

and join the main branch in Clinton Township (which was named after the river in 1824). The main branch flows U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data
The National Map
, accessed November 7, 2011 from its headwaters to Lake St. Clair in Harrison Township. The Clinton River watershed drains , including most of Macomb County, a large portion of Oakland County, as well as small portions of Lapeer and St. Clair counties. More than 1.4 million people in over 60 municipalities live in the watershed. For the most part, only the waters located downstream of the city of Mount Clemens are navigable by water vessels. Under the

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in 1972, along with 42 other areas, the lower segment of the river was designated as an Area of Concern, based on the heavy presence of pollutant contamination. In 1995, the designation was expanded to include the entire watershed of the river and the lower nearshore of Lake St. Clair. The Clinton-Kalamazoo Canal was a failed attempt to build a waterway connecting Lake St. Clair with Lake Michigan. It was originally planned to stretch 216 miles, but was abandoned after only 13 miles had been completed. Clinton River 1

The French

explorers Exploration refers to the historical practice of discovering remote lands. It is studied by geographers and historians. Two major eras of exploration occurred in human history: one of convergence, and one of divergence. The first, covering most ...

of the late 17th century knew the river as the ''Nottawasippee'', an

Ojibwe The Ojibwe, Ojibwa, Chippewa, or Saulteaux are an Anishinaabe people in what is currently southern Canada, the northern Midwestern United States, and Northern Plains. According to the U.S. census, in the United States Ojibwe people are one of ...

term that means "like rattlesnakes." This was also the name given to the

Huron people The Wyandot people, or Wyandotte and Waⁿdát, are Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands. The Wyandot are Iroquoian Indigenous peoples of North America who emerged as a confederacy of tribes around the north shore of Lake Ontario wi ...

by the region's

Anishinaabe The Anishinaabeg (adjectival: Anishinaabe) are a group of culturally related Indigenous peoples present in the Great Lakes region of Canada and the United States. They include the Ojibwe (including Saulteaux and Oji-Cree), Odawa, Potawat ...

(

, Odawa, and Potawatomi) inhabitants.Genot Picor-Storyteller

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fur traders referred to it as the Huron River of St. Clair. It was referred to as "the River Huron" in the 1784 home eulogy of the area's first American settler, William Tucker, who built his home along the river about upstream from its mouth. It received its current name on July 17, 1824. The Michigan Territorial Council made the change in order to end the confusion between this river and the Huron River of Lake Erie, which also rises in Oakland County's Springfield Township. The Huron-Clinton Metroparks system preserves land in the watershed as public parks;

Wolcott Mill Metropark Wolcott Mill Metropark is a Huron-Clinton Metropark located in rural Ray Township, Michigan. The northern branch of the Clinton River The Clinton River is a river in southeastern Michigan in the United States. It is named in honor of DeWitt C ...

is on the north branch of the river.

References

External links

Clinton River Watershed Council
{{Authority control Rivers of Michigan Lake St. Clair Rivers of Lapeer County, Michigan Rivers of Macomb County, Michigan Rivers of Oakland County, Michigan Rivers of St. Clair County, Michigan Tributaries of Lake Erie