George A. Mitchell (January 8, 1824 – August 5, 1878) was an American businessman, merchant, railwayman, lumber baron, and real estate developer. In the 1870s he bought of land in Michigan, divided and sold it in lots, and established the village of Clam Lake. The village's name later changed to Cadillac, with Mitchell as its founder becoming its first mayor. Early life Mitchell was born January 8, 1824, in Root, New York. He was the youngest member of a family of twelve children. His father was Charles Mitchell, a merchant-farmer of Montgomery County, New York. Mitchell's paternal grandfather, Andrew Mitchell, was a major in the American Revolutionary War. His mother, whose maiden name was Lydia Brown, was a descendant of Robert Barclay of the Barclay clan. Barclay was a governor of the East Jersey colony in North America in the 1680s. Mitchell was nineteen years old when he moved out of the home. Midlife Mitchell left home in 1843 and went to Sprakers, New York, and began clerking in a store. He accepted a similar position in 1850 in a retail store in Canajoharie, New York. Mitchell worked there for several years, and later engaged in a tanning business at Black Lake, New York, with his business partner Austin Strong. In 1861, he sold his interest in this enterprise to his partner and moved to northern Indiana, settling at Kendallville, Indiana. An older brother, William Mitchell, had already moved there from Root, New York. In 1861, at the beginning of the American Civil War, the army made Mitchell a paymaster based in St. Louis, Missouri. He developed his accounting and business skills and was promoted to lieutenant colonel. In this capacity Mitchell was put in charge at Little Rock, Arkansas, and Memphis, Tennessee, at different times. He was also the pay department manager during the Vicksburg Campaign and had additional responsibilities there. He often had charge of five to 20 subordinate paymasters handling millions of dollars in payrolls. After six years in the military, he was mustered out at Vicksburg, Mississippi. After leaving the military in 1867, Mitchell went into the banking business in Kendallville, Indiana. There he formed a business partnership with William Innes, who was associated with the Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad. Innes surveyed a route for a railroad line in the lower peninsula of Michigan that was to run directly from Hobart, Indiana, to Manton, Michigan,