[7] In January 1830, Rumsey was part of a group of eight men who set out west from Ann Arbor to mark a new road along with the commission that was surveying it.
They went as far as a cabin near the Grand River, where Rumsey was elected president of an informal "convention" to decide on a name for the place.
[8] Rumsey served as the first supervisor of Ann Arbor Township in 1827 and again in 1834,[9] and was elected as a representative to the first Michigan Territorial Council, from 1827 to 1829.
[13] On June 5, 1837, the Regents of the University of Michigan traveled from Detroit, where most of them lived, to Ann Arbor for a three-day meeting.
During this session, the regents chose 40 acres of Rumsey's farm as their preferred location, and soon built a single university building and four professors' residences.