Van Buren County, Michigan
History, Records, Facts and Genealogy

Van Buren County was created on 29 Oct 1829 (Organized in 1837) and was formed from Unorganized Land. Some early records before 1837 may be located in Cass and Leeawee Counties. The County was named for Martin Van Buren of New York, secretary of state under President Jackson (1829-1831) and later 8^th President of the United States (1837-1841). The County Seat is Paw Paw .

Counties adjacent to Van Buren County are Allegan County (northeast), Kalamazoo County (east), St. Joseph County (southeast), Cass County (south), Berrien County (southwest). Townships found in Van Buren County include Almena, Antwerp, Arlington, Bangor, Bloomingdale, Columbia, Covert, Decatur, Geneva, Hamilton, Hartford, Keeler, Lawrence, Paw Paw, Pine Grove, Porter, South Haven Charter, Waverly Townships. Cities, Towns and Communities include Bangor, Bloomingdale, Breedsville, Covert, Decatur , Gobles, Grand Junction, Hartford, Kendall, Lacota, Lawrence, Lawton, Mattawan, Paw Paw, South Haven.

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Extended History

Van Buren County is located in Southwest Michigan bordering on Lake Michigan on the West and Kalamazoo County on the East. Its Southern border is 21 miles from the Indiana stateline and on the North it borders Allegan County.

Van Buren County has a proud history paralleling the story of statehood. Settled for the most part by New York Dutch and new Englanders, it was formed into a County by an Act of the Legislative Council of Michigan and approved October 29, 1829, in the same Act that created Cass, Berrien and Kalamazoo Counties.

It was not until 1837 that the people of Van Buren County were deemed sufficiently numerous to justify them in assuming the responsibilities of local self government. On March 18, 1937 an Act organizing the County was approved by the Governor of Michigan.

Van Buren County, named after U.S. President Martin Van Buren, has come a long way since its residents traded with the Potawattomi Indians and followed their trails with pioneer roads. Population trends indicate it is located in a growing area of the state.

The County is known as the fruit basket of Michigan. The growing season opens with asparagus harvest in May and closes in the fall with apples and grapes. The Lawton, Porter and Paw Paw area is the grape capital of the County with each accommodating the fruit processors and wineries. Bangor, Bloomingdale, Hartford and Lawrence grow premium peaches and apples; Keeler has extensive strawberry beds, Hamilton produces acres of pickling cucumbers and the large blueberry plantations are located in Columbia and Geneva.

Though Van Buren County is known as an agricultural county, suburbia is invading its borders. Population increases reflects the East side is the growth area and the County's location on the Lake Michigan shoreline indicates the trend of increased tourism.

County Courthouse
The first election of County Officers was held on the second Monday of April 1837 and the following were elected: Wolcott H. Keeler and Jay R. Monroe, Associate Justices; Jeremiah H. Simmons, Judge of Probate; Samuel Gunton, Sheriff; Nathaniel Starkweather, County Clerk and Daniel O. Dodge, Treasurer. The first Courthouse originally fronting the Paw Paw Main Street is now used as the Paw Paw Village Hall and is located at 111 East Michigan Avenue. The present Courthouse was formally dedicated in 1901 and was made possible by a $50,000 subscription by Paw Paw businessmen when South Haven threatened to wrest the County Seat from Paw Paw. Total cost of the present Courthouse and the old Jail was $120,000.

The upper and lower domes of the Courthouse had to be removed from the top of the building for restructuring and repair. This historic project was completed in 1999 at a cost of $249,654.

History of Michigan Townships
Most features of county and township govertnment can be traced back to the colonial period. Some structures were inventions to meet pioneer conditions while other structures were adaption of English models.

The structure of local government in Michigan was shaped by the 1785 Northwest Land Ordinance authored by Thomas Jefferson. The NWO provided the basic framework for the settlement and governance of the Northwest Territory which became the states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin. Jefferson strongly believed in a citizen government. Government close to the citizens emerged as a cornerstone of governance in the Northwest Territory. Jefferson developed the rectangular grid survey which permitted the identification of property. Survey townships were 6 miles square (36 sections) placing local government in close proximity to its citizens.

Michigan is modeled after the New York Plan of Government combined with provisions of the Northwest Ordinance. This plan provided for a county board of supervisors comprised of the elected supervisor from each township. Townships maintained distinct roles and responsibilities for roads, the poor, elections, fence viewing, tax assessing and collection of property taxes.

Almena Township - Jonas Barber became the first actual settler in 1835, building a cabin and a sawmill. When the township was set off in 1842, F.C. Annable, then in the legislature, named it after an Indian princess of whom he had heard. Pioneer Samuel B. Fisk operated a grist mill, and it was from these mills that the village was also known as Almena Mills. The first Almena Centre post office was established on April 5, 1848 with John A. Chase serving as postmaster. The office operated until February 8, 1849. On October 26, 1861 the Brewerville Post Office was transferred to and renamed Almena and operated until September 14, 1905. (Ellis; PO Archives)
Antwerp Township - Antwerp Township was first settled by Joel Tomlinson in 1834 and Joseph Woodman in 1835. The Township was organized in 1837 and named by its then oldest inhabitant, Harmon Van Antwerp, after Antwerp, Belguim. Reason Holmes, the tavern keeper, became its first postmaster on May 23, 1842. On January 5, 1849 the office was moved and renamed Mattawan.
Arlington Township - William N. Taylor made the first land purchase in the area. In 1835 he returned to New York to get married and brought his bride back in 1837. Arlington Township was organized in 1842 and named at the suggestion Revolutionary War veteran James Stevens after his native town in Vermont. The Chicago & Western Michigan Railroad made a stop in the Township. Calvin C. Biglow became the first postmaster on May 7, 1852. The office was closed on December 27, 1859 and later restored and operated from March 5, 1860 to February 28, 1871.
Bangor Township and City - The township was first settled by Charles U. Cross in 1837, followed by John Smith, John Southard and Caleb Northrop; all later that year. The town was named after the township which was erected in 1853, organized in 1854, and named after Bangor, Maine. Joseph Nyman became its first postmaster on February 9, 1859. Nyman made the first plat of the village and recorded it in 1860. Cross recorded the second plat in 1867. The village of incorporated in 1877.
Columbia Township - The area was first settled in 1864,platted in 1870 and recorded in 1871 by A.J. Pierce, the county surveyor, on land owned by William Dickinson and Samuel Rogers.
Covert Township - Covert Township was first settled by Benoni Young in 1845. The development of the town center dates from 1866 when Hawks & Lambert of Niles, bought timberlands and built mills here. In 1868 Alfred H. Packard, Jr. bought the mills and additional lands and formed Packard & Company. Thomas Hawks became the first postmaster on March 24, 1868. The South Haven & Eastern Railroad made stops at Covert's depot. The township was first called Deerfield by renamed Covert, both names recalling the days when deer roamed it forests.
Hartford Township and City - Ferdino Olds became the first settler in the township in 1837. In 1840 he named it Hartland after his native town in New York. As there was already a Hartland in Michigan, and at the suggeston of another 1837 settler Burrill A. Olney, it was renamed Hartford. The hamlet was first called Bloody Corners due to its early unsavory reputation for liquor. The first Hartford Post Office was organized on March 31, 1856, with James E. Griffen as its first postmaster. The town was first platted by Truman Stratton, W.W. Shepard and others in 1859 and given a station on the Pere Marquette Railroad in 1870. Hartford was incorporated as a village in 1877. (Ellis; Rowland; PO Archives)
Lawrence Township and Village - A Short Nineteenth century history of Lawrence
In June 1835, John Allen of Ann Arbor, Michigan, entered a forty-acre tract of land on section ten in Lawrence Township on the south side of the Paw Paw River. He laid out a village, naming it Mason in honor of the state?s governor and sent a manager to build a log cabin. By November of 1835, Allen and his family arrived and built the second cabin and the village?s first sawmill. The town grew slowly, with only ten families resident by 1843. In 1846, John R. Baker, a lawyer from Paw Paw, came into possession of much of the village in foreclosure from Allen, and he replatted and renamed it Lawrence. Baker devoted block number six to public purposes and it has remained the village park. By 1869 the village was incorporated by an act of the Michigan legislature. The town hall, built of brick, remains facing St. Joseph Street, to the west of the 1894 Water Works building.
South Haven Township and the City of South Haven - Carnegie Center [Click here to view full size picture] The present township of South Haven was organized in 1855. It contains eighteen full sections and seven fractional sections along the shore of Lake Michigan. It is bound on the north by Allegan County, on the east by Geneva, on the south by Covert and on the west by Lake Michigan.
Along the shore of the lake are bluffs from thirty to fifty feet in height. The principal stream is the Black River which flows across the northern part of the township and empties into the lake at the City of South Haven. It provides a harbor for great lakes shipping and pleasure crafts.
The population of the township, outside the city as given in the 1910 census was 1218, in 1980 was 4,152 and 4,046 in 2000. Census totals for the City were 5,563 in 1990 and 5,013 in 2000.
South Haven was the western terminal of two railroads; the South Haven Division of the Michigan Central Railroad running from Kalamazoo through the northern part of Van Buren County and the Kalamazoo, Lakeshore and Chicago line running from Kalamazoo through the central part of Van Buren County to the City of South Haven. The Michigan Central was discontinued in the early 1970's.
Indians first inhabited South Haven. The traditional Indian account was written on birch bark by Chief Simon Pokagon, a Pottawatamie, and sold to the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.
South Haven was incorporated as a village of an Act of the Legislature on April 5, 1869. It was later re-incorporated March 18, 1871 due to flaws in the first incorporation.
The city has a good water and sewage system and generated their own electricity in early years beginning in 189?. The fire department was established in 1898. The first street paving was begun in 1903. In 1901 a dispute developed over location of the county seat, and a campaign to move it from Paw Paw to South Haven developed. The passage of a $50,000 bond issue by Paw Paw voters left the County Seat in Paw Paw. South Haven's most colorful era was from the mid-1880's to the 1930's when the summer resort business flourished. During the early 1900's thousands of visitors arrived daily by steamer and train to enjoy a vacation. Lodgings were available in magnificant lake fron hotels, farm resorts, family homes or summer cottages. The summer resort business declined as the use of automobiles grew and it ended when the passenger steamer service ended in 1940. The old farm resorts are gone and the summer hotels have been replaced by condominiums and private homes.
Bloomingdale Township; A HISTORY OF THE BLOOMINGDALE COMMUNITY - When Van Buren County was organized in 1838, it was made up of six townships, the northeastern of which was known as the township of Clinch. Subsequent divisions made this original township into four, namely Waverly, Almena, Pine Grove, and Bloomingdale, latter comprising the territory designated in the United States survey as town one south, range fourteen west.
Bloomingdale Township was organized in 1845. There were twenty-two persons on the assessment rolls as tax payers that year.
The surface of the township is rolling, and originally was heavily timbered with pine, hemlock, maple, beach, whitewood, ash, and walnut. The soil is fertile sand and clay loam so that in the quality and extent of its production, Bloomingdale township takes a front rank among the northern tier of townships in Van Buren County.
The first settlement in the township was made in the month of December, 1837, by a Myers family, consisting of mother, four sons, and two daughters from Oneida County, N.Y. where their father had died in 1826. In the spring of 1836 two of the sons started on foot and walked the entire distance from Genessee County, N.Y. via Canada to Michigan. One of the sons later that same year returned to New York and brought back the rest of the family. They located at first in White Pigeon, but one year later arrived amid snowy and wintry blasts in Bloomingdale Township ?with no shelter awaiting them other than that afforded by the mighty monarchs of the forest?. The frozen earth?after snow one foot in depth had been melted away by a rousing fire?afforded them a resting place for the night. The next day a rude cabin was built which was followed soon after by a more substantial log house, 14 X 33 feet. Their nearest neighbors were seven miles distant.
The eldest son of the Myers family, Mallory, was twenty-three years old when he settled in the township, and in 1845 he became its first supervisor.
In this township is a typical Michigan village, that of Bloomingdale, a little to the west of the geographical center, located on what was known as the South Haven branch of the Michigan Central railroad, but later of the New York Central. This road ran from Kalamazoo to South Haven. Van Buren County Road No. 388 is the main east-west road through the village and County Road No. 665 is the main north-south highway.
The village is situated in the midst of productive general, fruit and dairy farm lands as well as orchards, and is surrounded by numerous near-by lakes, any of which may be reached by a few minutes drive, and which have made Bloomingdale the center of a thriving tourist and resort area.
Among the first settlers on land near what came to be known as the ?Center? were Joseph Peck and family of Monroe County, N.Y., who in 1838 settled to the northwest. Later his brother Carlos and family came in the same locality, which became known as Pecktown.
Two miles to the south on Bear Lake, another group, established a settlement, the main industry of which was lumbering, and this settlement was called ?Bear Lake Mills?.
To the north about two and one half miles, near Eagle Lake a third nucleus was located. Here were the families of Marcus Lane, Samuel Lane, and Harvey Howard.
Others pioneering in or near what came to be the village were the families of Harrison Cooley and Austin Melvin from Lorraine Couity, Ohio in 1852. Edmund Baughman and wife Catherine Baxter Baughman, who with his father and mother, David and Hetty Maria Baughman settled in the Evergreen District in 1853. Augustus Haven and bride Emily McLallun Haven from Shalersville, Ohio, who settled in 1854, located a mile west of where the village now is. Milton Healy who came in 1853 from Ohio, his wife Maria and her mother Mrs. Azuba Cooley, who came in 1855, and the Egbert Cooley family from southern Illinois, who made the long journey in 1857 with a covered wagon drawn by a yoke of oxen.
Other early settlers were Rufus M. Brown, Warren Haven, George W. Haven, Russell Loomis, James Baxter, Aaron K. Tedrow, Hyman Shaw, and Eli Bell, who all came with their families.
The first to actually settle upon the site of Bloomingdale was Henry Kilhefer from Ohio. About 1854 Davis Haven, Portage County, Ohio and the father of Augustus Haven, purchased 160 acres in the vicinity of the present Village, and soon after that the north half of Section 17. As an inducement to Mr. Kilhefer to settle here Davis Haven gave him an acre of land now embraced in the Depot grounds.
When Samuel Lane and wife Orrit, who had come a short time before from Monroe County, N.Y. to settle in Cheshire Township, arrived one spring day to make a new home in this settlement, they came into the pioneer region from the north down what has since been known as ?Wiggins Hill?. Orrit, no doubt in sentimental and poetic mood, was much moved by the beautiful wild flowers growing abundantly through the woodlands and valleys and also with the hills and dales, exclaimed rapturously ?Why, this place should be called Bloomingdale!? and Bloomingdale it has been ever since.
In the very early years of the settlement, there was but little contact with the outside world. Supplies had to be brought in from Paw Paw, fifteen miles to the south east, and since there were no roads, only Indian paths and trails through the forest, the pioneers had to make the fifteen mile journey on foot and carry home, with considerable effort, their supplies, generally in a strong bag slung across their shoulders. This journey consumed the greater part of a day, as they started early in the morning and many times did not return until late at night.
When it was necessary to make a new path, they did so by ?blazing their way.? They would cut notches, or blazes in the trees, and use them to follow the path. Travelling by foot was followed by horseback and ox teams, which after roads begun to be constructed gave way to wagons, and still later to buggies. But even then travel was difficult during the winter because of snow and ice, and in the spring and fall because of mud, hub deep in many places.
?Pathmasters and overseers? of the highway were appointed at the yearly ?town meeting? who were responsible for having certain stretches of road kept in passable condition. ?Poll tax? was worked out during the fall and spring days of ?working on the road?.
There were no doctors nearer that Paw Paw at first, but neighbors were helpful when sickness came, and medicinal herbs were gathered by the women, dried, and stored for time of need. These pioneers were well skilled in the use of home remedies.
In the fall of 1857 Henry Kilhefer (later spelled Killifer), who had been given an acre of land here, came on from Putnam County, Ohio, and erected a small building on what is now Haven Park, establishing his family in the second story, while he opened a store with a small stock of boots, shoes, and groceries on the first floor. He soon built a second store building, and later a third. Shortly afterward he was appointed postmaster and held the office until 1862.
In 1860 Messrs. Merwin and Brown opened a store on the hill about two blocks east of the present business section, and prior to 1869, Messrs. Barber and Lane established a mercantile business. Here also were two hotels, a drug store and dress making shop. A fire in 1868 destroyed a number of these buildings, and in 1870, when the railroad came through, the town moved west so as to be near the depot.
One of the first industries was that of lumbering. From an article in the Kalamazoo Gazette of March 12, 1939, we quote ?There were two steam saw mills operating night and day.? (The first one was a portable one set up in 1870, and sweating horses laborously drew over primative roads, furrowed with deep ruts, what seemed an endless supply of sawlogs. These loads of timber scaling 100,000 board feet daily, were literally fed in a steady stream to the saw mills which in 1874 were filling contracts for 3,000,000 feet of ash, whitewood, and cherry lumber.
Another industry was that of cheese making. Augustus Haven, who was interested in dairying, began in 1860 with a herd of twenty cows the manufacture of cheese, the first to be made in the state. In 1870 he began using the milk from his neighbors cows, and by 1872 he had sold 26,000 pounds of cheese. In 1873, cheese was made from the milk from 200 cows. The first recorded sale of cheese was at ten cents a pound, butter brought the same price. Other early industries were a cooper shop, brick kiln, a planing mill, a shoe making shop, a cabinet shop where, among other articles, coffins were made, two blacksmith shops, a washing machine manufacturing shop which put out a wooden machine known as the ?Little Big Washer?, and an apple evaporating plant.
Later came a creamery, a canning factory for fruits, a pickle factory which later was changed to a salting station, and a feed mill. Still Later there was organized in 1903 the Lumber and Produce Company. In 1914 the Adams Cement Burial Vault business, in 1920 the Standard Oil Bulk Station , the Maplewood Dairy, the corn dryer for drying certified hybrid seed corn, and a Green House.
The line of a railroad was located in the Village in 1869 and the first passenger train arrived on the fourth of July, 1870, which imbued the Village with new life, attracting new businessmen and helping the town to prosper. By 1912 business was booming, with three daily passenger trains running each way during the week and two on Sundays. A fourth handled the freight. By 1929 hard times fell and train travel was limited to one train per day..
On August 13, 1938 Oil was discovered on the Wiggins farm at the north limits of the Village. Over 108 wells were drilled within the Village , many being successful. By 1939, two refineries were erected in the Village, the Fortdale and the Glenco. Most products were shipped out by tanker truck. Also as many as 84 railroad tanker cars of crude oil were shipped per day by rail. Two to three trains per day kept the oil moving to Kalamazoo to another refiner. There were no producing wells south of the rail road tracks.
By 1941 the boom was over and the end of the oil business came in 1963. The end of the railroad was in sight when South Haven began receiving coal by boat instead of rail. Kalamazoo to South Haven rail road service ended in March of 1971 and the rails were removed in 1977.
In 1988 the Village received a $100,000 grant to renovate the Depot. The dedication of the Depot and Museum, registered as a Michigan Historical Site, was September 19, 1987 with The Honorable Meyer Warshawsky, 36th District Judge, giving the address. At the same time the Kal-Haven Trail Club worked hard to establish the biker, walker and snowmobile trail on the old railroad bed and was successful in getting the State to buy the road bed which is now the first linear State Park in Michigan. Thousands of bikers, walkers and snowmobilers now use the Trail each year.
Today many small and medium sized businesses can be found. Commercial services such as a bank, full service grocery store, restaurant, convenience stores, funeral home, realty and insurance services,

Van Buren County, Michigan
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County Court, Probate and Tax Records

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Extended History

Van Buren County, Michigan History, Records, Facts and Genealogy

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Van Buren County, Michigan
History, Records, Facts and Genealogy