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 The First Settlement in the County

A historical marker in Prairie Ronde Township honors Kalamazoo County's first white settler, Bazel Harrison.  It also refers to his portrayal as the "Bee Hunter" in James Fenimore Cooper's novel Oak Openings ( see the James Fenimore Cooper Society website ) :

Schoolcraft is named for Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, Indian Agent and a surveyor in the old Northwest Territories.   In 1816 the Michigan Territorial Governor, Lewis Cass, appointed Schoolcraft to help with a re-survey of Michigan and help rebut the impact of an earlier land survey that described the lower peninsula as follows: " taking the country altogether so far as has been explored and to all appearances together with the information received concerning the balance, is as bad - there would not be more than one acre out of a hundred, if there would one out a thousand that would in any case admit of cultivation "   The re-survey helped change the view of potential settlers about Michigan.  Louis Lyon, who had settled in the area , had been a member of the Cass expedition, and a friend of Schoolcraft, became an advocate for naming the Village in Schoolcraft's honor.  Schoolcraft was also a keen observer and prolific writer about the native Americans.  He wrote about the "Indian Garden Beds", some found in Schoolcraft, earthworks constructed by earlier peoples, possibly the Hopewell.