236 GENERAL HISTORY. 



no implement but a hoe, planted a small patch of corn on what was then 

 known as the ''old Indian fields. " John Lybrook, during the same spring, 

 also planted eleven acres of corn on this tract. Daring the following sum- 

 mer, the Jenkins already named (a subsequent settler in Cass county), with a 

 companion named Coon, explored the St. Joseph river to its mouth, to deter- 

 mine its navigability, arriving there on July 3d, and celebrating tlie -ith by a 

 successful fishing excursion. At this time, aside from those connected with 

 Carey mission, there are believed to have been but seven actual settlers in 

 eastern Berrien. During the autumn of 1825 John Lybrook sowed one bar- 

 rel of wheat, which he had brought from Ohio with an ox team hitched to 

 the hinder wheels of a lumber wagon. This is supposed to have been the 

 first crop of wheat sown in southwestern Michigan. As late as December 

 2oth, 1829, there were said to have been but two or three log cabins where is 

 now the city of Niles. 



On September 28th, 1828, Lewis Cass and Pierre Menard, as commissioners 

 on behalf of the United States, concluded a treaty with the Pottawattomie 

 Indians, by which the latter ceded to the United States the western portion of 

 the lands within the then Territory of Michigan lying west of the St. Joseph 

 river? The lands included within the village of St. Joseph were preempted 

 by Calvin Britain and Augustus B. Newell, who, upon their survey by the 

 government, perfected their title by purchase. 



The county was set off, with its present boundaries, by act of the Legisla- 

 tive Council of the Territory, approved October 29, 1829, and named Berrien, 

 in honor of John M. Berrien, attorney general under President Jackson. 



The county seat was for a short time at Niles, and subsequently at St. 

 Joseph, then called Newberryport. Finally, by an act of the State Legisla- 

 ture, the county seat was fixed at Berrien Springs, from and after May 1st, 

 1830. 



The planting of orchards and the growing of fruits, for the supply of the 

 family, may very properly be said to have taken its rise, so far as Berrien 

 county, as a whole, is concerned, with the first settlement of the county; 

 although the rise of this interest as a commercial pursuit is of somewhat 

 more recent date. It is also true that while the apple is quite generally 

 grown, in quantities quite in excess of the home demand; usually affording 

 a considerable surplus for exportation; nevertheless, the wonderful modern 

 development of the commercial phase of this interest has been confined to a 

 comparatively limited portion of the county, in the more immediate vicinity 

 of St. Joseph and Benton Harbor, in near proximity to Lake Michigan ; and 

 has moreover, been consequent upon the unparalleled growth of the great 

 cities of the northwest. 



In his history of St. Joseph, at page 47, Mr. Winslow says : " In the orchard 

 set out by Mr. Burnett, he set several peach trees, and they were still there 

 in 1829, and for several years subsequent; but, being on interval land, they 

 were subsequently killed, in a season of extraordinarily high water. There 

 is now, (1809) a peach tree, in the old orchard, just south of Hickory creek, 

 on the Niles road, that is over thirty years old ; and, last year, it bore a fair 

 crop of fruit ; yet the tree has had no special care for many years. There 

 were peach trees scattered through the country, prior to the year 1848, but 

 they were all seedlings. Prior to this date, it is not known that there was a 

 budded peach tree in the county." 



In January, 1873, L. J. Merchant, of St. Joseph, published a "Catalogue of 



