268 GENERAL HISTORY. 



Vineyards, 20 acres: grapes sold in 1883, 26,894 pounds. 



■wine made in 1883, 286 gallons. 

 Nurseries, 91 acres; products sold in 1883, SI 7,050.00. 

 Market garden products sold in 1883, $27,601.00. 



VAN BUREN COUNTY. 



This county was set off and named by an act of the Legislative Council of 

 the territory, approved October 29th, 1829, and was organized in pursuance of 

 an act of the State Legislature, which, by its terms, took effect on the first 

 Monday in April, 1837. It was named in honor of Martin Van Buren, an 

 official of Andrew Jackson's administration, and subsequently president of the 

 United States. 



The county seat was first located at Lawrence, but subsequently re-located 

 at Paw Paw, which received the Indian name of an indigenous wild fruit 

 found growing in abundance along the adjacent stream. 



It is surmised by some imaginative persons that when Pere Marquette, in 



1879, left the mouth of the St. Joseph on his last journey northward, he 



landed and perchance spent the first night of the voyage at the harbor of 



South Haven, and that he thus came to be the first white man to tread the 



*soil of Van Buren county. 



Be that as it may, there seems to have been no actual settlers within the 

 county prior to the arrival of Dolphin Morris, in March, 1829, who settled and 

 built his house just within the county, on section thirty-five of the town of 

 Decatur. He was accompanied by H. D. Swift and his assistant. He also 

 brought with him and planted an orchard of fifteen apple trees. In 1830 he 

 planted peach and cherry pits, from which sprang trees, some of which are 

 yet living. 



For nearly two years Mr. Morris was the only settler within the limits of 

 Van Buren county. His house not only sheltered the first family in the 

 county, but it was also the first hotel, church, and school-house. In it oc- 

 curred the first birth, the first Avedding, and the first death, and in it was also 

 erected the first domestic altar. 



Doubtless the occurrence of the Black Hawk war at this junction, and soon 

 after of the border or Toledo contest, acted as serious checks upon immigra- 

 tion. It is certain that in this, as in other portions of the State, only here and 

 there an adventurous pioneer located lands prior to the great tidal wave of 

 immigration which, with premonitory couriers in 1834 and 1835, swept over 

 the southern part of the State in 1836 and 1837. 



The lands included within the present village of Paw Paw were located and 

 settled upon during the year 1832, and the mill privilege upon the stream at 

 that place was purchased and the construction of a mill commenced during 

 the same year. 



In 1833 the first house within the limits of the present village of South 

 Haven was built by J. R. Monroe, upon lands purchased by him from the 

 government during that year. This, so far as is known, was the second 

 building within the county, save possibly one or two at the present village of 

 of Paw Paw, or the temporary structures of Indian traders. Prior to the 



