CASS COUNTY, MICHIGAN DUO
Book #1 - A 20th Century History of
Cass County, Michigan
By L. H. Glover, 1906
927 pages, illustrated, indexed, searchable
Book #2 - History of
Cass County, Michigan
With Illustrations and Biographical Sketches
Of Some Of Its Prominent Men and Families
By Waterman, Watkins & Co., 1882
647 physical pages, including illustrations, preface, etc.
Searchable
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Digital EBook CD Requires Adobe Reader 7 or higher to View; or MAC Access
Autoboot Menu for Easy PC Access; Manually open files on MAC
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The county is named for Lewis Cass, the Michigan Territorial Governor at the time the county was created in 1829. Cass later
served as the United States Secretary of War under President Andrew Jackson, thus making a case for including Cass County as
one of Michigan's "cabinet counties".
Cass County was not so heavily forested and had more fertile prairie land than other nearby areas of Michigan, and thus during
early settlement it grew more rapidly in population. As early as 1830, a carding mill was started in the county on Dowagiac Creek,
a branch of the St. Joseph River. Although the Sauk Trail (Chicago Road, became Rt. 12) passed through the southern part of the
county, early settlement did not come primarily from eastern Michigan. Instead, settlers from Ohio and Indiana who had heard of
the prairie lands came to occupy them, reaching the Michigan Territory over a branch of the Chicago Road leading from Fort
Wayne, Indiana. The population of Cass County was over 3,000 by 1834.
Among the most prominent early settlers of Cass County were Baldwin Jenkins and Uzziel Putnam, who both came from Ohio by
way of the Carey Mission in Berrien County. Jenkins had been born at Fort Jenkins in Green County, Pennsylvania, and had
migrated to Tennessee, but then left that state to avoid the presence of slavery. Putnam, who had lived in Massachusetts and
New York, came to Cass from Erie County, Ohio, by way of Fort Wayne. These settlers, and their families, established the nucleus
of the village of Pokagon on Pokagon Prairie in 1825. The next year, a settlement was made on Beardsley’s Prairie, where the
village of Edwardsburg was laid out in 1831.
The village of Cassopolis was platted in 1831 and intended as the county seat, although no settlers yet lived there, because it
was the geographical center of the county.
Pages are toned and, although print is small, it is clear and is readable using Adobe Reader magnification of 125% or higher.
Book #1 Contents
1) Description
2) Original Inhabitants
3) The County’s Southern Boundary
4) Early Settlement
5) “Pioneer of Cass County”
6) Organization
7) Growth and Development
8) Centers of Population
9) Cassopolis
10)City of Dowagiac
11)Communication and Transportation
12)Industries and Finance
13)Agriculture
14)Court House and Other County Institutions
15)Education in State and County
16)City and Village Schools
17)Libraries
18)The Cass County Press
19)Medicine and Surgery
20)Cass County Bar
21)Cass County the Home of the Races
22)Military Records
23)Military Organizations
24)Social Organization
25)Cass County Pioneer Society
26)Religion and the Churches
27)Official Lists (page 389 to end of book)
Book #2 Contents
1- Introductory and Descriptive
2- French Exploration and Occupation
3- Contest for Possession
4- Outline of Civil History
5- Land Title Survey
6- The Pottawatomie Indians
7- The Pottawatomie Indians (contd)
8- The Carey Mission
9- Advent of the White Man
10-Pioneer Life
11-Erection and Organization of Cass County
12-Internal Improvements
13-Religious and Edcuational
14-The Bar of Cass County
15-The Medical Profession
16-The Press
17-The Underground Railroad and the KY Raid
18-Cass County in the War of the Rebellion
19-Cass County In the War of the Rebellion (contd)
20-The Pioneer Society
21-Agricultural and Miscellaneous
22-Statistics
23-Cassopolis
24-The City of Dowagiac
25-Pokagon
26-La Grange
27-Penn
28-Ottowa
29-Volina
30-Porter
31-Wayne
32-Howard
33-Milton
34-Silver Creek
35-Jefferson
36-Calvin
37-Marcellus
38-Mason
39-Newberg
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