of the Territory (thirty-eight copies at eighteen shillings each) eightyfive dollars and fifty cents."

This makes it reasonably conclusive that the map of Mr. Risdon antedated any map made by Mr. Farmer.

The map itself is on a large scale, four miles to an inch, and shows all the counties, eleven in number, which had at that time been laid out except Michilimackinac county, no part of which had been surveyed. Monroe county extends far enough south to include part of what would be town 10 south of the base line, the south line running some distance south of Toledo. All the counties lie east of the principal meridian, and several of them, Washtenaw, Shiawassee, Saginaw, Lapeer and St. Clair are not completely surveyed. There is a copy of this map in the library of C. M. Burton, and one in the Detroit Public Library.

The first public reference to Farmer's map appears from the records of the Council to be on November 21, 1826, when the petition of John Farmer praying for additional remuneration for making a map of the Territory of Michigan for the use of the Legislative Council was presented and referred to the Committee on Claims, and on December 6 this Committee reported in favor of allowing out of the contingent fund sixty dollars, which was agreed to and that sum was included in the appropriation bill approved December 29, 1826.

Farmer's History states that the first Farmer map was published in August, 1825, and that a second map was issued in 1826. This is probably an error, and but one map was issued which was copyrighted in 1825 and actually published in 1826. The Detroit Gazette in the early part of 1827 published an advertisement dated May 16, 1825, offering for sale Farmer's map of Michigan, but I found no publication of any advertisement in 1825. There is, however, a publication in that year of a copyright notice dated August 30, 1825, but it was a common practice to file such notice and title some time in advance of actual publication. After somewhat diligent search I have not been able to find any copy of this map except one in the Library of Congress.

Farmer subsequently issued many editions as the surveyed part of the Territory increased, and they became and were for many years the standard maps of the State. Copies of the 1831 and subsequent editions are not uncommon, but it would be highly desirable if the State Library could obtain a complete series, as they represent in a graphic manner the rapid and enduring growth of the State.

In 1843 there was published a map of J. Calvin Smith, covering the States of Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin. This map is 20 by 21 inches in size drawn on a scale of eight miles to an inch, and shows the counties of Wayne, Monroe, Lenawee and Oakland fully surveyed and the counties of St. Clair, Sanilac, Lapeer, Saginaw, Shia

wassee and Washtenaw partly surveyed, and a small part of the ter ritory west of the meridian line surveyed but not laid out into counties. East of Indiana the south line of the Territory runs about three miles south of Miami (Maumee) Bay. It contains many places named which disappeared as the country was settled up and is an interesting and valuable map historically. This is the only map which I have seen which shows all of the Lower Peninsula divided into counties bearing the names as given by the Legislature of 1840. Many of these names were of Indian origin and were changed by the Legislature of 1843 so that they were in existence only for the period of three years.

Douglass Houghton while State Geologist began the making of a set of county maps, which if completed would have been very interesting and valuable, but after finishing several his death and the hard times following caused a discontinuance of the project.

After this date maps of Michigan cease to be properly included within the scope of this article.

STURDY PIONEERS OF VAN BUREN AND CASS

BY A. B. COPLEY1

This paper is designed to treat in part of the first settlement of Van Buren County on its southeastern border and consequently is connected somewhat with the settlement of Cass and Berrien counties, being an outspreading in order to take in the northern border of Little Prairie Ronde. My father left Dayton, Ohio, August 29, 1832, on horseback, to make a trip to that part of Michigan Territory called the St. Joseph Country. He went by the way of Troy, Piqua, St. Mary's, Fort Wayne and Goshen to White Pigeon Prairie,2 where the land office was then located. From that place he went to Big Prairie Ronde and reached the home of Dolphin Morris on the evening of September 4, 1832. From his journal it appears that there had been entered at the land office sixteen eighty-acre lots of land up to that date in the township of Decatur, four in Waverly to R. Sherwood, and five in Lafayette (Paw Paw) as follows: one each to John S. Agard, S. Barber and P. Barber, and two to Peter Gremps. There were six families in Van Buren County at that time, namely, Dolphin Morris, his brother Samuel, H. D. Swift, George Tittle, David Curry and Le Grand Ander

3

'Read by Hon. A. B. Copley, of Decatur, at a meeting of Van Buren County pioneers at South Haven in 1893. His son, Hon. A. Ward Copley, Detroit, is a member of the House of Representatives for 1911-12.

"The land office was established at White Pigeon in June, 1831, and removed to Kalamazoo in 1834. Prior to that time all settlers were compelled to go about 125 miles to Monroe in order to register their claims.

See sketch, Vol. V, p. 150, this series.

son, who had settled within a week of the time of which I write. These were the only settlers in Van Buren County. The first settler in the county, Dolphin Morris, left Deer Creek, Sciota County, Ohio, November 3, 1828, arriving at Pokagon Prairie, Cass County, December 8th, where he spent the winter with Joseph Gardiner. In the Spring, March 26th, he reached little Prairie Ronde in company with H. D. Swift, Jacob Morlan and his (Morris') father and camped at the outlet of Lawrence Lake, Volinia Township. On the 27th he commenced cutting logs for a cabin for his father, which work was suspended for several days on account of a snowstorm. Mr. Morris had visited the prairie during the winter and chosen his location and now while the snow interfered with the cabin building returned to Pokagon for his family, bringing them during the first week of April. Jacob Morlan attached a lean-to to Mr. Morris' cabin, sheltering his own family until he finished his cabin on the south side of the prairie in Cass County. Mr. Swift worked for Morris but did not bring his family or establish a claim at first. Mr. Morris' father, Samuel Morris, sr., occupied the farm in Cass County now occupied by Elias Morris, and Samuel, the brother, made a claim on what is now known as the Buell farm. Thus, for nearly two years, Mr. Morris was the only settler in the county. The log cabin first built by Mr. Morris was of more than passing interest aside from sheltering the first family in the county. The first school was taught in the winters of 1834-5 by William Alexander, a Virginian, a relative of LeGrand Anderson." Here was born the first white child, Lewis Creighton Morris, August 4, 1830, and here he left to cross the river, the pioneer of his race, December 20 of the same year. Here was born May 11, 1832, Elias Morris, the oldest living white person born in the county Here it was Daniel Alexander and Margaret Tittle (Peggy, she was called) the second married couple in the county, commenced housekeeping. This cabin, the home of the first settler, where the first birth and death occurred, the germ of our valued school system in this county, which served as hotel and church, where the first domestic altar was reared, surely deserves to be kept in remembrance and its site marked to commemorate the beginning of civilization in the then wilderness of our now beautiful county. At the time of Morris' settling there were Indian traders at Bronson (Kalamazoo) and at Grand Rapids a trad

'William Alexander after teaching one winter returned to Virginia.

"Le Grand Anderson came from Ohio to Michigan in the spring of 1831 and brought his wife and family in 1832. He lived on section thirty-six of Decatur Township until his death in 1869.

"The first trading station at Bronson was established in 1823 by a Frenchman named Numaiville. It was located on the east side of the river at the ford where the cemetery is now. Rix Robinson put up better buildings, employed the Frenchman and made this a branch of the Grand River post.

'Louis Campau traded on the Grand River at the Rapids. Rix Robinson was also trading on the Grand River at this early day and later made his home at Ada.