This township which formerly included Fruitport was organized in 1855. The first settler was Ben. Brist, a German living near Mona Lake, and his children were probably the first white children born here.
    The first regular road was laid out in 1860. Prior to this there were only Indian trails. The mail had to be carried along the beach and round the end of the pier at Lake Harbor, and the trail can still be traced.
    The first teacher in District No. 1 was Martha Rowe, now Mrs. A. B. Palmer, of Muskegon, who taught in 1860.

of Black Lake has been neglected by the authorities and nothing has been done except by Senator Ferry, whoose object has been to secure a passage for his logs to the saw mill at the mouth. He has made some slab piers and dredged so as to allow vessels drawing four to five feet of water to enter. With an expenditure of $5,000, a depth of six or seven feet could be secured. The channel for about half a mile is narrow and tortuous, and generally nearly filled with logs. The banks are steep especially to the north. At the upper end of the channel it expands at Black Lake, and at this point there is a swing bridge. The banks become low and flat and on both sides are fine fruit farms. It is difficult to conceive of a more beautiful pastoral scene than from this point, and it is not to be wondered at that in summer this locality is visited by many tourists from Chicago and elsewhere, that every home is full of guests, and there is a prospect of a summer hotel here. The whole lake has been called Black Lake, while of late the upper end has been named Mono Lake, from the name of the daughter of Col. May, late superintendent of the railway. The railway station at the upper end is called Mono Lake Station, where there are bathing houses and fishing boats, and hundreds of pleasure seekers resort to it from Muskegon, Grand Haven and other cities. Lake Harbor is applied as a name for the western end of Black Lake, but it is more properly the name of the post office, which was kept by Daniel Upton, J. P., who is also store keeper and book keeper for Ferry & Bro., and came from Jackson County, where he had been a representative in the legislature, settled eleven years in Muskegon and dispensed justice for years. He has his residence and fine grapery on the north side of the lake.. The post office in Jan. 1, 1882, was transferred to Miss Nettie Martin, who resides about half a mile south of the bridge. At the present the most prominent question in the township is the project of building a floationg or pontoon bridge across the lake from opposite Rowe's Point to Cobb's Factory. The project has many warm advocates.
    The Lake Harbor Union Society was organized Jan. 2, 1882, under the statute provided for that purpose, to erect a building for religious and benevolent purposes. The first Trustees are: Daniel Upton, Sr., Milo Rowe, Edward Hendrick, J. O. Antisdale, Frank Dorn, Jas. Dean, W. L. Bartholomew. This board of Trustees elected D. Upton, chairman; J. O. Antisdale, Treasurer; Frank Dorn, Secretary. The building of the society is on the Muskegon and Ferrysburg road on the land of Mr. Antisdale, and is 34x60 feet, with 20 feet ceiling. It is finished with a spire and will cost $2,000.
 
 

    Since the lumbering interests  of Black Lake which first induced settlement in that region have passed away, the inhabitants have found a new and more permanent and profitable occupation in the raising of fruit, especially of the smaller varieties. This beautiful little lake is about four miles long by half a mile wide, and on its banks is one of the finest fruit regions in the fruit belt, and this arises not only from the superior soil, elevation and position in regard to Lake Michigan, but to the entire devotion of the people to the one idea of fruit raising.
    The soil is chiefly a sandy loam with here and there patches of clay with no stone but a small amount of gravel. The west side of the township contains a line of sandy bluffs from one to one and a half miles wide. These are generally covered with pine, hemlock, oak, hard maple, white ash, butternut and beach, and the bluffs must be of considerable age to have sucha growth of timber upon them.
    The lands were supposed to be almost valuless and little would have been done with them had not that enterprising, public-spirited citizen, the late Ira Porter, planted an orchard on what is now Milo Rowe's place, on Section 12, and thus revolutionized the fortunes of the county by demonstrating the fact that Muskegon sand would bear fruit.

    In this connection it may not be inappropriate to give a brief notice of the man who did so much to develop this region. He came from New York State to Illinois and thence to Black Lake in 1850, operating a saw mill and planting an orchard which still remains. He never craved official honors, and is said to have been a man of fine presence and unusual intelligence. He died suddenly in 1874. After stripping off the pine the land was being abandoned and sold for taxes, when his experiment sent the price of land up. We should honor the man who makes two blades of grass grow where but one grew before. He was by profession a lawyer, and represented St. Clair County in the Michigan legislature, and was also register of the land office in Ionia four years. His nephew, James Porter, the present supervisor, land surveyor, and who laid out many of the early roads and still resides near the mouth of Lake Harbor, came in 1854.
    Fletcher Fowler, who died in 1871, was a supervisor and early settler, was one of the first to plant a peach orchard in the northwest of the town.
    Mr. John Parks was also an early settler and fruit grower near Mono Lake. John Kettel, a German settler, near the mouth of Lake Harbor, came about 1854, and had a large farm and orchard.
    Among the prominent fruit growers are Messrs. Rowe, O'Hara, Jas. Whitney, at the head of the lake; Ellis, Antisdale, H. L. Rood, Tomlinson and Newkirk, Bartholomew and Roussell.
    The fruit is shipped partly by team to Muskegon, partly by railroad from Mono Station at head of lake, and the bulk of it by water. In one day in 1881 a vessel took 700 bushels of strwaberries, and it is probable that there were by all channels shipped that day 32,000 quarts. Grapes are also largely cultivated as well as peaches and small fruits.
    Among the farms beautifully and romantically situated we may particularize that of J. O. Antisdale, a native of Ohio, who purchased in 1869 the property f Jos. Stocking, the farm on the south side of Lake Harbor near the mouth. He has a shipping wharf near the bridge. There are seventy-five acres of apple orchards, chiefly Red Canada, Greenings, Baldwins, Russets and King of Tompkins County; but there are in all fifty varieties. There are 4,000 peach trees and about twenty-five acres of small fruits, largely strawberries, of which Wilson's Albany gives the best yield, bears transportation and markets the best. Hale's early peach will not stand shipping as well, but its being early is an advantage. His strawberries last year yielded him $150 to $200 an acre,, and as to how peach raising will pay he says that peach trees in full bearing will yield four bushels each, and this at ten cents a bushel and one hundred and sixty trees to the acre, will be $64 an acre. In 1881 the price of one-fifth of a bushel basket was sixty-five cents.
    Mr. Antisdale's old residence, to the east of his present residence, is the oldest house in this region and was formerly Ira Porter's.
    The second school house was the Kittel district, Section No. 17. The first saw mill was built about 1847, the Robinsons mill, an old water mill, at the head of the lake.
    The first steam saw mill was erected by a German, Jos. Ackem, on section 13, who sold to W. M. Ferry, and he to Ira Porter, when it was burned, in 1850, and rebuilt and sold to Rowe, who sold to Swartout, when it was burned and never rebuilt.
    There is a saw mill still being run by Mr. Peter Jeannot, for Senator Ferry, which cuts 50,000 feet per day.
    Benjamin Brist, Jacob Winhofer, John Klein and Elijah Porter were all in the town previous to 1860.
    Michael O'Hara is perhaps the largest and most successful fruit grower- in grapes especially, his Concords and Delawares being the varieties that give the best yield.
    There was a new school house built on section 18, in January, 1881, at a cost of $500, in which a teacher is engaged at $30 per month.
    Mr. Bartholmew has a very fine fruit farm.

    G. N. Cobb & Son, originally from Connecticut, but who came from Missouri, in July, 1869, started a factory for the manufacture of fruit packages, boxes, &c., in 1871; the factory was burned down in two or three years after, but has since been rebuilt on a larger scale. The building is 20x40 feet, two stories, and the machinery is propelled by a twelve-horse power engine, furnishing employment to from three to six men, and the same number of girls. They have also a planing mill in connection and the factory serves a useful purpose. They have also a fruit farm with twenty acres improved.
 
 

    Wm. L. Bartholomew was born in Kirkland, Oneida Co., N. Y., in December, 1831, and was brought up on a farm until 19 years of age, when he learned the carpenter trade. From 1859 to 1869 he carried on a planing mill and sash and door factory. In 1861 he recruited a company for the 8th N. Y. Cavalry, and on May 13th, 1862, he was discharged on account of the consolidation of companies. In August, 1862, he recruited a company for the 117th N. Y. Vol. Infantry, and in 1862-63 was in the defense of Washington. In April, 1863, he was ordered to Suffolk, and until August 10th was engaged at the siege of that place. He then helped to build fortifications at Norfolk, and stayed all winter at Folly Island, off Charleston, and assisted in building the famous "Swamp Angel" fortifications near Ft. Wagner. In the Spring of 1864 he was promoted to be First Lieutenant and ordered to Gloster Point, General Butler in command. they went up the James River, built fortifications across the Appotmattox to the James, and on May 16 his regiment was engaged at Drury's Bluff. On the 1st of June he was ordered to White House Landing to form a junction with Grant's army, and on the 3d was at the battle of Cold Harbor, and for the ten following days was engaged fighting. They were then ordered back to City Point, and stormed the fortifications around Petersburg on the 15th, and for the rest of the summer he was engaged in front of Petersburg and Richmond. On the 29th of September they stormed Fort Gilmore, his company losing 18, killed and wounded, out of 27 men in all. On Oct. 3d he was promoted to the captaincy; on the 7th he fought at Chappin's farm, and on the 17th was at his last battle in Virginia. He then went on the Ft. Fisher expedition, at which Mr. Bartholomew opened the battle with eighty sharp-shooters, and ended as commander of his brigade. For bravery on the battle field he was promoted to the rank of Major.
    After the war he was engaged in farming in New York until 1877, when he came to Norton, where he still resides, extensively engaged in fruit farming. In 1860 he married Marian E. Page, of Marshall, Oneida Co., N. Y., by whom he has four children.

    Benjamin Brist was born in Reinsheim in Baden, Germany, in 1820, and when fourteen years of age landed in New Yo, and settled first in Berne, Albany Co., N. Y., and after twenty-two months he removed to Lewis County. In 1848 he came to Kalamazoo, Mich., and after remaining there four years came to Ottawa County, and in 1853 purchased his present farm on section 21, town of Norton, where he has ever since resided. In 1845 he married Miss Angeline Harlan, of Kalamazoo, by whom he has three children.

    Francis Boutell was born in Essex Co., England, in 1843, and, his father having died when he was four years old, he was left in the care of his mother's brother, who lived near Newcastle, where he worked two years in a cotton factory. At fourteen years of age he went to East Oxford, Ontario, and worked for seven years among the farmers, when he married Miss Sarah Jane Ranger, of Oxford, by whom he had six children. She died Nov. 25th, 1877, and in September, 1880, he marries Miss Harriet Southworth, of Van Buren Co., Mich. In 1873 he bought land in section 19, of Norton, where he has a good farm with some fruit on it, and bids fair to become a wealthy man.

    L. B. Coston, fruit grower on Black Lake, below Cobb's factory, was born in Philadelphia in 1842, and came to Lake Harbor in July, 1878, having previously been in Chicago from 1857 to 1878. On July 27, 1864, at Chicago, he married Emma I. Holmes, by whom he has two daughters and one son. He enlisted in DeKalb Co., Ill., in 1861, in Co. R, 42d Ill., Regt. and served for eight months, when he was obliged to resign through illness. He has a fine fruit farm of 22 acres, of which about eight acres are cleared, and mainly in orchard, with two acres in grapes.