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The Maple Valley Name
by Bertha (Mrs. Carl) Johnson
Valley Of The Maples. Where did Maple Valley get its name? When the first settlers came in 1858, the area was thickly forested
with beautiful maple groves and pine trees. Many romances blossomed in the sugar bushes, as they were called, when
the sap from the maple trees was gathered in buckets, boiled down in huge vats over a blazing fire and became maple syrup
and sugar. It became the place to go for young folks to watch the process.
Sap started flowing the first warm days of spring. It was time for farmers to tap the trees and hang the buckets to catch the sap. Maple
Syrup and sugar became the first crop of the year for many farmers who had settled in the valley.
It was also known as Fitzgerald, being located on land owned by William Fitzgerald. He sold 80 acres to R. Kearney, who platted the village of Maple Valley in 1872. In addition, it was also known as Kendall Mills for lumberman Lucius B. Kendall.
If you have historic photos, or information about this township, please contact the
Montcalm Co. MIGenWeb Township county coordinator.
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Maple Valley Township Links
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Maple Valley Township
Trufant
Coral
Maple Valley Village
Maple Valley Twp. Road Comm. Pay Vouchers
Area Indians
Area Railroad and Lumbering
Area Misc
History of Montcalm County 1916 Vol. 1 Historical Index
see Maple Valley, Coral, Trufant page numbers
History of Montcalm County 1916 Vol. 2 Biographical Index
see area founder names page numbers Michigan County Histories and Atlases
online at University of Michigan Digital Library.
The current settlements in Maple Valley township are Coral & Trufant.
Coral, in Maple Valley Township, was first settled by Rev. Charles Parker in 1861. He donated 80 acres to become the new village. He became involved in lumbering. The lumber camp, called Stumptown, was said to be first named Stumptown after the Stump and Morris mill & was later platted as Coral. It was named Coral because it was easy to spell. Logging flourished and the Hart Oaks Company sawmill operated until 1880 when the pine forests
in the area were exhausted. Coral Enterprise newspaper began publication here in 1875. The railroad came through in 1871 and
as potato farming increased potato warehouses were built along the tracks in Coral and Trufant.
Trufant, in Maple Valley Township, was named after Emory Trufant, who acquired land, which was platted and recorded in 1871. He operated a sawmill and soon after a steam sawmill and shingles and planing mills were operating in the area. Farming was very important to many of
the settlers who were from Denmark. They cultivated the land planting their crops among the wood stumps of ten pulling them out
by hand and then by machine. These stumps were later used to fence in their fields. Potatoes were a very successful crop in the
area and these were shipped by rail to Greenville.
A settlement grew up around another sawmill. It became Edna in 1868, later renamed Wood Lake, a post office along the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railway. Wood Lake was named for pioneers Ransom and George Wood. The remains of the village were renamed Hiram. ~Michigan Place Names
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