Interest in Jamestown Township began when Grandville on the east and Holland on the west were being settled. Rix Robinson persuaded people to come, because the area was covered with a fine forest. Grandville was the central point of settlement, and the land office was established there. In 1831, the area was surveyed.

James Conkright and his wife were the first settlers in the township. They settled in 1843 and built a 16x22 foot house. The closest neighbors were four miles away, and there were no roads. S.L. Gitchel first settled in 1845. He became a specialist in making small bridges and corduroy roads. Mr. and Mrs. Monsur Brown (the parents of Mrs. Gitchel) followed in 1846, settling near their son, James M. Brown, who was married three years later.

Until 1849, Georgetown and Jamestown were under the same jurisdiction. Twelve voters were required in what is now Jamestown before the townships could be separated. In 1849, the number was reached, and steps were taken to divide. The meeting took place at the James Conkright Jr. home. Twelve men attended and were elected to office. Of the twelve men present, four were named James, so this new township was named Jamestown. Six men living in the township were not at the meeting. It is believed that four men from the western part of the township could not yet speak English.

There were fifteen residents on the first 1849 tax roll covering seventeen parcels of land. These seventeen parcels were found in only nine of the thirty-six sections of the township. Six of those sections were in the western one-third of the township.

The 1850 town meeting was held at the Conkright home again, but the 1851 and 1852 meetings were held at the first log school house. In 1853 it was held at the school house in Jamestown Center, the second school house in the township. The Forest Grove log school was built in 1853 by the third district.

FOREST GROVE STATION, BYRON ROAD NEAR 48th AVENUE. The old creamery of the Jamestown Creamery Company still stands. Built in 1893-94, it is believed to be the first in this part of the state. It was in use until about 1940 when the business and the name went to Jamestown, where a more modern plant was operating.

On the northeast corner was a power house for the electric cars, Brouwer's ice house and pond for storing and making ice in winter, a blacksmith shop, and two homes. On the northwest corner was the railroad station used in the early 1900s and the buildings of John Brower, all of which remain standing. Before 1902, John Brower bought the property, built a store and house combined and later built an elevator and livery barn. This may have been the ninth grocery store in the township. At least four did butchering and/or took butchered animals to Grand Rapids.

E.H. BOK BLACKMITH, 26th AVENUE NEAR PERRY STREET. Mr. Bok and his sons, John and Henry, did a good business in their large barn repairing and selling buggies and wagons. Later they sold international equipment and built an all-metal shop behind the house. They did arc, gas, and forge welding. There was an underground tunnel between the house and shop, which still stands. Before Bok built this building, the shop was across the street.

FIRST CHURCH, 26th AVENUE NEAR PERRY STREET. The first church in Jamestown Township was built in 1873. Parts of the original structure remain. It was sold to the Christian Reformed Church when the Reformed Church built a new building.

THE MAPLE GROVE SCHOOL AND POST OFFICE, 32nd AVENUE. Built in 1853, it was the third school in the township. In 1865, it burned and was rebuilt in a beautiful maple grove, thus it was named Maple Grove School. When the post office was established in the village, it could not be called Maple Grove, because there was another Maple Grove Post Office in the state. Therefore they called it Forest Grove.

PERRY STREET was probably the first road used to get to Holland by some of the Jamestown settlers. A group of men, including James Conkright, first walked it according to an account recorded by Pauline Hall Gitchel in her book, "The Early History of Jamestown Township, 1843-1870."

JAMESTOWN CENTER, 24th AVENUE. The area was first known as the Center. On the southeast corner was a blacksmith shop. A large cistern stood behind it for village fire protection. It was last owned by R.B. Stilwell and has since been moved to the Blandford Nature Center in Grand Rapids. On the larger lot is the township Hall, and nearby is the second log school house of the township. Finally, a large brick school building was constructed in 1922; it housed kindergarten through tenth grades. South of this lot stood the Interurban Hotel with an ice house and livery barn. Over the years, this building included a barber shop, pool hall, saloon, and cobbler shop. Farther south was, at one time, another blacksmith shop, which was later moved. At the end of this row of buildings was a slaughterhouse operated by John Buwalda. The old butcher wheel used for pulling cattle is still in existence.

On the southwest corner stands the grocery store built by Hendrik De Kleine, who operated it until about 1910. Just west, the De Kleine farm covered sixty acres but did not include the lots along 24th Avenue. Nick and Louis De Kleine raised ferrets to be sold all over the U.S. They were needed for killing rats. Disease and a state law prohibiting ferrets put them out of business before 1913.

On the northwest corner, the Zager brothers operated a hardware store in the building now housing the Post Office. Just west was an elevator for buying and selling wheat. It was built by the De Kleines to help with the ferret business. A large pickle-processing building was on the north side of the Interurban tracks with about thirty-five large salting tanks and dilling equipment. In 1965, with most of the business consolidated and most of the tanks in Bentheim, the firm was sold. It was later known as Pilgrim Farms and is one of the largest pickle processing companies in the U.S.