Excerpt from History of Grand Rapids: With Biographical Sketches My labors in connection with the History of Michi gan have forcibly suggested the propriety of editing a series of small volumes, embracing, separately, the his tories of the principal cities of the Northwest. There is very much valuable and interesting narrative connected with the early settlement of this country which cannot well be embraced in a general history of the State or States, and yet this history, or these local traditions should be preserved. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.