Haunted History of Kalamazoo

INTRODUCTION

While growing up in Kalamazoo, I never had any doubt that I lived in a haunted town. The spirits of Native Americans I often glimpsed in my basement frightened me in my early years. As a teen, I spent many late nights searching for Schoolcraft’s elusive glowing tombstone and trouncing around every local cemetery that was reputed to be haunted.

When I matured into adulthood, I finally began to take my paranormal investigations more seriously. In 1993, my best friend Robert Penny and I formed one of the first paranormal teams, a group we simply called the Kalamazoo Ghost Hunters Club. It was from this humble beginning that we formed WPARanormal, a paranormal team that has investigated many of the locations covered in this book.

Kalamazoo, listed as Michigan’s third most haunted city on hauntedmichigan.org, has many active paranormal teams. Nicole and I have teamed up with some of these local teams to share the locations we believe to be the most haunted. These paranormal teams consist of the West Michigan Ghost Hunters Society, the Michigan Nightstalkers and the Southern Michigan Paranormals.

Join us as we take you behind the gates of the Kalamazoo Regional Psychiatric Hospital’s Northwest Unit, located on Alamo Hill. We will guide you into the foreboding Henderson Castle and lead you through a county park that was once home to a socialist commune and a poor farm in search of a lost cemetery, and explore the grounds where the insane once roamed on the Colony Farm.

As a young adult investigating these locations, I never would have imagined that I would later be co-authoring a book on the topic. For those of you searching for Kalamazoo’s ghosts, as I have been for years, I hope this book will help serve as a field book and guide you through Kalamazoo’s haunted history.

Reverend Robert DuShane

President, WPARanormal, Inc.

A BRIEF HISTORY LESSON

Before we start looking for Kalamazoo’s ghosts, let’s take a look at its often violent history and see why this once quiet valley is now home to so many spirits of the dead.

The official name of the town, Kalamazoo, is undeniably of Native American origin; however, there is some dispute among historians whether the name means the mirage of reflecting river or boiling water. The students who attend school here are taught that it means the latter and that the natives were commenting on the rapids that are ever-present in the river that flowed through the county.

The earliest known inhabitants of the area were a race of Native Americans known only as the mound builders. The mound builders were a peaceful tribe, and survived almost entirely by cultivating the land. A number of earthen mounds attributed to these people still exist in the area; the most prominent one can be found in downtown Kalamazoo’s Bronson Park.

Local historians theorize that the first major act of violence to occur in this area happened when another Native American tribe traveled down from the north and exterminated the mound builders. What tribe was responsible is not known; however, some of the earliest written records from the area suggest that it was the Sioux. Many other skirmishes likely occurred as the land passed from the Sioux, the Mascoutah and the Miami, until eventually becoming the home to the Potawatomi by the time the first white settler arrived in 1680.

Although it was not uncommon for the occasional white trader to travel through the area during the seventeenth century, it was not until 1795 that a treaty simply known as the Treaty of 1795 opened the Northwest Territory for settlement by the white man. This treaty also set aside a large portion of what is now Kalamazoo County to be used as a reservation known as Match-e-be-nash-e-wish. This reservation is believed to have been the chief meeting place of the Potawatomi during this time. It was during this year that Kalamazoo had its first white resident, a British fur trader named Burrell, who spent the winter at his trading post in what is now Riverside Cemetery. It would take almost thirty years before there would be a permanent white presence in Kalamazoo.

During the early 1800s, Kalamazoo was home to a large Potawatomi village. The tract included approximately four square miles and was roughly centered on the site of the current Kalamazoo–Battle Creek International Airport. In fact, the tribal burial grounds were located just a couple hundred feet to the southwest of the current terminal. During the War of 1812, the families of warriors fighting with the British against the Americans were concentrated in this village. Many local historians believe that American soldiers were held prisoner here. Most of these historians also tell of a retaliatory raid against the village, which resulted in a massive loss of Native American lives.

In 1821, another treaty—commonly referred to as the Chicago Treaty—was passed, which allowed for whites to be issued land. It would be this treaty that would serve as the basis for many of the county’s first land titles. In 1823, a Frenchman named Numaiville was the first white pioneer to be issued a land title. He would use this land to establish a trading post that would remain in operation until 1837.

In 1827, the Match-e-be-nash-e-wish reservation was consolidated. It was moved to the southern end of Kalamazoo County and extended into the northern part of St. Joseph County. It would only be another six years before another treaty would be written that would force the Potawatomi out of Michigan completely. The treaty of 1833 arranged the exchange of five million acres of their land for $40,000 in trinkets and trappings. The later enforcement of the treaty in 1840 forced the Native Americans across the Mississippi River.

It was around this same time that the first white settler made the first homestead in the county. In 1828, Bezel Harrison, cousin of U.S. president William Henry Harrison, built his home on the shores of a small lake three miles northwest of what is now Schoolcraft. Other settlers soon followed, and by 1830, over one hundred families had settled in the Prairie Ronde area. Within a year, all of the county’s eight prairies had been settled.

In 1829, a gentleman named Titus Bronson crossed the Kalamazoo River at the site of the Kalamazoo trading post in search of a plot of land on which to form a city. He traveled across the vast prairie until he reached the Indian mound that still sits in the present-day Bronson Park. He decided that this location would be the perfect spot to found his town. Bronson spent the summer in a temporary home on the bank of Arcadia Creek. As winter drew closer, he abandoned his first cabin, which was built only of tamarack poles and roofed with grass, and traveled to Harrison’s settlement to wait out the winter.

The following spring, Bronson sent for his family in Ohio. By the summer of 1831, the family had all settled in a log home, and Bronson set his plan to form a town in action. Traveling to the land office in White Pigeon, he entered eighty acres in his wife’s name, while Steven Richardson, Bronson’s brother-in-law, entered eighty acres in his own name. Titus named the 160-acre tract of land Bronson.

Immediately following his return to his namesake town, Bronson had the land surveyed and divided into town lots. He offered free lots for a courthouse, school, jail and the first four church organizations. He petitioned to have his town declared the county seat, knowing that the courthouse would draw professional men as well as merchants to supply the needs of a growing town. The town of Bronson was officially designated the county seat on May 1, 1831.

The town of Bronson almost failed in its first year. Bronson could not find buyers for his lots and reluctantly turned to partners to help raise badly needed funds. The most prominent of these partners were future U.S. senator Lucius Lyon and Justus Burdick, who bought a half-interest in the village for $850. This was just the boost the town needed.

In 1832, the town opened its post office. That year also witnessed the town’s first recorded election. The election was held at Bronson’s home and had almost a 100 percent voter turnout.

In 1834, the land office was moved to the town from White Pigeon. People lined up for hours in the early morning darkness to enter their claims when the office opened. The office was a great success; in 1836, it sold more acres of land than any other land office in the history of the United States. In that year, the town of Bronson was renamed Kalamazoo. There is no record of a reason for the name change. Some people say that Titus Bronson was convicted of stealing a cherry tree; others say it was because he was regarded by most as eccentric, if not downright obnoxious. He was known to be very opinionated, and he was especially outspoken against the imbibing of alcohol.

Many historians tell of one of the last conversations Bronson had before leaving his thriving town to return to the frontier. It occurred when a cynic scoffed, In twenty years the tired and hungry traveler wandering this way would not be able to find a solitary hut in Bronson. Titus responded indignantly, In twenty years from this time you will see a large city here and you will be able to go to and from Detroit in one day by the railroad cars. He was right. The Michigan Central Railway reached Kalamazoo in 1846.

Throughout the decades, Titus’s premonition continued to be true as the city of Kalamazoo grew by leaps and bounds to become the metropolis that exists today.

KALAMAZOO’S FORGOTTEN

Today, we live in a world where we hear constant pleading to help the poor, sick and disabled. We feel empathy toward those who have lost everything and for those taken down in the prime of their lives by debilitating illnesses. We feel empathy, but we also feel grateful that it is not happening to our family or ourselves.

Now imagine a world where we shunned and belittled those same people—a society that forced them to live far from town where the wealthy would not have