The county is named for
Lewis Cass, the Michigan Territorial Governor at the time the county was created in 1829. Cass later served as the
United States Secretary of War under
President Andrew Jackson, thus making a case for including Cass County as one of Michigan's "
cabinet counties". Cass County was not as heavily forested and had more fertile prairie land than other nearby areas of Michigan. During early settlement, it attracted numerous settlers who wanted to farm and grew more rapidly in population. The county quickly developed industry as well. As early as 1830, a carding mill was started in the county on Dowagiac Creek, a branch of the
St. Joseph River. Although the
Sauk Trail (
Chicago Road) passed through the southern part of the county, early settlement did not come primarily from eastern Michigan. Instead, settlers from
Ohio and
Indiana migrated who had learned of available prairie lands, reaching the
Michigan Territory via a branch of the Chicago Road leading from
Fort Wayne, Indiana. The population of Cass County was more than 3,000 by 1834. Among the most prominent early settlers of Cass County were Baldwin Jenkins and Uzziel Putnam, who both came from Ohio by way of the
Carey Mission in
Berrien County. Jenkins had been born at Fort Jenkins in Green County,
Pennsylvania, and had migrated to
Tennessee. He left that state as he was opposed to the institution of slavery. Putnam, who had lived in Massachusetts and New York, migrated to Cass from
Erie County, Ohio, by way of Fort Wayne. These settlers, and their families, established the nucleus of the
village of Pokagon on Pokagon Prairie in 1825. The next year, a settlement was made on Beardsley's Prairie, where the village of
Edwardsburg was laid out in 1831. The village of
Cassopolis was platted in 1831 and intended as the county seat, because it was the geographical center of the county. It had no settlers at the time.
Black settlers After 1840, the black population of Cass County grew rapidly as families were attracted by white defiance of discriminatory laws, including the
Fugitive Slave Law. Numerous highly supportive Quakers helped blacks settle in the area, and the land was low-priced. Free and refugee blacks found Cass County to be a haven, some with mixed Native ancestry, especially Saponi, Lumbee, and Pamunkey. Their development of a thriving community attracted the attention of southern slaveholders. In 1847 and 1849, planters from
Bourbon and
Boone counties in
Northern Kentucky led
raids into Cass County to recapture escaped slaves. They were "surrounded by crowds of angry farmers armed with clubs, scythes, and other farm implements", resisting their attempt. The raids failed to accomplish their objective but strengthened Southern demands for passage of the
Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which required residents and law enforcement even in free states to support capture of refugee slaves, and increased penalties for failure to do so. Biased toward slaveholders and slavecatchers, it required little documentation and put free blacks at risk for capture and sale into slavery. Many in the North resisted the law, especially in abolitionist strongholds, and it increased tensions contributing to the Civil War. Cass County became known early on for the anti-slavery attitudes of its population. Pennsylvania
Quakers made a settlement in
Penn Township in 1829. This community later became a prominent station on the
Underground Railroad. One established Underground Railroad route ran from
Niles through Cassopolis,
Schoolcraft,
Climax, and
Battle Creek, and thence along the old
Territorial Road.
Historical markers Some 26 historical sites in Cass County have been listed on the
National Register of Historic Places and designated by state historical markers as of December 2009. ==Geography==