Until 1830 no white man ventured to penetrate into the Grand River Valley near the now village of Lyons. In that year, however, William Hunt, learning that the point was a most favorable one for the purpose, set up a tradingpost on the west bank of the river and began to traffic with the Indians for furs, skins, and such other commodities as they chose to bring to him in exchange for whisky, blankets, guns, etc. The business of trading with the Indians, as carried on by Hunt, Belcher, and Burgess, was the only white man's effort pursued in that neighborhood until the year 1836, when Lucius Lyon founded the village of Lyons. Lyon, who was concerned with the surveying of government lands in Michigan, entered the land upon which Lyons now stands, and in 1836 proceeded to carry out his originally formed project of creating a village there. Giles S. Isham had got fairly settled in the summer of 1836, when along came Edward Lyon, Henry A. Leonard, and Andrew Hanse, attended by a company of sixteen carpenters and builders sent out by Lucius Lyon to build a bridge, stores, dwellings, etc., and to give the new village a sharp architectural start. Source: History of Ionia and Montcalm counties, Michigan. Author: Schenck, John S., De La Vergne, Earl W., D.W. Ensign & Co. Philadelphia: D. W. Ensign & co., 1881.