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    Berrien County, Michigan

    Benton Harbor history and records

    County BerrienFounded 1860City 1891

    On the valley map

    View of the Public Library in Benton Harbor, Michigan
    View of the Public Library in Benton Harbor, Michigan, c.1911 (postmarked F. Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library

    Benton Harbor was dug into being. In 1859 Sterne Brunson, Charles Hull and Henry C. Morton planned a canal from the east bank of the St. Joseph River across the marsh, and the first ship canal, 25 feet wide, was finished in 1862. The village laid out beside it in 1860 was called Brunson's Harbor; in 1865 it took the name of Benton Township instead. It was chartered as a village in 1869 and became a city in 1891, the busy fruit-shipping twin of St. Joseph across the river.

    At a glance

    Founded
    village laid out, 1860; ship canal finished, 1862, and widened in 1868; village charter approved April 3, 1869; city, 1891
    Name
    first Brunson's Harbor, at Sterne Brunson's request; renamed in 1865 for Benton Township, which had been named in 1837 for Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, a friend of Michigan's admission as a state
    The canal
    Ellis's 1880 history prints a Centennial address of July 4, 1876, telling how a canal was talked of in 1834 and revived in 1859, and how Martin Green was hired to dig it; the canal and the railroad pulled the district's trade to the Harbor
    The oldest house
    Eleazar Morton and his son Henry built the Morton House in 1849; four generations of Mortons lived there until 1936, and it is now the city's history museum
    Fruit
    by 1880 Ellis called the village the market-town for most of the people of the district; the old fruit market in the "flats" stood until urban renewal in 1967, and the market now trades in Benton Township
    County seat
    no; the county seat of Berrien County is St. Joseph, across the river

    Worth a visit

    • Morton House Museum

      501 Territorial Road, Benton Harbor

      The house Eleazar and Henry Morton built in 1849, the oldest building in Benton Harbor, now a museum of the city's settlement, trade and people. State historical marker.

      Directions

    • Fidelity Building

      162 Pipestone St., Benton Harbor

      A downtown business building. National Register, 2002.

      Directions

    • Blossomland Bridge

      M-63 over the St. Joseph River

      The bascule bridge carrying M-63 between Benton Harbor and St. Joseph. National Register, 1999.

      Directions

    Through the year

    Eat and stay

    More places to eat and stay in the valley ›

    Where the records are

    Berrien County's older vital records are kept by the County Records Department at 2100 E. Empire Ave., Benton Township: births and deaths from 1867, marriages from 1831. The Morton House Museum, 501 Territorial Road, calls itself the home of Benton Harbor history. The Palladium, in its many forms, runs from 1868 to the present; long runs are digitized on Newspapers.com and NewspaperArchive (subscription). The History Center at Courthouse Square, 313 N. Cass St., Berrien Springs, keeps a research library for the whole county. Ellis's History of Berrien and Van Buren Counties (1880) covers the village under Benton Township.

    Sources

    Dates and names are from the county histories and official sources listed here. Where they disagree, we say so. Know better? Send a correction.

    The valley map Museums Find a grave or an obituary

    More towns: Mishawaka · Elkhart · Goshen · St. Joseph · Buchanan · Berrien Springs · Shipshewana