How Paw Paw got its name

Paw Paw, Mich. Paw Paw takes its name from the Paw Paw River, and the river from the pawpaw, the small native tree with the big tropical-tasting fruit that grew, the county history says, thickly along its banks. So far, so simple. But the county history says the river was “named by the Indians,” and pawpaw is an English word; many people believe the village was first called Lafayette, though it was laid out as Paw Paw; and the first place in local government to be called Paw Paw was in Berrien County.

We went back to the county history of 1880, the federal place-names list of 1905, the state’s historical marker at the courthouse and the county map of 1860 to see what the record shows.

The case in brief

Story or record? Play along

Here are eight things people say about the name. For each, make your call: true, false, or no record either way. Then see what the paper shows.

The river and the tree

DocumentedThe 1880 county history says the township “was named from” the village in 1867, and the village “was itself called after the river, named by the Indians from the paw paw fruit, growing thickly upon its banks.” Henry Gannett’s federal Origin of Certain Place Names (1905) agrees, writing it as one word: Pawpaw, named for the “presence of pawpaw trees.”

ReadingThe tree is real enough. The pawpaw, Asimina triloba, grows wild in southwest Michigan, near the northern edge of its range. But “pawpaw” is an English word, most likely from the Spanish papaya, first used for the tropical fruit and applied to this tree by about 1760. So the river’s English name may translate a Native one; it cannot be one.

OpenThe history prints no Native-language name for the river, and we have found none in a published source. If the river had one, it is still to be found.

A village which they called Paw Paw

DocumentedPeter Gremps and Lyman J. Daniels bought the mill property at the forks of the river in 1833, the 1880 history says, and “laid out upon it a village which they called Paw Paw.” A settler named Rodney Hinckley had taken up a farm on the north side of the future village in 1832.

DocumentedThe same history’s sketch of Gremps, printed with his portrait, adds that he was born at Palatine, Montgomery County, New York, on 12 May 1801, and that “In company with Messrs. Willard and Daniels, he built the first grist-mill at Paw Paw, the same which is now standing.” It also says he lived on the family homestead in New York until 1835 before setting out for Michigan, which sits awkwardly with a purchase in 1833. The two parts of the book do not agree, and we have not yet settled which date is right.

Documented“Peter Gremps was the first postmaster of Paw Paw, his appointment dating from 1835.” The county’s supervisors met “at the village of Paw Paw on the 27th day of March, A.D. 1837,” and the seat of justice was located “in the village of Paw Paw.”

DocumentedThe state’s historical marker at the courthouse adds that in 1837 “a gubernatorial commission chose Lawrence as the seat, but the board of supervisors chose Paw Paw,” and that the county’s voters kept the seat in Paw Paw on 1 April 1901.

The township called Lafayette

DocumentedIn 1835 the Legislative Council formed the whole of Van Buren County into one township, called Lafayette. When the county was divided in 1837, “the present Paw Paw retained the old name of Lafayette.” Then: “The name of the township of Lafayette was changed to Paw Paw on the 15th of March, 1867.”

New findingThe session laws settle when the village was incorporated, and the answer is neither of the dates usually given. Act No. 112 of the session of 1859, “An act to incorporate the village of Paw Paw,” is printed in the Laws of Michigan for that year, at page 292. The charter did not last: Act No. 55 of 1863 was “An act to repeal act number one hundred and twelve, of the session laws of eighteen hundred and fifty-nine, being ‘an act to incorporate the village of Paw Paw.’” The village was incorporated again by Act No. 519 of 1867, approved 28 March, the charter that later acts amend. So 1867 is the second charter, not the first, and 1837 is the county seat’s year, not the village’s.

ReadingSo for thirty years the village of Paw Paw stood in the township of Lafayette, and the two names were easily confused, even at the time: an early court paper is returnable “at the court-house in Lafayette.” That is almost certainly where the belief that the village was first called Lafayette comes from.

OpenWhy Lafayette? The Marquis de Lafayette’s tour of America in 1824–25 made his name popular for new towns, but the history does not say, and we have found no record of the choice.

The other Paw Paw

DocumentedThe first Paw Paw in local government was not here. The 1880 history records that “the township of Paw Paw was erected March 7, 1831,” in Berrien County, on the lower river, on the ground of today’s Watervliet and Hagar townships. That was four years before the Van Buren County post office.

The name on paper

Play the names in order, from the river township of 1831 to the town today.

• 1831 Paw Paw township (Berrien County, now Watervliet and Hagar)
• 1833 Forks of the Paw Paw (a road act, as the 1880 history reports it)
• 1835 Paw Paw (the post office)
• 1835 Lafayette (the township, Van Buren County)
• 1837 village of Paw Paw (the county-seat papers)
• 22 years later
• 1859 village of Paw Paw incorporated (Act No. 112)
• 1867 Lafayette becomes Paw Paw (the township renamed)
• 1867 village of Paw Paw incorporated again
• 38 years later
• 1905 Pawpaw (Gannett, as one word)

To cite this page: Michael Urbanski, “How Paw Paw got its name,” Project Scroll, projectscroll.com/news/how-paw-paw-got-its-name/, first published 22 October 2026. Corrections are welcome, and any we make are noted on this page.