Compiled from records furnished by Mrs. Otto Helweg, Mrs. F. W. Brown and others.


Many years ago the beautiful valley now occupied by Watervliet was a vast unbroken forest which was filled with all kinds of game, both large and small, among which were large numbers of deer, bear, wolves, wildcats and wild turkeys. The Paw Paw River and lake contained an abundance of pickerel, black bass, sunfish and others. Upon the pretty green shores of the Paw Paw River were the picturesque wigwams of the Pottawatomies, who lived chiefly by hunting and fishing.


Any person who came to Watervliet prior to 1830 had to find his way through an unbroken wilderness by canoe, on foot, or on pony, following Indian trails, fording streams, crossing swamps, sleeping in the woods with wild beasts as companions and only the sky as a canopy. The Paw Paw River afforded a natural route into the territory.


The first white settlement was made in Watervliet township at a point between the present site of Watervliet and Coloma in 1832. Here a small party of men built shanties for themselves and started making shingles from the poplar and pine found thereabouts. The settlement grew as the industry grew and was given the name of “Shingle Diggins”. Men by the name of Gilson, Ballanger, Ormsby and Christy were among the first shingle makers. They made the shingles by hand and floated them on crude rafts down the river to St. Joseph where there was a good market for them.


In 1833 Sumner and Wheeler built a sawmill where the paper mill now stands. Upon completion, two Van Dusen brothers were hired to run it. These men lived in a shanty built of slabs. They were, undoubtedly, the first settlers in Watervliet.


The name Waterford was first chosen for the settlement because of its location by the Paw Paw River which furnished transportation and waterpower, but, because there was another Waterford, Michigan, the name was changed to Watervliet, a Dutch term for “flowing waters”. Boats plying the Paw Paw River carried as much as 30,000 feet of lumber. They were sometimes 60 feet in length with a 12-foot beam. A man named Sandy Burnside was said to have taken a raft 105 feet long down the river.


The Sumner-Wheeler mill operated about one year when a sudden rise of the river did such extensive damage that it was closed and remained idle until 1836 when it was purchased by Smith, Merrick and Co. of Jefferson County, New York. Isaac Moffat and thirty-three Frenchmen were hired to work the mill. They came by vessel owned by Smith, Merrick from Buffalo, New York to St. Joseph and on to the site of the mill by keelboat. They started at once to clear the land, build a dam across the river and to construct a new mill, part of which was used as a gristmill. They also built a lock 20 feet wide for passing keelboats up and down the river.


The first road to influence Watervliet was the Territorial Road, which was surveyed from Kalamazoo to Keeler in 1835. Later it was extended to St. Joseph. A stagecoach came through twice a week from Detroit through Paw Paw, Keeler, Bainbridge Center and on to St. Joseph. Mail for Watervliet was picked up at Bainbridge Center for some years.


In 1903 Smith and Son, who had run a creamery in Watervliet bought the ice cream factory from Carmody Brothers. They provided the community with ice cut on Paw Paw Lake in winter and stored in icehouses, as well as ice cream. Smith ice cream gained the reputation of being the finest made and large amounts were sent to Benton Harbor, St. Joseph, Holland, and other points in southern Michigan. At one time Smiths had an ice cream parlor where the NuWay store is now located.


Other industries in Watervliet at this time were Brown and Thompson Planing and SawMill and the F. E. Baughman Feed Mill.


Prior to 1905 kerosene street lights were used. They required the services of a man to fill them, trim the wicks and light them. These were replaced by gasoline lights. In 1905 Frank Sterner installed his own generator and was given the right to operate the first electric lights. These were 15 arc lights of 25 watts each. They were turned off at 11:00 p.m. every night except Saturday when they were left on until 12:00 p.m. In 1913 the franchise was sold to the Benton Harbor & St. Joe Electric Co. In 1928 the Indiana & Michigan Electric Co. purchased these rights.


Cement sidewalks replaced the boardwalks in 1922.


Mr. Smith was among the first pioneers in the resort business around Paw Paw Lake. He purchased all the land from the outlet bridge to Sherwood’s Bay. This was known as Smith’s Landing. Soon resorts and private cottages began to appear around the lake. Mr. Goldman, a jeweler, built a steamboat which he called “Echo” to run up the river to the lake. He brought the boiler, purchased at St. Joseph, up from there to Watervliet by rolling it along the railroad tracks, taking nearly three days to do so. Until the 1930’s a passenger boat, the Honeymoon, plied the river, making two trips from Paw Paw Lake to Watervliet City and return each day.


Resort specials, run by the railroad, brought many people from Chicago and other cities to Paw Paw Lake, where resorts, dance halls and boating and swimming were the main attractions. An electric line ran an interurban from Benton Harbor to Watervliet, carrying traffic between the two points and bringing in people who came from Chicago to St. Joseph by boat. This line also afforded a convenient means of transportation to and from the twin cities for shoppers and theater goers before the advent of the automobile.


In May of 1928 fourteen acres north of Paw Paw River and east of the Paper Company property were purchased by the City for a park and athletic field. The park was named Hays Park and the field Baldwin Field in honor of Charles B. Hays and Warner N. Baldwin, early financiers.


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