48. Indian Peach Orchard

Location: Riverside Road, between 64th and Peach Creek Lane, Saugatuck Township
Date: 1885

The steamboat Alice Purdy docking at Mack’s Landing, a little upriver from Peach Orchard Point.

The Indian Peach Orchard site is believed to be the location of the first area peach orchard, planted by Indigenous people where Peach Orchard Creek flows into the Kalamazoo River. Other settlers claimed the peaches were planted by French fur traders because they were planted in straight rows. The site was the location of an American Fur Company trading post in the 1820s but it was also an early settlement of Shashaguay tribe of Ottawas. before they moved across the river the Indian Point.

“Prior to Mr. Butler’s settlement in Saugatuck, there was an old peach orchard in the vicinity of Douglas which must have been planted by the French or Indians long before the white settlement of Saugatuck. This so-called ” Peach Orchard” was situated between ‘Town’s Point and St. Pierre’s Point, about a mile and a half from Douglas. Old river boatmen recollect this peach orchard well.” from Notes on Saugatuck by Donald C. Henderson of Allegan, Allegan Journal, July 17, 1880, reprinted on page 303 of the Michigan State Historical Society Pioneer Collections Report of the Pioneer Society of the State of Michigan, Vol III, 1881.