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1833–1837
On the Indigenous side, no founder is named for the townsite itself — and that negative is the finding.Chapman records one unnamed Indian trail through the township and Pottawatomie parties passing through it in the 1830s, and Howard's Liberty biographies remember Pottawatomie neighbours, sugar-making near a settler cabin, and "remnants" in the 1840s–1850s — but no Indigenous person is named in any of those town or township passages. The named leaders belong to the county and valley frame and stand at pointer size later in this section; they are not inflated into townsite founders.
On the settler side, the founding group as the two bedrock histories carry it: first settlements in 1833 near the townsite by John Kane, John and Jacob Earhart, and Isaac Townsend (Chapman p. 718, Howard agreeing). None of the four carries a headed biography in either history as opened. The 1836 arrivals: John Rupel (January 1836), then David Rupel, James Cole, Jacob Rupel, and Joseph Liggett — Chapman spells the last name Liggett; Howard's biography of the man spells it Leggett (conflict C53, printed whole in this section's conflicts article). The township was organised in May 1837 by Daniel and James Antrim, John and David Rupel, Samuel Loring, James Cole, Jacob Rupel, and Joseph Liggett; the first election was held the same spring at the house of James P. Antrim, who was elected Justice of the Peace at it. The town itself was laid out by Daniel and James P. Antrim and surveyed by T. W. Bray — or dedicated 12 January 1836 by Daniel Antrim alone: the plat conflict C1 stands whole and is not re-merged here. The first house in the town was James Downey's, in 1837; four more were built the same year, unnamed.