In the late 1700s, French fur traders traversed the Grand River Valley. Lucius Lyon, a Yankee Protestant, was contracted by the federal government to survey the Grand River Valley in the fall of 1830 and in the first quarter of 1831, the federal survey of the Northwest Territory reached the Grand River, setting the boundaries for Kent County, named after prominent New York jurist James Kent. Lyon would also survey "Township Nº VI West, Range Nº XII North", which would become Wyoming. The area that is now the city of Wyoming was the second location settled by European-Americans in Kent County. Robert Howlett, Luther Lincoln, Amos Gordon and Stephen Tucker were some of the first settlers in the fall of 1832. Gordon left Wayne County, Michigan to arrive at the mission in Grand Rapids to build the first mill at Indian Mill Creek, later leading a scouting group of Howlett, Lincoln and Tucker in birch canoes down the Grand River in the summer of 1832. The group found a Buck Creek emptying into the Grand, determining the creek was strong enough for a mill, with many of Wyoming's first settlers establishing themselves near the creek.
