The Lowell Area Historical Museum is offering a weekly feature to explore local history. The ABCs of Lowell History continues with a look at John S. Hooker, one of Lowell’s early settlers. To learn more about Lowell history, visit the museum website to explore its collection of local artifacts and records.

John Samuel Hooker was born on August 29, 1830 in Plymouth, Michigan. When he was 6 his family moved to Saranac. They moved to Lowell when he was 16.

At that time, Lowell consisted of a few log cabins on the east side of the river and two log cabins on the west side, one the Lewis Robinson family lived in, the other one was a school. A foot bridge made of boards about 12 inches wide crossed the river. Daniel Marsac’s trading post was south of the Grand River. The Odawa village had moved north of the Grand River to the eastern shore of Flat River where today Oakwood Cemetery is.

John helped his father, Cyprian Hooker, build the first frame house in Lowell (one lot east of today’s Flat River Grill). They moved in on Christmas Day, 1846. The next year they built a flour mill across the street from their house. John rafted the lumber for the mill down the Flat River with the help of his Odawa friends. This was called the Forest Mill and was later owned by King Milling Co. The Hookers also built the first dam and first bridge.

John grew up among the Odawa near Saranac and learned their language and customs. He was called “Cap-Squa-itt” by the Odawa, a name given to him because of his sharp voice. In 1848, he became a clerk and interpreter at the first store in Lowell, owned by Alfred A. Dwight. His first sale was a pound of raisins. John Hooker soon took over the operation of Daniel Marsac’s trading post and operated it until the Odawa left for the reservation in Oceana County in 1857.

Hooker came to know each man, woman and child in the land of the Odawa. He kept a record of their births and deaths in his book, the first and only directory of the time. As Indian agent for the US Government, he would make a trip through the Odawa villages, to check the number of babies that had arrived since his last trading trip. Then he sent his up-to-date list to Washington. The allotment of treaty money given for lands north of the Grand River was based on his report. The Odawa went to Grand Rapids once a year to get their payment of eight dollars per head for young and old.

John S. Hooker married Harriet Fidelia White on September 11, 1853. They had one son, Roy. Harriet died in 1874. Two years later, John married Angeline T. Osborn. She served as the esteemed “Grandmother of Lowell’s Centennial Celebration” in 1931.

They lived at Tek-e-nik, meaning Home in the Woods, overlooking the Flat River at 318 Riverside Drive. He planted his yard and garden as a paradise of flowers and shrubs. In later years, John Hooker would invite all of his Odawa friends to his place and have a big picnic on his front lawn and furnish all the food. He lived there for 62 years. John Samuel Hooker died June 19, 1918.