The first house at what was then known as the Forks of the Kalamazoo was built near this site by Tenney Peabody, a New Yorker. To this cabin, with its thatched roof of grass from the banks of the nearby Kalamazoo River, Albion's first settler brought his wife and seven children on March 4, 1833. Using three yoke of oxen and two wagons, he brought his family from New York and helped form the company organized to build the town, which was named Albion after a town in New York.