Ada, MI news and local guide

Ada, an unincorporated community in Ada Township about 3 miles east of Grand Rapids, was around 1800 a village of the Grand River Band of Ottawa led by Nebawnaygezhick. Rix Robinson, the first permanent white settler of Kent County, married Sebequay, "River Woman," Nebawnaygezhick's sister. In 1821 he bought a former French-Canadian trading post where the Thornapple River meets the Grand from Madeline La Framboise on behalf of John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company. Land north of the Grand River could not be bought by settlers until the Treaty of Washington of 1836, after which Robinson bought hundreds of acres around the mouth of the Thornapple so the Ottawa could remain there. Lucius Lyon first visited in 1826, bought large tracts and built a sawmill, and Lyon and Robinson are considered Ada's founders.

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Accounts of the township's organization differ. The township says Robinson was its first supervisor, while other sources say it was organized on April 2, 1838, with Sydney Smith as first supervisor and Robinson elected in 1841 and 1844. The village was named for Smith's daughter, Ada, described as the first non-Native child born there. A post office opened in 1837, the settlement gained a station on the Detroit and Milwaukee Railroad, and a plat was recorded in 1857. The Ada Covered Bridge over the Thornapple, built in 1867, is one of the few covered bridges still standing in Michigan. The township is the corporate home of Alticor and Amway. Sources Wikipedia: Ada Township, Michigan