History

The City of New Buffalo, Michigan is one of the "Gateway" communities for the state of Michigan.  It was incorporated in 1837, but it was back in the fall of 1834 when Captain Wessel Whittaker decided to be the first to settle the area after a storm ran his ship the Post Boy aground.  

The Captain and his crew survived the shipwreck and walked to the frontier town of Michigan City.  The following day he hired transportation to Saint Joseph, Michigan to report the ship's loss to its underwriters.  

On his way to Saint Joseph he crossed and obviously fell in love with an area that was "a natural harbor surrounded by dunes and tall trees where a river flowed from the surrounding woodlands into Lake Michigan".  

After reporting the loss of his ship to the underwriters the following day he then traveled to Kalamazoo via stagecoach and studied maps and legal descriptions of the Galien River.  

He returned to his home of Buffalo, New York convinced that he must return to this natural harbor where the Galien River flowed into Lake Potawatomi and then into Lake Michigan.  

He and the others that followed were convinced that they must return to New Buffalo, Michigan.  History illustrated Captain Whittaker is not the first visitor to be captivated by Lake Michigan and the surrounding environment of New Buffalo.