Titus Bronson (November 27, 1788 – January 6, 1853) is regarded as the

eccentric Eccentricity or eccentric may refer to: * Eccentricity (behavior), odd behavior on the part of a person, as opposed to being "normal" Mathematics, science and technology Mathematics * Off-center, in geometry * Eccentricity (graph theory) of a v ...

founder of the city of

Kalamazoo, Michigan Kalamazoo ( ) is a city in the southwest region of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is the county seat of Kalamazoo County. At the 2010 census, Kalamazoo had a population of 74,262. Kalamazoo is the major city of the Kalamazoo-Portage Metropolit ...

. In 1829, Titus Bronson, originally from

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

, was the first settler to build a cabin within the present city limits. He

plat In the United States, a plat ( or ) (plan) is a cadastral map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. United States General Land Office surveyors drafted township plats of Public Lands Surveys to show the distance and bear ...

ted the town in 1831 and named it the village of Bronson (not to be confused with the much smaller

Bronson, Michigan Bronson is a city located in west central Branch County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 2,349 at the 2010 census. Bronson is situated on U.S. Highway 12 about southwest of Coldwater. The ZIP code is 49028 and the FIPS plac ...

about 50 miles (80 km) to the south-southeast). Bronson was frequently described as "eccentric" and argumentative and was later run out of town. The village of Bronson was renamed Kalamazoo in 1836 (due in part to an incident resulting in Bronson's being fined for stealing a cherry tree). Today, a hospital and a park, among other things, are named after Titus Bronson. After leaving Kalamazoo, Bronson found his way to

Davenport, Iowa Davenport is a city in and the county seat of Scott County, Iowa, United States. Located along the Mississippi River on the eastern border of the state, it is the largest of the Quad Cities, a metropolitan area with a population of 384,324 and a ...

, where, in 1842, he lost most of his money in a land swindle. His wife also died in that same year. Bronson lived in Illinois for a short while, and then returned to Connecticut where he died a broken man. His headstone reads: "A Western Pioneer, Returned to Sleep with his Fathers."

Sources

* * 1788 births 1853 deaths People from Connecticut People from Davenport, Iowa People from Kalamazoo, Michigan American city founders {{US-explorer-stub