sentences:  Prior to European settlement, the Thornapple drainage basin had mixed hardwood/conifer forest and barrens.and was home to the Ottawa and Potawatomi Native Americans.who called it the Tomba-Signe (or "river with the forked stream")
  
  During the early settlement of Michigan, Rix Robinson, the first permanent settler of Kent County, established a fur trading post in conjunction with John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company, at the mouth of the Thornapple in 1821 to trade with the Potawottomi and conduct other business.