It was 1841 when George E. Pless’ grandfather, Henry Andrew (Frederich Heinrich Andreas) Pless purchased 240 semi improved (somewhat cleared) acres on the Grand River Indian Trail, west of Brighton in Genoa Township.  (Section 11, SW NW ¼, north of Hughes Rd.; sec. 12, E ½ SW ¼, Euler Rd.; Sect. 13, W ½ NW ¼, straddles the Grand River Trail; Sec. 14, NE SE ¼, Bauer Rd. [Hubert Rd]).

Groups of settlers united as they headed west to Michigan from New York in the 1830s; many of them long time friends.  (Not unlike the wagon trains which ‘went West’ a few years later.) Arriving in Brighton Township they found no living quarters, merely a wilderness.  Some land was level, some wet, much rolling, almost all heavily forested.  A log house, built by William Valentine, who had returned to New York, became shelter for 12, soon for 22 persons for three weeks until the men built houses for their families.  Among these was William Tunis who, in August 1836, took up 280 acres in Section 17.  Much of this is now part of a subdivision, Pine Creek (NW of School Lake) with lovely homes in the hills.