James Taylor’s daughter, Mary Taylor, soon married Frank Henderson, a wealthy textile merchant whose fortune rose with the uniforms of the Henderson-Ames Company. Founded in the 1860s, the firm grew into one of the nation’s largest producers of regalia for fraternal orders, police, and the military. This pairs well with Mr. Henderson’s high ranks in secret societies and the Knights of Templar masonic order, which we will soon delve into. Henderson’s business instincts made him one of the wealthiest men in Kalamazoo by the 1890s.  

With his marriage to Mary Taylor (now Mary Henderson) he also inherited Taylor’s plot of property. He envisioned a naturalistic suburb with streets that follow the contours of the land.