Meridian Township began as a collection of small pioneer communities. Pine Lake was the largest body of water in Ingham County, and Native tribes camped along its shores and cut a trail along the west side of the lake. White pioneers appeared in 1836 and began to turn the thick forests into viable farmland. In the late 19th century, James Haslett helped establish a community focused on the practices of spiritualism. The new Haslett Park community hosted a summer camp for believers, and the little Pine Lake community was renamed Haslett and the lake to Lake Lansing. The village of Okemos began as a settlement along the Red Cedar River, the major waterway south of Lake Lansing. The area was the seasonal campsite for Chief Okemos and his Chippewa and Ottawa followers. The community was originally named Sanford after the first white settler, renamed Hamilton after Andrew Hamilton, and finally to Okemos in honor of the old chief who died in the 1850s.