From Michigan Place Names
On March 16, 1848, Dr. Wilber Fisher obtained a rural post office named, at his suggestion, Smyrna. The first settler on the present village site was Calvin Smith in 1853; On Sept. 14, 1853, George W. Dickinson platted and recorded the village as Mount Vernon, after the Virginia estate Of George Washington; the village was also known as Mount Vernon Mills, but its post office has remained Smyrna. The county was named after an ancient Greek province and Smyrna Was a Grecian city, though now Turkish and called Izmir (Blanche Seeley; Branch; PO Archives)
From Michigan County Atlas
N.G. Chase opened the first store in the township here in 1814. About 1849, G.D. Dickinson a sawmill at the mouth of Seely Creek (the site of several subsequent mills). By 1850 the village included a blacksmith, shoemaker, doctor, a tavern, and a tin shop, which eventually became a successful general store. The doctor and first postmaster (1848), Dr. Wilbur Fisher, suggested the name Smyrna, for an ancient Greek province. Mr. Dickinson platted the village in 1853, named MT. VERNON, after the Virginia estate of President George Washington. In the 1880s the population was 300, including a hotel, four mills, a foundry, three blacksmith shops, two churches. and a wagon shop.