[Larry Lucido]

Lewis Cass? He was the second governor of Michigan and Secretary of War under Andrew Jackson, and reportedly meaner than Martin Van Buren!

[Verginius Rufus]

Cass was later Secretary of State in the Buchanan Administration. (Buchanan's first Secretary of War was John B. Floyd, later a Confederate general, most famous perhaps for his role in the unsuccessful defense of Fort Donelson in 1862.)

Jackson County (which includes Independence) and Cass County were later strongly pro-Confederate so the decision to rename Van Buren County must have been because of his support for the "free soil" position (keeping slavery out of the territories where it was not already permitted).