DETROIT.
Detroit and Her Avenues of Approach.--Competing Lines.--London
in Canada.--The Strait and the Ferry.--Music on the Waters.--The
Home of the Algonquins.--Teusha-grondie.--Wa-we-aw-to-nong.--
Fort Ponchartrain and the Early French Settlers.--The Red
Cross of St. George.--Conspiracy of Pontiac.--Battle of Bloody
Run.--The Long Siege.--Detroit's First American Flag.--Old
Landmarks.--The Pontiac Tree.--Devastation by Fire.--Site of
the Modern City.--New City Hall.--Public Library.--Mexican
Antiquities.
Four lines of railway leading westward from Niagara, place Buffalo and
Detroit _en rapport_ with each other, through their connecting steel
rails, and compete for the patronage of the traveler. In addition to
this, there are not less than two lines by water, thus affording the
tourist--if he develops a desire to tempt the waves of Old Erie--ample
scope for his choice. The Lake Shore route takes one through a
continuous succession of ever-changing landscapes on the southern shore
of Lake Erie, and skirts the two great States of Ohio and Pennsylvania
before reaching Michigan. It is, perhaps, the preferable route by rail,
looking at it from a purely A|sthetic standpoint. The Great Western Road
crosses, at Suspension Bridge, the famous chasm cut by Niagara, in its
recession from Ontario, and gives a faint conception, as seen in the
distance, of the glorious Falls themselves. The roar and rush of
water--at the rate of twenty-five million tons per minute--is borne
down the deeply-cut channel, and clouds of spray are visible from the
car windows. Below the bridge the swift drifts and eddies can be seen
foaming on their way to the whirlpool, a mile and a half further down.
This route also takes the traveler through London, Canada, a quaint old
English town of twenty thousand inhabitants, on the Thames River. The
place is brimming over with localities the names of which, carried in
the affections of her settlers across the ocean, serve as reminders of
the old London left forever behind them on Britannia's Isle.
Blackfriar's Bridge and Westminster Bridge both cross the new Thames,
and Kensington and Covent Garden market belong also to the transplanted
nomenclature. On Saturdays the great square in the heart of the town is
filled with marketers and hucksters of all descriptions, and every kind
of merchandise, from a feather bed to a table knife, is there bought and
sold. Squaws and Indians and quaintly dressed women commingle with the
crowd and sell their various wares. The scene is very picturesque, and
wears an atmosphere of being a hundred years old.
The Grand Trunk Road--the most northerly of the three routes leading
through Canada--has nothing except its easy-going time to recommend it
to favor. The traveler on this road stands a fair chance of missing his
connecting links in the great railway chain which interthreads the
continent east and west, or of being delayed for hours at a time by
running off the rails. The Canada Southern is a newly completed road,
and is said to be the most direct and shortest of all the competing
lines. This route follows the windings of the northern shore of Lake
Erie, just opposite from the Lake Shore Road on the southern side, and
the shifting landscapes are perhaps quite as full of natural beauty.
Detroit, the fair "City of the Strait," spreads itself along the river
front for miles, and the approach from Windsor, on the opposite shore,
is suggestive of the pictured lagoons of Venice, Queen of the Adriatic.
The Detroit River, or strait, is one of the most beautiful water avenues
west of the Hudson. It is from half a mile to a mile wide, is always of
a clear green color, and is never troubled by sand bars or anything
which might affect its navigation. It has an average depth of
twenty-five feet at the wharves and perhaps forty or fifty feet in the
centre of the river bed. No floods disturb its calm flow or change the
pervading green of its waters. It is, with reason, the pride of the
city, and the ferry boats of the several lines plying between Detroit
and Windsor are of the most attractive type. In summer a corps of
musicians are engaged for the regular trips, and are considered as
indispensable to the boat's outfit as the captain or pilot. Their syren
strains entice the lounger at the wharf, and he may ride all day, if he
chooses, for the sum of ten cents. Whole families spend the day on the
river, in this way, taking their dinner in baskets, as they would go to
a picnic. The people of Detroit, perhaps, inherit the pleasure-loving
characteristics of their French ancestors, or at least they do not seem
to have their minds exclusively concentrated on the struggle after the
almighty dollar.
Detroit, as the principal mart of the Peninsular State--the nucleus
which gradually crystallized into the heart of Michigan--has an early
history of thrilling interest; the site of the present populous city of
a hundred and twenty thousand souls was long ago, in the shadowy years
of its Indian lore, the home of a dusky tribe of the Algonquin family--a
race which was once as populous and widespread as the waves of the
ocean.
In 1610 the first white man who set foot on these wild and unexplored
shores found it occupied by the clustered wigwams of a peaceful Indian
village named _Teushagrondie_.
"Beside that broad but gentle tide
* * * * *
Whose waters creep along the shore
Ere long to swell Niagara's roar,
Here, quiet, stood an Indian village;
Unknown its origin or date;
Algonquin huts and rustic tillage,
Where stands the City of the Strait.
* * * * *
From dark antiquity it came,
In myths and dreamy ages cast."
Another of its ancient names was "Wa-we-aw-to-nong," meaning _round by_,
in allusion to its circuitous way of approach.
"No savage home, however rare,
If told in legend or in song,
Could with that charming spot compare,
The lovely Wa-we-aw-to-nong."
In 1679, the _Griffin_, under La Salle--the first vessel that ever
sailed these inland seas--anchored off the group of islands at the
entrance to Detroit River. Peaceful Indian tribes were scattered along
the banks, and the white man was received with friendly overtures.
In 1701, La Motte Cadillac founded Detroit. He erected a military fort
on the site of the future city, which he named after his French patron,
_Pontchartrain_. It was surrounded by a strong stockade of wooden
pickets, with bastions at each angle. A few log huts with thatched
roofs of straw and grass were built within the enclosure, and as the
number of settlers increased the stockade was enlarged, until it
included about a hundred houses closely crowded together. The streets
were very narrow, with the exception of a wide carriage road or
boulevard which encircled the town just within the palisades. The object
of the establishment of this military post was to aid in securing to the
French the large fur trade of the northwest, and it was also a point
from whence the early Jesuit fathers extended their missionary labors.
The little military colony was the centre of the settlement, and the
Canadian dwellings were scattered up and down the banks above and below
the fort for miles. The river almost washed the foot of the
stockade--Woodbridge street being at that time the margin of the
water--and three large Indian villages were within the limits of the
settlement. Below the fort were the lodges of the Pottawattomies, on the
eastern shore dwelt the Wyandots, and higher up Pontiac and the Ottawas
had pitched their wigwams.
Fort Pontchartrain remained in the possession of the French until 1760,
when, by the fall of Quebec, it fell into the hands of the British, and
was surrendered to Major Robert Rogers on the twelfth of September. The
Red Cross of St. George now supplanted the _Fleur-de-lis_ of France, and
the change to British rule was ill relished by the surrounding Indian
tribes, who had been the firm friends and allies of the French. The well
known Pontiac conspiracy grew out of this change of administration, and
a general massacre of the whites was determined upon. Pontiac, chief of
the Ottawas, was the leading spirit of the bloody plot, and so well
laid were his plans that ten out of the thirteen posts which were
simultaneously attacked fell before their savage onsets. The post at
Detroit, at that time under command of Major Gladwyn, was only saved
through the timely betrayal of Pontiac's plot, by Catherine, a beautiful
Ojibway girl, who dwelt in the village of the Pottawattomies, and who
had become much attached to Major Gladwyn, of the Fort. The day before
the intended massacre she brought him a pair of moccasins which she had
made for him, and then revealed the intended surprise of Pontiac. The
garrison and occupants of the fort were supported by two small vessels,
the Beaver and the Gladwyn, which lay anchored in the river.
On the morning of May sixth, 1763, a large flotilla of birch canoes,
filled with warriors lying flat on their faces, crossed the river above
the Port, landing just beyond the banks of Bloody Run, or Parent's
Creek, as it was then called. About ten o'clock, sixty chiefs, with
Pontiac at their head, marched to the Port and demanded admittance. It
was granted, but all preparation was made on the part of Gladwyn to
repel the first sign of treachery. Every soldier was armed to the teeth,
and the eagle eye of Gladwyn watched every movement of Pontiac, as that
brave made a speech of mock friendship. When the savages discovered the
failure of their plans, their disappointed rage knew no bounds, and
after passing out of the gates of the Fort, their mad thirst for blood
was only glutted by massacres of isolated families, and the tomahawk and
scalping knife sealed the doom of many an unhappy victim who that day
crossed the path of Pontiac's warriors.
From this hour Detroit was in a state of siege, and for eleven long
months the siege continued. Bravely the little band at the Fort held out
until reinforcements arrived--Captain Dalzell, with a force of three
hundred regulars, coming to their aid. A few days afterwards--at two
o'clock on the morning of July thirty-first--an attack was made on the
Indians, who were stationed along the banks of Parent's Creek, about a
mile and a half from the Fort. The troops neared the narrow, wooden
bridge which spanned the creek, when suddenly, in the gloom of night,
the Indian war-whoop burst on their ears, and a blaze of leaden death
followed. Captain Dalzell rushed to the front across the bridge, leading
his men forward, but their foes were not to be seen.
Bewildered in the gloom, the English troops were obliged to fall back to
the fort and wait for daylight before renewing the attack. Hundreds of
Indians lay in ambuscade along the river, whither the soldiers were
obliged to pass on their way to the Fort, and the creek ran red with
their blood. The waters of the little stream, after this crimson
baptism, were re-christened with the name of Bloody Run. The survivors
entered the Fort next morning with a loss of seventy killed and forty
wounded.
During the war of the Revolution, Detroit was subjected to greater
annoyance from Indian tribes than before, but this was the only way in
which the war affected it. Through the treaty of Greenville, made by
General Wayne with the red men, in August, 1795, Detroit and all the
region of the northwest became the property of the United States, and in
1796 Captain Porter, from General Wayne's army, took possession of the
post, and flung to the breeze the first American banner that ever
floated over the soil of the Peninsular State.
"Pontiac's Grate" was the eastern entrance to the town, and occupies the
site of the old United States Court House. In 1763, a rude chapel stood
on the north side of St. Ann street--nearly in the middle of the present
Jefferson avenue--while opposite was a large military garden, in the
centre of which stood a block house, where all the councils with the
Indians were held. These were the only public buildings in the town.
The "Pontiac Tree," behind which many a soldier took shelter on the
night of the bloody battle at Parent's Creek, and whose bark is fabled
to have been thickly pierced with bullets, stood as an old landmark for
years, on the site of the ancient field of conflict, and many a stirring
legend is told of it.
On June eleventh, 1805--just five months after Michigan was organized as
a territory--Detroit was laid in ruins by a wholesale conflagration,
which left only two houses unharmed. An act of Congress was passed for
her relief, and thus, through baptisms of fire and blood, and through
tribulation, has she arisen to her present proud estate. The stranger
landing on these shores now is struck with the handsome general
appearance of the city--its clean, wide streets, varying in width from
fifty to two hundred feet--its elegant business blocks and pervading air
of enterprise. The ground on which the city stands rises gradually from
the river to an elevation of thirty or forty feet, thus affording both a
commanding prospect and excellent drainage. Detroit is an authorized
port of entry, and is about seven miles distant from Lake St. Clair and
eighteen miles from Lake Erie. Ship and boat building has been an
extensive branch of business here, and in 1859 there were nine steam saw
mills located in the city, sawing forty million feet of lumber annually.
There are also works for smelting copper ore two miles below the city,
or rather within that suburban portion of the city known as Hamtramck.
Among the first objects of interest which attract the stranger's
attention are the new City Hall and the Soldiers' Monument. The City
Hall, fronting on one side of the square known as the Campus Martius, is
a structure of which any city in the land might be proud. It is built of
Cleveland sandstone, and faces on four streets,--being two hundred feet
long on Woodward avenue and Griswold street, with a width of ninety feet
on Fort street and Michigan avenue.
It is built in the style of the Italian renaissance, with Mansard roof
and a tower rising from the centre of the building, adorned at its four
corners with colossal figures fourteen feet high, representing
"_Justice_," "_Industry_," "_Arts_," and "_Commerce_." Its height from
the ground to the top of the tower is a hundred and eighty feet, and the
three ample stories above the basement furnish accommodation to the city
and county offices, in addition to the Circuit and Recorder's Courts.
The walls are frescoed, the floors laid in mosaics of colored marbles,
and the Council Chamber and other public rooms are furnished with black
walnut chairs and desks, and paneled in oak. With these exceptions,
there is no woodwork about the immense building. Everything, from
basement to dome, is brick and iron and stone. Even the floors are built
in delicate arches of brick and iron, and iron staircases follow the
windings of the tower to its dizzy top. It is reckoned fireproof. The
exterior is curiously carved, and two large fountains adorn the
inclosing grounds. The estimated cost of the building is about six
hundred thousand dollars.
From the airy outlook of the City Hall Tower, Detroit appears like a
vast wheel, many of whose streets diverge like spokes from this common
centre, reaching outward until they touch, or seem to touch, the wooded
rim of the distant horizon. The hub of this immense wheel is the
triangular open space called the Campus Martius, and the Soldiers'
Monument, occupying the centre of the Campus Martius, is also the centre
of this imaginary hub. Michigan avenue--one of the long arms of the
wheel--loses itself in the western distance, and is called the Chicago
road. Woodward avenue leads into the interior, toward Pontiac, and
Gratiot avenue goes in the direction of Port Huron. Fort street, in yet
another direction, guides the eye to Fort Wayne and the steeples of
Sandwich, four miles away. Toward the southern or river side of the
city, the resemblance to the wheel is nearly lost, and one sees nothing
but compact squares of blocks, cut by streets crossing each other at
right angles and running parallel and perpendicular to the river.
Between the Campus Martius and Grand Circus Park there are half a dozen
or more short streets, which form a group by themselves, and break in
somewhat on the symmetry of the larger wheel, without destroying it.
This point gives the best view of Detroit to be obtained anywhere about
the city.
The Soldiers' Monument is a handsome granite structure, fifty-five feet
in height, the material of which was quarried from the granite beds of
Westerly, Rhode Island, and modeled into shape under the superintending
genius of Randolph Rogers, of Rome, Italy. It is surmounted by a massive
allegorical statue, in bronze, of Michigan, and figures of the soldier
and sailor, in the same material, adorn the four projections of the
monument; while bronze eagles with spread wings are perched on smaller
pedestals in the intermediate spaces. Large medallions, also in bronze,
with the busts of Grant, Lincoln, Sherman and Farragut, in low relief,
cover the four sides of the main shaft, and higher up the following
inscription is imprinted against the white background of granite:--
"ERECTED BY THE PEOPLE OF MICHIGAN
IN HONOR OF THE MARTYRS WHO FELL
AND THE HEROES WHO FOUGHT
IN DEFENCE OF LIBERTY AND UNION."
The bronzes and ornaments were imported from the celebrated foundry at
Munich, Bavaria, and the cost of the monument--donated exclusively by
private subscription--amounted to fifty-eight thousand dollars. The
unveiling of the statue took place April ninth, 1872.
Another feature of the city is the Public Library, founded in March,
1865, and at present occupying the old Capitol, until the new and
elegant Library building now in process of construction is completed.
[Illustration: WOODWARD AVENUE, DETROIT, MICHIGAN.]
Beginning entirely without funds, ten years ago, it can now exhibit a
muster roll of twenty-five thousand volumes, and is fairly started on
the high road to fortune. There is a kind of poetic justice in the fact
that its principal source of revenue accrues from county fines and
penalties. Here is a knotty question for the divinity doctors, for in
this case, at least, good is born of evil. The library is under the
control of the Board of Education, and was given an existence from the
State constitution. Some very rare volumes of Mexican antiquities have
recently been purchased from England by the School Board and added to
the library, at a cost of four hundred dollars. They contain a pictorial
and hieroglyphic history of the Aztec races occupying Mexico when Cortes
came over from a foreign shore with his Spanish galleons. The earliest
date goes back to 1324, and the strange figures in the centre of the
page are surrounded by devices indicating cycles of thirteen years, four
of which made a great cycle, or a period of fifty-two years. The deeds
of the Aztec king, _Tenuch_, and his successors, are here recorded, and
through the efforts of an English nobleman who devoted his life to these
researches, we have the translation rendered for us.
The city has a scientific association, two years old, and also a
Historical Society, in which her citizens manifest considerable pride.
Detroit has been called, with reason, one of the most beautiful cities
of the West. Transformed from the ancient _Teushagrondie_ into the
present populous "City of the Strait," she sits like a happy princess,
serene, on the banks of her broad river, guarding the gates of St.
Clair. Backed by a State whose resources are second to none in the
Union, emerging from an early history of bloody struggle and battle,
rising like the fabled Phoenix, from the ashes of an apparent ruin,
contributing her best blood and treasure to the war for liberty and
union, she may well be proud of her past record, her present progress,
her advancement toward a high civilization and her assured position.