Thomas W. Palmer, and his Park

A rustic log cabin, a massive Italianate marble fountain and an 18th-century bell from Spain at Senator Thomas W. Palmer’s park.

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It’s Pulaski Day

We’re taking a brief leave of absence, but not before paying brief tribute to a Polish-American hero.

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Fridays with General Friend Palmer: For cash or peltry

“Interesting facts gleaned from the columns of the Detroit Gazette of 1820-1822”
The old Detroit Gazette was an insignificant sheet both in size and appearance. The Democratic Free Press that followed it was a trifle larger, and a decided improvement, as regards typography, paper and contents.
… [The gazette] was fairly patronized by the merchants and others with advertisements.
I have a file of the paper from July 21, 1820 to June 28, 1822, from which I make some extracts … They will serve to show the difference in many things between then and now.
Their issue July 21, 1820, has this notice:
Quills, etc: – Just received at this office. Also Flutes, Fifes, Flute Preceptors, Fife do, Blank Music Books, Record Books, etc.
Paul Clapp has on hand, and will constantly keep for sale, at wholesale and retail, a large assortment of Hats. Beaver, Castor, Roram, Napt and Felt. Also – Ladies elegant Beaver Hats, with trimmings complete.
The whole will be sold very cheaf for CASH or PELTRY.

beaver hats

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Valentine’s Day

I tried to think about some of my favorite historical couples, but I ended up dwelling on love affairs closer to home.

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One golden eagle, one skull of a male raccoon, skin of one whooping crane

Despite a tremendous weekend that included Lightning Love and The Daredevil Christopher Wright in Ypsilanti, the Hounds Below at the Lager House, a live conjunto band and dancing at the Blue Diamond, a lot of Blatz, Modelo and PBR and a lot of reading,  all of which should have been plenty of fodder, I’ve been coming down with a little sniffle of writer’s block this week, professionally, bloggingly, and otherwise.

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Fridays with General Friend Palmer: “Convenience itself”

IN the earlier days the streets of Detroit in the absence pavements were very bad in the fall and spring seemed to predominate Cabs and public hacks were in a very lim ted number Peter Cooper colored Jackson a colored barber and George lierron an English barber were about the only persons owning and operating public conveyances and t heir services as may be supposed were taxed to the limit Men wore their heavy boots pants tucked inside and in the outskirts of the city a few boards and planks were laid down lengthwise so that people could manage with difficulty to get along In such a state of things the single two wheeled horsecart was very much in evidence and was a most important institution It was an invention of the old French habitants of the country They were used by all classes and were convenience itself A buffalo robe or blanket was spread on the bottom of the cart two or three ottomans or stools were put in in the absence of other covering for the bottom or floor of the cart hay or straw was used and the horse understanding his business as well as his master off he plodded ofttimes half leg deep in mud to church shopping or to make fashionable calls The carts were mighty enjoyable as I can testify having time and again been the driver on many many occasions sitting perched up in front and the ladies enjoying the bottom of the vehicle protected from the rough boards by soft buffalo robes or other means occasionally the lynch pin that apparently held the cart together would get out of place and the occupants be dumped in the mud!
When General Macomb visited Detroit Mrs Hester Scott took him around the city in one of these French horse carts borrowed for the purpose from Mr HD Harrison the Jefferson Avenue dry goods merchant and it was said that the general enjoyed it hugely Mrs Scott and her three daughters are no doubt well 646
These French carts were very enjoyable also in fine weather on short excursions with the girls into the surrounding woods particularly in October when they had put on their gay autumn attire and the hickory nuts and hazel nuts were plentiful How full of pleasure those trips were The distance to the woods was not great they came down to Elizabeth Street on the west side of Woodward Avenue and down to about Hancock Avenue on the east side and out on Grand River Avenue on the Jones farm not far from Perkins’s tavern and out on Michigan Avenue they came down to where is the hay market once Woodbridge grove and just in the rear of this grove was an immense field of hazelnut bushes which in the season were loaded down with nuts Out Woodward Avenue about where is Farnsworth Street were many acres of blackberry bushes loaded with their delicious fruit in the season And then the excursions in these carts down to that lovely driveway Lovers Lane in the vicinity of what is now Fort Wayne The lane came into the River road about where Winterhalter’s beer garden was and extended out quite a distance toward the Dix settlement My friend Ross in one of his articles in relation to early Detroit says of this lane and as the incident he relates to it is true I copy it

horse drawn cart

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Legends of Le Detroit

If you like flowery Victorian prose, phantasms, grieving widows, pining French girls, French in general, haunted inanimate objects, werewolves,  lyrical two-page long set-ups about a grandfather telling his kid a scary story, or — especially — Indian curses, you are going to love the shit out of this book.

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Fridays with General Friend Palmer: A most exciting fire

I have always approached weekly themed blog posts, especially those involving alliteration, with trepidation. But then I found Early Days in Detroit, the memoirs of historical Detroit old guy General Friend Palmer (1820 – 1906), and I can’t think of any better way to dig through its 1000+ pages, each of them host to at least one illuminating, endearing, hilarious or otherwise just great anecdote, than to share some of the General’s memories of 19th-century Detroit every week.

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Historic Elmwood Cemetery & Environs

Yet another tip off from History of Detroit for Young People, which included a stop in their self-guided tours at Mt. Elliott Cemetery to visit with the venerable Colonel Jean Francois Hamtramck. Colonel Hamtramck, who served as Lieutenant Colonel under Mad Anthony Wayne in the fight for the Northwest Territory, established and became the first commandant of Fort Wayne Detroit and officially settled the city of Detroit for America at Fort Lernoult on July 11, 1796 (instead of Mad Anthony, who was struck, fatally, with gout).

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