Why are we called "Wolverines"? You've heard the stories about the Toledo War and greedy land-grabbing settlers. Here's one more idea, from an old tavern in Dearborn.
Read more →''Blake ... stood in mortal fear of death and from the cholera in particular. He went to Milwaukee to escape the latter, but unfortunately he did not.''
Read more →A voice from the past corrects the historical record.
Read more →Silas Farmer and General Friend Palmer on early French weddings and the shadow of mortality in marriage.
Read more →Festive Christmas traditions from early Detroit, as related by General Friend Palmer. Pony races, mince pies and all-night noise-making.
Read more →Some danger to hands and some to property.
Read more →Some Princes on a Dauphin-hunt visit Detroit in 1841, and buy some French books.
Read more →The remarkable story of a French immigrant, swindled into coming to America, finding himself in Detroit, starting a general store, and selling some legendary goose yokes. Also marbles.
Read more →A rustic log cabin, a massive Italianate marble fountain and an 18th-century bell from Spain at Senator Thomas W. Palmer's park.
Read more →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...
Read more →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...
Read more →UPDATE: Silas Farmer’s death certificate is in the Michigan state archives. He died suddenly on December 28, 1902, apparently of a heart attack. He was living in present-day midtown, at 52 Selden, and is buried in Elmwood Cemetery. Next stop, as my mom sassily pointed out to me on Twitter (MOMS ON TWITTER!!), is...
Read more →