early detroit

You are currently browsing articles tagged early detroit.

Dogs in early Detroit

October 28, 2011 in History | 5 comments

In early Detroit, owning a dog cost you a 50-cent tax. Per dog. Why? Because there were so many damn dogs. Wrote Silas Farmer:

There can be no doubt that dog tax was then necessary, for in 1805, with only five hundred and twenty-five heads of families, there were two hundred and nineteen dogs in the town of Detroit. …

Dogs were deemed essential as a protection against the Indians in the past time, and some families evidently believed in “protection.” During the War of 1812, after the arrival of Harrison’s troops, a Frenchman came to the officer of the day, and complained, ”The soldiers last night killed most all of my dogs.” — ”How many did they kill?” — ”Nine.” — ”How many have you left?” — ”Only eight.”

In other dog-related lore of early Detroit, did you know settlers used to travel the territory by dog-train? So did the mail! How ELSE would you deliver the mail in the wintertime?

(Source)

Friend Palmer, a reliably disjointed prose stylist, describes these ”dog-trains” in a passage I had to read three times, because it immediately follows tales of Lewis Cass’s Detroit River party barge of canoes. And I thought that Lewis Cass had a canoe JUST FOR HIS DOGS TO RIDE IN. Oh well:

… The ”Dog-Train” … (was) a most important feature. The dog train was made of a light frame of wood, and covered round with a dressed deer skin. The part in which the feet went was lined with furs, and was covered in like the fore part of a shoe. The bottom was a plank, about half an inch thick, some six inches longer than the train, and an inch or two wider. In this train a lady was very comfortable and could take a child in her arms while her husband or friend, standing on the part of the bottom that projected behind, gave the word to the well-trained dogs, who, it was said, were capable of trotting with such a load forty miles in a day.

In other news, I adopted a dog.

She’s from Toledo, but let’s not hold that against her, OK? It should have been part of Michigan, anyway.

I wish I knew more about dogs in the old days. For as much as I have read about French-Canadian ponies in the past nine months, I have found only passing mentions of dogs. In the early 1700s, a dog belonging to the military commandant bit some people in the leg. The fire department had a Newfoundland named “Old Joe” at some point. Silas Farmer included a drawing of him, taken from what as evidently a bad painting (As an aside Silas wrote: “The painter alone is responsible for the perspective.”)

Were any notable figures from Detroit history noted dog-owners? Did Detroit dogs perform any heroic deeds or provide noble services?

I guess that is for me to find out.

Tags: , , , ,

New Year’s Resolution, 2011: Learn to dance the “Money-musk”

January 12, 2011 in General Friend Palmer, History | 1 comment

From General Friend Palmer’s account of lively French winter-time dance parties. Puts a little kick in your Thursday walkabout, I hope.

Have any of you that read these lines ever been to a French dance given in a French farm house, not in a tavern? If you have, then you know all about it.

The large kitchen and living room, with its polished floor, quaint old-fashioned furniture, the tall clock in the corner, the huge cast-iron plate stove of two stories, brought in from Montreal in the early days, in which a scorching heat could be engendered in short order. “Music in the corner posted,” which consisted of two violins. And then the gathered company, eager to begin, which they did always early in the afternoon, and kept it up until the small hours in the morning.

… Money-musk, Virginia reel, Hunt-the-grey-fox, French four, the pillow dance and occasionally a cotillion. It did not seem to me as though the feet of the dancers would ever grow weary moving to the inspiring music of “French four,” given on a violin, and as a Frenchman alone could give it.

The General makes note that “refreshments” served in the “primitive style” were ample, then recounts the singular pleasure of walking your best girl home through the snow.

GOOD TIMES.

Tags: , ,

The Fourth of July in Early Detroit: FIREBALLS!

July 1, 2010 in History | 2 comments

It’s a very special Fourth of July with Friend Palmer for you to kick off your holiday. The General writes about John Owen, a clerk at a general store, and Owen’s friend Captain Edwards, and their hilaaaarious Independence Day antics:

The then city marshal Adna Merritt [was] a nervous, excitable little body who used to get himself all tangled up trying to stop these two from starting and throwing fire balls, balls of cotton wicking soaked in turpentine and re-enforced with twine. It was quite common then on Fourth of July nights and on other nights as well, during the summer season, for the boys to ignite and throw these balls up and down Jefferson Avenue. Merritt tried to put a stop to it but Owen and Captain Edwards were dead against his doing so and supplied all the fire balls necessary from Dr. Chapin’s store. Did you ever see fire balls thrown or did you ever throw them yourself? ‘Tis great fun, and attended with some danger to the hands, and some to property, although I never knew of any harm to come from them. After a short season both Owen and Edwards joined the Methodist church, having gotten religion. No more fire balls from that quarter after that.

On that note, have a safe and happy holiday.

Tags: , , , ,

One constant succession of amusements

May 17, 2010 in Best of THE NIGHT TRAIN, History | 2 comments

Life in the Michigan Territory was tough. It was muddy all the time, the natives could be hostile (and who can blame them), the British were right across the river threatening to swoop in on your little frontier town, and everyone was a big drunk mess.

It’s little wonder that William Woodbridge packed up for the Territory somewhat reluctantly when he was appointed Secretary of the Territory by President Madison. Woodbridge was a little bewildered: he hadn’t applied for any jobs in the Territory, and apparently he had no idea that anyone else had applied on his behalf. But he was still pretty close friends with his former schoolmate Lewis Cass, who advised him to just take the damn job, and besides, the bracing Detroit winters would be good for his health.  So he put two and two together, figured that Cass had recommended him, and took the damn job.

His wife Juliana Trumbull stayed behind at their home in Marietta, Ohio. (She was, by the way, the daughter of the poet John Trumbull, for whom Trumbull Avenue was named.) He wrote her this letter in 1815 describing life in Detroit. I couldn’t pick a passage I liked more than any other passage (except for the part about how much everyone likes to party, which I have bolded for your convenience), so here it is in full. From The Life of William Woodbridge, by Charles Lanman, 1867:

March 5, 1815
Detroit, Michigan Territory

Dear J. —

The town of Detroit is by no means so large as from my first letter to you from this place, you might have supposed.  The proper town does not include so many houses by any means as Marietta. I was led to an error on this subject by the circumstance that for two miles below, and at least as many above, there is one continued village, scarcely any place in that distance larger than from our house to our barn intervening between the farm houses. Imagine to yourself a single tier of farms fronting on the strait or river Detroit, having for front of from one and one half to three square acres, and extending back from thirty to eighty square acres, few of which farms are cleared for a distance greater than one mile back, the houses and buildings placed along the river bank in front of each farm, and you will have some idea of the manner our farms are laid out. They extend in this manner very many miles, from the mouth of Detroit river along lake St. Clair and up the river Sinclair. The houses are almost universally of one story — most of them have been standing from ten to eighty years — fashioned a little like the houses of the low Dutch about New York, Long Island, Bergen, in New Jersey, and I suppose Albany. The inhabitants being mostly Catholics, you see many traces of their religion, for instance many an old moss grown crucifix, which on their gate posts, barns or houses have withstood the storms of a century.

The British side of the river, except that you see more traces of modern improvement, greatly resembles this side. The wide river, the points, and the distant islands look beautifully. The natural beauty of this country will delight you. But of the society — what shall I tell you? One would think that the lives of this people consist in one constant succession of amusements —  dances, rides, dinners, card parties, and all the et cetera of dissipation follow in one long train, treading each on the heels of the other.

Tell Jane in answer to her inquiries that Mrs. May is a good religious French lady, that she talks to me always in French and I to her always in English, and yet that we get along without any sort of quarrelling. Mrs. Sibley and her little family are all well —  they live in a snug little one story house at the upper end of the town.

Affectionately yours,

W. Woodbridge

Lanman writes that, unlike his “robust” friend Lewis Cass, Woodbridge was “possessed of a somewhat frail constitution, was a great lover of the quiet of home, and never so happy as when busy among his books.”

Woodbridge was elected Governor of the State of Michigan in 1840, leading Whig fever across the state (William Henry Harrison became President later that year). He remained in office for only a year before he resigned to take a seat on the U.S. Senate in February, 1841 (two months before William Henry Harrison became the shortest-lived President in American history).

I’m writing about him as part of what may become some occasional attention paid (let’s not call it a series yet, hmm?) to Michigan governors I like. Seeing as we’ll have a new one of those by the end of the year. But I’ll leave that matter to Woodward’s Friend.

Next time you’re enjoying yourself at Woodbridge Pub, raise a glass to this guy, won’t you?

Seriously, how could you not love this face?

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,