general friend palmer

You are currently browsing articles tagged general friend palmer.

Thomas W. Palmer, and his Park

March 10, 2010 in History | No comments

“Built in 1885 as a Summer house or Cottage by Thomas W. Palmer (1830-1913), prominent Lumberman, United States Senator, Minister to Spain, and President of the 1893 Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition Commssion.
The land was purchased from the United States Government in 1833 by his Grandfather, Judge James Witherell.

In 1895 Palmer gave 120 acres of adjacent land to the City of Detroit as a park. Two years later the Log Cabin itself was added to the gift. In 1897 the area was officially designated

as Palmer Park.I do

Palmer Pakr Som

Something I hope you all realize about this blog is that I’m playing it by ear. As a former editor, I know better than to go without an editorial plan, but despite a few half-hearted attempts, I don’t have one. I have no formal scholarly training in history at all, let alone Detroit history. I can barely operate our digital camera.

On good days, I like to think that imparts a sense of adventure around here, and on especially self-inflated days, I think that the thrill of discovery is what my blog is really about. On dark days, I feel like a hack of the highest order, and in frustrated moments, I realize I’m a few steps too far behind some pretty obvious details.

Today, for instance, I made the connection between General Friend Palmer, whose memoirs we explore here on a semi-regular basis, and the more famous Detroit Palmer, Thomas W. Palmer, whose sprawling property at present-day 7 Mile and Woodward encompassed Palmer Woods, Palmer Park and the Detroit Golf Club.

They were cousins. OF COURSE. Thomas W. Palmer gave the eulogy at the General’s funeral, the text of which is printed in Early Days in Detroit. Yet I knew so little about Thomas W. until today.

thomas w palmer

He was born in 1830, in a brick house at Jefferson and Griswold. After a year at the University of Michigan, which he gave up because of a problem with his eyes, Palmer left to travel the world with some of his friends from school, paying his way by “the Daguerrean arts.”

Long story short, when he came back to Detroit he got into lumbering, farming and real estate, and then into politics, serving as a state Senator from 1879-1880 and in the US Senate from 1883-1889, where he became an advocate for women’s suffrage. After his term in the Senate, President Benjamin Harrison appointed him Minister to Spain.

His cousin the General shares this story about T.W.’s return to Europe after the traipses of his youth:

After forty one years had passed, Senator Palmer returned to Spain, to Cadiz. Not as a college graduate just released from his Alma Mater and on a voyage of pleasure or adventure, but as the accredited minister of this great republic to the court of Spain.

… One afternoon, in walking around the ramparts, we came across a somewhat dilapidated Spaniard who was seated on the outer wall fishing in the bay.

Senator Palmer accosted him in Spanish and said, “Well, my friend, I see you are fishing here yet after all these years,”

“Yes, Señor, but how many years?”

“Forty years,” responded the senator.

“Oh,” said the chap with the rod, “that was my father.” And they two had, by constant use all the years, at that point worn quite an indenture in the stone coping of the wall.

Thomas W. Palmer inherited the land that is now Palmer Park from his Grandfather, a Supreme Court Judge of the Michigan territory. In 1885, Palmer commissioned a rustic log cabin on the land to use as a summer home.

palmer park log cabin

In 1895, Palmer donated the land to the city of Detroit for use as a park, on the condition that none of the virgin forest be destroyed (it was sometimes claimed that there was a greater variety of indigenous trees and shrubs in Palmer Park than in Europe. Any arborists out there want to take that on?)

In 1897, he donated the cabin, too. The park was dedicated to him the following year.

palmer park log cabin plaque

On the lawn near the cabin is a massive bell, old-world and emerald with patina. Cast in Spain in 1793, then taken to Mexico, it was a gift to the Senator from some of his political friends:

palmer park bell from spain

At one point, Palmer’s cabin was home to other mementos of his service in Spain, including a plow and ox yoke from the convent La Rabida, whose prior convinced Queen Isabella to send Christopher Columbus on his expedition to the Americas. And General Friend writes adoringly of some of Lizzie Palmer’s “old-time” furniture, as well as some curious leather fire buckets he admired.

Palmer Park is also home to the Merrill Fountain, which was commissioned by Lizzie and unveiled at Campus Martius, in front of the old Detroit Opera House, in 1901. If you zoom in really close on this image of Woodward Avenue in 1917 (via Shorpy), you can see where it used to be:

merrill fountain

The turtle is beheaded, but I love the cattails and the bearded fish:

palmer park merrill fountain

palmer park merrill fountain 2

The fountain is no longer in working order. It was moved to Palmer Park in 1926.

For more on Thomas W. Palmer, I enjoyed skimming this biography, by Agnes M. Burton.

But for more, extraordinarily more, on Palmer Park, please check out this beautiful Souvenir, published by the Silas Farmer Company in 1908.

souvenir

“Asked what his motive was in donating Palmer Park to the people of Detroit,” writes the author, “His answer was: ‘The good of everybody.’”

Tags: , , , , , ,

Fridays with General Friend Palmer: For cash or peltry

February 18, 2010 in History | 1 comment

“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

The General, besides writing his own personal memoirs of  life in the city, collected historical records of his own, and dedicated an entire chapter in his book Early Days in Detroit to “Interesting facts gleaned from the columns of the Detroit Gazette of 1820-1822.” I’ll let him do the talking.

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.

The General then excerpts some of his favorite shipping notices, council meeting summaries, legal tedium, business articles and — his favorite and mine — advertisements:

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.

And there’s this one, from a store between Bates and Randolph streets, west of Jefferson:

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 [sic] for CASH or PELTRY.

In the early days of the suburbs, too,  readers wrote in to sing their praises and saw big things happening for these retreats just a week’s journey from New York:

A stranger contributing a long article to the Gazette, on the country around and adjacent to Detroit, among other things has this to say about the country around Pontiac:

“The little lakes I have mentioned (twenty-one of which I visited and from the best information I could obtain, there are upwards of sixty of them in all) abound with fish of various kinds, many of which I saw would weigh twelve pounds each; they are also in great abundance. The grey and black duck was frequently seen in large flocks on these unfrequented waters. These lakes are of various dimensions from one to four miles in circumference. Here may be found some of the most delightful retreats for gentlemen of taste and fortune and only a week’s journey from the city of New York. When the great Erie canal to Lake Erie is completed you need not be surprised at seeing gentlemen with their families coming to spend the summer months on their country seats near Pontiac.”

Ah yes. Summers in idyllic Pontiac! All thanks to the Erie Canal.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Fridays with General Friend Palmer: A most exciting fire

January 28, 2010 in Art, Books, Culture, History | 3 comments

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.

So, we’ll see if this sticks. But for this Friday, at least, welcome to Fridays with General Friend Palmer. If you hate this I’ll stop it, but I don’t think you’ll hate this.

This week: The General has a whole chapter on Detroit fires that he remembers, specifically fires that destroyed famous buildings. When a wool mill on Randolph street caught fire in the summer of 1832, Friend writes, it “lit up the whole county of Wayne and parts of Canada, apparently … Out where we lived, on Woodward at John R., the illumination was so great one could see to read by it.”

I was really taken with his account of the fire on the steamer Great Western, which went up in flames while it was docked in Detroit sometime around 1838 (his memory was bad when he wrote his book and he died before his editors could help him do rewrites):

One important fire, and so considered at the time … and that was the partial burning of the then finest and most magnificent steamer on the lakes, the Great Western, while lying at her dock, Gillett & Desnoyer’s, near foot of Shelby Street. It happened about 1838 on a summer Sunday afternoon, about 5 o’clock. I have forgotten the exact date. She had arrived that forenoon on her down trip from Chicago to Buffalo. I was present at the fire with engine company No. 4 (that far off time, it seems but yesterday). She was the pride of the lakes, and of her owner and commander, Captain Augustus Walker. She was the first steamer to have her cabins on the upper deck, passengers heretofore having had to dive down between decks if they had any idea of sleeping or eating, and most of them had.

The news that this steamer was ablaze spread like wildfire and hurried everyone to the scene; indeed, all Detroit was on hand. The engines hustling down Wayne and Shelby Streets came near running over the men and boys who had hold of the drag ropes, so wild was the excitement. No. 4 engine company came first in this encounter. It had its station on the dock between the warehouse and the burning steamer, and three of its members had the post of honor during the fire. William Green, the foreman who had the pipe, was assisted by Barney Campau and Kin Dygert. They held the fort, so to speak. They were stationed on the upper deck of the steamer abaft the wheelhouse.

The scene lives in an oil painting by Thomas Burnham, a well known local artist of that day. This painting is now the property of some citizen of this city who should, it seems to me, donate it to the Art Museum or to the present fire department. The upper cabins of the Great Western abaft the wheelhouses and the ladies cabin below were badly wrecked; otherwise the steamer did not sustain much damage. But it was a most exciting fire while it lasted as any one now living who was present at the time will I am sure bear witness.

Okay. I love a sleuth. Where’s this Thomas Burnham painting? Did “some citizen of the city” give it to the now-DIA as General Friend Palmer thought he or she should? Not sure, although an online collection search turns up another Thomas Mickell Burnham painting, First State Election in Detroit, Michigan, 1837 (timely, right?):

And the man was apparently known for his marine and maritime paintings as well, like this one, An English Cutter Gives Chase to a Smuggler, 1836:

So where’s the burning Great Western? Does it indeed belong to the fire department? Is it in some art historian’s special collection of boat paintings or a museum’s American Art gallery?

I’ll put out some feelers. I haven’t really looked yet, having just learned about this painting about a half-hour ago, so if it’s somewhere obvious, tell me now.

Tags: , , , , ,

WHO WAS SILAS FARMER?

January 20, 2010 in Books, Local History, metro Detroit | No comments

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 a real-life library.

**

I wish I knew! The man was apparently one of the most important Michigan historians in history (which seems like a strange thing to say) and wrote dozens of books including the seminal, oft-referenced 1884 tome History of Detroit and Michigan, 1890’s History of Detroit and Wayne County and Early Michigan, as well as lesser known classics like All About Cleveland; The Young Men’s Christian Associations Hymn Book; Guide to the Streets, Street Pavements, street car routes and house numbers of Detroit and The Drinker’s Dictionary (which I would really like to read).

All I know about Silas Farmer at this point is from a foreward to Silas Farmer’s book, Souvenir of The Pointe: Grosse Pointe on Lake Saint Claire, graciously reprinted from a 1974 edition of the book by the Grosse Pointe Historical Society:

Son of John Farmer, Detroit’s earliest map publisher, Silas Farmer began his career by following in his father’s footsteps.  While working on maps, he conceived the idea of writing the history of Detroit and was soon launched on a literary career.

john farmer_district surveyor

John Farmer: Map of the City of Detroit in the State of Michigan, 1835. Library of Congress.

John Farmer, born in New York in 1798, moved to Detroit in 1821 at the invitation of Governor Lewis Cass. He was an admired and eccentric character in the city, as General Friend Palmer recalls in his memoir Early Days in Detroit. Palmer remembers Farmer’s sawed-in-half schoolhouse — with a bell! — and his cartographic fire:  

I think John Farmer lived on the opposite corner of the same streets, in a frame dwelling on the rear of his lot, and I also think he carried on his map-engraving and printing in the same house. This building was once a part of the old wooden building that stood on the corner of Griswold and Larned, where is now the Campau block. When Griswold was widened, it was found that this building was in the way.

… The common council ordered it sawed in two, and John farmer bought the part that was in the street and moved it to his lot on Monroe.

Farmer was a wonderful man in his way, a most competent surveyor and a finished engraver, as the work on his maps show. Endowed with surprising energy, it always seemed to me that the steam engine within him, so to speak, must sooner or later wear him out, and it did. I knew him intimately and when I was in business sold thousands of dollars’ worth of his maps.

All Palmer writes about Silas is that he helped convince the city to rename part of Grand River East “Wilcox Street.”

Silas was born in June 1839; in 1882 he was chosen as City Historiographer of Detroit. And sometime around 1878, Silas Farmer wrote an Illustrated Guide and Souvenir of Detroit, one of a series of guides and souvenirs Farmer published under his own imprint at the end of the 19th century.

I found several endearing passages and illustrations from the 1878 edition, although there are a few updated versions available on the Internet Archive. The whole thing is basically a TOUR ITINERARY, which as you may know is my favorite thing, although on this occasion I feel no reason to actually take the tour, as I’m confident that mostly nothing of it exists anymore.

The guide begins:

The most comprehensive view of the City can be obtained by ascending the tower of the City Hall. Go as early as 9 a.m. Take a field glass with you, and from the window of the tower you will see sights and scenery that will well repay for the rather tiresome climbing of the 200 steps. The whole City, river and islands, and even Lake St. clair, will lie before you like a panorama. Each window of the tower will reveal beautis of its own.

The most comprehensive view of the City can be obtained by ascending the tower of the City Hall. Go as early as 9 a.m.

Take a field glass with you, and from the window of the tower you will see sights and scenery that will well repay for the rather tiresome climbing of the 200 steps. The whole City, river and islands, and even Lake St. clair, will lie before you like a panorama. Each window of the tower will reveal beauties of its own.

Here’s an illustration of the view from the City Hall tower — down Woodward, toward the river — in 1878:

silas farmer_woodward view

And Silas Farmer, as I do, recommends a wandering hour in Elmwood Cemetery:

silas farmer_elmwood cemetery

[From McDougall], A walk of some five blocks on Elmwood Avenue will bring you to Elmwood cemetery, where an hour or more can be spent very pleasantly among the many beautiful walks and drives and monuments.

Again taking Jeffereson Avenue to the eastward, within the distance of a block from Elmwood, you pass on the right the immense stove factory and warerooms of the Michigan Stove Company; and immediately afterwards, the Old Pontiac Tree, like some Rip Van winkle of the forest, stands before you.

Did you know that in the 1880s, Detroit was the stove-making capital of the world? Neither did I, but it seems that the fates of the Stove Company and the Pontiac Tree were intertwined, or at least of mutual interest.

As usual, half of what’s so interesting about these old pamphlets are the incredible advertisements:

silas farmer_shoe ad

silas farmer_turkish bath

Turkish baths? Why don’t we still have those?

And who was Silas Farmer? Where did he live?  Did he write a diary? Or letters? Where is Silas Farmer hiding?

Help me out, America!

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