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Tuesdays with General Friend Palmer: The court crier Isaac Day

July 27, 2010 in History | 1 comment

I wish I could draw, JUST so I could draw this guy:

[He] was an eccentric individual, tall and thin, and an old-timer, inasmuch as he clung to knee breeches, ample coat skirts and waistcoat. He wore his hair long, brushed straight back from his head and tied in a queue.

Isaac Day held a number of jobs in early Detroit, including Master of the House of Corrections (strikes me as a pretty fancy name for an old stone blockhouse in a frontier town. Oh, and it doubled as the public weigh house, with Isaac Day its weighmaster), chimney sweep and auctioneer. But his final job was as the Crier for the Wayne County Court. He carried a big silver-headed cane and his primary job seems to have been yelling at people to be quiet. Contemporary accounts allude to his love of whiskey.

He died in 1835, which saddened the court so much that several members of the bar wrote pun-bedecked elegies to his memory. This one is my favorite, by Judge Charles Cleland:

Step light! The light of Day’s expired.
Silent is he who silence oft required.
That stentor’s voice and that majestic staff
That raised the bearer and suppressed the laugh
Are heard by Day no more — nor yet by night;
Yet when the evening came, Day still was bright.
But Day today no more shall utter speech,
Since Day’s in darkness far beyond our reach.
Alas! Our Day has gone! No ray of light
Bespeak the Day — no morning radiance bright
Shall ever restore to this dark court, its Day.
Darkly they are left to feel this crooked way
Since, as we are told, in Day’s report,
Day hath no more Day in court.
None cry for Day, who oft have cried
To please the court, when men were tried.
Yet now that Day’s eclipsed, we say,
Peace to his names! Poor Isaac Day.

The other poems are heavier on the he-was-such-a-drunk jokes, which just seem mean-spirited.

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Russell Street Cemetery

July 16, 2010 in History | No comments

If you’re headed to Eastern Market this Saturday, here’s some trivia for you to consider while you’re shopping for delicious local produce: the Market, one of the oldest in the country, was formerly the site the Russell Street Cemetery, one of two city-owned cemeteries of the mid-19th century.

Situated on land that the city bought from some farmers, Russell Street Cemetery welcomed its first permanent tenant in 1834. The city was growing — and cholera was killing people in droves — and a smaller municipal cemetery, Clinton Park at Gratiot and Clinton Street, was getting cramped.

Within 30 years, though, Russell Street had become a little too cozy as well, and it was falling into disrepair.

Wrote General Henry Morrow to the City Council in 1861 (from Burton):

It is little short of disgraceful to Detroit that its cemetery should have been allowed to fall into the ruinous and dilapidated state in which we find it at present. It was once the place of interment for the whole city and in it are deposited the remains of many worthy and respectable people. When the city sold lots in the cemetery, it was with the implied pledge that the grounds should be and remain sacred for cemetery purposes. This pledge has been entirely overlooked or disregarded. Not only has the ground been neglected and the fences allowed to go to ruin, but a portion of the land has been appropriated for other purposes. The city has the power, without doubt, to prohibit further interments in the city cemetery, and it would be its duty to do this if the public health or convenience required such a step. But it is still used for the almost sacred purposes of burial, and yet all care of it is neglected.

The City Sexton, Peter Cleisen, appealed to the Common Council in 1857:

Gentlemen,

I respectfully represent to your honorable body, that certain persons are in habit of coming to the city cemetery and digging up bodies for the purpose of removal. Whether they have proper authority so to do I do not know.

The cemetery is under my charge and it seems to me proper that bodies should not be dug up except under my direction.

In 1869, burials stopped at Russell Street. Things were really a mess, and what’s more, the land was starting to look too good to waste on the dead. People were already selling hay and wood at market nearby, and Gratiot Avenue was the perfect conduit between the city and the country.

In 1879, a Circuit Court ordered the cemetery vacated.  From 1880 to 1882, more than 4500 remains were disinterred and relocated to Elmwood, Woodmere and a cemetery in Grosse Pointe.

And guess who stopped by during the excavation?

General Friend Palmer.

Rambling about the city a few days ago, I found myself in the City cemetery on Russell Street (corner of Gratiot Avenue) and it occurred to me that as the order had gone forth for the removal of the bodies still remaining buried there, I might idle away an hour or so scanning the few remaining tombstones, and that perhaps I might remember something in relation to them that would be of interest to the living.

… Many of our old residents will remember Captain Burtis. His grave is so near Russell Street that the passerby could read his name on the tombstone; doubtless many have done so, when it stood erect, and perhaps have wondered who this person was that once owned the high sounding title of Captain. Quite recently, some miserable vandal broke the stone in twain. The captain had the gift of forcible language to a remarkable degree, and I can imagine him standing beside his own grave, in the flesh, giving vent to his feelings against the perpetrators of the useless act in some of his choicest English. He died in 1836 at the age of 45, so the stone records, and though comparatively young, he had lived long enough to accomplish some few things to help along the growth of this great city and state.

No wonder the General and I get along so well.

Captain John Burtis established the first ferry from Detroit to Windsor (powered by horse) and built Michigan’s first steamboat — the Argo.

James Witherell, Supreme Judge of the Michigan Territory was also buried at Russell Street. Witherell used to own the land that became Palmer Park and Woods; he deeded it to his grandson, Thomas Witherell Palmer, who was General Friend Palmer’s cousin. James Witherell is now rests at Elmwood.

The General’s father, also named Friend Palmer, was buried  at the old Clinton Street Cemetery. I have no idea where he was removed to, but the story of the Clinton Street Cemetery is pretty amazing, too. So you can look forward to more graveyard arcana, if that’s your kind of thing.

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The Fourth of July in Early Detroit: FIREBALLS!

July 1, 2010 in History | 1 comment

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.

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Michigan Military Figures: THE ANSWERS EDITION

June 2, 2010 in Uncategorized | No comments

After days! of suspense! Here are the answers to our special Memorial Day Michigan military figures trivia game. We might do this again sometime. We might not. It was a little silly, but we had fun.

#1

The one & only … General Mad Anthony Wayne.

#2

Colonel Jean-Francois Hamtramck. When Mad Anthony was struck with gout and returned to Pennsylvania (where he died), Hamtramck raised the flag over Fort Lernoult on July 11, 1796. He remained in Detroit until his death in 1803. He’s buried at Mt. Elliott.

#3

Alpheus Starkey Williams, a Union General in the Civil War and the subject of a huge, striking equestrian statue on Belle Isle. Williams served as a Democratic U.S. Congressman from Michigan from 1875 until his death in the U.S. Capitol building in 1878. He’s buried at Elmwood. Curious? There’s tons more to know and love about Alpheus Starkey Williams here.

#4

General George Custer.

“We all know Custer died at Little Big Horn. What this book supposes is … maybe he didn’t?”

#5

General (and Governor of the Michigan Territory) William Hull. Hull’s infamy was a result of his flabbergasting surrender of Detroit to the British during the War of 1812. Even the British were surprised. Wrote President Madison’s comptroller Richard Rush: “The nation has been deceived by a gasconading booby.” Hull was tried by court martial and sentenced to death for his blunder. Madison pardoned him. His successor, Territorial Governor Lewis Cass, likely wanted to see him shot.

#6

General Montgomery C. Meigs was Quartermaster General of the U.S. Army during the Civil War. An early assignment for Meigs? He supervised plans and construction for Detroit’s Fort Wayne. Meigs’s later, more famous projects include the Washington Aqueduct and Arlington National Cemetery.

#7

Sarah Emma Edmonds was a Canadian teenage runaway who, disguised as a man, joined the 2nd Michigan Volunteer Infantry. She served as a nurse, a mail carrier and, most alluringly, an intelligence officer across enemy lines. Learn more about her amazing story here.

#8

Ulysses S. Grant was a Lieutenant at Fort Wayne from 1849 – 1851. He lived in a house near Livernois and Fort. Today, Grant’s house is on the State Fairgrounds. More at detroit1701.org.

#9

Defamed General Justus McKinstry, son of Michigan’s amusement king Colonel David McKinstry.

#10

Russell A. Alger, whose former home in Gross Pointe is now the Grosse Pointe War Memorial and whose commemorative fountain in Grand Circus Park was designed by Daniel Chester French. Alger enlisted as a private solider in the Union Army and left the war a brevetted Major General. Later he became Governor of Michigan.

#11

It’s GENERAL FRIEND PALMER! While I was preparing for this post, I learned that the General was the Quartermaster General of Michigan during the Civil War.

#12

General Alexander Macomb, whose family once owned a sizable chunk of land on Belle Isle. After heroism during the War of 1812, Macomb  served as the commanding general of the U.S. Army from 1828 to 1841. His statue is on Washington Boulevard, across the street from the Book Cadillac hotel.

That’s it! Hope you learned something. I did!

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General Friend Palmer and The First State Election in Detroit

May 12, 2010 in Uncategorized | No comments

Have you visited dia.org since they revamped their website? I wouldn’t normally ask, but browsing their collection is a lot easier and more fun to explore. You can zoom around artworks with little magnifiying glass tool! I like it. You should check it out, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Here’s what brings this up:

A while ago I wrote about my (so far fruitless) search for a Thomas Mickell Burnham painting of the burning steamboat Great Western. Burnham, you might remember, is responsible for this painting of the Michigan’s first state election, held in Detroit in 1837. It’s on exhibit in the DIA’s American Art galleries, and as a document of city history, it’s pretty fantastic.

You might also have read a short post I wrote about Michigan Gardens, the wild and wide-eyed entertainment complex created by Colonel David McKinstry, with its bathhouse, menagerie, museum of curiosities and visiting circus.

So I just learned that General Friend Palmer (you know I love him) was a Gardens patron:

The museum … contained many rare and curious objects, among which were three Egyptian mummies, a fine collection of wax figures, also a variety of beautiful and rare specimens of birds, beasts, minerals, shells, etc; with many interesting curiosities in nature and art. There were many splendid cosmoramic views, and in the evening phantasmagora and phantascopal illusions were exhibited. The museum was quite popular and a source of considerable revenue to the colonel.

Dramatic exhibitions of a light vaudeville character were given in the fourth story, and laughing gas was also administered to those who desired it. This giving of laughing gas was somewhat dangerous to the operator and to spectators as well. A partition extending from the floor to ceiling hemmed in the partaker of the gas from outsiders. Many funny incidents occurred connected with this pastime. While under its influence, the partaker usually acted out his peculiarities or proclivities, laughing boisterously, dancing, boxing with an imaginary foe, declaiming, etc. It was quite a feature and always attracted a large crowd.

Well, of course it did.

Of Colonel McKinstry, Palmer writes:

[He] was indeed a man of  many parts, enterprising, public spirited and somewhat of a Bohemian. He was tall and heavily built, rather abrupt in manner and speech, yet of a warm, genial disposition which made him quite popular. He was fond of parade and show, was either a major or colonel in the militia —anyway, everyone used to call him colonel.

… His success in most every venture led someone to call him “Silver Heels,” a name that stuck to him through life. A fair representation of the colonel is given in the picture painted by Thomas Burnham entitled “Election Day at the Old City Hall,” when Stevens T. Mason ran for governor against C. C. Trowbridge.

I love when separate delights intersect like this.

Ready to meet Col. David McKinstry? Here he is:

BEAVER HAT! CANE! OPEN SHIRT COLLAR! I’m smitten.

I guess the General witnessed this first state Election Day first-hand; he would have been seventeen.  He shares the words of another writer on the occasion of Michigan’s first gubernatorial contest:

The season had been wet and Woodward and Jefferson Avenues were about half a leg deep in mud porridge. Yet a grand Democratic procession was organized to pass through it. Mr. Stilson was the grand marshal. He rode a horse which was completely covered with a cloth of gold, and he himself was decorated with all the glories of a Grand Legion of Honor. And the way he rode at the head of the column was like Mars on the Captoline Jupiter. A small schooner, fully rigged and manned, and mounted on wheels, and drawn by six or eight horses, was an important feature in the line. And there Democracy marched to the music of the Union.

Here’s Mr. James Stilson, a prominent auctioneer (and according to the General, dog breeder, and megalomaniac), leading the procession:

IF ONLY MICHIGAN GUBERNATORIAL ELECTIONS WERE STILL THIS EXCITING!

Many millions of thanks to the DIA for obligingly sending me the key to all of the people and buildings in this painting, although head-smackingly, if I had read an extra couple of chapters ahead in Palmer’s book, I would have found all of the information right there. It happens.

Speaking of Stevens T. Mason, how’s the Capitol Park project progressing? Anyone know? Are Mr. Mason’s bones reinterred yet? I want to spend some time with the Stripling.

(JUST A BRIEF NOTE: Last I visited the DIA about a month ago, the painting was installed to give some context to representations of African Americans in early American art. In the lower left quadrant of the painting, Burnham has depicted a young black boy, looking awfully brutish, selling votes to panhandlers.

At first I felt like this was really reductive, and maybe I still kind of do. To be fair to Mr. Burnham, he did not seem to have much of a gift for faces. Check out this loser:

I mean, what is even going on here?

It would be naive of me to say that this painting doesn’t shed some light on the way artists — and the general public, by extension — viewed black Americans in the early 19th century. But it’s this really tiny element of a really ridiculous painting with so much other interesting stuff happening, and it makes me sad to think of people walking away from this stunning scene of a Detroit that we so rarely read about and thinking,  ”Wow, Americans were so ignorant once.”  And iiiiinterestingly, some of Thomas Mickell Burnham’s other paintings are at least a little bit known for being rare good examples of the African American in early American art, like this piece,  and in this exhibition.

I know art museums aren’t history museums, and art historically, this is an important topic to cover in your early American art collection. This painting just doesn’t seem like the best example. Am I wrong? Do I just love this painting too much to see its ugly side?)

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More on James Scott, “Detroit’s Boss Romancer.”

April 21, 2010 in History | No comments

So. I have become a little single-minded about Jim Scott, whose magnificent fountain on Belle Isle was cause for tremendous contention when it was built.

On an excursion to the Burton last week, I dug up a charming profile of “Detroit’s Boss Romancer” from the March 14, 1885 edition of the Detroit Tribune. Like many newspaper stories of the day, it doesn’t seem to have much of a point besides to give the reader some amusing information about somebody they may or may not know, but Scott’s joke about the dead man in the saloon made me laugh out loud at the microfiche machine, causing alarm amongst the librarians. Maybe you’ve heard it?

One of [Scott's] stories is about a two men who sat up with the body of a dead man who had died near a saloon. Every few minutes during the night the watchers had adjourned to the gin mill for something to drink. At last their money gave out and they were refused credit. They then carried the late respected into the bar and stood him up against it.

“Our friend wants drinks here,” said one of the men. Three drinks were handed out. Two were drank, and when the barkeeper wasn’t looking, the drink for the unconscious man was swallowed by one of the friends. Then the watchers went out and pepped through a window awaiting results. Pretty soon the bartender asked the remaining man for pay for the drinks. as he received no answer, he asked again, and then again. Suddenly he grabbed a bung-starter and struck the quiet man to the floor.

“Ah ha!” shouted the watchers rushing in and picked up their dead friend. “You’ve killed him.”

“Well, supposin’ I did? He drawed a knife on me first.”

More amusing facts from the Trib story that made me smile include his fondness for a particular style of neckwear:

… He never wants to wear any other necktie but a white bow. He probably does this because he has a sort of solid, professional look, and likes to appear like a member of the bar.

As well as his great love for bagpipes:

Jim is passionately fond of music on an Irish bagpipe and says the only time he feels romantic is when he can sit down in a small room and have some fellow with a pair of lungs like an emigrant’s valise play “The Devil’s Dream” on the bagpipes.

The article, however, is quick to temper Scott’s cleverness with a brief coda that he may, in fact, be insufferable:

He never tells the same story twice, and does not depend on traveling men for his stock of stories, but invents them himself. He tells lots of funny things in different dialects … There is one friend of Jim’s, however, who insists that he dishes up old chestnuts, and when this friend sees the joker coming, he runs and hides in the hay-mow.

One person who was NOT running for the hay-mow, who in fact confirmed Scott’s skill at funny voices was — YOU GUESSED IT! — General Friend Palmer, who wrote of his good friend Jim in Early Days that “on the order of dialect story telling … he is unapproachable.”

I don’t think a statue of this guy was such a bad idea. In fact, I really love it. There. I said it.

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Tuesday with General Friend Palmer: The Lost Dauphin

April 19, 2010 in Books, History | No comments

ROYALTY SAW DETROIT.

Prince de Joinville and Suite Spent a Day Here, While Dauphin-Hunting.

WHAT.

Along in the latter while thirties and early forties, I was clerk in the book store of Sidney L. Rood in the Cooper Block of Jefferson Avenue, this city. I recall in incident that happened, in which the Prince de Joinville and his suite figured.

As usual, General Friend Palmer has either no gift or no great concern for dates. Luckily, other people kept better records than he did. In 1841, François-Ferdinand-Philippe-Louis-Marie d’Orléans, prince de Joinville, stopped through Detroit on his Great Lakes tour, part of a broader visit to the United States.

In Detroit, they visited with Lewis Cass, who sent them off with a historian who could answer (in French) their questions about Detroit under French rule, since they were curious. They also stopped by Sidney L. Rood where, according to Friend, they “remained quite a time looking over the French books in stock that I submitted for their inspection, and they purchased quite liberally.”

The real excitement in this story is that the Prince de Joinville was en route to Green Bay (travelling on the steamer Columbia) to meet the Reverend Eleazer Williams, who either claimed to be, or was suspected to be, the Lost Dauphin of France.

The legend of the Lost Dauphin — which guessed that Louis-Charles, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette’s little boy, who allegedly died in prison, had actually been smuggled to safety, and could return to take the throne  — was evidently a pretty saucy topic, even abroad, during the Restoration.

Eleazer Williams was one of dozens and dozens of men who claimed to be the Lost Dauphin, but without knowing any of the other stories, I’ll go right ahead and say his might have been one of the most interesting. Born sometime in the late 1800s, probably to at least one Mohawk parent, Williams made his name as an Episcopalian minister, missionary and self-styled leader of the New York Indian tribes. Under pressure from the government to relocate, and possibly imaging some sort of grand Indian empire, which he could rule, in the west, Williams moved to Green Bay as part of a land settlement.

The Prince de Joinville would later say that his only interest in meeting Eleazer Williams was in the Reverend’s capacity as an Indian leader, but Williams insisted that it was the Prince’s primary mission in travelling to America in the first place, and that the Prince had news to deliver. From My Scrapbook of the French Revolution (1898), here is Williams’ “own account” (who knows if that’s true) of what transpired:

The prince not only started with evident and involuntary surprise when he saw me, but there was great agitation in his face and manner, a slight paleness and a quivering in the lip which I could not help remarking at the time, but which struck me more forcibly afterwards in connection with the whole train of circumstances, and by contrast with his usual self-possessed manner. He then shook me earnestly and respectfully by the hand and drew me immediately into conversation.
… The prince spoke to this effect: “You have been accustomed, sir, to consider yourself a native of this country, but you are not. You are of foreign descent. You were born in Europe, sir, and however incredible it may at first seem to you, I have to tell you: you are the son of a king.”

Williams would say that the Prince had offered him a vast estate if he would renounce his claim to the throne, but he decided to stick to his honorable and modest guns and refuse the offer, which angered the Prince. The Prince, once again, completely denied this story, and of course it’s easy to see who’s more likely to be right in this situation. The story blew over in a few years, but for some time Williams was a minor sensation. He enlisted “historians” to defend his royal cred in the press and even anonymously authored an article of his own repeating the evidence that he was “the Bourbon among us.”

And what was Friend Palmer’s take on Green Bay’s own Lost Dauphin?

It appears that Louis Phillipe had heard that a man named Reverend Eleazer Williams … claimed that he was the son of Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette, and consequently the dauphin and entitled to the throne of France.

… When [the Princes] saw and spoke to him, however, they became convinced he was either a wilful imposter, or a person deceived by foolish stories.

Williams was well-known in Detroit. When the first St. Paul’s church on the east side of Woodward Avenue, between Larned and Congress Streets, was consecrated on August 24, 1837, he read the consecration service.

So now you know. Also, fun fact: there used to be a “Lost Dauphin State Park” in Wisconsin, near Eleazer Williams’ home there. It’s closed now.

More on the Reverend Eleazer Williams here and here.

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Tuesdays with General Friend Palmer: Goose Yokes

March 29, 2010 in Books, History | No comments

(This occasional series on passages dug up in Early Days in Detroit used to run on Fridays. Then I changed my mind.)

I am a little in love with this story tonight. General Friend Palmer begins a chapter dedicated to the early business men of Detroit with the story of Peter John Desnoyers, born in Paris in 1772 and enticed to the United States by a swindler:

Just previous to the French Revolution, a company had been formed in America known as the Sciota Land Co., which opened an agency Paris and offered large inducements to mechanics and artisans of moderate means to invest in its lands. It was represented that they were eligibly located on a large stream called La Belle River, abounding with fish of an enormous size, embracing magnificent forests filled with wild game, that there were no military enrollments and no quarters to find for soldiers.

… After a voyage of 60 days reached Havre de Grace, Md., and thence proceeded to Gallipolis, Ohio, which was said to be within the company’s domains. They arrived there in 1790. Upon reaching this spot they found that the title deeds which they held were worthless, the company of whom they purchased not owning a foot of the land they had sold.

Wow. So, the Desnoyers get all the way here, having sold most of their worldly possessions, without speaking much if any English, without knowing a soul. And they’re completely stranded. Peter J. Desnoyers is 18 years old.

The Desnoyers spent some time with a small community of other French settlers in Ohio, then moved to Pittsburgh, where Peter J. makes the fortunate acquaintance of Michael Dousman. Dousman had heard good things about Michigan and convinced Peter J. to join him en route to the territory, along the same trail covered by Mad Anthony Wayne’s army. (Michael Dousman would later get rich as a fur trader on Makinac Island; during the War of 1812, he was captured by the British, and when he continued to sell goods to their garrison upon his release, he was branded a traitor. More here.) Michael Dousman and Peter J. Desnoyers arrived in Detroit in 1796, when they were both 24.

detroit 1796

(A map of the city in the year Peter Desnoyer came here. Source.)

After some time as an enlisted armorer, Desnoyers — a silversmith by trade — opened a shop with John Piquette in 1803. Two years later, the entire city burned down. According to an article in this Pioneer Society report, Peter Desnoyers hauled all of furniture out to the city limits, near the corner of Jefferson and Woodward, then plunked his five-year-old son Peter under a table to keep an eye on the goods. When that story was reported in the Free Press in 1876, the table was still in good condition and in the younger Peter’s possession.

In the land auction that happened after the fire, Peter bought a lot at the corner of Jefferson and Bates street and re-opened his shop. And what a shop it must’ve been, according to the General:

Mr. Desnoyers was about the first merchant here (that I remember) to keep marbles, the delight of the average boy’s heart in the early days, and I presume they possess the same charm for those of the present day. All the boys attending the old University School on the corner of Bates and Congress Streets nearby used to patronize him extensively. I myself squandered many a penny for marbles at the old gentleman’s store.

Aside from marbles, Mr. Desnoyers kept in his store as great a variety of articles as possible. It was a common remark when a citizen was in quest of an article that was difficult to be obtained elsewhere, that it could be found at Desnoyers’s, which generally turned out to be true. This became so proverbial that on one occasion, a gentleman made a wager with another that he could name an article that Desnoyers could not furnish. It was agreed. They entered the store, and one of them very seriously inquired of the salesman of versatile resources if he had any goose yokes. “Oui, monsieur” was the prompt reply, and he proceeded to a drawer and produced the article asked for. The merriment of the party was beyond reasonable bounds, Mr. Desnoyers entering as heartily into it as his customers.

(ASIDE: In my efforts to find out what a goose yoke is, I have come across this same story about the outrageous wager that a general store would carry goose yokes, one from James Hike’s general store in 1850s Illinois, the other from the Historic Howell Works Company and General Store at the Allaire Village in New Jersey. This must have been some sort of proverbial legend, like an elaborate way to say “everything and the kitchen sink.” Only it’s everything and … goose yokes. And for the record, this is what a goose yoke is.)

The General remembers Mr. Desnoyers as a man of “great perseverance and industry and strict integrity” who nonetheless was not afraid of a really good joke. In 1877, someone whose memory we must take with a grain of salt wrote this of Peter J. Desnoyers, 31 years after his death:

Monsieur Pierre Desnoyers, that fine looking, smiling, sweet-voiced old gentleman whose bon jour! bon jour! would arrest you as the voice of a lute, whose rosy cheeks, fine mouth, pure teeth, and large blue eyes, with that drooping lid, present the portrait of a fine old Frenchman …

The elder Peter J. Desnoyers, who came to Detroit after he lost everything, then lost everything again in the fire, spawned a whole dynasty of high-society Desnoyers with their “elegant, old-fashioned furniture and costly wines” admired by the pleasant company they kept (including the Palmers, by the General’s recollection). In 1835, Peter J. Desnoyers’ daughter Elizabeth married James A. Van Dyke, who served as mayor of Detroit in 1847. Together they bred a whole bunch of Desnoyers Van Dykes.

And it all started with a land scam. So there you have it; now go out, take some chances and make those lemons into ade.

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Thomas W. Palmer, and his Park

March 10, 2010 in History | 4 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.’”

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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.

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