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...
Read more →The Napoleon of Detroit auctioneers, a schooner on wheels, laughing gas at Michigan Gardens and the lost pomp of gubernatorial election season.
Read more →In which he tells a corpse joke that made me laugh out loud in the library, and admits a penchant for bagpipes and white bowties.
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 →“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. … was fairly patronized by the...
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...
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