February 15, 2013
Belle Isle and The Park Question: 1871 – 1873 (Part I)
How, and why, Detroit spent three years arguing over the purchase of a park.
February 15, 2013
How, and why, Detroit spent three years arguing over the purchase of a park.
March 12, 2012
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.
January 20, 2012
”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.”
June 17, 2011
A voice from the past corrects the historical record.
February 2, 2011
Silas Farmer and General Friend Palmer on early French weddings and the shadow of mortality in marriage.
December 22, 2010
Festive Christmas traditions from early Detroit, as related by General Friend Palmer. Pony races, mince pies and all-night noise-making.
July 1, 2010
Some danger to hands and some to property.
April 19, 2010
Some Princes on a Dauphin-hunt visit Detroit in 1841, and buy some French books.
March 29, 2010
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.
March 10, 2010
A rustic log cabin, a massive Italianate marble fountain and an 18th-century bell from Spain at Senator Thomas W. Palmer’s park.
February 5, 2010
January 28, 2010
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.
January 20, 2010
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.