| Michigan (Barry County), Hastings — Hastings Mutual Insurance Company |
| | On April 5, 1885, the Michigan Mutual Tornado, Cyclone, and Windstorm Insurance Company became the first mutual windstorm company incorporated by the state of Michigan. Starting in a one-room office above Grant's store, the company occupied and outgrew five sites in Hastings. Locally the firm was called the Windstorm Company, while out of town it was known as the Hastings Company. In 1920, its name was formally changed to the Michigan Mutual Windstorm Insurance Company. On January 15, 1959, the . . . — Map (db m33250) |
| Michigan (Bay County), Bay City — L1413 — "Ten Hours or No Sawdust" |
| | Side 1
When Bay City's sawmills opened in 1885, mill owners notified workers that wages would be 12 to 25 percent lower than in 1884. On July 6, 1885, Bay City millhands began to walk off the job. Their slogan, "Ten Hours or No Sawdust," represented their demand for a ten-hour workday, higher wages and semimonthly pay. On July 9, 1885, D.C. Blinn, editor of Bay City's Labor Vindicator and a member of the Knights of Labor, held a rally at Bay City's Madison Park. After the rally, . . . — Map (db m33693) |
| Michigan (Bay County), Bay City — L2122 — Center Avenue |
| | Center Avenue presents one of the most spectacular displays of late nineteenth and early twentieth century residential architecture in Michigan. Between 1870 and 1940 Bay City's prominent citizens favored Center Avenue as "the" place to live. Early in this period lumbermen built lavish residences. After 1900 lumbering declined and the city's economy diversified. Leaders in the sugar beet, coal, shipbuilding, and other industries built stylish homes that reflected their substantial fortunes. . . . — Map (db m33961) |
| Michigan (Bay County), Bay City — Charles B. & Geogiana (McGraw) Curtiss House — c. 1892 |
| | Charles came to Bay City in 1864 from Ithaca, NY, to work for sawmill owners Henry Sage and John McGraw, eventually buying the Bay City Dredging Co. His home's architecture is Shavian Manorial, a Queen Anne/Tudor Revival style named after the 1860s/70s neo-medieval work of the English architect Richard Norman Shaw. It was designed by William H. Miller, Ithaca's most prominent late 19th/early 20th century architect, who designed many of Cornell's buildings. Detroit architects Scott & Scott . . . — Map (db m33909) |
| Michigan (Bay County), Bay City — L2084 — First Presbyterian Church |
| | Side 1
In 1848, James G. Birney and his wife led Bay City's earliest Presbyterian services in a schoolhouse. Birney, an elder in the church, twice ran unsuccessfully for president on the antislavery ticket. The Reverend Lucius Root organized the First Presbyterian Church of Lower Saginaw on September 5, 1856. Services continued to be held in the schoolhouse and other public buildings until the first church was built in 1863. In 1886 church elder Alexander Folsom donated $50,000 for the . . . — Map (db m33696) |
| Michigan (Bay County), Bay City — L0858 — Trinity Church/Trinity Episcopal Church |
| | (front side):
Trinity Church
Trinity Church grew from a small group of settlers served by Episcopal missionaries beginning around 1842. Church records credit William and Ann Fitzhugh with founding the church. On March 4, 1854, fourteen people, led by the Reverend Voltaire Spaulding, formally organized the parish in what was then Lower Saginaw (renamed Bay City in 1857). Members worshipped in "the brown school" and "the ball (bowling) alley" until their first church was built in . . . — Map (db m33912) |
| Michigan (Berrien County), Bertrand — S0286 — Bertrand |
| | Nearby French and English trading posts were known as parc aux vaches or “cowpens” for the wild buffalo once found here. Joseph Bertrand, an early trader, married the daughter of a Potawatomi chief and through her acquired land in various Indian treaties. In 1833 this land was platted into the town of Bertrand, which soon included several large hotels and stores and a four-story warehouse—remarkable on the Michigan frontier. Bertrand became a stop for stages on the . . . — Map (db m1604) |
| Michigan (Berrien County), Buchanan — L1466 — Pears Mill |
| | Pears Mill.
Built in 1853. — Map (db m1873) |
| Michigan (Berrien County), New Buffalo — Eisenhower Interstate System |
| | During the presidency (1953–1961) of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th President of the United States, the National System of Interstate and Defense highways was finalized and signed into law. Gaining support for the Interstate Highway System required foresight and courage by President Eisenhower as he committed the Nation to an intensive program of road building.
This unprecedented public works project provided for high-speed highway facilities to connect major population centers . . . — Map (db m1668) |
| Michigan (Berrien County), New Buffalo — L1256 — New Buffalo Welcome Center |
| | The nation’s first Highway Travel Information center opened on May 4, 1935, on US-12 at New Buffalo, not far from here. Other states followed Michigan’s lead, and by 1985 there were 251 travel information centers across the nation. The New Buffalo center was built by the Michigan State Highway Department, now the Michigan Department of Transportation, to welcome motorists entering the state via US-12. It was relocated at this site with its more modern building, on April 6, 1972, after the I-94 . . . — Map (db m1593) |
| Michigan (Berrien County), New Buffalo — The Iron Brigade / The Twenty-Fourth Michigan Volunteer Infantry Regiment |
| | The Iron Brigade
The Iron Brigade became one of the most celebrated military units on the
American Civil War (1861–1865). Wearing distinctive black hats, they were
easily recognised by friend and foe alike. The five volunteer regiments in
the brigade were the 2nd, 6th and 7th Wisconsin, the 19th Indiana and the
24th Michigan. These regiments ranked among the most gallant and effective
of the Union Army. U.S. 12, which intersects nearby, is named the
Iron Brigade Memorial . . . — Map (db m4117) |
| Michigan (Berrien County), Niles — L0477 — Ferry Street School |
| | Constructed in 1867 at a cost of nearly $3,000, the Ferry Street School opened in January, 1868 as Niles’s school for “colored children.” In 1870 the Niles school system was integrated, and this facility closed. It reopened as an integrated school in 1873. The west wing was added in 1903. From 1956 to 1975 the School for Exceptional Children was located here. In 1975 concerned citizens began restoring the original building to its nineteenth century style. Nineteenth century one-room . . . — Map (db m1635) |
| Michigan (Berrien County), Niles — S0004 — Fort St. Joseph |
| | The French fort built here in 1691 controlled southern Michigan’s principal Indian trade routes. Missionaries and fur traders were here already. The fort became a British outpost in 1761. Two years later it was one of the forts seized by Indians during the uprising of Chief Pontiac. Still later, traders made it their headquarters. In 1781 Spanish raiders ran up the flag of Spain at the fort for a few hours. — Map (db m1628) |
| Michigan (Berrien County), Niles — L1643 — Four Flags Hotel |
| | The Four Flags Hotel opened with much fanfare on July 6, 1926. The newly formed Niles Hotel Corporation had raised $350,000 to build a hotel on the site of the Pike House hostelry. Chicago architect Charles W. Nicol designed the hotel, which was touted as fireproof and modern. The hotel’s name was the first to recall the four nations that asserted sovereignty over the area: France, Great Britain, Spain and the United States. According to local legend, Al Capone stayed at the Four Flags. — Map (db m1629) |
| Michigan (Berrien County), Niles — S0655 — John and Horace Dodge / The Dodge Brothers |
| | John and Horace Dodge.
Auto barons John (1864–1920) and Horace (1868–1920) Dodge were born and raised in Niles. During the 1830s, their grandfather, Ezekiel, had migrated from Massachusetts to Niles, where he ran a steam engine shop. John and Horace’s father, Daniel, operated the business during their youth. The Dodges lived in a small house that stood on this site. John once recalled they “were the most destitute kids in town, often going without shoes in cold . . . — Map (db m1707) |
| Michigan (Berrien County), Niles — L1874 — Michigan Central Railroad Niles Depot |
| | Michigan Central Railroad Niles Depot Built in 1892. This Property is listed in the National Register of Historic Places — Map (db m1636) |
| Michigan (Berrien County), Niles — S0339 — Ring Lardner |
| | Sportswriter, humorist, sardonic observer of the American scene, Ring Lardner was born in the house across the street on March 6, 1885. Possibly the best-known American author in the 1920s, he began his career writing sketches of sporting events for the Niles Sun and later worked for papers in Chicago and New York, where he wrote a popular syndicated column. Beginning in 1914 the Saturday Evening Post began publication of a series of articles that were to become his best known . . . — Map (db m1632) |
| Michigan (Berrien County), Niles — S0344 — Saint Mary’s |
| | The Roman Catholic Church in Niles traces its origin to the Indian Mission established at nearby Fort St. Joseph in the late 1600’s. Reestablished at Bertrand, three miles south of Niles, in the 1830s, the mission moved into town in 1849 and was renamed St. Francis’s. In 1866 the cornerstone of the present building was laid and on December 11, 1870, the church was dedicated to St. Mary. Designed by Rufus Rose of Niles with later modifications by Father John Cappon, the church was completed in . . . — Map (db m1606) |
| Michigan (Berrien County), Niles — L1902 — Second Baptist Church |
| | In 1851 the Reverends J.W. Hackley and D.G. Lett organized the Second Baptist Church under the Anti-Slavery Baptist Association. The first of four churches—a log building—was erected on the southeast corner of Sixth and Ferry streets. In 1872 the building was moved to the northeast corner, where the present church stands. During the construction of the third church in 1950–51 the congregation was renamed the Mount Calvary Baptist Church. In 1971 a new sanctuary was added to the structure. — Map (db m1607) |
| Michigan (Berrien County), Niles — L0475 — The Chapin House / Henry Austin Chapin |
| | The Chapin House.
This Queen Anne style house, completed in 1884, was the Henry A. Chapin family home until 1902. In 1932, when the City of Niles bought the property at auction for $300, the Chapin children stipulated that it be used only for civic purposes. Now serving as the Niles City Hall, the house is built of local brick and terra-cotta tile. The interior is ornamented with leaded glass windows and transoms, handcarved woodwork, and stenciled ceilings. In 1939 the Works Progress . . . — Map (db m1706) |
| Michigan (Berrien County), Niles — L0062 — Trinity Church |
| | This is the oldest existing church structure in Niles, located in the oldest Episcopal parish in the Diocese of Western Michigan. The first Episcopal service in Niles was conducted by Bishop Philander Chase in 1832. The parish was organized in 1834. In that year there were 14 houses in Niles. The first edifice, of frame construction, was built on this site in 1836 under the direction of Rev. James Selkrig, the first rector. The present church was completed in 1858. On May 7, 1876, the Rev. . . . — Map (db m1634) |
| Michigan (Berrien County), Niles — L0734 — Wesley United Methodist Church |
| | In 1839 circuit riders from Ohio began preaching in Niles, using the barroom of a local hotel. In 1832 nine worshipers formed the Methodist class that grew to be the Wesley United Methodist Church. They dedicated their first house of worship in 1839, and by 1840 they had organized a Sunday School to teach reading and religion. In 1862 the congregation laid the cornerstone for the present sanctuary. The structure was completed in 1863. The Dodge Brothers of motor car fame attended Sunday School . . . — Map (db m1605) |
| Michigan (Berrien County), Three Oaks — S0239 — The Dewey Cannon |
| | This cannon, captured in the Spanish-American War by Admiral Dewey, was presented to Three Oaks when its citizens raised $1,400 for a memorial to the men of the battleship Maine. This was the largest contribution, per capita, of any community in the nation. “Three Oaks Against the World,” a local paper proudly boasted. This park was dedicated October 17, 1899, by President William McKinley, and others. Presentation of the cannon took place on June 28, 1900. Guest of honor was Helen . . . — Map (db m1603) |
| Michigan (Calhoun County), Albion — 212 — Albion College |
| | Methodists obtained a charter for Spring Arbor Seminary from the Territorial Council of Michigan in March, 1835. Later the institution was established in Albion on land donated by Jesse Crowell, a leading Albion pioneer and benefactor. In 1841 the cornerstone was laid for the first building, and in 1843, the institution opened as the Wesleyan Seminary. In 1861 the power to confer degrees was obtained and school named Albion College. Support from the Methodist Church, a large endowment, and . . . — Map (db m27744) |
| Michigan (Calhoun County), Albion — 215 — Birthplace of "Old Rugged Cross" |
| | "The Old Rugged Cross," one of the world's best-loved hymns, was composed here in 1912 by the Rev. George Bennard (1873-1958). The son of an Ohio coal miner, Bennard was a lifelong servant of God, chiefly in the Methodist ministry. He wrote the words and music of over 300 other hymns. None achieved the fame of "The Old Rugged Cross," the moving summation of his faith.
"I'll cherish the Old Rugged Cross,
Till my trophies at last I lay down;
I will cling to the Old Rugged . . . — Map (db m27745) |
| Michigan (Calhoun County), Albion — 216 — Birthplace of Famed Song |
| | It was in the spring of 1911 that two freshmen at Albion College, Byron D. Stokes and F. Dudleigh Vernor, wrote the words and music for a song they called "The Sweetheart of Sigma Chi." The song made a hit with their fraternity brothers, and requests for copies came in from other chapters. Within a few years the melody and lyrics of "The Sweetheart of Sigma Chi" had become familiar to people around the world. — Map (db m27742) |
| Michigan (Calhoun County), Albion — 1695 — First Presbyterian Church |
| | (Front)
In February 1837 the Reverend Calvin Clark, a circuit riding pastor sent by the American Home Missionary Society, met with twenty-four persons and organized the Albion Presbyterian Church. The first church was built in 1840 on the corner of Clinton and Erie streets. In 1857 the congregation erected a new church on this site; it burned in 1873. The third church, completed in 1879, also burned, and the present one was built in 1884.
(Reverse)
The First Presbyterian . . . — Map (db m28378) |
| Michigan (Calhoun County), Albion — 97 — Gardner House Museum |
| | Augustus P. Gardner (1817-1905), a wealthy hardware merchant, built this Victorian style house in 1975. A three-story, thirteen-room mansion with a mansard roof, it was Gardner's home until his death in 1905. In 1966, after decades of neglect, the house was purchased by the Albion Historical Society. Restored, it houses a local museum. Five of the rooms are furnished as a nineteenth-century home, and the remainder feature permanent and rotating exhibits. This house is among the last of its type in this area. — Map (db m28379) |
| Michigan (Calhoun County), Albion — 1723 — Mother's Day In Albion / Mother's Day |
| | Marker Front:
On May 13, 1877, the second Sunday of the month, Juliet Calhoun Blakeley stepped into the pulpit of the Methodist-Episcopal Church and completed the sermon for the Reverend Myron Daugherty. According to local legend, Daugherty was distraught because an antitemperance group had forced his son to spend the night in a saloon. Proud of the mother's achievement, Charles and Moses Blakeley encouraged others to pay tribute to their mothers. In the 1880s the Albion Methodist . . . — Map (db m27817) |
| Michigan (Calhoun County), Albion — 13 — The First Home |
| | The first house at what was then known as the "Forks of the Kalamazoo" was erected near this site by Tenney Peabody, a New Yorker. To this cabin with its thatched roof of grass from the banks of the nearby Kalamazoo River, Albion's first settler brought his wife and seven children on March 4, 1833. This courageous pioneer used three yoke of oxen and two wagons to bring his family from New York. He helped form the company organized to build the town, named Albion after a town in New York. — Map (db m27815) |
| Michigan (Calhoun County), Albion — 566 — The Observatory |
| | The Albion College Astronomical Observatory was built in 1883-84 at the urging of Dr. Samuel Dickie, who later became president of the college. Dickie helped raise $10,000 to build and equip the facility. The observatory still harbors its original telescope, transit circle, side-real clock and chronograph. The building has housed classrooms, a bookstore, faculty offices and the West Michigan Methodist Conference archives. In 1984, it was refurbished as the college Ethics Center. — Map (db m27743) |
| Michigan (Calhoun County), Marengo — 1 — Marengo Pioneer Cemetery |
| | This site on Territorial Road was a gift of Seeley Neal (1778-1862) from 640 acres acquired from the government in 1831. Neal, a veteran of the War of 1812, built the first log house in the township. His was the first family to locate in the settlement later named by him Marengo. He built a sawmill on the Kalamazoo River, and was a member of the commission that helped locate and survey the Territorial Road. — Map (db m28398) |
| Michigan (Calhoun County), Marshall — 1240 — American Museum of Magic |
| | Presto-Change-O! From saloon to billiard parlor, to clothing store, to bakery, to museum, this edifice, built in 1868, has known many transformations. Since April Fools' Day 1978 it has housed a unique collection that celebrates the magician's arts of wonder and delight. Michigan's link to magic is no illusion for nearby Colon, a center of magic manufacturing, was once home to famed magician Harry Blackstone, Sr., (1885-1965), whose memorabilia is displayed here. — Map (db m28371) |
| Michigan (Calhoun County), Marshall — 491 — Charles T. Gorham |
| | Gorham (1812-1901) came to Marshall in 1836 from New York State. First a merchant, he became a banker and in 1865 organized the First National Bank of Marshall, now the Michigan National Bank. He was a defendant in the famous Crosswhite fugitive slave case. A vice-president of the first Republican Convention at Jackson in 1854, Gorham later was a state senator. During the 1870s he served the United States as Minister to the Netherlands and then as Assistant Secretary of the Interior. — Map (db m28375) |
| Michigan (Calhoun County), Marshall — 1226 — First Baptist Church |
| | The Reverend Thomas Z.R. Jones, a traveling missionary, began visiting the Marshall area in 1838. On January 16, 1840, he helped organize the First Baptist Church of Marshall with eight members. The group erected this church in 1850-51. They enlarged and remodeled it in 1876 with plans provided by Benjamin J. Bartlett of Chicago. The handsome Romanesque church, now the oldest church edifice in the city, features rounded-arch stained glass windows and an early example of a modified Akron (semicircular) seating plan. — Map (db m28377) |
| Michigan (Calhoun County), Marshall — 1051 — Grand Army of the Republic / The G.A.R. Hall |
| | (Front):
In 1866 northern Civil War veterans organized the Grand Army of the Republic to fight for veterans' pensions and other benefits. Michigan's first chapter was formed the next year. National membership peaked in 1890 with 409,489 men, while Michigan's rolls crested in 1889 with more than 21,000 members. In its heyday, the G.A.R. was a powerful political pressure group. The society also provided food and clothing for indigent widows and orphans. The last state encampment was held . . . — Map (db m28380) |
| Michigan (Calhoun County), Marshall — 512 — Harold C. Brooks / Fitch-Gorham-Brooks House |
| | (Front)
Harold Craig Brooks (1885-1978) was Marshall's mayor from 1925 to 1931, patron, and philanthropist. His interest in city beautification set a standard for preservation and adaptive use as early as 1921. He owned and protected more than a dozen Marshall buildings. Brooks is responsible for the design of the Marshall Post Office, the conversion of the Old Stone Barn in Town Hall, and presentation of the Brooks Memorial Fountain to the city. He donated land for veterans, the . . . — Map (db m28382) |
| Michigan (Calhoun County), Marshall — 42 — Honolulu House |
| | Abner Pratt settled in Marshall in 1839 and in the 1850s became Chief Justice of the State Supreme Court. In 1857-59 he was United States Consul to the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands. Returning home, he built this house in 1860 to recreate the island atmosphere. Teak and ebony were used, and murals on the walls depicted tropical plants and animals. In 1887 the interior was changed but the opulent style of the exterior, unique in the Midwest, has survived. — Map (db m28384) |
| Michigan (Calhoun County), Marshall — 989 — Howard F. Young / Postmasters |
| | (Front)
Howard F. Young (1889-1934), a native of Allegan, designed this Marshall post office building in 1932. Young studied engineering at the University of Michigan and was involved in construction work in Albany, New York, Detroit and Kalamazoo. His interest in restoring Greek Revival architecture is evident in his Marshall projects, which include the restoration of the Harold C. Brooks and other homes and the conversion of Marshall's livery stable into a town hall. Young also . . . — Map (db m28390) |
| Michigan (Calhoun County), Marshall — 503 — Isaac E. Crary and John D. Pierce / State School System |
| | (Front)
When attorney Isaac E. Crary came to Marshall in 1832 from Connecticut, he became fast friends with another transplanted easterner, the Reverend John D. Pierce. Interested in government and education, these two men in 1834-35 planned Michigan's public school system. The proposed system became law in 1835 when Crary headed the education committee of the state's inaugural constitutional convention. The following year Pierce was appointed state superintendent of education -- the . . . — Map (db m28391) |
| Michigan (Calhoun County), Marshall — 397 — Isaac E. Crary House |
| | Michigan's first congressman lived here from the early 1840s until his death in 1854. Located on lots one and two, original plat, lower village, the house was a wedding gift from his father-in-law, Judge Abner Pratt. Arriving here in 1831, Crary was a member of Michigan's first constitutional convention. He was three times elected to congress, and twice to the legislature. In 1961 the building became the office of Marshall Savings and Loan Assn. — Map (db m28392) |
| Michigan (Calhoun County), Marshall — 888 — James A. Miner |
| | James A. Miner, born in Marshall in 1842, began studying law in Clinton, Iowa, in 1860. Completing his studies in Marshall, he was admitted to the Calhoun County bar in 1863. There he was circuit court commissioner (1866-1870) and prosecuting attorney (1870-1874). His office was in this building from 1869 to 1873. His 1876 partnership with Francis A. Stace created one of the county's largest law firms. President Benjamin Harrison appointed him a Utah territorial justice in 1890, and he was . . . — Map (db m28393) |
| Michigan (Calhoun County), Marshall — 454 — John D. Pierce Homesite |
| | On this foundation stood the log house of the Reverend John D. Pierce. Born in New Hampshire, Pierce moved to Marshall in 1831, where he founded the Congregational church. In 1834 he and Isaac Crary designed Michigan's school system, and from 1836 to 1841, he served as the state's and the nation's first superintendent of public instruction. Pierce died in 1882 and is buried in Marshall's Oakridge Cemetery, honored by a monument erected by Michigan schoolteachers. — Map (db m28394) |
| Michigan (Calhoun County), Marshall — 654 — Lieutenant George A. Woodruff |
| | (Front):
Lieutenant George A. Woodruff (1840-1863) graduated early from West Point because of the start of the Civil War. Young Woodruff served valiantly with the Army of the Potomac. At Gettysburg he was mortally wounded while defending the center of the Union line with his First U.S. Field Artillery (Battery I) against General George Pickett's Confederate charge on July 3, 1863. Lingering through the night, George Woodruff died the following day.
(Reverse):
After . . . — Map (db m28395) |
| Michigan (Calhoun County), Marshall — 375 — Marshall |
| | Founded in 1831 by Sidney Ketchum and settles from New York and New England, the town was named in honor of Chief Justice John Marshall. Townsmen Isaac Crary and the Rev. John Pierce planned in 1834 the innovative Michigan public school system. Marshall's early hopes of becoming state capital were not rewarded, but the coming of the Michigan Central Railroad in 1844 increased prosperity, and the town remained a rail center until the 1870s. In 1863 the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers was . . . — Map (db m28450) |
| Michigan (Calhoun County), Marshall — 2161 — Mary Miller / Hillside |
| | (Front)
This house, built for local attorney Henry W. Taylor and long owned by the Schuyler family, was also home to Mary "Mazie" Miller (1871-1941) and her husband, Craig. An outspoken suffragette and Republican political activist, Miller was an early president of the Michigan League of Women Voters. She resided here from 1905 until her death. During that time, Miller hosted many political luminaries, including future U.S. president William Howard Taft, as well as state legislators . . . — Map (db m28451) |
| Michigan (Cheboygan County), Indian River — 127 — Inland Waterway |
| | The glaciers of the last Ice Age retreated to the north some 25,000 years ago, leaving behind the lakes that rank as Michigan's most notable geographical feature. Among the state's largest inland lakes is Burt Lake, named after William A. Burt, who, together with John Mullett, made a federal survey of the area from 1840 to 1843. By following the Cheboygan River, Mullett Lake, and Indian River to Burt Lake, Indians and fur traders had only a short portage to Little Traverse Bay. Thus they . . . — Map (db m33247) |
| Michigan (Cheboygan County), Mackinaw City — Island-Hopping the Straits |
| | In 1920 the need for extensive highways in Michigan was becoming evident and Horatio S. Earle, highway commissioner, suggested a submerged, floating tunnel. A counter-proposal was made by C. E. Fowler, a consulting engineer from New York City.
The Fowler proposal suggested a series of causeways and bridges starting near Cheboygen and proceeding via Bois Blanc Island, Round Island and Mackinac Island to St. Ignace. In 1934 the Mackinac Straits Bridge Authority engaged Fowler to further . . . — Map (db m1987) |
| Michigan (Chippewa County), Brimley — Point Iroquois |
| | This point of land is the historic battleground where the westward invasion by the Iroquois Indians was halted by the victorious Chippewa.
Off the point colorful French-Canadian voyageurs paddled canoes heavily laden with furs. The 18th century fur traders were forerunners of commercial shipping on Lake Superior.
On June 27, 1831 Henry Rowe Schoolcraft led an expedition from this point to assist trade and to gain favor with the warring bands of Chippewa and Sioux Indians in the Upper . . . — Map (db m4452) |
| Michigan (Crawford County), Grayling — S0709 — The Return of Kirtland's Warbler |
| | The Kirtland's Warbler was first identified in 1851 from a specimen collected on Dr. Jared Kirtland's Ohio farm. The birds originally depended on fire-created young jack pine forests for summer nesting. Such forests in northern Michigan became their prime global summer breeding habitat. Kirtland's Warbler faced extinction due to the loss of habitat and the invasion of parasitic brown-headed cowbirds, which lay eggs in warbler nests and whose young survive at the expense of warbler nestlings. . . . — Map (db m33239) |
| Michigan (Emmet County), Mackinaw City — S0011 — Fort Michilimackinac |
| | This fort, built about 1715, put French soldiers at the Straits for the first time since 1701. French authority ceased in 1761 when the British troops entered the fort. On June 2, 1763, during Pontiac's uprising, Chippewa Indians seized the fort, killing most of the small force, and held it a year. When the British moved to Mackinac Island in 1781, this old fort soon reverted to the wilderness. — Map (db m7670) |
| Michigan (Emmet County), Mackinaw City — Mackinac Bridge — Courageous Members of Organized Labor |
| | 1954 – 1958
State of Michigan
Hon. G. Mennen Williams · Governor
Mackinac Bridge Authority
Prentiss M. Brown · Chairman
Charles T. Fisher, Jr. · Deceased;
George A. Osborn
Mead L. Bricker; Murray D. Van Wagoner
William J. Cochran; Fred M. Zeder · Deceased
Charles M. Ziegler · St Highway Commissioner · 1950-57
John C. Mackie · State Highway Commissioner · 1957-
Lawrence A. Rubin · Executive Secretary
Sanford A. Brown · Treasurer
D. B. Steinman · . . . — Map (db m1995) |
| Michigan (Genesee County), Otisville — L2180 — E. S. Swayze Drugstore |
| | E. S. Swayze opened a drugstore on this site prior to 1870. When the store burned in 1874, Swayze built this one. Members of the Free Methodist Church used the second-floor meeting hall for services from 1887 to 1890. In 1903 Masonic Lodge #401 and the Order of the Eastern Star bought the building, which they owned until 1970. This intact commercial building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. — Map (db m33728) |
| Michigan (Genesee County), Otisville — L2191 — Laing-Mason House |
| | This house was built in stages between the 1860s and the 1930s. In 1889 Dr. John B. Laing and his wife, Harriet, purchased the house. Raised in Vermont, Laing (1846-1908) came to Otisville in 1871 as one of the village's earliest physicians, and became one of Otisville's most important citizens. At his death Laing owned 120 acres of land. The property changed hands six time before being purchased in 1935 by George W. and Frances Mason. George Mason (1887-1978) owned the Mason Tackle Company of . . . — Map (db m33731) |
| Michigan (Hillsdale County), Hillsdale — L1275 — College Baptist Church |
| | This church was incorporated as the First Free Will Baptist Church on November 24, 1855. The congregation met at the Hillsdale College Chapel until the present church was constructed in 1867-68. This Romanesque building was designed by a Chicago architect using sketches of European cathedrals prepared by Wayland Dunn. Wayland was the son of Professor Ransom Dunn, the pastor at the time of construction. The only alteration of the exterior has been the loss of the southeast spire, which was toppled by the wind in 1871. — Map (db m32250) |
| Michigan (Hillsdale County), Hillsdale — S0294 — Hillsdale |
| | The plat for the village of Hillsdale was filed in July, 1839, though the first settlement probably occurred a few years previously. Before that time this area had been inhabited mainly by a band of Potawatomi Indians led by their chief, Baw Beese. Jonesville was the first county seat, but Hillsdale gained this distinction in 1843 due to its more central location and the completion of the Michigan Southern Railroad to the town. The first Hillsdale County Fair was held on this site in 1851. . . . — Map (db m33598) |
| Michigan (Hillsdale County), Hillsdale — 230 — Hillsdale College |
| | In 1844 a group of Freewill Baptists organized Michigan Central College at Spring Arbor. This college was the first in Michigan to grant degrees to women. Moved to Hillsdale in 1853 and chartered by the legislature in 1855, the school was renamed Hillsdale College under an independent board of trustees, its only controlling organization. The charter opened the institution "to all persons ... irrespective of nationality, color, or sex." — Map (db m34216) |
| Michigan (Hillsdale County), Hillsdale — L1985 — Saint Peter's Episcopal Church |
| | In 1839 Episcopalians held the first church service in Hillsdale. Saint Peter's Church was organized in 1844. The original Gothic Revival church dates from 1859 and forms the sanctuary of the present church. Saint Peter's housed the first pipe organ and church bell in Hillsdale. In 1881 the steeple, vestibules and transept were added. Following fires in 1935 and 1965 that destroyed most of the interior, the building was restored. — Map (db m33602) |
| Michigan (Hillsdale County), Hillsdale — L1645 — St. Anthony's Catholic Church |
| | The origins of Catholicism in Hillsdale County date to the 1840s when Irishmen who worked for the Southern Railroad settled here. In 1853 the Reverend Joseph Kindekens of Adrian and eighty-five people organized St. Anthony's parish. The former Presbyterian church, which was located on this site, became the first house of worship. In 1858 the Reverend Charles Ryckaert became the first pastor and built a rectory. After the Reverend Peter Slane arrived in 1878, the old church was razed to make way . . . — Map (db m33601) |
| Michigan (Hillsdale County), Hillsdale — Sultana |
| | Dedicated to the memory of the 280 Michigan Civil War soldiers who lost their lives in America's worst maritime disaster, the sinking of the steamship "Sultana."
These men were among more than 2,200 Union soldiers returning home from Confederate prison camps on April 27, 1865, when the vessel's boilers exploded at 2:00 a.m. on the Mississippi River near Memphis, Tennessee.
The 18th Michigan Infantry, organized July 1862 in Hillsdale, lost 75 men, more than half of their number who were . . . — Map (db m33960) |
| Michigan (Hillsdale County), Hillsdale — The Will Carleton Poor House |
| | This stone building is a part of the poorhouse that inspired Will Carleton's well-known poem "Over the Hill to the Poorhouse." — Map (db m32361) |
| Michigan (Hillsdale County), Jonesville — Father Gabriel Richard |
| | Priest
Educator-Statesman
Secured funds in 1825 through the United States Congress for the survey of the Great Sauk Trail
now U.S. Highway 112 thus opening this artery of civilization into the west — Map (db m32219) |
| Michigan (Hillsdale County), Jonesville — 84 — Grace Episcopal Church |
| | William N. Lyster, Irish-born missionary, preached in Jonesville in 1836, and Darius Barker organized the parish in 1838. A church featuring Classical and Gothic styling was begun in 1844 and consecrated by Bishop Samuel McCoskry in 1848. Panelling and furniture made from black walnut are still in place. William Walton Murphy, a founder and vestryman, was Abraham Lincoln's consul-general to the German city of Frankfort. — Map (db m32190) |
| Michigan (Hillsdale County), Jonesville — 500 — Grosvenor House |
| |
Side 1
Completed in 1874, this structure of High Victorian Italianate design is one of the most magnificent residences in Michigan. The interior, an excellent example of a living museum of the 1870s, contains thirty-two rooms with twelve-foot ceilings. Other striking features are eight Italian marble fireplaces each of a different color, walnut window valances with carved Egyptian heads, and a sweeping balustrade staircase. Despite the fact that electricity was installed in 1915, this . . . — Map (db m33656) |
| Michigan (Hillsdale County), Somerset Center — S0624 — W. H. L. McCourtie / W. H. L. McCourtie Estate |
| | W. H. L. McCourtie
Somerset Center native W. H. L. McCourtie (1872-1933) was introduced to the cement industry by W. F. Cowham of Jackson in 1897. McCourtie soon went to Dallas, Texas, where he made a fortune speculating in oil and established the Trinity Portland Cement Company. During the 1920s McCourtie returned to Somerset Center. In 1924 he acquired his family's home and turned it into a community showplace. McCourtie sought to create a model town, giving free white paint to any . . . — Map (db m33416) |
| Michigan (Ingham County), Lansing — First Michigan Sharpshooters |
| | First Michigan Sharpshooters. [There follows a list of the regiment's officers.] The regiment was organized during the winter of 1862 and 1863 at Kalamazoo, Michigan. Disbanded at Jackson, Michigan, August 7th, 1865. The entire enrollment of the regiment that saw active service: 981. Officers and men killed and died of wounds: 113. Men died while prisoners of war: 41. Men died of disease: 109. Discharged account of wounds and disability: 353. Mustered out at close of war: 365. [There . . . — Map (db m26786) |
| Michigan (Iosco County), Tawas — Lumberman’s Monument |
| | Erected to perpetuate the memory of the pioneer lumbermen of Michigan through whose labors was made possible the development of the prairie states. — Map (db m33032) |
| Michigan (Kalamazoo County), Kalamazoo — 245 — Harris Family |
| | Among the earliest pioneers of Oshtemo Township was a Black family, that of Enoch and Deborah Harris. Born in the East in the late 1700's, they settled in the Ohio wilderness about 1810. Moving westward with the advancing frontier, they claimed land near here in 1831. Early accounts agree that Harris planted the first apple orchard in the area, and their daughter was said to be the township's first bride. Farming over two hundred acres, Harris won the respect of his fellow settlers. He died in . . . — Map (db m23059) |
| Michigan (Kalamazoo County), Kalamazoo — In Memoriam U.S.S Maine |
| | Upper Plaque:
In Memoriam
U.S.S. Maine
Destroyed in Havana Harbor
February 15th, 1898
This tablet is cast from metal recovered from the U.S.S. Maine
Lower Plaque:
Tablet secured for Richard Westnedge Camp No-16, United Spanish War Veterans by past Commander Gus L. Stein August 15-1913.
Boulder presented by Holland Simmons of Orcutt Post No-79, G.A.R. — Map (db m30387) |
| Michigan (Kalamazoo County), Kalamazoo — 44 — Lincoln at Kalamazoo |
| | On August 27, 1856, here in this park, Abraham Lincoln, then an obscure lawyer, spoke to a rally for John Frémont, the Republican presidential nominee. This was the only time that Lincoln addressed an audience in Michigan. The event was almost unnoticed in the press. Some Republicans felt the speaker was too conservative on the antislavery issue. Four years later Michigan's vote helped put Lincoln into the White House. — Map (db m26760) |
| Michigan (Kalamazoo County), Kalamazoo — Lincoln's August 1856 Speech in Kalamazoo |
| | 1861 - 1865
This tablet is placed here by
Sarah E. Fuller - Tent No. 8
Daughters of Union Veterans
of the Civil War
Dept. of Michigan
in memory of
Orcutt Post No. 79
Kalamazoo, Dept. Of Mich.
Grand Army of the Republic
the veterans of the Civil War
This boulder is placed on the spot where Abraham Lincoln stood when he gave an anti- slavery address in August, 1856. — Map (db m30396) |
| Michigan (Kalamazoo County), Kalamazoo — Spanish War Veterans Monument — 1898-1902 |
| | Erected by the citizens of Kalamazoo city and county to commemorate the valor and patriotism of those who served in the war with Spain, the Philippine insurrection, and the China relief expedition.
Dedicated May 30th, A.D. 1924 under the auspices of Richard Westnedge Camp No. 16, United Spanish War Veterans, Department of Michigan. — Map (db m30386) |
| Michigan (Keweenaw County), Eagle River — Lake Shore Drive Bridge / Eagle River |
| | Lake Shore Drive Bridge. This bridge, completed in 1915, was one of two bridges erected simultaneously by the Michigan State Highway Department across the Eagle River. The second was located in nearby Phoenix. Prior to 1915 a Pratt through truss bridge crossed the 53-foot gorge here. It deteriorated and was replaced with this structure. The highway department designed the bridge, which was constructed by the Wisconsin Bridge & Iron Company of Milwaukee. The Smith-Byers-Sparks Company of . . . — Map (db m995) |
| Michigan (Lenawee County), Addison — S0297 — Woodstock Manual Labor Institute |
| | Prior Foster, an Ohio Negro, began this school "in the woods" in 1844 and four years later it was incorporated. Designed to serve "colored people and others," the Institute taught a full range of subjects and was one of the nation's first integrated schools. The students worked in the fields and orchards to help support the school. Soon eight buildings were on the grounds. More than fifty students were in attendance, using a library of two thousand volumes. A fire in 1855 destroyed the main . . . — Map (db m34694) |
| Michigan (Lenawee County), Blissfield — 1146A — Erie & Kalamazoo Railroad |
| | [Front Side of Marker]
The first railroad operated west of the Alleghenies, the Erie and Kalamazoo, was chartered on April 22, 1833 to connect Port Lawrence (later named Toledo) with the Kalamazoo River via Adrian. A horse-drawn car made the first trip from Toledo to Adrian on November 2, 1836, running on strap iron strips spiked to oak rails. From 1852 to 1857 the line, then part of the Michigan Southern Railroad, was the only unbroken link from the East Coast to Chicago. As a part . . . — Map (db m27807) |
| Michigan (Lenawee County), Blissfield — 1146B — Erie and Kalamazoo Rail Road / Rail Road |
| | [Front side of Marker]:Erie and Kalamazoo Rail Road
The first railway in the Northwest Territory, the Erie and Kalamazoo Rail Road linked the east coast with the Michigan Territory and points westward. The E&K was chartered on April 22, 1833, to connect present-day Toledo, Ohio, with the Kalamazoo River; however, the track never reached beyond Adrian. The first train arrived in Adrian on October 1, 1836. In 1837 the E&K contracted for the transport of "the Great Western Mail." . . . — Map (db m27804) |
| Michigan (Luce County), Paradise — Taming the Tahquamenon River |
| | The Players
James McMillan (left) and John S. Newberry (right) founded the Detroit, Mackinac & Marquette Railroad (DM&M). After completing the railroad, the company sought ways to develop the properties that they owned along the route. On October 6, 1880 the DM&M created the Tahquamenon River Improvement Company.
Just upstream from where you now stand......
In 1883, the Tahquamenon River Improvement Company completed the removal of 16,000 cubic yards of sandstone, including a . . . — Map (db m4453) |
| Michigan (Mackinac County), Epoufette — 1255 — Epoufette |
| | Epoufette has been a fishing village since 1859, when Amable Goudreau, born in Quebec around 1824, established a commercial fishery. More than a century after his death in 1882, some of his descendants continued fishing operations. Father Edward Jacker, then serving the St. Ignace and Mackinac missions, visited Epoufette in August 1875. He reported a thriving fishery, with nets as far as 40 miles distant, which kept two coopers busy from dawn to dusk making barrels for shipment of salted fish to distant markets. — Map (db m4446) |
| Michigan (Mackinac County), Mackinac Island — 19 — American Fur Company Store |
| | On June 6, 1822, Alexis St. Martin (1804-1880), a French Canadian voyageur, was accidentally shot in the American Fur Company Store located on this site. Dr. William Beaumont (1786-1853), the Fort Mackinac post surgeon, nursed St. Martin back to health. St. Martin’s wound healed leaving a permanent opening into his stomach. Through this opening Beaumont compared the digestibility of foods, recorded the temperature conditions, and extracted and analyzed gastric juice. Beaumont conducted . . . — Map (db m34923) |
| Michigan (Mackinac County), Mackinac Island — 189 — Historic Fort Mackinac |
| | Mackinac Island has been called the most historic spot in the Middle West. Fort Mackinac was first built by the British in 1780-81. It was not until 1796, thirteen years after the end of the Revolutionary War, that the British relinquished this fort to the Americans. At the outbreak of the War of 1812 the British seized the island and built Fort George. This fort, which you see to the north beyond the Rifle Range, was renamed Fort Holmes by the Americans who reoccupied the island in 1815. Troops garrisoned Fort Mackinac until 1895. — Map (db m34972) |
| Michigan (Mackinac County), Mackinac Island — 3 — Mission Church |
| | This is one of Michigan's oldest Protestant churches. It was built in 1829-30 by the Presbyterian flock of Rev. Wm. M. Ferry, founder in 1823 of a nearby Indian mission. Robert Stuart and Henry Schoolcraft were lay leaders. About 1838 private owners bought the building. It is judged Michigan's best example of the New England Colonial church style. — Map (db m34913) |
| Michigan (Mackinac County), Mackinac Island — 4 — Skull Cave |
| | According to tradition this is the cave in which the English fur-trader Alexander Henry hid out during the Indian uprising of 1763. The floor of the cave, he claimed, was covered with human bones, presumably Indian. — Map (db m34912) |
| Michigan (Mackinac County), St. Ignace — 120 — Lake Michigan |
| | This lake, the sixth largest in the world, was discovered in 1634 by Jean Nicolet, who explored this north shore to Green Bay but found no Orientals as the French in Quebec had hoped he would. The general size and outline of the lake was established in the 1670’s by Marquette and Jolliet. They named it Lake Michigan. Its elongated shape was an obstacle to transcontinental expansion, but its water soon proved a real boon to commerce. — Map (db m4439) |
| Michigan (Mackinac County), St. Ignace — 41 — St. Ignace |
| | Pere Marquette established in 1671 the Mission of St. Ignace. French troops soon after built Fort Buade. The state’s second oldest white village guarded the Straits while serving as the most important French fur post in the northwest. By 1706 both the fort and mission were abandoned. Only in the 19th century did lumbering and fishing revive the town. — Map (db m34970) |
| Michigan (Macomb County), Clinton Township — 1963 — Clinton Grove Cemetery |
| | Established in 1855, the Clinton Grove Cemetery exhibits an exquisite array of funerary art in a wooded landscape. This combination of nature and monuments reflects the rural cemetery movement of the nineteenth century, which popularized park-like pastoral planned landscapes in both rural and urban settings. The grounds include a caretaker's house, built around 1885, and a Tudor office and chapel building designed by Mount Clemens architect Theophilus Van Damme, which dates from 1914. Many . . . — Map (db m32164) |
| Michigan (Macomb County), Mount Clemens — 1925 — Methodist Episcopal Church |
| | When this Collegiate Gothic Church, designed by Cleveland architect Herman W. Maurer, was dedicated during the week of of January 3, 1926, the Mount Clemens Daily Leader called it a "Monument to Unity of Action." Over a century earlier, in 1820, the Reverend John Kent had held the area's first Methodist Episcopal services. He formally organized the congregation in 1836. The first church was erected in 1841 on land donated by Christian Clemens, who helped plat Mount Clemens in 1818. In 1849, . . . — Map (db m32093) |
| Michigan (Macomb County), Ray Township — L1624 — Ray Township District No. 1 School |
| | In 1863, Ray area farmers built what became known popularly as Mill School. Kindergarten through eighth grade students attended school here until 1953. That year the school district consolidated with Romeo School District and it transferred the property to the township. Elections and community meetings were held in the building for many years. In 1983 the simple Greek Revival style school became the Ray Township Library. — Map (db m34018) |
| Michigan (Macomb County), Ray Township — L1389 — Religious Society Church |
| | The First Religious Society of Ray organized in 1869 and built this church on land donated by Arad Freeman, a member of Ray's founding families. Known for a time as the Ray Union Church, it originally had a steeple, and was similar in design to the Mill School. The church became the township hall when the society disbanded in 1950. Although Congregational in character the society had encouraged all Christian denominations to worship together. — Map (db m34016) |
| Michigan (Macomb County), Sterling Heights — S0309 — Holcombe Beach |
| | Near this site in 1961 archaeologists from the Aboriginal Research Club and the University of Michigan uncovered evidence of an early Paleo-Indian settlement. Here about 11,000 years ago these first prehistoric dwellers in the Great Lakes region inhabited a lake shore. Excavations of artifacts and bones reveal that for food the Paleo-Indians hunted Barren Ground caribou, a species suited to the tundra-like terrain of that era. As their environment changed, these Indians were forced to adapt to . . . — Map (db m34227) |
| Michigan (Manistee County), Manistee — L1647 — Manistee Fire Hall |
| | In early October 1888, the Manistee City Council hired Frederick Hollister of Saginaw, the architect of Manistee’s principal school, to design a fire hall to replace the original station, which was constructed in 1872–1873 on Filer Street. Later that month the Manistee Democrat predicted that the city’s new fire hall would be “a model of convenience and usefulness.” Constructed of brick, cut-stone and French plate glass and trimmed with galvanized iron, this Romanesque . . . — Map (db m1191) |
| Michigan (Manistee County), Manistee — L0124 — Ramsdell Theatre |
| | Thomas Jefferson Ramsdell—pioneer lawyer, state legislator and civic leader—built this theatre between 1902 and 1903. Many traveling companies played here and praised the features that made it unique among the playhouses of the era. Theatrical artist Walter Burredge painted the main curtain utilizing the theme “A Grove Near Athens.” The dome and lobby murals were the work of Thomas Ramsdell’s son Frederick. Public spirited citizens saved the landmark from demolition in . . . — Map (db m1192) |
| Michigan (Menominee County), Menominee — 84 — Menominee Area |
| | This was the home of the Menominee Indians. Nicolet, the French explorer, visited them in 1634 on his futile search for Cathay. Conflict over fishing rights brought on the Sturgeon War here between the Menominee and Chippewa tribes. During the 1700's this became a center of the fur trade. Until 1910 when the forests were cut Menominee was the Upper Peninsula's main lumber port. Its timber helped rebuild Chicago after the 1871 fire. — Map (db m4414) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Bolles Harbor — LaPlaisance Bay Settlement |
| | When the War of 1812 began, LaPlaisance Bay settlement consisted of 14 homes along the creek. Medard LaBadie, considered a hero for his participation in the Battles of the River Raisin and those at Fort Meigs and Thames, was a French settler here.
Here the American Army came onshore after its march on ice covered Lake Erie from the Maumee River to the River Raisin. Jan. 18, 1813, after stopping to eat lunch and organize, the army successfully attacked the British and Indian positions at . . . — Map (db m27601) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Erie — "War" With Happy Ending |
| | Michigan troops made heir headquarters here during the bloodless Toledo "war" in 1835.
Intense rivalry between the settlers of the two states fanned a controversy near flame. Original U. S. surveys had put in Monroe County the mouth of the Maumee River around which Toledo was taking form. When Ohio started the Miami Canal it obtained from Congress a new survey which showed these lands in Ohio.
Months of disturbance ensued. Ohio partisans were seized on the contested frontier and tried . . . — Map (db m21010) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — A Storied Homestead |
| | Here, Francois Navarre, first white settler in Monroe, built his home. His 500 acre farm, acquired by deed from the Indians in 1785, afforded a center for the River Raisin colony, by 1790 an important frontier community.
Col. Navarre was friend and host to many. As leader of the French colony, he was the liaison between the settlers and the American Government officials during the critical years before the British were finally ousted from the Northwest Territory. He escorted the advance . . . — Map (db m20933) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — After the Battle — River Raisin Battlefield 1813 |
| | In the words of Laurent Durocher, "after the defeat of Winchester, many of the inhabitants fled with their families to the frontier of Ohio. Others went to Detroit. The British made several attempts to persuade the Indians to destroy what was left of the settlement at the River Raisin, but the Potawatomies protested and declared they....had given the land to the first settlers, and had been compensated therefore....and would not suffer them to be disturbed in their habitations."
In October . . . — Map (db m20905) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — Anderson Trading Post |
| | On this property in 1812 was the trading post of John Anderson, famed Scottish pioneer of the River Raisin.
Anderson, Colonel of the Militia in 1812, was taken prisoner at Detroit, later escaped.
Mrs. Anderson, alone at the time of the River Raisin massacre, successfully defied frenzied Indians who invaded the premises and lapped from the basement floor whiskey which she had emptied from the barrels. Mrs. Anderson sat defiantly upon the family money chest as the savages threatened her . . . — Map (db m27262) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — Artillery January 22, 1813 |
| | [Marker side facing south]
British Artillery on January 22nd consisted of six small cannons, mostly 3-pounders, with some small howitzers. The artillery pieces were first positioned about 400 yards north of here, just south of Mason Run Creek. These were used to good effect on the American Regulars in the open ground on this site. They did not seriously affect the Militia behind the puncheon fences to the west.
After the Regulars retreated from this site, one British gun was . . . — Map (db m20941) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — Battles of the River Raisin |
| | [Marker side facing south]
Describing the American victory of January 18, 1813, Capt. John McCalla of the 5th Kentucky, wrote: "I have seen the enemy, and I have seen him defeated. I have seen my fellow soldiers extended lifeless bloody corpses on the ground, and many others groaning in agony from dangerous wounds. I have heard balls whistling as thick as the pattering hail around me, yet have not been touched even in my clothes. I can only say of the engagement, that our movements . . . — Map (db m20945) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — Boston Custer - Autie Reed |
| | Gen. George A. Custer's brother, Boston, and his nephew, Harry (Autie) Armstrong Reed, accompanied the ill-fated Little Big Horn Expedition into Montana as civilian Quartermaster employees. While at the rear of the cavalry column they learned Gen. Custer had sent back an order for ammunition. Anticipating an Indian battle and eager to take part, they rushed forward to join the fighting.
Both died with the 7th Cavalry on June 25, 1876, and were buried on the battlefield. The family arranged their reburial here, January 8, 1878. — Map (db m21001) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — British Victory at Frenchtown |
| | From near this spot on Jan. 22, 1813, 525 British soldiers and Canadian militiamen from Fort Malden under Col. Henry Proctor and some 800 Indians under Chiefs Roundhead and Walk-In-The-Water launched a pre-dawn attack on the sleeping American camp a mile south on the River Raisin. The British firepower included six small sled-mounted artillery pieces.
The British soldiers, mostly from the 41st Regiment of Foot and Royal Newfoundland Regiment, suffered heavy casualties in three vain . . . — Map (db m27254) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — Capture of Gen. Winchester |
| | Under attack by the British and Indians before dawn on Jan. 22, 1813, in the second Battle of the River Raisin, the U.S. 17th Infantry soon broke and fled south across the frozen river. Gen. James Winchester, the American commander, tried several times to rally these troops but was swept up in the route. Here he and his staff surrendered to the Wyandot Indian Jack Brandy, who delivered them to the British Commander, Col. Henry Proctor.
Surrender was no guarantee of safety, however. After . . . — Map (db m20899) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — Col. Francis Navarre |
| | First Indian
Grant of land to the
First White Settler
In Monroe
Col. Francis Navarre
1785
First White Child Born
In Monroe
Gen. Winchester's
Headquarters 1813. — Map (db m20938) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — Death of Capt. Woolfolk |
| | The American Capt. John Woolfolk hid in one of the French homes just east of here during the massacre at the River Raisin, Jan. 23, 1813. Indians searching the settlement found him. They claimed him as their prisoner and forced him to this spot. Powerless, the local French watched as Woolfolk's offer of $1,000.00 for safe passage to the British in Detroit was spurned by the Indians. They shot him and left his body lying in the road.
Although the French settlers could not help Woolfolk, . . . — Map (db m20882) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — Death of Col. John Allen |
| | Col. Allen tried vainly to rally the retreating Americans at the second Battle of the River Raisin, Jan. 22, 1813. Exhausted and disabled by a thigh wound, he faced the pursuing Indians near here. The colonel desperately defended himself at swordpoint before being killed.
Col. Allen was one of the most influential men in Kentucky. He organized and then led the elite first rifle regiment, Kentucky volunteer militia. Allen had unsuccessfully run for the governorship of Kentucky in 1808 and . . . — Map (db m20898) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — Doctor Eduard Dorsch — 1822 - 1887 |
| | Although Dr. Dorsch, born in Bavaria, was a competent physician with degrees from Munich & Vienna, he was exiled when the 1848 Germain Revolution failed. In Monroe his love of freedom led him to make this home a station on the Underground Railroad, later willing it for use as a Public Library.
He was a Delegate to the first Republican Party Convention, Elector from Michigan and member of the State Board of Education. As a U.S. Pension Board Surgeon he devised charts long used to trace a . . . — Map (db m27636) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — First American Flag |
| | First American Flag
Raised on Michigan soil
In Frenchtown
By Capt., Porter 1796.
Site of River Raisin
Block house occupied
By American troops.
Burned by the British
Capt., Elliott under order
Of Col. Proctor. Aug. 1812. — Map (db m25964) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — First Battle of the River Raisin |
| | Over this ground, Jan. 18, 1813, 667 Kentuckians and nearly 100 local Frenchmen charged across the frozen river toward the British and Indian positions. The 63 British and Canadian soldiers and 200 Potawatomi Indians made a brief stand there, then retreated with their cannon into a wooded area a mile to the north where the fighting raged for several hours...
Across this ground during the second battle, Jan. 22, the Indians closely pursued the retreating U.S. 17th Infantry and its . . . — Map (db m27660) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — First District Court |
| | Here in the log house of Jean Baptiste Jereaume the Federal Court of the Erie District, Territory of Michigan, held its first session July 3, 1805. President Thomas Jefferson named Judge Augustus B. Woodward to preside.
Beginning in 1807 the Hesse District Court of Common Pleas also met here or across the river in Francois Navarre's home.
Jereaume's home held wounded American prisoners of war during the Massacre at the River Raisin. In the bitter cold of January 23, 1813 Indian allies . . . — Map (db m20909) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — First Indian Trading Post |
| | Near the site
of the
First Indian
Trading Post
in
Monroe — Map (db m27309) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — General George A. Custer |
| | Born Dec. 5, 1839, New Rumley, Ohio.
Graduated U.S. Military Academy, June 1861.
Brigadier General Volunteers June 29, 1863.
Brevet Major General Volunteers Oct., 1864.
Commanded Michigan Brigade of cavalry at Battle of Gettysburg, and 3rd Division of Sheridan's Cavalry Corps.
Major General Volunteers April, 1865.
Commanded Division of Cavalry Mexican Border, 1865-6.
Brevetted through all grades from major to major general regular army for distinguished . . . — Map (db m20878) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — 638 — George Armstrong Custer — Michigan Historic Site |
| | [Side A]:George Armstrong Custer
Raised in Monroe, George Armstrong Custer graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York in 1861. In 1863 he became a brigadier general and commanded the Michigan Cavalry Brigade. "Come On You Wolverine's!" was his battle cry while leading his men to victory over the Confederates at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863. Custer commanded a division in the Shenandoah Valley in 1864 and his troops cut off the last avenue of escape for Robert . . . — Map (db m22787) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — Historic River Raisin |
| | “Remember the River Raisin” became a national battle cry in the War of 1812 after settlers and Kentucky soldiers were massacred by Indians on the river’s banks in violation of protection promised by the British,
The stream here was the center of a sturdy French – American settlement which took form 1780 – 86.
In the period of controversy after the War of Independence and until 1794 British – Canadian authorities sought to establish the River Raisin as the . . . — Map (db m25963) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — Indian Attack |
| | The Second Battle of the River Raisin Jan. 22, 1813, found nearly 400 American soldiers caught in retreat down this old road to Ohio. Those few who made it to this point, over a mile south of their czmp, were ambushed by hidden Indians. The 40 American bodies found here bore witness to the ferocity of the attack.
The retreat was a disaster for the American army at Frenchtown. Out of the 400 men who fled, only 33 escaped, about 147 were captured and as many as 220 were killed by the pursuing Indians. — Map (db m27294) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — Indian Trading Post |
| | Site of early
Indian Trading Post
Tablets placed
By the Women
of the
Civic Improvement
Society
Of Monroe — Map (db m27729) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — Major-General George Armstrong Custer |
| | Born in New Rumley, Ohio, George A. Custer grew up in Monroe in the home of his half-sister, Mrs. David Reed. February 9, 1864, in the Presbyterian Church here, he married Libbie Bacon, only daughter of Judge Daniel S. Bacon.
During the Civil War, he received six brevets and was made Major-General before he was 26 years old, a rare distinction.
From 1866 until his death at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, General Custer commanded the famous Seventh Cavalry Regiment, leading them in . . . — Map (db m20935) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — Memorial Place |
| | Here were buried unidentified remains of victims of the River Raisin Massacre of 1813.
In 1872 surviving veterans of that war gathered in Monroe from Ohio and Kentucky. They headed a colorful civic pageant which halted solemnly at this spot while the old soldiers paid military honor to their fallen comrades. General George A. Custer, a member of the local welcoming committee, read the roll call of the veterans.
In 1904-05 the ladies of the Monroe Civic improvement Society induced city . . . — Map (db m21006) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — Michigan's Tribute to Kentucky |
| | This Monument is dedicated to the
Memory of the heroes who
Lost their lives in our country's defense,
in the
Battle and Massacre of the River Raisin,
January 22nd, and 23rd, 1813. — Map (db m20937) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — Monroe County Since 1817 |
| | Monroe County was established in July, 1817, as one of the first steps in the organization of Michigan Territory after the War of 1812.
Then the old settlement of Frenchtown which centered upon this square took the name of Monroe and became the county seat, September, 1817.
At first Monroe County included the lands now Lenawee and Washtenaw Counties. After the latter were established Lenawee was attached to Monroe County for administration, 1822-1826.
Controversy over the . . . — Map (db m27634) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — Murder of Captain Hart |
| | Captain Nathaniel G. T. Hart, brother-in-law of Henry Clay and inspector general of American Army of the Northwest under Harrison, was killed here during the massacre of the River Raisin January 22 - 23, 1813.
Captain Hart, wounded in battle, was rescued by a doctor from a log cabin field hospital just before the Indians set fire to it. Under escort of a friendly Pottawattamie and on horseback, he was about to make his escape when shot down by a Wyandot savage.
Captain Hart was one of . . . — Map (db m27260) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — Navarre - Anderson Trading Post |
| | [Front side of Marker]
You are approaching the oldest surviving wooden structure in Michigan. Built in 1789, it was moved from its original Monroe site in 1894. In 1969 its history was discovered. We are exceptionally grateful to the following major contributors for the 1971-1991 restoration:
Roger Russeau and Peter Navarre, Gift of Building; Mike Vuich, Sr. and Millie Vuich, Gift of Land; Monroe Auto Equipment Foundation, Gift of Land; Charles S. & Marion F. McIntyre . . . — Map (db m27317) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — Old Hull Road |
| | General Hull's army hewed out of the wilderness the first Michigan road when it advanced from the River Raisin to Detroit at the beginning of the War of 1812.
In Monroe the original crossing of the river by Hull's Army was at a ford near the present Winchester bridge.
North of Monroe, Hull's road followed an old Indian trail which is now the course of M-56, long known as the Old Dixie, which courses the shore line of Lake Erie and which, northwest of Oldport runs into the Old River Road, . . . — Map (db m27235) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — Old Whipping Post |
| | Public whipping for minor crime was a custom brought from New England by Monroe's earliest American settler's. Not general in the midwest, the punishment was administered here chiefly to ne'er-do-wells whom the citizens wished to be rid of.
Peter P. Ferry, a former soldier of Napoleon's army, served as a local justice of the peace. He sentenced many an offender to be lashed in public until the custom was abolished around 1835.
The first frame courthouse was built across the street . . . — Map (db m27726) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — Roundhead |
| | In the temporary absence of Tecumseh, the Native-American allies of the British were led by Wyandot Chiefs Roundhead and Walk-in-the-Water. Besides the Wyandots, Native forces included warriors from the Shawnee, Potawatomi, Ottawa, Chippewa, Delaware, Miami, Winnebago, Creek, Sauk, and Fox tribes. The American commander, General James Winchester, was captured by Native warriors about a mile and a half south of this point, and Roundhead delivered him to the British commander, Colonel Henry . . . — Map (db m21567) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — Sandy Creek Settlement |
| | Joseph Porlier Benac, Sandy Creek's first settler, was granted a tract of land here by the Potawatomi Indians Aug. 3, 1780. By the time of the War of 1812, sixteen homes lined the banks of the creek.
Retreating Indians swept through the settlement after the defeat of the British and Indians at the first Battle of the River Raisin, Jan. 18, 1813. Angered by the pro-American remarks of Jean Solo and Rene LaBeau, these Indians shot them. LaBeau's frightened young children ran two and a half . . . — Map (db m27245) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — Site of Battles of Jan. 18 - 22 |
| | [Marker Front]
Site of Battles of Jan. 18 - 22
Gen. Winchester in Command,
and River Raisin Massacre
Jan. 23, 1813
[Marker Reverse]
800 Americans under Cols.
Allen, Lewis and Wells
Fought desperately against
3000 British and Allies
Under Gen. Proctor.
Forced to surrender, Tho'
Promised British protection,
the prisoners left unguarded
were attacked and killed
by the Indians. — Map (db m20041) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — Skirmish Line |
| | In this vicinity and parallel to the driveway, a line of scattered human remains were detected in 2000, which may mark the main skirmish line of the 17th U.S. Infantry. The bodies of those killed lay exposed to the elements for some time after the battle. Eventually, the scattered remains were gathered up and buried at several sites, including Memorial Place on South Monroe Street, where the Kentucky Monument is located. In the 1830's, bodies were removed to military cemeteries in Detroit and . . . — Map (db m20916) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — Tecumseh's Headquarters |
| | The Great Indian Chief Tecumseh headquartered near here for over a month after the unsuccessful British And Indian siege of Fort Meigs in Ohio, July 1813. The British strategy was to use the Indians at the River Raisin to slow down any American invasion of Canada from Ohio. The Indians had to take food and shelter from the settlement when they received no supplies from the British.
Tecumseh and his men withdrew to Canada shortly before refugees from the River Raisin led Col. Richard M. . . . — Map (db m20914) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — The American Surrender |
| | Protected only by a picket fence, nearly 500 Kentucky militiamen fought off three British charges on their camp along the river and silenced the British cannon with their long rifles in the second Battle of the River Raisin, Jan. 22, 1813.
They fought for three hours until they saw a white flag approaching from the British lines. They were sure it was a plea for truce. To their surprise it was a message from their captured General. Unaware of their strong position and the approach of Gen. . . . — Map (db m27243) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — The Custer Home |
| | This 116 acre "French ribbon farm", purchased by General George Armstrong Custer, his brother, Nevin, and their wives August 22, 1871, ran northerly from the River Raisin. Nevin Custer farmed it until his death. The present Custer Airport, created from part of the farm, is named for it.
General Custer's famous war-horse, Dandy, who accompanied him to the Little Big Horn, lies buried in the old orchard site back of the residence.
Buffalo Bill Cody and Little Annie Oakley would always ride . . . — Map (db m22741) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — The Navarre - Anderson Trading Post |
| | In 1789, Heutrau Navarre, son of Detroit's Royal Notary, built this house, Michigan's oldest residence. Constructed of joined timbers, it is considered the best example of French colonial architecture in the state. Originally Navarre used it as a depot for his fur trade business, but in 1798 converted it to his family residence. After he sold it in 1802 it had two other prominent owners, John Anderson, fur trader and local militia colonel, and Joseph Dazet, physician and refugee from the French . . . — Map (db m27316) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — The Old Hull Road |
| | "The Old Hull Road"
over which
The American Troops
were driven by the
English & Indian Allies
Jan. 22, 1813 — Map (db m20880) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Monroe — U.S. 17th Infantry Campsite — River Raisin Battlefield 1813 |
| | Elements of the U.S. 17th Infantry were camped in an open field just north of here when the British and Indians launched their surprise counterattack at dawn, January 22, 1813. The Americans held their ground here for 20 minutes before the Canadian militiamen with the British and Indians flanked them, forcing a retreat. Reinforcements arrived from the Kentucky militia camp to the west, but the Americans forces soon found themselves fleeing across the frozen river toward the old road to Ohio. . . . — Map (db m20904) |
| Michigan (Monroe County), Ottawa Lake — Erie and Kalamazoo Railroad |
| | On April 22, 1833, the Erie and Kalamazoo Railroad was granted a charter by the Legislature of the Territory of Michigan and was built and in operation a year before Michigan was a state. It was to connect Toledo (then called Port Lawrence and considered to be in Michigan) with the Kalamazoo River.
By November 2, 1836, cars drawn by two horses hitched tandem and changed every 4 miles made regular trips from Port Lawrence to Adrian. Early in July, 1837 the Adrian No. 1, a steam locomotive, . . . — Map (db m27772) |
| Michigan (Montmorency County), Atlanta — L1808 — Big Rock |
| | Natural features have often played a role in the naming of communities. One such settlement was Big Rock. Named after a massive boulder, this hamlet was located at the crossroads of present-day M-32 and Thornton Road. Seth Gillet became the first postmaster in 1882. By 1902 a general store owned by Briley Township pioneer William Remington housed the post office. At that time a church and school, a grange hall, a sawmill and a blacksmith shop were also located in Big Rock. The post office closed in 1920. — Map (db m33279) |
| Michigan (Montmorency County), Lewiston — L2132 — Angusdale Stock Farm |
| | A Milwaukee businessman, Cephas Buttles became aware of Lewiston through his brother-in-law David Kneeland, the president of Kneeland and Bigelow Lumber Company. In 1901 Buttles purchased 25,000 acres of cutover timberlands and started the Home Colony Company, intent on populating the northern part of the Lower Peninsula. Buttles built the 1,200-acre Angusdale Stock Farm in 1902 as a model for his company, and he featured photographs of it in his sales literature. The promise of cheap fertile . . . — Map (db m33253) |
| Michigan (Montmorency County), Lewiston — L0647 — Camp Lunden |
| | In June 1933 two hundred unmarried, able-bodied men between the ages of seventeen and twenty-three, members of the Civilian Conservation Corps, set up camp on Hunt Creek. Soon after, they relocated to this site, which they named Camp Lunden. In 1936 forty men training to be draftsmen and civil engineers arrived. In their spare time they landscaped an earthern scale model of the state of Michigan in front of their barracks. The dug out lakes--Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and St. Clair--were fed by an artesian well and stocked with fish. — Map (db m33293) |
| Michigan (Montmorency County), Lewiston — L1500 — Congregational United Church of Christ |
| | Lewiston developed in 1891-1892 around the Michelson and Hanson Lumber Company. Dr. U.H. Traver and George Tuxworth held the first religious meetings in the lumber camp. The Reverend A.M. Hills was sent by the Congregational Conference of Michigan to hold revival meetings, and on November 28, 1892, thirty people chartered the First Congregational Church. Two years later they built a church, which was incorporated over the years into the present one. The lumber mills ceased operating and the . . . — Map (db m33303) |
| Michigan (Oakland County), Berkley — L1060 — Roseland Park Mausoleum |
| | The Roseland Park Mausoleum was the largest public mausoleum in the United States when it was dedicated in 1914. Designed by Detroit architect Louis Kamper (1861-1953), the classically inspired, two-story building contains 1,300 crypts. Before designing this structure, Kamper traveled to Europe to study noted mausoleums there. The interior of this building is faced with Vermont marble and classically detailed with double-tier Doric columns in the entrance lobby and in the main hall. Skylights enhance its lighting. — Map (db m33026) |
| Michigan (Oakland County), Ferndale — L1074 — Ferndale School |
| | Constructed in 1915 — Map (db m34228) |
| Michigan (Oakland County), Ferndale — 705 — Michigan's First Tri-level Intersection |
| | During the 1950s, as Oakland County's population soared, the corner of Eight Mile Road and Woodward Avenue became the most congested crossroad in Michigan. The solution, envisioned in a plan created by Detroit and its surrounding counties in the 1920s, was the Eight Mile-Woodward tri-level intersection. Built in 1956-57, it used two levels for the Woodward Avenue and Eight Mile "superhighways" and one for the local access intersection. Woodward Avenue originated in Augustus B. Woodward's 1805 . . . — Map (db m31894) |
| Michigan (Oakland County), Highland — Pettibone Creek Mills |
| | In 1846 Major F. Lockwood built a dam and sawmill on Pettibone Creek northeast of Livingston and Harvey Lake Roads. This sawmill supplied lumber to Highland's earliest settlers until it burned in 1863. In 1867 Chester Chatfield build a cider mill at the same location. He sold it two years later to John B. Crouse who used it to make both cider and vinegar. A succession of owners followed. By 1877 production had reached 2500 barrels per year. After 1880 the mill supplied vinegar to the Highland . . . — Map (db m20487) |
| Michigan (Oakland County), Holly — L0602 — Battle Alley |
| | This historic district was once the scene of frequent brawls. In 1880, an uproar between local rowdies and workers of a traveling circus rendered so many bruised, beaten, and jailed, that this street was thus named "Battle Alley." Carry A. Nation, "Kansas saloon smasher," came to Holly on August 28, 1908, at the request of the local prohibition committee. Wielding her umbrella, she strode through the alley's bars bellowing about the "Demon Rum" and its sins. In 1910, Battle Alley became the first brick street in the village. — Map (db m34527) |
| Michigan (Oakland County), Holly — L0832 — Crapo Park |
| | Henry Howland Crapo (1804-1869)--wealthy lumberman, Republican, state senator (1863-64) and governor of Michigan (1865-68)--owned prosperous lumberyards in Holly, Fenton and Flint. Lumber and railroads were essential elements in the development of this area. In 1863-64 Crapo was instrumental in developing the Flint to Holly Railroad, which linked this part of the state to the rest of the country. The eighteen-mile line was among the first to use steel rails in the United States and was funded . . . — Map (db m34494) |
| Michigan (Oakland County), Holly — L1261 — Holly's Town Hall |
| | Holly's Town Hall has been a center of community activity since it was built in 1892. Holly Township in Oakland County was formally organized in 1838, and the Village of Holly was incorporated in 1865. The two local governments decided to join efforts in building a town hall after their nearby rival, Fenton in Genesee County, erected a hall in the late 1880s. Township voters approved the idea in 1889; village voters, in 1890. The two governments shared equally in the planning and funding of the . . . — Map (db m34541) |
| Michigan (Oakland County), Huntington Woods — L1360 — Fred A. Baker House |
| | In 1890, Fred A. Baker, an attorney and former state legislator, purchased 320 acres of land in Royal Oak Township. He developed the land into the Black Meadow Dairy Farm, one of the area's largest dairies. This Colonial Revival house was built in 1896 on his farm across LaSalle Street. It was moved to this site in 1916 when Baker and several associates formed the Baker Land Company and subdivided the farm into the Bronx subdivision, one of the city's oldest neighborhoods. — Map (db m34269) |
| Michigan (Oakland County), Huntington Woods — Polar Bears |
| | Dedicated to the American North Russian Expeditionary Forces known as the "Polar Bears".
From September 4, 1918, to June 15, 1919, fifty-five hundred American Soldiers of the 339th Infantry regiment (with elements of the 310th Engineers and the 337th Ambulance and Hospital Companies) fought Bolshevic Russian forces under harsh Arctic conditions near Archangel, Russia. Since most of these soldiers came from Michigan, and of those, most were from Detroit, they were known as "Detroit's Own - . . . — Map (db m14152) |
| Michigan (Oakland County), Milford — Civil War Memorial |
| | Erected to the memory of our comrades 1861-1865 by the Herber Lefavour Post no. 181 G.A.R. Milford committee A.J. Mcall, J.E. Beaumont, G.W.Sterdvant — Map (db m26705) |
| Michigan (Oakland County), Pontiac — L1450 — Oak Hill Cemetery |
| | (Front): On June 1, 1822, the Pontiac Company gave the citizens of Pontiac the first land for a village cemetery. It was "to be occupied and used forever as a burying ground." In 1839, when Captain Hervey Parke was employed by the village to survey Outlot 9 of the original plat of the village, Oak Hill Cemetery was laid out. Many of the early pioneers who had been buried near the intersection of Saginaw and Huron streets and on private property were reinterred here after 1839. The . . . — Map (db m14294) |
| Michigan (Oakland County), Pontiac — Pontiac Monument |
| | In loving memory
of Union Veterans
of The Civil War
1861 * 1865
* * *
Erected by
Frances C. Butterfield
Tent No. 9 Daughters of Union Veterans
1927 Loyalty — Map (db m26703) |
| Michigan (Oakland County), Royal Oak — Dr. Firman W. Clawson Homestead Site |
| | On this site stood the old homestead of Dr. Firman W. Clawson the original owner & subdivider of Northwood "the Homesite Beautiful"
Planned & planted
A.D. 1900 — Map (db m33003) |
| Michigan (Oakland County), Royal Oak — Indian Trail |
| | This depressed path, northwest across the Almon Starr land, is the last visible remnant of a trail worn by the feet of Indians and the hoofs of their horses traveling between Detroit and Saginaw until the mid 1800s.
The children of the American Revolution planted the pin oak tree nearby in 1939 to mark the trail.
To perpetuate the memory of the natives of our land, this monument is set for the Michigan Sesquicentennial — Map (db m33002) |
| Michigan (Oakland County), Royal Oak — 484 — Orson Starr Home |
| | Orson Starr (1803-1873) and his wife, Rhoda Gibbs Starr, (1806-1853) built this home in 1845. Five generations of the Starr family lived here until 1964. The house was purchased by the city of Royal Oak in 1976. Orson Starr came to this area in 1831 and began manufacturing cowbells in a factory located just north of this site. He continued this trade for forty years. The cowbells, products of Royal Oak's first industry, were stamped with Starr's trademark and are now prized by collectors. — Map (db m32971) |
| Michigan (Oakland County), Royal Oak — L1562 — Royal Oak Methodist Episcopal Church |
| | On May 3, 1918, the Royal Oak Tribune boasted that, "architecturally and artistically," the new Methodist Episcopal Church was "the achievement of a master mind." William E. N. Hunter, a Detroit architect and Methodist who designed many Protestant churches, provided the plans for this Collegiate Gothic-style church, now known as First United Methodist Church. The Methodist Episcopal congregation was the first church organized in Royal Oak. It was established in 1838, and five years later . . . — Map (db m34270) |
| Michigan (Oakland County), Royal Oak — L0679 — Royal Oak Woman's Club |
| | Erected in 1839, this building was originally a small frame Baptist church. The village purchased it for a town hall in 1914 and used it for municipal purposes until 1923, when the Royal Oak Woman's Club acquired it. The club, founded in 1902 as a women's study group, has relocated the structure twice. In 1923, when the building was remodeled as a Tudor-style structure, a cobblestone fireplace was installed. This is the oldest building in the city of Royal Oak. — Map (db m34271) |
| Michigan (Oakland County), Royal Oak — S164 — Saginaw Trail / John Almon Starr House |
| | Saginaw Trail
The Saginaw Trail, running from Detroit to Saginaw through Pontiac and Flint, was originally an Indian trail. In 1816 Michigan territorial government authorized the building of a road from Detroit to Saginaw along the trail. Part of the trail in Oakland County is now Woodward Avenue and Dixie Highway. Evidence of the original Saginaw Trail's path through Royal Oak is still visible as a Depression in the ground running northwesterly across the property adjacent to the John . . . — Map (db m33001) |
| Michigan (Oakland County), Royal Oak — The Royal Oak |
| | Near this spot stood the oak tree named by General Cass "The Royal Oak" from which Royal Oak Township received its name. — Map (db m32443) |
| Michigan (Oakland County), Southfield — S0223 — Lawrence Institute of Technology |
| | Lawrence Tech was chartered in 1932 by the Lawrence brothers, Russell E. and E. George. The college was located in Highland Park on Woodward Avenue until 1955, when the first building opened on this campus. Lawrence Tech, founded as an undergraduate college of engineering, later added programs in architecture, management, arts and science, and various technological fields. The college pioneered in scheduling evening programs for working students and in 1935 developed the four-quarter academic . . . — Map (db m34596) |
| Michigan (Otsego County), Gaylord — L1635 — First Congregational Church |
| | The First Congregational Church is the oldest congregation in Gaylord. In 1874 the Reverend James McKay founded it as a mission church with twenty-one members. It was officially organized three years later. In 1878 the Reverend Abram Van Auken arrived, and construction began on a church, dedicated in 1879. That church has been incorporated into the present structure. In 1957, as a result of a national merger, this congregation joined the United Church of Christ. — Map (db m33351) |
| Michigan (Otsego County), Gaylord — Gaylord, Michigan |
| | Settled in the year 1874 by the Jackson, Lansing & Saginaw Railroad, the new community was named for Augustine Smith Gaylord, an attorney for the railroad. Born in Jefferson, Ohio in 1831, he started the Saginaw Public School System in 1851. He became a lawyer in 1856 and was appointed to the Michigan House of Representatives in 1862. In 1875, he was appointed to serve as an attorney in the Department of the Interior during the term of President Grant. He died in Saginaw in 1877. — Map (db m33369) |
| Michigan (Otsego County), Gaylord — 219 — Otsego County |
| | First named Okkuddo when it was set off in 1840, this county was renamed Otsego in 1843 after a New York county and lake of that name. It is said to mean "clear water." Settlement did not begin until the late 1860's when lumbering was started. Otsego Lake, the first village, was founded in 1872 and became county seat in 1875 when the county was organized. Gaylord was settled in 1874 and named county seat in 1877. Farming and the tourist industry are now the chief businesses. — Map (db m33370) |
| Michigan (Otsego County), Gaylord — 2149 — St. Mary's Catholic Church |
| | St. Mary's Church began as a mission of the Catholic diocese of Grand Rapids. The first church was built around 1884. The parish grew to become a predominantly Polish congregation while under the pastorate of Father Casimir Skory (1892-1905). In 1893 Father Skory founded St. Mary's School, which was served by the Dominican Sisters. Father Skory was instrumental in the planning and construction of this church in 1900. — Map (db m33374) |
| Michigan (Ottawa County), Grand Haven — Grand Trunk Western Bridge Approach Signal |
| | This signal for many years guarded the east-end approach to the Grand Trunk Western Swing Bridge over the entrance to the Spring Lake channel.
This electrified signal with its colored lights indicated to the engineer of the train whether the bridge was open to water traffic or closed and lined up for railroad and was safe to bring the train across the bridge.
The tracks and swing bridge were removed in 1970's.
The signal was donated by the Village of Spring Lake to the City of Grand Haven in 1981. — Map (db m4786) |
| Michigan (Ottawa County), Grand Haven — Grand Trunk Western Standard Coaling Tower |
| | Built in 1925 by Ogle Construction Co. of Chicago. Illinois.
All ladders, stairways and other steel hardware were stripped from the tower when it was removed from operation in the early 1950's.
In use, a hopper car of coal was spottedover the pit, under the arches, the bottom hopper doors were opened and the coal dropped by gravity from the car into the pit where a bucket hoisted the coal to the storage bin at the top of the tower.
The attached concrete shed contained the power . . . — Map (db m4780) |
| Michigan (Ottawa County), Grand Haven — Grand Trunk Western, Wood Caboose No. 77915 |
| | This caboose of the Grand Trunk of Canada was of the 1894 design and was transferred to the Grand Trunk Western.
Early car department records indicate that it was rebuilt in 1925.
This all-wood caboose was used by the conductor as a rolling office, complete with desk and chair to prepare his paperwork. The rear brakeman sat in the seat in the cupola to watch over the train while it was in motion. Typically, the caboose was outfitted with a coal or wood stove, ice box, drinking water . . . — Map (db m4781) |
| Michigan (Ottawa County), Grand Haven — Pere Marquette Auto Box Car No 72222 |
| | Built in December, 1946 by the Ralston Steel Car Co. in Columbus, Ohio.
It was used for transportation of automobile parts, furniture, and general merchandise.
Later it was retired from service and used as a storage car in the Chesapeake and Ohio freight yard in Saginaw, Michigan.
It is presently used by the restoration crew members as a workshop, tool shed and equipment storage.
Donated by the Chessie System and restored by the West Michigan Railroad Historical Society of . . . — Map (db m4783) |
| Michigan (Ottawa County), Grand Haven — Pere Marquette Caboose No. A-986 |
| | Built in November, 1941 by the St. Louis Car Company of St. Louis, Missouri.
The caboose was truly a rolling office, complete with a coal stove, ice box, drinking water tank, sink and sleeping bunks.
The conductor used desk space provided to do his paper work and the rear brakeman sat in the cupola to watch over the train while it was in motion.
This car was equipped with the unique "Duryea Cushioned Underframe".
This caboose was at one time used on the nightly "Cannonball" . . . — Map (db m4782) |
| Michigan (Ottawa County), Grand Haven — Pere Marquette Steam Locomotive No. 1223 Class N-1, 2-8-4 Berkshire Type |
| | Built by the Lima Locomotive Works, Lima, Ohio in November 1941. The boiler number is 7837.
This is one of two surviving steam engines of its type that were used in fast freight service between Chicago, Saginaw, Detroit and Toledo. Engine 1223 was retired from service on December 31, 1951, and was donated to the State of Michigan where it was placed on display at the Michigan State Fairgrounds. In 1981 after falling in disrepair, the State of Michigan accepted competitive bids with the . . . — Map (db m4785) |
| Michigan (Washtenaw County), Ann Arbor — In memory of all Veterans |
| | In memory of all veterans who served our country in time of war — Map (db m26660) |
| Michigan (Washtenaw County), Ann Arbor — Washtenaw County War Memorial |
| | In memory of the soldiers and sailors of Washtenaw County who served in the Civil War, 1861-1865, also those who served in the war with Spain, 1898. Erected A. D. 1914. — Map (db m26659) |
| Michigan (Washtenaw County), Chelsea — Oak Grove Cemetery Civil War Memorial |
| | (North Face): Erected under the auspices of Woman's Relief Corps No. 210, assisted by R.P. Carpenter Post No. 41, and Patriotic Citizens 1861 to 1865
(West Face):R.P. Carpenter Post No 41 To the memory of our noble dead who freely gave their lives that our Country's flag might be maintained unsullied. Erected May 30, 1897 — Map (db m26732) |
| Michigan (Washtenaw County), Manchester — Manchester War Memorial |
| | In memory
of our soldiers
dead
1861 - 1865
1898 - 1899
WW I WW II
1917 - 1918 1941 - 1946
Korean Vietnam
1950 - 1955 1961 - 1975 — Map (db m26797) |
| Michigan (Washtenaw County), Ypsilanti — S0509 — Willow Run |
| | [Marker Front]:
Willow Run (1941-1953)
After entering World War II in 1941, America desperately needed military equipment and supplies. The Ford Motor Company had begun building this factory in April 1941. Outstanding industrial architect Albert Kahn designed Willow Run, one of the largest manufacturing plants under one roof in the world. Completed in early 1942, this bulwark of the "Arsenal of Democracy" produced 8685 B-24 Liberator Bombers and had a peak employment of 42,000 men . . . — Map (db m14296) |
| Michigan (Washtenaw County), Ypsilanti — Ypsilanti Civil War Memorial |
| | This Statue
was presented by
Mary-Ann Starkweather
1861-1865
Erected by the Women's
Relief Corps of Ypsilanti
in memory of the men who in
the War of the Great Rebellion
fought to uphold their
country's flag
Memorial Day 1895
They died to make their country free — Map (db m14142) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Dearborn — 1765 — Charles A. Kandt House |
| | This house, built around 1927 by Charles and Anna Kandt, represents the foursquare, a house type popular during the early twentieth century, particularly in the teens and twenties. Charles Kandt opened a hotel in Dearborn in 1903 and engaged in other enterprises, including the sale of farm implements and hardware. During the early 1920s he formed the C.A. Kandt Lumber Company. Kandt served on the city council and chamber of commerce.
Registered Local Site No. 1765
Property of the State of Michigan — Map (db m31686) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Dearborn — Commandant's Quarters |
| | This building was one of eleven built in 1833 for the United States Detroit Arsenal at Dearbornville. A walled compound, a 360 foot square, was erected to store military supplies on the frontier. Constructed of red brick in the Federal style, this Arsenal was located on strategic Chicago Road, now Michigan Avenue. The quarters were a center for social and cultural events in Dearborn until they were closed in 1875. The Commandant's Quarters later became a fire station, police station, church, . . . — Map (db m31687) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Dearborn — L1629 — Dearborn Hills Golf Club |
| | During his long career Robert Herndon developed over fifty subdivisions and nine golf courses. In 1922 he opened the Dearborn Hills Golf Club. According to the Dearborn Times Herald, it was Michigan's first public golf course. Having been rejected by bankers who reminded him that "golf was for millionaires," Herndon financed the project with the aid of investors. The golf course was designed by three professional golfers including Walter Hagen.
Construction of the golf course and the . . . — Map (db m33663) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Dearborn — Dr. Samuel Pierce Duffield |
| | 1833-1916 - Physician - Chemist - Pharmacist - One of the founders of Parke, Davis & Company, Dr. Duffield's stately residence was located about one-half mile west from this marker. About 100 feet further west was located his laboratory where he practiced medicine during the latter part of his life and carried on many experiments which have aided medical science. — Map (db m32500) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Dearborn — 17 — Fair Lane |
| | Here Henry and Clara Bryant Ford lived from 1915 until their deaths in 1947 and 1950. The eminent American auto magnate and inventor named Fair Lane after the road on which his father, William Ford, was born in County Cork, Ireland. The fifty-six room mansion made of marblehead limestone and concrete was completed in 1915. Inventor Thomas A. Edison, a frequent guest here, laid the cornerstone in 1914 for the powerhouse which supplied power for the entire estate. Ford's popularization of the . . . — Map (db m31690) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Dearborn — S0126 — Ford Airport / Ford Tri-Motor |
| | The Ford Airport
At this airport, built by Henry Ford in 1924, world and national history was made, ushering in a new era of flight embracing the all-metal airliner, radio control devices, air mail, scheduled flights, and the airline services that the generation of the 1930's came to expect.
For the first time in the world:
A hotel, the Dearborn Inn, was designed and built for the air traveler.
A guided flight of a commercial airliner was made by radio.
For the first . . . — Map (db m14956) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Dearborn — 660 — Fordson High School |
| | Side 1
When it was dedicated on March 22, 1928, Fordson High School was hailed as "one of the finest school buildings in the United States." Designed in the Neo-Tudor style, the school is reminiscent of sixteenth century English universities and manor houses. The tower was inspired by the Yale University Memorial Quadrangle and the Lawyers Club at the University of Michigan. Fordson's interior houses mosaics, statuary, Pewabic tile, and murals by Hungarian-born artist Zoltan Sepeshy . . . — Map (db m32948) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Dearborn — 236 — Henry Ford Birthplace |
| | At this intersection stood the home in which Henry Ford was born on July 30, 1863. The farm house was owned by Ford's parents, William and Mary Ford, and in 1944 it was moved to Greenfield Village. In a space of less than ten years at the beginning of this century, the founder of Ford Motor Company developed three separate and distinct concepts, any of which would have assured him an honored niche in history. He designed and built the Model T Ford car, "the car that put the world on wheels." He . . . — Map (db m32946) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Dearborn — S0386 — St. Joseph's Retreat |
| | In 1885 Michigan's first private mental institution was located here under the guidance of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul. In 1855 the Sisters at St. Mary's Hospital in Detroit had begun the care of the mentally ill, formerly confined to prisons and poorhouses. In 1860 they opened a separate facility, the Michigan State Retreat, which was incorporated in 1883 as St. Joseph's Retreat. The original brick building situated on these 140 acres of farmland and lawns overlooking the . . . — Map (db m33657) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Dearborn — L1070 — The Dearborn Inn / Colonial Homes and Adjacent Buildings |
| | The Dearborn Inn
Henry Ford built the Dearborn Inn in 1931 to accommodate overnight travelers arriving at the Ford Airport. Located opposite the inn on Oakwood Boulevard, the airport opened in 1924. The 179-room inn, designed by Albert Kahn, was the world's first airport hotel. The Georgian-style structure features a crystal-chandeliered ballroom and high ceilings. Its rooms are decorated with reproductions of furniture and fabrics of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The guest . . . — Map (db m14959) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Dearborn — The Ten Eyck Tavern |
| | Conrad Ten Eyck (1782-1847) built a famous tavern in 1826 about 300 feet west of this marker--the first resting place of travelers, one day's trip west of Detroit. It stood on the River Rouge at a point where the Chicago Road forked. The northerly branch, called the Ann Arbor Trail, led toward Lansing, the westerly branch to Ypsilanti. The inn burned down in 1869, its stables in 1906. Ten Eyck's humor may have given Michigan the nickname "Wolverine." He served Dearborn Township as Supervisor, . . . — Map (db m32498) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Dearborn Heights — L0067 — Wallaceville School |
| | Constructed in 1824 as a church, the original log building on this site was the first school in Bucklin (later Dearborn) Township. In 1829 the building became a public school. When John B. Wallace donated the land and building to the school district, the school was named after him. The building burned in 1876, and was replaced by this brick structure. The building was used only intermittently after 1938, and in 1966 the City of Dearborn Heights converted it into a museum. — Map (db m32530) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — 19th U. S. Infantry |
| | In memory of our deceased comrades of the 19th U.S. Infantry and other Regts. Erected by the 19th U.S. Inf. Veteran Assn. — Map (db m14118) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — Alpheus S. Williams |
| | Major General Alpheus Starkey Williams. 1810-1878. Hero of two wars. Judge. Editor. Postmaster. Diplomat. Member of Congress. An untiring servant of the people. An honor to the City of Detroit. The Michigan Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States and citizens of Detroit have erected this tribute to the valor and abilities of Alpheus S. Williams, Lieut-Colonel, First Michigan Infantry Volunteers in the War with Mexico. Brig.-General and Brevet Maj. General United States Volunteers in the Civil War. — Map (db m26616) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — L388 — Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church |
| | In 1839 a group of black Detroit citizens formed the Colored Methodist Society, which became the core of the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church. The group held meetings in a hall which was donated by the Detroit Common Council. The Society moved several times, before a church was built on Lafayette in the 1840s. In 1841 the church assumed its present name and organization. From its inception, the church served in a number of ways; it has provided a school for black children, an agency to . . . — Map (db m32496) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — S0687 — Chapman Abraham / Jewish Soldiers in the Civil War |
| | (front side):Chapman Abraham
During the French and Indian War (1754-1763), the British took Canada from France and with it possession of French forts in the western Great Lakes region, including Detroit. The post remained an important center of trade between the British and Native Americans. British trader Chapman Abraham (c. 1723-1783) arrived in Detroit around 1762. Abraham helped to supply British soldiers during the war as a partner of Fort Michilimackinac commissaries Levi . . . — Map (db m33485) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — Detroit River Heritage — River History |
| | For centuries, Native People used the Detroit River for travel, trade, and food. From 1701 to the mid-19th century, French, British, and American settlers used the River the same way. After 1870, companies that processed steel, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and manufactured ships and stoves located on the riverfront, and dumped industrial waste into it. The growing city of Detroit sent sewage into it. By 1930, pollution was a major problem. Clean-up efforts since the 1970s have restored the . . . — Map (db m33419) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — Detroit Spanish American War Monument |
| | Front:Cuba
Porto Rico
Erected by the people of Wayne County in commemoration of the services of her volunteer sons in the Army, Navy and Marine Corps of the United States during the war with Spain 1898-1902 Reverse:
China
Philippines
In commemoration of the volunteer services of Wayne County's sons during the insurrection in the Philippines and the Chinese relief expedition
1898-1902 — Map (db m26655) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — 453 — Elmwood Cemetery — Michigan Registered Historic Site |
| | In 1846 when this was a farm on the outskirts of Detroit, a group of gentlemen formed a corporation and purchased the land for use as a public cemetery. The trustees patterned the grounds after Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and utilized the ideas of famous landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. Parent's Creek, renamed Bloody Run after the battle fought between Pontiac and the British in 1763, serves as the focus in the informal country garden landscape. Albert and . . . — Map (db m21845) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — S0288 — First Michigan Colored Regiment |
| | The First Michigan Colored Regiment was organized at Camp Ward, which originally stood at this location. Formed from August through October 1863, a year of draft riots and protests against the war, this Negro regiment consisted entirely of volunteers. During training, a regimental band was formed and toured southern Michigan to recruit additional volunteers. Mustered here as the 102nd U.S. Colored Troops, February 17, 1864, the 900-man unit left Detroit March 28, 1864 for service in South . . . — Map (db m14889) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — L0594 — Ford Motor Company |
| | Ford Motor Company was incorporated as an automobile manufacturer on June 16, 1903. The articles of incorporation were drawn up and signed in the office of Alexander Y. Malcolmson, who operated a coal yard once located on this site. Henry Ford gave the company its name and designed its first product, the 1903 Model A. The purpose of the company was to manufacture and sell motor cars and related parts. In addition to Ford and Malcolmson, the original stockholders included other figures important . . . — Map (db m33525) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — 71 — Fort Lernoult — Registered Michigan Historic Site |
| | This marks the site of the southwest bastion of Fort Lernoult. It was here, on July 11, 1796, that the American flag was first flown over Detroit. the fort was built by the British in 1778-79 to protect Detroit against possible attack by George Rogers Clark and the American army. Overlooking the stockaded village and named for its commander, Richard B. Lernoult, the fort controlled river traffic and land routes. The fort was not attacked during the American Revolution. However, it was then the . . . — Map (db m21736) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — 27 — Fort Pontchartrain — Michigan Registered Historic Site |
| | The first permanent French settlement in the Detroit region was built on this site in 1701. The location was recommended by Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, who wished to move the fur trade center south from Michilimackinac. Cadillac's plan was approved by Count Jerome de Pontchartrain, Minister of Marine, for whom the fort was named. The term le detroit (the strait) was applied to the fort and surrounding area; after 1751 the post was known as Fort Detroit. In 1760, as a result of the French and . . . — Map (db m21853) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — S0182 — Fort Wayne |
| | No hostile shots have ever been fired from this star-shaped fort built in the 1840s to guard against a British invasion from Canada which never came. This third bastion to protect the river approach to the city was named for General "Mad" Anthony Wayne who accepted the surrender of Detroit from the British in 1796. It was a mobilization center for Union troops during the Civil War. Regiments from Fort Wayne served in the Indian conflicts, the Spanish-American War, the Philippine Insurrection, . . . — Map (db m14292) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — S0224 — Frederick Douglas - John Brown meeting |
| | In the home of William Webb, 200 feet north of this spot, two famous American's met several Detroit Negro residents on March 12, 1859, to discuss methods of abolishing American Negro slavery. John Brown (1800-1859), fiery antislavery leader, ardently advocated insurrectionary procedures, and eight months later became a martyr to the cause. Frederick Douglas (c. 1817-1895), ex-slave and internationally-recognized antislavery orator and writer, sought a solution through political means and . . . — Map (db m14478) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — S0464 — Gabriel Richard |
| | Father Gabriel Jacques Richard, S. S., (1767-1832) -- pastor, educator and public servant -- arrived in Detroit in 1798. In 1802 he became the pastor of Ste. Anne Church. He brought a printing press to the area and in 1809 printed Michigan's first newspaper, The Michigan Essay or Impartial Observer. In 1817 Richard and the Reverend John Monteith, a Presbyterian, became the first professors of the University of Michigania, the territory's pioneer educational establishment. Richard also . . . — Map (db m14879) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — Gen. O. M. Poe Post No. 433 |
| | 1923. This tablet is dedicated to Gen. O. M. Poe Post No. 433, Grand Army of the Republic, by its auxiliary, Gen. Poe Woman's Relief Corps No. 8. "Not for selfish gain or applause, but for honor and the glory of the cause they did that which will never be forgotten." — Map (db m26657) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — General Casimir Pulaski — 1748-1779 |
| | This monument to General Casimir Pulaski, who on Oct. 11, 1779 gave his life at Savannah, Georgia, in the cause of America independence, is a gift to the city of Detroit from the Central Citizens Committee in behalf of 400,000 Americans of Polish descent living in the Detroit Metropolitan Area, with the hope that it shall stand eternally from Sunday September 4, 1966, the day of observance of the millennium of Christianity in Poland, as a symbol of the close and affectionate bonds which have . . . — Map (db m21877) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — S0452 — George DeBaptiste Homesite |
| | George DeBaptiste, a long-time Mason, and one of Detroit's most active and impassioned black community leaders, lived on this site during the 1850s and 60s. Born in Virginia about 1815, he moved to Madison, Indiana in 1838 and became involved in the Underground Railroad. Forced to leave because of his anti-slavery activities, DeBaptiste became the personal valet of General William Henry Harrison, whom he accompanied to the White House as a steward. In 1846, DeBaptiste came to Detroit and . . . — Map (db m14479) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — Glimpses of Detroit's Riverfront History — St. Aubin Park Riverwalk |
| | Stone 1:
St. Aubin Park Riverwalk
Glimpses of Detroit's Riverfront History
This walk made possible by:
Friends of Partners
Detroit Recreation Department
Dedicated July 1969
Stone 2:
The Many Names of Detroit
1880: City of the Straits (Major Great Lakes Port)
1920: Motor City (Automotive Capital of the World)
1963: Motown (Center of American Popular Music)
1980: The Renaissance City (Gateway to 21st Century)
Stone 3: . . . — Map (db m33975) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — Grand Army of the Republic |
| | There are now forty-eight reasons why we will always remember the Grand Army of the Republic. Erected by Department of Michigan, Woman's Relief Corps, auxiliary to the Grand Army of the Republic. Dedicated November, 1948. — Map (db m26656) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — Grand Army of the Republic Building |
| | Memorial to the Soldiers and Sailors of 1861-1865 — Map (db m14144) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — Motown |
| | The "Motown Sound" was created on this site from 1959 to 1972. The company was started with an $800 loan from the savings club of the Bertha and Berry Gordy, Sr., family. Originally called Tamla Records, the company's first national release was "Money (That's What I Want)," in August 1959. The founder, choosing a name that reflected the Motor City, coined the word "Motown" for the company that was incorporated as the Motown Record Corporastion on April 14, 1960. That same year it produced its . . . — Map (db m17597) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — Perry's Victory |
| | Perry's Victory
in Lake Erie
Sept. 18, 1813 — Map (db m14365) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — Peter Wetherill Stroh |
| | Peter Wetherill Stroh (1927-2002) was a Detroit business leader, civic activist and philanthropist. A great grandson of the founder of The Stroh Brewery Company, he became Chairman and CEO of the family business while at the same time maintaining a strong passion for the rehabilitation of Detroit's waterfront. His efforts began in the 1970s with the company's purchase and redevelopment of the Parke Davis complex into Stroh River Place at the foot of Joseph Campau. Among many civic posts, Stroh . . . — Map (db m33469) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — S0658 — Ransom Eli Olds |
| | In Lansing, on August 21, 1897, Ransom E. Olds (1864 - 1950) founded the Olds Motor Vehicle Company, the precursor to Oldsmobile. He produced four vehicles that year. In 1899, Olds relocated to Detroit, opening the Olds Motor Works on West Jefferson Avenue near the MacArthur Bridge. In 1901, he built 425 gasoline-powered Curved Dash Oldsmobile Runabouts, driving them on Belle Isle prior to sale. Mounds of dirt excavated during canal construction on the island provided perfect "hills" for the . . . — Map (db m14362) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — Salvation Army |
| | Founded by William Booth in London, England. The Salvation Army came to Michigan in 1883. When organizing the Detroit corps in 1887 Captain Fink wrote to her British superiors: "This is the Metropolis of Michigan … a beautiful city, but oh, the sin and iniquity that abounds here." The army initially concentrated its efforts near here, in Cadillac Square, a haven for persons of ill repute. Salvationists found their sidewalk ministry hindered by city officials, who in 1901 enacted an ordnance . . . — Map (db m23805) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — Shrine Circus |
| | Near this site, on February 26, 1906, some 3,000 spectators watched the nation's first Shrine Circus. Detroit's Moslem Shrine temple's one-ring show was the beginning of a major fund-raising venture for Shrine temples throughout the country. In 1907 Shrine temples in other cities began sponsoring circuses, and in 1925 the Shriners featured their first three-ring show. Originally operating for one week, Shrine Circuses appear across the nation throughout the year. Clyde Beatty and his wild . . . — Map (db m23804) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — Soldiers and Sailors Memorial |
| | Erected by the people of Michigan in honor of the martyrs who fell and the heroes who fought in defense of liberty and union. — Map (db m26658) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines |
| | In memory of our Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines — Map (db m26651) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — SS Edmund Fitzgerald — 1958 - 1975 |
| | The flagship of the Oglesbay-Norton fleet sailed for 6857 days on the Great Lakes carrying iron ore to feed the steel mills of Michigan and Ohio. She was build at the Great Lakes Engineering Works at River Rouge, Michigan- Nine miles west of here. When the keel of the Fitzgerald hit the water, she became the largest freighter to traverse the inland seas, 729 feet long and 75 feet wide.
On January 7,1974, while at anchor in the Detroit River, one mile west of Belle Isle, the Fitzgerald lost . . . — Map (db m14400) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — Statue of Abraham Lincoln |
| | Let man be free. — Map (db m26788) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — S0464 — Ste. Anne Church |
| | On July 26, 1701, two days after his arrival, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, founder of Detroit, built a chapel dedicated to Ste. Anne, patron saint of New France. Father Francois Vaillant, a Jesuit, and Father Nicholas Constantine Delhalle, a Franciscan, were instrumental in the founding of the parish. The church records, which date from 1704, are now the second oldest continuous Roman Catholic parish records in the nation. From 1833 to 1844, Ste. Anne's was the Cathedral Church for the diocese . . . — Map (db m14878) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — 70 — The Battle of Bloody Run — Michigan Registered Historic Site |
| | Near this site, in late July 1763, the British and Indians fought the fiercest battle of Chief Pontiac's uprising. As Captain James Dalyell led about 260 soldiers across Parent's Creek, the Indians launched a surprise attack which devastated the British. Dalyell and some sixty of his men were killed, and the creek became known as Bloody Run. This battle marked the height of Pontiac's siege of Detroit, a struggle which he was forced to abandon three months later. — Map (db m21846) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — The Black Presence in Detroit |
| | This hallowed land was early Detroit. First came the Indians, then Cadillac and French settlers with their Black and Indian slaves. These early Blacks were French speaking Catholics with French names. History recorded that our first Black inhabitant was an unnamed female given the last rites by Father Daniel in 1736.
When the British came in 1760, they brought slaves who were used as trade goods. During the Revolutionary War, Blacks including Jean Baptiste Pointe Du Sable, the founder of . . . — Map (db m33483) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — The Cadillac Convoy / Le Convoi de Cadillac |
| | (English side)
The Cadillac Convoy In recognition of the courage, perseverance and expertise of the French-Canadians who brought Antoine de Lamothe Cadillac to establish the first permanent settlement at Le Détroit du Lac Érié.
Bertrand Arnaud.....Jean-Baptiste Guay
Gabriel Aubuchon.....Pierre Lagrave
Louis Babie.....Jean Latour,
Louis Badaillac dit Laplante..... sieur de Foucault
Simon Baillargé.....Jean Lemire dit Marsolet
Henri Bélisle dit Lamarre.....Jean-Alexis . . . — Map (db m33687) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — The Gateway to Freedom — Ed Dwight - Sculptor |
| | Until Emancipation, Detroit and the Detroit River community served as the gateway to freedom for thousands of African American people escaping enslavement. Detroit was one of the largest terminals of the Underground Railroad, a network of abolitionists aiding enslaved people seeking freedom. Detroit's Underground Railroad code name was Midnight. At first, Michigan was a destination for freedom seekers, but Canada became a safer sanctuary after slavery was abolished there in 1834. With passage . . . — Map (db m33459) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — S0515 — The Landing of Cadillac / Le débarquement de Cadillac |
| | The Landing of Cadillac (English side)
After departing Montreal June 5, 1701, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac and his convoy of 25 canoes sailed down this river and on the evening of July 23 camped 16 miles below the present city of Detroit on what is now Grosse Ile. On the morning of July 24, Cadillac returned upriver and reached a spot on the shore near the present intersection of West Jefferson and Shelby. Pleased with the strategic features, the bank towering some 40 feet above the level . . . — Map (db m33522) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — University of Michigania |
| | The Catholepistemiad, or university, of Michigania resided in a building near this site from 1818 to 1837. Conceived of by the Reverend John Montieth, Father Gabriel Richard and Judge Augustus Woodward, the university was established by territorial law on August 26, 1817. Modeled on the University of France, created by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1807, the institution was the center of a statewide system of primary, secondary and college education. Reverend Montieth, the first president, and Father . . . — Map (db m23662) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Detroit — 242 — War of 1812 Dead — Registered Michigan Historic Site |
| | Hardship struck soon after American troops regained Detroit on Sept. 29, 1813, during the War of 1812. Soldiers quarters were lacking, and food supplies became desperately short. Then a disease resembling cholera broke out among the soldiers. By Dec. 1, 1813, nearly 1,300 officers and men were sick. Medical supplies were almost gone. Conditions worsened. When coffins became unobtainable, many soldiers were buried in a common grave at this site. Some 700 may have died before the epidemic ran its course. — Map (db m21745) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Garden City — L0041 — A Nankin Pioneer |
| | On May 10, 1825, Marcus Swift, from Palmyra, N. Y., bought the northwest corner of Section 11 in Nankin Township from the United States government. He was the first to own land now part of Garden City. The Swift family's log cabin overlooked the River Rouge, a few rods from this site. The area was a dense hardwood forest. On May 28, 1827, Swift was elected the first supervisor of Bucklin, which consisted of the present Redford, Dearborn, Livonia, and Nankin townships and had a population of . . . — Map (db m33765) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Gibralter — Battle of Brownstown |
| | In this vicinity on Aug. 5, 1812, six weeks after the outbreak of war, an Indian force, led by the famous Shawnee chief, Tecumseh, ambushed about 200 Americans under Major Thomas Van Horne who were on the way south to the River Raisin. There, supplies vitally needed by Hull's army in Detroit, were awaiting an escort through the Indian blockade of the River Road. Tecumseh opened fire as the Americans forded Brownstown Creek. Van Horne, overestimating the Indians' numbers, ordered his men to fall . . . — Map (db m27572) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Gibralter — War of 1812 Memorial |
| | [First Tablet, Lower Tablet Facing East]:
War of 1812 Memorial
Dedicated on Aug. 5, 2006
Original monument was dedicated
In 1908 at W. Jefferson Ave.
Near Gibraltar Road by
Dr. Hal C. Wyman
Moved in 1958-1959 to
Parsons School in Gibraltar by
Gibraltar Rotary Club
Moved and restored at this
Site in 2005-2006 by
Brownstown Historical Society
[Second Tablet, Upper Tablet Facing East on East Cannon]:
This tablet
Erected by
Wayne . . . — Map (db m27819) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Livonia — George A. Custer U.S. Army Reserve Center |
| | Dedicated in memory of
Major General George A. Custer
1839-1876
Distinguished soldier from the state of Michigan was graduated from U.S. Military Academy 1861
He, with 264 officers and men of the Seventh U.S. Calvary, was killed in action at the Battle of the Little Big Horn, Montana Territory, 25 June 1876. — Map (db m26787) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Livonia — L0139 — Joshua Simmons Farm |
| | In 1824 Joshua Simmons of Bristol, New York, obtained a patent from the federal government for 160 acres of land in Livonia Township. Simmons and his wife, Hannah, were among the township's earliest white settlers. Their first home was a log shanty, built in 1826. In 1841 they constructed this house in the Greek Revival style, popular in New York State. The farm was named Meadow Brook. Joshua Simmons (1801-1882) hewed lumber to build the earliest barns and mills in Livonia, Farmington and . . . — Map (db m34973) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Plymouth — L0874 — Baker House |
| | Henry W. Baker (1833-1920) built this Italianate style house in 1875. Born in Richmond, New York, Baker had moved to this area while still a boy. As a young man, he worked as a photographer, a merchant and a lumberman. At the age of forty-nine, he helped found the Plymouth Iron Windmill Company, which in 1895 became the Daisy Manufacturing Company. The company, now best known for its BB guns, operated in Plymouth until 1958, when new owners moved it to Arkansas. Baker's descendants lived here until 1943. — Map (db m33078) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Plymouth — 637 — Plymouth |
| | The village of Plymouth was settled in 1825, incorporated in 1867, and became a city in 1932. The Lord Mayor of Plymouth, England, came here in 1967 to celebrate the centennial of Plymouth, Michigan's incorporation as a village. He and his aides presented this piece of rock from Plymouth, England, to the citizens of Plymouth, Michigan, some of whom are descendants of the Pilgrims. This rock, taken from the Plymouth harbor from where the Mayflower sailed in 1620, stands as a symbol of friendship between the two cities. — Map (db m33098) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Plymouth — Rose of Aberlone — Michigan Legal Milestone |
| | T.C. Sherwood, president of Plymouth National Bank, contracted in 1886 with Hiram Walker of Walkerville, Ontario for the purchase of a cow, Rose 2d of Aberlone. Both parties believed that Rose was barren and would not breed, and that mistake led to one of the most famous contract cases in U.S. history.
Mr. Sherwood tried to pay Hiram Walker the agreed-upon price, $80, but Mr. Walker refused it after discovering that Rose was pregnant. Her value was now about 10 times greater than that . . . — Map (db m33035) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Plymouth — The Wilcox House |
| | This is the site of a Plymouth Landmark, the Wilcox House, built in 1903 by William Markham, inventor of the BB Gun and the co-founder of the Daisy Air Rifle Co. George and Harriet Wilcox purchased it in 1911 and here raised their three children, Julia, Katherine, and Johnston (“Jack”).
Originally, in the side yard, a continuously flowing fountain spilled over into a large reflection pool. A pergola, gazebo and statuary were focal points on the extensively landscaped grounds. . . . — Map (db m33070) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), River Rouge — Civil War /Spanish War /World War |
| | Erected in 1927
by
F.A. Buhl Woman's relief Corps No.43 aux. to the Grand Army of the Republic
A tribute to the men of this community who made the supreme sacrifice.
Civil War
Spanish War
World War — Map (db m14890) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), River Rouge — 43 — River Rouge War Memorial |
| | Erected in 1927
by
F.AA. Buhl No.43 Women's Relief Corps Aux. To Grand Army Of Republic
A tribute to the men
of this community
who made the supreme
sacrifice.
Civil War
Spanish War
World War — Map (db m26617) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Trenton — s0199 — Battle of Monguagon |
| | On August 9, 1812, a force of about 600 American troops, regulars and militia, moved down the River Road in an attempt to reach Frenchtown (Monroe) and bring back supplies needed desperately by the Americans in Detroit. At a point that cannot now be exactly located, near the Indian village of Monguagon, American scouts ran into a British and Indian force of about 400 hundred men, led by Capt. Adam Muir and Tecumseh, blocking the road south. Lieut. Col. James Miller quickly brought up his . . . — Map (db m14349) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Westland — L1578 — Cooper School |
| | The first Cooper School, known officially as Nankin District No. 1 School, was built around 1837 on a farm owned by Gilbert Cooper at the southwest corner of present-day Ann Arbor Trail and Middlebelt Road. The Coopers were Nankin Township pioneers who owned a grist mill on the Rouge River. Cooper School became Fractional No. 1 of Nankin and Livonia in 1849. In 1865 the district built a one-room school on land leased from Cooper's son Loren. It was replaced in 1938 with a brick structure, which . . . — Map (db m33883) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Westland — Eloise Poorhouse/Hospital |
| | (Front): In 1839 Wayne County purchased the Black Horse Tavern, a stagecoach stop, Located here on the Chicago road, for use as a poorhouse. Early on the poorhouse accepted not only the county's indigent, but the infirm and mentally ill as well. During the late nineteenth century, the number of residents grew, and new buildings were constructed to meet the demand. In 1894 a post office opened on the grounds with the name Eloise, a name that became synonymous with what developed into a . . . — Map (db m14290) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Westland — L0423 — Perrinsville |
| | The village of Perrinsville was established as a small commercial center during the 1830s. Abraham and Isaac Perrin started a successful sawmill where Merriman Road now crosses the Middle Rouge. Several businesses sprang up and the community became known as Perrinsville. About 1850 the village reached its peak of activity with flourishing enterprises on Ann Arbor Trail and Merriman Road. But a railroad built during this era bypassed Perrinsville to the south; in 1871 this railroad was . . . — Map (db m33774) |
| Michigan (Wayne County), Westland — L1996 — Perrinsville School |
| | Perrinsville began with a sawmill established by Abraham and Isaac Perrin around 1832. During the next century three one-room schools served area children. The first, a wooden school, was erected in 1833 on the Marcus Swift farm. A second, larger one, was built on the William Osband farm in 1843. This building, constructed in 1856 on land purchased from Isaac and Hannah Swift Perrin by Nankin District No. 2, was the first brick school in the township. Classes were held here until 1937 when . . . — Map (db m33766) |
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