USA > Michigan > Wayne County > Detroit > Compendium of history and biography of the city of Detroit and Wayne County, Michigan > Part 2
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Widman, John C.
698
Taylor, Elisha.
464
Wiedeman, Henry C.
583
Taylor, Frank D.
339
Wilder, Bert C.
669
Taylor, Thornton A ..
693
Wilkie, James
676
Thompson, Frank A.
681
Wilkie, Warren
471
Truax, Abram C.
289
Wilkinson, Albert H.
643
Unruh, William J.
701
Wilkinson, Ralph B ..
440
Van Alstyne, John S.
591
Williams, Morris L.
368
Yawkey, William C.
496
Van Dyke, James A.
519
Widman, Albert U.
210
Swift, Ernest G.
689
Wardell, Charles R.
352
Stearns, Frederick
692
Page
318
1
Detroit and Wayne County
CHAPTER I.
Origin of Detroit in Struggle for Supremacy Between England and France-Plans for Estab- lishing a Fortress by Count Pontchartrain-Expedition Under Cadillac-Post Named Fort Pontchartrain-Record Concerning Cadillac-Conditions at the Fron- tier Post-Cadillac Succeeded by Dubuisson-Trouble with the Fox Indians- Regime of Alphonse de Tonty-Robert Navarre, Intendant at Detroit-Efforts to Increase Population and Military Strength-Beginning of Struggle Between France and England-French Lose Stronghold at Louisburg-Montcalm as Governor Gen- eral of Canada-Fatal Conflict at the Heights of Abraham and its Results on Fu- ture of Detroit-British Gain Control of All Canada.
Man commonly believes himself to be lord of creation, but nature often dominates over man. Nine times out of ten nature decides where a great city shall rise and endure. For more than two hundred years the leading maritime powers of the Old World struggled with each other for the mastery of the New World. It was during the struggle between Great Britain and France that the city of Detroit was founded. It had its origin in that strife. France held Canada, the Great Lakes region and the Mississippi valley,-territory and trade. The only highways were the waterways, and France tried to keep vigil along the route from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to the mouth of the Mississippi, but her thin line was constantly crossed by British traders who offered rum to the Indians on cheaper terms than the French offered their brandy. The French,, too, were morally restrained by the vigorous opposition of the early Jesuit fathers, while the British had no such embarrassment.
Before the seventeenth century began there was a well established highway of com- merce between the British Fort Orange, afterward Albany, New York, and the foot of Lake Erie, and up Lake Erie as far as the straits leading to the northern lakes. Count Pontchar- train, minister of marine for Louis XIV of France, decided that this inroad must be blocked. He had in his employ an adventurous and capable commander of frontier forces, Antoine de Laumet Cadillac, forty-three years of age, who had been in New France fifteen years or more and was well acquainted with the river St. Lawrence and the lake region. An outpost had existed at what is now known as Mackinac island for many years and in the hope of hold- ing back the invasions of British traders Count Pontchartrain directed Cadillac to take one hundred white men and as many Indian allies as his judgment would approve and proceed to the region of the straits, for the purpose of establishing there a frontier fortress that would take advantage of the most defensible spot and serve the purposes of the empire.
The expedition set out from La Chine on June 5, 1701. It followed the Ottawa river along the old route by way of Lake Nipissing and reached Georgian Bay and Lake Huron.
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There a flotilla of large canoes was properly organized to meet any opposition that it might encounter, with a force of one hundred Frenchmen and an equal number of Algonquin Indians. Duluth had erected a fort at the head of the Ste. Claire river in 1687, but it had soon been abandoned and was burned at the command of the French government. Cadillac had been commandant of the post at Mackinac for three years and he determined to estab- lish the new fort in a more defensible place. The expedition passed through the Ste. Claire river and the lake of the same name and proceeded as far as the mouth of Detroit river. After camping over night on Grosse Ile and examining the site for its strategic situation, Cadillac led the way back and landed somewhere near the center of the present water front of Detroit. He was guided in this selection by the favorable banks of the river, as they here rose to a commanding height-about forty feet. Immediately back of this bluff flowed a small but sluggish stream, afterward known as the Savoyard river. This, it was seen, would serve to a military post on the bluff as some protection against attack from the rear. So it hap- pened that here, on July 24, 1701, Cadillac made his permanent landing and proceeded to lay out and direct the construction of a strong frontier fort. The outline measured one arpent of land about two hundred feet on a side, and included a plat of land between the present Wayne and Griswold streets in Detroit and extended to the middle of Jefferson avenue on the crest of the bluff facing the river front.
The fort was typical of the times and the frontier and consisted of a stockade of oak pickets fifteen feet long imbedded in the earth to a depth of three feet. Inside this there was a clear space twelve feet wide all around. A strong bastion was erected at each of the four corners and a parapet was built around the inside at a height of about seven feet above the ground, where pickets could patrol in security and keep watch over all approaches by land and water. The fort was named Pontchartrain, in honor of Cadillac's patron, and the church which was erected immediately was called Ste. Anne's.
Cadillac arrived none too soon, for on June 19 the British authorities in New York, while he was en route, obtained from the Iroquois such title as the Indians had to the western forests, which were called Teuscha Gronde. This territory included the land surrounding the straits. Robert Livingstone, English trader at Fort Orange, had urged his government to establish a post on the Detroit river in 1699, but the delay of a year deferred British occu- pation until the conquest of New France was achieved, more than half a century later, and until the bloody years of the French and Indian wars had intervened.
Cadillac was born in the department of Tarne et Garonne, at the village of St. Nicholas le Grave, December 4, 1663. His name on the parish records appears as Antoine de Laumet. The marriage record at Quebec shows that Cadillac was the son of Jean de la Mothe, Seigneur de Cadillac, conseiller of the department of Toulouse, and that his mother's name was Jeanne de Malefant. There is some confliction of names, due to the general practice of the time, which took great liberties with family names and often substituted others. Cadillac came to America in 1683. After a short stay at Quebec, he went to Port Royal, which was the French headquarters for privateers who preyed upon British shipping and the British colonial coast during many years when the nations were at strife. There he attached himself to a privateering commander named Guyon and presently became so well acquainted with the New England coast that he was able to pilot expeditions.
In the winter of 1686 he was at Quebec, where he had a serious quarrel with Sabrevois, who afterward figured in the history of the Detroit colony. He returned to Port Royal in the spring, and on the 25th of June, in Quebec, he married Therese Guyon and set up an estab- lishment in the port, but two years later he obtained from the king a grant of land, six miles
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square, on the coast of Maine (the present site of Bar Harbor), and also the island of Mount Desert, by patent from Louis XIV. This was in honor of his valuable service in harassing the British. He was called to France in 1690 to furnish information to Count Pontchartrain, minister of marine, in view of a possible war with Great Britain, and returned home after several months, only to be recalled in 1692. When he came back he bore a recommendation for special service under Frontenac at Quebec. In 1694 he was made commandant at Mackinac.
Mackinac proved a post of no particular value, since the Iroquois and British traders came up the lakes offering competition and making trouble. Cadillac advised a fort on the lower straits, but Frontenac died in June, 1698, leaving the succession to de Callieres, who had a poor opinion of Cadillac and gave no heed to his suggestions. Cadillac memorialized the king, who advised the adoption of his plans, but Callieres stood firmly against them. Cadillac went to Quebec and persisted until he secured the authority and backing which led to the founding of Detroit in the manner related.
The rivalry between the French and British was complicated by another factor which greatly embarrassed the civil and military head of the post and ultimately led to his removal. Trade in beaver skins was the principal traffic with the Indians. Blankets and gew-gaws were sold freely, guns and powder cautiously, but the favorite exchange was "fire-water," for which the Indians developed a craving that often induced them to make extravagant offers to procure it. As drink speedily demoralized the savages and made them impossible of control, the missionary priests, who were entirely devoted to the task of Christianizing them, made vigorous protests to their superiors and to the governments, and the clerical power exerted all the influence it could with the civil power. It had spent half a century of struggle and peril in the wilderness, had sacrificed the lives of many heroic missionaries, and thus it would not consent to see all its good work undone by the Frenchman's brandy and the British rum.
Cadillac was a practical man: he felt that the interests of the empire were paramount, and cared little for the welfare of the Indian so long as he would be able to collect beaver skins and other valuable peltry. He proposed to meet rum with brandy and to make the western territory so uncomfortable for British traders that they would keep at a respectful distance from Fort Pontchartrain. For years there was strife between the plucky com- mandant and the church. Appeals went back and forth to Montreal, to Quebec, and to the capital across the sea, each side stating its case with all the persuasion that could be brought to bear, but Cadillac gradually lost favor. In 1710 he was promoted to the gov- ernorship of Louisiana, and that promotion was followed by the confiscation of his prop- erty in Detroit. In Louisiana he superseded Bienville, whose enmity he gained. He also made an enemy of Crozat, the foremost trader of the territory, and this led to his dismissal and his return to France in 1717. Cadillac died October 15, 1730, and his remains were interred in the old Carmelite church of Castel-Sarassin. His wife died sixteen years later. He was the father of thirteen children, eight of whom were born in Detroit.
Though isolated from the Old World and cut off from the more firmly established French settlements along the St. Lawrence, by league after league of almost impenetrable forest, storm-swept lake and turbulent river, Fort Pontchartrain had taken permanent root. Soon a little group of log cabins began to nestle close to the walls of the stockade. Coureurs de bois, small parties of Iroquois and occasional white settlers built their rude habitations along the banks of the Detroit river. During the second year came the wives of the officers from Quebec and Montreal, to share with their husbands the low log huts.
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With Madame Cadillac came the wife of Alphonse de Tonty, Cadillac's lieutenant, and these two were the first white women to set foot in the new settlement.
From Wayne street to a point near Griswold, along Larned street, extended the northern extremity of Fort Pontchartrain, which seems to have stretched close to the river bank on the south. With the post as a nucleus, Cadillac attempted to establish a sort of feudal domain, with himself as liege lord, for it is a matter of record that he leased varying plots of ground to his men for cultivation, always stipulating that all grain should pass through the mill which he built, and be subject to a certain tax. To establish more firmly a friendly relationship with the Indians, he encouraged alliances between his men and the shy savage maidens, but in this he was opposed by the priests who had accompanied the expedition. Always at outs with the Jesuits, his scheme further embraced bringing to the settlement the Huron Indians from the post at Mackinac, and the consequent injury of the mission at that point.
As a result of this enmity and a growing jealousy, the Mackinac Jesuits, in turn, planned to establish a post at Fort St. Joseph, at the mouth of the St. Joseph river, on Lake Michigan. So keen was the feeling that extraordinary inducements were offered to draw settlers from the Detroit colony and thus weaken its support and strike a vital blow at its trade with the Indians. Cadillac's lieutenant, Tonty, ambitious to succeed his superior, became involved in the scheme with the priests to the northward, but upon its discovery and failure he confessed his treachery and was pardoned. Meanwhile bitter accusations were sent by each party to the disastrous controversy to the headquarters at Quebec, and later Tonty's cupidity led him into a second plot to undermine the commandant at Detroit. Finding their origin largely in the rapidly growing and remunerative fur trade with the natives, innumerable other jealousies took form, and in these, perhaps, lay the most formidable of the dangers that beset the struggling post.
Notwithstanding the ceaseless efforts put forth by Cadillac in the interests of the colony, he was finally notified, without previous warning, that the post had been ceded to "The Com- pany of the Colony of Canada." This meant that the monopoly of the fur trade was to pass into other hands than his. As early as 1702, intersecting circles of intrigue were at work. The British saw with disfavor the advancement of the colony and straightway sought to breed discontent among the Indians friendly to the French. They offered more liberally for the peltries of the savages. The Iroquois already resented the intrusion of the French upon their trapping grounds, and the warnings spread by the English to the effect that their rivals sought not furs but lands, straightway took root in the savage mind. The various tribes became jealous of each other and only by the exercise of the utmost tact and caution was a most delicate situation made tenable for the little colony. Through his discovery of and attempted punishment for what he thought to be attempted fraud on the part of the com- pany's agents, Cadillac was summoned to Quebec by Vaudreuil, governor of the French along the St. Lawrence, and imputations were openly made to the effect that the vigilance of the commandant at Detroit was inspired by a desire to regain for himself the Indian trade, rather than by any anxiety to serve the interests of the company. The fact that many of the clerks and company agents were relatives of its directors materially strengthened this contention.
While Cadillac was absent at Quebec, the command of the post fell temporarily to Tonty. He was finally relieved by M. Bourgmont, who was dispatched to Detroit on the day of Cadil- lac's departure. Bourgmont proved to be lacking in the exercise of that judgment which had made Cadillac popular with the savages, and soon affairs were in a serious state as the result
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of a clash between the Indians and whites. This culminated in the death of the first priest of Ste. Anne's church, Father Del Halle, and that of a French soldier.
Cadillac, after an acquittal under charges of promoting his own interests, returned to the Detroit post and succeeded in restoring a semblance of the old relationship between the settlers and the Indians.
A regime identical with that of the mother country obtained during this time in New France. The country was under feudal tenure. What was known as the sovereign council, consisting of the governor general, the bishop and the intendant, being in control of affairs. All lands were the property of the king, but were held by seigneurs who were empowered with certain judicial authority and who paid a rental to the crown, usually in the form of military service. Every tenant in turn owed an allegiance of arms to the seigneurs and was obliged to bring to the seigneur's mill for the grinding whatever grain was harvested. In this way taxation was commenced with the gathering of the first crop at Detroit, a quarter of a bushel of wheat being paid in addition to the military service, for each arpent of land the tenant might have under cultivation, outside the stockade.
From the very first of Cadillac's service to the king, and later in his capacity as agent for the Canada company, his old enmity with the Jesuits proved itself the basis of an unend- ing conflict, making for the commandant almost innumerable enemies on all sides. Governor General Vaudreuil was a staunch friend of the Jesuit order, and Cadillac's repeated efforts to bring about the downfall of the Jesuit mission at Mackinac resulted only in his incurring the further dislike of the governor general. Naturally enough, when complaints were made to the authorities at Quebec by other enemies of the commandant, they found there a ready ear. Had it not been that Count Pontchartrain, French minister of marine, was a strong sup- porter of Cadillac, it is quite probable that the distorted reports made by various "inspectors," through Governor Vaudreuil, would have terminated Cadillac's command at Detroit after the second year, if not proving successful in their apparent object,-that of discouraging the continuance of the little post altogether. Between 1702 and 1709 a combined and persistent effort was made to discredit Cadillac with the king and the company, and repeated reports were sent to France flatly contradicting most of his statements as to the condition of the colony. So embarrassing was Cadillac's position made by this constant effort to undermine his authority and hinder his every effort to develop as he wished the resources at hand, that but slow progress was effected.
In 1710 came one Lieutenant Charles Regnault Dubuisson from Quebec, bearing dis- patches relieving Cadillac of his command at Detroit and appointing him governor of Louisiana. M. de la Forest, who had at one time been mentioned as second in command under Cadillac, was named as his successor, but as he "was an old man, feeble and infirm, having spent thirty-two years in the wilderness," Dubuisson was authorized to serve tempo- rarily in his stead.
Throughout the years of his service, Cadillac had apparently never had a doubt of the success of the colony, for it is recorded that such profits as he made he had persistently invested in lands and buildings at the Detroit post. To be thus peremptorily dismissed was a considerable hardship, even though made somewhat less poignant perhaps by the Louisiana appointment; but the man's loyalty to his home government must have been sorely tried when he discovered that he could realize nothing on his investments-there being no one in the colony with sufficient means to purchase his holdings. He was even enjoined from removing the supplies and stock he had purchased with his own money. His estate at this time was esti- mated as representing upwards of one hundred and twenty-two thousand livres, and an idea
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of the progress of the colony can be gathered from the statement that he was the owner of four hundred arpents of cleared land, a brewery, a grist mill, a warehouse and an icehouse. After being relieved he remained in Detroit for one year, in an effort to make some dispo- sition of his property, but was finally forced to leave without any satisfactory adjustment of his affairs, after a fruitless appeal to his government.
Dubuisson, meanwhile, found himself facing the difficulties of maintaining a struggling and feeble post. Of the fifty soldiers who had come with Cadillac but twenty remained. The others, having become disgusted with the slow progress possible, because of the constant intrigue, had returned to Quebec or deserted, in order to engage in trade for themselves with the Indians. A year after Cadillac's departure (1712) Dubuisson became involved in a war with the Fox Indians, who came from Green Bay, Wisconsin, to attack the Detroit post. Though successful in his defense and in a subsequent offensive campaign, Dubuisson's trouble with the savages made necessary the presence in Detroit of La Forest, who was accordingly dispatched to take up the command of the post.
Lacking the youth and unable to proceed with the energy characteristic of Cadillac, La Forest made no effort to withstand the inroads made upon his little settlement by the ever more powerful and vindictive Jesuits at Mackinac, and finally gave up all effort to enlarge his post by attempting to secure additional settlers. He was relieved after less than two years' service by Charles Jacques Sabrevois. After two terms of three years each the colony fell to the tender mercies of Alphonse de Tonty, who began in 1720 a seven-year term, which was unprecedented in the annals of the settlement for its disregard for the rights of the settlers and for the dishonesty of the commandant. During this time free trading was abolished and agriculture allowed to become but a memory. This unfortunate state of affairs was terminated in 1727, by an investigation which resulted in the relief of Tonty as com- mandant and the rapid succession of M. Jean Baptiste Deschallions de St. Ours; Ives Jacques Hughes, Pean Sieur de Livandiere, 1733-36; Nicklas Joseph Des Noyellis, 1736-39; Pierre Pean Jacques de Noyan, 1739-42; Pierre Joseph Celeron Sieur de Blainville, 1742-43; Paul Joseph Le Moyne, 1743-48; Jacques Pierre Daneau, 1748-50; Pierre Joseph Celeron, 1750-53 (second term) ; Jacques Pierre Daneau, 1753-58 (died) ; Francois Marie Picote Sieur de Bellistre, 1758-60; St. Ours, who was an able soldier, was shortly succeeded by Charles Joseph de Noyelle, who was himself replaced by M. de Boishebert, whose six-year tenure terminated in 1734.
Four years prior to the above date, Robert Navarre, removed by but eight generations from the French throne, became intendant at Detroit, serving as a legal officer at the post and as the collector of revenues due the crown. A young man upon his acceptance of the office, Navarre served the post for more than thirty years, and is mentioned as having been retained as notary, even after the cession of the colony to the British.
Though Boishebert was an efficient commandant, and more popular with Indians, set- tlers and the Quebec authorities than any former officer at Detroit, his efforts were of little avail, under a system which sought the extraction of revenue rather than the healthful growth of the settlement and its thorough establishment as an effective military post. Un- fortunately the policy obtaining in France at this time was one which made no provision for the difficulty of successfully maintaining regular communication between the isolated French posts in Canada, though Count Maurepas, then French minister of marine, was repeatedly petitioned by Governor Beauharnois to provide ships for this purpose and to recruit the de- pleted garrisons. Underlying the dishonesty of the commandants and the resultant discour- agement of serious and permanent French settlers, was that continued cupidity of the French
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crown itself, which doubtless was an important factor in the failure of the king to secure at this time a permanent footing in a territory whose wealth has not been fully gauged, even to this day. Because of this insatiate desire to turn the most available of the natural resources of the territory into revenue, but little energy was directed to farming, the fur trade, which offered more immediate returns, being pushed to the utmost. The true source of permanent wealth-labor and land, and their healthful relationship-was almost completely overlooked, Cadillac being, apparently, the only commandant who appreciated their value. Even the Indians, it appears, were better farmers than the French, though neither ever succeeded in properly cultivating their fields.
During the regime of M. Sabrevois, who began his second term in 1735 as successor to the corrupt de Livandiere, a serious quarrel broke out between the Huron and Ottawa In- dians at Detroit. This for a time bade fair to afford the English an excellent opportunity for supplanting the French in the affections of the Hurons, who were among the most peace- ful and progressive of the savage tribes. The action of the Jesuit priests, who were at odds with the French officials at Quebec, considerably handicapped the successful solution of a most trying problem,-that of placating the warring tribes and securing a permanent camping place for the Hurons beyond the insidious influence of the British. A reservation was of- fered these Indians either in the vicinity of Montreal or near Quebec by the French gover- nor, but the Jesuit priest at the mission which had been established at Sandwich, across the river from Detroit, was anxious to retain his flock and secretly worked to discourage the ac- ceptance of either of the proffered reservations in lower Canada. The Jesuits were finally successful in inducing the Hurons to settle at Bois Blanc island, below Detroit, though but a portion of the tribe acquiesced in remaining within the territory comprising the Jesuit parish.
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