History of Detroit and Wayne County and early Michigan: A Chronological Cyclopedia of the Past and Present, Vol. I, Part 139

Author: Farmer, Silas, 1839-1902
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Detroit, Pub. by S. Farmer & co., for Munsell & co., New York
Number of Pages: 1094

USA > Michigan > Wayne County > Detroit > History of Detroit and Wayne County and early Michigan: A Chronological Cyclopedia of the Past and Present, Vol. I > Part 139

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The line went into operation on Jefferson Avenue on April 30, 1850, and soon after on Woodward Avenue, but like its predecessor was short-lived. Another interval of three years passed, and in 1853 an omnibus line was established by William Stevens, from Cleveland. This line was composed of the vehicles which had previously run to and from the hotels. It was sold after two years to A. J. Farmer; after three or four years, to Mr. Morris, and finally to Thomas Cox. Mr. Cox was succeeded by the present omnibus company, composed of Messrs. E. Ferguson and George Hendrie. Their office and stables are on Larned Street near First. They run twenty omnibuses and baggage wagons and two Herdic coaches, and charge two shillings for pas- sengers, and the same for ordinary baggage. The office is open day and night, and their train-agents

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meet every passenger train coming to Detroit, at the Junctions, and arrange for the conveying of passen- gers or baggage to any part of the city. The system is a great improvement on the old plan, under which each hotel sustained its own 'bus and baggage-wagon, the drivers, a motley crew, literally seizing upon the travelers who came within their reach, while their cries made a bedlam of the depots and steamboat landings.

The Omnibus Company also own and run the coupés formerly managed by the Detroit Carriage and Express Company. These coupés were intro- duced on April 17, 1878, and the property was sold to the above-named company in July, 1883.

TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES.

The English made much more of Detroit than their predecessors had done. Under the French it was chiefly a military post for the region immedi- ately around it; and as there were other French establishments north and west, the goods for the Indian trade and the army were divided among them. Transportation from Montreal to Detroit, in 1702, was at the rate of $300 for one hundred- weight. Under English rule Detroit was the extreme western post, became the center of all operations in the West, and enormous quantities of goods were gathered here. This resulted in supplementing the birch-bark canoes with numerous vessels, all of which were owned by His Majesty. Even the goods of private traders were transported in the king's ships, and in 1780 the rate from Niagara to Detroit was £ per barrel. The same vessels were used until 1796, when some of them were trans- ferred. to private parties, and with other craft they continued to have almost a monopoly of the busi- ness of transporting goods from the East. In 1815 the price of freight from Buffalo to Detroit was $5.00 per barrel. The only competitors of the sailing vessels were the pack-horses, which were much used, especially in conveying government stores. The Detroit Gazette for December 26, 1817, says: "This week a number of pack-horses, laden with shoes for the troops at Green Bay, started on an expedition through the wilderness for that post." In 1818 steamboats made their appearance, and on February 27 Charles Smith, of Albany, New York, gave notice in the Gazette that he had completed arrangements for the transportation of merchandise from the East to the upper lakes, and guaranteed that the cost of transporting packages of ordinary size from New York to Detroit should in no case exceed $4.50 per hundredweight.

The completion of the Erie Canal to Buffalo in 1825 was a notable event in the progress of trans- portation facilities, and freights were greatly reduced as soon as it was opened. The Detroit Gazette for

December 5 says: "We can now go from Detroit to New York in five and a half days. Before the war it took at least two months or more." The opening of the Welland Canal in the fall of 1831 was also of great advantage.

During this period the scarcity of roads of any kind in Michigan, and the condition of those that did exist, made all transportation to or from the interior exceedingly difficult and expensive. In order in part to obviate the difficulty, in August, 1833, a sub- scription was raised in Ypsilanti, and a flat-bottomed boat, the Experiment, was built to navigate the Huron River. The following, from the Detroit Journal and Advertiser of May 21, 1834, tells of the progress of this experiment, and of the hopes it raised :

NAVIGATION FROM DETROIT TO YPSILANTI.

Last week a boat arrived in this place from Ypsilanti with a load of flour consisting of one hundred and twenty-five barrels, the entire distance being performed in thirty -six hours. This is an experiment which merits notice and encouragement. The flour was brought here at an expense of about thirty-eight cents per barrel, the usual price by land being from sixty-three to seventy-five cents. After the slight impediments to the naviga- tion are removed, the transportation will be greatly reduced, and it is ascertained by competent and well judging individuals that by expending a trifling sum of money, the Huron River may be rendered navigable as far as Ypsilanti or Ann Arbor for steam- boats of from thirty to forty-five tons. The result of this adven- ture justifies the expectation that hereafter the produce and importations of a considerable portion of Washtenaw will be transported by water, at a much less expense than the usual tedious and tardy mode of land conveyance.

These expectations were not fulfilled, as there was not enough business to make the project remu- nerative; after three trips the boat was sold, and finally, with all the bright anticipations that once clustered about it, was stranded on the banks near Dearborn.

The next venture was made by the State, and was much more costly and extensive. The crowds of emigrants that came by every steamer, the new settlements they built up all over the State, the press- ing need thus caused for more easy and rapid transit through the interior, and the rejoicing of all parties over the admission of the State to the Union, caused the Legislature to act like one who, youthful and inexperienced, has suddenly become heir to an im- mense estate. In the month of March, 1837, was passed, not only the notorious Wildcat Banking Law, but also a law providing for borrowing on the bonds of the State the enormous amount of $5,000,000, to be expended in internal improvements under the direction of seven commissioners. The estimated cost of the improvements undertaken reached the sum of nearly $8,000,000; these included four rail- roads, three canals, and the improvement of the Grand, Kalamazoo, and St. Joseph Rivers, and ap- propriations were actually made for the roads and

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TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES.

canals, and for two of the rivers. All of the rail- roads and canals were to be built and operated solely by the State. The roads were named the "Southern," from Monroe to New Buffalo, the " Northern," from Port Huron to Grand Rapids, the "Central," from Detroit to St. Joseph, and the " Havre Branch," from Havre, in Monroe County, to the Ohio State line. Of the canals, the "Clinton and Kalamazoo " was to extend from Mt. Clemens to the mouth of the Kalamazoo on Lake Michigan, the "Saginaw or Northern," from the forks of Bad River to Maple River, and the "St. Mary's" was designed to avoid the rapids in the St. Mary's River. In addition to these, a legion of private railroad and canal companies were incorporated, apparently with the intention of supplying every four corners with both a railroad and a canal. Among the other railroad projects that sprang up in the flush times of 1834 to 1837 was the Shelby and Detroit Railroad Company, designed to run between Detroit and Utica. It was incorporated on March 7, 1834, with a capital of $100,000, and in September, 1839, it was in operation from Utica to within five miles of the Gratiot Road. The cars were drawn by horses, and connecting stages at the end of the rails carried passengers to Detroit. In 1844 the company ceased to operate the road, and on March 18, 1848, the Legislature changed the name to Detroit, Romeo, & Port Huron Railroad ; but the new name did not give it new life, and it is either dead or sleeping. The most of these projects were actually needed about as much as the banks which kept them com- pany. The railroads built by the State are else- where described. Upon the canals and river im- provements over $3,000,000 were expended, but no one of these public works was brought to completion. The embankments of several of these works look like Indian mounds, and remain to this day as relics of the dead past and departed glory.

Other railroads, both State and private, were gradually pushed to completion, and communication with the West established. The completion of the New York Central Railroad from Albany to Buffalo, in 1842, and of the New York and Erie from New York City direct to Buffalo, in 1851, very nearly solved the question of rapid transit to and from the East; and the completion of the Great Western from Niagara Falls to Detroit, in 1854, fully met the needs of the public.

In the spring of 1855 trade with the Lake Superior region was greatly facilitated by the opening of the St. Mary's Falls Ship Canal.

At the present time fast freight arrives from Balti- more in from one and one half to two days. The gain in time since 1836 is shown by the fact that on February 15 of that year, G. R. Lillibridge advertised in the Detroit papers, as a remarkable event, that he

had for sale oysters which had just arrived, " only twenty days from Baltimore."

Nearly all of the freight from the East is now consigned by some one of the freight lines which operate on the various roads. These companies own and lease many thousands of freight-cars, and by contract with the railroad companies have their cars or freight transported at special rates on fast trains. Some one line usually has a monopoly of the main traffic of each road, and the companies, by agreement among themselves and with the rail- roads, from time to time arrange the rates and classifications of freights.

The crossing of the river at Detroit has always been a serious inconvenience to the railroad com- panies, and prior to 1867 the delay involved in the handling and transferring of freight to and from the boats greatly increased the expense of its carriage; railroad ferries were built to crush the ice in winter,

RAILROAD FERRY DOCK.

but the handling of packages was tedious and expen- sive work. On January 1, 1867, the Great Western Railroad inaugurated the plan of carrying the cars themselves across the river on boats built for the purpose. The Great Western was the first of these boats. She was built in England, at a cost of $190,000 in gold, was sent over in parts, and put together at Windsor. She carries fourteen freight cars. Of the five other boats since added, the Transit carries ten, the Michigan sixteen, the Trans- fer eighteen, the Transport twenty-one, and the Trenton eight.

On the docks on both sides of the river are tracks which can be raised or lowered to admit of the cars passing directly from the boats to the railroad. The boats transfer about 15,000 passenger-cars and 400,000 freight-cars yearly. Even these facilities are

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TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES.

not fully satisfactory, and early in 1871 the question of tunneling the river began to be publicly agitated, and on May 11, 1871, James F. Joy applied to the Common Council for the use of portions of certain streets for approaches to a proposed tunnel. Some of the citizens protested, but on August I an ordi- nance was passed which favored the project. On September 14 arrangements were made to break ground for the main shaft of the tunnel in the yard of the D. & M. R. R., opposite St. Antoine Street, near the present Railroad Ferry Slip. On January 31, 1872, the shaft was finished for a distance of one hundred and eight feet below the surface of the river. The depth of the masonry was one hundred and fourteen feet, the upper portion of eighty-nine feet was fifteen feet in diameter, with sixteen-inch walls. The lower twenty-five feet was nine feet in diameter, with twelve-inch walls. The work of exca- vating the drainage drift or tunnel under the bed of the river was then begun, but in 1873, after digging one hundred and thirty-five feet, the work was dis- continued. There was said to be too much sulphur and quicksand to venture further. The question of bridging the river was next agitated. The vessel owners strenuously opposed this measure, and both parties began to marshal their forces. On April 7, 1874, a meeting of residents of various parts of the State was held in Detroit to consider the subject, and resolutions in favor of a bridge were adopted. One week later, on April 15, the vessel owners rallied at Young Men's Hall and passed resolutions favoring a tunnel. After these two meetings interest in the subject seemed to flag.

In the latter part of March, 1879, it was an- nounced that a tunnel was to be built at Grosse Isle, where the Canada Southern crossed the river, and work was begun on April 21. This awakened the business and railroad men of Detroit and their eastern friends, and a project was inaugurated to secure Belle Isle for the city, as a suitable place for the crossing of a bridge and also for a park. A bill was passed on May 31, 1879, providing for its pur- chase and for permitting the city to unite with the Canadian authorities or any Canadian corporation in building a tunnel on equal terms, and the Council was given power, with consent of the Board of Estimates, to issue bonds for $500,000, for the pur- pose of building a bridge or tunnel. At the same session of the Legislature provision was made for submitting, at the State election in November, 1880, an amendment to the constitution giving the Legis- lature power to authorize such action on the part of the city. The amendment was lost by a vote in the State of 37,340 for and 58,040 against the amend- ment ; the work of tunneling from Grosse Isle was soon after suspended, and the announcement made

that the stone through which the tunnel was to be made was unfavorable for the work.

On October 14, 1879, a committee, appointed under the direction of Congress, held sessions in Detroit to hear the various arguments for and against a bridge or tunnel ; and on December 8 they reported in favor of a bridge. No public action has since been had on the question.

An elevator (or wheat-house, as it was first called), for the purpose of storing grain, was not much needed until 1851, and in that year the first one was erected by the M. C. R. R. In 1861 E. M. Clark built an elevator at the D. & M. Depot. In the winter of 1879-1880 it was enlarged to double its former capacity, and will now hold 390,000 bushels. In 1864 the M. C. R. R. built a second elevator, and on October 29, 1866, the first one was burned. In 1879 a new one was built, and on September 29 it received its first lot of grain. The capacity of each of these elevators is 550,000 bushels. The elevator built in 1882 by the Union Depot Company will hold 1,200,000 bushels. The elevator of the Grand Trunk R. R., built in 1887, will hold 800,000 bushels.

Two-wheeled drays were introduced about 1830, and up to 1858 the draymen did all the teaming for the business men of the city. In the latter year the Detroit & Milwaukee, and Great Western Rail- roads, through the agency of Messrs. Hendrie & Company, commenced to collect freight for and deliver from the several roads. This innovation greatly incensed the draymen, and on July 28, 1858, they held an indignation meeting to protest against the practice. Their meeting was of no avail, but the feeling against the roads continued. On Feb- ruary 10, 1860, J. G. Erwin & Company wished to ship a hundred dressed hogs by the G. W. R. R. Forty of the draymen volunteered to take them, and went in procession to the depot, each dray laden with a single hog. As a demonstration it was a great success, but the railroad trucks still continued to run, became increasingly popular, and are now used to deliver most of the freight to or from the railroads.

Messrs. Hendrie & Company, E. Ferguson, the Grand Trunk Railroad, J. & T. Hurley, and the De- troit Truck Company have a capital of probably $75,000 invested in about fifty trucks and horses. There are about four hundred and fifty trucks, drays, and express wagons owned by other parties. The two-horse trucks or drays pay a city license of $6.00, express wagons and drays, $2.00 each. The old two-wheeled drays, once so familiar, have almost entirely given place to four-wheeled wagons, less than half a dozen of the former being now in use.

A Package and Baggage Express Company was established on June 6, 1881, and carried small

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EXPRESS COMPANIES.

packages to any part of the city for from five to ten cents each, and also delivered large packages at reasonable rates. In 1881 the company employed five men, with one-horse teams, and from fifteen to twenty boys, who delivered hundreds of packages daily. The business was not sufficiently remunera- tive, and the organization ceased in 1882.

EXPRESS COMPANIES.

Among the most important mercantile facilities which have been developed by the business of the country are the several express companies. The first to engage in the express business in Detroit was Charles H. Miller. The following notice from a paper of February, 1844, shows that he soon found a competitor :

MILLER'S EXPRESS .- We regret to learn that Pomeroy & Com- pany have extended their Express Line to this city. Not that we entertain any hostile feeling to them, but because we believe in- justice is done to Mr. Chas. H. Miller.

The Pomeroy Express was first established at Albany, New York, by George E. Pomeroy in 1841, and in 1844 an office was opened in Detroit in C. Morse's bookstore on the north side of Jefferson Avenue, just west of Bates Street. About 1845 the name was changed to Wells Company's Express, and soon after the Detroit office was moved to the basement of the F. & M. Bank on Jefferson Ave- nue. In 1850 the company was reorganized under the name of the American Express Company, and that year the office was located at 106 Jefferson Avenue, three doors below the Michigan Exchange. On May 20, 1862, the office was moved to the Waverly Block, opposite the Michigan Exchange. From here, on May 1, 1865, it was moved to the old Rotunda on Griswold Street, and on August I, 1879, to the Moffat Building.

The success of the several express companies caused the organization of a rival company, the Merchants' Union. It numbered several Detroit merchants among its stockholders, and its office here was first opened on October 4, 1866, at 221 Jefferson Avenue. C. J. Petty was agent. On

December 1, 1868, the company was consolidated with the American Express Company under the title of the American Merchants' Express Company. On February 1, 1873, the word "Merchants'" was dropped. In 1880 the American Express Company had about fifty employees in Detroit, the monthly pay-roll footed up $2,500, and the company em- ployed twenty-two horses, using four double and ten single wagons.

On March 14, 1882, the express companies' sys- tem of money orders was introduced in Detroit. The plan is similar to that of the post-office orders. Sums of from one dollar to five dollars can be obtained for a fee of five cents, and orders for amounts between five dollars and ten dollars for eight cents.

The following agents have had charge of the Detroit office : 1842-1844, Daniel Dunning; 1845, John C. Noble ; 1846, W. G. Fargo; 1846-1855, John C. Fargo; 1855-1867, Charles Fargo; 1867-1868, A. Antisdel; 1869, C. J. Petty ; 1870, W. A. Gray; 1871, Merritt Seely ; 1872-1876, T. B. Fargo; 1876 to December, 1881, Merritt Seely ; from December, 1881, C. F. Reed. Division Superintendents : 1855- 1867, Charles Fargo; 1867, A. H. Walcott; 1868, J. L. Turnbull; 1869-1871, J. H. Arnett ; from 1871, J. S. Hubbard.

The United States Express Company was estab- lished at Detroit in 1857. Its first office was at 112 Jefferson Avenue, next to the Michigan Exchange. From here it was moved to the Rotunda on May I, 1865, and on September 1, 1879, to the Colburn Block on Congress Street East, between Wood- ward Avenue and Bates Street. In 1880 it employed twelve persons, and the pay-roll was $621.50 per month. Six horses and four wagons were used. The agents have been : 1857, W. H. Ashley ; 1858- 1866, C. J. Petty; from August 18, 1866, F. H. Cone.

In October, 1872, a distemper prevailed among the horses at Detroit, as well as all over the North, and the last week in October both express compa- nies delivered and collected goods in ordinary hand- carts.

CHAPTER LXXXIV.

RAILROADS.

The Detroit, Grand Haven, and Milwaukee . by horse power. On March 22, 1837, while the Railway Company.

A premonition of the building of this and other roads is contained in the following article from The Detroit Gazette of December 17, 1829, and except that it allowed too little time for their com- pletion, was really prophetic :

Ten years hence, or before, the citizens of Detroit will be able to reach the Atlantic in twenty-four hours. In twenty years * * * the navigation of our broad and beautiful lakes will be of no manner of use to us, because land transportation will be so much cheaper. It will be a comfortable thing to get into - not a coach or steamboat - but a snug house built over a steam engine, and, after journeying smoothly and safely at the rate of thirty or forty miles an hour, find yourself at breakfast next morning in New York or Washington.

The year after this article was written, on July 31, 1830, the Pontiac & Detroit Railroad was char- tered, and became the first incorporated railroad within the limits of the old Northwest Terri- tory. The States of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois had been created long before. Michigan was still a Territory, but she outstripped them all in her plans for utilizing the iron horse. Not only was the first western railroad chartered here, but the first rails and the first locomotive in the West were the property of a road within the border of Mich- igan. Five years were allowed to complete the Detroit & Pontiac Line, which was to have been built on the route of the Pontiac Road. The cor- porators failed to carry out their plans, and on March 7, 1834, the Detroit & Pontiac Railroad Company, an entirely new corporation, was chartered. In fact, the line has been organized and reorganized so many times that the original corporators could hardly trace their property except in the soil of the road-bed. On March 26, 1835, the corporation was authorized to establish the Bank of Pontiac, with a capital of $100,000, the stock of the company to be liable for the debts. On April 25, 1836, con- tracts were let for grubbing the first fifteen miles of the road, but a swamp this side of Royal Oak greatly hindered the work. At other points, in after years, certain "sink-holes" swallowed up whole forests, together with acres of soil, before a solid foun- dation could be obtained. At first the road consisted merely of wooden rails, and the cars were operated

fever of internal improvement was at its height, the State was authorized to purchase the line. No pur- chase, however, was then made, but by Act of March 5, 1838, the State loaned the company $100,000, secured by mortgage, to aid in completing the road.

In these days it seems that the road should have been easily built, with the aid of such a loan and the banking powers which the company possessed. On May 19, 1838, the road was in operation for twelve miles, and the receipts were $80 per day. On July 21 it was opened to Royal Oak, and on August 16, 1839, to Birmingham. A locomotive obtained from Philadelphia, the Sherman Stevens, was first used at this time. In 1858 the same engine was doing duty under the name of Pontiac, and at a still later date was in use on the Port Huron & Owosso Railroad.

The first passenger-coaches were divided into three rooms, benches for seats were arranged length- wise, and the passengers entered through doors on the sides instead of at the ends. The covered freight-cars had but four wheels, with white-ash springs ; these were made in the company's shops, and actually used for full ten years.

After the road was completed to Birmingham, still slower progress was made towards Pontiac, and it was not until July 4, 1843, that the road was opened to that point. At this time trains stopped anywhere and everywhere to take on or let off passengers, and the time that trains would reach any particular place was very uncertain. The trains were so exceedingly slow that one of the stories of that day told of a middle-aged man who died of extreme old age while on the road to Pontiac; and "Go to Pontiac!" was considered a fearful imprecation.

The rails were of strap or flat-bar iron, spiked to the cross ties. They frequently broke, turned up, and entered the cars, occasionally causing serious accidents. In allusion to this fact, an advertisement in the Directory of 1845 says: "The company have now a new and elegant car on the road, well warmed, and sheathed with iron to guard against danger from loose bars."

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History of Detroit and Wayne County and early Michigan: A Chronological Cyclopedia of the Past and Present, Vol. I, Part 139

Author: Farmer, Silas, 1839-1902 Publication date: 1890 Publisher: Detroit, Pub. by S. Farmer & co., for Munsell & co., New York Number of Pages: 1094

Author: Farmer, Silas, 1839-1902
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Detroit, Pub. by S. Farmer & co., for Munsell & co., New York
Number of Pages: 1094