USA > Michigan > Wayne County > Detroit > The city of Detroit, Michigan, 1701-1922, Vol. I > Part 19
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There were many other children in the family and to each of these was given a sum of money or other property by Antoine and Lambert, in satisfaction of their interests in this farm.
Another and quite usual method of preventing a division of the home at the death of the ancestor was for one of the sons or sons-in-law to enter into an agree- ment with the parents or ancestors to maintain and keep them for life upon eon- dition that at their death the property would belong to the ones giving the sup- port. There are many of these agreements on record, but the one best known is that of Gabriel Chene farm.
This farm was owned by Jean Baptiste Campau and when he became aged he entered into a contraet with his son-in-law, Gabriel Chene, to care for him for life, and upon his death Chene was to have the farm. This land is located at the present Chene Street. There was some dispute between Chene and the children of Campau as to whether Chene had carried out his agreement, and the courts were appealed to, with the result that Chene's rights were fully confirmed and the complete title vested in him.
COURT OF COMMON PLEAS
Sir Guy Carleton was the first governor under the Quebec act and in the letter of instructions to him, January 3, 1775, he was directed to establish a court of king's beneh, for the trial of criminal cases, and in order that more speedy justice might be administered he was directed to divide the province into two districts, to be named Quebee and Montreal, and in each of the said distriets there should be a court of common pleas to determine all eivil suits. In each of said courts there should be three judges, two of whom should be natural born subjeets of Great Britain and one Canadian, also one sheriff in each district. There should also be inferior courts of criminal and civil jurisdiction "in each of the districts of the Illinois, St. Vincenne, Detroit, Missillimaekinae and Gaspee, by the name of the king's bench for such district."
The judge of this court was to be an English-born subject, but he was to have a Canadian as an assistant to give advice when necessary. They had authority in civil and criminal cases, as the judges of the common pleas had in other places,
SOMMER del from old dvowing
DETROIT IN 1826 FROM DRAWING BY GENERAL MACOMB
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"excepting only that in cases of treason, murder or other capital felonies the said judges shall have no other authority than that of arrest and commitment to the gaols of Quebec, or of Montreal, where alone offenders in such cases shall be tried before our chief justice."
It was many years before any judge was appointed at Detroit as directed by these instructions. This delay was doubtlessly due to the outbreak of the Revo- lution and the consequent disarrangement of British plans. Carleton was di- reeted to appoint a superintendent at Detroit and some of the other western posts, but not to permit other settlements to be established, as they excited the enmity of the savages. As an annual budget the governor was permitted to pay the lieutenant-governor or superintendent at Detroit two hundred pounds per year, but this sum was saved for some time, for the first lieutenant-governor of Detroit was not appointed until several years after this, and before such appoint- ment the salary was increased to five hundred pounds. Purchases of land from the Indians were forbidden, except in cases where the entire Indian nation made the grant at a general meeting and consent to the transfer was given by the entire nation.
EARLY FINANCES
It has already been noted that there was no bank at Detroit and that the more extensive traders performed the work of bankers for their customers, but this work did not supply the place of banks of issue. There was always a dearth of bills, paper money, specie and fractional currency. Hard money could not be obtained in sufficient quantities to carry on business properly and some of the the merchants issued personal bills to aid the storekeepers. The commandant, on one occasion at least, issued a number of these bills, which passed for money for some time. When these bills came in from their use they were redeemed and destroyed. There are several items in old account books of this and of later periods, showing that these bills were taken care of in this manner. In the ar- chives at Washington some of their paper money can be found, which was pre- pared but never actually issued. During the Revolution and under an earlier date, September 17, 1774, the following entry is made in the records.
"Received from James Sterling, Esq., 43 pounds 8 shillings, New York eur- reney in Major Henry Bassett's current bills, which I have burnt in presence of the said James Sterling, conformable to Major Henry Bassett's instructions.
"Bills, one at 112. £5
12
"Bills, two at 100
10
12
"Bills, six at 60. 18 . .
"Bills, nine at 20
9
"Bills, two at 8.
16
£43 8
"R. B. Lernoult,
"Capt. comman't at the Detroit."
MORTGAGES
It was long difficult to determine how, in the absence of courts, of lawyers, and of civil officers, debts secured by mortgages could be collected. Two cases of this kind occurred in the year 1774, which indicates the method employed at that time. Perhaps the plan was not legal, but if it was not, it was certainly practicable in these instances.
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The first case was that of a mortgage made by Charles Andre Barthe to Rankin and Edgar, on a piece of land on the border of Lake St. Clair, in Grosse Pointe.
The second case was another mortgage made by Charles Andre Barthe to Daniel Campbell, a merchant of Schenectady, and to Messrs. Rankin and Edgar, merchants of Detroit, on a farm known in recent years as the Brush farm, then described as being two arpents front by eighty arpents deep, bounded on the east by the lands of Jean Baptiste Beaubien and on the west by the "Domaine du Roy."
Default having been made in the payment of these mortgages, Phillipe Dejean, justice of the peace, sold both parcels at public auction to Jean Askin the first parcel bringing one hundred pounds, New York currency, and the latter two hundred and fifty-five pounds. As an evidence that the sales were considered perfectly legal and valid, one only needs to know that the last described parcel of land has, since the date of that sale, remained in the posses- sion and ownership of said Askin and his descendants. A daughter of John Askin became the wife of Elijah Brush, who was the father of Edmund A. Brush, and his grand-daughter is Mrs. Frelinghausen, of New York. As Mr. Barthe was the father of Mrs. John Askin, we have a parcel of land the title to which has remained in one family for six successive generations.
FORECLOSURE PROCEEDINGS
An earlier case, under the French regime, of a proceeding similar to a fore- closure, occurred in 1748. Hyacinth Reaume and Agatha La Salle, his wife, were the owners of a farm of eighty arpents, which was mortgaged to Robert Leserre. Reaume also owed various other debts which he was unable to pay. He petitioned the French commandant, Joseph Lemoine, sieur de Longueuil, for permission to sell the property, and the latter ordered the notary, Navarre, to proceed with a sale and devote the proceeds to paying first, the mortgage, and then the other debts of Reaume. The proclamation of sale was made during four different days, in all the streets of the fort, by St. Sauveur, the drummer of the garrison. The first proclamation was made on Monday after Pentecost, June 3, 1748; the second on Tuesday, the second feast of Pentacost, June 4, 1748, and continued on Wednesday, the fifth day of the same month, and put off until Sunday, June 9th, on which day the farm was sold by order of the commandant to Claude L'Esprit dit Champagne, for one thousand and six livres. This sale cannot be deemed a foreclosure, for it was made at the request of the owners and not at the instance of the mortgagee. The deed of conveyance is sign d by the royal notary, Navarre, and is approved by the commandant, but it is not signed by the Reaumes, nor is it witnessed.
FRENCH CITIZENS VS. ENGLISHI LAW
The articles of capitulation-indeed, every official paper of the period- concedes the fact that the citizens were all French, and all Catholic, that they were entitled to their property and to maintain their religion. With the intro- duction of the new English citizens, it was hoped that the time would shortly come when English laws might be introduced and steps were constantly taken with this object in view.
There were no publie schools, so that the Canadians could not be instructed in the new language through this medium. There were public records to be
.
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kept and we have already seen that the register of Detroit, Dejean, was directed to keep them in the English language. The directions to Dejean to use English in his records were given by a military commandant. The use of the English language was not required by any statute.
For many years, even as late as 1820, it was no unusual matter in Detroit to call juries composed in half of English-speaking jurors and half of French- Canadians.
The most important subjeet of discussion in parliament concerning the govern- ment of Canada was how to treat the new subjects fairly, and yet proceed to make Englishmen of them without letting them know of the change. By Detroit is not meant the present city, but the surrounding country, which at that time was quite thiekly settled and had a population, on both sides of the river, of several hundred Canadian farmers and traders. Although Detroit was the most important settlement in the new portion of the province, very little information can be derived from the printed histories regarding the place or of the methods used in governing it. The population of the Detroit distriet in 1773 was 1,367 and in 1782 was 2,191, as will be detailed later.
According to the treaty of 1763 and Bell's map of that date, the territory around Detroit was not located in any of the provinces or colonies known at that date. The Colony of Virginia extended westerly in a straight line to the Mississippi. The territory west of Pennsylvania, and north of Virginia, inelud- ing all of the Great Lakes, and extending northerly to Lake Nipissing, was unnamed.
We know that the English people in general were ignorant of the geography of this part of the country and we have seen that Lord Dorchester, though governor of the Canadian possessions, did not know of the location of Detroit and Michigan, though he certainly knew of the existence of Detroit, for soldiers had been sent both here and to Michilimackinac, and these places were then occupied by British garrisons.
ARTICLES OF CAPITULATION
The articles of capitulation of Quebec are dated September 18, 1759. One of the provisions of these articles was that citizens were not to be disturbed in their property rights until a definite treaty was signed between England and France. It was nearly a year before Montreal capitulated and the articles there entered into were dated September 8, 1760. It was in pursuance of the terms of the agreement then entered into that Maj. Robert Rogers took possession of Detroit a few weeks later.
It was provided in the Montreal agreement that if Canada, by the definite treaty of peace, should be restored to France, all officers should be returned to their respective places and the capitulation should be null and void. If Canada should remain to Great Britain, the French people who decided to remain in Canada should become British subjects and should retain their own property and be permitted to exercise their own religion, but be governed in their property rights by the laws, customs and usages theretofore established in Quebec.
NEW PROVINCE OF QUEBEC
The final treaty was concluded at Paris February 10, 1763 and France ceded to Great Britain all of her possessions in Canada. In pursuance of this treaty
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a proclamation was issued October 7, 1763, establishing the Province of Quebec, having a governor, council, and assembly, with authority to pass laws and ordinances agrecable to the laws of England. Considerable confusion and difficulty arose and the proclamation became only partly operative. The main thing in which we are now interested, however, is the territorial lines of this new province.
The southern line of the Province of Quebec, under the proclamation of 1763, ran along the St. Lawrence River nearly to Lake Ontario and then, turning to the northwest, extended to Lake Nipissing. The northern boundary extended northeasterly from Lake Nipissing, so that Quebec was nearly in the shape of a triangle and did not cover a great area of western territory. None of the extreme northwest was included within its boundaries and no land south of Lake Nipissing was in the province. All of the Great Lakes and all of the adjacent territory remained outside of the province and in what was then termed the "indian country."
It is probable that the principal reason Great Britain had for making Quebec cover so small an area was that, if she should be required to return the province to France, she could insist that the land captured from France only included this comparatively small tract and that the English possessions in North America included all of the remaining portions, and had included them for all previous time. She could refer to this proclamation of 1763 as proof and also to the long list of complaints that the French at Detroit were adventurers in possession of British territory. This claim was made as long ago as when the post of Detroit was situated on the site of the present Port Huron, where it was aban- doned and destroyed by Baron La Hontan in 1689 and where the two English officers, MeGregor and Rosebloom, were captured by the French the same year.
A further reason for this act was that given by Edmund Burke in the debate on the Quebec bill in the House of Commons in 1774. He said that the govern- ment of France was good, but that as compared with the English government, that of France was slavery. The object then of fixing the boundary line of Canada and of Quebec so far north, in the proclamation of 1763, was for the purpose of confining the operation of the French laws to as small space as pos- sible and yet to carry out the terms of the treaty of that year.
As time elapsed and the French became accustomed to their new masters, the laws of New York, or of some of the other colonies, would be extended over the newly-acquired territory that was south of the southerly boundary of Canada. Burke objected to the method of procedure. He proposed that the southern line of Canada should be the northern line of the colony of New York, the western line of Pennsylvania and the Ohio River to the Mississippi, and it was at his urgent request that this line was inserted in the Quebec Act of 1774, and became the legal southerly boundary of Canada.
Then, for the first time, did Detroit come under the civil government of England. Before that time it was under the military government of the king personally, over which parliament exercised no control. The old colonies never accepted the terms of the Quebec Act as fixing this line and when the Revolution ended in 1783, they claimed all the territory south of the Great Lakes as a part of their original colonial grants. The colony, or state, of Connecticut actually took possession of and sold for its own benefit a large tract in the northern part of Ohio and the states of Pennsylvania and Virginia only ceded their claims to this territory upon receiving satisfaction in some other way.
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FURTHER EXTRACTS FROM THE PUBLIC RECORDS
It would be interesting to know the reasons why a public apology should become necessary from one of Detroit's foremost citizens to the notary, Dejean. Such was made in October, 1774. Perhaps a showing of disrespect to the "judge" was considered a contempt of court that was only to be condoned by a fine or an apology. No matter what the cause, or reason, the public records contain the interesting item:
"Detroit, 21st October, 1774.
"Sir :- I confess to have used you very ill in presence of the committee and several other merchants on the night of the nineteenth instant by several rash and unbecoming aspersions for which I am very sorry, and which I hope you will be so good as to forgive, as it was entirely the effect of liquor, whereof I had drank too freely. I am, Sir, your most obedient servant.
"George Meldrum.
"To Philip Dejean, Esqr."
One of the interesting items contained in these old records is to be found in the following entry in Volume A, on page 262.
"This day personally appeared before me, Henry Bassett, major in the Tenth Regiment, commanding Detroit, etc., Philip Dejean (acting) as justice of the peace for said place, who made oath on the holy evangelist of Almighty God, that one Basile Favro declared before him that he had himself murdered one St. Amour, his bourgeois, he farther declared that he did not use any violence or torture to get that confession from said Basile Favro. Sworn before me this 21st day of December 1773.
"P. Dejean.
"Henry Bassett, major commandant."
The details of this crime cannot be determined, nor can it be ascertained whether any trial was had, nor where it was conducted if one was granted. The most important item of information to be obtained from the record is that torture of some kind was resorted to in order to obtain confessions in some instances, and that this method was unlawful. The name of Favro does not occur in the list of Detroit citizens, but that of St. Amour is found frequently. Apparently, in this case, the examination of the culprit was taken before the commandant and the result put into the form of an affidavit for use in some higher court, but recorded in this office for safekeeping on the 6th of July, 1774.
It will be noticed that the crime was committed while Detroit was in the Indian country, so that the trial should have taken place at Quebec, under the Mutiny Act.
CRIME PREVENTION
If crimes and misdemeanors could not be punished legally by the court at Detroit, they could be prevented if opportunity for legal interference was given. An instance of this kind occurred in August, 1774. Thomas Dagg was accused by John Shipboy of threatening to commit an assault upon him, and thereupon had a proceeding similar to the present "bond to keep the peace." Shipboy appeared before Dejean and made oath to the threat of Dagg and on the succeed- ing day, August 21, 1774, Dagg was summoned before the justice to give his version of the affair. There was no trial. Dagg denied that he ever made the threats and made an oath that he would never commit an assault upon Shipboy
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in the future. Dagg had been a member of the Tenth Regiment, but had terminated his service, so that he was no longer amenable to military orders.
A few other very similar cases can be given in connection. Francois Mille- homme and John Peck (or Picke) had a quarrel in which the latter was injured. Upon seeking the assistance of the justice, arbitrators were chosen to settle the differences and award damages, as required by the terms of Dejean's appoint- ment. The result, entered in the old records at page 300, is as follows:
"Whereas, Messrs. Sterling, Baby, Porteous and Chapoton were nominated and appointed arbitrators to determine between John Peck and Francois Millehomme, for the said Millehomme having stabbed the said Peck with a knife in the stomach, and said arbitrators not agreeing in their award, William Edgar being chosen umpire, is of the following opinion, to which the aforesaid Sterling, Baby, Porteous and Chapoton have agreed, that Francois Millehomme do pay unto the said John Peck sixty pounds (New York currency) and give such security for his future behavior as the commandant may think proper.
"William Edgar,
"James Sterling, "D. Baby, "John Porteous, "B. Chapoton.
"Detroit, 25th March, 1775,
P. Dejean, J. P."
In order to carry out the award and to be released from jail, Millehomme gave a bond for good behavior in the future. His bondsman was Antoine Mini, and the amount of the bond was one hundred pounds sterling. The condition was that Millehomme should not, for a year and a day from date, make any attack on the said Peck or on any of the subjects of his majesty, George III, king of Great Britain. The witnesses to the bond were Joseph Pouget and William Brown.
A similar bond was exacted from Etienne Livernois for having committed an assault upon Gregor McGregor. The bondsman was Joseph Pouget. Pierre Delorrier and Charles Levert gave such a bond in behalf of a man named Bertrand for an assault upon Mr. Hanin. This bond, unlike the others, is not signed and is more in the nature of a recognizance.
No courts were established at Detroit and all kinds of schemes were devised to avoid the complications which might arise from their absence.
In 1775 one Francois Millehomme, a minor, had a farm at Grosse Pointe, which had come to him by inheritance. His father, Francois Petit dit Mille- homme, his mother Catherine Miny being dead, wished to dispose of the farm for the good of the son. He found a purchaser in William Brown, and the father executed a deed of the place to Brown. In order to insure the validity of the transaction an approval of the sale was drawn up and signed by all the relatives of the young man, and the approval was recorded with the deed. The names of those signing the approval were: Antoine Mini, Gatezan Seguin dit La Deroute, Joseph Miny, an uncle, Jean Baptiste Cuillerier Beaubien, a cousin, Pierre St. Cosme, cousin, Claude Gouin, a friend, Augustin La Foye, a cousin German, Antoine Miny, an uncle. It would seem that the relatives and friends thus became guarantors of the transaction and thus, possibly, were obliged to see that the avails of the sale were used for the benefit of the minor. No authority
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of any court, nor approval of the commandant, is attached to the deed referred to here.
Violations of rules of the commanding officer could be punished by that officer after military court-martial, if the culprit was a soldier, but in case he was a civilian it is possible that other means had to be used. It is likely that an Englishman would desire to be tried by a jury, even if the punishment, if one was meted out to him, was directed by the commandant. There is a case of disobedience of the rules and regulations of the commanding officer by one Jacob Adams (the register spells the name Adhams) in 1775.
Adams, on being brought before the justice, either pleaded guilty to the charge or was convicted; the record does not indicate which was the ease; and gave a bond for future good behavior in the sum of one hundred pounds, with James Rankin and Colin Andrews as sureties.
PROHIBITION FOR INDIANS
One of the oddest business agreements ever seen in connection with the colonial history of Detroit was entered into by the merchants in 1774. There had been continual complaints of the injuries resulting from the sale of liquor to the Indians. The complaints had been of long standing, both under French and British rule, and attempts to eurb or prevent the traffic were continually being made with little success. The effort was new, so far as the people were concerned, but the idea had been promulgated three quarters of a century earlier by Cadillac. The effort at this time was the result of a feeling on the part of the traders that this traffie was injurious to their business interests, and not because of anything immoral in the sale of rum. The agreement is self-explanatory and so interesting that it will be given entire.
"Whereas, we, the subscribers, find the selling of rum or other spiritous liquors among the Indians at their settlements detrimental to trade and dangerous to the subjects, do hereby oblige ourselves to conform to the following regulations:
"1st. In order the better to regulate the sale of rum to the savages, and to confine it entirely to the fort, we hereby agree to establish a general rum store in this fort, for which purpose we promise to deliver into said store an equal proportion of rums and keggs necessary for that purpose, which store shall be regulated by the committee hereinafter named and appointed for that intent.
"2nd. None of us, the concerned in this agreement, shall, under any pretence whatsoever, sell, vend, or barter with any Indians or Indian, male or female, any rum or other spiritous liquors for any commodity whatsoever, which shall be brought for sale by said Indians, but every kind of skins, furs, trinkets, sugar, grease, or tallow, in short everything the savages may bring to market to dispose of for rum, the same shall be bought at the general store only, it being our true intent and meaning that no Indian or squaw shall receive directly or indirectly, either by present or otherwise, in any of our houses, more than one small glass of rum at any time during the continuance of our said general store, and that no skins or furs whatsoever shall be exchanged with Indians on any pretense.
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