CHAPTER IV

.

THE PANORAMA OF NORTHWESTERN DEVELOPMENT.

The forty-six years of Zachariah Chandler's life in Michigan saw a vast material empire supplant an almost unbroken wilderness. His commercial enterprise and success and his labors as a legislator were among the influential agents in this marvelous development and give its story a title to a place in his biography.

As early as 1634 Jesuits Brebuef, Daniel and Davost, following a route explored by Samuel Champlain eighteen years before, passed up the River Ottawa, across Lake Nipissing, down French river and along the lonely shores of the great Georgian bay to the dark forests bordering Lake Huron. Brebuef reached there first; Daniel came later, weary and worn; Davost came last of all, half dead with famine and fatigue.[2] Champlain had been before them, and other explorers preceded Champlain, but these three were the first Europeans who made a habitation by the shores of the great lakes which roll their tireless flood down through the gateway of Detroit. They erected a hut, and daily rang a bell to call the surrounding savages to prayers. Behind them was the tangled forest they had penetrated; at their feet were the broad waters of Lake Huron; beyond--toward the setting sun--was an abyss so soundless that no echo had ever come from it. And these three soldiers of the cross, converters of the heathen, unarmed and alone amid a multitude of savages, were the advance ripples of the mighty wave that two centuries later was to break across the lake at their feet and the rivers below them and surge over the trackless wilderness beyond.

Seven years later (September, 1641,) Charles Raymbault and Isaac Jaques embarked in a frail birch-bark canoe, paddling northwest from Georgian bay among the countless islands of the St. Marie river, amid scenery that filled them with delight. After seventeen days the Sault de St. Marie burst upon their enraptured vision. There they were welcomed "as brothers" by the Chippewas and there began the first known white settlement in Michigan.

On the 28th of August, 1660, Rene Mesnard left Quebec, resolved to make greater progress in the exploration of the Northwest. He ascended the Sault in a canoe, coasted along the northern shore of the upper peninsula of Michigan, and on the 15th of October of that year reached the head of Keweenaw bay to which he gave the name of St. Theresa. Eight years later (1668) a permanent mission was established at the Sault. In the autumn of 1678 occurred an event forever memorable in the annals of Michigan. There was then laid on the Niagara river the keel of the first large vessel built on the shores of the great lakes. It was completed and launched early in the following summer, and on the 7th of August, 1679 (200 years ago), amid the discharges of arquebuses and the sound of swelling _Te Deums_ it began the first voyage ever made by Europeans upon the upper inland seas of North America. This was the "Griffin," sixty tons burden, carrying five guns, with La Salle commander, Hennepin missionary and journalist, and a crew of Canadian fur traders. Three days later (August 10), after many soundings, they reached the islands grouped at the entrance of Detroit river. They thus knew the lake was navigable by vessels of large size--this was one step toward solving the destiny of the West. Ascending the river, the explorers passed by a large number of Indian villages; these had been visited years before by Jesuit missionaries and _coureurs des bois_. Some fix the date as early as 1610, but others make it later, no names being given in either case. Louis Hennepin gives the earliest description of the river: "The strait (De troit) is finer than Niagara, being one league broad, excepting that part which forms the lake that we have called St. Clair." The strait once voyaged and understood, its value was quickly appreciated by the French as a means of resisting the inroads of the persevering English (who from New York and New England were pressing upon their possessions in the East), and of preventing British interference with the valuable hunting privileges or with the Indian tribes dwelling upon the borders of the Northern lakes. With this in view the Marquis de Nonville, Governor-General of the Canadas, ordered (June 6, 1686) M. Du Lhut, who had been commandant at Michilimackinac, "to establish a post on the Detroit, near Lake Erie, with a garrison of fifty men," and the order added, "I desire you to choose an advantageous place to secure the passage, which may protect our savages who go to the chase, and serve them as an asylum against their enemies and ours." In obedience to these instructions, M. Du Lhut proceeded to the entrance of the strait from Lake Huron, where he built a fort and established a trading post (on the site of the present Fort Gratiot) which he called Fort St. Joseph. Thus (1686) was made the first settlement by Europeans in the lower peninsula of Michigan.

The misfortunes of the war with England which terminated with the peace of Ryswick (Sept. 1, 1697,) still further convinced the most sagacious of the leading French colonists of the importance of a fort on the Detroit river which would command this channel of communication with the great lakes above. Impressed with this fact, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, a Gascon sailor who amid a career of romantic adventure came to be commandant at Michilimackinac, crossed the Atlantic in person, and earnestly and repeatedly pressed upon the colonial minister, Count Ponchartrain, the necessity of the prompt establishment of a permanent post on the Detroit, where it would bring the French forces in closer proximity to the Iroquois and would give them command of the waters of the upper lakes and of the great fur trading regions about them. Cadillac did not urge this as a missionary enterprise but for its commercial and military advantages, and the force and vigor of his representations prevailed at the palace. He sailed from France with the royal order, "Take prompt possession of Detroit," with this supplement from Ponchartrain: "Prosecute vigorously; if the Jesuits obstruct, return and report." Cadillac arrived in Quebec early in the first year of the eighteenth century (March 8). Three months later (June 5) his preparations were made, and on that day he took his departure from La Chine. With him were Captain Tonti, Lieutenants Dugue and Chacornacle, fifty soldiers, and fifty Canadian traders and artisans. Nineteen days later he arrived upon the site of the present city of Detroit. In his memoir Cadillac wrote: "I arrived at Detroit, July 24 (1701), and fortified myself there immediately. I had the necessary huts made and cleared up the ground preparatory to its being sowed in the autumn." When he touched the shore of Michigan, with pomp and ceremony he erected a cross, a cedar post beside it; then with a sword in one hand and a sod in the other he made solemn proclamation with many words of "possession taken" of all the country round about, from the great lakes to the south seas, in the name of the King of France.

Thus French Michigan began, and so it remained until Wolfe's victory gave new rulers to Canada and to all the French possessions beyond. On Nov. 29, 1760, the French flag floated for the last time over Detroit, as a part of the dominion of France. On that day Maj. Robert Rogers, an English provincial officer, native of New Hampshire, took possession in the name of another king, ran up the Cross of St. George, fired a salute, gave some round British cheers, and (the Treaty of Paris confirming this occupation) Michigan was English. It so remained until the Revolution and the treaty of 1783 made it American. But it was not until thirteen years after (1796) that it was evacuated by the British garrison; in June of that year Captain Porter with a detachment of American troops entered the fort and hoisted the Union flag for the first time, and took formal possession in the name of the United States. The Hull surrender again swept Detroit and that part of Michigan lying within its command under the Cross of St. George (Aug. 16, 1812,) to remain until Perry's victory and the subsequent military successes of General Harrison expelled the English and restored it permanently to the Union, on Sept. 28, 1813. During the Revolution Detroit was the headquarters of British power in the Northwest, and from it were sent out the expeditions which ravaged the frontiers of Pennsylvania and Virginia.

The British captain, Rogers, who took possession in 1760, afterwards reported the population (1765) as: Able-bodied men, 243; women, 164; children, 294--total, 701. This was exclusive of the garrison, who were sent away as prisoners of war, and included the 60 men, women and children who were slaves. He also reported that of the French families remaining in the settlement there were 23 men able to bear arms, 24 women, and 41 children. The others were probably English who had followed upon the track of the troops. Captain Rogers's report gives strength to this supposition. It says: "There are in the fort many English merchants, several of whom have bought houses." Then it gives this insight into the industrial condition of the settlement: "Of farms there are 40, and some fourscore acres in depth with a frontage on the river; of these several farms are at present in cultivation." The number of acres under cultivation is given as 404; number of bushels of wheat raised the preceding year, 670; bushels of corn, 1,884. The report quaintly adds: "The Indian corn would have been in greater abundance, had proper care been taken of it; the most part has been devoured by birds."

Here remote from the world, with the joyous sparkling of the great river at their feet, the luxuriance of the forest about them, the cottages of the settlers peeping out from the green foliage in which they were half hidden, these simple colonists lived uneventful lives, surrounded by the beauty and the bounties of nature. The forests teemed with game, the marshes with wild fowl, and the rivers with fish. The long winters were seasons of enjoyment. In summer and autumn traders, voyageurs, _coureurs des bois_, and half-breeds gathered from the distant Northwest, and the settlement was boisterous with rude frolic and gaiety. This was Detroit and Michigan in 1765.[3]

Between the French surrender and American occupancy, little was done toward the development of the peninsulas. In 1796 there were a few straggling settlements on the Detroit river, as also on Otter creek and on the rivers Rouge, Pointe aux Tremble, and other small streams flowing into Lake Erie. The French Canadians had extended their farms to a considerable distance along the banks of the St. Clair. Detroit was a small cluster of rude wooden houses, defended by a fort, and surrounded by pickets. Villages of the Ottawas and Pottawatamies stood on the present site of the city of Monroe, and near them were a few primitive cabins constructed of logs, erected by the French on either bank of the river Raisin; this was called Frenchtown, and is now part of Monroe. On the upper lakes there were the posts on the island of Mackinac, at St. Marie, and at St. Joseph (on the St. Joseph river). The transition from France to England had given the monopoly of the fur trade to the Hudson Bay Company, thus changing the direction of its profits; otherwise the effect upon Michigan had been a change of masters, flag and garrison, and little else. And the shifting from England to the United States also meant only new faces and new colors in the fort; otherwise it was for the time effectless.

The interior of the country was but little known except to those engaged in the fur trade, and they were interested in depreciating its value. Even as late as 1807 the Indian titles had only been

## partially extinguished, and no portion of the public domain had been

brought into the market. The opposite shore was occupied by a vigilant and jealous foreign power. The interior of the future State swarmed with the savages who yet made it their home, and an Indian war was threatening. These things repelled the tide of immigration that was already surging over Ohio and the country bordering on the Ohio river. Fourteen years after American possession the population of Michigan was given as: Whites, 4,384; free blacks, 120; slaves, 24--total, 4,528. Five years before the number of householders in the lower peninsula was officially given as 525. There are antecedent estimates of population and assertions, but no facts that can be relied on. It is, however, probable that at the time of the British evacuation (1796) the population did not exceed 2,500 souls, for two years afterwards (1798) Wayne county, then co-extensive with the present State of Michigan, sent a representative to Chillicothe, where it was claimed that the Northwest Territory was entitled to a delegate in Congress because there were then 5,000 inhabitants within its boundaries. It can scarcely be possible that half of that aggregate was in Michigan alone, and that its settlers then equaled in numbers those scattered over the inviting and fertile region which now includes the powerful and populous States of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.

The growth of the decade succeeding 1810 was trifling. In 1820 the census showed but 9,048 souls in Michigan Territory, which included the present State and the region beyond the lakes north of Illinois. The war was over. Indian depredations had ceased and the Indian titles had been quieted. The perils of settlement were removed. The seeming obstacles of the toil and privations of frontier existence were mere cobwebs in the way of the hardy and adventurous. But there yet remained serious impediments to Michigan's growth. Distance was one, for the State was still difficult of access, and canals and railroads were yet in the future. A more serious impediment was a blunder. On May 6, 1812, Congress passed an act requiring that 2,000,000 acres of land should be surveyed in Michigan Territory. The surveyors went into the forest with their chains and poles, and the result was a report to Congress which may be thus summarized: "Many lakes of great extent; marshes on their margins; marshes between; other places covered with coarse high grass; this grass covered with water from six inches to three feet; lakes and swamps over half the country; the intermediate space poor, barren and sandy; the dry land composed of sand-hills, with deep basins between and more water; the margins of many of the streams and lakes literally afloat, or thinly covered with a sward of grass with water and mud underneath; the country altogether so bad that there would not be more than one acre out of a hundred, if there would be one out of a thousand, that would in any case admit of cultivation." Official stupidity had its effect on Congress, and in 1816 (April 29) that body cancelled the survey order, and abandoned Michigan to the hunters and trappers and their game. For two years this continued; but the adventurous would plunge into the wilderness and would come back and talk of beautiful valleys, broad prairies and fertile soils. Explorations widened and a multitude of witnesses came with their facts to prove that the curtain of forest concealed something more inviting than marsh and barren and sand-hill. Then the government (1818) ordered a new survey and out of all this came part of the truth, namely: There was in this wilderness an immense variety of forest trees--oak, maple, ash, elm, sycamore, locust, butternut, walnut, poplar, whitewood, beech, hemlock, spruce, tamarack, chestnut, white, yellow, and Norway pine. There were plains and natural parks; there were level prairies and hills rising with gradual swell away to the center of the State. Of soils there were deep sandy loams mixed with limestone pebbles, deep vegetable moulds mingled with clay producing dense and luxuriant vegetation, brown loams mingled with clay, deep vegetable moulds with a surface covering of black sands. There was water in abundance, rivers and streams and creeks and beautiful lakes. All these reports and more, confirmed and re-confirmed by pioneers and surveyors, came back from the interior, until the exceeding richness and great agricultural value of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan was established.

But another event was to exercise a most important influence upon the future State. In 1817 the first steamer upon the Northern lakes, the "Ontario," was launched, and, amid bonfires, illuminations and most lively demonstrations of joy, made her first trip upon Lake Ontario. This heralded the dawn of a material revolution. One year later, on the 27th day of August, 1818, the "Walk-in-the-water," the first steamer launched above Niagara Falls, came up to the wharves of Detroit after a passage of forty-four hours from Buffalo. This vessel, of only 340 tons, and lost three years later, was a puny affair, but wise men saw in her advent the promise of a future which time has more than realized. Then in the wake of the steamer, Congress (1819) ordered the public lands of Michigan placed in the market for sale. At this time Detroit contained 250 houses, 1,415 inhabitants, and the entire territory a population of 8,896. In 1825 the Erie canal was completed, and its far-sighted projector, De Witt Clinton, sailed amid national acclamations from Lake Erie to tide-water. It completed the link of direct water communication with Michigan, and the stream of Western emigration was quickly swollen to a torrent.

Mr. Chandler first came to Michigan in 1833. Three years before (1830) the census of the entire territory, as it was constituted when Illinois was admitted to the Union, was 32,531. The growth during the preceding decade had been steady, not immense; that was to come after. It was in the year of 1833 that the first settlement was made in the present State of Iowa. And in that fall (September) the people of Detroit were rejoicing that "arrangements were in train for the establishment of a new stage-line route to Chicago, by which travelers can go from one place to the other in five days." There was not then a mile of railroad in the territory, and not until five years after (1838) was the first twenty-nine miles completed to Ypsilanti. Detroit was still a frontier post numbering less than 4,000 inhabitants. On all the Western lakes at the beginning of that year there were but eighteen steamers, ranging from fifty to 395 tons in burden, and aggregating but 3,710 tons, and with the best of these a voyage of thirty-nine hours from Buffalo to Detroit was a remarkable passage. All this was improvement; yet the Detroit merchant in that year could not expect to receive his purchases made in New York within less than from three to six months after the time of setting out to procure them. During the winter steamboats and river craft were ice-bound, and the settlements at Detroit, the River Raisin and elsewhere throughout the broad peninsula, were shut out from the Eastern world, except as travelers braved the tedious and painful staging through Canada to Buffalo, with its week of continuous day and night journeying.

A year later (1834) Congress defined the boundaries of Michigan Territory. Let the finger trace on the atlas the northern borders of Ohio and Indiana, follow around the south shore of Lake Michigan to the boundary between Wisconsin and Illinois, pursue that line to the Mississippi river, then down its stream to the north line of the State of Missouri, along that westward to the Missouri, and up that river until between the 25th and 26th degrees of west longitude the finger reaches the faint line, coming down into the Missouri from the north, of the White Earth river--all the land and lakes between the Detroit straits and this little White Earth river and between the line so traced and the British possessions, was Michigan Territory in 1834 and until Michigan was admitted as a State into the Union. It was an imperial domain, larger than Sweden and Norway united; nearly three times greater than England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and the Channel islands; surpassing the united territories of France, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark and The Netherlands; even exceeding the combined acreage of Italy and the German Empire. Yet in all this region, when Mr. Chandler displayed his first stock of goods in Detroit, there was not one mile of railroad or telegraph, not one steam mill or manufactory, but one city approaching 4,000 inhabitants and not one exceeding it, and not a single mile of paved street or sewerage. There was but one water-works, and no gas-works. There was not one daily newspaper, and but few of any kind. The valuable iron deposits of the Upper Peninsula were undiscovered. The wealth of pine timber was unknown. In the previous year (1832) the total value of foreign and domestic produce exported from Michigan amounted to but the trifling sum of $9,234, and in the preceding federal census (1830) the entire civilized population of this vast area of limitless possibilities was less than 33,000, although there were then in the Union twenty-four States with a population of 12,866,020.

[Illustration: DETROIT TN 1834.]

Mr. Chandler came in with the first swell of the great tide of emigration which broke over Michigan Territory. Up to within a brief period preceding, that extensive and fertile region was scarcely known except as it appeared on maps. Its rich prairies, its fertile plains, its deep forests with all their wealth, were a _terra incognita_ to all white men except the fur traders. But it was being rapidly known and understood. Its fame had rolled back over the East, and the fruits were seen in the new faces and sturdy forms swarming to Detroit as a point of departure to the new and beautiful land. In that year (1833) it was a matter of boasting that as many as "one hundred and seventy-five emigrants had landed in Detroit in one day." The next year _Niles' Register_ had a report from Detroit that the arrivals had reached the magnificent proportions of "nine hundred and sixty in one day," and that "the streets of Detroit were full of wagons loading and departing for the West," principally for the region about Grand river. And the same journal said: "The character of these emigrants is in every respect a subject of felicitation. They will give Michigan a capital stock of wealth and moral worth unequaled by any of the newly-formed States, and scarcely approximated by Ohio."

In 1833 and for more than a year afterward the business part of Detroit was confined to the narrow space bounded by Wayne and Randolph streets, Jefferson avenue and the river, and at the same time there were but few buildings on Jefferson avenue above Rivard, and but one on Woodward avenue north of State street. Old wind-mills lined the shores; the little unsightly French carts clattered through the streets; ducks, geese and pigs were the only city scavengers. This sounds like another age--another continent--but it was the Detroit and Michigan of but forty-six years ago. Change came with population--slowly at first, then with increased speed, then with immense strides. Mr. Chandler lived to see it all and to be a part of it. He came with the early tide of population; he saw the tide rising, at first languid, halting and uncertain; he saw it year by year gathering momentum and volume until it swelled and rolled over Michigan a mighty flood of brawn and brain, of enterprise and conscience.

On the fifth day of November, 1879, tens of thousands of people looked upon the dead face of the stalwart Senator and followed his body to its last resting place in the city to which he had come in 1833. Forty-six years and a few weeks had passed; no more. But in that time the city which he made his home had spread its wings until it covered an area of thirteen and a half square miles, with 300 miles of streets (seventy-six miles paved), and some of them among the broadest and most beautiful in the world, shaded by rows of graceful trees of luxuriant foliage, and adorned by stores and private residences rich in finish and architecture. It had 200 miles of water-mains and 150 miles of sewers, making it one of the most perfectly-drained cities on the continent. Its population had grown to be 120,000, and its taxable wealth to exceed $87,000,000. School buildings, representing a public investment of $650,000 and accommodating 15,000 pupils, were scattered through its wards, and numerous churches and abundant public and private charitable institutions made proclamation of the faith and philanthropy of its citizens. Great manufacturing enterprises lined its wharves and suburbs; scores of railroad trains arrived at and departed from its depots daily; and the commerce of the lakes was passing along its river front at the rate of thousands of tons hourly.

But the change in Michigan had been no less marvelous. The State has a representation in the present Congress of the United States exceeding that of any one of eight of the first States of the Union, equaling the representation of that of two others (Georgia and Virginia), and only exceeded by that of three of the original thirteen--Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania. In a single county of the Upper Peninsula, in 1833 supposed to be only a mass of barren, uninviting and uninhabitable rocks, there are three cities either one of which has a greater population than the Detroit of that day, and in Michigan out of its forty-three cities and 178 villages (April, 1879) there are over thirty more populous than Detroit in 1833--some of them with populations from five to eight times greater. The people of the State are a million and a half in number, spread over the greater part of the Lower Peninsula, about the Sault, and from Marquette to Ontonagon and south to Menominee in the Upper Peninsula. Its newspapers have grown to twenty-three dailies and over 300 with less frequent issues. Its railroads have developed from non-existence to 3,500 miles, owned by thirty-six corporations, connecting Detroit and the principal cities of Michigan with all portions of the State, penetrating to every center of population and industry, costing over $160,000,000, and paying in each year for salaries and operating expenses over $13,000,000. Strong institutions for the care of the deaf and dumb and the blind and for the insane, a thriving college for agricultural education, and that noblest monument of the wisdom and forethought of the latter-day founders of Michigan, the State University, were all planted in these years. And with this, the public school system was nourished until there are over 300 graded schools and over 6,000 public schools in the State, with property valued at over $9,000,000, paying almost $2,000,000 yearly in teachers' wages, and with annual resources amounting to nearly $4,000,000. In the mountains of the Upper Peninsula, so long reputed a barren wilderness, have been discovered exhaustless mines of the richest iron ores and the most extensive and valuable copper deposits known on the globe. The Saginaw Valley has poured a briny stream of wealth upon the State from its unfailing salt-wells, and from the forests about and beyond to the westernmost limits of Michigan have been gathered great treasures of pine and hard woods. And while nature was yielding its hidden stores to enrich the State its skilled citizens were not idle. Over 10,000 manufacturing establishments in Michigan now employ upward of 70,000 people, pay more than $25,000,000 annually in wages, make an infinite variety of wares, and turn out products each year amounting in value to more than $130,000,000. The statistics of agricultural development are equally remarkable. The log cabin and the clearings have yielded to ample farms. The marsh, the pine barren, even the hyperborean soil of the Upper Peninsula, have been transformed into productive wheat-fields. The cereals of Michigan exceed in their annual product 70,000,000 bushels, and $45,000,000 in their value. Highly cultivated and valuable farms (over 111,000 in number and with a total acreage of 10,000,000) cover the greater part of the Lower Peninsula. Comfortable, even stately, farm houses dot the landscape. School-houses, churches, villages, towns and cities stand where the forest was. The wilderness has fled away. Everywhere there are evidences of peace, prosperity, happiness and a high civilization. It is magic; courage, intelligence and industry have been the magicians.

The changes in the other parts of the Michigan Territory of 1833 have been no less marvelous. Four States have been carved out of that region whose boundaries in 1834 were traced on the atlas--Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota--and the great wheat farms of Dakota will soon develop into a fifth. This entire territory to-day has eight Senators, twenty-nine Representatives and one Delegate in Congress, has over 11,000 miles of railroad, seventy-seven daily papers and over 1,100 weekly or monthly publications, and several great cities larger than Philadelphia and New York when the United States had taken its second census. It has a population greater than that of the thirteen colonies which successfully defied the power of Great Britain during the Revolution, greater than that of the six New England States in the present day. It produces a larger amount of breadstuffs than the whole Union yielded when Mr. Chandler first came to the territory, and contains more wealth than did all the States fifty years ago.

This is a marvelous story of growth. Nothing in the Old World has equaled it. Nothing the New has exceeded it. It has confounded prophecy. It has outrun imagination. It is the achievement of a stalwart race. It is the triumph of faith, of zeal, of courage. It dazzles the men of to-day. And it will stand for centuries to excite the admiration of the historian and the wonder of the future.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Parkman's "Jesuits in North America."

[3] This is Parkman's picture in "The Conspiracy of Pontiac."

##