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THE STORY OF
OUR CITY & ITS SCHOOL
With a survey of the settlement
& School System of the West.
B_ Andrew Ten Brook
First Professor of Intellectual & Moral Philosophy
In the University of Michigan




1.


Preface
The origin of this book can be briefly stated. Application was made in the Autumn of 1893 to the author for a
series of weekly articles for publication in one of the newspapers of Ann Arbor, the same to run through a year. These
sketches having been produced, closing in November 1894, there
was an urgent call for their collection into a volume, with
only the thought, however, of circulation in this city & its
immediate neighborhood. But this thought did not, on reflection, satisfy the writer. Ann Arbor, small as it is, is
cosmopolitan, as are New York & other great cities of the seaboard, & as Chicago & a few other cities of the great Mississippi Valley. As these centres of trade receive the products
of all lands and distribute to all lands those of the country
itself, so our little town has carried on an intellectual
commerce with all the civilized peoples on the planet.  It
has received their sons as pupils & sent them home, & many an
American with them, freighted with its own intellectual
treasures. Moreover, this place, with its school, is really
the first & most remarkable product of its kind which originated in the great migration to the westward of the Alleghanies,
beginning soon after the Revolutionary war. It is, therefore,
in a sense potential to other like developments of the west.




2.
All these circumstances have given rise to the thought that
the story of our city & its school may perhaps be of interest
throughout the range from which pupils have been drawn hither
and that to which alumni have been sent forth prepared for
the battle of life.
It ought, perhaps, here to be added that soon after the
occurrences which led to the application for the newspaper
articles, as referred to above, the Michigan Pioneer & Historical Society applied to the author for a paper to be read
at the annual meeting of that body. This was read on the
sixth of June last at the State Capitol at Lansing.   It will
appear in Volume XXIII of the papers of the Society & will be
found nearly identical with Chapters VIII to XII of this work.
Further, a paper embracing the substance of Chapters XLVI &
LVII, was the result of a request from the President of the
Students' Christian Association. This as a whole was never
published, it being too long for the Bulletin of that body;
but the portion of the paper giving the early history of the
students' religious life in the institution has appeared in
the organ of the Association.
From the foregoing statements it is not to be understood
that this work is in any sense a mere reproduction of the
newspaper articles referred to. When the idea of a wider
circulation of the sketches occurred to the author, he revised
the original papers & so extended them as to double the amount
of matter embraced. As thus revised, the sketches are now
sent forth to the public.


Ann Arbor, February 14th  1895




5.


I. PRELIMINARY
No account of the origin and growth of our city can
fairly be deemed worthy of the subject, unless it shall at
least touch upon those events in war, politics, diplomacy
and legislation which have made such a development possible.
In a fair treatment of my theme, therefore, the first inquiry will naturally be:- How did that section of our
country, first known in our history, as the Northwest
Territory, now forming five great states, become a possession of our original Confederation? If any shall deem this
to be giving too great latitude to our inquiries, it will
suffic to reply that our little place has hitherto, to say
the least, been the greatest scholastic centre of this extensive region, and that this was brought about by that
congressional legislation which first provided a government
for the Northwest. It is here in place to inquire by what
series of occurrences congress became invested with the
right to legislate for this territory.
The old Northwest was by right of discovery a part of
New France. Robert Cavalier, better known as Sieur de la
Salle, the greatest of all explorers of the North American
continent, traced the course of the Ohio river from near the
heads of its upper tributaries in what is now Western New
York to its confluence with the Mississippi. La Salle
traveled about 20,000 miles, half the distance on foot.
His exploration on the Ohio was begun in 1669; but it does
not concern my purpose to say more of it than that he
claimed for France the territory lying between this river


and the older French possessions on the North, and that many




4.
settlements, all by French people, were established within
these limits, the chief of which were Mackinaw, Green Bay,
Detroit, Vincennes, Kaskaskia and La Prairie du Rocher. This
region remained a possession of France until ceded to Great
Britain in 1763, as the final result of the victory achieved
by Wolfe over Montcalm on the Heights of Abraham at Quebec
in October, 1759.
The scattered French settlers of the Northwest, separated
by great stretches of wilderness from the British Colonies
of the Atlantic coast, took no part in our Revolution; it
was, therefore quite natural that Great Britain, after the
war should claim this territory by the same title by which
she held Canada - that is, by cession from France. What
claim, then, could the new confederation set up against that
of Great Britain? Upon what ground the colonies of Virginia,
Connecticut, Massachusetts and New York made pretentions to
any proprietorship in this territory, I shall not inquire; but
they made such- pretensions & these were founded on royal
grants. Virginia's claim embraced the greatest part. In 1778,
Patrick Henry, being then governor of that state, raised a
small force for the military occupation of this territory,
giving the command to George Rogers Clark, with a Lieutenant
Colonel's commission. This was an enterprise of Virginia
alone.  The congress of the confederation and its commanderin-chief had nothing to do with it. The conquest was accomplished by Colonel Clark's remarkable diplomacy with the
French settlers and the Indians, in combination with his tactics


and pluck in the solution of the military problem. He won,
indeed, by his conduct of this expedition, the nom de plume




5.
of the "Hannibal of the West." Details, could they be given,
would be entrancing.
Let the following account suffice:
This young officer of twenty-five years, by combined
shrewdness and daring, captured Kaskaskia near the Mississippi.
By his naive and homely way of stating the matter in dispute
between the colonies and the mother-country, he won the
Indians to his cause, as also Father Gibault, the Catholic
missionary at Kaskaskia. This priest was so charmed with the
Virginian's frankness and kindness of heart that he volunteered to go to Vincennes on the Wabash and negotiate the surrender
of the garrison there without a military force. This done
the Colonel placed in the fort what was supposed to be a
garrison of his own men. Colonel Hamilton, LieutenantGovernor of Canada, came on from Detroit to retake the place,
and finding his march obstructed by a cannon planted in his
way, demanded a surrender.  Captain Helm, the commander of
the garrison, insisted upon honorable terms, and when these
were granted, he and one private enjoyed alone the honors he
had so bravely secured. These two men formed the garrison &
marched out with the honors of war, if with flying colors &
martial music, these two men had to enact the whole display.
The British colonel must have felt the humor.
An incident will set forth the self-possession which ran
through Colonel Clark's action and imparted itself to all
concerned. The people of La Prairie du Rocher got up a ball
in his honor. The party danced till midnight when a report


came that Colonel Hamilton was within three miles of Kaskaskia,
with 800 men. He had never, he said, seen such confusion as




6.
reigned in this little company on hearing this rumor. All
looked to him to decide what was to be done. His mind was
made up at once. He ordered the horses for himself and his
officers. He told the party not to let the news spoil their
diversion. Quieted by his coolness, they continued the dance
until the officers' horses came and many of the young men of
the place mounted their own horses and rode with him to share
his danger; so great was the effect of his calm assurance.
The distance was twelve miles, and on their arrival they
found that the story had been gotten up for an alarm.
Such is a fair specimen of his policy. He ordered no
parades, lest his weakness should be known. He assumed the
air of having great forces within his call, he treated everybody with the greatest kindness, and carried the whole French
population with him. Colonel Clark was determined to recapture
Vincennes. For this purpose he set out in February, 1779,
with 210 men, two four pounders and four swivels. The artillery
and forty-six men were to ascend the Wabash in a batteau, himself and the remaining force were to go on foot, though not
properly by land, since the whole region from the mouth of the
White river, fifteen to twenty miles below Vincennes, was
inundated. "Not more than two miles," the Colonel says,
"were less than three to four feet under water." The commander
led the march and indicated the way. All carried their guns
and powder over their heads to keep them dry. Their provisions
were exhausted, and they were nearly starved. The weather, too,
was growing cold & the ice was rapidly forming.   At this


juncture the hearts of some of the men gave way. 'Without
food, benumbed with cold, up to their waists in water which




7.


was covered with floating ice, the men composing Clark's
command refused to march. All his persuasions were without
effect upon the half-starved, half-frozen soldiers. He was,
however, equal to the occasion. In one of the companies
was a small drummer boy & in the same was a stout sergeant
six feet two inches in stature & devoted to his commander.
Clark mounted the boy on the shoulders of the sergeant &
directed him to plunge into the half-frozen water, which
he did, the boy beating the charge from his lofty perch, while
the Colonel followed, sword in hand, giving the command
"forward" as he threw aside the floating ice.   It was so
novel a device that the men, moved by it, promptly obeyed &
marched to the high land beyond.# (See Clark's Campaign in the
Illinois Bowman's Journal, p. 103. Robert Clarke & Co. Cincinnati, 1869.
The force reached Vincennes on the 23d of February, at
evening. The people of the place knew this officer through
Father Gibault; he had therefore only to request them to keep
in their houses and fear nothing. Then, without waiting for
the arrival of his artillery, he demanded the surrender of the
garrison. This being refused, he opened fire upon the fort.
His determination, and his appearance there when the country
was under water, made Hamilton's heart give way; the demand
seemed to him something like a summons from another world and he
surrendered and was sent a prisoner to Virginia, where he was
kept in irons and on bread and water as a punishment for his
cruelty.  Colonel Clark nicknamed him the "Hair-buyer,   from
the remorselessness with which he dealt with the Indians in the


scalps of American patriots. Washington finally advised that




8*


he be treated as other prisoners.
As the result of this conquest, Virginia organized the
whole Northwest into a county, calling it Illinois, over
whose scattered population she kept up a loose kind of
government.
When in 1783 peace was concluded at Paris between Great
Britain and the new confederation, this conquests was the
strongest ground in support of our claim to the territory
north of the Ohio; the settlement, before the end of the
revolutionary war, of Kentucky and Tennessee, gave an equal
claim to the country south of that river, & John Jay's unyielding determination to sustain this claim, finally secured
it against the opposition of France and Spain. After a grave
contest it was saved from the conspiracy with Spain of General
Wilkinson & those whom he had drawn around him. Otherwise
the United States, had there been such a country, would have
embraced only the narrow strip between the Atlantic and the
Alleghanies.
Our conclusion from the foregoing paragraphs is now quite
obvious. But for the success of Colonel Clark's expedition,
thie region known as the Old Northwest would have been a. British
province. The ground on which our city is built might have
been occupied by a Canadian hamlet, or small village and it
might still have been but farms and forests. As to where and
what we, the individual citizens, should have been, or whether
we should have been at all, I shall not speculate, but shall
leave all such questions to those who have leisure and taste
for them.




9.


II. ORIGIN OF OUR SCHOOL SYSTEM
The acquisition of the Northwest did not give this Territory to the Confederation of states. Virginia held it by
the right of conquest. Other states had claims upon parts of
it.  But Congress was in a strait for means to carry on the war
and to pay the indebtedness already incurred. Some states had
no ownership of lands, others had extensive tracts unsettled.
Those which had none were dissatisfied and even threatened to
seize forcibly upon the lands of those which held such, for
these states, they said, could support their governments by
the sale of their lands and needed to levy no taxes upon their
people, and thus had an undue advantage over the landless ones.
To avoid these strifes and pay the war expenses, the cession of
the Northwest to the Confederation was proposed and, that I
may make the account short, I add only that this followed in
due time, Virginia taking the lead. Indeed this state offered
its cession in 1781, and the Northwest was not definitely
assigned to the Confederation by treaty until 1783. But the
cession by the four states was not fully completed and accepted
until 1800; yet, after the treaty of Paris in 1783, Congress
felt free to provide for the sale of these lands and for the
government of the people who should settle upon them.
It is worthy of remark that, but for this cession, Congress
might never have had a foot of territory over which to exercise
its governing power, for all the other wild lands belonged to
the individual states. Nor had it been expected that Oongress
would ever exercise an   territorial jurisdiction. This may,
therefore, be regarded as the beginning of that succesion of


acquisitions by which our possessions have finally reached the




10.,
Pacific coast and extended far to the southward and northward.
The first attempt to frame a government for the Northwest
Territory was by Thomas Jefferson. This was in 1784. His bill
failed of passage and had it become a law would have led to the
greatest of misfortunes.  It provided, indeed, against the
permanent existence of slavery in this section, and yet it
permitted this to exist for sixteen years, after which time,
as later events plainly show, its dislodgement would have been
impossible.
Manasseh Cutler, fifty-three years pastor of the church
in Ipswich, Massachusetts, is now known to have been the author
of those provisions of the Ordinance of 1787, which have wrought
so beneficently for our whole country. Mr. Cutler    represented
a company, most of its members designing to become actual
settlers, and wishing to purchase several million acres of land
in this section. They would not make the purchase until a kind
of constitutional law should have been enacted for the protection and government of the people who should settle in the
Territory. When Dr. Cutler arrived in New York, where Congress
was in session, a bill sketched by a committee of which Nathan
Dane was chairman, on which, however, no action was likely soon
to be taken, was placed in his hands for such changes as he
might see fit to make. It was in the form of a compact between
the future settlers of the Northwest and Congress. The third
article of the compact has the following clause:
"Religion, morality and knowlege being necessary to good
government, schools, and the means of education shall be forever


encouraged." The compact was enacted July 13, 1787. Fourteen
days later an act was passed by which Congress sold to the




11.
company 1,500,000 acres of land, making reservations within
the tract as follows:
Two entire townships of good land for a University.
Lot number sixteen in every township for schools.
Lot number twenty-nine in each township for the purposes
of religion.  Other reservations were made for future disposition.
The precedent here established has been followed ever since,
and in it we see the explanation of what our own city has
become. Upon this legislation its existence was suspended.
I shall not trace the ordinance further than to observe
that a passage in its sixth article reads as follows:
"There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude
in said Territory otherwise than in punishment of crimes whereof the party shall have been duly convicted."   To justify the
remark made above that if Jefferson's bill had become a law,
slavery could never have been dislodged from this region, I
have only to remark that when General Harrison was governor
of the Indiana Territory, application was made to Congressior
permission to introduce this institution into the Northwest.
It was represented that nine-tenths of the people were in favor
of it.  Congress refused, John Randolph, chairman of the committee to which the matter was referred,having reported against
granting the prayer of the petitioners.   So we see how narrow
a chance this whole section twice ran of being slave Territory.
A few touches of the word-painter's brush would show   how
alien was the life of this colony to the conceptions of our day.


The advance party of twenty-two set out early in December,
having fired a salute in front of Dr. Cutler's house in Ipswich.




12.
They were mechanics, including some boat-builders. They
reached about the end of January a place called Sumrill's Ferry,
near Pittsburg, where they began to build a boat. At this
point they were overtaken by the next party. These latter,
arrested in their passage of the Alleghanies by deep snows,
had been obliged to stop and build sleds. On the 2d of April
they all embarked, sixty-five in number, and arrived on the
7th at the mouth of the Muskingum. Here they were to build
their city which they proceeded to lay out. Dr. Cutler had
suggested for this the name Adelphia, thus indicating his hope
that brotherly love could prevail in it. The people were
romantic and called it Marietta, a combination of the two names
of the unhappy queen of France, Marie Antoinette. Pedantry
cropped out in other names. The large public square was called
Quadranaon; the small one Capitolium; the street leading from
the square was called Sacravia, the fort with its enclosure,
Campus Martius, French, Latin and Greek being thus curiously
mixed in christening the colonists' capitol.
It is refreshing to visit in conception the scene of this
first Anglo-Saxon settlement in the Northwest. There were
several generals of the Revolution, more colonels and majors
and still more captains in the small number of the settlers.
The war had reduced them to poverty. These men lived in log
huts, chiefly of one room and a garret. They might have been
seen in summer clad in tow trousers and frocks, driving their
oxen at logging or plowing,while in winter the peltries yielded
by their hunting and trapping were most conspicuous in their


raiment.
The whole aspect of the place was martial.   The Rev. Mr.




13.
Story was escorted by a guard with martial music to the place
of worship, as also when he preached elsewhere than at Marietta.
Who were the elite and in what trim they appeared at the
receptions of General St. Clair, the governor, at his log castle
on the Campus Martius, I cannot say with authority. Mlrs. St.
Clair did not come on from their Pennsylvania home. Her
daughter Louisa, of about eighteen years, when her father came
to Marietta, was doubtless the head of the social life of the
young. She was exercised in all athletic sports, as if she had
been trained in the camp life of her father.   In skating she
equaled the young men in fleetness, while she excelled them in
grace. With her rifle she could clip the head from the
partridge and bring down the squirrel from the highest tree-top.
She mounted the wildest and most spirited horse, dashed at full
gallop around the Campus iartius and through the open woodlands, leaping the logs and other obstructions. `?Whether Louisa
St. Clair, in the wildness of her frontier life, ever did as
the newspaper reporters some forty years ago described a certain
distinguished literary lady as doing in a horsehack journey
from the Atlantic to California - "rode with one foot one foot
one side of the horse and theother on the other side" - is not
known to us; but dressed for the purpose this has been often
done. In other accounts of pioneer life I shall have occasion
to notice equestrian customs of both sexes now no longer known
and so omit them here. Certain it is that no freedom of frontier
life corrupted the austere morals of this first settlement of
the Northwest. Miss St. Clair was also fleet of foot and ranged


freely the forests like the fabled Diana of the old Mythology.
The humbler classes of the young joined in some of these athletic




14.
pastimes, especially in evening rowings on the river, sending
their merry songs floating over its surface, when their anxious
mamnas at home were in torment at their venturing so far, in
times of Indian hostility, from the protection of the Campus
Mar ti us.
If readers shall ask what this all has to do with the
history of our city, I have only to entreat their patience with
me until they shall learn that, besides having procured the
enactment of the fundamental law, men of this settlement were
most prominent in the first measures looking to our own University, now the chief adornment of the town whose founding &
development I am to sketch. Nor do I hesitate to affirm that no
other removal of our people from the Atlantic westward has had
so deep a significance as that which founded the settlement on
the Muskingum. It determi-ned what the future city of Ann Arbor
was to be.
III. ZTHEi' IEST OPEIKiTED
The settlement at the mouth of the Muskingum was premature,
except as preparing the way for the enterprise of a coming
generation.  It was, indeed, no great hardship for people who
had braved the perils and trials of the Revolution that they
had to be four months in reaching their destination. To be
upset in snow, or to be Obliged to walk most of the.way, as many
doubtless were, and be tumbled into the streams, was little
more than fun. And it seemed at the time rather -a blessing than
othervise that they had almost nothing to transport. And even
to be shut up to live within themselves, without an accessible


market was a misfortune which they met with   wonderful fortitude.
The Mississippi offered no opening to traffic.   The lower section




15.
of that river was in the hands of Spain and the territory
which now forms the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi
and Alabama, was quite as likely as otherwise to become a
Spanish possession. It was at best to be the prize of a contest, if it ever became ours, and to make this great stream a
channel of commerce between eastern Ohio and the North Atlantic
ports, would involve endeavors almost as formidable as to make
instead of each trip a circumnavigation of the globe. This
river could not by any known process be profitably navigated
up stream, so that the purchase of its whole line by Mr.
Jefferson in 1803 did not for the time greatly mend the matter.
Nor could the line of the great lakes and the St. Lawrence
be used without involving portages around Niagara Falls and
between Montreal and Albany. A few articles of merchandise
could be transported over the Alleghanies from Philadelphia
in wagons, or on pack-horses; but to convey heavy farm-products
from Ohio to the Atlantic ports by any then existing conveyance
would have been to earn them a second time and that at a costly
rate. The people had, therefore, nothing with which to pay for
the goods they might need from the sea-board, and so got along
very much without them. Salt had to be brought to them on
pack horses over the mountains & cost them $8 per bushel.
As to travel, in August 1817 President Monroe on a tour
for inspecting the fortifications of the northern frontier,
came up from Buffalo to Detroit, as is supposed, in a little
schooner (See Waldo's President's Tour, p.263), occupying
about a week, and having been entertained in the latter city by


a ball and other festivities given in his honor, he set out
with Governor Cass, General Macomb and General Brown on horse



16.
back from Detroit for Washington.  Behold these three dignitaries, thus traversing the woods of Eastern Michigan, Central
Ohio, and the mountains of Pennsylvania and Maryland, when it
would have taken thirty days for the exchange of communications
between the Chief and one of his executive servants at the
Capitol, all which can now be leisurely done in thirty minutes!
And yet the gratulatory speeches made in this tour of the
President showed about as much elation at our wonderful growth
as do speeches of our day, though there was but a semi-weekly
mail received at Detroit, and that was carried on horseback.
The Gazette of 1817 explains in one instance its want of news
by the drowning of the postman's horse in swimming a creek.
A spark scintillated in this darkness when Robert Fulton
invented an application of steam-power to navigation, A
miniature specimen of what is called a steamboat appeared on
the Ohio in 1811 and one came puffing up from Buffalo to
Detroit, not far from the time of the President's visit. But
something more definite had been suggested in New York for
bringing the east and west into nearer relations.  It is worthy
of a passing remark that conception and execution have generally
gone hand in hand in our history. Charles the Great in the
eighth century conceived and cherished the thought of connecting the upper waters of the Rhine with those of the Danube by
a canal, thus to make a continuous water communication across
Central Europe between the North Sea and the Negropont. In
the nineteenth century King Ludwig of Bavaria met this suggestio:-n of the greatest of his regal predecessors and carried it


into execution. On the contrary, the hint of a water way from
the Hudson to Lake Erie was not suffered to grow cold until




17.
the canal was completed, destined to become the channel of
such a current of migration as ought ever to make the years
following its coipletion the opening of an epoch in our history.
There arose in Dewitt Clinton just at the right moment a
great executive mind.   I shall not sketch its processes.
Clinton, then governor of New York was ready in 1817 to begin
the work.  It was completed in 1825, and was by the Anti-Clintonians humorously, I might even say, derisively, called
"Clinton's big ditch."  A barge was fitted out in October,
1825 to convey Governor Clinton & other prominent officials
over the line from Albany to Buffalo to celebrate the event.
An ovation, with discharge of cannon, greeted them at every
stopping. This was, however, in the eyes of many an unpardonable sin against the laws of public economy, and the echoes
of the moan were long heard, while those who had raised it
were moving on to the great Westernr Canaan by the way Ioses
had opened.
Tie construction of the canal gave the first grand impulse
to the Irish immigration, a real godsend to our country, for
how else had our great public works been constructed?   I look,
therefore, with satisfaction upon the descendants of those
whose arms wielded in these constructions the pick and the
spade, as I see them settled in peace and comfort along the
water and iron ways built by them. How their houses contrast
with the shanties of rough boards, each the work of an hour,
which formed so picturesque a feature of the way from Albany


to Buffalo' And then to see the westward moving wave of
humanity following the channel thus made for it! I ought not




18.
to apologize for hinting a comparison with the migration of
Israel; for, as this great people became in their journey
mixed up with AmalekMoab, Ammon and Edom, so the solid substratum of our westward migration carried with it a drift which
it took well nigh forty years for us to become well ridded of.
I refer to the host of speculators which the migration wave
carried with it.  In this great movement our city had its
birth. We shall follow on to make note of it.
IV. TTE FOUINING
That elegant writer of history, Diedrick Knickerbocker,
opens his History of New York with an account of the Creation
of the world, assigning for this the obvious reason that if
the world had not been created the renowned city of New Amsterdam would probably not have been built. I have been governed
by like reasoning in the preparation of the three foregoing
sketches, and so have outlined the events upon whiich the existence of our widely noted city was conditioned as was the buildirn of New Amsterdam upon the creation of the world. And I
may as well inform the reader right here that in illustrating
the progress of the place, I may often stray into delineations
of scenes in other parts, since I cannot otherwise show the
manners and customs of the ancestry of our citizens. But just
here the founding of our city comes in place.
During the eight years occupied in the work upon "Clinton's
Big Ditch," the population of the further East was looking to
Central and Western New York and in large numbers migrating
thither. The commercial results of such a water-way were


anticipated. Before the construction of the canal, the marketing of the heavy products of the forests and the farm was the




19.
great mercantile problem of New York and Northern Pennsylvania.
Western New York, destined to be the most productive part of
the Empire state, had, till the canal began to be talked of,
but a dim prospect, and until this work was complete, the
problem of distant markets was not really solved, except with
reference to three products, wheat, lumber and pork. The rye
was drawn to the nearest distillery, the corn was fed to the
pigs, the buckwheat was kept for home consumption in the form
of pan-cakes and the flax and wool were spun, woven aid worn
by the producers. As to the three staples mentioned, the
merchants built towards the Spring of each year, arks of hewn
timber and rough boards which were laden with wheat and barreled pork, so as to be ready at the moment when the Spring
freshet should bring such depth and current of water as to float
the arks.  The lumber and timber were put together in floats,
or rafts, and thus, during the continuance of the freshet,
which was seldom more than a couple of weeks, the Delaware and
Susquehana end their branches were alive with these floating
structures destined for Philadelphia and Baltimore. The arks
bearing the products of the farm were sold for lumber, and the
farmers' sons, who had turned rivermen for a few weeks, returned on foot up these river courses. Gangs of robbers and
counterfeiters held the forest defiles of these ways, took from
many a one of these vernal rivermen their twenty dollars or so
of savings, or contrived to get into their hands a currency of
their own manufacture. For the more genteel, wholesale business in the highwayman's industry, the proper stage of culture


had not yet been reached. On the upper confluents at least of
these water courses there was no more navigation until the




20.
next Spring's freshet.  The transportation of merchandise from
the tide-water cities to the interior was carried on in great
wagons covered with coarse canvas, or on pack-horses.
The completion of the canal was not only anticipated by
a rush into the western section of the Empire state, but a
vista was opened into the future of the Northwest and the westward movemtent began in anticipation of the opening of the new
chatanel of cormmerce. For more than thirty years the few early
settlers from New England, with very small accessions from
other parts, had lived in sublime isolation on the Ohio and
along Lake Erie, when the grand future of the Great Narthwest
first dawned clearly upon the vision of the people of New York
and New Erigland and set them in earnest motion westward.
In February 1824, two mrien, John Allen, of Virginia, and
Elisha W. Rumsey, of New York, whose acquaintance was a chance
one made at Cleveland, came upon the ground now occupied by
our city. The latter brought a wife who was to be the housekeeper of the company. irs. Allen was still in Virginia.
Here they somewhat literally pitched their tent, for such was
their first rude habitation.  The sled on which their persons
and goods had been conveyed hither, formed a part, or an
appurtenance, of this transient dwelling.   I shall leave the
reader to conceive how the parts were combined. The ground on
which this habitation was set up was on the south side of Huron
Street near where this crosses the brook then known as Allen's
Creek. Perhaps the reader will, with these hints, feel an


adequate sense of the dreariness of the aspect of the place in
February 1824. Here were one family and part of another living
in a tent in the depth of winter. The scene was visibly




21.
changed when the vernal suns and rains had restored nature's
cheer. We may conceive it much as was its aspect in the early
days of June after the arrival of this party. The plain on
which the first village was to be built, had, by one of the
unaccountable changes in forest growths, assumed the appearance
of a great orchard of small-sized bur-oaks, irregularly set
out. In some places they stood in clumps, then again more
thinly scattered. These have now expanded their foliage.
Their dense shade is here and there thickened by the wild
grape-vine, wlich twines its tendrils about the upper branches
and adds its foliage to that of the supporting oak. I leave
this conception of our future city on the reader's mind, asking him only to add that Rumsey & Allen each had a log house,
both, however unfinished. Then the family of a man named
Smith, whom Llessrs, Rumsey and Allen met in Detroit, still
without definite destination, and whom they persuaded to join
them in their enterprise, arrived on the ground in May. Mr.
Smith's first domicile was probably made of the sled box of
the Rumsey-Allen tent, turned upside down, supported on poles
& having blankets suspended around it. To this may be added
a view of some vigorous work looking to more substantial
structures. We have here a conception of our city's babyhood.
I shall close the present sketch, leaving this conception
undisturbed in the reader's mind.
V. TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTATION
The question, How did the few settlers get here with their
householdsand household goods? is one which may well be


answered before we proceed to notice the architecture and the
social and business activities of our town.   Indeed, I purpose



22.


ly committed an anachronism in the preceding chapter, in
order that I might leave for a time in the reader's mind the
conception of the original Oak Orchard, marred, or adornedfor people may differ on this point - only by two tents, for
one of which a sled-box turned upside down supplied the
fixed p-ortion.
Nor does thiis question of travel and transportation
ass'u e any of its true grandeur until twe transfer our view
of it from any fixed locality, or section, and regard its
conter:r- orar-ry m oarch ovrer the grand field of the enovement from
the Atlantic westward. Yentucky 'was the first section really
settled on the western side of the Alleghanies, if we except,
indeed, the French settlements Mwhiich dotted the whole water
way fromr the rmouth of the St. Lawrence to that of the Mississippi.  Daniel Boone, regarded generally as a mere hunter,
was the chief engineer who laid out the road which not till
about thirty years later was made passable for wagons.   ie
may look upon Philadelphia and Baltimore as each the startingpoint of a branch of this road. From the place where these
branches unite, the way passes through the Valley of Virginia
to the Cumberland Gap, which is near the point where the
territories of Kentucky, Tennessee & Virginia meet. Thus
far the direction is southwardly. The Gap passed, the way
into Kentucky took a northwesterly course to the Falls of the
Ohio, or Louisville, 826 miles from Philadelphia. Daniel
Boone passed the Gap and entered Kentucky in 1769 & afterwards
blazed the trees to show the path which the footman and the
horseman might pursue. A branch of this path, here leaving


the main one, held its southwesterly course to Nashville. I




23.


give a single illustrative example of commerce on these
br idle -naths.
The horse is now still in our time somewhat known in
cormmerce, though fast going horses and oxen were then its
main dependence. Let the reader imagine a train of nine or
more horses, under Dack-saddles, each laden with about two
hundred pounds of merchandise, stringing along in single file
by such a path. A man is with the forward horse, another
with tihe rear one, a third between the two. The horses have
bells, though these in moving are somretimes stuffed to stop
their tinkling. A hopple made of a hickory-withe is kept
for each horse and put on him at night to prevent his straying too far, while the bells help in finding the animals in
the morning. In March 1784, such a train drew up before a
log-hut in Nashville - a polace which has since given three
presidents to the United States. The train had been six
weeks on its way from Philadelphia.   I sh-all not attempt to
hint what its ladinl may have been; but the reader will not
fail to guess it from the prime needs of frontier life.
The people of Nashville assembled about the shop to witness
the novel scene of unlading and putting up the goods. General
Jackson was not in Nashville until four years later; but this
may have been the shop to which he sent his note asking for
half a dozen pairs of "sox"; perhaps, when the articles came,
he wrote "O.K.", the original of which abreviation is attributed to him, on the bill and enclosed the money.
This mercantile method was in extensive use. A caravan,
as it was called, of this kind, was once or twice a year


fitted out from frontier settlements, destined for Philadelphia, Baltimore, Hagarstown, Fort Cumberland, Old Town, or




24.
Winchester, according to the situation of the interior
corlmmunity sending it and such was the metiod betveen the
1,est of Pennsylvania and Virginir and the Atlantic
cities, as -.ell as between these and Kentucky.
The route ta;en, as described in an earlier chapter,by
the N e-w rglarnd settlers at the mouth of the is~usking r, was
as early at least as 17C7, as far as Pittsburg, used for
velicles as well as p.ack-horse trains. This was sometimes
taken by migrating parties destined for Southern Ohio and
Kentucky; but it was unsafe on account of the Indians who
lined the banks of. the stream 3 fired upon the floating
parties.  I shali niot enter into details to show either how
this was, or how the bridle-path and the single horse with
the pack-saddle gave way to wagon-roads. But I can safely
say that men have brought families to iichi;:an and to the
place of our on little town, in ways not more dignified,
nor more comfortable than the passage of Virginia dames and
their children, mounted on horses before or behind bales of
goods, or on the top of these.  Both of these methods alternated always and in all sections with long stretches of
plodding on foot, even by women and chlildren.
That I may not seem to the reader to have quite forgotten the subject of my purposed sketches, I will here
observe that our fellow citizen, Daniel Hiscock, can give
us his recollections of the journey of his father's family
to this place in a wagon drawn by three horses, himself
at the time a boy. They had come from  Wayne county in the


extreme north-east of Pennsylvania. This was in the year
1829. Nearing their destination, for Mr. Hiscock had
entered his land for purchase some years earlier, they met




24.a
a boy of whomT they made inquiry and who took passage with
them. and conducted them to his father's house, where they
were hospitably entertained. The boy thus opportunely met
was John. Mvaiaynard, and Mir. Hiscock wtell remenibers that he
had at that time the same vigorous laugh;which he has ever
since continued so freely to exercise.
VI. THE MIIGRATION
The Ruimsey-Allen party seems to have iade their journey hither in a sled, arriving in February 1824. There
is, hlowever, no very definite accoult of th-is, though it
is quite clear that a sled-box or wagon-box entered into
the construction of the first human habitation erected on
the site of the city. It would seem also clear, but for
contradictory testimony, that Mr. Asa L. Smith and his wife
whom Rumsey and Allen ierisuaded in May 1824 to join them
in their enterprise, caim on in their own wagon, for
orig inal witnesses testify that they lived for three weeks,
that is, I suppose, slept, under a wagon-box, sup orted
upside down on posts, the protection being completed by
suspendin, blankets from the edges of the box. But whose
wagon-box was it? for there is evidence that Mr. and Mrs.
Smith caae from Detroit on foot by the Potowatomie Indian
trail.  The county history publishes in this case, as in
others, contradictory statements, leaving the reader to
choose among them. It makes the Smith family to have
carried all their effects upon their shoulders and makes
them also to have shipped them by a flat-boat on the Huron


to be pushed uru that river. The latter is doubtless the
true account. They brought also a little girl of one year.




25.
This girl and her husband, Reverend Thomas Holmes, are
still living in the village of Chelsea. There is little
doubt that the box wh'ich formed a nart of the first RumseyAllen habitation was the same which supplied the nig-ht
shelter of i.r, and Mrs. Smith and their little Lettice; for
rs. Smtith became cook at Rurmsey's IWashtenaw Coffee House,
then already so far alon; in its construction as to have
been e ntered, and near this stood their curtained shelter,
doubtless more comfortable thian a place in the unfinished
log hotel. Mir. and Mrs. SmLith Ihad come ur the lake in a
little schLooner.
The family of Deacon Maynard, father of our fellowcitizen, John;,Y Maynard, settled in the autumn of 1824 on
the farm three miles belowi tfhis 1place on the south ~psilanti
road, afterwards known as the Ticknor farm. This family
shipped at WirVitesborough (Utica) New York, on the Erie Canal.
Thlis water-way was then open for traffic only as far as
Brockport in Western Nevi York, from which point the family
made its way to Buffalo by wagon, up the lake by steamer to
Detroit, and thence in a wagon, drawn by oxen to the place
of their new home. No road from Detroit testward had then
been laid out.  The way was indicated by blazed trees and had
begun to be marked by tracks. This journey occupied four
days, the first day broughtlt the party to Ten Eyck's, afterwards known as Dearborn; the next to the site of the future
village of Wayne, where the family encamped in the open air,
the next to Woodruff's Grove, one mile from the site of


Ypsilanti, the next to their chosen home.
Mr. Frank Howard informs me that his maternal grandparents,
Behan by name, having lived in Detroit from 1822, there bought




26.
in the summer of 1824 a cow, strapped a feather-bed to her
back, fastened their infant child upon the bed and led the cow
to Dixborough, their destination.  This child became Mr. Howard's imother. This Mr. Behan, so inventive & fertile in
expedients, had been contractor for the building- of locks at
Lockport, New York.
One cannot call to mind such a scene without indulging
a smlile at its grotesque humiror. Of course this family did not
set out on their journey without the necessary stock of courage
& patience to carry out their plan, w%  e cannot but conceive
L:r. Piscock's wife stan;ding with her little ones surveyingL the
scene as the go-ods were unloaded & carried to sme knoll &
-the wagon taken to -ieces  a tl2aced outside the ru.dhole,
indu.lging in a kiunid  rim smile over the situation,;:hile jokes
suite  to t- te hu.mrorous situiation -assea. bUet-,Ween her a-1d her
husband.
The rmiration of the lis cock family froml near th, e banks
of the Delawa re river in Pennsylvania in a vwag'on has been
mnentioned.  They were six weeks on the way, the distance being
about 700 miles. oom r- days they made not more than ten miles.
Their route was by the southern tier of counties of New York to
Buffalo, thence by Cleveland, Toledo and Monroe. Near Toledo
they were once so deep in the mud that they had not only to
unload their wagon, but take it apart and lift it out of the
mud piece by piece and then put it together and reload it on
solid ground.


Thus are briefly hinted the ways and means of rea
this place and the style of the first year's life.   I shall
postpone any account of organization and growth in order to




27.
consider interesting collateral matter, observin, here only
that in 1825 ther ereere nir  small houses within the limits
of what was to be the village. I shall but mention that the
place was called Ann Arbor, adjourning to another time any
account of that freak in geographical nomenclature which
gave it this name. One thing at this point infinitely
transcends in interest all the triflini incidents connected
with tle foundinr of a villa:ge.  It is that from the close
of the Revolution, beginning in parts even before the
opening: of that stru 'gle, the  opulation on and near the
Atl antic coast -'e rer in motion;iestward.  Conception, taki.n.
in +the whole counitry, cannot overdraw the pictui:e.  For
s iort distances families are tilreadin - the valleys, making
sin::le oxen ald cows their beasts of burden for carrying
both )rersonrs and goods. TLe incident of the Behans is only
one of thousands. Then came the pack horses. The bridleoaths were thronged with them. Kentucky had more than a
hundred thousand people before there was a waagon road through
for the migration and the pack horse system of transportation
branched out everywhere to the north and south.
Of the removal in wagons I have given a single instance.
But it came everywhere in its time. For their migrations
the people did not depend solely on the canal after this was
complete; they simply regarded this as a way of reaching the
markets with their produce when they should have effected
their settlements. Mr. Hiscock tells of seeing in the early. years of the fourth decade of the century from where his house
now stands, lines of covered wagons, unbroken from the point
of their first appearance on top of the hill above the Lower




28.
Town, till they passed out of sight westward. This state of
things spread over the west and south.
The conception of the movement is, indeed, sublime. Its
relation to the settlement of this place may be set forth
by a reference to the great glacial action of millions of
years ago, as geologists think. As this left in the bluffs
on the Huron the possibilities of the finest scenery &
scattered about the choicest of stone for architectural use,
so the westward movement of humanity has spread abroad the
choicest material for intellectual building. Here I shall
leave for a time the rudimentary town and the vast westward
movement on the reader's mind, while I endeavor to bring within the range of his vision some interesting collateral matter.
VII. MA  IrNDIAN SOCIAL SCENE
Horace Carpenter who, on his election to the office of
county treasurer in 1863, removed to his present home on
Washtenaw Avenue in this city, had first settled in 1826 at
a point about midway between here and Ypsilanti. His place
of settlement took from him the name of Carpenter's Corners.
For many years after this period the natives of the forest
were numerous in this section and in their eastward and westward journey  sometimes encamped in this vicinity in parties
numbering frorm the hundreds up  into the thousands. I shall
have other occasions to refer to their encampments. Mr.
Carpenter tells of his surprise one morning on rising to count
two hundred, without counting the whole of a company, which


had spent the night near his house. They had been noiseless
and had done no mischief. They soon proceeded quietly on
their journey.
My informant, however, tells another story which differs




29.
materially from the foregoing, and may interest the reader.
A party of about fifty came up from Ypsilanti, where they had
laid in a supply of whiskey, which they carried in two tinpails. They had also killed a deer on the way up of which
they carried along the carcass in a nearly entire state.   Our
genial narrator went out to greet the party and was invited
by the man who had the entertainment in charge to remain as
a spectator, which he did. The chief man, Mr. C. calls him
the marshall, the reader may call him the master of ceremonies,
lord steward, or otherwise, as be shall deem appropriate
proceeded to have a fire built and the deer placed over it to
roast. Around this the people were seated in a ring and so
near each other that their elbows touched, waiting in this
posture to consufme the aniial when ready for them. The meal
over, the master of ceremonies went around and took from them
their fire arms, tomahawks, knives and canes, or clubs - for,
in prospect of the supreme delectation which was before them,
they were passive in his hands - and hid these weapons in the
woods. The papooses were also hid away lest they should be
harmled. The whiskey pails were then passed around the circle,
placed to the lips of each and all drank thereof till the
supply was exhausted.
As this process was going on, the rmaster of ceremonies
and his invited spectator stood upright in their dignified
posture of observation, noting and remarking upon the successive stages of that Elysian exhileration into which the party


were passing.  "Gettin' little squibby," observes the red
chieftain, to which his pale-faced friend was ready to assent,
and so the scene proceeded, one after another dropping back



30.
ward upon the ground until all were prostrate and in quiet
and profound repose.  In the course of a couple of hours
they begin one after another to throw their withy limbs
about. Then they attempt to rise, though, if they succeed at
all, give evidence of great infirmity both of purpose and of
limbs. Somethtingc near the normal state is finally regained
and, when this is so far estab-isled as to make it safe,
their weapons are restored to them and they resume their
*mar cnh.
Now, in my studies of the history and habits of rude
nations, I have occasionally found social customs which commend themselves to the careful consideration of many in our
more advanced stage of civilization.   The foregoi;g narrative
describes one of these. I am not, indeed, familiar with the
carnival customs of thiat class of ourpeople who are addicted
to the use of exhilerating beverages and may, therefore, err;
but i am under the impression, whether right or vrong, that
civilized men of our day, when they desire to seek this kind
of elatic n, usually go w ithout their wives, daughters and
sisters. I su:rest the scene described above as a lesson,
and venture to indicate some details of the proper proceed'ings, as follows:
When any one wishes to enter into this Elysian state,
let himI take with him his wlhole family of wife, sons and
daughrters, down to the babies. Let the neighbors' families
also be invited to join the party.   I recommlend the open air


and a procedure after the style of that described above; that
is, that a master of ceremonies be appointed, who shall
himself abstain from the use of the beverage, in order that




31.
his mind may not be too greatly elevated for attention to
mundane affairs.  To this man's dictation all shall yield a
passive obedience. He shall take from them all offensive
weapons, together with their helpless children, that these
may receive no harm, and, as some civilized men are accustomed to use their fists and feet offensively, he shall bind
their hands and feet, and be the sole judge as to their
restoration to the normal condition. Spectators shall be
admitted that they may make a psychological study of the
scene. At the proper time, all shall be released, their
weapons and babies shall be restored to them, and they shall
return home, parents and children together, to pursue their
toils, as they shall have done their festivities, in true
harmony and mutual sympathy with each other.
VIII. NATIONALIT ES
Thlis series of sketches is designed to furnish a kind of
culture history of our city, that is, to show how the elements
of our population have become interwoven with each other in
producing the total result. To this end the churches and
schools, vwhen reached, will be seen to supply the choicest
filaments which have been wrought into the beautiful fabri'c;
yet, before coming to these, I desire to indicate briefly
how the several European nationalities have wrought together
in producing the admirable texture of our American civilization in general, that the reader may be prepared to understand
how the elements have combined, or resisted combination in our


own development. We shall, too, further perceive where have
been the faults, where the merits of the several elements of
our population. As to faults, however, I shall leave each




32.
reader to note them for himself, and shall in no instance
enter into invidious comparisons of nationalities as to good
or bad qualities, unless it be to minimize their faults and
magnify their excellencies by indicating the adverse influences which wrought in the one, and the happier situations
which explain the other.
The American population took on its character from the
various shades of philosophic, political and religious
opinions and life brought out by the great revolution which
had its first successful outburst in the Lutheran movement in
Germany, and spread thence to other countries. Three several
types of thought and organic life sprang out of this outbreak;
these are best represented by Germany, Enland and France.
They grew out of the different ways in which the people were
moved by the new doctrine.   The Germans were converted
generally by states: that is, princes and people went over
together, so that the same princely government was still
exercised over the same subjects. Church re-lations only were
changed. In the case of England there was at first no change
of doctrine, or life. The king, Henry VIII, simply separated
himself from the papacy and assumed the direction of the
English Church. Independence of the papacy opened, indeed,
the way for a gradual revolution in doctrine, ritual and life;
but this was no part of the monarch's original purpose. The
cases of Germany and England are, therefore, each other's
opposites,in that the Germans renounced the papacy as the


result of a previous change of doctrine; the English gradually
changed their doctrine as a natural consequence of their
sovereign's renunciation of the papacy.




33.
The French Protestants had another origin. They were
converted as individual persons and, while as citizens they
remained loyal to their sovereign, they had no religious head
under the name of either king, or priest, but formed a selfgovernin- body, or faction within the kingdom. They bore
tile several names of Calvinists, Huguenots and Reformed.
Calvin himself and some of his followers fled to Geneva and
there established and governed a little model republic.
Those who reiained in France, sometimes in their contests
came near gaining the supremacy and, if they had succeeded
in this, would no doubt have used their advantage for the subjugation or extinction of the Catholics, which, indeed, they
did in a few places. In 1589 a prince of their own party
became heir to the throne. Henry IV., for that was the name
he assurled, although he vas himself received back into the
Catholic Church, gave his Protestant subjects a regulated
freedom, defining this in a charter known as the Edict of
Nantes. From the accession in 1589 of this king to the death
in 1661 of Cardinal Mazarin, the premier of Louis XIV., the
freedom of the French Calvinists was not greatly interfered
with;  but at this time Louis began a determined effort attheir extinction, and in 1685 revoked their charter and required their return entire to the old Church. The final issue
of this persecution was to make most of the Swiss Cantons and
some of the German states, together with Holland and England,
Calvinists, and to make the British colonists in America not


only Calvinists, but in the end a republic. I will indicate
the steps.
The persecution created the Calvanistic republic of




34.
Geneva and finally established Calvinism in most of the Swiss
Cantons.  It also made Holland and several of the smaller
German states Calvinist.  So, too, most of the English and
Scotch people. The change in the British Isles was brought
about by a double process. When Mary I. came to the British
throne in 1553 she restored the country to the papacy, and a
considerable portion of the Church of England priesthood fled
to the Continent where they became initiated into the full
fellowship of their Calvinist hosts. The letters and pamphlets
which they sent home indoctrinated great numbers of the
English people. When in 1558 Elizabeth ascended the throne,
sie showed herself as much of a persecutor as her sister had
been, directing her shafts somelwhat against the Catholics,
but more against the Calvinistic party in thre Church of
Eilgland. Her successors, the Stuarts, followed in the same
track, so that Engilish exiles were abroad learning moore fully
the same lesson and sending it in various forms home. John
Knox, wh  had received the final form of his doctrine from
Calvin at Geneva in the reign of iLary I., carried Scotland
w'ith him over to Calvinism. But greater than all, the persecution in France, chiefly that of Louis XIV., sent from its
beginning in the middle of the 16th to its close near the end
of the 18th century, about 600,000 of his subjects as refugees
to Protestant countries, 75,000 to Brandenburg, 100,000 to
Holland, about as many to England, considerable numbers to the
smaller German states and to Denmark and Sweden, many to the


West India Islands and not a few directly to the British
American provinces, while, of those who had first taken refuge
in other Protestant lands, many finally found their way to




35.
this country, bringing with them far greater numbers whom
they had Calvinized in the lands of their exile, especially
in Holland and Great Britain.  The great body of the early
colonists were, therefore, Calvinists, made up of the French
1iuguenots and those of other nationalities who, as indicated
above, h^d accepted their faith.  Even those.who were of the
English Church, represented its Calvinistic section, to -which
also Iing William and Queen Miary belonged. Besides these,
there vwas, indeed, a sirall colony of English Catholics on
the Chesapeake whose residence in England had been rmade
uncormfortable by the persecution w' ich' they suffered.
Let the word Calvinismr, be riihtly understood.  It has
corne to inicate,merely a certain notion of tie Divine Sovereignty. But this was only a single Calvinistic idea, and
but a mere fragment of the system. James Arminius of Holland,
still a Calvinist, did not agree with this view of Calvin.
The Miethodists, orgaiized by John Wesley, protested against
it, yet they sprang out of the great body of the English
and Alerican Calvinists. Still more to my purpose, the
Calvinists, having in the strict sense neither priest nor king,
formed even in France a kind of rudimentary republic. They
were reproachfully called Huguenots, which word is but the
German Eidgenossen, witlh such change as a French tongue would
put upon it.  It was the name given to the Swiss confederated
cantons. To call the Calvinists Huguenots, therefore, was
to call them confederate republicans, and they were so called


because they drew their chief instruction from Calvin and
Beza of the Genevan Republic. Furthermore, and more to my
purpose; at Nimes, in southwestern France in 1574, was formed




36.
a veritable republic.  This was made up of the Huguenots of
France and those moderate Catholics who in that fearful
crisis in the reign of Henry III., made their ecclesiastical
connection subservient to the higher interests of the state
and were for this reason called "Politiques." They conquered
in the end and placed their leader, Henry of Navarre, or Henry
the Great, as he came to be called, upon the throne.
Thus it appears what the process was which supplied the
first population of our country, and what tendencies to
republican institutions had appeared in the elements which
were to form our republic long before this was thought of.
Returnin now to the attempt of Louis XIV. to extinguish
the Huguenots, I ought to add that this was a marked instance
of what Bishop Keane, in his able lecture in University Hall
in Aoril 1692, called Caesarism. Louis did not take t se
measures to build u1 the papacy  but to break it down. His
purpose was to extinguish the Huguenots, limit the power of
the -poe and establish absolute monarchy on the ruins of both.
Pope Innocent XI. perceived this and so joined the alliance
headed by the Protestant William of Orange against Louis XIV.
As a result of sending so great a portion of his people into
exile to educate and aid the Protestant and irritate the
Catholic powers and the pope, Louis lost his cause in Europe,
prepared the way for the loss of the French possessions in
America, and most of all was the great providential agent
in sending hither some of the choicest material of our great


republic. The elements of our population mentioned above, and
these were the chief ones previous to the Revolution, have
become so assimilated that they are no longer distinguishable




37.
except by those who have been curious in preserving their
family traditions, or are skill-ful in the linguistic process
of detecting nationalities by names. The nationalities
already indicated are the French Huguenots, the Anglo-Saxons,
the iollanders and the Scotch, including in these latter the
Scotch-Irish, or those from the Irish province of Ulster.
Another people began to make ti:eir appearance upon our arena
about three quarters of a century before the Revolution. I
refer to the Germians. Reckoning from the 5th century onward,
they will doubtless be by far our largest element. I shall
proceed next to trace them, for they outnumber any other
single nationality in the population of this place.
IX. THiE GERkAN ILi;IGRATION.
The largest element in our mirLerican population is the
Gerr anic. In:merely noti n  tlhose who are still called
'GermTans we obtain a very ilmperfect idea of the extent to
which these people have entered into the formation of our
institutions. About the middle of the fifth century German
tribes, chiefly the Angles and Saxons, conquered the old
Britons, held the country, and named it Angleland, now shortened into Enigland, after one of t're tribes. They developed
there a language still generally known as Anglo-Saxon. Early
in the eiglith century a Saxon monk born in Devonshire,
England, led in the Christianization of the continental
Germans eastward and northward of the Rhine. His German
name, Winfred, gave way to the Latin Bonifacius and he has


become known as St. Boniface, the Apostle of Germany.
A little later in the fifth century a German tribe, or,
as some think, a confederation of tribes, known as the




38.
Franks, conquered Gaul and from them the country still bears
the name of France, which may indicate the extent to which
the Germanic element has entered into the formation of the
French people. Their king is known   to us as Clovis.  It
was mlore properly Chlodowig which in German became Ludwig,
and in French Louis and in both forms has remained a kingly
nnbe. Even before Clovis there were Germans in Gaul,
especially the Burgundians in the east and the Visigoths in
the south. The Hollanders and Swedes are also Germanic,
and so when we consider the German element in our early
English and French settlers and that this had been the ruling one in the European homes of these two peoples, and
then further bear in mind that the Hollanders and Swedes
were almost nure Germans, we shall get an idea of the extent
to whlich Germanic blood prevailed in those early settlers
of this country who care under other names and had been
merged in other peoples.
It was about twelve centuries from the time when the
Angles and Saxons took leave of their continental kindred
and settled in England to that in which the Germans from
the continent began to  ather for a reunion in the Americain
wilderness, and nearly as long from the time of the Franks
merging t1herselves with the Gallic tribes to that of their
rejoining their German relatives in America.
The ccntinental Germans were inot among our first
settlers. They were at home chiefly in interior and not a


maritimne people. More than this, in 1618, a war broke out,
since known as the Thirty Years War, which left Germany
with scarcely half its former population, while extensive




39.
districts were waste and grown up to heather and forests,
leaving vacant lands for the people without their seeking such
in the American wilderness. And here I am reminded of
another nation, or rather person, who did more than any other
ever so quickl>- did to make possible the development of our
people as we now see them. The Thirty Years war, opened in
1618, soon became on one side a contest for the extinction of
Protestantism, on the other for its life. The extinction had
been substantially effected in Germany & the Emperor Ferdinand II had begun to execute the Edict of Restitution, dispossessin! the Protestants of their institutions, when in
1630, Gustavus Adolphus, -ing of Sweden, landed on the
Pomeranian coast with 13,000 men & in two years x five months
made a hopeless cause a triumphant one.   In November 1632 he
fell at Luetzen, near Leipzig; but in this brief period he
had wrought results which leave no man but Alexander the
Great with whom he mray be compared. He had, besides his
own victories, formed alliances with other powers, especially
with France, by which the war was carried on to its termination ii the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. Gustavus had
settled a colony of Swedes in this country, on the Delaware,
but that was not -is real contribution to our country's
history; what he did was to save Protestantism from extinction & so preserve a material for the formation of such a
people as we have now become.  The German Protestants retain
a lively sense of what this man wrought for them. They have


even erected a monument of it in their great Home Mission
movement known as the Gustav-Adolph Verein.7/
#See Gindely's History of the Thirty Years War,translated by the
author of this work,2 vols, 8.00 Putnars,1884,for a view of what
Gustavus achieved&




40.
A few Germans as individuals had come to this country a
little earlier; but the way to their more general immigration
was opened by WVilliam Penn. As early as 1677, having previously obtained from Charles II a grant of the province of West
Jersey, Penn -ent over to tLhe Rhenish German provinces in
quest of settlers for his forest lands to which he had given
the name of Pennsylvania. He had some success in preaching
his doctrine in the ne-i hborhood of Frankfort and a colony of
those who attached themselves to himt formied in 16S3 the
settlement of Germantown nowv longf since a part of the city
of i:Philadelphia.
The Cesolation of the T henish Palatinate by the wars of
Louis XIV. reduced to beggarv great numbers of the honest
peasantry of that Electorate and about 12,000 of these fled
to thie  rotection of?ueen AiXe in EgIland. They had been
stript of everythinr and provision had to be mdade for them.
About 4,000 of these people -,;ere sei-t between the years 1708
aid 1714 to the banks of the iIudson and, in order to pay for
the expenditure upon them, they were bound by indentures to
thie yearly paymient of certain amounts on their indebtedness.
Their chief work was the  roduc tiou of naval stores for
Great Britain, tar being the most importa-lt of th se.  They
feit tt-mselvIe oppressed s nd treated as slaves, rose several
tiiues agsainst their overseers alnd in the end brole up an
scattered. John Conrac Teiser was a leader amon- these
people) and for a colony of threm negotiated with the Indians


for lands on the IMohavk, to which they rmi grated and their
i-ldustry soon made them rich.
Weiser had been poor and himself with the rest under




indeiture.   By a first '1. narrilae;-e in Viirtelberr7. he had' fif teen
childiren; hoo;l m any ca"I'e of hlis seconu.Iarij  aq riot
iiorued.  Qrne such marria-e -w~ould settle a considerable  ecCt i o.  One of his first wife's sons was nane (ion rad an a.
became celebrated in the history of Pennsylvania as ii shall
have occasion in may ne,-,xt chjap-te  to show.,ere I only r'Im-.I~,ark
in reyard to a branch ol~ th',e dispoersion wh-lich settled in
]Pennsylvania -thurt the- nuarbered about five hundred, sel-ting
otat one ti~ f r     tlle ilidsonewarjderL  t o t h  ur~per
wateT,~- ol the Susquehannaa, t   `wr 'cuildini: rafts, on which
the   laI     ow    ~   i~   an c joine& thei- ccu-it-ry -peonle
in -..out-irn1 ]PenI-]Tlvaniai of wl-ch there viere al1ready~
n'iste r, at t r a ot eC6 thither Yb the better ter  P~TLI.I nil
ofere~ %,o set"L is.,As to thoSUe, further, Southi I or i1.- observe th-t one of
th  1'o.s  _rIQ 11ost tori   xulor-rs of thlese Darts was a
"e-mran I stiad Lterer mTis    -,-,as se nt on h  x Ir   to
i):o v e nor Yabo,  Par- ariahdi  te -as sooi d-e se rtX  by
tho  vr,  ert(he      ice    i   nhis.,,o r, ktut h'i-,sef
p e r s e ve.red ai pr se c ut iri  it a.s far as tire Santee River in
South Carolina.   lie, iro te a journal in Latin vwJich was trans -
lated into Znl;iw,~Lish by Sir -itrilliai erh61ely, 0-"overnor of
Vir,-inia, aYi- had. its effect in protmotiri6, the sett~lerent of
()e-rua~ns in tl.ose rarts.  Th is was bef ore Penn'Is tinme and was
to have, its fuirther -influence in the future.
Few Gern~-.,ans in thelir oirn land look upon the elep:ant


gro unds and ci uildirLiws of the Electo —rs of Ilesse-Cassel w it~out
execratirir, tbe orince who raised the monev lavished on th~ese
by the h ire of his soldiers to EjnZri01ad to fig)ht against the




42.
American rebels.  The Prince deserves the execration; we have
bestowed it unjustly upon tle men he sent hither. They
deserted in scores, in one instance, that at Trenton, a
regimLent at once. Lany hid themtselves among, their fellow
countrryen in Pennsylvania, an&d so.me of our best  citizens
have sprung; from them. Baron Riedesel, who co-manded the
Grman troops at Saratoga - if he instead of Burgoyne had been
in corandt of the wlhole army, Gates would not have obtained
his victory - anic his accomplished wife, have given us the
best accoiunts 1 have ever -met with of the ~Aerican life of
the time, and I have seen nothing so beautifully picturesque
as tie Baroness' account of the court and people in Eng-land,
wh ere she was detained a year on her way to this country.
There is in the Unxiversity library here a copy of Madame
hiedesel's Berufs-Reise nach Amlerica, a present from the
Reverend Robert Conrad, of 'isconsin. The book was printed in
Berlin in 1800. On the fly leaves is written an account of
the volure and the gi ver.
I have deemed it no m;ore than just to sketch as above
th'e orig inal German immigration to A.:ierica as preliminary
to a view of the German people here; for it was from the
Pennsylvania, not from the trans-Atlantic Germans thet this
nucleus was fore d.
There was one Germaan inmigration which rather from its
character than its nunbers is here noticed. I omit all
reference to their origin as a religious body, observing only


that they probably originated in some migratiig Waldenses.
They had escaped special notice, hidden as they were in
retired valleys, of which that of Teffereck in the principality




43.
of Salzburg was their chief refuge, till in the years 1684
and 1686, persecution against them by the Archi-episcopal goverment began. Now no government of that day, wihether
Catholic or Protestant, felt bound to tolerate what it deemed
heresy, unless required by the stipulations of some treaty.
Some GermLan princes, especially th e Elector of Brandenburg, protested against the Archbishop's course as a violation of the
provisions of the Peace of WVestphalia of 1648. The Archbishop
answered that there was no mention of this sect in the VWestnhalian treaties.  It was indeed true that, although these people
had the Augsburg Confession as it is in the Shorter Catechism,
yet they had not been organized as Lutheran parishes.   So the
persecution was regarded as justified, & was continued.
In 1729, after a lull, the Archbishop vigorously renewed
his persecution, continuing the same until he was rid of the
whole body, said to have numbered about 30,000, for the
largest numTber of who-m Prussia made provision. But the
attention of Europe ewas turied to the matter and.General
Oglethorpe, who was then looking around for colonists for
Georgia, sent for fifty fanmili s of the Salzburgers, and on
the 21st of October 1733, seventy-eight of these peQple set
out from Berchtesgaden, now in the kingdom of Bavaria, as a
partial response to this demand. They seem to have traveled
on foot and carried with them all they possessed. The Reverend Samuel Urlsperger of Augsburg had negotiated with the
trustees of the London Company for their transportation and


he desired to have them make his people in Augsburg a visit
on their way, which they did and were there presented with
three carts to make their way easier.    I have no means of




44.
knowing what these carts were; but have little doubt from
what I have seen, for I have traveled over all this ground
from their home in the Salzburg Alps, that they were mere
hand carts, having half a dozen cords attached for as many
men to pull upon and that the vehicles were used only to
carry some of the heaviest packs and occasionally relieve a
weary woman and child. The news of their progress preceded
themr anid the rest of their way was an ovation. Fromi Frankfort citizens went forth to meet them, and the procession
tmarchled two and two into the city singing Ihyins such as the
cliffs of Salzburg had long echoed to their voices.
They passed by boat down the Main and Rhine and shipped
at Dover for the New World December 2Eth, two months and a
week after setting out from Berchtesgaden. A little less
than two years after thie embarkation of this compiany was
shipped another, chiefly Gerrmanis.  It consisted of Bishop
Nitschman and whixat I supmose to have been the first party of
Joravians to arrive in this cotrtry. In the ship with these
ere' three other me.n,, General Oglethorpe and John and Chiarles
Wesleyr, perhaps makin:g this vessel the bearer of as significant a party as  ever crossed the ocean toZether. We shall
see, theml and ti-e Salzburgers in thie next chapter... EARiLY TYiICAL G3EAi{Ui.
The Salzburgers, whom Bancroft in his history of the
United States makes the mistake of regarding as Moravians,
and the Mioravians who settled near them in Georgia, formed


the extreme south of our early German population. The former
built their first town twenty miles above Savanna, piously
naming it Ebenezer.   Several parties followed until they had




45.
for ted a number of neicghborinrg settlements. There were also
addi tio'C)n al I 1oravian iiviigration  to Geor —ia; but a contest
uith Spain for the Posses ion of that re,~,-ion su. oned, them
alt~e rrn ariris, who~  old  ein violation 01'- t'heir creed
and cons'cie.I~ces.  Inl tI i-1s crisis the renlov.zned rxeor-,e 'Lhiteo  o r ocr ~e fot;      d     -e    ylvania, to. wh~ich they
re-tdtved   built tir     vrai. villagess th      best k no'vn
b e in fibe1_1G-t ril h e r; ~iad Ka za e tn.  Our extre-ie naor norn settle-1`etof Geroa   a s t 1in t o)n t>I_ i Yo ia wkj,, fo r m ed yv J'ohn~ Conrad
'i eis~   a~ r t y  ho t —d e car)e& fro —i th eir task-ir as'ers oni
t dsrfrl      aline of Geriuir settlor~naent". fro  orthr
YO rk to So'aL- Irrr G or 'ia.  9en L sylvanifa ho th e Areatest,
nui-i}bers     sebh  c r. yle air  c o  iasese the ir A.eia
fLa 'hierlcnd; but th-e-y ext~ end6 over into t~he -Westeri apck of..arylanc I awil  own the cul  f Vir,,-inia, foliowin>, as,~
su-t)r~oseur se of   doerer Is ex-icra tion, in.to South
Carl, ~a.  it  s an iri I r e stir —v fact that Joh~n 'eiieslys
faln  i  ih  ishann and hi       ioravians onsibor
i s wha t f inally~ led t) fts organization of Ilet'hodisi, so tha t
se e    re r1~,e ol' thle:>-i~htiest factors in, our' the   ~ ure
ievelom~riron~rl
In our1 ear.iy; accou'ntstfe settiers w;,ere cgencraiiy
calied, PliatiJ'ness because so cran r- o f t he rm, cr e of- those dis'~ossessed in the d&v-astation of' thre lhenish  aaiae       u
niot all even of those wino wiere so called where really Palatines.  To gi've a siLE-le instance, a settlem-ent in North


Carolina had aboutj six hundred Palatines; but their leader,
Cou~nt Grafenried, and some of the peoples were from Bern,
the capital of the Swiss Confederation, and the place was,




46.


therefore, called New Bern.
The majority of these people, from the nature of the
case, catme over in extreme poverty and deep humiliation,
and mostly without pastors and teachers. There were a few
exceptions. The Salzburgers were poverty itself; but the
i terest awakened by their trials and their pedestrian
1migration across the continent of Europe, had led to the
apo i trtLent  for them of twYo missionary rastors, wiho were
also to act as school teachers.  The Morevians,   too, were
well equipped and orga-nized for both religious:and secular
instrluction, as!:ere also those of thel Society of Friends
enlisted ba Penn.  In Virginia all were required to conform
to the Churcih of ZEn;land and thie -rovince was attached to
the see of London.
In the year 1742 the Reverend He-nry Melchior iluhlenberg
was sent from  Germany to labor amonLg the Lutherans, chiefly
in Pennsylvania, as counselor and pastor. The impression
made on Protestant Germany by the Salzburgers, led Mr.
Juhlenberg to take passage for Charleston and visit these
people in their nevw home in Georgia.  &ith his spirit kindled
anew by this visit he entered the province of Penn arnd wrote
home - his letter was, I suppose, in Latin - that he found
the Church "non plantata, sed plantanda" - not planted, but
yet to be planted.tt He acted accordinglly, traveling: from
Georgia to the borders of Canada. His will was, indeed,
quite beyond his power of execution. This man, his descendants and his family alliances were uppermost in my mind when


I wrote the title of this chapter - Early Typical Germans.




47.
Mr. Muhlenberg married a daughter of Conrad Weiser, so
that the Weisers, father and son, may be reckoned in the
allied group. The father was the founder of the thrifty
settlement on the Mohawk, the son was the mrost noted of
negotiators in dealing with the Indians, as also the most
efficient helper in preparing and directing missionaries to
the various tribes. As to the three sons of Muhlenberg and
his wife, the younger Weiser's daughter, they form a noted
group. All were educated in Germany for the Christian
ministry. Peter Gabriel, the eldest, was settled over the
so-called valley churches in Virginia, having received the
ordination of thie Anglican in addition to that of the Lutheran church. He was well known to Patrick Henryr and Washington
and received a colonel's commission soon after the outbreak
of the Revolution.  Ihen he preached his farewell sermon to
his, athered people, he hacd is s  ilitary uniform concealed
under his clerical robes. The preacher entertained the
crowd;hich came to hear him with pictures of the threatening
relations of the colonies and the:iother-country, and closed
his discourse by quoting the words of Solomon: "a time for
every purpose under the heaven," adding that the timr for
other measures was now past and that for fighting had come.
Then throwing off his clerical habit, and displaying his
colonel's uniform, he requested the men of the congregation
to meet him at the church door, where he enlisted nearly
three hundred of them for the army. He continued in the


service to the end of the war, rose to the rank of brigadier
general and died collector of the port of Philadelphia.
The second brother, having previously been treasurer of
Pennsylvania, was president of the convention which adopted




4 8.
for that state the constitution of the United States and
several ti,.qis speaker of the Rouse of Representatives.   Consi der in- trl-e influence of the father over the Grm ans from
Nor thle-rn ~tWYrto Southern Georg~ial the same cau-ght up
anid propagated by the sons in our l~evolution, it may be
doubted iiiether any family of that day exerted a greater Dowver
in uI'etermuinin.- the issue of that contest.  The family had in
it the peers of Franklin ancti Bush~ 'in natural scienace,;7hile
NiviliaLri Au~ustus L.I -Lll-exiberL(~,,a -r~andson of the old Luthieran
pastor, ~n11yOwn to thi j-eneral -iudoic only as th"e author of
thLe hymn "I wouldA n,-ot live al'.iays, 1 ask not to stay"t etc.,
has scarcely h~d a r)eer for benificeul1, influence inte.mexcau  rotestant Ep-_iscopal Chuirch. Cora d,~'eiser 'riimrrie
ai Indian 'vzoirran.  12 th-is;lo~rian was his only wife and the
LIatte1r calIscildren, t'ie i of course the kuhlenbercgs
h a ve s oime indian blocod' in their veins.  The subject is
rside nttio ne din a life, o:,L tic -Doctor ~'iiuhlenber~- and I myself
sousCD1ht out in the city of Brooklyn a descendant of Weiser
wI bore h.,is n~~an   whro sup)o s ec, t 11e-: t r a di t Lon t obe weli
f ounde a
Davi L eisberr ---r, one of the ensylvania Gerri,,-ans z!(as
tV  ablst and nobl~te of missionaries to the INorth &yrican
Indians. I."is term~, of service extended throu~ch six ty-two
years? alr his r!ork~s on t~ie  ramfiar and lexicography of thme
Indian lan,,, -,a',)es, publiseLn~d by, th1le Amiierican Philosopnical
societv eice<d in value. thLose of any other man'. A non

coi-batant hii~self, hi-s lar-dr plans in diplo-rmac>.,, ~-vere worth
a st,,,,all ariry to th~e country.
I mention one more German o~f the revolutionary period




49..baron Steubea:  Whose apipointurent a-s Inspector General of
"h~e army, was one of Wash~in-ton's happiest thouhts.it
brouq~-")t+ order ouit of~ confusion.  It x as brou?*-t about ini
this manner.   The Gxoverriudents of Europ~e w~ere writtern to for
copks of" tieir ari',rv reC~ulations.  Th e PlrU~Sian Premier
vvrote tiat tier  existed oo Drinted state,,,,~int such- as 'as
'a"i 9ci dn eXTwressed swr-Drioe ththte info~rT~i'fti on sh'ould
-,,ve b>. i c~a1'al for, s.Lince tTi ma  nocol db e st ci ve i t
vain~    per 10 ca  ric       K       fc urseBr~
t L-,wov    tonc-e ar;lt &                ii70 i  enra~Tofth
S y    trlotly r~    stiood: oc n x'Iwiti  etiq('e tt:, 'he  Brev
Ihi  ol ti rto th  wo.l        s i rese"ot at dr _ls
rollrcILar..t or n  of t h  la,,~ t + eCihe hadthe rame of
Benedciit 1~rnoid- calle &d  <owic S10Ve(I1& his atriotism~ bl e xprs
sIn'orIrs   t'la t a ~atr'iotic so! di    u h  ld b e <ii o, t
bear t',h-'t na-fde. 2.,-1h- es old i er o:*s opn -ed atlirt 1h~ wa,'s born to
thIe na me.  e  not  ht to dobtwa       it.  "Tab-, another
nainf; tJ. Nirine, 11 wnis tn-  r espo ns e ofI the inrdi1!:;nant baron,
the soldier afterviards an swered to to~e name of Steuben.
Thour.!h1 th~is a-)uioint-oLa 'was 3~aade in the deepD humiliation of
thre cama  atVle     o~,arin of order was its effect.
Barori Steuben's services were reco~-nized a:-Cter the war by
Cono-!ress,  he was Fiiven a pension of '-25.00 & year & 16,000
acres of 1 n&a near Utica, New York, on w'hich he died a
batch;.I-.lor, Wvitii his old military 00,, 1?anio-ris around hint.
XI. OUR, O 1!N G-11<",  PEOPLE.
Readrs  ill  ettr unersand  ur  er~ n iti, —rants


h ere111 'len tliey are a I ittle, better inform ed as to the
institutions under v,'hio,.h these -eonle w~ere reared in the




50.
Fatherland. I will give a few salient features of these
with anecdotal illustrations.  I shall set out from Old
Bavaria under the reign of Maximilian II., of the Wittelsbacher family, durinrg five years of whose reign 1 lived i
with my family in the capital of that kingdom. The first
point I shall notice is th- restriction upon marriage under
Bavarian law; nor shall I inquire what modifications of
the Marriage laws may have existed in other principalities,
since these were probably not such as to render my illustrations generally irrelevant.
The case of Margaretha Schnapp will serve my purpose.
She applied for service in our family, and to the question
usually put to such applicants - "have you others dependent
upon you?" - she answered in the negative; we found, however,
that she had a nephew, already grown up, who was about as
dear to her as a son.  The youth, a year or two afterwards
was taken very ill, and in fear that he would be taken away
from her as a punish-ment for her deception, she confessed in
her stress to a nearer relationship. She was retained in
service from the conviction that she would be more likely
to behave herself ho nestly than would any one who might be
obtained in her place, and was in the family in all nine
years, five in Munich and four in Ann Arbor.
New the legislation whlich was responsible for most of
this kind of deception was that requiring those who applied
for marriage licence to show industrial savings of such


amount as to promise the ability to take care of a family.
The serving classes were many of them unable to do this,
and, as a result, nephews and nieces, instead of sons and
daughters were largely multiplied. The case of a daughter




51.
of iMargaret's sister will illustrate the point in question.
She was engaged to a young mechanic; but several applications
for a licence had failed of success, arid finally the
question was tim1idly put to me whether I would not loan the
mother of the bride thle money which would satisfy the Common
Council. I raised the question whethier I might not by so
doi g co-mpromise myself with the city governmrent anld was
assured in reply that a memriber of tle Council had himself
s..gested.this measure.  I yieldedl to tthe request, for I
was sure that the faithful girl had Wiven her earnings to
the aid ofi her worn out Lmother and invalid father. I
accordingly sent word to the mothir th:.t she might come for
the money. She cam.e, anct having been overwhelmed with
expressions of gratitude for the proffered kindness, I
handed her a hundred florin bank-note ($40) and, as if somewhat frightened at the magnitude of the conception, she
exclaimed:"O, I never had so much money in my hand in all my
life: be so good as to wrap it up in a piece of paper; I am
afraid to carry it." The application to the council was a
little late, and a birth and baptism took precedence of the
marriage; but this all over, the same bank note was handed
back to me, by the mother's hand; with it came an expression
of profound gratitude, and the remark: "Your money has borne
good fruit" - 'Ihr Geld hat gute Fruechte getragen."  I do
not remember that I ever before helped any one to evade the
demands of the law, -rnd if any shall be disposed to criticize


my conduct in the matter, I will bear their censure; for the
satisfaction I have already felt in what I did will outweigh
a thousand adverse criticisms.
One point in the life of the Germans in their Fatherland




52.
here indicated is the poverty of the people. Besides the
governmental oppression, now greatly mitigated from former
times, they have to live on the lowest demands of the
physical being.   In many of the rural districts meat is said
to be almost unknown.   It is a kind of treat for four or
five holidays of the year. Black-bread of rye is the chief
living of the rural laborer. And all, men and women, labor
on the limited agriculture of the German lands. Here I
must throw in some words in defense of the Germans against
the charge of abusing their women. The American traveler
who skins over the whole sturface of the German states in a
couple of weeks and never stops to inquire into that which
does not lie onen to sight, tells a sad story of the slavery
of thie;womien. I heard such a one in this city once from no
less a man than Wendell Phillips. He did not know the
people.
Let the following picture of a German rural hamlet
be taken, for the people do not live generally on the strips
of ground they cultivate, but are huddled together around
a little bakery and inn.   The baker will bake the bread of
all the families of the hamlet cheaper than they could heat
their ovens, if they had such to heat.   The innkeeper will
do their other cooking cheaper than they could do it.    What
shall the women do in a country where it requires the labor
of all to make out a living? They have but a room or two to
take care of. "But the children," says an objector, "who
takes care of them?"   Suppose there are a dozen families in


the place; one or two women will take care of all the little
children and receive as much for it as each of the others
receives for her labor in the fields.    Thus all the resources




53.
of the little community are exhausted in making the ends
meet.
I return from the rural hamlet to the great city. Passing along its streets, i see here and there the sign,
generally at a very humble dwelling: "Kleine Kinder Anstalt."
What does it mean? Simply that little children are taken
care of in these places, that their mothers may go out to
work.  I see a Klafter of wood (two-thirds of a cord) driven
up to a house andalong with it, or soon after it, come a
man and his wife, carrying the tools to be used in converting it into stove wood. How did this happen? Simply in this
way; a servant girl was sent out to buy the wood and find a
man to do the work. Perhaps this man pays her six Kreutzers
(four cents) for giving him the job. He takes upon himself
the heaviest part of the work, the sawing; his wife splits
and riles the wood in the little wood-room off the kitchen.
The  job done, the pair trudge along home together and so on
through their pilgrimage, each bearing according to his or
her strength their share of the burdens of life. I do not
aver that the women in Germany are not often made to sustain
more than their just share of the support of t e house-hold;
but I do assert that this is in my opinion more frequent in
our proper American life than in that of Germany.
In my next chapter I shall take some five or six of the
earliest German settlers of this place, indicate further
the social institutions under which they had lived, and thus
prepare my readers better to appreciate this very large


element in our population.




54.


XII. EARLY GERIMN SETTLERS
The honor can scarcely be denied to Conrad Bissinger of
being the first German to arrive in this place and one of
the first to take up land in this vicinity. Mr. Bissinger
arrived on the ground September 1st. 1825   HIe remembers well
that in the month after his arrival on the site of this city,
Dewitt Clilton, Governor of New York, made his triumphal
trip fro-m Albany to Buffalo and back, taking with him on
his return a keg of Lake Erie's water, which he poured into
the Bay of New Yiork, symbolically settiniL forth the union
of the salt water of the ocean with the fresh water of the
great lakes. He reimembers vell the unprecedented excitement
caused in 1826 by the abduction of W-illiam Miorgaan in WVestern
New York, aend his subsequent murder. d ir. Bissinger was born
in M.annheim, the largest city of the grand-duchy of Baden,
where he learned the baker's trade. On his arrival there
was nothing here for a baker to do. A few log houses, with
the stumpy clearings lade by settlers' axes Lmarked the site
of the city, and, keepini the place in mind as t et of his
probable future settlemeiit, he set out for parts vwhere he
i:iht earn money by his trade. lie went to Charleston, SouthCarolina, there reiaained three years and laid by enough to
buy an eilihty acre lot.  Without comins on here he boutht
land in Scio, two or three miles from Ann Arbor. The purch ise was imade in 1826. The Patent bears the name of Andrew
Jackson.
LMr. Bissinger did not like Calhoun's doctrine of nullification, which was then already rife in South Carolina, and


he left for the North. His first vote was cast for General




55,
Jackson as President of the United States, doubtless for
his second term,  and he thinks that if the country had had
such a president, the civil war would never have come. He
remained in the East and did not arrive here to take possession of his property until 1831. His memory held a fund
which was indeed delightful to draw upon, I may still further
lmake use of hints given me by him in regard to life in his
Fatherland.. Mr, Bissinger died in February 1895, just after
his 95th birthday.
Daniel F. Allmendinger was the earliest of the German
settlers here who was personally known to me up to the
time beoinning my inquiries. iie came first from the old
country to Pennsylvania, afterwvards rLade his way thence,
carryinw in his knapsack all his possessions, to Danville in
WesterLn n.ew; York, whence he migrated hither, as nearly as
I can larni, about the year 1829.  A son, David by name,
lives on the territorial road a little west of the city
limits. Allied branches of the family are numerous and
prominent in the city.
Henry, or, usirn the German form of the namne, Heinrich
Mann, brought his family to Ann Arbor in 1830. They had
remained in Detroit several weeks while Mr. Mamn was visiting other places in order to learn where he might settle to
best.dvantage. Such was still the condition of the roads
at the time of the removal that a team of horses occupied
three days in transporting the party with their goods to
this place.


Mr. Mann was a tanner by trade. He came over to Pennsylvania, leaving his family at Stuttgardt, in the Kingdom of
Wirtemberg. He went from Pennsylvania to the oity of Mexico,




56.
and on his way thence with the money he had earned defended
himself with his fists against the attempt of an armed
Spaniard to rob him. The family joined him and made their
home at Reading, Pennsylvania, until they set out for their
future home here. I refered in an earlier chapter to the
remarkable family of the Muhlenbergs. It is of interest to
note here that the Reverend Henry Muhlenberg, a grandson of
the Apostle of the American Lutheran Church, whose family I
have sketched, was at the time pastor in Reading and his
wife was the daughter of Governor Heisler.
Mr. Mann bought the lot, corner of Washington and Firststs, where his daughter, widow of the late August Hutzel now
lives, for:12, the one next it on First-st for a pair of
shoes. The faraily is numerous, the late Emmanual Mann, long
a partner with Christian Eberbach in the sale of drugs and
medicines, was a son of Henry Mann. He once represented his
district in the state senate.
Many of our German people now in the city came over as
farmers and settled first on farming lands. John Koch, now
with his wife comfortably spending his old age in a. house of
his own in the 2nd ward, is an example of the Wirtemberg
farmer, though he left his native kingdom at too early an age
to have been initiated into the ancestral life. Arriving
in this country in 1831, he labored as a farm hand. When
able to do so, he purchased 40 acres of land. This was a
kind of nest egg, and he went on adding thereto, or rather,
selling at an advance and buying larger farms, until he was


owner of nearly a thousand acres which he conveyed to his
children and came more than twenty years ago to reside in


the city.




57.
A word in regard to German tillage in the Fatherland.
will throw light on what we see around us. German farms, or
rather fields, where the surface admits of it, are long
narrow strips, often but two or three rods wide. The
terminal points of their boundaries are marked by stones set
firmly in the earth. No fences disfigure the landscape, and
of course no land is lost between the owners. Law regulates
the details of tillage.  The ends of the strips most distant
frora the highway must be first seeded, that there may be no
driving over the sown ground. Each may drive one wheel in
the furrow which separates his own from his neighbor's land.
Precipitous places modify the asIpect, these being terraced
and beset with the vine, orother small fruits.  The grass
is cut and conveyed to the enclosures in which the domestic
animals are kept. Where the lands are thus laid out, the
people live in small villages, or hamlets, and not on the
farms they till, and the view of an undulating landscape thus
cut up and tilled is the most enchanting conceivable.   It
is in summer as if Mother Nature had spread a great striped
quilt over the earth's bed. The lines between farms are
the seams of the spread; the foliage and bloom of the plants
which cover the grounds, show all the various and varying
colors of the land's flora.  But the poor boy in South Germany
cannot hope to have a farm for which he must pay 500 to 700
florins (4200 to 4280) an acre; hence their settlement and
thrift here, where they dig up every stump and make every


foot of ground pay them tribute.
John George Schairer is one of five brothers, all naed
John, four of them of course known only by middle names.:   Mr.




58.
Schairer carre over as a youth, learned here the shoemaker's
trade, and is still industriously pounding away on his lapstone. His immigration was in 1836. He soon felt the need
of informing himself of the political matters of the country,
bought a spelling book and began with the English alphabet to
prepare himself to gather the needed information. His
memory is a mine upon which one draws with satisfaction. It
is an interesting fact that his wife's sister, Mir. Ebinger,
removed from here to the village of Chicago when this latter
had but few houses, walking most of the way, attended by the
ox-wagon which carried the household goods.
Conrad Krapf came also in 1836, but from another section,
the Electorate of Hesse-Cassel.  ne is able to add some
interesting items to what I have already related of the
Hessians hired by Great Britain to put down the American
rebellion of 1776-1782. These men not only did not know
whither, or for, what purpose they were being conveyed across
the water, and not only themselves did not receive the full
pay for their services, but even the pensions to which they
were entitled after the war, went into the hands of the
Electoral government, and were never paid over to them. In
the year 1830, 47 years after the close of the war, a professor at Marburg brought this fact to light, and four persons,
some of them widows, who were entitled to pensions, received
these until their respective deaths.  It is no wonder that
Germans even now when they view the splendid grounds and


buildings of the Elector curse him for his oppressions.
Mr. Krapf tells of his intense sighing for freedom in
his boyhood, and says that a friend, knowing his feeling,




59.
handed him a little book, saying, "Here, Conrad, read this,
and when you are through with it, hand it to no one but me."
The passages which he cites from that book sound like
quotations from our Declaration of Independence. Thus is
explained his emigration. He was a carpenter and worked
first for Richard Glazier of the Society of Friends, whose
principles were nearly identical with his own.   If any who
know Mr. Irapf shall be inclined to regard his intensely
earnest utterances against oppression and injustice as an
exaggeration, let them remember that he came from Electoral
Hesse.
Young mechanics in Germany, on the completion of their
apprenticeship, were formerly obliged by law and during my
own residence there, by custom, to travel from place to place
for work. Our word journeyman probably originated in such
practice. Mr. Krapf affirms my own observations on this
subject. He wandered over the lands of central Europe,
German and French, as a Handwerks-Bursch - for such is the
term used. The supposition was that these young men would
thus learn all the different kinds of work and the customsof
the craft. A little knapsack contained their tools and a
few articles of clothing. About a cent a night would pay
their lodging in some farmer's barn.  Inns - called in
German Herbere - existed in all the cities with special
reference to their wants.  These had each its Herbergs-mutter
to exercise a matronly care over them. Besides his mother


tongue Mr. Krapf could command enough of French and even
Latin, to make known his wants. There is a little volume
written by one Holthaus, translated from the German into




60.
English by Mary Howitt, entitled: "Wanderings of a Journeyman
Tailor," sketching his own journeyings for work over all
central Europe and to Egypt and Palestine, from which book
one may gather a fair notion of the system. I have myself
seen these wanderers and talked with them from single ones
to squads of a dozen. Here is one with shoes that have been
picked up and are not mates and neither covers the foot; he
is clad throughout accordingly and so on through the crowd.
Such has been the condition from which many a one has cone
to this country to found a thrifty business.  The late
Emanuel Mann once told me his recollections of this life as
observed in his boyhood. The following narrative will give
the reader a better idea of the life of these wandering
mechanics. When about to leave Bavaria with my family I
thought to avoid those routes which all the tourists notice)
so that we might see something that had not been described
in books. Now the most terrible siege & the most complete
destruction of the Thirty Years' War &, indeed, of all time
in Central Europe, took place at Magdeburg. In that commercial
city of the Elbe but a single house had been left standing.
The people were long in returning to rebuild their homes &a
when they did' so, over the portal of this solitary architectural relic were inscribed the words:- "Remeember the 10th of
May 1631" - "Gedenket des l0ten Mai 1631."  I desired to stand
in this city, look upon this house & read the inscription.
I had noticed by the papers that a steamer ran on the river
between Magdeburg & Hamburg. This we had arranged to take


&, our observations made in Magdeburg, we stepped on board
but a few minutes before the advertized hour of its departure.




61.
The good peasant-looking captain at once came to me & said:"This, sir, is no place for genteel people like you & your
family. You must have mistaken in regard to our accomodations. I told him that we hed seen his boat advertized, were
now on board, should ilot like to leave T& would be content
wvith such fare as lhe could furni sh. le cou I only Jive us
berths, our cup of coffee. Other sunplies we should have
to obtain for ourselves. HT allowed me time to go ashore &
purchase our iimmlediate needs & as 1 stepped again on board,
tle nlank was drawn  in & we were in motion.
The:lost numerous class on board was made up of Handwerksburschen, that is, journeymen mechanics.   They were clad as
indicated above in worn out garmients, picked up & umiatched.
Tie boat was scarcely uider way whien they were engaged in
gambling on the few Kreutzers wihich they carried in their
po cets. Somle were sharpers at thie business &. soon appropriated the last iLreutzer of the slender resources of the others.
These latter, in their forlorn condition, appealed to me to
assist them in recovering threir lost coin, & as I, in alliance
with the captain, was arranging to help them - for the case
was one of robbery & criminally actionable - I saw, a$ we lay
at dusk of evening at a villa:e on the river, the guilty
parties slippi ng stealthily into a skiff & making for the
shore, where they doubtless found lodgings in some barn.   I
could only caution the victims against risking in the future
their earnings in this way.


It was still true when I was in Eavaria that no one could
start a business without permission from the governmental
authorities, who were to judge whether such businesses




62.
demanded. This right must be paid for and it descended like
other property as an inheritance in the family of the purchaser.
The system was like our AILerican slavery in this respect,
that the  overnmnent could not justly get rid of it without
payins: tie holders of these charters their fair miarket value.
Christian E-berbach carme to this place in 1838. He was
educated in Stuttgardt for an apothecary, wich business did
not exist here, as separate froim general merchandise. Ie did
not at once set up for himself, but wvas for a while clerk
for Willianm S. Layljard, a an ft afterwards established his present
business, Erranuel iann having been associated with him as
-)artner. The -arenits of t-e late Philip Bach, our dry-goods
merch-ant of longest standing,   were farm-ers from the Grand
Duchy of baden. They care to Pennsylvania in 1829, here in
1835. One cannot but remark how rarny of our German settlers
are found first to have been attracted to the original
settler;ents of their countrymen in Pennsylvanis, whence they
have moved westward.
Auerbach's novel entitled  Auf der ioehe, has been set
down in a list of the ten best novels ever written.   It
doubtless pictures the court life under Maximillian II of
Bavaria. The story of Margaretha Schnapp and her son, of
which I gave a hint in chapter XI of these sketches might be
made the basis of an equally graphic picture of the popular
life of the same period. For, to the details of her life in
Bavaria, which I have but touched upon, should be added those


of the years spent in this country. When we were about to
set out for home the son was off in the wandering life of a
journeyman shoemaker, and could not be reached by letter.




63.
Meanwhile she had spent the money she had laid up in our
service, and I sent the means for both to come over. This
is doubtless the only instance which ever occurred in Ann
Arbor of the heads of a family being addressed as Gnaediger
Herr and Gnaedige Frau; these terms of respect she always
continued to use.
In the early summer of 1868 the German Methodist pastor
here received a letter from a former parishioner, asking
him to suggest some one who would make him a good wife;
Margaret was named. My daughter got up an entertainment for
the occasion, and she and another young lady served a party
of about twenty, seated at the humble pastor's table, and
our Iargaret became the mistress of a good farm-house in
Ohio. Some 15 years had elapsed, and, about to die, she
called her son and instructed hinm what to write me when she
should have passed away. The letter would have done honor
to a college graduate, & yet it was from one of those mechanics whose condition as journeyman in their native land I have
described.
The notice of other prominent Germans I shall reserve till
I come to treat of the rise of the churches.
XIII. THE IRISH
The site of our now beautiful city was left in my sketch
as in the year 1825, with only nine houses, and these of
logs. I have allowed this conception to rest undisturbed in
the reader's mind, while I have directed his attention to


the early ways and means of travel and transportation, so as
to indicate the condition, not of one narrow precinct, but
that of the country,  I then thought best to sketch the




64,
nationalities which had begun to add themselves to the already
assimilated American population.   In treating of the Germans
now so multiplied among us, I deemed it worth while to view
them in the lands from which they came, that their development here might be better appreciated.   I had thought to
sketch also the Irish; but now deem this a work of supereroga tion; for who does not know the genial Irishman?  No subject
of foreign politics has been so kept before the American
people as the relation of Ireland. to the united kingdom; none
in our domestic condition since the administration of President Monroe, has been made more a staple in our domestic
politics, than the influx and attitude of the Irish. I must
give them a few touches.
Our American Irish people offer, indeed, a fine field
for the display of verbal rhetoric, which, however, is not
my forte. This much may, nevertheless, be summed up of them.
In the early Christian centuries they were in advance of the
people of Great Britain. They planted their Christian educational convents in the north of that island. The Irish Monk,
Columban, and his coadjutors, first as missionaries effectually
planted th&e Christian system in the  Vosges mountains ef
Eastern France, and then among the people to whose land on
Lake Constance he was exiled. Thence he went on the same
errand over the Alps into Lombardy, which his associate, also
an Irishman named Gallus, founded the monastery of St.Gall,
named for him, which was for centuries the greatest light of the


Swabian lands.
In the reign of Henry II. of England, now more than seven
centuries ago, the Irish people were subjugated and from that




65.


day to this have been more or less downtrodden, and for
three centuries by a Protestant government. Thus they were
reduced to a state of wretchedness, such as has been little
known in modern European life.   This was their condition,
when, about 1817, their grand inflow into the American
states began.  Their real mission to this country was first
to build our great throughfares, and then to settle in
comfort along their lines.
It was about the year 1830, that the work on the
Chemung canal, on the line of which our family lived, was
begun. Riv father was for twenty years, including the time
of this work, overseer of the poor for the township which
embraced what is now the city of Elmira, in central New
York. The men who opened the work on this canal came largely direct from Ireland, with just what they had on their
backs and that scarcely covered them. A vigorous young
Irishman was taken sick soon after his arrival on the ground,
and father, finding at the time no other place for him,
brought him home to our comfortable farm house, where he
soon recovered, and his pithy observations and true civility
supplied some of the pleasantest recollections of my boyhood.
The law of that day required the concurrent counsel
of a justice of the peace, wh'lich office was held at the
time by Hiram Gray, who afterwards became one of the most
prominent men of the Empire state. Father called one cold
winter day at his office. It was the first winter of the
work. The contractors had dismissed their men with no


accumulation, and they were suffering. Mr. Gray reported as
follows: "A man has just been here for help." He says: "Yer




*  66.
Honor' I want a little hilp.  The cowld wither is comin' on hotter
and hotter. I've not a coat to me back, and If I live long,
yer Honor, I'll die soon. Will yer Honor plase give me a
ricommend to the poormaster?"  "I think Mr. Ten Brook,
you'll have to do something for the poor fellow." The
justice's renort is simply his own improvement upon the earnest and eloquent appeal of the Hibernian. My father's
accounts of his visits to the shanties were replete with the
blessings pronounced upon him. The bulls reported of them,
were often either their own conscious turns of wit, or they
were the versions wbich fun-loving Yankees had given to their
discourse.
The years 1849-51 nay well be deemed to mark an era
among our Irish people, on account of thle rromptness with
which they responded to the rmission of Father Matthewl, in
the cause of temperance.
The first settlemrent of Irish farmers I ever knew is
that which has its centre in the neighborir- town of Nor thfield. This city's population has often been replenished
from it.  The brief sketch I have now given will answer
fairly well for the whole Irish immigration to this country.
The humor of the Irish has become proverbial & specimens of
it are so widely dispersed thnt it might be difficult to
give a local one that should be new; I offer, however, the
following;- An old man here by the name of Mead, a fine
player on several musical instruments, a good singer; pious,


withal, & in every way a worthy Lman, had, in the days of ague
& fever & the other trials of backwoods life, fallen into
a habit of drinking.   This, though, he did not drink to
real intoxication, was a great trouble to him & he had been




67.


unsuccessful in h-is attempts to break up the habit. He
at last made the desperate resolve to enlist as a musician
in the arimly oi the Potomac, with a determination that he
would not touch a drop that could intoxicate after leaving
Ain Arhr. He ha1d be-n but a little tiae at the seat of
war iwen General Meade was first defLnitely heard of here;
in a few days followed the news of his victory at Gettysburg,x, a company of Iris1hmein beinn together, one of thenmi
observed:- "hJell; the old fellow dia do pretty w'ell for the
fir st toie, didn't he'       All concurred wiith hearty cheers
for tlheir fellow, townsman, eacih made his o-in observations
in regard to thie glorious issue of the old ian's first
cam-pa ign.
XIV. ARRIVALS
The riost i-mposiniol of all tihe early arrivals on the site
of our city, if, indeed, therd: has ever been aiother of
equal inmressiveness, was tha t of the wife   - parents of Mr.
Johin Allen, the founder, already noticed in connection with
Mr. Ruiase~ and family.  Tlhe  following extract from a letter
of ilr. Jam-r-s Turrer Allen, for which I am indebted to the
kindness of George C. eaynard, of Washington, D.C., will
best state th-e case.
"My father and family arrived at Ann Arbor,:iich.,
(then a territory) on the 16th day of.ctober, A.D. 1824, and
at that date Ezra Maynard with his family were at Mallet's
Creek, living in a bark shanty. We passed his place on our
way to Ann Arbor, and I remeimber my attention was directed


toward the bark shanty, on account of seeing so many nice
looking girls coming out of it. They came out to see us
pass with our great Pennsylvania covered wagon, drawn by




68.
four horses, and the driver riding on the near wheel horse.
We also had a horse and buggy, and three riding horses. It
made quite a show for a new country.    In crossing the creek
(thiere were no bridges in thiose times) our wagon stuck in
the mud, and our horses could not pull it out.;Mr. Maynard
hitchied hi is yoke of oxen on and helped to draw it out. I
u:nderstood at the tine and since, that he had arrived with
his family some two or tiree wee ks previous. He had come on
before his family to prepare for thiem a home. Hie }had the
log house (hewed logs) up, but it was not covered, and was
iot tenantable, so ithey had to occupy the shanty."
It was in L125 thiat imin Airbor is said to have consisted
of nine lo- houses. It will be observed that the arrival
described above was in the Autumn of 1624, about eight
months after that of Liessrs. Allen anc Rumsey.   In order,that t'e reader!ay obtaiin an idea of tihe as-ect & interior
life of the place in which the arrivals now   to be mentioned
were made, I will introduce him into the most genteel of the
houses, that of John Allen, as it was the beginning of iNovember 1824. The account is taken frolm irs. Harriet i. Noble,
who together with her husband, a little girl of three-years,
an infant of nine months, and Ar. Noble's brother's family,
which consisted of h        hself,  is wife and six children, formed
a party migrating hither from the state of New York. This
party had come up the lake from Buffalo to Detroit, in seven
days, jam-ramed together in a little schooner. Two days' stay


in Detroit and three days of walking, attended by an oxwagon which conveyed the children and the goods, brought them
to their destination. It was just fifteen days after the




69.
imposing arrival described in my last of the Allen family
from Virginia.
Mr. Allen kindly took this party of twelve persons
into his house, which was as yet quite unfinished.  It was
of two apartments, the ground floor and the loft, or garret.
With the accession of these two families, the tenants of the
mansion numbered fourteen ren, and twenty-one women and
children. There were two bedsteads with their beds in the
house. These two provided for four persons, perhaps more.
The remaining thirty, or thereabout, spread their beds upon
the floor, and were conveniently divided into families, or
smaller groups, by the suspending of sheets to separate
their several allotments. The tenants of the house all
laid to rest, the two floors were quite covered with
prostrate human forms. Some limbs which were rather long
for the boundaries assigned them, in the unconscious state
of their owners, trespassed upon the domains of others. And
then, if in the unrest of the night any rose and moved about,
it could not but be that feet were stepped upon and various
noises, which are best described as growls, groans and
screams, testified in the darkness of an animated life- in
the prostrate mass. Such, however, was the necessity, if
not the charity of each, that no evidence survives of any
breach of good-humor. There was but a small box-stove in
the house and the cooking was done in the open air, so that
we may conceive the several families, collected from their


night's attempts at rest and grouped around their respective
fires outside, enjoying nothing in common but their smoke.
The famous house thus described stood on the northwest corner




70.


of Main and Huron-sts.  James T. Allen bought the house
and lot of his brother John, and paid him $300 for it, but
I find nothing to indicate the date of the transaction.
Thus the aristocratic life of the place is briefly described. A bank now occupies the site of this house.
As I have before had occasion to indicate, the Erie
Canal was completed in 1825. In 1826 the father of Daniel
B. Brown, which latter still survives anong us, brought
from Syracuse by way of the canal and lake a cargo of salt
to Detroit and wrote for his son to come on with another
cargo.  The merchandise found a ready sale at 14 the barrel.
The son hired a horse, rode to Ann Arbor, determined to
make it his home and having returned to hWestern New York,
came on again the same Autumn. The speculation in salt
suggested the place and supplied in part, at least, the
means of starting a business here. Early the next summer
Mr. Brown went back to his old home and returned with a wife.
They took their first meal in Rumsey's Coffee-House, and
have lived in the place ever since, doubtless the first
settlers within the limits of the city who now remain here.
They are now (1894) passing the 69th year of their lire together in the place.
Daniel F., the father of David Allmendinger, as the
true story runs, walked from Danville in Western New York,
through Canada in 1828 and again in 1829, to Ann Arbor.
In one of these journies he found the region he was traversing inundated, the water being knee-deep for a considerable


distance in the road. At this point he considered his life
to have been saved by the water; for wolves, to the nuber




71.
of a hundred or more, as he thought, thronged the edges of
the water intent upon making him their prey, but would not
enter the water after him.
In 1830 Ir. Allmendinger removed his family hither.
i)e bought a yoke of steers, but had nothing to feed them.
HearinuQ of a man wh'o had soime -wheat chaff, he hw ent to see,
if he could buy it, wearing on this errand a pair of new
boots. The owner of the heap of chaff offered it for the
boots, or a pair as good.  Mr. Allmendinger wore his boots
homee, put on an old pair' of shoes, returned for his purchase
and closed the transaction by delivering the boots. The
improved story, as I had it before I took a long walk to
learn it from  ir. Alluendiiger's son, was that the purchase
was a stack of hay, instead of a worthless heap of chaff,
and that the buyer took off his boots arnd walked home barefoot in a frosty morning. The one story makles the buyer
pay several ties thle value of the chaff; the other gives
hiln a stack of hay for a fraction of its value.  The reader
may choose between the stories; I accept that of the son
who was a lad of about e ig:ht years at the time of the purchase.
XV. THEIT NAMING.
Various freaks 'have in a3ll -'es dictated tlhe naes of
places.  The mran, for instaice, who had chlarge of the surveys
in Central Niew York, was either very familiar with the names
of classic antiquity, or else had a classical dictionary at
hand, and has almost exhausted the resources at conunani


especially those of Rome, in the distribution of names.
Utica, Ithaca, Delphi, Rome, Syracuse, Palmya, Homer, Virgil,
Cato, Manlius, Tully, together with the names of the lesser




72.; ~;
lights of the Republic even to those of Sempronius and Camdll
lus, have been bestowed upon places in this section. Of the
prominent Roman names only those of the Caesars were omitted,
thus showing the intensity of the republican spirit which
dictated the selection. The Revolution had succeeded, the
American Republic had been established and the names of the
aesars, %great as they were, since they had transformed the
model ancient tRepubllic into a military monarchy, were not to
desecrate the soil of t is section of our country.
Anoother system, or rather, taste, has dictated the names
of Miic-hig-an. Washltenaw-, the nae; o our county, has been
variously explained.  Though it caime through the Indians, the
most generally accepted opinion is that it originated in an
Indian corruption of the name of Washington. French and
Indiannamies and thiose of American statesmen are prominent in
the state. President Lionroe's visit in 1817 probably suggested the namin. of a county and village throu<h which he passed
on horseback on his return to the capital.   In President
Jackson's time counties were named after him, the Vicepresident and all the members of the cabinet, so that we have
the coLunties of Jackson, Calhoun, VanBuren, Cass, Ingham,
Eaton, Barry, Branch and Berrien, if not named all at a
batch, yet nearly so.
But I return to Washtenaw. If we look for him who was
really its first settler of European descent, we shall be
obliged to ascribe the honor to the Frenchman, Gabriel Godfroy,


who, in company with two other men, set up a house for trade with
the Indians on the South side of the river where the village
of Ypsilanti afterwards sprang up, and in 1825 the legislative




"73.
Council designated this house as the place to which the voters
in Washtenaw county might resort to deposit their ballots
for a territorial delegate to Congress. The settlement of
the county really began about a mile below this place on
the river.  The place took the name of Woodruff's Grove from
the leading man of a colony of five families who settled there
in the Spring of 1823. When an organization was effected, the
Greek Revolution was much talked of and the township took
its name from the Greek General, Demetrius  Ypsilanti, as
I suppose, though there had been three other men of distinction
in the fal-ily. The name belongs to modern, not ancient
Greece. Classic antiquity is little honored in our names,
though we have a township called Scio from one of Homer's
numerous birth-places. Into sacred antiquity we go still
further back, for we have a township called Salem, the name of
the city where the mysterious Melchisedec reigned in the
days of Abraham. This Hebrew name, signifying Peace, was
doubtless applied in this instance from the deep religious
spirit of the first settlers in that town. About the title
of the settlement of the county the people were reading
O'Meara's Voice from St. Helena, and so named a tolvnship in
honor of the young Corsican,who led the French forces over
the bridge at Lodi.
For the naming of our city and township we should scarcely
find a historic precedent. There can be no doubt in regard
to the general facts about the naming, though speculations


have  varied in reference to details.   There has been truth
in all the views taken. People talk about the names of their
children before the day of the christening. So in this case.




74,
The beautiful bur-oak grove spread over the whole plain, the
aspect of particular clumps, festooned with the wild-grape
vines, the first life under the sled-box, with its blankat
hangings and arboreous adornment, and the name Ann, common
to the two women, all doubtless tended to fix the name of
Ann's Arbor to the home; but it required something a little
more formal to attach it to the township, and the future
village and city, and I am glad to be able to state with
no little assurance how this occured. On the fourth of
July 1825 there was here a celebration which drew together
the population of the county. Ezra Maynard read the Declaration of Independence, Judge Dexter delivered the oration.
The prayer and singing were not omitted, in which latter
Mr. Maynard's daughters - there were six of them - took the
leading part. Three hundred persons sat down to a dinner
at Rumsey's Washtenaw Coffee House. Mr. Maynard and his
wife wrote in glowing terms to their son, William S., then
in Whitesborough, New York, describing the scene. Extracts
from this letter tell the story.
One little episode connected with the scene remains,
however, to be told, and the evidence for it would soon die
out if not recorded.  Calvin Chipman, then of the town of
Lima, was present, and years afterwards related the incident
to Governor Felch.  The two Anns, he said were there.   They
had had the chief merit in decking the natural arbor for
the occasion; indeed the whole site of the town was then as
yet arboreous; this merit was acknowledged, the naming of:


the future town was bespoken and a general assent, if not
an acclamation fixed the name. So the 4th of July, 1825
may be regarded as the day of the Christening festival of




75.


our city. Mr. Chipman thinks this scene occurred near
where St. Andrew's church now stands. Perhaps I may yet
show that the development of the city and its institutions
has been as unprecedented in the history of civilization,
as is the name Ann Arbor in geographical nomenclature.
XVI. ASSUMING ITS RANK AS COUNTY-SEAT
Ann Arbor, before it received that general sanction
of its name given by acclamation on July 4th, 1825, was
destined to be the seat of justice for the county. There
seems also to have been entered in the Register's office at
Detroit a record of the plot in May previously, probably
under the name of Ann's Arbor. A square each for courthouse and jail had been reserved. Huron street was at
first assumed to be the future centre of its life. This
divided the two farms first taken up, that on the north
side of the street, by Mr. Allen, that on the south, by Mr.
Rumsey. The square for the court house was given by Mr.
Allen, the same on which the present court house stands.
It was early enclosed, but was for some years a cornfield,
as citizens now living remember. It may also have been
under other crops during the considerable period that
elapsed before it was demanded for its distinctive purpose.
The square for the jail, given by Mr. Rumsey, was that
enclosed by Liberty and William, and Fourth and Fifth
streets. This place was early occupied by such building
as the resources and taste of the time dictated. Ditches
were dug around a piece of ground of the desired size. In


these were set tree trunks  rising to the intended height
of the structure.  These trunks formed the outer walls of
the building. Over them a roof was placed, and within




768.
fft Af
r 't ai

were fitted up accommodations for the jailer and, as I
suppose his family, which needed not to be very sumptuous,
unless they were to excel all else in the inceptive village.
Other interior work was added for prisoners, and the provision may be supposed to have been quite equal to aught
then enjoyed by those who remained at liberty and had to
provide their own quarters.
As to the courts, that which is at this day the most
vexing question in municipal matters, seems to have been
answerable for the first business of a judicial nature in
Ann Arbor. It was in a session of the country court as
constituted by an act of the Territorial Council, Samuel W.
Dexter chief, Oliver Whitmore associate justice, constituting the court. Its first session was held on the third
Monday in January 1827, at the house of Erastus Priest in
Ann Arbor. The only lawyers mentioned in the account of
this session had to be supplied from abroad. The names of
Joseph W. Tong, O.D. Richardson and B.F.H. Witherell only
are given. These three took at this time the oath as
attorneys and counselors-at-law.  Of Mr. Tong I learn
nothing else. Mr. Richardson was from Pontiac, Mr. Witherell from Detroit. The only business done at this session,
so far as the record shows, was that of granting tavern
licenses to John Allen, Nathan Thomas and Benjamin J. Woodruff.
A grand jury was empaneled and found a bill of indictment against Erastus Priest for selling liquor in less


quantities than one quart without license therefor.   BI.F.H.
Witherell appeared in this prosecution for the people of
the United Stated, 0,D. Richardson for the dAefenaa nt.T




77; X
testimony of eight witnessed was offered by the prosecution,
of one by the defense.  The matter was committed to the
jury, who, having been out for two hours, returned with a
verdict of not guilty and the defendant was discharged.
It does not appear that at the time of this first
session of a judicial tribunal in the place there was resident any lawyer but James Kingsley. He had settled in Ann
Arbor in 1826. He soon acquired the nickname of "Honest
Jim Kingsley," which always adhered to him and, so far as I
know, the unanimous verdict of the community is that he
deserved the honorable epithet.
The only business of a strictly judicial nature which
came before the court at its first session was the trial
of Mr. Priest, as briefly reported above. The application
of Reverend William Page for license to celebrate the rite
of matrimony was also added to the three tavern licenses.
How the lawyers from abroad reached Ann Arbor is not
anywhere stated; but I deem it safe to assume that they
came on horseback. The only other supposition to be
entertained for a moment is that they came on foot. This we
can scarcely think of in case of men of such prominence
and dignity as Lieutenant Governor Richardson and Judge
Witherell attained to soon after the period here considered.
It is my aim to bring forward in these sketches just
such matter as shall be most helpful to the reader's
imagination in making out a view of the successive stages
of Ann Arbor's development. It has seemed to me that the


construction of the jail, the constituting of the court,
the matter of its first action, the place of its session
and the names and homes of the legal gentlemen employed,




78.
would be items of information important for the reader's
judgment. They help greatly to show what the place was in
January 1827.
XVII. LIFE IN THE LOG HOUSE
There is no difficulty in getting at the truth as to
the straits to which the early settlers were reduced in
their domestic life; but it is quite impossible to get
the details all right. Nothing will better illustrate the
hopelessness of the search after perfection in particulars
than cases of irreconcilable disagreement between eyewitnesses, whose intentions cannot be questioned. I have
given an extract from a letter of James T. Allen, in which
he testifies of the style in which his party from Virginia
entered the place and of the impression made upon his mind
by seeing so many fine looking girls come out of the bark
shanty in which he says the family of Ezra Maynard was
living, while the men were working upon the still roofless
house of hewn logs. Mr. Allen himself afterwards married
in succession two of those fine looking girls and in the
absence of other testimony his word would be deemed quite
decisive. And yet, John W. Maynard, the brother of the
girls, says that his father and an older brother came on
and built two houses, a small one of unhewn and a larger of
hewn logs, before he brought on the family and that they
never lived in a bark shanty. Mr. Allen's later relation
to the Maynards may perhaps hint the kind of hallucination
he was under in passing the Maynard villa.


The county history, after the best that I can do, will
have to answer for an occasional error which will cereep




79.
from it into my sketches. Mr. Maynard is confident that
no such man as Joseph W. Tong, mentioned in the foregoing
chapter as having taken the attorney's oath in the first
session of the Washtenaw county court, ever lived here, or
elsewhere in the state. This statement may be deemed
decisive so far as residence is concerned; and yet it is
difficult to conceive how, if such a man was not here, he
could have been absolutely created and named and his name
handed down through the court records to find its way into
the county history. The natural conjecture is that a
vagrant lawyer of the name, being at the time here, took
the oath with some thought of remaining, but instead of
doing so, passed on to other parts, himself never generally
known to the citizens. This supposition agrees with what
we all know of the vagrancy of a certain class of people
in the early movement westward.
As to resources of life, it is certain that they were
sometimes reduced for short periods to about the level of
the native tribes, both as to dwellings and table supplies,
and, I may add, as to tables also, for the distances from
which most of the settlers came made it very inconvenient
to transport such articles. I myself knew of a family in
good circumstances whose first log house was built around
a great stump. The house was entered in the early summer
without a floor, and, until towards Autumn, when the man
got ready to lay his floor and had to cut away the stump,
this served as their table. Many of the first houses were


occupied for a time without floors, doors, or windows, the
logs only being cutaway that doors and windows might be put
in when the material and labor could be obtained.




80.
A Mrs. Bryan, of a family which settled at Woodruff's
Grove in 1823, gives in a letter of thirty years later a
description of the corn-mills used in the settlement, as
follows:- "It was amusing the first fall and winter, to
hear the corn-mills in operation every morning before daylight. There were two in the settlement. They were made
as follows:- A hole was burned in the top of a sound oak
stump; after scraping this clean from coal, a stick about
six feet long and eight inches in diameter was rounded at
one end and suspended by a spring-pole directly over the
stump. A hole was bored through the pestle for handles
and the mill was done. A man would pound a peck of corn in
half an hour, so thet half of it would pass through a sieve."
If I rightly concieve this ingenious structure, the
spring-pole raised, or helped to raise, the heavy pestle
and the man with a hand at each of the handles, brought it
down in successive strokes upon the grist. Information
fails us as to the extent to which such domestic contrivances
were used.
When a family came on together, no member having been
sent ahead to prepare them a house, there were in general
two ways of getting along until the house should be built,
One is suggested by the bark-shanty already mentioned; for,
if Deacon Maynard's family never lived in one of these,
others did. What the bark-shanty was cannot be stated with
exactness. This kind of structure could not be built except during that brief period of each year when the bark


would peel. We have seen what kind of substitute the RXiuaey,
Allen & Smith families employed. Others slept in their




81.
wagons and on the ground until their houses were built.
The literal bark-shanty was probably constructed of four
or six forked poles, the forks of which supported other
poles upon which was laid a roof of bark. The sides were
curtained with blankets. But the almost universal procedure was that called doubling up; that is, the newly
arrived family shared the hut of one which had arrived
before them. The reader's imagination will need no help
in making out how the several families got along with the
operations of toilet and cooking in a one-roomed log house
without floors, doors or windows.
The building of a log house was a short job; but
unless one had purchased his land before his arrival, he
had to select it and make a journey to the land-office,
leaving his family somewhere as guests, until the purchase
was made before he could begin his work of building. As to
the putting up of a house, this might have been done by
three men and a yoke of oxen; for they could have rolled
the logs up to their places on skids leaned against the
side of the rising edifice; but the nearly universal process was to make what was called a raising. To this frolic
an indiscriminate invitation was sent out; that is, not
only farmers and mechanics, but physicians,lawyers and
clergymen, were invited.
Morell Goodrich of Dexter furnishes me with an account
of one of these gatherings of the year 1829, giving the
names of actors, which need not here be repeated. The story


is in substance the following: The maker of the party, the
guests as I shall venture to call them, having arrived on
the ground, ordered a big kettle to be filled with water,




82.
and a rousing fire built under it, while several persona
were employed in digging sassafras roots, washing these,
scraping the bark of the same and throwing this into the
kettle to prepare a beverage for the entertainment of the
company. But it was known that this man had Just purchased
a five-gallon keg of whiskey, which must have been hid away
for personal use. Some of the party determined that the
man who provided whiskey for himself should not be allowed
to entertain his guests with a simple decoction of sassafras
bark, and they instituted a search, found the keg, mixed
a gallon of its contents to each two gallons of the decoction, partook of this freely, did their work and went home
the merrier for the discovery of the keg.
This shows perhaps not so much life in the log house,
as life before the house was entered; and yet it shows one
of the shifts to which pioneers here have resorted for a
beverage in place of the usual tea and coffee. The foregoing
description of the improvised corn-mill reveals much as to
the straits to which our first settlers were brought as to
their living. Of the attempts at relief it is worthy of
mention that old Mr. Allen, father of the founder of the
village, built a boat to run on the Huron, and thus connect
Ann Arbor by a better conveyance with Detroit, and so with
mills and sources of supply. But this plan was soon defeated by the construction of dams on the river, and was
also rendered less necessary by the improvement of the two


roads to the city of which that by Plymouth was the better.
The necessity of living even in the winter in unfinished houses, the clearing and breaking up of grounds, exposing
egetable matter to decay, the want of wells and coquet:




83.
use of what was called "mud-hole water" and ignorance of
protective measures against the effects of miasma, caused
ills which it would be difficulty to describe, impossible
to overstate. That a delicate and cultured woman, capable
of writing such a story as that of Mrs. Harriet L, Noble, to
whom I have before referred, should in the cold month of
November drive the oxen to draw stone and help her husband
build a chimney, and do this cheerfully, is pleasant to
tell and awakens admiration.  She tells of living three
weeks without flour in the house and of her husband's consuming in the month of December, fifteen days in a trip to
Detroit for flour and other supplies. The first tear she
shed in these pioneer trials she says was when her little
boy said to her: "Ma, why don't you make bread? don't you
like it? I do."  This woman during the winter foddered his
cattle, her husband being disabled. The case was not solitary. In the disability of the husband the wife did his
work and her own; in her disability he did the work of both.
So the first settlers lived.
XVIII. THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
The Christian Church has fairly proved itself the -executive of the world's Divine Educational System, the regenerator of human society.  It made its appearance at the time
when the great Roman Republic, having then already assumed
the imperial form, had become so permeated with corrupting
influences and institutions that the mere politician might
safely have predicted its downfall and the gradual return to


barbarism of the nations embraced within its ample territory*
Indeed, its great historian did this in effect in the prefce
of his history.  Twelve missionaries of this regenerating




84.
doctrine were first sent out and they and the accumulatin
bands of their disciples long operated chiefly upon the
dissolving elements of the sinking empire, and the higher
civilization has since simply kept step with their advance
and never preceded it. The author of this educational scheme
described his followers as the branches of a vine, in reference to which figure it is interesting to note the point
of time at which the tendrils of the spreading branches
began to entwine themselves with the population of any new
communi ty,
It was on the 21st of August, 1826, that the first
church organization was effected in Ann Arbor. It was
Presbyterian in form and took place in a log school house
on the North-west corner of Main and Ann streets, Reverend
Noah M. Wsells of Detroit presiding. What meetings  for
religious purposes had previously occurred cannot be known
in detail. Rev. Moses Clark, a Baptist minister, is said to
have preached the first sermon in the place in the summer
of 1825. Rev. Mr. Baughman, a Methodist, was next, the
meeting being held in the house of John Allen. Of Mr. Clark
I find no account except that he is also said in the County
History to have preached the first sermon in Ypsilanti, in
which statement he is with a somewhat questionable taste
described as "a hard-shell Baptist preacher."  Lauin Mills,
in his reminiscences, tells of attending a religious service
at which a sermon was read and a Sunday-school numbering
about thirty was held, in the same log school house in which


the first church was organized. This was on his visit to
the place in June previous to the formation of the church.
He further testifies that Miss Parsons, who afterwards




85.
became his wife, started a Sunday-school said to have been
the first west of Detroit, in the woods about half way between AnnArbor and Ypsilanti in the summer of 1825.  That in
this year the future village and city consisted of but nine
log houses, and eight years later had but 830 inhabitants,
will suggest about what the population may have been in
1826, when this church was organized. As to places of
assembling for worship, the church was migratory, passing
successively from the original school-house to a ball-room
in a hotel at the corner of Main and Huron streets; then to
an unfinished room in Cook's hotel, thence to a frame schoolhouse at the corner of Washington and Fifth streets, and
thence in 1829 to a building erected for the purpose, the
first church building in Ann Arbor. It was on the present
site of the Presbyterian Church, and was at first 25 x 35
feet, to which dimensions was afterward built an addition of
twenty feet. It had no paint outside or within, and only
the first rough coat of plastering, It had a small bell.
A list of the organic membership of the first church
formed in Ann Arbor, may be of interest to some. It is as
follows: Israel Branch, Mary Branch, Simeon Mills, Clarissa
Mills, Bethuel Farrand, Deborah Farrand, Roswell Parsons,
Agnes Parsons, Harriet Parsons, James Allen,Elizabeth Allen,
Richard Lord, Orville Barnes, Temperence Roberts, Ann
Isabella Allen, Phebe Whitmore and Mrs. Monroe.  This list
has three names of the family of John Allen, the founder,
those of his wife, father and mother. He himself accepted


the doctrines first taught by Emanuel Swedenborg.  No one
of the organic members survives.   Of the living Mrs, J. W.
Maynard's membership is supposed to date furtherest back.




:  B ~ 86.
In sketching the church history of the place, I shall:
give a bald statement of the origin of each of those churches
which existed previously to 1844, the year of my settlement
here, and then, at the proper time shall recur to the subject,
sketch the churches of later origin and attempt an appreciative view of the religious influences which have wrought in
the successive stages of growth. I will add here simply a
list of the names of those who served the Presbyterian Church
either in the character of stated supply, or pastor, until
October 1831. Reverend Messrs. William Page and Ira Settibone served as supplies. At this time Rev. John Beach came
on and in February following was installed as pastor of the
church, in which office he remained until February 1838, from
which date until 1843 the church was without a pastor and
was supplied by Revs. Messrs. E. T. Richards, E. E. Gregory,
J.P. Cleveland, D.D., and Ira M. Weed.
XIX. THE METHODIST CHURCH
John Wesley organized an aggressive religious movement
in the church of England, intending that it should remain
within that body. He and those banded with him in the University of Oxford in an attempt to rise to a higher religious
life had been nicknamed Methodists, which name has descended
to the great body now active in all lands as the expansion
of the Oxford clique.  In the year 1735, John Wesley and his
brother Charles embarked with General Oglethorpe, founder of
the Colony of Georgia, for the new world. Bishop Nitsohman
of the Moravian Church, for its numbers the greatest missionary


body of Christendom, was Wesley's fellow-voyager, as were also
many Moravian emigrants.   The piety of these people, and




87.
especially the conversation of the bishop, deeply impressed
the mind of Wesley, and on his return to London he sought out
the Moravian Church there and dates his real conversion from
his meetings with that body. He afterwards visited the
central home of these people in Herrnhut in the Kingdom of
Saxony, and by some changes of his own upon this body as his
model, he completed that form of organization now known as
the Methodist Episcopal Church, which, while it adjusts
itself to old communities and cities, has proved one of the
most efficient of all organic movements in the great Christian body for operations in frontier settlements. The
representatives of this organization reached America just in
time to be among the efficient agencies of our religious
development.
A regular system of itineracy is the feature of Methodism which made it most efficient in new settlements. Rev.
John A Baughman was the first Circuit Rider, as they were
then called, of the Detroit district, who reached this, at
that time, the extreme western settlement. In November, 1825,
he visited the place, was entertained at Mr. Allen's, and
preached each of the successive evenings of his stay..In
1827, Rev. Z. H. Coston, presiding Elder, of the Detroit
district, directed Mr. Baughman, at that time on the Monroe
Circuit. to visit Ann Arbor, and in case it should be found
practicable, to organize a class there, which was accordingly
effected in July of that year. The original body consisted
of Eber White, Harvey Kinney, Hannah B. Brown, Rebecca G.


Brown and Calvin Smith. Accessions continued to be made to
this nucleus, among the most prominent of which were. the




88,
family of Ezra Maynard, patriarch of the large family 0of
that name. Mr. Maynard, who still lived three miles distant,
joined this body the next year after its organization.
Ann Arbor had remained in the Monroe circuit scarcely a year,
when a new circuit, known as the Huron, was formed taking
in this place.
In 1829, Rev. L. B. Gurly was signed to this circuit
and his work for the year prospered. The next year two
men, or boys, as they called themselves, were placed upon
the field; for one, Rev. Henry Colclazer, was but twentyone years of age, the other, Rev. Elijah H. Pilcher, was
about two years younger. Their ministry resulted in considerable accessions to the church. Ann Arbor remained,
until 1835, a part of the Detroit district; in this year it
was made the centre of a new district, Mr. Colclazer in
charge. The most extensive accessions occurred during the
year, 1838, having begun in December of 1837.
Up to this date the meetings were held wherever a place
offered; preparation was now begun for the building of a
church. The structure known as the Unity block, on the
southwest corner of Ann  and Fifth streets, still has in it
the original Methodist Church. An anecdote connected with
its dedication will exemplify a violent controversy, which
once raged from Main to Georgia, and afterward spread itself out with the progress of settlement westward. Mr. Colclazer, the presiding Elder, on his way to the services of
dedication, attended by Bishop Soule, informed the latter


that the choir had been at the pains to make considerable      X
preparation, and among other things had two musical instruments ready for the occasion.   The Bishop turned on his




89.
heel, saying:- "Go on brethern and dedicate your church; I
will have nothing to do with it."   Another man, Rev. Jonathan
A. Chaplin, preached the dedication sermon; but on Sunday
following, the dedication now over, the Bishop preached a
powerful discourse, whether with or without instrucm ntal
music is not reported.   It was afterwards hinted as not quite
consistent in the Bishop that he should so fully approve as
he did the institution of slavery, and refuse his sanction
to that which has formed a part of religious worship ever
since the days of David, King of Israel. The incident is a
reminder of the thousand and one jokes of the controversy
on church music,
An occurrence of the time when Mr. Colclazer was presiding Elder will show a little of the life of the time.
He was to hold his quarterly meeting at a place thirty miles
north of Ann Arbor, which place he reached on Saturday evening & was to be lodged at the house of Mr. Boutwell, His
host conducted him to his quarters, the two climbing a
ladder in a corner of the one lower room. This upper part
of the house, under the rafters, was divided into separate
rooms by suspending sheets, & the host's daughter lodged in
a room thus formed. Now the Elder, though a man of but
about thirty, was bald & wore a wig, an article which had
never been seen in these parts. This he doffed & hung on'a
post of the bed stead. In the morning the host, in order to
call his daughter, ascended the ladder so far that he saw
the wig & knew but one interpretation; the Indians had been


there and scalped the Elder. He shouted "Indians" fMurder'lf
& as the minister, waked by the shout rose to a sitti ng




90.
posture, showing his hairless pate, his conviction was confirmed & his cries of alarm repeated; assured, however, of
the real state of the case, he was quieted, but was so
ashamed that he did not appear at the breakfast-table.#
Scenes, scarcely less ludicrous than this, might be reported in considerable numbers.
There is connected with this event a piece of archeological tradition which may be of interest to the reader. Mrs.
Clark had in her possession as an heirloom a silver tankard
without its cover, this latter having descended in some
other branch of the family. This vessel was used in the
early Eucharistic service of the church. Tradition traces
it from One John Harpin, of the ancestral line, of whom it
further says that he was placed as a boy on board a ship in
France, with instructions to the effect that he was to
receive his education on board, never land in France, and on
the attainment of his majority be placed on shore in America
at such point as he might choose to make his home. The
story suggests a method sometimes resorted to for disposing
of a n inconvenient heir.  The event is most likely to belong
to the reign of Louis XIV. Mr. Harpin became a physician
in Connecticut, from which state this Clark family migrated
westward. The tankard is now in the hands of Mrs. Chapin,
widow of the late Charles Chapin and daughter of James
Kingsley.
The name - St. Andrew's - taken by the church seems to


have been suggested by the fact that one of its members Adrew
#Rev. Lorenzo Davis, Collections of the Michigan Pioneer:    &:
Historical Society IX. 160




91,


Cornish by name, stood well with the people and so the
name of the Apostle Andrew was bestowed upon the church.
Mr. Kingsley used to read sermons to the assembled body.
A young candidate for orders named Huxford read the church
service. Some - Miss Lucy Ann Clark, for instance, on
her marriage to Mr. Kingsley - had the marriage service
read by a layman in addition to the sanctions of a justice
of peace; thus giving the event a more sacramental
character in her mind.
The church edifice was not ready for occupation until
November 18th 1838, at which date it was consecrated by Bishop
McCoskry. Previously, private and school houses, and the
court room had been used for the services. While the first
building was in process of completion, its basement
described by the Rector, Rev. Mr. Marks, as filled with
shavings, boards and brick-bats, was the place of assembly.
The rectors of the parish up to the time of my settlement
in Ann Arbor were Rev. Messrs. Silas W. Freeman, John P.
Bausman, Samuel Marks, Francis H. Cuming, D.D., and Charles
C. Taylor, which last named settled in the place about the
same time with myself.
XXI. THE BAPTIST CHURCH
The records of the Baptist church in Ann Arbor for the
first ten years are lost. The substantial facts, however,
can be given.  The so-called Covenant Meeting, at which
this people are accustomed to make a statement of their
religious condition, with an avowal of their purpose still
to live on together in the bonds of Christian love, began


to be held in the township of Ann Arbor as early as FerNry
1827, and is supposed never to have been intermitted to this




92,
day. The custom is to hold them once a month. The Reverend
Moses Clark, Pastor of the church at Farmington some twenty
miles distant, and said to have preached the first sermons
in both Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, settled on land near what
is now Geddes Station, on the Central Railroad, probably
organized in his own house the meetings referred to, the
same being deemed a branch or mission of the Farmington
church. In June 1828, the members here banded together,
having been dismissed from Farmington, were organized into a
church, the council acting in the matter consisting of
delegates from all the Baptist churches then existing in the
territory - those of Pontiac, Stony Creek, Troy, Farmington
and Detroit.  The meetings at this time were held in Mr.
Clark's barn. Little further is known of this pioneer pastor
beyond the sad fact in his domestic history that on going to
the woods where his eldest son was supposed to be at work,
he found the body of the young man lying crushed under a
log, life already extinct.
The church passed into a new stage in 1832, having been
then transferred to Ann Arbor village. Its meetings were
first held in a school house on the jail lot, which was
bounded northward by Liberty street and lay between Fourth
and Fifth. They removed thence to an upper room over Brown's
block in the Lower Town. In 1832, Daniel B. Brown was
baptized into the church and on the day of his baptism was
elected a deacon, and now survives, this honorable title


still adhering to him. His brother, Anson Brown, whose
enterprise did most to make the Lower Town what it became,
seemed in a fair way to transfer the chief business to thei




93 *


north side of the river, but died of cholera in 1834.  He
already had the post-office. He had indicated the lot he
would give for the church building and thenamount of his own
subscription, but died without having executed the conveyance of the lot, or made his subscription. His executors,
who were his business partners, refused to convey the lot.
But they had a large note about to mature at a bank in
Detroit, Daniel B. Brown was the endorser and refused to
renew his endorsement until the church had their title for
the lot.  So the ground was secured; but the money, which
would have been half enough to put together such a box as
the church entered about the year 1835, they did not obtain.
This was, on the whole, a creditable work, resting as
it did chiefly, if not wholly, on Mr. D. B. Brown. Before
this building was erected the worship had been driven from
the loft of the brick-block and had taken refuge in a
carpenter shop, used every day of the week except Sunday
for its mechanical purpose, and in hours of worship not in a
considion suggestive of religious thought & devotion. The
little structure that grew out of this worthy effort may
still be seen on Wall street in the fifth ward. It is now
a Methodist mission. Its original size may be learned by
conceiving all that extends on either side beyond the bends
in the roof to be lopped off. These additions were made
while it was still the property of the Baptist church.
Of the original members of 1832, Mr. and Mrs. D. B.
Brown alone survive. The pastors of this little flock up


to 1844 - I give them in the order of time - have been Rev.
Messrs. Moses Clark, J.S. Twiss, W. L. Brown, Harvey Miller,
A. A. Guernsey, O. C. Comstock, and   arvin Allen.




i94


Mr. Clark is said to have been the second Baptist
minister who settled in the territory. Mr. Twiss was probably drawn to the place by the settlement here of relatives.
His wife was sister of Mrs. Fuller, the mother-in-law of
Anson Brown, the founder of the Lower Village, and of Judge
Lawrence. Mr. Miller was a man of talents, and after leaving here about 1838, spent the rest of his life as pastor
in Meriden, Ct. where he died about ten years ago. Both
he and Mr. Twiss were men of unbounded wit, and the latter
made free use of this talent against the institution of
slavery. A specimen of his style of illustration may be
instructive. Being present once at a great meeting in
Jackson, his name at intervals in the speaking was often
called by the audience & the call finally became so vociferous that Twiss arose & said:- "Mr. President: I'll not make
a speech, but I'll tell you a story. You know, sir, that
the liberation of the slaves has  been objected to on the
ground that they would inundate the country. Now in the time
of the late war with England, the people on our ncrthern
frontier felt themselves in great danger & had no means of
intelligence except by returning soldiers. A pious old
lady, once seeing one of these passing, ran out to learn
of him the news. His answer to her question was," 'very
bad news, Granny; the British & injuns hev got a great pry
under the edge o' Lake Champlain & are goin' to tip it
over & drownd us all out."'  the old lady hurried back into
the house, put on her bonnet & shawl & set out for the


minister's with the information. This once stated, the pastor replied," 'now, mother, I can prove to you from the::
Bible that there's no danger, for you know the Ird priB ised




95.
Noah that he would never again destroy the earth with the
waters of a flood. "The old lady's decisive reply was,"
'I know all about that, but you know 'taint the Lord; it's
them are 'tarnal British & injuns that's goin' to do it."
The speaker sat down amid deafning applause, leaving his
hearers to make the application.
Mr. Comstock was by profession a physician, but left
this calling for service, first in politics and then in the
pulpit. He served in Congress two terms in the administration of Madison. While a member of the house of represenin Washington
tatives he began to preach and most of his labor thereafter
was in the ministry. He was also Superintendant of Public
Instruction in this state. He was the father of one of
our most esteemed missionaries in India. Mr. Allen was for
a time a highly valued and useful member of the Board of
Regents of the University.
XII. BETHLEHEM (LUTHERAN) CHURCH
In a previous chapter was sketched the settlement in
Ann Arbor of the family of J. Heinrich Mann, father of the
late Emanuel Mann and his still surviving sister, Mr. Hutzel,
from both whom I have received valuable information in
regard to the German people. The elder Mann early wrote to
the Basle.Evangelical Missionary Society for a missionary:
Frederic Schmid was commissioned in the spring of 1833 for
this service, and arrived on the ground in August following.
He held his first public worship on August 26th in a school


house four miles west of the initial village. As early as
November 3d next following Pastor Schmid's arrival, measures
were taken for building a house of worship.  At a mseeting
held on that day, fifteen members were present, aas fotlis:*




6.
J.H. Mann, Geo. Stattmann, Jacob MaerkLe,. Gee. Mayie, Char.
Brusche, Abr. Cromann, Joh. Beck, Jacob Steffle, John M.
Schneider, Jacob Stollsteimer, Johan Cromann, Jesaja
Cromann, Joseph Cromann, D. F. Allmendinger and Frederic
Schmid, the new pastor.  Of these, Messrs. Mann and Allmendinger were chosen as trustees and the work of building was
at once determined upon, for which a lot two miles west of
the site of the Ann Arbor court house was given by Mr.
Allmendinger.
There is often the deepest interest felt in first
religious services. These people, if any of them knew the
English language for business or social purposes, could not
as yet have had the least enjoyment of it as a medium of
religious teaching, and would have felt no unction in listening to its empty words. Nay, these would have but mocked
the deep hunger of their souls for that which they had left
in the Fatherland. We can conceive then how the little
company must have felt when the young pastor discoursed to
them for the first time in the schoolhouse from the words:
"Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is
Jesus Christ."  Of the hymn from Hiller's collection, sung
in harmony with the import of the discourse, I translate a
stanza, imitating the measure and rhymes of the original,
as follows:
"The ground on which I firm will stand,
Is Jesus Christ, God's only Son;
Rise heights, sink depths on either hand,
I cannot from this faith be won;
Called weak, in worldly wisdom's boast,


I'm taught thus by the Holy Ghost."
This was the first German church organized in the
Territory of Michigan.   The house of worship was c pleted




in less than two months, having been dedicated at the end
of December, 1833, the whole cost being $265.32.  This
amount was given partly by friends in Stuttgardt aud others
in Pennsylvania.
Congregations founded near the same time in Detroit
and Monroe, were ministered to in addition to his charge
here, by Pastor Schmid, who performed his earliest journies
thither from Ann Arbor on foot, each place being about
forty miles from his home. It is worth a remark that this
first little house of worship was kept as a kind of historic
memento until 1891, when a photograph of it was taken, that
its form and style might not perish from memory, and the
building itself was destroyed. The cemetery is, however,
kept in good condition and it is well worth a walk in pleasant weather out two miles on the territorial road to see it.
Members of the congregation in the village itself so
increased in numbers that as early as 1840 arrangements
were made for holding a part of the services here, and at
first the use of the Presbyterian church was obtained for
this purpose the service being at hours when the church was
not occupied by its own people, and in 1844, beyond which
time I shall not here carry this sketch, measures were
entered upon for building in the village.
Pastor Schmid, whose term of service was extended to
nearly double the time of any other pastorate in the place,
(38 years) deserves a personal notice. He came hither as
a young man, married here the daughter of Mr. Mann, whose


correspondence with the fatherland had brought him to
Michigan, and raised here a family. His eldest son,     nuel
Schmid, graduated from the University here in 1855, apent




98.
about two years in Germany and has since been and is now
professor of history in the Capitol University in Columbus,
Ohio. A son and a daughter's husband are now among the most
prominent men in Ann Arbor's business.
I must close this chapter by acknowledging my indebtedness to Pastor Neumann of the Bethlehem church for the use
of his Jubilee Adress of 1893.
XXIII. ST. THOMAS (ROMAN CATHOLIC) CHURCH
The great stretch of territory which is now embraced
within the State of Michigan was first occupied by French
Catholics.  The Jesuit Fathers began their work among the
Indians of the Upper Peninsula as early as 1641. It might
be laid down as a general truth, the exceptions to which would
be few, that since the founding of Christianity Christian
missionaries have been the first to transcend the lines which
have separated civilized from savage humanity. About the
stations which they established traders were soon settled
and thus civilization has followed the lead of missions. So
it was in Michigan.  Sault St. Marie, Mackinaw and Detroit
may be taken as the earliest of these stations to develop
into villages, or towns. The class of men known as "courriers
des bois" formed the medium of commercial intercourse between
the towns, or settlements. These trading-posts were scattered along the water-ways and it is worthy of notice that one
of them anticipated by fourteen years the beginning of the
agricultural occupation of Washtenaw county. I refer to the socalled trading-house of Gabriel Godfroy where Ypsilanti now


stands. Godfroy had two partners, Francis Pepin and Ltouis
Shambre, all doubtless Catholics, but having their church
home at Monroe, as probably also the homes of the families




with the exception of the one in charge of the post.  This
house was established in 1809.
The settlement of Irish Catholics in the county began
soon after the founding of Ann Arbor and had its beginning
in the neighboring townships of Northfield and Superior.
Their first organization for worship was in Northfield. It
can be traced from 1830, when a few scattered families
were visited by Rev. Father Kelly, whose ministrations among
them extended to the year 1835. For five years after this
latter date Father Morrissy ministered to the religious
wants of their scattered people, including Ann Arbor, both
of  these priests residing in Northfield, which still
remained their centre.
In 1840 Father Cullen succeeded to the pastoral care
of the scattered flock and labored with more special
reference to a church in Ann Arbor. Previous to the completion of the church edifice in 1843, services were held
wherever places could be found, often in private houses.
For a considerable time an old building on Washington,
between Fourth and Fifth streets, was occupied by them. But
Father Cullen's range of labor was a large one; for his care
was extended over the Catholic people from Ypsilanti to
Kalamazoo, an extent of about one hundred & twenty miles.
It is worthy of remark that the maternal body in
Northfield remained strong enough after the establishment
of separate worship in Ann Arbor to continue its worship


and greatly to enlarge its resources for the purpose.. This
is exceptional. The Baptist church was first formed at
Geddes, but the worship was there abandoned when it was
begun in Ann Arbor. The German Lutherans began in So o,




i00.


but no longer keep up their worship in its old place.
There is now no other church of any denomination so near
the city as the Catholic church in Northfield, and there
a substantial brick edifice has succeeded to the wooden
one of earlier days. This suggests the duty of the various
Christian bodies to establish religious worship and instruction in the farming districts around, which seem to be
falling into increasing neglect of attendance on religious
services.
Father Cullen's services in St. Thomas' Parish extended
from his arrival on the ground in 1840 to his death in
1862. He was buried beneath the church which had been
built under his direction; but the remains were in July,
1892, removed to St. Thomas' Cemetery west of the city, by
Rev. E. D. Kelly, the present pastor.
Father Cullen built also a house which was his own
property and descended to a nephew and niece. The small
space in front of it was finely adorned with trees and
shrubbery. This house stood and still stands on Division
street.  It is the first on the east side of that street
northward of Kingsley; but in the recent widening of Division street, the front yard, with its adornments, was
sacrificed, leaving scarcely room for steps between the
side-walk and the front door of the house.
XXIV. WARS
The world's history is made up largely of accounts of
wars, and the history of a city like this would seem to


fall short of the true historic dignity, if no page of it
were given to the chief subject of the historic muse.   Bor
have I in mind at all in this reference to the war which




101.
attempted and almost effected the rending of our nation in
twain.  This I shall not touch.   It is too well known. Ann
Arbor's part in it has been written out. It forms a subject
by itself.  A chapter of the length of those I have written
not
would suffice to name our citizens who took part in it.
The Cholera War concerned chiefly Washtenaw County.
Its origin was as follows: in 1832 the cholera raged in
Detroit and the legislative council of the state passed an
act permitting the inhabitants of each town or village to
prohibit travelers from entering their precincts. They
might call out the militia to enforce the prohibition.    In
this service a company under Captain Burton was called out
and stationed at Bowen's Tavern, three miles east of
Ypsilanti. The stage coming along with the mail and passengers was stopped there. The driver, not waiting for the
issue of a parley, attempted to force his way forward and
one of his horses was shot down. The horse, how ever, was
gotten up and was found not to have been so hurt as to
prevent the stage from proceeding on its way, which it did
without further molestation, a wholesome fear having arisen
in the minds of some from their having thus stopped the
United States mail. The matter was refered to the proper
department at Washington, the name of Lorenzo Davis, known
for most of his life as a citizen of Ann Arbor, being reported as that of the chief criminal. The department dismissed the case without action. Such is in substance the
published history. There is a traditional supplement:to


it to the effect that the sheriff of the county was at
fault in the matter, which derives support from the fact
that soon after this he was removed and Daniel B Brow




102.
-b:t


of this place was appointed in his stead.
The Black Hawk War never reached Michigan, and yet no
war rumor ever produced here so great a sensation as this.
It was in May, 1832. The report was that the noted chief
with 80,000 men was already at White Pigeon Prairie on his
way towards Detroit, murdering men, women and children as
he moved onward. Regiments were raised, formal military
orders were issued by General John R. Williams, of Detroit,
migrating parties, at the time rushing into the territory,
were stopped and some turned back by the excitement and the
alarm was felt in the streets of Ann Arbor quite as sensibly
as anywhere. A few days brought intelligence of the chief 's
capture in Wisconsin and the sensation died as suddenly as
it had arisen. One Abraham Lincoln was a captain in this
service, and became better known afterwards.
The Toledo War grew out of a dispute between Michigan
and Ohio, regarding the right to a strip of land about seven
miles wide at its eastern extremity, extending westward to
the line of Indiana, and including the city of Toledo.
Michigan had possession, but in 1835 Governor Lucas of Ohio,
laid claim to it and entered upon vigorous measures to
obtain possession, even arranging for holding a court under
Ohio's jurisdiction in Toledo. Mr. Mason, the plucky acting
governor of Michigan, scarcely yet twenty-five years of age,
called out the military forces of the territory to defend
its claim. I need not trace the history, but shall mention
chiefly Ann Arbor's part in the campaign. Morell Goodrich
of this place went out as captain of a company raised here


and in the vicinity. His sketch given in the history of
Washtenaw county tells of no armed conflicts except with




10S3


domestic animals. The stories, of which I have heard
many from actual participants, are chiefly of raids on
gardens, herds and flocks. Besides Captain Goodrich of
the Michigan side, lived long and died in Ann Arbor. Mr,
J. Austin Scott, who held a captain's commission on the
Ohio side and could tell the story admirably. As to the
casualties of the war, the only one which became historic
was that of a horse belonging to one Lewis E. Bailey, who
continued every year to apply to legislature for the value
of the animal until 1846, when the sum of $50, with
interest thereon, was paid him. Besides Captains Goodrich
and Scott of our citizens here, Governor Felch was in this
war, on the staff of Major General Brown, who commanded in
chief & sometimes amuses his guests with accounts of this
his sole warlike adventure.
Congress gave the land to Ohio, influenced doubtless
by fear in an approaching presidential election. The strip
belonged to Michigan by the original act which fixed as
the line a due east and west one from the extreme southerly
point of Lake Michigan to Lake Erie. Ohio's claim made a
jog in this onthe line between Ohio and Indiana. The
Attorney General of the United States gave his opinion in
favor of Michigan's claim, and congress gave to Michigan in
remuneration for its loss that large area now known as the
Upper Peninsula.
The so-called Patriot War of 1837, is the only remaining one of this type to be noticed; nor would this  deserve


notice but that an honored citizen who lived and died here,
General Edward Clark, was wheedled into taking some steps?




104.
towards connecting himself with it.  Its purpose was to
take possession of Canada. One so-called General Sutherland, a Canadian, came to Ann Arbor, as he went to other
places, collected a crowd at the court house, addressed them
in regard to the seizure of Canada and put papers into
General Clark's hands by which he was to receive a commission for the service. General Clark showed these to Governor Mason and received a reply which his piety would not
allow him to repeat. But some went to Canada. Diplomacy
between the two governments finally interposed and the
matter was settled. Several Michigan men were, however,
executed in Canada for their part in the movement and two,
named respectively Thellier and Dodge broke from the prison
in Quebec, crossed the St. Lawrence into Maine and thus
escaped the halter.
XXV. PIONEER MANNERS
It can scarcely be conceived that a rush of people into
the wilderness could proceed without carrying with it a
certain degeneracy of manners. This has, however, in
popular story been exaggerated, of which we have had in the
neighborhood of Ann Arbor one of the most noted instances
found in American literature. It was about the time of
Michigan's admission into the Union of States that one
William Kirkland removed his family into the new settlement
of Pinckney about eighteen miles from Ann Arbor, which was
then the nearest considerable village and the family and


their neighbors were well known here. Mr. Kirkland's purpose, so far as I know, was to build a mill and connect*    X
with it a general mercantile enterprise.   Two or three years




105.
of trail were enough, and the family returned to the east.
But Mrs. Kirkland, writing under the pseudonym of Mary
Clavers, relieved herself of the contents of a volume
entitled:- "A New Home - Who'll follow?"  Its aim was to
set forth the life and manners of her neighbors.  The reader,
if at all acquainted with the pioneer life of these parts,
would know quite well that its pictures were not true; but
he might have been in doubt as to whether the book was a
revengeful Parthian arrow discharged at the community in
the author's retreat, or whether it was only a playful
sketching. She learned that her book had given offense
and in the preface of another work about to be issued under
the title of "Forest Life," she apologizes in these words:"I am sincerely sorry that any one has been persuaded to
regard as unkind what was announced as merely a playful
sketch." I think, too that in the second edition of the
New Home, now before me, some features of the first issue
have been omitted, or greatly softened.
In her descriptions of forest life Mrs. Kirkland, by a
double exaggeration, puts us in a way of a wholesome truth.
She pictures a wealthy, purse-proud New Yorker, whom she
calls Margold, as traveling with his wife and daughter and
taking refuge in a log hut in a shower, and bound to spend
the night there. She makes the man and his daughter arrogant and rude beyond ought that any reader could have
imagined, while the generous dwellers in the hut were doing


all they could to meet the demands of the lordly refugees.
The reader is led to regard the poor cottagers as genteel
compared with those who had forced themselves upon their




106.


hospitality.
The truth is well set forth by a kind of balance between
such exaggerations. True gentility is a matter of the inner
regards and not of mere forms, and its real violations are
as frequent in high as in low life.  At the very time when
Mrs. Kirkland was living her backwoods life at Montacute,
I was spending a college vacation among the log houses of
Michigan and, in entering about a hundred of these in the
course of six weeks, never encountered an instance of the
kind of rudeness which she delights to picture. At the
table, if dishes are near, the guest is bidden help himself,
if distant, they are passed. She, on the contrary, represents a woman in her house service as refusing to be helped
and bluntly crying out, tI don't want none of your waitin'
on." A young school-mistress is pictured as smoking a pipe
and as practicing and defending the rudest kind of manners.
I have seen many an old woman who smoked her pipe, never a
school-mistress who could have been the original of Mrs.
Kirkland's picture. So of all her sketches. They are not
to be taken as true representations of the social life in
which she lived, and what makes them worse is that they
point out, though under fictitious names, the persons for
whom they were drawn.
It must, however, be admitted that frontier settlers
do fran the necessity of the case decline both in the
exterior of social manners and in intelligence. The people
who settled hereabouts were from distances of four hundred


to a thousand miles.  Some came these great distances in
wagons. They often slept in these. They had in many




10f.
instances sold their furniture and brought little with them.
They got used to eating without tables and sleeping with
poor apologies for beds. The want of conveniences after
their arrival on the ground kept up these loose habits. It
naturally enough took some years to get back to the standard
of social life they had left. But during all this time
those feelings of the heart which are the fountains of
manners may have remained unharmed. Much upon this subject
was introduced as incidental matter in my earlier chapters.
Most of the foregoing paragraphs have been occupied
with references to Mrs. Kirkland's books. I venture to add
further here that she was a voluminous writer, having published nine or ten volumes, the last "Personal Memoirs of
George Washington." It will enlighten the reader as to
the difficulty of getting exact information in this class
of matters, if I let him know that Appleton's Cyclopedia
represents the Kirklands as having lived but two and a half
years in Michigan and as having left the state in 1843.
The same article says that "A New Home, Who'll Follow," was
published in 1839, which according to the other statement,
would have been more than two years before the removal of
the family into the state. So evident an error should not
have passed through any village newspaper.   I have made my
account at least consistent. The arrival must have been in
1837 or 1838, the departure in 1839 or '40. Moreover,
Farmer's History of Detroit makes this Kirkland family to


have lived in that city several years before their removal
to Pinckney, Mr. K. being principal of the Female Seminary
in Detroit & then returning thither & residing there where
he and his wife remained as teachers from 1840 to 184.*




108.
It will indicate the character of Mrs. Kirkland's
sketches to add that a lady from Pinckney was once at a
dinner party in a well-known family in Ann Arbor, at which
was also present a prominent gentleman from Detroit. The
lady expressed a desire to see Mrs. K's book that she
might know the character of its references to her.   The
Detroit gentleman promised to look up his copy and send it
to her; but on finding the book, he prudently concluded
to violate his promise and spare her feelings. It may
interest the reader to know that the host of this dinner
party was Governor Felch & the guest Judge Campbell.
XXVI. WILD MEN AND WILD BEASTS
In an earlier chapter an account was given of an
Indian social scene, the characteristic feature of which
was that it was conducted on a prearranged plan. The
arms of the party were hid away, as also the papooses, so
that none were left near who might be hurt, nor any arms
with which the participants could seriously wound each
others Thus prepared they drank their two tin-pails of
whiskey, fell naturally and systematically into a deep sleep
and as systematically recovered, and when the normal condition was fully restored, all were placed again in possession
of their arms and papooses and resumed their journey westward. I have now to add that this scene is not to be
accepted as a normal one of Indian behavior in Ann Arbor
and its neighborhood and to give another side of Indian


character.
These native people in their journies eastward to
receive their annuities often encamped in great nuberes. a^t




109,
this place.  It was about the year 1833 that some thous ands
had their camps for a night near the town, one body on the
north-west, on, or near the Hiscock farm, another to the
south, about where the brick-yard used to be and a third
to the east.  Indeed, the place might have been deemed to
be invested after the manner of an ancient siege and I might
have included an account of the event in my sketch of our
wars, but chose to place it by itself. The people in the
encampments were quiet and civil. They were moving eastward
and had nothing as yet with which to purchase the fire-water,
which might have made them noisy. But some young men and
boys deemed it a fine opportunity to amuse themselves by
frightening the people. Nor were they the worst of boys,
for they seem to have informed their mammas, so that these
might not be terror-stricken, and the mammas too, who gave
their assent and enjoyed the sport, must have had about
the same amount of mischief in them as their sons. But these
youths, masked as Indians and mounted on horses, came riding
with the simulated war-whoop into the village. How well
they enacted the savage we may not know; the alarm was great
among the uninformed. Several who were engaged in this
sport, now no longer boys, are living to tell the story;
but they are not ambitious to have their names and deeds
recorded together in this recital.
It may have been on the return of the same parties
with their annuities paid and whiskey on hand that Daniel
Iiscock and another boy, concealed in the bushes, watched


the progress of an Indian social scene for which no plan of
security had been prearranged and the dce, with dmf
and its usual attendants prevailed far into the night




110.,
The early merchants here had a thriving Indian trade.
Daniel B. Brown was the first who brought on a considerable
stock of goods, which, in his dealings with the natives he
exchanged for furs, cranberries and wild honey, shipping to
the east those articles of the traffic which could command
an eastern market. The trade continued for many years after
other stores of goods had been opened.
In the title of this paper wild beasts have been
associated with wild men. Wolves, deer and bears abounded;
but the settlers were here for the prosecution of the
industries, professions and trade, and I have never known
a man in this vicinity who might have been deemed a professional hunter. Cooper's Novel, entitled the Oak-Openings,
or Bee-Hunter, had its scene laid in Michigan for the year
1812, which was before the migration into the interior began.
The hunting and trapping have been of the amateur class,
and pursued only occasionally as leisure invited. This
kind of hunting has supplied many a tidbit and many a timely
relief to the pioneer in the form of deer, partridge, or
grouse. The wolves were among the torments of our early
settlers. The howls of some hundreds of them by night were
far from pleasantly sonorous to lonely women and children
in the log huts. The wolf made the keeping of sheep difficult. Then, when a crust was formed over a deep snow, wolves
slaughtered the poor deer by scores; for the deer broke
through at every jump, or step, the  wolves ran on the


surface. They seem to have had a system of strategy by
which they could surround and capture this prey. They daid
more than the hunters to exterminate the deer.   This don3e,
they themselves migrated.




There live in Ann Arbor those who knew the days of
these wild beasts and can tell stories of adventures with
them. I note a specimen instance. Dr. Samuel Denton was
an early resident physician here. A bear was seen to pass
near moving to the southeastward. In a light summer suit
and without a hat he mounted a horse and set out in pursuit.
About three miles from this place on the south Ypsilanti
road he found John W. Maynard and another boy engaged in
farm work and inquired of them if they had seen the bear;
on being answered in the affirmative, he exclaimed, with
greatest earnestness: "Why didn't you stop him?" The idea
of trying to stop a bear seemed to the boys quite ridiculous
and the doctor abandoned the chase and rode back in his
dishabille. The adventure is said to have been described
in Harpers' Magazine; but I have not seen it.
XXVII. THE PRESS
My sketches could not be deemed complete without some
notice of the founding in Ann Arbor of the art which has
revolutionized the society of Christendom. But the notice
must treat chiefly of origins, not of each separate enterprise in the printer's art. This is, indeed, a distinction
which has been kept in view throughout this series. The
purpose has been to show how things started and got under
way; not to trace their endless details onward towards the
present time. The first newspaper was issued here November
18th, 1829. It was called "The Western Emigrant" and was


published and edited at first by Thomas Simpson, but passed
after five weeks of existence into the hands of Judge Dexter
who associated with himself Mr. George  orselius; in the




112.
editorial work. Mr. Corselius had been employed on the
Advertiser in Detroit and had the education of the time in
journalistic work.
Since newspapers came into existence a number of an
issue floated down from a past age has offered the best
means of obtaining a stereoscopic view of the condition of
the place of publication for the time of the issue, editorials, communications, selections and advertisements all
being noted for the purpose.
To state the political complexion of the Emigrant
would bring an unknown world before the vast majority of our
people. Few of the present day who have not made a close
study of our political history know that from 1827 to about
1840 there was a political party known as Anti-Masons.   It
grew out of the abduction in 1826 from Canandaigua, New
York, confinement in the Niagara county jail and later
murder of one William Morgan for revealing in a book which
he had in manuscript ready for publication, the secrets of
the Masonic fraternity. The Anti-Masonic party grew so
strong as to carry generally the elections of some states;
Pennsylvania elected its nominee for governor at least once,
and in 1832 Vermont gave its electoral vote to William
Wirt, of Maryland, and Amos Ellmaker, of Pennsylvania, for
president and vice-president of the United States. The
Emigrant, the first, and during its existence under that
name, the only newspaper of Ann Arbor, with Honotrable Sa


uel W. Dexter as its responsible editor, held up the:oaiam
of this party.
It will perhaps not be out of place here to inforn




the reader that Ann Arbor had among its early citizens a
man whom a distinct oral tradition has connected somewhat
intimately with the affair of Morgan.  I will tell the
story by a little diversion into the field of anecdote. It
may illustrate the position of the party of the Emilant.
The late Henry W. Rogers used to beckon me as I passed
to a seat on his veranda (corner of Huron and Division
streets) for a talk. At one time it turned upon the late
William L. Marcy, Secretary of State under President Pearce.
We had both known Mr. Marcy, and I made some reference to
the classic joke about his making the state pay for mending his pantaloons, upon which Mr. Rogers proceeded to
tell me of its origin, as follows:
"The excitement was so great that a western judge
could not be trusted to preside at the trial of the men
implicated in the affair of Morgan, and Marcy was sent on
from Albany. He boarded during the trial at a hotel in
Lockport, and at one time directed the landlord to send a
pair of pantaloons to a tailor for repairs, the expense of
which was charged as an item in his hotel-bill, the whole
passed the auditor's office and was paid, the item for
repairing the garment not having been noticed. When Maroy
was up a few years later for governor, some whig had
fished. up this item for canvassing purposes and in the
little village of Bath, Steuben county, where I then lived,
the whigs had suspended by a cord drawn over the street a


large pair of pantaloons, with a great patch on the part
which, with a man on the bench, would be likely to Wes
through first. I stayed around while the polls were closed




114.
X~ S  4s  W

for dinner and observed a man from the country who was
looking around as though he wished to learn something. He
finally came to me to know" 'who the man was that wore the
patched trowsers.'  "I said to him that's Judge Maoy,
William L. Marcy." 'Well,' "said he," 'I think I'll vote
for a man who wears patched trowsers.' nI suppose"
continued Mr, R. "he thought that one who wore patched
garments would make an economic governor. So you see that
the whigs procured one vote and I think they did a great
many for Mr. Marcy by using the story of the patched
pantaloons in the canvass."
I then said to Mr. R. "You can perhaps see from here
the north side of that old-fashioned red brick house at
the corner of Huron and Fifth streets; 'Yes," "he replied,"
'what of it?' "That house," I replied "was built and
occupied by William R. Thompson, who was sheriff of Niagara
County, N.Y., at the time of Morgan's abduction and was
implicated so far as this that he allowed the abductors
the use of the jail to imprison their victim, which he had
no right to do without judicial action. Although he was
safe from any further proceedings against him, such was the
excitement in western New York, that his desire for personal
comfort brought him to this place."
Mr. Rogers told me at the same time that he himself
was a mason and deemed the institution a good one, but had
no doubt that masons abducted and murdered Morgan, though
not by the action of any lodge.


We had here, then, from 1829 to 1836 one newspaper
oy and that in the interests of the AUti-MasGic party,
and one man who was implicated in the Morgan tragedy.




115.
ft w &:
SL jPV.6


XXVIII. THE PRSS, CONTINUE D
The preceding chapter was occupied with noting the
origin of Journalism in Ann Arbor in the Western    a
reflecting the views of the Anti-Masonic party. What
remains to be observed in regard to this sheet relates to
the manner in which a number of any one of its issues now
picked up reflects the features of the time and place. I
cite only a few illustrative examples.
It is well known to men of meterological science and
to many not in the ranks of any science, that on the night
of November 12th to 13th, 1833, occurred the greatest
meteoric shower on record. Of course some are still living
who witnessed this grand display of heaven's pyroteenics.
The reader may by questioning a considerable number of
those who lived at the time, gather up illustrations of
the effects produced on the minds of those who saw it. Many
looked upon it as the opening scene of the earth's final
conflagration. Inquiry will elicit many a ludicrous
incident connected with this phenomenon. An issue of the
Emigrant for December following the occurrence contains an
extended editorial on the subject, touching not only upon
the display itself, but quoting from Humboldt and Bonplond,
who, in their scientific travels, witnessed a similar,
though less brilliant display. These two men were the most
noted for their general science of any in the latter half
of the 18th century. Their book was not in Ann Arbor until
ten years after the date of the Smigrant's article and


then only in the French language. The writer, either 3utge
Dexter, or Mr. Corselius, must have carefully waited to




116.
gather the information from some eastern journal before
preparing this article. It shows an exemplary care in regard to the matter to be given to the public.   Indeed, the
history of development in this place before it was thought
of as the seat of a university, will show a remarkable
intelligence.
Mr. John P. Davis, author of a recent work on the
Union Pacific Railway (S.C. Griggs & Company Chicago, 1894),
opens his book as follows:- "Though the idea of uniting the
Atlantic & Pacific by a railway, or system of railways, or
connecting railways & waterways, may have occurred to
several minds in different places at about the same time,
& though it was the natural result of industrial & political
conditions, it was probably first given public expression
in the Emigrant, a weekly newspaper published in Ann Arbor,
Michigan (Territory) from November 18, 1829, to December 1,
1834. The writer of the article found in the editorial
columns of number XII. of Volume III,, issued February 6,
1832, is unknown, though it should probably be accredited
to Judge S. W. Dexter, the publisher & one of the editors
of the paper. Under the title of"'Something New,' "the
unknown writer elaborates his proposed scheme in the following paragraphs:" 'The distance between New York & Oregon is
three thousand miles - from New York we could pursue the
most convenient route to the vicinity of Lake Srie, thece
along the south shore of this lake & of Lake Milhigan,


cross the Mississippi between forty-one and fortytwo of
north latitude, cross the Missouri about the mouth of the
Platte & thence on the most convenient route to;the,Roky
Mountains, near the source of the last named river, thenc




17.
to the Oregon, by the valley of the south branch of that
stream, called the southern branch of the Lewis river....
We hope the United States will not object to conducting the
national project.... But if the United States would not do
this.... Congress would not, we presume, object to the
organization of a company & a grant of three millions of
acres for this purpose.'
Mr. Davis sets forth the suggestion of the Emigrant as
the very first one looking towards this great project,
& remarks how nearly the execution has followed theroute
indicated in the editorial referred to.
So it seems that an Ann Arbor paper is to have the
honor of having first set forth clearly the plan of this
great thoroughfare, and I am assured by a letter recently
received from Miss Corselius, now in Santa Rosa, California,
that her father, George Corselius, wrote the articles.
The reader who desires to obtain a stereoscopic view
of Ann Arbor's activities from 1829 to 1834 can do so by
going to the Pioneer-room in the courthouse and inspecting
some numbers of the Emigrant. I name a single subject
from the advertising department. That such men as Daniel
B. Brown and Edward Clark should advertise whiskey for sale
for cash, or in exchange for produce, and Judge Dexter,
himself a Methodist local preacher, should insert their
advertisements in his paper, will show that the temperance
reformation had made no great progress here at that time.


The Emigrant, having passed through several change
of names, was really continued in the tS!te. Uider
this name it was a Whig papr    and was ably edited for ao




118.
length of time by Franklin Sawyer, who became the seconrd
Superintendent of Public Instruction of the state. When
it ceased to be published and what it passed into, would
not be easy in few words to tell.  The  rgusthe oldest
Democratic paper, was started in 1840. Its career is
easily followed; for, throughout its many changes of
publishers and editors, it has retained its name and
political complexion during all the years of its existence*
A paper known as the Local News and Advertiser was started
in 1857. It was obliged to suspend in the time of the war,
and never resumed.
The Courier was started in 1861, as a Republican
journal. There would be no reason in view of the limited
purpose of these sketches for noticing particularly this
paper and the Register beyond naming them and indicating
their general character, but that the greatest contest in
the courts and in the newspaper columns that ever took
place in Ann Arbor, as also the greatest publishing enterprise ever started here, had their origin in connection
with these periodicals. The Courier, having fallen into the
hands of the late Dr. A. W. Chase, aided him in getting
under way his Receipt book, now known as far as the English
language is spoken. He is said to have sold in a few
years about half a million copies, his whole business
making him perhaps the wealthiest man of the time in Ann
Arbor. Becoming, however, somewhat embarrassed in his


finances, he sold out to Mr. R. A. Beal, on a contract not
to resume the same business in Mlohigan while Mr. Beal
should remain in it.  He became discont*ntd; got p a.
second book; not being allowed to pulish here, it was




119.
transfered to Toledo, a company having been formed for the
purpose.  In this the Register has its origin; but at one
time had to suspend publication for more than two years
under an injunction.  Among the incidents of this contest,
was this, that many letters strictly Chase's, went to Beal.
Chase sent a written order to the post-master to deliver to
him all letters addressed to his name and the post-office
department affirmed the order, which, however, placed in
Chase's possession many letters which of right belonged to
Beal. To shorten the story Chase got up a third book,
himself not to be connected with the publishing company.
This book went into the hands of F. B. Dickerson, of Detroit,
who, in order to have a clear field, bought the right to
the second, and now has the world for his field and sends
his books by car-loads, an entire car-load having been
shipped not long since for the English residents in Egypt
alone. In the contests mentioned above,originated the
Register Publishing Company, which has been and is now doing
reputable work in book-printing.
On having the full story of the tilting, which is simply
indicated above, one almost feels himself listening to- a
the
tale of ages of Chivalry. Besides Dr. Chase and Mr. Beal,
Professor Watson, Colonel Dean, B.J. Conrad and A. W.
Hamilton were the heroes of the contest, and I must refer
those who desire to go more fully into the tmtter to those
of these men now living for an hour's entertainment, which


I can promise them will be a rare one.
The Ann Arbor Democrat was started in 1878 by Colonel
J. L. Burleigh, oame later into the possessioan of M.




120.
Henry E. H. Bower and since his death has passed into the
hands of his sister and been creditably kept up. It should
be mentioned that early in the fourth decade of the century
an anti-slavery paper was started in the lower town, now
known as the 5th ward. It bore the name of the Signal of
Liberty. Let it be added also that there are two weekly
papers in the German language in existence in Ann Arbor,
one a combination of the Washtenaw Post and the Hausfreund,
the other, just now established under the name of the Neue
Washtenaw Post. The experiment of a daily paper, to be
shared between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, has been on trial
for a few years past. The paper bears the name of the
Washtenaw Daily Times, and continues to visit the families
of the two cities accordingly to the promise involved in
its name.
XXIX. THE FIRST SCHOOLS
It would almost seem, when one looks back at the first
attempts to establish schools in Ann Arbor, and then considers the progress and final result, as if this had been
the divinely predestined centre of a great scholastic system.
I shall sketch in this paper its rude beginnings.
The corner of Main and Ann sts., the site of Duffy'
store, was the place of the first school-house. It was a
small hollow pile of logs, the sunlight let into its interior through windows of each a single pane of glass of eight
by nine inches, perhaps an intimation that the young


scholastic eyes would not yet bear a stronger light.  It
was fitted out with rude benches for the pupils and a chair
for the teacher. We could not err in assuming that the




121.
benches were of puncheons, or planks, split from the trunk
of a native tree, smoothed a little with an axe, each
supported by two pegs driven into each of its ends.   In
regard to the chair the fancy might range through greater
latitude. A not improbable suggestion would be that it
was a cheap frame of turned rods, with slats instead of
rods for the back, and bottomed with splints of black-ash
from the swamp, or coarse grasses from the marsh. If such
be the chair which our fancy shall supply, we shall still
have to bear in mind that it was not made here but brought
on by sowme settler. And now with the house, thebenches
and the chair present in thought, we are ready to complete
the conception, by seating Miss Monroe, for the family
name is all we know about the first teacher here, in this
chair and the urchins on the benches around her swinging
back & forth their feet which did not reach the floor. A
switch was at that time so universal an instrument in
scholastic work that I think we should fall short of a
complete picture if we did not place one in Miss Monroe's
hand, or at her side.
Those who know ought of beginnings elsewhere canhardly err in conceiving how this school-house and school
originated and how the school in its first stages was
carried on. We have learned that nine log houses formed
in 1825 what was to become the village of Ann Arbor. The
men and boys of these nine houses, or if the school-house


was one of the nine, then those of the eight housAt,turd.
out and built the sobool-house and themselves manoaetured
all its furniture except the chair, and that either be~lot
ed to the sohool-mitres herself, or was a cootribution




122.
of one of the matrons of the place. Perhaps before the
house was begun Miss Monroe was hired at not more than $1.00
per week and her board to teach the school and became for
the time the scholastic  queen of the little community.
Such was so nearly the uniform beginning of our school-work
as to justify the assumption that it so began here, and
the reader is quite safe in conceiving our whole vast
system of public primary schools as having been developed
from just this kind of germs; this was as yet, however, but
a private school.
It is suggested above that the teacher might have
been hired at $1.00 per week; but as we are now considering
the private schools which preceded the school-systems it
may have been otherwise. I will state the systems of New
York and Pennsylvania of the time, and the preponderance
of New York people in the settlement would seem to render
it probable that the practice of that state would form the
model for beginnings here.
The New York law of 1820 provided for the payment from
a certain state fund to each district in which a school
should be kept up for a prescribed number of months of the
year, an amount to be determined by the number of children
between certain ages in the district.  Nothing was paid
to a district which had no school, so that they had to keep
one up in order to obtain the public money. But this paid
only a part of the teacher's waBes. The master or mistreas


kept, therefore, an account of the daily attendance and the
families paid according to the number of days or halfdays that their children were in sohool. At the en of the
y                                     f; f 0  fD;000X0iC 0Sff




i8.
term this account was handed over to the trustees for oolltee
tion and they paid the teacher the stipulated monthly or
weekly wages for the term's labor. In Pennsylvania there
was no school law until perhaps a score of years later.
Neighborhoods had usually a little school-house, but they
had no provision for a school further than that anyone who
sought to teach one might go around and see how many subscribers he could obtain for it at the rate per pupil he
should choose to fix. The subscriber was obliged to pay
the tuition of as many pupils as he had subscribed to send
and also at the same rate for any he should send beyond the
number subscribed.  I have no doubt that the first schools
here were a combination of the systems described above.
In 1826 Miss Harriet G. Parsons, afterwards the wife
of Lorrin Mills, now known to the people of Ann Arbor as
Deacon Mills, kept the school in the place already described
until 1829, when it was removed to a framed school-house
standing on the present site of Zion's Church (Lutheran)
(March 1894).  This was again the same year removed to a
brick school-house on the jail lot, which brings us to the
change of the primary school from a private to a public
enterprise.
XXX. SCHOOL EXPERIENCE
There is no way of ascertaining exactly how the first
schools here were taught. The children in Ann Arbor from
1825 to 1830 were small. Indeed, I feel safe in saying


that there were no large ones in the earliest schools and
that the families here previous to 1830 embraced:no  hilaen
but small ones. The character of the eom    n school-t   hilt6




124.
of the time will, therefore, be best indicated by an account
of some experience in the states whence our settlers came.
In the want of other I give my own.
The first winter school that I remember was taught by
an old man who had held a captain's commission in the war
of the Revolution. He drank daily several quarts of hard
cider and drank something stronger when he could get it.
He believed firmly in the teaching virtue of the rod and
applied it freely, though he had some pets on whom he never
employed it. The cases of two brothers, I shall call them
John and Robert, for these were their names, will serve as
illustrations. I seem yet to hear the master's call: "Come
up, John, and say your letters."  John starts, makes his
bow before he gets quite to the teacher, for he is shy of
going very near. He calls out "A" before he sees the
letter.  The master shouts, "Heh!  You knowed the letter
'fore you see it, did you?" and fits a couple of snug cuts
of the rod to the boy's back. John guesses at another
letter with like results. The two boys did not know the
alphabet at the end of the winter's school. John is long
since dead; I saw Robert five years ago, an intelligent
man, but he got none of his intelligence from the old
master's birch. There was at that time in the vast majority
of the common schools nothing taught but the alphabet,
spelling, reading writing and arithmetic. Both geography
and grammar were unusual.  I went for a little time to a


neighboring district and obtained such knowledge of English
grammar that I was very facile in parsing. I deemed this
a wonderful science; but I had one considerablew philosophic




12.
difficulty about it; I did not know who passed the laws
that regulated the use of the language. I was fond of read,
ing the reports of legislative proceedings in our village
newspaper, but I saw no account of legislation enacting the
laws of grammar. I made some inquiry of others about the
matter, but they did not know, and I merely concluded that
these laws had been made sometime before and had not been
recently subjected to revision.
I developed an early ambition for distinction in the
pedagogic calling and before I had attained to my majority,
had taught two winter schools and might have taught a third
with still six months to spare before I had attained to that
goal, but instead thereof I went away to prepare for college.
My first school was in the lumbering district seven
miles from home. The place had had a good school-house
for three years and in the beginning of each winter school
the big boys had whipped the master, turned him out and
broken up the school. But I had the simplicity of a simpleton, and did not hesitate, boy as I was, to undertake the
task. I never was much in favor of whipping or being
whipped; but early in the winter I lightly whipped a small
boy. It was on a Friday afternoon; towards evening the boy
asked if he might go home, which was permitted and in about
ten minutes he came back, his father with him.. The father
gave me an earnest lecture on school discipline and declared
his intention to state his boy's case to the trustees.  In
a few minutes the school was out and I went home, expecting.


to meet a trustee on Monday morning with a decision of the
matter referred to him for adjudication. %    wa   at tht   -




S26


school-house before me and when I arrived announced his
verdict in terms like these:- "We've considered the case of
Linderman's boy and we all think, if he comes to school
ag'in, you'd better whip him jest a leetle bit harder."
The next case was that of a young man a month or two
older than myself. He violated the order of the school and
I gave him his choice between leaving the school and being
whipped. His prompt reply was:- "I shant do either."   I
deliberated just about a minute, took him by the coat-collar
and brought him to the middle of the floor; but our strength
was too nearly equal to make my victory easy; still I got
him to the door and gave him a push into the open air. But
he did not like to go home. He was disappointed. He had
thought that the big boys would come to his assistance and
that they would close the session as had been done before.
He wandered irresolutely around, sat down in an old saw-mill
and finally came bravely and with steady step back, walked
up to me and said: "I've come back, sir, to take that whippin."
He was thenceforth my best friend and the continuance of the
school was secure.
The next case was that of a young man- who had been
during the winter in a store away from home, and returned
home for the spring work on the farm. Being a little too
early for farm work he came to school for a few days and
soon made it evident that he intended to show the school
that he had not lived a winter in the village without gaining some advance lessons in life.  Some play was going on


under cover of a long writing table, back of which was a
window. I directed the boys to move out one way, the girls
another, in doing which this young man, thinking to make




sport for the school, thrust his head through the sash where
a pane of glass was wanting.  It was a close fit. His
stooping drew his clothes tight over his back. I plied
vigorously my whips he jerked his head, the window rattled,
his ears were roughly scraped by the sash, his younger
brother clapped his hands and shouted "good," the school
had more fun than he really intended to make and his attempt
to commend his attainments in village ways failed of the
expected issue.
The next winter I taught in Pennsylvania, in one of
the oldest and richest farming settlements in the state.
The school-house was a small one of round logs. It stood
under the shadow of a hewn log church, which was finished
off with pews on the ground-floor and with a gallery. The
pulpit was so high that it tired the neck to look up from
the front pews at the minister. The precentor's desk was
tacked on in front of the pulpit and not quite so high.
The old pastor was serving the fiftieth year of his pastorate. The church and school-house stood in a beautiful oak
grove. In connection with them was a cemetery enclosed by
a firm and costly stone wall, the wall having over it a
roof. In this slept the dead of 70 years then past. All
was ante-revolutionary. The people were mostly of Scotch
and German descent.
In this part of Pennsylvania and in this school had
prevailed a practice called "barring out."  The young men -
and I had several older than myself in the school:eachedh


the school-house on Christmas morning, if possible before
the master and barricaded door and windows against his




128.


entrance.  If he resisted, they always boat him, even
carrying him out if he got into the house. They finally
presented him a written treaty of peace and friendship
which he had to subscribe, its terms being in general that
he should treat them with cider and apples, and give them
the week between Christmas and New Year's. It never occurred
to me until nearly twenty years later why it was that first
with me the practice of breaking up the school in the one
place and barring out the master in the other had failed.
The pupils in the first school saw that I had perfect
justice on my side and that I made no show of tyranny, and
they declined to come to the aid of the one big boy who
proposed to rule. I was one with them out of school, and
their master only where duty required it. So in the second
school; I ruled only for the pupils' good, never, like their
old Scotch masters, merely to play the master. Iwhipped
little in my first school, none in the second. The young
men in the school said to each other, "Why should we keep
up this foolish custom with a young man who is one of us
and doing the best he can for us?" I am a convert to the
theory of governing without corporal, or any humiliating
punishment. As to the subjects taught, I had no call for
teaching the grammar or geography I had learned; for
nothing but reading, writing and arithmetic was expected.
There were in the strict sense no school-books, except the
spelling-book. For reading, the pupils brought the New
Testament, Robinson Crusoe, or whatever they happened to


have. So of arithmetics.
These sketches have been introduced because or   people
here came chiefly from New York, Pennsylvania and New




England.  The people of the first district in wich I taught
were all from Vermont and they helped me to a true view of
the sense in which New England is the "Land of Stedy Habitsi"
My teaching was all many years after the first settlement
of Ann Arbor, and I am inclined to think that thse examples
will give us an idea of the point at which Michigan schools
must have begun and will help to set forth in a clearer light
what has since been achieved.
2XXI. OPENING AND PROGRESS OF HIGHER SCHOOLS
The first school in Ann Arbor above the lowest grade
already described was opened in the Goodrich block by
Thomas W. and Moses Merrill, in 1829. It was soon removed
to a brick building standing where Eberbach's drug store
now stands. As to the amount of material for schools to
work upon at that time the reader may judge from the fact
that ten years later there were but 141 children in the
village between the ages of five and fifteen years. It was
not until 1833 that Ann Arbor obtained a village charter.
In the school of the brothers Merrill were taught Latin and
Greek, together with the higher branches of an English
education. It continued but two years, the desired charter
not having been obtained, and the Reverend T. W. Merrill
removed to Kalamazoo, there to engage in similar work. He
finally endowed a professorship in Kalamazoo college, his
gift being $10,000, then thought to be a sufficient eendowment. The professorship bears his name.
When in 1832, the Merrill school was given up, and the


place was not yet advanced to the dignity of a village,
the Reverend 0. C. Thompson, at the tie traveling in the




130.
territory as agent of the American Sunday School Uxion, at:
the request ct citizens, opened an academy in the rude
building already described as the Presbyterian church.
This school was thought to have been the best of its time
in the territory, from all parts of which it attracted
students. In it were taught the ancient languages, the
higher mathematics and the branches of an English education.
The high school in Detroit, established in 1817, as the
germ of a future University, was then in suspension and some
of Mr. Thompson's best pupils were from that city, which
still in 1831 contained only 3,000 people. It is worthy
of note that among the pupils of the Ann Arbor Academy of
1832 were William Woodbridge, a son of William Woodbridge,
afterwards United States Senator and Governor of the State,
Samuel Woodworth and William Ten Euyck, these young men
being of the most prominent families in Detroit. In its
first winter this school numbered 100 pupils.
The academy kept in 1832 by Mr. Thompson soon developed,
or receded, it is difficult to tell which, into the Manual
Labor School, opened on the present site of Mr. Eberbach's
residence, a mile or more from the court house on the south
Ypsilanti road. It was provided in this school that the
pupils might pay by their own labor a part or the whole of
their expenses. Three and a half hours of labor daily, or
two hours and fifty cents cash at the end of each week,
paid a.pupil's way. This form of school with its farm work
continued three years.  It was under the direction of the


Reverend Samuel Hair.
For the foregoing account of Mr. Thmpson's acad 4        y
and its passing into the Manual Labor School, I have the




131.
authority of Mr. Thompson's own admirable paper read before
the old pioneer society in Detroit in January, 1873, and
republished in the Detroit Free Press in May 1894. I am
inclined to think, notwithstanding what Mr. Thompson says,
that the school started in the old academy building erected
in 1835 on the corner of Fourth avenue and William street,
rather than the manual labor institution, was the real
continuation of Mr. Thompson's academy. This wooden building stood there at least until some time in the fifth
decade of the century.
The county history fixes the opening of the Manual
Labor School in 1835, and the same authority makes Luke
Parsons to have opened in 1835, a high school at the corner
of Huron street and Fourth avenue, the site of Cook's
Hotel. This says also that the Misses Page opened at about
the same time a female seminary in the back part of the
Leonard house on Huron street, which this authority says
continued two or three years. I do not personally know
at what date this school was opened; but I know very well
that it was still in a somewhat flourishing condition in
1846-7, so that, if it began in 1835, it was continued for
at least twelve years.
The school in the building now remembered as the Old
Academy was first taught by Mr. and Mrs. Griffin, and was
a fair continuation and perhaps an advance upon that of Mr.
Thompson. In the Lower Town, schools began as inthe Upper.
As early as 1838 Thomas Holmes, now known as Rev. Dr. Holmes


and living in Chelsea, taught a school in the Baptist ehurch
on Wall street.  In the following year this became the




132.
district school, was taught by the same and continued in
in
the winter followingAthe new brick school house on Traver
street.  Later Mrs. Mudge, who afterwards became the wife
of Professor C. K. Adams, now president of Wisconsin State
university, taught the district school of the Lower Town.
The private school of longest continuance and best
known was that of the Misses Clark. The prominent families
of the time remembered it long because they contributed
to the erection of the somewhat imposing edifice which
now stands, a kind of cenotaph of those persistent women,
on Division street, corner of Kingsley.  Miss Mary is
remembered by her visits to all the prominent households
of her time in the place in the interests of her school.
Scientifically she was an authority in botany, and those
who remember her at all, conceive her as heading the
procession of her girls, some of them from other parts, in
botanical explorations. Miss Chloe was the home matron
of the establishment. It died a natural death, the last in
Ann Arbor of its type of schools. The building is now a
tenement house.
XXXII. EARLIEST STEPS TOWARD THE UNIVERSITY
It has already been made clear that Ann Arbor had a
kind of predestination to schools of the higher grades.
How it became the seat of the state university shall appear
in its place. But we should first learn how it came to
pass that we were to have a state university at all.  I


pointed to this in my second chapter.   The justly celebrated
ordtnance of 1787, the real constitution of the northtst
territory, giving to the new oonfederation of statees the
first domain it ever had to govern, contained the gergm o




13$.
a school system, to embrace all grades of schools from the
primary to the university, and to be extended by grants of
land to all the territory which reamined to be formed into
states of the Union. The Reverend Manasseh Cutler, of
Ipswich, Mass., was the chief force in getting up the bill
for this ordinance and urging it through congress.   Its
spirit is condensed in the inscription over the rostrum in
University Hall: -            mReligion morality and knowledge, bein
necessary to good government, schools and the means of
education shall be forever encouraged."   In the ordinance
abundant provision was promised in the form of land-grants
for common schools and universities, and also for religion
and in case of the Ohio colony on the Muskingum the sections
for these purposes were designated; but the promise, so
far as religion is concerned was not kept. Although the
colony on the Muskingum had in it the best material that
the country could supply - Washington testifies to this
effect - its university was a failure. The year 1787 was
too early. Middle-age ideas were not yet extinct.    The
plan was formed for its own time, and in the carrying out
could not be made to fit the rapidly developing character
and thrift of the population.
It is significant, however, that some picked men from
the Ohio colony formed the nucleus around which a government
was to be formed for the territory of Michigan. I have
already in one of the earliest papers of this series


mentioned the names and positions of some of these.   I
repeat several, Lewis Cass, William Woodbridge and the
brothers Austin E. and Warner Wing* all came from the




134.
Muskingum colony in Ohio. These men, with others who came
to their aid, formed a force sufficient to do something
towards repairing in Michigan the mistakes which caused the
failure in Ohio.
The University of Michigan is now in Ann Arbor; it
did not, however, originate here. The reader will doubtless
be interested in going back to the scene and surroundings
of its birth; if so, let him read the following original
legislation:
"AN ACT to establish the Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania.
"Be it enacted b  the Governor and Judges of the
Territory of Michigan, That there shall be in the said Territory a catholepistemiad or university, denominated the
Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania. The Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania, shall be composed
of thirteen didaxum or professorships: First, a didaxis, or
professorship of catholepistemia the didactor or professor
of which shall be president of the institution; second, a
didaxia, or a professorship of anthropoglossica, or literature, embracing all the epistemum or sciences relative to
language; third, a didaxia, or professorship of mathematica
or mathematics; fourth, a didaxia, or professorship of
physiognostica or natural history; fifth, a didaxia, or
professorship of physiosophica or natural philosophy; sixth,
a didaxia, or professorship of astronomia or astronony;


seventh, a didaxia or a professorship of chymia or chemistryi
eighth, a didaxia, or professorship of iatuoa or medieal
sciences; ninth, a didaxia, or profesoorship of o~eeoita
or economical sciences; tenth, a didaxia, or a professorship




135.
of ethica or ethical sciences; eleventh, a didaxia, or
professorship of polemitactica or military sciences;
twelfth, a didaxia, or professorship of degitica or
historical sciences; and thirteen, a didaxia, or professorship of ennoeica or intellectual sciences, embracing all
the epistemum or sciences relative to the minds of animals,
to the human mind, to spiritual existence, to the Deity,
and to religion, the didactor or professor of which shall
be vice-president of the institution. The didactors or
professors shall be appointed and commissioned by the
governor. There shall be paid from the treasury of Michigan, in quarterly payments, to the president of the institution and to each didactor or professor, an annual salary,
to be from time to time ascertained by law. More than one
didaxia or professorship may be conferred upon the same
person. The president and didactors or professors, or a
majority of them assembled, shall have power to regulate
all the concerns of the institution; to enact laws for
that purpose; to sue, to be sued; to acquire, to hold, to
alienate property, real mixed, and personal; to make, to use,
and to alter a seal; to establish colleges, academiest
schools, libraries, museums, athenaeums, botanic gardens,
laboratories, and other useful literary and scientific institutions consonant to the laws of the United States of
America and of Michigan, and to appoint officers, instructors,
and instructrixes in, among, and throughout the various


counties, cities, towns, townships, and other geographical
divisions of Michigan.  Their name and style as a corporation
shall be "The Catholepistemiad or University of Miohigania




To every subordinate instructor and instructrix appointed
by the catholepistemiad or university, there shall be paid
from the treasury of Michigan an annual salary, in quarterly
payments, to be from time to time ascertained by law, The
existing public taxes are hereby increased fifteen per cent.;
and from the proceeds of the present and all future public
taxes, fifteen per cent. are appropriated for the benefit
of the catholepistemiad or university.   The treasurer of
Michigan shall keep a separate account of the university
fund. The catholepistemiad or university may prepare and
draw four successive lotteries, deducting from the prizes in
the same fifteen per cent. for the benefit of the institution.  The proceeds of the preceding sources of revenue, and
of all subsequent, shall be applied, in the first instance,
to the acquisition of suitable lands and building, and books,
libraries and apparatus, and afterward to such purposes as
shall be from time to time by law directed. The honorarium for a course of lectures shall not exceed fifteen
dollars; for classical instruction, ten dollars a quarter.
For ordinary instruction six dollars a quarter. If the
judges of the court of any county, or a majority of them,
shall certify that the parent or guardian of any person has
not adequate means to defray the expense of suitable instruction, and that the same ought to be a public charge, the
honorarium shall be paid from the treasury of Michigan An
annual report of the state, concerns and transactions Cf the


institution shall be laid before the legislative power for
the time being. This law, or any part of it, may be
repealed by the legislative power for the time being. lMah,




137.
Made, adopted, and published from the laws of seven of the
original states - to wit, the states of Connecticut,
Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania,
and Virginia - as far as necessary, and suitable to the
circumstances of Michigan, at Detroit, on Tuesday the 26th
day of August, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight
hundred and seventeen,
"WILLIAM WOODBRIDGE,
"Secretary of Michigan, and at present acting Governor
thereof.                              "A. B. Woodward,
"Presiding Judge of the Supreme Court of the Territory of
Michigan.                             "JOHN GRIFFIN,
"One of the Judges of the Territory of Michigan."
The question of a university had been before discussed.
I have seen in a number of the Detroit Gazette for August
8th, 1817, a stirring editorial paragraph on the subject.
It was in the French language, for at that time this sole
newspaper of the place was printed in the two languages.
In accordance with the legislation given above, the school
was opened, Reverend John Monteith, pastor of the first
Protestant Church of Detroit, held the presidency and seven
of the didaxia, and received for his services $87.50.
Reverend Gabriel Richard, Roman Catholic prelate, held the
other six didaxia and received $75 a year for his labors.
Thus began our university; for the supreme court has decided
that the present university is but a continuation of this


institution.
XXIII. THE ENIDOWMNT GRANTS AND THEIR ADMINISTRATION
The endowment l4nd.grauts will in this paper be touched
upon only in the briefest way that will make the:subjet




138.
intelligible.  Of the earliest forms of the grants, for
they were several times modified, I shall say nothing.   In
making grants to the territory of Michigan, trustees had
either to be appointed to administer them, or else the
administration had to be confided to some existing body of
men. The latter course was taken and the trust was committed
to the trustees of the Catholepistemiad, or, as it was
more usually called, the College of Detroit.
As early as 1823 those who had the administration of
the reservations became satisfied that their trust was not
in the most desirable form, applied to congress for new
legislation and in 1826 a bill was passed giving the territory two entire townships for a seminary of learning, with
permission to choose the land in detached sections. Austin
E. Wing and Dr. Brown were commissioned to select these
lands. At the mouth of Swan Creek, in what is now the city
of Toledo, the committee selected river lots 1,2,7,8,9 and
10, amounting to 916 acres, and accepted the same for two
sections, or 1280 acres.  The selection was confirmed by the
general land office at Washington and the lots, had they
been held a reasonable time would have yielded a million of
dollars to the University fund. But the property was too
tempting a bait to a company of speculators in Toledo, and
a Mr. Oliver, acting for the body, succeeded in persuading
the board of trustees to enter upon a series of exchanges
by which they conveyed all their Toledo lots for other lands


which in the end brought the University #17,000. A million
of dollars at least was lost in this series of transactions.
In 1837 Michigan became one of the Union of  t ates,




139.:%
l~u5Y


and the care of the University lands passed from the
trustees of the college of Detroit to a board of regents
appointed by the Governor and Senate.  Governor Mason was
a young men of twenty-seven years, himself having had no
experience in educational work and he appointed twelve good
men, indeed, but, like himself, inexperienced in the matters
committed to their care and these, together with the judges
of the supreme court and the Governor & Lieutenant Governor,
constituted the administrative power of the unborn university. I shall in this chapter treat only the management
of the land-grant.
By an act approved March 21st, 1837, the superintendent
of public instruction was authorized to sell at auction so
much of the university lands as should amount to the sum
of $500,000, $20 an acre being fixed as the lowest rate at
which any might be sold. The principal might stand for a
number of years, bearing interest at 7 per cent., payable
annually. Or, the money might be loaned to counties, not
more than $15,000 to any one county. The sales made in the
first year averaged $22.85 per acre, and the amount yielded
was $150,447.90. But another kind of legislation soon
followed. The legislature began to act as if it had been
the owner of the lands, rather than the trustee of the
grant. They listened to the applications of purchasers,
reduced the prices of lands which had been sold at public
auction and in April, 1839, went so far as to pass an act
which, had it gone into effect, would have substantially


relinquished all these select lands to actual settlers at
$1.25 an acre. Governor Mason saved the institutiol. by his
veto of this bill.




140.
This loose kind of legislation continued more or
less for about twenty years.  I will out short the account
with the general statement that the result of the action
of the old board of trustees in disposing of the Toledo
lots and of the kind of legislative action hinted above
was to reduce a fund, which by Judicious management would
have exceeded $2,000,000 to a little more than one quarter
of that amount.
XXXIV. ANECDOTAL REVIEW OF THE SOCIAL CONDITION
The word anecdote is perhaps best used of a fresh
illustration of such special pertinency that it will hold
its place in memory as a reminder of a general fact or
principle, which, without an incident to recall it to mind,
would be lost in a vague intellectual chase. An anecdote
is generally supposed to have in it an element of that
kind of surprise which may stir to bodily action anywhere
from the gentle smile to the violent burst of laughter.
By the anecdote, however, I do not mean everything or anything which may produce giggling convulsions, though an
incident which is so put as to summon into recollection a
whole tribe of allied thought, must give the mind that kind
of pleasure which paints itself in smiles or laughter; yet,
this is not what I intend in the introduction of anecdotal
matter. As a genial & schooled zoologist can, from some
single bone of an extinct species of animal, rebuild in
thought that animal entire, so, by his careful selection


of a few incidents, the skilful historic delineator can
supply to the naturally well-endowed reader, the means of
restoring in conception, at least in its bold outline, if




not, indeed, in its filling up, an entire age of the past,
so that it stands out clear in his vision.
It is this principle which imparts so deep an interest
to ballads like that of the "Old Oaken Bucket.* This Ballad
enables the reader to complete around a single beautifully
painted feature of a happy domestic home, all else of
environment that enters into the making up of that home.
By this principle I have been actuated through all my sketches.
The incidents introduced are often, if not always, trivial
in themselves; their value all turns upon their being, or
not being, of such nature that the reader can complete
them into pictures of the periods & sections from which
they have been taken.  With this idea I have described the
school-houses & schools of my boyhood in New York & Pennsylvania. In regard also to one nationality, now become
so significant in our American life, I have endeavored to
aid the reader's conceptions by entering into details of
their transatlantic homes. This was but an attempt to
indicate in brief what has modified our popular life & is
still further to enter largely into our culture and history.
I have endeavored to picture the log hut & the life in and
around it as once illustrated on this spot which has now
become a grand centre of illumination. Perhaps I can best
hint a completion of this picture by refering to the remark
of Reverend Mr. Doddridge, made in his unequaled little
book on the Indian wars & settlement in Western Pennsylvania


& Virginia, now become very rare, in which he says that he
will remember the time when he did not even know that there
ever was any other kind of 4welling than the log houae.
#Notes on the settlement & Indian Wars of the western parts
of Virginia & Pennsylvania from 1763 to 1783 b    Joseh *ie




Recurring now to that great revolution which produeed
& the later events that have preserved & fostered the
religious & political ideas that were to pass the Atlantic
& found our magnificent republic, I can, without speaking
of this as a matter of our too common American boasting,
safely say that the issue is one the like of which had not
before appeared in the march of history. It is equally
clear, too, that this could not have been brought about
but for the series of revolutions which came first to a
successful outburst in Europe in the beginning of the
sixteenth century. The partisans of the old conservative branch
of the Christian church will say that another & a better
form of progress would have been realized under the exclusive control of ideas fostered within that body, & I do not
deem it worth while here to contest this claim; it is,
however, safe to affirm that whatever might have been the
issue of Christianized humanity under one unquestioned
rule, it would have been very different from that which we
have seen wrought out by the contests of the clashing competitive forces. I shall simply regard our little city &
its school as a characteristic product of this competition
& as one the like of which had not appeared before, but
which may yet spring up in the western states, the later
ones having the advantage of an opportunity to improve
upon the model.
The predominant materials for the production of this


result have been the English, Scotoh, Sooteh-,rish, French,
Dutoh, German, Danish, Swedish & Norwegian dissenters from
the Roman Catholic church, mixed up, howver, more aad more




14.
aith those who still adhere to the old body.   With this
mass the native American & African races have been so
intermingled as to vary & complicate the culture process.
Nor should we forget that a considerable Israelitish
element, not dissenters from any form of Christianity, but
representing the germinal ideas & forms of which the Christian system is itself the outgrowth, have entered into the
American fabric. The conservative Church ingredients
which have since been added to the original Protestant
colonists have, indeed, modified the result, but have never
yet become such as to overcome the predominance of those
who had broken away from the old body.
Notable beyond all precedent has been the working of
these forces. In many instances, if indeed, this has not
been the rule, colonists had first fallen back from the
condition of life & intelligence which they or their
ancestors had gained in the old world. If we consider the
want of schools & churches, the contests with forests, wild
beasts & wild men & the diseases engendered by the failure
of needed food, clothing & shelter, our wonder will be
that the people did not decline more than they did & -that
their recovery & rise have been so unexampled. We have
found in the latter part of the 18th century a Christian
minister intelligent enough to write a book of deepest
interest on the events of his time & section, himself
descended from an ancestry that had lived surrounded by


mansions in Europe, if, indeed, they had not occupied such,
& yet he could remember the time when he did not know that
there had ever been other than log houses. The standar
of expenditure upon schools, & other means of intelligence as




also upon food & clothing, has on the average kept pace
with that on the dwelling. If any shall claim that the
purchasing power of money was greater in those days, than
now, I only answer that the opposite is true. I can myself
remember when my father sold his wheat at three New York
shillings, 37J cents per bushel, and paid twenty-five
cents a yard for cotton fabrics which can now be had for
five cents, & in regard to many, if not most, other things
a like ratio of prices prevailed. Nothing except labor,
and that was generally his own, cost less than now. They
simply lived without what are now deemed the necessaries of
life.  Their own flax & wool, spun & woven in the house,
clothed them. The forest, the pig-sty & the field supplied
their tables. If they had no shoes, they went barefoot.
More than one general of the revolution has driven his
oxen to the plow & the cart, after his retirement from
service in the war, clad in the tow frock & troweers, the
material produced & manufactured all by his own family.
Where sharp stones & briars were not in the way, there was
a pleasant coolness felt in the contact of the bare feet
with the freshly turned up earth, & as to the women,.they
moved with greater comfort, their naked feet on their bare
floors & on  the surroundings of their humble domiciles,
than they would have done with imprisoned feet.
It has been little thought of by any age of the past
what an interest a distant posterity might feel in its


habits & so it has come about that these have not been very
fully transmitted in literature. Perhaps the following
incident relating to high life may prove suggestive; it




145.


is, too, quite in the line of the culture scene. I am0
endeavoring to sketch.
Manasseh Cutler, in his diary under date of July 14th,
1787, sketches a visit made while in Philadelphia to the
botanic garden of Mr. Bartram, doubtless the best establishment of its kind in the country.   The Bartram mansion was a
large stone edifice on the Scuylkill, near the city, & had
descended from the great botanist's ancestors. The company
made up for the visit will be indicated by the following
names;- Mr. Strong, Governor Martin, Mr. Mason & his son,
Mr. Williamson, Mr. Madison, Mr. Rutledge & Mr. Hamilton,
all of whom were members of the convention then in session
to form a constitution for our Republic. The reader will
recognize among these names that of the man who is credited
with having done more than any other towards giving our
government its shape, as also those of a future president
& a future chief-justice. Besides these & Dr. Cutler himself, were a Mr. Vaughn & Dr. Clarkson & son. This august
party alighted from their carriages, descended into Mr.
Bartram's garden, which lay spread out between the mansion
& the river, & there, as Dr. Cutler writes, *We found him,
with another man, hoeing in his garden, in a short Jacket
& trowsers & without shoes or stockings.  He at firtst ared
at us & seemed to be somewhat embarrassed at seeing so
large & gay a company, so early in the morning. Dr. Clarkson
was the only person he knew, who introduced me to him, &


informed him that I wished to oonverse with him on botaical
subjects  &, as I lived in one of the   orthern Ste
would probably inform him of tres & plats wic      he had not




148.
yet in his collection, & that the other gentlemen wished:
for the pleasure of a walk in his garden."
A Philadelphia gentleman in short jacket & tow trowsers,
his bare feet in the cool loam of his elegant garden, in
which he vigorously plies his hoe, forms an interesting
single feature in the life of one century ago. In the
afternoon of July 14th, 1787, Mr. Bartram would, no doubt
have been prepared to receive as genteel a company as that
which had called upon him in the morning of that day. He
probably knew his neighbor, Old Ben Franklin & his distich
ascribed to Poor Richard:"He that by the plow would thrive,
Himself must either hold or drive,"
& was practicing upon the lesson.
From the time when the entry cited above was made in
Dr. Cutler's diary to that when it was given to the public,
one hundred & one years, that is, a plump century, elapsed.
No one is living whose personal memory takes in the time;
but there live many whose parents had at that day already
attained to their majority, who afterwards sketched in
homely story at the domestic fireside the family life & its
appurtenances of an hundred years before. From these
stories literature has recovered some fragments of a once
lost treasure &, if we will permit ourselves to be led
through the dwellings of the Atlantic cities, those of thw
thrifty farmers of the old states & the huts of their


posterity, about that time beginning to penetrate the wilderness beyond their western frontiers, we may view a fair
picture of life at this new starti n  point.




Let us first pass through the best class of farm house
in the east & make note of its construction, furnishing &
industries. It may be deemed quite exceptional, if it
knows ought of paint outside, or within, It may be built of
hewn logs, or it may be a frame, & the former is often the
better house. The walls & floors are bare. If the housewife be of the neat & orderly class, floors, doors & window
casings are kept scrubbed with soap & sand, the old-fashioned
splint broom made of a hickory sapling, after having served
its time in a higher use, being used in the process of
scrubbing the floor, while a bundle of rushes gathered from
the lowlands is employed upon doors, windows & wooden vessels,
The habit of going barefoot we shall find conducive to
cleanliness of floors, if not of feet.
As to furniture, we notice first that of the kitchen.
The fire-place is here central. In this swings on hinges
as a gate an iron crane, of a length about equal to the
width of the fire-place. On it hangs by what are called
pothooks, pots, kettles, or a griddle, or several such
articles at once. The crane, for convenience in suspending
these cooking utensils, can be swung out, so as not to hang
over the fire. Other utensils are seen about this centre,
of which the frying-pan is most in use. It has a handle
about three feet long, that the house-wife may hold it
without being scorched by the fierce blaze of the fire.
This handle is sometimes placed upon a chair-slat, or in


the hands of child, while the busy matron slips off to perform some other service.
Let it be a winter morning on which we take this ro,




of observation.  At evening of the preceding day the fuel
for the morning had been brought in. This consisted of a
back-log so heavy that it had to be rolled & took perhaps
two persons to get it through the door, a fore-stick &
some smaller pieces. The log is expected to last several
days, so that this description of the making of a fire
applies to but two or three mornings of the week. The
father or eldest son rises first & builds up & fires the
pile in the fire-place. By the time the matron has risen
& got the cooking well under way, the father & the boys have
come in from their foddering & other care of the stock, &
the girls from milking the cows, for milking by men belongs
to a later epoch in our development, & are in turn washing
& warming themselves to be ready for breakfast. All sit,
or rather stand huddled around this one fire, its blaze
rising fiercely up between the back log and forestick, their
sides towards the fire burning, while chills run over those
turned away. The children are unusually good, if there is
no scuffling for places, & the mother is quite a saint, if
her patience holds out.  The contents of the frying-pan are
sizzling under the forestick - the reader may imagine what
it means to jump out of the frying-pan into the fire - the
griddle is swinging back & forth between the hearth & the
hot blaze, adding to the ever accumulating stock of the
buckwheat cakes. Well, they are seated at the table,
except one of the girls, who is stationed for repairing the


rapid waste of the supply of oakes.
We look further.  The men are away, gone to the woods
to chop wood, or perhaps to hunt, or to the barn to thresh,




!49.This latter work is done with an instrument now un   ^n,
called a flail, the children are away in the log schoolhouse, & there sit, a rousing fire on one side of the house,
those near it scorching, those distant asking, "please,
may I go to the fire?"
But we did not finish our observations in the farmhouse. Let us go back. On    one side of the great chimney
in which we found the fire-place, is the pantry. We shall
find there no tin pans as now. The corresponding vessels
are of wood. A small tub, called a keeler, is the dishpan. In shallow wooden vessels the milk is set away for the
cream to rise. As to plates, a few of them may yet be of
wood, others of pewter; but earthen dishes are already in
use for the table. The recess on the other side of the
fire-place is used for wood. The boys keep it supplied. It
is not in a wood-box, but piled at the chimney-side. As to
furniture the splint-bottomed chair is prominent, the pater
familias himself having woven in the seats of black-ash
splints. Other articles than chairs answer the purpose of
seats, of which the dye-tub sitting at the chimney corner,
is quite uniformly one.
The appearance of the kitchen is not a little varied
by the season of the year. We are now in midwinter.    The
chief article besides the table & chairs is the small
spinning-wheel for the manufacture of linen.   This, in a
well-kept house, is not allowed to run until the breakfast


is out of the way, as it scatters around it a dust from the
flax fibre.  Besides this must be a reel to run the thrad
off the spindles & forM it into skeins.   I   st not forget




the looking-glass that hangs near a window in which lie sr
a comb, the two the common property of the family, each
member using it in turn, having first taken their trns in
the use of the wash-basin, for which they must go outside
the door.
As spring comes on a loom is found put up in one
corner of the kitchen, while the small spinning-wheels are
set out of the way, & the clatter of the weaving takes the
place of their hum, that linen fabrics may be ready for the
summer wear.
In June is another change.  The wool has come from the
carding - machine in rolls, if, indeed, this work is not
done with handcards at home, & the big wheels for woolspinning are brought into play. The loom is not taken down
for summer.  It will soon be needed for woolen fabrics, &,
as to the wool-spinning, the girls can retreat with it into
garrets & barns. The scene is a lively one. They skip on
their bare-feet back & forth as they alternately draw out
& wind up their yarn. In this work, that the fore-finger
of the right-hand may not have to bear too hard a strain,
a wooden peg, called a wheel-boy, is employed, its round
head prevents its slipping from the spokes of the wheel, &
the whole strength of the right arm may be expended upon
it. This little instrument is often the product of the
artistic whittling of the girl's beau. The wool-spinning
has not proceeded far before the clatter of the loom is


again heard that woolen garments may be ready for the retun
of winter.




151.;
If our round through the house were made in a winter
evening we should find a considerable variation in the
domestic scene. We should, indeed, still find the whole
family in the kitchen, for there is no other room for its
usual gathering; but the industrial showing might be quite
another. Though the matron of the establishment might still
be running her wheel, she would be more likely to be employed
in repairing the breaches which the day had made in some
garment of the urchins, or, perhaps, the husband. If the
damaged articles were coats, jackets, or stockings, they
might be taken off & the repairs proceeded with while the
disrobed member remained the gayest of the gay in the
evening circle. Or the damaged garment might be one without which the etiquette of the time would not tolerate one
in the party; if so, the matron's work must wait until the
object of her tender solicitude shall have withdrawn for the
night. We will take note of the rest of the household. As
the family is a thrifty one, all are busy. The wash-tub has
been brought in full of ears of corn. The long pan-handle
which we saw in another use in the morning, has been thrust
through the ears of the tub, there fastened firmly &-the
corn is shelled by drawing the ears forcibly across the
edges of the handle. The cobs are thrown upon the hearth
& the younger children build houses with them, until they
are finally thrown into the fire when they serve the place


of candles. in the use of which articles economy has to be
observed. It is the eldest boy who has in charge the tub
of corn. The father is busy with shaping a scoop-shovel
from a section of a baswood trunk, or a butter-ladle fromi a




beech block, or making a splint broom from a hickory
sapling, or is mending his harness.  As to the literary
entertainment of the group, it consists in accounts of the
day's adventures at school, together with some preparations
for the next day's school-work. The pitcher of cider &
the plate of apples, standing on the hearth, contribute to
the domestic cheer, while the coming in of a neighbor to
sit for the evening does not interrupt the industrial
occupations of the household, but rather adds in stories
of adventure to the good cheer of the circle. But there
may be an hundred variations in the evening's work. It may
be molding rifle-balls for a hunt, in which a child may be
employed in trimming off the necks of the balls caused by
the opening at which the lead was poured in.
The members of the family group are moving in succession
for their night quarters. And here I ought to inform the
reader that in the late autumn, when the weaving of the
woolen fabrics is done, the loom is taken down & a bed takes
its place in the corner of the room. In a trundle-bed
drawn from beneath this two or three of the younger children
are packed away early in the evening. They are where their
parents can attend to them in the night. The larger ones
retire to rooms that have never felt the cheerful glow of
combustion, the boys to the garret where the snow blows in,
banks of it lie near their bed in the morning, & the moisture
of their breath congeals on their eye-brows & in their hair.
Now in looking over my picture I feel an apprehension


that it shows an advance upon the actual oondition of the
better eastern farmers' families of an hundred years ago.




i53.
Indeed, it would not badly fit my father's household of
nearly half a century later & that was the best-ordered one
of its neighborhood in Central New York. The blaze of
the fire, or of cobs, hickory-bark, or pitch-pine knots
made the light by which I have worked out many a hard sum
in Old Daball's Arithmetic; for I never took arithmetic in
the common school, but went through the whole book in the
evening, chiefly by the light of pine-knots which I had
carried tome when returning from the labors of the day.
And here I am reminded of the household process of dipping
candles, long since superceded. I have often helped my
mother in this work. Of the present generation few would
understand the question of the witty Rufus Choate put to
an eccentric Baptist minister, who appeared as a witness in
a suit in which Choate was one of the attornies. The
minister represented himself as the "candle of the Lord,"
upon which the counsel promptly said*- "You are a dipcandle, are you not, sir?"
Two annual visitations in the house ought not to be
omitted in this sketch; I refer to those of the shoemaker
& the tailoress.  Early in the autumn the shoemaker, who
had been a farmer in summer, was domiciled for a week or
two in the farmer's house to fit out the family with shoes.
I have refered to the tailoress as an annual member in the
better families; she might have been called semi-aually;
but the chief work was to make winter clothing for the men


& boys. Women's clothing was usually out by patterns &
made by themselves.




154.
It should not be forgotten that in each house of the
thrifty class of which I have written there was another
room besides the kitchen in which was a fire-plate.   This
was usually known as the spare bed-room, & was used only
for guests, in which character both the shoemaker & tailoress were regarded. For the entertainment of company who
were not to remain over night, the opening & warming of
this apartment was reserved for state occasions on which
some pomp & ceremony were to be exhibited. Otherwise in
winter it was never opened.
As the foregoing pictures set forth the condition of
the best rural households, it remains to hint that of the
lower strata in the rural life of a century ago in the
eastern Middle states. The sketch shall be finished in a
few strokes. The home was a hut of round logs. I take
the fire-place still as the centre of the family life.
The breadth of this was often not limited by jambs. A
lug-pole took the place of the crane & some kind of apology
for jambs supported the ends of the pole. Where the pantry
should have been were several shelves on which was seen
the dull leaden glow of a few pewter plates.   In one-corner
was a bed. Aside from the one room below was a garret
reached by a ladder in one corner of the room.   The floor
was of loose boards, which wabbled & rattled when walked
over. Its light entered from below & around through the
cracks.  It combined, as did the room under it, the


utilities of a place of storage & one of rest & seclusion*
The furniture of this entire structure may be conceived
on the scale indicated in the above picture.




15.*


Lat us stop a moment & see this family at the
breakfast table, though it would make no difference
whether it were breakfast, dinner or supper. They are not
naturally boorish, but are kind & deferential to each
other, though it may seem otherwise, as they can be.
Before them is a platter of fried meat & the dish is brim
full of gravy. Let a stack of buckwheat cakes complete
this bill of fare. Each helps himself to the meat, each
sops his piece of pancake in the common dish, so that the
scene is made up of a succession of passages back & forth
between the gravy-dish & each of the gaping mouths which
surround the table. The scene seems rude; it was, nevertheless, a common one of the ancestry of many who are now
of highest social & intellectual rank & as warm hearts
throbbed under this coarse exterior as now beat in the
bosoms of a more polished posterity. What this family
paid out for its living beyond that which it produced on
its own ground may have amounted to twenty-dollars of good
money a year; the other family, if large, might spend an
hundred.
This review wants now but a paragraph or two & the
purpose shall be to indicate the fashion & spirit of the
first movement from such eastern homes as I have described
to the Valley of the Mississippi, & this has been partly
done. From Virginia & the Carolinas to Kentucky & Tennessee,
the bridle-path, the pack-horse & the moving caravan with
its cattle, women & children walking or riding in trains


of an hundred to six times that number, enter into the
view. The colony led in 1781 in spiritual mattears by




156i


Reverend Lewis Craig, with his organized Chuch, &
marshaled by Captain Ellis, numbered nearly six hundre
& were more than three months on the way, their progress
hindered by Indian hostility.  Reaching their destination,
the Kentucky settlers often lived in houses without floors,
or windows, almost without furniture, alternating between
these rude homes on their own lands & the forst they had
built for their protection against the Indians. They
struggled against this state of things until 1794, one
in every ten falling a prey to savage marauding parties,
& then began the unexampled career which has made the West
what it is. I have already sketched the first New England
Ohio movement of 1787, as also that nearly half a century
later in which was formed the nucleus of our University
Town, & need but recall attention here to these sketches
as marking the opening of our grand educational expansion.
Strong & deep-working religious activities have ever
been the natural precursors of new educational impulses.
It will be found true here. The most marked agitation of
this kind, an expansion of that which attended the preaching tours of Whitefield,was that which had its centre in
Kentucky & began with the year 1801. There it shook not
human minds only, but their physical investments, & became
a widespread & mighty epidemic, the bodily action stronger
& more uncontrollable where ignorance was deepest, as in
Kentucky & Tennessee. In these states the struggles with
savages & forests had paralyzed the efforts at establishing


schools, a monument of which privation may be found in the
great numbers of legal instruments of the time executed by




157
persons who could not write their names.    his agitation
gradually spread all over the country, attended more or leas
everywhere by extreme bodily demonstrations, extending into
the fourth decade of the century & generating wherever it
went new institutions for education.
If we should go back a decade of years beyond the
opening scenes of the Revolution, inform ourselves of the
condition of the people of that age, & then compare this
with the present, we should find greater differences than
had ever before been wrought in any people of any age in
the same length of time. The people were not, indeed, so
distressingly poor as they had become at the close of the
Revolution; but the oldseignorial system prevailed. The
Tudors & Stuarts of England, the Bourbons of Prance, the
Spanish monarchs & even their High Mightinesses of Holland,
had bestowed large grants with rights of lordship over the
tenants who should settle upon their lands. There were of
course the great seigniors with their manor houses. To
these proprietors the tenants had to pay their feudal dues.
There were such lordly establishments as those of Sir William
Johnson & his son Sir John in the Mohawk Valley, & the Van
Rensalaers & Livingstons on the Hudson, & their like might
be mentioned as existing in the Atlantic states south.
These feudal institutions never became quite extinct in
New York until the year 1846, & a conflict in the fifth
decade of our own century is still known as the "Anti-rent


war."  I have myself conversed with men in Ulster County on
the Hudson, who had paid their feudal dues to the lord of
the manor from products of higher value down to a chicken,
a dozen eggs & a few bushels of ashes; Abut in dte eofd s




which took place soon after the war of the Revolution from
the Atlantic states over the Alleghanies to the great valley
of the Mississippi, was conveyed no vestige of the feudal
system. This western movement was but the world's mightiest
demonstration in the great rush for a perfect equality of
rights.
Equality of r ights, I say; for differences of condition
were, from this time forth to be wrought out by personal
exertion, no longer to be expected from royal bounty, True
feudal institutions existed in the Mississippi Valley*
They had been established by France & Spain & it was intended that they should be kept up with all the rigor of the
trans-Atlantic original. But the French nobility seldom
emigrated & nobles had to be created from military officers
& other commoners. To these the feudal tenants had to
render their homage. They came & knelt at the door of the
seigniory, itself a log house, a little larger than the
peasant's own cabin, & there, with head bare & without boots
or spurs, called the name of the seignior, & pledged him
fealty & homage. And yet so poor were often these lords
themselves that their children were running around with no
garments but shirts & their wives & daughters were in the
fields at work.
What remains there were of this old institution in the
posts of French North America which had come into the
possession of the United States, were swallowed up by the


inundating wave which from the close of the Revolution
rolled on to the westward. These French people who had
remained stationary, or had fallen back from the condition
in which they had left France in the weign of Louis XPT




now began to enter into the spirit of the movement which
had overtaken them, &  here began their fusion into the
common mass of the new Republic. When John Allen & Elisha
W. Rumsey drove their rude sledge to the wooded site of
our university city in 1824, the foregoing sketch of rural
domestic life was still true of large parts of New York
& Pennsylvania, & twenty two years were yet to elapse before the last remains of feudalism on the Hudson were to
give way.
XXIV. THE UNIVERSITY INITIAL ACTION
In the improverished & agitated condition reviewed in
the foregoing chapter our western higher school & university movement may be said to have had its rise. Of this
the city & school of which I write is a typical product,
I now return to our scholastic institution.
In the constitutional convention which sat in Detroit
in the spring and summer of 1835 sat among others the
Honorable Isaac E. Crary, of Marshall. He had previously
obtained a copy of a translation of Cousin's report on the
Prussian system of education and, in company with the
Reverend John D. Pierce, in whose family he and his young
wife boarded, had carefully studied it. In this convention
Mr. Crary was made chairman of the committee on education
and reported a provision for an educational system as nearly
like the Prussian as the genius of our government would
permit. He was not only a man of push, but of considerable


sagacity, as his action both in the state conwntion and
in congress will show, for he was the first repesentative
of Michigan as a state in that body.  B*efore leaving to




take his seat in congress, he requested the appointment by
the governor of his friend, Mr. Pierce, to the office of
superintendent of public instruction, which had been created
by the convention and then in congress was the mover in
revolutionizing the system of land-grants for schools. The
first grants for primary schools, those for Ohio, had been
made to the townships, the lands to be held perpetually
and leased. The university lands were also to be held by
the state in like manner. In regard to primary school
lands in Michigan, Mr. Crary introduced into the ordinance
admitting the state into the Union, a provision which
conveyed these lands to the state, to be disposed of as the
legislature should direct and it is supposed also that he
was the author of a like provision in reference to the
university lands. It was the superintendent's duty, as
defined by an act approved July 26th, 1836, to make out an
inventory of the lands and other property reserved for
educational purposes, give in writing his views of their
disposition, and make out a plan for the organization of
a common school and university system. Mr. Pierce's report
on these points was submitted to the legislature in January,
1837, a few days before the admission of Michigan into the
Union and the work of carrying the plan into execution was
rushed onward.
The plan and the hope cherished for its realization
were magnificent and, indeed, looked back upon from the


present time seem quite ridiculous and absurd. The plan
embraced a branch of the university in each county of
the state, and several were established the first year of




161.
Michigan's statehood. As I do not intend to give any
detailed account of these academies, I will close up
my treatment of them right here. Those actually set up,
seven in number, cost the university fund from 1837 to 1846
$35,935, and then the supreme court decided that the
university, as provided for by the congressional grant,
must be a single institution in one place, which decision
put an end to the branches and the high schools in due
time began to rise and take the place thus made vacant,
I now turn to the university proper. The law for its
organization was approved March 18th, 1837. Two days later
the act which located the institution at Ann Arbor was
passed. The Ann Arbor land company first offered five
acres of ground for the purpose. Governor Felch, the lost
survivor of the first state legislature, told Mr. Kingsley,
representative from Ann Arbor, that the offer was ridiculously small and Kingsley came home and returned to the capitol
with one of forty acres, which was accepted and a bill
was passed making this place the site of the institution.
A report has been current, when and how it originated I
know not, that the citizens raised $20,000 and sent this
sum by a committee to be employed in securing the desired
legislation. A further report says that the lobby brought
about the legislation without the aid of the money and
themselves appropriated this to their own use. Mr. 0elch
thinks, and no one has been so well situated to know, that


no money was ever used or raised for the purpose and that
the whole transaction was an honest one.
An anecdote of Mr.    ry may here tae the plaee of




1682.
a more extended notice. He once made a set speech in
Congress, it will make no difference upon what subject,
though I think it was a criticism on some military measure,
to which Thomas Corwin, afterwards Governor of Ohio, replied
with such withering sarcasm as to fix upon our Michigan
orator the nickname of "the late General Crary," said to
have been suggested by John Quincy Adams. Soon after this
scene in the house the passengers in a stage-coach in Ohio
were reviewing the occurrence with no little merriment at
its issue & had all taken part except one man who sat silent
in a corner of the coach. This man, being now asked for
an opinion on the congressional scene, replied that 'he
could authoritatively confirm all he had heard, for he
was himself the late general Crary.' Without attempting
a comparison of the extinguished man with his extinguisher,
it may be said that Mr. Corwin was subject to great variations of mood. Governor Felch, who was a member of the
Senate with him, says that Corwin used to come to his
committee-room when in a fit of depression & express regret
that he ever made a speech. He doubtless felt in the
calmness of after-thought that he had done injustice- to
those against whom he had indulged his sarcasm. As to the
late General Crary, his merit for what he did directly &
what was effected by his securing the appointment of Mr.
Pearce as Superintendant of Public Instruction, ought to
perpetuate his name in the history of education.


The organic law of March 18th, 1857, authorized the
board to procure a plan for building, which, if adopt     by the
regents and approved by the governor & superintendent c
public instruction was to be carried out.    hy    loye4




168,


an architect in New Haven, whose draft of a plan was
accepted by the regents and approved by the governor; but
Mr. Pierce, the superintendent, had the wisdom and
courage to interpose his veto. The buildings would have
cost all that the university fund ever amounted to, and
the state would have had a fine building for a university,
but it would have stood tenantless for want of funds to
carry on the school. An indignation meeting was threatened
in Ann Arbor, but did not take place, and all reflective
men now know that the veto of a poor Presbyterian minister
saved the institution from extinction in embryo.
XXXVI. OPENING OF THE SCHOOL
In pursuance of an act of the legislature approved
April 6th, 1838, a loan of $100,000 was negotiated through
the bank of Michigan for the University, in order that the
preparation for the work of instruction might proceed without delay. Work was going on in the branches that a class
might be ready as soon as possible for the central school.
Building at Ann Arbor was in progress, not on the magnificent scale of the architect's plan, but still on a scale
which the resources of the institution would not bear. The
design was to build twelve houses for professors, four of
which were built at a cost of somewhat over $32,000. Had
the twelve been built, this alone would just about have
exhausted the loan. The two dormitory buildings which now
form the wings of the main edifice were successively put
up, the second, however, not till some years after the


opening of the school. The exact cost is not now in my
mind; I think it was about $35,000.  July 17th, 1838,fi.




164.
Asa Gray was elected Professor of Botany and eZoology, and
being about to sail for Europe, the sum of $6,500 was put
into his hands,$1,500 as his year's salary, $5,000 to
purchase the beginnings of a library. The regents paid
in 1837 $4,000 for Baron Lederer's collection of minerals,
and a few months later $970 for a copy of Audubon's Birds
of America. This was four years before the opening of
the University and with the carrying on of the branches
and a few other expenditures exhausted the loan. In
September, 1841, a freshman class was ready and the central
institution was opened by calling two principals of branches,
Professors Williams and Whiting, to professorships in the
University. These men had received $1,500 a year for their
work in the branches. But such was then already the low
condition of the finances that their salaries were reduced
to $700 and the use of their houses, which were deemed to
be worth $150 each, making $850, just about half of what
had been expected as the average salary of the University
professor.
These two professors were aided by a tutor and, having
during their first year but a single college class were
able to carry on a preparatory school. Indeed, this school
was continued for three years, that is, until the first class
entered senior, and all that up to this time had been required for carrying on the work of an eastern college was in
operation here. Other provisions were early made looking


to the future of the University, the chief of which wer.e
but incidents of the state plan of a geological survey.
A law approved in February, 1837, provided for this ad;




: 16.
Dr. Douglass Houghton, of Detroit, was placed at its head.
The same year Dr. Abram Sager was made chief of the botanical and zoological branches of the survey. The work in
zoology Dr. Sager himself took charge of, while Dr. Wright,
of whose person and work I have little information, had in
charge the work in botany. As the geological survey was
a matter of the state and not of the University, a question
may arise as to the propriety of its introduction in a
sketch of the University. The answer is obvious. The
state legislation provided that complete sets of specimens
collected in this survey should be deposited with the
University, and these, together with the Baron Lederer
collection formed the basis of the extensive provision for
natural history study now in possession of the institution.
Then also, in 1842, Drs. Houghton and Sager were made
professors in the University, to enter upon actual service
when the demand should arise. Dr. Houghton's place was
that of Professor of Chemistry and Geology. Dr. Sager was
to take the place of Dr. Gray, who never entered upon his
work here, but accepted the professorship of botany in
Harvard college. Nor did Dr. Houghton ever enter upFn
service, but when a demand arose for instruction in the
department which had been assigned to him, he furnished a
substitute in the person of his relative, Dr. S. H. Douglass,
who, in 1846, Dr. Houghton having been drowned in Lake
Superior in 1845, was elected to the place.


It being generally thought that Dr. Houghton ftwas
drowned from the Indian canoe now in the University muse*m,
and that this is kept as a memorial of the sad occuranee,




1688
I will in passing correct the impression by observing that
the canoe, now in the museum, was suspended to the beams
in the woodhouse connected with the eastern University
house on the north side of the campus when I took possession
of the premises in September, 1844, somewhat more than a
year before Dr. Houghton's death. It remained there for
about two years because it could not be gotten into the
door of the dormitory building and so turned as to be carried
up stairs. It was finally raised through a window into the
room then occupied as a museum.
The class that entered freshman in 1841, became seniors
in 1844, making further provision for instruction necessary.
At this time I was elected to the Professorship of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy and Dr. Douglass, as indicated
above, was employed to give instruction in the physical
sciences.  The name of Reverend Edward Thompson, of Cincinnati had stood for some time on the catalogue as professor
elect to the chair of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy;
but he never entered upon duty and, when in 1844, he was
required to do so, or resign, he chose the latter alternative
and afterwards was made one of the bishops of the Me-thodist
Episcopal church. Professors Fasquelle and Sager were
earlier under appointment, but neither entered upon duty
until 1846. Thus I have sketched the history of the University up to the time of my own connection with it. It began
with a course quite equal to that of the average eastern


college and men to carry it on; for at that time the great
expansion of the course, which has since taken place, had
scarcely been entered upon in any American intitituon.




187.


XXXVII. ANN ARBOR IN 1844 - 1851
In September, 1844, my family took possession of the
east university house on the north side of the campus.
Professor Williams' family lived in the house next to us.
The two houses on the opposite side were occupied respectively by Professor Whiting and Honorable Alpheus Felch, then
one of the -judges of the supreme court of the state, he
having removed to this place from Monroe in 1843. On the
east side of State street there were no houses; unless it
a
were little one far north on the descent of the ground
towards the river. On the west side of this street there
were a few houses on this street itself, but these marked
the eastern limit of the village. The ground lying
between this street and the old cemetery was untenanted
and untilled, and was known as "the common." A house built
by an official of the University, Patrick Kelly, the
janitor, may be deemed an exception to my remark about the
vacancy of this common. It is not really so. The house
stood on ground which would not for some years be in the
village. It is standing now on North University Avenue and
forms the front of a stuccoed house on the corner of- that
avenue and Twelfth street.
This so-called "common" had been a part of the Rumsey
farm, of which was also the University campus. All had
been under cultivation.  The remains of a peach orchard
still stood in my garden and front yard and yielded us for
several years heavy burdens of fruit of a choice kind.


The first house east of us was on the Fletcher farm,
so-called from Chief-Justice, William A. Fletcher.     It




168.
was still owned at the time of which I write by his monomaniac and divorced wife, who occupied the house alone
so far as human beings were concerned; but she kept in it
her cow and her hay. When several years later it was
taken possession of by authority, money was found sticking
around in its crevices and doubtless delivered to distant
heirs; for she had no children,
The Fletcher farm was bounded westward by the University campus. My earliest recollection of it is of a field
of rye, its extent north and south being the same with
the University grounds. In the joints of its worm fence
grew white and red oak sprouts, which the observing reader
will recognize as the originals of a line of oak trees, which
now adorn the east side of East University Avenue. Some
large oaks which stand directly in the walk on Washtenaw,
between East University avenue and Church street, had a
like origin. The walk has been built around them.
As to the campus itself, the regents allowed Patrick
Kelley to grow two successive crops of wheat upon it, that
it might be brought into an appropriate condition for a college campus. The crops were harvested and marketed -and the
ground remained about as it had been before the first
sowing, so that two crops from thirty acres of ground were
obtained without payment of the stipulated rental.
The place held by Patrick he deemed about equal to that
of a professor and doubtless its emolument, with the wheat


crops and other perquisites, had about that value. He
felt his oats. He read the books of the library. He rang
the bell according to his convenience, rather than by his




169,
clock. If his pipe went out on the way to ring the bell,
he went back and relighted it. If he met any one he always
had some words with him. I remember well the vigor with
which he assailed the administrative labors of Lord
Castlereagh in conversations with me. Soon after my
arrival on the ground, I began to insist that the bell
should be rung by the clock. It was hard work, but was
brought to pass as nearly, perhaps, as old habits have
ever been reformed. A story may be here thrown in which will
have an application all around, that is, to janitor,
students and professors.
We had an arrangement by which the members of the
senior class delivered in turn orations on Friday evenings
at 5 o'clock P.M. before the students assembled for prayers.
At evening prayers I alone of the professors was usually
present. One evening a young man of marked ability for an
undergraduate of that day, or this, was called upon the
platform in his turn, for this was all the concern I had
in the matter, assuming as I must do, that the oration had
passed the ordeal of the professor of rhetoric. The orator,
though young, had been ordained to the Methodist ministry,
which he long afterwards adorned. He was quite at his
ease on the platform. His oration was a eulogy on some
great man whom he did not names As the terms he employed
advanced in eulogistic fervor, or varied in their pictures
of worthy deeds, the hearers would fix the name in concep

tion, General Case, for instance, and then have to change
it for one beyond the limits of Michigan, wonder all the
time increasing as to whose name would finally cae out,
the hearers became ready for an explosion when the orator:




170.
pronounced the following as his last words: "And generations
yet unborn will still arise to pronounce with vene:ation
the name of Patrick Kelley."
The oration, of course, had never been in the hands
of the Professor of Rhetoric and the young man was called
by that professor and received a moderate rebuke; but his
standing in the University remained as ever before. It
was about equivalent to the verdict of the Scotch jury:
not
"Not guilty, but betterAdo it again."
In 1844, as indicated above, there was nothing but the
University buildings and farming lands east of State street,
and building had just begun on the west front of that street.
In what is now the southern part of the city to the northward of Allen's creek was a large brick-yard and the
buildings forming the village lacked yet some distance of
having reached this yard. The populous district, now
forming most of the second ward was then farming land and
the third ward, was the Hiscock's farm. What is now the fifth
ward was then the Lower Town and had a somewhat thrifty
business, the result of Mr. Brown's early effort to transplant the business activity to the north side of the- river.
Lund & McCollum were carrying on a large mercantile establishment there and Sinclair's mill was doing a thriving work.
The Lower Town had then nearly its present extent. The
foregoing description shows how circumscribed was that part
of the village known as the Upper Town. As already


indicated, State street was its eastern limit, Allen's creek
its western, except that two roads, the one now Huron street,
the other Miller avenue, had some houses beyond the indicated
boundary.




171,
To retrace a Sunday morning's walk to church may as
well as ought else indicate an aspect of the village of
that day. My wife and I might have been seen, that is, if
their had been anybody to see us, issuing about 10 o'clook
in the morning from the front door of the eastern house on
the north side of the University square, traversing a path
along the west side of the old cemetery and descending
into the wooded ravine on the eastern side of which now
stand the magnificent hospital buildings. This ravine
threaded, we came to the river road, now known as Fuller
street, pursued it till we came near the only house we were
to encounter until within a few rods of the church - that
is, the Kellogg farm house which still stands at the corner
of Fuller and Observatory streets - there wheeling about to
the left we crossed the river and were soon at the church
on Wall street.
It will be perceived that a moderate ambition was felt
by those who laid out and named the streets of the Lower
Town. The main thoroughfare through the place was called
Broadway. The first street coming into it from the southeast
was Wall street. But the example of the great eastern rival
was not followed in the building of the church.  In the
eastern city Trinity church is built on Broadway at the
head of Wall, so that he who walks up the latter can look
upon its magnificent facade. But our church was on Wall
street itself, so that there was no point of view from which


it displayed any great magnificence.
In our return from church we generally took the way
of Wall and Broadway, so as to have the company of two or




17 8.
of three fellow-pilgrims.  If, however, on crossing the
Lower Town bridge we took the left by way of State street,
we still had to make the whole remainder of the way alone;
so we sometimes came around by way of Detroit and Huron
streets.
On a Sunday afternoon of 1845, or 1846, sitting at my
window, I saw a flock of wild turkeys coming from the
southwest, touching the common near the junction of state
street and north University avenue, move on, keeping their
direction till they passed out of sight in the ravine north
of the old cemetery, having traversed, doubtless, the
entire extent of a line which promises soon to divide the
city into two nearly equal parts. The prairie fowls used
at that time to fly over the town back and forth between
some swamp lands lying on the northwest of the town and the
extensive section of swampy grounds lying to the southeast.
But this class of occurrences were seldom repeated after
the period here refered to. During this period Professor
Williams & I sometimes took our fowling pieces on Saturdays
& went to the woods, which came then very near us, for
partridges, to which I ought to add that I have no recollection of ever having shot one of these birds; but I once
killed one with a stone, which brings out another feature
of the life of the time. We all then kept cows which ran
at large & often strayed to the neighboring forests.   One
Saturday afternoon of vacation, when the student who did


our chores was away, I went to look for the cow, saw a
partridge not distant & running from me, threw a stone and
killed the bird.  On returning home with the game & the




1 73
cow my sister suggested that I would do well always to ta)ke
a stone instead of my gun.
As we are on the subject of sporting I give another
incident of the time. The Reverend Mr. Wilson, Rector
successively of the Episcopal churches in Pontiac & Ypsilanti,
was spending a vacation with Professor Williams, his brotherin-law  & on a hot Saturday  morning called to me to know if
I would drive him with my horse & buggy to Whitmore lake
to fish. We took the drive & fished, not greatly to the
damage of the finny tribes till about four o'clock in the
afternoon, &, as he stood carelessly winding up his line,
tipt over backwards into the water. I picked up his hat
which floated on the water; he was a good swimmer, & as I
sat in the boat on the other side & balanced it, he climbed
back into it. There was no alternative but that he ride
home in this condition & it was long before he heard the
last of the joke about Mr. Ten Brook's having baptized him.
At that time no milkmen distributed their nutritious
fluid in the village. While many citizens kept buggies -
I always kept one myself & a livery-stable accomodated the
public with these vehicles - there was not a hack in the
place; nor was there an undertaker. This state of things is
impressed upon me by one of those apparently trifling
occurrences which are not easily forgotten. We lost an
infant child in October 1848 & Mrs. Volney Chapin sent us
for the occasion of the funeral her carriage, the only


respectable one then in the place.
As to architecture, the good houses of this period,
aside from those on the grounds, might have been couateld: on




174.
the fingers of one hand. The house built by John., Maynard,
in which his family still lives, on Division street, was
there in 1844, as was that also of Robert S. Wilson, corner
of Division and Ann streets, and now owned by Mr. Wahr.
William S. Maynard had a fine place, now a boarding house,
on Main street.  George Miles, afterwards one of the judges
of the supreme court, had built the house on the corner of
Huron and Division streets, and now owned by John Sheehan;
it was built as a one story house and afterwards improved
to its present condition successively by William Sinclair
and Henry W. Rogers.
As to trees, the owners of property had left standing
many of the original bur-oaks, where these were not in the
way of the progress of improvement, and people were beginning
to set out maples and elms. I myself set out in front of
the house occupied by my family two elms and a linden which
are now probably the largest transplanted trees in the city.
The population of Ann Arbor at the time, of which I
here write, was not far from 2,500. In 1851 the place
obtained a city charter, which diminished rather than increased its population, since the Lower Town refused to be
reckoned in the new city.
XXXVIII. THE CHURCHES AGAIN
The rise of those of the churches of Ann Arbor, which
were organized before the year 1844, has already been traced,
with a promise to return to the subject and give some acount


of those of later origin.
The Congregational church was organized in March 1847,
its constituent members numbering forty-eight.   These had




been connected with the Presbyterians.   The oause of separation was chiefly a friction which originated in different
views of the slavery question* The retiring members took
advance views of what should be done towards a removal of
the evil. The new body at once entered upon measures for
building a church edifice. This was of brick, its site at
the corner of Fifth Avenue and Washington street, the court
house having been occupied as a place of worship until the
church was completed. The growth of this body has been steadily progressive. The present stone edifice, corner of State
and William streets, was built in 1876, soon after which
time the original house passed into the possession of Zion's
(Lutheran) church, which had then recently been organized
by a colony from the first Lutheran, or Bethlehem church.
The church has had eleven pastors, whose names follow: E.P.
Ingersoll, L.S. Hobert, William L. Mather, Joseph Estabrook,
George Candee, Samuel Cochrane, E. A. Baldwin, William Smith,
H. L. Hubbell, William H. Ryder and the present pastor,
Rev. J. W. Bradshaw.
The Unitarian church was organized in January 1867, with
Reverend Charles H. Brigham as pastor. About a month after
its organization the property known as the old Methodist
church, corner of Ann street and Fifth avenue, was purchased
by the society, the building was repaired and Mr. Brigham
remained in the pastorate until May 1877, when he resigned
on account of failing health and died in the city of Brooklyn


in 1879. He was a man of extensive learning and wrote much
for the higher periodicals.
In October 1878,  the present pastor, Rev. J. T. SoWderla,




1760.
entered upon his pastorate, soon after which measure were
begun for building the present stone edifice at the corner
of State and Huron streets. There is an active literary club
connected with the church which keeps up its annual course
of lectures much to the instruction and entertainment of
considerable audiences of the people of Ann Arbor.
Zion church. Evangelical Lutheran, was organized in
1875 by a colony from the Bethlehem church. One hundred sixty-.
nine were within a few weeks enrolled as members. As indicated above, the old Congregational church edifice at the
corner of Washington street and Fifth avenue was purchased
for the use of the organization and has remained its place
of assembly until the present year, hen active measures were
entered upon for the erection of a new church, which is now
complete and will rank with the best structures of its kind
in Ann Arbor. It is 65 x 98 feet. The main tower rises to
the height of 145 feet. It has another tower of 75 feet in
height.  It is creditable to the intelligence and skill of
the members of the body that the work, architecture and all,
has been by members of the society, Messrs. Koch Brothers,
Sauer, Sorg and Schuh & Muehlig. Its entire cost has been
about $23,000 contributed all by the members of the church.
The Reverend Max Hein, the pastor and the trustees of the
church deserve credit for this addition to the fine church
edifices of the place. The families connected with this


body number 415, the persons about 1,500.
An English Lutheran church was organized in this eity in
April 1893, Rev. W. L. Tedrow, pastor.  The membership lo




177.
now 70. The warship of this body of Christians was for a
time in Newberry Hall; but is now in the new brick church
52 x 52 feet at the corner of William street and Fifth avenue.
The demand for the founding of this church arises chiefly
from the fact that numbers of people of German descent,
firmly attached to the Augsburg confession, have so far lost
their familiarity with the German language as to prefer the
English in their religious services.   Indeed, the formation
of this body is likely to be followed by a more or less extensive movement in the same direction in this state, several
other places having already followed the example set by Mr.
Tedrow. The church edifice will cost about $10,000 and will
be as ornamental a work as that amount of money could well
produce.
The Church of the Disciples had its origin in 1887, as
an organized movement, in some religious services started
under the lead of a few local members who met in the parlors
of the Congregational church.
The erection of a church edifice was made possible by
three several bequests left by a Mrs. Scott, of Detroit, to
as many societies of this Christian denomination, these
societies all agreeing to appropriate their bequests to the
erection of a church in Ann Arbor.   The state organization
of the denomination raised funds to buy a lot on South
University avenue at a cost of $2,200: the amount of the
bequests was $16,000, with which amount the church was built.


It was completed and dedicated four years ago, the eloquent
Reverend Dr. Tyler, of New York, preaching on the occasion.
The Rev. Mr. Young had previously been engaged as pastor.:




178.
Mr. Young has himself occupied most of his time in soliciting
funds for the endowment of several Bible Chairs in this city,
the incumbent of one of which has usually supplied his
pulpit.
A german Methodist Episcopal church, with small but neat
house of worship on Liberty street, is exerting a good
religious influence within a small circle. Rev. C. Boecklin
is the pastor. This was organized in 1847. It belongs to a
conference distinct from that of the English speaking
Methodist people, its members mostly in Ohio.
There are two churches of people of African descent in
Ann Arbor. As bodies of worshipers these have both existed for
about fifty years, but never until within the last four years
can really be said to have had fixed places of assembly.
The Baptist house was dedicated about four years ago. Its
cost was about 43,500. The lot was purchased by the people
themselves, while they obtained help from other Christians
of the city for the erection of the church edifice. The communicants number 53; the highest attendance is about 125, nearly
the capacity of the house, the average 75. The African Methodist Episcopal church is much the same for numbers and attendance; but their house is not yet completed and about $500
will still be required for its completion. These two churches
are really doing a more creditable work for their people than
the other churches of the city. There are scarcely 500 in
all, men, women and children, in the city of African dseent.


The churches afford room for them all and sometimes have nearly
all in attendance. The pastor of the Baptist church is
Reverend Mr. Moore, of the Methodist, Reveren d Mr.  olt      L~




f179
XXXIX. MORAL AND RELIGIOUS INLUNE OF TH       C
The point of greatest moment in regard to any institution, be it ecclesiastical, scholastic or whatever else
affecting civic life, is that of the moral force which it
brings to bear upon the people, and this is the more
difficult to estimate to the satisfaction of readers, in
its application to churches especially, as few know ought
of places quite destitute of these, with which to make
comparisons. Savage and pagan life is distant and known to
most of us only through literature. Places where church
influence is feeble are common enough, as also places where
it is strong, but has relatively strong counter attractions
to hold its way against, all which complicate the difficulties of the estimate here proposed. Ann Arbor offers one
of the best illustrations of what I mean by counterattractions, and this has been so ever since the place was
a village of two thousand people. Nor by counter-attractions, do I mean influences really adverse to sound religious
teaching; I have reference rather to the indefinitely
multiplied entertainments, be they lectures on scientific
or social topics, social amusements, locally gotten'up, or
brought hither by some intinerant troupe. Some of these
may be in themselves good, others at worst simply neutral
and bad only as shutting out something better, while still
others are positively bad, as generating a love for mere
amusement and filling the mind with pictures which render


sound religious teaching distasteful. Against these influences, which naturally rush to university tows, the
ministry of this place has ever had to contend. How they




have acted and how well succeeded, my be briefly indicated.
There are three attitudes which the churches of a place,
as represented by their ministry, may assume towards each
other:
1. That of mutual hostility, illustrating itself in
polemic discourses on points wherein they differ. In disruptive movements, like that which broke out so violently in
the sixteenth century, religious polemics become inevitable
and so are really natural and this state of polemic agitation
will continue until the elements shall have become separately agregated and organized according their affinities.   So
far it is necessary, and indeed wholesome. This state of
things existed of course when our country was new, whether
as a whole, or in its several sections. Settlers were then
rushing in, their ecclesiastical preferences had either not
been formed, or were unknown to others, and conflict was
unavo i dable.
2. The several churches of a place may without hostile
feeling simply ignore each other in the prosecution of their
religious work. This may occur even without intention and
from causes which do not admit of easy control. We have in
this city a note-worthy illustration. Our population has
a large German element, originally separated from a majority
of the community by the impassible gulf which lies between
two peoples whose languages are foreign to each other. People


seldom appreciate the formidableness of this obstacle to
religious intercourse.   A foreigner soon acquires such
knowledge of the language of those around him as to tderstand and employ the current terms of the streets and the




181.
shop and yet may receive no distinct impression froa a plain
sermon or even from a personal conversation on a religious
topic, if this shall be carried on in any language other
than that in which religious thought had been previously
conveyed to him. This, without the aid of any hostile feeling, has proved an obstacle to religious co-operation between the Christian churches and pastors of the place and
the fault, so far as it is a fault, belongs quite as much to
the English speaking as to the German element. If a German
family, knowing no English, has settled next to one which
knows no German, attempts at social intercourse between the
two prove very unsatisfactory, & of course are not continued,
even if begun, and so the German speaking settlers have
naturally restricted their social relations to their own
people; and when they have become familiar with our language,
we do not take measures to extend our social relations among
them. To do this would in time lead to cordial co-operation
in moral and religious enterprises in which these elements
now stand apart.
A difference of views as to what constitutes a scripturally organized Christian church has led to what I have
called an ignoring of each other by the various religious
denominations.  The Roman Catholics and Protestant Episcopalians do not of course acknowledge the other churches to be
truly organized.  But this has not, so far as I know, led
to any religious polemics.


3. The remaining attitude indicated of the Chrittian
denominations towards each other is that of cordial co0*
operation in the grand framewort of religious Strut. Tis




188.
has been very remarkable in the history of Ainn Arbor.  Bavi
settled in the place in 1844, and having been here most of;
the time since, I have never yet heard here a controversial
sermon. When ministers have held forth the tenets in which
they differ from others, they have generally done this
without attacking those who held other views. Indeed, it
seems quite absurd that any one who has a great truth to
teach should give much time to teaching that something else
is not true. If something is really proved to be true, then
all that is contradictory to it is false and will fall if
the truth is established.
To illustrate historically, I well remember a series
of revival meetings held in the Presbyterian church in the
winter, as I think, of 1845, attended indiscriminately by
people of all religious affiliations. The converts of these
meetings were distributed generally through the churches,
some, as I remember  very well, uniting with St. Andrew's
church, whose members took no part in the meetings,
In the days of heated religious controversy the terms
odium theologicum were invented to indicate this overheated
zeal. The words could never have been properly used of
pastors or people in this place. We could here more properly
say odium medicum; for at one time so heated was the srife
between the two schools of medicine as to threaten the disruption of the medical department of the University. When
measures were taken to establish a school of homoeopathy


in the institution, all the old professors wrote their
resignations; the matter has not been fougt out yet, and li
the mean time the people are paying taxes t    support rimi




183.
schools.  So in general, Christians are growing into harmonious co-operation, while endless debates and irreconcilable
differences are left to scientific conventions.
The Christian ministry in Ann Arbor have generally been
able, and have worked well towards the solution of the
difficult problem which the complex life of the place offers.
It is to be hoped that they, in co-operation with their
churches, will gradually bring about some such state of
things as Mr. Stead has pictured under the name of the "civic
church;" that is, that while the churches shall retain their
present organic independence, they shall combine and organize as a moral force, drawing into this organization all
those who are with them in the great moral questions and
still do not identify themselves with any of the churches.
Only by some such combination can those great moral movements, which are the common desire of all good citizens, be
carried on successfully.
It is as well here as anywhere to observe that there
was throughout the country a general distrust of higher
educational institutions controlled by the state.   Indeed,
the acts of legislature & regents which I have already noted
would seem to justify this feeling. It was shared by Professors & Regents. Some expressed freely their apprehensions,
The late Professor Fasquelle, no longer ago than 1857, advised
a friend who was about to purchase land east of the University
campus, which he could have obtained for a small advance upon


its value for farming purposes, not to buy there  for the
institution, he said, could last but a few years. He averred
that he accepted his professorship only with the hope of




184.
holding it as long as he should need it, for he was already
past middle life, & his friend accordingly bought west of
the city & his property would now sell for little more than
it cost him, while that which he had thought of buying
would have returned him twenty fold upon his investment.
Two deeply seated practical objections also existed among
the people to the imagined university. It would, said the
mass of the farmers & other laborers, produce & nourish a
great aristocracy; while others, more advanced in methods
of thinking, especially in religious & political questions,
feared that professors would never be able to express themselves freely, but would always be hampered in their teaching by the popular will. All these things made the outlook
dreary, & the competition in the work of higher learning
between institutions supported by the states, & those endowed by our great millionaires & placed under some general
religious control, is still likely to remain for a time
unsettled.
XL. THE SECRET SOCIETY WAR IN THE UNIVERSITY
The history of the University has been touched upon
but slightly in these sketches. The policy of congressional
land-grants for education, a particular view of that to the
territory of Michigan for a University, with an account of
its administration and especially of the losses by reckless
management, have been passed briefly in review, as also the
early struggles in the work of instruction. Indeed, there


is nothing in the course of development of an educational
institution for history to lay hold of when it is moving
quietly on in its work; exeept in periods of conflict ^eah




day, or week, or month, or year, is like the next before or:
next after it.  I shall, therefore, in addition to the
accounts already given of original work, only sketch two
or three of the conflicts through which the institution has
passed, and
1. The Secre-t Society War.  This conflict, occurring as
it did, so near the opening of the college work, may justly
be deemed one of the threatening struggles of the institution.
I shall sketch it as briefly as can be intelligibly done.
Before the central school at Ann Arbor was started, Professor
Williams, of the Pontiac Branch, was instructed by the Board
of Regents to prepare a code of laws for the institution
soon to be opened. This code contained a provision in these
words:- "No student shall be or become a member of any
society connected with the University, or consisting of
students, which has not first submitted its constitution
to the faculty and received their approbation." Such law
existed at the time in all the colleges of the country. It
did not contemplate secret societies. The author of the
above provision did not probably at the time know of the
existence of such. It had reference to those organizations
for literary purposes then known in all our colleges. Nor
did the faculty of this period ever take any action against
secret societies as such. It was a mere accident that the
first conflict in the application of this law was brought on
by the discovery that such societies existed in the lniir

sity.  The faculty was not even in pursuit of transressr
of the law.   The two literary societies, the Alpha Nu a
Phi Phi Alpha were in conflict and unable to settle the




186.
points at issue, requested the faculty to act as arbitrators
between them. It was when we sat on this dispute that we
found our way obstructed by the refusal of certain students
to testify, on the ground that they were pledged to secrecy.
It was thus, while the faculty were voluntarily serving the
students, not prosecuting them as culprits, that the existence
of chapters of the affiliated secret societies in the
University was discovered.
I will quite throw off the mask of impersonality and
employ the first person singular, as also to some extent the
personal names of others.  I was myself the executive, or
president of the faculty during this crisis. I wrote with
the concurrence of the faculty to the presidents of the
principal colleges of the country for information which might
aid our decision. I have published in an appendix to my
American State Universities the answers of six, all that I
received, whether all to whom I wrote I cannot with certainty
affirm, although I cannot doubt that I wrote to President
Wayland, of Brown. The answers all have one ring; these
men all encouraged us to act as we finally in effect did act,
and they all seemed to us to imply that they had done the
same thing, while President Carnahan, of Princeton, distinctly informed us that one of these societies had made its
appearance at Princeton, but had been dissolved at the
demand of the faculty and that none existed at the time of
his writing. Our action was this; we required the members


of these societies in the University to pledge themselves
to receive no more into their chapters, while new students
were required to pledge themselves not to Join. Bot h readi
acceded to what was required and we all thought and I tbti




187.
now that they honestly intended to keep their pledges,   But
they found out something that we did not know; they ascertained that their societies had a thriving secret existence
in colleges whose officers supposed they had extinguished
them. One of the young men told me afterwards that he knew
of their existence at Princeton, where President Carnahan
was so confident that they had been exterminated.
Correspondence with their brothers in other institutions
supplied our students with pretexts on which members were
received just as if no pledges had been given. I shall
state one of these only as an example. One of the societies
claimed that by receiving two or three members who were not
students in the University and by holding their meetings
elsewhere than on the college grounds they had freed themselves from the demands of the law. Others had other evasions. It was in the month of December. The custom then
existed of having public declamations by students on the
last evening before the holiday vacation.   The students were
informed that those who did not intend to renounce their
connection with the unauthorized societies need not return
with the expectation of being permitted to pursue their
studies in the University. There was an unquiet air about
the exercises of the evening, these being.at the Presbyterian church, and as they closed the disquiet took on storm
violence. No class, or college, yells had then been devised
and so each yelled his own tune and on his own key, and


made that otherwise still December night one that will yet
be remembered by many.
I was kept up that night by sickness in my famtily.    It




!88.
was about midnight that a light suddenly flashed against a
window of my house opening on the campus.  I slipped
out and went to where it started. An armful of pine
shavings had been thrown into a temporary outhouse and
set on fire. I easily put them out and returned home.
But in the course of half an hour the flame was rekindled
and in obedience to an earnest voice from the sick bed
near which I sat, I kept my seat at a window, watched
the flames rising in the temporary sheds of pine boards
until every tree and shrub - for there were then on the
campus only a few bur-oaks which had been left in the
clearing - was visible and the light towards morning
gradually died down as it had gradually risen.
The students mostly returned to their studies,
their membership in the unauthorized societies renounced,
doubtless with their own mental reservations; but there
were a few, perhaps half a dozen, under the lead chiefly
of one who had built himself a board shanty on the margin
of the wood which now forms our beautiful cemetery, who
had other thoughts. This   shanty formed the headquarters
of those of a certain tendency. They determined to
carry the matter to the legislature. One William Finley,
best remembered perhaps as the tallest man that ever
lived in Ann Arbor, his stature being six feet seven
inches, was elected to the senate. The Honorable George
Sedgwick, one of the most prominent lawyers of Ann Arbor,


the man who afterwards obtained for the city its
charter and served as its first mayor, was our member in
the house. Finley became the champion of the disaffeted




189.
students, and the earnest preciptation with which hea
set out in his work and the kind of msasures employed
wrought his defeat. I will here indicate his resources.
December 29th, 1849, Major Kearsley, chairman
of the executive committee of the board, addressed a
note to the faculty requesting a detailed statement
of the occurrences which, had led to the faculty's
action. A draft of this statement lay on the table of
my study, which being for the time the executive room,
was well known to the students and some one entered
the room, we know not when, probably by night, and
carried off this draft. In places where this was not
bad enough to suit those who had it in possession, they
employed a little delicate forgery to fit it to their
purposes. It was published as a legislative document.
In the mean time Senator Finley was getting up a
revolutionary bill, to inaugurate a new start in the
enterprize of higher education. He sought no information
from the faculty of the University and I think never
saw one of its members. He was equally oblivious of
the board, except two members, who stood against seventeen others and one of the two deserted his colleague
before the end of the campaign. Seventeen, I say, but
only twelve of these were present at the special meeting;
the remaining five would have voted with them had they
been in attendance.


The meeting of the board refered to above was held
in Detroit, January 10th, 1850. The proae was to act
upon the repot which had been cald ftor from the




190,
faculty.  Other action was taken besides that on the
report; first was a motion that a statement of the
aggrieved students be also published with the report.
This motion obtained no second. These students had
already carried their statement to the legislature &
there seemed to be no reason for offering them an
opportunity to make another.  Then followed a motion
that the rule under which the faculty had acted be
suspended.  The vote on this motion stood two yeas
to twelve nays. Then followed a motion for a committee
of seven to visit the University and obtain information.
Chief Justice Whipple was head of this committee. The
board was unanimous on the resolution and the appointment under it. The chairman and several of the
committee visited the University, saw the faculty and
also the aggrieved students, any statements from whom
they offered to publish. The report fully sustained the
faculty's action, although one of the two members -
Judge Witherell - who voted for the suspension of the
rule, was on the committee; he too, agreed to its
repor t
There was, indeed, a minority report, made however,
not to weaken, but to strengthen that of the majority,
It was by Mr. Redfield, and was in effect that he had
originally been opposed to the rule, but now doubte&
the correctness of his former opinion on that point.


And in regard to the action cC the faculty, h thought
they had "manifested great wisdom and prudence, as w:ll
as great kindness and forbearance toards the offei
students.*::;:




191.
The Regents did not send the faculty's report to Lansing,
but returned it to me, and it remained in my hands for
examination by the students, that they might make what statements they should choose to be sent with it to Lansing.
Three several statements were made, one signed by seven
young men who had been affected by the disciplinary action
of the faculty and had returned to the University; one by
five professing to act as a committee of the students, these
both speaking in high terms of the personal characters of
the professors; but claiming that no board had a right to
enact a rule so abridging the natural rights of students,
and that no faculty had a right to execute such a law.
They admitted that this rule existed, though as but a dead
letter, in all other institutions.  They expressed themselves as strongly in favor of the Finley bill.
The third statement - all three were in the form of
memorials addressed to the legislature - closed with these
words:- "Your memoralists beg leave further to state that
we believe that the measures which have been taken to
influence your honorable body to take such action as is now
contemplated, have been prompted by a vindictive spirit
towards our faculty and the board of regents; that we
believe if the matter were left to take its own course,
without legislative interference, it will soon be amicably
settled; that as the students, who have been conditionally
expelled, are returning under the condition offered them


by the faculty, we think that the only thing in the way of
a speedy adiustment a     e   o   affair to the honor and
sati#faction of all who are rightfully  onctrnd,    s th
robability that now exists of legislatiye intr^efrenoe.#




192*


These italics belong to the original.
The papers refered to in this sketch were all published
as legislative documents. A letter from Professor Whe
to Senator Webb also appeared as a legislative document.
It answered a rumor that the number of students was diminishing, which rumor was not strictly true, though the number
was for a time diminished by the absence of those who
remained away in order to prove the truth of their report.
And then there was a cause which should very naturally have
had this effect; for the branches of the University had been
suspended and no schools had as yet arisen to take their
place in preparing young men for college.
The last papers sent on to Lansing did not diminish
the bluster; I shall not follow it; but it gradually became
artificial and strained, and in the spring, some weeks before
the close of the session, a letter from Mr. Sedgwick to the
president of the faculty informed us that Finley himself
showed evident signs of being sick of his undertaking and
that he would be glad of some pretext for its discontinuance.
And this was the more satisfactory because all Mr. Sedgwick's
earlier letters had been very desponding.
The trick of the so-called "original report" had much
to do with the turn of the tide. Messrs. Webb and Sedgwick
both wrote me that the matter of the "original report" was
understood at the capitol. They doubtless thought so. But
that original report, as it stands in the senate docmeants,
is but a travesty of the one taken from my table. I had


taken and laid away a copy before the original was stolen
and    ow original and my own Vcopy I am sure  arie4 but
slightly.




1lO.


XLI PRESIDENT TAPPAN
Henry P. Tappan entered upon duty as executive head
of the University of Michigan in 1852, and retired in circumstances, which caused intense agitation, in 1863. Perhaps
the time may well be deemed to have come when one who had
no connection with the institution at the time, was without
prejudice for or against the man, and yet was fully cognizant
of all the fact, may calmly indicate his view of the merits
of the issue between the President and the board.
Several facts combined to give the institution a new
impulse about the time of Mr. Tappan's entrance upon his
duties as president. The fact that the University now had
a head was in itself something. The people knew nothing
of him; but naturally and justly assumed that he was worthy
of the place. He had written several books; but there were
lying unread and unknown on booksellers' shelves until his
election to his new position called attention to them and
the public judgment of them was on the whole favorable. He
had a magnificent presence and address, which together made
a much stronger impression than his books, or any account
of him from abroad. It was, indeed, known that he had been
obliged to retire from his professorship in the University
of New York City; but the merits of the case were not kmwn
in Michigan and the impression of his presence prevailed
over all rumors from the east.
The want of preparatory schools caused by the suspension
of the branches had now been met by the rise of high schools,


so that there was a new supply of candidates for matriculation in the University. This increased the attendance of
students.




194.
But a still more important fact than either of the
above mentioned was that the large sales of University
lands, which began to be made soon after President Tappan's
entrance upon duty, so increased the income of the institution, as to open a new prospect before it.  New professorships were added. Better pay was offered. Although Dr.
Tappan had nothing whatever to do with the improved condition of the fund, it could not but be that he shared
largely the credit of it. His appearance in the principal
towns of the state made him immensely popular. At just
what time other views in regard to him began to be quietly
hinted, it would not be worthwhile to notice, even if this
could be distinctly known. But one fact, which was perhaps
as influential upon the final action of the board as any
other, belongs to the year 1858. In the hazing of that
year a young man named Brazie lost his life under circumstances of peculiar aggravation. Whiskey was poured down
his throat until he was found to be past recovery and died
in a few hours. Before adverting to any influence which
this may have had upon the action in regard to President
Tappan, it may be well to state what readers will perhaps
be interested to know, that the two young men responsible
for the death of young Brazie fled to parts unknown; one
of them fell in the second day's fight at Gettysburg, where
he commanded a brigade, having at the time of his death the
brevet rank of a brigadier general. Nearly five years


after the fatal hazing, I visited the parents of the other
young man, for our families were intimate friends, and tound
that they knew nothing of their son's whereabouts,     t:ut;
supposed that he had enlisted in the army and been killX,




195.
I have learned recently that he went to the far west among
the native tribes and is still living there with an Indian
wife.
As to the effect upon President Tappan, some young men
deemed it the time to set on foot a movement in the temperance cause, which they thought would be useless unless they
should first obtain the name of the President; he refused,
however, always kept wines upon his table, and they abandoned their undertaking. But Mr. Tappan was still exceedingly
kind and paternal towards these students, and did not feel
at all insulted at their application for his support in
their temperance work.
Other things were with numbers of the Regents and
professors of even more weight than what they deemed the injurious influence of the President's position on the
temperance question. I shall attempt no details. The statement of a characteristic trait will suffice, and perhaps
this will even be deemed a good trait, only somewhat exaggerated. I refer to that already mentioned as shown in his paternal bearing towards the students. This was assumed also
towards both professors and Regents, both of which classes
naturally thought that his treatment of them should have had
in it a fraternal element. For the same reason he was never
popular with the members of the legislature and never
succeeded in obtaining state appropriations.  So it turned
out that the very majesty of aspect and demeanor which


inspired others with a pleasing awe, was offensive to Regents
and professors, over whom he deemed himself to have some
authority. This trait affected him also in his eeclesi~atecal relations, so that he finally attended generally the




196.,
Baptist and Episcopal churches instead of the Presbyterian
to which he belonged.
The same trait, whatever may be thought of some of its
workings, had this benign effect that Dr. Tappan never did
anything in an underhand way. He was, indeed, incapable of
this.  I can now remember of but one professor's having
been removed during his presidency and that was on wellknown and distinctly stated grounds. Not having been here
earlier, I make this statement only as the conviction
formed from what I heard during the last six months of
President Tappan's administration. He had not the finesse
to make a politician, or a diplomatist. His paternal feelings led him to keep men and adjust them to his purposes,
rather than dismiss them; and this was one reason why they
were not afraid of him. They knew that they should not
wake up some morning and find themselves without employment,
How so many men could work under ground so long and their
mining operations not be detected, is a mystery; but the
whole board of Regents and almost the whole of the three
University faculties did so work. The commencement of 1863,
passed quietly over without a suspicion on the part. of the
President. In the mean time the board had done its work;
they had made three places, those of the President, the
Professor of Rhetoric and the Librarian, vacant, and filled
them; but the next morning they presented to Dr. Tappan, the
alternative of resigning and not having their action in


regard him made public,or to be removed.  He refused the
resolution and he was informed of the alternative resolutiou,
passed the night before to remove him.




197.
Dr. Tappan died in dignified retirement in Vevoy, Canton
De Vaud, Switzerland, November 15th 1881. A memorial
meeting to commemorate his services &        worth  as held in
Ann Arbor on the receipt of the news of his death & the
class of 1858, at their quarter centennial reunion in 1884,
expressed their affectionate memory of their beloved President, then "sleeping,n as they expressed themselves, "in
the most beautiful spot in Europe."
It was doubtless thought by the board that the tumult
which would naturally follow this action would subside before
the opening of the fall term after the long vacation. We
shall see in our next whether this fond dream was realized.
XLII. THE ISSUE OF THE REM)OVAL AGITATION
The tumult raised by President Tappan's removal,
instead of dying down during the summer vacation of 1863,
had been given just time enough to rise to its highest pitch
by the opening of scholastic work in September. But such
was the situation that nothing could be done to give
practical effect to the disatisfaction felt at the late
president's removal, because the board which removed him was
to remain in power until the first of January following, and
could not be expected to retreat from their own unanimous
action. But the new law, which was to become operative on
the first of January, 1864, was deemed especially favorable
to the wishes of those who desired to reverse the action.
In the first place, the old board was to go out all at once,


and a new one to come in all at once.   Then the new law in
its eighth section provides that "the regents of the Univesity shall, at their first annual meeting, or as soon thereafter as may be, elect a President of the Bi      steri ty, who




I98.


shall be ex-offioio a member of the board, with the
privilege of speaking, but not of voting. He shall preside
at the meetings of the regents and shall be the principal
executive officer of the University."
This law seemed to make it not only the right, but also
the duty of the board of 1864 to elect a president, and
equally so whether the president up to that time had been
Dr. Tappan or Dr. Haven. It was claimed that by this
enactment the term of the president would expire with the
entrance of the new board upon its term of service. Whether
the provision might have resulted from an oversight of the
legislators, or was designed in order to render it easy for
the new board to make a change in the presidency, it would
be fruitless to inquire; but whether it was accidental or
designed, it was taken advantage of by a somewhat formidable
array of prominent men, chiefly in Detroit, to represent
themselves at the first meeting of the new board, and urge
the re-election of Dr. Tappan to the presidency.
On the other hand Dr. Haven had been for three months
at the head of the institution and had made a favorable
impression. He had formerly been of the faculty and was
well-known. He had resigned his professorship and quietly
retired from an uncomfortable position, rather than enlist in
the warfare which he foresaw. Further, although it is
probable that the members of the new board would personally
have favored Dr. Tappan, yet they perceived that, strong as
was the pressure upon them for.his restoration, it came from


a small number of persons, and they could not but fear that
there might be a much greater force of un~ress0ed feelin
on the other side, and as they had not been respensible for




199.
the action taken, they feared to make themselves so for its
reversal. Then there was danger that the restoration of
President Tappan would involve the removal of all the
professors but four, three of whom were least important of
all to the working of the institution. With the action of
the board retaining Dr. Haven, the feeling on this matter
died away and was only momentarily revived at the commenoement of 1864, by action which was out of taste and quite
unnecessary. The board arranged that one of the retired
regents, who was quite as much as any other responsible for
the dismissal of President Tappan, should state the grounds
of the action of the late board in an address on commencement
day. This was greeted by frequent, if it were not better
to say, incessant hisses, which were probably designed
rather to declare that the address was unnecessary and out
of place than that any of its statements were untrue.
Dr. Haven made a very popular president. He was as fair
and impartial as one well could be. To refer to the matter
of removals of professors, I remember now but two that
occurred during his administration, and the persons affected
would have been the last to object to the action, or its
grounds. Both were glad to retire and have the reasons which
called for their withdrawal remain unknown to the public.
After President Haven's resignation he was recalled by a
unanimous vote of the board, but could not well retire from
a position he had already taken.
President Haven was a man in whom were well combined


the elements of sound policy with justice & kindness to all
concerned. He never lost sight of the morals of students as




2oo.


an object to be sought. In a movement in the cause of
temperance he promptly acted with others & allowed his name
to be prominent in the reforming work.  His exaple was
widely influential in this direction. He died at Salem,
Oregon, August 2d, 1881, one of the bishops of the Methodist
Episcopal church.
On the receipt of intelligence of Dr. Haven's death, a
meeting of the University Senate was called at the President's room, appropriate resolutions were passed & arranges
ments were made for a memorial address in the Hall of the
University.  This is a somewhat extended biography & will
be found in volume VI of the Collections of the Michigan
Pioneer & Historical Society.
XLIV. THE PROFESSIONAL SCHOOLS
The first distinct movement towards the establishment
of the Medical Department of the University took the shape
of a memorial addressed to the board by Professors Sager &
Douglass, together with some other medical men, & was
presented at the January meeting of 1847. This was refered
to a committee which reported at the same meeting, recommending the opening of such a department with three professors;
that is, the two medical men already in the department of
Arts & Sciences were to be assigned duties in the School
of Medicine & Surgery, & one additional professor was to be
appointed. But at the meeting of August following a committee was raised to report at a future day upon the expedienoy of organizing the departments of Medicine & Lawv


This was in effect a reconsideration of the former action.
The committee consisted of Messrs. Pitcher, FarnswothB &
Mundy, a leading physician of Detroit, the Chancelor of thI




State, & one of the Justices of the Supreme Cout.    This
committee made an elaborate report at the meeting of January
1848, recommending immediate action in regard to the Medical,
but further delay in regard to the Law School.
Instead of the usual method of teaching by lectures
this committee advised that textbooks be prescribed & the
students be required to bear daily examinations upon the
portions which should be assigned for their study, which
method was not, however, to be applied in the branches of
chemistry and anatomy. The committee expressed the opinion
that a single professor in this way, the sessions extending
through the year, could more successfully teach practical
medicine, surgery & obstetrics, than these subjects could
be taught by the prelections of a more numerous faculty in
the brief sessions then customary in Medical colleges.
The report enlarged upon the confessedly low condition of the
profession in the West; mentioned the fact that something
like one hundred young men from Michigan were at the time
pursuing medical studies in other states; suggested the
assignment of places in the Medical Department to the Professors of Zoology, Botany & Chemistry, & the appointment of a
single new professor for Anatomy, urging also that the
course be extended throughout the entire year. The opinion
was also expressed that the plan recommended would place the
Medical School upon a respectable foundation.
The committee urged also a higher standard of preparatory


study than had previously been prescribed, & also discussed
the question of location, claiming that the terms of the
contract which the state had made with Ann Arbor fix4in  the
site of the University required that the tMeial Sol     shold




202.
be here,& it would, indeed, seem the highest legal authority
of the state being represented on the committee, that this
opinion ought to have put the question of a different
location forever at rest.
The action of the board was in substantial accordance
with the recommendation of its committee, & the work of
erecting the needed buildings, involving an expenditure of
$14,000 to $15,000, was vigorously prosecuted. The opening
of the school was also anticipated by the election of
several professors; viz: Drs. Moses Gunn, July 1849, to the
Allen
chair of Anatomy & Surgery, J. Adams, January 1850, to that
of Pathology & physiology, & at the same time Samuel
Denton, to that of Theory & Practice. Dr. Sager was made
professor of Obstetrics, & Dr. Douglass of Materia Medica,
in addition to the places already held by these two men in
the Department of the Arts & Sciences. The Medical School,
thus provided for, opened with a fair show of students in
the autumn of 1850.
Notwithstanding the recommendations of the committee &
their approval by the board, the work of instruction was not
carried on in accordance with them. The plan was deemed too
great a digression from the practice of the time. The lecture
system was retained. The yearly sessions, instead of continuing through the entire year, began in October & closed
in March.  The students were required, in order to obtain
their diplomas to attend two courses, or, more properly, to
attend the same course twice, as there was no distinction


between the lectures for juniors & those for seniors.  To
the one class the lectures were an advance:, to the other a
review. o;..                 G * 1      A




On the first of January 1858 an entire new Board of
Regents came into power. In their first year they entered
upon measures for the establishment of the Law School.
Their first plan was to have a single professor whose whole
time should be given to the scholastic work. Instead,
however, of carrying this early thought into execution,
three professors were appointed. These were James V.
Campbell, Charles I. Walker & Thomas M. Cooley. With this
faculty the school opened onthe first of October 1859, on
which occasion Judge Campbell delivered an address setting
forth the lawyer's need of a large culture beyond that to
be acquired from the technical books of his profession.
Existing accomodations had to be used for a time; but a
suitable building was hastened to completion & the School
has since moved onwards causing very little ripple in its
progress.
Even before the Law School was opened, the School of
Medicine was beginning to be involved in an agitation destined to cause much trouble before it should be finally allayed.
Professor Gunn had removed to Detroit & entered there the
field of medical practice. He had also started a periodical
named the Medical Independent, of which he was editor. He
was quite determined that the Medical Department of the
University should be removed to Detroit. His advocacy of
the measure, both in his journal & otherwise, was so heated
that action was taken upon the matter by the Regentst


somewhat severely censuring the agitators for removal &
especially Professor Gum. The report upon which the action
was founded consisted chiefly of a view of the lofse  &
expenses which would be incurred by the remval.   The e rectfo




204.
of new buildings, the entire support of the chemical laboratory, which In Ann Arbor was shared with the Department
of Arts & Sciences & the probable forfeiture of the forty
acres of land given by a company in Ann Arbor as a site fbr
the University. The report might also have added the aotion
of 1849, relating to the branches of the Universitywhich
action assumed that the congressional land-grant for a
university required that it should be a single institution
in one place.
This action settled the removal question for the time,
was concerned
at least so far as the existing school; but more tormenting
questions, involving division in another form sprang
quickly up. I mention first the claim that there should be
a Homeopathic School of Medicine as part of the University.
The proposal that this be located in Detroit involved again
the question of removal though in a somewhat modified form.
Here was set on foot the bitterest agitation that ever attended the development of medical teaching in the University,
which is yet as unsettled as ever. I shall cluster the
events in the briefest possible way & without care as to their
exact order.
Professor Gunn resigned to accept a place in the Rush
Medical College in Chicago. In connection with this reference
to his leaving I introduce an episode, not with any thought
of interpreting it to the disadvantage of the professor, but
because it involves a question the mention of which has


awakened an undertone of murmur throughout all the neighboring counties, if not throughout the state; I refer to the
obtaining of subjects for dissection.  The professor caused?
to be shipped for Chicago the bodies then on hand with




205.
reference to the opening of the coming year's work, said to
have been about forty in number. The janitor of the Medical
college, was found locked up in a room bound & muffled to
prevent his raising an alarm. The Regents, on learning the
facts, were assembled; the professor claimed that they would
not dare proceed against him, because this would reveal the
measures by which they obtained their subjects. They replied
that they had justified the use of no illegal means for
obtaining subjects & that if the demonstrator of anatomy
had employed such they could not be held responsible; but
the result of the inquisition was never made public, except
as it passed from mouth to mouth. Provision is now legally
made for the supply of subjects, so that there is no occasion
for nightly invasions of cemeteries & the murmurs of surrounding communities have died away.
An extreme of agitation in this school was reached
when the establishment of a Homeopathic branch in connection
with the University became a substantial certainty. The
professors in the existing School of Medicine & Surgery were
at least supposed all to have written their resignations,
though some of these were not delivered to the Board. Finally all was quieted & the rival school was established with
such provision that the two should be in so far independent
of each other, that neither would be required to subscribe
its approval of the other's system.
The question of removal was destined to come up in still


another form. A Medical School was started in Detroit by
physicians resident there & several professors of the Univrsity were elected to places in it, which places were aeoepted
by some. The Regents merely informed these that they wou;ld




206.
have to choose between the two schools, the real meaning
of which action seems to have been to inform these men
that they could not be permitted to retain their places in
the school at Ann Arbor, while laboring in Detroit in the
interests of an institution designed gradually to undermine
it.
The Schools of Pharmacy & Dental Surgery, though
quite separate from the Schools of Medicine, are, nevertheless, allied branches of the same range of studies. These
schools have arisen & moved on with little friction & I
shall not give any separate account of them. Several of the
professors lecture in common to some medical class & to
classes in one of these kindred schools.
XLV. A COLLEGE ANABASIS
In my sketches have been introduced some specimens of
students' freaks & jokes, & others may still be brought in,
but instead of multiplying these I prefer to give account
of one of greater dignity & magnificence, to serve in place
of many lesser adventures which might be set forth. In
order to prepare myself for this I called on the Honorable
Thomas W. Palmer at his residence in Detroit on the last day
of the year 1894 & spent most of the day with other guests
at his residence; but Mr. Palmer, having no leisure that
time to give me the desired information, promised to put
this in writing.  I shall give the account chiefly in his
own words as follows.

"Dear Sir:- You ask me for the reminiscences of my    anish trip of 1848.  It came about thus:"The party was cposed
of Stephen Tilson, Senior, from Ohio, James B. Witherell,
Junior, of Detroit GCleveland -Whiting, J uior, so.n of Pr



fessor Whiting, of Ann Arbor, George Kellogg, junior, of
Ann Arbor, David James, Senior, of Swansea, Wales, &
myself. The boys had been reading Kidder's Brazil, which
spoke in glowing terms of that country & its possibilities,
had brought Tilson, the oldest of the party to their way
of thinking and he made it a condition of his going that I
should go also, I had left college on account of my eyes
& a delegation came to see me. Tilson was the only one
who had much money. After the party was made up, James &
Witherell began to take lessons in daguerreotyping. We all
rendezvoused in New York, where we remained a month and a
half. Those of us who had parents had extorted their
reluctant consent to the plan."
"After we had come together in New York, we went along
the docks &, among the other vessels  and found the bark
'Potomac' of 200 tons burden. She had a cabin of four staterooms, so with the Captain we made up her complement of
passengers. We made a bargain with the captain for so much
money & so much in notes for our trip to Rio Janeiro, via
Cadiz in Spain. We sailed on the 25th day of November 1848,
& arrived on Christmas morning in Cadiz. The ship-took out
a cargo of staves, which she unloaded at Cadiz & reloaded
with salt."
"We stayed at the hotel Des Anglais on the Alemande,
which overlooked the sea, & after various trips on the strip
of land on which Cadiz is built, we took a steamer to Ste.


Maria & from there over to Keres, the scene of the decisive'
battle between the Moors & Goths more than eleven hundred
years ago. The Duke de Montpensier & the Infanta, then
Just married, were there to attend a bull-fight, which we




also attended. Although we were at first horrified at the
disemboweling of horses, the enthusiasm of the crowd was
so great that before the performance was half over, we were
hurrahing as loudly & as fiercely as any of the audience.
Often when I look back to those times I feel ashamed of
myself."
"From Xeres, which is on the river Gaudalete, we went
over to the Gandelquivir & traveled along its banks on foot
to Seville. Often we saw white crosses on the road, some
of these marking places where murders had been committed,
while others were used as shrines. When I was in Spain as
American Minister, I looked often for these crosses, but
found none there, & soon learned that there were less
murders while I was in Spain, with its sixteen millions of
people than in Michigan with its two millions."
"At Cadiz our sloop of war, the 'United State,' called
the 'Old Hay Wagon,' was anchored, her officers were on shore
much of the time & we soon became acquainted with them."
"We remained in Cadiz & the surrounding country for two
months, when Tilson, Whiting, Kellogg & myself went on board
the Potomac & sailed for Rio. Forty-one years afterwards
I entered Cadiz about the same time in the morning of Christmas day. Then as before there were six in our party, but
only myself of the original six. Whiting had died in California. Witherell, who entered the army at the breaking out
of the war, was surrendered with his command in Texas & was


drowned in the Rio Grande while coming north.   Tilson had
died about six years before, in Iowa, and James died in
Kansas City."




209.,
"After leaving Cadiz we ran down towards the Canry
Islands & sailed forty-five days without trimming a yard,
in the same trade-winds which, three hundred & fifty years
before had blown Cabrol over to the coast of Brazil. No
one can appreciate the significance of the phrase 'Halcion
days' unless he takes such a trip in the trades. The
never-varying wind, the ship going at long gallop, the flying
fish in schools, flying out of the water ahead & on either
side, while one could sleep out on the deck without a covering, incurring no peril to health - these things left an
impression on my mind which has not been obliterated."
"We sailed into the harbor of Rio & in due time went
ashore & called upon the American Minister, Honorable David
Todd of Ohio. The Honorable Gorham Parks was then Consul
at Rio. Witherell & James had remained in Spain, secured
a Daguerrean outfit & were making a tour in Granada &
Andalusia."
"When we arrived at Rio we were out of money, but had
not the slightest fear for the future.  I went to Mr. Todd
& told him our situation & he let me have money on my note,
which was not presented for payment until I had been for
several years in business in Detroit. Mr. Todd was a whole
souled genial man &, although our trip, with its attending
circumstances, struck him very ludicrously, he remained our
steadfast friend."
I became acquainted with Captain Frazer, of one of our


Revenue Cutters, the name of which I have forgotten, which
was about to sail for San Francisco, &, as I desired, was
invited to take a trip with him around the Horn, but a few
days before he was to sail, he received ore     from Wash




210.


to sail in another direction."
"We spent a couple of months in Rio, Boto Fago & Piedade,
then began to look out for methods of getting home. George
Kellogg became Clerk to Captain Davis, of the American Navy,
Whiting returned on the Potomac, while I, on invitation, came
home on another vessel.  We all arrived at different ports."
"I landed at New Orleans, after a voyage of forty-five
days, & found the town being ravaged with the Cholera. I
stayed there a few days, met an old acquaintance of whom I
borrowed some money.  I thought if I should stay south, I
might get a chance to teach school."
"While riding on horseback one day I passed a figure
which looked quite familiar to me. As I turned, I found the
person to be Eno Freeman, a graduate of Ann Arbor. The
family with which he was stopping had left the city, inte~ning to remain away until the cholera should have abated, &
had left him in charge of the house. He invited me to stay
which invitation I accepted, & remained with him for a couple
of months."
"The cholera was still raging, not only in New Orleans,
but all along the river, & Freeman concluded that he would
like to go back to Michigan. We got on board a steamer bound
for St. Louis, arriving at which place we found people dying
at the rate of two hundred a day. We went up the Illinois
river to Peru, there took the canal, & before we got to
Ottawa, Freeman was taken down with the cholera.  I took
him ashore & was his only attendant until he recovered.


When he was in a condition to be removed, we came on the
Detroit without further incident, I did not see Free     tga
for thirty-five years.   He is now, I believe teachi'ng sco<ol




212.


in St. Clair County."
"There are a thousand minor incidents connected with
this trip which I might give had I the faculty of making
such description attractive."
"I arrived home about nine months after I had left it,
having crossed the Ocean twice & the equator twice & sailed
from Rio to New Orleans.  Soon after I reached home, James
& Witherell made their appearance, & we long thereafter met
every year in Detroit, all save Kellogg, whom I never again
saw but once or twice."
I had expected to learn from Mr. Palmer only some
features & incidents of this novel expedition & work them
up in my own way; but his words as above answer my purpose
better. The statement should perhaps be corrected which he
makes on hearsay testimony, that his friend Freeman, who so
kindly took him in at New Orleans, & whom he so kindly
nursed through a siege of cholera, is teaching school in St.
Clair county.  Information here places Mr. Freeman in the
lumber trade in Port Huron. Though it has no importance to
the purpose of this sketch, it may be further added that the
foregoing letter does not assign to all the several members
of the expedition the college classes in which Mr. Palmer
has ranked them.
There was no occasion for the apology made in the foregoing letter that numerous minor incidents were left out for
want of a descriptive power to give attractiveness to the
narration.  The account is Just what could have been desiredl
It places side by side the then & the now of life in some


interesting particulars.   No reader will be at loss to supply
the incidents which must have filled up the time of the si3x




M213.
adventurers in their joint & individual life during the many
months of this unique expedition. All the ages from the
opening of the Christian era down taken together had not
witnessed so great a quickening of the world's intercourse
as the half century - for it is now nearly that - since this
adventure was planned. And as to interior aspect, this in
sdme portions of the world has not been less Mr. Palmer's
looking in vain forty-one years later for the white crosses
which he had seen in the foot trip on the Guadalquivir,
marking the places of murders, well exemplifies a class of
these internal metamorphoses. The change westward of the
Alleghanies in our country has been a complete transformation,
not, indeed, in the characters of the people, but in superficial aspect. What were then the superfluities are now the
necessories of life.
But the freakish adventure described above may be regarded as a kind of foretokening symbol of the cosmopolitan
character of the institution in which the plan had its origin.
The scheme was generally ascribed to the active brain of a
student from the British principality of Wales. It was gotten
up in what was at the time the Great West of our new country;
& yet it was destined to traverse by the old methods of
navigation which had prevailed with slight modifications
since long before the Christian era, the oceans which lave
the shores of the earth's two hemispheres, thus preindioating
the time when the school in which the plan had its ineeption
should receive from all lands its pupils, & send to all lands


its graduates.
Every reader may speculate for himself as to the     e t ectt:




2!4.
which this adventure may have had upon the future of.r.
Palmer. His friends set down to him the credit which he
himself repudiates of having so learned their language that
he was able to address in it a deputation of Spaniards who
once visited Detroit. His own modist account of the matter
is that he wrote the address, had it translated into
Spanish, obtained some aid in regard to pronunciation &
thus rather cheaply obtained the credit of being able to
speak the language of Spain. Nor does he know thatthis
history had ought to do with his being sent by President
Harrison as Minister to Spain. We may all think as our
several fancies shall lead us to do with reference to a connection between the adventure described in the foregoing
paragraphs & any portion of his subsequent career. His
presidency of the Columbian Exposition might naturally be
deemed a kind of culmination of the series begun in 1848.
Each reader may think as he shall feel inclined.
One of the young men of the party, James B. Witherell,
was Mr. Palmer's cousin, a son of his mother's brother. And
here I venture to correct the statement that he was Junior;
Witherell had graduated, A.B., at the last commencement
before the party sailed.  This family has been prominent in
the history of Detroit & Michigan. Mr. Palmer & his cousin
Witherell's grandfather, James Witherell, was in the Revolutionary army, studied medicine & settled in its practice in
Vermont, was sent to congress in 1807, voted in 1808 for the


suppression of the slave trade, was sent the same year by
Mr. JeiRerson to Michigan as one of the Territorial judges &
was afterwards Seoretary of the Territory (Notices of this faily will be found dispersed through volmes a IIIlI.IYVIII,I,
X,XIIXIII,XVII & XVIII of the Michie   an Pioneer & Historic:
Collect iona. One of youg Withereli' notices will be tn           L
Volume IV., p. 110.




r 1l.


XLVI. HISTORIC RTLATION OF RELIGION TO
THE ORIGIN OF THE UNIVE SIITY
In order to know well the relation of the University
of Michigan to that religious system in which all good schools
have had their origin, we must carry our inquiries quite back
of the organic law which went into operation in 1837. We
perceive by the Ordinance of 1787 for the government of the
Northwest Territory that up to that date the Christian
Religion & education were deemed inseparable. The Ordinance
in its best features was the work of Manassah Cutler, a
Christian pastor in Massachusetts, & it was his influence
alone that secured its enactment by congress. (N.A. Rev. vol.
CXXII., p. 229)
But a revolution had been gradually progressing during
the half century which separated the congressional action
mentioned above from the first legislation of Michigan &
the organic law of the university of this state cannot be
understood without a historic survey of this revolutionary
progress, which, so far as Michigan is concerned, connects
itself chiefly with events in Virginia. The Church of England
had extended her sway over this colony & its ecclesiastical
affairs were subject to an English bishop. Religious dissent
had been made penal & death had been fixed as the penalty of
persistence in it, though this seems never to have been
inflicted.
But the people had long been growing restive under the
pressure of stringent uniformity laws & in 1763 a verdict


obtained by the eloquence of Patrick Henry in a suit of the
clergy against the people gave the courage of action to thoae
who cherished a spirit of resistanee to the texsti    laws.




216.
The speech of the young lawyer on this occasion remained.
for a generation at least, in the popular mind, the climax
of oratorical triumph. The pictures drawn by Wirt & others
may, indeed, be too highly colored, which Professor Tyler
seems to himself in his recent Life of Henry to have made
out; but there are several facts which must be deemed
damaging to his conclusion.  In the first place the Professor bases his judgment solely upon the testimony of Mr.
Maury, the defeated plaintiff in the suit.   And then it
cannot be supposed that an argument without merit could
have secured a verdict of which the ablest counsel had till
then failed.
A later effort of Mr. Henry in the cause of an advance
in religious freedom was, indeed, a display of eloquence
without argument, unless we may regard a resistless appeal,
setting out from a self-evident proposition, as the climax
of true argumentative power.  I refer here to the arraignment in 1768 of three Baptist preachers, named respectively
Walter, Craig & Childs for preaching the Gospel contrary to
law. A promise not to preach again for a year & a day would
have set them free; but this they refused to make,_& as
they were led through the streets of Fredericksburg to their
prison lodgings, they struck up the hymn of Watts opening
with the line:"Broad is the road that leads to death"which offered just the scene to move a crowd not well affected


towards the clergy who had caused the arrest.   Mr. Heny
rode about fifty miles in order to be present at this trial
as a spectator, or, at least, without having been engaged for
the defense.  He was silent while the indictment was read &




the prosecution was opening the case, & then rising, addressed
the court:- 'May it please your worships, what did I hear
read? Did I hear rightly, or was it a mistake of my own?
Did I hear it expressed that these men whom your worships are
about to try for a misdemeanor are charged with....preaching
the Gospel of the Son of God? The usual account says that he
called for the indictment & waved it around his head, while
intonating as he only could do these startling words, that
the public prosecutor turned pale & the court discharged the
prisoners. (This account as to details may not be exact, as
it is doubtless a tradition first reduced to writing years
after the occurrence. There is, however, no reason to doubt
its general accuracy. Mr. Henry certainly successfully
defended these men & others & in one instance, unbeknown to
the prisoner, paid the jail expenses of a minister whose
release he had effected. Life, Speeches, etc. Vol. I, pp.
117-119)
The results of these trials did not, however, disturb
the relation of Church & state.  The law of uniformity stood
untouched & we do not know that Mr. Henry made any attack
upon it. He was an earnest member of the established
Church; but, whether he had meant to do so or not, he had
made the further complete execution of the law impossible.
Another movement was now in order - the repeal of the law
itself - & in this Thomas Jefferson took the lead.
As Mr. Jefferson himself was not quite sure how he stoo


religiously, no one can now determine his exact position,
though in his Syllabus (Works, vol.Iv.480,see also VII. 81-2
& 185 + 2d. Vol.VI. 210)




perhaps the best statement of it, he ranks the teaching of
Jesus above all other systems & speaks in depreciating
terms of Plato. He attributed to Jesus a moral system,
"which, if filled up in the style & spirit of the rich fragments left us, would be the most perfect & sublime that has
ever been taught by man."   In a letter to Mr. Canby in 1813
he says:- "Of all the systems of morality, ancient or modern,
which have come under my observation, none appear to me so
pure as that of Jesus. In all essential points you & I are
of the same religion."   In a letter of 1815 to Charles Clas
he says:- "Probably you have heard me say I had taken the
four Evangelists, had cut out from them every text they had
recorded of the moral precepts of Jesus & arranged them in
a certain order, & although they appeared but as fragments,
yet fragments of the most sublime edifice of morality which
had ever been exhibited to man." (Works, VI. 412.) In 1821
he writes to Mr. Pickering:- "I have little doubt that the
whole of our country will soon be rallied to the unity of the
Creator, & I hope, to the pure doctrine of Jesus also." (Id.
VII. 211) In a letter of 1822 to Dr. Waterhouse, Mr. Jefferson gives an outline of his religious system which, clearly
identifies him with the more serious of the Unitarians. (Id.
252-3)
Mr. Jefferson was a man of violent antipathies, to which
he sometimes gives extravagant utterance, & this may have
led some to attribute to him views which he never uttered.


I shall cite nothing of this kind, but shall proceed to
notice the legislative work of disestablishm nt in Virginia,
& the subsequent establishment of the university of that
state without provision for instrtution in religion0 for i-t




was this that determined the first legislation for theG
university of Michigan, so far as its religious tenor is
concerned.
In the Autumn after Mr. Jefferson had drafted the
Declaration of Independence, he was placed on the standing
committee of nineteen on religion in the Virginia House of
Delegates & headed a determined minority movement for the
entire freedom of religious worship. The original penal
laws against dissent were then still unrepealed & yet the
people were more than half in some sense dissenters, though
the majority in the legislature were churchmen. Dissenters
could not legally settle in the colony & were to be sent
away if they entered it & for the third offence the penalty
was death. Petitions were flowing in for the relief of the
dissenting people. The matter was discussed in committee
of the whole house & such was the success achieved from
October llth to December 5th that the statute making dissent,
non-attendance at church & free utterance of opinion penal
offences, was repealed. Dissenters were also exempted from
the payment of tithes to the established church & all church
levies were suspended.
In 1777 a committee of five was appointed to revise the
laws. Mr. Jefferson was on this committee & drew up a bill
for religious enfranchisement. Measures were successively
taken to which I shall not refer & in 1779 church rates were
abolished against a strong opposition, Washington deelartig


that 'he was not alarmed at the thought of making people
pay for the support of that which they profess to believe*'
It was not, however, till 1799 that all laws made for the
benefit of religious societies were repealed & nt t:ll e 18




820.
that the glebes of the clergy were sold by the overseers of
the poor, which last step went further than Jefferson had
contemplated & was probably moved by others. (See Randall's
Life of Jefferson Vol. I, 203-5 & 219-23 also Jefferson's
Notes on Virginia)
What may have been the effect of the legislation of
Virginia sketched above in other parts of the country I do
not know so well; but in New York, Michigan & I think in
the Northwest generally it was greeted with an extravagant
applause, attended by many an utterance at variance with
sound reason & a strict sense of justice. Many serious
religious people doubtless rejoiced on the sale at auction
of the glebes of the now disestablished church & at seeing
the Virginia planter take his morning dram from the chalice
which he had bought at the sale of the church furniture.
Accounts of what had been done in Virginia were carried by
traveling ministers, & in the correspondence of ecclesiastical bodies & became the great topic of the fireside, at
least in those parts of New York & Pennsylvania which contributed so largely to the settlement of the further west.
And in relation to this subject Jefferson's name was above
every other. The opinion that an infidel - & Jefferson was
widely regarded as such - makes the best leader in legislative
& administrative matters, because, having no religion of his
own, he will consent to no religious establishment, is the
one of all others which in the days of my boyhood made from


frequent and passionate utterance the strongest & most
lasting impression upon my mind.
It was before the immense applause called forth by the
Virginia legislation sketched above had died away that




221.
Michigan became a state & a few months before her actual
statehood she had enacted the organic law of the University.
I have not ventured to affirm that this applause was as
great everywhere as in the parts known to me & yet I think
it was & it was even echoed from Europe. Accounts of the
action were translated into French & Italian & sent to the
European courts, where prominent men gave it their warm
approval. (See Jeffersonb Works Vol. II. 66-7) I have
used the word immense in connection with this expression of
approval; but the word intense ought to be added to complete
the description. And the impression existed long & largely
exists yet without any adequate correction of the injustice
& errors to which it gave occasion. The bill of 1778
specially provided for saving forever to the English church
which had been established by law its glebes and all its
church property & furniture & all donations specially made
to it; it was the later legislation, enacted when Mr. Jefferson was in Europe, which swept all this away, & alienated
this property from those who should have been deemed its
rightful owners.
From the time that Mr. Jefferson was sent abroad on
diplomatic service to the end of his double term in the
presidency of the United States he had nothing directly to do
with Virginia legislation. But retiring in 1809 from the
chief magistracy of the nation, with powers & ambition unabated, he returned to the subject of school legislation


which had most possessed his mind before its absorption in
the duties of his several executive positions in conoetio40
with the general gowernmente. I shall touch only upon his




activity as directed to the establishment of a university
& this only so far as shall be necessary in order to show
how the University of Virginia came to be left without
provision for any instruction in religion.
Perhaps the most perplexing problem ever presented
to our state & national governments for solution is that of
determining the exact relation in which they stand to
religion, when the connection with a particular church has
been dissolved. In the intense feeling of relief & sense
of satisfaction felt at the disestablishment in Virginia
the popular voice declared that the state has nothing to do
with religion & reflection was slow in leading to any
clear discrimination between the grand system of Christianity, with its spirit & life, & those varying forms &
features which this has taken on. No one solved the
problem; at least no other solution appeared than that which
left the state without anything to do with religion, from
which it followed, of course, that this could not by the
authority of the state be taught in the schools.
That Mr. Jefferson himself felt embarrassed in his
efforts to found a university in Virginia by the question
of its relation to Christianity is quite clear. Several
plans were thought of before the one which finally prevailed.
It was proposed to import the university of Geneva bodily
as appears by a correspondence of M. D'Ivernois of that
institution & Mr. Jefferson in 1794. (Jefferson's Works IV.


109 & 113.) This was not favored by those to whom the
offer was made known, the objections being that it would
be expensive, that American youth would not  etadily adapt




22.
themselves to the use of the French language, &fthatbA its
instructions would be in advance of the stage of preparation
as yet attained to in America. Had this plan been adopted
so much of religious & theological instruction as was thrn
given in this institution would have been continued after
the removal. Another plan of Mr. Jefferson was to advance
William & Mary College to the rank of a university, which
was against the feeling of the other sects, that institution
having been founded by the King & queen & in the interests
of the Church of England. (Id. Jefferson's Works Iv. 317,
also I. 47-8)
After Mr. Jefferson's retirement from the presidency
in 1809, with ambition undiminished, & without any other
field in which he might display it, he set himself to work
in the interests of higher education. He would establish
a university, & gradually evolved the plan upon which the
University of Virginia was finally established.   The founders
early expectation in regard to this had been to transfer
William & Mary College, with its endowment to the new institution, which, however, was not found feasible & the
legislation was set forward which resulted in the;omission
of any provision for instruction in religion.   That this
result was contrary to the founder's wishes can be made
clear from his own utterances. On this point his several
schedules of scholastic courses & his recommendations
addressed to young friends that they carefully study the


Christian system are in place. There his own earnest reading of passages from the bible, (Randall's Life of Jefferson
Vol. III. p. 451) for he was accustomed to give half an




224.
hour to this before retiring for the night, gives us his
practical lesson, while his occasional references to
religion as a branch of study & deemed the only one alike
demanding the attention of all men, emphasizes the lesson.
(See letter to Mr. Wendover, Works, VI. 444-447) The
process of thought which led to the omission of any provision for instruction in religion in the University of
Virginia may be briefly stated as follows: First was the
embarrassment caused by the logic of disestablishment &
the applause which this elicited.  There was then the
difficulty of making a provision which would satisfy the
different sects. To obviate this Mr. Jefferson had a plan
& died with the hope that it would yet be realized.   It
was that all the leading sects would be induced to cluster
their theological schools about the university & enjoy its
advantages, while teaching their own peculiar tenets.
Further, he did not regard the non-provision for religious
instruction to involve its prohibition, but supposed that
the professors would inculcate those moral & religious
principles in which there is a general agreement. He has
distinctly expressed himself upon these points in-his
report as rector for the year 1822 (See Randall's Life of
Jefferson, Vol. III. pp. 168-9).
XLVII. RELIGION IN THE UNIVERSITY
At the time of the enactment of the organic law of
the University of Michigan in 1837 the applause called forth


by the legislation disestablishing the Episcopal Chiurh in
Virginia & the later establishment of the University of tat
state with no provision for instruction in religion, wasstill as loud as ever.   The members of the legislative bo    v




of our new state knew in a general way what these legislative
acts were, but they knew little definitely of Mr. Jefferson's real views of Christianity, & especially of his
earnest wish that education should in some way be made to
embrace this subject.  Or, at least, whatever their knowledge
of the history of the Virginia legislation, they felt that
they must copy the example which had been so applauded, &
in the statute providing for the University, they made provision for departments of the arts & sciences & of medicine
& law & none for theology. Nor does the law hint any
preference for any one of the world's several religions;
it provides only that there shall be a professorship of
"Moral Philosophy & Natural Theology, including the History
of all religions."
The law, indeed, ignored all distinctions among the
world's religions; but its chosen executive board, the
no
Regents, could not do so. They found religion but the
A
Christian represented among the people; nor did they find
any profession but the ministry whose proper work was that
of teaching. For this reason & the economic one that the
incomes of physicians & lawyers of the highest order of
talents & learning were such that they could not be drawn
into the work of teaching by any salaries which the board
could offer, caused that the earlier professors in the
college of the arts & sciences were chosen from the ministry.
Other reasons soon became auxilliary to these & perhaps


from the very beginning there was a desire to conciliate
the only profession for whose education the law made no
provision by making its members prominent in the eduatlioal
work.




226.
An occurrence of the first year of Michigan's state
life produced a great effect. Mr. Mason, the young governor,
had appointed twelve excellent men as Regents, who, with
himself, the lieutenant governor & the justices of the
supreme court, as ex officio members, were to carry out the
organic law. Not one of these men had ever been connected
with an educational board. In making his appointments the
governor had passed over all those men who, since 1817 had
been prominent in the management of the schools of the
territory & of course the new Regents found themselves
responsible for the solution of a problem for which they
had received no preparatory discipline. When a site for
the university had been selected & architectural plans were
called for, one was presented and accepted by the board,
the execution of which would have cost not less than $500,000.
The board had no funds to put up this building. They had
merely 48,000 acres of wild lands. They knew not what
these lands might yield.
Now Michigan's educational scheme had been made out,as
already stated, by two men, the Honorable Isaac E. Crary
& the Reverend John D. Pierce, who lived in the same village in the interior of the state. Mr. Pierce saved the
university fund from becoming a total loss, by simply refusing his assent to the grand architectural plan, the carrying out of which would have cost very nearly the entire
amount which the sales of university lands would have finally


yielded thirty years later.
This crisis past, the Regents began to be fearful of
perils yet to come. They were unwilling that the infant




2227.
institution should die on their hands & the governor acted
upon a suggestion that leading ministers should be given
places on the board & appointed for the first vacancy
that occurred the Reverend Dr. Duffield of Detroit, who
had been familiar with the management of the colleges of
Pennsylvania, New Jersey & New York & whose counsel became
more valuable than that of any other member. Other appointments were made from the Christian ministry, including those
of several denominations in the state, one Catholic priest
being of the number. This policy.was entered upon in 1839,
two years before the opening of the central institution at
Ann Arbor.
Several branches of the University were opened in the
Autumn of 1837. These were preparatory schools for the
accommodation of different parts of the state & were early
discontinued, as the issue of a judicial decision which
declared them a violation of the terms of the Congressional
grant; but the tenor of an early report in regard to their
management will show how this was affected by religious
considerations.
Mr. Henry R. Schoolcraft, the distinguished author of
the most voluminous work ever published on the North
American Indians, was chairman of the committee of the board
of Regents on the branches. In his report for 1841 Mr.
Schoolcraft stated that it had been the principle of the
board to select as teachers men who united sound learning


& apt judgment with practical piety; that, accordingly, of
the seven principals of branches, five were clergymen, two
only laymen, & that these belonged to the several religiou




denominations. Of the two laymen, it will suffice to:ay
that Dr. Williams, the patriarch of the Utnlersity professors,
was one. He was in the full spirit of the clerical profession, but his ordination to the diaconate of the Protestant
Episcopal Church took place at a later day. Mr. Schoolcraft's
report was adopted as the sense of the board.
A report by Dr. Duffield on the central school refers
to the attachment of the body oa the people to Christianity.
It states that the ground principles of the scheme are held
in common by all, so far as to admit of their co-operation
in an institution of learning. It gives utterance to a
regretful feeling that sectarian rivalry had gotten up
institutions avowedly in the interests of those of their
own faith, & closes with a reference to the perfect harmony
which had characterized the action of the board, though made
up of members of nearly all the branches of the great
Christian body. To this report were attached the names of
George Duffield, Presbyterian pastor, Martin Kundig, Roman
Catholic priest, & John Owen, the last-named an active
Methodist, but not a clergyman. This, too, was adopted as
the sense of the board. This was in 1842.
In 1841 the central institution was opened with a
freshman class & the Reverend Joseph Whiting, a Presbyterian
clergyman, & Mr. George P. Williams who, as before remarked,
afterward received deacon's orders in the Episcopal Church,
the one as professor of the Greek & Latin languages, the


other as professor of Mathematics, were placed in charge
of the school.
In 1844, when the first class entered senior I was




myself elected Professor of Intellectual & Moral Philosophy
& a year later the Reverend Dr. Whe don was made professor
of Logic, Rhetoric & the Philosophy of History. These two
were the only chairs whose incumbents were brought in their
teaching face to face with the questions of religion; for
history cannot be taught without bringing to light Christianity as the chief factor in producing the world's highest
civilization, & as to my own work, it will be perceived that
it involved all the fundamental questions of religion.
Itwill be naturally inquired how these questions were to
be treated under a law which made no provision for religious
teaching other than for that of Natural Religion & the History
of all Religions.
Now I found that both legislators & Regents expected
the professors to teach just what they supposed to belong
naturally to the subjects assigned them, & the latter
fully concurred in my choice of textbooks. Plato & Cicero
might have been chosen on both Natural Religion & EthicsI
but the Christian writers Butler, Paley & Wayland were taken
as developing to greater perfection the systems of the
ancient pagan writers, & Wayland's Moral Science is but the
sum of Christianity, the various views which have been
taken of its ritual & ecclesiastical systems being omitted.
As to the evidences for the truth of the Christian religion,
to teach these really involves the history of all religions,
since the truth & divinity of Christianity cannot be fairly


claimed unless this system is shown by historical proolfs
to rise above all others in its adaptedness to work thek
moral renovation of the human race. So the Christi     reilic-l
ion was taught in an institution whose organic law a* de




230.
distinct provision for it, just as fully as it had been in
other colleges & universities of our country.
The saving of the fund from imminent extinction by
the timely veto of a poor clergyman who had, by a kind of
accident, been made superintendent of Public Instruction,
has been refered to, as also that change of policy which
introduced clergymen & other specially religious men into
the governing board. This policy, together with the
employment of so large a clerical element in the faculty,
if, indeed, it did not save the university from a financial
crash did what was quite as important. The impression
had been deep & wide-spread that a state government, its
agents called into service under the sway of partisan
politics, could not wisely manage an educational institution.
The attendance of the clerical members of board & faculty
at meetings of the religious bodies of their several
denominations in the state was the means of establishing
a confidence in the school which would not easily have been
brought about in any other way. I know of but one instance
in which a resolution adverse to the university was ever
passed by an ecclesiastical body in the state & that
occurred in the Methodist Conference of 1857. This was
after Dr. Whe don's removal, and when no professor of the
University was a member of the conference. It has been
intimated by some that the early attempt to divide the
professorships among the leading religious denominations


tended to the election of weaker men might otherwise have
been secured.  The foregoing paragraph shows that this
general policy saved the institution.   It remains now tf




show that the policy itself was never so definitely settled=
as has been supposed. It was the result of a general
conviction that a school which appealed to all classes for
its patronage, should combine elements which would give the
widest effect to its appeal.  I know of no example which will
so well illustrate this statement as that of my own election.
My predecessor, Reverend Edward Thompson of Cincinnati, Ohio,
was a Methodist, & afterwards became one of the bishops of
that Church. He had been for a year under appointment but
had not entered upon duty. When in August 1844 he was
required, by the formation of the first senior class to
elect between entering upon duty & resigning his place, he
chose the latter alternative. His successor would naturally
have been a Methodist. The Methodist members of the board,
of whom there were three, presented a candidate, with high
recommendations from New York, but, the three Methodist
regents alone voted for him. All the rest, including one
Baptist, several each of Episcopalians & Presbyterians, the
Governor (Barry) the Chancellor (Manning) & several judges
of the Supreme Court not being communicants of any church,
voted for me. My name, as I learned afterwards was first
suggested by Dr. Williams, an Episcopalian.
President Tappan, in his Historic Statement of 1863,
says:- "The first professor elected was a professor of the
Greek language & literature. I was consulted respecting
Professor Boise before I was myself elected.   I was informed


that the Regents designed to fill the chair of Ancient
Languages from the Baptist denomination.   I expressed the
opinion that no fitter individual from that denoamintion




::1.:
was likely to be obtained. I believe my opinion decided the
election."
No although this statement contains a serious error,
it is one which Dr. Tappan, & the Regent who wrote him
might very naturally have committed; but no board of regents
ever had any such design. The following narrative will
make the case clear. Professor Boise & myself had been
fellow-students, he in a class two years in advance of me,
in the institution which has now become Colgate University.
We had parted, he going eastward, I westward. He had become professor of Greek in Brown University, I of Intellectual & Moral Philosophy in the University of Michigan. But
he had looked with longing to the broad west then opening
with large promise as a field of educational enterprise &
in this state of mind he wrote me. An anecdote of the
correspondence will indicate 1he change which has taken place
in college work since that day. We had no janitors. Students did all the work of sweeping, lighting, bell-ringing
& whatever else was to be done. Boise was freshman; I
was in the preparatory school. He for the year we were
associated rang the bell, I lighted the lamps in the halls
& chapel, I hardly know why, for my father was both able
& willing to support me. The first bell rang at 4j o'clock
in the morning; at 5 we had all to assemble in the chapel
for prayers.  In the meantime halls & chapel had to be
lighted up. Every student's room, too, was illuminated.


In winter it was still long before daylight, & while the
village below us lay locked in slumber, the bell sounded
out clear on the wintry air & the light shone brilliantly
from the windows of the two great dormitory buildings rn y




28.


the hill.
When Professor Boise wrote me of his desire to obtain
a Greek professorship in the west, I answered, "It gives me
great pleasure to hear from you after these years & be
reminded of the time" 'You with music, I with light,
Did beautify & cheer the night."'
(Cowper's Nightingale & Glow-worm.)
When in 1851 I resigned my place, the Regents requested me
to leave with them. the narie of a man whom I would recommend
for my place, assuring me that they would see to his
election. I answered them in writing, giving the name of
Professor Boise; but I also informed them that he had not
qualified himself for any professorship but that of Greek
& would accept no other.  It was the man & not the Baptist
that was recommended. The mistake occurred somewhere in
passing the matter over from an old to a new board & new
president. The reader can now appreciate the line of
occurrences which followed in the train of the incidents
related above. Professor Boise brought about the election of
his friend Frieze, an Episcopalian, to the Latin professorship, Frieze that of his friend Angell, a congregationalist,
to the presidency, & whatever changes this latter has caused
in the institution are but links in the same chain of
occurrences.
Inaddition to the foregoing narrative in regard to the
teaching of branches involving basal views in religion,
I deem it safe to affirm that, while every professor used


all desirable freedom in the utterance of religious convictions, no one in those early years of the university of
which I am treating, ever violated a strict propriety   by




e"4 -J


by lugging into the class-room his own sectarian views,
Each day was begun by a religious service in the chapel at
6 o'clock in the morning; this was immediately followed by a
recitation &, in order that students might have no excuse
for occupying their thoughts on Sundays with other than a
religious subject, each one of the four college classes was
given a lesson for Monday morning in the Greek Testament.
It now remains to note the voluntary religious activity
in the University. It is quite certain that the students
had their meetings for prayer & religious conference from
the very opening of the central school with a freshman class
in the Autumn of 1841; my direct personal knowledge of these
meetings, however, began with September 1844. The professors
had no other relation to these than that of privy counsellors
& if present at them it was only as participants with the
students, not as leaders. The meetings were held, I think,
twice in the week, once on a week-day evening & then on
Sunday morning from the close of Chapel worship till the
hour of breakfast.  These religious movements among the
students were at first without organization; there was only
a general understanding as to the persons who shoutld lead
the meetings.
It was, I think, during the college year 1846-7 that
a representative of the students, Mr. T. R. Chase of the
class of 1849, called on me for counsel in regard to the
organization of a society with a religious purpose among tbt
students of the University & in reply to his questions I


outlined to him the constitution of the Society for Missionary Inquiry then existing in Madison University.  This was




the society the researches & spirit of whose members had
long been so fruitful in supplying missionaries for both
the foreign & the home field, the former from that branch
of the body known as the Eastern Association, while another
division called the Western Association was made up of men
destined to our Western frontier settlements. I named to
Mr. Chase many of the distinguished men who had followed
Mr. Judson to India from the bosom of this Society & was
able to name one, Freeman by name, who had been sent as a
missionary to the cluster of huts about which the city of
Chicago has since sprung up. I placed in his hands also,
as a specimen of the work of the Society of Inquiry in Madison
University a report which I had myself prepared for that
body, while there an undergraduate,presented probably in the
year 1840, or 1841.
The result, of the interview sketched above was an
organization with the general name of Society of Inquiry,
with such epithets, not now remembered, as its connection
with the University of Michigan naturally suggested. As
the purpose of this society was research, rather than
religious activity & devotion, the devotional meetings were
kept up in greater or less independence of the new organization.  I cannot from personal knowledge trace this history
further than 1851, when I first retired from the University.
On my becoming again connected with the institution in 1864,
I found the Society of Inquiry no longer in existence. The


elements of religious research, devotion & action had all
merged & united in the genera-l plan of affiliated YoX0ng
Men's Christian Associations, much as now, under rthe n    Qf~




06


The Students' Christian Association.
It is in place to observe here that this chapter &
the preceding one grew out of a request made of me three
years ago by the president of the Students' Christian
Association for a sketch of religious influence & action
in the early University. This request was understood to
call for an account of my own personal relations to that
of which I was to write. I allow myself, therefore to
state that by one of those occurrences generally called
accidents, I met the young man, Mr. Jennings, just sent out
to canvass for the means of building a hall for the use of
the Students Christian Association of the University. It
was in a park in the city of Detroit. We seated ourselves,
he told me his errand & asked for suggestions. I told him
that the Honorable John S. Newberry, of the class of 1847,
afterwards member of the XLVI Congress, had recently died,
leaving a fortune of several millions & it was understood
that, after having bequeathed considerable amounts for
benevolent purposes, he had intimated to his wife that he
would like to have more of his estate given to worthy objects
which did not then occur to him & suggested to Mr,; Jennings
that he go to her, which he did, & she gave so large a
portion of the more than $40,000 which the building was to
cost that it bears the name of Newberry Hall.
A word may here be added in regard to the early sensitiveness touching the relation of religion to state education,
In the winter of 1846-7 there was an earnest religious move:


ment in the churches of Ann Arbor. The university then had:
its study hours, during which the students were expeoted te




remain in their rooms. The evening hours from 7 to 90 o:'cok
were embraced by the rule & these were the hours of the revival services. But those who desired to attend the meetings & would use the hours ordinarily given to recreation in
mastering their lessons, were excused for the purpose. Some
of the specially religious Regents were deeply concerned
lest politicians should make a handle of the matter & besought
the professors to prevent, if possible, the spread of any
knowledge of it through the newspapers. But this concern
was quite unnecessary. With large numbers, if not with the
majority of the people, the impression made by the intelligence was favorable to the institution, & the politicians
knew better than to object, since they desired that students
should be excused to hear the political campaign speeches
which should be made in the place. These anxious friends
of the university erred, too, in supposing that honest
Christian professors in the university would encourage a
religious work among the students & make any attempt to
conceal it from public notice.
Mr. Jefferson's final plan for clustering the schools
of the Christian sects around his state university has been
refered to in the foregoing sketches. Of this I knew nothing
until about seven years ago when I made a study of the educational legislation of Virginia. But at the Baptist convention of Michigan in the Autumn of 1846 the question of founding a theological seminary at Kalamazoo being under consid

eration, I succeeded in convincing the most of those present
that schools of this class ought to be locally conetedwith
the university. The ground taken was that this measuret




would in the end secure from the university fund a part at
least of the benefits from which the clerical profession
alone had been excluded, & that it was bad economy for the
religious sects to expend large sums in doing for themselves
what the state would do for them. But the local plans had
already gone so far that many voted against their own
declared convictions for the school at Kalamazoo. A
theological Seminary only was designed by this vote; but
there was no demand developed for such an institution, &
it was,therefore, made a college, & will, doubtless, become
a respectable school of its class. I have introduced a
notice of it only as belonging in the line of development
which I have traced from the legislation of Virginia.
But historical sketches like the foregoing are useless
except as they justify deductions involving current action.
Such is the lesson taught & impressed by this history.
It has become evident to deeply reflective minds that the
problem of separating religious from secular teaching in
the public schools, which many deem so easy, cannot be
practically solved as has been thought. It is clear that
he who imagines that he has effected a solution, has deceived
himself. Religious teaching pervades the world's literature.
We must abolish all this before we can begin to effect the
separation. And this abolishment will have to sweep away
our dictionaries. Or shall we skip & leave unexplained all
the words of religious import?  Or, to name a particular


study, that of history, shall teachers in this unbounded
field, describe their surveys of that portion which relates
to the development of the family of nations known as~ Chritendom, the acknowledged product of the Christian Religion,




239.


without expressing, or having formed an opinion as to
whether the system which has wrought so marvelously is true
or false? It would be better to omit the teaching altogether. It is, indeed, easy to leave out from a course of
study the polemic aspects of Christianity & this should be
done. So too can the teacher omit the controversial history
of science generally & teach chiefly what has been established, & this would generally be better in practice than
to wade through the quagmires of past controversy. To
show that the Copernican system is true will show that the
Ptolemaic is false. Polemics in science belongs to scientific conventions, in which there is indeed no want of
knightly displays; these should be kept out of the classroom. So the Christian ritual, whether its administration,
or the polemic views in regard to it, belong to the Church
& never to the school-room, unless it be in the theological
course.  So, too, of those religious doctrines in regard
to which a general agreement has not been secured. But
religious teaching cannot be kept out of the public schools
& the near future will develope a revolution of the practice
of our country in this regard.
XLVIII. SOLE ARCHEOLOGICAL FRAGAINTS
The antiquities of a great institution usually form
a subject of interest; but those of a school which has not
yet completed by many years, even reckoning from its
mustard-seed inception in Detroit, the first century of its
existence, or a city, but seventy-two years from the pitching


of the first tent upon its site, would naturally seem to
promise little to archeological inquiry.   If any one should




ask  of me a specimen of the university's antiquities, I
might bid him look upon me as the only living relic of a
faculty that existed before the graduation in 1845 of the
first class. Governor Felch, who died the present year,
had long been the sole survivor of the legislature which
enacted in 1836 the organic law of the institution. Nor
was there any other than he living of the board of Regents
in 1844. These relics I cannot exhibit, unless it may be
in photograph, & shall give only a few pictorial touches
upon the village & school of the early days.
There are few, if any, living who know that both students
& professors began before the first class graduated in
supposed imitation of the English universities to wear the
cap & gown. The students of the graduating class of 1894,
doubtless thought they were the first to import this custom
from Oxford & Cambridge; but all the classes in 1844 distinguished themselves in this manner from citizens, as did also
the professors, appearing thus clad not only on public days,
but every day. We formed a set of novel figures in this
little western town & doubtless impressed many of the people
with high notions of academic lustre. I can give no account
of the discontinuance of this attempt, except that when
any neglected the provision we were thrown out of uniform
& gradually gave up our endeavor at this kind of distinctive
dress. (During the administration of Acting-President Frieze,
1869-71, the whole body of students adopted a mortar-board:


cap and tassel for regular wear, with silver dates of the
graduating year of the wearer on its front.       Y of t      ih
faculty, including the president, also wore these soaps.   Tle
custom held but two or three years.   B.A.F)




241.
The college tricks & jokes of early times have to a
great extent given way to others, whether of a more elevated
character I shall not attempt to decide. Indeed, it is
natural to suppose that classes made up of western boys
whose parents had first established themselves in log
cabins & had but just risen above this low grade in the
outer adornments of civilized life, would be thrown upon
their own invention in the matter of tricks, having few
distinct traditions of those then current in the eastern
colleges. The first that I heard of, which is, indeed, the
better remembered because the attempt was a failure, occurred
the year before my connection with the university. Some
students were preparing for an entertainment in which milk
was required. Whether they intended to make the oldfashioned milk-punch, on which in my boyhood I have seen so
many people made merry, I am not informed; but the boys
chose night for the execution of their plot. They chased an
animal which they thought would furnish the needed supply
& after much labor got it cornered only to find out that it
was not of the sex which usually yields this nutricious
fluid. Whether the boys made another & more successful
incursion into some pasture was not reported. The cause of
failure was probably deemed the chief feature of the adventure.
The bell was rung upon a post about twenty feet high.
This was one night stolen by sawing off one of the two ars


of the post which sustained it.  The eastern college trick
which corresponds to this was to climb to the belfry, turn
the bell upside down in a  cold winter evening & pour it
full of water, which before morning would freeze soflid &




00:::;:  24g.::0;:
the bell would swing noiseless in the wintry airs.   The
trick here fell quite short of its purpose; for the students
were obliged to assemble without the usual summons, & those
who had no part in the larceny did not patiently suffer the
want of the call. Moreover the board enacted that the cost
of such depredations as this & the breaking of glass, in case
the depredator should not be detected, should be assessed
upon the body of students & entered as an item in their
term-bills. It was a kind of insurance in a Students'
Mutual. The bell had been carried to the river & had there
lain for a couple of weeks immersed. The inconvenience of
its want was deeply felt by those who had carried it away,
as well as by others, & somebody who knew where it was
brought it back.
The somewhat bungling nature of the early tricks of
our institution is best explained by the want of any well
known precedents as established in eastern colleges; for we
were then in the far west. An apt illustration may be seen
in the following account. One morning near the close of
the Summer term, as students & professors were on their way
to the room used for morning & evening prayers in: the first
dormitory building, intelligence of a trick was brought back
to them by those who had first reached the chapel. The hay
which the night before lay raked up on the ground about
the building, had been carried up & mowed away in the
chapel. On looking around   we could see that the heaps


which had adorned the ground at evening were missing. Ve
found the whole crop in the chapel. When all had surveyed
the scene, the janitor was left with half a day's work0




before him to remove it, & professors & students retired
without prayers to the exercises of their several class
rooms. This work was attributed to a young candidate for
the Presbyterian ministry, a profession which he afterwards
highly adorned. The best explanation of the affair is
that he was conscientious & desired to perform an amount
of labor equal to the fun which it yielded,
As to the most common of the college   tricks, it was
not always quite certain whether they were intended as
simple mischief, or whether they were gotten up out of
benevolence, or revenge. I refer to the tearing up of the
plank side-walks which then prevailed in the town. It was
for a time by no means unusual to go out in the morning &
see a walk to the extent of an entire block standing on its
edge against a fence, or lying wrong side up by the wayside.  If the walk had been a fairly good one, the work
was set down to the account of pure mischief. If it had
been bad, its tearing up was deemed an admonition to the
owner to mend his ways. Students may have kicked their
feet, as others than students often did, against the uprising end of a plank & at once proceeded to summary vengeance.
This kind of mischief may have had some influence in causing
the early introduction of asphalt walks, which might become
ever so bad & still defy this kind of treatment. The
asphalt has now generally yielded to flagging or to an


artificial stone which in winter is a good substitute for
ice, except that skating on it is not permitted. The tearing up of walks of this kind would be too laborious as a
pastime is not needed as an admonition. And yet it ma    be
~                               n    e  ty     b




but the boundless fertility of invention for the expendittre
of redundant life which has wrought this change in the incidents of a university career.  The law of evolution is
here, as elsewhere, in force. It has eliminated most of
the early tricks & recreations. Many of them scarcely exist
now even as traditions. The stealing of sign-boards, indeed,
survives the wreck, but is kept up somewhat as a kind of
private enterprise, while the great current of the student
life flows on in the channels formed by the fraternities &
other clubs & societies. With not less than forty organized
clubs, or fellowships for studious, sportive, convivial, or
social life, it is not a matter of wonder that time fails
for the old-fashioned college tricks as also with not a few
of the old time habits of devotion to study which have
declined somewhat.
The most demonstrative interest clusters around the
organizations for athletic games. These differ from the
corresponding early sports of the students in that for the
first ten years of the university, if not for double that
length of time, for I was not here from 1851 to 1862, the
athletic diversions were chiefly without definite organization & all took more or less part in them, each sharing
without exhaustion the moderate & wholesome exertion. One
could be struck with the ball of those days without the
peril of life or limb, which is no longer true. (A young
lady passing through the streets here in the summer of 1894,


was struck with a ball & died of the injury received.)   The
practice now delegates to two or three hundred out of as
many thousand the entire performance in the great athleti e;
games, while the participation of the body of the students




245.
consists in shouting over a cvictory, or in accepting in
sympathetic silence a defeat of their representatives.
At this point I feel like introducing a narrative by
way of indicating the present stage of the evolution of
our university sports. A comparison of the college sports
cannot justly be deemed a departure from the plan of this
chapter. The present generation in university life have
sometimes applied the epithet "prehistoric" to the period
of which I now write, which word, however, in this application, subserves better the purposes of the humorist than
those of the scientific inquirer. So far as essential
features are concerned, the early institution & the life of
its students & professors can yet be placed as distinctly
before the inquirer's mind as now is seen the ever accumulating flow of current events. It is only the accidents that
are lost. Some specimens of these are what this chapter
is designed to restore. They are the remaining drift of a
bygone life.
The tricks of students have been under consideration.
Some of these have, indeed, been floated down by Professor
Williams' happy repartees. On his way to the morning
recitation in mathematics the Professor once met a student
coming to tell him that a donkey was in his class-room; his
prompt response on receiving the report was:- "Is there but
one," implying that he was expecting to meet quite a number
of that class of animal. A frog was once put into his desk


& during the recitation of the freshman class he raised the
lid and the animal sprang out, upon which he simply observed,
"here comes another freshman" & proceeded with the class-.
room work.  Invention has busied itself somewhat with this




prehistoric period, as I had occasion a couple of years
ago to learn, when a new professor, in speaking of this class
of tricks, refered to the introduction of a goose into
my class-room. I could only answer that it never occurred;
and this leads me to remark that so far as I know this
kind of jokes was practiced only on Professor Williams &
I have sometimes placed this to the credit of the good
feeling of the students, thinking that they may have been
moved by the desire to call forth those humorous repartees
which were sure to follow their tricks.
Three petty larcenies were committed on my premises, one
in the "prehistoric period," the other two at a much later
date. The prehistoric occurrence was the stripping of a
choice grape-vine in my garden. This was fixed upon the
perpetrators in a manner which did them not little credit.
I called at a room the next day on quite a different errand,
& incidentally saw that grapes & some remains of devoured
ones were abundant about the room. The young man whom I met
in my call had had no hand in the depredation. I did my
errand & made no reference to the appearance of the room;
in the morning, however, I received a happily worded note,
signed by four boys, acknowledging the trespass. There
were unwilling that suspicion should rest upon the innocent
student whom I had seen in the midst of the plunder.   They
desired me to regard the note as personal to myself & not
at all as written to escape any action which the faculty


might see fit to take. The boys were expelled, I alone
refusing to vote for this disposition of the case.   They
were mere boys; they might all of them have been sent to1




::;2 4 7.  '  1 1,
their parents on the ground that they were not up to what
was required of them in their studies. But contrary to y
expressed conviction the action was based solely upon this
nocturnal foraging expedition - that it was wrong for faculty
or regents to assign any but the real ground for their action.
I have always regarded it so.
The other larceny was that of a fine turkey. This
occurred far within the historic period of the University;
the class history made it clear that the guilty party was
the son of a professor of high standing & gave some description also of the nightly entertainment at which the turkey
figured; this was worth twice as much as the grapes; but the
larceny was deemed a good joke. Since times immemorial
people have been taught to look back to a golden age, an
age of purer & happier life than the present. I express no
opinion myself in regard to the reality of such an era, in
the prehistoric development of our university; but those
who desire to maintain the theory of golden ages in the
past may, perhaps, find use for the foregoing suggestions,
A joke setting forth the relation of college & town
may be in place here & I add one of hundreds. Governor
Mundy, as he was called, afterwards a Justice of the Supreme Court, was a man of noble presence, to which he added
a pair of gold-bowed spectacles, the more impressive because, so far as I remember, they were the only ones, except
in case of Professor Williams, seen in the place. He lost;b:n cas of:Professior


these and advertised the loss by a note put up iln the postMT
office. Under this some one, I dare not affirm that it was
not a professor, wrote the words, "Sic transit gloria    l




:48.
The foregoing must suffice for the class of antiquarian facts
intended for this chapter.   (Note. It can now in no wise harm
any one to give the name of Tilman C. Trowbridge as that of
the young man at whose room I called as indicated above. Mr.
T. would have done, as would any true-hearted young man; he
would have said nothing about the matter to others; but he
merely said to his room-mate, "you see that you have subjected
me to being suspected of that in which I had no part." The
four were too noble & just to do this, & wrote me the note
to which I have refered. Mr. Trowbridge belonged to one of
the most prominent families in the state. He was willing to
forego those advantages of home to which he seemed to have
been born & accordingly spent his life as a missionary in
the Ottoman Empire, where he died in 1888, president of the
college at Aintab. A brief notice of the death of Tillman C.
Trowbridge, D.D., will be found in the Michigan Pioneer &
Historical Collections, Vol. XIV. p. 162. Notices of the
prominent family to which he belonged are dispersed throughout
these Collections. As to the four unnamed boys, I only add
that my mind followed them with equally good wishes & no
reproaches, &, although I have never seen their note since
the day it was received, the fitness of the terms in which
their acknowledgments were couched continue to impress me.
And I refer to the matter chiefly to indicate the feelings of
the teacher towards those who have fallen within the circle
of his influence. Three of the fourlads, as they then were,


have enacted their several parts on the earthly stage & stept
upon another.




"49.


XLIX. STUDENTS SOCIETIES & CLUBS
Under the head of Religion in the University two
organized bodies, the old Society of Inquiry & the Studentsf
Christian Association have been brought into special notice.
But there are other organizations of students which have
become quite too numerous to be separately mentioned, having
a large range as to their purposes. In this respect the
change has been quite as great since the first class in the
university entered senior as in the corriculum of study.
The first of these were after a long-existing pattern in
American colleges, & had for their object the improvement
of their numbers in rhetorical & oratorical practice.
There had generally existed in our colleges two of these in
t
active rivalry to each other, often carrying this so far as
to canvass for members from academies in advance of matriculation which they did by correspondence. The two rival
societies here were called respectively the Alpha Nu &
Phi Phi Alpha, which latter name has been changed to Literary
Adelphi. In my sketch of the Secret Society War I have
refered to the competition of these two bodies as becoming at
one time so heated that they refered the matter of contest
to the faculty for adjudication.
While we were engaged on this case many an amusing
incident occurred, of which the following may serve as a
specimen. One young man testified that his society lacked
just half a vote of what they needed for their purpose.  The
reader can tell as well as I can what he meant, but such was


his testimony, upon which Professor Williams asked him
whether they were able to "make the change," & when it was




2:50.
learned who it was that was brought in for the purpose,
there was a unanimous feeling that the change was about
right.
These organizations for literary & oratorical practice
proved a useful auxiliary to the department of instruction
in rhetoric & elocution. Rooms were assigned them by the
Regents, these were furnished by the societies, the
furniture including in both instances respectable libraries
of popular books. But this class of literary organizations,
after a useful career of considerable length, have either
greatly yielded, or entirely succombed to the reign of
other combinations, or at least other influences. Perhaps
the severest & the final check upon their activity was that
their rooms were taken from them to serve as class-rooms
for professors; but long before they encountered this
decisive action, other college forces were coming to the
front.  Of these the so-called Fraternities were chief.
Of the origin of this class of sodalities I shall not
treat further than to observe that each is supposed to be
started in some college, & then the maternal body forms its
chapters, or affiliated bodies, in other institutions.
These affiliations began to be formed here as early as 1845.
To canvass their merits forms no part of my purpose. I
am only regarding them as a phenomenon, or series of phenomena, in college & university life.   I have already sketched
with considerable detail the conflict which grew   out of


their introduction, which I have endeavored to do with the
calmness of an indifferent observer & certainly have felt*
no acrimony while making my sketch, if any traces of 0such




feeling are suspected by the reader.   I desire only toadd
in a general way that these affiliations have so multiplied
that they threaten to exhaust the power of combination in
the letters of the Greek alphabet to supply them with names.
Some of them have erected & some have purchased houses which
rival the best architectural structures of the city. Of
the more pretentious edifices there are at least half-adozen ranking in the architecture of Ann Arbor somewhat
greater now than do the great club-houses in that of London,
while the chapters here of the other fraternities rent less
pretentious buildings. They number in all twenty-two, in
which number are included two, however, that are not properly
designated as fraternities, since they are made up of ladies.
The term sorosis, derived from soror, sister, as fraternity
is from frater, brother, is applied to these clubs of lady
students. Both seem to foretoken a return to the coenobitic
life of the Middle Ages.
There has sometimes been developed a decided antagonism
between the members of the fraternities on the one side &
the Independents, on the other. This shows itself in
elections of officers of classes & those of the larger
societies; a division of honors is, however, generally agreed
upon, & any violence of hostility is thus avoided.
The reader can judge of the financial resources which
must be at the command of these affiliated bodies, enabling
them to build as they do & maintain a style of living to


correspond with their exterior show. How the funds for
purchase or construction are raised I do not know, & yet
do not doubt that graduate members of the chapters01, &,




perhaps others, have furnished these & receive dividends
upon their stock from the rent paid by the members who occupy
the houses.
The great omnibus society of the University, that is,
the one which takes in all who choose to join it from every
department & class, is the Students' Lecture Association.
The purpose of this organization is to supply lectures &
concerts to the students & to citizens' families. Having
the use of the University Hall, which seats nearly three
thousand people, this society is able to command the best
oratorical & musical talent of the country. When wise
arrangements are made, though lecturers & other entertainers
are paid the highest prices, the Association has generally
had a surplus fund, one way at least of expending which has
been to purchase periodical literature for the University
Library. But the multiplication of other attractions
threatens the dominance of this society's course of entertainments; for the  unrolling panorama is ever bringing new forms
of life into prominence. The ebb & flow are perpetual.
L. LITERATURE & OTHER INCIDENTS OF TIHE UNIVERSITY LIFE
By the title of this chapter are not meant catalogues
& official reports of Regents, Presidents & Professors. Nor
have I any reference to the volumes produced by professors
& other officers; but rather to that spontaneous development
of the student life which has now taken on organized &
established forms & yields its annual product of many a vol

ume. Some may be interested in being led back to the
fountain-head of this scholastic literature.  This Oan be
done, so far as our university is concerned.  A more reot
origin, however, in other institutions I shall not attempt i




25,.
-\    $:: a


to trace.
The first form of this student literature was the burlesque scheme for the exercises of commencement & Junior Exhibition. Such schemes were gotten up by finding some way of
access through printers, or otherwise, to the scheme made
out by the faculty. As every member of the graduating-class
delivered an oration on Commencement day, & every junior
at the junior exhibition, to both which public occasions was
added a declamation by the Sophomores, the occasions for the
issue of these schemes were frequent. They often transcended
the bounds of decorum & passed into the trifling or obscene,
& yet generally so aptly etched the traits of students on
the lists as to partially redeem the issue from the taint
of obscenity. Those who got these up remained unknown &
could not, therefore, be made responsible. The offence was
finally suppressed by making those who distributed the burlesques, for these were usually put into the hands of the
regular distributors of schemes, answerable for it. Such
papers did not continue long to be gotten up after it became
so difficult to get them into circulation.
The first attempt that I remember at a variation in
this class of scourging literature was a little sheet, I
think it was called "The Whip," & if not, this name would
have suited it. The imprint indicated that it was issued
"Semi-occasionally from the garret of Thayer's old barn."
How many issues ever appeared I do not know. It busied
itself with affairs of school & town, acting as a censor of


morals, & this the more freely as it was anonymous &
irresponsible. Spurts of this kind may be regarded as the




254.
prehistoric originals of a literature of which unnubered
volumes are now sent forth every year, under the direction of
responsible Boards of Educators named & known, their matter
the serious, humorous & comic, variously intermingled. Many
of these are annually bound & find their way into the University library & into numerous families & may thus pass down
to other generations, while the annual histories, prophecies
& poems of graduating classes, are likely to be more ephemeral.
The periods of these issues vary from that of the U. of M.
Daily to monthlies & occasionals without number as well as
annuals.  I have no thought of even naming them. Of the
occasional issues I give a specimen as setting forth the
merry side of college life. It is taken from a thin volume
entitled "Songs of the Yellow & Blue," the Songs by Charles
Gayley & F. N. Scott, the music by A. A. Stanley.
I give the following song, by F. N. Scott. It is entitled
"Elixir Juventatis." The reader is to regard the drinking as
probably not real metaphoric.
1. A health! clink! clink! & now we drink
No juice of grape or grain,
But we sip, forsooth, the wine of youth
That leaps from heart to brain;
We're young! we're young! Let every tongue
Intone the choral hymn,
While memory swings her silent wings
Above each beaded brim.
2. When men are old, their hearts grow cold
In life's tumultuous storm;
But ours still glow amid the snow,
And keep our bosoms warm;
The laughing lip, the hands that grip,
When friendly hands are wrung,
Some day must die & powerless lie -
Let's use them while we're young.




B55.


3. 'Tis time to part, the tear-drops start
And turn our drink to brine;
Good-bye, old friend, may heaven send
Goodhap to thee & thine;
And when we're gray and round the way
The darkling shadows creep,
Upon our knees we'll drink the lees,
And gently fall asleep.
In the year 1846, I myself being at that time the executive of the faculty, a United States Senator from a western
state wrote me making inquiries looking towards sending a
son to the university, among other things inquiring whether
"music & dancing" were taught in the institution. I was
obliged to answer negatively to this interrogatory, & the
boy, whether from the want of provision for teaching the two
accomplishments mentioned, or whether, as is more probable,
on account of examinations for which he was unprepared, did
not come. I was a little curious to know something further
of the gentleman who had addressed to me this inquiry &
asked one of our own Senators in Congress in regard to him,
only to learn that he was generally found where ever there
was dancing, in which he always participated keeping up the
amusement the night through. Had I waited a little time I
might have learned the same from the Washington correspondents
of the newspapers, for they soon contered upon him epithets
significant of this distinction & made it clear that he won
no other during his senatorial career.
Music is now represented by a professor in the University.
To notice personalities other than the early ones would be
to transcend the limits of my plan; & so I will only add that


this step has imparted a certain charm to university cirles,~
as also to the families of citizens. As to dancing I:. orly
add that it is represented in the place by an academy, whicid




256.
still waits outside, with what ground of hope I do not kAow,
for admission into the institution.
The establishment of a professorship of Music in the
University has had some incidental effects which are worth
a notice. Of these the chief one is the founding of the
University School of Music, so called, for it is not in any
strict sense a part of the University, though the Professor
of Music is its director & others officially connected with
the University belong to the organization. This school has
now a building of its own, named Frieze Hall, in honor of
the late Professor Frieze, the first President of the University Musical Society. A recent occurrence, however, in
connection with this school involves a kind of relation to
the University. The Musical Society purchased & presented
to the institution to be placed in its great hall the
Columbian organ, one of the largest ever made & supposed to
be the very best, made so by a combination of all past
improvements in manufacture. The demands for such an instrument were of course few, as there were few places where it
could be put up. It was purchased for $15,000, half its
cost, which amount was partly raised by subscription & partly
left to be realized by concerts, the first of which netted
$5,000.  Such is the weight of the structure that special
supports had to be placed under it to make its erection in
the hall safe to the building. The amount paid them by the
Exposition & its value in the university as an advertisement


satisfied the builders.
LI. NATURAL SCENSRY
The scenery of our city is a fine compromise between a
dead level & the rugged peaks of Alpine lands.  Attention has




257,
already been called to the plain first chosen as the site
of the village as it appeared under its natural adornings
of bur-oaks. These, with some exceptions which serve as
mementos of what the place was in its wild state, have been
cut away. The result of the clearing process has been not
to obliterate, but to disclose the charms which nature had
spread profusely over the landscape. The arboreous growths
which had limited the view once cut away, vistas rarely excelled in beauty, have been opened to the observer. The
grand features of the place were marked out in those periods
of the mysteriously sublime, when the earth's surface was
remodeled by glacial & diluvial action, The geologist may
make some rude guesses at the time, the process, & the
duration of this transforming work. I shall not attempt it.
Doubtless coeval with the action of the forces, which, plowed
out the expansive depths that now form the world's grandest
line of fresh water seas, occurred the scooping out of the
valley of the Huron as a trifling side-shovw in the sublime
exhibition; exhibition I say; but it was an exhibition
without a human spectator. Geologists may be applied to for
the story of the formation of this surface; I shall only
indicate what it is & what now appears upon it.
In plowing out this valley & depositing the drift that
forms the bluffs along it, nature formed a drawing upon
which she was to complete her exquisite picture, to. await
a later artistic adornment.  The bluffs extend somewhat


less than sixteen miles on the river between Dexter & Ypsilanti,
Ann Arbor being their central point & the place of greatest
activity in the forces which shaped the features of the:




region.  The chief of these & that which governs all the rest
is a natural basin scooped out by diluvial action on the
level of the river-banks.  This, measured from the highest
elevations around it, would show a diameter of about one
mile. The present course of the river winds back & forth
from one side to the other of these lowlands, which have been
cleared & formed into plow-lands & meadows, except that
portion which was originally built upon & known as the Lowertown, now the fifth ward of the city.
A few years ago the city completed a carriage road
around that part of this basin which was not already laid
out into streets.  This road is known as the Boulevard.
Starting from the river road leading to Ypsilanti, it
climbs by zigzag to near the summits of the north side
bluffs & descends by the old Plymouth road, or Broadway,
into the Lower town. This forms the popular walk & drive
of citizens, students, professors & visitors.   The circuit,
setting out from the vicinity of the post-office, is about
three miles & throughout its whole course affects with a
rare charm those who love rural scenery combined with
artistic adornment.
On pleasant Saturday & other holiday afternoons of the
Spring, early Summer & Autumn, this way is more or less
thronged. The student element prevails in the pedestrian
procession, the families of citizens are more frequently in
the carriages.  The School-girls' Glen, a name which former

ly suggested lovers' rambles, is now chiefly a memory.  It
may, perhaps, be visited when love-making, under mask of
botanizing reaches its most interesting & seriou  st;age; bt




the Boulevard is the highway of the promenade. College
girls & their attendant beaux are often seen sitting on
the green margins of the highway, or the girls are standing
to see the young men compete in throwing stones to the bed
of the river below. Groups stand here & there surveying
the scenery. On the basin itself the sheen of the water
gleams through the foliage which lines the river banks, while
gardens, vineyards & meadows very the aspect below & the
architecture of the city beyond enlarges & diversifies
the prospect, to all which are also added an alternation of
field & woodland still further on. About a mile distant,
the monuments on the north side of the rural cemetary can
be seen among the primeval forest trees whichadorn its
ground.
A tendency has been developed of late years to build
good houses on the bluffs southward of the basin. The
university hospital buildings are erected on the side of one
of these eminences as it rises from a ravine which puts
down to the river.  The lines of buildings which crown these
heights present an imposing view to those who are promenading the elevated way northward of the river. The first
edifice erected in all this part of the city, indeed, for
many years quite out of the city & alone, was the astronomical observatory. It stands above all others, so placed
that no intervening object could cut off the observor's view
of the horizon.


It is worthy of note that Ann Arbor's most distinguilshing architectural feature is indebted for its origin to
the series of cataclysms which gouged out the ehanAi  O    t


I - - ~ --- -~ ~.~: -rri v ---.   -- 1      -              I




the Huron & heaped their drift into the blutts which   line
its course. In the diluvion which was pushed or washed
by the violent forces then active in nature, were fragments
of broken up rock strata from those worn into fine sand
& pebbles to the great bowlders of tons in weight which
lie scattered over the surface & are found lodged in the
drift to its greatest depths. A few farm-houses were early
built of the cobble-stone size of this deposit. The larger
stones were used in the foundations of houses in the village
& later city; but the real art of shaping the great bowlders
into a tasty building material had an independent origin
here, if, indeed, it has ever been so beautifully executed
elsewhere. Four churches are built of these bowlders, cut
into blocks so as to present in the popular view the finest
facades in the city. There are here but two private
houses of this material, those built respectively by Judge
Cooley & Professor Frieze & these were built too early to
show the artistic use of this material which was to be
developed. The buildings & other work about the Central
Railroad station - & these form one of the later steps in
redeeming Ann Arbor from a low grade in architectural &
landscape improvement in the eyes of those who rush through
it by steam - find their basal features in the structures
of the hewn bowlders of the place, these being ornamented
with stones brought on from abroad. To those who remember
the two breweries, with surroundings corresponding thereto,


which once occupied this grounds the transformation seems
magical. All other connections between the Upper& Lower
towns were cut off & a bridge was thrown over the railroad




261.
to connect the two. The high bank which rises from the
road southward was purchased & turfed & is now kept shorn
with the lawn-mower, though so steep that this has to be
drawn with a rope. A fountain plays & foliage & flowering
plants thrive about the station, while the buildings are
made to seem of venerable age by the ivy trained about
them, so that the traveler who waits there finds himself
surrounded by beauties the product of an alliance of art
with nature in forms elsewhere scarcely known. Dislodged
at divers points & from different strata, & here brought
together by accident, these immigrant stones show when dressed & laid up a beautiful variety of texture & shade. These
blocks gratefully affect the mind also when wrought, as
they often are into walls of brick, as trimmings & adornments. The high-school building well illustrates this
remark. Refering again to the Rail-road station, the
artistic advance has been attended by a corresponding moral
one. This used to be the gathering place of men & boys
who had nothing to do. Scuffling & fighting were not
unusual; indeed, I once saw there knives drawn & blood
caused to flow, so that for a moment I expected soon to be
witness in a murder trial. There are enough such men & boys
still in Ann Arbor; but since taste has been displayed in
the construction & surroundings of the buildings, & discipline is exercised within, these find other places of
assembly. This has been a transformation since the time:


when two old breweries occupied this ground.
And in quite recent years, a new turn has been given
to the architect's art in the use of these bowlders in




262.
combination with wood. The stone work may be best defined
as a very artistic affectation of nature.  The stones are
laid up with little or no shaping & made to look as if they
had rained down into their positions, forming a  kind of
natural grotto over which an artistic upper story & roofing
of wood had been constructed. Several students club-houses
& some fine family dwellings are of this type.
The foregoing paragraphs have been written merely as
hints of what cataclysms of nature of unnumbered ages ago
wrought in preparation for the development of this place.
We learn that the diluvion of the overloaded glacial force
which was here unloaded, shaped both the superficial features
of the place & left a peculiar material to aid in  its
architectural adornment.
LII. NECROLOGY & PERSONAL SKETCHES
In the following sketches of the deceased who had in
their lives served the University I make no claim to a
treatment according to any fixed standard of merit. Such
comparison would, indeed, be invidious, since it would be
impossible to make it with any approach to absolute justice.
The best life is often, if not usually, that which shows
fewest points to arrest attention & mark it as of special
interest for a biographical sketch. Those high moral
qualities which illustrate themselves in a career no point
in which towers greatly above any other, justly command our
admiration; but they often furnish no eligible material for


the writer of a brief sketch to lay hold of. My notices of
such shall be the briefest possible. There have been those,
however, who exemplify both these classes of traits, tbat




263.
is, those whose lives have been a quiet round of ordinary
duties, and who have, nevertheless, offered to public view
some bold features to be seized upon for notice.
Asa Gray has already been mentioned as the first man
elected to a professorship in the University, for which,
however, he did nothing to give him a claim to special
notice as one of its band of co-laborers. The notice is
demanded rather by what the University did for him & helped
him to do to advance the science for the teaching of which
it elected him. He was born in Oneida County, New York,
in 1810, & was educated at the Fairfield Medical School at
Herkimer, but was disinclined to the practice of medicine
& had an insatiable passion for natural history & especially
for botany. By some important services already rendered
he had become well known to members of the board of Regents,
& was elected in 1838 professor of Botany & Zoology &
commissioned to purchase f or the University the beginning
of a library, as already mentioned.
When Dr. Gray was abroad, Marzius, deemed, I believe,
to have been the greatest botanist of his time, was at the
height of his fame. He had been of the scientific corps
of the expedition which was sent out jointly by Austria &
Bavaria to South America in 1817 & continued its explorations
until 1820. To affirm that Professor Gray during his first
visit to Europe placed himself in personal relations with
Professor Marzius, would be affirming what I do not know,


& yet cannot doubt; for during a personal acquaintance with
Marzius in 1860-62, I found him sending regularly to Gre
the issues of his labors, & speaking of the latter as lhe




264.
would do of a personal friend. And I know quite well that
the house of the German professor would have been as agreeable a place as could have been found for a pleasant alteration between the scientific & the social. Marzius wrote,
as did the scientists of his day, his botanic treatises in
Latin, & yet at nearly three score & ten he could still
unbend himself to play the violin, while his daughters
sang our American Negro melodies which I never heard in
any other German household. So we have the greatest of
European botanists of the early half of the century imparting his attainments to him who in its later half was to be
the greatest of Americans in the same field of inquiry.
It is certain that Gray did make the acquaintance of the
chief, if not of all the great botanists.
Dr. Gray was not a mere botanist. Botanic & zoological
inquiry has been the field of those speculations which
have given the name of the "doctrine of evolution" to a
certain theory, called also Darwinism, from Charles Darwin,
who was doubtless the most exact observer  and interpretor
of those facts, especially in zoology, upon which the theory
rests. But Dr. Gray excelled Darwin in reasoning from the
observed facts. One has only to read the Life & Letters of
Charles Darwin to percieve that Darwin himself ranked Gray
as first in the exactness of his critical speculations on
the questions of their common science. Not only does Darwin
so utter himself substantially in words, but the amount of


his correspondence with Gray exceeds that with any other
man, so far as noticed in these volumes. And yet Gay was
a fierce believer in the Divine origin of the Hebrew &




Christian Scriptures, Darwin was either skeptical, or in
perpetual vacillation on this subject.  Dr. Gray says of
himself, "I am scientifically & in my own fashion a Darwinian, philosophically a convinced theist & religiously an
acceptor of the creed commonly known as the 'Nicene,' as an
exposition of the Christian faith." He died at Cambridge,
Massachusetts, January 30th, 1888.
It is in place here to indicate the principle on which
the names have been selected for introduction into these
personal sketches. As I am writing rather of early steps
which have led to present conditions, I shall notice, none who
are still in active connection with the university, & of
those who belong to the past I shall make note of those only
who may be justly deemed to have contributed somewhat decisively to the founding or development of the institution, or
who have won such distinction in other fields of labor as
to make their names of interest to the readers of these
notices.
The governors of the state were members ex officio &
presidents of the board of Regents from 1837 to 1852. The
first governor, Stevens T. Mason, deserves a notice specially
on account of one act. Mr. Mason, having been territorial
secretary, became acting governor by the death of governor
Porter. Occupying this place in 1836, he was elected governor & reelected in 1838. At the time of his election he was
but twenty-seven years of age. In April 1839 the legisla

ture passed a bill, which, had it become a law, might haiv
resulted in relinquishing the university lands to aetual
settlers and killing the institution in embryo.  The gorn




returned the bill with his veto, accompanied with such statements of what would follow should it become a law that no
further legislative action upon it was attempted. Mr. Mason
removed to New York there to engage in the practice of the
profession of law & died in 1843 at the early age of thirty
one years.
Isaac E. Crary, Regent by appointment from 1837 to 1843,
has been honorably mentioned in my account of his services
in the convention which formed the constitution  of the state.
That notice, together with the statement that he was a
graduate of some eastern college & died in 1854 shall suffice
in regard to him.
Henry R. Schoolcraft, Regent by appointment from 1837
to 1841, is mentioned here chiefly on account of his
writings on the history, manners & customs of the North
American Indians. No one has ever written so much as he on
these tribes & the ability with which he did his work was
acknowledged by the government in its large expenditure upon
the publication of his great quartoes. As Regent Mr. Schoolcraft was chairman of the committee on the Branches.   The
following passage from his report of 1841, will best state
the principle upon which the committee acted. "It was concieved, that the requirement of the act & the duty of the
board in this respect would not have been fully performed
by merely obtaining instructors of competent literary &
natural abilities, disconnected from their moral influence


both in the Branches & in the communities in which they are
located.  And it has ever constituted an object to finad mn,
both as principals & subordinates who united sound larBni,




2867.
apt judgement & practical piety."  Mr. Schooclraft was born
in 1793 & died in 1864. He was educated in Middlebury
College, Vermont.
John D. Pierce, Superintendent of Public Instruction
from 1837 to 1841 has been noticed in my sketch of the origin
of the University. Besides being the chief planner of the
system, he had the charge of the lands as to their sale &
the investment of the proceeds. He saved the embryo institution by his veto of an architectural scheme which, had it
been executed, would have exhausted the fund. The value of
his services cannot be exaggerated. Mr. Pierce was a graduate of Brown University. He gave up his pastorate of the
Presbyterian Church at Marshall to accept the State Superintendency of Education &, after his invaluable services in
this position, lived & died in great poverty & in extreme
old age at Ypsilanti.
Zina Pitcher, Regent from 1837 to 1852, served the
University with rare fidelity & perseverance. He had been
a surgeon in the army Of the United States & when stationed
in Detroit became attached to the place & resigned rather
than leave it.  He spent in Detroit the best part of his
life in medical practice. His services for the institution
touched all its interests & in the establishment of the
medical department they were decisive, which was acknowledged
by making him professor emeritus in that school. Dr. Pitcher
died in Detroit in 1872 at the age of 75 years.


Jonathan Kearsley, Regent from 1838 to 1852, had be:e
of the old board of trustees of the Catholepistemiad,.or:
College of Detroit. He was in the war of 1812,  & in the 11




invasion of Canada lost a leg from above the knee & hobbled
around the rest of his life on crutches. He rose in the
army to the brevet rank of major & is said on good authority
to have been at the time the only man who had ever received
a pension for a brevet rank, which was effected by the
determination with which he urged his claim. He illustrated
this trait in the management both of his own business & his
public trusts. He was chairman of the executive committee
& had the general oversight of the building at Mnn Arbor.
Mr. Kearsley was educated at Jefferson College, Pennsylvania,
his native state, at a time when the rules of grammar were
given in doggerel Latin rhymes. He generally attended the
examinations of the University classes & at three score &
ten still repeated these doggerels. I heard him once make
the remark to a class, after reciting one of his rules,
"if you had learned your rules in that way you could never
have forgotten them," to which Professor Williams dryly
responded, "I should not like to have such poetry, learned
in my boyhood, haunt me all my life." Major Kearsley stood
guard over the treasury of the University. Se died at an
advanced age in 1855.
George Duffield D.D., Regent from 1839 to 1848, was,
as indicated elsewhere, the first appointment under the
policy of placing prominent clergymen on the governing board.
This policy was suggested by the narrow chance of a wreck
which the university had already run. Born in 1794 in


Lancaster county Pennsylvanis, graduated from the  nivrsity
of that state in 1811, Mr. Duffield belonged to a time tin
the Latin language was still a medi~um of lnatruetion  in the




269.
colleges & was more or less spoken by the well educated.
First in Philadelphia, afterwards in New York, in which
latter city he was pastor of the Broadway Tabernacle, he
was familiar with the management of the colleges of Pennsylvania, New Jersey & New York. His brief statements in the
meetings of the Regents generally carried conviction, &
were decisive of the points on which they were uttered.
To say merely that Dr. Duffield was the most prominent
clergyman of his time in Michigan is not doing him justice.
He was honored by being involved with Lyman Beecher in the
great heresy trial which split the American Presbyterian
Church into Old & New Schools, of which latter he shared
with Beecher the leadership. It was towards the close of
his life that he was invited to revisit the scene of the
old conflict & be a party in the remarriage of the divorced
sections of this great religious body. Dr. Duffield died
in 1868 in the city of Detroit where he had held his longest
pastorate.
The policy of appointing prominent clergymen as Regents
of the University has before been refered to as having been
introduced at a critical period in an early stage of the
work. I mention Dr. Duffield as the most distinguished of
these, of whom, however, there were many others representing
all the leading religious denominations at the state. One
Catholic priest, Reverend Martin Kundig, with ministers of
the Presbyterian, Methodist, Congregational, Episcopal &


Baptist denominations, were on the early board of Regents.
These, together with the clerical members of the early
faculty, by their greater familiarity with college work,: &;




270.
by their influence with the religious bodies which they
represented, were a decisive force in the early history of
the institution.
In my second chapter were indicated some steps preparatory to the founding of a university & in my thirty-second
were named some of the men who were active in these steps.
These men deserve some notice here, although, so far as the
actual establishment of the present institution is concerned,
they may perhaps be regarded as prehistoric persons. I have
sketched the beginnings of the colony at the mouth of the
Muskingum in southeastern Ohio & the congressional legislation known as the Ordinance of 1787 which prepared the way
for the settlement of the Old Northwest. I think I made it
clear that the provision for schools in the Ordinance proved
well nigh a failure in the Ohio colony, but we saw that men
from that colony were transfered to Michigan, where they
become the ruling power, prepared for their places by lessons
learned from the experiment in Ohio. I shall but need to
name the men & the reader will perceive what was their influence in Michigan. From the New England Ohio settlement
came Lewis Cass, William Woodbridge, & the brothers Austin
E. & Warner Wing. We shall learn, as we come to sketch them,
what positions these men occupied.
The colony on the Muskingum had won such a name for
intelligence & virtue that it early became known in foreign


lands for these traits, in illustration of which it will
suffice to mention the case of Harman Blennerhasset, an
Irish gentleman, who then just married, attracted by the
fame of this settlement crossed the Atlantic with hisa '




accomplished wife, & made his way over the rough  road of
the Alleghanies in 1797 to spend his life here in the quiet
of scientific & literary pursuits. This family passed their
first winter at Marietta & then purchased a wooded island in
the Ohio near by & built upon it the finest mansion west
of the mountains. In this, surrounded with all the charms
with which nature & art could invest a home, they were
enjoying life when Aaron Burr, swelling with his treasonable
ideas of an empire in the great west, found & ruined them
by drawing them into his scheme. The four men named as transfered from this noted colony to leading positions in the
development of the Peninsular state will here be briefly
sketched.
Lewis Cass was sent by President Madison in 1813 to
succeed General Hull as governor of the territory, & occupied
the place till 1831, when he became Secretary of War. In
1836 he was sent as minister to France, whence he returned
in 1842, after which he was most of the time to 1861 either
in the senate of the United States, or of the head of the
state department in Washington. In 1848 he was the democratic
candidate for the presidency, but General Taylor, the opposing candidate was elected. I feel quite safe in affirming
that the commencement of this year was the only one he ever
attended. He walked home with Professor Williams & myself,
for I was at the time taking my meals with this professor,


my family then being in New York, and dined with us in private.
His conversation, as I well remember was chiefly of a visit
he had made to the Orient, which had been sketched in soe
popular letters written by him & published. Tat Gnerai




278.
Cass's name is so little seen in the history of the uniivr-:
sity is explained by the fact that he was seldom long at
home in Michigan after he first entered the higher service
of the Government in 1831. He had been active, if not chief,
in the original movement for the College of Detroit, & in
the later efforts to secure the necessary land-grants, one
of which he directly effected in the reservation of the
treaty of Fort Meigs, which he negotiated with the Indians
in 1817. General Cass was a man of strictest integrity &
morals in general. He often delivered temperance addresses,
in one of which I heard him declare that he had never tasted
of ardent spirits. Born in New Hampshire in 1782, he died
in Detroit in 1866.
William Woodbridge who at eleven years of age was brought
by his parents to the settlement on the Muskingum, was
appointed by President Madison in 1814 as secretary of the
Territory of Michigan. In 1819 to 1821 he was the territorial
delegate in congress. Mr. Woodbridge was active in securing
the land-grants. In 1840 he was elected governor of the
state, & his administration but just entered upon, was sent
to the senate of the United States. He died in'1861.
Austin E. Wing of the New England Ohio colony was on the
old board from 1821 to 1837, & there was no man on that board
whose action was more constant & efficient in the work of
securing the land-grants & in the choice of the lands when
the grants had been made. He was Michigan's delegate in


congress from 1828 to 1832. Mr. Wing was graduated fom an
eastern college, Williams, I think.     He was Regent by appointment of the present university from 1845 to 1850.       His 0yner




brother, Warner Wing, as one of the justices of the Spreme
court, was Regent ex officio from 1845 to 1852.
It will be in place here to notice another element in
our system of higher education transfered to Michigan. from
Southeastern Ohio. In the year 1790 a colony of about five
hundred French people, chiefly Parisians, established themselves near the iuskingum settlement, of which they were
guests for a time until their log-village of Gallipolis
could be made ready to receive them. They had been cheated.
The lands of which they had negotiated the purchase from
Joel Barlow in Paris, did not belong to the company which
sold them. By a gift of 24,000 acres of land Congress
relieved them, after they had long suffered the ills of a
wilderness life for which their experience in the French
capital had not prepared them, but the final issue was that
not a few of them left for other parts, among whom was Peter
Desnoyers, who first went to Pittsburg & in 1796 to Detroit
where he spent the remainder of a long & active life. He
held, among other official positions, that of treasurer of
the territorial government. He was a member of the convention
held in Ann Arbor which prepared the way for Michigan's
admission into the Union. But the position held by him to
which I desire to refer is that of trustee of the Catholepistemiad, or College of Detroit, which had the administration
of the grants of land for the University. In 1831 he voted


with Dr. Brown against the exchange of the Toledo lands &
again in 1834 he & General John R. Williams voted against
the resolution which closed up that disastrous series of
transactions. The wisdom shown in this -   te oUght to se$ur




274.
for him a brief notice in this series of sketches; but the
material for such a notice is scanty. Mr. Sheldon, indeed,
(Early History of Michigan page 386) gives Peter Deenoyers'
own statement officially made, that he was of the Gallipolis
settlement & came to  Detroit in 1796, & I have heard the
same from those who had known him as of that colony.  That
he had acquired there a knowledge of the legislation & the
educational plan for the Northwest is a natural supposition
& that he made so good a use of this experience is pleasant
for us to bear in mind. (In my American State Universities,
page 287, I have given this trustee the name of I. J. Desnoyers; but having examined the notices in Farmer's History of
Detroit & Mrs. Hamlin's genealogy of the family in an appendix to her Legends of Detroit, I am now satisfied that he
was the same who emigrated from Eastern Ohio to Pittsburg &
settled in Detroit in 1796. The confusion has occurred from
the name having been first written Pierre Jean, again Peter
& then P. J., the P having been at some time so written as
to be mistaken for an I, & so handed down.)
In connection with the name of this family it will
perhaps not be out of place to indicate the condition of the
French people in regard to education. A single quotation
from the Detroit Gazette of August 8th, 1817 will answer
this purpose. At this time there was but this one newspaper
in Detroit & this was divided between the French & English
languages, in order that all those who could read either


language might enjoy it.   This, too, was the year of the
establishment of the Catholepistemiad & of a general wakisng
up on the subject of education.   Under the date mentioned


I. ~  f,  \;              -




the following paragraph was addressed to the French people
of the town:
"Frenchmen of the Territory of Michigan! You ought to
begin inmnediately to give an education to your children.
In a little time there will be in this Territory as many
Yankees as French, & if you do not have your children educated,
the situations will all be given to the Yankees. No man is
capable of serving as either a civil or a military officer
unless he can at least read & write.  There are many young
people of eighteen to twenty years, who have not yet learned
to read; but they are not yet too old to learn. I have
known those who have learned to read at forty years of age."
(Francois du Territoire de Michigan' Vous devriez commencez
immediatement a donner une education a vos enfans. Dans peu
de termps il y aura dans ce Territoire autant de Yankees que
de Francais, et si vous ne faites pas instruire vos enfans,
tous les emplois seront donnis aux Yankees. Aucun homme ni
est capable d'etre officier civil et militaire a moins quil
ne sache lire et ecrire. II y a plusieurs jeunes gens de 18
a 20 ans, que n'ont pas encore appris 'a lire, mais ils ne
sont pas trop vieux pour apprendre. J'en ai cohnu que ont
appris a lire a l'age de 40 ans.)
George P. Williams was the first man appointed as an
instructor in connection with the new university system, first
in 1837 as principal of the branch at Pontiac. Mr. Williams
was born at Woostock, Vermont in 1802. He was graduated at


the University of Vermont in 1825 & afterwards passed one
year at the Theological Seminary at Andover. From 1823 to
1831 he was tutor in Kenyon College, Ohio; from 181 to 1
io;r \;                              $Z tu   e




276.
he was professor of language in the Western University of
Pennsylvania at Pittsburg, & from 1834 to 1837 he was again
at Kenyon College, from which time to 1841 he was at the
head of the Pontiac branch of the University. Mr. Williams
was transfered to the Central School at Ann Arbor at its
opening in 1841, & retained his connection with it to his
retirement in 1875 c as Emeritus Professor to his death in
1881. His chair was part of the time that of mathematics &
again that of physics. Dr. Williams, for the degree of LS.D.
was convered upon him near the close of the fifth decade
of the century, was a member of the Protestant Episcopal
church, & was always in the spirit of its clergy, but was
not ordained to its diaconate until he had reached the age
of forty-five years. He served at one time for more than
a year as rector of St. Andrew's Church in this city & by a
donation of his salary relieved the church of a debt. From
his lomg connection with the University & his having been
of the first faculty, he has been regarded as a kind of father
to its corps of instruction.  A memorial address by Judge
Campbell on the death of Dr. Williams will be found in the
Coll. P. & H. Soc. Vol. VI.
Joseph Whiting, transfered to the central institution
from the branch at Niles at the same time with Mr. Williams
from that of Pontiac, was a graduate of Yale College. Mr.
Whiting was a minister of the Presbyterian Church & had been


for a short time a pastor, I think in Western New York. He
was president of the faculty in 1844-5, but died Just before
the commencement at which he would have presided, Jly q20t
1845. This event caused some of the saddest days that
1845.




877.


young institution ever experienced. A cenotaph was erected
by the Regents on the University Campus, bearing an elaborate
Latin inscription made out, as I suppose, by Dr. Duffield
& Major Kearsley.
In connection with the foregoing notice it may be
observed that tablets on the other three sides of the monument erected for Professor Whiting are occupied with Latin
inscriptions in memory of Douglass Houghton, Charles Fox &
Samuel Dent on.
Dr. Houghton was elected professor of Chemistry, Mineralogy & Geology in 1839 & occupied the place nominally, but
without rendering service or recieving pay, until 1845, being
employed in the mean time with the geological survey of the
state.  In 1844, when instruction in his department was
demanded, his relative, Dr. Silas H. Douglass was employed
to render the service for one year. In 1845 Dr. Houghton
resigned his place & on the 13th of October of the same year
was drowned in Lake Superior while prosecuting the survey of
the Upper Peninsula. His notes of the survey with which he
had been for several years occupied, were not left in such
condition that they could be given to the public.
Mr. Fox, the professor of Agriculture, died the year
of his election.  The department had no existence before nor
after him & is, therefore, as though it had never been established.  The incumbent elect was an Episcopal clergyman.
Samuel Denton, a practicing physician in Ann Abor, was
the first professor of the practice of Medicine in the Univetr


sity, serving from the opening of the school in 1850 to his
death in 1860.
1  f?   _;QI     I:     -.;:: ff:::09::D 0 \X;00:,0 ~~;0;~: f f f0 ittS  T




Abram Sager M.D. was elected Professor of Botany &
Zoology in 1842. He had then already done much towards a
zoological collection for the University, especially in
ornithology, but he did not enter upon duty as an instructor
until 1846. On the establishment of the Medical School in
1850 he was transfered to that department. He was long dean
of the Medical faculty & on his retirement from active
service in 1874 he still retained his deanship & his nane
remained on the catalogue as Professor Emeritus.
James R. Boise, LL.D. was professor of the Greek
language & literature in Brown University in Providence Rhode
Island at the time of his election in 1852 to his position
in the University of Michigan.  In 1868 he resigned to accept
a place in the University of Chicago. Few men in the
country have done so much as Professor Boise to promote an
exact knowledge of the Greek language. Dr. Boise was to the
day of his death, February 9th 1895, in nominal connection
with the Theological School of the University of Chicago,
in which he had been active until about three years ago. He
'was an alumnus of Brown University & a minister in the Baptist
denomination. He was born in January 1815. He completed his
eightieth year a few days before his death.
J. Holmes Agnew D.D. was called in 1845 to professorship
of the Greek & Latin Languages, but personally taught only
Greek, & remained in the place until 1852. He had once been
professor in the University of Missouri. At the time ofr hi:s0


call to Michigan he was editing a quarterly review in New
York city. He was a minister of the Presbyterian Gh q eh.


D*. Agnew died in 1865.


I....  a. I.. E,   f, ~"- Ir  -  -1   v --- -,- -..  M




279.
Daniel D. Whedon D.D. served as professor of logic,f
rhetoric & history from 1845 to 1852.  Dr. Whedon had been
professor of the Latin & Greek languages in Wesleyan
University at Middletown, Connecticut, & for a time acting
president of that institution.  He has written much & ably.
From 1852 to near the time of his death he was editor of the
Methodist Quarterly Review in New York. He died in Brooklyn N.Y. in 1885.
Edward Olney LL.D. was professor of mathematics from
1863 to his death in 1887. His series of Mathematical textbooks was very extensively adopted in American colleges.
His religious & moral influence was of the best kind &
largest extent. It has left enduring monuments in the Baptist
Church in Ann Arbor & in Kalamazoo College.
Louis Fasquelle was professor of the French Language
from 1846 to 1862, the date of his death. The style of his
professorship was at first that of the modern languages; but
he taught only French. He was born near Calais, in France
in 1808, pursued his studies in Paris & in some German university, taught for some time in England, married there & emigrated to America in 1834 (1832?). He purchased a farm in the
interior of Michigan & divided his time between the care of
it & giving private lessons, chiefly in Detroit, until 1846.
His authorship of works for the study of the French language
made him known throughout the entire country. Few men used
the English language with greater verbal accuracy than he &


yet he always retained his French accent, which gave rise
to many an anecdote. He said of himself, "I uderstand:
English very well, but I dont get the e   amsi   s-: ri:ght.':*
inglih ver




on visiting Washington he was introduced to Mr. Webster &
made the following report of the interview:- "Mr. Webster
attempted to speak French & I was disgusted with him; his
pronunciation was ridiculous."
Francis Bruennow was professor of astronomy & director
of the observatory from 1854 to 1863, except during his
absence in 1860. The measures taken by President Tappan for
getting up an astronomical observatory & placing it under
so competent direction should ever be set down to his credit.
There is the more reason why Professor Bruennow should be
noticed here, that, either from the quiet course of his
life, or from the division of his citizenship among so
many lands he has been dropped out of sight. I have in vain
sought a notice of him in the encyclopedias. Neither
Appleton, nor the omniverous Brockhaus names him, & yet
the distinguished Encke pronounced his Le hrbuch der Sphoerischen Astronomie, first published in 1851 'a fortunate supply
of a long existing desideratum.' A translation was published
in England in 1860. A new edition of the original was published in 1862. He was the author of other works perhaps
equally worthy of note. Dr. Bruennow married President
Tappan's daughter & with his family retired on the removal
of his father-in-law from the presidency in 1863. He was
afterwards director of the Royal Observatory in Dublin,
Ireland. On giving up his place in Dublin, he retired, I
think, to Switzerland, & died in August 1891 at Heidelbwrg in


the Grand-duchy of Baden, where his son was in academic;
service.   Dr. Bruennow was probably a citiaen successively
in five countries,- Prussia, the United States, G:eat Bitti,:




281.
Switzerland & the Grand-duchy of Baden, & in his migration
from land to land has failed of due notice anywhere. Mr.
Bruennow educated a successor who has been more fully
appreciated.
James C. Watson, professor of Astronomy & director cf
the Observatory, except during a short interval, from 1859
to 1879, was born in Canada in 1838, whither his father had
removed from Northumberland county, Pennsylvania. When he
was a boy of perhaps thirteen the family removed to Michigan
& settled in Ann Arbor. The settlement here was accidental.
The family stopped because they had no means to take them
further, or to pay for their breakfast the morning after
their arrival. They were sent to Enoch Terhune, who then
had a machine shop in the place, with the hope that he would
give the father employment. He fed them, gave them an
unfinished loft in his building, in which they opened their
single box of goods, obtained straw for their beds, & there
enscounced themselves. Mr. Terhune soon lost his engineer.
Little James, by a glance into engine, understood it, &
said he could run it, & he did so. He found a university
here, got books, studied them while he ran his engine,
recited to a student in the evenings & so prepared to enter
the institution.  He graduated & was made an assistant at
eighteen years of age. At twenty three he was full professor.
Such is the abridged story of Mr. Watson's scholastic education.


Professor Watson discovered twenty-three planetoids &
two comets.   Two more planetoids he had, indeed, discovered
independently, in which, however, he was afterwrdto^A tr      tQ
--           a y::::::: X  t; j:':_:-.~:0000 S u -t:;00I= -




282.
have been anticipated by European astronomers.   In 1869 he
was sent by the government of the United States in charge of
the expedition to Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, to observe the total
eclipse of the sun; in 1870 he was placed in charge of a
like expedition to Carlentina, Sicily, & in 1874 he was in
like manner sent to Peking, China, to observe the transit
of Venus. His most noted & last discovery was that made in
Wyoming in July 1878 of the existence of one & probably two
intermercurial planetoids.
Professor Watson's honorary recognitions are in general
as follows:- he "was elected a member of the National Academy
of Sciences in 1867, of the American Philosophical Society
in 1877, of the Royal Academy of Sciences, Catania, Italy,
in 1870. For his discovery of asteroids he received in 1870
the gold medal of the French Academy of Sciences.   In 1875,
when returning from China, he received from the Khedive of
Egypt the decoration of Knight Commander of the Imperial
Order of Medjidieh of Turkey & Egypt. He was appointed
Judge of Awards in the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia.
He received the degree of Ph.D. from the University of
Leipzig in 1870 & from Yale College in 1871. In 1877 Columbia
College confered upon him the degree of LL.D.o" (C.K. Adams
in Ann Arbor Register of Nov. 24th 1880.)
As an author, he produced a work on Comets, Philadelphia
1860, a Theoretical Astronomy, Philadelphia & London, 1868,
& a report on Horological Instruments. He was a contributor


to Astronomical Journals in this country & in England,
France, Germany & Italy.
Those who keep any track of the progress of science




~83.
have a general idea of Mr. Watson's rank in it. People
often, however, feel an interest in knowing some trifling,
or ludicrous incidents in such a life.   These might be
multiplied to almost any extent.   I select from the trip
up to Peking, China, from the sea-board. The company,
twelve to fifteen in number, were to travel on donkies.
Mr. Watson was from his boyhood chubby & very heavy, so
that the students' nickname for him was "Tubby Watson."
When the animals for the company were brought out, Watson
protested that his could not carry him; but he had to give
in & make the trial. At length it became the donkey's
turn to protest, which it could do in no other way than
by unloading the rider in the dirt of the road. All knew
of course that the Professor was not injured & they burst
into a boisterous laugh, which Mr. Watson, knowing her
husband's sensitiveness to any merriment that might seem
to relate to his chubby form, arrested by a gesture. They
then got him up, brushed him as well as they could, placed
him on another animal & proceeded. The chief of the astronomical party had incurred from his weight a greater danger
in descending from shipboard in Japan. Instead' of stepping
from the foot of the ladder into the skiff which danced up
& down with the waves, when the step would have been but a
foot, he hesitated until the distance was about four feet
& then came down with such a momentum as to break through
the inner bottom of the skiff. The Japanese swam like fishes


& would have saved him had he broken through the whole; but
such a necessity was averted.
On donkies & in carts - for it was in carts that thsf
~~~! M 77 -777050000 0ES  05 L;yXTP




party returned from Peking - the Chinese now travel. A
thousand years before the birth of Christ their land-travel
was by as good vehicles as those now in use & guided by an
instrument on the principle of our mariner's compass, which
was not known in Europe earlier than the 12th century of
our era. The Chinese women, dressing so as to make this
convenient, bestride the animal as do the men; but a sidesaddle was somewhere found for Mirs. Watson,the only lady
of the company. In Japan the party traveled by the jinrickashaw, the invention of Reverend Jonathan Goble, the first
American Baptist missionary in that country.
Had Mr. Watson lived, the government would have sent
him in 1882 on another tour of astronomical observation;
but that was not to be. Called to the University of Wisconsin in 1879, & allowed there the direction in building &
conducting the Washburn Observatory, he labored for a year
in getting up arrangements by which he felt sure that he
should still discover another planet beyond the orbit of
Neptune. But his preparation for work was yet incomplete
when in November 1E80 he was taken ill with congestion of
the bladder & on the 23rd of that month he died at the early
age of forty-two years & some months, & the heavenly bodies
which he felt so sure of discovering remain still unknown
for want of the genius which had expired  in him,
Henry S. Frieze LL.D. a graduate of Brown University,
was Professor of the Latin Language & Literature from 1854


until his death in 1889, then about seventy three years of,
age. Mr. Frieze was quite perfect in his department of
instruction.  In music he might have taken the highest Crank




285.
as a performer on the piano & organ, & his taste in the
fine arts generally was exquisite, which led to hia being
made curator of the art collection of the university. He
was acting president at two different periods, that is,
between the retirement of Mr. Haven & the entrance upon
office of IIr. An-ell, ~ during the latter's absence as
Minister to China.
BenjamIin Franklin Cocker D.D. LL.D., professor of moral
& Mental Philosophy from 1869 to 1881, was born in Yorkshire
England, whence he went with his family in 1850 to engage
in mercantile pursuits in Australia. His operations were
large, but in the end unsuccessful, & he set out for America.
Durins a visit to the missionaries on a cann bal island of
the Southern ocean he narrowly escaped falling a prey to the
apnetites of the natives. He was probably saved by his
leanness.  On his way up the Mississippi he had to sell the
clothing of himself & family to pay his passage through to
Adrian, Iichigan, where he hoped to find friends. Not long
before reaching that city, a sick child died on the cars
in the arms of its mother. This was in 1857. The people
were not slow to discover his ability as a preacher of the
Gospel & he was soon placed above want.  The Methodist
Conference sent him from one to the other of its three
prominent cities until 1869, when he was elected to his
place in the university. He published in 1870 a work entitled
Christianity & the  Greek Philosophy" & later another with


the title"Theistic Conceptions of the World." He died in
1883.
Alexander Winchell, LL.D., born Deceeri 21st 18X4;:0;  S;0 00  i?000000000 t   t 02\ f00 t  00t_




was educated at the Wesleyan University at Middletown,
Connecticut, had taught in New York, New Jersey & Alabama
before his election in 1854 to the Professorship of
Physics in the University of Michigan. In 1855 he was
transfered to the professorship of Geology, Zoology &
Botany. At the time of his death, February 19th 1891, he
was Professor of Geology &; Paleontology. During this
period some changes took place in his positions.  In 1873 he
was made chancellor of the University at Syracuse, N.Y.,
but returned thence to resume his old place in Michigan in
1879. He traveled extensively, delivering   lectures to
popular audiences, generally on questions of his scientific
studies. HIe delivered also courses of lectures at other
institutions, as at the Transylvania University in Kentucky
& Madison University!.Y.  Dr. Winchell was a voluminous
writer on the subjects of his scientific inquiries. He
had for some years the charge of the geological survey of
Michigan, of which he made his annual reports.
George S. Morris, Ph.D., a graduate of Dartmouth
college, became in 1870, then quite a young man, Professor of
MIodern languages in the University.  In 1879 he'accepted
a place in the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, but
returned to Michigan as Professor of Ethics, History of
Philosophy & Logic in 1881, head of the department c
Philosophy in 1883, and died in this position in 1889. He
had already contributed much to Metaphysical literature,


& much more might justly have been expected of him had his
life been spared.
For notices of the two deceased presidents, the reae
- 0   C  - f n;: s:  7t




287.


is refered to the accounts given of their respective
adminiistrations.
The professional schools have been noticed so far as
notices of them fall in with my purpose; but there remain
a few men whose connection with their early history has been
such as to demand an insertion of their names in this list.
Of the Medical School the names of Palmer & Ford are worthy
of special record. These two men & Dr. Sager have stood to
the Medical Department of the University in a more paternal
relation than any others.
Alonzo B. Palmer, was elected Professor of Anatomy in
1852 but did not enter upon duty until 1854 & then in another
chair than that to which he had at first been assigned.
In the course of his career from 1852 to his death in 1887,
he passed through almost the entire range of the subjects
of instruction in the department; but from 1864 to 1880
Pathology & the Practice of Medicine were embraced  in his
lecture course. Mrs. Palmer, after her husband's death,
prepared a volume for private circulation in memory of him,
with a preface by Professor Frieze. The most noteworthy
feature & indeed the greatest part of this voluie, is made
up of Dr. Palmer's Diary kept of a European tour, of the
year 1859. This visit was made chiefly in the interests of
Medical & Sanitary science.  The diary notes chiefly the
condition of the Medical profession in England & Scotland.
Dr. Palmer was President of the Section on Pathology of the
American Medical Association which met in Washington in 1887.


Born in Central New York in 1815, he died in Ann Arbor in
1887.,.:::.,; A   i.;
0   0;S 00;;  $0  000000;;0  0;00:00  t<  f;;00;f80  f00   Y Srt




Corydon L. Ford, Professor of Anatomy, with some   ha es
in interruptions, from 1854 to his death in 1894, was deemed
the perfection of a lecturer on Human & Comparative Anatomy
& Physiology. He did not practice medicine, or perform
other labor to any considerable extent outside the field
indicated by the style of his professorship. He was at his
death in his 81st year. He accumulated something of a
fortune. In 1894 the Dr. Ford estate was highest on the
tax-list of the city. He left $20,000 dollars to the university library. The university board confered the honorary
degree of LL.D. on Professors Palmer & Ford, not so much,
indeed, for their general learning outside their respective
provinces of study as for their patriarchal relation to
the Medical School.
The opening of the Law School was noticed in its place,
so far as my purpose required; but the three men who opened
& long served this school, one of them is still living,
though in retirement, call for brief sketches. These three
men, I give them by anticipation their future titles, were
James V. Campbell LL.D., Charles I. Walker LL.D. & Thomas
M. Cooley LL.D., were elected together in 1859. Messrs.
Campbell & Cooley were long on the bench of the Supreme
Court; Mr. Wlalker also held at one time a position in the
judiciary.
Mr. Campbell, by successive elections held his place


on the bench of the Supreme Court to his death in 1890, that
is, somewhat more than thirty years, which shows the estimation in which he was held. Outside of his Judicial lators,
he has contributed somewhat to literature, his most tt       t




289.
work probably being his Political History of Michigan,
one volume 8 vo. Detroit, 1876.
Mr. Walker's life has been chiefly that of a lawyer
in the city of Detroit. He has studied much the history of
the Northwest & made some contributions to it.  He died
February 11th 1895.
Mr. Cooley's life has been prolific in legal & judicial
literature. In the interpretation of constitutional law he
entered a field which had probably not been so effectually
covered by any other writer. He has written also a brief
History of' Michigan, forming one of the volumes of the
American Commonwealths of Houghton Mifflin & Company. Judge
Cooley was for some years, until the state of his health
compelled his retirement, at the head of the Interstate
Commferce Commission.
Andrew D. White, LL.D., is a name which should not be
omitted in this list. Mr. White, a graduate of Yale College,
was Professor of History in the University from 1857 to 1867.
Before his election to his place here he had been in the
di-nlonatic service as Secretary of our legation at St.
Petersburg. At a latter day he represented our government
as Minister Plenipotentiary at Berlin. Mr. White's educational work has been chiefly done in the state of New York.
In the senate of that state he was instrumental in bringing
about the legislation which established Cornell University,
of which institution he was the first President. He has


been for many years in retirement so far as any public
position is concerned, but has been active in literature,
Alpheus Felch, born September 28th 1804 in the state of


 — --- —-`- -. ----.. - --- ——. - -. --- —-1 --- —---— ~~; —;- -- -- CI rccc. r -—. - 




290.
Maine & graduated at Bowdoin College in that state, settled
at Monroe, Michigan in 1835. He was in the first legislature
of the state, that which enacted the organic law of the
University & is doubtless its only survivor. His public
services have been large & varied. He has been on the bench
of our highest court, governor of the state, has served
a term in the United States Senate, at the close of which he
was sent to California by President Polk, as head of a commission to settle land-claims, chiefly those connected with
the old Franciscan missions under Spanish rule. Mr. Felch
renoved to Ann Arbor in 1843 which has been the home of his
family since. From the close of his work in the California
commission he has been at home in this place, for some years
in the Dractice of law, a part of the title a professor in
the University Law School, but'now for many years in complete
retirement from professional service, still, however, active
in several branches of inquiry, chiefly relating to the
history of IvichiGan & the Northwest.  He is now President of
the Michigan Pioneer & Historical Society. The interest
which he has shown in the public school system is well exemplified in an executive act of 1846 when he was governor.
The incident illustrates the hair-breadth escapes which our
school fund has made.
Detroit being at that time still the capital, the
question was then to be settled as to where the capital


should be permanently fixed.   It had been hinted that it
would be a good thing for the school fund to establish the
capital on a school section of wild land. Such was the
place where the city of Lansing has since been bhuilt.


- I ----; --- ^1 — — -----;I"-`




29 1.


Governor  Felch, thinking that land speculators might
anticipate this decision & enter this action for purchase,
sent, as he had by law a right to do, a message to the landoffice at Marshall, withdrawing this section from entrance
for purchase. The train which carried his messenger carried
also two men who intended to purchase the land. The train
was delayed & did not reach Marshall until after the office
had been closed, but the message was delivered in the
evening at the residence of the commissioner of the office.
The speculators were on hand at the opening of the office
in the morning, but the detention of the train had defeated
their plan.
There remain yet three names without which this roll
would be quite incomplete. The reader may criticise the
order in which I place them & wonder why they do not stand
first, to which criticism I have no reply to make except
that the placing of the names here may bring the beginning
& the present of the University in happier contrast than the
appearance of all the names in the actual order of the
evolution would have done.
Gabriel Richard (pronounced Reeshdr) arrived at Detroit
in June 1798, where he remained, exercising not only priestly
but episcopal functions as Vicar General most of the time
to his death in 1832. He was a remarkable man & has had a
unique history. When the people were nearly all French
Catholics he was of course the chief personage of the town,
& scarcely  less can be said of his position after Protestants


were multiplied around him. Such ias his benevolence &.o
sanguine was he of being able to meet all the demands into


I I           I I    7 — ~ —   --   -; ---~~   -   ~




292.
which this impulse allured him, that he never could pay
his debts & sometimes only escaped imprisonment for debt
by being bailed out & remaining within the limits described
by the then existing law. He issued scrip in 1819 for
the building of St. Anne's Church, his scrip was counterfeited by one of his contractors & Father Richard had
redeemed the spurious scrip, as he was able, perhaps before
the counterfeit was detected; but there was a limit to his
means & he had to refuse payment.
In 1817 the College of Detroit opened & he was associated with Mr. Monteith, the then newly called Pastor of
the Presbyterian (known as the First Protestant) Church in
the school work. Father Richard served two terms as
Territorial delegate to Congress.
In the want of any  Protestant preaching in Detroit,
the leading Protestant people of the place arranged with
him for a time to deliver to them a discourse each Sunday
at noon at the council house, which he did with all fidelity,
omitting such services as were not likely to be acceptable
to Protestant ears. He was called upon sometimes to open
with prayer the sessions of the Legislative Couhcil & once
offered before that body a prayer a passage in which has
descended traditionally to our day; somewhat thus, for he
never spoke well the English language: "0 Lord, bless dees
legislateef counseel an enable dem to legislate for de epl.
& not for demselfs." (The late Chancellor Farnsworth told


me that he heard this prayer.)
A somewhat singular circumstance led to his spending
his life in Detroit.   After the fire which cons ul d the






293.
town in June 1805, Father Richard's brethren of the lOrder
of St. Sulpitius wrote him, requesting his return to France
& he announced in his place of temporary meeting his intention to obey their wishes. But a calumny was invented against
him, he was consequently thrown into prison & his detention
in confinement caused the abandonment of the thought of a
return to his native land.
Born in Saintes, France in 1764, Father Richard came
to Baltimore in 1792, thence to Detroit as above indicated
in 1798, & there lived the kind of life indicated in the
foregoing paragraphs until 1832. This was the year of the
cholera's first rage in the city of the Straits, in which
visitation Father R's sense of duty led him to such laborious
and unwearied attention to the sick of his parish that his
power of endurance gave way & he died with numbers of those
to whose wants he was laboring to minister.
John Monteith, Pastor of the first Protestant Church in
Detroit, had just graduated from the Theological Seminary at
Princeton, when called in 1817 to his responsible position
in Michigan. I have already refered to the relation in which
he Father Richard jointly stood to the Catholepistemiad.
Many an anecdote could be told of their pleasant personal
relations.  I give an exemplary one. Soon after Mr. Monteith's
arrival in Detroit, Father Richard called at his boardingplace & was invited to remain at tea, which he did. Mr.
Monteith asked him to say grace at the table, to which he


replied that he was occustomed to this service only in the
Latin language & would so render it if agreeable.   The
Presbyterian, deeming it more appropriate that a langua;;




29 4.::
intelligible to the Whole party should be used, performjed the
service himself.
It would be difficult to overestimate the services of
Mr. Monteith in Detroit as preacher, teacher & member of
the board of Trustees of the infant college, for he & Father
Richard both belonged to the board. Mr. Monteith returned
to the east & was Professor of the ancient languages in
Hamilton College. He finally, however, came back to the
west and spent his last years  preaching in the yet comparative wilderness of southeastern Michigan. He left in manuscript a very interesting account of his journey to Detroit
& early labors there. Some twenty years ago I had this in
my hands for a time & made some use of it in preparing my
work on American State Universities. Of his later life I
have but a hearsay account, which may not be trustworthy.
Martin Kundig, to whom I have before refered as of the
Catholic priesthood & a Regent of the University, is first
prominently mentioned in the history of Detroit in the year
1834. He may have been settled there soon after Father
Richard's death. In the summer of 1834 the cholera prevailed still more violently than in 1832. In describing this
visitation, Former employs in regard to Mr. Kundig the
following language: -
"Tall, strong, brave Father Kundig outshone & outdid
all others by his tireless devotion to the sick & the dying.


Soon after the Cholera made its appearance, Father Kundig
bought the old Presbyterian Church at the corner of Bates
Street & Michigan Grand Avenue & divided it into two
apartments for male & female patients respectively.  Out of


- 3- - ----1 I ~-I




four rows of pews every second one was removed & his hospital
was ready. A one-horse ambulance was then prepared &
morning after morning, night after night, he went here &
there, gathering in the sick & taking them to the refuge
which combined sanctuary & hospital. He was so much among
the patients that he was avoided on the streets lest he
should spread the contagion. Dying patients, as they passed
away, committed their children to his care, & the trust was
faithfully administered.  The legislature, on March 18th
1837, voted him $3,000 in acknowledgment of his services,
but as shown elsewhere, he was never fully reimbursed for
the expense he incurred."
This is the only instance in which legislative action
in the state has ever made such an appropriation.   The
emergency had come suddenly upon the place & if individual
enterprize had not met the demand it would not have been met
at all. Every one was satisfied that no city organization
could have done the work so well & that the appropriation
was just or rather that it fell short of justice. It was
doubtless the spirit & aptness of Mr. Kundig in this movement
that led to the making of a contract with him for the care
of the county poor. He first contracted to do this at sixteen cents a day for each person, afterwards at twenty-two
cents a day. But under both contracts he lost money, as he
was obliged to recieve in payment warrants which were at
40 to 60 per cent discount.


Father Kundig's life in Detroit was of this kirdl & it
so embarrassed him that his personal property was sold at
auction to meet the demands against him. As a member of the


~ ---- ------ -—:-:-;~-~ ~I I- -- .




board of Regents he acted in cordial harmony with the body.
Father Kundig left Detroit for Wisconsin after a
residence of about ten years. The circumstances are of
interest.  In 1842, Dr. Houghton, already at that time
under appointment to a professorship in the University just
opened at Ann Arbor, was nominated by the democrats for the
mayoralty of the city. He was at the time away from the
place & not accessible by correspondence. His friend, Dr.
Pitcher, though himself a whig, ventured to pledge him to
the policy of establishing a school system for the city.
Dr. Houghton might not have had the courage to make this
pledge; but having been elected on it, felt bound to keep
it. Ivr. Kundig's position & popularity made him the best
agency that could be employed to effect the election. He
doubtless acted on the supposition, whether on the suggestion
of politicians, we may not knov, that, the system being
established, the fund would be divided & the Catholics would
share it according to the ratio of their numbers. His
labors effected the election; the present system of city
schools was established; but when the question of dividing
the fund came to the test of a vote, the majority against
this was a very decisive one, & Mr. Kundig soon left for the
further west, whether self-moved, or under the direction of
ecclesiastical superiors I shall not attempt to speculate.
Dr. Pitcher, the last time I ever saw him, related to
me with no small show of satisfaction, the story of his own


part in persuading Dr. Houghton & Mr. Kundig to assume their
respective positions in establishing the present school
system in Detroit.






297.


LIII. CALVINIST & CATHOLIC
Nothing is further from my thought than to enter into
any polemic view of the relations of Roman Catholics &
Protestants; nevertheless, there are grand outline features
of the past & the present, involving in them prognostics of
the future, which cannot well be omitted.
There was given in Chapter VIII a brief indication of
the nationalities which entered into the formation of the
British colonies on our Atlantic coast & finally into that
of our Republic as also a view of the political & religious
ideas which had separated them from the main conservative
body or bodies of their several trans-Atlantic peoples.
Recurring now to that historic point, let it be remembered
that not only the dissenter's from Europe's old regime, but
the religious & political conservatives also settled colonies
on this wilderness continent, & that, too, nearly a century
in advance of those of England & Holland. France on the
north & west & both  France & Spain on the South, had early
established a line of fortifications extending from the
mouth of the St. Lawrence to that of the Mississippi & thence
eastward to the  Atlantic coast of Florida. The great
explorer, LaSalle, with a scope of political vision not
inferior to that of Alexander the Great or Napoleon, had
selected in what is now the State of Illinois & near the
point on which has recently sprung up the largest of our
interior cities, a site for the capital of the French Amer

ican Empire. The work was begun.    The French colonists &
the allied Indian tribes were to have their central city
here, midway between the mouth of the St. Lawrence & that


` --- — 1' —- "-`  —'-  — -- - --- —-- -`- — —`--;I~--- `i ---I-` —' --- ---: ---I-:



298.
of the Mississippi, the empire to be of unknown limits northward, westward & southward, & soon to stow away in its
capacious maw the feeble British colonies on the Atlantic
coast.
It turned out, however, otherwise.  Louis the Great,
by his persistent efforts at religious uniformity & royal
autocracy, so exhausted his own resources & so augmented
those of his enemies that he failed in the contest at home
& prepared the way for his weaker great-grandson & successor,
to lose his last foothold on the American continent. This
was the issue of the battle fought between Montcalm & Wolfe
at Quebec in October 1759. It was a little more than a
score of years later that Great Britain, too, lost most of
her American colonies, & most of those lying south of the
line of lakes became a Republic under the style of the United
States of America.  How the Territory, known as the Old
Northwest became a part of this new Republic I have already
indicated in Chapter I.
The process of further acquisition, by which the Republic
has finally reached the Pacific, the Gulfs of Mexico &
California & the north bank of the Rio Grande, 1 shall not
follow. My purpose is simply to indicate the peaceful meeting on the line of the lakes & in the Valley of the Father
of Waters of a people whose ancestors had begun two centuries
earlier to separate in the politico-religious upheavals &
enmities of France.


The Great Louis had taken a fatherly interest in his
faithful children who were settled along this extensive line
of fortresses. Many, if not most of them had. at first come
without wives. To supply this want he sent over cargoes of




299.
girls to be kept in the markets of Quebec & New Orleans,subject to call.  It is interesting to follow in thought the
forester of the upper lakes setting out in his canoe for
a journey of a couple of months down the St. Lawrence, or
the Mississippi & returning to his cabin with her who was
to be its ornament & mistress.  What the lady abbess in
Quebec humorously said of a cargo consigned to her - 'that
they were mixed goods'- was probably true of most of the
girls thus shipped. Some demoiselles were, indeed, sent
with reference to the officers; but the most were of an
inferior quality. ie learn that the first consignment to
New Orleans was taken up so quickly as to suggest that a
cargo gathered from the houses of correction would find a
ready market, some of which latter, however, are said to
have remained for a time on hand.
In the course of these sketches we have had instances
of the westward rolling culture wave reaching the old French
settlements. In the brief notice of Colonel Clark's conquest
of the Northwest we saw this officer aided by the missionary,
Father Gibault, in the carrying out of his plan of campaign.
Indeed, this Priest and the Spanish trader, Vigo, were his
most efficient auxilliaries. We found impressive illustrations of the same amicable spirit among those who wrought
together in the founding in Detroit of the school which we
have kept before us as our central object in the foregoing
series of pictures.  There was an instance nearer our little


city than the founders of the Catholepistemiad.   In Watenaw
dounty on the banks of the beautiful Huron, on which has
risen the architectural structures where now gather the


-




nearly three thousand students of our university, a French
Catholic, Gabriel Godfroy, had established his tradinghouse fifteen years before Allen & Rumsey first lodged under
their sled-box among the bur-oaks that covered this plain.
Meetings of this kind have been multiplied since the period of our
Revolution, all along the line of the French & Spanish settlements & fortifications which originally enclosed the American
British colonies on the north, west & south.
It pains me somewhat to imagine that I hear some readers
growling out that these meetings have not always been so
very amicable, & I must here admit that since the days when
John Monteith & Gabriel Richard labored so peacefully together in the early school in Detroit, which formed the
beginning of the University, & since those later ones when
Martin Kundig sat in the board of Regents of the new University, grave questions relating to schools have been agitated
between Protestants & Catholics. The use of the Bible &
religious teaching in general in the schools & the distribution of the school fund, are questions which have caused
irritating debate; but the contests have all been bloodless,
they will be so hereafter & will finally give way to a more
general cooperation of all Christians in the moral reforms
with which the great Christian body is moving forward.
Conflict is, indeed, wholesome. It is the sure way to
ultimate truth. It is the only way of escape from stagnation.
And, indeed, I cannot think that those who are not gratefully


cognizant of what Providence has wrought since the days of
Ferdinand I & II in the German Empire, Louis XIV in Franee
& Mary I, Elizabeth & the truculent Stuarts in England, are






: 010l.
at all worthy of that happy condition for which they are
contending.
The French people who settled along the lakes & in the
Mississippi Valley, form an interesting subject of study.
Coming into this wilderness, they settled down in it & in
effect forgot the land they had left. Few held any intercourse with the old country & two centuries after their
arncestors left France they were still speaking unchanged the
language of the age of Louis XIV. This & their habits had
become stereotyped. No longer ago than when I came to
Detroit - 1641 - the French peasant, more generally the wife,
was seen driving the little pony, the harness made up of
tow cords & elm bark, a bushel of turnips & two or three
sheaves of straw in the tiny cart.  I have gone on the
Canada side of the river into the wind-mill of an old Frenchman who thought he was carrying on a large business, when
there were mills almost in sight of hi-a which would grind in
a day more than he would in a year. The western rush has
now nearly swallowed up this class in the Mississippi Valley,
& this phase of our culture history has had nothing in it
which can be called violence, nor need we fear any in the
future relations of Calvinist & Catholic, whatever questions
of debate may yet arise between them. Firmness in what each
deems to be just & submission to the issue should be the
motto of each party.
There is something in this steady onward march from the


Reformation, not to go further back, the successive stages
in which cannot be fairly reviewed & attributed as they mt=
be to an overruling Providence, without profoundly movii:


-      "                "                  ` —r~anr.ll~ ---.




zo2.
to the emotion which we call the sublime. At times the:
contestants in Europe, & again in our own forest land, stood
balanced, the issue apparently more likely than otherwise
to be against the party of progress; but the obstacles
have always given way & the advance has moved onward. I
note but one of these stages & that only as concerns our
own country. It is the one fully entered upon soon after
the close of our Revolutionary war, when the people began
in earnest to transcend the Alleghanies & fill the Valley
of the Mississippi.  The foregoing sketches picture this
chiefly by a single example; but that, small as is the city
itself, exhibits to us perhaps the most marked & peculiar
product of the westward rush.  It was the first of its kind,
to be, doubtless, the model, as it has been the forerunner
of others. It illustrates by some personal features which
I have touched upon the grandest fact of the westward march -
the reunion in peace & amity of those whose ancesters
centuries ago had parted in profoundest hostility.
The circumstances of Father Kundig's leaving Detroit
may set forth the change of the questions at issue between
the two parties, though this change occurred at some places
earlier & at others later than in Michigan. In the popular
mouth were various speculations as to the cause of his
leaving the place. Some thought that he was transfered by
Episcopal authority, as a testimony of disapproval of his
too free interchange of fraternal civilities with those of


the Calvinistic faith; others, that a feeling of disappointment, not to say chagrin,that his failure to effect somethi1
towards a division of the school fund, caused him to; desire.-, —.1;,.- I 1.




a transfer to another field. We shall not know which of
these reasons, or whether some other one caused his removal.
Certain it is, however, that a change of attitude towards
each other of the two great parties sundered by the Reforma-.
tion & colonized in this country was about this time & earlier
or later in different parts taking place. I have refered in
my first Chapter to friendly relations of the missionary,
Father Gibault, with Colonel Clark. It is of interest to
know that Father Richard, on his arrival at Baltimore in
1792, was sent by the Bishop to the mission at Kaskaskia &
La Prairie du Rocher, where we saw Father Gibault in friendly
relations with Colonel Clark, & that he remained there to
the time of his. transfer in 1798 to Detroit. Such facts
will give us an idea of the extent to which we are viewing
the whole line of the northern & western French settlements
when we study any  portion of it.
LIV. THEN & NOW - CONCLUSION
Floating straws show the directions of air & water
currents &, while I am aware that much that I have introduced
into this volume has been but straw as to its intrinsic
value, I trust that it has clearly set forth the culture
state of the periods passed in review. I have endeavored
that the material spread out upon my pages should be just of
the kind to picture the existing conditions & witherward
tendencies in culture.  And now, in looking back over the
work, while I am in doubt as to whether a more elevated and


philosophic treatment of my matter might not on the whole
have been better, I am, nevertheless, satisfied that the
familiar trifles introduced into my narrative will enable






304.
the reader more vividly to concieve to himself the social
stages described than a more pretentious style could have
done. I have endeavored to depict the home life of the
east in which our settlers had been brought up & the
necessary, check which their removal to the forests of Michigan gave to their progress, in order thus to set forth
more truthfully &f more forcibly the rapidity of their elevahad
tion wJhen once the processAbeen entered upon.
Between the aspect of a single family housed under an
uturnesd sled-box, with its extemporized awnings, areong the
bur-oaks in February 1824, & the architecture of 1895,
alive with the bustle of its allied civic S student dwellers,
there is a sufficiently impressive contrast. I trust that
I have so O-laced this before the minds of readers th~at they
will have no difficulty in noting the varying views as the
)anoramia is unrolled before them.
These sketches have been offered rather as a type of
the whole westward movement from the time that migrating
parties began to transcend the Alleghanies, than as a picture
of one small locality, & as they set forth a type of what
has been, so they are a prognostic of what shall be. Taken
all together, they will suggest to the mind the most impressive view that can be taken of American history; & if of
American history, then of the world; for we should look in
vain for a parallel of such spread of culture over a vast


wilderness as that which has covered our great west since
the American Revolution.  This is what I have endeavored to
set forth.
Nor will this ample range of thought be diminished by


I -— ; — r -----i-x-,- -lil-i --- —-l



05.; ':
returning to our little town & inquiring who they are that
mingle in its varied life.   I have show;n elsewhere somewhat
as to the nationalities which made up the early settlement.
An account of those whom the schools gather & disperse
would, vary the picture.   While most of these come from our
own states & represent the various elements which entered
into the early colonization, the rest of the Christian,
Mohammedan &, pagan world has been represented. Canada,
Mexico, Central & South Amzerica & the West Indies have sent
hither their youth. Most of the countries of Europe &
western Asia have been here represented, while the Empire
of Japan has sent us large numbers of its youth & our antipodal China has not remained unrepresented in our streets,
halls & houses.
The distribution of those who recieve here their training for life's duties, if entered into with any detail,
would require a volume or more. As to our ovw country, it
shall suffice to say thlt our schools have sent their
alumni into all the states S. that they are in all the professional i official positions, while they are an especial
force in the educational work. As to their distribution to
foreign lands, it shall suffice to say that there are few
regions, Christian, Mohammedan, or pagan whither they have
not found their way.
It has been implied throughout these pages that it was
accidental, or Providential, rather than otherwise that the


University of Michigan became the first great educational
institution west of the mountains.  I have, indeed, awarded
the highest credit to the New England settlers in- Southe
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Ohio in regard to a school system, &     d eed not further dwell
upon this point; but it would be unpardonable to omit the
mention of earlier & equally meritorious efforts at founding higher centres of learning in Tennessee & Kentucky,
In relation to the former, the highest merit should be
accorded to the Reverend Samuel Doak for his effort there
to reproduce Princeton, his own alma mater, & the like to
the founding of the Transylvania University in Kentucky, to
which Mr. Jefferson, when governor of Virginia, caused the
granting of a tract of land. The sparseness of the population, its dilution with the enslaved Africans, the longcontinued Indian wars in these states & the want of that
much larger educated element which New England & New York
sent into the Northwest, have caused the difference in early
development, all of which I freely admit; it nevertheless
remains true that the University whose history I have more
particularly sketched, has hitherto led the van of western
culture, though it has for sometime, as I am glad to say,
been losing its solitary grandeur, by the rise of new institutions.
The advance movement inaugurated a quarter of a century
ago in the University of Michigan by the opening of its
doors to women, was not mentioned in its proper place; let
it suffice here to say that the "Coeds," as the girls are
nicknamed, have fully justified the original action & are


now represented in the great educational field by many an
ornament to their profession.  The result has, however, shown
that women will never to any great extent enter into other
professions than those of scholastic teaching& authorship
- 7




They are almost wanting in the law school & have tended
to diminution rather than increase since the opening. There
are more in the schools of medicine & pharmacy & some in
dentistry; but their great & perhaps increasing attendance
is in the department of literature science and the arts.
It cannot be expected of one who belonged to the first
faculty of the University that he will concur in the current
opinion of those whlo know nothing of the past, that the
institution was at first but a little country academy. It
started on a level with the eastern colleges of the time.
Its disciplinary work was as complete at first as it is now.
The popular disposition to estimate a school by the numbers
it has in attendance has done many an injustice to its
laborious founders. I have related (Chapter XIX) an
anecdote of Reverend Mr. Colclozer, which I did on the
authority of the Reverend Lorenzo Davis, who lived in Ann
Arbor from before the opening of the University to his
death a few years since, in which he says that Mr. Colclozer
was librarian of the institution when the library might
have been packed in a traveling-trunk. But the truth simply
told is that when Mr. Colclozer had the library in charge,
it had cost more, & was worth much more than the average
collections of the respectable eastern colleges.   It was
not made up of gifts of worn out & antiquated books from
private libraries, but of choice volumes purchased at an
expenditure of about $8,000. Many anotherguess, founded upon


numbers in attendance & architectural display, have been
scarcely less wide of the truth,
The University started with simply one course, that of
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308.
candidates for the degree of A.B. & the men to do the work.
The courses & the laborers have been multiplied indefinitely; but to the thoughtful mind a question will arise as to
whether the multiplication of studies has not crippled the
pursuit of others quite as important. The peril lies now
in that direction. But the only point which I desired to
impress is simply this, that the institution started as a
full grown college, not as a village high-school. Since its
opening the population of the state has advanced from about
200,000 to about 2,400,000. These people, or rather their
descendents, have mostly removed from log huts into comparative mansions. The little city where the university has
grown up has growvrn up with it & the very girls who came
hither from fifty miles around to serve, share the intelligence which is here diffused.  To show the then & the now
of our westeri life, chiefly by the example of one city &
one school, has been the purpose of these pages.
THE END


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