[THE DETROIT RIVER FROM "WINDMILL POINT," 1838. FROM A PENCIL DRAWING.]

After the first settlers came strange sights. Round-towered and red-painted windmills began to dot the banks of the Detroit, and all "along shore" narrow farms, a city block in width and fifty times as long, stretched from the river rearward to meadows and woods. The canoe and the pirogue were always in the stream, and in them the French girls were as much at home as mermaids in the sea. The fort was the centre of every interest. It was a log stockade enclosing a plot of ground three or four hundred feet square, and lay south of what is now Jefferson Avenue, occupying at least the western half of the block between Griswold and Shelby streets. Within it commandant and soldiers were gathered, the church was located, justice administered and goods were kept on sale.

A large influx of immigrants, especially in 1749 and 1754, caused the extension of the stockade, but at no time were grants of farms made within several hundred feet of the fort. The intervening space was in large part used as a "common field," and year after year oats and onions were produced where only paving-stones could now be raised. Eventually of course the houses overflowed the stockade, stretching towards the farms, but for a long time the owners of farms on either side resisted any encroachment of streets or people, and for many years the city could grow only northwards. The French farms that hemmed in the city possessed many advantages. Even when included within the city they, for many years, practically escaped taxation because undivided into lots. Indeed, until a comparatively recent period there was no taxation of real estate and really no need for any; for whenever the city needed money it sold a lot. This reckless style of living continued till 1834, the extraordinary expenses connected with the cholera season of that year making larger taxation needful.

In this connection it is well to recall an unusual state of affairs that placed many lots at the disposal of the city. In the year 1778, during the Revolutionary War, the English, to protect them against the Americans, erected a large fort where the new Post-office is located, in the block bounded by Shelby, Wayne, Lafayette and Fort streets. At the close of the war this fort, with its grounds, passed into the possession of the United States. In 1826 Congress gave this property, worth to-day more than a score of millions, to the city whose expenses had before been paid by fees derived from various licensed persons and pursuits. Upon the reception of this property the city fathers deemed it necessary to level and grade the old fort and its appurtenances and to lay out streets thereon. The cost of the work was paid by the issuing of city "shinplasters" which could soon be bought for sixty cents on the dollar. The lots laid out within the limits of the old cantonment were sold at nominal prices, the purchasers paying for them in the depreciated city bills. The result was that the net proceeds to the city from the sale of this extensive domain amounted to only $15,000, and even this was not permanently invested, and no vestige of the funds remains. In contrast to the dissipation by the city of valuable property is the wisdom displayed by individual holders whose property later became worth millions. If the city officers of that day had possessed foresight as well as power, they might have so conserved the city's possessions as to have made Detroit an Utopia. All the public schools and other civic buildings and appurtenances could have been built and paid for, and the city government could to-day be carried on without taxation, or at least with only a tithe of the amount that is now required to be paid.

[WEST GRAND CIRCUS PARK.]

It was during the decades of 1820-1840 that the tide of emigration from East to West reached its height. It began in 1825, on the completion of the Erie Canal, and was greatly increased by the larger number of steamboats on the Lakes that immediately followed. The opening in 1854 of the first railroad from the East to the West, the Great Western of Canada, made it possible to go still faster and with greater ease, and during the whole period Detroit gained largely in population. The introduction of street-cars in 1863 afforded opportunity for easy access to outlying regions, and since then the city limits have been several times extended, until now they embrace an area of not far from thirty square miles, with a river frontage of seven miles.

Contemporaneously with the rush of settlers to the State and city between 1830 and 1840, came what is known as the "flush times of 1837." Emigration to the West had become almost a stampede, both steam and sail vessels were crowded to their utmost, and knowing the dearness of Eastern lands and the cheapness at which Western lands could be purchased, nearly every person came prepared to buy and did buy lands for settlement or speculation. So great was the rush that all careful preliminaries were dispensed with, and if only a title could be shown, anything that "lay outdoors" could be disposed of. Town sites were a favorite form of investment, and the supply kept pace with the demand. Surveyors and draftsmen were soon busy day and night representing imaginary cities on paper. On these plans, literally like "Jonah's gourd," there sprang up in a night, stores, dwellings and court-houses, indeed, all the appurtenances of an old established town. The era of "wildcat" banks had just begun and the principal security of their bills was the land covered by these imaginary towns. Theoretically, twenty per cent of the bills issued by the too easily organized banks were to be secured by specie deposits. Actually, not five per cent was so deposited. The same coin—in some cases in the same boxes—was exhibited by a score of different banks, and in some instances "coin boxes" were filled with iron and other substitutes for specie. These frauds were winked at by bank commissioners, who should have inspected the contents of the boxes. There was thus a trinity of imaginings,—imaginary towns, imaginary banks and imaginary inspection. When the bubbles burst there were left in some places towns and houses without a single inhabitant, and certain of these houses contained room after room in which the walls were literally papered with bank bills in sheets that had never been cut apart or signed.

The most important local event was the fire of June 11, 1805, which destroyed every house in the city save one. The memory of the fire is preserved in the present seal of the city, the mottoes, Resurget Cineribus, "She has risen from the ashes," and Speramus Meliora, "We hope for better things," representing both prophecy and fulfilment. Out of the fire grew an entirely new plan of the town, new lot alignments and assignments, and a new form of government. The former streets, twelve feet wide, grew into broad avenues, and the years have added areas and improvements which in any city would be marks of prosperity and beauty.

The form of government which the fire introduced was, however, its unique result. The beginnings of the strange methods of government that obtained are found in the organization of the Ohio Company, and in that notable document, the Ordinance of 1787. Under the latter, Congress was to appoint a governor whose term was for three years, unless sooner revoked, who was required to possess in freehold an estate of one thousand acres in the territory; a secretary for the term of four years, unless revoked, who was required to have five hundred acres of land; and three judges, any two of whom constituted a court to have common-law jurisdiction, and each of whom was required to own five hundred acres of land.

The governor and judges were appointed January 11, 1805. Judges Woodward and Bates arrived at Detroit June 12th, and found the town wiped out by the fire of the previous day. A few stone chimneys and, near the fire line, several antique pear trees alone remained. Governor Hull arrived on the evening of July 1st. The date of the arrival of Judge Griffin is unknown. In many respects the Governor and judges were well fitted to enter upon and complete the laying out of a new Detroit. Judge Woodward came from Alexandria, Va., and understood and admired the plan of Washington, then new. He manifestly desired and determined that Detroit should be modelled after that "City of Magnificent Distances." Sections of his plan as drawn by A.F. Hull, the son of the Governor, could be laid upon the plan of Washington and matched to a line.