But the change in Michigan had been no less marvelous. The State has a representation in the present Congress of the United States exceeding that of any one of eight of the first States of the Union, equaling the representation of that of two others (Georgia and Virginia), and only exceeded by that of three of the original thirteen—Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania. In a single county of the Upper Peninsula, in 1833 supposed to be only a mass of barren, uninviting and uninhabitable rocks, there are three cities either one of which has a greater population than the Detroit of that day, and in Michigan out of its forty-three cities and 178 villages (April, 1879) there are over thirty more populous than Detroit in 1833—some of them with populations from five to eight times greater. The people of the State are a million and a half in number, spread over the greater part of the Lower Peninsula, about the Sault, and from Marquette to Ontonagon and south to Menominee in the Upper Peninsula. Its newspapers have grown to twenty-three dailies and over 300 with less frequent issues. Its railroads have developed from non-existence to 3,500 miles, owned by thirty-six corporations, connecting Detroit and the principal cities of Michigan with all portions of the State, penetrating to every center of population and industry, costing over $160,000,000, and paying in each year for salaries and operating expenses over $13,000,000. Strong institutions for the care of the deaf and dumb and the blind and for the insane, a thriving college for agricultural education, and that noblest monument of the wisdom and forethought of the latter-day founders of Michigan, the State University, were all planted in these years. And with this, the public school system was nourished until there are over 300 graded schools and over 6,000 public schools in the State, with property valued at over $9,000,000, paying almost $2,000,000 yearly in teachers' wages, and with annual resources amounting to nearly $4,000,000. In the mountains of the Upper Peninsula, so long reputed a barren wilderness, have been discovered exhaustless mines of the richest iron ores and the most extensive and valuable copper deposits known on the globe. The Saginaw Valley has poured a briny stream of wealth upon the State from its unfailing salt-wells, and from the forests about and beyond to the westernmost limits of Michigan have been gathered great treasures of pine and hard woods. And while nature was yielding its hidden stores to enrich the State its skilled citizens were not idle. Over 10,000 manufacturing establishments in Michigan now employ upward of 70,000 people, pay more than $25,000,000 annually in wages, make an infinite variety of wares, and turn out products each year amounting in value to more than $130,000,000. The statistics of agricultural development are equally remarkable. The log cabin and the clearings have yielded to ample farms. The marsh, the pine barren, even the hyperborean soil of the Upper Peninsula, have been transformed into productive wheat-fields. The cereals of Michigan exceed in their annual product 70,000,000 bushels, and $45,000,000 in their value. Highly cultivated and valuable farms (over 111,000 in number and with a total acreage of 10,000,000) cover the greater part of the Lower Peninsula. Comfortable, even stately, farm houses dot the landscape. School-houses, churches, villages, towns and cities stand where the forest was. The wilderness has fled away. Everywhere there are evidences of peace, prosperity, happiness and a high civilization. It is magic; courage, intelligence and industry have been the magicians.
The changes in the other parts of the Michigan Territory of 1833 have been no less marvelous. Four States have been carved out of that region whose boundaries in 1834 were traced on the atlas—Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota—and the great wheat farms of Dakota will soon develop into a fifth. This entire territory to-day has eight Senators, twenty-nine Representatives and one Delegate in Congress, has over 11,000 miles of railroad, seventy-seven daily papers and over 1,100 weekly or monthly publications, and several great cities larger than Philadelphia and New York when the United States had taken its second census. It has a population greater than that of the thirteen colonies which successfully defied the power of Great Britain during the Revolution, greater than that of the six New England States in the present day. It produces a larger amount of breadstuffs than the whole Union yielded when Mr. Chandler first came to the territory, and contains more wealth than did all the States fifty years ago.
This is a marvelous story of growth. Nothing in the Old World has equaled it. Nothing the New has exceeded it. It has confounded prophecy. It has outrun imagination. It is the achievement of a stalwart race. It is the triumph of faith, of zeal, of courage. It dazzles the men of to-day. And it will stand for centuries to excite the admiration of the historian and the wonder of the future.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Parkman's "Jesuits in North America."
[3] This is Parkman's picture in "The Conspiracy of Pontiac."
CHAPTER V.
THE COMMENCEMENT OF POLITICAL ACTIVITY—RECORD AS AN ANTI-SLAVERY WHIG.
