To the north was a district known as the "commons." Professor Ten Brook tells how he was accustomed every Sunday morning on his way to church in lower town, to strike across this open place to the ravine just west of the present hospital buildings up which Glen Avenue now passes. Coming out on Fuller Street, the river road, he passed the old Kellogg farmhouse, the only home until within a few blocks of the church across the river. Lower town was but little smaller then than in these days; it had its own schools as well as churches and when Ann Arbor received a city charter in 1851 it held aloof for some time. The original settlement about the Court-House Square extended no further to the west than Allen's Creek for many years, while there was little to the south of the present William Street save scattered farmhouses and a large brickyard.
A View of Ann Arbor
Across the valley of the Huron—The hospital buildings with the University beyond
In the beginning Ann Arbor was solely a farming community, a character it retained essentially until the increasing number of manufacturing plants in recent years has somewhat changed its aspect. The first inhabitants were almost entirely New Englanders, true Yankees in faith, resourcefulness, and business enterprise. But it was not long before immigrants of another type began to arrive; South Germans, who had left their native land to seek homes in the freer religious and political atmosphere of the new world. They speedily became an important factor in the growth of the town, as the business names on Main Street nowadays show; almost all borne by descendants of the early German settlers, who have for the most part identified themselves wholly with their new home. This was revealed by the recent war. While there were some who, through a sentimental attraction for the home of their fathers, stimulated by the unscrupulous efforts of Germany's representatives, were actively pro-German in their sympathies or at least violently torn between their love for the old home and loyalty to the new land, there were many others, probably the majority, who were out and out loyalists on every occasion, and who by spoken word and action proved their unhyphenated Americanism. The brave record of the Ann Arbor men in the Civil War, and in France a half century later, where several of foreign parentage lost their lives, is ample proof of the solid qualities in this element among Ann Arbor's first inhabitants.
Whatever their parentage or creed, the dwellers in the little double community saw to it from the first that, at least in some measure, the religious and intellectual needs of the people were satisfied. There is evidence that occasional religious services were held in 1825, but the first church, the Presbyterian, was not established until August, 1826. For some years it was migratory in its meeting places, passing from a log schoolhouse to a room in "Cook's" hotel and finally in 1829 to the first church built in Ann Arbor, an unpainted log structure 25 by 35 feet on the site of the present church on Huron Street. The other denominations quickly followed this example and by 1844 there were six churches to serve the needs of the 3,000 inhabitants of the village, as well as the surrounding countryside, including the first Lutheran church for the German-speaking settlers in Michigan.
The journalist also appeared on the scene in this prologue to the drama of the University's history. Less than six years after the arrival of the first settlers, the first number of the Western Emigrant appeared on October 18, 1829. Like all country journals of that period it was far more interested in national politics and even foreign affairs than local events; any one who searches for a chronicle of the daily life of those times finds scant reward in the columns of these papers. Even so important an event as the first meeting of the Regents is dismissed with a brief paragraph which throws no light on many interesting questions raised by the official report of that gathering. Yet such slender sheets as this, which eventually became the State Journal, and its Democratic contemporary, the Argus, established in 1835, furnish a picture of the life of those times in unexpected ways that would greatly surprise their editors, whose duty, as they saw it, was chiefly to guide the political opinions of their readers by strong and biting editorials, by long reports of legislative actions and by publishing the speeches of the political leaders of their party. The enterprise and industry of the community shows up well in advertisements, where every form of trade suitable for such a growing community found representation. One merchant advertised some 125 packages of fine dress goods from the East in a long and alluring list anticipating the great celebration over the arrival of the railroad; another firm, whose specialty was "drugs, paints, oils, dye-stuffs, groceries," offered its wares "for cash or barter, as cheap if not cheaper than they can be procured west of Detroit." Cook's "Hotel" announced a few years later that it had been "greatly enlarged and fitted up in a style equal to any Public House in the place," and that its location in the public square was "one of the most pleasant and healthy in Ann Arbor." The editor of the Argus in 1844 revealed the secrets of his business office in the following double-column notice:
Wood! Wood!
Those of our subscribers who wish to pay their subscriptions in wood will please favor us immediately.
Professional ethics was not quite so tender a subject in those days as it is at present, for John Allen announces in 1835 that he maintains a law office for the convenience of his clients where he may be sought in consultation, while "Doct. S. Denton," whose subsequent standing as Regent and Professor was unquestioned, announces on April 2, 1835, that he