Detroit and Her Avenues of Approach.—Competing Lines.—London in Canada.—The Strait and the Ferry.—Music on the Waters.—The Home of the Algonquins.—Teusha-grondie.—Wa-we-aw-to-nong.—Fort Ponchartrain and the Early French Settlers.—The Red Cross of St. George.—Conspiracy of Pontiac.—Battle of Bloody Run.—The Long Siege.—Detroit's First American Flag.—Old Landmarks.—The Pontiac Tree.—Devastation by Fire.—Site of the Modern City.—New City Hall.—Public Library.—Mexican Antiquities.
Four lines of railway leading westward from Niagara, place Buffalo and Detroit en rapport with each other, through their connecting steel rails, and compete for the patronage of the traveler. In addition to this, there are not less than two lines by water, thus affording the tourist—if he develops a desire to tempt the waves of Old Erie—ample scope for his choice. The Lake Shore route takes one through a continuous succession of ever-changing landscapes on the southern shore of Lake Erie, and skirts the two great States of Ohio and Pennsylvania before reaching Michigan. It is, perhaps, the preferable route by rail, looking at it from a purely æsthetic standpoint. The Great Western Road crosses, at Suspension Bridge, the famous chasm cut by Niagara, in its recession from Ontario, and gives a faint conception, as seen in the distance, of the glorious Falls themselves. The roar and rush of water—at the rate of twenty-five million tons per minute—is borne down the deeply-cut channel, and clouds of spray are visible from the car windows. Below the bridge the swift drifts and eddies can be seen foaming on their way to the whirlpool, a mile and a half further down. This route also takes the traveler through London, Canada, a quaint old English town of twenty thousand inhabitants, on the Thames River. The place is brimming over with localities the names of which, carried in the affections of her settlers across the ocean, serve as reminders of the old London left forever behind them on Britannia's Isle. Blackfriar's Bridge and Westminster Bridge both cross the new Thames, and Kensington and Covent Garden market belong also to the transplanted nomenclature. On Saturdays the great square in the heart of the town is filled with marketers and hucksters of all descriptions, and every kind of merchandise, from a feather bed to a table knife, is there bought and sold. Squaws and Indians and quaintly dressed women commingle with the crowd and sell their various wares. The scene is very picturesque, and wears an atmosphere of being a hundred years old.
The Grand Trunk Road—the most northerly of the three routes leading through Canada—has nothing except its easy-going time to recommend it to favor. The traveler on this road stands a fair chance of missing his connecting links in the great railway chain which interthreads the continent east and west, or of being delayed for hours at a time by running off the rails. The Canada Southern is a newly completed road, and is said to be the most direct and shortest of all the competing lines. This route follows the windings of the northern shore of Lake Erie, just opposite from the Lake Shore Road on the southern side, and the shifting landscapes are perhaps quite as full of natural beauty.
Detroit, the fair "City of the Strait," spreads itself along the river front for miles, and the approach from Windsor, on the opposite shore, is suggestive of the pictured lagoons of Venice, Queen of the Adriatic. The Detroit River, or strait, is one of the most beautiful water avenues west of the Hudson. It is from half a mile to a mile wide, is always of a clear green color, and is never troubled by sand bars or anything which might affect its navigation. It has an average depth of twenty-five feet at the wharves and perhaps forty or fifty feet in the centre of the river bed. No floods disturb its calm flow or change the pervading green of its waters. It is, with reason, the pride of the city, and the ferry boats of the several lines plying between Detroit and Windsor are of the most attractive type. In summer a corps of musicians are engaged for the regular trips, and are considered as indispensable to the boat's outfit as the captain or pilot. Their syren strains entice the lounger at the wharf, and he may ride all day, if he chooses, for the sum of ten cents. Whole families spend the day on the river, in this way, taking their dinner in baskets, as they would go to a picnic. The people of Detroit, perhaps, inherit the pleasure-loving characteristics of their French ancestors, or at least they do not seem to have their minds exclusively concentrated on the struggle after the almighty dollar.
Detroit, as the principal mart of the Peninsular State—the nucleus which gradually crystallized into the heart of Michigan—has an early history of thrilling interest; the site of the present populous city of a hundred and twenty thousand souls was long ago, in the shadowy years of its Indian lore, the home of a dusky tribe of the Algonquin family—a race which was once as populous and widespread as the waves of the ocean.
In 1610 the first white man who set foot on these wild and unexplored shores found it occupied by the clustered wigwams of a peaceful Indian village named Teushagrondie.
"Beside that broad but gentle tide
* * * * * * Whose waters creep along the shore
Ere long to swell Niagara's roar,
Here, quiet, stood an Indian village;
Unknown its origin or date;
Algonquin huts and rustic tillage,
Where stands the City of the Strait.
* * * * * * From dark antiquity it came,
In myths and dreamy ages cast."
Another of its ancient names was "Wa-we-aw-to-nong," meaning round by, in allusion to its circuitous way of approach.
"No savage home, however rare,
If told in legend or in song,
Could with that charming spot compare,
The lovely Wa-we-aw-to-nong."
In 1679, the Griffin, under La Salle—the first vessel that ever sailed these inland seas—anchored off the group of islands at the entrance to Detroit River. Peaceful Indian tribes were scattered along the banks, and the white man was received with friendly overtures.