1700s Detroit: Inland Exploration

[townonenorth]

Wetlands, swamps, floodplains... nearly 3,000 wetland acres have been lost in my neck of the woods since 1873. And that's as far back as I could find... more likely prior to that.

http://ohioseagrant.osu.edu/_documen...20Wetlands.pdf

Don't get too hung up on my word "swamp"....

And none of that is in St. Clair Shores. That's the lake, and surrounding areas of the lake, largely elsewhere from what I was talking about.

[townonenorth]

I am curious, what do you call an area that floods in the spring to about 3 to 4 ft.

This is an honest question.

AS mentioned, We poled, around in a bathtub. Played tag running on fallen trees. trust me. if tagged you swam to the nearest fallen log. To of course start again.

That area was all drained for I 94 to come through.

What I call it is a flood plain probably Or piss poor drainage from construction. What years and exactly where was this located at?

[gazhekwe]

There are some great reading references to be found at the DPL. They tell much about the land and the areas where people settled.

map of Fort Detroit and Environs in 1768; reproduced in , The John Askin Papers , Vol. I: 1747-1795, Detroit, 1928).

The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents 1610 to 1791

Link to Jesuit Relations: http://puffin.creighton.edu/jesuit/relations/

Michigan Pioneer Collections and there are links to them, too:

http://libguides.lib.msu.edu/content...190&sid=586622

http://libguides.lib.msu.edu/content...190&sid=586622

These cover other areas besides Detroit, but there are good readings on this area in these books.

[Patrick]

It seems like it was quite a feat for building plank roads back then. It must have taken a huge amount of manpower to build these roads at that time. Am I mistaken?

[NoHeartAnthony]

Was looking at the old thread about Moravian Road, which led me to this interesting piece on how Red Run is drained through Royal Oak.

http://www.coheadquarters.com/PennLi...RO/Muller1.htm

[robtandersen]

Here's an image from Belden's land ownership atlas 1873 showing significant marshland at 8 mile between what would be Greenfield and Schaefer. In my research this marshland was filled with Cranberries. Later a ditch was built to drain the land.

[old guy]

It seems like it was quite a feat for building plank roads back then. It must have taken a huge amount of manpower to build these roads at that time. Am I mistaken?

No, you are correct. And they were expensive.

Popularity of Plank Roads

A total of 202 plank road companies received charters in Michigan during the nineteenth century. Sixty-four of these were granted by the State Legislature before 1848, seventy-two between 1848 and 1851, and sixty-six companies were set up after 1851. The longest plank road given a charter was to have run from Zilwaukee to Mackinaw City via Traverse City, a distance of 220 miles. The shortest was a one-mile plank road in Sault Ste. Marie. Detroit was the terminus of eight plank roads which spread out like spokes in a wheel from the metropolis. Mt. Elliott, Michigan, Grand River, Woodward, Gratiot, and East and West Jefferson avenues were once plank roads. Plank roads were extremely popular in Grand Rapids, with no less than seven companies operating toll roads. Alpine, Grandville, Plainfield, and Reed Lake avenues were once plank roads, as were Bridge, Canal, Division, and Walker streets. Monroe was also an important center, with plank roads running to Dearborn, Flat Rock, Newport and Saline. Lansing plank roads connected Eaton Rapids, Mason, Howell, Ann Arbor, and Jackson with the capital city. Other cities which had these roads were Adrian, Ann Arbor, Dexter, Flint, Hastings, Hillsdale, Kalamazoo, Lapeer, Marshall, Niles, Ontonagon, Paw Paw, Plymouth, Pontiac, Saginaw, Tawas City, Utica, and Wyandotte. Decline of the Plank Roads Despite the initial popularity of these roads and the hopes of their promoters, the "plank road craze" did not last long. The roads remained in good condition for the first three or four years, but after that they needed constant attention. Planks loosened, warped and decayed and had to be replaced often. It was estimated that annual repairs cost from twenty to thirty percent of the original cost of the road. There were other fixed costs which had to be met. Toll houses had to be built and maintained and a full-time superintendent employed throughout the year. As previously noted, some road companies had to buy and operate lumber mills. Moreover, toll income was reduced by the use of "shunpikes"--short stretches of road built to avoid the toll gates. Because of the high costs of lumber, some companies substituted gravel as the planks decayed. Thus the road became a combination of plank and gravel. This made travel difficult and in some cases, hazardous. It was the famous humorist Mark Twain who left us the classic description of this type of road. Asked how he liked his trip over the Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids Plank Road, he replied, "It would have been good if some unconscionable scoundrel had not now and then dropped a plank across it." Another writer referred to a road in a similar condition as "an enlarged washboard." By 1900 only twenty-three of the original 202 plank roads were in operation, and of these only a short stretch of the Detroit-HowelI road was actually made of planks. All of the others had been replaced with gravel, although they were still popularly called "plank roads."

[robtandersen]

You would be interested in Atlas of Early Michigan's Forests, Grasslands and Wetlands by Dennis Albert & Patrick Comer.

[Gistok]

Not as far as what the original surveyors saw, anyway. The legend below in this image will tell you the conditions as found in the original survey. Not that wet, by comparison to other places, I'll tell you. There's not a swamp listed in this survey. Wet, maybe, and a couple of sections listed as marshy, but overall nice property. And I've seen swamps in other places clearly delineated. This is St. Clair Shores, more or less.

http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/detail...ailsTabIndex=1

Sorry for the delay, had forgotten about this thread. As for the map... not a marsh in sight. But if you start reading thru the legend at the bottom of the map, there are some very wet areas... none of which are shown that way on the map.

It appears that this map only shows the survey lines and nothing else. Some areas are mentioned as "wet" others [[such as 14.23) as wet and marshy. And yet the map doesn't show any marshes.

That's not to say one of us is right and the other wrong... but I would like to see a topographical map of this area in its' original state before making any more assumptions.

But the anecdotal evidence by Sumas and others about flooding and wet areas also bears some interest.

[robtandersen]

Here's a detail from the book I mentioned above.
Purple is Wet Prairie, light blue is Shrub Swamp or Emergent Marsh, mauve [[?) is white pine- red pine forest. The darker red is mixed hardwood swamp.