1700s Detroit: Inland Exploration

[sumas]

Honest I love history, These threads so fascinate me.

[EastsideAl]

Would that be where I75 is now or Telegraph Rd?

From what I can tell from historical accounts and old maps, the military road to the south was what now runs out of Detroit as West Jefferson, which was once called the River Road.

This road today has several different names along the way. It's called Biddle in Wyandotte, then becomes Jefferson again down to the Wayne/Monroe county line at the mouth of the Huron River. South of there in Berlin Township it's called U.S. Turnpike, then it becomes North Dixie Highway down into Monroe. Coming out of Monroe it's S. Dixie Hwy. to the Ohio line, where it becomes Detroit Ave. through Toledo. Finally it becomes Anthony Wayne Trail near what was its terminus across the Maumee River from Ft. Meigs in Perrysburg.

Here you can see the road in an 1831 map from the MSU Libraries site:

Attachment 21265

http://img.lib.msu.edu/exhibits/map/...s/burr1831.htm

One thing to keep in mind in looking at this map is that the Michigan-Ohio border is south of where it is now, as this is before Ohio took what became known as "the Toledo strip"around 1836 [[Toledo itself came into existence in 1833).

[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?

[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."

[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.

[robtandersen]

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

[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.