Corktown History

The O'Donnell House - 89 (1545) Leverette

2012-02-01T21:20:00.000-05:00

The O'Donnell House before and after renovation.
The land beneath the O'Donnell House, 1545 Leverette, shares the same history as the Joseph Kingston House until the Woodbridge Farm was platted in 1858. Leverette Street was named after the land owner's son, William Leverett Woodbridge. The oldest records spell the street without the "e" at the end, but eventually "Leverette" became standard.

On April 27, 1860, William Woodbridge sold lot 5, block 77 of his farm to Mary Laithy (Brady) Backus, daughter of Hugh Brady. After her death in February 1880, her grandson Dr. Electus Backus Ward sold the lot on October 11 of that year to Matilda Murphy. After this, unfortunately, there is a gap in the records obtained from Wayne County. Many years later the property was owned by Elizabeth O'Donnell, whose maiden name was Murphy. Matilda Murphy and Elizabeth Murphy O'Donnell were presumably related, but I have been unable to confirm this with genealogical records.

The Builder

The permit to build 1545 (originally 89) Leverette was issued to carpenter Clark Shippey on March 28, 1881. The planned dimensions were 20 by 44 feet, and the estimated cost was $900.

89 Leverette is on the west half of lot 5, block 77 of the Woodbridge Farm. (Source)

Clark W. Shippey was born September 28, 1836 in Windham County, Connecticut to Horace and Laura Palmer Shippey. He married Martha Maria Hough in Detroit around 1861. They had one daughter, Mary, who was born in 1867 but died at the age of 29 from diphtheria. Clark Shippey died on April 24, 1901, leaving no descendants.

The Occupants

* * * * *

John E. & Elizabeth O'Donnell
1881-1888

The first residents of 89 Leverette were John E. and Elizabeth O'Donnell. John was born to Irish immigrants Edward and Eliza Laird O'Donnell on May 14, 1853. In 1879, he married Elizabeth Murphy. They had a son, Edmund, by the time they moved to Leverette Street and had two additional children while living in the home: Stella (b. 1884) and Waldo (b. 1888). John and Elizabeth O'Donnell later had two additional children at a later residence: Edith (b. 1895) and Marie (b. 1900).

The O'Donnell House in 1887. Courtesy of Sanborn Maps.

The family lived at 89 Leverette for just seven years. During that time, O'Donnell worked as a finisher at the Hargreaves Manufacturing Company, makers of moldings and picture frames, located on Howard Street. In 1888 John O'Donnell was listed at a new address (418 [2674] Wabash) with a new occupation: police officer. O'Donnell is NOT the man in the photograph below, but the image is an example of a uniformed Detroit Police officer of that time period.

Courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library

O'Donnell's career move would prove to be fateful. After being on the force for only twenty months, the following headline appeared on page 5 of the Detroit Free Press on October 17, 1890:

This article begins by describing William Moore--who lived in a cottage at the rear of 692 Third Street (south of Alexandrine) with his wife and three children--as a "hard drinker" and having "done no regular work for some time," although he is listed in the city directory as a butcher. The family's meager income was supplemented by their two boys, who set up bowling pins at the Detroit Athletic Club. According to this article,

Moore and his wife have frequent quarrels which often leads to blows, and every few weeks the police are called on to interfere and stop rampuses in the Moore home. Yesterday afternoon about 2:30 Moore and his wife got into an altercation about some money which Mrs. Moore refused to allow her husband to have for the purchase of liquor. Moore became enraged and finally knocked his wife down... [A]fter severely beating her, he dragged her into the dining room by the hair of her head... When the trouble first began the youngest boy, 10 years old, and his sister, 2 years old, went to the Fremont street station and informed Sergt. Sullivan...that their parents were having an awful fight, and requested that an officer be sent to the house... [T]he sergeant detailed Patrolman John E. O'Donnell to accompany the children home and see what the trouble was.

The Fremont Police Station was located one block east of Woodward on Canfield Avenue, which was previously named Fremont Ave. The station was about 0.6 miles from the Moore household.

Mr. Moore reportedly threatened to kill his wife and "produced a large pocket knife, which he opened and was about to plunge into her throat when Officer O'Donnell arrived at the house." The officer forced his way into the house and attempted to arrest Moore. He resisted, and the two got into an altercation.

Moore tore himself loose from the officer's grasp and stepped back into the kitchen. He immediately reappeared with a base ball bad in his hands which he struck the officer two terrible blows on the head felling him to the ground. Drawing his revolver the policeman ordered him to desist. Seeing him again raise the bat O'Donnell fired at Moore, who fell to the ground...

Moore was taken to Harper Hospital...while the wounded officer was taken...to his home...

The rim of O'Donnell's helmet was broken by the blows from the baseball bat. He received a gash on his scalp that required stitches, and his arm, chest and shoulders were badly bruised. The bullet that hit Moore entered the left side of his chest and exited near his right armpit. He died in Harper Hospital the following day. He was fifty-five years old.

Two months later, the Free Press reported that O'Donnell had been transferred from the Fremont Station to the Woodbridge Street Station, which was located in what is now Hart Plaza. There he was assigned to the position of "doorman". This was an officer who served as sort of a general manager of the station, whose duties included everything from holding the jail cell keys to custodial upkeep.

The Woodbridge Street Police Station.
Courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library.

The attack appears to have permanently handicapped O'Donnell. Years later, this notice appeared in the Free Press:

Doorman John O'Donnell, who has been at the Woodbridge police station for many years, has been missing since last Friday. O'Donnell was assaulted by a man named William Moore several years ago. He shot Moore and the shooting has often preyed on his mind. Mrs. O'Donnell believes that he is temporarily deranged. (Detroit Free Press, May 8, 1902)

O'Donnell returned home soon after. "With the exception that he remembers wandering through a woods near Woodmere cemetery and buying a loaf of bread, his mind is a blank," the paper reported the next day. "He complains of the wound he received from a prisoner years ago, and Department Surgeon Dayton Parker is attending the sick man."

That summer, O'Donnell retired from the Detroit Police. He was reported missing again the following November, but again returned unharmed. John E. O'Donnell died in Detroit on September 25, 1917, at the age of 64. Elizabeth (Murphy) O'Donnell lived to be 82, having passed away on January 10, 1943.

Short-Term Renters
1889-1906

After moving to Wabash Street around 1888, O'Donnell kept 89 Leverette as a rental home. The following individuals were listed as the heads of the household in the first years the home was rented:

1889 - Samuel Wesley, clerk for candy manufacturer Gray Toynton & Fox.
1890 - Martin Cochell, tinsmith, from Indiana. Father of fourteen children, only six of whom reached adulthood. His son John was also a tinsmith, and his daughter Lottie was a clerk for the department store Mabley & Co.
1891-1893 George L. Ironside, sewer assessment clerk for City Engineer's office, born in Aberdeen, Scotland. Married with three sons.
1894 - William J. Jones, vice-president of a knife-sharpening manufacturer with the unlikely name of Modern Novelty Co.
1895 - Joseph L. Bador, marine engineer. He had a wife, but she apparently resided in Ohio.
1896 - John Ohlert, co-owner of Ohlert Brothers Saloon at 255 (903) Michigan Ave. Born in Michigan in February, 1860. Married Esther Keveney around 1886 and had four children, only one of whom reached adulthood. His wife died in 1906, and he died from cirrhosis of the liver four years later.

John Ohlert, circa 1900. Photo courtesy of Elizabeth
Ohlert Lawther, a great-granddaughter of John Ohlert.

89 Leverette in 1897. Courtesy of Sanborn Maps.

1897 - Fred W. Heaton, chief clerk, Union Station Association. Married with one child.
1898-1899 - John E. O'Donnell moved back into his former home for two years. He was still working as a policeman.
1900 - Peter Lamont, machinist

Detail from the 1900 Census showing the occupants of 89 Leverette.
Also living with Mr. and Mrs. Lamont were William and Amand Chapin.

1901 - Abraham J. Brown, brakeman.
1902 - Martha Fox, widow of George W. Fox.
1903 - Alice Benjamin, widow of Jacob Benjamin.
1904 - Olive Paquette, widow of Julius Paquette, who died in November 1903.
1905 - Herman Van Wyck, painter.
1906 - Joseph Adair, machinist. Immigrated with his wife and five children (including a set of twins) from Canada the previous year. His son Roy was a finisher at the time, and another son William was a telegraph operator for the Postal Telegraph-Cable Company.

William & Margaret Everingham
1907-1924

Mr. and Mrs. Everingham, years after they lived on Leverette.

William Henry Everingham was born in Dunnville, Ontario on August 24, 1844. He married Margaret Jane Long (born July 23, 1854) on June 8, 1871 in Bothwell, Ontario and they had six children together. In 1907, they immigrated to the United States with three of them (Albert Edward, Eugene Emerson, and Ella Irene). In the U.S., Mr. Everingham worked as a watchman. His sons Edward and Eugene worked as a railroad fireman and a laborer, respectively.

Detail of the 1910 census listing the residents of 89 Leverette.

The Everinghams' daughter Ella Irene married Fred Leo Wickham on September 6, 1911. Less than one year before that, Wickham's last wife, Almira Sackett, divorced him after eighteen years of marriage on account of his "drunkenness" (Detroit Free Press, 23 Oct 1910, 14). In the 1920 census, Ella was living with her husband two houses away from her parents, at 95 (1557) Leverette.

In 1914, William Everingham retired from work as a watchman and took up knitting and net-making as a hobby. Eight years later, at the age of 78, he rejoined the workforce, having taken up a job making nets for the city dog catchers.

Detail from the 1920 census showing the Everingham family at
89 Leverette and the Greenwood family at no. 87. The Green-
woods would move to 89 Leverette after the Everinghams left.

Another son of the Everinghams, William James, was living with them during the 1920 census. He was evidently separated from his wife, Alice O'Neil Everingham, at the time. She operated a boarding house on Woodward Avenue.

89 Leverette became 1545 Leverette on January 1, 1921. The image below represents the vicinity of the house that year. This block remains very well-intact today.

Image courtesy of Sanborn Maps.

The Everingham family rented 1545 Leverette until 1924. William Henry Everingham worked as a net-maker for twenty years, retiring (for the second time) at the age of 98. Margaret Jane Everingham passed away September 19, 1944 at the age of 90. William died nine months later, on June 24, 1945, having lived to be 100 years old.

Henry & Mary Greenwood
1925-1932

Henry Greenwood was born September 20, 1877 in New Bedford, Massachusetts to Sina and Celia Cutting Greenwood. Mary A. Prevost Greenwood was born in Canada around 1811 to John and Marie Simond Prevost. They were married in North Walpole, New Hampshire on October 15, 1902.

Mr. and Mrs. Greenwood lived in Detroit in 1910, but returned to New England, where they gave birth to their only child, Bruce, in 1912. They returned to Detroit by the following year. The family moved to 1543 Leverette in 1919, and moved into 1545 Leverette by 1925. They rented the home from Elizabeth O'Donnell for seven years.

Detail from the 1930 census for 1545 Leverette.

Manuel & Conception Tapia
1933-1936

No information has been found.

Joseph A. & Willa Fontana
1937-1956?

On August 26, 1936, Joseph and Willa Fontana entered into a land contract with Elizabeth O'Donnell the purchase the double lot on which 1543 and 1545 Leverette were built. During this time they lived in 1545 Leverette. The land contract was paid in full and ownership of the property was transferred on May 6, 1942.

Joseph Fontana died in Detroit on July 25, 1951 at the age of 51. He was followed by his wife Willa on October 4, 1956, at the age of 66.

There is another gap in the deeds obtained from the county register. The home was later owned by the Shaffer family, but in 1956 a Mrs. Laura Fontana (listed in the directory as the widow of a William Fontana) lived at this address. It is not known if she was an heir of Joseph and Willa Fontana, whether she actually owned the house, or when exactly the home became the property of the Shaffers.

Ray J. & Mildred H. Shaffer
1957?-1982

Ray J. Shaffer was an orderly at Henry Ford Hospital. He passed away November 4, 1959, when his wife Mildred became the sole owner of the property.

1545 Leverette in 1976. Courtesy of the Michigan State Historic Preservation Office.

By the 1970s, the other home on this double lot was demolished. This empty half of the lot and the home's back yard were used for Tiger Stadium parking by the Shaffer family.

A sign advertising the available space is barely visible in this
circa-1975 photo, in addition to a vehicle parked next to the home.
Courtesy of the Michigan State Historic Preservation Office.

Jacqueline Jessie Shaffer
1982-2004

When Mildred Shaffer died on January 13, 1982, Wayne County Probate Court assigned the property to Jacqueline Jessie Shaffer and her brother, Eugene Elwood Shaffer. After Eugene Shaffer's death in July 1990, Jacqueline Shaffer became the sole owner.

In the early 2000s, a fire destroyed much of the rear portion of the house. Ms. Shaffer sold the dilapidated property on February 24, 2004. Until that point, the 123-year-old house had only been owned by three families.

Edward & Michelle Potas
2004

The home's new owners were Ed and Michelle Potas. The photograph below was taken by Ed Potas around the time of the purchase.

In some ways it would have made more sense to tear down a 123-year-old cottage that just barely survived a major fire--even some Corktowners advocated demolition.
The Potases, however, went out of their way to save an irreplaceable part of the neighborhood's history. Ed Potas conceived and set in motion a historic restoration of the home's exterior and a radical redesign of the interior, while Michelle managed the bureaucracy that the city imposes on projects such as this.

After the project had begun--and the roof, siding and windows had been replaced--Potas' friend and neighbor Jason Nardoni became actively involved in the renovation with the goal of purchasing the home once it became livable.

Jason Nardoni
2005-Present

Nardoni officially purchased the O'Donnell House on April 28, 2005. Although he has finished the interior, perfecting the home is an ongoing and consuming task.

What was once a dirt parking lot is now an immaculate lawn.

The success of this project is evidence that perhaps no home is beyond repair. Indeed, many of Corktown's endangered homes are in better condition than the O'Donnell house was at the point it was rescued from oblivion. It is my hope that that more homes like this will be saved by those with the energy, knowledge, and resources to make it happen.

The First Zoo Part II: The Detroit Zoological Garden

2012-01-22T17:39:00.000-05:00

The Detroit Zoological Gardens c. 1906, when it was converted into a horse market.
Photo courtesy of The Detroit News Archives. Used with permission.

For less than a year between 1883 and 1884, Corktown was home to the very first Detroit Zoo. It was a privately-owned enterprise founded by businessmen with apparently no professional experience in animal husbandry. The Detroit Zoological and Acclimatization Society filed for incorporation on June 20, 1883, stating that it was established "for the purpose of exhibiting all manner of wild and other animals, plants, minerals, and other objects of natural history of every kind." It was founded with $10,000 in capital stock and listed the following men as its officers:

Dr. Theodore Van Hensen Law, President; practicing physician.
Harrie R. Newberry, Vice-President; also an officer of the Detroit Steel and Spring Works.
Anthony Grosfield, Treasurer; owned a hardware store at 981 (3363) Michigan Ave.
Charles Burrows, Treasurer and Manager; owned a general store at 1351 (4333?) Michigan Ave.

Other shareholders included:

Alexander DeLano, president of the Detroit Steel and Spring Works.
J. Logan Chipman, Judge of the Superior Court, later elected to Congress.
Albert H. Raynor, co-owner of the printing company Raynor & Taylor.

As mentioned in an earlier post, there doesn't seem to be any connection between the demise of William C. Coup's bankrupt circus and the zoo on Michigan Avenue. Although the zoo was built on Luther Beecher's circus grounds--where Coup's animals were auctioned off--that location was not the Zoological Society's first choice. An article in the Detroit Free Press on May 27, 1883 mentioned that the group first attempted to lease land next to the Art Loan Building on Larned Street downtown. But on June 15, the association signed a lease with Luther Beecher for the space on Michigan Avenue.

The zoo grounds from an 1885 atlas of the city. (Source)

On July 11, 1883, the Free Press reported:

A number of the animals for the Detroit Zoological Garden have arrived and are now domiciled in a temporary structure on the Michigan avenue circus grounds. The animals consist of a lion called "The Duke of Wellington," a lioness, a deer and a hyena. The garden will be located on the grounds and work on the structure will be begun at once.

Three days later, zoo officials left for New York in order to obtain more animals.

The new brick building for the Zoological Garden was designed by Henry Engelbert, an architect who had previously lived and worked in New York City. His best known accomplishment in Detroit is probably St. Albertus Church in Poletown.

The zoological building was estimated to cost $6,000 to construct. The masonry was done by Albert G. Hollands, and the roof by the firm Sparks & Hageman. Construction began July 14, 1883 and was completed by the end of the following month. The structure measured 50 feet wide by 120 feet deep and held the zoo's offices, zookeeper's living quarters, ticket office, waiting room, aquarium, aviary, and winter shelter for some animals. South of the main building along the western edge of the lot was a narrow, 160-foot-long structure that held steel cages for carnivorous animals. South of that was a structure of similar size which contained the pens for less dangerous beasts. Along the perimeter of the property was a 20-foot-wide macadamized walkway that was flooded in the winter for ice skating. The lot was surrounded by a ten-foot fence, and in the center of the garden was a miniature artificial lake for waterfowl. North of the lake was a band pagoda, and the property was illuminated with electric light.

The approximate boundaries of the Zoological Garden's lot, as
best as I could interpret the contradictory descriptions of it.
Image courtesy of Sanborn Maps.

The opening of the zoo was originally scheduled for August 15, but the date was pushed back at least twice. Most of the animals did not arrive until the end of the month. An August 26 news item mentions a bear cub had arrived, and two days later the arrival of an elk from McKee Rankin's deer park on Bois Blanc ("Boblo") Island. Even a "large snake" captured by a local porter named George Brown was donated to the zoo.

Just before the zoo's opening, the Detroit Free Press published this list of the animals on display (punctuation as in the original):

These comprise huge cages of rare birds of many kinds, a colony of monkeys, two black bears, one cub of the same species, one sun bear, a beautiful animal, one jaguar, one hyena of most unamiable aspect, one superb silver lioness, a fat-tail sheep, the celebrated lion Duke, who has killed three men and evidently "aches" to kill another, a noble elk lately purchased of McKee Rankin, a pair of Cape (African) buffalos, the yak Mollie, so well known to visitors at Central Park, New York, a pair of sacred cattle and calf, and India deer, who would run his spike horns through a man in a second if he could get the opportunity, a boa-constrictor, thirteen and one-half feet long, foxes, badgers, coons, Muscovy ducks, and a pair of camels.

The Detroit Zoological Garden finally opened on Wednesday, September 5, 1883. Work had continued throughout the previous night to ensure the date was met, but even then the scheduled opening time of 10am was pushed back to 3pm. Mayor William G. Thompson and the city council attended the opening ceremony. After a brief speech, the mayor declared the Zoological Garden officially open.

The superintendent of the zoo was businessman Orrin W. DeLano. He was the brother of one of the zoo's investors, Alexander DeLano. Previous to this job, he was a manager at the American District Carriage and Express Company.

Other employees of the zoo as listed in the 1884 city directory included:

David A. Stoner, zookeeper, lived on site. He previously worked at a lumber yard.
Louis Lariviere, zookeeper, also lived on site.
John Fisher, laborer, 342 Prospect St. The year before he was employed by a carpet and upholstery store.
Martin Smith, laborer, 159 Leland St.
John P. Fleming, cashier, 230 Mullett. Previously a horse collar maker.
John Gibson, secretary.

Two weeks after the zoo opened, it was announced that the Canadian-born veterinarian Dr. Alexander John Chandler was appointed Veterinary Surgeon of the organization. Chandler later moved to Arizona, where in 1912 he would found the town that now bears his name.

Dr. Alexander John Chandler (1859-1950)
Photo courtesy of the Chandler Museum.

A Human Exhibit

It was not uncommon for zoos in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to display "primitive" people. The Congolese pygmy Ota Benga, displayed at the Brox Zoo, may be the most famous example. On November 11th, 1883, the Detroit Free Press announced, "Besides the numerous wild animals, the birds and the fishes, there is a band of Apache Indians who give realistic representations--four times a day--of their corn dance, the scalp dance and the war dance."

It was around this time that James H. Kelly, the advertising agent for Adam Forepaugh's Circus, was taken on by the zoo to handle its promotion.

On November 13, 1883, the Free Press published the following story about the zoo's Apache exhibit:

The Lost Tribes
Mayor Thompson received a letter yesterday morning from Walter G. Marmon, Laguna, N. M., stating that he had received a letter from Frank Howe, chief and manager of the Pueblos, stating that his partner had skipped with all the funds, leaving himself and his tribe stranded at the Franklin House. He asked for transportation home. Mr. Marmon asked for further particulars.
"Jim," exclaimed an irreverent reporter, as he met James H. Kelly, Forepaugh's agent, later in the day, "have you got Frank Howe and his Pueblos up at the 'Zoo,' passing them off upon an unsuspecting public as bloodthirsty Apaches?"
"The confounded Indians are there, but Howe isn't. He's in Chicago making arrangements to exhibit them there. Of course they're Apaches. The Apaches were all broken up into small tribes in 1642, and--"
"Never mind the historical lecture! What are you going to do with them?"
"Do with them? Great Scott! I can't do anything with them. They don't understand a word of English, and I can't make them do anything. The place was full yesterday, and I wanted them to get up and shake themselves so that the people could see them, but they sat there like a row of tobacco signs, and all I could get out of them was a grunt. I wish Howe would come back. I'd either make them dance or get out."

Ten days later, the same paper reported:

James H. Kelly received a letter yesterday from one Pratt, Governor of the Pueblo Indians, of Lacuna, N. M., inquiring as to the whereabouts of that portion of the tribe that were recently at the Zoo. James replied that they are with their manager, Howe, in Chicago.

I have not round any reference to the Pueblos/Apaches in any later Detroit papers.

Additions to the Menagerie and Promotional Schemes

A few more animals were added to the zoo's collection after its opening. An additional lioness was brought in, as well as an animal trainer named Max Caspari. Dr. Eduard Dorsch of Monroe donated two bald eagles in November of 1883. Two months later it was reported that "the latest arrival at the Zoo Garden is the electric eel from Mexico--he is perfectly wonderful. Electricity can be felt at any time coming from his body." Plans to obtain an elephant and a rhinoceros were announced, but never came to fruition.

On Valentine's Day of 1884, both a "sacred cow" and a camel were born at the zoo. The sacred cow lived only two hours.

The camel died two weeks later.

In order to capitalize on the draw of baby animals, a mother and baby African buffalo were brought to the zoo the following April. They proved to be popular, as the Free Press reported, "The ladies were intensely interested in the baby buffalo and went into ecstasies over the 'dear little pet'".

The Zoological Garden seemed to change managers as frequently as it purchased new animals. Orrin Delano resigned his position as manager in December of 1883 and was replaced by Harry K. Long, a circus performer who had previously worked for P. T. Barnum. On February 29, it was reported that the new manger was Garry A. Hough, an actor who lived at 11 Sycamore Street in North Corktown. He was followed by at least one more manager, Clarence S. Yates, formerly of the Detroit and Saline Plank Road Company. He went on to become a reporter for The Detroit Evening News until his premature death in 1889 at the age of 28.

In order to maintain attendance during the winter months, an ice skating rink was opened on the property on December 17, 1883. Contests for "fancy skating" were held, and music was frequently supplied by the Tenth Infantry Band. It was claimed that "upwards of 3,000 persons" visited the zoo and ice rink on New Year's Day 1884, but this is almost certainly an exaggeration. The ice became a popular spot for curling, and was frequented by the Granite Curling Club and the Detroit Curling Club.

Among the zoo's winter promotions was a beauty contest held in February 1884--or, as the Free Press called it, an "alleged" beauty contest. A reporter wrote, "The contest of beauty at the Zoological Garden has failed to materialize to any extensive exhibit of symmetry, grace and embellishment, only three forlorn-looking females with a so-much-a-week expression of countenance occupying the seats reserved for contestants." (2/15/1884)

The End of the Zoo

Despite the impressive attendance reported by the zoo, it was unable to meet its financial obligations. The builder of the Zoological Garden sued the owners in May 1884, followed by the architect in June, for fees owed to them. The ownership of the building was transferred to Wayne County Savings Bank on May 13th, although it was allowed to remained open to the public for two months. Luther Beecher retained his ownership of the land, and he continued to rent the field west of the zoo to traveling circuses.

Just as with the liquidation of W. C. Coup's circus two years previously, the animals of the Detroit Zoological Garden were auctioned off under the supervision of Wayne County Sheriff Conrad Clippert. The zoo closed on July 29, 1884 and the property and animals were auctioned off immediately afterward. Although the menagerie was appraised at $4,000, the sale only brought in $1,382.39. Among the bidders were attendees of the Coup auction, including Harry L. Piper of the Toronto Zoological Garden and a representative of the Cincinnati Zoo. The animals remaining at the zoo at the time of the auction included coyote, black bears, sun bears, wolves, leopard, hyena, silver lion, lion, lioness, springbok, deer, elk, African buffalo, camels, sacred cattle, yak, goats, ram, mare, colt, jackass, four raccoons, eight monkeys, rats, white rabbits, pigeons, cockatoos, hawks, parrots, eagles, quails, peacocks, and owls.

Years later, the following explanation for the establishment of the zoo was printed in the Free Press:

The company did not propose to make money out of the enterprise, but sought rather to earn a reputation for the place which would induce the city to buy them out and provide, with greater financial resources, a resort similar in character to the zoological gardens in other cities.

Adaptive Reuse

The structure at 509-511 Michigan Avenue stood for twenty years after the animals left. In December 1884 it was converted into the Dime Roller Rink. The lot behind the building was again flooded and opened as an ice skating rink with a new entrance on Church Street.

By September of 1885, the building was remodeled and opened under new management as the West Side Roller Rink. The proprietor was an electrician named Alfred G. Liggett. Between 1886 and 1887 it operated as the Granite Rink, apparently after the Granite Curling Club. The new lessee Thomas Hyland.

In 1888 the building was listed as vacant. At the time a newspaper article described it as an "old, dilapidated, tumble-down brick structure". In the buildings remaining years, the following people and businesses were listed at the address:

1889--Edward D. Stiff, locksmith
1890--William H. Bowdle's express business. His teamster, Thomas Maynard, lived on site. Mr. Bowdle and his wife also owned a grocery store at 133 15th Street.
1891-1892--Vacant.
1893--Peter S. Oullette & Company, a livery business owned by brothers Peter and Thomas Ouellette.

Circuses were still held in the vicinity of the old zoo building.
This 1893 photo was taken on 11th Street facing east. The back
of the top of the zoo's facade can be see on the upper right.
Courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library.

1894-1895--Mizner & Hawkins, a fuel oil business owned by Henry R. Mizner Jr. and Walter H. Hawkins.
1896-1897--Charles B. Ward, proprietor of bicycles. Ward also ran a "riding academy" out of the building.

Although 11th Street had been built and houses were being established on
Church Street, the field around the old zoo remained undeveloped in 1897.
Image courtesy of Sanborn Maps.

1898-1901--Cut Rate Carpet Cleaning Company. William N. Siggins, proprietor.
1902--Michigan Feather and Renovating Works, by Robert J. Williamson.
1903-1904--Wardell & Sons, owned by Frank G. and Joseph G. Wardell; auctioneers and proprietors of second hand goods.
1905--Vacant.
1906--Michigan Avenue Horse Exchange.

This advertisement for the Michigan Avenue Horse Exchange
appears in the 1906 city directory. The tower and smokestack
in the background are part of the Hamilton Carhartt factory.

The Michigan Avenue Horse Exchange was the last occupant of the former Detroit Zoological Garden. On September 20, 1906, the following ad was printed in the Detroit Free Press classifieds:

FOR SALE. Very cheap, 509 Michigan
ave.; brick, stone, all kinds lumber.
Detroit House Wrecking Co., Grand 1843.

The First Zoo Part I: The Circus Myth

2012-01-14T20:18:00.001-05:00

The Detroit Zoo we know today opened in Royal Oak in 1928. It was the creation of the Detroit Zoological Society, founded in 1911--but it was not the first "Detroit Zoo". In 1883, the short-lived Detroit Zoological Garden opened in Corktown, on Michigan Avenue just west of Tenth Street.

The story is often told of the circus that went bankrupt, whose collection of animals became the first Detroit Zoo. The earliest reference I've found to the legend appeared in The Detroit News on April 13, 1934. A photo montage entitled "Photographic Reminders of the Good Old Days" included a circa-1906 photo of the original zoo in Corktown. The caption below it references the circus story.

Courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library.
Photograph is courtesy of The Detroit News Archives. Used with permission.

The legend is embellished even further in The First Fifty Years: An informal history of the Detroit Zoological Park and the Detroit Zoological Society, by the zoo's Curator of Education, William A. Austin, in 1974:

The first zoological park in Detroit was established in the early 1880's, and was the result of a small traveling circus going bankrupt. The owners of the circus slipped out of town in the middle of the night and simply abandoned their animals. The citizens of the City of Detroit took up a collection to assist in housing and feeding these creatures, and the area was opened to the public on September 5, 1883.

This version of events is repeated in Wonders Among Us: Celebrating 75 Years of the Detroit Zoo by the Detroit Zoological Society, and referenced on the zoo's website and in a documentary on its history.

But what really happened? The following is an attempt to reconstruct the events as they were reported at the time by the Detroit Free Press and The Detroit Evening News.

"W. C. Coup's New United Monster Shows"

This advertisement for the doomed circus ran in the Free Press in the days leading up to its Detroit opening on August 23rd, 1882.

The circus was owned by William Cameron Coup, one of the co-founders of the Barnum & Bailey Circus. He and another circus owner convinced P.T. Barnum to turn his museum into a traveling show in 1871, but the men parted ways in 1876. Coup was the first showman to use circus trains and circuses with more than one ring.

Coup's 1882 season had been going poorly, including a "premature and financially disastrous" tour of Texas (N 8/24/1882). Then disaster struck in the early morning hours of August 20, 1882. Coup's circus train was traveling in two sections from a show in Cairo, Illinois to his next engagement when the first train stalled on the tracks and was subsequently truck by the second one. Five drivers were killed, and about twenty other workers (but no performers) were injured. The circus arrived so late for the next three shows (Delphi, Indiana; Columbia City, Indiana; and Detroit) that there was no time to publicize the show with the customary circus parade. (F 1/11/1884, 3)

Despite the setbacks, Coup put on two shows in Detroit on August 23 as promised. The tents were set up in an undeveloped field in Corktown on the south side of Michigan Avenue just west of Tenth Street. Eleventh Street did not run through the property until 1890. The land, owned by Luther Beecher, was where the Zoological Garden would later be built.

(Source)

William C. Coup's New United Monster Show was no "small traveling circus" as described by Austin. In addition to the 175 performers and a full menagerie of animals--including an aquarium!--there was a "Grand Historical Tableaux" of 500 plaster statues which recreated the assassination of President James A. Garfield and the conviction of his murderer, Charles J. Guiteau. The statues of Guiteau were dressed in the very clothes he wore on the days of the assassination and his conviction.

A poster was for W. C. Coup's 1879 season by the Stobridge Lithograph Company.
Courtesy of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art.

Coup was so heavily in debt by the time he arrived in Detroit that he was unable to pay many of his performers. On the day of the first show, the circus' equestrian star Frank Melville, filed a praecipe for writ of attachment in Wayne County Circuit Court, which was granted (F 8/24/1882, 6). He was quickly followed by a half dozen other employees, including George Loyal, "The Human Cannon Ball".

From left to right: Frank Melville, George Loyal, and Ella Zuila.
Zuila, Loyal's wife, performed a highwire act in Coup's circus.

In addition to employees, Coup owed tens of thousands of dollars to printers, lithographers, and bill posters. Several local businessmen also won judgments, including George W. Latimer, an undertaker. Rather than attempting to fight his creditors in court, Coup decided to give up and allow the Wayne County Sheriff, Conrad J. Clippert, to seize his property in order to satisfy his debtors (F 8/25/1882, 6). Coup's circus was to be auctioned off to satisfy his creditors on September 16th.

In the meantime, the Wayne County Sheriff's Department was in charge of securing the property and caring for the animals. The approximately ninety unemployed men who were now stranded in Detroit posed another problem all together. The sympathetic Sheriff Clippert personally bought the men breakfast on the morning of the 26th. "Many of them say that they would be satisfied without any money," reported the News, "if they could secure transportation to their homes" (N 8/26/1882). The following day, Clippert allowed admission to be charged for a public viewing of the animals, with the proceeds going to benefit the stranded men (F 8/27/1882, 6).

Clippert, a German immigrant, served as
Wayne County Sheriff from 1880 to 1884.
Image courtesy of Google Books (Source)

Clippert temporarily hired fourteen of Coup's men to handle the increasingly expensive task of looking after the animals. The owner of the circus grounds, Luther Beecher (aka "Uncle Luther") first demanded $75 per day to continue using the land, which the Sheriff refused to pay (N 8/26/1882). This was later negotiated down to $25 a day (F 8/31/1882, 1). The water commissioner charged the camp $4 per day for water usage--negotiated down from $10. Simply feeding the animals was a monumental task, as the Free Press reported:

The hippopotamus and other animals with the Coup circus now stored on Michigan avenue, dispose of half a ton of hay, five or six bushels of oats, seventy-five pounds of fresh meats, eight or ten cabbages, a peck of turnips and half a bushel of apples per day. The cabbages, turnips and apples are made into a hash for the hippopotamus. (F 9/6/1882, 1)

The expenses were not paid for by "the citizens of the City of Detroit [taking] up a collection" as Austin claimed, but were simply covered by the proceeds of the sheriff's auction (F 9/6/1882, 1). And neither did William C. Coup "slip out of town in the middle of the night". Coup did have to travel to New York on September 4th, but he returned eight days later. The Free Press noted that "Mr. Coup has only increased the number of friends he has here by the manly, dignified manner in which he has faced his disaster in Detroit, and there is not one who will not rejoice to see him again on his feet." (F 8/27/1882, 13)

William Cameron Coup (1837-1895)
Image courtesy of CircusHistory.org (Source)

The Auction

The first day of the auction was Saturday, September 16, 1882 at the Corktown circus grounds. News of the auction attracted representatives of circuses and zoos from as far away as Canada and Mexico. In addition to a menagerie of animals, the items for sale included the circus' canvas tents, animal cages, a steam organ, various wagons and buggies, audience seating, a catapult, blacksmith tools, band uniforms, seven railroad cars, and many items for horses, including saddles, harnesses, and bridles. Also to be sold was a "balloon", which might have been Charles F. Ritchel's "Flying Machine" seen in previous advertisements for Coup's show.

Courtesy of the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art.

The auction began at noon and was presided by John S. Griffin, a professional auctioneer and former Wayne County Coroner. The very first item up for bid was Coup's hippopotamus, who was sold for $2,900 to William Washington Cole, founder of what is now the Cole Bros. Circus (F 9/17/1882, 8). The other purchases of animals made that day as reported by the papers were:

William W. Cole: one wildebeest, $625; three hyenas, $33; and one yak, $150.
Frank Thompson of the Cincinnati Zoo: two porcupines, $50; two wolves, $12; six monkeys, $84; two sun bears, sold for $200 according to the Free Press, but $220 as reported by the News; and one jaguar (Free Press: $35, News: $135).
Harry L. Piper of the Toronto Zoo: one peccary, $11; one "ring tail" (Capuchin) monkey, $15; one royal Bengal tiger, either $400 (Free Press) or $500 (News); one kangaroo, $100; one emu (Free Press: $135, News: $13); and one ibex, $35. The News stated that Mr. Piper purchased a "sacred Brahmin bull" for $70, but the Free Press reported that he bought a "sacred cow" for $75. Maybe they're both right.
William D. Hagar, a former Coup employee: one "dog-faced monkey", $35; eight cockatoos, $72; and one black bear, $10.
George Middleton of the Circus Royal: two macaws, $33.
W.B. Hayes: three "Assyrian" sheep, $15.
S.G. and L.M. Ishback: two monkeys, $26
Richard Giff: three guinea pigs, $3.
"Mr. Walters": one axis deer, $25.

The two papers contradict one another regarding the purchase of a leopard and two lions. The News stated that the buyer was William D. Hagar, who bid $1,250; but the Free Press reported that the successful bidder was George W. Orrin, proprietor of the Orrin Brothers Circus in Mexico City.

From left to right: W. W. Cole, Harry L. Piper, and George Middleton.

Mostly inanimate objects were auctioned off on the second day, September 18, with only eight ponies being sold various buyers (F 9/19/1882, 6). On the third and final day, all remaining animals--eighty-eight horses and three elephants--were sold as a one lot, the reason being that they were collectively mortgaged, and that their buyer must assume that mortgage. The winning bidder was local livery dealer George F. Case, who purchased the lot for $18,652.50 (F 9/20/1882, 8). Among the horses were ten trained bronchos, including Nettle, the famous leaping horse. Case sold these bronchos to Joseph W. Hartford of Detroit, who planned to tour them internationally (F 10/12/1882, 1).

An engraving of Nettle from an 1880 advertisement for Coup's show.

Case sold the three elephants to Hines Strowbridge of Cincinnati, who in turn sold one of them to Harry L. Piper of the Toronto Zoo (F 9/21/1882, 1). Camels, dogs and sea lions were mentioned in circus advertisements, but if any were sold at the auction, it was not reported by the newspapers.

There is no indication that any animals were sold to Luther Beecher, or that he financed their purchase. He attended the auction, but he "plainly showed [his] disgust at the rapid advance" of bids on the horses and elephants "and refused to bid" (N 9/19/1882).

"Uncle" Luther Beecher (1815-1892)
Image courtesy of Google Books (Source)

I have found no evidence that any of the circus animals later fell into the hands of Beecher or anyone who would later be associated with the Detroit Zoological Garden, which did not open for another year. The only newspaper item that seemed to suggest otherwise was this single, ambiguous line published under "Sayings and Doings" in the Free Press on September 23, 1882:

Uncle Luther and W. C. Coup are cooking up some grand scheme, the nature of which is not yet apparent.

However, the same paper had previously called it a "popular delusion" that "Uncle Luther intends to purchase any of the Coup animals for Belle Isle Park" (9/17/1882, 15). It appears that Beecher's only connection to the future zoo would be his lease of the land to that institution.

The Real Cost of a Menagerie

Obtaining animals for the circus was an extremely expensive and dangerous enterprise for William C. Coup. In order to capture a baby elephant, he wrote in his autobiography, Sawdust and Spangles:

a native creeps cautiously in from behind [the mother elephant] and with one cut of a heavy broad-bladed knife severs the tendons of her hind legs. She is then disabled and falls to the ground. We promptly kill her, secure the ivory, and capture the little one. Of course we sometimes have a native or two killed in this kind of a hunt; but they don't cost much--only five to six dollars apiece...

"In capturing wild animals," Coup wrote, "the rule
is to kill the old ones and secure the young."
This illustration is from Sawdust and Spangles.
In this same book, Coup also told the story of young elephants taken away from their mothers so early that they were found suckling on objects. He gave them a bottle, over which "they fought in the most indescribably comical manner". At shows, he would exploit their habit of suckling by having them drink through hoses and "take their nourishment like human babies, their overgrown size making this infantile operation very comical and absurd."

"The herd of young elephants" from Coup's autobiography

But even Cole occasionally recognized the inhumanity of keeping wild animals for entertainment. When he was in this city, he told a reporter for The Detroit Evening News,

It is cruel, the way these poor creatures are dragged around the country in close cages, and I have often wished I could get along without that feature of the show. Many of the poor beasts die on the road in spite all of you can do for them, and some of the others suffer a great deal on account of the jolting, the cramped quarters, the lack of exercise and the changes of a climate to which they are unsuited. But the public will have traveling menageries, and showmen must carry them along. Lately the public have become unreasonable. They are not satisfied with two or three or half a dozen elephants. They want a herd of 20 elephants. Now what good does it do a man to see a herd of 20 elephants? Supplemented, probably, by an equally large herd of camels and dromedaries, a whole car load of monkeys and baboons, and other beasts in proportion? You say the public does not demand these things; and yet I tell you the show that advertises the most elephants carries off the cake... (N 8/30/1882)

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) categorically opposes the use of wild and exotic animals in circus acts "because of the stress, cruelty and physical, social and psychological deprivations that the animals inevitably suffer," and offers a list of circuses without wild animal acts. The Humane Society of the United States--which also opposes the use of animals in circuses--states that the laws that are supposed to protect the animals from cruelty and neglect are "insufficient and inconsistently enforced".

Circuses with animal attractions have been banned in cities throughout the world, including Buenos Aires, Vancouver, and even Cork, Ireland. Wild animal acts in circuses are banned outright in the nations of Austria, Singapore, Costa Rica, and Finland. Hopefully the capture and exploitation of wild animals for the sake of entertainment will one day be only a relic of a barbaric past.

Coming soon: The First Zoo Part II: The Detroit Zoological Garden

A Call for Old Corktown Photographs

2011-12-28T13:00:00.000-05:00

Dear Neighbors,

As anyone who reads this blog knows, long descriptions and lists of names can only go so far in re-creating Corktown's past. There is no substitute for historical photographs when it comes to bringing that past to life.

In the name of preserving and sharing Corktown's history with neighbors, researchers, and anyone else interested in our neighborhood, my neighbor Scott Robichaud and I have started a photo group on Flickr.com which you can find here:

www.flickr.com/photos/corktownhistory

This photo group contains a modest collection of images so far, but we hope that submissions from our neighbors help it grow into a useful library of historical Corktown images.

Here is an overview of what we have available right now:

In 1976, all of the structures in many of Detroit's historic neighborhood were photographed in what was called the Detroit Urban Conservation Project. Previously, the only digitized versions of these images were found at PlacePromo.com, but availability was hit-and-miss and the images were fairly small. With the help of my friend Allan Machielse, we were able to track down the film negatives at the Detroit Historic Designation Advisory Board office downtown. I have re-scanned the negatives for the Corktown Historic District and the 2400x1600 pixel images are now online and free to download. This collection contains 451 images.

The year 1976 may not seem incredibly "old", but these photos could potentially be valuable to some people. Consider 2036 11th Street, for example, which looks like this today:

Image courtesy of Google Street View

Should someone become interested in restoring this home and re-creating its original wraparound porch, the following image from the Detroit Urban Conservation Project would be good to have:

Scott has obtained 146 street-level images from the year 1954 from throughout Corktown that appear to have been part of a presentation against the demolition of historic homes in the name of urban renewal. He has scanned and uploaded the images, which you can find here. The sample photo below depicts the old Roosevelt Hotel on 14th Street.

Neighbor Mona Graham has graciously loaned us the tour booklets for every single Corktown Historic Homes Tour since the very first one in 1987. This collection contains 194 images.

If you have old photographs of Corktown (no later than the year 1999) that you would like to share, please email us at corktownhistory at yahoo dot com. If you do not have digital copies of your photos, we would be glad to scan them for you, and handle your photographs with the utmost care and respect. Scott is the owner of the Joseph Kingston House (previously featured here) and author of the blog Redemption in Corktown, documenting the renovation of his home from 2007 to 2010. I have lived in the neighborhood since 2005, and I currently reside in North Corktown. I also own the Susan Buchanan House on Bagley near Sixth Street, which I rent out.

If you are interested in being a part of this project, please let us know!

Buried Treasure

2011-12-10T14:35:00.000-05:00

If you look carefully at a satellite image of the industrial building at 2051 Rosa Parks Boulevard, you will notice a house that seems to be lodged inside of it.

This complex was once the home of the Lincoln Brass Works, but has since been converted into office and warehouse spaces. The 100,000-square-foot building was in the news recently after being purchased by developers Scott Griffin and Angel Gambino, who announced that the building would be renovated extensively. Since then, it has become the home of The Huffington Post's Detroit office, Curbed Detroit, and Loveland Technologies. Soon, this address will be the home of Corktown Cinema (formerly the Burton Theatre).

Satellite imagery isn't necessary to see this house-within-a-building. Part of it is visible from the loading docks just off the sidewalk.

287 Twelfth Street

This two-story brick house first appeared in the 1873 city directory, but the exact year of construction is unknown since building permits were not required at the time. The land was originally part of the Cabacier Farm--later the Thompson Farm--which was platted in 1852. The image below depicts how the block surrounding 287 12th Street appeared in 1884.

Image courtesy of Sanborn Maps.

The first occupant of this home was an artist and inventor named John Locke Warren, born in England on August 21, 1830.

Courtesy of HathiTrust.org.
Warren was living in Detroit and working as a painter at the time of the 1850 census, but he soon moved to Ohio, where he married Margaret Carmody on September 22, 1852. They had their first three children in that state, but returned to Detroit in the late 1850s. In all, they had seven children, two of whom died young. Around 1863, Warren's occupation changed from painter to picture frame manufacturer. Clarence M. Burton noted that Warren was "one of the pioneer manufacturers of oval picture frames in America". Warren was also somewhat active politically, having been elected Alderman for Detroit's eighth ward in 1883 and serving for two years.

John L. Warren's contribution to the arts went beyond that of a painter and picture frame manufacturer. He was one of the founding members of the museum that we now know as the Detroit Institute of Arts.

Until the 1880s, there were no public art museums in Detroit. In 1882, citizens interested in promoting the arts met to discuss the possibility of a large, public art exhibition, later called the Art Loan Exhibit, intended to generate enough interest to lead to the foundation of a permanent institution. On February 27, 1883, the newly-formed Art Loan Association elected John L. Warren and nine others to serve as the organization's Executive Committee. Warren was appointed Chairman of the Transportation Committee on a later date. In addition to moving the artwork, Warren was responsible for its installation and removal. The Art Loan Exhibit was held from September 1 to November 12, 1883 in a one-story brick building constructed especially for the purpose. After the exhibit, the building was converted into a roller skating rink.

The Art Loan Building on Larned Street, between Bates and Randolph.
Courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library.

Plan of the Art Loan Building from Silas Farmer's The History of Detroit and Michigan.

The Detroit Art Loan Record, a detailed account of the event, contained this anecdote about Mr. Warren:

Out of deference to the objection raised against the exhibition of the nude, Mr. John L. Warren, Chairman of the Transportation Committee, had a pair of huge pantaloons drawn over the front legs of his horses with which collection of paintings was made. This should satisfy the most fastidious that at least an effort has been made to avoid shocking any one's sensibilities. (Source.)

The Art Loan was overwhelmingly successful, having welcomed over 134,000 attendees to view the 4,801 works of art on display. Detroit proved that it was sophisticated and resourceful enough to warrant a public art museum. A call went out to raise $40,000 to purchase land for the museum's permanent location. Thirty donors pledged $1,000 each, and Senator Thomas W. Palmer contributed $10,000 in the names of the original ten members of the Art Loan Association's Executive Committee. Thus John L. Warren was among the forty original corporators of the Detroit Museum of Art, which officially organized on March 25, 1885. The Detroit Museum of Art, on the southwest corner of Jefferson and Hastings, opened September 1, 1888--and quickly ran out of space. In 1919, the museum changed from being an independent nonprofit corporation to becoming a civic institution, and its name changed to the Detroit Institute of Arts. Its new location, at 5200 Woodward Avenue, was opened in 1927. Today, the DIA is again operated by a separate nonprofit while the city retains ownership of the building and the collection.

The Detroit Museum of Art's incorporation document signed by the original bene-
factors in 1884. John L. Warren's signature is number 39. Document provided by
the Detroit Institute of Arts. Thanks to Maria Ketcham, Head Librarian at the
DIA's Research Library, and Robert Hensleigh, Director of Photography.

In addition to being a patron of the arts, Warren was an accomplished machinist and inventor. Working out of a barn behind 287 12th Street, he spent years perfecting machines to be used in the production of gelatin drug capsules. In 1888, he founded the Warren Capsule Company, which was first located on 16th Street, and then moved to a building on Marantette just west of 12th Street three years later.

The Warren Capsule Company operated out of this building
at 19 (1935) Marantette Street between 1891 and 1909.

A reporter from the The Detroit News Tribune who visited the factory described it as a "a light, pleasant place", and the young women employed there as "a happy, bright-faced lot."

Illustration from The Detroit News Tribune article.
The reporter had this to say about Mr. Warren:

An inventor is usually pictured as a gaunt and weary-eyed man, wearing in his face the traces of many a harassed hour when he burned the midnight oil, and slept not, because of soul-depressing disappointments. Mr. Warren does not answer to this description, not in the least. He is rotund and merry, with a twinkle in his eye that never was born of long, despairing vigils of the night. Work he must have done, to reach the height of his inventive ambitions. Perhaps he worked while others slept, but if he did, he must have slept while others worked, for the hue of health has not deserted his cheek, nor the light of merriment his eyes. He may not, therefore, be an ideal inventor, but he is an ideal, jolly gentleman, and the fact that so much machinery has evoluted from his brain, has not in the least, expanded the size of his very level head.
(The Detroit News Tribune, 17 May 1896)

John Locke Warren passed away at home on August 10, 1896. About six years later, the Warren House was converted into a two-family home. The upper flat was given the new address of 285 12th Street, where Thomas Brownell was the first renter; and the lower unit, where Margaret Warren and her daughter Mary B. Warren continued to live, remained number 287. Margaret Warren died on January 25, 1907.

The John L. Warren family plot in Woodmere Cemetery, Detroit.

The Foundry

Earlier this month, Jerry Paffendorf of Loveland Technologies graciously granted a tour of 2051 Rosa Parks to myself and neighbor Scott Robichaud.

Scott (left) and Jerry stand in what was one a brass foundry.

The story of how 285/287 12th Street became absorbed by an industrial complex goes back to 1914, when an entrepreneur named Louis C. Miller demolished the house next door to 287 12th Street and built an auto shop in its place. The building permit for the new structure was issued by the city on April 17, 1914. The address of the new structure was 291 12th Street. Miller attempted to create a business--Louis C. Miller & Co.--that specialized in modernizing older cars. Among Miller's previous employers was a used auto dealer called the Loveland Company.

A notice published in the Detroit Free Press, 21 June 1914.

The last member of the Warren family to live at 287 12th Street was Mary B. Warren, who never married. She left the house by 1914, presumably because of the automobile rebuilding shop constructed ten feet away from her home.

This ad for Miller's business ran in July of 1914.

Louis C. Miller's enterprise was not successful. I haven't found any reference to it after the summer of 1914. The following year, 291 12th Street was occupied by the Modern Body Shop, a maker of automobile bodies. The proprietor was a Canadian immigrant named John Sheldon Rusk, who, unfortunately, fared no better than Louis Miller.

The next occupant, the Acason Motor Truck Company, was more fortunate. The company was incorporated in Walkerville, Ontario in 1915, was listed at 291 12th Street in 1916. By August of that year, they had outgrown the facility and moved to 429 (2821) Brooklyn St., approximately where the Motor City Casino Hotel stands today. Acason produced vehicles until 1925.

Finally, in 1917, the Lincoln Brass Works was operating at 291 12th Street. The business was incorporated the previous year in Detroit by Erwin H. Mueller, John O. Stevens, and Bertram Ellison. The company inhabited the site for eighty years.

After Mary B. Warren moved out of 287 12th Street, the upper and lower flats were rented primarily by laborers, often under cramped conditions. The 1920 census lists twenty-two individuals living in the house. They were mostly factory workers, in addition to two drivers, a fireman, and a bricklayer. In 1921, the address of Lincoln Brass Works changed to 2067 12th Street. Numbers 285 and 287 changed to 2051 and 2055 12th Street. By that time, the foundry had expanded to encompass the entire parcel of land it was built on.

Lincoln Brass Works, at 2067 12th Street, in 1921.
The John L. Warren House is immediately to the south.
Image courtesy of Sanborn Maps.

In 1930, 2051/2055 12th Street was home to twenty people. All of them were immigrants from Mexico except for three children. All employed adults were factory workers except for a baker, a railroad worker, and two restaurateurs. Four of the laborers were foundry workers, who may have worked next door. By 1933, a Mrs. Betty Wood was listed as the head of household at 2051 12th Street, and Antonio Hinostroza at 2055. In 1934, both addresses were listed as vacant. Finally, in 1935, the address of Lincoln Brass Works changed from 2067 12th Street to 2051-2067 12th Street. Twelfth Street was renamed Rosa Parks Boulevard in 1976.

The Warren House in 1949, fully enveloped by the Lincoln Brass Works complex.

The House Today

The rear of the Warren House viewed from the north.

This photo was taken in the back of the house on the second story,
from the exact opposite perspective as the image above it.

The house's brick facade is hidden within the back wall of this second-story
front office space. A window was probably expanded to make this doorway.

Circa-1872 windows were just too large for a previous remodeller.

The chimney hidden in this closet still has its original base molding.

The wall adjacent to this safe appears to be original, but whether
the brick walls inside are the house's exterior walls I cannot say.

19th century base molding adorns this mechanical area.

The first floor of the Warren House has been terribly abused, but it contains more original details (however few) than the upstairs office space. The industrial complex pierces the home's walls with tendril-like steel pipes and assimilates the structure for its own purpose, like an architectural version of John Carpenter's The Thing.

The mantle that would have been attached to this chimney is long tone,
but some of the crown molding has been left intact.

The side entrance and two windows as seen from the home's "exterior".
This floor has been raised higher than the ground would have been.

This might have been the home's main entrance. The floor has been dropped in this area.

An ornate plaster ceiling medallion now suffers the
indignity of supplying power to fluorescent lights.

An article on Model D Media stated that the new owners Angel Gambino and Scott Griffin have

spent their time erasing the improvements the previous owner made to the building. While the previous owner had normalized the spaces into typical office cubicles with carpeting and dropped ceilings, Griffin says they're focused on "undressing the building so the classic architecture shines."

I hope that the owners are considering restoring the Warren House as part of the plan for this site. Obviously it would be a difficult project, but one that is very appropriate given its location in a historic neighborhood. Most of the home's interior would have to be a re-creation of how it originally "might" have looked. Old moldings, fireplace mantles, and other lost elements could be replaced with period materials rescued by architectural salvage organizations. And of course, a small perimeter around the home would have to be cleared of its industrial additions, maybe creating a courtyard-like area. Anything is possible, right?

2051 Rosa Parks Boulevard, courtesy of Bing.com.

Cymbre Apartments

2011-11-23T13:54:00.000-05:00

Cymbre Apartments, 1533 Ash Street

A couple of months ago I moved out of the Bechstein House on Wabash Street and into an apartment building in North Corktown. This three-story, brick building was constructed during World War I and originally contained fifteen apartments. A name plate over the front entrance reads "Cymbre".

Butterfield & Butterfield

The building was designed by the architecture firm Butterfield & Butterfield, whose offices were located in suite 1113 of the David Whitney Building. The firm consisted of Wells D. Butterfield and his daughter, Emily H. Butterfield--the first woman to be a licensed architect in the state of Michigan.

Image courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library

Wells D. Butterfield was born on June 10, 1859 in Algonac, Michigan. On August 4, 1881 he married Helen Hossie, a native of Sarnia, Ontario. Together they had three children: Emily, Clayton, and Duane. Wells Butterfield is perhaps most famous for designing the Highland Park High School, although he ultimately specialized in churches--especially of the Methodist denomination--having designed over sixty in his lifetime. After retiring from architecture, Butterfield became the first mayor of Farmington, Michigan, after it incorporated as a city in 1926. Wells Butterfield died on July 15, 1936.

Emily Helen Butterfield

Emily Butterfield was born just outside of Algonac, Michigan on August 4, 1884. She graduated from the Detroit Central High School in 1903 and went on to study architecture at Syracuse University. The following year, she and ten other students founded a fraternity for women, Alpha Gamma Delta, whose membership has exceeded 160,000 since its founding. Miss Butterfield wrote the fraternity's Purpose, served as editor of its newsletter for seven years, and designed its coat-of-arms--Miss Butterfield was an expert on college fraternity heraldry and would later write a book on the subject. After graduating from Syracuse in 1907, she returned to Detroit to join her father in business. In May of 1912, she was among the founding members of the Detroit Business Woman's Club--the first professional women's club in the nation--and served as its first president. In addition to her career as an architect, Miss Butterfield was also an accomplished artist and contributor to home and garden magazines. Miss Butterfield passed away in Algonac, Michigan on March 22, 1958.

Buildings designed by Butterfield & Butterfield include the Highland Park High School, already mentioned; the Methodist Episcopal Church in Farmington (1922), and various homes in "The Oaklands" (1925-1927), a planned suburban community in Farmington Hills intended to resemble small "estates", but never completed due to the Great Depression.

Albert S. Pratt

The builder and first owner of these apartments was Albert Samuel Pratt, born in Detroit on September 26, 1881.

Albert Samuel Pratt, Sr.
Image courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library

Albert's father, William Pratt, was a builder, and died from pneumonia when Albert was just five years old. Albert Pratt learned carpentry like his father and ultimately became a successful contractor.

On March 12, 1917, the City of Detroit issued building permit number 13008 to Albert Pratt for the construction of this apartment building. The estimated cost of construction was $23,000.00.

The building permit issued by the city to construct Cymbre Apartments.

At the time, Pratt lived at 515 (later 3145) Trumbull, just at the end of the street. He did not marry until the year after building the apartments, at the age of 36. The following marriage announcement was printed in the Detroit Free Press on May 12 1918:

PRATT-EVOThe marriage of Miss elda May Evo and Mr. Albert S. Pratt was quietly solemnized Wednesday morning [May 8]. Rev. Edwin D. Dimond, of Simpson Tabernacle Methodist church, officiating. After an extended motor trip through the east Mr. and Mrs. Pratt will be at home at 515 Trumbull avenue.

The one detail of the building that always seemed somewhat enigmatic to me was the name "Cymbre" displayed above the front entrance. I've learned that it turns out to be a tribute to a specific individual.

Cymbre Anne (Fox) Pratt was the mother of Albert Pratt. She was born in Wroxton, England on July 8, 1850 and came to the United States at age two. She married William Pratt in Waukesha, Wisconsin on January 21, 1874 and moved to Detroit. They had four sons, including Albert Pratt. Cymbre Ann Pratt died on May 11, 1925.

Albert and Elda Pratt had two children, Albert Samuel Jr. and Cymbre Ann. They are 92 and 88, respectively, and live outside of Michigan. Cymbre Ann (now Mrs. Ferguson) told me she also has a daughter named Cymbre Ann.

Albert Pratt was a well-known Methodist layman in his lifetime and very active in charity work. He chaired the building committee of the Methodist Children's Home Society for neglected and homeless children. The buildings of "Children's Village" were completed in 1929 near Six Mile Road in Redford. "Throughout the years," wrote a contemporary newspaper, "the Pratts have opened their home to several young people after they were released from Methodist Children's Home. In many instances, Mr. Pratt helped these young people to find jobs. Since the end of World War II, the Pratts have also sponsored many displaced European families and aided them to reconstruct their lives here in this country." Mr. Pratt was elected to the Methodist Hall of Fame in Philanthropy in 1956 for his work. He passed away in Detroit on November 30, 1964.

First Occupants

1533 Ash Street--originally numbered 65 Ash--first appeared in the city directories in 1918. Unfortunately, individual apartment numbers were not listed in the directories until the 1920s.

The residents of Cymbre Apartments in 1918.

The first people listed at this address were for the most part a combination of skilled laborers and white-collar workers. Details on these individuals are as follows:

Jennie (Thomas) Barbour, registered nurse. Born 1870, Illinois. Mother of four children, only one of whom survived: her daughter Ella May Barbour, a teacher at the Clippert School. Ella May went on to marry Clarence W. Fisher in 1923.
William Aloysious Forster, machinist at the American Car and Foundry Company, a manufacturer of railroad rolling stock. Born 1877, England--immigrated 1886. In 1911, married Mary Corrigan, born about 1883, Canada--immigrated 1886. Their son, William, was born around 1908.
William Smith, janitor. He may have been the building's maintenance man.
Albert Russell, machinist.
Chester Charles Conn, insurance agent. Born 1895, Michigan. In 1915, married Agnes E. Scully, born about 1896, Michigan. Their daughter, Shirley, was born about 1917.
John Joseph O'Hagan, traveling candy salesman (!) for E. J. Brach & Sons of Chicago. Born 1889, Ontario--immigrated 1895. In 1908, married Angela Breece, born 1890, Michigan. Their son, John Jr., was born in 1912.
Martha (Officer) Piper, born 1842, Ohio. Widow of Abraham Piper (1824-1897). They had no children. Mrs. Piper lived in this building until her death on October 17, 1920.
Walter Harold Gubb, salesman. Born 1891, Ontario--immigrated 1906. In 1915 married Anne M. Lowry, born 1888 Canada--immigrated 1891. Their son, George L., was born in 1917. Later, they had another son, Alan K.
Merrill Ray Edelblute, bench hand at the Lincoln Motor Company. Born 1886, Kansas. In 1918, married Maude Taylor, born about 1892, Arkansas. They had no children.
Charles Albrecht Reuter, ordnance inspector at American Car & Foundry. Born 1882, Kentucky. In 1913, married Mabel Henry, born 1894, Michigan. They had two sons at the time: Charles L. (b. 1916) and John H. (b. 1918).
Francis Joseph Gleason, plumber for the Drake-Avery Co. Born 1892, New York. Never married.
Andrew Charles Fasbender, bookkeeper at the Regent Stove Co. in Wyandotte. Born 1885, Michigan. On January 30, 1918, married Gladys L. (Dickerson) Elliot, born 1890, Michigan. (Fasbender was previously married to Nettie R. Kramp. They had a child, Walter, who died in 1909 at one month old. The couple later divorced.)
Louis Benjamin Brooks, mail carrier. Born 1878, Michigan. In 1904, married Sadie T. Horrigan, born about 1882, Michigan. Their son, Willis J., was born in 1905.

Below is the Sanborn Map from 1921 of the area around Cymbre Apartments. Roll your cursor over the image to see a recent satellite image of the same area.

The building is currently owned by Thomas Cieszkowski, a lifelong Detroiter and 20-year resident of North Corktown. Currently, only six of the building's original fifteen apartments are inhabited. Cieszkowski plans on renovating the remaining units when demand for housing in the area increases sufficiently.

1763 Vermont Part II: 1946-Present

2011-11-21T14:07:00.000-05:00

As mentioned in Part I, Harry Hosack owned 1763 Vermont until foreclosing in 1943. Steven Snider, a grandson of Hosack, told me that relatives remember the home being divided into two apartments at the time. This alteration must have been done after 1941, because no separate address appears in the city directory before that time.

On April 26, 1946, First Liquidating Corporation sold 1763 Vermont to Jennie G. Smith, John W. Hoag Jr. and his wife, Phyllis M. Hoag. Mr. Hoag's father, John Wellington Hoag Sr., was the preacher at the Woodward Avenue Baptist Church (demolished 1986) from 1915 until his death in 1947.

Between 1949 and 1956, almost all of the houses across the street from 1763 Vermont were demolished and replaced with a parking lot. The images below are courtesy of Wayne State University.

There is a ten-year gap in the records on this property, both in the city directories and in the documents obtained from Wayne County. The next available data are from 1956, when the home was owned by George M. Bell. The directory from that year is also the first I've found that includes the address of the separate apartment within the house. From then on, the lower unit was 1765 Vermont, and the upstairs unit was 1763. The following is an incomplete list of known renters of 1765 Vermont:

1956 - John & Rose Davis
1958 - William & Annabelle Durkins
1964 - Frank & Julie Medina
1965 - (Vacant)
1968 - Lloyd & Sharon Little
1970 - (Vacant)
1973 - (Vacant)
1988 - Leroy Poole, Jr.
1989 - Charinease L. Brown
1990 - Arthurene B. Eubanks
1991 - Foye E. Gantt
1992 - William Buchanan

George and Christine Bell bought the house and lived in it (or, rather, in the upper unit) from at least 1956 to 1958. From 1964 until at least 1973, the Bells rented the upper apartment to Thomas and Patricia Edwards. On May 5, 1975, the Bells sold the house to John T. and Patsy A. Adkins for $3,000.

1763 Vermont in 1976.
Courtesy of the Michigan State Historic Preservation Office

On May 4, 1979, Mr. and Mrs. Adkins sold the house to Ruben G. and Maria Rodriguez for $4,000. The property would stay in the family for twelve years. On December 23, 1988, Ruben Rodriguez, now widowed, added Ricardo E. Rodriguez to the deed. On May 10th of the following year, Ruben quit-claimed his half of the house to Alicia Ramos. On the following November 28, Rodriguez and Ramos quit-claimed the property to Alfredo Rodriguez, Jesus Rodriguez, Rose-Marie Bird, Edmundo Rodriguez, Rogelio Rodriguez, Ricardo Moreno, and Roberto Rodriguez. The year after that, Rose-Marie Bird, Rogelio Rodriguez and his wife Virginia quit-claimed their part in the ownership of the home to co-owners Ricardo Moreno and Roberto and Edmundo Rodriguez.

In 1991, the house fell into tax foreclosure and was seized by the State of Michigan on May 5, 1992. It fell under the ownership of Wayne County on May 17, 1995, and was then transferred to the Corktown Consumer Housing Cooperative the following month, on June 30.

1763 Vermont was finally purchased by Kelly Giannotta on March 15, 2002 for $10,000. The property became owned jointly by Kelly Giannotta and David Larson on September 30, 2003, after their marriage. They are now the home's current owners, and have renovated it extensively several years ago.

1763 Vermont in 2002.
Photo courtesy of David & Kelly Larson.

The entrance to the upper flat has been turned back into a window.
Photo courtesy of David & Kelly Larson.

Co-owner David Larson, during the renovation.
Photo courtesy of David & Kelly Larson.

These coins were discovered in and around the house throughout the
renovation. Clockwise from the top left: an 1856 U.S. quarter, a
1911 U.S. penny, a 1943 U.S. steel penny, and a 1917 British Penny.

The home's original staircase was moved to this location by
the front door when the house was divided into two units.
Photo courtesy of David & Kelly Larson.

The staircase during the renovation, returned to its original location.
Photo courtesy of David & Kelly Larson.

The rear of 1763 Vermont during renovation.
Photo courtesy of David & Kelly Larson.

The rear of 1763 Vermont after renovation.
Photo courtesy of David & Kelly Larson.

1763 Vermont has been restored to its previous state as a single-family home. It is now rented out, as it had been throughout most of its history.

Photo courtesy of David & Kelly Larson.

243 13th / 1763 Vermont Part I: 1884-1943

2011-10-25T13:11:00.004-04:00

Like the Joseph Buchanan house, 243 13th Street was built on land that was once part of the Lafferty Farm. When it was platted it 1867, it was owned by Clement Lafferty, a grandson of the farm's original French settler, Louis Vessiere dit Laferte. The house would be built on the south portion of lot 70 of outlot 1 of the former farm.

On January 11, 1872, this lot was purchased by Nicholas Till for $425.00. He probably bought the parcel on a land contract, since the city directories listed him as living on Thirteenth Street since 1868. However, the house he lived in was 245 13th Street, on the north half of the lot. 243 13th--the subject of this post--would not be built for more than a decade.

The vacant lot marked by the "X" in this 1885 atlas of Detroit is where 243 13th
Street would be built--which it in fact was by the time the atlas was published.
Note the Tappan Union School one block to the north.

Nicholas Till was born in the German state of Baden around 1826. The 1864 Detroit city directory indicates that he was a blacksmith employed by Arthur C. Porter, a hardware dealer who made tin, copper and sheet metal products in a shop on Woodward Avenue. Subsequent directory listings for Till give his occupation as "coppersmith".

In 1865, Nicholas Till married Elizabeth Dellfield, also a German immigrant. They had six children together, three of whom reached adulthood: Christopher, born January 28, 1867; Peter, born February 7, 1875; and Mathias, born August 26, 1877.

Nicholas Till passed away on September 15, 1883. It wasn't until the following year that 243 13th Street first appeared in the city directory. There is no reason that it shouldn't appear in the index of building permits, but despite my efforts, I have not found this property within it. Because we have no exact date of construction, there is no way to know whether it was Nicholas Till or his wife Elizabeth who first owned this house. In either case, it appeared to be intended as a source of rental income.

1884-1886

Head:	Austin Loman, b. 1833 Baltimore, Maryland
Wife:	Ann Eliza (Green) Loman, b. 1835 Maryland
Daughter:	Abigail Loman, b. 1868
Daughter:	Agnes Loman b. 1869

Austin Loman (also spelled Looman and Lowman) was the first known renter of 243 13th Street. He is listed as a fireman for the Peninsular Stove Company. Mr. and Mrs. Loman had four daughters, two of whom were yet unmarried at the time: Abigail, who was employed by confectioners Thorp, Hawley & Company; and Agnes, whose listed occupation was "packer". Agnes married James L. Kelley in 1895, but Abigail remained unmarried for the rest of her life.

1887-1888

Head:	Samuel John Purdy, b. 1853 Michigan
Wife:	Margaret (McIlwain) Purdy, b. 1853 Michigan
Daughter:	Gracia Purdy, b. 1881 Detroit
Daughter:	Alice Purdy, b. 1886 Detroit
Son:	Alvah L. Purdy, b. August 29, 1888 Detroit

Originally from White Rock, Michigan, Samuel Purdy married Margaret McIlwain in Detroit on May 27, 1878. They had two young daughters by the time they moved into 243 13th Street, and gave birth to a son, Alvah, in 1888--possibly in the house itself. Samuel was a cabinetmaker for Leonard & Carter Furniture at the time.

1889-1891

For three years, the house was rented by a painter named William Wagner. However, nothing else is known about him, mostly because there were several William Wagners living in Detroit then.

1892-1896 - Elizabeth Till

After renting out 243 13th Street for eight years, owner Elizabeth Till and her three sons moved into the house and used their original home as a rental property. After five years, they decided to return to their previous living arrangement. Elizabeth lived for the rest of her life at 245 13th Street.

The block surrounding 243 13th Street in 1897 as it appears in the San-
born Maps. The house is indicated as standing 1-1/2 stories, suggesting
that it has undergone many changes in its existence, as we will see.

1897-1904

Head:	Mary E. (Hoffman) McKay, b. 1848 Germany
Son:	John McKay, b. 1864 Canada
Daughter:	Theresa McKay, b. 1876 Canada
Son:	Joseph Sylvester McKay, b. 1880 Canada
Son:	Archibald Thomas McKay, b. 1882 Michigan

Mary McKay was born Mary E. Hoffman in Germany in 1848. She moved to Canada, where she married a Scotsman named James McKay, with whom she had ten children. It's not known when exactly when James McKay died, but Mary was a widow by the time she moved to Detroit in 1896. In 1897, she moved to 243 13th Street with the four of her children who had not yet married: Archibald (age 15), Joseph (17), Theresa (23) and John (33).

While living in this house, John McKay married a woman named Susie Wood on August 13, 1900. Three years later, on April 21, 1903, Joseph McKay married Anna M. Robertson.

The 1900 Census form for the McKay family at 243 13th Street.
Elizabeth Till and family are below at 245 13th.

In 1904, the last year the McKay family lived in this home, the name of the street changed to Vermont Avenue.

Also that same year, on January 11, Elizabeth Till passed away. The home the family lived in was inherited by her son Peter, who continued to live in it for another ten years. The rental home became the property of Peter's brother Christopher. Christopher Till, a carpenter, married Annie Schukofsky on February 9, 1899. He already had a home of his own on Humboldt Avenue, and continued to use 243 Vermont as an income property.

Just over a year later, on March 18, 1905, Christopher Till sold the home to John Bernard Trossel for $1,200. Trossel was the executor of Elizabeth Till's estate and a former next-door neighbor at 241 Vermont. His mother, Angelica Trossel, still lived there. John Trossel owned a bicycle business at 604 Michigan Avenue, which later expanded to include motorcycles and auto parts.

John Trossel is on the far right in this photograph published in a
1919 issue of Motorcycling and Bicycling magazine. (Google Books)

2020 (formerly 604) Michigan Avenue in 1976, once the location of
John Trossel's bicycle shop. The building has since been demolished.
Courtesy of the Michigan State Historic Preservation Office

1905

Head:	Hugh Phillips, b. 1857 Michigan
Wife:	Elizabeth (Smith) Phillips, b. 1861 Michigan
Son:	Jacob H. Phillips, b. 1884 Michigan
Son:	William Phillips, b. 1897 Michigan

Hugh Phillips was born in Michigan to Irish immigrants on November 29, 1857. He married Elizabeth Smith, a native of Wyandotte, on December 3, 1883. The couple had four children, two of whom survived childhood. When Hugh and Elizabeth Phillips lived at 243 Vermont, their son Jacob was a painter and William was attending school. Hugh Phillips was a vessel captain. After his death on April 14, 1914, his obituary read, in part:

"Some 19 years ago Mr. Phillips was first officer on the steamer Frank E. Kirby, of the Ashley & Dustin Steamer line. Later, he became master of the steamer Wyandotte of the same line, and after the latter was sold, he served in a similar capacity on the Michigan Central car ferry transport, and on lake freighters."

The Wyandotte, a steam ship captained by Hugh Phillips.
Photo courtesy of the Great Lakes Maritime Database.

1906-1907

Head:	John Damm, b. 1860 Germany
Wife:	Emma Damm, b. 1870 Germany

John Damm was a painter who immigrated to the United States in 1885. He and his wife Emma were married around 1894, but they never had any children.

1908

Head:	Henry J. Dubey b. 1870 Canada
Wife:	Annie (Deneau) Dubey b. 1870 Canada
Son:	Loftus Herbert Dubey b. 1887 Ontario
Son:	Ernest Dubey b. 1890 Ontario
Daughter:	Eva May Dubey b. 1891 Ontario
Son:	Stanford Antonie Dubey, b. 1894 Ontario
Son:	Melville Louis Dubey b. 1902 Ontario
Daughter:	Marjorie Dubey b. 1907 Ontario

The Dubey family immigrated from Canada the year before moving into 243 Vermont. Henry J. Dubey married Annie Deneau in Canada in 1887 and the couple had seven children, six of whom survived infancy. Henry's occupation was listed as "clerk", while his children Loftus, Ernest, and Eva were employed as a machine hand, a presser, and a stenographer, respectively.

1909-1910

Head:	Thomas Roy Muma b. 1879 Ontario
Mother:	Mary Jane (Bailey) Muma b. 1847 Ontario

Like the previous occupants, the Mumas were Canadian immigrants, having come to this country in 1892. Thomas was a foreman at the Riverside Storage and Cartage Company. He had married Agnes Dale Sharp in 1905, but they had separated by this time. Thomas remarried in 1913. He shared 243 Vermont with his mother, Mary Muma, who was also separated from her spouse, but never remarried.

Detail from the 1910 census showing Roy and Mary Muma at 243 Vermont.
Peter Till and his wife were still living next door at 245 Vermont.

1911-1912

Head:

? J. Murphy

The 1911 directory lists John J. Murphy, carpenter, at this address. The 1912 directory lists William J. Murphy, carpenter. I was able to find a William J. Murphy who listed his occupation as "carpenter" on his draft registration card in 1918, but upon further investigation it appears that he lived on the east side of the city for his entire life. I have not been able to find out exactly who lived at this address in this time period.

1913-1914

Occupant:	John Brown
Occupant:	Frank Brown

The directories list a John Brown, janitor; and a Frank Brown, laborer in this home from 1913 to 1914. There were thirty-one Frank Browns and fifty-six John Browns living in Detroit in 1914. With respect to my readers, I have declined to identify these renters.

On May 27th, 1914, John B. Trossel sold 243 Vermont to William Starrs, a successful home builder who immigrated from County Tyrone, Northern Ireland in the 1860s. On that same day, Peter Till sold 245 Vermont to William Starrs as well. Both homes were used as rental properties.

On September 12, 1914, a permit for an alteration to this home was issued by the city. The changes that occurred can be seen in comparing the 1897 and 1921 Sanborn images:

The height went from one and-a-half stories to two stories. A wide front porch was added. Even the footprint has been altered. The house's current owner noted during renovation that the north and south walls were framed differently. It seems that the house was widened and then the original north wall was demolished.

After owner William Starrs died on March 25, 1916, his widow, Winifred (McEnhill) Starrs, continued to rent out the homes for a number of years.

1915-1918

Occupant:	George W. Harris
Occupant:	Otto Edwards (or Edward Otto)
Occupant:	Charles Harpley

All that is known about these men is what was printed in the city directories. I cannot positively associate any other genealogical records with them. George Harris is listed as a metal worker, metal finisher, and metal polisher in the years he lived in this home. Another occupant is listed as "Otto Edwards" one year and "Edward Otto" the next--both times his occupation is given as "lineman"--one who strung electrical, telegraph, or telephone wires. Charles Harpley was simply listed as a laborer.

The neighborhood as it appeared in the 1921 Sanborn maps.

1919-1924

Head:	Mary Ann (O'Connor) Cronin b. 1871 Canada
Daughter:	Catherine Elizabeth Cronin, b. 1897 Detroit
Daughter:	Frances Adelaide Cronin, b. 1899 Detroit
Son:	Edwin John Cronin, b. 1901 Detroit
Daughter:	Mary Evelyn Cronin, b. 1903 Detroit
Daughter:	Gerardine Antoinette Cronin, b. 1905 Detroit
Son:	Joseph Kean Cronin, b. 1908 Detroit
Son:	Richard Leo Cronin, b. February 24, 1919 Detroit
Sister-in-Law:	Agnes Cronin, b. 1851 England

Mary Ann "Minnie" O'Connor was born in Ontario on June 27, 1871 and immigrated to the United States in the 1880s. On March 2, 1897, she married Kean Denis Cronin, an English immigrant, in Corktown's Most Holy Trinity Church. Kean and Mary Cronin had seven children, six of whom reached adulthood. Kean Cronin died from cirrhosis of the liver in 1911.

Mary Cronin moved into 243 Vermont in 1919 with her children and her sister-in-law Agnes Cronin. That same year she gave birth to another child--Richard Cronin--perhaps at 243 13th Street. It is not certain who this child's father was, but the same boarder--Thomas Gibson--lived with Mary Cronin for over a decade. He is listed among the inhabitants of 243 Vermont in the 1920 Census:

243 Vermont household in the 1920 Census.

On February 2, 1920, the owner of the house, Winifred Starrs, quit-claimed the property to her children as well as the widow and children of her son who had died. The following year, the address of the home changed to 1763 Vermont, which it remains today.

Mary Ann Cronin lived in this home until 1924. She passed away eight years later, on April 17, 1932.

Mary Ann Cronin, at the bottom-right, poses with her mother and sisters.
This photograph was almost certainly taken while she lived at 1763 Vermont.
Photo courtesy of Michael Brennan.

1925

Occupant:

Salvator Peiro

No information available.

1926-1927

Occupant:	Ralph F. Campbell
Occupant:	Basil Campbell

No information available.

1928

Head:	David Elzeard Daigle, b. 1887 New Hampshire
Wife:	Anna (Boivin) Daigle, b. 1896 Quebec
Daughter:	Marcella C. Daigle, b. 1916 New Hampshire
Son:	David E. Daigle, Jr., b. 1917, New Hampshire
Son:	Albert A. Daigle, b. 1923, Canada
Son:	Thomas Vincent Daigle, b. 1927 Detroit

David E. Daigle married Anna Boivin On September 14, 1915 in Haileybury, Ontario. The couple settled in David's home town of Manchester, New Hampshire, where he worked as a grocery clerk. They moved to Detroit at some point prior to the birth of their son Thomas, who was baptized in St. Anne's church on July 10, 1927. In Detroit, Mr. Daigle worked as a machine operator in an adding machine factory. The 1930 census indicated that Mrs. Daigle was an organist in a Catholic Church. They only lived at 1763 Vermont for one year.

1929 (Vacant)

1930

Head:	Hilaro Guerino, b. 1907 Mexico
Boarder:	Martin Albarez, b. 1912 Mexico
Boarder:	Jose Albarez, b. 1895 Mexico
Boarder:	Berente Jasso, b. 1908 Mexico
Boarder:	Jose G. Jasso, b. 1905 Mexico
Boarder:	Bonifacio Hernandez, b. 1896 Mexico
Boarder:	Domingo Cerda, b. 1898 Mexico

In 1930, Hilaro Guerino lived at 1763 Vermont with six men, all auto workers and all Mexican immigrants. The census indicated that Mr. Guerino rented the home for $40 per month.

Detail from the 1930 census.

Also in this same year, the members of the Starrs family who jointly owned the house sold it to John Galea Greemen. Greemen was a real estate salesman who was
born in Malta in 1894 and immigrated to the United States in 1921. He had been married but was a widower by this time.

1931 (Vacant)

1932

Head:	Iona Jane (Aley) Coons, b. 1890 West Virginia
Son:	Roy Claude Coons, b. 1924 Detroit

Iona Aley married Roy A. Coons on November 28, 1923. She was his second wife--he was her fourth husband. Iona Coons gave birth to Roy C. Coons on December 28, 1924. The elder Roy was alive at the time of the 1930 census, but Iona was a widow at the time she was listed as living at 1763 Vermont. (Thanks to Steven Snider for finding Iona Coons in the 1930 census for me!)

Also in 1932, it seems that the author of this letter, discovered in the house by its current owner during a renovation, also lived here:

The letter reads:

1763 Vermont street
Detroit, Michigan
Feb 24, 1932

My dear Miss Waters,

I am ve[r]y sorry you are
so ill. I hope you will be
out soon we all whant [sic] you to
come back. I am getting along
fine on my work in school
I will be waiting for you on
Monday so I am closeing [sic] up now good bye

Very Truly
Yours Jim Pappa-
theodore

This is on the reverse of the letter:

To Miss Waters
From Jim Pap[pa]theodore
A. Sec 13
D. Houghton School
Substitute Hos.

Apparently Miss Waters was a teacher at the Houghton School, which was located on the southwest corner of Abbott and Sixth Streets in Corktown. But since the letter was found in the house, it may never have been received by Miss Waters. I have not yet found a Jim Papatheodore in the 1930 census, but research on this letter is ongoing.

The city directories from 1933 and 1934 are not available. The directory for 1935 lists the house as being vacant. By that year, owner john Greemen had defaulted on the mortgage on this property. On May 7, 1935, the home officially became the property of First National Bank of Detroit.

1936

Head:

Lulu V. Moore, b. 1888 Indiana

Lulu Moore was married to her husband Henry around 1905. They had three children, two of whom survived childhood. By 1936, Lulu was a widow and her children were living on their own.

1936-1943

Head:	Harry Hobart Hosack, b. 1895 Indiana
Wife:	Blendenia Virginia (King) Hosack, b. 1913, Michigan
Son:	Harry Arthur Hosack, b. 1934 Detroit
Daughter:	Christine Mae Hosack, b. 1935 Detroit
Twins:	Gilbert Rae & Margaret Fern Hosack, b. 1937 Detroit
Daughter:	Virginia Rose Hosack, b. 1941 Detroit

On August 11, 1936, Harry Hosack and his second wife, Virginia, entered into a land contract to purchase 1763 Vermont from the First National Bank of Detroit. They had two young children at the time and had three more while living at this address. Harry was employed as an ironworker and then an autoworker.

Harry H. Hosack circa World War I.
Photo courtesy Steven Snider

The early 1940s were a difficult time for the Hosack family. Harry and Virginia divorced. As often happened at the time, their children were sent to live in an orphanage. The Hosacks' home fell into foreclosure. Finally, on September 24, 1943, their creditor (First National Bank of Detroit) sold the property to First Liquidating Corporation.

Next month: 1763 Vermont Part II: 1943-Present

The Automobile and the City

2011-09-30T13:33:00.000-04:00

In late-19th century Detroit, the primary modes of transportation were walking or using horses. Although the invention of the "safety bicycle" in 1885 and the reinvention of the pneumatic tire in 1888 finally made bike riding widely available, they were never a chief mode of transit, let alone the transportation of goods. Using a bicycle to get to work in Detroit in February probably wasn't seen before asphalt streets were plowed by gas-powered trucks.

Cyclists in Detroit, c. 1890.
Courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library

The overwhelming majority of people in the city simply walked where they needed to go. Only rich families could afford horses of their own. Horse-drawn wagons delivered goods, and locomotives were used for long-distance travel--but the city itself was designed for pedestrians.

The first public street car in Detroit ran along Jefferson Avenue 1863 and was pulled by horses. Although there was some (unsuccessful) experimentation with electric streetcars in the 1880s, major lines didn't begin to be electrified in this city until 1892.

Horse-drawn streetcar, Baker and Congress Street Line.
Courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library

However, the presence of horses in major cities became an increasingly serious public health issue throughout the 19th century. At one point, there were as many as 200,000 horses in New York City alone. Large workhorses each produce over twenty pounds of manure a day and more than quart of urine. In dry weather, manure would crumble into to dust and get blown into the faces of city dwellers. When it rained, the street would become a river of liquid feces. Collecting and storing tons of stinking manure every day was an urgent problem in urban areas, and vacant lots were piled high with animal waste. Incredible swarms of flies hatched in the manure and transmitted deadly pathogens to humans, including typhoid fever, cholera, tuberculosis, and anthrax--all before the age of antibiotics. Granaries at the horse stables attracted disease-carrying rodents. By some estimates, horse manure indirectly led to as many as 20,000 human deaths in New York City annually.

Human beings weren't the only victims. According to another source:

The average streetcar horse had a life expectancy of about four years, and it was common to see drivers and teamsters whip and abuse their horses to spur them to pull heavy loads. Overworked and mistreated urban horses often died on the city streets. In 1866, the Atlantic Monthly described Broadway as clogged with "dead horses and vehicular entanglements," and in that year the mistreatment of the urban horse stimulated Henry Bergh to found the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Streets paved with cobblestones or asphalt were slipperier than dirt roads, and a horse that broke a leg would have to be destroyed. Veterinarians recommended that city draft horses be shod with rubber covered horseshoes, but few followed this advise. In 1880, New York City removed 15,000 dead horses from its streets, and late as 1916 Chicago carted away 9,202 horse carcasses.

Dead horse on Fort Street, Detroit.
Courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library

Due to the costs of feeding the animals and stabling them on expensive urban land, it made ﬁnancial sense to rapidly work a small number of horses to death rather than care for a larger group and work them more humanely. As a result, horses were rapidly driven to death; the average streetcar horse had a life expectancy of barely two years.

The Detroit Animal Welfare Association was formed in 1912 in response to the cruel treatment of work horses in the city. In 1913, Arthur C. Curtis became its sole employee. He worked without pay until funds were available.

Arthur C. Curtis with an emaciated horse.
Courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library

The inhumane treatment of and health issues associated with horses continued to be a problem in major cities even after the electrification of streetcars. Until one day...

If you don't know who this guy is, then you're
probably... I don't know... Canadian or something.

Upon the mass production of motor vehicles, city planners and public health officials fought to ban horses from urban areas. Eventually the disease, flies, stench, and extreme animal cruelty were greatly diminished.

Automobiles were initially more dangerous than horses, but today that is far from being the case. For example (PDF):

In New York in 1900, 200 persons were killed by horses and horse-drawn vehicles. This contrasts with 344 auto-related fatalities in New York in 2003; given the modern city's greater population, this means the fatality rate per capita in the horse era was roughly 75 percent higher than today. Data from Chicago show that in 1916 there were 16.9 horse-related fatalities for each 10,000 horse-drawn vehicles; this is nearly seven times the city's fatality rate per auto in 1997.

The automobile may have saved more human lives than perhaps any invention second only to indoor plumbing, and certainly no other technological advancement has saved more animals from cruelty. American cities were on the brink of becoming uninhabitable cesspools before the mass production of the internal combustion engine. The automobile has made the city a safer, cleaner, and better place to live.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

That was Phase One of automobile history, which you might call, "The Automobile Serves Humankind". That era is over. We are now well into Phase Two, "Humankind Serves the Automobile". After cars became the universal mode of transportation in American cities, our urban planners decided that our entire environment should be reinvented for the convenience of the machines that once worked for us. Roads were widened, on-street parking was often eliminated, neighborhoods were destroyed in order to build freeways, and an inconceivable amount of urban and suburban land is now dedicated to asphalt parking lots.

"There is nowhere to park downtown!"

The operation of motor vehicles did not in and of itself destroy the urban fabric of the city. Our civic leaders urban planners created zoning ordinances that deliberately and systematically killed life on the street under the hysterically delusional view that shaping the environment to benefit automobiles is the same thing as benefiting the human beings inside of them.

This is what the intersection of Michigan Avenue and Church Street looked like in the 1930's--a dense, functional, intimate urban environment:

Note the building that now houses Nemo's Bar & Grill on the left side of the road.
Courtesy of Wayne State University.

Soon after this photo was taken, the street was widened extensively. All of the businesses on the south side of the road were seized and demolished. Much of Michigan Avenue is now a nearly-lifeless, nine-lane, ninety-feet wide monstrosity of a street. This is that same spot today:

Courtesy of Google Street View.

Allow me to point out an even more perverted example. Where Cobo Hall now stands, Jefferson and Woodbridge Avenues used to meet at a steep angle. This photograph was taken around 1890 facing that intersection toward downtown, to the east:

Courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library

I encourage you to click here and then examine this photo at its highest resolution. This urban environment would still be attractive to pedestrians today.

Here is that same location now:

Courtesy of Google Street View.

As tragic as this is, I am ultimately grateful to live in an era of antibiotics, public sanitation, modern building safety codes, and a 40-hour work week. But is there any reason we can't have health and comfort on the one hand, and a beautiful, functional, urban landscape on the other?

I may be too late in pointing this out, but there is an alternative to destroying the most functional and historically valuable parts of our cities. New Urbanists call it "taming the automobile"--maybe that's what we should call Phase Three of automobile history. This means building an environment where pedestrians come first and easy motoring comes second. Driving and parking are made inconvenient to the point that people only drive if they have to. Cars are marginalized and forced to drive more slowly and carefully, but they are still used. As long as we live in an environment designed for cars, we will be forced to rely on them. No "critical mass" of bicycle riders will ever change that. Only building dense, walkable, human-scaled neighborhoods can.

The Benjamin Franklin School

2011-08-11T19:59:00.000-04:00

This month I thought it would be good to share a photograph from a building in North Corktown. Below is an image of the Franklin School, which used to stand on 7th Street (now called Brooklyn) just south of Pine Street. The photo was taken in 1881.

Courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library (Source)

Construction began on the Seventh Street School (as it was originally called) in 1865 and was completed by the summer of 1866. It was two stories tall and contained six rooms and a basement. The Gothic-style building was designed by the English-born architect Gordon W. Loyd, whose other designs include Central United Methodist Church (1866) and the David Whitney House (1894). The contractor was Aaron C. Fisher. In February of 1867 the school's name officially changed to the Franklin School, after Benjamin Franklin.

This is the school's location as it appeared in an 1885 atlas of the city;

(Source)

Although the school was built to accommodate the increasing demand for public schooling in the Eighth Ward, it soon proved inadequate. The schools were so crowded by 1899 that the Franklin School was demolished and replaced by a twelve-room building designed by the architecture firm Malcomson & Higginbotham. The new school was to be named in honor of Hervey Coke Perke, the recently-deceased co-founder of the pharmaceutical company Perke-Davis. By the following year, however, the name Franklin was restored by popular demand, and the name Harvey C. Parke was given to a new school on the east side of the city.

The New Franklin School, c. 1910 (Wayne State University)

The new Franklin School is visible in this 1949 aerial photograph. Roll your cursor over the image to see what the area looks like today.

1949 photo courtesy of DTE.

Carhartt

2011-07-15T12:13:00.001-04:00

Carhartt is known throughout the world as a manufacturer of high-quality workers' clothing. The company was founded over 120 years ago to supply railroad workers and other laborers with reinforced overalls made with high-grade materials. For many of those years, a great deal of those garments were manufactured right here in Corktown.

Hamilton B. Carhartt (1855-1937) (Google Books)

Hamilton Brakeman Carhartt was born in Macedon Locks, New York, on August 27, 1855. He grew up in Jackson, Michigan, where he married Annette Welling on December 21, 1881. They had three children: Hamilton Jr., Wylie, and Margaret. After moving to Grand Rapids, Hamilton Carhartt went into business with his father-in-law, Stephen Alling Welling, in 1882. Two years later the family moved to Detroit, where Welling & Carhartt operated as a gentlemen's furnishing wholesaler. They later changed their name to Hamilton Carhartt & Co. Finally, in 1889, the business converted to manufacturing exclusively workingmen's clothing.

After changing locations at least three times in three years, the growing business finally set up its permanent manufacturing facility in Corktown. Although the building was set back from the main road by half a block, it was addressed as 479 Michigan Avenue, on the southwest corner of 10th Street. The address would later be renumbered as 1605 Michigan Ave. Below is the factory's representation in the Sanborn Maps in 1897:

The following ad appeared in the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers Journal in 1898. In an obvious gesture to women in organized labor, it features Catherine Doody, president of Garment Workers Union No. 74. Miss Doody lived at 196 Williams Street (now Interstate 96), half a block north of Myrtle (now Martin Luther King Blvd). She married a tailor named Joseph Doll in 1903.

(Google Books)

A long-standing theme of Carhartt's advertisements has been the company's progressive labor practices, including their fully-unionized workforce, the institution of an eight-hour work day, and even profit sharing among its workers. The company grew rapidly at the beginning of the twentieth century, reincorporating in 1905 as Hamilton Carhartt Manufactuer, Inc, and in 1910 as Hamilton Carhartt Cotton Mills. By then the company possessed two cotton mills in South Carolina and Georgia; factories in Atlanta, Dallas and San Francisco; two facilities in Canada and one in Liverpool, England.

Ad from the Detroit Free Press on September 22, 1918.

As the company expanded, so did its plant in Corktown. This detail from the 1921 Sanborn map collection shows the extent of its growth at the time. Roll your cursor over the image to see what the same location looks like today. (Note that Michigan Avenue was widened in the 1930s.)

Below is a rendition of that plant that appeared in a 1906 advertisement. The people and horses on Michigan Avenue and Tenth Street may have been shrunk down to exaggerate the building's size.

Click the image for a larger version. (Google Books)

The Great Depression devastated the Carhartt corporation. At its lowest point, only three of its facilities remained open: Dallas, Atlanta, and Detroit. By 1932, the company had moved out of its Michigan Avenue location to a much smaller facility at 1743 Labrosse. By 1935, Carhartt had left Corktown all together, and relocated to 3000 East Jefferson, which is today the home of Dr Dre's Open Pit Grill and Bait Shop. Carhartt's original Corktown plant is visible behind Navin Field in this circa-1930s aerial photograph:

Image from doctor_gogol's Flickr photostream (Source)

The Carhartt family never themselves resided in Corktown. Hamilton Carhartt preferred Brush Park and East Jefferson, and ultimately moved to Rock Hill, South Carolina. His sons Hamilton Jr. and Wylie resided in the Grosse Pointes.

On May 10, 1937, Hamilton Carhartt and his wife Annette sustained fatal injuries in an automobile accident. Mrs. Carhartt died that same day, followed by her husband on May 12. Their remains were interred at Woodmere Cemetery in southwest Detroit. Ownership of the company fell into the hands of their sons. Carhartt, Inc. remains family-owned to this day.

The following photograph, dated May 1, 1940, shows the entrance to Carhartt's first Corktown plant at 1605 Michigan Ave. A broken window suggests that the building, vacant for eight years by that point, was already decrepit. I have been unable to find out when exactly it was demolished, but it occurred before 1949, when an aerial photograph of Corktown shows an empty lot at that location.

(Wayne State University)

Carhartt, of course, survived the Great Depression and once again has a worldwide presence. Today, the company's world headquarters is just beyond the city limits at 5750 Mercury Drive in Dearborn. You can still buy Carhartt clothing in Corktown at the National Dry Goods Co. at 1200 Trumbull Avenue, just half a mile from the spot where Carhartt overalls were made for forty years.

What happened to Jackson C. Waite?

2011-06-14T09:27:00.002-04:00

In my last post, I mentioned that Jackson C. Waite, a previous occupant of the Hugh Finlay Duplex, apparently disappeared after 1915. Thanks to the internet, it did not take any special training or rare talent for me to find out what happened to him. There wasn't enough space to share what I found out in that previous post, but I think it's worth a separate post.

* * * * *

The last time Waite appeared in the Detroit city directory was 1915, in which he is listed at 307 (now 2255) Wabash. When searching for his name on Ancestry.com, the first post-1915 document I came across was a voter registration list from Glendale, California in 1916.

Because "Jackson C. Waite" is such a rare name*, I knew this was very likely our man. As you probably noticed in the image above, there is a Mrs. Carrie A. Waite living at the same address. I searched the next census (from 1920) for a Jackson and Carrie Waite in Glendale, California, and found this:

This is the same couple. Here Mr. Waite gave his age as 54, implying a birth year of 1866. (He was in fact born in 1861--errors like this in old census records are very common.) He also listed his birthplace as the state of New York. This is definitely the Jackson C. Waite we're looking for. But who is this new wife of his? I never did find a marriage record or an obituary, so discovering her maiden name took some work. Based on the age given in the census record, she should have been born around 1879. She indicated that she and both of her parents were born in the state of Maine.

Mr. and the second Mrs. Waite were still residing in Glendale during the 1930 census:

Here Mr. Waite correctly gave his age as 69. Mrs. Waite gave her age as 59, this time implying a birth year of 1871. Again she gives the state of Maine as the birthplace of herself and both of her parents.

Carrie A. Waite's name also appears in the California Death Index. She passed away July 25, 1959. This record gives her birth date as April 27, 1865--yet another deviation--but does confirm that she was born in Maine. This is all I had to go on for awhile. I could have paid money to order a death certificate from Los Angeles County in the hope that it would list her parents names, but it didn't seem worth the gamble at the time.

* * * * *

I subscribe to the genealogy website Footnote.com because it provides access to digitized Detroit city directories from 1861 to 1923. One day, however, I searched for any records of Jackson C. Waite throughout the entire website--not just the Detroit directories. I was surprised when I actually got a few hits--in the city directories for Boston, Massachusetts, of all places. Waite lived at several addresses from as early as 1892 to 1910. If you remember from my last post, I mentioned that Waite was a "traveling agent", an archaic term referring to traveling salesmen and similar company representatives. He evidently traveled to Boston so often and was well-enough established there to appear in the city directory.

I wondered, could Waite have met "Carrie" in Boston? Without a last name, I couldn't search for her directly. What I did instead was first choose a census year in which Waite appeared in the Boston city directory. In this case, I chose the year 1900, when he was listed at 159 West Springfield Street. Next, I attempted to find that address in the census records. That information, however, is not directly searchable. I had to search the city directory for addresses close to 159 West Springfield, and then search for the corresponding names in the census. This is much less reliable and a lot more time-consuming than it sounds. However, I finally found the address.

It turned out that this was an apartment building with many units. I looked through every name in the building to see if any women by the name "Carrie" lived there. And this is what I found:

This woman's name was Carrie Ackerman, born March of 1865--the same year as the death record mentioned above, but one month off. And this is what was written for the birthplace of herself, her father, and her mother:

This is our woman. However, Ackerman is not her maiden name. This record states that she is a widow, although only 35 years old. It also states that she is the mother of one child, who was still alive but did not live at that address. Her stated occupation is "dressmaker".

I then searched for a Carrie Ackerman living in Boston in the next census, in 1910.

Carrie Ackerman was still a dressmaker at the time, and by then her daughter, Della May Ackerman, was living with her. Interestingly, Della May's birthplace was California, and so was that of her father. Now that I had her daughter's name, I could go back to the 1900 census to search for her:

Thirteen-year-old Della May Ackerman (who was mistakenly transcribed as "Julia N Ackerman" in the database) was living with sixty-five-year-old Mary A. Bean in Lowell, Massachusetts. Again she indicted that she and her father were born in California and that her mother was born in Maine. I suspected that Mary Bean was Della May's grandmother, but there was no way to tell from this. Mary was born in Maine and, like Carrie, was a dressmaker.

I still had no confirmed maiden name for Carrie. I would have searched for her and her daughter in the 1890 Census, but those records were destroyed by fire in 1921. I also tried looking for a marriage record for Della May (which would have listed her parents' names), but was not successful.

I searched for Mary Bean in the 1880 Census, and at last, I found a record that confirmed Carrie's maiden name:

The two lived at 115 Middlesex Street, in Lowell, Massachusetts. Mary was a dressmaker. Carrie (whose name was spelled "Carrai" by the census taker) worked in a cotton mill.

Carrie was actually counted twice in the 1880 Census. She also appeared as living in one of the boarding houses owned by the cotton manufacturers, some of which still stand today behind Boarding House Park.

Carrie was part of a very large workforce of young women that would be known as the "Lowell Mill Girls". These girls worked ten-hour days (reduced from fourteen) and were required to attend weekly religious services. Carrie Bean worked for the Appleton Corporation, whose mill has since been converted into loft apartments.

A Lowell mill girl at a loom (Center for Lowell History)

In the census record for the place where Carrie Bean lived with her mother, there is a young man listed in the same building named George Ackerman, who was born in California. He is probably connected to the California-born Ackerman who Carrie married soon after, but her first husband's name was not George. I found a record showing that Carrie A. Bean married Louis D. Ackerman on June 25, 1880--just days after the census was taken.

After knowing this much about Carrie Bean, finding her in the 1870 Census was not difficult.

Carrie was six years old at the time. No father is listed. The family lived in Alva Plantation, Maine--now known as the town of Blaine--on the Canadian border. In contradiction to other records, here it is indicated that Carrie and her mother were born in the adjacent Canadian province of New Brunswick.

It is now possible to create a very rough sketch of the woman for whom Jackson C. Waite left Detroit. Carrie A. Bean was born in New Brunswick on April 27, 1865 and moved just over the U.S. border soon afterward. Her father apparently died before she was six years old. She had two siblings, both of whom died young. Like thousands of other women and girls in New England at the time, Carrie and her mother were attracted to the jobs offered at the massive cotton mills in Massachusetts. It was there that Carrie met Louis Ackerman, her first husband. They married in 1880 and moved to California at some point before their daughter's birth in 1887. Louis was dead by 1900, when Carrie was living in Boston and working as a dressmaker. Somehow she came to know Jackson C. Waite, a traveling agent who spent a lot of time in her city. We know that, at least once, both were listed at the same address in the same year. In 1915, Waite left his wife of twenty-four years and their three sons (ages 16, 19, and 23) and married Carrie Bean. The two moved to California right away. Maybe moving to the west coast was Carrie's way of reliving the first time she escaped the endless hours at the cotton mills with her first husband thirty-five years earlier. They spent the rest of their lives in California. Carrie died on July 25, 1959 at the age of 94. It is not known when Jackson C. Waite passed away.

Although this information doesn't have much to do with Corktown directly, I hope I have been able to give you a sense of what it is like to solve the kind of mysteries one encounters when researching old houses and family histories.

_________________________________________________________
*Searching for "Jackson Waite" in the Social Security Death Index (a public database of every deceased person who was ever issued a Social Security number) yields only one result. The resulting name is not our man--this is just an illustration of how uncommon that name is. By contrast, searching for "Richard Nixon" yields 103 results.

The Hugh Finlay Duplex

2011-05-31T20:41:00.000-04:00

This two-family home, located at 2253-2255 (formerly 305-307) Wabash, was built on a lot that was once part of the Cicotte / Godfroy Farm. The history of that farm has been covered in a previous post, so there is no need to repeat it here. The segment of the farm south of Michigan Avenue was divided into individual lots in 1864. On April 26 of that year, lot number 26 was purchased by a forty-four-year-old real estate dealer named Ralph Phelps.

Plat of the Godfroy Farm south of Chicago Road (State of Michigan)

Two years later, Ralph Phelps sold lot 26 to Horace Fosdick.

Horace Forsdick

Horace P. Forsdick was born January 23, 1833 in Suffolk County, England to Benjamin and May Ann (Easter) Forsdick. He came to Detroit around 1860. On April 26 of that year, he appeared in Recorder's Court to declare his intention to become a United States citizen.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Forsdick enlisted with Company C of the 1st Regiment of US Sharpshooters on August 26, 1861. Applicants were required to pass a strict marksmanship test in order to be accepted. Having been mustered into the Army of the Potomac, Company C fought in a number of major battles, including Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg.

This monument at Gettysburg honors the 1st Regiment of U.S.
Sharp shooters from Michigan. A plaque on the front states that
Company C fought on that field July 2 & 3, 1863. (Stone Sentinels)

Several weeks after the Battle of Gettysburg, on September 30, 1863, Forsdick was transferred to the Veteran Reserve Corps, which engaged in either light- or non-military duties. The Second Battalion, to which Forsdick was transferred, was reserved for soldiers who sustained severe injuries or disease. The exact cause of the transfer will not be known until his consolidated service record and pension files are obtained from the National Archives. Forsdick's company in the Veteran Reserve Corps, No. 30, was mustered out by detachments between August and November of 1865.

When Forsdick returned to Detroit, he worked as a painter for the Michigan Central Rail Road. On December 19, 1865 he married Cornelia Sutherland in Scotch Presbyterian Church, which once stood on the corner of Farmer and Bates Streets. Cornelia was the daughter of James and Helen Bine Sutherland, both Scottish immigrants. Mr. Sutherland worked as an undertaker on the east side of the city.

On May 8, 1866, Forsdick purchased the previously mentioned "lot 26" for $350. He is listed as living at that location in the 1866 city directory. Building permits were not required at the time, so there is no way to know the exact date of the construction of that first home (not the same as the duplex that stands there today). It's possible there was already a house on the lot when Forsdick purchased it, but $350 would be extremely cheap even for a modest house in 1866.

Horace and Cornelia raised several children in this first house, which was addressed as 305 Wabash. Around 1886, Forsdick moved out of the home but retained it as a rental property.

A note on the back of this photo states that it was taken on Wabash near
Michigan Avenue in 1901. "Sheep on Wabash Ave." is written on the front.
Courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library.
The one-story home on the far left of the above photograph is Fordick's former home at 305 Wabash. Using the 1897 Sanborn map of Detroit, it is possible to locate where the photographer was located and identify which buildings appear in the image.

Sheep Photoshopping by Anny Bouchard

The house just south of Forsdick's property (not in the photo) is the beautifully restored Joseph Esterling House at 2245 (formerly 301) Wabash Street.

Construction

On January 2, 1900, Horace Forsdick quit-claimed the property to his thirty-one-year-old daughter, Elizabeth C. Forsdick. In 1902, Horace Forsdick hired a contractor named Hugh Finlay to build a three-unit townhouse on Toledo Street between Cavalry and Campbell (since demolished), in which Forsdick was to spend the rest of his life. His daughter was evidently so satisfied with Finlay's work that she decided to demolish 305 Wabash and hire Finlay to build a two-family home in its place. The City of Detroit issued Finlay the building permit on June 26, 1903. The application describes the intended building as a wood-frame, brick-veneer structure measuring 40 by 52 feet. The estimated cost to build it was $5,200.

Two separate notices of the building permit appeared
on the same newspaper page, perhaps by accident.

The builder, Hugh Coulter Finlay, was born in Ontario on May 7, 1853 to Irish immigrants James and Mary Ann (Coulter) Finlay. Hugh Finlay came to the United States in 1881 and married Jane Emily Soules October 1, 1854 in Chicago. They had two children by the time they came to Detroit, but only one of them lived to adulthood. Finlay died in San Bernardino, California on August 11, 1942 and his cremated remains were interred in the family plot at Woodmere Cemetery in Detroit.

Horace Forsdick died on March 30, 1919 and was interred at Elmwood Cemetery, Section P, Lot 6, Grave 13. Despite having fought for the Union in the Civil War, there is no marker on his grave. Elizabeth Forsdick would own the two-family home on Wabash Street until her death in 1953. However she never lived in the home--in fact, it doesn't appear to have ever been owner-occupied.

Because this research was requested by the current occupant of the north half of the duplex, this post will focus on the previous occupants of that unit.

The Harker Family

The first people to live in the north half of the new duplex were Joshua and Catherine Harker. Joshua Harker was born to Joseph and Margaret (Teasdale) Harker on February 13, 1845 in Guisborough, England. His family immigrated to Delaware Township, Ontario, Canada in the 1850s, and he had moved to Lyon Township, Michigan in the late 1860s. On November 9, 1869, Harker married Catherine Rosella Arms, born July 2, 1846 in Brighton, Michigan to Israel and Julia Ann (Parsons) Arms, pioneers who came to Michigan from New England in the 1820s. Joshua and Catherine Harker had three children: Ward Wesson, Clarence Parsons (who died at eight months), and Edith Mille. An 1875 gazetteer lists Joshua Harker as a blacksmith.

Joshua Harker's farm in Lyon Township (Bentley Historical Library)

In 1895, Joshua and Catherine Harker moved to Detroit, where their children had already settled. Harker started a moving company and a wood and coal wholesale business soon after moving to the city.

Advertisement from a 1904 Detroit city directory (footnote.com)

The Harkers lived at several addresses in southwest Detroit before finally settling at 307 Wabash Avenue in 1904. Their daughter Edith, who graduated from the University of Michigan's training school for nurses the previous year, moved in with them at this address.

October 14, 1906 ad from the Detroit Free Press.

The family had only lived in the home for three years before Joshua Harker passed away. He died at home on June 6, 1907 from paresis caused by "nervous worry over business and rheumatism".

Death certificate for Joshua Harker (Seeking Michigan)
Catherine Harker and her daughter Edith had moved to another home by 1908.

The Waite Family

The next family listed at 307 Wabash was that of Jackson C. and Mary E. Waite. All that is known about Jackson C. Waite is that he was born in the state of New York in June 1861. Mary E. Waite was born in Bath, New York in March 1861 to Thomas and Rachel (Moore) Stenson, both Irish immigrants. Jackson and Mary Waite married around 1881, moved to Jackson, Michigan before 1884, and settled in Detroit by 1887. Mr. Wait's listed occupation was "traveling agent", which was the term then used for traveling salesmen and similar kinds of company representatives. When the family moved into the Finlay Duplex in 1908, their three adult sons lived with them:

Henry Fowler Waite - Born April 3, 1882 in State of New York. Employed as a clerk by the Burroughs Adding Machine Company.
Robert Lawrence Waite - Born October 11, 1884 in Jackson, Michigan. He briefly co-owned a pool hall on Michigan Avenue past 17th Street with William J. Brennan, and was later listed as a driver.
Edward Lawrence Waite - Born September 4, 1888 in Detroit. Worked as a clerk for dry goods wholesaler Edson, Moore & Co.

Detail from 1910 Census listing residents of 307 Wabash Street.

Around 1916, Jackson C. Waite disappeared. His wife and sons remained in the home for years afterward, but there was no record of his death or of him living anywhere near the area. It was as if he vanished. ... Or did he? (Hint: Check back for a future blog post about Mr. Waite.)

Detail from the 1920 Census listing residents of 307 Wabash Street.

The Waite household and vicinity in 1921. This was the year
that the address changed from 307 to 2255. (Sanborn)

Harry Waite was later employed as a warehouse superintendent at People's Outfitting Company. The building the company used at the time was torn down several years ago to be replaced with a parking garage.

Detail from 1930 Census listing residents of 2255 Wabash Street.

Robert Waite died in Essex County, Ontario on July 25, 1930. The last year the Waites were known to live at this address was 1941. Mary E. (Stenson) Waite died in Detroit on September 23, 1946.

1941-Present

No city directories were published during World War II, and the Detroit Public Library's collection of directories is sporadic after that point. Ironically, it's easier to find out who lived in a historic home 100 years ago than it is to list those who lived there within the last fifty years.

After the death of Elizabeth Forsdick, the administrator of her estate, Robert G. Shaw, sold the duplex to Leo and Irene Eagle on March 25, 1954 for $9,000. Mr. and Mrs. Eagle sold it just three months later, on June 10, 1954, to James D. and Ella Aristos.

The 1956 city directory indicates that 2255 Wabash was rented by Alice Schuler and her sons Chester and Howard. Alice M. (Ryan) Schuler was born in Canada in 1883 and married Peter C. Schuler in Rochester, New York in 1911. In addition to the two sons already mentioned, the Schulers also had two daughters, Thelma and Norma. Peter Schuler died before 1930, and the family moved to Detroit at an unknown date. Chester J. Schuler worked as a mail sorter for the railroad, and Howard P. Schuler was a driver for Checker Cab. The Schulers were still living in the home at the time of the 1964 city directory, but it's not known exactly how long they lived there.

2253-2255 Wabash as it appeared in 1976.
Courtesy of the Michigan State Historic Preservation Office.

The property changed hands several more times before the present day:

April 17, 1975 -- From James D. and Ella Aristos to Joseph and Josephine Attard, for $12,000.
November 15, 1982 -- Joseph and Josephine Attard to Mario A. and Debra L. Zavala, for $16,000.
April 3, 1987 -- Mario A. and Debra L. Zavala to Brian W. Tremain, for $36,000. At the time, Tremain's residence was 2245 Wabash, the previously-mentioned Esterling House. Tremain now lives in Kentucky.
September 20, 1996 -- Brian Tremain to Jeanne Fitzgerald.
April 20, 2004 -- Jeanne Fitzgerald to Faith Fowler. Fowler is currently the executive director of Cass Community Social Services and Senior Pastor of Cass Community United Methodist Church.

The Joseph Buchanan House -- 1778 (214) Wabash Street

2011-05-16T11:17:00.000-04:00

Note: This blog will no longer be updated weekly. Posts will now be made whenever I have research to share--hopefully at least once per month.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Joseph Buchanan House, formerly 214 Wabash Street
214 Wabash first appeared in city directories in 1883. Although the city was issuing building permits by then, I failed to locate this home in the index to building permits. (A document profiling several Corktown homes incorrectly states that 214 Wabash was built in 1893, but the permit referred to there was in fact for 212 Wabash, immediately to the south, now demolished.)

The house was built on lot 66 of outlot 1 of the Lafferty Farm, platted in 1867. In 1883, property was owned by Clement Lafferty, a grandson of the farm's original French settler, Louis Vessiere dit Laferte.

The first known renter of 214 Wabash was a livestock agent named Martin Lamb, born in Michigan on March 23, 1854 to Martin M. and Mary Jane (Guthrie) Lamb. On May 30, 1881 Martin Lamb married Matilda B. Harvey, born November 22, 1828 to Thomas and Ellen (Delaney) Harvey in Toronto. Martin and Matilda Lamb moved to 214 Wabash around 1883.

Martin Lamb is listed at 214 Wabash in 1883, the
first time the address appears in the city directories.

James F. Buchanan
1884-1900

On June 14, 1884, Clement Lafferty sold the house to contractor James Buchanan. It's possible that Buchanan originally built the house for Lafferty (which would explain why he chose to move into the home a few years later), but there is no direct evidence of this.

On January 22, 1884, renters Mr. and Mrs. Lamb had their first child, Hazel. They would later have two more daughters, Irene and Ruth Ellen.

"218" is a typo--the directories list the family at 214 Wabash.

Other renters evidently stayed with the Lamb family in this house. The 1883 directory lists a William J. Marshall at the address, and the 1886 edition indicates that a Miss Mina Humphries lived there.

214 Wabash and vicinity as it appeared in 1885. (M Library Digital Collections)

The last year the Lamb family was listed at this address was 1886. They moved to an address on 19th Street, and later to the Boston-Edison Neighborhood. Matilda Lamb died March 3, 1906. Martin remarried in 1906 and died April 6, 1919.

Three years after purchasing 214 Wabash, James F. Buchanan moved into the home with his family. Buchanan was born on September 19, 1858 in Drumquinn, County Tyrone, Ireland to Patrick and Mary (McCormick) Buchanan. He came from a family of textile manufacturers, and as a teenager he was sent to Belfast to study mechanical engineering. In 1875 he moved to Detroit, briefly living on the east side before relocating to Corktown. Buchanan married Mary Ann Ferry, also an Irish immigrant, in 1879, and they had three children before moving to 214 Wabash. While living at 214 Wabash, they had two additional children: Margaret, born January 1887; and Thomas, born January 4, 1891.

214 Wabash Street in the 1889 Sanborn Maps. Note that the house did not yet
have a covered porch. It and other architectural details were added later.

On August 2, 1897, James Buchanan's wife Mary Ann died from a pelvic abscess at the age of 43.

The house and vicinity, 1897. A carpenter shop was added at the rear of the property.
Also note that the covered porch on the front of the house was built by this time.
The Frederick Bechstein House, at 195 Wabash, is at the bottom left.

After his wife's death, Mr. Buchanan decided to sell his house. This ad appeared in the Detroit Free Press on December 4, 1898:

Ten days after that ad ran, a notice of a more personal nature was printed in the same paper under "Local Brevities":

John P. Buchanan did return--the 1900 Census shows him living with his father.

On August 12, 1899, James Buchanan remarried in Essex, Ontario. His second wife was Jane Tyre, born in Brownstown in 1878. Buchanan finally sold 214 Wabash on February 1, 1900 to Pauline C. Ball for $8,000.

James Buchanan went on to create many more homes as well as commercial and public buildings, including many of the structures that once comprised the Eloise Asylum in Westland. Among them was the hospital for female mental patients, completed in 1903.

Pauline C. Ball
1900-1901

Pauline C. (Kroehl) Ball owned the house very briefly, and only as a rental property. The home was occupied by Canadian immigrants Amasa and Sarah Jane (Martin) Beebe and their three sons, Robert, Earl, and Wilfred. When Beebe moved to 214 Wabash in 1900, he was the Secretary Treasurer of the Freeman B. Dickerson Company, a publisher located at 67-71 Michigan Avenue. The company's owner, Freeman Dickerson, was once a board member of the Eloise Asylum and former Postmaster of Detroit. When it was necessary to build a post office at what was then the Wayne County Poor House, he elected to name it Eloise, after his four-year-old daughter. The name eventually became synonymous with the entire institution.

The building on the far left housed the offices of the F. B. Dickerson Company, employ-
er of Amasa Beebe. Photo courtesy of the Shorpy Historic Photo Archive (shorpy.com)

Samuel and Clarissa Kingsley
1901-1919

Pauline Ball sold 214 Wabash to Samuel R. Kingsley Jr. and his wife, Clarissa A. (Norris) Kingsley on April 12, 1901. Mr. Kingsley was the Wayne County Register of Deeds at the time and a veteran of the Civil War. Mr. and Mrs. Kingsley lived in Romulus and continued to rent out the property on Wabash Street.

By 1907, Amasa Beebe and his family moved to a home on Forest Avenue, and then later to Los Angeles, where Mr. Beebe died in 1939. The Beebes were followed by the family of Oscar A. Prunner, a lantern maker at the Buhl Stamping Company. Prunner was born in Canada around 1863 and married Nancy Crowley in 1883. They immigrated to the U.S. and had two sons, Oscar Allen Jr. and George Wesley.

The Detroit Free Press on July 20, 1909 reported an accident on the Baker Street bridge involving Mrs. Prunner:

A later article stated that she sued the city for $10,000, but it is not known how the case turned out. (By which I mean I couldn't find out how to get the information for free on the internet.)

The 1910 Census shows that a seventeen-year-old servant named
Tracy Burner lived with the Prunner family at the time.

James and Mary Taylor
1919-1922

The home's owner, Samuel Kingley, died on December 1, 1917. On September 27, 1919, his widow, Clarissa, sold the property to James R. and Mary Ellen (Miller) Taylor for $6,000. Samuel Kingsley and James Taylor were former business partners and and lived on the same street in Romulus, Michigan. At the time, Mr. Taylor was on the board of directors of the Romulus State Bank and continued to use 214 Wabash strictly as a source of rental income.

The following year, the home received a new set of tenants:

Charles Ferris, 29, born in New York. Occupation: steam fitter.
Alice Ferris, 24, born in Canada. Wife of Charles Ferris.
Charles Ferris Jr., 2, son of Charles and Alice Ferris.
August J. Samstag, 25, born in New York. Occupation: city fireman.
Laura E. (Scott) Samstag, 20, born in Michigan. Wife of August Samstag.
Nellie B. McNurney, 30, born in Michigan. Occupation: telegraph operator.

This Sanborn Map of the area was published in 1921,
the same year the address changed from 214 to 1778.

Nellie B. McNurney
1922-1959

On April 20, 1922, James and Mary Taylor sold the house to one of the renters, Miss McNurney. The home was owner-occupied for the first time in over twenty years. Living with Nellie McNurney was her mother, Mary (Gillick) McNurney, born in Connecticut in 1850. She married Patrick McNurney in the late 1860s and the couple settled in Corktown in the early 1870s. Mary claimed to be "widowed" as early as the 1900 census, but in fact her husband was alive and living at the Eloise Asylum, where he also worked as a janitor. He died there in 1914.

Nellie McNurney's brother, Francis Patrick McNurney, also moved in after his wife committed suicide in 1926. He worked as a clerk in an auto factory. Their sister, Isabelle (who never married) moved to 1778 Wabash around 1930.

Detail from 1930 Census listing the residents of 1778 Wabash.
Mary (Gillick) McNurney had passed away by this time.

1945-Present

Some of the historical records obtained contain gaps after 1940. The McNurney family was listed at the home in 1941, but the next available deed on the house shows that it was sold by Nick Horsft and Lillian M. Kahl to Apolonio Renteria on August 25, 1945. No city directories were printed during World War II, so it is not known when the McNurneys moved out. Apolonio Renteria was a construction worker and Mexican immigrant who lived on the east side who again used 1778 Wabash as a rental property.

After Renteria's death, the house was sold by Lucy Madden, the administrator of his estate, to Melesio and Beatriz S. Morales on December 15, 1964. Melesio was born in Texas, and Beatriz in Mexico. They continued to rent out the home. The city directories are incomplete, but from as early as 1956 to at least 1968, the home was rented by Santos and Juanita Benavides. Mr. Benavides worked for the Delray Connecting Railroad. In 1973, a Soloman Benavides is listed at the address.

1778 Wabash in 1976.

Finally, on March 4, 1980, Melesio and Beatriz Morales sold the house to its current owner, Martha H. Delgado, who lives in the home with her husband Louis. This garden of this beautifully restored home will be on the 2011 Corktown Historical Home and Garden Tour, just three weeks away!

Corktown Historical
Home & Garden Tour

Sunday, June 5, 2011
Noon Until 5:00 pm

$12.00 advance purchase
$15.00 day of the tour
Please call (313) 961-9193 for details

1416 to 1434 Michigan Avenue

2011-05-07T00:00:00.000-04:00

Once again, I do not have a full post for this week. Next week, however, I will have the full history of a new house to share. Until then, enjoy this pair of photographs of the northeast corner of Michigan and Trumbull Avenues. The buildings that now stand at 1416-1434 Michigan Ave are the very same in both images. The second photo is undated, but appears to have been taken in the 1880s.

Photo courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library
Michigan Avenue was obviously much narrower at the time the photo was taken. In the 1930s, all of the buildings on the south side of the street were demolished and the road was widened to its current horrifying nine-lane width.

To examine the circa 1880s photograph in full detail, click here.

Sixth Street and Baker

2011-04-30T00:00:00.000-04:00

I regret to say that I have no post to make this week. I'm waiting on documents from Wayne County for two separate projects I'm working on. Until then, I hope you enjoy this photo of the fire station that once stood on the southwest corner of Sixth Street and Baker (now Bagley).

Courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library

The Detroit Fire Department's Engine Company No. 4 was erected in 1871. In 1918, it was replaced with an updated facility, seen in this 1976 photograph:

The building still stands today, but it no longer serves as a fire station. It has been converted into the law offices of Gregory J. Reed & Associates. This intersection is half a block from the Susan Buchanan House, profiled previously.

The Kingston House Part III: 1900-Present

2011-04-23T00:01:00.000-04:00

Nancy Eliza Kingston lived with her father at 132 Baker Street as early as 1896. She had technically owned the residence since 1890 on the condition that her father be allowed to spend the rest of his life there. When he died in 1899, she was free to do with the house what she pleased.

Miss Kingston's birth date is unknown, but according to church records she was baptized in Mariners' Protestant Episcopal Church on May 7, 1854. After the death of her mother, she was raised by her maternal grandparents in Bertie Township, Ontario, just west of Buffalo, New York. Miss Kingston's name occasionally appeared in the "society pages" of the Detroit Free Press after she moved into the home on Baker Street. On November 30, 1902, it was noted:

Mrs. [sic] E. N. Kingston gave a dinner Thursday in honor of Miss Stokes, of Erie, Pa. The decorations were American Beauty roses and smilax.

She is also mentioned on November 16, 1902:

Mrs. E. N. Kingston, No. 132 Baker street, entertained at cards on Tuesday evening a number of guests from Delray.

Perhaps those guests included Delray resident Charles Elza Rhodes, her future husband. The couple married on December 24, 1903 by Reverend O. J. Blackford, Pastor of Tabernacle Methodist Episcopal Church.

Charles & Nancy Rhodes were probably married at Tabernacle M. E. Church.
The congregation left the 1874 building in 1915, which burned three years later.
Courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library

Charles Elza Rhodes was born in Mercer County, Ohio in December of 1865 to farmers Isaac S. and Catherine (Barton) Rhodes. He was living in Ohio as late as 1900, then appeared in the 1903 directory as living in Delray, which was still an independent suburb at the time. After marrying Nancy Kingston, Rhodes moved into the Kingston house, where the couple spent the rest of their lives.

Rhodes was a carpenter by trade. He worked from a shop on his property, as indicated on the 1921 Sanborn map:

Also note the addition of the wraparound porch by this date.

As of January 1, 1921, following the reformation of Detroit's street address system, the Kingston house became 1560 Baker. The street's name changed in late 1930, giving the house the address it bears today--1560 Bagley.

Detail from 1930 Census showing the residents of 1560 Baker.

Nancy Eliza Kingston Rhodes died on March 7, 1935 at the age of 81. Charles Rhodes remarried soon after. His new wife was a widow named Mary Amanda Lucker, whose maiden name was Sutter. She was born in Michigan in 1879. In 1902 she married a German immigrant named Gustave Adam Lucker, and the couple had four children. Gustave Lucker died in 1929. Charles Rhodes and Mary Lucker were married some time between 1935 and 1941. Charles Rhodes died on October 28, 1947, followed by his wife just two months later, on December 24.

On June 9, 1948, Gerald Kent, executor of the estate of Mary Rhodes, sold the Kingston House to Mark and Betty Howard for $4,100. They in turn sold it for $8,000 on a ten-year land contract on September 1, 1949 to Ida Key Glover. Her last name changed to Jones by the time house was paid for. She evidently owned the house as a rental property. The city directories indicate that Freda McCreary lived in the house from 1949 to 1950. The only record of renters in the house--the city directories--are incomplete after this point.

Bagley Street between Trumbull and 10th Street in the 1960s.
Note the Kingston House on the left. (Wayne State University)

James T. and Alma Slater were in the house by 1958 and rented it until at least 1973. It was vacant again by 1977. The house does not appear in the city directories again until the mid 1990s, and it was very likely vacant all that time.

The Kingston House at it appeared in 1976.
Courtesy of the Michigan State Historic Preservation Office

The house fell into tax foreclosure in the early 1980s. On December 12, 1984, Peter J. and Barbara Ann Benz purchased the property from the State of Michigan. Barbara Benz passed away in 2000. Mr. Benz still lives in Detroit, but did not reply to emails. Is it weird that I email complete strangers about investment property they haven't owned for over twenty years?

The Joseph Kingston House as it appeared in 1985.
Photo courtesy of the Detroit Historical Commission, obtained by Scott Robichaud

Photo courtesy of the Detroit Historical Commission, obtained by Scott Robichaud

Mr. and Mrs. Benz sold the home to Ann Rose Clowney on November 20, 1990 for $6,000. She in turn sold it on September 21, 2005 at the height of the housing bubble for $155,000. That buyer's mortgage with Countrywide Home Loans fell into foreclosure in April of 2006. By 2007, the home was boarded up and for sale once more.

The Kingston house in 2007. Photo courtesy of Scott Robichaud.

The home's current owner, Scott Robichaud, found the home when looking to move to Detroit in early 2007. He put an offer on the house on February 21, 2007, but the purchase was not finalized until April 30. He has spent the last four years renovating the home and documenting the progress on his blog
Redemption in Corktown.

There had been some repairs to the home before Scott bought it, including the removal of the Insul-brick siding. However, many of the alterations were sub-standard--for example, five layers of shingles were piled on top of the roof. The house was in such a state that it was necessary to gut it completely.

Photo courtesy of Scott Robichaud

All changes to the exterior were made with the approval of the Detroit Historical Commission, including a major alteration to the rear of the second floor.

Photos courtesy of Scott Robichaud

Scott now lives in the Joseph Kingston house with his wife, Becky, whom he married in 2010. I could have posted dozens of photos of the renovation, but instead you should see the end result for yourself on the Corktown Historical Home & Garden Tour on Sunday, June 5th. Be sure to attend, and you too can walk in the very home in which Mrs. Kingston smashed a pitcher over her husbands head more than a century ago!

Corktown Historical
Home & Garden Tour

Sunday, June 5, 2011
Noon Until 5:00 pm

$12.00 advance purchase
$15.00 day of the tour
Please call (313) 961-9193 for details

The Kingston House Part II: 1861-1899 -- Joseph Kingston

2011-04-16T00:00:00.001-04:00

I'd like to express my gratitude to Mary Lou Duncan of the Detroit Society for Genealogical Research, who provided me with valuable additional information about Joseph Kingston, including the name of the village where he was born, the exact church in which he was married, and the not-so-subtle fact that he had two different wives that I had negligently believed to be the same person!

* * * * *
Joseph Kingston was born November 12, 1817 in Crohane, County Cork, Ireland. He came to Corktown around the early 1850s, where his brothers Thomas and Samuel had already settled. Joseph Kingston was a drayman (one who drove a flatbed cart, called a dray, used to transport large items).

Joseph married Eliza Ann Rose in Detroit on October 14, 1852. The marriage record lists the officiant as "M. Hickey" (Manasseh Hickey), pastor of Lafayette Street Methodist Episcopal Church at the time, but the couple were in fact married at Mariners' Protestant Episcopal Church. The marriage produced two daughters: Nancy Eliza Kingston, baptized on May 7, 1854; and Fanny Catherine Kingston, born in April 23, 1855 and baptized July 8. Fanny died just six days after her baptism and was interred at Elmwood Cemetery July 17, 1855. Both girls were baptized at Mariners' Church.

Mariners' Protestant Episcopal Church as it appeared in the 1880s.
It still stands today, albeit 880 feet east of its original location.
Photo courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library (Source)

Eliza Ann Kingston died some time in 1855. The couple's young daughter, Nancy, was sent to live with Eliza's parents Frederick and Nancy Rose in Bertie Township, Ontario. On June 10, 1856, Joseph Kingston married Ann McCulah, an Irish immigrant.

Joseph Kingston's name first appears in the city directories in 1853. In 1857 he is listed at 104 Baker, the location of the house that stands today. It is impossible to know who built the house and exactly when, since building permits were not required until 1880. For Kingston to be listed at 104 Baker in 1857 presents a bit of a mystery. William Woodbridge, the owner of the farm where the lot was situated, did not submit a plat plan to Wayne County until 1858, and Kingston did not actually own the land until 1861. Kingston's situation is not unique--Kingston's neighbor Thomas Sanford is also listed at an address on the Woodbridge Farm in 1857 (96 Baker), and he did not own that lot until January 1, 1861. Perhaps Woodbridge built rental houses on Baker Street, which he allowed his tenants to buy years later. A less likely scenario is that Woodbridge sold lots on land contracts before he was legally permitted to divide his property. However it happened, we know that the deed transferring ownership of Lot 9 of Block 77 of the Woodbridge Farm from William Woodbridge to Joseph Kingston is dated August 3, 1861.

Detail from the 1860 Census listing the residents of the Kingston household.
In 1869, some of the addresses in Kingston's neighborhood had to be adjusted to higher designations, presumably because poor planning resulted in more structures than there were available numbers. Kingston's address changed from 104 to 132 Baker.

The historical Detroit Free Press digital archives have been especially helpful in uncovering a few details about Joseph Kingston's life. He was mentioned in the following editions:

June 1, 1865 - A notice regarding city taxes indicated that $1.00 was collected from Kingston.
December 14, 1866 - He purchased the lot on the northwest corner of Trumbull and Abbott Streets from William Leverette Woodbridge--the son of the Woodbridge Farm's previous owner--for $800.
November 1, 1867 - He appeared in Recorder's Court on a charge of "abusive language", but was discharged (i.e., technically guilty but not fined or punished).
January 14, 1885 - $24.00 was paid to Kingston for jury duty in Recorder's Court.
February 18, 1890 - Reports from Wayne County Circuit Court include: "John Nagle vs. Joseph Kingston; jury trial concluded; plantiff submits to a non-suit."

Detail from the 1870 Census listing the residents of 132 Baker.

The two young girls shown living with Mr. and Mrs. Kingston in the 1870 census were daughters of Joseph's brother Thomas. The following events may have forced Thomas to send his daughters to a home safer than his own. The Detroit Free Press reported on July 11, 1864 that Thomas Kingston's wife was accidentally shot inside her home by their nineteen-year-old son, Henry, "who was tampering with a loaded revolver in the house." She died from her wound the following day. Just seven months later, George Kingston (another son of Thomas) shot and killed his brother Samuel on February 28, 1865. The boys were respectively seventeen and fourteen years old at the time of the incident. George apparently held a loaded revolver to his brother's temple to scare him when the firearm discharged. "His brains were scattered about the room," reported the Free Press in a story published March 2, 1865. "Here is another solemn warning to parents not to permit young boys to carry fire-arms."

The older of the two girls mentioned above was Sarah Ann Kingston, born October 25, 1860. She married Henry Hill Markley, a boilermaker employed by Buhl Steel, on February 10, 1880. Just three months later, Sarah would fall victim to gun violence at the hands of her newlywed husband.

On the evening of May 21, 1880, Markley was furious that his wife had spent most of the evening at her sister's house despite being asked to come home. He threatened to shoot her in the heart, but her clenched fist slowed the bullet enough to spare her life (Detroit Free Press, 23 May 1880, p. 6). The couple did not divorce, but in fact went on to have ten children, four of whom reached adulthood. Sarah Ann Kingston Markley passed away in Detroit on May 3, 1943 at the age of 82.

Sarah Ann Kingston Markley's headstone in Woodmere Cemetery.
Thanks as always to Gail Hershenzon for helping me locate markers in Woodmere.

The other daughter of Thomas Kingston who lived in the Joseph Kingston House was Sophronia Elizabeth Kingston, born January 21, 1863. She marred James Duncan Jones on December 23, 1879 at St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Corktown. Mr. Jones was a railroad engineer born in Greenock, Scotland. In the early 1890s, the family moved to the depot town of Terrell, Texas. Sophronia Elizabeth Kingston Jones lived there until her death at age 68, on August 1, 1931.

Detail from the 1880 Census listing the occupants of 132 Baker.
The 1884 Sanborn map of Baker Street between Trumbull and Tenth Streets provides valuable information about the Kingston House at the time. It indicates that the front half of the house was two stories high, but that the rear additions were only one story. The house did not yet have a wraparound porch. The large "X" through the structure in the back denotes that it was a stable.

The vicinity of 132 Baker in 1884. Click here to see a recent aerial image of the same area.

At some point before the 1897 Sanborn maps were drawn, some changes were made to 132 Baker:

Was 1/3 of the house gone? Or was one of the maps poorly executed? The Burton Historical Collection keeps an index of building permits from 1880 to 1908, and no permit for an addition or repairs (such as after a fire) have been found.

According to Mary Lou Duncan, Ann Kingston filed for divorce on December 2, 1885, and filed a petition for alimony October 15 of the following year. The husband and wife were already in their seventies by this point. An article about the case appeared in the Detroit Free Press on October 31, 1886.

  The divorce suit of Ann against Joseph Kingston in the Wayne Circuit Court was ended at noon Saturday and submitted to Judge Jennison, who reserved his decision until Monday. While the aged defendant was on the stand he was asked to relate a certain attempt on the complainant's life, which she charges him with having made.
  "Began," said he, "we were settin' at the dinner table with the stove poipe betwixt us. We always were so sittewated, because there'd be an anoimated scrimmage betwixt us if we hadn't the sthove or something of loike carrackthur a separatin' of us. The ould wooman schoved me over a cup o tea, an' I says to her, says I, 'What the divil kind o' tea d'ye call this?'
  "'What's the matthur wid the tea?' said she.
  "'It's schlop,' says I.
  "'I'll schlop ye,' says she, an' 'round the sthove did she come at me an' basted me over the head with a pitcher. The pitcher was broke into smithereens and the divil that she is picked up a sthove poker and kim for me wid blood in her eye. I thin grasped the table knife in me right hand and looked at her. She looked at me for a moment and drapped the poker and I drapped the knife. She said that I was worse than a heathen and I said she was worse than the divil, and we had it backwards and forwards. When the hoshtilities had abated she said her short prayers and wished me dead in the next ten minutes, but I didn't doie, bejabbers."
  The Judge appeared to be very much impressed by the very entertaining testimony of the 70-years old man, and a number of times had to hold his mouth to keep from laughing at the antics of the old gentleman.
  At the conclusion of the case the Judge said it did not appear to him that the complainant had been treated worse by the defendant than the defendant had by her. Without deciding the cae he said that as family quarrels between the aged couple had not terminated fatally in the long period which they have lived together he thought there was no particular danger in the future.
  "They eat at the same table while this case is pending," said the Judge, "with nothing but a stovepipe between them, and I guess they will not hurt each other."
  Mr. Pound, attorney for the complainant, briefly reviewed the case. He did not strongly urge the Judge for a separation, but insisted on the right of his client to receive more money for the purpose of buying her clothing.
  Lawyer Craig said that the defendant had given his wife all the clothes she needs and decree for very heavy alimony would drive both parties to the poorhouse.
  Judge Jennison said that he required some time to consider the facts and reserved his decision until Monday.

Despite her prayers, Ann McCulah Kingston passed away before her husband, on August 3, 1890. Several weeks later, on October 27, Joseph Kingston signed over his house to his daughter, Nancy Eliza Kingston, on the condition that he would "have a lease of said lot during the term of his natural life". The document was notarized by real estate investor and philanthropist William H. Maybury (not to be confused with former Mayor William C. Maybury).

The October 27, 1890 deed conveying the property
from Joseph Kingston to his daughter Nancy.

The city directories indicate that Nancy Eliza Kingston was living with her father as early as 1896. Her occupation was listed as "housekeeper". Joseph Kingston did indeed live out the rest of his life in the house, where he died on November 13, 1899.

Joseph Kingston's death certificate. (Seeking Michigan)

Joseph and Ann Kingston's marker in Woodmere Cemetery. Although it gives Mrs. Kingston's birth year as 1810, other records indicate it was more likely 1820.

Next Week: The Kingston House Part III: 1900-Present

The Kingston House Part I: 1747-1861 -- The Navarre Farm

2011-04-09T00:00:00.000-04:00

The Joseph Kingston House, 1560 Bagley, Detroit

The Kingston House's current owner, Scott Robichaud, purchased the home in 2007 and has kept the blog Redemption in Corktown to document its extensive renovation. Fortunately for me, he already did some of the research on the house and posted plenty of photos on his blog, both of which he has permitted me to use. But first, the land:

* * * * *

Robert Navarre

This statue of Robert Navarre stands above the Michigan Avenue entrance of the Westin Book Cadillac Hotel in Detroit. Photo by Marshall Davies Lloyd, a descendant of Navarre.

Robert Navarre was born in 1709 in Villeroy, France. It is not known when he came to Canada, but he was sent to Detroit as early as 1728 to serve as sub-intendant of the settlement. He was soon after instated as Royal Notary, making him "the record keeper, the lawyer, the general scrivener, the surveyor, tithe gatherer, tax collector, treasurer of the king's revenue, and perhaps the school teacher of the settlement" (Burton 703). Navarre married Marie Lootman dit Barrois at Detroit on February 10, 1734.

On May 1, 1747, the Canadian government granted Navarre a parcel of land measuring 3 by 40 arpents on the Detroit River (Farmer 20). This was the first land grant made west of the fort--until then, all concessions had been on the east.

Navarre executed his duties so faithfully that the British government kept him on after gaining control over the territory in 1760. He retired two years later and lived on his farm for the rest of his life.

After Navarre passed away on November 21, 1791, the land became the property of his son, Francois. By that time, he had already settled on land in Monroe County deeded to him by the Potawatomi Indians. Francois Navarre sold the inherited land to his cousin Joseph Beaubien on September 12, 1797.

Joseph Cuillerier dit Beaubien
Little is known about Joseph Beaubien outside of a few vital records. He was born in Detroit on March 20, 1752 and married Marie-Josephe Bondy on March 10, 1777. He was not the man for whom Beaubien Street was named--that was his younger brother, land owner Lambert Cullier dit Beaubien.

Joseph Beaubien owned the farm during the transfer of power between the British and American governments. The United States granted Beaubien a land patent for the farm, which designated Private Claim No. 22, on July 16, 1807.

Land patent for Private Claim No. 22 (Source)

Beaubien sold the farm three years later, on November 15, 1810, to an English merchant named James May. Beaubien died in March of 1821.

James May

Image courtesy of the Burton Historical
Collection, Detroit Public Library

Born in Birmingham, England in 1756, James May came to Canada in 1775 and settled in Detroit in 1778 at the age of 19. He served as associate Judge of Common Pleas in Detroit in 1788, and was appointed Chief Justice of that court in 1800. A year after Detroit was incorporated as a town in 1802, May was elected as one of five trustees.

James May owned the Navarre Farm when Detroit fell to the British during the War of 1812. Allegedly, May took possession of Fort Shelby's American flag and hid it until the British departed one year later, when he raised it once more (Ross 141). James May died in Detroit on January 19, 1829.

William Woodbridge

(Source)
William Woodbridge was born in Norwich, Connecticut on August 20, 1780. He came to Detroit in 1814 after accepting President James Madison's appointment as Secretary of the Territory of Michigan.

On October 1, 1819, Woodbridge purchased the former Navarre Farm from James May. He would live on the farm for nearly forty years. Woodbridge went on to serve as as the Michigan Territory's delegate to Congress (1819-1820), the second Governor of Michigan (1840-1841), and a United States Senator (1841-1847).

Soon after land patents were issued in Detroit, farmers were allowed to double the size of their property by claiming an additional tract of land behind their current one. The farm Woodbridge bought from James May now consisted of Private Claims Nos. 22 and 26. In addition to those, Woodbridge purchased the farm immediately to the east, Private Claim No. 248 (the Lasselle Farm), which was also extended to include Private Claim No. 27. The massive Woodbridge Farm was now approximately 1,100 feet wide and extended three miles inland.

By an act of the Michigan Legislature on February 12, 1857, the City of Detroit expanded its borders to include that portion of Springwells Township on which the Woodbridge Farm was situated (minus the few acres north of the railroad tracks in Private Claim No. 26). This forced Woodbridge's land to be subject to the laws, ordinances, and high taxes of the growing urban center. He fought what he perceived to be an infringement upon his rights (Lanman 67), but he was unsuccessful. On September 14, 1858, he submitted to the Wayne County Register a plan for the subdivision of his property which would be sold in lots.

Detail from 1910 copy of 1858 platting of the Woodbridge Farm. (Source)
The lot where the Kingston House stands is highlighted in red.

Woodbridge named the 100-foot-wide thoroughfare that would run through his former farm Trumbull Avenue after his father-in-law, John Trumbull. There was a wooded area northwest of Michigan and Trumbull Avenues that Woodbridge let open to the public as a picnic grounds that became known as "Woodbridge Grove". Apparently, that parcel of land would later become associated with baseball.

Despite Woodbridge's misgivings about Detroit's expansion, it had greatly increased his net worth. The 1860 Census indicated that the value of his real estate was $300,000--over $7 million today. William Woodbridge died on October 20, 1861.

Just a few months before he passed away, Woodbridge sold lot number 9 of block 77 of his former farm to an immigrant from County Cork, Ireland named Joseph Kingston. It appears that the house Kingston was living in on that lot had already been there for at least four years. But that's an issue to be covered next time...

Next week: The Kingston House Part II: 1861-1899 -- Joseph Kingston

--Bibliography--
Burton, Clarence. The City of Detroit Michigan 1701-1922. Volume II. Detroit: S. J. Clarke Publishing, 1922.
Farmer, Silas. The History of Detroit and Michigan: Or, The Metropolis Illustrated. Detroit: Silas Farmer & Co., 1884.
Lanman, Charles. The Life of William Woodbridge. Washington: Blanchard & Mohun, 1867.
Ross, Robert B. The Early Bench and Bar of Detroit from 1805 to the end of 1850. Detroit: Winn and Hammond, 1907.

The Buchanan House Part V: 2008-Present -- Renovation in Progress

2011-04-02T00:53:00.001-04:00

The Buchanan house was purchased by my mother and brother on August 4, 2008. The plan was to be repaid by a third investor, who then literally fled the country. We decided to renovate and rent out the home. My mother quitclaimed her interest in the house to me on October 22, 2009. I've spent more than two years renovating the house with a *lot* of help from a *lot* of people, and we've been fortunate to have good renters tolerant of the ongoing repairs. The renovation is maybe 85% complete. The house has a new roof, all new plumbing, and was completely rewired. Both porches had to be completely replaced. The house was about half gutted, but if I could do it all over, I would gut the house completely. Here are some examples of what we've accomplished:

This was actually taken after a lot of the porch had been torn down.

The new porch (not yet fully complete due to our lack of money) was constructed by
Donald St. Pierre, a carpenter raised in Corktown who now resides in Wyandotte.

The parlor window was boarded up with doors when we first saw the house.

Photo courtesy of Joseph C. Krause, who took sent me the photo at the
last minute when I realized I didn't have a shot of this perspective.

It's a miracle the parlor fireplace was still intact.

This photo is a little dated. More furniture has been added to the room.

I believe I am reglazing a window in this photo. All of the original wood windows in the bedrooms have been preserved, with only storm windows added for energy efficiency.

This is looking from the dining room into the kitchen. The doorway was originally much smaller.

This was the downstairs bathroom.

A closet was removed from the family room, allowing more space for the
bathroom. The doorway was also moved from the kitchen to the hallway.

The upstairs bathroom window was almost completely
covered by a very poorly placed wall.

This view is actually 90 degrees to the right of the first photo. We
took over the closet space from a bedroom to make the bathroom larger.

The northwest bedroom.

The southeast bedroom.

We turned the bedroom whose closet we took away into an upstairs laundry room.
This photo is actually not that old--the room was just the last to be remodeled.

The entire hallway used to be painted like a madhouse.

The stairway is now the biggest eyesore in the house. I plan
on stripping and refinishing the whole thing. (Some day.)

The Buchanan house was used as a filming location for a scene in episode 4 of season 1 of Detroit 1-8-7, entitled "Royal Bubbles/Needle Drop". The scene was filmed on August 26, 2010, and the episode aired October 12. The film crew paid myself and the renters locations fees as well as repainted the exterior of the house to be a much more calm shade of yellow than it had been previously.

John Michael Hill as Detective Damon Washington in the
dining room of the Buchanan house. Photo courtesy of ABC.

I was able to track down some of the people associated with the house's past. I contacted Peter Buchanan, a descendant of Patrick Buchanan--a past owner of the land on which the house was built, and brother to the home's first owner, Susan Buchanan. He came to visit the house during the renovation.

Myself with Peter Buchanan.

I also found Paul and Tony Saliba, two brothers born in the home who gave me a great deal of the information that appeared in my last post.

Paul Saliba, Anthony Saliba, and myself.

The renovations will continue throughout 2011. Now that it's getting warmer, the obviously needed exterior renovations will have to be completed. Expect to see more photos by next fall.

The Buchanan House Part IV: 1924-2007 -- The Saliba and Kibler Families

2011-03-26T00:33:00.000-04:00

The Saliba Family

During World War I, the Mediterranean island nation of Malta served as an important site for the manufacture of ships. When the war ended and the number of manufacturing jobs diminished significantly, thousands of Maltese desperate for work left the country. By 1920, more Maltese had immigrated to Detroit than any other city in the United States--as many as 7,000, according to a Detroit Free Press article from December 12, 1920. They settled primarily in Corktown, near Michigan Avenue and 5th Street.

Among Corktown's Maltese immigrants were Charles and Benvenuta Saliba. Charles had worked as a mounted policeman back in Malta. The couple came to the U.S. in 1920 with their three young children, Agata, Lena, and Emmanuel. The family first lived on 2nd Street, but by 1921 had moved to 24 Baker (which changed to 1250 Baker when Detroit's address system was reformed in 1921). Mr. and Mrs. Saliba purchased the Buchanan house from the heirs of Susan Buchanan on March 27, 1924. They agreed to assume the $5,100 balance on a mortgage on the home as well as any unpaid taxes levied since the previous June.

Charles and Benvenuta Saliba went on to have three more children--Joseph, Anthony, and Paul--all born in the Buchanan house. Charles Saliba ultimately became a foreman at the Ford Motor Company. The family rented every available space in the house to borders for just $3.00 per week. Most of them were also Maltese, and employees of Ford.

Detail from the 1930 Census listing all residents of 1242 Baker.
Eight boarders lived with the Salibas, including six Maltese immigrants.

In late 1930, Baker Street changed its name to Bagley. The address was finally 1242 Bagley, which the house bears today.

Tragically, Charles Saliba passed away on the night before Thanksgiving on November 22, 1939. His wife was not feeling well, and he was helping prepare food for dinner the following day. He passed away inside the home.

Downtown Detroit, July 18, 1957. Inset: The Buchanan House,
from the rear, is on the left. 1250 Bagley, now demolished,
is on the right. Image courtesy of Wayne State University. (Source)

The Lodge Freeway (the building of which destroyed much of
Corktown) around the mid-1960s. Inset: Rear of 1242-1250
Bagley. Image courtesy of Wayne State University (Source)

Benvenuta Saliba quit-claimed the house to her son Emmanuel on February 25, 1974. Mrs. Saliba, by then eighty-two years old, passed away just one month later, on March 28. Emmanuel Saliba then passed away less than two years later, on December 23, 1975, at the age of 57.

The Buchanan house in 1976. Image courtesy of the
Michigan State Historic Preservation Office.

The Kibler Family

The surviving children of Benvenuta Saliba sold the Buchanan house in 1976 through a land contract with Arthur W. and Emma Alice Kibler, a married couple in their fifties. They put $1,000 down and paid off the $6,000 balance in installments. Mr. Kibler died two years later, on March 16, 1978, at the age of 54.

Headstone of Arthur W. Kibler at Woodmere Cemetery in Detroit

The land contract was paid off and the property ownership was legally transferred to Emma Kibler on October 24, 1984. The following photos of the house were taken around that time.

Photo provided by Danielle Lewon of the Detroit Historical Commission

Photo provided by Danielle Lewon of the Detroit Historical Commission

Mrs. Kibler shared her home with many renters over the twenty years she lived there until her death on June 17, 1996. The house became the property of her son, Arthur Richard Kibler. He ultimately tore off the circa-1940s faux-brick siding and restored the original wood clapboards. Less inspired was the decision to add stockade fencing around the adjacent courtyard.

Circa 2004 photo found on the Internet by Allan Machielse

The home was later painted bright yellow.

The Buchanan House in the winter of 2007/2008.

Arthur Kibler continued to share the home with boarders. He mortgaged the property in January of 2005, which fell into foreclosure and was repossessed by the bank in May of 2007.

Next week: The Buchanan House Part V: 2008-Present -- Renovation in Progress

The Buchanan House Part III: 1914-1923 -- The Renters of 20 Baker Street

2011-03-19T00:01:00.000-04:00

Susan Buchanan rented out her house at 20 Baker Street after she moved to Clayton Township to live with her sister, where she stayed until her death on July 31, 1919. She evidently signed over the house to Peter B. Lennon (her sister's stepson) on the April 7th before her death, but the deed was not recorded by the Wayne County Register of Deeds until August 6th-one week after her death. However, Susan Buchanan's heirs (several nieces and nephews) filed a claim in probate court and won. Peter B. Lennon's deed was declared void. Miss Buchanan's heirs continued to rent the home until finally selling it in 1924.

The following list of boarders is far from complete, and it would contain many fewer names if the old city directories were not digitized and searchable on Footnote.com. However, the result of hours of research is a long, dry list of names and descriptions. I've learned my lesson--the next time I research a home used as a boarding house, I will focus on owners and not every single renter I can find.

1914	Sarah M. Burpee	Born about 1858 in Corktown. Her family moved to Frankfort (near Traverse City) around 1891, but she returned to Corktown alone at some point before 1912. Miss Burpee had several jobs over the years, including manager, dressmaker, and newpaper agent. She died in Detroit on March 17, 1925.
1914	George Karas	The directory indicates that Mr. Karas was a "houseman", or butler. Nothing else is known.
1914	Bessie Marie (Richley) Lee	Born 1891 in New Castle, Pennsylvania. There is a 1913 marriage record of her having married a Chinese man named William B. Lee in Ohio, but nothing else about the man has been found. When she lived in the Buchanan house she worked as a stenographer for the Detroit Real Estate Board. She married Hayden Harve Haase in 1923.
1914	William F. Revnell	Born 1886 in Illinois. He previously worked at a small resort hotel ran by his mother in Frankfort, Miss Burpee's former town. Mr. Revnell had been married, but was divorced by this time. His occupation changed often and included hotel clerk, fisherman, electrician, wig maker, and school bus driver. He married Rose M. Burkard in 1916 and eventually returned to Frankfort.
1915	Charles Aldrich Blondo	Born 1884 in Armada, Michigan, moved to Corktown at some point before 1892. He was a chauffer or truck driver for most of his working life. He married Violet Melody around 1903. They had one daughter, also named Violet, who died of meningitis in 1906. They divorced, presumably before Mr. Blondo lived at the Buchanan house. In the late 1920s he married Mollie Welch, a widow with four children.
1915	George Person	He was an autoworker according to the directory. Nothing else is known.
1915	Ambra (Favorite) Smalley	Born about 1876 in Eaton Rapids, Michigan. The 1918 directory lists Mrs. Smalley as the widow of Arza. However, the couple had in fact divorced and Mr. Smalley had married a woman fourteen years younger than himself in Ohio in 1912. Interestingly, his marriage record also indicated that he was widowed. Mrs. Smalley too remarried, in 1922.
1915	Doris Smalley	Born 1896 in Eaton Rapids, Michigan. She was the daughter of Ambra Smalley. On July 3 of the following year she married a Canadian immigrant named Percy Fonger, a machinist at the Cadillac Motor Car Company. She died in 1918 from postpartum hemorrhage after giving birth to a stillborn baby.

Detail from 1915 city directory listing Mrs. Smalley and her daughter at 20 Baker Street.

1915	Harry Smith	"Sailmaker." No other information found.
1916-1917	Daniel M. Barnett	Born about 1873 in Vermont. He worked as a saw filer in an auto factory. He presumably lived in the Buchanan house with his wife Amelia, his wife of ten years. Mrs. Barnett was born in Canada around 1882 and immigrated two years later. Mr. Barnett died in Detroit on August 11, 1929.
1917	Harriet Barnett	The directory indicates that Mrs. Barnett was the widow of a man named Jacob. She was presumably related to Daniel Barnett (above) but no other records have been found.
1917	Albert Butler	"Electrician." No other information found.
1917	George W. Butler	"Electrician." No other information found.
1917	Eugene Cole	"Auto worker." No other information found.
1917	Curtis Brooks Prescott	The directory lists "Curtis B. Prazak" at the Buchanan house, but it is almost certainly Curtis Brooks Prescott, who married Lena Prazak in Detroit on May 23 of that year. Born 1890 in Cascade Township, Michigan. His listed occupation is "motorman". Mr. Prescott enlisted with the U.S. Army at the age of 19 and served for three years, and was evidently served again during World War I. He died in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1954.
1918	Simon Hause	"Mach hd." No other information found.
1918	William A. Hoppe	Born 1887 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Employed by National Roofing and Paint Company as a sheet metal salesman.

William A. Hoppe's draft registration card. Two other boarders listed the same
address on their registration cards when they were completed the same year.

1918	Frank August Krokofski	Born 1877 in Corktown. Worked as an upholsterer for furniture maker Fred L. Parrish for most of his working life. His wife died in 1911 at the age of 24. He remarried in 1912 but was divorced by the time he lived in the Buchanan house. His three children ended up living in the German Protestant Home for Orphans and Old People at 1852 West Grand Blvd. His daughter married the son of the orphanage's superintendent in 1924. Mr. Krokofski's third marriage took place later that year, and his two sons were living with him by 1930.
1918	Michael John Miller	Born 1886 in Sarnia, Ontario, immigrated 1907. Married Edith May Lively in 1910, but they divorced by 1916. His widowed mother Mary was also listed at his previous address, so it's possible she lived at the Buchanan house as well. Mr. Miller had worked as a machinist in an auto plant, but at this point he was a self-employed painter.
1918	Albert R. Morrison	"Watchman." No other information found.
1918	Alex Morrison	"Watchman." No other information found.
1918-1919	Frederick Thomas Mountain	Born 1887 in Durham, Ontario, immigrated 1916. Worked as a plasterer. In 1917, he resided at 229 6th Street with William Hoppe and Michael Miller (above). Mr. Mountain returned to Canada in 1928.
1918	James Timothy Ring	Born 1895 in Woodford, County Galway, Ireland, immigrated 1914. Employed as a chauffer for the Reider Cartage Company at 345 Parker. The 1930 Census lists a man of the same name, similar birth year, and same immigration year as Mr. Ring as an inmate at the Santa Fe Penitentiary in New Mexico. Further research would be needed to confirm if this is the same individual.
1919-1920	Rosa Louise Bequeret	Born 1892 in Illinois. Miss Bequeret worked as a clerk for Express Company at the time. She married Carl Tasso on December 7, 1920. In 1918, she and at least four other residents of the Buchanan house (Frank Bleich, Daniel Waterworth, and John and Minnie Sholdice, below) all lived at 52 Baker, which is now 1326 Bagley.

Rosa Bequeret Tasso (1892-1978)
Photo courtesy of Gwen Bequeret

1919-1921	Frank Herman Bleich	Born 1880 in Germany, immigrated 1905. Employed as a clerk for cigar and tobacco retailer William F. Hensel at 50 State Street.
1919	Henry J. Manion	Born 1891 in Alpena, Michigan. He lived most of his life in Flint, and was evidently only in Detroit for a brief time. Mr. Manion married Mildred Decaire on April 26 of the following year.
1920	Clifford Allbright	Born about 1899 in Michigan. Worked for a railroad as a fireman, which was the term used for the technician who controlled the fire in the engine. He married Christine Schmidt on December 6 of the year he is listed at the Buchanan house.
1920	William Kolemik	Born about 1883 in Russia, immigrated 1913. Iron worker. Nothing outside of the census record has been found.
1920	Paul Harold McClung	Born 1897 in Wellston, Ohio. Worked as a machinist in an auto plant. Enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserve in May 1918 and had attained the rank of Machinist's Mate 2nd Class. He was released in February 1919 and honorably discharged September 1921. Later returned to Wellston, Ohio.
1920	Ralph Adam McClung	Born 1896 in Wellston, Ohio. Brother of Paul McClung, above. Also a Navy reservist. Enlisted June 1918, released December 1919, honorably discharged September 1921. Employed as a baker while living at the Buchanan house. He also returned to Ohio, but ultimately died in Detroit in 1973.
1920	George Michels	Born about 1873 in Germany, immigrated 1900. Painter.
1920-1922	John Flanery Henry Sholdice	Born 1873 in McGillivray, Ontario; immigrated 1895. Owned a cigar business that is listed at various addresses on Washington Blvd. and Cass Ave. Mr. Sholdice passed away on Christmas Eve of 1926.
1920-1922	Minnie O. (Allen) Sholdice	Born about 1880 in Canada, married John Sholdice (above) in Perth County, Ontario, about 1903.

Detail from 1920 Census showing residents of 20 Baker Street.

1920	Florence G. Churchill	Born 1901 in Michigan. Miss Churchill was a niece of John Sholdice (above). She married Leonard Bradley in 1923.
1920	Charles Franklin Van Gilder	Born 1885 in Pennsylvania. He worked as a stationary engineer, which means he operated steam engines and boilers in buildings as opposed to the ones on ships. He never married.
1920-1922	Daniel O. Waterworth	Born 1884 in Michigan. Employed by the Toledo Plate Glass Company
1923	Charles Caruana	Born about 1895 in Malta, immigrated about 1920. Auto worker. Mr. Caruana presumably lived with his wife, Amadea (also born in Malta) and daughter, Nellie (born about 1920 in Michigan).

Next week: The Buchanan House Part IV: 1924-2007 -- The Saliba and Kibler Familes

The Buchanan House Part II: 1896-1913 -- Susan Buchanan

2011-03-12T00:00:00.000-05:00

Susan Buchanan was fourteen when she left Ireland with her mother and seven younger siblings to live in Detroit in 1851. She never married, and by the 1890s she was living with her three remaining unmarried siblings in the home she owned at 24 Baker Street. In 1896 she had a new house built for the family at 20 Baker Street--the house that stands today at 1242 Bagley.

The Buchanan house as it appears in a Sanborn map soon after its construction.
Susan Buchanan's brother Patrick and his wife Rosa owned 32-34 Baker Street.

On July 13, 1896, carpenter Peter D. Tallant was issued building permit number 591 by the City of Detroit to construct the home at an estimated cost of $2,500. Tallant was born in County Roscommon, Ireland, in 1845 and immigrated to America around 1867. He also constructed the building that is now Nemo's Bar and Grill at 1384 Michigan Avenue in Corktown.

Susan Buchanan would live in this home for the next sixteen years. In that time, she she shared it with three siblings and several boarders.

* * * * *

Catherine Clancy

CATHERINE BUCHANAN
WIDOW OF CORNELIUS CLANCY
DIED MAY XXII 1900
MAY SHE REST IN PEACE
Catherine was the only Buchanan in the household who had ever been married. She wed Cornelius Clancy in Most Holy Trinity Church on February 10, 1857 at the age of 18, but her husband died just two years later. The couple had no children and Catherine never remarried. She worked as a clerk in various department stores, including Metcalf's and later Hunter, Glenn & Hunter.

Catherine Clancy died at 20 Baker Street on May 22, 1900. She had contracted pneumonia two weeks earlier, which ultimately led to heart failure. She was 61 years old.

Detail from the 1900 Census listing the Buchanan house residents.
This record was made shortly after Catherine Clancy's death.

Thomas Buchanan

THOMAS BUCHANAN
DIED JUNE 3, 1901
Thomas was a marine engineer, which at the time was an increasingly hazardous occupation. In February of 1875, Thomas Buchanan and nine other delegates from around the country met in Cleveland, Ohio to form the Marine Engineers' Beneficial Association, the first nationwide union for marine engineers. It is still in existence today and it's the largest and oldest maritime union in the United States.

Founders of the Marine Engineers' Beneficial Association, February 1875.
Thomas Buchanan is in the back row, second from the left.
Photo Courtesy of Marco Cannistraro, Communications Director, M.E.B.A.

Thomas Buchanan died while staying in Port Huron on July 3, 1901. The following appeared in the Detroit Free Press the following day:

Funeral services were held at 20 Baker Street and then Most Holy Trinity Church on July 6.

Jane Elizabeth Buchanan

JANE ELIZABETH BUCHANAN
DIED JULY V, 1906
MAY SHE REST IN PEACE
All that is known about Susan Buchanan's sister Jane is that she was a housekeeper, and that she died at 20 Baker Street on July 5, 1906 from neurosclerosis at the age of 61.

Peter Bernard Lennon

Susan Buchanan's sister Ann was the stepmother of Peter Lennon. He was born in Clayton Township, Michigan in 1878 and obtained a law degree from the University of Michigan in 1903.

University of Michigan Law Department Football Team, 1903.
Peter Lennon, team captain, is at the top-left.

After graduation he moved into the Buchanan house and opened an office at 103 Griswold in this building:

Northwest Corner Griswold & Congress, July, 1906.
Courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library (Source)

Around 1908 Mr. Lennon had returned to his native Clayton. He went on to be elected to the Michigan state house of representatives as a Republican in 1918. He served three consecutive terms until being defeated in 1924. He then ran for the state senate in 1926 and won, serving three terms there until defeat in 1932. He ran in the Republican primary for U.S. representative in Michigan's 6th district, but did not win the party's nomination. Mr. Lennon passed away on August 11, 1939, in Howell, Michigan.

Mary Eleanor Lennon

Mary E. Lennon (1876-1945)
Photo courtesy of Hugh Johnson

Mary E. Lennon was the sister of Peter Lennon. She was born in Lennon, the town named after her father, in 1876 and graduated from the University of Michigan in 1899. She moved in to the Buchanan house in 1910 and worked as a school teacher at the Cadieux School in Grosse Pointe and then the M. M. Rose School in Detroit. She only lived in the house until 1913, but remained in Detroit for the rest of her life. Miss Lennon later worked for the Detroit High School, which later became Wayne University, where she worked as a professor of English. She passed away in Detroit on December 13, 1945.

Adelaide Black

Adelaide Black was born in Corktown in 1895 and lived in the neighborhood her entire life. Her mother and younger brother died before she reached the age of ten, and her older brother died of pneumonia at the School for the Blind in Lansing, Michigan in 1908. Both the census and the city directory list her as a servant at the Buchanan house in 1910.

Detail from the 1910 Census showing residents of the Buchanan house.

Although her given age in the census was thirteen, birth records have confirmed that she was in fact fourteen at the time. Four years later she married James Aloysius Callaghan and had three children, but died in 1921 at the age of 26. Five months later her husband married her mother's sister, Anna Jane Grosshans.

Helen Murdock

The city directory lists "Mrs. Helen Murdock" at 20 Baker Street in 1912, but no information on this woman has yet been found.

* * * * *

Around 1913, Susan Buchanan left Detroit to live with her widowed sister Ann Lennon in Clayton Township. The Buchanan house would be rented to borders for the next nine years.

Next week: The Buchanan House Part III: 1914-1923 -- The Renters of 20 Baker Street

The Buchanan House Part I: 1750-1895 -- The Land

2011-03-05T15:35:00.000-05:00

The Buchanan House
1242 Bagley Street, Detroit
(Renovation in progress!)
The next house to be profiled was built by the upper-middle-class Irish family in 1896. It is now owned by my brother and myself as a rental property, and the renovation is ongoing. The following is the history of the land on which the house was built.

Dominique Labrosse
The first owner of the ribbon farm on which the Buchanan house stands was Dominique Jourdain dit Labrosse. Although he was probably granted the land by the government of New France, Silas Farmer wrote that "no evidence of the kind was presented to the Commissioners of Claims" when Labrosse applied for a land patent from the new United States government.

Dominique Labrosse was born in Montreal, Quebec in 1730. He was the son of master sculptor and wood carver Paul Jourdain dit Labrosse. Dominique Labrosse settled in Detroit where he married Jeannette Cardinal, also from Montreal, in 1755.

On July 21, 1808, the United States government issued a land patent to Labrosse for his farm on the Detroit River. It was designated Private Claim No. 246. Like the Cicotte Farm, it was 3 arpents (French acres) wide and 40 arpents deep.

Henry Berthelet

In December of 1808, Dominique and Jeanette Labrosse entered into a contract with Henry and Josette Berthelet to purchase the farm. The purchase was made on the condition that the Berthelets would provide for the Labrosses, who were childless and in their seventies by that time, for the rest of their lives. Jeanette died in 1814, followed by Dominique in 1816.

Portrait of Henry Berthelet by Robert Scott Duncanson
Courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library

Henry Berthelet was born in Detroit on April 29, 1776 and married Josette Bouchette in what is now Windsor, Ontario on November 9, 1802. They lived on the Labrosse farm for over twenty-five years, and some land records refer to it as the Berthelet farm. Henry Berthelet died in 1846, and Josette in 1855.

Charles C. Trowbridge

Charles Christopher Trowbridge (1800-1883)
(Source)
Born in Albany, New York in 1800, moved to Detroit in 1819. Trowbridge became a wealthy banker and joined with other investors to purchase the Labrosse Farm in March of 1835 for $13,000. This was at the beginning of a boom in speculative land sales in the soon-to-be State of Michigan.

In July of 1835, the segment of the Labrosse Farm between the Detroit River and Michigan Avenue was platted by city surveyor John Mullett. Labrosse Street was named after the previous owner of the farm. Baker Street was named for Colonel Daniel Baker, owner of the Baker Farm, immediately to the west of the Labrosse Farm.

Subdivision of the Labrosse Farm south of the Chicago Road
Recorded in Liber 13, Page 85 of Wayne County Records (Source)
The Buchanan house would later be erected on lot 8 of block 57. This parcel is one of the triangular lots that resulted from the streets of Corktown, which are parallel to Fort Street, meeting Michigan avenue at an angle of approximately 27°.

Robert Allen Forsyth
Born in Detroit in 1774. Forsyth and Charles Trowbridge were both members of the Cass Expedition that explored the Michigan Territory in 1820. He purchased lots 7 and 8 of block 57 of the Labrosse Farm from Trowbridge on November 10, 1835.

In February of 1849, the City of Detroit annexed three of the ribbon farms (Forsyth, Labrosse, and Baker) that until then had been part of Springwells Township. This brought the area of the city proper to a total of 5.85 square miles.

Forsyth sold the parcels of land that same year, and died just three months later.

George B. Russel

George B. Russel (1816-1903)
(Source)
Born in Pennsylvania in 1816 and obtained a PhD in medicine at age twenty. He came to Detroit in 1839 and became a very successful doctor and businessman, investing hugely in real estate and industrial infrastructure. He purchased lots 7 and 8 on July 20, 1849 and sold them three years later.

Arthur John Robertson, Esquire
Born in Inches, County Inverness, Scotland in 1803. Robertson was a wealthy real estate speculator who came to own a vast amount of land in Canada and the U.S. after his Canadian wife died in 1836. He purchased the lots in question on August 9, 1851 and sold them less than a year later.

Flavius J. B. Crane

Flavius J. B. Crane (1812-1886)
Courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library

Born in Canandaigua, New York in 1812 and moved to Detroit in 1851. Crane was a real estate agent and made a fortune off the land boom. He bought the property on April 6, 1852 and sold it about a year later. He moved to Denver, Colorado in 1872, where he spent the rest of his life.

William Cole
Born in Johnstown, New York, 1809 and moved to Detroit in 1832. Cole owned a sail making business at the corner of Woodward and Atwater. He purchased the two lots on Baker Street on October 3, 1853. He lived around the block from the property, at 358 Michigan Avenue, where PJ's Lager House now stands. Cole built a rental home on lot 8 at 20 Baker Street--but it was not the same home that stands on the spot today. Only a few of the renters of that home have been identified:

Joseph Kennedy, carpenter, 1855-1856
Francis Riley, forger at Detroit Locomotive Works, 1856
John Donovan, drayman, 1857
Henry Fowler, accountant, 1857

Cole moved to Saginaw around the same time he sold the property in 1860. He lived there until his death in 1892.

The Buchanan Family

The Buchanan family's stained glass window at
Most Holy Trinity Church, 1050 Porter Street, Detroit

On January 5, 1860, lots 7 and 8 of block 57 of the Labrosse Farm were sold to Patrick Buchanan. They would remain in the family's possession for over sixty years.

Patrick Buchanan was born around 1830 in County Tyrone, Ireland. He and his brother William immigrated to America in the 1840s and settled in Corktown. Soon after the death of his father James Buchanan, his mother Susan O'Gorman Buchanan immigrated to Detroit with her eight youngest children.

After Patrick Buchanan purchased the original house at 20 Baker Street, he moved into the home with his mother and younger siblings. By that time, Patrick was a clerk in the employ of Town & Shelden, a dry goods wholesaler owned by Reuben Town, Allen Shelden, and Zachariah Chandler. So impressed was Patrick Buchanan by his employers that he named two of his sons Allen Shelden Buchanan and Zachariah Chandler Buchanan.

Among the members of the Buchanan family who lived at the first home at 20 Baker Street were: Ann Buchanan, who married Captain Peter Lennon, founder of the town of Lennon, Michigan; Thomas Buchanan, a founding member of the Marine Engineers' Beneficial Association, the oldest and largest maritime union in the United States; and Margaret Frances Buchanan Sullivan, who moved to Chicago in the 1870s and became a newspaper editor--obviously an extraordinary accomplishment for a woman in the 19th century. She was sent by the Associated Press to cover the 1889 World's Fair in Paris, the event for which the Eiffel Tower was constructed, as the only American correspondent. Mrs. Sullivan is the author of the book Ireland of To-Day: The Causes and Aims of Irish Agitation.

Patrick Buchanan married Rosanna Doran on August 3, 1865 at Most Holy Trinity Church in Corktown and moved to a house on Fifth Street. Two years later, on July 14, 1867, he sold the property on Baker Street to his sister Susan Buchanan for $800. Around 1870 a home was built at 24 Baker Street and the family moved into the new home.

Detail from an 1884 Sanborn map showing 24 Baker Street.
The attached structure may have been the original 20 Baker.

The Buchanans lived at 24 Baker until 1896, when a new home was built at 20 Baker Street--the house that stands today.

Next Week: The Buchanan House Part II: 1896-1913 -- Susan Buchanan

14th Street in 1903

2011-02-26T00:00:00.000-05:00

This photo was taken on the east side of 14th Street between Marantette and Baker, facing south. The caption reads: "Apr. 20th 1903. M. Hayes. In front of 224 14th Ave. There had been a new walk put down."

Courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library (Source)

The sign in front of the house a few doors down reads "Furniture and Piano Moving." That would be the home of furniture mover James Reardon at 218 14th Street. This is the area today:

The charming building in the photo was built in 1940 as a repair center for vehicles owned by the United States Postal Service, and it retains that function today.

The Burton Historical Collection also contains a photo from the same spot but facing north:

Courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library (Source)

The same view today:

This is a detail from an 1885 atlas of Detroit showing the houses that stood at the time. (The Bechstein House is highlighted in red.) Below that is a recent satellite photo of the area.

A Correction: John W. Geer

2011-02-19T00:42:00.000-05:00

In a previous post, I stated that a bricklayer named Joseph S. Greer rented the Bechstein house, where I live, in 1893. That is not correct. The city directory for that year states that "Geer, Joseph W., bricklayer" lived at 195 Wabash. Based on the first name and occupation, I assumed this was a Joseph Greer who appeared in a later census record. However, it was the first name that was incorrect--that right man is John W. Geer. I found this out from an old Detroit Free Press article about a sensational murder trial that occurred at the time Geer lived in my house.

* * * * *

On the evening of November 18, 1892, a twenty-year-old pharmacist named Fred H. Kelly went to work at J. W. Caldwell's drug store at the corner of Grand River Avenue and High Street (now the I-75 service drive). He would sleep in the store and be on call to fill prescriptions throughout the night. Early the next morning the door was found unlocked and Kelly was discovered in the basement, dead from a 32 caliber bullet to the back of the head.

242 Grand River Avenue circa 1910
Former site of J.W. Caldwell's Drug Store
Courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library

Detectives visited Frank L. Hayes, another young man who recently held the same position as Kelly but was fired for bringing his girlfriend with him on the night shift. He was also suspected in a robbery of the store immediately after his termination since he knew the combination to the safe, but was never charged. When the detectives interviewed Hayes, he had a packed suitcase that contained a coat, gloves, and revolver that belonged to the murder victim. He was later charged with the crime. He first claimed that the articles were his and that he hadn't been to Caldwell's drug store in weeks, but later changed his story to say that he had been there that evening and that Kelly had loaned him the items.

The following appeared in the Detroit Free Press' coverage of the murder trial the following June:

A SUSPICIOUS CHARACTER.
—————————
Testimony of Watchman John Geer.
John Geer, 195 Wabash avenue, a watchman for Eberts Bros., about a block from Caldwell's store. He remembered November 19.
"Did you see anyone pass Caldwell' drug store?"
"Several passed."
"Did anyone attract your attention?"
"Yes, sir."
"At what time?"
"At my 2 o'clock pull. A man came along in the vicinity of Caldwell' store, and when he saw me he quickened his steps. He crossed to the other side of the street, stood, and then walked quickly to Fourth street and stopped. His movements had made me suspicious, and I came outside to look after him. After standing at Fourth street he walked away. When I was making my 3 o'clock pull I had forgotten about the affair, and then I heard afterward of the murder."
"What did this man you saw look like?"
"He was about medium size, slight build, light overcoat and Derby hat."
"Did you ever see defendant, Hayes?"
"I saw him in Caldwell's store."
"What would you say as to Hayes being about the size of the man you saw?" asked Mr. Hunt.
"He resembled him very much in appearance and dress," aid the witness.
When this evidence was being given a pin might have been heard fall.
(Detroit Free Press, 16 Jun 1863)

Although the evidence was only circumstantial and no motive ever firmly established, Hayes was ultimately found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.

The building where Geer's employer was situated still stands today at 828 West Fisher Freeway and houses Senate Antiques. This is the vicinity mentioned in the testimony given above, as it appeared in 1885 and a recent satellite image:

The site of Eberts Bros. Roofing today (Source)

John W. Geer was born in Howell, Michigan in 1861. He enlisted with the U.S. Army in 1882 and served in the 1st Cavalry Regiment, Company L until 1887. Soon afterward he married a woman named Martha Stokes and moved to Corktown. They were 32 and 30, respectively, when they rented the Bechstein house in 1893. They had two children at the time: Edward William, age 4, and Susan Mary, born May 23, 1892.

Searching for Geer's name in the historical Free Press archives brings up other unusual stories, including this sad item under "Sayings and Doings" on July 26, 1892:

John M. [sic] Geer, watchman for Eberts Bros.' roofing works, High and Fourth streets, was obliged to shoot his own dog yesterday morning, the animal suddenly exhibiting violent hydrophobia.

Hydrophobia, of course, is a symptom of rabies, which has no cure.

Geer had several jobs over the years in addition to watchman and bricklayer, including gas fitter, bartender, and even restaurant owner. In June of 1905, these notices appeared in the Detroit Free Press:

(4 June 1905)

(9 June 1905)
I don't know whether Geer ever came back home after that. What I do know is that all of the subsequent records show his wife and children living without him. He later shows up in homes for disabled soldiers throughout the Midwest. One of his sons applied for a passport in 1920 and listed "Unknown" for his father's current location. But there must have been limited contact between them, however, since Geer correctly listed the current address of his wife in the papers for his 1924 stay in a home for disabled soldiers in Ohio. John Geer died in Hines, Illinois in 1939.

Tappan School

2011-02-12T00:17:00.000-05:00

Tappan School, n.w. corner of Vermont and Marantette Streets, c. 1882 (Source)
Courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library
By 1867, the worn out school building on 15th Street could no longer contain the growing student population of Detroit's Ninth Ward. In January of that year, the school board purchased four lots on the west side of Lafferty (now Vermont Street), north of Marantette, from Charles Lafferty for $300.00 each. Lafferty was the grandson of the founders of the Lafferty Farm, where the land was located.

Although some board members questioned whether the construction of such a "large" schoolhouse was warranted, it was decided that the new Ninth Ward School would be a three-story, twelve-room brick structure with a capacity for 800 students. The contract went to the lowest bidder, a company called Dean Brothers owned by James, Edward P. and Richard W. Dean. The building cost $23,915 to build, or over $360,000 in today's money. Soon after completion, it was named for Henry P. Tappan, a popular former President of the University of Michigan.

The surrounding neighborhood in 1885. The X marks the photographer's
approximate location. The Bechstein house is highlighted in red.
Despite the debates over the school's relatively large size, it was immediately filled to capacity when it opened for the school year in September 1868. In January of 1869, it was reported in the Detroit Free Press that, throughout the city, "1,414 children [who] applied for admission to the schools during the year...were excluded for the want of room" (21 Jan 1869).

Apparently there were concerns over the integrity of the structure. The Free Press reported:

Inspector Flanigan, from the Real Estate and Building Committee, reported the result of a visit to the new Ninth Ward school building, in accordance with suggestions made at the last meeting of the Board, in which it was suggested that rumors existed to the effect that the building was not safe, but in danger of failing. The examination made by the committee, accompanied by Mr. Alex Chapoton, revealed not the least sign of weakness or danger, or any settling of walls, or any portion of the building, but they are confident that it is perfectly safe, and that there is no cause for alarm. The teachers employed in the school also inform the committee that they have seen no reason to feel alarm or uneasiness in regard to the building. (2 Feb 1869)

However, later school documents noted, the building "was improved by placing iron columns between the floors of the first and second stories" in the summer of 1872 (Source).

Two additions were made to the original building, in 1886 and in 1902. In 1929, a new Tappan Intermediate School was opened at 11775 American Street. That one was closed in 1990 and demolished in 2001. Today the site of the first Tappan School is a vacant lot known as Muliett Park.

Image courtesy of Google Street View (Source)

Double Bridge

2011-02-05T00:00:00.000-05:00

In 1874, work began on a bridge that would allow traffic to safely cross Michigan Central Railroad on the western end of Corktown. "On account of its peculiar location," wrote Silas Farmer in The History of Detroit and Michigan, the bridge over Baker and Fifteenth Streets "is curiously constructed, and is, in fact, two bridges in one" (906).

Double Bridge over Baker and Fifteenth Streets, circa 1880
Courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library

The New York Times reproduced a detailed description of the bridge that originally appeared in the Detroit Post in July of 1874:

[T]he large gangs of hands at work, both upon the masonry and wood-work, indicate that their completion will be speedily accomplished. At the north side, on Fifteenth street, men are excavating for the foundations of ponderous stone abutments, and on the east side, Baker street, the massive hammered stones are under the hands of a score of stone-masons, being swung into position and cemented together to form the solid pile upon which the bridge is to rest for ages...

The Baker street bridge will be 304 feet in length, and the Fifteenth street bridge 336 feet. Each will be 41 feet in width, and 16 feet clear above the tracks. The carriage-way will be 29 feet in width, and on either side will be a sidewalk 6 feet wide for foot passengers...

Besides the massive stone abutments, the bridge will be supported by 120 wooden posts, 12 by 12 inches in size, four to each bent. (Source)

Click here to view the above photograph at full resolution. Examining the enlarged image in detail is the next best thing to having a window into Corktown of the 1880s.

Detail from photograph above
Courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library

The photographer was facing south-east when the photo was taken. The other bridge in the background is part of 14th Street.

Approximate view imposed over an 1885 atlas of the city.
The Bechstein House is highlighted in red.

It's not easy to obtain a photograph from the same view today. A similar position to the 1885 photographer could be the roof of the building at 17th and Newark Streets. Today there is only a bridge for Bagley Street, which is what Baker is now called. Below is a recent satellite image of the area.

The next photograph of the bridge was taken from the Baker Street segment of the bridge looking north along 15th Street.

Courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library

The church on the far left still stands at the corner of Rose and 17th Streets. The second church on the left was Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church at the corner of Pine and 17th Streets, which was attended by early inhabitants of the Bechstein house. The church was demolished in the 1960s to clear the way for Interstate 75.

It is also worth examining the full-resolution version of this image. Details of the bridge's construction described in the newspaper article above are easily visible:

Detail from photograph above. Note the wooden sidewalk on 15th Street.
Courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library

Approximate view imposed over an 1885 atlas of the city.
The Bechstein House is highlighted in red.

The photographer's perspective can be easily matched from the current Bagley Street bridge.

The Bechstein House Part V: 1935-Present

2011-01-29T00:00:00.001-05:00

William Sharkofsky
1935-1947(?)

After the Eiden family moved out of the Bechstein house, it was rented to a 49-year-old railroad engineer named William Sharkofsky. He was born on May 21, 1886 in Hamtramck, Michigan to Russian immigrants John Sharkofsky and Minnie Salmonkat Sharkofsky. He was employed by the Michigan Central Railroad around 1907. The 1910 Census noted that he worked as a fireman, which was the term once used for the engineers who controlled the fires in steam engines. He later rose to the position of conductor.

Michigan Central Rail Road yard, circa 1940. William Sharkofsky
was a conductor for MCRR when this photo was taken. (Source)

William Sharkofsky and his second wife, Lillian Persian Ruggles Sharkofsky, lived in the Bechstein house from 1935 until at least 1941, when both of their names were still listed in the city directory. They moved out at some point before the Eidens sold the house in 1948. It’s not known whether they or other renters lived there from 1942 to 1947 because city directories were not printed during World War II.

Sharkofsky retired from the railroad in 1952, having served for over forty-five years.* He died the following year, on May 19, 1953, at the age of 56. Lillian passed away October 22, 1958 at 62. They had no children.

_________________________________________________________
* New York Central System. "Monthly Roll Shows Recent NYC Retirements." Headlight 13.8 (1952): 15. Web. 6 Jan 2011. .

Arthur Woodham
1948-1982

Siblings Willard and Elizabeth Eiden sold the Bechstein house to Arthur Levern Woodham on March 24, 1948. Mr. Woodham was born in Ontario Township, New York on June 26, 1899 to Edward J. Woodham and Ella Izora House Woodham. As a young man he worked as a tool maker and a shoe maker.

It’s not known at what point prior to buying the house Woodham came to Detroit. The 1956 directory indicates that he lived at 1733 Wabash with his wife, Rose Marie, and brother, Lewis Elmer Woodham. It was also noted that Arthur worked at Timken Axle, a factory located on Clark Street south of Fort Street.

In May of 1953, Arthur Woodham used the Bechstein house as collateral for a court appearance bond for Joe Valdez Gonzales. Gonzales was charged with failing to submit to induction into the armed forces. He became a Jehovah’s Witness close to the time he registered for the draft and fought to be classified as a conscientious objector on religious grounds. The local draft board, however, classified him as available for military service. He was ordered to appear for induction in February of 1953. He showed up at the designated location but refused to be inducted and was then arrested. His defense team included attorney Hayden C. Covington, himself a Jehovah’s Witness who successfully defended many of his fellow adherents against draft evasion charges. (Later in life Covington would defend boxer Muhammad Ali against similar charges.) Gonzales was found guilty as charged in a federal district court in Detroit on September 22, 1953*. He appealed the case but lost in 1954**. Covington finally argued the case before the Supreme Court of the United States in 1955 and won***.

The 1958 Detroit city directory listed Rose Marie Woodham as the operator of Woodham’s Gift Shop at 1955 Bagley. It would have been on the south side of the road, between 12th Street and Vermont. This information was presumably collected for the directory in the previous year, as the couple divorced in late 1957. The next available directory (1964) indicated that Arthur had retired. There is no listing for Woodham’s Gift Shop in that volume.

Aerial view of 1700 block of Wabash Street in 1968.
The red X marks the roof of the Bechstein house.
Courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library

Rose Marie Woodham, who kept her ex-husband’s name and still lived in southwest Detroit, passed away on March 20, 1974 at the age of 65. Arthur’s brother Lewis passed away on June 18 of the same year at the age of 88. He still lived in the Bechstein house at the time of his death.

This photograph of the Bechstien house was taken in 1976 as part
of the Detroit/Urban Conservation Project. The home to the right,
also lived in by the Bechstein family, was demolished in 1977.

Arthur Woodham sold the house to Juan Jose and Delia C. Benavides for $1,400 on April 16, 1982. Just six days later, on April 22, Arthur died of cardiac arrhythmia. He was 82. On May 5 he was buried in Woodmere Cemetery, in the Ferndale section, block 30, space 40. His grave has no marker.

_________________________________________________________
*United States v. Gonzales, 120 F. Supp. 730 (U.S.D.C. E.D. Mich.)
**Gonzales v. United States, 212 F. 2d 71 (6th Cir.)
***Gonzales v. United States, 348 U.S. 407 (1955)

Juan Jose & Delia C. Benavides
1982-1985

Mr. and Mrs. Benavides were a young couple who rented out the Bechstein home for the brief time they owned it. They still live in southwest Detroit, but they did not reply to a letter seeking information.

Steven C. Flum
1985-2004

Corktown residents fought successfully to save their neighborhood from total destruction in the name of urban renewal in the 1950s and 1960s. In the late 1970s and 1980s, the area started to gain wider appreciation for its architectural and historic value. The segment of the neighborhood between Sixth Street and Rosa Parks Boulevard was designated a historic district on the National Register of Historic Places on July 31, 1978. There followed a wave of home rehabilitations by both longtime residents and newcomers attracted to the unique character of the neighborhood.

In 1985, one Corktown newcomer interested in historic preservation was 24-year-old Steven C. Flum, who had obtained his bachelor’s degree in architecture from Lawrence Technological University in Southfield, Michigan the previous year. On July 12, 1985, he purchased the Bechstein house from Juan Jose and Delia Benavides for $2,800. The home was in serious need of renovation. The roof, plumbing, heating, and electrical system all needed replacement. There were cosmetic problems as well--artificial wood paneling covered the walls and a drop ceiling had been installed. The brick chimney was beyond repair and had to be demolished. Flum spent the next several years bringing to house up to code.

The Bechstein house as it appeared in 1985.
Photo courtesy of Steven C. Flum

Looking into a bedroom from what was the kitchen in the original 1864 cottage.
Photo courtesy of Steven C. Flum

View inside "new" kitchen in the 1897 addition looking toward the back door.
Click here to see the same room as it appears today.
Photo courtesy of Steven C. Flum

In 1987, Flum purchased the vacant lot to the north, at 1739 Wabash. This was the other half of the original lot first purchased by Frederick Bechstein and sold by his heirs in 1904. Consuelo Villa and her daughters Ella and Irene sold the lot to Flum for $1,000 on November 21, 1987. Both halves of the lot were united under a single owner for the first time in almost 100 years.

Flum built a garage behind the house in the late 1980s that matches the roofline of the house. Measuring 18’ by 22’, it is only six feet shorter than the original cottage. A driveway was constructed on the former site of 1739 Wabash as the alley was impassable at the time.

Construction of the garage, circa 1988.
Photo courtesy of Steven C. Flum

The Bechstein house was featured on the second annual Historic Corktown Homes Tour on May 15, 1988.

The Bechstein house, lovingly restored, on the 1988 Historic Corktown Homes Tour.
Photo courtesy of Steven C. Flum

Photo courtesy of Steven C. Flum

Flum lived in the Bechstein house for nearly twenty years. In that time, he started his own architecture firm and designed several single- and multiple-family homes for Corktown with sensitivity to their architectural context. Examples include Homes at St. Anne (e.g., 1759 Wabash); Corktown Townhouses I, on the corner of Labrosse and Broolyn Streets, and Corktown Townhouses II, on Bagley between Brooklyn and 8th Streets, where he now resides. Flum has received many awards and recognitions for his work, including the distinction of Young Architect of the Year in 1998 by the Michigan chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

Mary C. Greenia
2004-2006

Maria Greenia purchased the home from Steve Flum on January 21, 2004. She needed to sell it only two years later, and I purchased it on July 25, 2006. There will be more about her in a future post.

Paul Szewczyk
2006-Present

I have made some improvements to the house since I bought it, but it is now apparent that the house needs a full renovation. The house is leaning backwards slightly, and the floor is warped and uneven. One of the beams has been damaged by termites and is sistered by additional joists, but this and many other repairs made to the foundation are not permanent solutions. Some day the house will be jacked up and resettled on steel I-beams and concrete piers. Such repairs often cause plaster to crack severely or fall off all together. It may be best to gut the house completely, but preserve the molding, interior doors, and other valuable details. The house has stood for nearly 150 years so far, and there is no reason it can't stand for 150 more if properly repaired.

The Bechstein House Part IV: 1897-1934--Lena Eiden

2011-01-22T00:30:00.001-05:00

1897 • On March 30, Henry Eiden applied for a permit to build a 22-foot wide by 12-foot deep addition onto the rear of 195 Wabash. The actual measurements of the addition turned out to be (approximately) 21 feet wide by 13 deep. The result was a new 13' by 14' kitchen, a 4' by 7' pantry, and a 7' by 10' room that is now a bathroom, although it hasn't been determined whether that was the room's original purpose. The baseboard trim in this room matches that of the house's original four rooms, perhaps indicating that the entire house was renovated. After existing as a rental home for over twenty years, such a makeover was probably necessary.

This Sanborn map from 1897 shows the addition made to the house.
Also shown on the property is a two-story barn adjacent to the alley.

Lena Eiden moved into 195 Wabash with her father, her husband, and their three children early enough that the address was listed as their residence in the 1897 city directory. It’s possible they moved in before work on the addition had even begun. Frederick Bechstein still owned 197 Wabash and began to rent it out.

Detail of 1900 Census showing the Eiden household at 195 Wabash Street. Occupations are
listed in the right hand column. It's indicated that Bechstein fathered 9 children, of whom
5 were living. Two of his children have not yet been identified and likely died in infancy.

Tuesday, December 22nd, 1903 • Two important events coincided on this day. At about 10:30 a.m., Frederick Bechstein passed away at home at the age of 78. His death certificate lists the cause of death as “sudden suspected complication of heart”. Also on this day, Lena gave birth to her fourth child, Elizabeth Ruth Eiden. Frederick Bechstein was laid to rest on Christmas Eve at Woodmere Cemetery in Section E, Lot B1, space 119. Like his wife, there is no marker on his grave.

Death certificate of Frederick Bechstein.

Frederick Bechstein left 197 Wabash to his children. They sold it to an Irish neighbor named Johanna Lamey for $900.00 the following April.

1907 • Lena gave birth to twins, Charlotte Henrietta and Willard Charles, on May 29.

c. 1910 • A second addition to the home was built around this time. Other changes have been made to the floor plan over the years, including the removal of the wall between the two front rooms to create a large living room at an unknown date.

Detail of 1910 Census.

1913 • Lena’s three youngest children—Elizabeth, Charlotte, and Willard—were baptized on November 27 at Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church on 17th Street.

1915 • Dorothy, now 24 and working as a telephone operator, married Emil Albert Ritter on November 6. Emil was a 23-year-old patternmaker born in Ohio to German immigrant parents. A few years later they had one daughter who currently lives in a Detroit suburb. She and her family are not interested in the research on their ancestors’ home.

1916 • Henry Jr., 23, married Selma Sobieck, a 19-year-old daughter of German immigrants, on June 17. Henry worked as a patternmaker in an auto plant. Selma moved in with Henry’s family before moving to Inglis Street at some point before 1919. They had one son who moved to California and passed away in 1980. None of his descendants (if any) have been identified.

Detail of 1920 Census.

1922 • A city directory lists Elizabeth, 19, as a clerk at the Detroit Public Library, one year after it opened at its current location at 5201 Woodward Avenue. A 1965 directory indicated that she still worked there. She never married.

The glass negative of this photo of Willard C. Eiden is kept in
the Burton Historical Collection of the Detroit Public Library.
Perhaps it was donated by his sister, a library employee.
Courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library

c. 1926 • Rose, 30, married Harry B. Dillman, a 26-year-old postal clerk from Iowa. Rose worked as a stenographer at The Detroit News before their marriage. They lived at 1733 Wabash briefly before moving to an apartment building on Fort Street. They had no children.

Detail from 1930 Census.

1932 • Charlotte passed away at age 24 on January 17. She was unmarried and still lived at home.

Headstone of Charlotte Henrietta Eiden at
Glen Eden Lutheran Memorial Park in Livonia, Michigan.

1934 • On July 25, Lena passed away at age 69. The family moved out of the house soon afterward. Henry moved in with his daughter Rose and her husband. Elizabeth moved in with her sister Dorothy's family. Willard, who never married, moved into an apartment on East Grand Boulevard. The probate court declared Lena Eiden’s home to to be the property of her children on May 23, 1938. Henry, Dorothy and Rose quitclaimed the house to Elizabeth and Willard, perhaps because they were the only unmarried siblings. They rented out the home until selling it in 1948.

Headstone of Magdalena Bechstein Eiden at
Glen Eden Lutheran Memorial Park in Livonia, Michigan.

Next Week:
The Bechstein House Part V: 1935-Present

The Bechstein House Part III: 1876-1896 -- The Renters of 195 13½ Street

2011-01-15T00:00:00.001-05:00

In the twenty-year period that the Bechstein house was rented, fourteen different heads of the household were listed at the address. These individuals give us an excellent cross-section of the working-class residents of Corktown in the late 19th century. They include native-born Americans as well as immigrants from Canada, Ireland, England and Germany. Below are the names, approximate ages, and occupations of the men, women and children who lived in the Bechstein house during this period. The information has been collected from city directories, the U.S. Federal Censuses, and other genealogical records.

1876

Head:	Cornelius Jesse Wain, 27, marine engineer, son of English immigrants
Wife:	Ellen Louise McGuire Wain, 23, Canadian immigrant
Son:	George Jesse Wain, 2
Son:	Henry Samuel Wain, born June 11, 1876

Henry Wain is one of three children born to different renters in the year which their parents are listed at this address. It's possible they were born in the Bechstein house, but this hasn't been confirmed.

1877

Head:

Henry Jones, hoopmaker (presumably for the manufacture of barrels)

Nothing else about this man is known.

1878

No information is known--the home was possibly vacant.

1879

Head:	Henry Ernst Bartz, 32, baker, German immigrant
Wife:	Elizabeth Maria Dambeek Bartz, 34, German immigrant
Daughter:	Ida Amalie Bartz, 5
Son:	Willie Bartz, 3
Daughter:	Hedwig Bartz, born May 11, 1879

Henry Bartz was employed by Frank Wittelsberger’s bakery, located at 317 Michigan Avenue, on the south side of the road between 5th and 6th Streets. The building, pictured below, was erected in 1876.

Bakery of Frank Wittelsberger, employer of Henry Bartz (Source)

1880-1882

Head:	Thomas J. Wilson, 26, cooper (barrel maker)
Wife:	Mary E. Wilson, 26, Canadian immigrant
Son:	Harry D. Wilson, 2

The records of the Wilsons’ child are inconsistent. The 1880 Census lists a son, Harry D. Wilson, age 2 (born approximately 1878). But there is also a birth record of a girl, Ada Wilson, born November 7, 1878 to Thomas and Mary Wilson. This second birth record indicates that the father was a blacksmith (as this Thomas Wilson was before) and that the mother was born in Canada (as this Mary Wilson was). The apparent contradiction has not yet been reconciled.

Detail from the 1880 Census shows the Bechsteins living at 197 13½
Street and the Wilsons living at 195. Members of the Calnon family,
at 191, would rent the Bechstein house for two years in the 1890s.

Thomas Wilson worked at J. F. Hasty & Sons, a barrel manufacturer located near 21st Street and the Michigan Central Rail Road tracks.

Advertisement for J. F. Hasty & Son from the 1887 Detroit City Directory

1883-1884

Head:	James D. Gritman, 30, clerk
Wife:	Mary E. Gleason Gritman, 29
Daughter:	Leila Gritman, 8
Daughter:	Alice Gritman, 6
Daughter:	Mamie Gritman, 4

At the time, James Gritman worked at H. P. Baldwin 2d & Co., a boot and shoe factory and wholesale store. It was located at 41-43 Woodward Avenue, within what is now Hart Plaza.

H. P. Baldwin & Co., employer of George Gritman
Courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library

1885

Head:	Julian A. Phelps, 35, driver for the Detroit City Railway
Wife:	Lenora Huntington Phelps, 21
Son:	Jesse M. Phelps, 3

Julian and Lenora Phelps were both from Vermont, where they married in 1881. They moved to Minnesota after living in Detroit for a few years.

The vicinity of the Bechstein house as shown in an 1885 atlas of the city (Source)

1886

Head:	Lyman W. Huntington, 55
Wife:	Mary Ann Hathorn Huntington, 58
Son:	George L. Huntington, 24, laborer
Son:	Henry Edward Huntington, 18, laborer
Daughter:	Laura Malinda Huntington, 12

Lyman and Mary Ann Huntington were the parents of Lenora Phelps, the woman who rented the home with her husband in 1885. Although the city directory does not list an occupation for Lyman Huntington, the 1880 census indicated that he was an upholsterer.

1887-1888

Head:	Isaac Johnson, 42, laborer, Canadian immigrant
Wife:	Mary Johnson, 43, Canadian immigrant

1889

The city directory lists two men at this address: John Reetz and Peter N. Myrand, a carpenter. No further details about these men are known.

1890

The directory indicates that the home was vacant.

1891

Head:	John Gasco, 25, switchman
Wife:	Susan Higins Gasco, 24, Canadian immigrant
Son:	John Gasco Jr., born July 11, 1891

1892

Head:	George F. Duff, 30, shipping clerk, Canadian immigrant
Wife:	Nellie E. Sidebottom Duff, 29, nurse, English immigrant
Son:	George F. Duff Jr., 6
Daughter:	Gracey D. Duff, 5
Son:	Richard Duff, 4

The 1900 Census indicated that Nellie was a nurse, and her 1914 death certificate indicated that she was a clerk in a department store. George F. Duff Sr. was employed by James Walker & Son, a manufacturer of plumbing supplies.

James Walker & Son, employer or George F. Duff (Source)

1893

Head:	~~Joseph Samuel Greer, 37, bricklayer~~
Wife:	~~Mary Jane Haney Greer, 33~~
Son:	~~Stanley Collis Greer, 9~~
Son:	~~Earl M. Greer, 6~~
Daughter:	~~Luella Greer, 5~~
Daughter:	~~Elvia Greer, 2~~

~~The entire Greer family had emigrated from Canada earlier that same year.~~

CORRECTION: I had the wrong family for this year, as explained in this entry.

1894-1895

Head:	Bridget A. O'Day Calnon, 50, Irish immigrant
Son:	Joseph A. Calnon, 21, plumber
Son:	Daniel L. Calnon, 18, plumber

Bridget's husband Giles passed away in 1887. The Calnon family lived next door to the Bechstein house at 191 (1729) Wabash for 24 years, from 1868 to 1892. After that, they moved frequently but always stayed within the neighborhood.

1896

Head:	Rose Hall Parkins, 39
Daughter:	Maud Parkins, 18
Daughter:	Stella Parkins, 3
Brother:	George W. Hall, 43, painter

Rose Parkins’ husband George died sometime around 1894. Her brothers--George, James and Frank--comprised Hall Brothers, a painting and interior decorating company located on Beech Street.

Next week:
The Bechstein House Part IV: 1897-1934--Lena Eiden

The Bechstein House Part II: 1865-1875 -- Frederick Bechstein

2011-01-08T00:02:00.005-05:00

The advertisement above announces an auction of building lots which were once part of the Godfroy Farm. The auction was held at Michigan Avenue and 14th Street, which was then called Godfroy Avenue. The first owner of my house, Frederick Bechstein, attended the auction, where he purchased lot number 92 (where the house now stands) for $190.00. The following is a sketch of his life up until the time he moved out of the home.

Frederick Bechstein was born on February 6, 1825 to Friedrich Bechstein and Mary Gottlob in the village of Pfaffenhofen in Württemberg, a kingdom that is now part of Germany. Germans had already been coming to the United States in large numbers by the time he was born, and the wave of immigrants further increased after the failed European political revolutions of 1848. Revolutionaries in the German states desired a liberal, democratic government and the unification of one German nation. Although we can't be certain if Bechstein left his homeland as a direct result of the unsuccessful revolution, we do know that in 1849 he applied for permission to leave Württemberg, listing New York as his destination. Bechstein is listed among the passengers of the ship Seine, which sailed from Le Havre, France and landed at the port of New York on September 17, 1849. He indicated that he was a farmer and listed Germany as his country of origin.

It appears that Bechstein returned to Württemberg and then applied for permission to emigrate a second time in 1852. He sailed from Le Havre on the ship Splendid and arrived at New York on August 17 of that year. He listed his occupation this time as carpenter, and his country of origin as Württemberg.

Bechstein came to Detroit soon after his second voyage and married Katharina Margaretta Denk on December 19, 1852 at Trinity Lutheran Church. An 1855 city directory lists "Beckslin [sic], Frederick, carp." at 41 Baker (now Bagley). This house would have been on the south side of Baker in Corktown, just west of Brooklyn Street. An 1864 city directory specified that the home was rented, and that at it was located at the rear of 39 Baker, on the alley between Baker and Labrosse. Although German immigrants in Detroit had primarily settled on the east side south of Gratiot Avenue, working-class Germans began to populate Corktown by the 1850s.

The Bechsteins had at least five children who survived infancy when they lived on Baker Street:

William, born March 17, 1855
Christopher, born c. 1856
Elizabeth, born February 10, 1858
Frederick Jr., born January 1863
Magdalena, born October 26, 1864

Magdalena was baptized at Trinity Lutheran Church on December 4, 1864 as Eva Magdalene. She would one day own the Bechstein house and raise her children there.

As mentioned before, Frederick Bechstein purchased a plot of land on the former Godfroy farm measuring 50' by 141.18' on April 11, 1864. A home was built on the south half of the lot in enough time to be listed as Bechstein's residence in the 1865 city directory. Being a carpenter, it's possible he built the house himself. However, since building permits were not required at the time, there is no known record of exactly when and by whom the house was built.

This entry in the 1865 city directory is the
first known reference to the house's existence.

The address of this property would change several times over the years. The road was originally named Peter Street, after Peter Godfroy. Early directories didn’t even list a house number, only the street name. Peter Street changed to 13½ Street on April 25, 1868 (Farmer 950). An 1869 city directory was the first to reference a house number--195. The name of the street would change again to Wabash on July 3, 1882 (ibid.). On January 1, 1921, Detroit adopted an entirely new address numbering system. From that point on the address was 1733 Wabash, and has remained ever since.

The original home was a four-room cottage measuring just 18 feet wide by 28 feet deep. There were two bedrooms measuring about 7 by 14 feet, a living area about 11 by 14 feet, and a kitchen of the same size. The entrance was on the side of the house into the kitchen. There was a chimney at the back of the house which vented smoke from the kitchen stove. No addition was made to the house for over thirty years.

After moving into their new home, Frederick and Margaret Bechstein would give birth to at least two more children:

Margaretha Wilhelmine, born September 7, 1866
Catherine, born October 1869

Margaretha Wilhelmine--who went by "Mena"--was baptized on September 1, 1867 at Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, then located on the east side of Trumbull north of Michigan Avenue. This branch of Trinity Lutheran Church was the first Lutheran congregation in the city west of Woodward Avenue. It grew out of a German Lutheran school district founded in 1863 by parents whose children had to walk over a mile and a half across town to Trinity Lutheran School (Erickson 19). The church itself was dedicated on November 5, 1865, and used until a larger brick structure was built at 17th and Pine Streets in 1873.

The Bechsteins attended Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church in the 1860s.
Courtesy of the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library.

Shortly after the birth of their daughter Catherine, the Bechsteins lost their fourteen-year-old son, William. He died of remittent fever on November 1, 1869, and was buried two days later at Elmwood Cemetery. His death is also documented in the records of Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church.

Detail from the 1870 Census showing the Bechstein family living at 195 13½ Street.
Columns indicate name, age, gender, race, occupation, home value, and place of birth.

Around 1876, the Bechstein family moved to a new house built on the north half of their lot, at 197 13½ Street, and rented out their old home. As with the first home, building permits were still not yet required and it's uncertain whether Frederick Bechstein built it himself. The family would live in this new home for 21 years.

While the Bechstein family lived at 197 13½ Street, the following events occurred:

1876 • Elizabeth, 18, died of tuberculosis on March 15.

1883 • Frederick Bechstein's wife, Margaret, died from heart disease on April 4 at the age of 57. She was buried at Woodmere Cemetery two days later in Section A, Lot 174, space number 13. There is no marker on her grave.

1886 • Mina, 19, married Andrew Eiden, 24, a carpenter and a son of German immigrants, on June 6. The directory for the following year indicates that they moved to a home on 17th Street. They went on to have fourteen children, only eight of whom survived infancy.

1888 • On January 12, Frederick Jr., 25, was wed to Esther A. Peacock, a widow of the same age. Esther, whose maiden name was Longley, was born in Canada to English immigrants. The 1888 directory indicated that Frederick was a switchman and that he had moved to 25th Street. They later had a son and adopted two girls. It was noted in the 1880 Census that one of Frederick Jr.'s legs had been amputated.

1889 • Lena, 24, married Henry Eiden, 29, on August 15. Henry was the brother of Andrew Eiden, Mina's husband. Henry worked at various times as a railroad foreman and as a "lather"--one who installed wooden lath boards to which plaster was applied. Henry and Lena did not move to a place of their own but stayed with Mr. Bechstein. While living at this address, they had three children:

Dorothy, born December 16, 1890
Henry S., born September 19, 1892
Rose M., born October 20, 1896

1889 • The city directory lists "Miss Catherine Beckstein" as a domestic servant at 425 16th Street, the home of machine manufacturer George Mead. On September 28, Catherine married August Yach who, like Lena and Mena’s husbands, was a carpenter and the son of German immigrants. Catherine and August moved to Williams Street after marriage. They had at least five children before August died from heart disease in 1901 at the age of 31. Catherine married Andrew Laskowsky, yet another son of German immigrants, the following year. By 1910, Catherine was staying with relatives on Williams Street and Andrew was living at the Wayne County Poor House (also known as the Eloise Asylum), where he died from alcoholism four years later.

1891 • Frederick Bechstein sold 195 Wabash to his daughter Lena for "one dollar and other valuable consideration"--i.e., it wasn't necessary to include the purchase price on the warranty deed, or he simply gave her the house. Lena continued to rent it out until 1896.

Next week:
The Bechstein House Part III: 1876-1896 -- The Renters of 195 13½ Street

References:
•Erickson, Robert. History of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Detroit and Vicinity. Detroit: S. N., 1919.
•Farmer, Silas. The History of Detroit and Michigan: Or, The Metropolis Illustrated. Detroit: Silas Farmer and Co., 1884.

The Bechstein House Part I: 1750-1864 -- The Cicotte Farm

2011-01-01T00:00:00.001-05:00

The Frederick Bechstein House
1733 Wabash Street, Detroit

This is the house I live in. It was built at the end of the Civil War, and two additions have been built since. I've been learning as much as I can about its history since I moved in, and learning how to find this information as I go. The first several posts in this blog will cover pretty much everything I know about it. This week's post covers the history of the land on which it was built.

* * * * *

When Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founded Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit in 1701, he was permitted to grant land concessions to other settlers in the name of the King of France. After he was relieved of command of the settlement in 1711, it was not clear whether subsequent commandants had the same authority. King Louis XV settled the matter by a decree dated May 19, 1722 which authorized the Governor General and Intendant of New France to make land concessions at Detroit (Farmer 18). The grantees were required to settle and occupy the land within one year, maintain fences and roads, and pay annual fees based on the amount of land granted to them, among other conditions (Campbell 91).

On April 1, 1750, Governor General Jacques-Pierre de la Jonquière and Intendant François Bigot granted a portion of land to Zacharie Cicotte (Farmer 20). Cicotte was a French Canadian merchant who came to Detroit in 1730 at the age of 22. Six years later he married Marie Angelique Godfroy, who was born in Detroit in 1720. The land granted to him was located on the Detroit River west of the settlement and measured three by forty arpents—about 576 feet wide by 1.5 miles long. It was among the narrow ribbon farms established on the river according to French tradition. The east border of the farm is now Wabash Street, and the west border of the farm coincides with the alley between 14th and 15th Streets. Zacharie and Angelique Cicotte settled on the land and would spend the rest of their lives there (Askin 36).

The original outline of the Cicotte Farm.

After Detroit fell to the British during the French and Indian War, Zacharie Cicotte was among the French Canadian settlers who attended a council with Chief Pontiac on July 2, 1763 in a conspiracy to expel the English. Although Cicotte resented the British, he told Pontiac that he and the others at the council were unable to help them on account of their wives and children, but that there were 300 young men without families at the settlement who would probably join him (Moore 656). Pontiac’s siege of Detroit was ultimately unsuccessful. Zacharie died in 1775, and Angelique in 1791. The farm was later inhabited by one of their sons, Jean Baptiste Cicotte, born 1749. He married Angelique Poupart Lavoise in 1770 (Hamlin 286).

Following the Revolutionary War, Britain surrendered Detroit to the United States according to the provisions of the Jay Treaty in 1796. The U. S. Congress opened a land office in Detroit to legally establish private claims in 1804. Angelique Cicotte (widow of Jean Baptiste) applied for a land patent for the Cicotte Farm, which was confirmed on December 24, 1810 (Farmer 986). The land office designated it Private Claim No. 726.

Detail from the U. S. government's original survey of Detroit, c. 1818. (Source)Private Claim No. 726 is indicated by the X.

On November 5, 1819, Joseph Cicotte—a son of Jean Baptiste and Angelique Cicotte—sold the farm to Peter Godfroy (Burton 1371), his second cousin. Marie Angelique Godfroy, the wife of the original land owner Zacharie Cicotte, was the sister of Peter Godfroy’s grandfather, Jacques Godfroy III.

Peter Godfroy, a fur trader, was born in Detroit in 1797 and married Marianne Navarre Marantette in 1824. Before their marriage, legend has it, Godfroy once crossed the Detroit River in a wheelbarrow in order to visit his young fiancée (Hamlin 302). He served for several terms as supervisor of Springwells Township, where his land was located when Detroit only extended as far as Brooklyn Street. Peter Godfroy lived on his farm until his death in 1848.

Marianne Marantette Godfroy (Hall 27)

On February 5, 1857, Detroit annexed a portion of Springwells, expanding its western border from Brooklyn Street all the way to 25th Street (Burton 344). As the old farms along the river became incorporated into the city, the booming demand for land and high city taxes all but forced their owners to divide the farms into lots and sell them off (Hall 96). Peter Godfroy's widow, Marianne, began to sell the farm in stages around this time. In 1864, the portion between Porter Street and Michigan Avenue was surveyed into lots, blocks, streets and alleys by civil engineer John F. Munro. (Source)

The 133 lots were sold at public auction on April 11, 1864. Lot number 92 was purchased for $190.00 by a German carpenter named Frederick Bechstein.

Next Week:
The Bechstein House Part II: 1865-1875--Frederick Bechstein

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Bibliography

Askin, John. The John Askin Papers. Detroit: Detroit Library Commission. 1931. Print.

Burton, Clarence. The City of Detroit Michigan 1701-1922. Volume II. Detroit: S. J. Clarke Publishing, 1922. Print.

Campbell, James. Outlines of the Political History of Michigan. Detroit: Schober & Co., 1876. Print.

Farmer, Silas. The History of Detroit and Michigan: Or, The Metropolis Illustrated. Detroit: Silas Farmer & Co., 1884. Print.

Hall, Theodore. Family Records of Theodore Parsons Hall and Alexandrine Louise Godfroy, of "Tonnancour," Grosse Pointe, near Detroit, Michigan. Detroit: Wm. C Heathy Printing Co., 1892. Print.

Hamlin, Marie. Legends of Le Détroit. Second Edition. Detroit: Thorndike Nourse, 1884. Print.

Michigan. Godfroy, Peter Farm, Being Part of P.C. 726 South of Chicago Road, Plat of Subdivision of Part of., 1864. Web. 31 Dec 2010. <http://www.dleg.state.mi.us/platmaps/dt_image.asp?BCC_SUBINDEX=11403>.

Moore, Charles. The Gladwin Manuscripts: With an Introduction and a Sketch of the Conspiracy of Pontiac. Lansing:
Robert Smith Printing Co., 1897. Print.

Corktown History

The O'Donnell House - 89 (1545) Leverette

The Builder

The Occupants* * * * *John E. & Elizabeth O'Donnell1881-1888

Short-Term Renters1889-1906

William & Margaret Everingham1907-1924

Henry & Mary Greenwood1925-1932

Manuel & Conception Tapia1933-1936

Joseph A. & Willa Fontana1937-1956?

Ray J. & Mildred H. Shaffer1957?-1982

Jacqueline Jessie Shaffer1982-2004

Edward & Michelle Potas2004

Jason Nardoni2005-Present

The First Zoo Part II: The Detroit Zoological Garden

A Human Exhibit

Additions to the Menagerie and Promotional Schemes

The End of the Zoo

Adaptive Reuse

The First Zoo Part I: The Circus Myth

"W. C. Coup's New United Monster Shows"

The Auction

The Real Cost of a Menagerie

A Call for Old Corktown Photographs

www.flickr.com/photos/corktownhistory

Buried Treasure

287 Twelfth Street

The Foundry

The House Today

Cymbre Apartments

Butterfield & Butterfield

Albert S. Pratt

First Occupants

1763 Vermont Part II: 1946-Present

243 13th / 1763 Vermont Part I: 1884-1943

1884-1886

1887-1888

1889-1891

1892-1896 - Elizabeth Till

1897-1904

1905

1906-1907

1908

1909-1910

1911-1912

1913-1914

1915-1918

1919-1924

1925

1926-1927

1928

1929 (Vacant)

1930

1931 (Vacant)

1932

1936

1936-1943

The Automobile and the City

The Benjamin Franklin School

Carhartt

What happened to Jackson C. Waite?

The Hugh Finlay Duplex

Horace Forsdick

Construction

The Harker Family

The Waite Family

1941-Present

The Joseph Buchanan House -- 1778 (214) Wabash Street

James F. Buchanan1884-1900

Pauline C. Ball1900-1901

Samuel and Clarissa Kingsley1901-1919

James and Mary Taylor1919-1922

Nellie B. McNurney1922-1959

1945-Present

Corktown HistoricalHome & Garden Tour

Sunday, June 5, 2011Noon Until 5:00 pm

$12.00 advance purchase$15.00 day of the tourPlease call (313) 961-9193 for details

1416 to 1434 Michigan Avenue

Sixth Street and Baker

The Kingston House Part III: 1900-Present

Corktown HistoricalHome & Garden Tour

The Occupants

* * * * *

John E. & Elizabeth O'Donnell
1881-1888

Short-Term Renters
1889-1906

William & Margaret Everingham
1907-1924

Henry & Mary Greenwood
1925-1932

Manuel & Conception Tapia
1933-1936

Joseph A. & Willa Fontana
1937-1956?

Ray J. & Mildred H. Shaffer
1957?-1982

Jacqueline Jessie Shaffer
1982-2004

Edward & Michelle Potas
2004

Jason Nardoni
2005-Present

James F. Buchanan
1884-1900

Pauline C. Ball
1900-1901

Samuel and Clarissa Kingsley
1901-1919

James and Mary Taylor
1919-1922

Nellie B. McNurney
1922-1959

Corktown Historical
Home & Garden Tour

Sunday, June 5, 2011
Noon Until 5:00 pm

$12.00 advance purchase
$15.00 day of the tour
Please call (313) 961-9193 for details

Corktown Historical
Home & Garden Tour

Sunday, June 5, 2011
Noon Until 5:00 pm

$12.00 advance purchase
$15.00 day of the tour
Please call (313) 961-9193 for details

William Sharkofsky
1935-1947(?)

Arthur Woodham
1948-1982

Juan Jose & Delia C. Benavides
1982-1985

Steven C. Flum
1985-2004

Mary C. Greenia
2004-2006

Paul Szewczyk
2006-Present