At the end of the War of 1812, Congress authorized bounty lands to be awarded to soldiers, to compensate them for their service. Each man would get 160 acres in the Old Northwest Territory, which included present day Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin and a portion of Minnesota.
To do this, they first needed to survey the land to determine its agricultural qualities. In 1815, Ohio native Edward Tiffin, the U.S Surveyor General, visited the Michigan Territory and reported on November 30, 1816 to the Secretary of War that “there would not be more than one acre out of a hundred if there would be one out of a thousand would … admit of cultivation. … It was unsafe for men or pack mules, the ground sinking at every step and shaking for several feet around, having indications of being over a vast underground lake covered by a thin crust though which a man or mule might easily break and be lost.
“ … The intermediate space between the swamps and lakes, which is probably nearly one half of the country, is, with a very few exceptions, a poor, barren, sandy land, on which scarcely any vegetation grows, except very small scrubby oaks. … The abandonment of colonization is urged as being dangerous and unnecessary.”
It is likely that Tiffin and his team of surveyors saw very little of Michigan.
As a result of the Tiffin report, President Madison recommended to Congress that, since the lands in Michigan were covered with swamps and unfit for farming, only a small proportion could be applied to the intended grants, and that other lands should be designated to take the place of Michigan’s portion. Accordingly, three-fourths of that amount was ordered to be surveyed in Illinois.
School geographies and guide books reportedly contained maps with the words “Interminable Swamp” across the interior of Michigan.
As a result of Tiffin’s report, the settlement of Michigan was delayed for a number of years.
Territorial Governor Lewis Cass tried to counteract the bad publicity by saying that Tiffin’s report “grossly misrepresented” the territory’s land and lobbied Congress for a new survey of the land between Detroit and Chicago as a matter of national security.
Many articles on successful farming ran in the Detroit Gazette, an early newspaper founded in 1817, and were reprinted in New York papers. Other countering influences were letters from successful pioneers published in eastern papers, reports made by settlers revisiting their old homes in the East, and the circulars of land speculators.
By about 1825 the effects of the Tiffin report in the East began to wane. That year was marked by the appearance of John Farmer’s maps and gazetteers of Michigan, published in Detroit. Farmer’s maps were considered essential tools for emigrants and by 1830 had reached a high demand in eastern cities.
For the rest of the story, see Bill Loomis, “How one bad review delayed the settlement of Michigan“, Detroit News Blog, June 3, 2012.
John Farmer, Mapmaker, 1798-1859 courtesy of the Michigan State University Map Library.
Created by Michigan Public Act Number 155, and originally called the Northern Michigan Asylum for the Insane, the Traverse City mental health institution had a total of five names in its one hundred plus year history. Medical advances during the institution’s existence made the treatment of patients more humane as time went on, but early treatment was anything but gentle. Opium and morphine therapy, in addition to insulin shock, induced metrazol shock, lobotomies, and the infamous electroshock therapy were used to treat patients with illnesses ranging from typhoid to polio to shell shock. When the hospital closed in 1989, patients with continuing mental health problems were turned loose and ended up homeless, in jail, or in inadequate private care. Some even tried to return to the abandoned hospital, which they referred to as “home.”
Sources :
“Michigan Historical Calendar“, courtesy of the Clarke Historical Library at Central Michigan University.
Northern Michigan Asylum : a history of the Traverse City State Hospital / William A. Decker. Traverse City, Mich. : Arbutus Press, [2010]
Reid Stout, Born November 30, 1911, Died June 1, 1986
A near-accident was the inspiration for the invention of the school bus safety mirror. These mirrors help the bus drivers see the blind spots, and avoid hitting children that may be unseen in front of the bus.
Via the Toledo Blade, it all began with Reid Stout. Reid was not just the school principal, he was also a part-time bus driver. It was in the late 1940s and Reid was driving the bus, dropping kids off after school. A nine-year-old girl who had gotten off the bus accidently dropped her belongings…..in front of the bus. As she kneeled down to pick them up, Reid was about to put the bus in gear and move forward. The little girl was so far below the bus hood that she was completely hidden from view. The other students saw what was happening and began shouting and screaming to Reid to stop. He stopped, got out, went around to the front of the bus and saw the girl, still kneeling, picking up her things.
It was something that Reid could not get out of his mind, thinking about what might have happened if the alert students hadn’t yelled at him. Months later, he came up with the idea for a safety mirror after spotting an outdoor metallic gazing ball. He made a makeshift version and took it to a mirror plating firm that made about a dozen. In 1950, all Bedford Township buses had these mirrors installed.
More districts found out about the invention, but unfortunately it took a tragic accident to get the state legislature to make the mirrors mandatory. After a six-year-old girl was killed by a bus in Center Line, Michigan, Reid demonstrated his invention to education officials in Lansing. Impressed, they put it through, making the safety mirrors a necessity for all school buses.
Reid Stout passed away in 1986.
In October 2009, a marker was finally erected in Lambertville noting his historic achievement.
Source : Paul Robinson, : “ The School Bus Safety Mirror Was Invented in This Michigan Town “, 99.1 WFMK Blog, April 29, 2021.
The City of Bangor was built in 1896 at Bay City, Michigan, converted to an automobile carrier in 1926, and the same year in November was wrecked on Lake Superior during a brutal winter storm. Library of Congress photo.
The rest of the story:
On November 30, 1926, the steel steamer City of Bangor, with a crew of 29, was heading for Duluth from Detroit loaded with over 248 new cars worth approximately $250,000 (2019 value about $3.6 million)—mostly Chryslers, some Whippets—when she was caught in a blizzard and heavy gale around Eagle River on Lake Superior.
In a desperate situation, Captain William J. Mackin decided to seek shelter on the lee side of Keweenaw Peninsula. According to newspaper reports, water was already sweeping across the decks when her steam steering gear failed, just before rounding the Keweenaw Point.
Then, at 6:10 p.m. about two miles west from the Point and six miles east of Copper Harbor, the City of Bangor was driven broadside on the rocky shore. The pounding waves breached the ship’s hull, and the freezing water rushed in, shutting down her engines. It didn’t take long for the City of Bangor to become a ship enveloped in ice.
In the freezing cold and pitch dark, the crew used a lifeboat to get ashore and wandered around in the woods (snow was four feet deep, with 14-foot drifts in places), looking for shelter. Finding none, they built a bonfire to keep warm. They had no food, no heavy clothing or boots, and no way to send out a call for help.
But luck was on their side. By chance, another ship—the 286-foot-long Timothy Maytham—that had been stranded by the same storm nearby on the rocks, set in motion Bangor crew’s rescue a few days later. As the story goes, Captain Anthony “Tony” Glaza and the cutter from the Eagle Harbor Coast Guard rescued the crew from the Maytham and were on their way to Copper Harbor when they spotted the abandoned ice-covered City of Bangor on the rocks; about an hour later, Bangor’s bedraggled crew was sighted walking on the beach. Captain Glaza shouted out he’d be back to pick them up that night. And he did, bringing them to the Eagle Harbor base. Nine men were suffering from frozen limbs, and the others from frostbite and exposure; they all survived. ( According to locals, some of the crew members, who’d ended up hospitalized after their ordeal, were so taken with their nurses that they never left the area.)
But it’s the load of 248 Chryslers and a half-dozen Toledo-made Willys-Overland Whippets on board for the trip to Duluth that took a rescue story and turned it into something else. Walter Chrysler, after all, wasn’t content to just leave that load of gleaming new Chryslers along the frozen shoreline.
The Chryslers were “entry-level” 1927 model 50s, which were being advertised for $750 for the coupe or $830 for the sedan (the Whippets would have sold for less, according to the book.
According to an article in the Green Bay Press Gazette on February 3, 1927, a Duluth firm was given the salvage contract for the cars, with operations to begin as soon as the ice had frozen solid around the ship. Until then, the Gazette reported, “The Duluth firm keeps a watchman in a shanty in the woods….He is at watch day and night to see that no further harm comes to the cargo of the City of Bangor.”
Eventually salvors returned to the Bangor, built an ice ramp to the ship’s hold for the cars to be driven off the ship from the lower deck. No easy job as the decks were reported to be covered with ice 10 feet thick and each car had to be chopped out of solid ice. Once hewn out, the cars, which were mostly in good condition, were carefully driven eight miles on the lake ice along the shore to Copper Harbor.
Not all the cars were saved. Approximately 18 were swept overboard from the upper deck during the wreck.
Photo of rescued cars from the City of Bangor lined up in Copper Harbor, Michigan courtesy of Keweenaw County Historical Society.
It would take another month for the road to Calumet to be cleared so the cars could be transported by train back to the Detroit area, refurbished, and sold again. Many locals, including some underaged and who skipped school to do so, were hired to drive the cars.
One of the ship’s 1926 Chryslers is now an exhibit at the Eagle Harbor Lighthouse and Museum.
The City of Bangor shipwreck was a total loss. In 1929, salvors cut her down to the waterline and in 1942, the remaining underwater portion was scrapped on site. Today, the City of Bangor shipwreck site is part of the Keweenaw Underwater Preserve and can be visited by scuba divers. The Thomas Maytham, built in 1892, was released from grounding by tug Favorite, went back in service and in 1942 was given to Great Britain; on June 18, 1942, as part of the Canadian Merchant Navy while enroute from Corpus Christi, Texas to Cristobal, she was torpedoed by German Sub U-172 and sank.
Larry Jorgenson has written a book about the event and aftermath called “Shipwrecked and Rescued: Cars and Crew”, 2022, $22).
Sources :
Elle Andra-Warner, “City of Bangor Shipwreck”, Northern Wilds, August 2, 2019.
Eric D. Lawrence, “Hundreds of Chryslers were saved from 1920s shipwreck in Michigan’s U.P.”, Detroit Free Press, December 21, 2022.
On November 30, 1932, Detroit Police raided the Oasis Club, a blind pig located near the Detroit City College campus (now Wayne State University).
Source : Detroit Historical Society
For more information about Prohibition, see Philip P. Mason, Rumrunning and the roaring twenties : prohibition on the Michigan-Ontario Waterway, Wayne State University Press, 1996.
Also see Kathy Warnes, “The Gray Ghost Haunted the Detroit River During Prohibition”, Definitely Downriver, June 2012.
On November 30, 1961, Hedwig Diane Orlowkski, a 1st Lieutenant and member of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps, was killed in Vietnam, the only Michigan woman killed in the conflict. 7 other female nurses also sacrificed their lives during the war. 56 other female civilians were also killed. Orlowski is buried in Olivet Cemetary in Detroit. She was awarded a Bronze Star posthumously.
Source: Christina Hall, “Couples Crusade : Find graves of the 2,654 Michigan Soldiers killed in Vietnam War”, Detroit Free Press, May 26, 2013.
Recall fever swept the legislature in 1983 after it went along with newly elected Gov. James Blanchard’s call for a 38-percent increase in the state income tax. Only one Republican — Sen. Harry DeMaso of Battle Creek — voted for the controversial measure.
Numerous recall efforts were launched against lawmakers who voted for the tax hike. Two were successful.
On November 22, 1983, Sen. Phil Mastin (D-Pontiac) was recalled by voters in his district. Eight days later, Sen. David Serotkin (D-Mt. Clemens) met the same fate. Both men had been in office for less than a year and had won by the narrowest of margins.
They would be replaced by Republicans, switching Senate control to the GOP — a majority it has not relinquished. It also elevated John Engler to Senate majority leader, where he laid the groundwork to unseat heavily favored Gov. Blanchard in 1990.
Sources :
Charlie Cain, “Reporters Notes”, Dome, July 16, 2009.
A 15-year-old boy killed four fellow students and injured more at a Michigan high school. Copycats called in and threatened shootings at other high schools in the days that followed.
Source : Corey Williams and Ed White, “Michigan teen charged in Oxford High School shooting”, ABC News, December 1, 2021.
On December 1, 1866, the Michigan Soldiers Home was opened in Grand Rapids for veterans of the Mexican War, Civil War and Spanish-American War who were disabled by disease or wounds and were incapable of earning a living. Space was provided for mothers, wives and widows of veterans. Now known as the Michigan Home for Veterans.
Source : Official Blog of the Michigan House Democrats, December 1, 2014.
On December 1, 1913, Henry Ford installs the first moving assembly line for the mass production of an entire automobile. His innovation reduced the time it took to build a car from more than 12 hours to two hours and 30 minutes.Ford’s Model T, introduced in 1908, was simple, sturdy and relatively inexpensive–but not inexpensive enough for Ford, who was determined to build “motor car[s] for the great multitude.” (“When I’m through,” he said, “about everybody will have one.”) In order to lower the price of his cars, Ford figured, he would just have to find a way to build them more efficiently.
Ford had been trying to increase his factories’ productivity for years. The workers who built his Model N cars (the Model T’s predecessor) arranged the parts in a row on the floor, put the under-construction auto on skids and dragged it down the line as they worked. Later, the streamlining process grew more sophisticated. Ford broke the Model T’s assembly into 84 discrete steps, for example, and trained each of his workers to do just one. He also hired motion-study expert Frederick Taylor to make those jobs even more efficient. Meanwhile, he built machines that could stamp out parts automatically (and much more quickly than even the fastest human worker could).
The most significant piece of Ford’s efficiency crusade was the assembly line. Inspired by the continuous-flow production methods used by flour mills, breweries, canneries and industrial bakeries, along with the disassembly of animal carcasses in Chicago’s meat-packing plants, Ford installed moving lines for bits and pieces of the manufacturing process: For instance, workers built motors and transmissions on rope-and-pulley–powered conveyor belts. In December 1913, he unveiled the pièce de résistance: the moving-chassis assembly line.
In February 1914, he added a mechanized belt that chugged along at a speed of six feet per minute. As the pace accelerated, Ford produced more and more cars, and on June 4, 1924, the 10-millionth Model T rolled off the Highland Park assembly line. Though the Model T did not last much longer–by the middle of the 1920s, customers wanted a car that was inexpensive and had all the bells and whistles that the Model T scorned–it had ushered in the era of the automobile for everyone.
Source : This Day in History from History.com
The Assembly Line and the $5 Day – Background Reading courtesy of the Michigan Historical Museum and still available thanks to the Internet Archive..