In revenge for an earlier attack on the Spanish Post of St. Louis, a Spanish force captured the British Fort St. Joseph (present Niles, Michigan) and raised Spain’s flag over Michigan on February 12, 1781 during the American War for Independence.
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The Spaniards’ one-day occupation of Fort St. Joseph allowed Niles residents to boast later that theirs was the only Michigan community over which four flags (French, British, Spanish and American) had flown.
Source : Michigan Historical Calendar, courtesy of the Clarke Historical Library at Central Michigan University
Fort St. Joseph courtesy of Military Detroit.
The date February 12 has special significance in the history of Michigan State University. It was on February 12, 1855 that Michigan Governor Kinsley S. Bingham signed into law the legislation that established the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan.
Carved out of 676 acres of woodlands less than four miles east of the state’s capitol, the college formally opened on May 13, 1857 with five faculty members and 63 students.
The establishment of an agricultural school did not happen overnight. Throughout the 1840s and 1850s farmers and others in the state clamored for an agricultural school. Progress was made at the state constitutional convention that rewrote the Michigan Constitution in 1850. It was put into law the desire to establish an agricultural school, however it did not specify whether it would be an independent institution or if it would be a part of the University of Michigan. The battle during the next four years was fierce to determine where the agricultural college would be placed. I think all students, alumni, faculty and staff of Michigan State University are glad that the government of Michigan finally decided that a separate institution would be the best solution for the agricultural college. The rest, as they say, is history.
Michigan’s fledgling agricultural college served as the prototype for the nation’s “land-grant” institutions created under the Morrill Act in 1862 sponsored by Justin Morrill, a representative who went on to be a senator, from Vermont.
Happy Founders’ Day!
For more information about the early years of Michigan State University you can consult Michigan Agricultural College: The Evolution of a Land Grant Philosophy, 1855-1925 by Keith R. Widder.
History of Michigan State University Wikipedia Entry
Rachel Jackson, “Happy Birthday MSU”, State News, February 12, 2012.
Did you ever hear of Manitou County?
You can easily find it on a map – a map of Leelanau County, that is.
And a Charlevoix County map, too, for that matter.
“This county was organized by an act of the Legislature on February 12, 1855, and named Manitou, probably by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft after the Manitou Islands, which formed part of the county,” Roy Dodge wrote in 1970.
Dodge is probably correct about the defunct county’s name derivation and Schoolcraft is credited with naming Leelanau County, as well as suggesting names for other Michigan counties as well.
Other “Schoolcraft counties” include Alpena, Alcona, Iosco, Arenac, Isabella and Tuscola.
The county seat of Manitou County was St. James, on Beaver Island, which is now part of Charlevoix County.
Kasey Wilson of the MSU Map Library provides a good synopsis of how Manitou County came about.
From 1850-1856, James Jesse Strang lived on Beaver Island as a self-appointed king among the Mormon adherents who declared allegiance to him after the death of Joseph Smith. Strang commanded a loyal following from his congregants but it often brought the Strangite Mormons into conflict with the judiciary in Mackinac. These disagreements drove the Mormons to seek local and state political office and culminated in the election of Strang as a state legislator. It was through this office that Strang would seek to change the fortunes of his community and alter the geography of Michigan in the process.
Among the many pieces of legislation that Strang would sponsor in 1853, the most impactful would be the reorganization of Emmet County by absorbing Charlevoix County, Beaver Island and smaller surrounding islands. This quadrupled the size of Emmet County and placed the county seat at St. James Township on Beaver Island. The Strangites had achieved political and judicial independence from Mackinac at last. Following these actions, the island flourished as the Strangites dominated much of the fishing industry and St. James Harbor became the major stop for steamers between Detroit and Wisconsin. This boom period would not last long, however, as the legislative session of 1855 would see Strang surrounded by mostly new colleagues, unfriendly to his cause.
County Lines of 1854
Unsurprisingly, the representative from Mackinac County, Jacob A.T. Wendell, led the fight against Strang’s efforts in the house. He was backed by a number of petitions and letters from residents of Emmet, Charlevoix and Antrim counties demanding that Beaver Island be removed from Emmet County, effectively isolating the Strangites from the mainland. Wendell’s efforts were successful and an easy majority passed legislation to have Emmet County contain only mainland townships. The legislature passed a companion bill organizing the county of Manitue (later spelled Manitou) that allowed the Strangite legal jurisdiction over the Beaver, Fox, and Manitou Islands.
County Lines of 1860
Alas, the hostility between the Mormons and their ‘gentile’ neighbors was too great for even this arrangement to last. On June 16, 1856, two of Strang’s former followers shot and mortally wounded him in full view of US Naval Officers and sailors docked at St. James Bay. In the weeks that followed, mobs of angry residents from the mainland forcibly cleared the island of all inhabitants and the ‘kingdom’ fell.
When it existed, affairs in Manitou County appear to have been poorly managed. Upon his leaving office, in 1877, Gov. John J. Bagley made the following statement:
“I submit herewith petitions and correspondence relative to the affairs in the county of Manitou. They show that the laws of the State and the United States are violated with impunity, and that there is no safety or protection to persons or property in portions of this county. No courts have been held for years. The county offices are vacant a large portion of the time, there is no jail, debts cannot be collected by process of law, nor are any of the forms of law complied with. I recommend the county organization be discontinued and the territory be attached to the county of Charlevoix.”
Bagley’s suggestions went unheeded – at least at that time.
But, finally, on April 4, 1895, the Legislature took action with the following act:
“To repeal Special Act No. 92 approved February 12, 1855, titled ‘An Act to organize the county of Manitou‚’ and attach the territory comprising said county to the counties of Charlevoix and Leelanau, and to apportion the property and debts of said county of Manitou.”
This, then, accounts for the lack of inclusion of the Lake Michigan islands in early maps of Leelanau County in county atlases, which were forerunners of the now familiar “plat books” and modern county maps.
Sources:
Manitou County wikipedia entry
Thomas Baird, “The Mormon Kingdom on Beaver Island“, Publius, September 25, 2006.
For the full article, see “Manitou meant more than islands“, Leelanau News, June 30, 2007.
Sarah Hulett, “How a Mormon king shaped a sleepy island in Lake Michigan“, Michigan Radio, November 4, 2015.
Kasey Wilson, “Mormonism and Michigan’s County Formation“, MSU Map Library Blog, June 29, 2016.
Fitzpatrick, Doyle C. The King Strang Story. National Heritage, Lansing Michigan. 1970.
Roger Van Noord, Roger. King of Beaver Island: The Life and Assassination of James Jesse Strang. University of Illinois Press, Urbana and Chicago. 1988.
Two other Michigan Counties that were created and then dissolved:
In 1875, Isle Royale was set off from Keweenaw County, as a separate county, “Isle Royale County“. In 1897, the county was dissolved, and the island was reincorporated into Keweenaw County.
Omeena County was a northwest Michigan county. It was set off and founded in 1840 from Michilimackinac County. Its seat was Wequetong, an Indian Camp on the west arm of the Grand Traverse Bay. In 1851, it was annexed to present-day Grand Traverse County, Michigan. Later, Wequetong was renamed Traverse City.
It is one of 28 extinct Michigan counties. They are: Aishcum, Anamickee, Bleeker, Brown, Cheonoquet, Des Moines, Dubuque, Forest, Iowa, Isle Royale, Kanotin, Kautawaubet, Kaykakee, Keskkauko, Manitou, Meegisee, Michilimackinac, Mikenauk, Neewago, Notipekago, Okkuddo, Omeena, Shawano, Tonedagana, Unwattin, Wabassee, Washington and Wyandot.
In 1850 Congress passed the Swamp Land Act, which transferred certain federal lands in eight states, including Michigan, to state control for disposal by sale. Under this act, the Michigan Land Office eventually received nearly six million acres of so-called swamp land. It was not until 1859, however, that the state provided for using these lands as a way to finance road building. By this time the need was greater than ever for better roads to open the way for settlers. On February 12, 1859, Act 117 of the Michigan Legislature was signed into law. In the preamble to the legislation, the act’s framers cited the need to construct roads and ditches (required to drain roads and farmlands) through the more unsettled parts of the state. Legislators deemed that the proceeds from the sale of swamp lands granted to the state by the federal government should be used to construct these roads and ditches.
Act 117 listed nine different state roads for construction, and the Ionia and Houghton Lake State Road was number one on the list. Furthermore, this act set up the machinery necessary to carry out construction; commissioners would be appointed, and among their duties would be the establishment of specifications for fights-of-way, bridges, and road surfaces.
Why the writers of Act 117 chose Ionia as a starting point for the road to the north is not clear, but there are several possible reasons. First of all, since there was a state land office in Ionia, a road from there would be ideal for persons buying land and planning to move north into the central Lower Peninsula. Second, Ionia, which at the time was already a substantial community on the Grand River, was situated farther north than Lansing and thus closer to unsettled land. Choosing Ionia as the starting place for the road had another benefit that the people who drew up the act may not have fully understood. Had the road proceeded north from Lansing, builders would have encountered serious difficulties. In northern Clinton County, the wide glacial spillway now occupied by the Maple River would have been a major obstacle. Farther north in Gratiot County, the road would have had to be built across a glacial lake plain consisting of heavy clay loam soils. Building a road in those conditions would have required extensive drainage and filling, and even then the resulting road would have been subject to flooding at certain times of the year. Alternatively, a road running north from Ionia would follow the “backbone” of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, where there was a series of recessional moraines and ground moraines, along with stretches of outwash plain. Although this area was not without problems, the route offered relatively good year-round drainage and lighter soils, which made road construction much easier.
For more information about the Ionia and Houghton Lake State Road, and the politics of early road building in Michigan, see Hudson Keenan, “Ionia and Houghton Lake State Road: Michigan’s first designated state swamp land road”, Michigan Historical Review, September 22, 2005.
Members of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Corps arrived at Camps Evelyn and Sidnaw. Eventually approximately 1000 were held at 5 different POW Camps in the UP. Others were sent to camps in the lower peninsula.
The story of German prisoner of war camps in Michigan and across the nation is becoming more well-known, but was largely unheard of just a few years ago.
With Great Britain running out of room for POWs captured in North Africa and elsewhere, the U.S. reluctantly agreed to accept some. The prisoners were transported to America on return voyages of liberty ships that had carried U.S. troops to war in Europe.
German POWs arrived on the East Coast where they boarded trains to the interior of the country. Before being taken north to the Upper Peninsula on trains, the POWs were temporarily held in Illinois at two large camps that distributed POWs to several places in the Midwest.
Eventually, there would be roughly 375,000 German POWs held at more than 500 branch camps or 155 base camps across the United States, including five camps in the U.P. where the POWs were housed in barracks used during the previous decade for Civilian Conservation Corps workers.
The POWs performed various duties, depending on which region of the country they were held. In the U.P., prisoners worked to cut pulpwood, with paper being a vital material needed to support the war effort and there being a shortage of workers for local mills with much of the citizenry off to war.
During 1944, four of the POW camps — two in Alger County (AuTrain and Evelyn) and two in Houghton County (Sidnaw and Pori) — were established, with the fifth camp, in Chippewa County (Raco), set up in January 1945.
Each of the camps had an average of 220 POWs, two army officers and 38 enlisted men. Security was light with winter, POW unfamiliarity with local geography, remote nature of the region, mosquitoes and the inherent language barrier kept the POWs from escaping, or from getting too far in the limited number of escapes that did occur.
Beyond manned guard towers and a couple of strands of barbed wire, the camps were not fortified substantially.
Within these hardwoods in Alger County, along the North Country Trail, was once Camp AuTrain, established as a CCC Camp 3607 in July 1935 and re-opened as a POW camp in May 1944.
A former guard at the camp told stories of how the camp would help augment the menu in the mess hall by using a Thompson sub-machine gun to knock down stands of deer.
To protect the German POWs working in the woods during firearm deer hunting season, the soldiers would tie scraps of red cloth around the arms of the prisoners. The Germans apparently didn’t understand why this was being done and found it funny.
During a winter’s night after Christmastime, the guard said he was shocked to see a huge flame explode into the night sky from a chimney at the camp.
Sitting in the guard tower, he called other military personnel who told him someone had stuffed a Christmas tree into the fireplace, with the chimney caked with creosote, resulting in the nighttime fireball.
Army personnel didn’t know how the German POWs would react to being interned in America. In turn, they were concerned how the American public would react to German POWs in the area.
Camp guards were protecting the POWs as well as the public. American military and government officials wanted to treat the Germans well in hopes of Axis troops doing the same for American POWs overseas.
German POWs in some camps put on plays, sang in choirs, painted and drew pictures of pin-up girls and Hitler, carved musical instruments or other items out of wood and took a range of classes offered in the camps.
Many of the German POWs possessed a wide range of artistic talents. One POW at Camp AuTrain crafted a working cuckoo clock out of a cigar box. In a wide clearing, along the south edge of the camp, the POWs used to play soccer.
The German POW camps in the Upper Peninsula began to close in August 1945, with Camp Raco. Camps AuTrain, Sidnaw, Evelyn and Pori were all closed in April 1946.
During the 15 months German POWs worked for private contractors and government installations in Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin, they performed labor valued at almost $9 million ($125 million in 2017 dollars).
POW labor in those three Midwest states reached its peak in August 1945 when nearly 15,000 POWs were working in over 25 communities out of 48 branch camps.
The remaining POW camp features are fading into the forests of the Upper Peninsula more and more each year.
List of German POW Camps in Michigan:
- Camp Allegan
- Camp AuTrain
- Barryton, Mecosta County, MI
- Benton Harbor, Berrien County, MI
- Blissfield, Lenawee County, MI
- Caro, Tuscola County, MI
- Coloma, Berrien County, MI
- Croswell, Sanilac County, MI
- Fort Custer, Galesburg, MI
- Dundee, Monroe County, MI
- Camp Evelyn – Alger County, MI
- Freeland, Saginaw County, MI
- Fremont, Newaygo County, MI
- Camp Germfask – Germfask, MI
- Grant, Newaygo County, MI
- Grosse Ile Township, Wayne County, MI
- Hart, Oceana County, MI
- Camp Lake Odessa, Ionia County, MI
- Mattawan, Van Buren County, MI
- Mass, Ontonagon County, MI
- Milan (USFR), Monroe and Washtenaw Counties, MI
- Odessa Lakes, Tuscola County, MI
- Camp Owosso – Shiawassee County
- Camp Pori – Upper Peninsula
- Camp Raco – Upper Peninsula near Sault Ste. Marie
- Romulus Army Air Field, Wayne County, MI
- Shelby, Oceana County, MI
- Camp Sidnaw – Sidnaw, MI
- Sparta, Kent County, MI
- Wayne (Fort), Detroit, Wayne County, MI
- Waterloo, Jackson County, MI
- Wetmore, Alger County, MI
The German POW camps of Michigan during WWII, All Things Michigan, August 25, 2009.
Did you know that there were 5 WWII POW Camps located in the U.P.?
John Pepin, “German POWs were interned in Upper Peninsula“, Marquette Mining Journal, December 8, 2017.
The Enemy in Our Midst : Nazi Prisoner of War Camps in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula Viewers Guide by John Pepin.
Film available : The enemy in our midst : Nazi prisoner of war camps in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula / a film by Jackie Chandonnet & John Pepin. 1 DVD videodisc (2 hrs. 41 min.) : sd., col. ; 4 3/4 in. MSU Library Digital and Multimedia Center (4 West) D805.U5 E54 2011 VideoDVD
Mark Grimmette of Muskegon carries the USA flag during the opening ceremony for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.
Muskegon’s native son represented his country, his sport and his friends and family watching back home at Muskegon State Park, where he got his start in the downhill sport 26 years ago.
Grimmette again will team with Brian Martin of California — the most successful team in U.S. luge history, which won a bronze medal in 1998 in Nagano, Japan, and a silver medal in 2002 in Salt Lake City — in Wednesday’s doubles luge competition.
A 1989 graduate of Reeths-Puffer High School, Grimmette was one of eight American athletes selected to carry a tattered flag pulled from the rubble of the World Trade Center into the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002, five months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Grimmette grew up across the street from what is now the luge run and Winter Sports Complex at Muskegon State Park and, once he got over the shock of bulldozers destroying his favorite sledding hill, helped build the track.
For the full article, see Tom Kendra, “Muskegon’s Mark Grimmette leads American team into Winter Olympics”, MLive, February 12, 2010.
For more information, see 9.8 meters per second per second / Jean E. Van Lente. Kalamazoo, Mich. : Bormann Publishing, 2013. available through interlibrary loan via MelCat.
Born in Harlem and raised in Jamaica, Harry Belafonte is legend for his artistic work as a singer, stage and screen actor, and producer. His RCA album “Calypso” made him the first in history to sell more than one million LPs, his first Broadway appearance in “John Murray Anderson’s Almanac” won him the Tony Award, and as the first black producer in television, he won an Emmy for his CBS production of “An Evening with Belafonte.” In cinema, “Carmen Jones” took top critical honors and attracted Oscar nominations. But he is equally known for his work for equality, peace and justice. A close friend of both Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, he was prominent in the struggle against apartheid and the freeing of Mandela from prison. He has served as the cultural advisor for the Peace Corps, and was named the UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, and set in motion the wheels for “We Are the World.” He has received numerous awards, including the Kennedy Center Honors for excellence in the performing arts, the 1994 presidential National Medal of Arts, and those from a wide variety of cultural and religious groups. He holds honorary degrees from numerous colleges and universities.
Addressing a packed conference room at the Kellogg Center, the actor-singer-activist slammed the American culture of greed and accused colleges and universities of turning their backs on the humanities.
“Once [colleges] gave us the gift of genius, understanding, analysis,” he said. “Now the curriculum is totally empty. Much of what (students) talk about is how to prepare themselves for the gift of money.”
The humanities, Belafonte said, have paid a “terrible price.”
“We do not see the lust among students to answer the big questions,” he said. “What is love? What is truth? We assume the good Earth is something we can rape and exploit.”
“We are numb to our deeper humanity,” he said. “Why must power suffocate us so easily?”
Decrying a 21st-century vacuum of “courage and leadership,” he invoked giants of the 20th century, including his close friend Martin Luther King, Jr., W.E.B. Du Bois and Franklin Roosevelt, as leaders who advanced human rights and economic equality. He cited federal programs such as Social Security and the Works Progress Administration and laws like the Voting Rights Act.
“Somewhere along the line, all that disappeared,” he said. “Now we´re just about nothing.”
For the full article, see Lawrence Cosentino, “Now we´re about nothing´; Harry Belafonte brings down the hammer in passionate MSU lecture”, Lansing City Pulse, February 18, 2015.
Archie A. Van Elslander, who was known as “Mr. Van” and founded what became one of the largest independent furniture retailers in the United States, passed away on February 12, 2018, at the age of 87, surrounded by his family.
Born in 1930 in Detroit, Michigan, Mr. Van Elslander was the son of a Belgian immigrant. He grew up in Detroit, peddling papers and working in his father’s bar as a young boy. At age 14, he discovered his love of fashion when he took a job working at a local haberdashery, Square Menswear. After graduating from Denby High School in 1948 and serving in the U.S. Army, Mr. Van Elslander married, started a family and took a job at Gruenwald Furniture.
He opened his first store in 1959, the sole proprietor of a 4,000 square foot shop on Gratiot Avenue in East Detroit, and ultimately grew Art Van Furniture to nearly 4,000 associates and over 100 Art Van Furniture locations throughout the Midwest before selling the business in early 2017.
A pioneer retailer and master promoter, he was widely respected in the furniture industry for his creative approach to marketing. Mr. Van Elslander’s awards and recognitions are many, with his generosity and business acumen regularly acknowledged.
With a seemingly limitless capacity for giving, Mr. Van Elslander was one of Michigan’s most generous and beloved philanthropists. When Detroit’s annual Thanksgiving Day parade was in financial peril in 1990, Mr. Van Elslander made an historic donation that saved this cherished tradition. For the next 25 years, he personally rode in the parade, waving to crowds along the route.
He was a major benefactor of countless charities, including St. John Providence Health System, Focus:HOPE, Forgotten Harvest and the Capuchin Franciscan Province of St. Joseph. He leaves behind an indelible print on the hearts of many, and will be sorely missed.
Source : Frank Witsil, “Art Van Elslander, founder of Art Van Furniture, dies at 87“, Detroit Free Press, February 12, 2018.
Say goodbye to the Year of the Rat and hello to the Year of the Ox.
Lunar New Year – also known as the Chinese New Year or Spring Festival – began Friday, February 12, 2021, ushering in the second animal on the Zodiac with the second new moon after the winter solstice.
When does Chinese New Year start?
Because the holiday is tied to the year’s first new moon, the timing will vary. It can fall in January or early February.
In China, the festival lasts 15 days, starting with a feast the night of New Year’s Eve and ending this year with the Spring Lantern Festival on Feb. 26.
On Feb. 13, 1855, the Michigan Legislature moved to protect escaped slaves. To counter the harsh provisions of the 1850 federal Fugitive Slave Law, which forced the return of African Americans who had escaped the horrors of slavery, the Legislature prohibited the use of county jails for the detention of escaped slaves. The measure also directed county prosecuting attorneys to defend the recaptured slaves — a provision that had been denied the slaves in the 1850 law.
An abolitionist cartoon takes to task Northern states that complied with the Fugitive Slave Law.
For more information about Detroit and the Underground Railroad during this period, see the Detroit Historical Museum’s Doorway to Freedom – Detroit and the Underground Railroad exhibit.
Sources :
Michigan Historical Calendar, courtesy of the Clarke Historical Library at Central Michigan University.
Detroit Historical Society Facebook Page
Abolitionist cartoon reposted from Michigan House Democrats Official Blog, February 13, 2017.