On January 9, 1862, Battery F, First Michigan Light Artillery, was mustered into federal service at Coldwater.
Battery F left the state for Kentucky on March 3, 1862. After months of service in Kentucky, the battery marched across the Cumberland Mountains to Knoxville, Tenn., in January 1864. In May 1864, Battery F joined William T. Sherman’s Atlanta campaign. It fought at Resaca and Keenesaw Mountain.
On July 21, 1864, Battery F was credited with being the first Union battery to throw shells into the Confederate stronghold of Atlanta. After the fall of Atlanta, Battery F was sent back to Chattanooga, Tenn., where it remained until being posted to Nashville. Following the mid-December Battle of Nashville, Battery F was sent to North Carolina, where it ended the war. It returned to Jackson, Mich., where it was mustered out of federal service on July 1, 1865.
Source: Michigan History magazine
Believe it or not, but the January 9, 1886 Detroit Free Press had an article about “Winters Getting Milder” on page six. The culprit : steam heat and steam vapors rising from every house.
Source : Michigan Every Day.
On January 9, 1901, Governor Hazen Pingree, in his final message to the Legislature, wrote that it was the body’s “special privilege and duty to bring the so-called ‘merchant princes and captains of industry’ in this country to a realization of the fact that our laboring men are something more than tools to be used in the senseless chase after wealth.”
Originally coaxed into running for governor in 1896 to assist President William McKINLEY’s chances in Michigan, Pingree attempted to serve as both governor and mayor of Detroit, but was ultimately told by the state Supreme Court in March 1897 he was not legally able to do so.
Source: Stewards of the State, The Governors of Michigan, Detroit, Mich. : Detroit News ; Ann Arbor, Mich. : Historical Society of Michigan, 1991. 2nd edition, 203pp.
On January 9, 1973, the federal government fined the Marquette Airport, along with only three others throughout the rest of the country, for failing to comply with a mandated Federal Aviation Administration anti-hijack program. Faced with continuing $100-per-day fines, Marquette airport officials, who had claimed the regulations were too strict to implement, reluctantly hired armed guards and installed required metal detectors.
Source: Mich-again’s Day
On January 9, 1996, a House Republican task force on Higher Education called on Michigan’s 15 public universities to set up a “more equitable” funding formula, allowing students to receive degrees in four years at “an affordable” cost.
House Speaker Paul Hillegonds warned universities they were the most vulnerable part of the state budget.
Source: MIRS, January 9, 2007
On January 9, 2001, President William Jefferson Clinton began a final national tour with an appearance at the Breslin Center on the Michigan State University campus.
Prior to his 1992 election and throughout his tenure, Clinton visited East Lansing and Michigan State University a number of times. In 1992, MSU was the site of a presidential debate with Clinton, George Bush Sr. and H. Ross Perot.
“If I were to come back one more time I’d owe partial tuition,” joked Clinton.
Part of the reason for the presidential visit was to honor the 2000 Spartans for their national NCAA men’s basketball championship. Coach Tom Izzo and 2000 player Mateen Cleaves gave Clinton a No. 1 basketball jersey.
However, Clinton also took time to recognize many Michigan Democrats and review his economic policies.
Source : “Clinton Recognizes East Lansing, MSU In Final Tour”, Inside MIRS Today, January 9, 2003
On January 9, 2009, the feature film “Gran Torino,” starring Clint Eastwood and shot in Highland Park and other locales around Metro Detroit, was released in theatres across the country.
Gran Torino / Warner Bros. Pictures presents in association with Village Roadshow Pictures, a Double Nickel Entertainment, a Malpaso Production ; produced by Robert Lorenz, Bill Gerber ; story by David Johannson & Nick Schenk ; screenplay by Nick Schenk ; produced and directed by Clint Eastwood. Burbank, CA : Warner Home Video, [2009] 1 DVD videodisc (116 min.) : sd., col. ; 4 3/4 in. Digital and Multimedia Center PN1997.2 .G73 2009 VideoDVD : Walt Kowalski is a widower who holds onto his prejudices despite the changes in his Michigan neighborhood and the world around him. Walt is a grumpy, tough-minded, unhappy old man, who can’t get along with either his kids or his neighbors. He is a Korean War veteran whose prize possession is a 1972 Gran Torino he keeps in mint condition. When his neighbor, Thao, a young Hmong teenager, becomes pressured by his gang member cousin to steal Walt’s Gran Torino, Kowalski sets out to reform the youth. Drawn against his will into the life of Thao’s family, Walt is soon taking steps to protect them from the gangs that infest their neighborhood. Cast : Clint Eastwood, Bee Vang, Ahney Her, Christopher Carley, John Carroll Lynch ; Brian Haley, Brian Howe, William Hill. Also available via NetFlix.
Before being elected as president of the United States, and before becoming a General in the Union Army against the Confederates in the Civil War, young Lieutenant Ulysses S. Grant served as a quartermaster living in Detroit from 1849-1851. The Grant House at the Michigan State Fairgrounds was a popular attraction for many years. The house was originally located on Fort Street near Livernois Avenue. Grant and his new wife were well-known around town and quite sociable.
Little is known about Grant during his brief time in Detroit. Colonel James Pitman offers the most complete picture of Grant’s character. Pitman writes “U.S. Grant was at that time a familiar figure in Detroit society. A man as well known as any residing in the city at that time.” One small bit of evidence exists in the collection of the Detroit Historical Society that proves a little of Pittman’s opinion of Grant’s stature in the community. On January 10, 1851, Grant signed a deposition claiming that Antoine Beaubien Jr. failed to clear the snow and ice from the sidewalk in front of his house on Jefferson Avenue at Antoine Street.
According to Ulysses Grant’s published papers, a similar charge on the same date claimed that Detroit Mayor Zachariah Chandler–also on Jefferson Avenue near Antoine Street–neglected snow and ice removal from his sidewalk. During a trial before a jury, Mayor Chandler exclaimed “If you soldiers would keep sober, perhaps you would not fall on people’s pavements and hurt your legs.” The jury found in favor of Grant and Chandler was fined six cents. Oddly, Chandler would later be appointed by President Grant as Secretary of the Interior in 1875.
Reposted from DHSDigital, “Ulysses S Grant Gives a Winter Advisory”, Detroit Historical Society Blog, January 5, 2015.
On January 10, 1872, Michigan’s first Grange, the Burnside Grange, organized at Lapeer County. By 1875, six-hundred local Granges had formed throughout Michigan and, though the first formed for educational and social purposes, they became a forceful lobbying group, leading the fight, for example, to lower railroad rates.
For more information about the Grange, see
Origin and early history of the order of Patrons of Husbandry in the United States
The Grange in Michigan, an agricultural history of Michigan over the past 90 years
—Source: Mich-Again’s Day.
William Clay Ford took control of the Detroit Lions on January 10, 1964.
Ford, one of Henry Ford’s grandchildren, paid $4.5 million for the football team on what turned out to be the same day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
Though Detroit had been home to three previous football teams — the Heralds, the Panthers and the Wolverines — the Lions didn’t arrive on the scene until 1934, when a group of investors, headed by a radio bigwig, bought the Portsmouth, Ohio, team for $7,952.08 and relocated it to the Motor City.
Today, the Lions are worth $900 million, according to Forbes.
Sources :
Historical Society of Michigan
Zlati Meyer, “This week in Michigan history: William Clay Ford takes over the Lions”, Detroit Free Press, January 5, 2014.