ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
by
LELA DUFF
Line Drawings by JANE ROGERS
FRIENDS OF THE ANN ARBOR PUBLIC LIBRARY
Publishers
ANN ARBOR • 1962


Copyright 1962 by Lela Duff
Library of Congress catalogue card number: 62-21191
Manufactured in the United States of America
Lithoprinted by
BRAUN-BRUMFIELD, Inc.
Ann Arbor, Michigan


To
Edna and Lou Ludlum





FOREWORD
A.s those of us know who read the pieces as they were pub-
lished from February 1960 to July 1961, and who encouraged
the author to write them, all the aspects of a growing town are
in this book. It deals with the people, the events, the problems,
the joys and the sorrows that make a town. To note but a few:
The founders, John Allen and Elisha Walker Rumsey, their
wives, Ann Allen and Mary Ann Rumsey, for whom the town
was named; these people founded the town, planned it, and in-
vested their futures in it—
The men and women who joined the founders and gave the
place meaning through their work, and who tied their ambitions
to it, their hopes, and their ideals—
The recognition of Ann Arbor's importance when in 1836 it
was chosen as the place for a constitutional convention—
Ann Arbor's part in the nation's wars, from the Civil War
through Armistice Day, 1918—
The pride the immigrants from Europe had felt in living
on "Liberty" Street—
Ann Arbor's churches, its social life, its winter- and sum-
mer-weather pleasures, its ice cream parlor, the freshly roasted
peanuts, large bagfuls at a nickel a bag—
The organ factory, the singing societies, the choirs, the
May Festival—
The changes that made the town a city, the struggles for a
public water system, for public transportation, for public light-
ing—
The passing of the livery stable, the coming of the auto-
mobile, with gasoline tax-free and priced at eleven cents a
gallon—
These are several of the many homely and familiar things
of the past which Miss Duff has included in Ann Arbor Yester-
days. When the Ann Arbor News agreed with her to publish
her pieces as a column under the title "Ann Arbor Yesterdays,"
the News asked co-operation from its readers in answering
questions about the city's past. Among these, there was the
question "What remnants of the past remain in the present as
reminders of the city's heritage?"
vii


viii
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
Miss Duff's book not only answers this question, it offers
many reasons why former residents, including alumni of the
University, express a longing to return to "dear Ann Arbor
town," the only town by that name in all the world.
As in her earlier book, Pioneer School, a history of Ann
Arbor High School, Miss Duff has managed, in addition to her
descriptions of people and places, to introduce a quality of
nostalgia and of affection. She has fashioned a fine tribute to
Ann Arbor, the town she is proud to call her own. All who
share that pride owe Miss Duff a debt of gratitude for her work.
Speaking for Ann Arborites generally, I gratefully extend to her
our very best thanks.

Erich A. Walter


PREFACE
Some people have been referring to this prospected volume as
"a new history of Ann Arbor." I hope they will not be disap-
pointed to discover that the articles assembled here fall far
short of that designation in that the material does not form a
complete history chronologically arranged. We have simply
gathered together the Ann Arbor Yesterdays "columns" as they
appeared weekly in the Ann Arbor News for a year and a half,
to be reprinted in the order then published. Any apparent addi-
tions are simply bits that were cut from the script by the News
editors for lack of space. Titles, too, were sometimes re-
phrased in the cutting room to fit the shape available. Any new
facts or corrections now given are presented in the Notes at
the end of the book proper, or, in rare instances, in footnotes.
So the following pages continue to "range through time as the
spirit moves," to quote the introductory explanation.
These little sketches do merit the term "historical," how-
ever, in that an attempt has been made to check the truth of
every assertion, and to add pertinent facts not presented in
former histories of the community. Of course a primary aim
has been to bring the past to life, and for such a purpose imagi-
nation has to accompany both the research and the writing.
After their run in the News, the articles would never again
have seen the light of day had not the Friends of the Ann Arbor
Public Library come forward in recent months with an offer to
advance the money required for book publication. To them I
owe a debt of gratitude, and especially to the helpful committee,
Miss Elizabeth Slack, Mrs. Jack D. Hogan, and Arthur F. Kin-
ney, Jr.
I wish to repeat here the "Thank you's" expressed through-
out the columns and in the farewell article, with an added
"beaucoup" to Eck Stanger for supplying new prints of his beau-
tiful photographs. The streetcar snapshot was kindly furnished
by Steve Duris,the jolly bobsled group by Mrs. Louis Tramontine,
and the double set of handsome grandparents by my friend Linda
Eberbach. It would be ungracious of me not to tell my readers
that Edna Parry labored long on the index, and that Ruth Brown
Wyman spent many an hour hunting up long-forgotten points
ix


xii
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
Page
November 1960 92
Armistice Day 1918; Of Highroads and Low Roads;
The Last of the Chapin Name; A New City Hall on
an Old, Old Block
December 1960 101
The Railroad Comes to Town; Our Other Railroad;
Baggage Car Carol; "Not for Self but for Others"
January 1961 112
"Ring Dem Charmin' Bells"; A Mystery Bell; Old-
Time Winter Fun; Frolics the Year Around; "Not
an Institution but a Home"
February 1961 124
Our Own Forty-Niners; How the Yankees Took Over
the Town; Our Early Churches—The Presbyterian;
The First Methodist Church
March 1961 136
The First Baptist Church; The Story of St. Andrew's;
The Parish of St. Thomas the Apostle; Of Organs
and Choirs
April 1961 147
From the Mailbox: Streetcars and Street Uses; The
Old Rominger Home; When Civil War Struck; Old Post
Offices and Postal Practices
May 1961 157
Home Grown Music and the Kempfs; From Bakery Boy
to Famous Sculptor; A Grocery De Luxe (When Even
a Nickel Was Money); Michigan Singing; Our Women
and the Civil War
June 1961 172
Celebrated Visitors; A Century of Business—the Eber-
bachs; Help from the "Trolley Watchers"; A Century
of Jewelry—the Hallers
July 1961 186
From Ox Cart to Taxicab; A Farewell Miscellany



WE MAKE OUR BOW
February 12, 1960
Old houses, old maps, old tales—all have found a place in
the news columns of Ann Arbor in the last few months, and all
have stimulated a lively response, in letters and in conversa-
tion. Eager, yes even frantic, as we sometimes seem to make
way for the new, there is a perennial fascination in the old.
In this weekly column we shall try to bring to life bits of
old Ann Arbor. We shall try to straighten out mistaken ideas
about what used to be, and to separate true history from charm-
ing folklore, though both will be welcome. We plan to try to
answer questions, to identify pictures, to track down Ann Arbor
ancestors. We hope that our readers will co-operate by show-
ing us their old letters, perhaps their family keepsakes, and by
writing us those queries that have long been teasing their minds.
The order of these articles will not necessarily be chrono-
logical. They will be free to range through time as the spirit
moves or as the urgency of the questioners seems to require.
In the meantime, just to get things started, I shall now ask
some questions of you, my readers. Is the house in which you
are living a hundred years old? If so, has it been lived in or
owned continuously by the same family or its descendants for
one hundred years? Do you think it might be the oldest house
in Ann Arbor still standing? Have you a tree on your property
that might be a hundred years old? Could it be a remnant of
the original forest? Who within the present city limits has the
oldest oak tree? The largest elm? I promise to compile the
answers and, some day soon, to publish them.


2
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
THAT PUZZLING NAME—ANN ARBOR
February 15, 1960
Our town has a name unduplicated among the place names of
the world.1 The story goes that a letter once arrived from
farthest Russia with the mere superscription, "Mr. John Doe,
Ann Arbor." Globe-trotters from Ann Arbor are often forced
to explain that the name is not Ann Harbor, the assumption
being, I suppose, that the town is a lake port and was settled
by Cockneys.
Fantastic explanations have arisen from time to time as to
"the real" source of the name. About 1900 one David Hackett,
aged 92, is reported to have returned to these parts after
spending seventy years in Texas. He stoutly declared that a
beautiful young woman, frail, with heavy black hair and blue
eyes, had been guiding people through the wilderness here-
abouts long before the arrival of Allen and Rumsey; that she
mysteriously called herself Ann d'Arbeur; and that the settlers
had honored her by inscribing her name on a rock in the mid-
dle of the Huron River. On his return he found the rock—but
seventy years of exposure had erased the name!
The Michigan Argonaut, an old-time campus weekly, on
March 27, 1886, presented another theory: that the Indian name
for the locality was "Anaba," claiming to have the record of a
pre-Allen fur trader, Col. D. W. H. Howard, who interpreted
the name to mean "Good Youth."3 We discount this story as a
bit of student spoofing. As for Indian names, what a blessing
we are not saddled with "Kaw-Goosh-Kaw-Nick," the Pottowa-
tomies' imitation of the sound of John Allen's sawmill.4
It is accepted as a well-authenticated fact that John Allen
and Elisha Walker Rumsey, our founding fathers, named the vil-
lage in honor of their two wives. But there has always been
considerable bickering about the arbor. Some old settlers in-
sisted that the two men built an arbor, or even two arbors, one
apiece; some say as a temporary shelter, others as an adorn-
ment just to pretty up the place. I doubt the latter idea espe-
cially. If they had any spare time between February 1824, when
they first tramped about this lovely region, and May 25, when
the plat was recorded in Detroit, surely they could have found
more important things to do than building an arbor for mere
decoration. There were chopping down trees and fashioning
them into dwellings, breaking the ground and planting vegetables,



9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
KEY TO HISTORIC HOUSES, ETC.
Rumsey Cabin, W. Huron and First
Allen Blockhouse, N. Main and W. Huron
"Kempf house," 312 S. Division
"Wahr house," 126 N. Division
"Babcock place," 204 N. Division
Palmer-Ryan house, 205 N. Division
Corselius house, 317 E. Ann
Muehlig house, 315 S. Main
Green-Westgate house, 334 Thompson
Clark-Tanner house, 314 E. William
Dletz-Stampfler house, 450 S. Fifth Ave.
"Lower Town" buildings, 1003 Broadway
Fairview Cemetery
U-M President's home, 815 S. University
Hall house, 1530 Hill
"Lloyd house" site, 1735 Washtenaw
Frieze-Dodge house, 1547 Washtenaw
W. S. Maynard house (Elks), 338 S. Main
Lund-Ward house, 1324 Pontiac
Beckley house, 1425 Pontiac
Loren Mills' second house, 600 W. Huron
Gott house, 709 W. Huron
Wheeler house, 1020 W. Huron
Chapin-"Joe Parker" house, 200 N. Fourth Ave.
Rominger house site, 315 S. Fifth Ave.
Eberbach house, 1115 Woodlawn
JL
Map prepared by Ida C. Brown from a 1938 city
map and information furnished by the writer.





6
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
The original village extended from First Street to Division
and from Jefferson to a block north of North Street (the pres-
ent Kings ley) though First is the only one of the boundary
streets named on the plat.
The first plat of "Lower Town," the north side, was dated
June 25, 1832, "when Anson Brown and Edward L. Fuller ap-
peared before John Allen, Justice of the Peace" to register "a
village to be annexed to the village of Ann Arbor."
The 1836 map of Ann Arbor Village shows considerable ex-
pansion. From Washington to Madison and Monroe Streets the
limit is pushed east to Fletcher. Packard has been laid out
from South Main to "Hanover Square," then a sizable park of
which only a tiny segment remains today where Packard crosses
Division. Beyond that point on this old map Packard becomes
Grove Street. At that pre-University date no campus inter-
feres with Thayer, Denton, Morgan, and Fletcher Streets stretch-
ing right across from Washington to Monroe in that order. Wil-
liam and Jefferson, in turn, extend straight east to Fletcher,
at least on paper.
With high hopes that the state capital will settle in this
village,1 a new street has been named State and a block from
State to Thayer and from William to Jefferson has been labeled
"State House Square" and "Public Square."
These early maps show Allen's Creek to be an important
stream. In 1869 it appears in two branches in the swampy land
southeast of State and Grove. These join before crossing Hill
Street, and the stream curves north and west across Main until
it reaches West Liberty near First Street. In this section it
is joined by strong tributaries from high hills to the west and
divides north of Huron where a millrace extends north from a
considerable pond. The two branches cross North Main just
beyond Depot Street, and "Swathee's Flour Mill" makes use of
the rushing power as they converge. The creek then joins the
Huron River beyond the MCRR tracks.
I'm sure oldtimers were sorry to see this pleasant stream
dwindle as the swamps were drained, and finally disappear below
the ground like an ignominious sewer.
So the maps grow more extensive with the passing decades,
and often more elaborate. The "Panoramic View" of 1870 is
something to behold, with every house and building in tiny mini-
ature, and a dozen stately residences proudly marching across
the bottom.


7
THOSE OLD-TIME PLAYS
February 29, 1960
A.t this particular time, when Ann Arbor has been consider-
ing the possibility of having a new theatre, my readers may
welcome a chance to inform themselves on theatrical perform-
ances in Ann Arbor's younger days. The authority for most of
today's column is a paper entitled "Early Theatre in Ann Arbor,
1835-1900," read before the Washtenaw Historical Society in
1951 by Miss Alma Josenhans of Ann Street.1
During her long career in the Detroit Public Library Miss
Josenhans compiled a Theatre History of Detroit of twenty typed
volumes, and she has almost doubled this amount by pursuing
her hobby in retirement.2 The techniques of thoroughness, ac-
curacy, and vividness thus developed are evident in her Ann
Arbor paper.
Although a circus had bumped its way over corduroy roads
to the 11-year-old village in 1835, it was nine years later that
the first professional group of actors appeared to put on a play.
Theatres were unknown in those days west of the cities of the
Atlantic seaboard, various sorts of halls being made to serve
the purpose, where companies set up their own scenery. So
this first troupe performed in a hall in the little first Court
House, built on the Ann Street side of the public square.
Later, ballrooms were used in lieu of theatres: one in the
Franklin House, a rather large hotel on the site of John Allen's
first cabin, on the northwest corner of Main and Huron; then
the Exchange Hall in a hotel on the north end of the same block;
then Hangsterfer's, built in 1860 on the southwest corner of
Main and Washington—a huge and elaborate dance hall over a
bakery and confectionery shop. Finally in 1871 came the first
real theatre, the Hill Opera House at Main and Ann, which after-
ward became the Whitney Theatre.
It is with a wave of nostalgia that those of us past middle
age remember the old Whitney, with its huge painted curtain on
which 18th-Century French-looking ladies and gentlemen lolled
at a picnic; its ornate frescoed arched ceiling with chandeliers;
its curving balcony and gallery, and yes, even boxes with red
velvet chairs. To think that the site of all this elegance, where
the country's most famous actors "trod the boards," has now
been cleared to make way for an addition to the jail!


8
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
It was customary in the early years for a company to give
two or three performances while in town, one of the plays usu-
ally being by Shakespeare. The first bill, in 1844, teamed
Richard III with The Drunkard's Warning, a potent expression
of the growing temperance movement of the day. Richard III
seems to have been the favorite Shakespeare play of that decade,
for within seven years it was the only one performed in Ann
Arbor and was given here four times. It seems not to have
appeared here again for over 100 years.
In the later decades of the 19th century our town saw many
fine performances of Shakespeare, however, including Hamlet,
Twelfth Night, As You Like It, Macbeth, The Merchant of Venice,
and Julius Caesar, some of them several times.
But to go back to the earlier years: The first minstrel
show came to town in 1851, replete no doubt with Interlocutor,
End Men, and buck-and-wing dancing. Uncle Tom's Cabin ap-
peared here for the first time in 1854. Plays popular during
the mid-Victorian era were often pretty sensational: The Lady
of Lyons, Lucretia Borgia, The Hunchback, Zilla the Hebrew
Mother, for instance. Others presented here centered around
famous characters of history or fiction. In 1904 Mrs. Fiske
had rather a bad time trying to introduce Ibsen's Hedda Gabler.
She was so perturbed by the crackle of peanut shucks in the
audience that she caused the curtain to be rung down for a time.
The brilliance of the stars who appeared in Ann Arbor dur-
ing the forty or fifty years prior to 1900 is indeed dazzling.
Beginning with Garry Hough in 1844, the list includes Charlotte
Crampton ("the little Siddons of the West"), Edwin Forrest,
Edwin Booth, Helena Modjeska, Robert Mantell, Maurice Barry-
more, Lawrence Barrett, Adelaide Neilson, Fanny Janauschek,
Minnie Maddern Fiske, Julia Marlowe, Jessie Bonstelle, Otis
Skinner, Maude Adams, John Drew, and Lionel Barrymore—some
of them coming here again and again.
During that half-century professional companies gave in
Ann Arbor a total of 1,289 performances, with forty or fifty a
year in some years, allowing our townspeople to see and hear
something like 9,000 players, everyone of them at least good
enough to be earning a living on the stage.


10
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
written diary of George Corselius, early editor of the Ann
Arbor newspaper, the Emigrant. The diary extends from Janu-
ary 1, 1833, to the mid-1840's. It was presented to the col-
lections by his granddaughter.
On the walls of the various rooms are significant old pic-
tures, including large oil portraits of John Allen and his son,
James C. Allen. A series in oils depicts the three homes of
a Lenawee County family on the same site within a span of
thirty years: the crude log cabin under the dark shadow of the
forest, the bright little painted frame house that succeeded it,
and finally the commodious homestead pleasantly landscaped.
In the reading room, cases display exhibits changed from
time to time which illustrate some phase of state or local his-
tory. Here one is welcome to sit and peruse material brought
out on request—on some subject for a club paper, for instance,
or some bit of private research.
There is another way in which the Michigan Historical Col-
lections can be of value to you personally. Those old family
papers—documents, letters, clippings, scrapbooks of long ago—
will be gladly received. In a recent general invitation they
promise: "In a fireproof modern building, trained staff mem-
bers" will "sort, clean, repair, catalog, and file" them. They
will be easily available any time you—or your great-grandchil-
dren—want to have a look at them.
"If you have papers like those mentioned above, or if you
know someone who has," they urge, "please write or phone the
Michigan Historical Collections of the University of Michigan."1
JOHN AND ANN ALLEN—A FASCINATING COUPLE
March 14, 1960
John and Ann Allen are of the stuff of which novels are made.
Each a distinctive personality and a fine character, they were
powerfully drawn to each other, and yet so different in their
essential drive for personal happiness that their married life
was far from smooth.
The fact that John eagerly named the town and one of its
streets for his dear wife, left behind in Virginia, has led us to
imagine their years together as a time of idyllic happiness, in


JOHN AND ANN ALLEN—A FASCINATING COUPLE 11
the shade of the romantic arbor. Both, however, were writers
of extensive and articulate letters, many of which have been
preserved and returned to Ann Arbor. From between the lines
of these and from things said or not said in the reminiscences
of relatives written many years later, a complex story of stress-
es and strains begins to emerge.
By nature John was a true pioneer, vigorous, determined,
simple, and resourceful. Highly intelligent, he could envisage
and formulate plans for the good of the town and the state, and
he found such matters absorbing. In the growing village and
territory he was to become a figure of stature.
Ann was of equally high caliber, but more reserved, with-
drawn. To her, home and her children were all-important. She
was probably beautiful, but conventional. Reared on a back-
ground that emphasized the social niceties—in Ireland, Balti-
more, and Virginia—she could overlook the crudities of pioneer
life only so long as she could feel that they were temporary.
There is no evidence that she ever felt herself really a part
of the social life of early Ann Arbor. In any letters available
to us, she never mentions by name any Ann Arbor people not
relatives of the Aliens.
It may come as a shock to some of our readers to learn
that Ann's leaving Virginia to join her husband here was ac-
companied by a full-scale family row. Both John and Ann had
been married before. At the age of sixteen Ann had become
the wife of young Dr. William McCue of Lexington, Virginia.
Five years later he died suddenly, leaving Ann with two little
boys, whom in his will he had consigned to the guardianship of
his two older brothers. Although John Allen, at that time a
widower with two small children of his own, was a first cousin
of these McCues and of equally good background, there was ap-
parently no love lost between them and they disapproved of his
marriage to Ann. Tensions developed among the wide circle
of relatives and connections that made John "want to get away
from it all."
A generation earlier a brother and a sister of his father
had both done very well in the frontier lands of Kentucky and
Ohio. John's cousin, Allen Trimble, had now even become gov-
ernor of the young state of Ohio. In his late teens this cousin
had augmented the family income by conducting droves of hogs
from Kentucky to Baltimore, visiting Virginia relatives on the
way.1
All this may have given John an idea which he apparently
communicated to no one. In the fall of 1823 he borrowed money
to buy a drove of cattle and set out with them for Baltimore,


12
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
leaving Ann and the children with his parents. Not a word
further did anyone hear from him until, months later, in partner-
ship with Elisha Walker Rumsey, a chance acquaintance met in
Cleveland or Detroit, he had chosen and bought the site of the
future Ann Arbor. The family had believed him dead, murdered
for the money received for the sale of the cattle.
When he wrote for his father and mother to sell their com-
fortable home farm and mill in the Shenandoah Valley and to
bring to Ann Arbor the whole family, including Ann and their
baby girl and even her two older boys, Ann's McCue brothers-
in-law exploded.
At the heated family conference called by the McCues,2 at-
tended by seven or eight uncles, aunts, and cousins, Ann had no
voice. John Allen was defamed as a "defrauder" or worse.
Only his father could speak in his behalf until his elderly Aunt
Jane Trimble, back from Ohio on a visit, pleaded his cause so
eloquently that the McCues capitulated. So Ann was "allowed"
to come on to her husband with their two-year-old baby girl,
but leaving her two equally beloved little boys with their mas-
terful uncles.
THE RED CROSS COMES TO TOWN
March 21, 1960
I was pleased, one day last week, when a battered old notebook
was brought to my door, the red paper symbol pasted on its
cloth cover now so chipped that it was almost unrecognizable
as a cross;—pleased, but quite unaware of the excitement I was
to feel when leafing through the yellowed pages. The book con-
tained the minutes of the Ann Arbor Chapter of the Red Cross
from its initial meeting on September 13, 1916, through World
War I and up into 1930.1
At that first meeting, held "upon the request of the Ameri-
can Red Cross Society," the field agent sent out from Washington
gave his address before a disappointingly small group, for the
"Petition for Authority to Form a Chapter" had only thirteen
signers, eleven of them women. The two men, Professor Louis
H. Boynton and Mr. Henry W. Douglas, may have accompanied
their wives that evening under persuasion, but they became


THE RED CROSS COMES TO TOWN
13
leaders in the society from that time on. One notices that this
first meeting occurred seven months before the United States
entered the war in April 1917.
The next meeting, not called until February 7, 1917, in
Harris Hall, was "well attended." Mr. Boynton presided, and
a slate of twenty-four directors was elected, only five of whom
were women. The nineteen men were all prominent citizens,
including five ministers, five M.D.'s, two dentists, two from the
University of Michigan administration and one professor of
architecture, one business man, and one high school teacher.
The following officers were then elected: Chairman, Dr. Louis
P. Hall; Vice Chairman, Dr. Theron S. Langford; Treasurer,
Carl S. Braun; and Secretary, Miss Winona M. Saunders.
Mr. Carl Braun retained his office as treasurer until his
death in 1928. His careful reports appear here in his own
handwriting. As one follows in these pages the vivid and earn-
est personalities that emerge,—in that era so long ago that
"seems just yesterday"—surely no couple is more outstanding
in meetings than the Louis P. Halls, both so vigorous and full
of initiative and yet so gentle.
In the early meetings much time was given to discussion
of possible headquarters. The upper floor of the YMCA was
first agreed upon after an inspection by Dr. and Mrs. Hall, who
pronounced it "suitable, well lighted, and well heated." When it
transpired, however, that it would be unavailable on certain
days, the tiny Ladies' Library Building was chosen and was
"cleaned and coal and other necessities provided." Eventually
it proved too small for the crowds of women who were eager
to "do their bit." The armory was considered only briefly.
The final move was to the President's House on the Campus,
vacant since the death of old Dr. Angell.
During these first few months there was much talk about
First Aid courses. By the middle of March seven such classes
were organized for men and twelve for women, all to be taught
by doctors. "The books have not yet arrived," the minutes re-
port, "but the doctors know their work so well that they are
going right ahead with it."
The April 4th meeting shows the town humming with inter-
est: Many local firms had been helpful with publicity. The
telephone company had sent out letters. Mack's windows had
featured a display of work. "The Fuller Sisters" had given a
concert under the auspices of the Women's League and had been
entertained at the Lockwood house. The two gyms were to be
used for a ball. Red Cross posters were to be attached to the
Merchants' Delivery wagons.


14
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
New problems were arising. Should a private company con-
tribute heavily to the Red Cross and then use that fact in its
advertising? Should a Red Cross nurse be hired for six or
eight weeks at $100 a month to teach classes in hygiene and
care of the sick? Several boys among the Reserves to leave
shortly were in need of shoes, shirts, etc. The chapter moved
to supply them.
That summer a disastrous cyclone struck the county. For
relief of the sufferers the local Red Cross chapter expended
$4,270.31. In September an extensive membership campaign
was led by the dynamic Rev. Lloyd Douglas as chairman. The
October minutes listed 4,274 members.
In the meantime, the women were attacking their work of
knitting, sewing, and surgical dressings with a terrific cres-
cendo. Funds were allocated proportionally, authority speci-
fied, and precise methods stipulated for report and payment.
The accomplishment in all three categories during the last year
of the war reached totals that are simply staggering. Other
projects were constantly developing too: old paper drives; col-
lections of used clothing for Belgium; entertainments; solicita-
tion of gifts, amounting in one two-month period to $8,009.41.
When the flu epidemic struck in the fall of 1918, infirmaries
were set up in Newberry Hall and in a house on Fifth Avenue
to care for convalescent boys from the S.A.T.C. and the Naval
Unit here.
After Armistice Day, of course, there was a gradual dimin-
ishing of activity. During the 1920's the meetings recorded on
the worn old leaves, useful as were the projects undertaken,
seem placid indeed compared with the feverish gatherings de-
scribed in the minutes of wartime.
r
y of my readers who have made a hobby of mastering
every scrap of information about the Allen family may be sur-
prised at some of the statements made in the article two weeks
ago. I refer to John Allen's close relationship to the governor
of Ohio, Allen Trimble, and the intervention of the Ohio governor's
A "NEW" JOHN ALLEN LETTER
March 28, 1960



THE YEAR-OLD VILLAGE
April 4, 1960
A.s Ann Arbor approached its first birthday, John Allen be-
came almost lyrical when describing it in the long lost letter
to his Aunt Jane Trimble of Hillsborough, Ohio. He knew that
he would have an understanding reader in this stout-hearted old
aunt who had dared to stand up to the McCues in the hassle
over whether Ann should join her husband in primitive Michi-
gan.1
As a young pioneer woman of Kentucky, crossing a tricky
mountain river on horseback pursued by Indians, her baby on
her lap and the two-year-old future governor of Ohio clinging
to her waist from behind, this Jane Allen Trimble had felt her
horse beginning to sink in quicksand. Someway or other she
had manipulated the floundering beast downstream in the rush-
ing torrent and onto the far bank, while the waiting band of
fellow settlers gasped in despair and then cheered.2
Her son also tells in his autobiography of a time when, re-
turning toward evening from ministering all day to a sick friend
many miles away in the sparsely settled district, she was pur-
sued for miles by an enormous wolf which got near enough
again and again to leap at her horse's flanks and to tear away
strips of her skirt in his teeth. (She blamed the wolf's per-
sistence on the smell of asafoetida that lingered on her gar-
ments after being all day in the sick room!)
But to go back to John's letter: He notes that in the twelve
months since his arrival at the site of the village to be named
17


THE ANNS MAKE GODEY'S LADY'S BOOK
19
beruffled parasols. Imagine my astonishment, then, when a vol-
ume of "Godey's" was put before me at the Michigan Historical
Collections in answer to my request for all that they had about
Ann Arbor's namesakes.1
But sure enough, there they were, Ann Rumsey in April
1852, and Ann Allen in the May number following. They were
not presented in pictures but in word sketches, a part of a
series being arranged by a Mrs. E. F. Ellet entitled "The
Pioneer Mothers of Michigan." To my further surprise, these
two little essays were "prepared for Mrs. Ellet by Miss Mary
H. Clark," the well-known head-mistress of the Clark School,
famous boarding school for girls which flourished in Ann Arbor
from 1839 to 1875. The style of the articles is as sedate and
elaborate as that of the Clark School catalogues.
Miss Clark first discusses the naming of the community,
declaring that it was "called 'Arbor' on account of the noble
aspect of the original site of the village, which was a burr oak
opening, resembling an arbor laid out and cultivated by the hand
of taste." The artist of the steel engraving which comes later
in the number had apparently not read Miss Clark's essay, for
"The Arbor" depicted is a delicate trellis, under which two
elaborately dressed ladies are elegantly sipping their tea: no
fit place, surely, for Ann Rumsey to do the weekly wash.
Miss Clark describes Mrs. Rumsey, however, as a woman
"of a remarkable and distinguished appearance and of energetic
character and commanding aspect." She accredits her with "a
cheerful disposition, a disregard of hardships, and a resolute
way of making the best of everything." She quotes "Mr. Allen"
as saying of Mrs. Rumsey, "She was always ready with good
humor and a good supper." When wandering Indians became
annoying, as they sometimes did when the men folk were not at
home, Mrs. Rumsey had no trouble getting rid of them. One
time she merely "brandished her broom and bade them begone!"
and they went. "In the eyes of her rustic neighbors," Miss
Clark says, "she was the most prominent female member of
the community."1
Discreet a biographer as Miss Clark was, she could not
resist a bit of gossip about Ann Rumsey's early life, —since
that lady was now dead. She hints at a mystery—perhaps "an
ill-assorted marriage?"—which Ann herself never confided.
Only once, "in a moment of great distress on the occasion of
the sudden death of a beloved child, she let fall expressions
which set afloat conjectures." For this slight cloud on her
far away past, Miss Clark added hastily, "she was not thought
the less of."1


20
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
In the second article, supposedly dealing with Ann Allen,
it is disappointing to find so little said about Ann herself. One
suspects that the reason may be that that lady was still very
much alive at the time Miss Clark was writing. In the urbane
circles of Virginia to which she had returned (while John was
making his ill-fated attempt to profit by the California gold
rush) she was quite likely to get hold of a copy of the "Lady's
Book."
After a brief summing up of Ann's early years, she states
that when the Aliens came to Michigan they were "well to do
in the world . . . and brought horses and other stock with them."
She then dismisses Ann with the following meager and stereo-
typed analysis: "She entered with a ready spirit of enterprise
into the laborious duties required of the wife of a settler."
Since Ann had made Ann Arbor her home for twenty-five years,
surely Miss Clark could have done better than this.2
The sentence she gives John Allen is less accurate than
romantic: "The roving habits of his early life, like those of
Daniel Boone, were in the way of his living contented in a set-
tlement that could no longer be termed wild."2 This is hardly
adequate for a man who had recently spent two terms in the
state senate, where he had shown himself a leader, and who
had been mentioned in the New York "Express" as the likely
Democratic candidate for governor of Michigan.3
We are grateful, however, that Miss Clark gives a really
warm and intimate delineation of John Allen's mother, to whom
she devotes three-fourths of the article. In her youth, accord-
ing to Miss Clark, Elizabeth Tate Allen was "eminently hand-
some, and even at 76 retained a most prepossessing appearance."
The fact that before she was eighteen she had received sixteen
offers of marriage had not made her vain nor prevented her
from developing the sterling qualities that caused her to be "often
described as the ideal pioneer." This is a compliment that
Miss Clark conspicuously neglects to pay to Ann.2
ANN ARBOR'S BEST SELLER
DR. CHASE'S RECIPE BOOK
April 18, 1960
Every now and then, whether by coincidence or telepathy, there
occurs in Ann Arbor—and I suppose in other places too—a flurry


ANN ARBOR'S BEST SELLER
21
of interest in some subject of the town's history the awareness
of which has long been dormant. Such has recently been the
case with Dr. Chase's Recipe Books.
A most important step in this renewal of interest was a
talk given by Mrs. W. R. Drury at her book club. She had
recently happened on an advertisement from Oxford, England,
for yarns dyed with "Dr. A. W. Chase's Recipes: 'Coloring
Department,' Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1863." She sent for the
yarns, and they were truly beautiful. From her talk the en-
thusiasm spread. People began getting out inherited copies of
the various editions of the old book and calling one another on
the phone to laugh over quaint prescriptions (Toad Ointment,
for instance) or to pass on household hints of a bygone day.
For Dr. Chase wrote for an era when recipes might pre-
suppose a cellar provided with an extra barrel or two and a
number of large stone jars and a backyard that would be a sure
source of mullein leaves, camomile, and other medicinal weeds.
The drug store too, identifiable by its globes of colored liquid,
promised a more frequent use of the mortar and pestle than
the concoction of banana splits.
So it came about that the Washtenaw County Historical So-
ciety devoted its March meeting to discussion of the historical,
medical, and legal aspects of this phenomenal publication that
sold over four million copies.1
Those of you who would like to read a lively article that
tells the whole story would do well to hunt up the Autumn num-
ber, 1955, of the Quarterly Review of the Michigan Alumnus,
in which Fred and Marjorie Kerwin, a Grand Rapids couple,
present a thorough story of Dr. Chase's life and work.2
A farm boy from York State, Alvin Wood Chase struck out
for himself in his middle teens as a peddler, wandering about
the territory near the mouth of the Maumee River afterward
called Toledo. He was in Detroit in 1832 at the time of the
epidemic of Asiatic Cholera. As he peddled household drugs
and groceries in the sparsely settled frontier, he began picking
up miscellaneous recipes that appealed to him, buying and sell-
ing and trading them. Eventually he had a few sheets printed
for sale to anyone interested, which he added to from time to
time.3
In 1856 he settled in Ann Arbor. Here he attended medi-
cal lectures at the University as a "partialist," still supporting
his family by selling recipes. Since he had no background of
Latin or "natural history," he could not hope for a degree at
the University. In 1858, however, he received an M.D. degree
from the Eclectic Medical Institute in Cincinnati after sixteen


22
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
weeks of hard study, passing examinations at the head of his
class.3
Ten years after becoming a Doctor of Medicine, Dr. Chase
had become the most widely known and admired and consulted
physician of his time. In 1864 he built Dr. Chase's Steam
Printing Plant on the corner of North Main Street and West
Catherine (now Miller), where the building still stands. He
traveled widely in the United States and Canada, peddling his
book and prescribing and practicing medicine as he went. He
is said to have delivered over 3,000 babies.
The bigger his book grew, the more it sold. It included a
wide variety of do-it-yourself suggestions covering such diverse
fields as cookery, mustache dye, vinegar, wines, soap, horse
medicines, and a secret art of catching fish. Now one of Ann
Arbor's wealthiest and most philanthropic men, Dr. Chase was
able to print testimonials from local professors, ministers, and
political leaders.
For a while he became tired of it all. In 1869 he sold out
his entire Ann Arbor holdings to Rice A. Beal and retired to
Minnesota.4 On hearing of Beal's financial success, he roused
himself to create a new book, adding beekeeping and other in-
novations. With the backing of a group of Ann Arbor men he
returned here to publish it. Since this was a breach of con-
tract, Beal promptly got out an injunction. Chase's group then
set up business in Toledo and bought out Chase's share.
While both the first and second books continued their enor-
mous sales, Dr. Chase had no part in the profits. In a final
attempt to rebuild his fortune, he got together a third book, for
which he had not found a publisher when he died of pneumonia
in 1885.6 All three books continued their lively sale well into
the 20th century.
Reaching the height of his popularity in the very decades
in which Virchow, Lister, Pasteur, Koch, etc., were revolution-
izing the theory and practice of medicine, Dr. Chase never,
bowed to the germ theory.7 Nor was that theory easy for the
unlearned millions to accept. But Dr. Chase was able to infuse
the printed word with a kindness and a spirit of apparent com-
mon sense that made the bewildered people trust him.


23
LET'S TAKE A WALK!
OLD HOUSES
April 25, 1960
A nn Arbor people often lament the fact that other towns have
been more faithful in preserving the pleasant houses of their
early period. One fine old home after another has fallen a
victim to the need for a site for municipal or business pur-
poses. Yet there are a number of such historic residences
still standing in the various parts of town.
I propose that we take a series of walks during the nice
spring days to have a look at these time-hallowed old places
before it is too late. Today let us leave our car in the Fifth
Avenue parking lot and go through the gate at the back into the
once aristocratic Division Street.
Turning to the left, we shall presently want to reduce our
pace to a saunter as we pass the exquisite little white house
still known as "the Kempf house," built well over a hundred
years ago.1 With the grace and classic detail of a little Greek
temple, it has managed to capture also a spirit of hominess.
There is something gay about the white-painted iron grillwork
of the low upstairs windows. The whole effect has the delicacy
of a wedding cake.
We hold it in mind as we stroll on north through a now
thickly lived-in and worked-in area, through the busy intersec-
tions of Liberty, Washington, and Huron, till we come to the
quiet corner of Division and Ann. Here we shall want to stand
awhile and imagine ourselves a part of the expansive hospitality
and the courtly manners of a by-gone era.
Across Division, at the head of the original Ann Street and
thus visible for many blocks to the west, is probably the most
famous house in Ann Arbor from an architectural point of view.
It was included in the Historical American Buildings Survey,
and measured drawings and photographs are recorded in Wash-
ington.2 Its stately high pillars, its beautifully proportioned
roof lines, its long parlor windows and recessed doorway—one
could go on and on. There it stands in gray dignity among its
century-old trees. This house was built in the early 1840's
for Judge N. W. Wilson, but has been known for sixty-odd years
now as "the George Wahr House."2
Across Ann Street as it jogs is the spectacular old "Bab-
cock Place,"3 the yellow brick mansion towering above enormous


24
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
horse-chestnut trees in the midst of a spacious lawn. Although
made into apartments a generation ago, it has preserved the
outside appearance of its days of affluence.
To the north of where we are standing is one of the most
beautiful of Ann Arbor's post-Civil War houses. Its brick walls
are of a soft old-rose-red, and its ample proportions do not
seem narrowed by its many pointed gables. The green shutters
and the elaborate wooden trim of its eaves and porches always
look freshly painted. At this time of year its many huge oak
trees cast a dancing pattern of light and shade over house and
lawn.
In its nearly a century of existence, this gracious residence
has been the home of only two families: the Alonzo Palmers,
and the Laubengayers, of whom the present owners, the Mack
Ryans, are daughter and son-in-law.4
Resisting the temptation to wander farther down Division,
we turn west along the side of the Ryan home and garden. Half
way down the block, at 317 E. Ann, we pass a house built in
the 1830's and lived in during its early years by George Cor-
selius, editor of the Western Emigrant. John Allen and Judge
Dexter, founders of that first newspaper, must have often en-
tered through that heavy oak front door. The house is less
pretentious than those at the corner above, but it is commodi-
ous and substantial, of a simple New England style, broad roof
line to the street, white with green shutters. The picture of
this house also was taken to Washington for permanent record.6
As we move on, old old stores on one side and a new new
County Building on the other bring us to Main Street. We turn
left, for we must include "the Bertha Muehlig house" in this
first tour. After bucking afternoon shoppers for three blocks
and a half we stop suddenly, for there it is, bright and serene,
holding its own between high brick stores. It is another white
house with green shutters, of ample family size, its broad gable
facing the street. The front door looks hospitable—but the blinds
are drawn. One remembers the Christmas-card look given Miss
Muehlig's house for many years by the Garden Club. This land-
mark was built some 120 years ago by Florian Muehlig, first
of the clan to come from Germany.7 They say it still has the
brick smoke-oven between dining-room and kitchen.*
*Just as this series of articles was about to be sent to press as a
book—two years after my readers first took with me the walk de-
scribed above—the sad inevitable happened: wreckers came to demol-
ish the Muehlig house. The whole town grieved, not only at the pass-
ing of a beautiful and historic landmark, but at the loss of a visible
reminder of the noble and gracious woman who had lived there all her


LET'S TAKE A WALK!
25
There are two homes on William Street with which I'd like
to end our tour, but we must hurry back to the parking lot.
We'll begin with them next time. (I hope you've been wearing
comfortable shoes!)

The Muehlig house.
long life. One would soon run short of adjectives to cover the gener-
osity, the cheer, and the general strength of character of Miss Bertha
Muehlig.



MUSICAL MEMORIES
May 2, 1960
'Today's column is not meant for the musically elite. These
are the reminiscences of a not-very-musical person. To many
like me, nevertheless, one of the greatest pleasures of living in
Ann Arbor is the opportunity of hearing, and seeing, over the
decades, practically all of the world's great musical artists
and many of its great orchestras and choral groups. Unblessed
by either absolute pitch or an extensive musical education, a
couple of thousand of us buy our course tickets year after year
and troop to Hill Auditorium to enjoy ourselves thoroughly.
Now a bit of preliminary history: In 1854 there came to
the little University a brilliant young Latin scholar, Professor
Henry Simmons Frieze, who was also an accomplished amateur
musician. After twenty-five years of playing church organs
and working with church singers, he was able, in 1879, to gen-
erate the enthusiasm necessary for a presentation of The Mes-
siah by a combination of church choirs. A year later this
group became the Choral Union.1
In 1881 a gifted music teacher from Oberlin, Calvin O.
Cady, with the encouragement of Professor Frieze, opened a
private conservatory here which he called the Ann Arbor School
of Music. Both his school and the Choral Union were glad to
accept the sponsorship of a recently formed organization called
the University Musical Society.1
It was in 1888 that Professor Albert A. Stanley, a well-
known organist of Providence, Rhode Island, was lured to the
26


MUSICAL MEMORIES
27
University by President Angell, and Ann Arbor's development
as a music center was established. University Hall became a
mecca. By a sort of accident the "First Annual May Festival"
was advertised in 1894, but the aisles and corridors were packed,
and the series was on its way.1
In 1904 a young man was hired by the University Musical
Society as Executive Secretary. For fifty-four years, with busi-
ness acumen, judgment, tact and good nature he was to hold the
various series of concerts together, uninterrupted by world wars
or depressions. His name?—why Charles A. Sink, of course.
Now for the personal memories: Hill Auditorium was still
very new when I arrived in Ann Arbor. Mme. Schumann-Heink
had proclaimed it the most beautiful in the world. As the vast
audience assembled for a concert, the outer parts of the build-
ing hummed with excitement. Many people wore formal attire
at all the concerts, and at May Festival time the display of
decolletage, trains, tiaras, and tails and white ties was dazzling.
By this time, Professor Stanley was a round little elderly
man with a pink bald head and a twinkle behind his glasses.
Alma Gluck had surprised the audience the preceding year
by appearing on the stage here in a simple evening gown of the
current fashion and with her own natural hair-do. Slender and
beautiful, she had been quite a change from a series of portly
prima donnas costumed elaborately for Wagnerian roles and the
like, and with enormous head-pieces. Alma Gluck came again
more than once, I think, and we loved her almost as much for
her beauty as for her sure, clear soprano.
Don't mistake me. We loved no-one more than Schumann-
Heink, portly or not,—and she loved us. Walking on heavily in
her flat-heeled shoes, she would figuratively clasp us to her
bosom while the great air spaces would reverberate with ap-
plause. Then we would forget everything in the gorgeous out-
pouring of her deep contralto.
Marguerite Matzenauer came frequently in those days too.
She resembled Schumann-Heink in size, though younger, and in
range and power, but she wasn't much interested in her audi-
ence. Galli-Curci came to Ann Arbor just once, I believe,
before her fateful tonsillectomy. A forerunner of Lily Pons,
she reminded us by her happy artless manner of what a former
generation had said of Jenny Lind. For her high, supple tones
the inescapable term was "flute-like." Another fine soprano of
that era was Olive Fremstad. I shall never forget the pure
beauty of her voice as, for a final encore, she surprised us
with the popular old melody, "Long, Long Ago."
(Speaking of simple tunes, do you remember when Lawrence


28
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
Tibbett, much later, revealed the beauty of "At Home on the
Range" and then whistled it as a sort of echo? I hope there'll
be such whistlers in Heaven!)
Caruso got to Ann Arbor just once, after disappointing post-
ponements. He gave us freely of his "golden" voice. His jocu-
lar antics between numbers were a part of his well-loved per-
sonality and were echoed with charming naturalness by his
youthful supporting artist, Nina Morgana.2
Equally playful in the special Italian manner was that other
fabulous tenor, Martinelli, who came to us many times. Can
you ever forget the evening when he and Pinza romped all over
the stage between numbers, while in their duets and solos they
gave us the exquisite blending and contrast of the distinctive
timbre of their voices.
All of these artists were dramatic in their manner while
singing. Unaware of this tradition, certain young Michigan Daily
critics became quite annoyed at times. I remember that one
of them found Rosa Ponselle's "shudder at the end of 'Erlkonig'
unforgivable." It was a sad day for us concert goers when that
gracious young woman, possessed of one of the most beautiful
soprano voices of a century, retired from public singing so early.
They say that one time Lily Pons was really "mad" at
some crack of the Daily, and demanded an apology. But how
I'd love to see that little person come dancing out on the plat-
form again, smiling, to give us the high trills and effortless
flowing of sound so famous all over the world.
Quite different was the approach of Marion Anderson. Dig-
nified and majestic, she bent on the audience a look that might
be called severe until she began to stir us with the depth of
her emotion as she sang.
Various unprogrammed episodes come to mind: as the time
that Lucrezia Bori promised the insistent hand-clappers that
she would come back after the union-bound orchestra had to
leave, if anyone cared to wait. Naturally the whole crowd waited.
The stage was finally cleared, the trap door lowered and raised
again with a piano on it, and out came Bori with our own Mabel
Ross Rhead to play for her. So the two of them, obviously
charmed with each other, gave us song after song.
Of course there have been less happy deviations from the
expected, as when Paderewski made the audience wait till the
heating plant could raise the temperature to 80 degrees. Or
worse yet, when we had to wait for John McCormack to be
sobered up enough to sing, for so at least the gossip went.
I shall leave the orchestras, the choruses, and the other
instrumentalists for you to recall for yourselves this week as





ANOTHER STROLL
31
back in an orchard. There this musical child was allowed to
play on what, long before, had been the first piano brought west
of Detroit. You have often heard how Lucy Clark, the General's
young sister, used to play on it for the entertainment of the
Potawatomi Indians.
At the corner of Fifth Avenue we give just a little sigh
over the memory of the splendid old Beal residence with its
exotic trees, much as we appreciate the modern library that
has taken its place.
Turning left, we pass along the only stretch of Fifth Avenue
that has retained something of its 19th century grace. The
street is broad and tree lined, the lawns are ample, and the
houses still look like homes, even though most of them have
now been divided into apartments. Here and there one notes
the simple lines of what might be a century-old dwelling. They
say that two of Ann Arbor's most worthy mayors used to live
in this block, Samuel W. Beakes and Francis M. Hamilton, but
there is nothing now to designate which were their respective
executive mansions.
Farther along, across from the end of East Jefferson, is a
modest little place that everyone notices, a bright, neat little
old-timer, yellow with green shutters. It is undoubtedly one
of Ann Arbor's oldest houses still standing, and it has always
been lived in by the Dietz family. The mother of the late
Frank W. Stampfler was a Dietz, and Mrs. Stampfler still lives
in the house. The original deed is a mere scrap of paper.
The house was built on the very edge of the Allen-Rumsey vil-
lage, and to the south of it in the early days the woods sloped
down to a marsh. Though now covered with aluminum siding,
the clapboards underneath are of walnut. The present kitchen,
too, formerly the "summer kitchen," has walls and cupboards
of the original black walnut.3
As we reach Packard, we shall swing back to the left, for
I want to show you what all the old maps designate as Hanover
Square. At its northwest corner this wooded park, a full block
in size, brought Packard to an end, and the road issuing from
its opposite corner diagonally was called Grove Street. Only a
tiny triangle of trees and grass now remains on our left in the
angle before Packard crosses Division, while the Perry School
playground and the through street have absorbed the rest of the
Square.4
I shall now leave you to make your way back along Divi-
sion Street to William, and to do your own romanticizing about
any old houses you may spot along this busy thoroughfare.


32
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
A REPORT TO OUR PUBLIC
May 16, 1960
In the introductory remarks with which we launched this column
on February 12, we invited our readers to contribute any bits
of old Ann Arbor information they might have, and to ask any
questions that occurred to them as the column pursued its
rambling way. The response has been most gratifying, for
never has there been a week but what a number of phone calls
and letters have been stimulated by that or a previous Monday's
article. Several of the ideas have already been put to use, and
the rest are filed away for the appropriate time to introduce
them.
One of the most puzzling of the questions I shall now pass
on to you. Milton Kemnitz, the local artist, has in his posses-
sion a number of large, professional photographs of a parade
that occurred in Ann Arbor one late fall or early spring day
long ago. He would like very much to know what on earth was
going on and when. The spirit of the occasion is definitely
comic, but the fact that the drivers of the horses and many
participants are middle-aged to elderly men would preclude the
idea that University students were up to something. Heavy
beards seemed to be the accepted fashion, and the few women
who turned out to see the fun were wearing long gored skirts
while the small boys were in tight knee pants.
A few soldiers were featured in what look to me like uni-
forms of the Spanish American War. Some of the banners
jokingly advertised fake monsters, others promised a "Chuck-
a-Luck" game, and one a stock show. An old-time hack seemed
to be occupied by ladies dressed in heirloom costumes of a
much earlier period.
Most of the photographs were taken at the beginning of
Washtenaw Avenue, but one was on Main Street with a glimpse
of the front of the Courthouse on the right and the fancy old
red brick Post Office beyond. From this one Mr. Kemnitz has
made an oil painting full of atmosphere and color. —Any clues?
A somewhat similar problem was presented when my phone
rang one evening in March. A Mr. D. J. Torrans, a chemical
engineer from Wilmington, Delaware, in town on business, had
run across the column while waiting for dinner time at the
Michigan Union. He was reminded of an old button he had at
home that had always aroused his curiosity. He called me to


34
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
always call the North Side 'Old Town'?" Well, if they do, my
only guess is that many decades later people may have con-
fused "old" with "lower," as the historical expression for this
first addition to the village was Lower Town. Also the fact
that the business district of the north side fell into a long peri-
od of comparative inactivity made possible the preservation of
a number of its fine brick buildings which were obviously of an
earlier period of architecture than those on Main Street.
It is only quite recently that a row of such store buildings
on the right soon after one crossed the bridge gave place to a
modern motel. That group always used to give me a feeling of
having been dropped down suddenly in a village of the Old World.
On the left, on the corner of Broadway and Pontiac Streets, the
stately white brick building remains that inspired the well-known
drawing by Samuel Chamberlain.4 Just beyond it, the less pre-
tentious little red brick store building seems to have been trans-
planted from some old street in Baltimore or Philadelphia or
Greenwich Village.

A remnant of the grandeur of Lower Towr


THE STORY OF "LOWER TOWN"
35
It was the firm intention of the platters, Anson Brown and
his wife's brother, Edward L. Fuller, that this broad street
lined with handsome buildings should be the real center of the
city that Ann Arbor was to become.5 Since the roads from
Plymouth and Pontiac and the old Indian trail from Detroit con-
verged there, it seemed to them more accessible to the outside
world than the "Hill-Toppers'" settlement, as they derisively
called the Allen-Rumsey plat.
Anson Brown had bought the water rights and dammed the
Huron in 1830, and the brothers-in-law had built a flouring mill
on the north side of the river. In 1832 Anson got the appoint-
ment of postmaster of Ann Arbor and promptly relocated the
Post Office in Lower Town.6
Anson's brother, a Main Street merchant, persuaded a lit-
tle group of Baptists to hold their meetings above a store on
Broadway.7 Anson drew up a subscription paper for a church
building, subscribing $200 himself and designating a site which
he intended to donate. The Baptists continued to worship on
the north side until 1849.
In 1833 a large frame hotel, the Washtenaw House, was
built on Broadway by William R. Thompson. It was said to be
the finest hostelry between Detroit and Chicago.8
1834 proved to be an unfortunate year for the north side.
Citizens of the upper village sent a recommendation to the Post-
master General to appoint Charles Thayer postmaster so that
he would bring back the Post Office to the "hilltop," but before
the document reached Washington the man it was to displace,
this energetic and imaginative Anson Brown, had died of cholera.
Without his zeal and inspiration, the growth of Lower Town
tapered off. Three years later the University accepted the gift
of a campus on South State Street, and in 1839 the Michigan
Central Railroad tracks were laid south of the river.10
Although the north side's dream of grandeur was short lived,
it has retained a unity and a spirit of neighbor lines s dear to
its residents. It developed its own schools, which were not in-
corporated in the city school system until 1861.11 Throughout
the century its varied industrial enterprises have enjoyed a
modest prosperity. As "Lower Town" gradually spread out
over its scenic encircling hills, many pleasant homes were built
and have remained. Shall we take a walk there some day?


36
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
MEMORIAL DAY SPECIAL
May 30, 1960
Surely May 30 is one day of the year when one can dwell on
the subject of cemeteries without being accused of being morbid.
On this peculiarly American holiday there is even a kind of
solemn jollity among the groups that gather from far and near,
geranium laden, around their family plots. So what more ap-
propriate time than "Decoration Day" to consider the history of
Ann Arbor's old cemeteries?
The first public burying place was a part of Andrew Now-
land's farm, some say given by him to the village, others that
he sold it for cash.1 It comprised the land now known as Felch
Park, and was approached by a continuation of Huron Street
that for some time was only a lane. Just west of it, early
maps began to designate a "Private Cemetery" that extended
into the present Rackham Building grounds, with no street in-
tervening and with one corner marked "Hebrew Burial Ground."2
Whether this separation was due to Jewish exclusiveness or to
gentile prejudice I do not know.
By 1843 the whole place had apparently been allowed to be-
come pretty shabby, for the citizens met at the Court House
and passed a "Resolution for improving and ornamenting the
public Burying Ground of this village." As a result the now
majestic trees were set out in symmetric pattern.3
In the meantime, as a part of his plan for the north side,
Anson Brown had donated to the village a small tract on the
heights above Lower Town, between Pontiac Street and the river,
which was to comprise about one-tenth of the present Fairview
Cemetery.4 This beautiful plateau at the brink of the hill com-
mands a view up and down the river and across the city that
would be worth a Sunday afternoon drive to behold.
The first person to be buried there was Elizabeth Thomp-
son, who died in 1833. She was the mother of William R.
Thompson, proprietor of the Washtenaw House, Lower Town,
and a little later one of the five men who donated a campus to
the University.4
Almost directly across the river valley from Fairview, on
an equally high hill and with an equally beautiful vista off to the
north, is the St. Thomas Cemetery, which dates from the early
1840's.


Overlooking the beautiful Huron River valley is this row of headstones in Fairview Cemetery ^
brought from the old graveyard that became Felch Park. -J


38
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
As the infant university began to grow and the village of
Ann Arbor became a small city, more houses were built in the
North State Street area, and Ann Arbor High School was erected
less than two blocks away from the old graveyard at the end of
Huron Street. It became obvious that a larger site, farther out,
would be desirable. A "Cemetery Company" was formed in
1856, a hilly part of the Taylor farm was chosen, south and
east of the observatory, and the name Forest Hill Cemetery
was decided upon. Lots were offered for from 10 to 50 dollars
and subscriptions taken for funds to lay out the grounds in a
suitable elaborate pattern.5 At first the lots were sold on
credit, but a few years later the company, finding collection
problems, found it necessary to demand cash henceforth.
The development moved more slowly than had been hoped,
and it was not until May 19, 1859, that all was ready for a
formal dedication ceremony. The imposing procession that
marched to the grounds must have stretched all the way from
its point of origin, which was probably Court House Square.
Led by a band and several military units, the orator of the day
and the cemetery officials were followed by notables from all
over the state and then by every group in the city one can think
of from University faculty to firemen. Trudging along in the
dust at the end of the line came "the children of the Ann Arbor
Public Schools." Apparently the ceremony was worth the long
trek. Special music had been composed for the choir and the
band, and suitable new poetry fitted to old tunes for the con-
gregation to join in the singing.5
It was several years later that the board amassed enough
funds to build the picturesque stone structures at the entrance
gate.
In 1891 Ann Arbor's oldest cemetery was converted into a
park and named for ex-governor Alpheus Felch in honor of his
90th birthday.6 Care was taken in removal of the bodies, most
of which were re-interred in Fairview Cemetery, where their
original headstones may still be observed in a west-central
section. I saw there the names of many well-known pioneers,
such as David E. Lord, Ann Arbor's first doctor, who died in
1831; Furman Bird, in 1839; and David Page, who died in 1856
at the age of 90.
Among those moved to Forest Hill by heirs or relatives
was the body of Elisha Walker Rumsey, co-founder of the vil-
lage, whose energetic life was cut short in 1827.7 The family
plot of James C. Allen, son of John, is in Forest Hill.7 John
Allen's parents were buried in Ann Arbor, but seemingly on
their own home premises, the exact location of their graves
having been lost.8


MEMORIAL DAY SPECIAL
39
A similar fate would have obscured the grave on a Pitts-
field farm of this district's only Revolutionary War hero had
not the local DAR chapter discovered it. Now surrounded by a
low stone wall and marked by a suitable bronze tablet are the
graves of "Ensign John Terhune, 1759-1839" and his wife Sarah,
and near them that of a young girl, Emily Whitmore, "the first
white child to be buried in Washtenaw County," who died in
1825.9 The city of Ann Arbor now has the title to this little
spot out Packard Road, and it is cared for by the Park Depart-
ment.10



CAMPUS WHITE HOUSE
June 6, 1960
People seldom think of the University president's house as
particularly old. Probably the reasons are the bright-as-new
condition in which it is always kept, the taste with which the
various expansions have been made, and the fact that its time-
less basic pattern is one which underwent a special renewal of
popularity in the 20th century.
The only one of the original university buildings still stand-
ing,1 this house happened to be the one of them first finished
and occupied, in the summer of 1840. The initial building pro-
gram included four professors' houses and one combination class-
room and dormitory structure, which came to be known as
Mason Hall.2
On the drawing board the forty-acre campus was divided
through the center from north to south by an avenue 100 feet
wide, with the professors' houses arranged in pairs on either
side, two facing the south edge of the campus and two the north.
The avenue never materialized, but the four houses were fin-
ished promptly, each complete with woodhouse, cistern, and
barn, plenty of room for a vegetable garden, and a picket fence
with a gate to keep their own livestock in and other people's
out. The houses were identical in plan, two stories high, square
with a low-pitched roof, and with a central hall and small en-
trance porch. Since the organization did not provide for a presi-
dent, no one of the houses had any look of special prestige.1
After a confused period of rotating chairmanships, President
40


CAMPUS WHITE HOUSE
41
Tappan was brought to Ann Arbor in 1852, and this was the
house available. A report the previous summer had said the
tin roofs of the professors' houses were already leaking.2
Under the Tappans the house took on a greater dignity.
After their departure in 1863, the letter of a loyal faculty wife
speaks rather cattily of the Havens' adjustment to the house.
Their addition of a kitchen wing to the west now makes it, she
says, "a structure of the composite order of architecture." She
feared that kitchen smells would permeate the once distinguished
parlors, and she quoted the unsophisticated Mrs. Haven as say-
ing, "Mrs. Tappan must have been a very lazy woman to keep
two girls!"4
Sometime during this decade the third story was added, with
its wide eaves supported by decorative brackets and the "widow's
walk" on the roof. When President Angell requested that cer-
tain windows be cut through, he was told that the weight of the
recently added third story had caused the brick walls to settle
at the corners, and that the piercing of the walls for new win-
dows was not deemed safe.5
Much of the two-years' correspondence between Dr. Angell
and the regents before he agreed to come to Michigan in 1871
concerned improvements he demanded in the house. He made
clear that as president of the University of Vermont he was
living in "an elegant new house . . . furnished with all modern
conveniences." The regents finally conceded $1,500 for the
purpose, including a bathroom with hot and cold water, a thor-
ough paper and paint job inside and out, and a furnace,5 although
the seven fireplaces remained.6
There are many photographs showing the various changes
during the long Angell regime; an ornate open porch clear across
the back, a second barn with a weathervane—and finally no barns
at all, a small porch on the east, the library wing to the west
with its curved wall, and the replacement for a time of the
single white front door surrounded by small-paned windows, by
a dark Victorian double door embellished with arched stained
glass. At one time the little front portico and much of the upper
trim were painted dark, probably to match the shutters. The
low picket fence gave place to a more pretentious one of wrought
iron. Various small plantings appeared, grew as tall as the
house, and then were gone again.7 At first lighted with candles
and oil lamps, the house had been equipped with gas lights before
the Angells came, and was wired for electricity in 1891.
For a time after old Dr. Angell's death in 1916 this Presi-
dent's Home was untenanted, as Dr. Hutchins preferred to live
on in his own residence on Monroe Street.


42
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
For President Burton the sun room and sleeping porch
were built in 1920, and—for the first time—a garage.9 Dr.
Ruthven asked for a private study on the northeast corner, and
Mrs. Ruthven for the glassed-in plant room.10 Feeling that
twenty-two rooms ought to do them nicely, the Hatchers re-
quested only the wide glass porch wall at the back and the
stone terrace beyond it, that they might enjoy the garden more
fully.11
With all its changes, due to fluctuations of taste and the
needs of a growing university, the president's home on the cam-
pus has remained gracious and beautiful.
MUSEUM MUSINGS
June 13, 1960
J\ high light of Michigan Month for the Washtenaw Historical
Society was a chance to get acquainted with the rather new De-
troit Historical Museum. May 5 was designated as Ann Arbor
Day there, when our officers gave the talks at the program.
President Louis E. Ayres outlined the early years of Ann Arbor
village, and Secretary Mrs. I. William Groomes gave jolly remi-
niscences of Ann Arbor just before the passing of the horse
and buggy era. On May 14 a chartered bus took in a larger
group of the Society to be guests of the museum for a conducted
tour of the building.
Probably the spot that charmed us most, however, was the
display case filled with Washtenaw relics lent by the Society
from its hoard of historical treasures, most of which are at
present inaccessible to us because of the lack of a museum of
our own. There we saw Ann Allen's dainty tortoise-shell fan,
a large photograph of John Allen's oil portrait, a fine blue and
white coverlet woven in Washtenaw County in 1840, and a hand-
bill advertising the Ann Arbor Land Company's auction of vil-
lage lots when their get-rich-quick plan after the coming of the
University failed to pay off. There were also souvenirs of
pioneer housekeeping in our community: a lard-burning brass
lamp, an ingenious hand-crafted spool and button holder, and a
wooden potato masher of which the wear-polished surface gave
evidence of many a good dinner after the vegetable gardens got
into production under the girdled trees.


MUSEUM MUSINGS
43
Thrilled as we were by the vast building and its cleverly
arranged displays, showing Detroit at every stage from the
coming of the French on down, our conversation on the way
home reverted to the same old subject: Ann Arbor's lamenta-
ble need of a museum.
To be sure, the new County Building has set aside a nice
little place in the basement, ten feet by twenty-five, with a
glass wall through which we can view a pleasant arrangement
of heirlooms.1 Anyone wishing to see it should ask at the in-
formation desk to have the lights turned on. Displayed there
are a number of fine pieces of furniture from some of Wash-
tenaw's leading early families: the Bach highboy; Judge Dexter's
rocker; Sarah Parker's piano; a mahogany table and chairs that
came down in the Clark-Kingsley-Chapin family; a fireplace and
mantel; a grandfather's clock; Ann Allen's lovely fan (when the
Detroit exhibit returns it), and a group of quaint farm imple-
ments recently bequeathed from the estate of Supervisor Ells-
worth Lindsley. Of course the historic Lucy Clark piano has
long been entrusted by the Society to Hill Auditorium.
In the attic of the City Hall Annex, however, without heat
and without lights, are packed away a dust-gathering cache of
authentic Washtenaw County historical treasures. The insurance
policy's list would fill this entire column. There are bureaus,
mirrors, sofas, beds, cradles, chairs of all sorts, dishes, quilts,
tables: furniture and equipment for every room in the house.
There are also beautiful examples of clothing of the different
generations, pictures, and documents. Rare bits of antique
jewelry are kept in a safety-deposit box rented by the Society.
The vicissitudes to which the Society has been put to have
any place at all to stack these priceless belongings would make
an article in itself—or a book. By rigid economy and careful
allotment throughout the years about $4,000 have accumulated
in the museum fund. A few years ago an opportunity came to
buy a fine old house out Packard Road for $35,000—a figure as
prohibitive for the Society's resources as a million dollars
would have been.
Many counties in Michigan with far less to display have
set up creditable museums, often in some such picturesque old
residence. But with present real estate values and taxes what
they are in this community, it is unrealistic to expect either
the Board of Supervisors or the City Council to authorize the
financing even of such a property. So-o-o—until some local
Santa Claus comes forward we can only dream, and hope that
in the meantime a raging fire in the City Hall Annex does not
make a repository for our accumulation of valuable relics no
longer necessary.


44
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
NO POEM LOVELY AS A TREE
June 20, 1960
A. long in the 1920's I remember running across a Baedeker
guidebook to the United States. Wondering what this interna-
tional aid to the traveler would be telling foreigners about our
own city, I looked up Ann Arbor. There in a short paragraph
I found some such expression as "famous for its trees." Re-
cently I have consulted earlier issues, and found in the 1893
number, "a flourishing tree-shaded city," and in 1909 "a resi-
dential, tree-shaded city." These observations antedate the
breath-taking beauty of Awixa Road when the Hopa crab trees
are in bloom, and the full maturity of the magnolias on the
Martha Cook lawn and in Forest Hill Cemetery.
We have often heard that a prime reason for Allen and
Rumsey's choice of a location for their village was that it was
a "burr oak opening"; that is, that the oak trees, though gath-
ered in groups here and there or scattered singly, left plenty
of open space that could be put to use directly without the la-
borious process of clearing the land.
One of the thicker groupings was in the district back of
what became the St. Andrew's Church property, running east to
State Street, described on the old deeds as "the Oak Grove."
A number of great oak trees are still to be seen up the middle
of this long block which may well have been there in February
1824, when Allen and Rumsey were having their preliminary
look. The squirrels still plentiful there are no doubt lineal
descendants of those that started up at the sound of the two
men's voices. In front of the old Prettyman home on Lawrence
Street (originally named "The Bowery") is a particularly mag-
nificent primeval oak.
Another such beauty remains on the corner of State and
Huron on the Methodist Church lawn. Around the Baptist Church
and the old Douglas home down Huron Street others have sur-
vived. Many of us remember the fine trees on the lawn of
"The Haunted Tavern," formerly the Sheehan home, which gave
place some twenty years ago to the A&P supermarket and its
parking lot. Our recently retired city forester, E. A. Gallup,
tells me that there is a famous big oak on the corner of Third
and Mosley Streets; and that in Wurster Park on West Madison
are two fine "mavericks," a chestnut oak and an alexandrii
oak.


NO POEM LOVELY AS A TREE
45

One of Ann Arbor's beautiful old oaks. It may have passed
the acorn stage before Allen and Rumsey arrived.
All of these were outside the boundaries of the original vil-
lage, but Mr. Gallup remembers equally fine oaks around the
old Judge Kinne home, which used to stand on the southeast
corner of Huron and Fifth Avenue. Of course, Oakland Avenue,
where it curves, shows still that it was once an oak grove, as
does "the forest" surrounding the Forest Plaza and extending
through the Presbyterian Church grounds and across Washte-
naw. The middle-of-the-sidewalk trees, as on Haven, are usu-
ally oaks. Mrs. C. A. Arnold, who lives at Seventh and Stadium,
tells me that last year they found it necessary to cut down a
white oak, the rings of which prove it to have been over 119
years old. They are preserving the stump.


46
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
Speaking of stumps, one of a giant sycamore was found at
the bottom of the old Huron River pond when the dam was re-
placed a few years ago. Since the stump had been submerged
when the old dam was built in 1830 and the rings showed the
tree to have been over 100 years old when felled, it must have
been sizable when George Washington was born. The stump was
given to C. A. Harris at his request. He and his righthand-
man Percy Robbins snaked it out of the muck of the river bed
with chains fastened to their truck and took it to the old saw-
mill down Geddes Road to be cut into strips. When cured, the
beautiful, well-preserved wood was used by Mr. Harris in his
hobby of making violins and other carved pieces.
None of the trees mentioned so far were planted by man.
The great variety of trees we remember around the Courthouse
were all set there in the early days, however, in a belated at-
tempt to beautify the grounds. The University campus seems
to have been almost completely denuded of trees when the first
buildings were erected, and remained so for some time. Before
1852, 150 trees had been set out but had not grown well. It was
suggested that "the practice of cutting hay from the grounds
had impoverished the soil" and the pasturage of sheep was
recommended instead.
In 1857 young Professor Andrew D. White took over the
project of improving the appearance of the campus, and 1,370
shade and ornamental trees were growing there by 1864. It
was the class of 1858 that planted the concentric rings around
a native oak since called the "Tappan Oak."1
It is likely that the trees that so impressed Herr Baedeker
were the tall elms and maples that had become the traditional
planting along our city streets. The hugest elms that I know
are the two on Packard just above State Street, although some
of those that skirt the sunken lawn of the SAE house at South
University and Washtenaw are runners-up.
I have often caviled at certain lines in Joyce Kilmer's
"Trees"—especially the "nest of robins in her HAIR"! But I
quite agree with his closing line:
"Only God can make a tree."


47
MORE FINE OLD HOUSES
June 27, 1960
Our walk today will be a short one. Park your car on Hill
Street near Washtenaw and we'll first tarry in front of the
leisurely-looking beige-brown residence set in its wide lawn on
Hill near Baldwin. It has long been known as the Hall house.
I have been told that when Dr. Louis P. Hall and his bride
moved in on their wedding day, Valentine's Day, 1885, there
were only two houses in sight: the old Day farm house featured
last summer in the Ann Arbor News as "the Lloyd House," and
the Frieze-Scott house—later to be known as the Wilgus place—
back among the oak trees. So these three will be our subject
today.
The old Baldwin farm had been bought by Dr. Hall's par-
ents soon after they came to Ann Arbor in the early 1870's,
the house having been built by J. D. Baldwin in the late 40's.
Though the Hall family had established their home in the red
brick house that occupied the triangular spot where the Uni-
versity Museum now stands, they saw possibilities in their farm
some distance out. Much of the acreage Mrs. Hall later sub-
divided, naming Olivia Avenue after herself, and for her hus-
band the winding Israel Hall Road the name of which was later
officially changed to Cambridge Road. For possession of the
race track then off Hill beyond Olivia she traded the back fields
of her farm, and in that remote spot the Fair Grounds were
developed that now have become Burns Park.
When the Louis Halls moved in, the stucco covering the
brick walls was salmon colored, but the spirited young bride
soon had it changed to its present hue, as she had vowed as a
girl that she would never, never live in a pink house. Larger
porches were added as they came in style, but the classical
flat roof and cornice, the glass-framed front door, and the
small paned windows remained as they were. One of the few
inside changes was to throw together four tiny rooms to make
a hospitable large dining room, where an interesting slanting
beam had to be left for support. For many years the water
supply came in a wooden conduit from the hill across Washte-
naw and Oxford Road.1
The beautiful big white Georgian "Lloyd House" on its green
slope was rased last summer to make way for the needs of
Alpha Chi Omega for larger quarters. Though no longer visible,


THE OLD-TIME GLORIOUS FOURTH
51
By July 4, 1825, Ann Arbor was ready to entertain the
county in a more conventional manner. Elisha Walker Rumsey
had gotten together the town's first military company, which
happily was never needed to fight the Indians. In clumsy for-
mation, no doubt, they led the little crowd along the dusty trail
(with the present street names, however) from the vegetable-
planted Court House Square to the oak grove at the front of
which, years later, St. Andrew's Church was to stand.2
There, in imitation of the natural one on West Huron Street,
the two Anns had created an arbor, where the opening cere-
mony was performed.2 Ezra Maynard and his wife wrote home
about it to their eldest son William, who had gone back East to
find and court a wife.
The exercises, Ezra declared, "were conducted in the
Massachusetts and New York style ... in as solemn a manner
as I ever saw it anywhere." After a prayer "by Dr. Maynard"
(himself), the Declaration of Independence was read by "Col."
James Allen, John's father, and the oration of the day was
given by "Samuel Dexter, Esq."—later Judge Dexter.3 A band
then played—probably made up chiefly of the musical Mills
family—Rumsey and his soldiers put on a drill, and a group of
school children performed in some manner unspecified (though
whether the first school had yet convened in its tiny log cabin
is a moot question).
The whole crowd, 300 strong, then "dined at John Allen's."3
Let us hope, for the sake of Ann and her mother-in-law, that
this dinner was semi-potluck!
The long afternoon would be spent in wandering about the
scattered settlement and listening to John Allen expound his
dreams, with perhaps a visit to the sawmill near where Allen's
Creek joined the river, or just lolling about under the big trees
and talking endlessly—for those from the more lonely outlying
places would be starved for conversation.
Then, as the shadows under the western hills merged with
twilight, Captain James Allen tuned his violin and the dance was
on—to last far into the night, for they found that this dignified
gentleman from Virginia could play "Turkey-in-the-Straw" on
and on without ever tiring.2
Twenty-seven years later, in her Godey's Lady's Book arti-
cle, Miss Mary Clark records the story that on the occasion
of Ann Arbor's first Fourth of July celebration "the family of
Mr. White"—whether Eber or Orrin she doesn't say, though
others tell us it was Orrin—found that during the dance their
oxen had escaped. They had to walk home in terror while the
wolves were howling all around them.


52
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
FROM PEACOCKS TO ELKS
July 11, 1960
\^ou may have wondered when hurrying along South Main Street
why the Elks didn't tear down that old wooden building attached
to their fine new brick addition. The answer must be, of course,
that the Elks are gentlemen of sentiment and that they really
cherish this remnant of elegance from Ann Arbor's early period.
They also probably wish to honor the builder, William S. May-
nard, who had as much to do as any one person with the direc-
tion of the development of the community during its first forty
years.
Three additions to the village and city bear his name; three
streets commemorate himself and his family. He was one of
the five donors of a campus to lure the University to Ann Arbor,
and a prime mover in the establishment of a county fair. He
was several times mayor as well as an alderman and a member
of the school board in the years when the village had recently
become a city.1
Coming first as a young man with his well-born parents
and their large family, he helped build a log cabin on Mallet's
Creek only a few months after the arrival of Allen and Rumsey.
One of his sisters was not long in drawing the attention of John
Allen's younger brother, James, and the two families became
relatives in March 1826.2 {I suspect the courting was started
at that Fourth of July celebration I told you about last week.)
Young William, however, had hurried back to York State to
do some courting of his own and to try his hand at business.
In 1827 he returned to Ann Arbor with his wife, the former
Julia Guiteau. With his father and brothers he opened a gen-
eral store which soon became a lucrative enterprise.3
By 1840 he had built one of Ann Arbor's most beautiful
homes,—the one we are looking at today. Even more spectacu-
lar than the residence itself were the grounds, which took up
over half of the long block from William Street to Liberty4 and
extended down the slope across a little creek to Second, now
Ashley Street. Laid out by a professional landscape designer,
they show, in an old steel engraving, a formal balance to match
the lines of the house, with summer house and handsome lamp
post answering each other at the ends. A delicate white picket
fence surrounds the property. Along Main Street is a sturdy
hitching rail for the accommodation of the carriages of the


FROM PEACOCKS TO ELKS
53
guests at the frequent receptions given in this center of hospi-
tality.5
An ornamental greenhouse stretched out to the south in
which grapes ripened early, and one can guess at the matching
perfection of stables and carriage house, for this gentleman was
a connoisseur of fine horses. Imagine too, the super-coops
that would shelter the exotic fowls he enjoyed raising: pheas-
ants, guinea fowl, and above all, peacocks! Many an urchin
would remember peering through the fence to see them spread
their gorgeous tails.3
The big square white house itself was originally only a
story and a half in height with a cupola,3 but in 1859 it was
raised to its present two and a half stories and the "widow's
walk" railing was added, the corners of which were until re-
cently capped with delicate posts shaped like Greek urns. The
ornamental brackets and medallions under the wide eaves have
been carefully preserved. The large windows we see today
have their original small panes, though the shutters were sacri-
ficed some time before the Elks took over in 1908. Soon after
that date the wider porch was substituted for the narrow one
with daintily ornate pillars.'
The front entrance is unchanged except for the door itself,
and beyond the vestibule one sees the same long central hall
with its heavy Victorian staircase at the back. The necessities
of a men's club, of course, have left little else of the interior
as it was in the Maynards' day. In the basement, however, one
may still see the heavy beams that were hewed a century and
a quarter ago.6
It was recently my privilege to call on William S. May-
nard's only living granddaughter, Mrs. Bernard H. Glenn of
Fowlerville. Her house is full of beautiful furnishings that
once graced this Ann Arbor mansion: Empire tables and chairs,
long gilt-framed mirrors, oil portraits, silver tea-sets, rare
china, books autographed by writers who were guests in the
house, many choice objects that were gifts of President Tappan—
the list leaves one breathless.
It was in 1888, at the death of W. S. Maynard's second
wife, that the house passed out of family hands and for twenty
years, until the Elks purchased it, it was used as a rooming-
hotel. Many a stranger, spending a first night in Ann Arbor,
must have breathed in a hint of its former splendor.


54
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
CON-CON AT THE COURTHOUSE
July 18, 1960
In these days of argument over whether or not we should have
a constitutional convention in Michigan, how many people know
that the two conventions in 1836 which adopted the state con-
stitution and made possible the entrance of Michigan into the
Union as a state took place in "the Court House in the village
of Ann Arbor"?
It was a new building then, that little old first courthouse,
and probably the finest in the state at the time.1 Built on the
Ann Street side of the square, the simple rectangular structure
had entrances both to north and south, at the ends of the long
central hall. Although the little belfry, still without a bell, was
on the Ann Street side,2 the heated unofficial arguments proba-
bly took place on the wide lawn at the south, where the digni-
taries could overflow between sessions.
Now for a bit of historical background: The Ordinance of
1787 had provided that "the land northwest of the Ohio River"
be divided into "not less than three nor more than five States,"
and that "whenever any of the said States shall have 60,000
free inhabitants therein, such State shall be admitted . . . and
at liberty to form a constitution."3
For a number of decades the trend of migration into this
Northwest Territory moved in a direction straight west from
Pennsylvania, so that Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois were admitted
before Michigan became anything but a wilderness. After the
opening of the Erie Canal, however, a great wave of settlers
began to pour across Lake Erie into Michigan. For a time
these busy newcomers were quite content with the territorial
form of government.3
With the influx of population in the early 1830's, Michigan
began to have more varied activity, more wealth,—and more
problems. President Jackson introduced the system of giving
out appointments as a reward for party loyalty, and men came
into authority who had no experience with life on the frontier.
Politics followed the general national division into Whigs and
Democrats, and (does this have a familiar ring?) the Democrats
presently began to split into "liberal" and "conservative" fac-
tions.4
When Michigan Territory began to feel the need of becom-
ing a state, the Ohio border controversy arose and became the
issue which delayed ratification for nearly two years.


56
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
HISTORIC PONTIAC STREET
July 25, 1960
Back to the North Side today for a stroll up Pontiac Street.
Soon after we cross the Ann Arbor Railroad tracks, I'm going
to ask you to exercise the eyes of your imagination while we
look at a little white house that isn't there. It was honored by
Henry Ford in the early 1940's by being moved to Greenfield
Village, where it is labeled "Ann Arbor House." Some of you
will remember that it was the home of Robert Frost during one
of his years in Ann Arbor. It stood on the left at Kellogg Street,
where Professor Jean Paul Slusser has since built his functional
studio home. It was—and is—a beautifully proportioned smallish
white house with a wing on each side of the middle upright and
a pillared front porch.
It was built in 1842 by David T. McCollum, eventual holder
of many local and county offices of whom you'll hear more when
I get around to discussing the Gold Rush. One might wonder
how this relatively small gem of a house could have brought the
ten McCollum children to maturity—if one did not know that
there used to be a separate kitchen, a tenant house, a woodshed,
a large barn, etc., at the rear. These may have disappeared
before Henry Ford arrived, but with typical thoroughness, he
moved the lilacs, syringas, flowering almonds and cinnamon
roses to Greenfield Village with the house.1
Further up the street on our right we pass the big square
white house set back in its own park of trees that local history
books called the Lund place. Jonathan H. Lund was a success-
ful businessman engaged, among other things, in paper manufac-
ture. The stucco for his house, which was built in 1847, was
mixed with barrels and barrels of skim milk.2 To most of us
the house is associated with the Fremont Wards, who came to
Ann Arbor about 1909 when Mr. Ward, an architectural engi-
neer, was superintending the building of the Post Office. Taking
a walk over the bridge one summer evening, they succumbed to
the gracious beauty of the place, and it became their home for
the rest of their lives3—Mrs. Ward's life lasting on for nearly
fifty years. Since her death modern apartments have been
achieved in the house without doing violence to the original ef-
fect.
Moving on, we cross the street again for a more intimate
look at what, nationally considered, is probably Ann Arbor's


HISTORIC PONTIAC STREET
57
closest link with history. During the 1840's the house now
numbered 1425 Pontiac Street made this village perhaps the
most important center in Michigan of the Underground Rail-
road.4 Not only did it shelter untold numbers of fleeing slaves
from dawn till twilight, when under cover of darkness they could
be spirited on to the Canadian border. It was the home of
the editor of the Signal of Liberty, weekly newspaper of the
abolition movement and chief organ of the UGRR in the north-
west. Here were written the stirring editorials that did much
to swing public opinion in this part of the country on the issues
that culminated in the Civil War.
The Reverend Guy Beckley came here from New England
in 1839 as the minister of the Baptist Church on Wall Street,
but probably with the purpose of furthering the anti-slavery
cause in the new state. Buying twenty-eight acres just across
the road from the farm of his brother, Josiah, he soon sold off
all but the eight rods by sixteen on which to build a dwelling
large enough for his eight children as well as a hide-out for
slaves who appeared at his door.4
Many tales were passed down through the ages about secret
chambers, stairs, and passages in "the old slave house," but
nothing more mysterious has been discovered there in modern
times than a trap door to the attic and lowered ceilings over
the closets. A rear wing disappeared long ago, which may or
may not have had secret hiding places.5
Since the death of Guy Beckley in 1849, the house has had
many owners, though it belonged to one family, the Pascall
Masons, for fifty-three years.
After shocking lack of repair it was fortunately acquired in
1933 by Professor Ralph W. Hammett of the School of Archi-
tecture, who restored it faithfully to the beautiful home we see
today. At present it is owned and lived in by the Eugene Ber-
toni family.
New England Georgian in style, the house has long been
painted a cheerful yellow with white trim, though the rose red
of the handmade bricks was its original hue. The simple front
entrance porch with Greek detail is a faithful reproduction, as
is the side porch, though somewhat enlarged. The generous
windows with their small panes are the original ones, and also
the front door and its sidelights. One enters over a huge oak-
en threshold beam that has held its shape under thousands of
footsteps. The first floor walls, of field stone bonded by the
brick, are sixteen inches thick. The interior framing is of oak
with dowelled joints, while the floors are of glossy black wal-
nut, the planks of varying width and length. Facing the door


HISTORIC PONTIAC STREET
59
is the original stairway, with hand-cut tapering spindles. The
layout of rooms has also remained the same. In the Beckleys1
day, the house was heated by Franklin stoves.6
The Bertonis find the house an ideal setting for their choice
early Victorian furniture, as well as an interesting and substan-
tial home for their five lively children.7



WEST HURON—A MYSTERY AND MAYBE A GHOST
August 1, 1960
Perhaps you remember that a year ago last spring the News
gave space on two occasions to what might be called "the Mills
house mystery." Ross W. Campbell, Ann Arbor attorney, had
found among family keepsakes a picture of a fine brick house
apparently on a hilltop, on the back of which was written "Lorin
Mills, Ann Arbor house, first brick house west of Detroit in
Michigan." Since this Mills was his great-great-grandfather,
Campbell began a search for the house. A few weeks later,
after thirty-two other responses, he received word from Mrs.
Harry Atwell that the home of the Atwells between 1917 and
1952, situated at 600 W. Huron, might well be the place.1
Now comes the mystery. In the "Reminiscences of Lorin
Mills," published in the History of Washtenaw County, 1881, he
says himself on page 893 that this "first brick house in Ann
Arbor" was "on the corner of Main and Liberty. ... It was
built in 1830. I have a good picture of the house." Convinced
that the man should know the location of his own house, even
though the lay of the land of the Atwell residence was much
more like that of the old picture, I was willing to drop the
matter.
Recently, however, in a paper written by Cornelia Corselius
in her old age and illustrated with snapshots by Lucy Chapin
when she was not young, I found evidence that "Deacon Mills"
surely did build the Atwell house. Further examination of the
abstracts of title shows that Mills sold the Main- Liberty property
60


WEST HURON-A MYSTERY AND MAYBE A GHOST 61
(the southwest corner) in 1836 and in that very year bought
land on the west side of town that would include the Atwell
site. Since other brick houses seem to have been built before
1836, my conclusion is that Lorrin Mills built two brick houses,
the earlier one, on Main at Liberty, perhaps a simpler struc-
ture, erected about the time of his marriage to his beloved
Harriet Parsons, Ann Arbor's second school teacher; and that
the picture he wrote of has been lost. After all, the handwrit-
ing on the back of Ross Campbell's picture may not have been
Mills's own.
So let us take a walk out West Huron today to have a look
at the house in question. Definitely at the crest of the hill on
our right, it must have commanded a lovely view back toward
town when the Millses first moved in. Beyond it the Godfrey
home had recently been built and beyond that Dr. Lord's brick
house, erected in 1834. But these two dwellings have long since
been replaced. The three families were all great church peo-
ple, which led the townspeople to dub this "Piety Hill."2
The Mills house is in excellent condition. Yellow stucco
now covers the bricks, and the ornate veranda which once swept
along both front and side has been reduced to a little side por-
tico and a deep, pillared porch at the front. The wide eaves
and elaborate brackets resemble those of other square houses
we have noted which were built in that era. The shutters are
gone and the small-paned window sash; while the healthy growth
of ivy and shrubbery tends to make one less conscious of the
original lines of the house.
If you can see through the Huron Street traffic a little
farther on, you will note across the street a somewhat larger
square house of pink brick with white shutters which is now
called "Martha Washington House," a sort of dormitory for
working girls. Built shortly before the Civil War, it was bought
soon after and lived in for many years by John N. Gott, former
legal associate of John Allen, with whom he worked out the
system of abstract books for the village. He later held many
county offices. When the Gotts moved into this mansion, it was
set in an estate of five acres and there was only one house
between it and Allen's Creek. Some of you will remember the
place in the early 1900's as a private hospital.
Strolling on along the north side of the street for a block
or two you will pass a house that has always piqued my curi-
osity because it is so different from other early houses in
Ann Arbor. Gray with many sharply pointed gables and fancy
mill work about the eaves, it used to look like an illustration
for Hawthorne's "House of Seven Gables." When I first remember


62
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS


WHEN HORSES WERE OUR NEIGHBORS
63
it, it seemed closed and aloof, its wide grounds surrounded by
a low gray picket fence and the deep wooded ravine at the back.
At the far side was a most mysterious Dutch windmill surround-
ed near the top by a narrow balcony to which there was no
door. Such a structure naturally generated folk tales: one
about a disappointed lover, another that the old windmill was
haunted!
I don't know when this house was built. Lucy Chapin labels
her snapshot of it "The John M. Wheeler House." At present
it seems to be teeming with apartments; fence and windmill are
gone, and a bulldozer and subdividers are busy with the grounds.*
WHEN HORSES WERE OUR NEIGHBORS
August 8, 1960
^Recently I was shown a picture of one of my friends, an in-
fant at the time, being taken for a ride on the handle bars of
her father's first bicycle. The thing that arrested my attention
most forcibly in the snapshot, however, was not the cyclists
but the background of a bit of the campus section of Ann Arbor
in the mid-nineties. Taken from the front of their residence
in the 100 block of North Thayer Street, it showed, beyond the
unmowed extensions and the dusty road, a fenced-in collection
of buildings that might well have been part of a farm scene.
Behind the simple, old-fashioned residence facing East Ann
Street were a large barn, a woodshed, some coops, and other
structures that left no gap on the horizon. They were neatly
kept, and all painted some color darker than the house, proba-
bly red.
This set me to thinking about the difference in the contour
of our back yards since the automobile has come to dominate
our lives.
Barns were usually planned for before a house was built,
and in the more elegant establishments were often of the same
materials and general style as the house itself. The Babcock
barn, at the corner of Division and Ann, survives as a present-
able little apartment building, always painted the same yellow
*For further information on this house, see "Bits and Pieces That Have
Come My Way," "Ann Arbor Yesterdays" column for October 3, 1960.


TALK ABOUT THE WEATHER
65
many would feel competent to undertake the complicated process
of hitching up a horse? And how many remember the delicious
excitement of a runaway?
TALK ABOUT THE WEATHER
August 15, 1960
If rp
I he weather is always doing something," said Mark Twain.
(My favorite is really this one: "Everyone talks about the weath-
er but nobody ever does anything about it." Since that famous
remark isn't included in Bartlett, however, I can't be quite sure
that our greatest American quipster ever said it.) At any rate,
one of the few things Ann Arbor still has nowadays that we can
be sure it had in 1824, on the arrival of Allen and Rumsey, is
weather.
During that first February those gentlemen were blessed
with a mild, "open" winter, as they were also the following
year, when John Allen wrote to his Aunt Jane Trimble on Feb-
ruary 20 that the farmers were already plowing.1
More damaging to the business of settling the county than
either cold or heat seemed to be an excess of rain, from which
the summer and fall of 1831 suffered the most continuously of
any period before or since. Swamps became lakes, the Huron
overflowed its banks for weeks on end, the primitive bridges
were washed away, and roads were indistinguishable from sur-
rounding mud.2 In April 1836, a single storm had almost the
same effect. It came unexpectedly, after several days that were
warm and pleasant. The cloudburst continued with slight in-
termission for twelve hours. According to the County History,
"little rivulets by the wayside were swollen into large streams,
tearing up the roads, sweeping away crossroads, bridges and
fences."3
On March 20, 1838, came an electrical storm with a tor-
rential rainfall, accompanied by a disastrous wind. Little Tom-
my Welch, John Allen's nephew, was struck by lightning and
killed.2 The record breaking rainfall occurred some years
later, however, when pioneer days and their problems were far
in the past. On July 29, 1860, came the heaviest storm ever
known in "Ann Arbor's first hundred years," according to Dr.


66
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
Stephenson. On that Sunday morning nine inches of rain fell in
two and a half hours, the Huron rose eighteen inches in fifteen
minutes, and Allen's Creek swept away every bridge that spanned
it along Ann Arbor's most important east-west streets. The old
bridge to the North Side was badly damaged and had to be con-
demned.2
The only wind storm that the early books label a tornado
occurred July 7, 1874. "All day long the sun had been exces-
sively hot," the record states, "and just at sunset two dark
clouds were seen to approach from the southwest." No men-
tion is made of the funnel shape we have since learned to look
for. Passing from west to east, the wind uprooted hundreds of
forest trees, some of them large oaks two or three feet in di-
ameter. 500 peach trees were torn from the ground in one
orchard. Roofs, bricks, fences were whirled aloft, and stock
released to run wildly over the landscape.3
There were plenty of torrid days in these parts in the 19th
century, but the summer of that tornado seemed to top all rec-
ords. During the last week of June 1874, the temperature ranged
from 98 to 108 in the shade.2
Just to cool you off, I shall now quote some statistics of
the lower end of the thermometer. On Decoration Day, 1897,
the temperature sank to thirty degrees and the ground was
covered with a heavy snow.2 But in midwinter a number of
times in that first century the mercury dipped in Ann Arbor
to from twenty to thirty degrees below zero.2 Many of my
readers will remember the fierce blizzards of 1917-18, during
World War I when the coal supply was rationed. Does anyone
recall the harrowing tale that buzzed around town one morning
that winter of the late interurban car between here and Chelsea
stuck in the snow without lights, while the motorman and con-
ductor, leaping off the two ends of the car to try to reconnect
with the trolley, were both lost in the whirling drifts and the
dark and frozen to death? Was it true?*
*See "Bits and Pieces That Have Come My Way," "Ann Arbor Yester-
days" column for October 3, 1960, p. 82.


67
DARK DEEDS IN YE GOOD OLD DAYS
August 22, 1960
From Genesis to Homer and from Beowulf to Erie Stanley
Gardner and our local Henry C. Branson, human beings have
frowned upon murder but have enjoyed the tingling of the spine
they get from hearing all the gory details, when it doesn't come
too close to home of course. So in the 1880's, when Southern
Michigan was no longer a frontier beset with the drama of en-
counters with wolf and Indian, the county histories began en-
livening their drab statistical pages with accounts of foul play.
No exception in this respect, the Washtenaw County History
of 1881, sponsored by the Pioneer Society and a list of digni-
fied and estimable gentlemen, after a series of learned papers
on Michigan's geology, ornithology, botany, and legal develop-
ment, inserts a deliciously lugubrious chapter entitled "Dark
Deeds."1 Perhaps to take the curse off, the editors chose this
otherwise inappropriate place to introduce the portrait of the
mild and sweetly-serious Deacon Lorrin Mills, great-great-
grandfather of our contemporary Attorney Ross W. Campbell.
Nineteen shocking incidents are recorded, fourteen of them
frankly labeled murders, one a "probable murder," two mere
"killings," one "shooting," and one "DIABOLICAL DEED"—per-
haps "a deed without a name!"
Though a number of the deaths occurred during bitter quar-
rels or less strongly motivated drunken brawls, others were
said to be "cool and deliberate" or "in cold blood." Marital
difficulties led to one; to another the avenging rage of a young
brother, whose sister had been improperly eloped with. Desire
for revenge for a whipping administered by his master prompted
a 15-year-old farm hand to a nighttime shooting while the farm-
er "was asleep by the side of his wife." Since he "evinced no
sorrow for the crime," this hapless lad was sentenced to State's
prison for life.
The language of the historian leaves nothing to the imagi-
nation. I warn any squeamish readers to skip the rest of this
paragraph. One finds such realism as "shot through the ab-
domen, wounding the internal viscera"; "a single wound, just
over the left temple, a gash about one and a half inches long
and cut to the skull. A whisky bottle was lying near"; "the in-
testines protruded"; "Mr. Shorey struck Mr. Sherman a blow
with a stool"; "Knisely struck Bryan with a pocketknife, the


68
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
blade entering the heart. Strange as it may seem, Bryan walked
to the square before death occurred" (the scene of this contro-
versy was near the Michigan Central depot); "a most distress-
ing accident . . . blowing Hiram's brains out"; "with fiendish
glee he raised the bloody ax and dealt him two more blows,
mutilating his head in a fearful manner." Had enough? If not,
turn to page 236 for "Murder of Richard Flannary," which beats
any bar-room fracas in a TV "Western." The sad part was
that "Flannary had not been in the saloon business very long,
and was said to have been a quiet and inoffensive man."
No mysteries followed these murders. The perpetrators
were all apprehended immediately. The sentences, however,
would furnish material for a Law School thesis. Only one guilty
party was sentenced to be hanged, but while arrangements were
being completed he broke out of jail and was never heard from
again. Two others escaped before being sent to State's Prison
for life, during the year it took the Supreme Court to decide
whether they deserved another trial. Nine spent time in the
penitentiary, ranging from one to twenty years, a few of them
"at hard labor." One was pardoned by the governor after two
or three years. One was found guilty but recommended to the
mercy of the court.
When the quarrel had arisen between two men over a woman,
the killer got only two years. A scrap over a card game seemed
understandable to the jury, for all but the victim were punished
by a mere twenty-five-dollar fine. When several were involved
in some other kind of row, a small fine was deemed enough for
all but one, who was "sent up" for eight years. One who had
been cruelly baited by a group of young men "out for fun" was
adjudged insane. Only the poor bitter farm boy and one other
were doomed to live out their lives behind bars.
"TAKING THE BATHS"
August 29, 1960
In the latter half of the 19th Century there was quite an in-
terest in the United States in finding mineral springs the waters
of which might have a medicinal value. Since colonial days
Saratoga Springs, New York, had developed a reputation rivaling


"TAKING THE BATHS
69
the spas of the old world, while among the newer states Indiana
and Michigan had found promise in their chemical waters. Cer-
tain Ann Arbor doctors were not slow to follow the trend in
establishing bath houses.
Miss Marie Rominger, among a number of historical sketch-
es of early Ann Arbor, has left us a paper containing personal
memories of this local development, supplemented by informa-
tion from her father, Dr. Carl Rominger, who, besides being a
physician, was a geologist of wide repute. Miss Rominger re-
membered a bath house near the corner of Liberty and First
Streets, "a little octagonal white frame building with a sharp
little spire in the middle and Victorian scrolls around the
eaves." It was built "over Allen's Creek, in which one bathed."
This charming aid to health (or at least to cleanliness) disap-
peared when the Ann Arbor Railroad came to town in the late
1870's and needed the spot for its right of way.1
In 1866 one Dr. Hale built a "Mineral Spring House" on
Seventh Street between Huron and Miller which only Bath Street
now commemorates. It was situated in a little valley through
which ran a brook still traceable in West Park. Later sold to
a Dr. Cleland, it reached its greatest glory under Dr. Calvert,
when it took on the aspect of a summer resort, even including
a swimming pool. Marital difficulties put an end to this gentle-
man's success in life, however. His handsome residence just
across Seventh Street was burned to the ground. In 1880 the
"Mineral Spring House" also went up in flames.1
Lower Town was not without its attempt to capitalize on
the bath-resort fad. In 1878 a sanitarium was built just west
of where Plymouth Road leaves Broadway. A deep well there
brought up water containing iron and sulphur, which, accom-
panied by the medical skill of the physician in charge, Dr. A. C.
Kellogg, attracted many patients.1 This gentleman had obtained
his medical education from his father, Dr. D. B. Kellogg, the
"Clairvoyant physician," who received his medical formulas
when in some sort of psychic state. These prescriptions were
so successful that he manufactured them wholesale in a four-
story brick structure on Broadway and brought to himself a
practice, according to the Washtenaw County History, that
"reached all over this country and even to Europe." The death
of the old doctor occurred two years before the son went into
the bath-house venture.2
It was not only the therapeutic aspect of bathing that inter-
ested Miss Rominger. She went on to tell us that in 1880 E. J.
Knowlton began to make rubber bath tubs in a building on De-
troit Street which were advertised in many magazines. The


70
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
tub was suspended from a wooden frame designed to rest on
two chair seats. Until then the few bath tubs in private homes
had been made to order by tinsmiths. Her own family had one
of this variety. Although it was conveniently connected with a
cesspool, the water had to be carried to it by hand, and since
it was located in a shed in the back yard it wasn't much good
in the wintertime.1



A CENTURY OF NEWS
September 5, 1960
A. considerable addition to the published history of Ann Arbor
has recently appeared: A History of the Newspapers of Ann
Arbor by Louis W. Doll. The neat 174-page paperback is Num-
ber 5 of the History Studies series of Wayne State University
Press. At present on the faculty of Bay City Junior College,
Dr. Doll is a product of this community, being a graduate of
Ann Arbor High School and the University of Michigan. I be-
lieve that his first venture in the field of local history was his
History of St. Thomas Parish, though he has subsequently writ-
ten many articles on Michigan local history, and has been presi-
dent of the Bay County Historical Society and a trustee of the
Michigan Historical Society. After serving from 1946 to 1950
as librarian and archivist of the Historical Division of the Far
East Command he was awarded an honorary doctorate from
Nihon University in Tokyo.1
He has attacked the writing of the recent volume with typi-
cal zest and thoroughness. After a careful study of the four
previous discussions of the same subject, published in 1857,
1881, 1927, and 1931 respectively, he applied himself to "a page
by page examination of the extant newspapers themselves," the
bulk of which is staggering even though the files are not com-
plete. When he had exhausted the material in the University
Library and the Michigan Historical Collections in Ann Arbor,
Dr. Doll pursued his search in the Burton Historical Collec-
tions in Detroit, the Clarke Collections in Mt. Pleasant, the
71


72
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
Library of Congress, the Huntington Library, and the Worcester
Antiquarian Society. The twenty-six newspapers studied extend
from 1829 to 1920, at which point Dr. Doll apologizes for stop-
ping! 2
Though much of the painstaking detail of Dr. Doll's book is
of chief importance to the historian, there is plenty of interest
for the general reader. The first chapter caught my attention
immediately because of the light it throws directly and indirect-
ly on the personalities, the life, and the problems of the first
few years of the frontier. Indirectly, I say, because the little
Western Emigrant, which first appeared just five years after
the arrival of the first settlers, "was not a gossip sheet," as
Dr. Doll puts it. It aimed to advertise the new community, to
keep it in contact with events of the outside world, to express
and influence political opinion, and to furnish a bit of "literary
recreation, mental and moral improvement" to people who had
had to leave their books behind them.
Backed and then edited by those pioneer stalwarts, John
Allen and Samuel Dexter, it soon came under the editorship of
the scholarly but impulsive George Corselius. I was shocked
to learn that this man, whose diaries I had found to be full of
reflections on the classics and higher mathematics, once en-
gaged in a fist fight with young Governor Mason and "came out
second best."3
The tiny, four-page weekly had a subscription price of
"$3.00 a year in advance or $3.50 at the end of the year"; ad-
vertising was sold at "$1.25 a square"; subscribers receiving
their papers by mail must pay the postage;4 but "country pro-
duce" would be "taken in payment for the Emigrant if deliv-
ered."5 A little later the editor was forced to complain: "Sub-
scribers who have engaged to furnish us with Fire Wood are in-
formed that we are freezing." The little paper did not lack
for readers, however, for it listed agents in eight surrounding
towns, to whom it was dispatched in bundles.
It boasted a Washington correspondent, who sent his obser-
vations to John Allen by letter.6 One of its advertisements
announced a process by which oil could be extracted from corn
as a by-product of the distilling of whisky. It was the first
newspaper anywhere to advocate a transcontinental railroad.7
Among other bits of interest spotted by Dr. Doll in the yellowed
pages was an advertisement in 1832 for bids "for the erection
of a framed bridge over the Huron River."8
This vigorous little paper had its first rival when it changed
its politics from the short-lived Anti-Masonic movement to the
Whig party. The Democrats were soon represented by the first


THE COMING OF LIGHT
73
incarnation of the Michigan Argus, and from then on for many
decades the fluctuating loyalties to liberal vs. conservative fac-
tions in the two old parties and the formation of the Republican
party brought about the rise and fall of various newspapers.
Among the many editors who came and went, none was more
able than Elihu B. Pond, who guided the third Argus for a quar-
ter of a century; and none more influential and often pugnacious
than Rice A. Beal of the Courier. Dr. Doll gives a spirited
account of editorial controversies that shook the foundations of
the city from time to time, the most deadly of which was that
between Robert L. Warren and Frank P. Glazier shortly after
the turn of the century.
By that time dailies had superseded the 19th century week-
lies and it was not long before a more standardized type of
newspaper ethics made the editorial page more polite but less
colorful.
THE COMING OF LIGHT
September 12, 1960
It is hard for us to imagine Ann Arbor wholly without street
lights. When cabins began to spring up along the vaguely marked
tracks with street names, seldom would any but the most con-
vivial venture forth after dark except on moonlight nights. When
sickness in the family or a matter of urgent business drove a
man forth, he probably carried one of those candle-lanterns
now prized by collectors, picking his way carefully from the
dim glow of the tiny windows of one cabin to the next.
Perhaps there is some record of the first provision of
lamp-posts in the village and of arrangements for fueling and
tending them, but I do not recall seeing such a record. I doubt
that lard lamps would ever have been used in street lights,
though whale oil may have been utilized before the introduction
of kerosene. Our earliest photographs of Ann Arbor streets
show well-designed lamp-posts, but they are undated and must
have been taken well after 1842, when indoor photography first
came to town.1 I have often wondered whether the light from
the handsome chandeliers described in local papers as a fea-
ture of the auditorium of the first Ann Arbor High School building


74
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
in 1856 came from candles or from oil. About the same time,
the long end-of-term exercises of the primary school on Fifth
Avenue were reported to have been cut short by the arrival of
darkness.2
In April 1858, the Ann Arbor Gas Light Co. was organ-
ized.3 The capital stock of $23,000, divided into 460 shares at
$50 each, was eagerly bought by 82 shareholders, their hold-
ings ranging from 20 shares down to one share apiece. All
were people of prominence in the community. The site for the
plant, costing $600, was at the corner of the block bounded by
Beakes, Summit, and Depot Streets, just south of the Michigan
Central Railroad tracks. The plant itself, coal sheds, and gas
mains were constructed promptly and the manufacture of gas
began in September. The first streets along which mains were
laid were Detroit Street, Division, Huron, Packard, and Fourth
Avenue. Gas was sold at a rate of $4.00 per thousand cubic
feet, but the first annual report commented on "the cheerful-
ness and readiness with which the 180 consumers have paid
their bills, the company having lost less than $3.00 of the
$2400 worth of gas sold."3
In that second year, 1859, a proposition was made by the
company to light the city streets with twenty-five street lamps
and to clean and extinguish them. They were always to be
lighted from sunset to 1:00 A.M. except on moonlight nights.
The cost was to be $24 per lamp monthly. Some gas street
lights were still in use in Ann Arbor until 1905.3
At the reorganization of the company in 1888 the name was
changed to the Ann Arbor Gas Co., as the gas began to be used
for other purposes as well as light. In 1900 a new plant was
built across the Michigan Central tracks to the north and the
first of the large storage tanks constructed. On the old site a
large barn housed the many horses necessary to deliver gas-
coke, an important by-product until natural gas came to the
city in 1939. Another feature of the 1900 building program
was the office building on Huron Street.3
The process of manufacturing gas involved the firing of
coal into gas retorts, which were charged by hand until 1915,
when small coke ovens were introduced.3
In a talk before the Washtenaw Historical Society in 1947,
Charles R. Henderson drew attention to the fact that although
the company had undergone several changes of organization and
name, it had during its long period of existence been under the
direction of only three men: Silas H. Douglas, Henry W. Doug-
las, and himself.3
Soon after Thomas Edison's invention of the incandescent


THE STRUGGLE FOR WATER
75
bulb in 1879, electric plants began to spring up across the coun-
try. In the summer of 1884 the Ann Arbor Van Depoele Light
and Power Co. was ready to light thirty-six stores and resi-
dences. It also secured a contract for thirty-three street lights,
part of them arc lamps and part incandescent. Since these
seem to have been an addition to the old gas lamp-posts instead
of a substitute for them, the town was probably thought to be
all ablaze. In 1895 the city council went still further by con-
tracting for ninety-six arc lights, plus as many incandescent
lamps as they might see fit to order. Again the period of bril-
liance was to run only from dusk till 12:30 A.M., and the com-
pany had the privilege of omitting to turn on the switch when
the moon was bright. They also were allowed to clutter up the
streets, alleys, and extensions with as many poles and wires
as they deemed necessary.4
Apparently there was some independability about the cur-
rent, because for two or three decades many houses were
equipped with both electric and gas lights in an awkward com-
bination fixture.5
The company went through many changes of organization,
eventually becoming a part of the widespread Detroit Edison Co.
At first sufficient power was generated from dams along the
Huron, most of them built earlier for the running of mills.
When the electric railway came along, however, this hydro
power became insufficient and a tie-up was made with the steam
plants along the Detroit River.4
Just as the passing of gas lighting overlapped the increas-
ing use of gas for cooking and other purposes, so the demise
of the electric interurban and streetcars was compensated for
by the demand for countless electric appliances as well as an
expanded conception of good lighting. Consequently both utili-
ties have continued to grow and prosper.
THE STRUGGLE FOR WATER
September 19, 1960
TYe one of our public utilities that required the most travail
to acquire and maintain is the one that we are most likely to
take for granted; namely, the water system. You may recall


76
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
that John Allen, in his lyric outburst on the advantages of the
community in 1825, especially praised the water as "purest
limestone." Before long, however, it became apparent that
natural springs were lacking on the plateau of the main part of
the village and that not everywhere could water be found even
by the age-old magic of the willow prong. The crystal-clear
rills and streams enjoyed by the first settlers soon became
sullied and polluted and people began having to carry their
drinking water from varying distances.
Of course it was still a simple matter for every house to
have a cistern or a barrel to collect nice clean rainwater for
washing and bathing, while for many decades the volunteer fire
department depended on the storing of rain from the roofs of
stores and public buildings.1 One notes that every new public
outcry for a more adequate water supply was preceded and
motivated by a disastrous fire. The lack of convenient water
for domestic purposes seems to have been borne lightly.
During the 1840's public wells began to be constructed: the
first one at the south side of the Courthouse, then others at
various street intersections. For some of them water was run
through tamarack logs from Daniel Brown's place on South
Main Street Hill. At Maynard and Liberty was a well ninety
feet deep, walled high with stone, the use of which was limited
to fifty families, who each paid a dollar a year for the privi-
lege.
As artesian wells came into further use, many corner
pumps appeared. These became a temptation to students out
on the prowl for mischief. During the '70's this wasteful prank
was so popular that Superintendent W. S. Perry for many years
listed "pumping" as one of the misdemeanors forbidden to high
school students on pain of suspension.3
In 1870 a private company attempted an artesian well at
the west of the Courthouse. After penetrating layer after layer
without success, they hopefully posted a sign: "775 feet deep";
to which a jokester added "and $3,500 HIGH!"4
In 1885 another private company, the Ann Arbor Water
Company, by a vote of eight to one was granted a thirty-year
franchise to set up a proper municipal water system. The
site chosen for a pumping station was a part of the farm then
owned by James C. Allen, son of John Allen. It is still an
important property of the City Water Department, now known
as the Barton Pumping Station. The indenture shows that canny
James reserved the right "to take water from said springs for
use at the dwelling house and for a fountain," and specified that
the company should erect and maintain a pipe to a drinking


THE STRUGGLE FOR WATER
77
trough for his stock, "the water with a sufficient force so as
not to freeze."6
The source of water was a creek and its tributaries fed by
springs. The plant was designed and its erection supervised by
Charles E. Greene, Dean of the University of Michigan Engineer-
ing Department.7 From the Allen farm it pumped the water
across the river and up the high hill to Chubb Road (now Sun-
set) to an uncovered reservoir embanked only with earth. The
two million gallons of water stored there then found their way
by the force of gravity through fourteen miles of mains to the
various fire hydrants and private faucets. It was not until nine
years later, however, that a sewer system was constructed by
the city so that the water previously made available could be
generally used for bathrooms and toilets.9
During its thirty-year regime the Ann Arbor Water Com-
pany had its share of problems. When the water from the Allen
springs proved insufficient, the company tried slipping in a bit
of river water, for which it was eventually brought to task.
Later the Health Department complained that a horse had been
buried in one of the springs and that cattle were drinking and
tramping about at the point where the water entered the pipe,
while drainage from a barnyard was finding its way to one of
the tributaries. The uncovered earthen reservoir was always a
just cause of complaint. Even after a fence put an end to its
being used as a swimming hole, its waters had a suspicious
flavor of decaying vegetable and animal matter. The fire hy-
drants, too, were ice-bound and snow-hidden in winter. In the
early '90's the pumping equipment was already in dangerous
need of repair. A new pumping station was built on West Wash-
ington Street to make use of artesian wells on the site.11
In the early 1900's increasing amounts had to be taken from
the Huron River. After Barton Dam was built in 1912, an in-
take pipe was thrust 200 feet upstream, twenty-five feet below
the surface. A small filter bed previously constructed was
made unnecessary by the use of chlorine. Purification was
next attempted by an ozone plant, the only one in this country
at the time, which in turn was abandoned in 1915 for a liquid
chlorine machine.10
Although experts repeatedly testified that the water of the
Huron, properly treated, was the best supply for the region, citi-
zens clung to their fondness for spring water and would go long
distances with bottles and pails to procure it. Certain privately
owned springs on the north side have always been popular,12
and a long-vanished "Silver Spring" in the 1000 block on Bald-
win has become almost mythical. So after the city took over


78
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
control on the expiration of the company's franchise, the move-
ment to buy and develop the Steere Farm wells was happily re-
ceived, along with the opening of other wells. Disappointed in
the extreme hardness and the strong iron taste and stain of
the water thus obtained, the consumers were quite willing,
after long years of argument, to bear the cost of a water sof-
tening plant by having their rates raised 50% for one year—1936.
During the long administration of Harrison H. Caswell as
manager—from 1930 to 195715—many other fine things were
accomplished, including the construction of a concrete box-type
covered reservoir and the introduction of fluorine in the water.
Of course the great expansion of the city has necessitated the
addition of river water again, and people sometimes complain
of the chlorine. To them Mr. Caswell replies, "When you de-
tect that smell or taste in water, drink lots of it! It is your
best possible guarantee of safety."16
Under its present head, Wayne H. Abbott, the department
is meeting the growing needs of our day, and we may soon see
more of those onion-shaped storage tanks on the horizon.
A he decade centering around 1880 must have been a lively
one in Ann Arbor. During that short period a spectacular new
Courthouse was built, many of the large store buildings now
still standing on Main Street and many of those on State were
erected, and three new public utilities had their beginnings here
which were to revolutionize the processes of daily living. I
speak of course of electricity, the common water supply, and
the telephone. Of the three, the one that must have seemed
most like magic was the telephone. People had always had
water and light of some sort, but before recent announcements
of Alexander Graham Bell's invention, they had never even con-
ceived of projecting the human voice beyond the reach of one's
own lung power.
The first telephone in Ann Arbor was set up by Eberbach
and Co.1 between their store at 112 South Main Street and
Herman Hutzel's clothing store adjacent on the south. The con-
necting wire had to extend only through a hole in the brick wall.
FROM "BELL'S TOY' TO ECHO I
September 26, 1960


FROM "BELL'S TOY" TO ECHO I
79
Scientific investigation must have been the only purpose, as it
is doubtful that business matters between the neighboring stores
were especially urgent.
Very soon afterward Clark Cornwell connected his office
in Ypsilanti with his paper mills at Lowell and Geddes, and
Thomas Keech, prominent lumber dealer and fire commissioner
of Ann Arbor, had his three business places connected by phones
as a means of issuing an early fire warning. Five others pres-
ently installed phones in a spirit of whimsical curiosity, but to
the usual hard-headed businessman, "Bell's toy," as it was na-
tionally dubbed, was an impractical piece of extravagance.2
These early private lines were unconnected with each other
by a central switching point, and it took considerable persua-
sion to secure the remaining eighteen subscribers to make up
the twenty-five required to bring an exchange board to Ann
Arbor in 1880. It then took further argument to find a place
to house the little switchboard. The third floor of Reinhardt's
shoe store at 42 South Main could be rented only after the
owner was assured by his attorney that all the probable flash-
ing and sputtering of such a contraption would not nullify the
insurance on his building.3 The early switchboards contained
no numbers. The caller merely told the operator the name of
the person with whom he wished to talk and she looked over
her collection of outlets to find where to insert the plug.4
The company owned no special poles at first, merely ex-
tending the single strand iron wires between housetops and
trees. The connection was usually noisy and one had to shout
into the instrument. A new difficulty arose in 1884, when Ann
Arbor's first electric plant produced such heavy interference
as to render local phones useless. The introduction of the re-
turn ground wire system was the answer to this problem. Long
distance communication had been established between a number
of Michigan cities in 1883, and not long afterward the one-wire
grounded arrangement was supplanted by the magneto system.
There seems to have been no complaint about either serv-
ice or rates, which were $48 a year for business places and
$36 for private residences. Anyone who went so far as to have
a phone at all must have thought it worth the money.4
I have seen no pictures of the instruments first used in
Ann Arbor, but many of us will remember the clumsy wall
phones long in use consisting of two wooden boxes mounted on
a panel. The upper one, with its mouthpiece usually placed op-
posite the hypothetic face of a very tall man, contained the
sending and receiving machinery with the receiver on a hook
at the left, a handle to twirl on the right, and two gongs near


80
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
the top with a little hammer between. (The speaker was ad-
monished to "Please ring off when through talking.") The large
lower box contained batteries. How different from the dainty
pastel "Princess" hand-sized phones now on display in the local
main office, arranged with as delicate and elaborate a setting
of gilded grapevines and wire trellises as one might expect to
see in a lingerie shop or a perfumer's window! Of course in
the interim have come in their turn many improved models:
the desk phone, the "French phone," and the self-dialing instru-
ment.
Before the end of the 19th century various rival companies
sprang up throughout the country, offering telephones at lower
rates. A number of these came and went in Ann Arbor, the
last one of which was finally absorbed by the Bell Company in
1913. In 1898 the New State Company had paid its stockholders
a dividend of 7%, but a vacious sleet storm in December caused
a sharp drop in revenue. Of course the real loser in the dual
system was the business or professional person required to be
supplied with both phones.5
In the early 1900's telephoning still seemed a romantic
new experience, as witness popular songs of the day, such as
the plaintive "Hello, Central, Give Me Heaven," and the frolic-
some "Call Me Up Some Rainy Afternoon!" But the wonders
of the telephone have not ceased. This summer we watched
with open mouths as Echo I moved serenely across the sky, a
celestial relay station. Almost as awe-inspiring have been the
ease of transoceanic conversation, and the announcement of
long-distance dialing and of the tiny pocket gadget by which one
can be buzzed wherever he strays when wanted on the phone.
It is a far cry from the simple, rudimentary apparatus set
up in the Eberbach drugstore or the Keech lumberyard over
eighty years ago to the tiers upon tiers and banks upon banks
of diminutive and intricate parts in Michigan Bell's four-floor
building on Washington Street. Of course the telephone system
now plays an important part in numerous activities not directly
associated with telephones, such as bearing network radio and
television programs over long distances by wire and then re-
laying them in the local facility to nearby stations; or the bring-
ing in of Associated and United Press news reports and send-
ing them out by teletype to the newspapers. The broadcasting
of the football games, too, is a complicated process that makes
great demands on the resources of the local telephone plant.6
Nevertheless, Ann Arbor makes good use of the primary ob-
ject of "Bell's Toy." N. J. Prakken, local manager, tells me
that there are at present in the community 24,097 main line
telephones.6


82
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
Ann Arbor "Michigan Emigrant" was the first newspaper in the
country to suggest a transcontinental railway.
Noteworthy are the following pamphlets lent me:
1. The History of Earliest Ann Arbor, owned by Mrs. Al-
bert Gansle. It was published in 1919 by N. I. and E. B. Van
Der Werker, apparently at the expense of the more than fifty
advertisers whose wares or services it describes, and spon-
sored by the Chamber of Commerce.
2. The Inlander for May 1919, property of Mrs. Julio del
Toro. It contains an article on "The Old Houses of Ann Arbor"
by Fiske Kimball, described from an architect's point of view.
Many of the houses he analyzes have been seen on our "walks."
Among various bits I had not known is the fact that the first
occupant of "the Kempf house" on South Division was H. D.
Bennett, the then Secretary of the University. I also learned
that "the Wheeler mansion," the gray-gabled house on West
Huron, was designed in 1859 by Gordon W. Lloyd, a specialist
in the Gothic revival who also drew the plans for St. Andrew's
Church, the stone "Judge Cooley house" long used as the Michi-
gan Union, the Ladies' Library, and the "Douglas house" on
East Huron now owned by the Baptist Church. The deep-mellowed
red color and the very different setting of the Douglas residence
obscure its marked resemblance to the Wheeler house.
One of my friends expressed disappointment that my first
remembrance of the Wheeler house was of its being "closed
and aloof," for in her girlhood she had had many happy times
under its hospitable gables. Fiske Kimball had been fortunate
to see photographs of it in the days of its glory. "Here," he
says, "could be seen a Victorian estate in its perfection, with
the Gothic cottage nestled among trees, the long terraces of
garden roses and over-arching shrubs, the brook meandering
through the little meadow bordered by willows, the rustic spring
reached by winding paths."
This same friend informs me that Professor Frieze did
not live out his days in the campus house, as I had supposed,
after giving up his beautiful stone house out Washtenaw. He
later built a house on the corner of North Ingalls and Cornwell
Place which I think must have been situated on a part of the
land now occupied by St. Joseph Hospital, and there he spent
his remaining years.
Miss Agnes Waite remembers the blizzard of 1918 in which
the two trainmen were killed. She was on the train herself and
saw the two men's bodies stretched out in the station at Chelsea
when the train finally reached there. So it was not an electric
interurban, as I remembered it, from which this tragedy occurred.


84
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
Mann decided to set up his trade as a tanner in the little vil-
lage of Ann Arbor.2
Hurrying back to Reading, Pennsylvania, to collect his fam-
ily, Mann took time out to write an enthusiastic letter to his
brother-in-law, Emanuel Josenhans, in Stuttgart, Germany,
praising the beauties and advantages of Washtenaw. Herr Josen-
hans circulated the letter among his acquaintance, and as a
result a sizable group of Swabians came to settle in the Ann
Arbor region within the next two or three years.3
Meanwhile, in June 1830, Mann had returned here with his
family and was able to purchase the tannery of Harvey Austin
situated near the present site of the old Ann Arbor Railroad
depot. During the next few months the densely wooded hills of
south Scio witnessed the rearing of log cabins by Jacob Paul,
Jacob Stollsteimer, Carl Horning, Jacob Gross, and Christian
Auch, and across the town line in Lodi, that of their fellow -
Swabian, Daniel F. Allmendinger; while George Mayle, a shoe-
maker, and Emanuel G. Wildt remained near the Manns in Ann
Arbor.
Lest you should think the Mann family led a softer life by
dwelling in the village, I shall recount some anecdotes passed
down in Miss Rominger's article. Finding it difficult to keep
house without their own supply of fresh milk, they entrusted
their remaining supply of cash to their teen-aged son Emanuel,
commissioning him to walk down to Ohio and bring back a cow.
Having led the beast back in due time, young Emanuel tied her
to a tree and was in the house resting from his long trek when
Bossie pulled herself loose and made for the woods—never to
be heard from again, at least by the Manns.5
Saddened but undaunted, the family got together what bits
of jewelry and other semi-valuables they had brought with them
from the Old Country, turned them into money, and sent the
boy forth again, for they did so want a cow. His errand again
completed, Emanuel this time lodged the prized possession in
a shed his father had made ready. But three days later the
poor tired animal took sick and died.5
The tanners' trade was not one that brought a quick turn-
over. Jonathan would work for months to cure and prepare the
skins of the wild animals, then roll the leather pieces into a
pack, shoulder it, and walk to Detroit to exchange them for
groceries and other household necessities, which likewise had
to be carried home on his back. One day while on the return
trip he was caught in a cloudburst. The sugar and snuff were
dissolved, the coffee and rice reduced to a sodden mass that
had to be picked out and dried kernel by kernel, and the bright,


WORSHIP m THE WOODS
85
pretty calico for dresses for his wife and daughters would never
look fresh and new again.
But these sturdy and thrifty German families prospered in
their new environment, and the story went back to the villages
and farms of Wurttemberg that made Ann Arbor, Scio, and
Washtenaw household words for liberty and opportunity. So was
begun a migration that came in waves throughout the century.
The story of "the church in the wildwood" that bound these
Washtenaw Swabians together, and of some of the rugged indi-
viduals of whom their descendants have reason to be proud, will
have to wait for other Mondays.
WORSHIP IN THE WOODS
October 17, 1960
To my mind one of the most heroic figures in the settling of
Michigan was that of Friedrich Schmid, missionary to the Ger-
mans and also to the Indians. In a surprisingly short time
this energetic and devout Christian had established more than
twenty Lutheran congregations, ranging from Monroe to "the
Thumb" and over to Grand Rapids and back, with the center in
the Ann Arbor region.1 One can imagine the great forest trees
ringing to the strains of "Ein' Feste Burg ist unser Gott," as
the sturdy German pioneers threw out their chests with a fervor
that burst through the open door of the little log cabin where
they were worshiping, while up in front would stand their Rev-
erend leader, who had muscles first trained for a blacksmith2
and the glowing eyes of a dreamer.
Friedrich Schmid was 21 years old when he began his theo-
logical training in the Mission Society of Basel, Switzerland.
Five years later, in April 1833, he had just finished his course
when "the Call" came from the little group of Swabians in
Washtenaw. Though most of them were farmers who had been
settling in Scio township during the recent four years, Jonathan
Mann, the Ann Arbor tanner, had been commissioned to write
the letter, probably because he had a relative, Pastor Josen-
hans, at the Basel Mission. Young Schmid was promptly or-
dained as a Lutheran minister in the church in Lorrach, Baden,
in Germany just across the Rhine from Basel.


88
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
poverty that had caused the explosion in France. But the Na-
poleonic wars had brought deprivation that had made the life
of common people far from easy. The Congress of Vienna of-
fered no hope to the liberal minded. There was actual consid-
eration, for instance, as to whether small taxpayers should be
counted as "whole souls" or "half souls." Various congresses
in Europe suppressed all liberal movements, even resorting to
inquisition and espionage. The abortive revolution of 1848 was
followed by stiff reactionary measures that resulted in a wave
of emigration that brought thousands of Germans to the young
state of Michigan.1
The Swabians again gravitated to Ann Arbor. Other waves
followed just before and after the Franco-Prussian War as a
protest against the spread of Prussian militarism.1 In fact
"Prussian" became a bad word in many an Ann Arbor house-
hold.2 By 1855 more than 5,000 Swabians were living in and
around Ann Arbor. As all the farm land became occupied,
the later waves made their homes in the little city. Many of
the newcomers were skilled artisans who had learned their trade
in the fatherland under the thorough but often painful apprentice-
ship system. Christian Gauss, a second generation Swabian who
was to become dean of Princeton University, tells us that one
of the pet jokes among his father's friends was that they were
recognizable as former apprentices by the enlarged lobes of
their ears, having been yanked around by their masters with
those appendages as handles.2 Other newcomers engaged in
small businesses which prospered and grew.
By 1880 nearly one-half of the population of Ann Arbor was
German or of German descent. For a time they became al-
most a closed community socially, centering west of Main Street
and south of Huron. There German could be heard on the
streets, as it was spoken fluently by old and young. Church
services continued to be conducted in German for many decades
and mid-week schools under church auspices perpetuated the
German tongue. German games were played and German songs
were sung.
Being musically inclined, these people brought with them
their treasured instruments on which they had been well trained
in their native land. Christian Gauss's father, for instance, a
baker by trade and the son of an innkeeper, had been taught
piano and accordion as well as his favorite, the flute. His
choicest possession was a golden-toned boxwood flute that had
belonged to an 18th century baron. When not out singing with
the Mannerchor on a pleasant Ann Arbor evening, he would be
likely to be playing duets at home with his neighbor, Henry Otto,
an excellent violinist.4


WHEN "BOYS WOULD BE BOYS"
89
German bands were common too. In a little upper room
of an outbuilding on the Staebler farm on Scio Church Road a
really serious band used to practice, and their uniforms were
something to behold.5 Fine music teachers, too, like Reuben
Kempf were of German blood and training. It was undoubtedly
partly due to this German element in our population that Ann
Arbor was able to develop as a great music center.
Here too the German Christmas customs have been per-
petuated: the "Christmas Garden" around the tree, and those
delicious lebkuchen—springerles and pfefferneusse!
The name of the street, however, that was especially be-
loved by these Germans is significant. They came to America
for a certain purpose and they achieved it in Ann Arbor. Chris-
tian Gauss's father made no bones of the fact that he chose the
location for his bakery and home so that his children might be
"born on Liberty Street."4
WHEN "BOYS WOULD BE BOYS"
October 31, 1960
It is with a feeling of mixed nostalgia and relief that old Ann
Arborites recall the student pranks of an earlier day. Except
for an occasional flurry over disappearing davenports or pur-
loined cups and saucers, university students nowadays are too
sophisticated to indulge in much high- spirited hell-raising. On
the whole they are older, many of them having done their stretch
in the armed services before attempting college. A consider-
able proportion of them, too, are married and must either take
the little wife along on any evening junket or must stay at home
in the tiny apartment and help do the baby's washing. The
passing of the old-time unsupervised boys' rooming house may
also be a factor, as well as the enlargement and improvement
of the Ann Arbor police force.
Some other Monday I shall tell you all I can find out about
two very serious riots that occurred during the University of
Michigan's third quarter-century:1 the demolishing of the Star
Theatre, and the earlier quite unanticipated brawl with the local
militia that culminated in a death on each side. But today we
shall confine ourselves to events and customs usually classified
as "good clean fun."



ARMISTICE DAY 1918
November 7, 1960
Older readers will probably remember November 11, 1918,
as the most heart-throbbing day of their whole lives. The sus-
pense that led up to that Monday morning had been tremendous.
All kinds of circumstances both directly and indirectly connected
with the war had contributed to the build-up of emotions.
The worst flu epidemic in modern history had been ravag-
ing the world all fall, in the homes as well as in the Armed
Forces. I remember hearing, for instance, that in Boston the
undertakers had been shockingly unable to provide coffins. We
in Ann Arbor had been going about with gauze masks over nose
and mouth. The schools were closed for two weeks in October.
Movies and other public meeting places had been closed, but
on November 7 were announced to have been fumigated and re-
opened.1 Makeshift infirmaries had been set up for convales-
cent S.A.T.C. boys, although there had been too many deaths
among them, billeted as they were in crowded fraternity houses.
A heated national election took place on November 5, in
which the big issue was woman suffrage. The papers had printed
many good letters on the subject. A telling one from the elder-
ly but spirited little Mrs. George began: "Women are not ask-
ing the ballot as a reward for their war work."3
Less featured news space of the week was given to "How
to Pack the Christmas Box for Soldiers Overseas,"4 and to the
wrecking of a troop train in Illinois on the way to a football
game.5
92


ARMISTICE DAY 1918
93
But the enormous headlines were devoted to war news sug-
gesting the swift-moving collapse of the enemy. On November 4
the Ann Arbor Daily Times News cried jubilantly in letters
five inches high: "Austria Deserts Kaiser Bill!; a day or two
later, "Germany Ripe for Outbreak of Revolution!; and on No-
vember 7, "Hun Sailors at Kiel Mutiny." In midafternoon of
Friday, November 8, came one of the strangest news blunders
of all time, the false armistice announcement. I remember
well the sudden unscheduled ringing of church bells and blowing
of whistles. The hilarious turmoil in the streets which followed
for hours was due for a heartbreaking letdown, however, when
word came that the announcement had been premature.
The week-end was spent in breath-held listening and wait-
ing, while we knew that the boys were still dying in the trench-
es. On Saturday evening a slender Michigan Daily extra had
half-page headlines: "Germans Revolt. Kaiser Out."7 Next
morning an apparent attempt to bring students back to normal
gave to Michigan's football victory over Chicago headlines equal
in size to "Revolution Spreading in Germany."8
It was shortly after two A.M. Monday morning, November
11, that sleepers were aroused. Ten minutes after the wire
came through, theg Times News had their boys on the streets
yelling "EXTRA!" Meantime the editor had alerted Mayor
Wurster and Judge Sample. The mayor promptly called out a
fire truck equipped with a huge steel triangle to go clamoring
all over town. Judge Sample and his two young sons made all
speed to the courthouse and rang the big bell. Regent Beal,
also called out of bed by the Times News office, quickly gave
the order to "B. and G." Superintendent Pardon to blow the
University of Michigan fire whistle. Church bells and fire works
were soon joining the uproar. By four o'clock a huge bonfire
was blazing on the intersection of Main and Huron. By 5:30 A.M.
the Times News had issued a second extra giving further de-
tails. Four thousand copies of the two editions were eagerly
bought up, as well as the four different extras of the Michigan
Daily.10 Before dawn country folk were pouring into town and
the streets were thronged with people too excited to think of
breakfast. A general holiday was proclaimed (everywhere but
in the public schools, which remained in futile session till noon!)
At 2 P.M. the official parade got under way at the corner
of Main and Ann. Eight thousand strong, three miles in length,
led gaily along by military and city bands, it took an hour to
pass any given spot. Every known organization participated,
and all sorts of foreign born were in evidence. The favorite
display on the floats showed the Kaiser in effigy being hanged


94
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
or beheaded or (by the Medics) being dissected alive. A song-
fest in front of Hill Auditorium wound up the ceremony.
But far into the night cars trailing tin pans banged through
the streets. Ann Arbor Railroad engines tooted their whistles,
dance bands played for impromptu parties, and crowded movies
put on free shows.
What a day! What an uproarious, glorious day!
f\.s we go whirling along the divided highways, the express-
ways, and the turnpikes of our own day, we find it hard to
imagine the difficulties that confronted the pioneers in their at-
tempt to pierce their way through marsh and forest from the
port of Detroit to the land they had chosen on paper. In 1824
Allen and Rumsey were fortunate in making their entering trips
in February, when frost had stiffened up the ground and the
leafless trees opened a vista. But in October of the same year
it took four days for John Allen's young brother and his school
teacher friend Orville Barnes to bring the seven unloaded horses
through the Black Swamp and the dense woods between Sandusky
Bay, Ohio, and Detroit.1
Later in the same month the two Noble families needed
four days to reach Ann Arbor from Detroit. On the second
night when they were forced to camp out, the men got the sup-
per, for their young wives were too fatigued from walking all
day carrying their babies and keeping an eye on the other seven
children. "Every few rods," Harriet Noble reminisced fifty years
later, "it would take two or three men to pry the wagon out of
the mud," while the walkers stumbled along through brush and
over fallen timber. Near the end of the third day Harriet's
feet were so swollen that she could go no farther. Of course
the husbands had to walk all the way too, to prod the clumsy
oxen.2
The previous year Woodruff and Grant had brought their
belongings back down the Detroit River and up the winding Huron
by boat. It was not until late in 1823 that even the crude
semblance of a road was cut through from Detroit to Woodruff's
Grove below the future Ypsilanti.
OF HIGHROADS AND LOW ROADS
November 14, 1960


OF HIGH ROADS AND LOW ROADS
95
Of course for centuries before the coming of the white man,
the peninsula had been criss-crossed by Indian trails which were
of great value to the early settlers. Padded down by genera-
tion after generation of moccasined feet, they followed the water-
ways, skirting the edge of deep woods and swamps. All but the
fairly recent of our state roads follow or parallel such trails:
US 112,4 the Grand River Road, the Pontiac Trail, the Dexter
Roads, and the Huron River Drive, to name a few.
The most important was the Great Sauk Trail, now US 112,
which was a part of an Indian route extending from New Eng-
land to the Rocky Mountains. While the lesser trails consisted
of a single foot-track for running "Indian file," the Sauk trail
was usually wide enough for two warriors abreast. It was dry
and smooth most of the year, the path so well beaten that even
brush or rangy weeds could not grow on it. In some places a
double track was worn by a "travois" tied to the Indian pony to
drag a load, but the gauge was too narrow for wagon tracks.5
In 1824 Father Gabriel Richard persuaded Congress to
survey the Great Sauk Trail for a road from Detroit to Chi-
cago, and Orange Risdon was hired to undertake the survey.6
His name, along with those of Joseph Francis Wampler and
Samuel Pettibone, became important in the annals of map and
road making in Washtenaw and neighboring counties.
After the Revolution, the acquiring of the immense "Public
Domain" of the Northwest Territory had left the United States
treasury deep in the red, and the selling of lands to settlers
required an accurate survey. The final Land Ordinance stipu-
lated that townships be laid out six miles square, and these in
turn in one-mile squares. These lines were to become the
country roads with which the new states were checkered.
The terrain, however, often gave the surveyors a bad time,
as they tried to run the lines in turn through swamps, dense
forests, and shifting sands. The Indians had ceded all land east
of a base line running north from Defiance, Ohio, and this be-
came the "Michigan Meridian." At a point seventy-eight miles
north of Defiance, a base line was to run east to Lake St. Clair,
eventually forming the north boundary of Jackson, Washtenaw,
and Wayne Counties, roughly corresponding to Eight Mile Road.
Irregularities around Base and Portage Lakes, however, caused
the county limits to slip considerably from the way they were
represented on paper; while because no uniform "correction
lines" had yet been established, the jogs in the north-south
roads were often inconsistent.
The first improvement in the roadbed itself was the cordu-
roy road, which consisted in a basic layer of small logs cut in


96
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
twelve-foot lengths, laid crosswise of the track, and covered
with earth six inches to a foot deep. Since these were primar-
ily used where the land tended to be soaked with water, a rainy
spell would wash away the cushioning earth and the logs simply
floated.
For through roads the next improvement was the privately
financed plank road, in the latter 1830's. The state charters
demanded that the companies provide a good smooth roadbed
sixteen feet wide, with oak planks eight feet long and three
inches thick fastened across the middle. Toll gates at ten-mile
intervals were allowed to collect two cents per mile for two-
horse vehicles and one cent for one-horse rigs. For many
decades Ann Arbor maps showed a toll gate on South Main
Street about opposite the present American Legion club house.
The one on North Main must have been outside the city limits.
The cross-striped lines, however, show both the plank roads to
Saline and Howell to have extended many blocks nearer to the
business section.
THE LAST OF THE CHAPIN NAME
November 21, 1960
It is unfortunate, and a little sad, that so few of the fine old
families that established the trend of Ann Arbor in its early
decades are represented by descendants still living in the city.
Many of these families have died out entirely, while the rem-
nants of others have moved so far away as to have lost inter-
est in this community.
Although this fate has overtaken the Chapin family, many
of our readers will remember the last of her line, a busy, ef-
ficient little lady named Lucy Chapin. I used to think her very
cross looking until, on being introduced to her in her later
years, I found her very gracious. Miss Lucy was quite a per-
son in her own right. When she died in November 1940, the
Ann Arbor News devoted two-thirds of a column of page 1 to
her obituary, stressing her accomplishments rather than her
lineage. For forty-two years she was assistant to the secre-
tary of the University, and for forty-three years the painstak-
ing secretary of the Ann Arbor High School Alumni Association.


98
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
to be treasurer of the University for four years, and to be long-
time vestryman and treasurer of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church.
Volney Chapin's generosity and lenience with slow-paying cus-
tomers were widely acknowledged, the 1881 county history even
stating that for that reason "the present wealth and development
of Washtenaw are largely due to him."3
You may be surprised to hear that the once palatial and
hospitable residence of this successful capitalist survives as
Peter's Hotel and the adjacent businesses at Fourth Avenue and
Ann Street, having had a devious career since Chapin's death in
1869, including Joe Parker's famed Catalpa Inn. The catalpa
trees, incidentally, had been planted by Mrs. Chapin herself,
whose beautiful rose garden extended over almost the entire
block.4
In his later enterprises Volney Chapin had as partner his
son Charles, Lucy's father. Though a sound and wise business
man, Charles was cast in a somewhat gentler mold than his
father and was less of the aggressive pioneer. He held vari-
ous offices of trust, however, and was much honored and be-
loved. He married Frances Kingsley, daughter of Judge Kings-
ley and Lucy Clark, that fabled young lady who refused to come
into the wilderness without her piano.5 So that is how it came
about that, to her dying day, the parlor of little Miss Lucy
Chapin was graced by the strange looking small piano to whose
tinkling music the Potawatomi Indians used to dance.
A NEW CITY HALL ON AN OLD, OLD BLOCK
November 28, 1960
Before the winter settles in, some of our readers may like
to take another of those popular walks, calling up an image of
old Ann Arbor. What more appropriate then, than that we should
stroll around the block which before long will be the setting of
our spectacular new city hall?
It is a beautiful piece of land, sloping gently toward Fifth
Avenue and still surrounded by fine big trees. The first entry
of the abstracts of title which the city must acquire will bear
the testimony, "Government of the United States to John Allen,"
for this is a part of the original village and on Allen's side of


100
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
built in fairly recent times on the site of a much earlier small
house, bought in 1867 by the Vandawarker family. One of the
boys of a later generation, George, was to become the first
manager of the city water department.
Most of the houses now crowding each other for frontage
on Huron Street were built much later. One notes on the tract
index that one of them was built by J. Arthur Brown, whose
daughter Nellie was a prominent city organist. At the back of
the building until recently occupied by the Rentschlers, father
and son, for their photograph business, is a bulky older sec-
tion. Centered on four of the Allen-drawn lots, it used to be
a part of the fine home of Charles Thayer, another of the five
donors of the University of Michigan campus.6 Thayer Street
perpetuates his name.
The last house on Huron in the property the city is about
to purchase, the square white one with encircling veranda, now
the gleaming home of offices, would soon have been 100 years
old. It was built by Densmore Cramer, who became mayor of
Ann Arbor in 1877, and as a young man had been a delegate to
the convention that nominated Lincoln. He was a soldier in the
Civil War, and his grandson, Seward Cramer, Jr., was destined
to become a Gold Star in the service flags of World War H.8
As we round the block on Division Street, we shall come
to a similar square house on the corner of Ann, built nearly a
century ago by Moses Rogers, brother of Randolph, the Ann
Arbor boy who became a famous sculptor. Moses' daughter
Katie was locally well known as a portrait painter, and the
books say that Moses could have painted pretty well himself if
he'd had the time!9
Strolling back down Ann Street, we see among the closely-
built houses only two that approach the century mark. To the
one with its porch on the side a young widow, Mrs. Root, brought
her three infants from Connecticut in 1871 to be near her step-
daughter, Mrs. Alonzo Palmer, who lived in the brick mansion
across the street.10 Just beyond is a house built in 1870 by a
Mrs. Blood, but much later known for the big barn in the back
yard that was Mullison's livery stable—until livery stables were
no more.
In the middle of the sidewalk somewhere along here there
used to be—until not so long ago—an enormous oak tree,11 which
had probably sprouted there long before John Allen bought the
land in 1824.



THE RAILROAD COMES TO TOWN
December 5, 1960
It seemed quite like old times to have Ann Arbor's great
rallies of 1960 take place at the New York Central Railroad
station. Back in 1921 many of us were a part of the excited
throng that greeted Marshall Foch from the hillside that rises
abruptly to High Street, and it was from that natural amphi-
theatre that we were introduced to the appealing personality of
Wendell Wilkie some years later. It used to be great fun, too,
to join the crowds that always welcomed home triumphant foot-
ball teams, cheering them from the curved hills or the big
bridge.
But never has a more jubilant multitude gathered at that
appropriate spot than on October 17, 1839, when the very first
train reached Ann Arbor. The newspapers had given specific
instructions1 as to just how the various categories were to ar-
range themselves when they met at 10 A.M. at the Exchange
Hotel across from the Courthouse, to march thence in proper
fashion to the depot. Col. Jewett was chairman of arrange-
ments, Lt. Gov. Mundy president of the day, two judges were
to give speeches, and twenty other prominent names were listed
as the committee.
It turned out to be a gorgeous Indian summer day and "All
was gayety and delight." The rancor and bitterness engendered
during the eight-year struggle to get the railroad here were
now forgotten—though the editor of the Western Emigrant couldn't
resist a gibe at "the outrageous inefficiency and procrastination
101


102
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
of those heretofore entrusted with the building of this road."
At noon the cars from Detroit rumbled merrily in, bearing a
thousand guests; how that many people could be packed into the
few tiny cars available was not explained in the papers.2
They were met by the committee in a dignified manner, even
if the speeches may have been lost on the crowd of villagers
and country folk who were no doubt staring open-mouthed at
the engine and the cars. It was appropriate that the honorable
James Kingsley should make the welcoming remarks,2 for it
was he who had been inspired by John Allen's suggestion for
such a road away back in 1831 and had hammered at it with all
the weight of his influence until it was achieved. George C.
Bates, Esq., "on behalf of the common council of Detroit made
a felicitous reply."2
The procession then formed again to lead the visitors through
the principal streets of the village. Most of the imposing resi-
dences that were to become landmarks were not yet built, but
it was a neat little town and must have been bright with autumn
leaves on that lovely fall day.
Amid all the gayety one little band of children were sadly
disappointed. Mr. Thomas Holmes, an excellent schoolmaster
in Lower Town, marched his pupils in very good order to the
top of a north-side hill a quarter-mile from the depot, where
they viewed the pageant from afar. One of those children was
to lament to the Pioneer Society thirty-five years later: "If he
wanted to give us a treat, why did he not take us to the station?"3
On the wide grounds of the still new little Courthouse,
tables had been set and a "splendid banquet was served by
Messrs. Clark and Petty of the Exchange." There was room
there too for the Brady Guards of Detroit to pitch their tents,
while the Washtenaw Guards showed them every military cour-
tesy and even the Pittsfield Volunteer Corps performed in a
soldier-like manner. Though the burning midday sun was re-
ported to have taken the edge off some people's appetites, all
were ready when the cloths were removed to drink a dozen
toasts and to listen to the speeches given in response.
The most significant remarks were made by Judge Thomp-
son, who had been in official charge of completion of the rail-
road through the harrowing days of one of the country's most
disastrous financial panics. He pictured the surrounding land
as he had found it only ten years earlier as "a howling, uncul-
tivated, savage wilderness." The completed railroad now made
it possible to reach Detroit in two and a half hours, he said,
while the best time one could previously make with horses was
a full day.2


OUR OTHER RAILROAD
103
The last toast was brief and needed no response: "To
Woman—Cupid's Locomotive!"2 That's the only mention the
papers make of women in the whole account, though I imagine
they were all there, hanging daintily on the arms of their es-
corts.
The little engine that was tooting for the return of its pas-
sengers at 3 P.M. had cord wood piled high on the tender.7
Each passenger car, as described in later years, was like an
omnibus placed at right angles to the track, moving sidewise
on four wheels. The conductor walked a little platform outside
and collected fares hanging by his arms through the window.
As they chugged along, the passengers must often have been
thrown from their seats, for the track ran close to the Huron
River "in all its sinuosities."4
The track was said to have been "built on a continuous
wooden rail or stringer of sawed timber," which was "fitted
into sawed ties, held to the tie in a trapezoidal groove by wooden
wedges." Spiked on top of this stringer was "an iron strap
when they had it"; when not, an oak "ribbon" was used. As
time went on, a worn strap rail would sometimes become loos-
ened from the stringer and would burst through the floor of a
car!4 Since headlights were unknown, these early trains ran
only in daylight hours.5
By the mid-eighties, the depot that had been called beauti-
ful on that fine autumn day in 1839 had become shabby and in-
adequate,4 and the present structure was built. It was termed
"the finest on the line between Buffalo and Chicago." The
stones were obtained from Foster's Station, "no two alike."8 It
is still a picturesque building, though many layers of thick en-
gine smoke have obscured the delicate coloring of the glacial
fieldstones so carefully hewn and arranged.
OUR OTHER RAILROAD
December 12, 1960
'There may be people living in Ann Arbor at present who do
not even realize that this is a two-railroad town. The very
fact that our second road bears only the name of our city may
obscure the fact that it is a distinct line rather than just a





106
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
Corunna, and some point in the Saginaw valley. But since only
the people of Ann Arbor were ready to buy stock, the idea was
abandoned. Even after Toledo citizens showed interest in 1869
and $125,000 had been subscribed, the company formed with
E. W. Morgan as president had to go into liquidation. In 1870
$190,000 were again subscribed, this time with Silas H. Douglas
as president and Morgan as secretary, and grading was com-
menced. But bankruptcy came in 1874 and the whole property
was offered for sale.5
In 1877 the road was bought by James M. Ashley of Toledo,
a former governor of Montana now out of a political job and
looking for something to promote.6 Under his dynamic, but
amateurish leadership the tracks reached Ann Arbor amid great
rejoicing on May 16, 1878. Many changes of route were con-
sidered in the next few years, one of which would have directed
the line to the tip of "the Thumb." Various names were used
also, "Ann Arbor Railroad" not being settled on until 1895.
The final route avoided all the big towns, turning its back
on Pontiac, Flint, Saginaw, Bay City, Lansing, and Grand Rap-
ids; nor did any really great industrial centers ever develop
along the path it struck through farmland and forest. It de-
pended on its junctions with other lines and its service to its
own modest communities for its control of a large part of the
carrying needs of the heart of the peninsula.
By a stroke of intuition, in the early '90's Governor Ashley
hired as top civil engineer the youthful Henry E. Riggs,8 who
was later to become one of the University of Michigan's most
distinguished professors. In his three or four years with the
road, young Riggs was to transform the flimsy, uncertain road-
bed typical of the promotor-built railroads of the day into a
sound and sturdy line.
One of his most urgent problems was the reconstruction of
the Huron River bridge. It had consisted of a long wooden
trestle across the mill pond and a low wooden deck truss over
North Main Street, designed by Professor Charles E. Greene
years before. Riggs found both in bad condition, dangerous to
the increased traffic and to the heavier locomotives then planned.
He always remembered this job as a tricky one because of the
curve involved.9
Two facts about Governor Ashley illustrate his "rugged in-
dividualism." He would permit no Sunday trains, nor even the
taking home of any private home work among the office force
on the Sabbath;10 and he would back up his trusted old employ-
ees even to the point of disaster. When in 1893 he was visited
by a committee of the Brotherhood of Railroad Engineers


BAGGAGE CAR CAROL
107
demanding that he discharge two of his best old engine drivers
because they would not join the union, he refused. According
to Riggs, who was present, a hothead on the committee threat-
ened a strike, and Ashley thundered, "I am running this rail-
road. Get out of here and strike! Those boys will have a job
here as long as I have one."11
The strike that did follow was a severe blow to the com-
pany and ended in a four-year receivership. The receiver ap-
pointed, Wellington R. Burt of Saginaw, was a wealthy lum-
ber baron. Another rugged individualist, he pushed ahead ex-
pensive improvements which, Riggs declared, changed the road
from "a jerk-water line to a real railroad."11
The structural change, however, which was to prove the
greatest boon to Ann Arbor residents did not occur till 190212—
the overpass over Washington, Huron, Miller, and Felch streets.
The aggravation to the tempers of present-day motorists which
grade crossings at those strategic points would have caused is
indeed terrible to conceive!
BAGGAGE CAR CAROL
December 19, 1960
It was the morning of December 24th, 1944. Heavy snow had
fallen during the night and was still falling. The roof of the
old Ann Arbor Railroad station was weighted deep with the snow,
and the temporary clearing of paths and platform had thrown up
great hills of white. Inside, the little waiting room was jammed
with people, for, with wartime restrictions on gas, this one-a-
day train was our only chance of reaching homes or relatives
upstate for Christmas Eve. You will recall that the road had
been about to discontinue its unprofitable passenger service
when the war came, and people were now glad to use this means
of transportation who had long scoffed at its shabby red plush
seats.
"They'll be putting on extra cars at Toledo I suppose?" I
asked anxiously as I bought my ticket.
"Extra cars!" the agent snorted. "They've only got one
passenger car each way on the whole line!"
Presently we found ourselves being herded up improvised


110
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
140 guests were in their beds, and the "party" came to them.
Santa Claus himself had come from the Northland (at least as
far north as Fenton). He was heralded by a little procession
of hospital teachers, nurses, Galens, Kiwanians, and King's
Daughters who moved down the ward corridor ringing sleigh-
bells and singing (rather weakly) the carols played by a Mrs.
Santa Claus on her accordion. Pushed along with them were
huge cartloads of big red tarlatan bags filled with sturdy func-
tional toys and gifts. At each door Santa was handed in turn a
specific bag and told the child's name and just which bed to
approach. Leaning down and calling the child gently by name,
he would linger for a few moments of quiet private conversa-
tion while he presented the bag of gifts.
Each bag had been filled by the teachers of the hospital
school with the individual child in mind, the age, sex, aptitudes,
and special handicaps all being considered. The retail price
of the articles in any one bag would range from $3.50 to $5.00,
without counting the handwork included. A reserve supply was
laid aside too for other children who might be brought into the
hospital between the time of the party and Christmas day. Mr.
Warnhoff's gifts are saved for Christmas morning and for spe-
cial occasions throughout the year.
The cost of the gifts for this party is borne by the Galens
(senior Medics), who began their annual tag day on the streets
of Ann Arbor back in 1928. It has enabled them to finance
many other projects in the hospital school as well. Kiwanis
has also backed the school in many ways, but their contribu-
tion to the Christmas party is Santa himself, who is an ex-state
governor of the club.
The pioneers in the educational movement in the hospital,
however, are the King's Daughters, who started in 1915 with a
Sunday school in the old red brick buildings; who paid the sal-
ary of the first professional teacher in 1922; and who have
given the project their devoted year-round support ever since.
I have used their motto for the title of this article. The hos-
pital school staff now numbers twenty-seven specially trained
teachers, their pupils ranging from one-year-olds through high
school.
The very tiny children sometimes looked bewildered or even
frightened to see this strange gentleman in a red suit with as-
tonishing white beard charging down upon their beds amid an
unfamiliar clatter in the corridor, but only one poor little chap
cried inconsolably and had to be lifted up and cuddled on a
nurse's shoulder. Two or three others were obviously feeling
just too sick to notice the unexpected antics of adults but seemed


"NOT FOR SELF BUT FOR OTHERS"
111
mildly comforted by Santa's kind eyes and reassuring voice.
As Santa moved on, it was fun to see the animation with which
the formerly spellbound youngsters, though often impeded by
casts, splints, and bandages, began trying out their toys. A
favored item seemed to be a doctor's kit.
Of course most of the children reacted joyously to Santa's
approach, while some were real charmers or little "hams" who
put on a good show for his benefit. In the sterile ward for
the seriously burned children, our last stop, a little colored
boy raised his sweet soprano voice in solo to "Mrs. Santa"
Muehlig's accordion and filled the long ward with carol after
carol, every note and word reaching to our group away down
at the doorway. Next to him a chubby little white girl on a
revolving frame expressed a desire to sing, and gave us "How
Much Is That Doggie in the Window?" with great vigor and the
clearest enunciation, but in a very strange low pitch—for the
little darling was a monotone!



RING DEM CHARMIN1 BELLS'
January 2, 1961
±\ generation ago the residents of central Ann Arbor were
used to hearing, on Sunday mornings and on special occasions,
a great chorus of bells. It was fun to listen for them and to
identify them by pitch and direction as their separate voices
came in. One could imagine the different sextons vying with
one another as they pulled vigorously on the ropes. Each New
Year was heralded in joyously at midnight; and it was the ring-
ing of bells that announced an era of lasting peace, we thought,
on Armistice Day, 1918.
There were other bells in those days too: school bells, fire
bells, sleigh bells, dinner bells. Poems were written about
them, and songs composed to imitate their varied moods. Elec-
tric gongs and sirens and wristwatches have now assumed their
utilitarian functions, while perhaps the very splendor of the
Baird carillon has caused the churches that have moved or re-
built to dispense with their simple, less sophisticated bells.
The first to move were the Presbyterians. They took with
them their fine big bell from its brick tower on the corner of
Huron and Division to their grove-like site on Washtenaw, but
have left it sitting on the ground, voiceless except when hit with
stones by small boys or knocked upon by roistering students in
the middle of the night.
Of course the Presbyterians have the distinction of having
brought to town another bell, the very earliest in Ann Arbor,
in 1829. First rung from the crotch of a great oak tree, it
112


"RING DEM CHARMD*' BELLS"
113
was soon established in its own square tower at the front of
their first little frame church. Later mounted on the first
Courthouse it served for forty years as a curfew.2 Next it
summoned the Mack School children to their red brick building
in West Park for forty-five years. Since 1922 it has quietly
reposed in the storeroom at Jones School3 until, just this fall,
it was put up for auction by the Board of Education and sold
to Mrs. Robert Eberbach for $37.50. It is two feet high, and
still ringable.4
The next of the more recent bells to be given up was the
Methodist. When, about 1940, the old red brick church was
being torn down to make way for the present gleaming edifice,
the bell was offered for sale by the wrecking contractor. Since
no purchaser valued it as a bell, it was sold for salvage to a
Detroit company for $263, was melted down, and was converted
into munitions for use in World War II. This noble bell, like
most of the fine bells hereabouts, was cast in England. Since
it was five feet in diameter and weighed 3,300 pounds, the low-
ering of it from its base to the ground, a distance of eighty-four
feet, required considerable apparatus, but was accomplished in
two hours.5
The most recent to become silent is the Zion Lutheran
bell. It still hangs in its steeple at the corner of Washington
and Fifth Avenue, but is superfluous in the function the struc-
ture now serves as an office building.6 This bell, cast in Troy,
New York, was bought and hung in 1863 by the Congregational-
ists, whose first church home was on this corner, and was left
behind when they moved to State and William in 1876, where
they have never had a bell.7 When the Zion people rebuilt on
the same site in 1894, they made provision for the bell. At
their beautiful new sanctuary away out West Liberty, however,
they depend on their set of glass-encased, inch-high bells,
electronically controlled, to flood the countryside with sacred
music.8
St. Paul's Lutheran Church, too, on the corner of West
Liberty and Third Streets, makes use of electronic chimes,
while reserving for emergencies the bell purchased and hung
when the congregation moved to that site in 1929.9
Now for the church bells that are still in use: The Bethle-
hem Church on South Fourth Avenue possesses three bells which
are rung simultaneously by three men to form a chord. The
men entrusted with these ropes must have a keen sense of
rhythm and good muscular coordination to synchronize their
pulling or the resultant peals would have ragged edges.10
In my part of town only two bells are now heard, where


OLD-TIME WINTER FUN
117
Any facts my readers can contribute toward the solving of this
fascinating problem will be greatly appreciated, and will be
duly reported in this column.
OLD-TIME WINTER FUN
January 16, 1961
One day last month the editor of the News commented in
his "Ann Arbor Town" on the fact that, notwithstanding the
nostalgic laments of old timers, there are still plenty of places
in this city for outdoor winter fun. I quite agree. Since it is
the function of this column, however, to call the yesterdays to
life without much argument, you may enjoy picturing just where
and how the fun was had "in Grandpa's day."
Before the automobile became so common as to demand
priority, many of our hilly streets were set aside for coasting.
Long bobsleds were often used on which eight or ten riders
could fit themselves together closely, though every child liked
to have a little sled of his own on which to "belly flop." North
State Street hill must have had not only barricades at Kingsley
Street and the side streets but also some sort of guard at the
lower end, for I have the word of two authorities1 that the
coasting run extended "over the railroad tracks." Broadway
Hill gave a magnificent sweep of almost half a mile from its
crest to the leveling off at the edge of the Lower Town busi-
ness section, while Spring Street allowed a still longer breath-
taking glide from St. Thomas cemetery all the way to Miller
Avenue.
Back of the old red brick University Hospital buildings was
"Corkscrew Hill," a run so tricky and dangerous that the more
careful mothers would not allow their children to slide there.
Since it has always been human to try to improve upon nature,
at one time a toboggan slide was built in the old Cat Hole, the
abrupt dip behind the present Health Service and Kellogg Insti-
tute. As late as the 1930's Catherine Street used to be roped
off from North Ingalls to beyond Glen Avenue when the snow
was right.
Older people will remember, too, the exciting Saturday
afternoon adventure of "catching on bobs." In a good sleighing


118
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS

All set for the long run down Broadway Hill, 1920. (Milton Wint at
the controls, then two Shermans, Bertha and Dorothy Dorows, Ann
and Louise Pommerening, and three jolly youngsters on the end that
none of the rest can identify after forty-odd years.)
season, every farmer removed the wheels from his "lumber
wagon" and substituted two sets of runners, or "bobs," wide
enough for a resting place for small feet. The game was to
catch an outgoing sleigh when it was in motion, grab the side
of the wagon box, swing one's feet onto the runners, and either
pull oneself upright or flop into a sitting position. The good-
natured farmer would say "Tch tch" to his horses, and the pre-
motor hitch-hikers would ride merrily along until, somewhere
outside the city limits, they spied another sleigh bound for
town, when they would hop off and repeat the process. Some-
times a group would find themselves stranded away out in the
country and would not be quite so happy over the long walk
back.
Then, too, there was the romantically jolly sleighload party
on a crisp night under the stars. Huddled in the sleigh box or
perched on a hayrack on the sides, the young folks would sing
themselves hoarse. At their destination in some over-heated
parlor or kitchen, the favorite refreshments were steaming
oyster stew and cocoa.
Outdoor skating, of course, has always been a pleasure.
Throughout the years the Huron River has been a temptation,
for the beauty of its banks enhances the mere joy of swift mo-
tion, but the danger involved has led to many tragedies. Be-
sides the hazard of unexpected "air holes," there used to be
the ice companies' cut along both sides of the river when the
ice had become a foot or two thick, and the refrozen surface
of the water formed a trap for the unwary.


FROLICS THE YEAR AROUND
119
Safer skating places could be found along Allen's Creek or
on the many swampy spots not then drained, such as a low
area in the triangle extending far back from Packard and South
Main Streets. Another place the less venturesome children
were free to enjoy was a charming little pond in the oak grove
between Hill Street and South University, still traceable in front
of the Forest Plaza.3
An 1870 map shows a "Skating Park" just north of Miller
Avenue between Allen's Creek and the Mill Race. Miss Carrie
Watts, an elderly lady of a generation ago who had a gift for
historical reminiscence and often obeyed the urge to write it
down, recorded her memories of this place as "a large artifi-
cial pond with a good shelter building" where, for a small fee,
the skaters could get warm and rest on the benches before
undertaking the cold trek home.
FROLICS THE YEAR AROUND
January 23, 1961
'Though last week's article emphasized cold weather pleasures
in "the early days," it need not be supposed that all the fun
stopped when the spring thaw came, nor that all the winter fun
took place out of doors.
Miss Carrie Watts has left us an account of the skills in-
troduced to the community in the 1870's by one John Kelly,
Riding and Dancing Master. The son of a Methodist minister
in the East, this "dapper little fellow" came west to earn his
way through Ann Arbor High School and the Literary and Medi-
cal Departments of the University. In his riding classes girls
were taught to skim along gracefully while perched side-saddle,
their "riding habit" (the official name for the appropriate cos-
tume) consisting of a skirt extending below the instep, a neat
tailored jacket, and a stiff little derby-like hat.
While on the subject of modest and seemly apparel for
young ladies participating in athletic exercise, this may be an
appropriate place to quote in its entirety a clipping from an
Ann Arbor paper dated as late as May 1901:


120
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
"ONLY STUDENTS OF GOOD CHARACTER"
"CAN BE ADMITTED TO SEE THE BASKET BALL GAMES
"And the Young Ladies Who Invited Them Must Sign a Guaran-
tee to That Effect
"Only students of good moral character will be permitted
to see the co-eds In their gym suits playing basket ball after
this. This is the edict of Dean Eliza Mosher of the Barbour
gymnasium.
"In order to play basket ball the young ladies necessarily
dispense with a length of skirt that would be proper on other
occasions and the lower edge of the garment reaches a point
only slightly below the knee. Thus free action of the limbs is
accorded.
"Evidently thinking that the costuming might attract those
inclined to degenerate tastes, Dean Mosher has inaugurated a
system by which the young ladles participating in the game
can Invite gentlemen. The athlete co-ed hands In the names
to the women's dean and at the same time signs a guarantee
of the good moral character of the preferred stock. The dean
then sends the young men admission cards."
Now to go back to the ministrations of clapper little Mr.
Kelly some thirty years earlier. His large dancing classes
gave opportunity for both children and adults, although he was
a firm believer in teaching children to dance before they were
overtaken by "the awkward age." Nickles Hall was hired for
his dancing school—a large hall on State Street on the third
floor, Miss Watts records, "over Slater's Book Store." Those
were, I suppose, the days of "set" dancing: the Quadrille or
square dance, and the more stately Lancers the intricacies of
which had to be learned without benefit of a noisy "caller off."
It was about the turn of the century that the dreamy waltz
and the rollicking two-step (the "round dances") became fashion-
able, relegating the square dances to country parties or gather-
ing places of the unsophisticated until, some thirty-odd years
later, the Henry Fords revived their jolly charm.
Though the waltz and two-step seemed to the previous gen-
eration to have a kind of monotony, the step itself was intricate
enough to require teaching, and dancing schools flourished. In
the early 1900's Ann Arbor had a number of public dance halls,
too, the most popular of which was Granger's, on Maynard Street
at the north end of the present carport. There several nights
a week students and town young people whirled to the music of
Ike Fischer's first-rate orchestra. Certain down-town dancing
places were considered not quite proper and were "off limits"
for University girls.
Just before World War I the waltz and two-step were



OUR OWN FORTY-NINERS
February 6, 1961
It is again my pleasure to tell you of a recent addition to
Ann Arbor's printed history: "Letters Home—The Story of Ann
Arbor's Forty-Niners" by Russell E. Bidlack. This attractive
fifty-six-page paperback might be thought of as merely an over-
sized pamphlet except that its large pages contain matter enough
to dignify it as a book. Produced by Ann Arbor Publishers, it
is available at bookstores for $1.50. The introduction was
written by F. Clever Bald, Ph.D., head of the Michigan Histori-
cal Collections, while the lively illustrations reproduce zinc
etchings of a broadside of the 1850's.
Dr. Bidlack, an Associate Professor of Library Science at
the University, wrote his doctoral thesis on the early history
of the University of Michigan general library. In the research
involved he was impressed by the value of old newspapers as
source material. The method of this new book is to reproduce,
in their entirety or in significant excerpts, eighteen letters pub-
lished in contemporary newspapers which were written home
by five well-known Ann Arbor citizens who pioneered in the
California Gold Rush in 1849, and to preface and intersperse
the letters with rich explanatory background. Carefully anno-
tated, the book is a trustworthy supplement to anything published
elsewhere on that mad outburst of "Gold Fever."
Since the Hon. John Allen, illustrious founder of Ann Arbor,
did not undertake his fatal attempt to profit by the movement
until 1850, his long and illuminating letters are not included in
124


HOW THE YANKEES TOOK OVER THE TOWN 127
Then, cherishing his little bag of gold dust, he was making for
home via the isthmus when his side-wheel steamer encountered
a hurricane and capsized,—and Desire Brown Ormsby was again
a widow.
But you must read this little book for yourself. Its true
drama makes "Wagon Train" seem like weak stuff.
HOW THE YANKEES TOOK OVER THE TOWN
February 13, 1961
It has long been my impression that the New England region
had more to do with the settling of Ann Arbor and the trend of
its development than is usually supposed. It was not until my
recent concentrated study of the matter, however, that I real-
ized the preponderance of New Englanders in every walk of
life during Ann Arbor's first quarter-century.
One cause of the misunderstanding is the fact that many
who left New England shortly after the Revolution settled for a
generation or two in York State before pressing on to points
farther west, and were consequently referred to by their neigh-
bors in Michigan as New Yorkers. The major change that their
brief stop in the Empire State seems to have made in them was
one of dialect. At any rate, I have seen the statement in sup-
posedly authentic history that Ann Arbor was settled by Virgini-
ans and New Yorkers. The claim of Virginia is easily disposed
of. With all due respect to our founding fathers, I need only
point to the fact that the only Virginian households I have seen
any trace of in the young village are those of the Allen family:
John Allen's own, his father's, his brother James T.'s, and that
of his sister and brother-in-law, the Welches. Even the school
teacher Orville Barnes, who accompanied the Allen clan on their
trek from Virginia, was a New Englander born and bred.1
Elisha Walker Rumsey, co-founder with John Allen, was
not a native of New York State as the story usually has it,
though he had apparently settled there for a time, but was born
in Sharon, Connecticut.2 So also was his lawyer brother, Henry
R. Rumsey,3 who came here a year later, bought a farm that
was soon to include the University of Michigan campus, and is
always referred to as Judge Rumsey. His daughter Minerva
married Edward Mundy, who was to become lieutenant-governor
of the state.4


OUR EARLY CHURCHES—THE PRESBYTERIAN 129
were the farmers, whose improved acreage usually ran from
$500 to $10,000 on the census roll. The merchants also did
surprisingly well, though none of the others approached the for-
tune of William S. Maynard, who, with $50,000, was tied with
one other for the distinction of being the richest man in town.
That other was Massachusetts-born George D. Hill, 30 years
old, who at this time merely listed himself as "Gentleman,"
but in the next few years was to build an opera house and two
hotels and to give his last name to a street then still on the
outskirts of town. There were various other surprises among
the savings listed, as that of the hatter, one John West, who
could boast of $10,000.
One can even understand poor Ann Allen's somewhat preju-
diced warning in a letter to her young son in Virginia at the
time that her husband's financial empire was beginning to crash
around him: "Michigan is chiefly settled by New England Yank-
ees (cunning as foxes) ... so I do not know what chance you
would have among them."7 But surely, when New England's
Ann Arbor saga can boast of mayors, judges, senators, a gov-
ernor, and all sorts of ministers and intellectuals, it is not fit-
ting to end it on a sour note.
OUR EARLY CHURCHES—THE PRESBYTERIAN
February 20, 1961
Some months ago when I was recounting in this column the
experiences of that indomitable German missionary, the Rev-
erend Friedrich Schmid, several people expressed a desire to
learn more about the beginnings of their own denomination dur-
ing the formative years of the village. It is my purpose today
to begin a series of five articles in answer to that request.
Since all five of those early Ann Arbor churches have their
own published histories, much of their story is already known;
but perhaps it will therefore be received with the pleasure of
familiarity which a child expresses when he begs, "Tell me
that story again!"
Although the first minister to preach in the community was
a Baptist and the second a Methodist, the first group to effect
an organization were the Presbyterians.1 This was in fact the


130
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
first Christian church officially set up anywhere in Michigan
Territory west of the Detroit area. The building in which the
historic ceremony took place on August 21, 1826, was the tiny
log schoolhouse built the previous summer by John Allen on the
northwest corner of Main and Ann Streets.1 You remember
reading that the light filtered in through a few single eight by
nine-inch panes and that the furniture consisted of crude bench-
es probably made of split logs.2 Whether there was any way of
heating the little room I have never learned (perhaps a "stick
fireplace"?). The Reverend Edward Payson Goodrich, in his
"One Hundred Years of the First Presbyterian Church of Ann
Arbor"3 quotes a later newspaper article on the typical meet-
ing-house in pioneer Michigan: "On cold winter mornings the
families provided themselves with foot-stoves." Such equipment
would not have been necessary on that lovely morning in August
at any rate, and the cool shadowy interior of the little log cabin
would be penetrated by light from the open door and brightened
by the inner glow on the faces of the charter members.
On this occasion the moderator was a Reverend Mr. Dunning
and the "chosen clerk" the Reverend Noah M. Wells of Detroit,
but the moving spirit who was to hold the infant church together
was the missionary Reverend William Page. He was long after-
wards described by a contemporary as "a man of polished man-
ners, college bred, and a good and useful preacher." The elders
elected were James Allen, Israel Branch, and Simeon Mills.
The first to be baptized and to join the church by Confession
of Faith—on that same August day—was Mrs. Fannie Camp.4
Of the seventeen who presented their "letters" that morn-
ing, three were from Virginia, Ann Allen and her husband's
parents. John Allen himself, though sympathetic to the move-
ment, seems to have held off from active church affiliation until
middle life, when he became an ardent Swedenborgian. Of the
others the backgrounds of three are unknown, three were from
New York state, and eight were New Englanders. Probably at
least some of these eight had been reared in the Congregational
pattern; but according to the "Plan of Union" of 1801 Congrega-
tional and Presbyterian missionaries in the new settlements had
been enjoined to combine their efforts. It was some years
after the abrogation of this act in 1837 that Michigan Congrega-
tional churches began to be separated from Presbyterian, and
not until 1847 that Ann Arbor Congregationalists withdrew and
formed their own church.5 Although the specific point which is
said to have precipitated this move was whether the church
should take a more active stand on the slavery question, by
that time the town was big enough to support both churches.


OUR EARLY CHURCHES—THE PRESBYTERIAN 131
During its long existence in Ann Arbor, the First Presby-
terian Church has erected four different sanctuaries. After
several tentative moves to more adequate quarters in the primi-
tive village, the little group built their first church home on
the southwest corner of Huron and Division in 1829, three years
before their first regular minister, the Reverend John Beach,
was installed. The one-room frame building at first measured
twenty-five by thirty-five feet, but was later extended twenty
feet forward and crowned with an uncovered belfry. The build-
ing was never painted outside nor in, although the inside could
boast one coat of plaster. In this modest structure the first
meeting of the Synod of Michigan was held in 1834, with twelve
churches represented.7
I am now convinced that the first bell, bought before the
church was ready, is the one now hung on the property of Edwin
Oakes down the river near Ypsilanti. Francis L. D. Goodrich,
who brought his father's history of the church up to date in
1954, was himself chairman of the centennial celebration, and
remembers the bell clearly and all the circumstances relating
to its being released to the church again by the Board of Edu-
cation.8 (See Ann Arbor Yesterdays, January 2 and 9.) So in
all Michigan Territory west of Detroit this little bell was the
first to "knoll to church."
The rapid growth of the village soon made the small meet-
ing-house inadequate. Since the center of population had de-
veloped nearer Main Street, the second church was built half-
way between Fourth and Fifth Avenues, facing Huron but far
back from the street. Completed in 1837, the year in which
the University of Michigan was moved to Ann Arbor, this ample
frame structure with its gallery was for some time the largest
gathering place in town, accommodating university commence-
ment and other big crowds, and was a matter of pride to the
townsfolk.7 When at one time it was broken into and desecrated
by hoodlums, an indignation meeting of citizens was held at the
Court House next evening.9
One way of augmenting finances for a long time was the
practice of "selling the pews." A contract still in existence,
signed by six trustees and notarized, for $95 gives the seat to
the owner, "his heirs and assigns . . . for his use only."10
In this second building the second permanent minister, the
Reverend William S. Curtis, D.D., "gave influence and prestige
to the Ann Arbor church" for fourteen years. It was his wife,
a Mt. Holyoke graduate, who organized the Ladies' Aid Society.
At the close of their meetings it was the custom of the Ladies
to serve "tea, biscuits, and a relish" for a charge of ten cents.


132
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
Small sums were earned in various ways. A handbill now
framed and hung in the church office announces a "Concert by
the Choir" on March 4, 1845: "Admission 12^." At a lecture
on historical events of the Bible accompanied by "Pictorial
representations seen through a magic lanthorn," only the gentle-
men were required to pay the 12j$ admission.11
Under the third permanent minister, the Reverend Lucius
D. Chapin, the third church, the imposing brick edifice, was
built on the earlier site. In spite of many setbacks it was
completed when the Civil War was at its height. Contributions
of labor and material were gladly credited on subscriptions. A
cruel disappointment was the loss of funds raised by the Ladies
for new carpets and pew cushions, when the man to whom the
money had been entrusted went into bankruptcy as the building
was nearing completion.12
After teeming with fellowship and worship for seventy-odd
years, the great pink brick church was torn down to make way
for the Ann Arbor News building. The wrecking-master ex-
patiated to a reporter on the huge white pine beams that gave
the church its strength, the smooth hard maple of the basement
floor, the square iron nails, and the sturdy built-in chestnut pews
capped with walnut,13 some of which are still doing duty in the
balcony of the graceful fourth building on Washtenaw.
THE FIRST METHODIST CHURCH
February 27, 1961
In the fall of 1825 John Baughman, while riding his circuit,
made his way to the tiny settlement of Ann Arbor, which was
then made up of seven log houses and one "part log and part
frame." He was welcomed at the home of Col. James Allen,
John's father, and there he preached for several evenings.
Though none of his hearers were Methodists, they heard him
gladly and at his suggestion formed a reading class. Baugh-
man, twenty-two years old at this time, was said to be "a man
of great physical strength, a warm heart, a loud voice, and a
cheerful disposition."1
It was almost two years later that he was sent back to
Ann Arbor to organize a "Methodist Society." The circumstances


THE FIRST METHODIST CHURCH
133
that led to this step have a romantic flavor. A Methodist family
named Brown were jogging along on their way from Detroit to
establish a home in this frontier community when the two lively
and no doubt attractive older daughters, Hannah and Rebecca,
spied a notice of a camp meeting to be conducted back in the
wilds somewhere by Z. H. Costen. Being both pious and re-
sourceful, the girls found a way of sending Mr. Costen a request
that a Methodist station be formed in Ann Arbor. So it was
that on July 29, 1827, John Baughman established what was later
to become the powerful First Methodist Episcopal Church of
this city.2
There were only five charter members: Hannah and Rebecca
Brown, Eber White, Calvin Smith, and Harvey Kinney, the Browns'
hired man.2 Why Mr. Brown himself held back we do not know,
but a younger daughter, Sarah, became the first conversion the
following spring.3 The next year Hannah became the wife of
the Reverend John Janes, while Rebecca died in 1834 just before
she was to have married the Reverend L. D. Whitney.' Eber
White was to be a leader in his church for forty-five years and
throughout his long life was one of Ann Arbor's most potent in-
fluences for good.4 Other well-known pioneers who soon joined
the Methodist Society were Ezra Maynard and his wife, Dr. and
Mrs. Benjamin Packard, and David Page.2
The two special features of the Methodist denomination in
bringing Christianity to the backwoods were the circuit rider
and the camp meeting. Thus they did not wait for communities
to form but provided both a religious and a social contact for
isolated settlers within an incredibly wide arc. The Tecumseh
circuit formed in 1831, for instance, included the west half of
Washtenaw and all of Jackson, Calhoun, Branch, Hillsdale, and
Lenawee Counties. Two preachers were assigned to journey
alternately the 400 miles between its twenty-four to forty preach-
ing places in a "4-weeks circuit," often blazing their own trail
through deep forests.5
They were a virile and colorful lot, these circuit riders,
though clad in a somber clerical uniform and with long hair
brushed back and falling to their shoulders. As little time was
left for study after they reached their station, no doubt their
most effective sermons were composed and even practiced on
horseback as they pushed their way through the wilderness.5
At first only a "half station," the Ann Arbor congregation
grew rapidly as the village grew. In 1830 it became for a time
the alternate charge of two very young but able ministers
who were to devote long and useful lives to Methodism: Henry
Colclazer and Elijah H. Pilcher. Colclazer also became the


134
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
university's first librarian and Pilcher a regent. Ann Arbor
became a full station in 1835.6
Services were held at first in the homes of the members
and then in various public rooms. In 1837 their first building
was begun on the southwest corner of East Ann Street and Fifth
Avenue,—a big white frame structure with a high steeple. Al-
though services were held in the basement from November on,
the church proper was not completed till two years later.7
It was in the basement sanctuary that a great revival was
led by the Reverend Elijah Pilcher. Among the 118 converts
was a sweet-faced fourteen-year-old country lad named Judson
Dwight Collins, who after nine years of study and dedication
became the first Methodist missionary assigned to China. The
story of his short brave life is one of the most inspiring in the
annals of modern Christendom.8
At the dedication of the Ann Street church musical instru-
ments were used for the first time. When told of the plan, the
Reverend Jonathan P. Chapin, who had been invited to preach
the sermon, was highly incensed and flared out, "Then you can
dedicate your own church!" Bishop Soule, of Nashville, Tennes-
see, was hurriedly brought in to take his place.9
The thirty years in this plain structure saw a vigorous
growth in every phase of church life. During the later years
there, another young person impelled to attempt great things
was seventeen-year-old Rebecca Jewel Francis. The story of
her year alone among the Indians on the shore of Lake Superior
is well known through the book, Lady Unafraid, the beautiful ac-
count written in recent years by her son, J. Raleigh Nelson.
So strong a spirit of missionary urgency was engendered
in this church, in fact, that throughout the decades the sending
out of missionaries and ministers has been a major function of
its work. In 1923 the list had passed the 100 mark.9
By 1866 the congregation had outgrown the old frame church
and a site was chosen on the corner of State and Washington,
though many feared that this was too far out. The old building
was sold to the Unitarians for $6,000.10 Many of my readers
will remember it in a still later incarnation, when, shorn of its
steeple and divided into apartments, it was known as the Unity
Block.
The magnificent red brick structure that housed the Metho-
dists for the next three quarters of a century will long be re-
membered, with its high tower and steeple that dominated the
horizon. It was considered a fine example of church architec-
ture and was copied by churches in Jackson and Adrian.
The financing of the ambitious project is a story in itself:


THE FIRST METHODIST CHURCH
135
how the trustees borrowed money on their individual notes to
the extent of $40,000, some even mortgaging their homes; how
the galleries were paid for by separate subscribers who felt
the church just had to have them, and the $l,300-bell by out-
side citizens; how Sunday-school children's pennies provided
the large window in the chancel; how the pews were auctioned,
first choice going to Rice A. Beal for $800; the special efforts
and gifts of President E. O. Haven and Professor Alexander
Winchell; and oh, the constant labors of the Ladies' Aid to pay
for the organ!11 It is a story of devotion that made it a sad
day when the outmoded structure was razed to give place to
the more complex edifice whose floodlighted beauty is now the
glory of State Street.



THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH
March 6, 1961
The very first minister to preach a sermon on Ann Arbor
soil, in the summer of 1825, was a Baptist, the Reverend Moses
Clark. Since his hearers on that day included no ready-made
members of that denomination, however, Mr. Clark thought best
to bide his time. In February 1827, in his own log house some
three miles down the river, a "Covenant Meeting" of the Baptist
Church of Farmington was held, at which Phebe Hiscock of
Ann Arbor became a member. In May of 1828 the Farmington
church dismissed the Clark family and some others at their
own request for the purpose of forming a church in Ann Arbor.
The eight charter members of the church so constituted were
the Reverend Moses Clark, Lucy and Sally Clark, Phebe Hiscock,
Benjamin Slocum, Elizabeth and Nancy Brown, and Charles
Stewart.1
Meetings were held for a time in the schoolhouse on Jail
Square, near William Street between Fourth and Fifth Avenues.2
In 1832 the congregation moved to Lower Town under the in-
fluence of the prosperous Brown brothers, Daniel B. and Anson,
whose hope it was to make the newer section north of the river
become the heart of the community. From 1830 to 1837 the
Reverend J. S. Twiss was pastor, "a preacher of much strength
and vivacity," whose "personal eccentricities increased rather
than impaired his useful influence."2 (I wish that the dignified
county historian had confided in us the nature of those endear-
ing eccentricities!)
136


THE FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH
137
The meetings were held on Broadway in a room over the
store of Anson Brown in one of those durable buildings torn
down only recently to make way for a motel. It was unfortu-
nate for the Baptists, as well as for all of Lower Town, that
this dynamic young man became a victim of cholera in 1834.
Shortly before his death he had started a subscription paper
for building a church, putting down his own name for $200 and
promising a designated lot on Wall Street for a site. His sur-
viving partners, being non-Baptists, not only refused to deed
the lot but ejected the group of worshipers from their upstairs
room. Brother Daniel Brown soon brought the partners to heel,
however, by refusing to reindorse a note of theirs for $5,000
until they gave the church the deed to the lot.3
The little sanctuary erected thereon in 1835 cost less than
$500 and seated fewer than 100 people. In 1841 it was enlarged
to double that capacity.3
Such was the church that Professor Andrew TenBrook found
when he joined the faculty of the infant university in 1844. He
was to become a most active member of the struggling church
and for long periods its unsalaried supply minister, as well as
its first historian. On Sunday mornings, he tells us, he and
his wife could be seen issuing from their "faculty house" on
the north edge of the campus, making their way along the back
of the old cemetery (now Felch Park), through a wooded ravine
(now Glen Avenue), down the river road to the Wall Street bridge,
and so on to the church. They usually walked back via Broad-
way for the sake of sociability. To show us the backwoods
nature of the Ann Arbor of that day he tells us that one Sunday
afternoon they watched a flock of wild turkeys rise from some-
where down William Street and wing their way across the cam-
pus and over that same wooded ravine toward the river.4
In the spring of 1845 an episode is said to have occurred
which is not mentioned in the Baptists' official history. A
number of converts were being baptized in the Huron River as
was the custom, and the bridge overlooking the ceremony was
thronged with several hundred people. Suddenly the bridge gave
way and the onlookers were plunged into the rapid current below.
Though no-one was killed or seriously injured, it seemed inap-
propriate to proceed with the sacrament that day.5
Those were depression times in the country, and sometimes
the little congregation could not even raise the two or three
hundred dollars a year to pay the preacher. At one time Daniel
Brown took the minister and his family into his own house and
supported them from January to June.
Mrs. Helen Beman, in her lively section of the church


138
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
history, tells of the severity with which the trustees sometimes
"withdrew fellowship": for instance, "from Brother K— for
being guilty of profanity and for making a disturbance at meet-
ings, particularly at the Methodist Church," and "from Brother
F— because he says he has a right to attend the circus and
horse races."7
In 1849 the Baptists came back across the river to a new
brick church that was up to the current standard of the Presby-
terians and the Methodists. Through a final note for $500 given
by Professor TenBrook they were able to enter the $4,000 edi-
fice free from debt. It stood on the north side of Catherine
Street nearly half way up from Fifth Avenue toward Division.8
It is my guess that the two pink brick houses now standing on
the site may have been constructed from the bricks of this old
church when it was finally razed.9 In 1866 an addition was
built at the rear, half of the cost of which—to the extent of
$1,250—was borne by the typically faithful Ladies' Aid.
Throughout the years on Catherine Street the church ex-
perienced a steady growth from letters and baptisms. In 1871,
however, came a spectacular revival under the noted evange-
list, Jacob Knapp. So great were the crowds that services had
to be moved to the big new Presbyterian church, and many con-
versions resulted. That year also marked the beginning of the
seventeen-year pastorate of the Reverend Dr. Samuel Haskell,
of whom it was afterwards said, "His life here was a benedic-
tion upon the city."10
Although the Huron Street lot had been bought in 1870, ten
years passed before money to build was available, and it had
been agreed that construction of the more pretentious house of
worship should go forward only on a cash basis. At length
Professor Edward Olney mortgaged his home while others post-
poned plans to own their own homes that the church might be
paid for.11
Shaded by magnificent oak trees, the Gothic stone church,
with its sharply rising roof line, its slender central spire, and
its capping front ornament of "Cross and Crown," is still the
just pride of the congregation. Its construction was indeed a
labor of love. Every stone, the record states, was chosen for
its beauty and shapeliness. The black walnut was furnished by
John Nowland from the farm his father had bought from the
government. Every day for a year and a half the committee
met on the premises to check every detail. In June 1881, the
Catherine Street building was sold for $1,500, and on Septem-
ber 29 the new church, in all its perfection, was dedicated free
of debt.11


140
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
set about the erection of a building at least equally impres-
sive.
The nucleus of the present block-long site was an acre in
the middle of the Division Street frontage deeded to the church
in 1834 by George Corselius, the well-known editor, and on it
stood the white frame church to which Mr. Gillespie had come.
The large lot to the south of it on which the new stone building
was placed had been bought in 1841 from John Allen and Wil-
liam S. Maynard.8 It is surprising to learn that the vestry were
in favor of selling the whole property on Division and erecting
the new church on a lot then available on Huron Street just
west of the Silas Douglas home which is now the student center
of the Baptists. This idea was wisely voted down by the con-
gregation, thirty-two to ten.7
The architect employed was G. W. Lloyd, of Detroit, a
specialist in the Gothic type of architecture then coming into
vogue. On the committee who hired him were Dr. Douglas and
J. M. Wheeler, whose gabled residences on East and West Huron
Street respectively, to which I have previously drawn your at-
tention, are also said to have been Lloyd-designed.7
The early English pattern of high central nave and lower
broad side aisles is enhanced by the beauty of the material
used, the glacier-dropped field stones the varied hues of which
brought to Washtenaw the Pictured Rocks of Lake Superior.9
Among the treasures imbedded in the cornerstone of this
church is a document which I would especially like to see—a
brief history of Ann Arbor written by General Edward Clark,7
who as a young chap arrived in the community during its log
cabin days and as an elderly gentleman had a lively way of
telling things.
The struggles by which this fine church building was paid
for were similar to those undergone by other local churches;
but they were worth it, for the attendance of students and strang-
ers was greatly increased, the congregation even at the minor
services "often exceeding the capacity of the old building."10
The old white wooden church in the middle of the block was
retained as a chapel until the new one was built in 1881. It
had been completed in 1838, in the midst of the disastrous fi-
nancial panic of that era, during the pastorate of the Reverend
Francis H. Cuming. It stood high on the lot, approached by
twenty exterior steps and surmounting a basement used for
services during the delayed process of construction. Of the
colonial and Wren contour, with low-pitched roof line, its facade
was continued into a central tower capped by a square belfry.
Green shutters were later added to the arched windows.11


THE PARISH OF ST. THOMAS THE APOSTLE
143
the melodeon, and hired a German choir master all out of his
own pocket.7 As he had quite a family of relatives living with
him, he built and furnished his own stucco residence on the
northeast corner of Kingsley and Division.8 The only remunera-
tion he ever kept for himself during his twenty-two years here
was a sum of $324.24 left over when improvements were made
in the church in 1861.9
As more Catholics moved into the county, Father Cullen's
territory was narrowed, though he retained his ministry to the
Northfield, Dexter, Sylvan, and Ypsilanti churches. As German
Catholic communities developed, German speaking Catholic
churches were organized in Freedom, Sylvan, and Newport.7
In 1862 Father Cullen succumbed to a short and violent ill-
ness. His body was placed in a sealed crypt under the altar
of his church, and was not removed to St. Thomas cemetery
until 1892 when the old church was about to be abandoned for
the new. At Father Cullen's funeral the honorary pallbearers
were prominent non-Catholic citizens who had become his friends,
including William S. Maynard, the Reverend George D. Gillespie
of the Episcopal church, Professor George P. Williams, and
Judge James Kingsley.8
St. Thomas cemetery, on the heights west of North Main
Street, had been acquired in 1843 from John Scott and his wife
almost as a gift, the whole choice site of 30 lots with its un-
surpassed view over the river valley being priced at "$10 and
other valuable considerations." It was not consecrated by the
bishop, however, until 1878. The large vault recently built at
that time served the special purpose of temporary protection
against grave robbing, a heinous practice rife in Ann Arbor in
those days because of the needs of the University of Michigan
medical school!10
After Father Cullen's death it was necessary that a home
be provided for his successor. The house just east of the
church was bought for the purpose and, though recently much
altered, remains there still as 502 E. Kingsley. About one-
third of the cost was contributed by the Northfield congrega-
tion.11
Various excitements arose in this rectory throughout the
years, as for instance the mysterious complete disappearance
of the furniture between rectorates in 1866. One night, also,
the house was entered by two robbers, at which the doughty
Father Stierle, though said to be a timid man in the pulpit, was
so angered that he attacked them both and beat them so round-
ly that they fled.13
The story of St. Thomas school would fill a book in itself.


144
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
Taken on by nuns from Monroe in 1867, when a neat little
schoolhouse at 326 E. Kingsley was offered for sale by the
Board of Education,14 it has grown from decade to decade into
the extensive school plant at the crest of State Street hill.
Meantime the whole desolate, weed-covered hillside was re-
deemed by St. Thomas until, like a strong citadel guarding the
Faith, the massive stone church was completed at the turn of
the century.15
As I leaf back through Louis Doll's comprehensive history
of the parish, I am impressed with the joyousness that stems
from the disposition of its Irish founders. Tremendous fairs,
picnics, plays, concerts, beautiful choirs, St. Patrick's Day
parades, enormous fund-raising projects: all have been accom-
panied by the same zest with which these people, now comprised
of various national strains, flock to mass on Sunday mornings.
OF ORGANS AND CHOIRS
March 27, 1961
It seems appropriate to conclude our Lenten series on the
history of Ann Arbor's early churches with some note of the
music the church people came to expect and demand. It is a
far cry from the customary simplicity of the services of the
"nonconformist" denominations of the 1830's to the elaborate
choirs and organ music we read of in all the churches toward
the end of the century.
You will recall that the Reverend Jonathan Chapin refused
to preach at the dedication of the new Methodist Church on
Ann Street when he heard that musical instruments were to ac-
company the singing. Within a few short decades, however,
gigantic financing schemes were being undertaken to equip the
churches with pipe organs, involving many thousands of dollars
on top of what was being painfully raised for the buildings them-
selves. In that very Methodist organization we find dozens of
the good women contributing janitor service in lieu of money to
swell the organ fund.
Undoubtedly the one person who gave most impetus to this
new love of fine church music was the young Latin professor,
Henry Simmons Frieze, the gifted amateur organist and choir


OF ORGANS AND CHOIRS
145
director who joined the University of Michigan faculty in 1854.
The newspapers tell of his giving concerts on the various church
organs with "selections from Rossini and Handel," and, a quar-
ter of a century after his arrival, of his organizing a "Choral
Union" from the church choirs to sing "The Messiah."2 Though
his talents were offered as a labor of love, we find St. Andrew's
remitting his pew rent at one time "as a slight acknowledge-
ment of his services as organist."
A somewhat later potent influence on the development of
singing in Ann Arbor, both solo and in groups, was the pro-
longed work of that delightful musical couple, the Reuben Kempfs.
But they deserve an article by themselves some Monday soon.
This brings us to the mention again of an element in Ann Arbor's
population which made its development into a music center in-
evitable: the musical nature and previous training of the Ger-
mans who settled here.
And now for a tie-up with what for a generation or two was
one of the city's most successful industries,—the organ factory.
In 1867 G. F. Gaertner, a native of Stettin, North Germany,
started an organ works in his home somewhere on the west
side of town, where he made pipe and reed organs by hand. His
granddaughter tells me that he was of so artistic a tempera-
ment that when his business prospered, no plain factory-type
front would do for the building he erected on Liberty Street
just west of Main: he had to have a stained-glass church win-
dow to indicate the nature of his product.3 Tradition says that
Gaertner built the University's first organ.4
In training under Gaertner was a German lad who later be-
came his son-in-law, David F. Allmendinger, a distant cousin
of the earlier Washtenaw Allmendingers. When Gaertner found
his handmade organs no longer profitable and gave us his busi-
ness, young Allmendinger continued the work, at first in his
own little house on the west side of First Street between Wash-
ington and Huron.3 For his first organ he carved the "ivories"
for the keys out of soup bones. This handmade instrument was
in daily use in the Bethlehem Parochial School for twenty-five
years, by the end of which Teacher Fischer's fingers had worn
through the bone "ivories" and made grooves in the oak under-
neath. Of course all of the pipe organs of that day had to be
pumped by hand, and the lapses of the pumping boy were often
a sore trial to the organist.
David Allmendinger built three of Ann Arbor's church organs.
Besides the making of pipe organs, however, he built a great
quantity of the small reed organs that graced the parlors of
the era, beautifying them with delicate wood carving. He once



FROM THE MAILBOX: STREETCARS AND STREET USES
April 3, 1961
A.s I have told you before, one of the pleasantest features of
conducting this column is the help I get through the mail, both
from friends and from strangers. Today I am going to quote
for you some passages from two letters, one from a witty
friend of mine who insists on remaining anonymous; the other
passed on to me by a city official after it had been lying in
his files for years, but written by a gentleman unknown to me
who at the time of writing was in his eighty-third year. Both
might be classified in a "Do You Remember?" department and
both recall former sights in our city streets.
"Do you remember the old car barns at the end of Lincoln,"
my anonymous friend begins, "where the street cars turned
around? We sure had a unique system in our town. The car
stopped, the motor man climbed down the front steps and, with
the necessary handles (I don't know what else one would call
the implements that hitched on to either end of the car and
controlled it) reversed the trolley, then climbed in to what had
been the rear end of the car and we were off.
"Another feature of our street car system was that the only
designations on the front of the cars were 'North' and 'South,'
and a passenger who came in at the other end of the line—the
M.C. depot—could reach his destination by boarding either car.
That mystified a relative of mine from Chicago. 'What kind of
a town is this?' he asked. 'Can't it make up its mind where
its street cars are going?' The explanation, of course, was
147


THE OLD ROMINGER HOME
149
"What fascinated me the most," he continues, "was the big
water-wheel that was driving the machinery in a flour mill that
was then located just north of the Lower Town bridge. I tar-
ried there for some time to watch it work."
O blessed day of leisurely pace when a boy could saunter
along and look his fill without even having to worry about his
cows' being butchered before they reached the slaughterhouse!
Psychically enough, shortly after I received this letter, I
had a phone call from Henry Wallace, who wanted to tell me
that he remembered herds of cattle being driven down the full
length of State Street when he was a boy, perhaps as late as
1920. When she saw them coming, his mother would quickly
get the children into the house and close the door, not because
she feared the cattle might injure them, although once an unruly
creature did mount their front steps, but because she didn't
want her little ones to hear the language of the drovers!
THE OLD ROMINGER HOME
April 10, 1961
]^any people in Ann Arbor will feel a sharp twinge of nostal-
gia when the old gray house at 315 South Fifth Avenue falls a
victim to the needs of the adjacent parking lot. For almost a
century this house was the hospitable residence of the Romin-
ger family, stretching upward to its present three-story capacity
as need demanded from a one-story cottage with doctor's office
included.
It was in 1860 that Dr. and Mrs. Charles Rominger settled
here after a temporary sojourn in Ohio. Both were born and
educated in Germany, and throughout their lives they kept in
close touch with intellectual and literary friends in their father-
land. Though a faithful practicing physician, Dr. Rominger pur-
sued his absorbing interest in geology to the extent of being
widely known in that field.1 From 1870 to 18852 he held the
office of State Geologist of Michigan.
Although they had another daughter and a son, who also be-
came a doctor, it was the Romingers' daughter Marie who, be-
cause of her long life, her great individuality, and her warm
friendliness, became in the minds of later townsfolk the life and


150
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
soul of this house. On the day that she was born, July 23, 1863,
her father planted an elm tree on the lawn extension, which
grew with the house and outlived her. Marie Rominger died on
August 7, 1955, at the age of 92, and the sturdy tree was felled
a few years later when the street was widened.3
This house has always presented a rather uninteresting
front to the street, its change of contour from time to time
being determined solely by the functional needs within. Certain
people, however, remember making their way around to the
back, where in the midst of a flower garden a little round
"belvedere," or summerhouse, gave an old-world atmosphere
for a "Kaffee-klatsch." When in more recent years this small
structure succumbed to time and weather, Miss Rominger re-
placed it with a sunken pool for goldfish, which, in turn, neces-
sitated a glassed-in appendage to the dining-room for their
winter quarters.3
But it is the interior of the house that challenges attention.
As one enters the ample living-room, one wonders just what
there is about it that subtly brings to mind a drawing-room
across the Atlantic. Probably no professional interior decorator
would have cared to achieve this pleasant fullness that makes
room for all the varied interests of a cultured family. The
many soft dark colors of the oriental rugs and the imported
green and flowered wallpaper form a basis for the acceptance
of any beautiful object without worry as to whether it fits "the
scheme." Though certain pieces of furniture and bric-a-brac
could qualify as antiques, there is a feeling that they were not
sought after as such but came here naturally. For instance,
there is an exquisite little candle-lantern of pierced copper and
brass with which Mrs. David Allmendinger used to light her way
home after an evening call, to send it back with her little Helene
next morning.3
The people who lived here have loved books and music, but
the love of art is manifested in a special way. The picture
frames are elaborate hand carved, while some of the large pic-
tures themselves were done in an unusual medium, the pyrogra-
phy or "burned wood" of the early 1900's. I never have seen
it used in this way, to give all the effects of light and shade
and depth, with only a delicate over-wash of color, achieving a
live blend that makes one forget the process. The artist, of
course, was Marie Rominger. Her delicate carvings of wood
fill in various corners of the woodwork throughout the house
and put a finishing touch on pieces of handmade furniture. In
her "studio" on the third floor is a work bench from the All-
mendinger organ works, the top of which is a single oak board
four inches thick and perhaps measuring 32 by 8 feet.3


152
WHEN CIVIL WAR STRUCK
April 17, 1961
^^hat would it have been like—to be living in Ann Arbor a
hundred years ago this very day, this very week? On April 13,
1861, a Saturday, Fort Sumter was attacked by rebel guns, and
early Monday morning news came by wire that it had fallen.
Not much sleeping would have been accomplished over the week-
end, and however early the Courthouse bell was rung, in a mat-
ter of minutes the wooden sidewalks and rutted streets would
be thronged by anxious people in a rush toward Courthouse
Square. Crowding through the four gates or clambering over
the poles of the high white fence into the grounds and halls of
the little building, they would keep their voices to a murmur
so as not to miss the first words of the city official who would
be reading the telegram. Then, too moved for talk, the news-
papers afterward reported, they melted away in silence to try
to absorb the shocking thought of actual war in a country divided
against itself.1
Stunned as they were, for months they had been living in
fear that this might happen, even though both parties had been
declaring stoutly that it was impossible. In December Michi-
gan's own Lewis Cass, then Secretary of State under Buchanan,
had advised the President to reinforce the forts in Charleston
harbor, and when his counsel was disregarded, had resigned
from the Cabinet. Indecisive but worried, Buchanan had called
for a day of "fasting and prayer" on January 4th, and such a
day had been fervently observed in crowded Ann Arbor churches.1
Partisan feeling was strong, however, and later in January,
at an abolitionist lecture being held in one of the churches, the
notorious "Pillsbury riot" had occurred. Unfortunately the local
newspapers of both parties failed to report the fracas. The
nearest we have to a contemporary account is a "Letter to the
Editor" a month later which gives details of heckling and in-
sults and "driving the abolitionists out of the windows." A
later bit of hearsay says the mob tore up seats and left the
church a shambles.2 Since Ann Arbor was only a little country
town at the time with a population approximating 5,000, its peo-
ple did not have to depend on newspapers for knowledge of local
events.
As winter turned into spring, agitated conversations had
focused more and more on Fort Sumter. Would it be reinforced?


WHEN CIVIL WAR STRUCK
153
Would it be evacuated? Such questions, the Argus tells us,
"had taken the place of ordinary complimentary greetings and
partings."
So on the afternoon of that first day of war, the word quick-
ly spread that President Tappan was leading a throng of stu-
dents down the middle of State and Huron Streets toward Court-
house Square again. One can only speculate as to just how and
where this cavalcade got started. The University was small
too in 1861, with an enrollment just over 500, all men of course,
and the forty-acre campus had only nine buildings, including
the four original faculty homes.
It is my guess that the excited students, rising hurriedly
from their noon meal in Mason Hall or "South College," may
have gravitated spontaneously to the front door of the president's
residence and hailed him forth. In no time at all Dr. Tappan's
commanding figure and strong, earnest voice as he stood on his
little front porch, would have reduced the milling crowd to unity
and they would be making their progress behind him through
the middle fields of the campus to the rudimentary diagonal
walk and through the big white corner gate onto State Street.
No shopping center yet, State Street was modestly residen-
tial and lined with half-grown trees. The only public building
this wildly purposeful crowd would pass before turning onto
Huron was the still new Ann Arbor High School, set back near
the Thayer Street side of its block. The upper part of Huron
Street, also residential, had a more spacious aspect. It was
not till beyond Fifth Avenue that they passed a church, the
large wooden Presbyterian structure on their left.
As they swept into the square, a crowd would already be
forming there, and by the time their clangor on the little Court-
house bell had stopped, the square would be full again. The
throng was quickly organized this time, with Dr. Tappan as
chairman and Elihu B. Pond, editor of the Argus, as secretary.
Eloquent speeches were made, resolutions that Ann Arbor would0
stand by the President were passed, and a committee of five
was named to organize military companies.1
One local military group had already been formed: the
Steuben Guards, composed largely of German immigrants. Since
January 14 they had been under intensive drill, and they now
offered their services to the Commander in Chief as a company
or as individuals.
On Saturday, April 20, the town was thrown into panic by
a rumor that Washington was taken and Lincoln and General
Scott were prisoners. Sunday morning the Argus and the Journal
got out special editions with dispatches proving the rumor false,



HOME GROWN MUSIC AND THE KEMPFS
May 1, 1961
The May Festival series can boast an impressive record,
having serenely made its annual appearance in Ann Arbor since
1894, uninterrupted by world wars or world depressions. There
was an earlier music festival here, however, that was at least
equally impressive considering the times, the relative size of
the town, and the fact that it took place in late summer when
the University was not in session. I refer to the "Seventh
Peninsular Saengerfest" held in University Hall August 16, 17,
and 18, 1886. The participants were German vocal and instru-
mental groups formed among German immigrants of Bay City,
East Saginaw, Lansing, Jackson, Detroit—which had five separate
societies—Ann Arbor, and Waterloo, Ontario. Dr. Conrad Georg,
Sr., was president of the combined organizations for that year
and Professor Reuben Kempf the director of all the concerts.
A worn and yellowed scrapbook cherished in the Kempf
family contains long clippings about the occasion, some from
various German-language papers as well as the leading English
language papers of Ann Arbor, Detroit, Chicago, Toledo, etc.;
while "a nice notice of the Fest" was reported to have been
given by the New York "Keynote."
Ann Arbor was hailed as "the Athens of the West." The
pretty, bustling little town of 10,000 went all out to welcome
the thousands of musical visitors. Streets and buildings were
profusely decorated "with the mingled colors of Germania and
Columbia." One large banner even showed "die Lorelei" combing
157


HOME GROWN MUSIC AND THE KEMPFS
159
Arriving back in town in 1879 after graduation at the age
of twenty, Professor Kempf began the long career of teaching,
performing, and directing music that was to continue until a
few weeks before his death in 1945. He had a way of making
people love good music. The boys' choir of St. Andrew's Epis-
copal Church, which he conducted for thirty-three years, reached
great perfection as he charmed generation after generation of
young rascals into a willingness to work hard on difficult church
music. His "Beethoven Gesang-Verein," started among local
German-speaking singers soon after his return from Stuttgart,
was popular for many years. Soon he also formed the Lyra
Men's Chorus which he conducted until his death. In the Kempf
scrapbooks one finds dozens of programs of concerts and operet-
tas organized and conducted by him in buildings all over town
for the benefit of any good cause that came along.
In 1883 Reuben Kempf was married to a favorite young Ann
Arbor singer, Pauline Widenmann, and the two made the perfect
musical team. In 1876, at the age of sixteen, Pauline had given
such promise that Professor Frieze organized a "Grand Testi-
monial Concert" for her benefit in the G. D. Hill Opera House
(later the Whitney Theater) at which the best musicians in town
donated their talents. The proceeds financed Pauline's first
year at the Cincinnati Conservatory, then considered the best
in the country for vocal training. The number on the program
that catches the fancy most, I think, is "Come Where My Love
Lies Dreaming"—a quartette sung by Pauline and her three
still smaller and smaller brothers, Victor, August, and Willie.
Before her marriage Pauline's career included a position
as director of music in a "select" boarding school in St. Clair
and many appearances as featured soloist. Some years later
Mrs. Kempf spent a winter in New York working with Oscar
Saenger, famous coach of Metropolitan stars. For many years
she was Ann Arbor's best loved soloist, being the one chosen,
for instance, to sing at the funeral of Mrs. Angell, and later in
the quartette at Dr. Angell's funeral. She was still teaching
private pupils at the age of 85, and she lived to be 93.
The spot associated with the Kempfs in memory is the
exquisite little white house like a Greek temple at 312 South
Division which became their home in the early 1890's. Many
a musical career was fostered in the "studio" at the right of
the front door.


160
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
FROM BAKERY BOY TO FAMOUS SCULPTOR
May 8, 1961
During the first few years after the arrival of Allen and
Rumsey on this primeval bit of Washtenaw soil, the Rogers
family came from York State with their eight children. The
youngest of these was Randolph, a little boy whose first memo-
ries, he said later, were of Ann Arbor.1 With the Allen chil-
dren and other pioneer youngsters, Randolph no doubt waded or
fished in Allen's Creek, hunted or picked wild flowers in Eber
White's or Hiscock's woods, was not unfamiliar with Indians and
the cry of wolves, and received his only formal education in the
little brick building which by then had been erected on the far
corner of Jail Square. He was afterwards remembered as hav-
ing been full of fun, and especially gifted as a mimic.
We do not know how early it was noticed that he could draw;
but it was in his early teens, as an apprentice in the bakery of
Calvin and D. W. Bliss, that he began fashioning three-dimen-
sional figures out of dough, or even, when his employers were
not present, out of butter. Having no urge to become a baker
and being equally restive in his brother's mill in Jackson, young
Randolph settled for a few years for a job as clerk in a Main
Street drygoods store owned by Gen. J. D. Hill.1 In his off
time he practiced many skills: drawing, whittling, molding, por-
trait painting, and copper engraving. His woodcuts found a
ready market with the Michigan Argus, since in those days they
were the chief way of illustrating newspapers. He received ten
dollars from an Ann Arbor paper for the wood engraving of a
log cabin and flags which became the emblem of William Henry
Harrison in the presidential campaign of 1840.1,4
In 1848 he went to New York in hope of finding an appren-
ticeship to an engraver, but failing that, took a clerk's position
again in the "Silk House" of Edgerton and Stuart. So far as I
can find out, up to his arrival in New York he had never even
seen a statue except no doubt the cemetery variety. Eager to
develop his innate ability, he got hold of a block of marble and
some tools and set about chiseling out a bust of Byron with only
a small picture as model. The result was so successful that
it drew the attention of his employer, John Stuart, Jr., who im-
mediately offered to loan him the money to go to Florence, Italy,
to study under the famous sculptor Lorenzo Bartolini.1
There his development was so rapid and his works were so


FROM BAKERY BOY TO FAMOUS SCULPTOR 161
much in demand that on his return to America six years later
he had $6,000 left after paying back his benefactor.3
At this time he must have come to visit his relatives in
Ann Arbor, and it may have been then and here that he made
the acquaintance of Professor Henry S. Frieze, the young Latin
teacher and musician who came to the University of Michigan
faculty that very year. At any rate, two years later Frieze
visited the studio Rogers had set up in Rome in the meantime
and was much impressed. He brought back photographs of
Rogers' work for the University. By 1859 we find Rogers
writing a warm and friendly letter to Professor Frieze discuss-
ing the terms under which his statue "Nydia" could be bought.5
Many of my readers have seen this marble figure in Alumni
Hall. It represents the blind girl of Bulwer-Lytton's Last
Days of Pompeii at the time of the eruption of Vesuvius. Lean-
ing forward as she feels her way with her staff through the
rubble of the darkened city, she pauses to listen anxiously.
This sculpture was to become so popular that from its dozens
of replicas alone Rogers netted nearly $70,000.5 Ann Arbor
would have received the very first rendition in marble had not
negotiations been so protracted that a Canadian patron who had
bought others of Rogers' works claimed first right to "Nydia."
So the one we see here is the second of the long series to be
cut.
Now in 1843 the "Cosmopolitan Art Association" had been
formed in Ann Arbor among women of leisure and culture. It
was this group that undertook raising the money for the pur-
chase of "Nydia" in 1859, and at this time they changed their
name to the "Randolph Rogers Art Association."
In his letter to Frieze Rogers quotes his price for "Nydia"
as 350 pounds sterling (approximately $1700). He explains the
expense of this statue, over his "Ruth" at 300 pounds, as due
to the bent position of the standing figure, which required an
extra large block of flawless marble, and the deep cutting of
the swirling drapery. He offers it to the Ann Arbor group,
however, for a down payment of $700 if the balance could be
raised within two years, suggesting that a fee could be charged
just to look at this work of art. In those days, of course,
marble statues were still a rarity—even a curiosity—in this
part of the world.
In his correspondence the young sculptor softens the blow
of the high price by concluding, "I have four statues in Paris,
a group of two figures and a statue in the Royal Palace at St.
Petersburg, and in America from Quebec to Georgia, but I can
assure you none of these will give me so much pleasure to


162
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
think of as the one which will be among my old friends in Ann
Arbor."8
In time for the statue's arrival the regents of the University
had appropriated funds for a suitable alcove in which to display
it, adjacent to a little room in Mason Hall then used as a mu-
seum.8
By middle life Rogers had attained amazing popularity. His
works became quite the rage, for as few others he expressed
the taste of his day. Crossing and recrossing the ocean many
times to carry out his commissions, he is represented by the
statue of John Adams in Boston, the colossal bronze figure of
Lincoln in Philadelphia, the completion of the Washington monu-
ment in Richmond, the tremendous "Soldiers' and Sailors'" mon-
uments in Providence and in Detroit, the frieze on the Lincoln
monument in Springfield, and the bronze doors at the entrance
to the Rotunda of the Capitol in Washington. Besides his story
figures—"Nydia," "Ruth," "Isaac," "The Lost Pleiad," etc.,—he
created many allegorical figures for private owners.9
In Rome Rogers was made a "Professor" of the Academy
of St. Luke, the oldest art academy in the world.10 A contem-
porary critic called his "Lost Pleiad" "the most beautiful crea-
tion ever executed by an American sculptor."11 His obituaries
in 1892 were universally laudatory. Although his works may
now seem typed and lacking in the vigor and individuality of
more recent sculpture, they are marked by dignity, grace, and
seemliness.
The entire contents of Rogers' studio in Rome were be-
queathed to the University of Michigan,11 and for many years
they were an impressive and useful display on the campus.
Since the collection was composed almost entirely of the origi-
nal plaster designs for marble or bronze works, and since con-
ditions made it necessary to move them again and again from
building to building, their fragile nature made them vulnerable
to breakage and crumbling, and they finally had to be withdrawn
from exhibition.12
Forming an interesting addition to the University of Michi-
gan collection were two sculptured portraits of Rogers himself
done by fellow artists: one a marble relief by Cushing in which
his artist's cap makes him resemble Leonardo; the other a
plaster bust by Volk showing strong, handsome features above
a mighty Victorian beard.13


163
A GROCERY DE LUXE
(When Even a Nickel Was Money)
May 15, 1961
You may remember that my anonymous friend brought to a
climax her description of Ann Arbor's old street railway sys-
tem with the remark, "and the whole ride cost only a nickel!"
This set her to thinking of the nickel itself, and she continued:
"We also paid only five cents for a loaf of bread, and five cents
for a quart of milk—which was delivered each morning at the
back door, and poured from the high tin milk can into a quart
measure, carried on a hook on the side, and thence into the
householder's crock or bowl set out for the purpose." No need
to pay extra for a bottle or carton or tax!
A group of us recently got to chattering about the treats
we used to buy for a nickel: an ice-cream soda or sundae or
cone (it seemed a shocking extravagance when the Banana Split
was introduced at a dime); or, at the bake-shop after school, a
half dozen fried-cakes or cookies; or at the candy counter of
the grocery a nice little bag of horehound sticks, hard pepper-
mints or pink wintergreens, or the slightly more expensive
small chocolate creams in the shape of a rounded-off cone.
And I believe a small packet of "Sen-Sen" cost only a penny.
The early movies, you remember, were called "nickelo-
dians," and you didn't need to munch popcorn to enhance "The
Perils of Pauline." Without benefit of sound track, the excit-
ing or sentimental activities on the screen were cues for proper
tunes rattled away on the piano by someone you knew, who as
a neighbor youngster had practiced more faithfully than the rest
of you.
The mention of popcorn got us going on peanuts, and some-
one contributed, "Do you remember the big bag of peanuts you
got for a nickel at Dean's grocery, still warm, and the tantal-
izing smell of roasting peanuts and coffee that issued from the
front door?"
This remark opened up the whole subject of the change in
grocery stores that we older people have witnessed. "The
grocer used to come right up to the back door," my anonymous
friend broke in, "and took the day's order, suggesting items the
housewife might have forgotten. Groceries and meats were de-
livered, twice a day if necessary, in the closed wagon drawn by
one horse, and later by Merchants' Delivery."


170
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
The unassorted, hit-or-miss nature of the contents seems to
illustrate the pressure of the need. Imagine the glow in the
hearts of these dear, tired, hoop-skirted ladies, though, when
"a Sergeant wrote home that he thought those cakes saved the
lives of 100 men, and were eaten with tears of gratitude to the
women of Ann Arbor."
The Soldiers' Aid Society also sponsored a continuous flow
of socials, concerts, etc., both as a money-making project to
finance their work and as a means of bolstering the morale of
the home folk. Solon Cook often opened his hotel, now the
Allenel, for gala affairs, while Moses Rogers repeatedly gave
the use of his large hall. My antiquarian readers will be fas-
cinated to learn of a home-talent "Old Folks' Festival" held
there on June 19, 1863, the costumes for which had all been
worn by "Beaux and Belles" of the time of the Revolution, while
"a choir sang fugue tunes of the olden time." Not to be out-
done, Hangsderfer's Hall in its high brick building on Main Street
was offered for a similar festival during the Christmas sea-
son. The affair was so popular that it was repeated the next
night and crowds had to be turned away. Supplies and delicious
foods were donated in great profusion.
A sub-society of "young misses"—mostly Ann Arbor High
School girls—worked diligently too. Their contribution of fancy
handwork sent to the first great "Sanitary Fair" in Chicago in
November 1863, was valued at $170.1
As the war was drawing to an end in the spring of 1865, a
glorious party was planned for Rogers' Hall featuring tableaux
and the crowning of a May Queen, Miss Flora Jewett. Though
peace had come before the date set, the graceful pageant went
forward as planned,1 but amid a tumult of mixed joy and grief,
for in the meantime Lincoln had been assassinated.
It was some years later that another women's organization
was formed in a section of Ann Arbor: the Ladies' Decoration
Society of what until recently constituted the fifth ward; namely,
"Lower Town." Enlistment from that area had been unusually
heavy, numbering 75 out of a district of 140 voters, and the
casualties proportionally severe. Twenty-five bodies had been
returned to Fairview Cemetery and sixteen more had to be left
where they fell. In 1870 the women folk of the ward banded
together for the purpose of decorating the graves of these loyal
dead on each Memorial Day. By 1874 they had amassed enough
money for a suitable monument to their memory.3 Above a
mound now covered with quaint, spicy pennyroyal, near the
center of Fairview, the imposing shaft may still be seen bearing
aloft a mighty eagle. The much more commonplace monument



CELEBRATED VISITORS
June 5, 1961
The discontinuance of the Platform Attractions Series has set
us to thinking about the old Lecture Course and the famous men
and women who began coming here over a century ago to ad-
dress their audience seriously for a couple of hours on some
grave and stimulating subject. In the old days they usually
spent the night as a guest in some private home, and often a
little group of congenial spirits would be invited in to meet
them informally.
The diary of T. C. Abbot, first principal of Ann Arbor High
School, tells us of one such happy occasion. Abbot had left
Ann Arbor to become a professor (and later the president) of
the newly organized Agricultural College at East Lansing, but
made frequent return trips here while courting his future wife,
high school preceptress Miss Sarah Merrylees. On February 7,
1860, Ralph Waldo Emerson gave his "Manners and Morals" ad-
dress in Ann Arbor. He was a house guest at the home of
Judge Edwin Lawrence on the corner of Division and Kingsley,
and the young engaged couple were invited to the reception which
the Lawrences gave after the lecture. Since Emerson was not
at his best at a party, the townspeople found him a little hard
to talk to and were glad to elbow young Mr. Abbot into the
position of honor. Although Abbot was usually not too glib with
strangers himself, he was able to get on easy terms with Emer-
son at once, and he records their conversation as one of the
high points of his life.
172


CELEBRATED VISITORS
173
This was Emerson's second visit to Ann Arbor, his first
lecture, on "Human Beauty," having been delivered in January
1856, a few months before the opening of Ann Arbor High School
and the coming of Abbot. He was then described in the Argus
as "not a pleasing speaker . . . yet he commands the utmost at-
tention" by giving "the root of the matter, concise, clear, and
strong."2
In that decade, the one prior to the Civil War, Horace Mann
spoke here twice; and one of the first to appear in the new
"Union School" hall was Edward Everett, the man whose long
flow of eloquence at Gettysburg a few years later almost crowd-
ed Lincoln off the program. When Wendell Phillips talked here
in 1856, the Argus reviewed his performance as very enter-
taining but lacking in "the depth and solidity we had been led
to expect." During the previous year, however, when Lucy Stone
had appeared here in her campaign for Woman's Rights, the
same paper had felt it necessary to protest that "Young Ameri-
ca was decidedly too uproarious" and that "stamping, whistling,
and playing on the jewsharp are not appropriate preludes to a
lecture."3
In Civil War years Tom Thumb, P. T. Barnum, and Josh
Billings came in turn to bring a little cheer to people's somber
hearts, and Ex-President Millard Fillmore spent two days here
on some more serious mission.
During University of Michigan President Angell's long regime
his illustrious guests included Matthew Arnold, Henry M. Stanley,
Grover Cleveland, James Bryce, two Justices of the Supreme
Court, Charles A. Dana, and Theodore Roosevelt while he was
governor of New York. One can imagine the good talk that
went on at the dinner table, as both Dr. and Mrs. Angell must
have been delightful conversationalists.
A book of anecdotes, often quite humorous, could be writ-
ten, I'm sure, about this long chain of Ann Arbor's well-known
visitors. When the very portly William Howard Taft, for in-
stance, was giving a lecture, he made a slight fumble with his
manuscript and one of the sheets fluttered to his feet. He
stepped back and very carefully doubled over his great bulk and
picked up the paper. Then, with a twinkle, he confided to the
front rows, "Just to show you I could."
The Charles Sinks have a marvelous fund of stories about
the visits of famous musicians, but I believe the following epi-
sode is off their range. During a May Festival long ago, two
prominent Metropolitan singers, Charles Witherspoon and Giu-
seppi Campanari, found themselves with an unscheduled evening
and wandered out to see the town. On downtown East Huron,


175
A CENTURY OF BUSINESS—THE EBERBACHS
June 12, 1961
Some months ago I quoted a statement made in the early 1930's:
"No place of business here not founded by a German has con-
tinued 50 years." Since that assertion has not been challenged,
I now can safely say that the only families that have conducted
the same business in Ann Arbor for a whole century are
German-descended families. I know of only two such firms:
the Eberbach drug, chemical, and instrument business and the
Haller jewelry store. Taking them alphabetically, let us con-
sider the Eberbachs today and the Hallers in the near future.
Jacob Frederich Christian Eberbach arrived in Ann Arbor
in 1838 at the age of twenty-one.1 His ocean voyage on a sail-
ing vessel had lasted sixty days, and he had come a large part
of the way from Philadelphia on foot. Born in Stuttgart, Wurt-
temberg, he was a relative of Jonathan Mann and of the Hutzel
and Josenhans families3 who had all sent back enthusiastic re-
ports of Washtenaw County. Young Christian was a graduate in
pharmacy of the University of Wurttemberg, and was the first
scientifically trained pharmacist the village of Ann Arbor had
had, although drug counters had been set up in some of the
general stores.4 It was as a drug clerk in such a store, owned
by W. S. Maynard, that Eberbach got his start.2 Always a lover
of horses, he invested his first savings in an Indian pony, which
he made look more aristocratic by the then current method of
"pricking" its tail to make it stand upright. On this little beast
once a week for a time he carried the mail to outlying parts
of Monroe County, threading the wild forest land on the Indian
trails.2 By 1843 he was able to open a drug business in part-
nership with his cousin, Emanuel Mann. Its address was then
14 South Main, the site of the present Mayer-Schairer store.5
In 1842 he had won the hand of twenty-year-old Margaretha
Laubengaier (over considerable rivalry, it seems, as in the
bosom of the family her petname long afterward was "the Belle
of Scio"). The young couple set up housekeeping in a brick
house on West Washington and remained there for nearly twenty
years, when they moved to their beautiful farm home out Pack-
ard.5
Meantime Christian's business had prospered. He was mak-
ing trips to New York twice a year to buy drugs and supplies,
and at one time he came back with a complete set of imported


A CENTURY OF BUSINESS—THE EBERBACHS 177
In 1874 the partnership with Mann was dissolved, and Chris-
tian Eberbach's son Ottmar became his partner. Two other
sons, Ernest and Edward, were aided by their father in taking
over the business now known as Fischer's hardware.5 Ottmar
had been sent to Germany for his scientific education, at the
Polytechnic School of Stuttgart and the University of Tubingen.9
In 1870 he had married Katharina Haller,5 thus linking these
two great business families of Ann Arbor. Under Ottmar's in-
fluence the scope of the firm was broadened to include the mak-
ing of delicate pharmaceutical and other scientific instruments
and the stocking of rare drugs and chemicals, two branches
that have brought a world-wide market.9 Christian Eberbach
did not live to see the company move to its large building at
Liberty and Fourth Avenue in 1909.5
One of the framers of the pharmacy laws of Michigan, Ott-
mar Eberbach was appointed to the state board of pharmacy
for several terms and became its president.9 He received all
sorts of professional honors. Over thirty years after his death
in 1921, he was awarded a special honor by the Michigan Acad-
emy of Pharmacy, a branch of the American Pharmaceutical
Association.
One of the original directors of the University School of
Music, he remained on that board until his death. For twenty-
one years he was a valuable member of the Ann Arbor School
Board.10 He was the last board member for whom a school
was named. Since the name was lost when the administration
offices took over that building, it is hoped that the next school
to be built in the southeast section might be called the New
Eberbach School.
The present generation has seen the Eberbach firm develop
and expand under the guidance of Ottmar's son Oscar and long-
time associates, especially Ralph H. Miller, Oscar Boehnke,
and Oscar Haarer.
The Eberbach record of scientific achievement brought from
Germany has been further prolonged by Oscar's younger brother,
Dr. Carl Eberbach, Chief of Staff of Milwaukee Hospital, Direc-
tor of the department of Surgery at Marquette University, and
a Governor of the American College of Surgeons.11



Two of the Trolley Watchers' Favorites
Above: On the Packard-Huron run, with Steve Duris presiding at the
front and John Kraft at the rear.
Below: Car 11 of the Detroit, Ypsilanti, and Ann Arbor Electric Rail-
way, sometime between 1898 and 1901, pausing before a backdrop of
the old courthouse and the Farmers' and Mechanics' Bank.


HELP FROM THE "TROLLEY WATCHERS"
181
in which a single four-wheeled truck was placed under the mid-
dle of the car, which must have made front and back seats
teeter up and down like a seesaw. The motorman's platform
was unenclosed in the early models, and he had only a hand
brake to stop the car.3 Variously shaped "cowcatchers" and
an awkward boxed headlight jutted out in front. Ann Arbor's
first city fleet consisted of ten cars, two for each of the three
routes and four spares.2
For summer use, here as elsewhere, an open car became
popular, with long seats stretching clear across and a running-
board along each side on which an overflow crowd of college
boys could pack themselves as closely as in the recent tele-
phone booth madness.2 On hot summer evenings in Ann Arbor
extra revenue was obtained by running open car specials, for
three cents per person each way to the car barns and back,
making a pleasant and inexpensive way to spend a date.
Eventually quite luxurious cars were introduced on the
longer interurban runs, featuring carved paneling, brass lava-
tory fixtures, deep plush seats, and even diners. As freight
business increased, special freight trains were assembled for
a middle-of-the-night run. On one August midnight in 1927 it
was such a string of four cars, loaded with sheet-metal, that
broke loose from their power car at the top of West Huron
Street and came tearing back down the mile-long hill and up
the other side of the valley to Main Street. Jumping the tracks
at the turn, they demolished the Farmers' and Mechanics' Bank
building and themselves as well.2
On Labor Day, 1929, the interurban succumbed to competi-
tion from private automobiles, trucks, buses, and improved
pavements. The city streetcars had been replaced by buses in
1925. One little trolley in town labored on until 1949, how-
ever, to bring coal from the N.Y.C.R.R. tracks to the University
of Michigan heating plant. It was then replaced by a Diesel
motor.3
The town can still boast one private railway, the 7-inch
gauge loop encircling the W. O. Bailey home on Long Shore
Drive. Constructed several years ago by their son Tom, now
University of Michigan Engineer '63 and an ardent Trolley
Watcher, it has all sorts of trestles and bridges over which a
dozen children can be conveyed in boxcar, flatcar, and caboose
by a battery-powered engine.4


A CENTURY OF JEWELRY—THE HALLERS
185
The store was moved to "campus town" in 1913, spending
some time on State Street before locating at its present ad-
dress. I remember asking Mr. Walter Haller one time in re-
cent years if the much-talked-of change in student life made
any difference in a jeweler's choice of stock. "We used to sell
more watches to the students," he said. "Nowadays they usually
get their watches back home for high school graduation or even
sooner. But with this trend of earlier marriages, students
come in now to pick their diamonds—or their wedding rings."
Jacob Haller's younger son, Martin, was sent back to Frei-
burg, Germany, for horological schooling, but since his older
brother was already established as his father's partner, he
joined John Koch in the furniture business in 1881. After seven
years this partnership was dissolved and the Martin Haller Co.
established. Moved about the turn of the century from Main
Street to its own large building on East Liberty, it was passed
on in later years to Martin's son Paul, its present manager.3
Martin Haller's daughter, Miss Elsa Haller, still resides
in the ample house her father built on South Main Street near
William, the only house surviving as a home in a neighborhood
of gracious dwellings that used to house some of Ann Arbor's
most prominent families: the Bachs, the Staeblers, the Wagners,
the Deans, the Georgs, the Macks, the Ottmar Eberbachs, and,
just a step farther north on Main, the Maynards and the Mueh-
ligs.


188
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
office to answer the wildly ringing phone. It was the same
irate voice, demanding of the proprietor that he fire that in-
efficient and discourteous driver. In dignified tones Jim an-
swered, "Thank you, sir. I shall do so immediately."
The Walker fleet of cabs were converted to motors in 1913
and sold out during the following year.3
I am indebted to William Schlect of Sharon Drive for a
snapshot of himself as a cabby in 1921 in a Model-T taxicab
owned by the Ann Arbor Taxi and Transfer Co. The fare in
1921 was 25 cents for anywhere in town, Mr. Schlect says.
Of course football days were a bonanza, for he could pack six
riders on the back seat and two on each running board: at 15£
apiece that brought $1.50 a trip. Then too, gasoline in those
happy days cost only 55 cents for 10 gallons.
The front tires were the three-inch size now used on motor-
cycles and the rear ones "an over-size 3| inches." The pic-
ture shows the driver's separated compartment open to the
elements on both sides, which necessitated his pulling high
gauntlets over his raincoat sleeves in a downpour to keep the
water from running back down to his elbows as he grasped the
steering wheel. His seat had a permanent roof, however, while
that over his passengers was collapsible and could be folded
back on sunny spring days. The conversation of the riders was
assured of privacy by sliding windows between them and the
driver, but they couldn't see much of the scenery, as the side
windows were only the width of the narrow doors. Schlect had
good reason to be proud of this cab, because it was the first
model to have magneto lights and an electric horn.
Policemen weren't much trouble in those days, he says, as
there were only eight of them in the whole town. The only
traffic light rested on a "toadstool-shaped" affair at Main and
Huron. In a snowstorm a policeman had to stand nearby to
brush off the mounded snow so that the light could be seen.
Occasionally the taxi-driver had to get out and clear it off
himself before he could tell whether to go or stop!
A FAREWELL MISCELLANY
July 10, 1961
Two other century-old Ann Arbor businesses have been drawn
to my attention, both founded by Germans. The Wagner clothing


A FAREWELL MISCELLANY
189
store has come down from William to Charles to Paul. An
old cash book records that in 1845 William Wagner made a
coat for Christian Eberbach.1 And for one of its three part-
ners the Muehlig Funeral Chapel has Robert E. Muehlig, a de-
scendant of one of the founders. Since they were skilled cabinet
makers, the Muehlig Bros, were advertising in 1852 for logs
suitable for making coffins!
I should like to suggest a project for the Chamber of Com-
merce: that they draw up a form for a citation—worded and
printed with dignity—to be awarded to every business project in
Ann Arbor that has remained in the same family for 100 years.
Since this is to be the last number of "Ann Arbor Yester-
days," I am mentioning today a number of suggestions that have
come to me which I have been unable to develop in my column.
They have enriched my own knowledge immeasurably, and I
wish to express my gratitude for them.
From Dr. Donald F. Huelke has come a copy of his recent
article, "History of the Department of Anatomy, the University
of Michigan, Part 1, 1850-1894," published in the January-
February 1961, number of the University of Michigan Medical
Bulletin. I find it absorbing and delightful reading, and a valu-
able addition to local history.
From Parker Pennington, now living at his camp at Inter-
lochen, I have received a packet of photographs of beautiful
sculpture done in recent years by Avard Fairbanks. Since
Fairbanks and his family were well beloved residents of Ann
Arbor for many years, Parker suggests that it is a pity that
no example of the later work of this now internationally famous
artist is to be seen in our city. (Of course the fine large
bronze medalion, "The Pioneers," at the entrance of Ann Arbor
High School and the lifelike bust of Principal Emeritus L. L.
Forsythe that dominates the main corridor of the new building
were done by Fairbanks during his Ann Arbor sojourn as Pro-
fessor of Sculpture at the University.)
It seems that at one time a group of boys in the Tappan-
Eberbach school area started a fund to have Mr. Fairbanks do
a statue of Claude Wyman, popular caretaker of Burns Park.
Since the sum collected for the project at the time was insuf-
ficient for the purpose, it was placed in a bank in escrow,
Pennington believes. If the now grown-up men of that group
of boys could be found, perhaps this sum could form a nucleus
for a fund to obtain a major Fairbanks work. His new inter-
pretations of Lincoln are particularly striking.3
A certain mimeographed periodical has been quietly circu-
lating in Ann Arbor for nearly twenty-five years which seems


A FAREWELL MISCELLANY
191
souvenir bells cast from the old Ann Arbor High School bell
after the fire. One of these, Mrs. Bernard H. Glenn of Fowler-
ville, has sent me many important contributions, including a
copy of the Maynard family record taken from the old family
Bible. Many others have boosted my morale simply by telling
me that they enjoyed my articles.
To anyone else who may have followed my column, I should
like to say in parody of Kate Smith's old closing formula:
"Thanks for readin1."
I wish to express here my appreciation also to the staff of
the Ann Arbor News for unfailing kindness—especially the edi-
tor, Mr. Arthur Gallagher; the city editor, Dick Emmons, to
whom my long-windedness has been a cross I know; and Eck
Stanger for his marvelous photographs.


NOTES
193
2. J. Marshall McCue, MS letter to Samuel H. Kerr, March 4, 1888, MHC.
Also John Allen, MS letter to his aunt Jane Trimble, February 20,
1825, now in possession of Robert H. Schoen, Saginaw. Photostat and
typed copy in MHC.
THE RED CROSS COMES TO TOWN, pp. 12-14
1. The material for this article comes entirely from the book of minutes
of the Ann Arbor Chapter of the Red Cross, 1916-1930; since entrust-
ed to the keeping of MHC.
A "NEW" JOHN ALLEN LETTER, pp. 14-16
1. Elizabeth Tate Allen, MS letter to Ellen Bach, March 4, 1937, Clements
Library, Ann Arbor.
2. Letter in MHC. A copy of the letter of Ann Allen here referred to
has recently been obtained through the efforts of Russell E. Bidlack
(1962). It deals only with Barry family history.
THE YEAR-OLD VILLAGE, pp. 17-18
1. John Allen, letter to his Aunt Jane Trimble, February 20, 1825, op. cit.
2. Allen Trimble, op. cit., Old Northwest Genealogical Quarterly, IX, 206.
3. Ibid., 217-18.
THE ANNS MAKE GODEY'S LADY'S BOOK, pp. 18-20
1. Godey's Lady's Book, April 1852, p. 266.
2. Ibid., May 1852, p. 317.
Both of Mary Clark's articles are also included in the book by Mrs.
E. F. Ellet: Pioneer Women of the West, pp. 377-85.
3. Stephenson, O. W., AAFHY, quoting from New York Express, May 30,
1845.
DR. CHASE'S RECIPE BOOK, pp. 20-22
1. See Washtenaw Impressions, Vol. 14, No. 3, for a more detailed dis-
cussion by the present writer.
2. Kerwin, Fred N. and Marjorie W., Michigan Alumnus Quarterly Re-
view, Autumn, 1955.
3. Ibid. Also see HWC, 1881, pp. 972-73.
4. Ibid., pp. 561 and 564.
Also Ann Arbor City Directory, 1868.
5. Kerwin, op. cit.
6. Burial records in Forest Hill Cemetery, Ann Arbor.
7. Conclusions arrived at by the present writer after careful scrutiny of
the numerous editions of Dr. Chase's First, Second, and Third Books
assembled in MHC.
8. See especially the Introduction to Dr. Chase's Third Book.
LET'S TAKE A WALK! OLD HOUSES, pp. 23-25
Much information about specific old Ann Arbor houses may be
gained from a certain one of Lucy Chapin's scrapbooks (unnumbered) in
MHC, Rackham Bldg., Ann Arbor, which includes an essay (MS) by Cor-
nelia Corselius, daughter of Ann Arbor's early editor, and snapshots
taken by Miss Chapin. Also p. 82 of this book.
1. Fiske Kimball, The Inlander, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, XXI,
8, p. 4. This house occupied and probably built by H. D. Bennett,
Secretary of University of Michigan, about 1850.
2. Abstract of Title of the "Wahr House," Washtenaw Abstract Co. See
also Fiske Kimball, op. cit., 3-4, and Emil Lorch, "Historic American
Bldgs. Survey, and Some of the Buildings Studied in Michigan," Wash-
tenaw Impressions, Vol. H, No. 1, October 16, 1943.


194
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
3. Lucy Chapin Scrapbook, op. cit., p. 13, called the "Ebenezer Wells
house."
4. Conversation some years ago with Mrs. Mack Ryan. (Mrs. Ryan died
a few weeks after this article appeared in the Ann Arbor News.) Also
checked with Abstract of Title of this property.
5. Cornelia Corselius, Lucy Chapin Scrapbook, op. cit.
6. Gertrude Breed, snapshot and notation given to the present writer soon
after the "Historic American Buildings Survey," Lorch, op. cit.
7. Margaret Jones, long friend and bookkeeper of Bertha Muehlig and
present partner of the B. E. Muehlig Drygoods Store, in a telephone
conversation with the present writer after consultation with Bertha
Muehlig's nephew.
MUSICAL MEMORIES, pp. 26-29
1. Charles A. Sink, a talk given before the Washtenaw Historical Society
and published in Washtenaw Impressions, Vol. XI, No. 2. (Also the facts
here given are available in many published sources.)
2. Charles A. Sink in a telephone conversation with the present writer.
ANOTHER STROLL, pp. 29-31
1. Mrs. C. H. Westgate, conversation and tour of first floor.
2. Mrs. M. E. Tanner, in several conversations with the present writer,
including a tour of the house. Also Abstract of Title of the property.
3. Mrs. Frank W. Stampfler, in a telephone conversation with the pres-
ent writer.
4. The various early maps.
THE STORY OF "LOWER TOWN," pp. 33-35
1. Abstract of Brown and Fuller's Addition, Washtenaw Abstract Co.
2. Map of Plat, June 25, 1832, MHC.
3. Stephenson, AAFHY, 416, although HWC, 1100, says the first bridge
across the Huron was built in 1827 by John Bryan.
4. AAFHY, p. 47.
5. HWC, 1881, p. 881; also 969 and 887-88.
6. Ibid., p. 889.
7. Andrew TenBrock, "History of the First Baptist Church of Ann Arbor,"
125th Anniversary, Part I, second page.
8. HWC, 1881, p. 888.
9. Ibid., 889.
10. Covered in "The Railroad Comes to Town," pp. 101-103 in this series.
11. W. S. Perry, Superintendent of Schools, in HWC, 1881, p. 930.
MEMORIAL DAY SPECIAL, pp. 36-39
1. Stephenson, op cit., 418; also HWC, 881 and 889.
2. HWC, 881. 3. AAFHY, 418. 4. HWC, 892. 5. AAFHY, 419-22.
6. Ibid., 422.
7. Records in office of Forest Hill Cemetery.
8. Mary Clark, op. cit., Godey's Lady's Book, May 1852, 317 ff.
9. This plot is situated to the left of Packard Road shortly before it
crosses US-23, a short distance behind an electric power station (or
so it was found in May 1960).
10. E. A. Gallup, recently retired Ann Arbor City Forester, in conversa-
tion with the present writer.
CAMPUS WHITE HOUSE, pp. 40-42
1. Carl E. Burkland, "President as Poet," Bull. No. 5, Dec, 1952, Uni-
versity of Michigan Press, 8, notes and sketch of house in 1855 by
Jasper F. Cropsey.


NOTES
197
2. Stephenson, AAFHY, 315.
3. W. S. Perry, Ann Arbor Union School Catalogue, 1876-7, etc.
4. AAFHY, 316.
5. Caswell, op. cit., 11.
6. Indenture contained in abstract of title of property then owned by James
C. Allen.
7. Caswell, op. cit., 11.
8. Ibid., 12.
9. Caswell, Ann Arbor Water Department 1930 Report, MS, p. 3.
10. Caswell, Washtenaw Impressions, Vol. V, No. 2, pp. 12 and 14.
11. Ibid., 13.
12. Carl Rehberg, Arbor Springs Water Co., piped in 1886, and since 1928
owned and operated by Mr. Rehberg; telephone conversation with the
present writer.
13. Mrs. William Inglis, conversation with the present writer.
14. Caswell, op. cit., 14-15.
15. Caswell, conversation with the present writer.
16. Caswell, radio talk, WPAG, February 2, 1952, MS.
FROM "BELL'S TOY" TO ECHO I, pp. 78-80
1. Stephenson, AAFHY, 345, checked by conversation with Oscar Eberbach.
2. F. L. Curtis, "The Telephone in Washtenaw County," Washtenaw Im-
pressions, Vol. V, No. 2, p. 7 ff., a talk delivered before the Washte-
naw Historical Society, MS dated February 26, 1947.
3. Ibid., 8. (This statement has been challenged by Walter Haller, who
has always been told that the first telephone office in Ann Arbor was
set up over his father's jewelry store rather than the Reinhardt shoe
store.)
4. Ibid., 9. 5. Ibid., 10.
6. N. J. Prakken, in conversation with the present writer while touring
the Ann Arbor plant, September 1960.
THE ARRIVAL OF THE GERMANS, pp. 83-85
1. Marie Rominger, "History of the Germans in Ann Arbor," MS in MHC,
apparently written about 1933.
2. Ibid.; also AAFHY, 80.
3. Emanuel Mann, article in HWC, 356.
4. Ibid., 357.
5. Rominger, op. cit., 10-11.
WORSHIP IN THE WOODS, pp. 85-87
1. Rominger, op. cit.
2. Rev. T. W. Menzel, Washtenaw Impressions, Vol. XHI, No. 2, p. 8; sum-
mary of a talk given before the Washtenaw Historical Society, April 24,
1957.
3. Charles F. Luckhard, Faith in the Forest, Sebewaing, Michigan, 1952.
4. Rominger, op. cit.
5. Menzel, op. cit., p. 8.
6. "Salem Evangelical Lutheran Church Centennial, 1933," booklet, p. 10.
7. For this and much other pertinent information about the Salem church
and the surrounding farm lands and a delightful and informative tour
of the places involved, this writer is indebted to Mrs. Paul Kempf,
who is a descendant of Jakob and Anna Paul.
8. Rev. Friedrich Schmid, Report to Basel Mission, November 15, 1833,
translated for the present writer by telephone by Rev. E. R. Klaudt of
the Bethlehem Church.


NOTES
199
10. Mignon Root Harton and Alice Root, former conversations with the
present writer.
11. Personal memory of the present writer, recently refreshed by Mignon
Root Harton.
THE RAILROAD COMES TO TOWN, pp. 101-3
1. Michigan State Journal, October 16, 1839.
2. Western Emigrant, October 23, 1839, as quoted in Historic Michigan,
m, 48-9, edited by Byron A. Finney.
3. Mrs. H. N. Pierce, HWC, 440.
4. Hon. L. D. Norris, HWC, 531-32.
5. James B. Edmonson, Washtenaw Impressions, July 1952, p. 5.
6. Stephenson, AAFHY, 328 ff.; and C. B. Wyllie, Washtenaw Impressions,
July 1952.
7. Louis W. White, Washtenaw Impressions, March 1955.
8. Stephenson, AAFHY, 334.
OUR OTHER RAILROAD, pp. 103-7
1. Henry E. Riggs, "The Ann Arbor Railroad Fifty Years Ago," 1947, a
pamphlet in MHC, p. 25.
2. Ibid., 47-49.
3. Stephenson, AAFHY, 339.
4. Riggs, op. cit., 25.
5. AAFHY, 334-36.
6. Riggs, op. cit., 22. 7. Ibid., 19 and 23 8. Ibid., p. 1.
9. Ibid., 19 ff. 10. Ibid., 6. 11. Ibid., 31-33.
12. Mrs. Bertha Gabler, memories of her childhood recounted to the pres-
ent writer.
BAGGAGE CAR CAROL, pp. 107-8
A personal experience of the writer.
"NOT FOR SELF BUT FOR OTHERS," pp. 108-11
Personal experiences of the present writer, Christmas Season, 1960.
"RING DEM CHARMIN' BELLS," pp. 112-14
1. Title of an old-time minstrel song remembered by the present writer
from her childhood in the early 1900's.
2. Stephenson, AAFHY; and HWC, 904.
3. Stephenson, AAFHY, 239.
4. Conversation with Robert Eberbach. Also, for further information
see next week's article and the article entitled "Our Early Churches—
the Presbyterian," dated February 20, 1961.
5. B. A. Hilbert, the wrecking contractor, in conversation with the pres-
ent writer.
6. The writer has since been informed in a letter from Robert Watts
that at the time of publication of this article, the sanctuary was again
in use as such by the Emanuel Baptist Congregation.
7. Stephenson, AAFHY, 389.
8. Rev. Dr. Ralph B. Piper, present pastor, in a telephone conversation
with the writer.
9. Rev. C. A. Brauer, Pastor Emeritus, in a telephone conversation.
10. Rev. T. R. Schmale, Retired Pastor, in a telephone conversation.
11. Mnsgnr. Warren Peek, in a telephone conversation.
12. Rev. Dr. Henry Lewis, rector, in a telephone conversation.
13. Stephenson, AAFHY, 138.


200
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
A MYSTERY BELL, pp. 114-17
1. For correction of the mistaken ideas expressed in this paragraph,
see the article dated February 20, 1961, entitled, "Our Early Church-
es—the Presbyterian," p. 129.
2. HWC, 915.
3. Ibid., 904. 4. Ibid., 915.
5. Stephenson, AAFHY, 369.
OLD-TIME WINTER FUN, pp. 117-19
1. Carrie Watts, MS essay in MHC.
2. William Caspari, 424 N. State, conversation with the present writer.
3. Many of the details of this and the following article are part of the
personal memories of friends of the present writer.
FROLICS THE YEAR AROUND, pp. 119-21
1. Carrie Watts, op. cit., MHC.
2. Clipping from the memory book of Lona C. Tinkham, newspaper un-
identified.
"NOT AN INSTITUTION BUT A HOME," pp. 121-23
1. Ellen B. Bach, "History of the Old Ladies' Home," April 30, 1927, a
MS essay written in the back of a small red leather notebook in which
her mother, Anna Botsford Bach, had started a "Record of Inmates";
kept in the safety deposit box rented by the Home.
2. Deed book, Washtenaw Abstract Co., Ann Arbor.
3. Anna Botsford Bach in "Record of Inmates," see Note 1.
4. Mrs. L. W. Oliphant, shortly before her death, in conversation with
the present writer.
5. Continuation of "Record of Inmates," Bach Notebook, op. cit., 60.
OUR OWN FORTY-NINERS, pp. 124-27
1. Russel E. Bidlack, Letters Home, the Story of Ann Arbor's Forty-
Niners, Ann Arbor Publishers, 1960; 5.
2. Ibid., 3-7. 3. Ibid., 7-9 and 24-6. 4. Ibid., 11-13; 32-34.
5. Ann Arbor Yesterdays, July 25, 1960.
6. Bidlack, op. cit., 13-5; 20-1; 34-6.
7. Ibid., 15-9; 21-46; 50-51.
8. Ibid., 34 ff.
HOW THE YANKEES TOOK OVER THE TOWN, pp. 127-29
1. HWC, 884.
2. Stephenson, AAFHY, 455.
3. 1850 Census of Ann Arbor Village and Township, MHC.
4. Stephenson, AAFHY, 238. 5. HWC, 262-86. 6. 1850 Census.
7. Ann Allen, letter to her son Thomas McCue, dated February 24, 1837.
OUR EARLY CHURCHES—THE PRESBYTERIAN, pp. 129-32
1. HWC, 912-15. Also the Courier, August 25, 1876, "The 50th Anni-
versary of the First Presbyterian Church of Ann Arbor."
2. W. S. Perry, HWC, 928.
3. Rev. Edward Payson Goodrich, "One Hundred Years of the First Pres-
byterian Church of Ann Arbor." (This excellent historical document
has recently been reproduced in its entirety in a compilation by the
son of the Rev. Mr. Goodrich, Francis L. D. Goodrich, entitled The
First Presbyterian Church of Ann Arbor, Michigan, Historical Facts
and Events.
4. F. L. D. Goodrich, Washtenaw Impressions, May 1956, material placed
in cornerstone of "the brick church."


202
ANN ARBOR YESTERDAYS
10. Ibid., 21 ff. 11. Ibid., 36. 12. Ibid., 39.
13. Ibid., 79. 14. Ibid., 40-42 (also 79). 15. Ibid., 90-102.
OF ORGANS AND CHOIRS, pp. 144-46
1. Mary Lunny, op. cit., 32.
2. Charles A. Sink, "The University Musical Society," Washtenaw Impres-
sions, Vol. XI, No. 2, March 15, 1954.
3. Helene Allmendinger, conversations with the present writer.
4. Statement attributed to Mrs. Reuben Kempf by Helene Allmendinger.
5. Louis W. Doll, The Parish of St. Thomas the Apostle, photographs.
6. William Caspari, Jr., conversation with the present writer.
THE OLD ROMINGER HOME, pp. 149-51
1. HWC, 1036.
2. Ibid., and Ann Arbor News, July 23, 1953 (also 1954).
3. Mrs. Robert H. Haskell, conversation with the present writer during
a tour of the Rominger home shortly before it was dismantled and
razed, 1961.
WHEN CIVIL WAR STRUCK, pp. 152-54
1. George S. May, "Ann Arbor and the Coming of the Civil War," Michi-
gan History, Vol. 36, 1952, pp. 241 ff.
Also "Politics in Ann Arbor During the Civil War," Michigan His-
tory, Vol. 37, 253 -73.
2. May, "Parker Pillsbury and Wendell Phillips in Ann Arbor," Michigan
History, Vol. 33, 155-61.
3. F. Clever Bald, "Michigan Men and the Civil War," Michigan Alum-
nus, February 11, 1961.
4. Noah W. Cheever, Stories of the Early History of the University of
Michigan, 1895.
OLD POST OFFICES AND POSTAL PRACTICES, pp. 154-56
1. Robert H. Schoen, Linn's Weekly Stamp News, January 30, 1961, p. 16.
2. See Ann Arbor Yesterdays, March 28 and April 4, 1960.
3. Stephenson, AAFHY, 179.
4. Ibid., 180 f. 5. Ibid., 57-59. 6. HWC, 891. 7. AAFHY, 178-79.
HOME GROWN MUSIC AND THE KEMPFS, pp. 157-59
Material for this article was obtained from programs, current
newspaper clippings, letters, etc., in the Kempf scrapbooks, supplement-
ed by biographical details learned in conversation with Mrs. Paul Kempf
(daughter-in-law of Reuben and Pauline).
1. Eli Gallup, city forester, telephone conversation with the present writer.
FROM BAKERY BOY TO FAMOUS SCULPTOR, pp. 160-62
1. Millard F. Rogers, Michigan Alumnus Quarterly Review, Winter, 1958,
169.
2. Catalogue of Works of Randolph Rogers in Art Museum, University of
Michigan, with Sketch of His Life, MS, written in 1880's, MHC, pp. 1-4.
3. HWC, 460 ff.
4. Rosa E. Rogers, a letter to Professor Henry S. Frieze, June 30, 1888,
published in Ann Arbor Register, August 2, 1888.
5. Millard F. Rogers, op. cit., 171.
6. Stephenson, AAFHY, 204 ff.
7. Millard F. Rogers, op. cit., 171.
8. Ibid., 174. 9. HWC, 462.
10. MS of Catalogue of Works, op. cit., p. 4.


NOTES
203
11. Richmond Times, January 15, 1892, New York dispatch, clipping in
folder, MHC.
12. Helen Hall, curator, Alumni Memorial Hall, conversation with the pres-
ent writer.
13. Shown to the present writer by Helen Hall.
A GROCERY DE LUXE, pp. 163-65
1. Elizabeth Dean, daughter of Sedgwick Dean, in conversation with the
present writer.
2. A day or two after this article appeared in the Ann Arbor News a
young man appeared at my door to show me one of the Dean pennies.
MICHIGAN SINGING, pp. 165-68.
1. The Knapsack, went through many editions, a large collection of which
may be found in MHC.
2. Mrs. Jane W. Brent, Knapsack, 89.
3. Words by Charles M. Gayley, 1878, tune by John Peters.
4. Knapsack, 11th Edition, 46.
5. Ibid., 94 f.
6. Michigan Pioneer Collections, Vol. IV, 53.
7. Ibid., Vol. VI, 60.
8. Ibid., Vol. in, 265.
9. "The Emigrant's Pioneer Song," (1837), Courier, April 1, 1870.
OUR WOMEN AND THE CIVIL WAR, pp. 168-71
1. History of the Soldiers' Aid Society of Ann Arbor, Michigan, Press of
Dr. A. W. Chase, Main Street, Ann Arbor, 1866, 14-17.
2. George S. May, "Ann Arbor and the Coming of the Civil War," Michi-
gan History, Vol. 36, 1952, 256.
3. HWC, 911.
4. Copied from the monument itself, May 1961.
CELEBRATED VISITORS, pp. 172-74
1. T. C. Abbot, Diary, typed copy in the library of Michigan State Uni-
versity, entry following February 17, 1860.
2. Argus, January 25, 1856.
3. Ibid., March 23, 1855, an unsigned letter.
4. Stephenson, AAFHY, 406-7.
5. Detroit News, March 2, 1941, clipping in folder in MHC.
6. The Taft episode and the Witherspoon-Campanari story were told me
by trustworthy friends.
7. and 8. Personal memories of the present writer.
A CENTURY OF BUSINESS—THE EBERBACHS, pp. 175-77.
1. Naturalization paper of Jacob Frederick Christian Eberbach, Novem-
ber 11, 1843, now in possession of Linda Eberbach.
2. Judge W. D. Harriman, a speech delivered before the Washtenaw Co.
Pioneer Society, Washtenaw Daily Times, June 11, 1902.
3. Mann Family Tree, in possession of Linda Eberbach.
4. Ann Arbor Times News, September 4, 1920.
5. Linda Eberbach, in conversation with the present writer.
6. Washtenaw Post, undated clipping in Eberbach family scrapbook.
7. Ann Arbor News, August 22, 1952.
8. Photograph of grounds in possession of Linda Eberbach.
9. Washtenaw Post, undated clipping in Eberbach scrapbook.
10. Bulletin of Pharmacy, February 1921, published by E. G. Swift, tribute
and picture.
11. Marquette Medical Review, May 1956.