w s PAGE TENW THE MICHIGAN DAILY SUNDAY, APRIL 26, 19'5 N e w EaIn f lu e n c e I n T heMS Co Michig an AsState; Bckgr Wetr oeAndCoru By Ward Allan Howe and for six days darkened the sunl To a very great extent the common- moon and stars, making the air noi- wealth of Michigan was wrought in some and pestilential. The sides and the traditions and ideals of New Eng- end* of houses on which the sun shone land. Its formative years were mark- not were blackened by them.. . . ed and impressed with the Puritan Cattle, swine and the Indians feed on /stamp. The New England township them luxuriously. Their length is system in all its "primitive simplic- three inches with the feelers which ity" was adopted. Eight governors and protrude from both head and tail. six United States senators have been Corn fields and large boughs of trees New Englanders. Likewise the school were broken down by their weight."; And Congregational church systems But as soon as the Erie Canal was were instituted by New England na- completed and cheap and easy trans- tives. In fact Michigan has sometimes portation made available Michigan'sI been characterized as "New England boom began. The Canal says Lanmanj amended and perfected." in his history of Michigan "unfolds The settlement of Michign was a new avenue to the prosperity of{ slow in starting and it was not until Michigan." And Lois Kimball Matt- the early thirties of the nineteenth hews believes that to it may be as- century that American immigration cribed in no uncertain measure, "cer- into the territory began in earnest. taro distinctive Puritan traits and There were several reasons fgr this characteristics which have entered in- late start. Western New York and to the making of what is today the! Ohio lands were still cheap and fer- northestern portion of our great 'Mid- tile and nearer to eastern markets. dle West'." Moreover Michigan was something of By 1836 and 1837 New England was an unknown quantity What little in a fever of emigration for Michigan. was known about it was mostly of an During May, 1836 ninety steamers ar- unfavorable nature. Rival fur com- rived at Detroit. Just as today one panies, intent on keeping up a good shrieks his desire to see his Tennes-' business, spread stories that did not see or California, so then they sai g! tend to increase Michigan's standing 'of "Michigania" with the difference as a place for a home. It was painted- that they actually went. And so they as a malarious region, unfit for white came a singing. settlement and agriculture of any "Come, all ye Yankee farmers who kind. Returning "Michiganders" ex- wish to change your lot, hibited sallow complexions and shook Who've spunk enough to travel be- with the fever and ague, certainly of- yond your native spot, fering no inducements to the pioneer And leave behind the village where{ to invest in Michigan real estate. Pa and Ma do stay, Estwick Evahs, a quixotic sort of in- Cohie, follow me, and settle in dividual, drew a good picture of early Michigania----, Michigan in his journal which he call- Yea, yea, yea,in Michigania." ed, "A Pedestrious Tour Of Four In 1825 there were less than ten Thousand Miles Through The Western thousand people in the region but by States and Territories." In the midst 1830 there were 32,000 and in 1837 of extreme cold weather in the winter when Minhigan entered the Union of 1818 he left his New Hampshire there were nearly 100,000. A good home and set out across nearly track- j §hare of the settlers were, as has been less wastes for Detroit about one intimated, from New England, es- thousand miles distant. He was clad pecially Massachusetts, Vermont, in buffalo skins but his epitome of the Rhode Island and Connecticut. Many journey was, "The blast of the North also came from New York but these is on the plain; the traveler shrinks in many instances were merely trans- in the midst of his journey." However, planted New Englanders, as a rule he arrived safely and in view of the only one generation removed. bad reports about Michigan deemed it What kind of people were these New his duty to express a high opinioh of Englanders? What were the impell- the Michigan territory. "In traveling," ing motives which prompted them tol he says, "more than four thousand venture forth into the wildernessl miles in the western parts of the One reason is to he found in the story United States I met no tract of coun- of the little Massachusetts boy, who, try which upon the whole impressed as Bridgman tells the story, was found my mind so favorably as the Michigan weeping one day because he could Territory." The soil was fertile, the not find dirt enough to cover his seeds,- climate delightful and "no place in the A barren soil, a harsh climate, a de- world more healthy than the city of sire to better oneself, and perhaps to Detroit." He found that Detroit had escape from- "a sad theology and acrid a Lyceum, Academy, and a theatre Federalism" are all motives which and expressed the opinion that "in played their part. But there was also time this city will become conspicuous another less material one. The Yan- for its literature and for the pro- priety of its customs and manners." A more unfavorable entry is found.. in the journal of an English traveler Fraternities a W. Faux, who spent somei "memor- able days in America" -during 1818- 1820. Reading it one wonders if he did not allow his imagination to be- We have many bea come slightly expanded. It is as fol- are especially suited lows: "In the Michigan Territory on Sroies. y at the borders of the lakes in July last Sororties. If at al fies, thick as swarms of bees on a be very glad to show bough covered the face of the earth 1 r I j , I ' .+ ,i . t iii I , i . f I . i c i ; . i . ,# } ing was slow and .tortuous. One sist of days of dolce far niente. Com- Buildin fpioneer family made only ten miles in forts and luxuries were few. Every one day so bad was the road. "The person had to do his share and there wagon wheels would sink below the could be no "soldiering" on the job. M id hubs, and our team was powerless to But these hardy New Englanders tln S draw the load. The" was. litt** were of the tyue that could overcome travel through the country as inhabi- obstacles and endure such a rigorous SaMnts were far apart." Such were the regime without quailing. Much has d© joys of emigrating. been written and much more will be u' 1 ne Another traveler of the time has written about the courage and perse- left a more pleasant picture. He came verance of the men whose footsteps 1ee has been pointed out as an in- i upon a typical emigrant party one comprised dividual with the absolute inability to night and this is what he saw: "The "---the tread of pioneers of nations mind his own business and possessed old lady had just built her campfire yet to be of an inherent instinct for meddling. and was busily engaged in frying The first low wash of waves For the true New Englander. to again prairie chickens. . . one of the girls I Where soon shall roll a human sea." quote Bridgzman,"Ithe New Einglander was milking a. brindle cow and that But what of the women, the frontier built on the Brewster-Bradford Wins- tall girl yonder with swarthy arms mothers? Too little has been said of low pattern, is never content to sit at and yellow sunhonnet was nailng the the great part that they played. In ease in his own chimney corner when ccffee mill on the side of a scrub oak his novel, "The Hawkeye," Herbert ignorance and vice are clamoring on i the little loy had bhamed out Quick has paid them this deserving thle streets." with his hatchet. There sat the old tribute which is worth quoting in full: And it was this crusading zeal, this mizan on a log quietly shaving him- "The mothers of the frontiers! They idesire not only to better themselves self by a six penny looking-glass felt the oncoming of another day for but to also serve others that urgedI which he had tacked to a neighboring their children. No life was so labor- them to set out toward the setting . And yonder old decrepit man, ios, no situation so unproptios, sun. This section from the constitu- sitting on the low rush-bottomed chair poverty so deep, 'that they did not tHon of a. Vermont colony establishedt ha . thIeber seft by;thte through a divine gift of prophecy, see in southern Michigan in 183i3 liu- tha1 _ t hs boe be leftby beyond the gloom a better day for trates the point. "We believe," ithbltheir children. In the smoky over- reads, "that a pious and devoted emi- stranger. He sat quietly smokIng heated kitchens, struggling to feed gration is to be one of the most e i his pipe with all the serenity of athegas' of harvesters and thrash- gi atin is o. It on(, of te mos efi~- patiarch the 'gangs'tng.1 cient means, in the hands of God, in notging This is Em;rtg rim ers, as they washed and mopped, and removing the mcral darkness which not going aay from wimh the selbaked, and brewed, and spun, and hangs over a great portion of the vaii- wa th rek nt t the. settlers- wove, and knit, and boiled soap, and fley of the Mississippi." on Camp Creek under the broad can- Imne n u n atd n e- opy of heaven, by that gurgling brook Iended and cut and asted, and sew- E. P. Powell has well described New where the cattle browsed, the (ogs m England on the march in the followin harked and the children quietly cream, and churned, and worked over tribute: "New England's sons carried slulmbered." butter, ctching now and then an op- the habits and manners, the wooden .ui portunity to read while rocking a clocks and spinning wheels, and the New Englanders cam intoMchichild to sleep, drinking in once in a inlomitable thrift of the little henfl an not only i sigle familes hut in while a bit of poetry from the sky or forever to be known at o whole colonies. Of the latter the most the cloud or the flower; they were Although ever moving forward, the iotant was probably the Vermont haloed like sUns of progress for their Althugh ver ovig foward thy I never lost the homingint b ille Colony, an organized band of families and for their nation, as they built Ney England farmhouses nc, migrants rom Vetrmont who settled -worked and planned for themselves a i villages, with whitewashed fences, (nEaton Cut UP highe culture rase _an ttin .0whchreernc hs ray all for their children.- rd New England beans plant been made, and in general were not- "We b mouen. ed New England orchards.....In this r "We build monuments i the public way New England moves westward, I {the f orgnizatin. Anothe square for the soldiers of our wars; carrying her whole household with Vermont-settlement was made in Syl- but where is the monument for the her--her churches, schools, customs, van township in Wst av County. Kate McConkeys who made possible laws, industries." yMiise the uettlement at Monroe so much of the good which is rep- And Once they had arrived in these I ukwn tuesaeemw Egat Monoey resented by the public square itself?" Snew western lands they were not long Such prominent men as Lewis Cass, The annals of Michigan alone would in achieving what F. J. Turner has ,W il, am Wo ridge, Solomno Siley no doubt furnish many subjects for I called "a boldness of conception ri ,(;la p .idge, all'otv Sif such a. monunent. Their deeds and the country's destiny and deniocracy, " ingland, reached Michigan via the services have been recognized by in- the western belief "in the right o Marietta, Ohio settlement and were dlividuals but in a large measure they every man to rise to the full measure destined to play an important part iniI have been unwept, unhonored and un- of his own nature, under condition: the development, of the Wolverine sung by the general public. of social nobility." Cooperation and State. The originator of the state's The spectacle of New England governmental activity took the place educational system was the Rev. Jiohn moving into New York. Ohio, Michigan of the individualism which had cramp D. Pierce of New Hampshire. s. F. and other regions was one of the ed and narrowed their lives backDo Drury of Massachusetts and Isaac stirring pageants of history. Lurking the blew.:: New England hillsides. Crary of Connecticut were also pion- in his forest home, the Indian saw Most of the settlers who came it o eers in placing Michigan on the road "manifest destiny" moving westward. Michigan camne to stay and make per- to educational fame. Dr. James B. He saw these strange white people nianent homes. From Detroit t.wo Angell was a graduate of Brown Uni descend upon his happy hunting ways were open to the West. the gov-- versity and a native of Rhode Island.1 grounds. He heard the ring of the ernment "Chicago road" which tra- L. K. Matthews is authority for the ax and the sound of falling tmbers, versed southern Michigan and around statement that 12,588 -of Michgan's the clarion voices of civilization, and the end of the lake to Fort Dearborn. citizens in 1880 were born in Ver--, dimly felt that here was a force, ir- and the other known as the "Terri- mont; 9,591 in Massachusetts;, 6,333 in I resistible and not to be denied. At torial road" which led directly west. Connecticut; 5,079 in Maine; 3,300 in last he saw Main Street laid out where Settlements were first made along the' New Hampshire and 974 in Rhode. yesterday his trails and footpaths had line of the former road but after 1834 Island. Thus it can be readily seen led. The days of his fathers had pass- the movement was along the latter to i that Michigan's pioneer life had a ed forever for he had seen what the southwestern part of the state strong New EngIand cast. Whittier has called, where contact was made with pioneers Life 'on the early Mehigan frontier I "The chaos of a mighty world from phio and points south who had was stern and hard and did not con- . . . . rounding into form." already arrived. Out of Detrot travel- - -;.- ht i w k t I rI *1 M I Slde elly Slide! andl he slid, and -a cloud of dust rose to mark the lace where he "hit the dust"- 4 Probably he proba bly he vas safe and was not, but the chances are that when he returnedo home Mother had something to say about his dirty clothes. But boys will be boys and the only 0 *t sOlutian is plenty of baths and lots of clean clothes. e may take the baths and we can furnish the clean '® wgw / clothes. Our FAMILY WASH SER- nd Soro utiful houses w for Fraternities 1 interested, we these to you. .......... "t Y to P J. Karl Malcolm rities hich and wvill1 hone 1713-M Cleaners VICE is a convenient Refi eenand Comfort Is especially evident at the Lincoln Hotel. One can also appreciate the exacting service which it offers to all of its guests. -0 Imi mega. way "A Little Buys a Lot" 602 East Liberty St. P ic~ I 1!st s