Recollections Of Detroit

Recollections found in DETROIT IN 1827 AND LATER ON. By General Friend Palmer:

I will try to give my recollections of Detroit and vicinity, and the people at that early day. The outlook below the present site of Fort Wayne, was not quite so inviting as now. The country around the mouth of the River Rouge was low, flat and marshy, covered with a most luxuriant growth of wild grass (marsh hay), that any one could cut if he so desired. What was not cut was usually set on fire in the winter and would burn for days, giving the people of the city quite a scene, at night illuminating the sky above the marsh, and showing vividly the flames leaping through the dry grass. The same scene used to be repeated every winter on the Grande Marias, above the city, just beyond the water-works.

Detroit's Fort Wayne

Township of Springwells in the County of Wayne and the State of Michigan:

Fort Wayne on the Detroit River

Where Fort Wayne now is, and extending a little this side, was an immense hill of yellow sand that always looked, from the city, like a yellow patch on the landscape. This sandhill, it is presumed, was used in the early days (the memory of man runneth not to the contrary), as a burial ground by the Indians, because in its slow demolition (the sand of which it was composed being used for many purposes by anyone who desired to take the trouble to get it), numerous remains of Indians were found who had evidently rested there before and since Cadillac’s time.