Grosse Pointe Woods
Early History
Portions of this history appeared earlier under the title "Only Strangers Spoke English." That article was commissioned of the League of Women Voters by the Grosse Pointe Rotary Club for use in the Club's antique show program in 1976. The chapter was written primarily by Barbara Thompson; Jean Dodenhoff wrote the update.
Early Lake St. Clair
Geologists find the beginnings of Lake St. Clair in the Greatlakean ice advance. "High Lake St. Clair" had an elevation of 590 feet and completely surrounded the area now known as "The Hill" in Grosse Pointe Farms. The crest of the island stretched along the present Kercheval and Ridge Roads. As the Detroit River evolved and began to drain the lake, "Lowest Lake St. Clair" (el. 585 feet) resulted. One of the beaches of the newly enlarged island is the route of present Mack Avenue from East Outer Drive to Eleven Mile Road. Wave action built this valuable ridge of gravel and sand, which became an Indian trail, then a French pathway, and today an important thoroughfare.
First People
Animals and people found their way to this part of Michigan between advances and retreats of the glaciers. Undoubtedly they used the beaches and knolls as later Indian families would: for camping during hunting or trading journeys. The ancient beach line along Mack Avenue has yielded many Indian artifacts. Local amateur archeologist Jerome DeVisscher collected stone points and fragments of clay pots plowed up on his father's farm on Cook Road. He theorizes that paleo-Indians, camping on that beach, refitted their spears for the next day's hunt.
Early French Visitors
Long before the first recorded history of this area, itinerant missionaries and traders used the Detroit-Grosse Pointe shoreline for their camps, and no doubt made contact with local Indians. Their word for this strait was le d'Etroit.
Voyageurs were licensed to operate the canoes of the fur trade indispensable to the fur trade. The first European to pass by the shores of Grosse Pointe probably was one of these canoemen.
In the summer of 1669, French explorer Adrien Joliet was guided down the St. Clair-Detroit waterway by an Iriquois Indian. A decade later, Robert Cavalier de la Salle came up the lakes in the Griffin, called the first sailing vessel on these waters. It was la Salle's party which named Lake Ste. Claire, now anglicized to Lake St. Clair.
Cadillac's Village
De la Mothe Cadillac was sent to New France in 1683 by the king. Later he became commandant at Michilimackinac, where he prospered dealing in furs. He also embroiled himself in a lifelong feud with the Jesuit missionaries over the sale of intoxicants to the Indians. In France, an over-supply of furs piled up at the same time that extravagant old Louis XIV was having trouble financing his army's forays in Europe. So it was a convenient time for the king to give in to Jesuit demands that he close the upper Great Lakes to everyone but missionaries.
Cadillac saw that the English would gladly fill the void left by France. Advocating a new outpost, he wrote: "Especially attractive is the region lying south of the pearllike lake to which they gave the name Ste. Claire and the country bordering upon the deep, clear river ... known as Le d'Etroit."
Cadillac advocated a different kind of outpost, one for settlers, not just traders. For mutual protection, he would invite friendly Indian tribes to the area. Eventually the king gave the idea his blessing.
In the spring of 1701, Cadillac embarked from Montreal with about 200 men. Listed among them were these names, recognizable despite spelling variations: Beaufait, Morain, Cadway, Tronbles, Choives, St. Aubin, Proncusal, Rivard, Gurne.
On July 23, 1701, they passed the shores the Frenchmen would later call Grosse Pointe. They landed between present Jefferson Avenue and the Veterans Memorial. Cadillac named his fort after Count Ponchartrain, who had interested the king of France in this settlement.
To help encourage other settlers to come, Cadillac asked his wife and Mme. de Tonty, wife of his second in command, to move to the fort. They became the first European women in Michigan.
Cadillac had assured the Indians already living at "the strait" that the French wanted only to provide a convenient place for them to trade their furs. Even in later years, when French farms reached as far as Grosse Pointe, their life style was minimally threatening to the natives, and relations usually were good. As a precaution, however, Indians always were ordered out of the fort at sundown.
To give everyone access to the river, the grants of land were long and narrow, stretching inland as far as three miles. In later years, they came to be called "ribbon farms." Access to the water was vital for humans and animals and for transporting goods to the fort. Before long, the fort was surrounded by friendly Miamis, Hurons, Chippewas and Ottawas; the Potawatomi arrived later.
There were few Canadian or European women for several decades, and Cadillac gave unofficial approval for the taking of Indian wives by his men. His sensitivity in dealing with the natives was important; in the early years there were only about 100 French people in the fort, while estimates of the local Indian population ran to 6,000.
By 1708, Cadillac's 150 grants stretched well beyond the stockade. The practice for the first decade was for the habitants to return each night to the fort.
Among Cadillac's detractors were jealous fur merchants at Quebec, and friction between him and the missionaries never ceased. He had extricated himself from many difficulties, but in 1710 he was named governor of the vast Louisiana region, an empty promotion because he had to leave his accumulated wealth at Detroit.
The Fox Indian Episode
In the summer of 1712, a large band of Fox Indians, with some Sauks and Missaukas, arrived from Wisconsin. Probably there were some 100 warriors, but with their families they numbered about 1,000. They had come in belated response to an invitation Cadillac had issued, to make their home near the fort. They ignored the orders of the acting commander to leave their camp, ignored the hostility of the local tribes, and laid siege to the fort.
When the Indians finally were subdued and faced disaster, they fled on a stormy night, encumbered by their families. They were overtaken by the French and their Indian allies on what we call Windmill Pointe.
The Fox were besieged for four days without access to drinking water. Nearly all were taken prisoner or killed. Captives were taken to the fort and suffered lingering deaths, "four or five a day for the satisfaction of the local Indians who had lost relatives in the battle."
Remnants of the vanquished tribe, perhaps a hundred in all, found their way back to Wisconsin. Early Grosse Pointe residents told that elders of the Fox Nation sometimes came in to pilgrimage to the shores of the lake and creek where their people had died. For many years on the high ground local people found Indian relics, usually treating them with scant respect. The stream came to be known as Fox Creek, and a historical marker has been placed on the median of Windmill Pointe Drive.
Life in the Mid-1700s
Following the Fox episode, Detroit enjoyed a period of relative quiet, but also of stagnation, and the government at Quebec considered closing the post.
Grosse Pointe was not unknown in those first decades, despite the grand marais (great marsh) which stretched from present Waterworks Park approximately to today's Bishop Road, but the marsh grass and swamp were not conducive to travel, much less to settlement. The Indians called it beaver country.
During the 1740s, Frenchmen in positions of authority became increasingly worried over the growing English influence. The Indians were easily won over by the cheaper prices of English goods now available in the Ohio Valley. New France finally was stirred into offering financial enticements to settlers, and sizable groups came from 1749-51.
Except for the feeble efforts of some of the priests, there were no schools for several decades. Ste. Anne's Church was very important to the people, and whatever the distance or weather, everyone went to Mass on Sundays and holy days. Farmers often took produce to town to sell after services, a practice that was to seem scandalous to later Protestant arrivals.
The easternmost grant shown on the de Lery map of 1749/52 was located on R. du Grand Marais-Conner Creek. By 1758, the site of the Grosse Pointe Club (Little Club) was being farmed by Nicholas Patemaud.
The Habitants' Folk Literature
Most habitants were superstitious. In the fog which lingered frequently over low places, it was easy to see the feu follet (sprite) ... did the French people really mark their horses with Christian crosses to save the beasts from the hard-driving night rider, a homed imp called le Lutin? ... was the Grosse Pointe bride named Archange truly carried off into the forest by le Loup Garou, the monster which walked erect, but had a wolf's head and an enormous tail? ...
A mill for grinding grain is the subject of an enduring folk tale. This first grist mill on Grosse Pointe was wind-driven, made of cobblestone, with cloth sails. It stood by the foot of Lakepointe Avenue where Fox Creek made almost an island, and was owned by Josette le Duc and her younger brother Jean Baptiste. Josette became critically ill; Jean nursed her as best he could, but grew anxious about the future status of her share of the mill. Asked once too often about to whom she would leave it, Josette retorted, "Oh, leave it to the devil!"
At the moment Josette breathed her last, a storm was raging, and a bolt of lightning split the mill, rendering it useless forever. Thereafter, when the weather grew violent, the habitants looked skyward for the devil coming to claim his share of the mill. People recalled the tales surrounding this event whenever they thought of Presque Isle, and eventually the area came to be known as "Windmill Pointe."
Habitant Life. The habitants cultivated only a few acres of their long, narrow farms, but each place had its orchard. The French pear trees have become legendary; a few gnarled relics are still found in the Pointes. Some are probably nearly two hundred years old and are much taller than modern varieties.
The various Algonkian tribes accepted the French farmers for the unobtrusive and friendly neighbors they were, but the Hurons (Wyandots) frequently came across the ice from Canada and drove off livestock. Other Indians often camped on Grosse Pointe en route to the fort to trade their furs. Uninvited guests at mealtime in the tiny cabins were commonplace; on many nights, Indians rolled up in their blankets before the fires of the farm families.
It is doubtful if the people who lived at a distance from the fort considered the consequences of increasing pressure from the English. In 1754, George Washington, then a major in the British army, was building a fort on the Ohio River. He was compelled by a force of Frenchmen to surrender. This was the beginning of the French and Indian War.
Transition
Fort Ponchartrain would escape attack during the ensuing hostilities, but its French days came to an end. Once the British occupied Detroit in 1760, Major Robert Rogers, the new commandant, required only that the habitants and artisan militiamen swear an oath of allegiance to King George III. The British soldiers behaved well, Rogers' replacement was hospitable to Detroiters, and social activity in the town actually increased. However, virtually all of the residents were of French extraction, and many of the families who had grants out of town moved to them. They felt more at ease when at a distance from British soldiers and the increasing number of English-speaking strangers.
Chief Pontiac's War in 1763
The habitants had shown a fair degree of hospitality to the Indians, and all had gone well under the French regime. It soon became apparent to the natives that their treatment by most of the English would be totally different. The British government cut back the amount of goods for which they could trade; with insufficient ammunition even to hunt game to feed their families, the Indians believed that the British were trying to starve them to death. Chief Pontiac and many others had good friends in the French community and, although it was treason, some Frenchmen fueled the Indians' unrest. Pontiac managed to unite three or four tribes of the fiercely independent Indians, but twice his plans for surprise attacks on the fort at Detroit failed.
The French settlers felt ambivalent as time wore on. Some pleaded with Chief Pontiac to make peace; a few smuggled necessities to the fort when supplies ran low. But enough of them openly encouraged the natives that Major Gladwin considered half of the French settlers to be traitors and referred to them as "the scoundrel inhabitants of Detroit."
The major battle fought at Parent's Creek near present Adair Street was won by the Indians. It was such a vicious victory that the stream took on the name "Bloody Run." But this success was the zenith of the Indians' effort. They did not have the patience for the "white man's" style of warfare. One by one, the tribes made peace. Detroit was the only western post never held by the Indians.
The American Revolution: Our Waters Become an International Boundary
A few new people, usually English or Scottish in origin, came to Detroit after the Indian wars ended, and more French families moved out to the farms. Some of these were situated in present-day Grosse Pointe. The people of this area were only minimally involved in the American Revolution, even though Detroit was the base from which the "hair-buyer of Detroit," the British Lt. Col. Henry Hamilton, sent out his "scalping parties."
The weather usurped the attention of local people during the war-time winter of 1779/80, for it was one of this region's most severe. When the snow melted, bodies of cattle and the French farmers' hardy little horses were found by the scores in the woods where they had starved or frozen. A winter of comparable severity awaited this area in 1785/86.
Under the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1783), the Great Lakes region became part of The Thirteen United States of America. Although the British government was not totally sorry to be rid of her nettlesome colonies, it was loathe to give up the busiest of the fur trading centers. Therefore, despite the treaty, the British stayed on at Detroit and continued to encourage the natives against the new American settlers who poured into the region.
As the strife continued, President Washington sent General Anthony Wayne to end the bloodshed. In 1795, the Indians gave up most of Michigan, Ohio and Indiana. Britain had problems enough in Europe, so agreed to evacuate Detroit.
A Third Flag for Detroit
It was on July 11, 1796, that the British hauled down their flag from Ft. Lemoult and the United States flag was raised. In the space of 35 years, the banners of three different nations had flown above Detroit. It had taken 13 years for the fledgling United States of America to bring Michigan securely into the fold.
style="text-align:left;text-indent:20px"For the new government and for its Indian, French and British people with their diverse hopes and needs, the situation around Detroit was delicate. Nevertheless, the Americans soon brought Michigan under the governance of the Northwest Territories. English loyalists who could not adjust had only to move across the river.
American newcomers showed little patience with the French willingness to adapt to the environment rather than setting out to change it. The term "muskrat French" probably dates from this era, describing the hunters and trappers who lived on spots of high ground amid the swamps.
One of the problems facing the new American government was the tangle of land ownership. The Indians, French and English all had "granted" land. Under the surveying system prescribed in the Ordinance of 1785, once claims were "proved," titles were incontestable. Records show that from 1808 to 1810 Grosse Pointers appeared at the Detroit office to establish official ownership.
During this era ponies and carrioles (horse-drawn carts or sleighs) were used both by town and country folk for jaunt s and races on the frozen lake in the winter. The Frenchmen's small, swift horses were remarkable. In winter they were turned loose to scrounge for their food, and only the hardiest survived. Each was branded on the shoulder with its owner's initials. Dogs were everywhere in those early days.
Many customs of the settlers' Norman ancestors were preserved, such as d'Ignolee (the exchanging of gifts on New Year's Day), Mardi Gras and Shrove Tuesday. The latter brought them to Lent, which was observed rigidly.
Father Richard
In 1798, Fr. Gabriel Richard arrived to assist the pastor of Ste. Anne's. By 1800 he was conducting services occasionally in Grosse Pointe, and by 1805 a huge crucifix, said to have been carved by an Indian, stood on the shore just north of Vernier Road. The site was important to religious life in the community for several decades. Fr. Richard barely had started a school in Detroit when the great fire of 1805 ended the project. The shops, barns and all but one of the houses ... many of them 100 years old and with thatched roofs ... were reduced to blackened chimneys. Pere Richard later trained four young women to be teachers, wrote the first speller printed in Michigan, and started at least six schools ... separate ones for boys and girls. Indians were welcome. An innovative educator, he supplemented the traditional curriculum with mechanical and domestic arts.
The War of 1812:
Terror to the Settlements
In 1812, few persons could have predicted that an enduring friendship would develop with our neighbor, Canada. Scottish and English traders and British Indian agents across the river and lake were fueling the Indians' hatred of Americans and providing them with arms, including scalping knives. To the people here, the war had little to do with the textbook issue ... the freedom of the seas. Rather, it was a war over the safety of the Michigan-Ohio frontier.
General Hull, the American in charge here, surrendered Detroit to the British after only a day's fighting. Under the British commander, Col. Henry Proctor, the area was to experience a year of terror. He used bands of Indians downriver to keep the Americans away from the water route, and to pillage farms at will. Few of the people were harmed.
Michigan's part in the War of 1812 was relatively minor, but its effects were to be long-lasting. Events had severely damaged the generally good feeling of the French settlers towards the Indians, and some families now had underground hiding places. On the positive side, the Treaty of Ghent returned boundaries to pre-war status; the Rush-Bagot Agreement of 1818 provided for complete disarmament of the Great Lakes region by Britain and the United States, with only a few gunboats for policing purposes. The treaty never has been broken.
[More History]Compiled by League of Women Voters of Grosse Pointe. Reprinted with permission. Original text contains references and photos.
