Here is the post I always share on this occasion, although of course you will note I wrote it in 2010. Capitol Park has since been redeveloped; Stevens T. Mason has been peacefully re-interred (after a brief scare over his missing remains).

Other items you may enjoy:

The story of how Michigan’s founding documents became part of the state archives

I love this Michigan centennial stamp — it commemorates the 1835 ratification of our constitution and the opening shots in our battle for statehood rather than the official (and less exciting) admission to the Union in 1837. Via michigan.gov:

How about a 175th anniversary chocolate cake? (Props to Vintage Mitten for posting a similar recipe on Facebook)

And this Message of the Acting Governor, Stevens T. Mason, to the Legislative Council, August 17, 1835 — in the heat of the war with Ohio, and right before Jackson had Mason removed — is worthy browsing for today.

How is the observance of Michigan to be compelled by the United States? Is it at the point of a bayonet? I can see no other course.

Happy birthday, beautiful Michigan!

About Wednesday Night Sessions:

Wednesday Night Sessions is a monthly reading series based in Farmington, Michigan, that features talented local authors and poets.  The series is sponsored by five Michigan-based publishers: Absinthe: New European Writing, Black Coffee Press, The Collagist, Dzanc Books and Midwestern Gothic.

Meet me at Mentobe Cafe on Grand River at 7:00 p.m for fancy literary fun!

See you there,

- THE NIGHT TRAIN

As you might guess, my talks tend to deal strictly with ye olde Detroit. But at this event I wanted to make sure I was at least a little relevant to Milwaukee. My grasp on Milwaukee history is pretty tenuous (I left town before becoming insufferable), so it was tough and involved more research than I was prepared for. I think I pulled it off with a little fawning over Solomon Juneau, Milwaukee’s French-Canadian fur-trader founder (his last house still stands in Theresa, Wisconsin), and no small quantity of yammering about the years during which Wisconsin and Michigan were part of the same territory. (Milwaukee and Detroit were even tossed together in Wayne County for a few years in the 1790s.)

Luckily, I always overestimate how nerdy other people are; I can’t imagine anyone in the audience was bored by things they already knew about territorial boundaries and original Juneautown land plats of the 1820s.

At the very last minute, I had the stroke of brilliance to check the index of Early Days in Detroit for a reference to Milwaukee. I wasn’t expecting much, but I got REALLY lucky.

General Friend Palmer spends a couple of chapters reminiscing about the day when Great Lakes steamboat captains were kings, regally strolling the streets of old Detroit in nankeen trousers, beaver top-hats and silk cravats. Maybe something like this?

Oh yes.

But Captain Chelsea Blake wasn’t like this. He was rude and he loved to swear. General Palmer wrote that ”unlike most of the lake captains of those days, who were perfect gentlemen in manners and dress, he affected none of these, no courtly phrases, no ruffled shirt, no blue coat with brass buttons … his use or abuse of the king’s English was somewhat phenomenal.”

He fought in the War of 1812 at Lundy’s Lane and thereafter became a titan of Great Lakes shipping. Though he was never afraid to cuss out a superior or fight Indians, Blake was apparently terrified of dying.

”Blake … stood in mortal fear of death and from the cholera in particular. He went to Milwaukee to escape the latter, but unfortunately he did not.”

Captain Chelsea Blake died from cholera in Milwaukee in 1849.

From a flowery elegy by R. E. Roberts:

Of almost giant size and commanding presence, no son of Neptune ever united in his composition a rarer combination of the qualities which make a true seaman, a safe commander, a genuine hero. Rough as the billows whose impotent assaults on his vessel he ever laughed to scorn; with voice as hoarse as the tempest which he delighted to rule, this gallant son of the sea had withal a woman’s tenderness of heart to answer the appeals of distress. Sincere was the grief of many he had relieved, and universal regret among those who had ever sailed with him, when he fell a victim to the cholera at Milwaukee in the year 1849.

Poor Chelsea Blake!

Ho, all ye travelers West;
If ye are bound across the Lake,
And wish to take the boat that’s best,
Go on the Illinois with Blake.

A veteran, both by land and sea,
He long has braved the stormy main;
And amongst the foremost, too, was he,
In the great fight at Lundy’s Lane.

… Success attend your bonny boat,
The pride and glory of the lake;
And may ye both forever float —
The Illinois and Captain Blake.

From the Milwaukee Commercial Herald, 1843.

Then I thought, Maybe it is OK that I no longer have a pie and beer habit. A beer habit on its own is more than enough.

This morning, though, just for old time’s sake, I had pie and a beer (New Holland Oatmeal Stout — from MICHIGAN!)

It still feels strange to be hosting an out-of-town book event, since my book is so specifically about, you know, one specific town. So I have been over-explaining myself. (“Wisconsin and Michigan! Part of the same Territory! Had some of the same Governors! Great Lakes fur trade and so on!”) When ThirdCoast Digest (I used to be their senior editor) asked me to write a short preview of my party, I turned in a 1300-word historical essay/love letter.

I’ve shared my affection for Captain Frederick Pabst before. What I forgot about — until I woke up in the middle of the night and remembered it — was that Captain Pabst, in his sea-captain days, crossed paths with another captain — Detroit shipping king and mega-millionaire industrialist Eber Brock Ward.

Captain Pabst was a real captain. In 1848, at age 12, he moved from Germany to Milwaukee. Striking out here, the family moved to Chicago, where Frederick’s mother died from cholera. Frederick Pabst had to find work. After odd jobs at hotels and restaurants, he landed (no pun intended) as a cabin boy on a Great Lakes steamer.

It was his job to collect tickets from passengers as they disembarked the ship. One day, the story goes, a passenger claiming to be a certain Captain E. B. Ward tried to leave the ship without handing over a ticket. Frederick Pabst stopped him. Captain Ward protested on the basis that he owned the ship. Pabst made him go back to his cabin and wait until his identity could be confirmed. Ward was impressed, not disgruntled. (OK, maybe he was also disgruntled. But hopefully just a little.) Pabst had composure. He showed some pluck. Some resolve.

Captain Ward knew something about that. Born in Canada in 1811, Eber Brock Ward came to Detroit with his family in 1821. The frontier port town was muddy, provincial, and had yet to recover from a devastating 1805 fire. Just a few rickety boats, mostly British-owned, plied the Great Lakes, and whenever one of them sailed into Detroit’s harbor — announcing her arrival with a booming report of the cannon — the entire town wandered to the river to watch.

You can read the whole essay here.

Detroit and Milwaukee: Meant to be!

(Who am I kidding? They’ll be there for the dance party.)

Oh my gosh, how great is this poster? My friend dwellephant made it. You should send him $5 immediately. (Or maybe you need some love letters? Valentine’s Day!)

See you (if you live near Milwaukee) at the Sugar Maple! (More details on Facebook.) We’re going to shake it Gabriel Richard in wooden shoes after a few glasses of wine he bought from Joseph Campau.

This is the best time of year. For two days our house has been a hush of hot coffee, dog naps, books, and spare hours spent exploring world mysteries / magazines / new creative chances / evening cocktails. Today it is snowing, one of the first honest snows in a so-far mild winter. It is a humble time, even solemn, but wide-open: full of thanks for the year as we knew it and awe at the approaching cross we are all about to make over time.

That’s especially true at the end of this year, which was the biggest year of my life: just a wedding, or just a book, would have made it so. But I was so lucky, I did both. And both taught me a ton about making decisions, taking chances, asking for help, saying no, saying yes, speaking up for myself, being more open-minded, and good old-fashioned getting shit done.

Submitted for your perusal: This gallery of things I saw, places I visited, acquaintances I made and stories I learned in 2011. I hope you like it! And I hope your year was just as good, and that your 2012 will be even better.

Happy New Year,

The Night Train

Further reading:

Margaret Mather

Jean-Francois Hamtramck

St. Louis Cemetery No. 1

Le Loup Garou

Marshall Fredericks Sculpture Museum

Pride of Baltimore

The old Log Cabin

Dogs in early Detroit

Last year: Solomon Sibley, and a brave New Year 

The first time I realized that I loved Christmas — as an adult — was in a grocery store in Milwaukee. It had been a tough year, full of loss and heartache, too much drinking, a persistently empty checking account, nagging aimlessness. It wasn’t long after Thanksgiving. I was probably buying noodles, eggs, and cabbage — all I ate. The store had put up a red ribbon-decked tree and there were loose cranberries for sale in big bins. It smacked me in the heart like a cinnamon-scented hammer: I cannot goddamn wait for Christmas. And I guess it had nothing to do with the holiday itself: it just meant that I could go home, turn off my phone, and hunker down at my parents’ house for a few days, safe in a harbor of blankets, dogs, movies I’d watched a thousand times, and the soft smell of sauteed onions.

Since then, I have loved Christmas mightily, in all of its sentimental glory, and it has only been better since I started spending it with Scott: more family, more love, more wine, more crab legs, more card games, and the extra thrill of midnight mass, the only time during the regular calendar year that I set aside for my secret spiritual feelings, and during which I inevitably sob my face off for ineffable reasons.

This year, though — despite the fact that it has been a very big year, and I am more than ready for a long break — I can’t muster the same wonder. Midnight mass is cancelled. My parents just moved to Florida. We will still play cards and eat crab legs, and I am sure by night’s end I will be passed out on the couch at Ciocia’s house, drunk with awe and love and Jezy. But now, just a few day’s out, I am feeling unmoved. Maybe I’m just tired? Maybe it’s just too balmy?

So it was beautiful to find this letter from William Woodbridge to his daughter Juliana. Woodbridge was living in Washington, serving his first term as U.S. Senator from Michigan, and spending his first Christmas away from his family. His daughter was my age, living with her husband, Henry Backus, in Detroit.  His melancholy – resigned to Providence – reminds us that Christmas is sometimes best defined in our hearts by what it is not.

Washington, January 5, 1842

My dear Daughter,

Your welcome letter of the 10th ult. reached me in due time. I read with much interest your remarks on the altered state of things you anticipated when you thought of the then approaching Christmas. Contrasted with such as are past, rarely, indeed if ever, has it happened that a Christmas has gone by without seeing us all together; and there is something grave in the thought that at length, and for the first time, that day of customary hilarity should be decreed to pass by in the absence of one who loves you, and loves you all I do. But it is perhaps better as it is; better that we all should learn by degrees and with contented, though subdued feelings to submit ourselves to the decrees of Providence. Though the day was not untinged by melancholy to me, yet it passed, amidst the bustle of ”carding and being carded” and all that with sober and unruffled quiet. With you at home, it fared I trust a little better.  My last letter was from L., and on ”Christmas Eve.” The stockings had with all due formality been hung up, and you and W. and B. were to have added to the cheerfulness of the occasion by joining in the Christmas dinner. This is as it should be, and many times and often may ”Merry Christmas” occur to all who at that table met.

I hope your holidays are full of joy, whatever they are, wherever you are, and whomever you are with. I will be taking a break from the blog, but hope to check in at least once before the end of 2011 and will return to regular posts by early January, having had some time to rest, clear my head, and read lots of dorky old books.

Cheers,

The Night Train

Other posts about Christmas from last year and the previous year and here is Santa wishing all of Detroit a good night.

I was so nervous when I gave my first tour of Elmwood back in October. I wasn’t sure that my habit of spending leisure time in the cemetery, hunting for my favorite obscure historical figures and talking to myself, gave me any sort of authority to lecture other people about it.

But! It was so much fun. Basically, I just did what I always do in Elmwood, only some really nice people tagged along and I talked to them instead of my imaginary/dead friends. Plus, Elmwood is beautiful, and a 90-minute walk was a great way to get the blood moving on a bleary Saturday morning.

You guys must like my style. The tour sold out, and the League of Adventurous Detroiters wanted to give waiting-listers from last time a second chance. So I’m giving a reprise tour this Saturday, Dec. 17, at 11 a.m. You can sign up here.

Rebecca from LoAD and I tried to find a way to spin this for the holidays, but cholera just doesn’t make anyone feel merry. But I DO think that this would be a great early gift for the history lover in your life. Make a day of it and grab brunch, hit up a museum or visit some independent Detroit shops afterward!

A note about the weather: The first time I visited Elmwood was in the winter, and while it is challenging to see a historic cemetery in the midst of snow drifts, it is also very pretty. And I finally own some winter boots. And if you bring a thermos full of something warm you might even feel pretty resilient. And jolly. And proud of yourself.

Other upcoming events

I will be in Milwaukee on January 12, reading at the Sugar Maple in Bay View around 7:30 pm. On the off-chance that you’ll be in the neighborhood, come out for American craft beers, a nerdy talk about the rich history that Milwaukee and Detroit share, and a soul dance party. Yep, it is going to be great.

On January 25, at 7 pm, I will be at Mentobe Cafe in downtown Farmington as part of the Wednesday Night Sessions series. Save the date and stay tuned for more details!

This is Hiram Walker. He was born in a small town in Massachusetts in 1816. When he was 22 years old, he moved to Detroit.

Hiram Walker tried his hand at several pursuits, but for nearly 20 years he couldn’t catch a break. He started a grocery store; it failed. He started a tannery; just when it seemed like it was going to work out, it burned down. He started another grocery store — where he experimented with selling his own vinegar and distilling whiskey — then he lost everything in the Panic of 1857.

So Hiram Walker said: To hell with it. And he moved his business operations to Canada.

Why Canada? To begin with, the land was cheaper. Hiram Walker had been dealing Canadian grain to brewers and distillers in southeast Michigan from his latest Detroit grocery, and he knew that there were no steam-powered grain mills on the Canadian side of the Detroit River — a niche he expected to fill.

But Hiram Walker also wanted to open a distillery, of which there were many in Detroit, and not so many in Canada. But in 1855, the Michigan Constitution had adopted an “iron-clad” version of the so-called Maine Law, prohibiting the traffic of liquor except for medicinal and scientific purposes. No one in Detroit paid much attention to the law; though it was in effect until 1875, it was roundly ineffective. (I guess it didn’t help that Detroit didn’t have a municipal police department until 1865.)

Still, with prohibition cases constantly tied up in (though often thrown out of) court, Hiram Walker may not have wanted to risk the chance that his distillery could be suspended or shut down. So it was off to the north SOUTH bank of the strait, where Hiram Walker founded Walkerville, his new global HQ, in 1858.

There he created a town from the ground up, founding schools, laying pipes for municipal water, building homes for his employees, establishing a private bank, and starting a church. (Hiram Walker fired one preacher, legend has it, after finding out about his sermons against the evils of alcohol.) Hiram was the “benevolent despot” of Walkerville, writes Ronald G. Hoskins in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography. But he only lived there for about five years; in 1864, Walker returned to Detroit, where he lived the rest of his days, commuting to work every day on a direct ferry from his riverfront property to the wharf at his distillery.

Canadian Club got its name in 1890 when, says the legend, the U.S. government — in response to demands from American distillers — forced Hiram Walker to declare that his whiskey was an imported product. But its international label only increased its allure, and his whiskey sold even better. (It may have been simply smart branding on Hiram Walker’s part, and not a federal edict.) Coupled with an 1894 bond law that standardized how spirits were aged, Canadian Club gained popularity among American drinkers, and when he died in 1899, the distillery was a multi-million dollar operation.

And that is how Canadian Club, while certainly Canadian, was made possible, in part, by Detroit.

Hiram Walker is buried in Elmwood Cemetery. Walkerville still exists, too, though it is part of Windsor, and it is near the top of my list of field trips to take once I renew my passport.

You’ll get two wildly different takes on Detroit and double the Detroit stories you don’t hear very often. Mine are of the French pony cart / grog shop variety. John’s are of the strip club in a guy’s living room / Mr. Bow Tie variety. We’re both pretty fun to be around.

Or as John says: “Two local authors! One local bookstore! Anything goes!”

Stop by! And while you’re at it, drop in to the grand opening of NEST, the new enterprise of the siblings Linn of City Bird. Stylish home goods, even more stylish patrons.

Learning! Reading! Shopping! Mingling! DETROIT!

xo,

The Night Train