Identifier: laketourtopictur01detr (find matches)
Title: A lake tour to picturesque Mackinac; historical and descriptive
Year: 1884 (1880s)
Authors: (Detroit and Cleveland steam navigation co.) (from old catalog) Whitcomb, Cummings D. (from old catalog)
Subjects:
Publisher: Detroit, Mich., O. S. Gulley, Bornman & co.
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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stockade was comprised the village, with a popula-tion of sixty families. The streets were narrow, the widest being buttwenty feet, and the houses were low and mainly of wood. That in1805 a fire should break out and sweep away the entire village wastherefore not surprising. But a single house remained standing. Two years later Congress authorized the laying out of a city on amuch more liberal scale, and made a grant of 10,000 acres of land toaid in defraying the cost of the necessary improvements. The author-ship of the plan of the new city is attributed to Judge Woodward, whowas a man of exceedingly fanciful tastes, as was evinced by his design. There were to be several open squares, with broad aven.ues radiat-ing from them, like the spokes of a wheel. The streets were to be ofunusual width, and access from one part of the city to another wasexceedingly convenient; but the objection was the amount of land wastedand the angular shape of a great proportion of the lots; consequently 26
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A Lake Tour to Picturesque Mackinac V at a later period the Woodward plan was abandoned, only a snnall portionof which is still retained, the rectangular system being substituted.Between the two plans and the freedom which was accorded to everyproperty holder to lay out streets and subdivide his property after hisown taste, Detroit is to-day perhaps as labyrinthian a city as any in the west. In 1812, war broke out with Great Britain, and on the 16th of Augustfollowing, General Hull, who was in command, surrendered the fort andcity to General Brock, without any attempt to maintain a defense. TheBritish remained in possession for more than a year, when, as a, result ofthe American victory at the battle of the Thames, it was recovered by theUnited States. The name of the fort was now changed to Shelby. Atthis time the population was less than one thousand, and its growth fora long time continued very slow. In 1831, when the population had reached two thousand, the firstreal step was take

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