Dawn of Detroit

by Tiya Miles

  William Hull had agreed to serve as the governor of Michigan Territory and Augustus Brevoort Woodward as one of its two active supreme court justices. By the time the men arrived at the seat of their new territorial government, scheduled to become official the next month in July, they found nothing there but the shards of a colonial settlement. The buildings were gone with most of the contents destroyed, and the people were severely distressed. On the cusp of its grand moment as capital of Michigan, Detroit lay in a pile of debris. John Askin may have thought that his prognostication of Detroit falling into “ruin” seemed to have come to pass, though not in the financial realm where he most expected it. Disaster sparked by human hands, rather than an unfavorable business environment, proved to be the first undoing of Detroit. The original French Canadian dwellings were lost to wisps of memory, leaving the town orphaned from its eighteenth-century architectural heritage and its residents orphaned from their sheltering homes.

  Out of the Ashes

  Judge Augustus Woodward was the first of the incoming U.S. administrators to arrive on the scene after the fire. Judge Frederick Bates was already present, as he lived in the town, had served in the military, and, as his letters have revealed, courted French ladies.66 Woodward appeared on June 30, having departed from Washington days before with the formal appointment from President Jefferson that he had long sought in hand. Woodward was born in New York City in 1774. He studied at Columbia College and soon made his way to Washington where he began the practice of law and served as a member of the city’s first municipal governing council. A voracious reader and fiercely analytical thinker, Woodward found interest in all manner of subjects, from the study of languages (he wrote in Latin, French, Greek, and Spanish as well as speaking fluent French) to literature and poetry, science, leadership, politics, and governance.

  A staunch Jeffersonian Republican, Woodward admired Thomas Jefferson and wrote forthrightly that Jefferson was, in his view, “undoubtedly the second character in America in every thing which forms a component part of a great man. Washington alone is his superior.” Woodward’s handwritten notebooks, full of pictorial foreign language word-trees, a self-made map of Washington City, English word sounds and stenographic shorthand notes, classical quotations, and principles of chemistry, show Woodward to have had much in common with the supple-minded Jefferson, known for his interest and competence in a dizzying array of subjects. In 1790, soon after Jefferson was elected to the presidency, Woodward sought a clerkship with him. But Jefferson informed the avid young student by mail that “I am not able to serve your wishes. . . . There neither is, nor has been a single vacancy in the clerkships in my office since I came to it.”67

  It was not until six years had passed that Woodward had the chance to meet Thomas Jefferson in person. A critical observer who treated Jefferson to the closest scrutiny, Woodward wrote down “Notes on My Visit to Mr. Jefferson,” in which he found fault with the president’s comportment. Jefferson was too “lively” and attentive, which “detracted from that calm & sublime dignity, which the imagination always attributes to a great & elevated character.” Woodward continued in his critique: “Calm & composed he should have waited my approach without an advance on his part; my salutation & accessions . . . should have been readily reciprocated with a mild & engaging condescension.” Jefferson was, in other words, too willing to engage Woodward and failed to display a social distance that underscored Jefferson’s higher status.68

  Woodward’s desire for Jefferson to politely remind him of his place reveals the young lawyer’s own belief in social hierarchy and graces. But at the same time that Woodward disliked Jefferson’s outgoing manner, he accused the president of being overly self-promoting. “I rather tho[ugh] t he spoke of his own notes a little too often: he ought not to have presumed that I had read them or had ever seen them,” Woodward harped.69 But Woodward had read Thomas Jefferson’s bestselling Notes on the State of Virginia, published in 1785. Jefferson’s Notes contained the now well-known passage in which Jefferson lambasts African Americans for being unintelligent, unattractive, and unfit for assimilation into white society. Woodward, writing his own thoughts on blacks in an essay titled “On Habits,” had expressed views remarkably similar to Jefferson’s. In the essay, Woodward wrote: “in our own country—One sees all the negros in slavery—from his cradle he has known nothing else; the impression made by this custom has habituated him to imagine some kind of natural connection between the Africans and slavery. They are such black ugly creatures with such big lips & flat noses that surely God who is a wise Being & does every thing right w[ould] never put rational Souls into them—They must be hewers of wood and drawers of water forever—At any rate, they must not be put on a par with that dignified being a white man.”70

  Augustus Woodward was certainly influenced by Jefferson’s writings in this opinion of African Americans as a subspecies created by God with an inbred irrationality. Nevertheless, he thought it arrogant for Jefferson to assume familiarity with Jefferson’s popular book. Woodward’s skittish interaction with Thomas Jefferson upon their first meeting was an indicator of his social awkwardness more generally. A tall, reedy man with a prominent, irregular nose and small, piercing eyes, Woodward believed deeply in his own self-evident intelligence and was quick to defend against slights. That he could sharply judge a man whom he admired and whose ideas he incorporated suggested that Woodward readily turned an exacting eye toward those who did not measure up to his standards. Still, Woodward’s intellectual gifts and passion for knowledge caught and held Thomas Jefferson’s interest. Jefferson became an associate to the younger attorney, lending him an encyclopedia and seeking Woodward’s aid in identifying sources on topics of interest to them both. On one occasion, Woodward promised to send Jefferson a work that he would “shortly procure from alexandria” [sic] containing “a great deal of information on the domestic jurisprudence of France.”71 This relationship led to Woodward’s appointment as one of Michigan’s first two supreme court justices, for which he would take an oath of fidelity to “support the constitution of the United States.”72

  As the first appointee to the court, Woodward became chief justice of the Supreme Court in Michigan Territory. He brought his prejudiced views on race with him to the work as surely as he carried along his educational training and legal experience. The driving intellectual force in a territory that was only required by local law to have one judge present for cases, Woodward would become the only justice to write opinions for the court during his eighteen years on the bench. Several of these cases involved disputes over slavery, a practice limited by the Northwest Ordinance but not explicitly addressed in Michigan Territory laws (that Woodward himself would first pen in 1805) or in Detroit Town edicts established by the board of trustees. Woodward’s decisions on slavery cases would soon show his investment in establishing a legal culture in Detroit that reflected the principle of the rule of law, protected U.S. sovereignty over its territory, and maintained peace at the border.73

  Augustus Woodward arrived in Detroit one day before Governor William Hull, with a personality guaranteed to irk his superior. Woodward was self-posturing, self-important, and spoke in multisyllabic words so as to display his fine education.74 He was also prominent and fortunate enough to immediately find shelter with James May, whose expensive home was located beyond the borders of the fallen town. From there, Woodward, whose “office and his friendship with President Jefferson gave him prestige in the Territory, and his own imperious nature demanded respect,” began to steer the distressed inhabitants.75 Together with Judge Bates, Judge Woodward convinced Detroit residents to await the arrival of the governor before rebuilding their homes. With no permanent shelter, the townspeople created a refugee camp on the common land beside the river, squatted in the homes of nearby farmers, and depended on the charity of local merchants, like Jacques Girardin, a slaveholder, who provided the people with loaves of fresh bread.76

  One day after Woodward’s appearance and two w
eeks after the massive fire, Governor William Hull finally reached Detroit. He arrived with his wife Sarah Hull, a son, two daughters, a personal secretary, and the secretary of Michigan Territory, Stanley Griswold. “Shocked and appalled to find his intended capital in ruins, and the inhabitants encamped round about,” Hull went about the difficult business of managing a proto-state.77 Unlike Augustus Woodward, Hull was not able to secure the best of temporary accommodations. Hull wrote to James Madison, secretary of state: “On my arrival (July 1st) every house was crowded, and it was more than a week before I could obtain the least accommodation. I am now in a small farmer’s house about a mile above the ruins, and must satisfy myself to remain in this situation during the next winter, at least.”78

  Although an unfortunate man in the summer of 1805 and on key occasions thereafter, William Hull had been born into privileged circumstances in 1753. He hailed from Connecticut, trained at Yale College, and served honorably in the Revolutionary War under General George Washington as well as General Anthony Wayne. Hull had been appointed by Jefferson as governor of Michigan, which also made him military commander of the territory. But any grand hope that he may have harbored for his new western post was dashed from the beginning. Hull was described by his descendants as “a man of considerable ability . . . handicapped in his new job by his total lack of acquaintance with frontier life and problems.”79 As he struggled to recover Detroit from overwhelming disaster, a task that stretched on for years, William Hull would learn too late about the pressure that the Indian presence would foment and the cohesion of the large French population, whose language he did not even speak.

  But in the days immediately following the fire, Hull forged ahead with drawing the beleaguered populace together. He called a meeting beneath the pear trees of slaveholder Sarah Macomb’s fruit orchard and gave a rousing speech.80 Hull vowed that a committee would be formed to request aid from the U.S. government, assured the people that they would be made financially whole, and expressed his desire to rebuild the town according to a “Judicious and enlarged plan.”81 Governor Hull saw opportunity in the ruins of Detroit. Some local leaders agreed with his vision of an expanded settlement, such as Solomon Sibley, who had always judged Detroit to be too tight and too French. Stumbling out from the ashes of catastrophe, certain Detroiters began to see strategies for growth that today might be termed “disaster capitalism.”82

  Elijah Brush also approved of the governor’s notion of building a bigger and better Detroit. One year after the fire in 1806, Elijah Brush, James May, and John Anderson wrote a letter to President Jefferson representing a view that they described as having been sanctioned “by all the inhabitants here who are in the least Degree interested, or affected thereby.” Governor Hull was, in the letter writers’ estimation, running “a System of Territorial Government as much to our perfect satisfaction.” But the men nevertheless had pressing concerns and urgent requests. They appealed to the U.S. government to recognize all land claims obtained and held during the French and British periods; they wished to see “the Indian Title in this Territory . . . extinguished.” They wanted “to open the door to Emigration” and thus see more white settlers enter the country, and they sought “some support and Releif [sic] for the unfortunate sufferers by the late conflagration at Detroit.” Finally, they hoped to see “the Plan of the New Town of Detroit” enacted—a town that would marginalize indigenous people and reward settlers of European descent, who by hook or by crook had gained title to those lands in the colonial period. If these measures were not taken, especially regarding land, “our Ruin is completely sealed,” the authors proclaimed in defeatist language about Detroit that was already beginning to sound like an echo in the early nineteenth century.83 Early settlers may have found the wood-shingled village charming and may have tolerated indigenous neighbors to further the fur trade, but the new Americans had another vision in mind. The catastrophe of fire on the heels of the establishment of Michigan Territory created an opportunity for drastic change. The rustic French fort town that hugged the banks of the narrow river could now be remade into an “authentic” American city.

  Judge Augustus Woodward was tasked by Hull with designing a spatial layout for the New Town Plan. He seized upon the assignment with gusto, imagining the future Detroit as a grid of long, diagonal streets punctuated by graceful spokes at regular intervals. Much of the design was inspired by the work of a Frenchman, Pierre Charles L’Enfant, who had planned the majestic Washington City for President George Washington.84 Woodward had kept a hand-drawn map of Washington in his pocket notebook while working as a lawyer there. Perhaps he pulled out that map, worn at the creases of the folds, to examine its specifics before sketching a design for Detroit. He also may have dusted off his reading notes from Columbia College, which included the titles On the Best Plan for Building a City, Improvements on the Plan of the City of New York, Description of the City of Philadelphia, and Description of the City of New York.85 Surely this moment was one the intense man who compulsively sketched in his notebooks had been waiting for all his professional life. In addition to calling upon his broad base of multidisciplinary knowledge as well as his love of the liberal and applied arts, Woodward relished playing a dominant role in the refashioning of Detroit. His ardent belief in nationalism and patriotism, and the need to build up both in America, suggest he would have welcomed the challenge to remake Detroit into the pride of an American West.86 Although he spoke fluent French and admired French politics of the Revolutionary era, Woodward cared little for English ways.87 He had created a table in his plentiful notes in which he compared American and British characteristics, the latter group faring poorly in the tally. While American “Patriots” could be counted on for “Modesty, Intelligence, Morality, Eloquence, Decency, Family Ties, and Plainness,” the British displayed “Hauteur, Science, Gluttony, Ratiocination, Prostitution, Pride of Birth, and Splendor,” in Woodward’s humble opinion.88 Detroit’s New Town design rested in the hands of a man who wished to imprint an American stamp with an invisible touch of French influence.

  Enslaved Detroiters in Disaster’s Wake

  Governor William Hull’s New Town notion depended upon the wreckage of old Detroit. But he was not the first to realize that disaster presented economic openings. As Detroit’s priceless eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century buildings lay in smoldering heaps of ash, merchant James May picked his way from lot to lot, where he “gathered the stones of which the chimneys in the houses were built . . . and built a stone house with them.” May’s palatial stone home, located on May’s Creek, a waterway that once spilled into the Detroit River, was complemented by a gristmill, tannery, and barn. This became the new hub from which May managed “a big business” with his partner, Valentine. May and Valentine rustled cattle from Ohio and Indiana back to Detroit, supplied the military post at Detroit as well as others, and provided “salt and fresh pork and beans” to households along the strait. Later, the large stone building that May called home became a courthouse and a hotel.89 But the early account of May’s stone salvage project raises pointed questions. Who, exactly, waded through the ash and rubble looking for choice chimney stones? Who carried those stones to the undisturbed creek bank miles outside of town? Who built the stone manor house? Who ground the corn in the mill? Who raised the cattle? Who tanned the hides? May’s slaves and hired laborers surely performed these tasks, though they garner no mention in the historical record.

  Not one existing narrative of the “great fire” of Detroit notes the presence of unfree people during or immediately following the incident. Despite this void, it stands to reason that enslaved people—both black and Native—would have been severely affected by the calamity. Many would have been homeless alongside their owners yet directed to the worst of temporary lodgings. Bondspeople faced hunger and bodily need just like other Detroiters but likely received lesser portions of donated food and none of the funds delivered by the relief ships dispatched from Michilimackinac and Montreal and distri
buted by wealthy residents.90 Lots and roads had to be cleared, pickets reconstructed, and new homes and gardens established. Certainly slaves would have been tasked with this work as well as their customary labors. But at the same time that unfree people would have been especially disadvantaged in this moment of crisis—more vulnerable to the vagaries of chance and the burden of excess work in a town struggling to rebuild in the aftermath of destruction—they, like James May and William Hull, could find and exploit hidden opportunities. For enslaved people, disaster could be double edged—painful, but also productive. The Revolutionary War had shown that chaos and disruption could be a boon in slave communities, creating new routes to freedom. In enslaved circles where lifelong servitude was the condition of existence, events defined as crises could spur constructive change.

  The Denison Case

  Peter and Hannah Denison, a black couple enslaved on the Huron River twenty miles north of Detroit, would have heard about the fire as soon as news could travel. They surely worried about what the loss of the area’s central settlement would mean. But even more pressing in the lives of the Denison family than total town destruction downriver was an event that transpired just a few months before the fire. The Denisons’ owner, William Tucker, had died in the spring of 1805, and his passing put the Denisons in extreme danger. The death of an owner, as the bondspeople of William Macomb had experienced, often meant the disbursement of slaves. William Tucker left his wife, Catherine Tucker, the bulk of his property, which consisted of “six hundred acres whereof 60 acres are supposed to be leased and under fence . . . With a dwelling house, barn, stable, out houses, and orchard thereon.” William also wished Catherine to have: “my Black man and Black woman—Peter and Hannah his wife” who would receive “there [sic] freedom after the decease of Catherine Tucker my wife provided they shall behave themselves as becometh to her . . . during her life.” Tucker revealed in his will that he “always meant to give their freedom” to Hannah and Peter. Perhaps William Tucker had even told the couple as much and led them to believe he would free them upon his own death. If so, the pair would have been sorely disappointed upon hearing the specifics of Tucker’s will. Peter and Hannah would not obtain liberty yet. For that, they would have to await Catherine Tucker’s demise. But their main, heartrending concern as Tucker’s estate was settled would have been for their children: Elizabeth, Scipio, James, and Peter Jr., also left to Tucker’s wife in the will. Unlike Peter and Hannah, the children would not be freed upon Catherine Tucker’s death. Rather, “one sixth share of the negro children” would be inherited by six of the seven Tucker children—all of them boys. (Tucker’s only daughter, Sarah, was to receive two cows after her mother’s death.) How could four African American children be subdivided into six equal parts? Unless the Tucker sons (William, Edward, John, Jacob, Charles, and Henry) planned to work these slaves on a time-sharing plan, there was just one method: sale and division of the proceeds.91