CHAPTER XXII

SEEKERS AFTER GREAT LAND GRANTS

N December, 1804, a number of Detroiters petitioned Congress, asking that, in accordance with the provisions of the Ordinance of 1787, Wayne County be set apart from the rest of the Territory, with a southern boundary established on a line running due east from the southernmost point of Lake Michigan. This petition was granted in 1805 but the boundary line was afterward shifted to the northward of the place contemplated in the original plan. The latitude of the head of Lake Michigan was for a time merely a matter of surveyors' estimate. It was afterward discovered to be several miles farther south than the estimated latitude. Had that line been established for the southern boundary of Michigan the cities of Toledo and Michigan City, Indiana, would have been located in Michigan Territory, as well as a large part of Lucas County, Ohio, and a narrow strip of northern Indiana. Thirty years later the settlement of that boundary line became a very serious question which brought about that exciting episode known as "the Toledo War."

Prior to the beginning of the Nineteenth Century, before the sense of nationality had taken a firm hold upon the public mind, the inhabitants of American territory were possessed with a passion for land acquisition. Men of wealth and culture wanted to establish themselves as a sort of landed gentry in accordance with the traditions of their homelands. Men of small means, the merchant class, the landless laboring class, were equally ambitious to secure land for farms and estates, so land hunger became a common obsession.

In

every state and territory pioneers were pushing into the hinterland regardless of the protests of the Indians and their hostile demonstrations. With no other capital than an ax and a few simple agricultural implements like a spade and a hoe, pioneers traveled inland until they found a favorable location.

There they felled trees, erected a log cabin and planted a little corn, wheat, beans and garden vegetables among the stumps. For meats they depended upon the wild game which the Indians regarded as their own exclusive property.

Men of means employed land-lookers to seek out areas for great estates. Having located them they bargained with the Indians for a right to settle on the land, making as a rule very liberal contributions of whisky. Having obtained the consent of the unwary Indians they would then apply to the Congress of the United States for a free grant, patent or a purchase at the price of a few cents an acre. When the influence of one wealthy man was insufficient to obtain a great land charter, a number of them would organize a land company and employ their combined influence to the same end. Thus it came to pass that a great part of the state of New York was obtained by private parties in a few grants having the area of principalities. The same practice was followed in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and several other states.

The earliest land acquisitions in Detroit under the French régime were specified in arpents. The French arpent being a variable measure the United States Government afterward fixed the standard of measurement at 192.24 feet. On the maps of the area about Detroit these early grants are now designated as numbered private claims. When the British government superseded the French a decided check was placed upon private land acquisition through sharp practice with the Indians. It was by this protective policy that the British finally succeeded in winning the good will of the Indians.

When the authority of the United States Government was extended over Michigan the pressure for land acquisition became more and more intense. The Government made several treaties with the Indians by which certain areas of their communal lands were ceded to the United States and then the Government was in position to sell and grant titles to actual settlers. But grants to actual settlers did not satisfy the ambitions of men of wealth, who schemed to get between the Government and the settler by acquiring vast areas for a mere nominal

price which they planned to hold for a rise in value and sell at a big profit to settlers.

While Detroit was still in British possession in 1795 two adventurous land grant seekers came from the East to enlist a few prominent Detroiters in a scheme for acquiring a big grant of land. John Askin, a British subject and at the time the largest landholder in Detroit, was chosen by them to head this scheme. Mr. Askin was a man of wealth and perhaps the most influential member of the community. A land company was formed which also included John Askin, Jr., Richard Pattinson, his brother-in-law, Robert Innes, William Robertson and Jonathan Scheiffelin, who had long been an Indian agent at Detroit. An outline map was prepared covering about twenty million acres of the richest section of Michigan, Ohio and Indiana and a stock company was formed to acquire and dispose of this land. The stock was divided into 41 shares and five of these shares were to be given to the Detroiters of the company. Twenty-four shares were set apart to be used in influencing the favorable votes of members of Congress. The promoters themselves were to have the remaining twelve shares, each share representing about fifty thousand acres of land.

The company was formed and the promoters employed Dr. Robert Randall of Philadelphia and Charles Whitney of Vermont, both experienced lobbyists, to push through Congress a scheme by which they were to acquire the land at two and one-half cents an acre on time payments. Congressman William Smith of South Carolina made a speech against the proposed grant in which he asked why the Government of the United States should sell its land to these wealthy speculators at such a price when actual settlers of small means were required to pay $1.25 an acre. This protest led to a complete exposure of the scheme. The lobbyists were arraigned before the bar of the House and Whitney was reprimanded and fined. Randall escaped punishment because his connection with the affair was more remote and he was able to plead ignorance.

Mr. Askin made several other attempts to secure large grants at prices below the common rate and, failing in that,

tried to secure some leases for 999 years. All this sort of practice was regarded as legitimate in those days, for the great interior of the country was still unsettled and people saw no harm in permitting tracts of millions of acres to fall into possession of any man who would pay a price that would be satisfactory to Congress.

The most flagrant land scheme was carried into effect in the state of Georgia by which a group of speculators who organized what were termed the "Yazoo land companies" actually secured a grant of 23,000,000 acres at a price of three-quarters of a cent per acre. They accomplished the deal by admitting all but one member of the Georgia legislature to partnership with the landgrabbers. When the companies demanded a patent to the land the people of Georgia learned what had been done in secret. They promptly repudiated the act of their legislature, elected a new legislature and repealed the act of sale. The land syndicate appealed to the United States Supreme Court and Chief Justice John Marshall wrote the opinion which classed the sale as a contract and cited the constitutional restriction which forbids the passage of laws which invalidate existing contracts.

The people of Georgia refused to issue a charter for the land and the Government of the United States, being powerless to coerce them in that particular, paid the land syndicate nearly $5,000,000 in money for a surrender of their claims.

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CHAPTER XXIII

ALL DETROIT DESTROYED BY FIRE

ROM the beginning of time the story of mankind has been a story of slow, laborious upbuilding in pursuance

of some definite plan of achievement, and presently comes some cataclysm of nature, some outbreak of elemental forces, or some disaster of warfare, and everything is swept away. For 60 years Frenchmen toiled and suffered hardships to make Detroit a city, only to have the product of all their labor swept into the lap of England. For 36 years the British held Detroit and planned for its future development, only to have it snatched away by the Americans. For nine years the Americans worked and schemed to the same end as the two earlier rulers of Detroit, only to have Detroit reduced to a place of ashes and desolation in a few hours and the inhabitants of 300 primitive houses left homeless and shelterless in a far wilderness. But the unconquerable spirit of man again rose to the grim occasion and the American settlers voiced their courage, hope and faith by blazoning across the seal of their city the legend: "Speramus Meliora; Resurget Cineribus." "We hope for better days; it shall arise from its ashes."

A gale of wind was roaring up the river on the morning of June 11, 1805. The trees along the shore bowed and swayed before it and the leaves of the aspens fluttered and sang with rapid vibrations. John Harvey, the village baker, had set the fresh, fragrant loaves of his bread on the shelves of his little shop, the product of the previous night's output from his massive stone ovens. His stock of flour had run low and he saw that he must replenish it for the bread of the next day.

Lighting his clay pipe, he started for the stable adjoining the shop where he housed his frisky French pony, his twowheeled cart of clumsy pattern, "made in Detroit," and a little store of hay and oats provided for the pony. He backed the pony