At the Fourth of July celebration of 1835 the ship carpenters and mechanics employed in Mr. Newberry's yard asked permission to fire one of the guns a few times as their part in the celebration. Mr. Newberry gave consent and they went about the street passing the hat to raise money for buying powder. They applied to N. Prouty, who kept a grocery and restaurant in a frame building which stood on piles over the river on the south side of Woodbridge Street, and who rented the second floor for school purposes. Prouty would give but 50 cents toward the powder fund and this incensed the workmen, who assured Prouty that he would soon hear from his contribution.

They procured a keg of powder and used four pounds for their first charge. The old gun boomed grandly and stood the strain. Then they decided to give Prouty a surprise, so they rammed home 141⁄2 pounds of powder and when they fired this off Prouty's building rocked violently on its pile foundation and all the glass fell out of the windows in a shower. That ended the celebration in that quarter.

In 1838 the Canadian Patriot War caused great excitement in Detroit, and in spite of all attempts to preserve strict neutrality many adventurous Americans joined the "patriots" and took part in a disastrous raid against Windsor. After they were driven out of Canada in confusion and several had been killed and wounded the survivors decided to seize the long range gun and bombard Windsor from this side. They mounted it on two logs, loaded it with powder and a lot of scrap iron and, just as they were elevating the muzzle in the hope of landing a shot in Windsor, Gen. Hugh Brady came rushing to the spot. The men in charge of the gun ran away. After seeing that the gun was unloaded, Gen. Brady ordered a man named Turner Stetson to break it up and render it harmless.

Stetson was a huge man who stood six feet four inches tall and was supposed to be the strongest man in Michigan. He inserted in the muzzle of the gun a wedge-shaped piece of iron, and taking a heavy sledge, tried to split the gun. After sledging away for nearly an hour he only succeeded in chipping off a fragment of the muzzle, and gave up the job. That flaw is still

apparent in the muzzle of the longer gun at the south side of the City Hall portico.

In 1851 Oliver Newberry was involved in debt and sold 51 feet of his frontage to Franklin Moore and George Foote. In 1871 Buhl & Ducharme bought the other part of the frontage and erected their wholesale hardware building, which still stands on the site. One of the old cannon lay on the dividing line and it is said that Alexander Chapoton, who erected the building, buried that gun to get it out of the way. This story is disputed by some of the old residents. In 1852 the guns were set on end in masonry and used as snubbing posts for boat lines.

In 1872 Detroiters experienced a wave of patriotic enthusiasm and Alderman Francis Adams suggested that the city buy the old cannon and convert them into patriotic memorials. rather than see them broken up. The longest gun had been sold for junk to J. B. Wayne, of the Fulton Iron Works. A subscription was taken up and ten men contributed $10 each for the purchase of the gun to be presented to the city. Five days later Moore & Foote presented the shorter gun to the city. A third cannon of the lot was presented to the Northwestern Historical Society of Ohio, and it now stands beside the Perry monument in Cleveland.

The two cannon retained by Detroit were mounted in their present positions in 1874, and on July 4 they were draped with flags and formally dedicated. The Light Guards and the National Guards turned out to escort a procession and the City Hall yard was packed with people while Levi Bishop and several other citizens delivered dedicatory addresses.

Levi Bishop, by the way, was a notable citizen of old Detroit. In the 1830's he was a journeyman shoemaker and a member of an artillery company which had an ancient six-pounder cannon which was dragged about the streets and used to fire salutes on July 4 and other patriotic occasions. On the Fourth of July, 1839, they were firing it as rapidly as possible where the Bagley bust now stands on the Campus Martius. The gun grew very hot and the man who was thumbing the vent to prevent ignition of the powder while the gun was being loaded jerked away his thumb

TOP-CITY HALL CANNON, 32-POUND CARRONADE, USED ON PERRY'S SHIP BOTTOM-CITY HALL CANNON, LONG 24-POUND GUN, USED TO BOMBARD

DETROIT IN 1812

as the hot metal seared it. At that instant Levi Bishop was at the muzzle ramming home a bag of gunpowder. A premature explosion occurred which shattered Bishop's right arm and he was forced to undergo an amputation without anesthetics. One of the artillery company then attacked the cannon with a sledge and broke it up. Bishop was forced to find a new calling, and he became a noted lawyer and one of the foremost contributors of articles on early Detroit history. It was the general opinion that the accident spoiled a poor shoemaker and made a good lawyer.

In his address Mr. Bishop said he remembered that six cannon were brought to Detroit from Erie. There was much dispute as to the number of the guns and also as to the history of each one. John Ramsay, an aged resident of Windsor, said in 1874 that he knew the history of the long gun very well but knew nothing about the others. He said that the long gun was not used on any ship in the Battle of Lake Erie. It was one of two long range cannon which were set up in a cellar excavation on the site of Windsor and used to bombard Fort Shelby in Detroit on the morning of 'Gen. Hull's surrender. One shot from that gun had entered the fort, killing Lieut. Hanks, Lieut. Sibley and Dr. Reynolds, and dangerously wounding Dr. Blood. Its companion gun sent a ball through the south gate of the fort, killing two soldiers. The guns lay about Windsor for several years until they were sold for old iron, and this one which stands at the south side of the City Hall portico was brought across the river. These ancient relics, it will be seen, have an interesting history and the knowledge of the part they have played in both attack and defense of Detroit should make them objects of permanent interest to all Detroiters.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

FAMINE AND PESTILENCE IN DETROIT

T

HE loss of Barclay's squadron, of Malden and Detroit, was a heavy blow to the British cause and the Battle of the Thames ended the war in the West. Gen. Procter's conduct was investigated. It was found that he had deserted his command at the beginning of the battle, taking away a number of men from the force that was already outnumbered. For this he was publicly reprimanded and suspended from his rank and pay for six months. He then disappeared from the pages of history and died in Bath, England, in 1858.

On October 7, Gen. Harrison started to remove his army back to American soil. He occupied Detroit and Fort Malden, making such shelter as he could to replace the burned barracks in both places. He found the situation in peace almost as difficult as it had been in war, for neither fort was provisioned for the subsistence of an army. All materials that could not be removed had been burned or destroyed. The Indians had been so troublesome at Detroit that little farming had been done. Amherstburg had been pretty well eaten out and both places were largely dependent upon supplies which must be shipped in from down the lake. The fort at Detroit was renamed Fort Shelby in honor of Gen. Isaac Shelby, governor of Kentucky, and the Kentucky volunteers who had contributed so much toward the success of the war in this section.

But the fort itself was only about 400 feet square and several thousand men must be provided for as well as possible before winter would set in and navigation be stopped by the ice in the lake and river. As many as possible of the men were sent down to the Maumee to make their way back to southern Ohio and Kentucky but these had to be furnished with subsistence out of the short supply. The soldiers who were left in Detroit asked what they were to do and the orders were to do the best they