up the lake and St. Clair River to Fort Gratiot, just above the present city of Port Huron.

It was decided that it would be useless to go further, so the sick were carried ashore and those who had not yet been attacked were told to make their way to Detroit as best they could. Next day 150 of them arrived in Detroit with the report that a number had died on the way and been abandoned beside the trail. Landlord Andrew Mack, of the Mansion House, who was also U. S. collector of customs here, opened his doors to the refugees. The citizens rendered such aid as they could in caring for the sick. In a short time more than 200 citizens were attacked by the disease and nearly 100 of them died.

Fr. Gabriel Richard was always on hand in crises. He nursed the sick, comforted the dying and performed the burial rites over many. On September 13, 1832, he was himself stricken with the disease and in a few hours he was dead at the age of 65 years. His death was mourned as a calamity by Catholics and Protestants alike. In personal appearance Fr. Richard was very tall and angular. His arms and legs were long and his hands big and bony. His face was almost cadaverous, ghastly pale and disfigured with a livid scar extending the length of one cheek, the result of a wound received while he was making his escape from a mob of the French Revolution. For years he had been one of the foremost promoters of education and public charity. He founded two schools for boys and two separate schools for girls. The latter were the first vocational training or industrial schools in Michigan, if not in the entire country.

The girls were taught all the ordinary household arts as well as book learning. Fr. Richard furnished looms, spinning wheels and all the hand apparatus for manufacturing wool and flax into yarns, as well as dyeing and weaving. He promoted road building and from first to last was very loyal to the United States Government and to the Territory and city in which he lived.

Fr. Richard brought the first printing press to Michigan and printed the first books and the first newspaper published in Detroit. He also brought the first church organ to Michigan for

the little church in Springwells. The Indians were so charmed with the instrument that they stole the pipes and for weeks afterward the sound of single organ notes could be heard in the woods about the city.

His remains were buried in a crypt under the new Ste. Anne's Church, which had been begun in 1818 and finished in 1828. In 1886 this church was sold that the site might be used for commercial purposes. The parish was divided, one part building Ste. Anne's Church at Howard and Nineteenth streets and the other St. Joachim's Church of the east side. The remains of Fr. Richard were transferred to the new Ste. Anne's. After the building had been razed and excavations begun for the erection of stores, the excavators came upon a trench in which 30 cholera victims had been buried in a common grave.

CHAPTER LVIII

COMMERCIAL AND CULTURAL PROGRESS

D

ETROIT'S first venture in steamboat building was rather modest, the earliest local vessel being the steam ferry boat Argo. In 1820 J. B. St. Armour secured a license for conducting ferry service from the foot of Woodward Avenue to Richmond, afterward renamed Windsor. This service tended to divert profitable custom from the bar of "Uncle Ben" Woodworth's Steamboat Hotel so Mr. Woodworth, eight months later, secured a ferry license to operate from the dock at the foot of Randolph Street. Several other ferries were established by means of large rowboats. In 1825 the first horse-boat, propelled by horses walking about a circular track on the main deck, was instituted by D. C. McKinstry and John Burtis. In 1827 Capt. Burtis built the Argo in a slip on the river front near Wayne Street. This curious craft had a hull consisting of two huge logs hollowed out and held together by the deck. On it a small steam engine of four horsepower was installed. A few years later the Argo was used for transportation between Detroit and St. Clair River ports. She was so small and 'cranky" that passengers had to move about her deck with

caution.

In 1833, Oliver Newberry, who owned the largest warehouse on the lakes and was one of the pioneers of lake transportation, built, at the foot of Wayne Street, the steamer Michigan, 156 feet long, 29 feet beam, 53 feet wide over the guards, and with an II-foot hold. When built the Michigan was pronounced the largest and finest steamer on the lakes. She was propelled by twin walking-beam, low-pressure engines which were then the largest on the lakes, with a stroke of seven feet three inches and cylinders 40 inches in diameter. The Michigan made her trial trip, October 11, 1833, under command of Capt. Blake.

Steamboat navigation increased rapidly on the lakes. During May, 1836, 90 steamboats stopped at Detroit wharves. The steamer United States brought over 700 passengers from Buffalo. Competition led to a steady reduction of fares, and in 1846 a cabin passage to Buffalo commonly sold for $6. The boats engaged in racing to attract passengers, and sometimes passengers were carried for almost nothing to discourage competition. The Detroit & Cleveland Navigation Company, which now leads the world in fresh-water steamboat service, was not organized until 1850, but since 1852 it has been under practically the same ownership.

With the steady growth of Detroit in the '30's came a notable expansion of the Roman Catholic Church here. In earlier times Detroit had been virtually a part of the Diocese of Baltimore. Later it was attached to the Diocese of Bardstown, Ky., and then of Cincinnati. In 1833 the Diocese of Detroit was created and Bishop Frederick Résé was its first bishop. Previous to the organization of the First Presbyterian Church the First Protestant Society had a church building on the north side of Cadillac Square, at the northwest corner of Bates Street. This building was purchased and utilized by the second Catholic church, known as Holy Trinity, with Fr. Martin Kundig, former assistant of Ste. Anne's, as priest of the parish. The great majority of the members of Ste. Anne's Church were of French descent. The new church was established in the interest of the Irish Catholic residents, who had begun to come to Detroit in large numbers. Among the people of the town, Holy Trinity was commonly termed "the Irish church.”

Fr. Kundig was a man of German birth, powerful physique, enormous industry and inexhaustible philanthropy, to whom the City of Detroit owes a monument to commemorate his heroic public service in a time which tried men's souls. His fame began in the year 1834, when he opened Holy Trinity Church as a hospital, for it was then that the second cholera epidemic came to scourge Detroit and to terrorize the surrounding country.

The educational urge which began to be manifest in Detroit in 1817 and which immediately found expression in the founding

of the first Michigan university and the organization of the first city library, made progress in other directions. One of these was the founding of the Detroit Gazette, the first newspaper to make a long struggle for existence and to serve its purpose for a period of 17 years.

The Detroit Lyceum, a literary, scientific, patriotic and benevolent association, was organized January 14, 1818, with Judge A. B. Woodward as president; William Woodbridge and Gen. Charles Larned as vice-presidents; Geo. B. Larned, secretary, and Dr. J. L. Whiting as treasurer. It maintained a precarious existence for three years in spite of a characteristic charter drawn by the president in his most grandiloquent style.

The Detroit Mechanic's Society was organized in the tavern of Col. Richard Smyth on the west side of Woodward between Woodbridge Street and Jefferson Avenue, June 13, 1818. Four weeks later, the organization was perfected with the following officers: President, Robert Irwin; vice-president, Benjamin Stead; secretary, John P. Sheldon; treasurer, John S. Roby; stewards, Chauncey S. Payne, Paul Clapp, Charles Howard, Ebenezer Reed and Jeremiah Moors. It is quite probable that the term, "Mechanic's Society," was adopted for reasons of democracy, with the intention of uniting men of all trades and professions in a society for mutual improvement. Chauncey S. Payne was a jeweler and silversmith; John S. Roby kept an auction and commission store; Paul Clapp was a hat and cap merchant; Charles Howard was an engineer for the hydraulic company which supplied the city with water for several years. Sheldon and Reed were publishers of the Gazette. The membership included many of the leading men of all professions and trades.

The society erected a building on the site of the present McGraw Building, southwest corner of Griswold and Lafayette, the site measuring 135 by 75 feet. A two-story wooden building was built and first used in June, 1834. The society in the course of time gathered a library of 4,000 volumes. In 1876 the property was sold to Thomas McGraw for $112,500 on account of