for its troops in Detroit by lease and purchase of a plat of ground on the Mullett farm. This plat was on the south side of Gratiot Avenue, centering about Russell Street. Buildings were erected and the post was used for about 25 years.

Among the noted commandants who had charge of the barracks were Gen. Hugh Brady in 1841 and Lieut. Ulysses S. Grant in 1851. The future commander of the United States Army and President of the United States did not look like a man of destiny while in Detroit. He had served in the Mexican War, earned promotion as lieutenant by bravery at the Battle of Molino del Rey and was breveted captain after Chapultepec. On August 22, 1848, he married Julia T. Dent. On his first arrival in Detroit he lived at the National Hotel, on the site of the present First National Bank Building. Later he rented a frame cottage at 253 Fort Street East, but after living there a short time the Grants combined with Capt. Gore and wife in renting the Washington Alston Bacon house on the northeast corner of Jefferson Avenue and Russell Street. On a pane of glass in one of the bedrooms Mr. Bacon discovered the inscription: "Lieut. U. S. Grant." After Grant had become a national hero this inscription was no longer regarded as a disfigurement and when the house was torn down in 1873 Mr. Bacon carefully preserved that pane of glass.

The Grants used to attend weekly balls in the old Michigan Exchange Hotel at the southwest corner of Jefferson Avenue and Shelby Street. The captain did not dance, but stood around looking bored while other officers led Mrs. Grant through the cotillion. He was taciturn, unemotional and sometimes appeared a dull man. He hated the clerical part of his work, but when it came to drill, discipline and other strictly military duties he was remarkably efficient.

In 1841 the Government appropriated $50,000 for the erection of a fort and the site selected was in Springwells township, on the site of the camp ground used by soldiers who were mustered for the Black Hawk War in 1832. A plat of 66 acres was purchased and the fort, begun in 1843, was completed, with the usual deliberation of Government works, in 1851 at a cost of

$150,000. In 1833 a Government arsenal was built at Dearborn. The new fort was named Fort Wayne in memory of Gen. Anthony Wayne and it is still in use, but its once formidable battery was dismantled shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War.

There is reason for mutual congratulations between the Canadian and United States governments that along their border line of about 4,000 miles there is not a fortification equipped for military defense nor an armed vessel for any other purpose than police duty.

CHAPTER LXXI

PURCHASE OF THE POOR FARM

N 1839 it became apparent to citizens of Wayne County that their provisions for the care of the poor were inade

I

quate. The poor house and grounds purchased from the Leib farm at Gratiot and Mt. Elliott avenues consisted of a ramshackle building on a plat of 25 acres. More land was needed and a larger building. Land close to the city was becoming expensive so the county purchased 160 acres in Nankin township on the Chicago Road-the property now a part of the tract at Eloise-16 miles from Detroit. This was known as the Samuel Torbert farm. The owner had established on it a sort of road house known as the "Black Horse Tavern." Torbert had been ruined by wild cat money and he sold his farm for $800. An adjoining farm of 120 acres was also purchased for $800.

The Black Horse Tavern consisted of two separate log buildings which had been joined by extending the roof of each. For years it had been one of the stopping places for travelers on their two-day journey from Detroit to Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor. It had been the scene of many a carousal. With whisky selling at three cents a glass intemperance was a rule rather than an exception. The poor charges were removed from the old farm to the new in April, 1839, and for six years nothing notable was done for their comfort. In 1845 a new building was erected at a cost of $4,515. This was a three-story brick building measuring 78 by 37 feet on the ground. It was heated by rude box stoves, lighted by oil lamps and tallow candles and divided into rooms by thin partitions. The danger of destruction by fire or from collapse of its weak walls was always imminent, but a special Providence seemed to protect its inmates, until the old building was torn down in 1895. The old property on Gratiot Avenue was sold for $1,124.

The county insane asylum of today developed from a small frame building erected on the poor farm in 1841 and which was known as the "Crazy House." It was crazy enough in its construction, for it was divided into box stalls in which the more violent inmates were chained to staples in the wall and bedded down with straw, after the manner of horses and cattle. They were fed through grated windows like wild beasts, and the place was filthy beyond description. As a measure of economy, the building also was utilized as a shelter for the hogs

BLACK HORSE TAVERN, 1835-BEGINNING OF ELOISE

of the county farm. For this purpose it was erected on stilts and hogs slept beneath the ground floor and sought shelter there in bad weather. The squealing of the hogs and the wild cries of the maniacs in their stalls mingled in an outcry for humanity that fell on deaf ears for many years.

Civilization is a relative and variable thing. One must consult certain indices or barometers to determine whether its status is high or low. One index is the manner in which children are protected from corrupting influences, the children of the poor as well as the children of the more fortunate. Another index is the provision which is made for the care of the sick, the poor, the physically unfit, the mentally incompetent and

the insane.

The most civilized races of ancient times looked after all these things according to their light and the Roman Empire adopted many of their methods, but when Rome fell before the barbarian invasion, such institutions as asylums went out of existence altogether for a long time, and when they were afterward revived the asylums for the insane were institutions intended more for the protection of the public than for humane treatment of the insane.

S. M. Keenan, who has been for 30 years an attache of the Wayne County institution at Eloise, has written an intensely interesting brochure on the history of the treatment of the insane which is an admirable condensation of the best authorities on the subject. Mr. Keenan says: "To the Quakers America owes its first insane asylum, which was built in Philadelphia in 1752. The first state asylum was built in Williamsburg, Va., in 1773. The city of New York erected one in 1791 and Baltimore, Md., in 1797. But in most of the state asylums little thought was given to the welfare or comfort of the inmates, the main idea being to shut them away from the sight of men and keep them where they could harm no one but themselves."

It was the life work of Dorothea Lynde Dix, a Massachusetts philanthropist, which brought about a series of radical reforms in the care of county house prison and asylum inmates. She began her labors by making personal visits and careful investigations of many institutions all over the country. On September 28, 1860, she visited the Wayne County House and found the conditions there deplorable. Twelve insane patients were confined in small, rude cells without any sanitary conveniences, ventilation or comfort. The accumulated filth caused such a nauseating stench that the stomachs of several persons who accompanied her revolted as they fled hastily to the open air. Rev. Dr. George Duffield, who was one of the party, said afterward: "There is no horse-stall, scarcely a hog-pen, in this city which is not a luxurious parlor in comparison with the cells in which these poor creatures are confined.' Miss Dix said that while her visitations at such institutions had been many, the Wayne County institution was the worst she had yet seen.