Another device was known as the "Dutch oven." It was a covered cast-iron kettle to be set on the hob or hung on the crane for baking certain things. In Detroit most of the bread was baked in large brick or stone ovens by regular bakers. These ovens were merely huge boxes of brick which were heated by filling them with finely split "oven-wood." When the wood was burned out the inside of the oven was swept clean. The baker determined when it was hot enough by thrusting his bare arm inside. If he could hold it there until he could count more than 10 rather slowly the oven had to be fired again.

Once heated, the bread was placed inside in tiers until the oven was filled. Then the opening was tightly closed and the bread was left in all night. Things never burned in those crude ovens. Each loaf was perfectly baked. The crust was thick, hard and brown and the inside of the loaf was wonderfully sweet and fragrant. The end crusts were always given to the children, who were assured that they were good for their teeth. It is probable that ever since Cain and Abel were little fellows children have been forced to eat things that were "good for them" rather than the things they preferred.

Stove manufacture was begun in Detroit some time during the 1830's. By that time Troy and Albany, N. Y., had become the centers of stove manufacture. When a stove in Detroit would crack or become broken the owners did not care to wait until a new part could be shipped from the East, so the Hydraulic Iron Works in Detroit began to make stove castings. and to repair stoves. From this work they gradually began stove manufacture as a side line.

Jeremiah Dwyer engaged as an apprentice in this foundry and learned the trade of a molder. He had come to Detroit with his parents from Brooklyn, N. Y. His father bought a small farm in Springwells when Jeremiah was only a year old. When the boy was 11 years old his father was killed by a runaway team of horses that became frightened by a passing train of cars on the Michigan Central Railroad. This compelled Jeremiah Dwyer to seek employment at an early age.

In 1849, while working on stove repairs at the Hydraulic Iron Works, he decided to attempt stove manufacturing on his own account as soon as he was able. He went to Albany and worked in stove works there to learn what he could about the business. On his return to Detroit he worked for the D. & M. Railway for a year and then became foreman in a foundry. Soon after a reaper and stove factory was started at Mt. Elliott and Wight streets by Ganson & Mizner. The business. was not profitable and Mr. Dwyer and his brother, James Dwyer, and Thomas W. Mizner entered into partnership under the firm name of J. Dwyer & Company, in 1861. The reaper business was discontinued and attention was concentrated upon stove manufacture.

In 1864 W. H. Tefft and Merrill I. Mills bought an interest and added new capital and the firm name was changed to the Detroit Stove Works.

This venture proved so profitable that in 1871 Jeremiah Dwyer combined with C. A. Ducharme, George H. Barbour and others for the founding of the Michigan Stove Company, and in 1881 James Dwyer organized the Peninsular Stove Company. These three firms prospered greatly and presently Detroit became the largest stove-producing center in the country and therefore in the world. For several years the stove industry was regarded as of the first importance in Detroit manufacturing.

Five companies are now engaged in stove manufacture, the Michigan Stove Company, the Detroit Stove Works, the Peninsular Stove Company, the Detroit Vapor Stove Company, and the Art Stove Company. Their products cover a wide range of utilities as they include cooking stoves and ranges, parlor and heating stoves, gas ranges and heaters, electric ranges and heaters, and furnaces for general heating. Their combined annual output is about 600,000 articles and the variety of output is suggested when it is said that one concern produces more than 400 models. Their plants cover an area of more than 40 acres of ground and more than 5,000 men are employed in the industry.

The Peninsular Stove Company was incorporated March 23, 1881, the Art Stove Company in 1888 and the Detroit Vapor Stove Company in 1894.

The first stoves were sold in Detroit much as vacuum cleaners and sewing machines are commonly sold, by a house to house solicitation.

The Dwyers were the first to introduce engineering principles into the foundry business. Before their time little attention. was paid to expert combinations of different irons to insure a metal which would flow well in the mold and make perfect plate castings. William H. Keep was the first mechanical engineer employed in foundry work in the state and it was through his experiments in iron mixtures that the southern ores were utilized for such mixtures.

CHAPTER LXXXVI

EARLY HOSPITALS AND THE Y. M. C. A.

HETHER the City of Detroit was slow in realizing the necessity for hospitals does not appear in the records, but it was very slow in providing them at public expense. For many years the city was dependent upon private and institutional charity for hospital foundations. St. Vincent's Hospital was the first established in the city and its promoters were the Sisters of Charity. It was first opened June 9, 1845, in an old log building at the southwest corner of Larned and Randolph streets, which had been used as a school by the Sisters of St. Clare in 1833. Five years later the Sisters erected a building on Clinton Street near St. Antoine and the name was changed to St. Mary's. St. Mary's was at first financed by popular subscription and was not then regarded as a Catholic institution. It cared for cholera victims in 1849. The St. Mary's Hospital of the present time was opened November 21, 1879.

In 1832 Walter Harper came to Detroit from Philadelphia and purchased nearly 1,000 acres of land in several different locations about Detroit. With him came Ann Martin, who had been his housekeeper in Philadelphia and so continued for many years. They lived in obscurity in Detroit. Mrs. Martin, commonly known as "Nancy," kept a stall in the public market for years and was one of the characters of the town-a rather hard-featured woman who could hold her own in exchanging jibes and jokes with the other denizens of the market, but a very thrifty and charitable woman. In the course of time she invested her savings in land until she had a five-acre plat where Harper Hospital now stands and which is now traversed by Martin Place. She also had 15 acres purchased out of the 10,000acre tract given to the city by the Government for the building of a courthouse.

In 1859 Mr. Harper and Mrs. Martin felt that they were growing old and that they were virtually strangers in Detroit despite their long residence. They wanted to devote their property to charitable uses and at the same time provide for care of themselves in their old age. Mr. Harper offered all his Michigan property to the City of Detroit to be utilized for the founding of a hospital and a school for poor boys. He also deeded to trustees appointed by Dr. George Duffield of the First Presbyterian Church, three houses that he still owned in Philadelphia. These properties were valued at the time at

$30,000. The stipulation was that he should be paid $2,000 a year, one-half of which would be used toward the discharge of a mortgage of $8,500 until it was cleared. In 1864 he voluntarily reduced the annuity to $600 a year.

Mrs. Martin followed his example by offering her lands in consideration for which the city was to build her a small cottage and pay her an annuity of $600 a year. A cottage was built for the pair on Mrs. Martin's five-acre plat at a cost of $450, but it was afterward moved to another site, where the two donors lived until Mr. Harper died in 1867. After that Mrs. Martin lived in Harper Hospital to the end of her days.

During the Civil War many wounded and invalid soldiers were sent to Detroit to relieve the Government hospitals. Nine cheap frame buildings were erected on a plat leased by the