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Michigan Select Michigan Counties
The Detroit Courier introduces the railroad letter of Mr. Wilder in these words: "The attention of the citizens of Michigan has been strongly invited to an immediate consideration of the important subject, and in view of which, and of the great interests connected with it, we are at a loss to account for the singular lethargy which prevails among our merchants who are, in every other commendable enterprise, not wanting in energy and perseverance." The whole article of Mr. Wilder is every way worthy of the man and the subject, but a single extract will suffice for the object had in view in this paper: " If a railroad was constructed leading from Detroit to the mouth of the St. Joseph river, running through the fertile counties of Wayne, Washtenaw, Jackson, Calhoun, Kalamazoo, Van Buren and Berrien, a distance of about 175 miles, it would pass through the very pith and marrow of the territory with rich counties lying north and south of this line, to which branches would naturally extend. What, think you, would be the result of such an artery through the territory ? I hesitate not to say the result would be beyond the present calculations of any man unacquainted with the natural resources of the interior. The region through which the road would pass is not like the heavy timbered land of western New York, where it wears out one generation of men in subduing the forest. On the contrary, almost every farm is ready for fencing and tillage-it invites the plow at once, and the justly celebrated Genesee Valley must yield the palm to this region as a wheat producing country both in quantity and quality."
Michigan Counties
Page 64
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