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DETROIT IN 1838 BY HENRY A. FORD
It was making rapid progress, however, and the legislature, which was then charged with such business, had provided at its last session for the erection of seventy two townships. The population, at the close of 1837, numbered 175, 000 (besides 7, 914 Indians), against 87, 278 in 1834 and 32, 538 in 1830. There were but two chartered cities—Detroit and Monroe—and twenty three incorporated villages. Of the 56, 451 square miles of territory only 25, 636 had been surveyed, and the Indian title to at least two thirds of the upper peninsula had not yet been extinguished. The northern part of that region was still sometimes called "the Siberia of Michigan. " But in that and other portions of the state a geological survey under the lamented Dr. Douglass Houghton was progressing with excellent results, under an appropriation for three years of $12, 000 per annum. The public lands were being sold at government offices in Detroit, Monroe, Kalamazoo, Flint and Ionia. The era of wild speculation was not yet over, and under the new banking, law of the state forty five wildcat banks had been started between Aug. 15, 1837, and April 3, 1838, when an alarmed legislature put a stop to inflation of this kind., Fifteen banks were already existing under older laws, and altogether had a nominal capital of more than $10, 000, 000. Twenty four railroads, with a total length of 1, 011 miles, had received special charters, and three or four others, aggregating 591 miles, were provided for under the internal improvement system of the state, which likewise contemplated several canals and sundry river improvements. Five state roads or turnpikes had been made, all pushing-out from Detroit, and one of them, the Chicago road, being 254 miles long.
DETROIT MICHIGAN
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