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DETROIT IN 1838 BY HENRY A. FORD
The next day they crossed in a canoe, and "came at once to Detroit, after we had first passed through the settlement this side of the city, which is thinly settled, and is built like a village along the river. " They were at first rather cavalierly received by De Peyster, but after considerable detention and much questioning, were fairly vindicated, when his demeanor changed, they were kindly treated and allowed to return to their Indians on the Sandusky. Zeisberger's diary, however, does not quite bear out the tale usually told of absolutely cruel and oppressive treatment accorded them there. He speaks always well of De Peyster, to whom the mission on the Clinton was afterwards much indebted. His notes of the visit and of a brief residence here the next year, awaiting the arrival of the Christian Indians, include many interesting memoranda, of the Detroit of more than a century ago. A minor problem of local history is solved by his mention of "Yankee hall, " a building near the fort, so called from the occupation by the American prisoners brought in by the Indians. This has heretofore been known in our local literature only by' the corrupted name of "Jakey hall. " Mention is made of "the palisades in the shipyard, " which lay near the foot of Woodward avenue. Long afterwards, upon a Lake Erie island, Zeisberger observed "much red cedar timber, " quantities of which were taken to Detroit for ship building. The "upper end of Germantown, " a locality; in or near Detroit, not yet identified, was the scene of the baptism of four children by the missionary,
DETROIT MICHIGAN
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