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Detroit 1820 BY EPHRAIM S. WILLIAMS
It was a plain two story frame, 40 by 80 feet, not built for the purpose, and having a convenient grocery in the first story, with outside stairs leading to the school room in the second. The house was erected on piles, upon the primitive river bank, a site now just east of the old Board of Trade building, on Woodbridge street. Passing along that street to the corner of Wayne, we are upon ground where once were the waters spanned by the narrow plank road or causeway leading out to the first dock pushed from the adjacent shore into the Detroit—a small and very simple affair, on light piles, and composed of timber, logs, and loose stones. With the increase of commerce and the advent of steamers, new and more substantial wharves were constructed, and this was suffered to fall into decay. The space it occupied, and more in the vicinity, was transformed into "made ground" many years ago by the enormous filling of 25, 000 cubic yards of earth.
In the new volume of Mr. Parkman, "Montcalm and Wolfe, " an extract is made from the narrative of Father Bonnecamp, chaplain to the expedition of Celoron to the valley of the Ohio in 1751. He was here for a day, on his return from the expedition, and records that "the situation is charming. A fine river 'flows at the foot of the fortifications, " which, as we have seen, extended but little below Woodbridge. From this point, or a few rods beyond, the river trenched rapidly upon the present shore, forming the beautiful bay mentioned in our first number, which was skirted by a high bank. At First and Second streets the waters encroached upon the line of Jefferson avenue; and north of it, in a superb site upon the bank, stood the old Cadillac or Cass house, destroyed in 1882, which had to be moved but a short distance to reach its final resting place on Larned street.
Detroit Michigan
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