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Detroit 1820 BY EPHRAIM S. WILLIAMS
Looking down to the northwest corner of Woodbridge and Randolph, we see another of the old time hotel sites,, where Woodworth kept an inn as far back as 1812, and where his famous Steamboat hotel long flourished. At the foot of Randolph were the original city water works, on the Berthelet wharf, with the reservoir in rear of the Fireman's hall. The last relics of the latter water works, with the well remembered round tower, have but lately disappeared from the foot of Orleans.
" At or near Brush street ran the east front of Hull's stockade, with a gate and block house here. The old church at the corner of Beaubien, occupied as a carriage factory and warehouse, was the First Congregational, built in 1845. Next beyond St. Antoine, on the south side, is a noticeable row of old
dwellings, dating back to the 30's and 40's. A number of venerable mansions remain on the avenue, though most of them are much changed by modern reconstructions. The oldest are probably the Trowbridge house, at No. 494, built about 1826, and the Brush homestead at 462, put up in '28, and reconstructed in 'TO. Part of the Van Dyke house, at No. 308, was built in 1836; and the Moran residence, 393, is also an old one. But would you see the older Moran home, the most venerable building in Michigan? Drop down from Jefferson on Hastings one short square, turn to the right a few steps, and there, at No. 182 and 184 Woodbridge east, half hidden behind a wilderness of weeds and with one or two of the ancient pear trees still towering above it, is the ruinous old building of 1734, wherein the late Judge Charles
Moran was born.
Detroit Michigan
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