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Detroit 1820 BY EPHRAIM S. WILLIAMS
This brook—for it should hardly be dignified as a river—took its rise several blocks east of Woodward avenue in a willow swamp on the Guoin farm, near the present meeting of Riopelle and East Congress streets., It flowed in an irregular course near the line of Fort street east, crossed Woodward avenue at Congress, where it was spanned by a rude wooden bridge, and thence ran in general parallelism to the Detroit, which it entered at about Fourth and Woodbridge, in a bay which then
stretched along the fronts of several of the old farms. It was bordered by rather narrow belts of low, marshy ground, upon one of which, the southern, the post office now stands. Within a little distance to the west and south, on the higher bank back of the pickets of the old fort, stood a lofty oak whose hollow trunk held an image of the Virgin, and which was said to mark the spot where Father Constantin del Halle, founder of the church of Ste. Anne perished during an Indian attack in 1705. So the legend goes at least.
Setting our faces toward the river, and walking down to the corner of Griswold and Jefferson, we are directly upon the primitive French settlement about Fort Pontchartrain. In a little cove at the foot of Griswold, Cadillac landed with his queerly costumed band of soldiers and colonists, July 24, 1701. The hamlet he commenced was built upon the contracted plan of old world towns, so that within the 120 feet that measure the breadth of Jefferson avenue were comprised two French streets and the little blocks of dwellings between them.
Detroit Michigan
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