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MICHIGAN, MY MICHIGAN MAJ. W. C. RANSOM, 1871
It was the fortune of him who addresses you, to become a citizen of Michigan at an early period of her history. More than thirty-six years have passed since, when a mere lad from the green hills of Vermont, after a fortnight's startling experience on the uncertain depths of the great Erie ditch and the nauseating white caps of the blue Erie, I landed in the city of Detroit. It was then a mere outpost of scarcely more than a thousand souls. A mongrel population of whites, half-breeds, Indians, Canucks, and dogs, composed the staple of the community, while the trappers and voyagers from the distant Mackinac, in their gay, half-savage attire, added additional novelty to the appearance of the strange crowd that concentrated in that frontier town. Its rude attractions did not delay us long, and in a few hours we had rolled out as far as Ten Eyck's old stand, near Dearborn, at that time a noted hostelry, situated on the last dry ground that cheered the traveler-on his way from Detroit west, to Ypsilanti. At least, so it was said; but it is recollected as a general rule, the weary traveler was more dry when he reached that hospitable inn than when he took his departure. Ten Eyck's old stand afterwards became the Tammany of Michigan. It was the headquarters of the Wayne county democracy, and Wayne county and Detroit nurtured the regency that shaped the politics of the State. Here it was that the Baggs, with Coon [Conrad] Ten Eyck, Kintzing Pritchett, Theodore Romeyn, and a score of others not less famous in the early politics of Michigan, fixed up the slate for the next campaign, and rarely was it the case that their figures varied much from the actual result. As before stated, emerging from the interminable forest that stretched out westward from the straits, we came upon the classic named hamlet of Ypsilanti. Whence the town took its name J never knew, for there was certainly nothing Grecian in its appearance when I first looked upon its unfinished proportions; and, though I confess to have had a considerable weakness for the goddesses that ministered at its altars in after years,
MY MICHIGAN
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