W. P. Strickland

“ The most striking feature with regard to Detroit, in a commercial point of view, is her admirable location, which constitutes her the metropolis of a vast region, than which no city off the seaboard can boast one equally grand or important. The region embraces a circuit of some three thousand miles, composed of land and water, which both seem to vie with each other in contributing to the material prosperity of our city, while every interest involved is benefited in some degree by her. ”

“ This new city is to bear the name of the ancient fort and strait, and to be called Mackinaw. It will hold the key of all the northern lakes; and should its growth be marked by energy and enterprise, will command the trade of the greatest mining region in the world; be the chief depot of the northern fisheries; the outlet of an immense lumber trade; and the focus of a great network of railways, communicating with tropics on the south, and stretching out its iron arms, at no distant day, to the Atlantic on the east, and Pacific on the west. ”

“ Standing on a gentle hill, the eye wanders away for miles over an undulating surface, obstructed only by the trunks of lofty trees,—above you a green canopy, and beneath, a carpet of velvet grass, sprinkled with flowers of every hue and form.
"The prairies are another interesting feature of Michigan scenery. They meet the traveler at every point, and of many sizes, seeming often like so many lakes, being often studded with wooded islands, and surrounded by shores of forests. This soil is a deep black sand. Grass is their natural production, although corn, oats and potatoes flourish upon them. ”

“ It is the grand reservoir from whence proceed the waters of Michigan, Huron, and Erie. It gives birth to Niagara, the wonder of the world, fills the basin of Ontario, and rolls a mighty flood down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic.
This lake lies in the bosom of a mountainous region, where the Indian yet reigns and roams in his wonted freedom. Except an occasional picketed fort or trading house, it is yet a perfect wilderness. The entire country is rocky and covered with a stunted growth of vegetation such as is usual in high latitudes. ”

“ This Island which rises like a gem on the brow of the lakes, is favored by the clearest and most healthful atmosphere, and washed by the purest and most transparent water in the world, imparting the most pleasurable sensations imaginable. When this enchanting region shall become fully known, Saratoga, Cape May, and Mount Washington will be forgotten by those who fly from the heat and dust of our inland cities, to breathe a pure air and drink health-giving waters. ”

“ It must be seen at a glance that, as all the produce which flows through Chicago, Milwaukee, and the great West must sweep by on its way to the East, and all the goods and merchandise of the East, must be borne by its wharves on their way to the West, that it cannot fail to be a point which must spring at once into importance. The government, too, must have a fort, a light-house, and customhouse there, which with the fisheries, must supply a large profitable business to its earlier population. ”

“ Take the State Iowa alone. If every quarter section were to be enclosed with a common post and board fence, it would take every foot of pine on the soil of Michigan! Leave out of sight the great Territory of Minnesota, which can find but a mere drop of supply from the pineries of the Upper Mississippi. Leave out of sight the great State of Illinois, which depends upon us wholly. Forget entirely that villages are springing up like magic all along the lines of a dozen railroads running from Lake Michigan to the Mississippi ”

“ The State of Michigan is the greatest lumber-growing region in the world, not only on account of its interminable forests of the choicest pine, but in the remarkable facilities for getting it to market. With a lake coast, on the lower peninsula alone, of over one thousand miles—with numberless watercourses debouching at convenient distances into her vast inland seas—she enjoys advantages which mighty empires might envy. ”

“ The historian, James H. Lanning, Esq., of this State, thus writes, in alluding to the olden times: 'The streams rolled their liquid silver to the lake, broken only by the fish that flashed in their current, or the swan that floated upon their surface. Vegetation flourished alone. Roses bloomed and died, only to be trampled by the deer or savage; and strawberries studded the ground like rubies, where the green and sunny hillsides reposed amid the silence, like sleeping infants in the lap of the forest. The rattlesnake glided undisturbed through its prairies ”

“ In the face of these facts, how can intelligent men continue to hold the opinion that New York is to continue long to be, as now, the focal point of North American commerce and influence? Yet well informed men do continue to express the opinion that New York will ever hold the position of the chief city of the continent. Every one at all familiar with the location and movement of our population, knows that the central point of its numbers is moving in a constant and almost unvarying direction west by north. ”

“ Thus at least one important advantage to the West is already apparent, growing out of the comprehensive action of the Grand Trunk managers, while the action of the New York Central is the sure precursor of a momentous era in railroad annals. The present year is likely to witness the first battle in a war for the European and domestic trade of the West, that may in the end turn the entire current into other channels. It will be a strife of giants, and the prize the most magnificent ever battled for, either in the tented field or in the nobler contests of nations for commercial supremacy. ”

“ From coast to coast and isle to isle of this immense expanse of waters, navigation must be kept up, increasing with the ever-increasing population on their shores till tens of millions are congregated around. Of all this vast navigation and increasing commerce, Mackinaw is the natural centre around which it exists, and toward which it must tend by an inevitable law of necessity. Superior, Huron, and Michigan have no water outlet to each other but that which flows through the Straits of Mackinaw, and its geographical position is unrivaled in America. ”

“ The snail-like progress hitherto made in the settlement of a large share of the State, is an enigma to those not versed in our early history. While occupying the position of a dependent of the central power at Washington, we were so unfortunate in some instances as to have men placed over us with whom personal interests were paramount to the great interests of the territory, which, at the critical period when the seeds of prosperity should have been planted, was fatal to our advancement. ”

“ On the contrary, the lake rises under the heaviest rains but little, and breaks its waves on a dry shore rising gradually far above its level. There is no better natural site for the foundation of a city in the world, nor one possessing more inviting or beautiful surroundings, and when we consider its available resources, it is evident that nothing can prevent its rise and progress. The straits are so completely the key of the Upper Lakes, Mackinaw must, as in the days of the fur trade, unlock the vast treasures of the entire northwest. ”

“ Of the great elements of civic success, we consider manufactures the most important; but, to make a city of the first magnitude, it is obviously necessary to have all the resources of food, industry and commerce. Chicago is remarkable chiefly as a grain city—like Odessa, on the Baltic. But, whence is the grain derived? By the construction of railroads, at that point, from Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Wisconsin and Iowa, the whole mass of surplus grain in that (p. 223) region—amounting to more than twenty millions of bushels per annum—has been exported from Chicago. ”

“ Such indications of thrift, enterprise, and prosperity in a region that twenty-four years ago was a howling wilderness, it may be safely said, is without a parallel. The other counties, we are tolerably safe in estimating, will swell the amount to $10,000,000, making, with the lumber manufactories, and the $2,148,500, invested in the iron manufacture, more than twenty million dollars!
The apathy of the citizens of Detroit in availing themselves of the magnificent advantages possessed by the city for prosecuting manufacturing upon an extensive scale, is wholly inexplicable. ”

“ If we suppose our foreign commerce equal to one fifteenth of the domestic, we should add to the thirty-three millions of the States and Canadas, upward of two millions of foreigners, to represent our foreign commerce. These should be thrown into the scale represented by New York. This, with the larger proportion to population of industrial power remaining in the old States, would render it certain that the centre of industrial power of our nation has not traveled westward so far as to endanger, for the present, the supremacy of the cities central to the commerce of our Atlantic coast. ”

“ Michigan is greatly undervalued because greatly unknown. The tide of emigration sweeps past us to Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota, because the public do not know—what is but the sober truth—that Michigan possesses advantages unrivaled by any sister State in the Northwest, and an undeveloped wealth that will far exceed any one of those named. ”

“ He does not steer toward it, for at that day the Indians were its only tenants, but keeps along the main shore to the left, while his voyagers raise their song and chorus. Doubling a point he sees before him the red flag of England swelling lazily in the wind, and the palisades and wooden bastions of Fort Mackinaw standing close upon the margin of the lake. On the beach canoes are drawn up, and Canadians and Indians are idly lounging. A little beyond the fort is a cluster of white Canadian houses roofed with bark and protected by fences of strong round pickets. ”

“ It is a matter of surprise, that so far as we know, none of our artists, have visited this region, and given to the world representations of scenery, so striking and so different from any which can be found elsewhere. We can hardly conceive of any thing more worthy of the artist's pencil, and if the tide of pleasure-travel should once be turned in this direction, it seems not unreasonable to suppose, that a fashionable hotel may yet be built under the shade of the pine groves near the chapel, and a trip thither become as common as one to Niagara now is. ”

“ Those seeking homes in the West have only to be made aware of the unequaled inducements presented by (p. 305) our State, to secure immense accessions to our population.
Detroit does not alone reap the benefit of her advantageous position. It is shared by all interests, but perhaps by none others to so great an extent as the tillers of the soil. It is a most significant fact that breadstuffs and provisions not unfrequently bring as high prices here as in New York, giving producers all the advantages at home of a seaboard market, and virtually putting the cost of shipment into their pockets. ”

“ After the timber shall have been removed in obedience to the pressing demands of a cash market and high prices, the value of northern Michigan will just begin to be developed. The soil possesses riches of which the heavy growth of timber is the outcropping. Rich as any prairie land, even more substantial in the elements of fertility, with a genial climate, southern Michigan, itself a garden, we predict will have to yield the palm of productive wealth to this portion of the State. ”

“ A traveler in 1854, thus describes this interesting locality, "Everything on the island is a curiosity, the roads or streets that wind around the harbor or among the grove-like forests of the island, are naturally pebbled and macadamized, the buildings are of every style, from an Indian lodge to an English house, the island is covered with charming natural scenery, from the beautiful to the grand, and one may spend weeks constantly finding new objects of interest, and new scenes of beauty. ”

“ George — Point de Tour — Lake Michigan — Points of interest — Chicago.
A trip to the northern lakes, for variety and beauty of scenery to such as are seeking enjoyment and pleasure, possesses advantages over every other route of travel in the United States, and with the exception of the works of art and the classical associations of the old world, is unsurpassed by any on the globe. To such as are in quest of health, no comparison can be instituted, as it has been demonstrated that the Northwest, especially in the region of the lakes, possesses the most invigorating climate in the world. ”

“ As our numbers have swelled, since we became a nation, from three and a half millions to thirty millions, so New York, including Brooklyn and other suburbs, has increased in population and wealth still more rapidly, to wit, from twenty-five thousand to more than one million. While the nation has increased less than tenfold, New York has grown more than four times tenfold. In 1790 the city of New York contained thirty-three thousand, and the State of New York three hundred and forty thousand—the city having less than one-tenth of the people of the State. ”

“ Our farmers have unmistakably indicated their determination to accept of no secondary position in the quality of their wheat, and their wool is not only rapidly gaining the first rank as respect the amount produced, but is sought for with avidity for its superior quality by all the principal manufacturers of the country. Pomona, too, has thrown her influence in the scale. The region that has thus far been devoted to the culture of fruit, in proportion to its extent, cannot be surpassed in the Union, if indeed it can be equaled. ”

“ With regard to the extent and diversity of her natural resources, it would indeed seem difficult to over-estimate them. Predictions that seem visionary to-day, are to-morrow exceeded by the reality, as some new treasure is revealed. A glance at the map is of itself the most eloquent commentary that could be presented with reference to her geographical position. As nature does nothing in vain, the shipping facilities afforded by the noble inland seas that clasp our shores, are a sign and promise of the commercial greatness that awaits us in the future. ”

“ We know of no similar extent of country on the globe so highly favored by nature as our own State, which but twenty-three years since emerged from the chrysalis condition of a territory, but which to day, by the quickening influence brought to bear upon her natural advantages by an enterprising and enlightened people, possesses elements of wealth and greatness that might well be coveted by empires. ”

“ But commerce, we concede, when left to itself, is so fluctuating, that the cities it builds, like Tyre and Palmyra, may, in the decay of commerce, be left to ruin and desolation. Cities may, likewise, be built up almost exclusively on manufactures, such as Birmingham and Sheffield; and it is quite remarkable that the oldest and most stable cities have depended largely on manufactures. Damascus, the oldest historical city—which has resisted all the destructive influences of time and revolution—has always been a manufacturing town. ”