hold to one another, and the other parts of the peninsula; consequently St. Clair has been represented a swamp, a sink of pestilential vapors breeding disease. and death." But apparently the St. Clair region felt with the rest of the Territory the common impulse to settlement that came with the first land sales, the opening of the Erie Canal, and the era of speculation in the early thirties. The platting of the "Town of St. Clair" in 1818 has been noted. The first report in the Gazette of an exploration into the interior back from the St. Clair River, in 1822, was very favorable to settlement,258 and just after the opening of the Erie Canal there appeared a second favorable description.259 Others followed in 1831-32. These were written obviously by persons desiring to promote the settlement of the county, yet they did not overdraw its advantages. 260 The advantages for shipbuilding and pine lumbering were specially dwelt upon. The growth of lake commerce and the approaching completion of the Erie Canal stimulated interest in these industries. As above noted, boats were being built at the sites of Marine City and St. Clair in the early twenties, as also at the upper end of the St. Clair near Lake Huron. "Boats, calculated to pass through the lakes St. Clair and Erie, and the New York Canal are now building 258. Gazette, September 6, 1822. It reports a rich soil, an undulating surface, pure streams of water, mill sites rich in timber, and less waste land than elsewhere. Ibid., July 18 and August 1. 259 near the foot of Lake Huron," says the Gazette 261 in 1824, "for the purpose of taking cargoes of produce to the city of New York." According to "Philo Veritas" above quoted, St. Clair County furnished by 1831 almost all the pine lumber (spars, boards, shingles, etc.) used in the eastern part of Michigan and in the northern part of Ohio.262 Settlement was somewhat aided by the Government's interest in Fort Gratiot 263 at the upper end of the St. Clair River, which drew the military road northward from Detroit through the sites available for settlement along the river; but it was long before this route was much more than a rude wagon road.264 From 1834 to 1837 the population of the county grew from about two thousand to six thousand.265 The central physiographic influences which affected settlement in the interior immediately south of the St. Clair country were the Clinton River, the presence of the village of Mt. Clemens as a supporting basis from which settlement might radiate, and the openings, 261. Gazette, July 16, 1824. For early shipbuilding in St. Clair County see Jenks, History of St. Clair County, I, 403, et seq. 262. Detroit Journal and Michigan Advertiser, May 4, 1831. Nine sawmills were reported running on Black and Belle rivers. 263. See description of the advantages of Fort Gratiot for a military post in the Gazette for August 29, 1826. Fort Gratiot was established near the close of the War of 1812 on the site of an early French fort. (St. Joseph, abandoned 1688). See also Jenks, History of St. Clair County, I, 95 and 262, et seq. 264. See Jenks, History of St. Clair County, I, 384, et seq. 265. Blois, Gazetteer, 151; Michigan Legislative Manual (1838), 73. The effect of the panic of 1837 is seen in a decrease of population to 4,606 in 1840. U. S. Census (1840), 447. plains and prairies in the western portion of Macomb County. The strong current of the Clinton furnished. adequate power for mills, and the openness of the country in the upper course of the river gave good promise of quick returns in farm, stock and dairy produce. Settlers found their chief market, shipping point and source of supplies in Mt. Clemens, but in the western part of the county, in the days before mills, settlers at Romeo and Utica usually went for grist to Rochester and Pontiac. Timber abounded in all parts of the county. In the northeastern portion, a region destined to be the supply center for the future shipbuilding of Mt. Clemens, the comparative density of timber made settlement slow. Land-buying took place in the interior of Macomb county about as early and energetically as in either Wayne or Monroe counties. By 1821 land had been bought in all of the western townships excepting Warren, 266 where no purchases were made until 1830. Buyers specially favored the southern part of Washington Township. About 1830 sales became rapid in the extreme northwest and apparently many of the purchasers became actual settlers. Twenty-four purchases were made that year in the present Bruce Township, but no purchases were made in the northeast of the county until after 1830. The lands of this county seem to have suffered from the same misrepresentations that were noted above of St. Clair 266. History of Macomb County (1882), 470-471; Mich. Hist. Colls., XXVI, 548; XXVIII, 423. The Gazette observes, November 1, 1825, that though Macomb County is not settling as fast as Oakland and Washtenaw, "it will have its turn." County. According to a writer in a Detroit paper, because of "local jealousies and a narrow-minded policy pursued by interested speculators and their numerous agents" Macomb County had been more grossly misrepresented than any other section of the Territory. 267 The date 1830 marks about the beginning of active settlement in the interior of Macomb County. In agreement with this date is the evidence of township organization as to the massing of population at this time in the western part of the county.268 Apparently this is the meaning of the longer north and south axes of the townships there, which comports with the fact that the largest township in the county remained in the center undivided until 1834.269 The comparative openness of the west is probably reflected in the fact that the northwestern townships received in 1833 the areas they have today, 270 while the northeastern townships remained relatively large. 271 The relative backwardness of settlement in the central and southern parts of the county are shown by the censuses of 1830 and 1837. At each date the bulk of the population appears in the west, away from the shore, although by 1837 the figures show the influence of the Clinton River in massing population along its course. In 1837 the 267. Detroit Journal and Michigan Advertiser, June 8, 1831. In the Gazette for October 11, 1822, appears a vigorous denial that sickness was prevalent in Macomb County. Territorial Laws, II, 478. 268. 269. Ibid., III, 1275. 270. Ibid., III, 985. See the Detroit Journal and Michigan Advertiser, June 8, 1832, for a description of settlement in the county in that year. 271. Ibid., III, 1124, 1275. western range of townships stood to the eastern in population as 3 to 1.272 From 1830 to 1834 the population of the county increased from about 2,500273 to about 6,000,274 and in the following three years the total ran nearly to 9,000.275 This is evidence of fairly steady growth. 276 Centers of population were developed in Macomb County at Romeo and Utica. It is probable that some slight beginnings of the trading post nature were made at these sites as early as 1817. Romeo had a good situation for the trader, being a point where numerous trails crossed and where the Indians had a village; 277 the village of Romeo is typical of that class of settlements in which the Indian village and the French trader marked out a site of promise. Its immediate antecedent was the "Hoxey settlement," a name acquired from one of Governor Cass' employees, a Canadian lumberman who settled there with his family about 1822. This settlement was brought to public attention before 1830 both by the Detroit press and by notice on Risdon's map of 1825.278 The Gazette noticed the environment favorably in 1824 and again 272. In 1850 the proportion was 2 to 1, and in 1860 as 1 to 1, showing the gradual filling in at the east. 273. U. S. Census (1830), 153. 275. Michigan Legislative Manual (1838), 72. 276. One new township was organized in 1835. Territorial Laws, III, 1368; and three in 1837 in the south and northeast, Session Laws (1837), 41, 140. 277. 278. The first name of the postoffice at Romeo was “Indian Village." Detroit Journal and Michigan Advertiser, January 5, 1831. The Risdon map shows Tremble's sawmill just above a small branch of the Clinton. |