tion; these were Wayne, Monroe and Macomb. In 1821 the remaining shore county of St. Clair was organized; and in the preceding year similar attention was given Oakland, the first inland county. The organizing of Washtenaw and Lenawee counties in 1826 showed an extension of settlement along the Chicago Road, and in 1829-31 a further extension is indicated in the prairie region of the southwest by the organization of St. Joseph, Cass, Berrien and Kalamazoo counties. Jackson and Calhoun counties on the Territorial Road, and Branch on the Chicago Road, were organized in 1832-33. This included all of the two lower tiers of counties excepting Van Buren and Hillsdale. No counties were organized before 1835 in either the Grand or Saginaw valleys, though a few settlements had been made there; the rapid growth in 1835-37 is indicated by the organizing of all of the present counties in those regions.

The direction of settlement is seen to have been from the eastern shore along the larger rivers and roads inland to the southeastern divide, moving further west first along the Chicago Road, then along the Territorial Road. In the southwest the organizing of Kalamazoo before Jackson and Calhoun counties suggests another influence, which is found in the projection of settlement from Ohio and Indiana across Cass and St. Joseph to the Kalamazoo prairies. The backwardness of Branch and Hillsdale counties appears to have been due mainly to their dense forests. and to the attraction of the more desirable prairie lands westward.

The comparative growth of the several sections in population was about such as these facts would suggest. At the end of 1834 the counties east of the dividing ridge were far ahead of those west of it, with a population nearly five times as large. The section having the most people was that comprising the first inland counties-Oakland, Washtenaw and Lenaweewhich exceeded the population of the shore counties by a few thousand. The counties along the Chicago Road west of Lenawee County exceeded the population of those on the Territorial Road west of Washtenaw by about a third. The Grand and Saginaw valleys had but a few hundred settlers. Of all the counties, Wayne took the lead, having within a few hundred as many people as the whole of the Territory west of the dividing ridge; but a large part of this was urban population; Detroit had nearly five thousand people. In rural population the leadership went to Washtenaw; Oakland County, despite its earlier start and larger area, was not, like Washtenaw, on the main line of immigration in this period. On the Chicago Road, in the St. Joseph Valley, the leading county was Cass, closely followed by St. Joseph; on the Territorial Road, Kalamazoo County had much more than double the population of any other county west of Washtenaw. Cass, St. Joseph and Kalamazoo counties had each slightly above three thousand people; Berrien, Calhoun and Jackson had each a few hundred less than two thousand; Branch and Hillsdale counties together barely exceeded a thousand.

By 1837, owing to the advance of immigration to the interior, notable changes had taken place in the

relative proportions of population in all sections.

The total population of Michigan was then about 175,000, of which considerably over a third was west of the dividing ridge in the valleys of the St. Joseph, the Kalamazoo, the Grand and the Saginaw rivers. A similar proportion was contained in counties above the northern boundaries of Wayne and Kalamazoo; that is, above the two southern tiers. The center of population was in the vicinity of Washtenaw.

Comparing sections, the four eastern shore counties about equaled, within a few thousand, the population of the first three inland counties of Oakland, Washtenaw and Lenawee; and the counties of the St. Joseph Valley on the Chicago Road had about a third more people than those in the Kalamazoo Valley on the Territorial Road. In the Grand River region, with nearly double the area of the Kalamazoo Valley, there was about a third as many settlers as in that section; while northeast, in the Saginaw country, in a much smaller area (including Livingston County) there was about one-half again as many settlers as in the Grand River region.

The population of the Grand and Saginaw valleys together about equalled the population of the single county of Oakland, or Washtenaw, or Wayne. These were the three most populous counties, containing each a few over twenty thousand people, with Wayne slightly in the lead owing to the population of Detroit.

A contrast worthy of note was presented by the three first inland counties-Oakland, Washtenaw and Lenawee-with the neighboring counties; eliminating

Detroit in the case of Wayne and Washtenaw, each had a greater population than the county immediately east or west of it. The difference was very marked in the counties immediately west. In the St. Joseph Valley the leading county was still Cass, followed closely by St. Joseph; the population of Berrien about equalled that of Branch or Hillsdale. The populations of the counties in the Kalamazoo Valley decreased somewhat regularly in amount with the distance westward, being greatest in Jackson County and least in Van Buren and Allegan; the latter two numbered together but a few over two thousand. The most populous counties of the Grand River country were Kent, Ionia and Eaton, Kent nearly doubling the population of either of the others. Clinton and Barry were the least settled. In the Saginaw country Livingston County ranked first, more than doubling the population of either Genesee or Lapeer, which numbered about two thousand each. The county of Saginaw had less than a thousand people.

In capacity to centralize population, the county seat villages had a decided advantage over all other villages. Detroit had the additional advantage of being the capital of the Territory and was the only incorporated city in this period. Most of the county seats were incorporated villages.

As social and political centers these communities, with the exception of Detroit, had as yet scarcely developed a strongly marked individuality. Detroit owed its prestige to its age, its French traditions and population, its military prominence, and its being the

capital city of the Territory. Its commencing materially anew after the fire of 1805 with a plan modelled on the city of Washington gave it more of an American air than it would probably have attained otherwise for many years. While the spirit of the old French regime remained a permanent heritage the aversion of the French to changes, their small appreciation of popular education and civil institutions, and especially their lack of enterprise, made them temporarily a hindrance to settlement. But as Detroit was the rendezvous for almost all settlers coming from the East, and the point from which almost all travelers out of the Territory took their departure for the East, it shared in all the forces and activities that made for or against the settlement of the Territory; the conservative influence of the French thus tended to be rapidly overborne. Although Detroit had in 1837 but little over eight thousand inhabitants, it had acquired as a result of being an epitome of the urban life of the Territory a degree of cosmopolitanism characteristic of a city of many times that number.

Economic classes were not sharply distinguished in this period, industry differentiating so little in this primitive society. The interaction of farm and village was just beginning to be felt, and in the villages the demand for carpenters, mechanics and laborers in shop and factory was growing. All the industries were

new and reflected a rich but undeveloped environment; yet lumbering, agriculture and manufacturing had grown sufficiently to show the trend of the future and its great possibilities.