Warbach Drawings

WARBACH DRAWINGS – RG 89-78 & 94-185

Native American Voting Rights

INDIAN – RIGHT TO VOTE

B73

GII

F20

 

Complaints – Houghton County.  ALsS regarding refusal to Indians at L’Anse of right to elect civil officials.  Involves Peter Crebassa family. 

Vehicle Registrations

Vehicle Registrations

RG 61-26  

1913, 1920, 1927, 1928, 1929, 1936, 1938, 1943.

U.S.S. Michigan

U.S.S. Michigan – First Iron Clad Warship in the Navy 

And Her Successors

Construction of parts of the iron ship began in 1842 at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Sections of the ship were transported to Erie by Ox team and riverboat.  Ship involved in Strang affair when it carried Jesse S. to Detroit for trial in 1851, foiled Confederate plot to free thousands of prisoners on Johnson Island in Sandusky Bay.  Used as training ship, last cruise was in 1927.  President Roosevelt requested Michigan be saved, but it was scraped in 1949.  Active duty during World War I.

 

Foremast in Historical Society of Fairport, Ohio.  Michigan, or Wolverine, was built in Erie in 1843 by Stackhouse and Tomlinson.  Cost:  $150,000 and $175,000 and made to specifications to follow an agreement made between the U.S. and Canada.

1. Inland Seas, Volume 13, Number 1 (spring, 1957).   Metcalf, Clarence S.  “First Iron Vessel on the Great Lakes.” 

2. Quaife, Milo M. “The Iron Ship” in BURTON HISTORICAL LEAFLETS, Volume III, number two (November 1928).  Sources of information:  HOUSE DOCUMENT, 471, 56 congressional documents.  Much of the same ground is covered in narrative form by J. M. Fallahan’s “Agreement of 1817:  Reduction of Navel Forces on the Great Lakes,” in American History Association.  ANNUAL REPORT FOR 1895, 369-92.  An admirable account of “The Johnson’s Island Plot” by Frederick J. Shepard is in the Buffalo Historical Society PUBLICATIONS, IX, 1-50.  A paper by Captain W. B. Brooks, “Navel Annals:  Part of this city has played in making heroes,” published in the Erie DISPATCH, March 12, 1905, contains data on officers who served on the Michigan.  Some further information is to be found in James C. Mills’ OUR INLAND SEAS:  THEIR SHIPPING AND THEIR COMMERCE (Chicago, 1910), 164 ff.

3. Bigelow, Martha Mitchell, “Piracy on Lake Erie or the Confederate Attempt to capture Johnson’s Island in Sandusky Bay, Ohio, September 19, 1846.”  In Detroit Historical Society BULLETIN, XIV, number 1 (October 1957). 

4. U.S. Department of Navy.  Naval Militia Affairs.  Reports of officers, 1916.  MSL-documents.  Moore, Charles.  THE SAINT MARYS FALLS CANAL, Semi-Centennial Commission.  Detroit, 1907, page 87.

5. Battleship U.S.S. MICHIGAN COMMISSIONED January, 1910, decommissioned February 12, 1922.  Source:  New York Times. 

 

Michigan Pioneer Collections

 

                        Volume                         Page

 

                        Volume 1                        436-437

                        Volume 4                        80, 459, 483

                        Volume 7                        358

                        Volume 9                        275, 284

                        Volume 13                        121

                        Volume 14                        529, 543       

                        Volume 18                        626, 635-637

                        Volume 21                        340, 353, 363

                        Volume 22                        315, 339, 342, 346

                        Volume 30                        328

 

Michigan History Magazine

 

                        Volume                        Page

 

                        Volume 27                        85, 103, 113

                        Volume 29                        420-424

                        Volume 33                        84

                        Volume 34                        272-273

                        Volume 41                        150

 

Executive Office Papers

            Accession 44:  Box 10, F-19, 22; Box 43.

 

Spencer, Herbert R. USS Michigan; USS Wolverine.  Erie, Pennsylvania,

1966.    28 pages, (M-359, S74u)

 

Jane’s Fighting Ships (beginning 1906-7, page 97)     

 

Vertical file.

U. S. S. MICHIGAN

 

Battleship built by the Navy to carry this name after the Old U.S.S. Michigan (launched December 5, 1843, see Hatcher, LAKE ERIES, pages 322-23) was renamed WOLVERINE.  See Hatcher, page 94, for picture of reconditioned Wolverine, about 1913.

 

Mitchell.  History of the Modern American Navy, page 139, (359 M68) pages 139-40, 180, 251.  U.S.S. MICHIGAN used to transport in World War I.

 

Buell, Raymond L. Washington Conference. 1922.  The Michigan is listed in “Treaties and Resolutions” among capital ships to be scrapped by the U.S. (327.5 B92 page 385).

 

New York TIMES, February 12, 1922, page 15, column one:  “The MICHIGAN retired.  The last entry placed out of commission was made today on the official log of the Battleship MICHIGAN at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.  Orders placing the warship out of commission were issued, it was said, because there were not enough men to provide the personnel for all ships of this class.  Eventually, the Michigan will be scrapped as a result of the arms conference.  She was built at the New York Shipyard in Camden, New Jersey, and put in commission January, 1910.  She was on patrol duty along the North Atlantic during the World War.”

U. S. Bureau of Roads

U. S. Bureau of Roads

Begins numbering of federal highways in 1926.

Unofficially Amended House and Senate Bills

Bills – Unofficial amended, House and Senate

RG 85-39, 1947-1962

RG 87-92, 1963-1964

RG 89-445, 1965-1968

Underground Railroad

“Fugitives generally entered the state by one of three routes:  through western Ohio to Adrian and Detroit; through eastern Indiana, to Coldwater, Marshall, and Battle Creek; or through central Indiana to Niles and Cassiopolis.  Most of those who came through Indiana then followed the Territorial Road east to Detroit.  A smaller number were sent northeast from Battle Creek toward Port Huron.  Fewer still were forwarded to Canada via vessels on Lake Michigan or overland toward the Upper Peninsula.  Along the way, Underground Railroad activists could be counted on to provide runaways with food, clothing, medical care, hiding places, protection from slave catchers, transportation if they chose to go on, and assistance settling into local communities in southern Michigan if they chose to remain.”  – From “A Beacon of Liberty on the Great Lakes” by Roy E. Finkenbine.  In Paul J. Finkelman and Martin J. Hershock (editors), The History of Michigan Law (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2006).  (ANSWER record:  http://magic.msu.edu/record=b4863195a )  The above quote can be found on page 88.

The Michigan Freedom Trail Commission has scans of primary documents on its web site.  They call this “The Archives Reading Room.”  You can access the site from this page:  http://www.michigan.gov/hal/0,1607,7-160-17451_18670_44390—,00.html (For the Archives Reading Room documents, go to the pull down menu labeled “FTL Archival Resources.”)

Other Sources:

1. Michigan History, Volume 6, page 597. Aiken, Mrs. Martha D. “The Underground Railroad.” Union City. Story form. Volume 5, page 364. Landon, Fred. “A Daring Canadian Abolitionist.” Re: Alexander Milton Ross, M.D. d. Detroit 1897. Volume 15, page 144. Reports news of Abduction in Cass County in Kalamazoo Gazette, September 3, 1847. Volume 19, page 191. The Editor. “Settlement of Southern Michigan, 1805-1837.” Early settlement of Quakers from Butler and Preble Counties, Ohio, attracted fugitive slaves. Volume 15, Spring, page 360. Bronze tablet northeast corner of State and Griswold Streets, Detroit, erected by the J. L. Hudson Company, description: This tablet marks the site of Detroit’s “Underground Railroad Station.” A large brick building known as “The Finney House Barn,” was located here, and used as a depot for helping slaves gain freedom into Canada from 1833 until the Civil War. Detroit was one of the important “Stations” on the route to Canada and the Anti-Slavery Society organized in 1837, aided in the liberation of thousands of slaves.” Presented, September 1926.

Ibid. Volume 37, number two, June 1953. “The Underground Railroad at Schoolcraft” edited and with an introduction by Alexis A. Praus, pages 77-182. Includes “A Station on the Underground Railroad” by Pamela S. Thomas.

UNDERGROUND RAILROAD – MS

Source:

1. Michigan Historical Collection. Ann Arbor, Volume I, record survey: 58 Brewer-Gorham Papers, 1814-1926 include record, 1836-1926, of a general store in Marshall, for several decades, a center of culture and an important station on the U.R. 171. Theodore Foster papers, 1840 (?) (co-editor of Signal of Liberty, official organ of the Michigan State anti-slavery society, 1841-7, published in Ann Arbor), 210. James W. Helme Papers, 1844-1938 includes letter from Laura Smith Haviland on the origin of the Coldwater School for indigent children. 372. Nathan Thomas Papers, 1818-92(?)/ four volumes and approximately 650 pieces. Physician at Prairie Ronde and Schoolcraft. Active abolitionist, whose home at Schoolcraft was a station on the UR.

375 2ALS, 1818-1820 concerning Seymour Boughton Treadwell ed. of Michigan Freeman, letters to Jerome M. Treadwell, Gerrit Smith, and others. Newspapers: Signal of Liberty, the Philanthropist, Michigan Liberty Press, Michigan Freeman.

Secretary of State, 56-26, Series 75. Case. Thornton Blackburn, Fugitive slave, 1833.

See: Crosswhite, Adam

Sources:

1. Coffin, Levi. Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, the reputed President of the Underground Railroad;…Cincinnati, R. Clarke and Company, 1880 (2^nd edition). 732 pages. “First Visit to Canada” begin pages 247. “The Michigan Raid” begin page 366.

1. Fairchild, James Harris. The Underground Railroad. An address delivered or the Society in Association Hall, Cleveland, January 24, 1895, Cleveland, 1895.

1. Lakeshore and Home Magazine, 1885-7 “Romances and Realities of the Underground Railroad” by H. D. Johnson.

1. Siebert, Wilbur Henry. The Mysteries of Ohio’s Underground Railroad. Columbus, Ohio, Long’s College Bookshop Company, 1951, page 330.

1. The Underground Railroad for the Liberation of fugitive slaves. American Historical Association Ann Rep. For 1895. (page 395-402) Washington, 1896.

1. Siebert, Wilbur Henry. The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom. MacMillan, New York, 1895. Page 138 shows map of route through Indiana and Michigan in 1840 by Lewis Falley.) Numbers 1 and 6 especially good. Available in MSL vault.

1. Withrow, William Henry. The Underground Railway. Royal Society of Canada. Proc. And Trans. Serv. Two, Volume 8, Trans. Sec. 2, pages 49-77. Ottawa, 1902.

Cities: Quaker settlement near Cassopolis, Schoolcraft, Climax, Marshall, Albion, Parma, Jackson, Michigan Center, Francisco, Dexter, Scio, Ann Arbor, Geddes, Ypsilanti, Plymouth, Rouge, Swartburg, and Detroit.

Michigan House of Representatives District Map

See link for pdf of actual map

Michigan House of Representatives District Map

Turkeys in Michigan

TURKEY (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) 

Barrows (Michigan Bird Life, 1912) states that the once abundant wild turkey was fairly common over a large part of its Michigan range until 1875, after which it went down hill rapidly.  One shot in January, 1897, Arlington Township, Van Buren County, evidently constitutes the last definite report of record.  The assumption is that wild turkeys were extinct in Michigan by 1900 or shortly afterward.  The last Michigan specimen preserved to science was shot by William B. Mershon in November, 1886, in Saginaw County near Reese.

Record Group 66-37, Records of Historical Commission

Entry 3 1954

Trademarks-Labels

Trademarks – Labels

RG 70-50, Dept. of State

Trademarks/labels