Detroit Historical Society

Detroit Historical Museum — “Origins: Where the River Bends”

The Detroit Historical Society (DHS) was founded in 1921 by a distinguished group of 19 historians and Clarence Burton, a prominent historian, author and lawyer. Burton received a law degree from the University of Michigan, and moved to Detroit in 1874. For the next 40 years, in his spare time, Burton collected rare books and pamphlets about local history. In 1885, he built a house on Brainard Street, to which he eventually added a huge, fireproof addition. When he moved to a new house in 1915, he donated his old house to the Detroit Public Library, calling it the “Burton Historical Collection.” His collection included 30,000 books, 40,000 pamphlets, and 50,000 unpublished papers relating to Detroit, the old Northwest, the Michigan Territory, New France, and Canada. In addition to leading the DHS, he also chaired the Michigan Historical Commission from 1913 until his death in 1932. He wrote several books about Detroit, including the five-volume The City of Detroit. In 1928, the Detroit Historical Museum opened in a one-room suite in the Cadillac Tower, thanks to the efforts of J. Bell Moran, one of the DHS directors. The Detroit News columnist George Stark started a fundraising campaign in 1942 to build a much larger museum. On July 24,

“Origins: Where the River Bends”

1951 – the 250th anniversary of the founding of Detroit – the museum was dedicated at 5401 Woodward Avenue. Ten years later to the day, the Dossin Great Lakes Museum, which celebrates the maritime history of the Great Lakes, opened on Belle Isle. From 1946 to 2006, the City of Detroit operated the museum, but since then, the DHS agreed to manage the more than 250,000 artifacts at the Detroit Historical Museum and the Dossin Great Lakes Museum. Thus, the primary responsibility for fundraising to preserve, collect, display and educate the public about the region’s multi-cultural history fell to the DHS. At the time, the DHS’s chairman was Francis W. McMillan II, the great-great grandson of a U.S. Senator and Detroit’s leading industrialist in the late 19th century, James McMillan.

In 2021, McMillan, now the current SCW Governor of the State of Michigan, was instrumental in securing one of the most significant gifts ever made by the General Society of Colonial Wars. Assisted by former Governor of the General Society, David Trebing, the two men envisioned that the donation would be used to relate history in “an unbiased, unvarnished, and unrevised manner.” The museum’s most important exhibit – telling the story of founding of Detroit in 1701 through the Gilded Age called “Frontiers to Factories – was in need of updating and reimagining. Over several years, an Advisory Group of educators, scholars, and community organizations contributed to the development of a new 3,500 square foot exhibit, which was renamed “Origins: Where the River Bends.” The DHS had refined their community-driven process in the development of two other exhibits: the “Arsenal of Democracy” exhibit in 2014, and the international award-winning “Detroit 67” exhibit in 2017. Stakeholders wanted an engaging, immersive, and inclusive exhibit that told personal stories and displayed artifacts that would entertain and educate multi-cultural 21st century audiences. Video storytelling, audio narration, three-dimensional vignettes, and interactive maps are now an integral part of the “Origins” exhibit. Thanks to the efforts of Warriors McMillan and Trebing, and the generosity of the General Society, the new and improved exhibit can be seen by the museum’s 150,000 annual visitors, including some 25-30,000 students.

Fort St. Joseph

Source: Institute for Intercultural and Anthropological Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo MI 49008-5494

Fort St. Joseph, the third most significant Colonial-era fort in Michigan behind Fort Pontchartrain and Fort Michilimackinac, was garrisoned from 1691 to 1763. Founded as a trading post and fort by the French in the 1680s near present-day Niles, Michigan, it was the one of the first settlements in the Lower Peninsula. Indians, mostly Miamis and Potawatomis, lived in close proximity, providing furs that could be traded for guns, blankets, pots, food, and liquor. Missionaries, most notably Father Claude-Jean Allouez, who is said to have baptized 10,000 Indians during his lifetime, came here to convert the Indians to Christians. Allouez died and was buried near Niles. In 1761, at the conclusion of the French and Indian War, the British took control of the small fort, which was situated on the St. Joseph River guarding the passage to the Illinois River and the Mississippi River. On May 25, 1763, the fort and its 15-man garrison were famously captured by Indians sympathetic to Pontiac during his 1763 rebellion. The British did not re-garrison the fort after this, but French traders remained. After the defeat of the British in the Revolutionary War in 1781, a small group of French and Indians supported by the Spanish in St. Louis occupied the fort for one day, mainly to plunder it, and raised the Spanish flag. Thus, Niles, Michigan (nicknamed the City of Four Flags) is the only Michigan city that was occupied by the French, British, Spanish, and Americans. The fort was abandoned and nature reclaimed it. When the first pioneers came to the area in the 1830s, the site was in ruins. Over time, the town of Niles was built over and around it.

In 1913, a commemorative boulder was placed at the approximate site of the 15-acre fort. In 1992, a local organization called Support the Fort was founded. Six years later, Dr. Michael Nassaney of Western Michigan University was called upon to find the exact location. Through excavation and surveys, Dr. Nassaney, together with Dr. Joseph Peyser of Indiana University-South Bend, found evidence of its location. Since 2002, archaeological work has uncovered various artifacts, including one of only two Jesuit religious medallions ever found dating from the 1730s. Unfortunately, some of the fort may lie under the St. Joseph River, which has been dammed to enlarge the river. Over the years, Support the Fort, in conjunction with the Niles History Center and the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project, has organized historical reenactments and living history exhibits, hosted summer camps to continue archaeological work, and held fundraisers. There are even plans to reconstruct the fort, similar to Fort Michilimackinac in Mackinaw City today. In 2019, Dr. Nassaney edited a book called “Fort St. Joseph Revealed: The Historical Archaeology of a Fur Trading Post.”

The Michigan chapter of the Society of Colonial Warriors first became involved in the Fort St. Joseph project thanks to member, Grafton “Grif” Cook. Grif was born in Niles in 1930. Cook and his wife Barbara, collected 17th, 18th, and 19th century arms, including swords, bayonets, pistols, muskets, blunderbusses, and even a Ferguson breech-loading rifle. Prior to his death in 2009, Grif donated 132 weapons – and accompanying literature – to Fort Ticonderoga in New York. With his wife, he also wrote several local history books, including one about the famous M-1 carbine rifle, which was used in World War II and produced in southwest Michigan. For 37 years, Cook owned a lumber brokerage business in Dowagiac, only 14 miles from Niles. At age 66, he received his B.A. in History from Western Michigan University, and retired from the lumber business. As a friend of Dr. Nassaney, Cook urged the SCW of Michigan to support his work at Fort St. Joseph.

After the passing of Grif Cook, the local champion for the important work at Fort St. Joseph is now SCW member Donald A. Johnston III, a retired judge on Michigan’s 17th Circuit Court and former judge on the state’s 61st District Court. The son of a WWII veteran who fought in Iwo Jima and Okinawa, Johnston received a degree in history from the University of Virginia in 1966, and since receiving his law degree from the Wayne State University in 1969, he has lived and practiced law in the Grand Rapids area. During his long tenure from 2005 to 2021 as Governor of the Michigan SCW, Johnston estimates that the Michigan SCW has donated $20,000-$25,000 to the Fort. St. Joseph Project, sometimes receiving matching monies from the National SCW. It is hoped that one day the 18th century fort will again grace the shores of the St. Joseph River.