HISTORY & HERITAGE, continued
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Unnamed French explorers passed the Marine City area early in the 17th century because the Nicolas Sanson d'Abbeville map, published in Paris in 1656, shows a water route from Lake Huron to Lake Erie. The Griffin, first sail boat built on the Great Lakes, cruised past this area in 1679. Cadillac sailed south from the Ottawa route in 1701 passing this area to focus on a strategic choke point on a river to the south known as the ville de troit. By then the French had been in Michigan for 100 years but no significant, lasting communities had been established. French culture had not become deep rooted for good reason. French policy in the new world established Signeurs (Lords) as owners of the land. The Signeurs, in turn, leased the land to farmers. This return to feudalism gave little incentive to French people to immigrate. By contrast areas under British control, offering the possibility of land ownership, saw a constant expansion of population throughout the seventeenth century.
Eventually the French did make an effort to encourage immigration and settlement, notably in Detroit, but
too late to make much of a difference. Four wars with Britain ended decisively with British victory in 1760 and the peace of 1763 gave most of France's colonies to England. British policy was devoted to controlling westward migration hence to keep peace with Native Americans and hold their loyalty. They were not very successful and intrepid pioneers came over the Appalachians, across Pennsylvania and north on the Ohio river.
The American Revolution ended what ever control the British had exerted and the flood of settlers began. The first European settlers came to what would be Marine City in this period and began small farms.
In 1781 the Articles of Confederation declared all the land between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River to be the possession of the Continental Congress.
In 1783 a peace treaty with Britain is signed and two years later the Continental Congress passed the Grayson Land Ordinance. Not many folks are familiar with that law but its effect is part of our lives to this very day. This law required the entire north west territory be surveyed and all of it divided into Congressional townships, each being 6 miles square. For Michigan, a Principal Meridian Line was established.
That's a north/south line that runs up the state map just west of Bay City and Saginaw or 84 degrees, 22 minutes, 24 seconds west longitude. An east/west Baseline (we now call it 8 Mile Road) was established. All measurements are made from those two points and land is identified by its position relative to those lines. A township is divided into 36 sections, six on a side, and 23,040 acres. Any one section is one mile square and covers 640 acres. That in turn was subdivided into 40 and 80 acre units since that was all one man could possibly farm. With a system in place, it was possible to give settlers clear title to the land. Generally speaking, the first buyers in Michigan were speculators who purchased the minimum allowed: one square mile, for one dollar an acre.
Earlier settlers, mostly French, had "meets and Bounds" claims from various English, French and Indian
titles. Frank McElroy's History of Marine City, (Marine City Rotary Club, 1980) notes French farmers were the first European residents of this area living south of what they named the Belle River. It was the 1780's and some names and dates appear lost for these early families but Cottrellville survives and so do descendants of that family. Constitutional rights were extended to the north west territories in 1787 and Michigan was formally recognized as a Territory in 1805. The continuous flood of settlers brought new residents to this area and the question of what to call this new home began. Yankee Point was used for a while. It is a revealing village name that hints at a distinction between the more settled French families and the English speakers from back east. Belle River was a competing title for the area until Samuel Ward came to town in 1818. This ambitious entrepreneur became the first ship builder and brick manufacturer and soon the little town name became Ward's Landing. St. Clair County was organized in 1821 and Mr. Ward himself chose the name Village of Newport when he drew the first plat of this community. That name was never legally registered.
The Erie Canal opened in 1825 and linked Lake Erie to the Hudson River. Samuel Ward piloted the first Great Lakes ship, the St. Clair, to New York. This link to the outside world was important for the development of Michigan and Marine City in particular. Ward's ship building enterprise was joined by numerous ship builders that employed hundreds of workers. McElroy thought some 250 ships were built in Marine City. Three saw mills created the lumber for the ship building industry, the burgeoning housing demand and the wooden sidewalks that connected it all. In one generation this place went from deeply wooded frontier to a bustling community of several thousand residents.
In 1826 Father Gabriel Richard secured land for a Catholic parish on a peninsula formed by the intersection of the Belle and St. Clair Rivers. The nichname Catholic point developed and overshadowed the moniker Yankee point. In 1846 a wooden church was built there replacing the oriinal log structure
from a couple miles south that served French settlers. The new structure was named Holy Cross. The current stone structure was dedicated in 1904. The United Methodist church was founded in 1851 and the St. Martin's Lutheran church was founded in 1857. St. Mark's Episcopal was built in 1866.
Many ships built in Marine City were schooners but steam power vessels were also built here. In addition to the many saw mills, the industrialization of Marine City included a brick factory, a brewery, a barrel stave factory, a sugar refinery and several salt companies. Photos of the perod show tall derricks and multistoried factories. Subterranean salt deposits were exploited in severals places up and down the river with the St. Clair operation being one of the few to survive to the present. Besides working in these factories, hundreds of Marine city men were professional sailors.
The logging industry was the mainstay of all this development. It built the ships and factories and fueled them too. China Township and immediate neighbor townships supplied the trees. Oak was plentiful, pine also and goodly supplies of medium hard woods also grew here. The late 19th century transition to steel construction and petroleum based fuels would wipe out these industries and the few that survived into the 20th century would disappear in the Great Depression of the 1930's.
Electric light and telephone service came to Marine City in the 1880's. City leaders debated building a formal structure to house local government and put it to the voters in 1883. With passage of this proposal City Hall was started in 1884 and finished in 1885. Architects Mason and Rice were influenced by the style of the famous artchitect Ralph Richardson who promoted a revival of medieval Romanesque style. The accumulating wealth of this period also produced many elegant houses in town. Following the inspiration of builders' copy books, local carpenters produced their versions of popular styles of the day like Italianate, Vernacular Gothic and Queen Anne. The Village of Marine was incorporated as a city in 1887 thus ending the litany of names that had been employed but never took root. Frank McElroy was elected as the first mayor.
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