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Detroit Historical Society
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- Description:
- 1-page letter written by William E. Quinby, President of the Detroit Free Press. It is a blue carbon copy which was typewritten onto thin linen paper and has the watermark, "S & B Paragon Linen, Made In U.S.A." The writer has signed in black ink, "William E. Quinby."
- Date Issued:
- 1900-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Detroit Historical Society
- Description:
- Typewritten letter from James Smith of the Cadillac Paper Company's Wiping Rags Department, on company stationery addressed to the Chippewa Hardware Store in Sault Ste. Marie dated September 14, 1916. Smith offers Chippewa three bales of wiping clothes that are being held by the Michigan Central Railroad Company. The letterhead includes an engraving of the Cadillac Paper Company plant on the corner of East Grand Boulevard and Hastings Street.
- Date Issued:
- 1916-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Detroit Historical Society
- Description:
- This 3-page letter was handwritten in black ink on a folded piece of slightly yellowed paper by Rev. Charles L. Arnold. His letter is entitled, "The Arnold Home for the Aged and Hospital for Incurables," and the text of the letter has been transcribed as follows: "The Arnold Home for the Aged and Hospital for Incurables. In December 1899, the Rev. Charles L. Arnold, rector of St. Peter's Protestant Episcopal Church, at that time the third parish in Detroit in number of Communicants, and situated on the corner of Church St. and Michigan Ave., came to realize the great need existing in our city of a "House" for those who by reason of age or other hopeless infirmity are unable to care for themselves. Through the kindness of the Trustees of the diocese of Michigan, the founder secured the free use of the former Episcopal residence, at 226 Fort St. West. Here Mr. Arnold gathered a score of the aged and incurable, and through the liberality of a number of gentlemen, notably, Hon. D.M. Ferry and Oliver Goldsmith Esq., was enabled to conduct the affairs of the "Home" with marked success. The first bequest to this institution was made by Mrs. Hannah Titus, who died in March 1900. With the amount of this bequest, about seven thousand dollars, the Arnold Home is to be incorporated on the day following the sealing of this box, and steps have already been taken for the acquiring of valuable real estate. No charity of this city today is more popular or more highly appreciated than this one, that has just entered upon, what we hope will be, a perpetual and enduring career of usefulness and beneficence. The earnest hope of the founder is that its existence may reach far beyond the limits of the century. 'Morituri salutaris' C.L. Arnold"
- Date Issued:
- 1900-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Detroit Historical Society
184. This 1-page letter was handwritten in black ink on slightly yellowed paper by Herbert J. Greville
- Description:
- This 1-page letter was handwritten in black ink on slightly yellowed paper by Herbert J. Greville who was the ex President of the Trades and Labor Council. The paper has a watermark that shows "Hampshire." The handwritten text is transcribed as follows: "It was our fathers who created the condition under which we live, and it is us who created the condition under which our children shall live. Herbert J. Greville ex President of the Trades and Labor Council"
- Date Issued:
- 1900-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Detroit Historical Society
- Description:
- This 2-page letter was handwritten in fine black script on both sides of a slightly yellowed paper by Clarence M. Burton. The paper is printed with light blue lines and has a double red line near the top. The handwritten text is transcribed as follows: "Real Estate Titles in Detroit, Past Present and Future. Detroit's Founder, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, came on the 24th day of July 1701 and immediately commenced the erection of a palisaded fort. This work accomplished he set about purchasing food from the Indians, sufficient to keep his garrison and his Indian friends from want during the succeeding winter. Indians flocked in great numbers to his settlement, so that before the first years had passed he had nearly or quite 6000 people here. Cadillac understood that his appointment of Commandant gave him the ownership, and civil, and military control of the entire country and acting upon these rights he settled the Indians at various places near the new fort but he did not undertake to convey to them any parcels of land in fee simple. He gave them merely the right to occupy during his pleasure. As he was intent on building the post into a permanent colony, he proposed to give his soldiers and the civilians who came here, parcels of land with rights of ownership, and, with that ends in view, he settled many of these persons on garden plots and farms and village lots, promising to make them good conveyances when he might be permitted, by the French Government, to make proper deeds. In 1704 he obtained this authority and at once set about making transfers, to the citizens and soldiers, of the lands they were occupying under him. All of these transfers were similar in character to the feudal holdings in France. In all of them Cadillac, as lord of the manor, reserved certain rights to himself, such as a fine upon alienation; the obligation on the part of the grantee to set up a May Pole each year in front of the house of the commandant; the obligation of the grantee to grind his wheat at the mill of commandant; the payment of small annual dues for privileges of carrying on a trade, and make other like obligations. Cadillac was removed from his place in 1711 and the post fell to decay. The French Government refused to recognize the deeds Cadillac had made but it did not undertake to dispossess the people who held deeds from him. In the next forty years only a few patents or land transfers were made by the Governor and Intendant of New France, and none whatever were made by the succeeding commandants of Detroit. The Registry of Deeds that had been opened in Detroit by Cadillac was continued until it contained fifty or sixty pages of manuscript and was then removed and stored in the French Archives, and lost to every one interested, until accidently found and transcribed for me a few years since. The French ceased to govern Detroit upon the advent of Robert Rogers in 1760, and from that date until 1796 the English were in possession. Very few transfers of land were made during that period, excepting that there were many conveyances from Indian tribes to the English and French. A new registry of deeds was commenced about 1763 and maintained as long as the English remained here. General Anthony Wayne with the United States army under his command took possession of the post in 1796 and from that time dates our modern history in this department. Titles were very uncertain; generally without any solid governmental foundation; resting largely on possession and in tradition. The first effort was to begin anew with an undisputed ownership and, looking to that end, our government, in effect, set up title in itself to all lands. Commissioners were appointed by Congress to investigate and settle titles in the Detroit District, and those who had, before the coming of Wayne's army, been in possession of lands, laid their claims and proofs before these commissioners. If their claims were well founded and undisputed, or, if disputed, were found to be established, the commissioners accepted them and certified their finding to Congress. The government issued a patent, which was undisputable, to the applicant. This is the basis and foundation of all titles at the present time, and in theory and in proper practice no system of titles and transfers could be more simple. The grantee from government who wishes to transfer his title, has the proper deed of transfer drawn up and he executes it in due form and it is recorded with the County Registry. The new owner when he comes to sell, goes through exactly the same process. There are no fines to pay, no public officers to superintend the transaction, no unreasonable expenses to be borne. The process is simple, rapid, and inexpensive. Various modes have been devised to make the transfer of real estate more simple, but I doubt if this can be done in but one way. The only troubles we meet with now, are that conveyances and notaries are careless and owners of real estate are still more careless and indifferent. If some way could be devised so that conveyances could only be drawn by persons skilled in their work, and could be recorded, as soon as the transaction in completed, by a register who would employ only competent assistants in his office, there would be small need of delay in any real estate transfer. This is the millennium I am looking forward to in the century that will be ushered in at midnight to-night. December 31, 1900. C. M. Burton"
- Date Issued:
- 1900-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Detroit Historical Society
- Description:
- Typewritten letter from C.A. McAllister, the engineer-in-chief of the Treasury Department's Division of Revenue-Cutter Service to the Clark Wireless Telegraph and Telephone Company at 193-195 Cass Avenue, dated May 27, 1912, concerning both Revenue-Cutter Service Constructor John Q, Walton's role as a delegate to the International Conference on Wireless Telegraphy, and a check for two sets of wireless equipment, which is in the mail. The letter closes with McAllister's signature. The letter is printed on Revenue-Cutter Service letterhead.
- Date Issued:
- 1912-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Detroit Historical Society
187. This 4-page letter was handwritten in black ink on slightly yellowed paper by William C. Maybury
- Description:
- This 4-page letter was handwritten in black ink on slightly yellowed paper by William C. Maybury who was the Mayor of the City of Detroit. The paper is printed with the Executive Office letterhead at the top and shows a watermark that consists of a shield and crown emblem with the words, "Pure Linen Stock." The four pages were bound at the top with a narrow pink ribbon (not shown in the digital images). The text of the letter has been transcribed as follows: "December 31st 1900 Midnight To His Honor - The Mayor of Detroit in 2001 and to the generation whose privilege - and I hope pleasure - it will be to read the letters in this box contained. Health and Greeting - The papers herein contained and now for the first time brought to light by you - after a retirement of one hundred years - were prepared at my request by men and women prominent in the activities of Detroit at the close of the nineteenth Century. Our chief desire and purpose is to convey to you across the long span of the Century a brief and concise statement of the present and past conditions of the community in which we live and to give you as clear an insight as is possible into the social, religious, moral, commercial and political affairs of Detroit and of the times in which we live. There will be given to you testimony from living witnesses of the events chronicled and of conditions described. From testimony so transmitted you will be the better able to discern what advancement you have made from the modest beginnings of which we are witnesses. We are well aware that the century closing has been marvelous in its achievements and we might be fairly excused for believing that the ultimate limits of possibilities has been accomplished in many ways. But on the contrary we do not so believe, because the past has thought us that what seemed to be impossible has been already accomplished and we would therefore not be greatly surprised at more wonderful accomplishments in the future. We communicate by telegraph and telephone over distances that at the opening on the nineteenth century were insurmountable. We travel at a rate of speed not dreamed of then. The power of electricity has been marvelously applied while compressed air and other agencies are now undergoing promising experiment. We travel by railroad and with steam power from Detroit to Chicago in less than eight hours and to New York City by several routes, in less than twenty hours. How much faster are you traveling? How much further have you annihilated time and space, and what agencies are you employing to which we are now strangers? We talk over long distance telephones to the most remote parts of our own land, and with a fair degree of practical success. Are you talking to foreign lands, and to the islands of the sea by the same method? And thus throughout all the various pathways of human progress the papers in this box will bring to you a correct knowledge of present conditions, and possibly words more or less, prophetic of the future. How correct our prophecies may prove we know not, for we write them with hesitation and doubt, but yet with hopefulness. We write in full anticipation that you will stand upon a vantage ground of experience far higher and more resplendent than our own. We ask therefore, for those who assume to prophesy, your kindliest consideration, and judgment, especially when we assure you that our prophets are not without honor, even in their own Century and in their own times. If we may judge from the history of human life as so far told - and of all experience very few - if any - of the 300,000 souls now inhabiting Detroit - will live here when you open this box; which we so solemnly close. And yet it may be possible that such which we now accept from faith may be to you certainty and knowledge - and possibly that knowledge may be accompanied by consciousness that we are witnesses and even listeners to the voices that interpret our words. We humbly ask that you accept for usefulness all that may tend to information and to good, and that you may look most kindly upon that which time has changed or which may have passed out of the realms of live and living. May we be permitted to express one hope - in our hearts - superior to all others - that whatever failures the coming century may have in store - in things material and temporal - you may realize that as a nation, people, and city, you have grown in righteousness for it is this that exalts a nation. Respectfully and affectionately submitted, William C. Maybury Mayor Written hastily and in the last hours of the century at my home on the southwest Corner of streets now called 8th St and Lafayette Avenue - near where I was born."
- Date Issued:
- 1900-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Detroit Historical Society
- Description:
- 1-page letter handwritten in black ink on slightly yellowed paper by the Commissioners of the Metropolitan Police Commission. The letterhead of the Commission is printed in black ink across the top of the page which also has the watermark, "Calvert Bond." In the lower left area of the page, the embossed seal of the Police Commission can be seen. The text of the letter has been transcribed as follows: To the Honorable Mayor and Common Council. of the City of Detroit for the year 2001 Greeting, We, the Police Commissioners of the City of Detroit prophesy that when this box is opened that the Police department of the City of Detroit will number 2500 members and that there will be forty Police Stations; that the stations will be heated by a process not now known and that prisoners instead of being conveyed to the several police stations in Automobile patrol wagons will be sent through pneumatic tubes, flying machines, or some similar process. That while crime is not very prevalent at the present time, and we now have occasional days when we are not called upon to make an arrest. We prophesy that arrests will be less frequent than now in comparison with the population. Our police are now armed with revolver and baton, and we think that there will be a method of arresting desperate criminals without resorting to firearms or other deadly weapon. The position of Police Commissioner is now one of honor. Very courteously and respectfully yours. Geo. W. Fowle Ralph Phelps Jr. Marvin M. Stanton Commissioners J. Edward Dupont Secretary J. Henry Cleveland Asst. Secretary."
- Date Issued:
- 1900-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Detroit Historical Society
- Description:
- Typewritten letter with envelope sent by George H. Woolley, manager of the Hotel Pontchartrain to William D. Purdy, in gratitude for a gift basket sent in celebration of the hotel's fifth anniversary, dated October 31, 1912. The letter is on Hotel Pontchartrain stationery, and the envelope is printed with an image of the exterior of the hotel, engraved by Gies and Company of Buffalo.
- Date Issued:
- 1912-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Detroit Historical Society
- Description:
- Typewritten letter signed by 38 employees of the Hotel Pontchartrain wishing William D. Purdy (addressed as "Bill") farewell as he leaves his position at the hotel, dated March 16, 1918. The letter is on Hotel Pontchartrain stationery. The letter reads: Mr. William D. Purdy At home Dear "Bill". Some think that in these modern days of hustle and bustle that little times is left for sentiment, and that perhaps sentiment has died out among business associates. We are glad to say that such is not the case in those with whom you have been associated during your long period of service at the Pontchartrain Hotel. In leaving the Pontchartrain you are breaking ties which you perhaps did not suspect existed. We assure you that they do exist--friendship, love, and esteem, and in token of our expression of these sentiments, we ask you to accept these gifts. Think of use once in a while when you use them, and be assured that they are only a small token of our feelings as such feelings cannot be made tangible. We all wish you success in your new connection, and know that wherever you are, or with whom you are associated, you will command the same feelings of respect in which you have always been held by us. Wishing you good health, long life, and continued prosperity, we are saying au revoir, Your sincere friends
- Date Issued:
- 1918-01-01T00:00:00Z
- Data Provider:
- Detroit Historical Society