 ENAWEE HISTORICAL SOCIETYMUSEUM LENAWEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN Wherever the pioneers settled, they knew that they had to improve the roads; it was just too difficult to take goods to and from market along primitive Indian trails. In the task of developing roads, Musgrove Evans of Tecumseh was preeminent. He was a surveyor, and he worked on the first two significant roads in the area. The first, the Chicago Road (now U.S. 12), was laid out in 1826 to run between Detroit and Chicago along the ageold Indian path called the Great Sauk Trail. Once established, the Chicago Road became one of the most heavily traveled roads in the nation. Inns were established every fifteen miles or so to accommodate the thousands of travelers moving west. The Park House in Clinton (started in 1830 and now in Greenfield Village, Dearborn), the Davenport House on the north shore of Evans Lake (an 1839 successor to the original cabin inn erected in 1834, and now called the Bauer Manor), and Walker Tavern about 10 miles west at Cambridge Junction (now a state historic site) all help to remind us of the surge of settlers who came during this time. In its session of 1831-32, Congress appropriated money for a road from Monroe to the Chicago Road at Cambridge Junction via Tecumseh. Musgrove Evans was contracted to survey the route (now M-50), which was completed in 1835. In Lenawee, the Walker Tavern reminds us of that time, as does the old Springville Inn, which can still be seen alongside the road in Springville. Roads must have been a sore subject for the struggling community of Adrian around 1830. There were no government contracts to help build roads through that community, and since several extensive swamps lay between Adrian and Toledo, its natural port city to the east, travel was difficult except through Tecumseh. For Adrian to become more than a satellite of Tecumseh, something bold would have to be done. A new form of transportation called a railroad had been developed in England in the 1820s, but there were no railroads in America further west than New York. Nevertheless, Addison Comstock, Darius Comstock, Calvin Bradish, and a few others from the central part of Lenawee decide to form a railroad running from Adrian to Toledo. It would go through the swamps and open up the central and western parts of the county. Actually, the promoters of the line had a much more grandiose idea then simply to open up Lenawee. This line would run from Toledo to the navigable waters of the Kalamazoo River, enabling freight and passengers to be transported by water and rail all the way from Buffalo, New York to Chicago, Illinois. To emphasize the purpose of the line, it would be called the Erie and Kalamazoo Railroad. The whole idea was almost too bold. Imagine the capital demands of such a venture! It was almost comical to dream of engineering a railroad through the Black Swamp. Few knew what a railroad passenger car even looked like. And wherever would they find a railroad steam engine? All the same, the Comstocks put up money themselves, as did Bradish and others, and they found enough capitalists in Toledo and back in New York State to finance the venture. For engineering, they found a talented man named George Crane to help lay out the route through the swamps. As for transportation, they began with horses and then got a Baldwin locomotive, and their passenger cars looked very much like stagecoaches. The first train ran along newly laid strapiron rails from Toledo to Adrian in November 1836, the first railroad in America west of Schenectady, New York. In all of Lenawee history, nothing else approaches this achievement in terms of daring, success and significance for the county. In the short run, the Comstocks and others used the opening of this line to get the state legislature to move the county seat from Tecumseh to Adrian in 1837. Tecumseh might be the fourth largest city in the state, but Adrian was already sixth and getting its steam up. Tecumseh was hurt in this rivalry after its founder, Musgrove Evans, organized a group of settlers from Tecumseh and moved to Texas in the mid-1830s. Evans lost a son at the battle of the Alamo, whereupon he signed up and fought in the victorious Battle of San Jacintio in April 1836. Index of above links: Erie and Kalamazoo Railroad; short history of the railroad. Great Sauk Trail; short description of the Trail. Greenfield Village, Dearborn, Michigan. Illinois Conquest Trails; very good description of Indian life. Railroad Timeline. Walker Tavern. (All Internet websites) |
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