Vanishing Ann Arbor

Patti F. Smith, Britain Woodman

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781439666975
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia de Norteamérica

Ann Arbor has seen many cherished landmarks and institutions come and go - some fondly remembered and others lost to time.

When the city was little more than a village in the wilderness, its first school stood on the now busy corner of Main and Ann. Stores like Bach & Abel's and Dean & Co. served local needs as the village grew into a small town. As the town became a thriving city, Drake's and Maude's fed generations of hungry diners, and Fiegel's clothed father and son alike. Residents passed their time seeing movies at the Majestic or watching parades go down Main Street. Join authors Patti F. Smith and Britain Woodman on a tour of the city's past.

1

WELCOME TO ANN ARBOR!

From Bloody Corners to East Ann Arbor, We’ve Got a Place for You!

BLOODY CORNERS

Early Ann Arbor must have been a lovely sight—burr oaks all around the town, arbors full of ripe grapes, the gentle tinkle of the creek flowing past First and Huron Streets…and that bright red house called “Bloody Corners!”

Our early settlers had to live somewhere. For them, however, “somewhere” did not exist until they built it. Two of our own founders, Elisha and Mary “Ann” Rumsey, used heavy logs to build their abode on Huron Street near First Street. The little blockhouse greeted many newcomers to our town. At various times, the home was used as a tavern, hotel and coffeehouse, as well as the residence of the Rumseys. Eventually, it became known as the Washtenaw Coffee House and was the must-see spot for all those passing through or moving in.

John Allen took a little more time to build his homestead. His wife, Ann, was not with him, so he slept in an overturned carriage for a bit. But eventually, the missus was on her way, and he had to start building. Allen nestled into the northwest corner of what are now Main and Huron Streets. For reasons one can only imagine, he thought it would be a magnificent idea to paint his two-story log blockhouse a bright shade of red, and the home was quickly dubbed Bloody Corners.

Eventually, Ann Allen showed up into town. Her reaction to her new home is lost to the ages; nonetheless, she and other members of the Allen family all hunkered down in Bloody Corners. At various times, the building also housed a tavern and a store. It was also the place where the first Masonic lodge in the area was founded in 1827.

John Allen. Bentley Historical Library.

Masonic Block, one of the many clusters of buildings that replaced John Allen’s abode at Huron and Main Streets. Bentley Historical Library.

Franklin House, a hotel located at the northwest corner of Huron and Main Streets. Bentley Historical Library.

In 1850, Allen took off to find gold in the western United States; his wife left for her home in Virginia shortly thereafter. In the later part of the 1850s, the little red house was replaced by the Franklin House, a multistory hotel. The space then became the Gregory Block in 1862. That block hosted banks, bars, offices and other necessities of life in the late 1800s. The taverns that existed at the location include the Orient, Dot’s Bar and the Star Bar. In 1982, Joe Tiboni opened Joe’s Star Lounge at the spot. The large building that is there now is called One North Main and houses high-end condominiums and offices.

FOCUS ON ANN ALLEN

Two men get credit for founding our town. To be sure, they were the adventurers who came west to find their homestead. But attention must be given to the women who followed them, who added immeasurable things to our town and who left their mark in their own way.

Born in Staunton, Virginia, on January 22, 1797, Ann Arbor’s future founding mother was named Agnes Barry. Nine days after her birth, her mother died from complications stemming from the delivery. Agnes’s father was overwhelmed by his wife’s death and reportedly begged his family to come over from Ireland to help him. They were not able to, so he hired a local young woman to care for his daughter. When Agnes was just three years old, two things happened to her: her father passed away, and her family began calling her Ann Isabella after her late mother.

Ann’s loving aunt, uncle and grandmother groomed the only child to be the Southern lady her parents wanted her to be and that her inheritance made possible. At sixteen, Ann married a gentleman farmer and doctor named William McCue. Five years later, McCue was dead, leaving Ann a widowed mother of their two sons.

Founding mother Ann Allen did not like the town, possibly because she was used to much finer living in Virginia. Bentley Historical Library.

At the age of twenty-one, Ann moved in with her deceased husband’s brother and his wife. At twenty-four, Ann married her second husband, John Allen, a twenty-five-year-old Scotch-Irish widower who also had two children. The marriage was described as one of convenience, partly because of the very different personalities of the people involved in it. John was an extrovert, very self-confident and friendly. Ann, on the other hand, was shy, private and introverted. Nevertheless, the two wed on June 7, 1821, and Ann immediately moved to Allen’s farm; her two sons remained with their uncle and aunt. Their only child, Sarah, born on May 10, 1823, was named after Ann’s grandmother.

In the fall of 1823, John Allen took off for Baltimore, Buffalo and finally Michigan. After John’s departure, Ann returned to her former brother-in-law’s home to reside with Sarah and her two older sons. At this point, the boys’ uncle, concerned about John Allen’s financial troubles, convinced a court to give him guardianship over them.

In August 1824, Ann received a letter from the Michigan Territory. In it were instructions on how to join John in the new settlement he’d cofounded and named Annarbour. John’s plan was for Ann, Sarah, John’s two children from his first marriage and John’s parents to travel to Annarbour by covered wagon. But what of Ann’s two sons from her first marriage? Heartbreakingly, Ann’s wealthy former brother-in-law asserted his guardianship over his nephews and demanded that they remain in Virginia. Ann is reported to have felt extremely guilty, even though she had no control over the situation.

Ripped away from the comforts she had grown up with, Ann now faced life as a frontier wife. It is fair to say that she was not prepared for this. Ann grew up in the South. She was wealthy. Her family owned slaves. She received the benefits of slave labor and avoided household chores and tasks. Perhaps because of this, she was not the hearty “pioneer woman” people have grown used to seeing in movies and on television. She had to deal not only with a rough frontier town but also with the misery of having left her two sons behind in Virginia.

At first, Ann had some comfort from her husband’s increased wealth. She had a pleasant (albeit bright red) home, servants and nice clothes; however, the financial panic of 1837 drove the Allens into poverty.

Hints of Ann’s depression can be found in a letter she sent to her son in Virginia in 1837. She wrote: “When I look back, all that I had is gone to the four winds; when I look forward, all is darkness.” At the time, of course, clinical depression was not well understood, and there were no services to aid Ann.

Help finally arrived in the form of her son Thomas McCue, who came to Ann Arbor in 1844 and fetched his mother and half sister. Ann spent the rest of her life in her home state, enduring the Civil War and its aftermath. Sadly, personal devastation continued to haunt Ann—both of her sons died young. Ann herself passed away at her daughter’s home in New Hope, Virginia, on November 27, 1875.

THE RUMSEYS

Just as little is known about our town’s founding mother Ann Allen, there is likewise scant information about our other founding family: Mary Ann (who went by “Ann”) and Elisha Rumsey. As previously noted, Elisha resided in New York just prior to meeting John Allen. It was there that he met Ann, believed to be a widow when she met Elisha. No pictures of the two have ever been discovered. While we don’t know much about their daily lives in Ann Arbor, a publication called Godey’s Lady’s Book provides a small glimpse of Ann Rumsey.

Described in Ann Arbor Yesterdays as “a glorified fashion magazine of the mid-1800s,” Godey’s featured poetry, engravings and articles by prominent women of the era. In the spring of 1852, a writer named Mrs. E.F. Ellet curated an article using essays written by the headmistress of the Clark School for Girls, Mary Clark. “The Pioneer Mothers of Michigan” described Ann Rumsey as a woman “of a remarkable and distinguished appearance and of energetic character and commanding aspect” with “a cheerful disposition, a disregard of hardships, and a resolute way of making the best of everything.” The essay quoted John Allen as saying Ann Rumsey was “always ready with good humor and a good supper.”

Although Mary Clark’s essays spoke of the mother of John Allen—who apparently received sixteen offers of marriage when she was eighteen and was “eminently handsome” at the age of seventy-six—it said little about Ann Allen. Ann Arbor’s Yesterdays suggests that this might be because she was still living when the articles were published. We do learn that Mary Clark believed Ann Rumsey to have entered the town “with a ready spirit of enterprise” and that she and her husband were well-to-do, bringing “horses and other stock” with them to Ann Arbor.

Sadly, there is not much more known about the Rumseys. Elisha passed away in 1827, and Ann soon remarried and moved to Indiana, where she is presumed to have spent her remaining years.

MALLETTS CREEK SETTLEMENT/EAST ANN ARBOR

Some of the roads in Ann Arbor tell you where you will end up if you drive far enough. For example, Ann Arbor–Saline Road runs between those two cities, Dexter–Ann Arbor Road takes you from one city to the other and so on. It might then come as a surprise to see a road that goes to Milan but is called Platt Road. As it turns out, Ann Arborites are nothing if not helpful and at one time did call that road Milan. This was back in the days of East Ann Arbor, which was a completely different municipality from the city of Ann Arbor in its time.

The Potawatomi tribe initially inhabited the area bounded by Packard and Milan (Platt) Road; however, in 1807, the United States brokered the Treaty of Detroit and forced several indigenous nations to give up their lands. As part of the treaty, the Potawatomi received $1,666.66 up front and $400.00 each year after for relinquishing to white settlers the area that would initially be known as the Malletts Creek Settlement and later called East Ann Arbor.

School

The first non-Native settlers arrived around 1825, just a year after Elisha Rumsey and John Allen settled Ann Arbor proper. The McDowell family and the Whitmore family received land patents for an area just east of where Packard and Platt Roads meet today.

It was in this wilderness, under an oak tree, that the first school in Washtenaw County convened. Initially, this outdoor school was in session only during the summer months; however, settlers soon built a log-cabin school southeast of Packard and Platt Roads. They called this the Mallet Creek School, and it held indoor classes from 1825 until 1853.

An elementary school opened at the corner of Carpenter and Packard Streets as a one-room log-cabin schoolhouse in 1825. It became known as Carpenter School in 1837. The school moved to the west side of Carpenter Road in 1854 and to 3360 Carpenter Road in 1914; at this latter location, the building was wired for electricity, becoming the first school in the area to do so. The school moved to the building it currently occupies in 1952 and has the honor of having educated students in the same geographical area for 193 years.

In the mid-1850s, Dr. Benajah Ticknor leased a triangle of his land at what is now Packard Street and Stone School Road with the express intention of building a school. In 1854, the first Stone School was built, remaining until 1911, when residents built a larger school that educated children until 1949. The school remains standing, housing the Stone School Cooperative Preschool since 1955.

Around 1925, parents expressed concern about having their children walk up Packard Street to the two schools. The committee formed to address the issue considered a variety of ideas, ultimately opting to form its own district separate from Carpenter and Stone Schools. After voters approved this idea, District Number Nine, Pittsfield Township, was born.

One of the first decisions to be made was where to put the new school. To that end, W.H. Rohde deeded to the new district four lots located between Platt Road and Rosedale Street, just south of Packard Street. Erected in 1926, the Platt School, named after local farmer and landowner Henry Platt, thrived and eventually added on rooms and a basement as its student population grew.

In 1944, the Noble-Grandmont Corporation purchased a tract of land east of District Nine; this area became Pittsfield Village, a condominium community that was eventually annexed into the city and continues to flourish with lovely open green spaces. After purchasing this land, the Noble-Grandmont Corporation marked five acres on Pittsfield Boulevard for use for a school and subsequently deeded the land to the government. Originally known as School Number Two in District Number Nine in Pittsfield Township, it is now familiar to its neighborhood as Pittsfield Elementary School, part of the Ann Arbor School District.

By the early 1950s, the Platt School had closed. It later served as a music store, a plumber’s shop and ultimately a church. While being used as the Greater Faith Christian Center Church, the building burned down in 2002.

Church

East Ann Arbor held interdenominational church services at the local school on Sundays beginning in 1926. Its services boasted about ninety to one hundred attendees per week, led by a local engineer named Ivan Cuthbert. A parent-teacher organization and a women’s club prospered, and both groups hosted such events as carnivals, banquets and talent nights. In addition to being social groups, they also believed in doing good charity works. They sponsored other organizations, raised money for a variety of causes and purchased gifts for patients at the Washtenaw County Infirmary.

Retail

In the 1920s and 1930s, a number of retail establishments served East Ann Arbor. McMillan’s Grocery was at the northeas...