A Little Girl in Old Detroit

A Little Girl in Old Detroit, by
Amanda

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Minnie Douglas
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Title: A Little Girl in Old Detroit
Author: Amanda Minnie Douglas

Release Date: March 1, 2007 [eBook #20721]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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GIRL IN OLD DETROIT***
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A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD DETROIT
by
AMANDA M. DOUGLAS

[Illustration]

A. L. Burt Company Publishers New York
Copyright, 1902, by Dodd, Mead & Company.
First Edition Published September, 1902.

TO
MR. AND MRS. WALLACE R. LESSER

Time and space may divide and years bring changes, but remembrance
is both dawn and evening and holds in its clasp the whole day.
A. M. D., NEWARK, N. J.

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A HALF STORY, 1
II. RAISING THE NEW FLAG, 16
III. ON THE RIVER, 33

IV. JEANNE'S HERO, 50
V. AN UNKNOWN QUANTITY, 65
VI. IN WHICH JEANNE BOWS HER HEAD, 82
VII. LOVERS AND LOVERS, 102
VIII. A TOUCH OF FRIENDSHIP, 121
IX. CHRISTMAS AND A CONFESSION, 139
X. BLOOM OF THE MAY, 157
XI. LOVE, LIKE THE ROSE, IS BRIERY, 176
XII. PIERRE, 194
XIII. AN UNWELCOME LOVER, 209
XIV. A HIDDEN FOE, 228
XV. A PRISONER, 243
XVI. RESCUED, 265
XVII. A PÆAN OF GLADNESS, 289
XVIII. A HEARTACHE FOR SOME ONE, 307
XIX. THE HEART OF LOVE, 327
XX. THE LAST OF OLD DETROIT, 344

A LITTLE GIRL IN OLD DETROIT.
CHAPTER I.

A HALF STORY.
When La Motte Cadillac first sailed up the Strait of Detroit he kept his
impressions for after travelers and historians, by transcribing them in
his journal. It was not only the romantic side, but the usefulness of the
position that appealed to him, commanding the trade from Canada to
the Lakes, "and a door by which we can go in and out to trade with all
our allies." The magnificent scenery charmed the intrepid explorer. The
living crystal waters of the lakes, the shores green with almost tropical
profusion, the natural orchards bending their branches with fruit, albeit
in a wild state, the bloom, the riotous, clinging vines trailing about, the
great forests dense and dark with kingly trees where birds broke the
silence with songs and chatter, and game of all kinds found a home; the
rivers, sparkling with fish and thronged with swans and wild fowl, and
blooms of a thousand kinds, made marvelous pictures. The Indian had
roamed undisturbed, and built his temporary wigwam in some opening,
and on moving away left the place again to solitude.
Beside its beauty was the prospect of its becoming a mart of commerce.
But these old discoverers had much enthusiasm, if great ignorance of
individual liberty for anyone except the chief rulers. There was a
vigorous system of repression by both the King of France and the
Church which hampered real advance. The brave men who fought
Indians, who struggled against adverse fortunes, who explored the
Mississippi valley and planted the nucleus of towns, died one after
another. More than half a century later the English, holding the
substantial theory of colonization, that a wider liberty was the true soil
in which advancement progressed, after the conquest of Canada,
opened the lake country to newcomers and abolished the restrictions
the Jesuits and the king had laid upon religion.
The old fort at Detroit, all the lake country being ceded, the French
relinquishing the magnificent territory that had cost them so much in
precious lives already, took on new life. True, the French protested, and
many of them went to the West and made new settlements. The most
primitive methods were still in vogue. Canoes and row boats were the
methods of transportation for the fur trade; there had been no printing

press in all New France; the people had followed the Indian expedients
in most matters of household supplies. For years there were abortive
plots and struggles to recover the country, affiliation with the Indians
by both parties, the Pontiac war and numerous smaller skirmishes.
And toward the end of the century began the greatest struggle for
liberty America had yet seen. After the war of the Revolution was
ended all the country south of the Lakes was ceded to the United
Colonies. But for some years England seemed disposed to hold on to
Detroit, disbelieving the colonies could ever establish a stable
government. As