All history is, perforce, a merciless abridgment, and yet too much can never be written concerning any nation, any people— since each contribution must have a definite value. In the offering of this compendium of history and biography, the publishers lay claim not to any amplification of data in the annals of Detroit and Wayne county, but rather to the condensed, narrative presentation of the history of a section whose records bear the graceful tales of romance and the sterner burdens of definite accomplishment.

This work, based on a reading of seventy-three Michigan county histories, consists of an alphabetical list of more than 5,000 persons who moved west from Massachusetts to New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and other states of the middle west. The purpose throughout is to supply name, date and town of birth, date of removal, and state in which the pioneer settled. Additional information given includes name of spouse, date of marriage, and the complete identification of all sources.

Detroit’s industrial health has long been crucial to the American economy. Today’s troubles notwithstanding, Detroit has experienced multiple periods of prosperity, particularly in the second half of the eighteenth century, when the city was the center of the thriving fur trade. Its proximity to the West as well as its access to the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River positioned this new metropolis at the intersection of the fur-rich frontier and the Atlantic trade routes. In Frontier Seaport, Catherine Cangany details this seldom-discussed chapter of Detroit’s history. She argues that by the time of the American Revolution, Detroit functioned much like a coastal town as a result of the prosperous fur trade, serving as a critical link in a commercial chain that stretched all the way to Russia and China—thus opening Detroit’s shores for eastern merchants and other transplants. This influx of newcomers brought its own transatlantic networks and fed residents’ desires for popular culture and manufactured merchandise. Detroit began to be both a frontier town and seaport city—a mixed identity, Cangany argues, that hindered it from becoming a thoroughly “American” metropolis.

As with the previous volume of this series, Tales of Michigan II is a collection of fifteen stories from across the “Great Lakes State.” Chosen to give the reader an insight into Michigan’s rich and varied historical heritage, each of these tales relates a different aspect of the state’s past. Among others, stories in this book include: Ø A misunderstanding between a bridge tender and a lake freighter captain that resulted in a collision that severed the only land link between the upper portion of the Keweenaw Peninsula and the rest of the state. Ø A mistake made by the overworked operator of an interurban railway car that led to a fatal collision near Monroe. Ø The pioneering effort by Captain Curtis Boughton to open the hungry markets of Chicago to western Michigan fruit farmers. Ø The days when dog sled teams provided many remote communities located in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula with their only connection to the outside world during the long winter months. Ø The devastation left behind by a fire that erupted in downtown Alpena during the summer of 1872. Ø The tragic Easter Sunday crash of an airliner that investigators initially blamed on its crew until new information came to light nearly seven years later. Ø The tale of a gasoline tanker stranded in Lake Michigan that prompted a series of dangerous salvage efforts to remove its valuable cargo. Ø An international railway tunnel constructed below one the busiest waterways in the world.