Evidently, the route of this road/trace was originally laid out by someone named McCloskey who won a lottery in 1808 (to mark the route?) and there is a map of it in the Burton Historical Collection at the Detroit Public Library.
The article says that he must have traveled the existing (Indian?) trail, taking compass readings as he traveled. Somewhere around the Huron River, he may have deviated from the trail because Hubert Lacroix wrote in 1812 that he wasn't able to find the slashes on the trees for the original route.
Hull's Trace ran close to Lake Erie and the Detroit River, making it vulnerable to British attacks by water. As a matter of fact, the first land-based skirmish of the war, the Battle of Brownstown, was fought on a road just north of this section.
The later battles of Maguaga and Frenchtown were also fought along the trace.
Hull's Trace has been considered Michigan's first road at the beginning of the settler era.
--Brock-Perry
No comments:
Post a Comment