158 RURAL MICUIGAN 



expectations, refused the fee. Observers say that the 

 more hardy Finn is replacing the French farmers 

 in the Upper Peninsula. In the Lower Peninsula he 

 has ceased to be a distinguishable factor in rural 

 life. 



If the Indian and the Frenchman were first on 

 the ground, it was the Yankee who dominated the 

 institutional growth of Michigan; and who, in so 

 doing, manifested scant regard for his forerunners 

 in the region. There was no. accident about his com- 

 ing. He entered the territory usually, though not 

 always, by the water route which, after 1825, ex- 

 tended from Lake Champlain to Detroit. Not a few 

 came hither from the Genesee Valley in western Xew 

 York by the same avenue of approach ; and others 

 re-migrated from the western reserve of Ohio, which 

 the foresight of Connecticut had set aside along with 

 the southern shore of Lake Erie as a boon to her 

 Revolutionary veterans and as a condition of her 

 cession of sovereignty in that quarter to the United 

 States. If by the same token Massachusetts had not 

 retained any portion of the soil of southern Michi- 

 gan, her progeny were there in due time. There were 

 instances of overland journeys both to the north and 

 the south of Lake Erie from western New York into 

 southern Michigan ; but normally the immigrant 

 made his ingress by Erie Canal boat and lake steamer 

 to Detroit, perhaps to Monroe or even to the Lake 

 ]\Iichigan ports of the west shore. Beyond the roads 

 were very bad : one might fare better on the rivers 

 or within the open forest. Gradually and not slowly 



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