The Nankin Township Historical Society

Detroit Free Press , July 3, 1893 As was the case with most small towns looking for a leg-up in the booming industrial age, plans were afoot in Romulus in the 1890s to make it a manufacturing hub. Being conveniently located at the crossing of the Wabash Railroad and the Flint & Pere Marquette Railroad it made perfect sense for the time. As such, the Romulus Land Syndicate of Detroit, which had already lured such manufacturers as the J. M. Hommel Mfg. Co., The Romulus Knitting Mills, The Seestedt Furniture Co. and the Columbian Wire Works. Seestadt, having formerly been located in Wayne, needed an upgrade in their growing business and chose Romulus. On July 4, 1893 the Romulus Land Syndicate renting a train an offered a free expedition from the New Union Depot in Detroit to the burgeoning town 13 miles to the west. The only exclusions were children because they meant business, I suppose. Not a solitary event the land syndicate seemingly did this annually for a few years.

Meet my pal W. H. Whitcomb. I just purchased him a few days ago. Although his photo was taken in Detroit by C. M. Hayes & Co. I don't think he lived in the city. He was possibly a pharmacist and possibly lived in Vicksburg, MI. Also, meet his ghost on the back of the card of the little girl from Moore's studio in Seattle. I know that I've shared such a "ghost" photo before but have never ascertained what the process is called. Oh yeah, little Irene was included in the package. She was from Iowa City and the photographer's name has been chopped off. It appears to have began with a C. Perhaps Clench?

Detroit Free Press , January 13, 1884 Elizabeth Proctor was both a Perrinsville resident and a shopper of McClennan & Co. of Detroit. In the fashion of Mabley's (where J. L. Hudson began his career and honed his skills) they were keen to give freebies to customers. In this case every 20th customer received their purchase for free. It must have been the slaughter sales of cloaks and red twilled flannels which roped her in.

A 1910 Christmas card from Eloise to Miss Katherine Sundberg of the J. Solvay Process Company of Detroit from some name starting with an E that I can't decipher. It appears to be Eucena or something close to that but also might just be Emma written rather sloppily.

Detroit Free Press , May 11, 1899 In 1899 Nankin fought back against the Detroit, Ypsi & Ann Arbor railway for double-charging their fare within the township limits. Whereas the fare was a flat 5 cents for a full ride between any two points in Nankin the township accused the railway of charging an extra 5 cents within the limits of Wayne Township.

Thank you John King Books for more free books with bookplates, falling apart antique tomes which I will make my first hornbook (a page from an old book mounted on a slab of wood) with and this Crowley's Lending Library book, "My Name is Morgan" by William Woolfolk. Crowley's, like Detroit's legendary department store J. L. Hudson Co., had both a lending library as well as a modern bookstore that sold the latest books. Detroit Free Press , September 17, 1950 Crowley's Lending Library began sometime around September of 1950 and had a selection of 5,000 books which could be borrowed for a penny a day and a 2 cent charge per day after a fortnight. As the second newspaper clipping illustrates a month later they were up to 6,000 volumes.  Detroit Free Press , October 13, 1950 The stamp in this 1963 book shows that the rental prices had increased to 5 cents per day and 10 cents a day after 14 days. This book must have had some popularity as it was the 8th copy of...

Sometimes these posts write themselves. Unlike The Detroit News new carrier card , that I found last time at John King Books and returned to the owner, Fayetta Crowley Thurber won't be receiving this 1916 return notice for the Aivanti Chartres book Marie Tarnowska from the lending library at Dennen's Book Shop which she took to Gratiot Beach in Port Huron for the summer. The store was located at 19 East Grand River at the foot of Woodward and was a new and rare bookstore. Detroit Free Press , December 9, 1917 The store also sold stationary and party decorations and did engravings along with the circulating library. Detroit Free Press , May 1, 1917 Fayetta Crowley married Donald Thurber, son of the private secretary to President Grover Cleveland, and was well-connected socially being a friend of opera singer Enrico Caruso. Detroit Free Press , April 30, 1911 While the card spells it out the ne wspaper traces her stay with the Lafayette Crowley family (her parents) in Port H...

Velvet Peanut Butter jars like the one shown here, circa 1948, aren't readily available but I had a chance to buy one a few years back for $20 but was too cheap to do so. Then it was gone. I did manage to snag a smaller sized version a year or two later but the classic 2 pounder is quite rare. I'll get one eventually.

Detroit Free Press , July 17, 1959 Thanks to the snow, its shoveling and the lack of newspaper search results I present you this little photo caption. While the Free Press is mostly an entertainment rag with faulty information and spelling, it did have a decent heart at certain durations of its long existence. Namely to the sick and poor. The Sunbeam Club (c. 1917) was set up for sick children to communicate with other such children through the newspaper. Whereby they would obtain addresses of those who inter ested the reader and they would become pen pals.  The Free Press Fresh Air Camp (c. 1906) was a service that persisted even longer and gave sick children the opportunity to go to a camp for 10 days or so to regain their health. Obviously there was one at Sylvan Lake but the location may have changed over the years. I don't really want to delve into for obvious reasons of time. At one point I started collecting articles from the Sunbeam Club but despite the troves of inform...

While I didn't get the Flower Girl Perfume bottle I did get my dram of poison. Who needs beauty when death has outstretched arms pointing in thy direction, eh? This sample bottle of tincture iodine was the property of Sam's Cut-Rate Drugstore of Downtown Detroit. A fact that I didn't notice until now because the handling of various bottles of chemicals started burning my fingers so I handed it off to the estate sale people for safe keeping and washed my hands. If I had to gu ess I'd say that it's from the 1930s but I'm known to be wrong on a regular basis. It's a decent consolation prize.

I've never seen this postcard from J. L. Hudson's before so when I saw 7 or 8 of them at the estate sale the other day I grabbed them all. After coming to my senses I put back half and settled on 4. Let somebody else have a few. I'll sell at least two of them and make back most of the $17 I spent at the sale. Not to mention that the money used came from a few textbooks that I sold so it was all free to begin with. That's always been my modus operendi concerning antiques or else I couldn't justify spending the money on stuff that I don't really NEED no matter how amazing it is. The card speaks for itself. I want to say that it's from the early 1900s but that's a complete stab in the dark. It's almost definitely not later than the 1920s.

I tried in vain to get this Flower Girl Perfume bottle at an estate sale this morning but somebody beat me to it. Guessing by the lack of advertisements for the product, the ones shown below are from between July and October of 1907, I would suppose that this was a short-lived venture by Edwin H. Lee of Detroit. Detroit Free Press , August 28, 1907 Detroit Free Press , July 26, 1907 Detroit Free Press , July 28, 1907 Detroit Free Press , September 22, 1907 All local newspaper advertisement ceased after 1910 so it's safe to assume that the product did as well. Though there are mentions of a Flower Girl Perfume in other c ities but none directly tie back to Detroit. Which could mean anything from it being a generic fragrance that was sold to various druggists under that name which they would self-bottle or it's the same product and they neglected to mention Detroit in their ads. It makes sense from a regional standpoint that you would localize the product. Either way, all adver...

The Border City Star , November 2, 1928 It looks like I'm not quite ready to give up on Halloween yet. After finding a book today at the thrift store called Death Makes a Holiday: A Cultural History of Halloween by David J. Skal it reinvigorated me to forsake seances for old Samhain (pronounced sow-win). Pranks are more of a tradition on Halloween than is trick-or-treat. Such was the case in 1928 when 9-year-old (according to the Freep) Tommy Evans, his father John of the Clover Leaf Milling Co., older brother James and some friends bounded through the Palmer Park neighborhood of Detroit in search of mischief.  Tommy knocked on the wrong door at 18264 Parkland. A woman answered and Tommy asked for some seasonal gifts. The woman told him to wait a minute and went to find the homeowner Murray Jackman, who along with his chauffeur, bounded around the back of the house and pounced upon the boy. Other boys at the scene alerted James and he attempted to defend his brother but was ...

I found this booklet at a Farmington estate sale a week or two ago. There were 3 scattered among the house and at one point I had all of them but acquiesced to sanity on this one occasion and put them back for others to collect. If you've been around newspapers, especially the Detroit dailies, and books long enough you know the name Lilian Jackson Braun. She of the long-running mystery series The Cat Who... which I never read a page of but have sold many a copy. She was also th e Good Living section editor for the Freep for 30 years while writing columns as well. This booklet appeared in that paper, likely in segments. I'm dating it to 1966 or so based on the information in the booklet. It states she had been there 17 years at the time of its publication and had published two novels.She started in 1948 and published her third novel in 1968. Anyway, here are the covers and first 4 pages.