Detroit: A View of the City from the Canadian Shore c. 1838

Ideally located on the vital navigable waterway connecting the eastern and western Great Lakes, Detroit was already expanding into a major commercial hub by the early nineteenth century.

The geographical reach of the Great Lakes’ wide and extensive bodies of water, extends right into the northern heartland. It was the very quintessence of the entire area’s importance in the age of water-borne transportation. So well placed was the community for industry and commerce, Detroit became a city in 1806. By 1830 the region was enjoying rapid growth in shipbuilding and manufacturing, accelerating its development as a population center. Its growing carriage business would eventually help Henry Ford and others make the city the center of the world’s auto industry and the largest city in Michigan.

In this scene, looking west from Canada’s bucolic shoreline, the Detroit-Cleveland packet ‘Sheldon Thompson’, first three masted steamer on the Gt. Lakes, passes downstream from Port Huron and Sarnia en-route to Cleveland as spring storm clouds move northward, leaving the distant city in dappled sunlight.

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