Monroe Travel Guide

"This Church, the first Presbyterian Church is this area and the first Presbyterian Church in Michigan, was organized January 13, 1820. "Minuteman" George Alford, of the Revolutionary War, was one of the charter members.

The Rev. John Monteith, who later became the first president of the University of Michigan, conducted services here July 2, 1815 in the old log courthouse. In it, the Presbyterians organized this church. Its Sunday School, the first in the Great Northwest Territory, was attended by persons of many faiths. They later helped organize the Monroe County Bible Society.

Rev. Monteith dedicated the present building February 15, 1846, Col. Oliver Johnson having donated the site.

It was here that Gen. George Armstron Custer married Elizabeth Bacon."

"Public whipping for minor crime was a custom brought from New England by Monroe's earliest American settlers. Not general in the midwest, the punishment was administered here chiefly to ne'er-do-wells whom the citizens wished to be rid of.

Peter P. Ferry, a former soldier of Napoleon's army, served as local justice of the peace. He sentenced many an offender to be lashed in public until the custom was abolished around 1835.

The first frame courthouse was built across the street from here in 1817 when Monroe became the county seat. The whipping post was erected in front of it.

St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception

"This church is the immediate successor to the first church in Monroe County, St. Antoine aux Riviere Raisin (October 15, 1788), which was located two miles upriver.

Construction of this church was begun in 1834. It was consecrated in 1839. The name was changed in 1845. November 28, 1889, the hundredth anniversary of the dedication of the first church, was memorialized by the unveiling of the granite monument which stands in front of the St. Mary edifice.

During the pastorate of Fr. Florent Gillet, the order of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary was founded here in 1845.

"Monroe County was established in July 1817, as one of the first steps in the organization of Michigan Territory after the War of 1812. Then, the old settlement of Frenchtown which centered upon this square took the name of Monroe and became the county seat, September 1817.

At first Monroe County included the lands now Lenawee and Washtenaw Counties. After the latter were established, Lenawee was attached to Monroe County for administration, 1822-1826.

Controversy over the county's southern boundary culminated in the bloodless Michigan-Ohio War 1835-36. In settlement, the U.S. Congress gave to Ohio Monroe County lands that became Toledo. Michigan in return obtained the Upper Peninsula.

"Remember the River Raisin" became a national battle cry in the War of 1812 after settlers and Kentucky soldiers were massacred by Indians on the river's banks in violation of protection promised by the British.

The stream here was the center of a sturdy French-American settlement which took form 1780-86.

In the period of controversy after the War of Independence and until 1794, British-Canadian authorities sought to establish the River Raisin as the international boundary and thus to retain possession of Michigan and control of the Great Lakes.

Indians called the stream "Numasepee," or River of Sturgeon. French settlers changed the name to "Riviere aux Raisins," which means River of Grapes. Early records tell of great masses of wild grapes which festooned the trees along its banks.