A recently acquired Detroit historical gem will be on view Tuesday in a local library.
University of Michigan’s Hatcher Graduate Library is the first to display the 21-by-40-inch map of Detroit showing detailed plans of the city, dating back to the 18th century.
View large version of map here.
The map, titled “Rough Sketch of the Kings Domain,” was found by a family in a home in Almont, Ontario. The family, who had the map since the 1930s, contacted historians to check on its validity before releasing the map to the University of Michigan Clements Library collection.
Historians certified the hand-colored map as authentic based on its high-quality and a watermarked 18th-century paper signed by D.W. Smith, which is dated September 1790.
“This is a really special find because there aren’t any other maps that depict Detroit at this particular time period,” said Brian Dunnigan, curator of maps and associate director of the Clements Library.
He said the time period of the map dates to about six years before the British evacuated the town to make way for the U.S. troops.
According to Dunnigan, the map gives detailed plans of the city. Along with the development of the town, the map shows its defenses and Fort Lernoult, which, in modern terms, was located at the intersection of Fort and Shelby streets but was constructed during the American Revolution.
The details of the map led historians to believe that it might have been accompanied by either a key or additional reports, which have not yet been found.
“It’s exciting to know that there’s still a lot of historical documentation out there awaiting to be discovered,” said Keven Graffagnino, director of Clements Library. “Everything that turns up solves another piece of the puzzle.”
According to Dunnigan, the map identifies the east and west boundaries of the “Domain,” an extra-wide ribbon strip of land that the founder of Detroit, Antoine Laumet de La Mothe Cadillac, granted to himself in 1701.
The map is available to view today beginning at 4 p.m. Tuesday; at the Hatcher Graduate Library after a talk by Catherine Cangany, associate professor of history at the University of Notre Dame.
She will discuss the history of Detroit in the 18th century.
The event is free to the public.
Click the map below to view a larger version.
Earlier this month, Local 4's Rod Meloni took a closer look into how some of Detroit's most famous streets got their names -- watch here: