Ann Arbor Fifty-three Years Ago

Through the kindness of Mr. E. H. Clark, we are enabled to give our readers a deacription of Arm Arbor as it was in February, 18S5. It is taken from the first number of the first volume of the Argus, then the Michigan Argus, "pubhshed every Thursday by E. F. Gardner at $2 per annum." This first issue bears date Februaryö, 1835, and under the heading, "The Village of Ann Arbor", says. "Ten or twelve years ago the ground now occupied by the village of Ann Arbor was an uucultivated wilderness vi3ited by none save the savage and bis game. JSIow in 1835, the village contains something like 1,000 inhabitants. There are eleven dry goods stores, one book store, one clothing btore, one Uruggist, forty-two mechanic's nhops, two printing offices, four public houses, seven lawyers, seven physicians, live clergymen jüve schools, including one academy for males and one for females, one fiouring mili, one saw mili, one iulling mili and carding macliine, two turning lathes, one furiince, two meat markets, one brewery, one distillery. Last summer a route for a railroad was surveyed by a U. S. Engineer, commencing at Detroit and passing west through Ann Arbor to the mouth of the St. Joseph river at Lake Michigan. A large brick court house was built during the past season and one church. Three more churches it is expected will be built next season. There are twelve roads leadmg into the village. The Huron river runs through the village affording abundant and almost inexhaustable, water power for propelling different kinds of rnaciiinery. The soü of the adjacent country ia fertile, easily prepared for tillage and principally settled by enterprising farmers from tLe east who are second to no other class for intelligenee and industry.