Monday, March 6, 2000
I remembered something I forgot to cover in my February retrospective. I spent some time looking for the history of Belle Isle, since Dad told me that somewhere in the past, our family used to own Belle Isle back when it was known as Pig Island. The Detroit Public Library has their catalog online, and looking through it, I see a monograph titled A history of Belle Isle, written by Phyllis Wilbeck Ross. Next time I’m in Detroit, I’ll have to have a look at that.
I found some pages about the history of Belle Isle, from the National Register of Historic Places and the Grand Prix (apparently there’s a race on the island each year). Everybody seems to mention that the city of Detroit bought the island in 1875, but nobody mentions who they bought it from. A couple of pages that I can’t find now mention a couple of owners, among them the Macombs and Joseph and Barnabas Campeau. Macomb County is named after the former, and there’s a street in Detroit named Joseph Campeau. I have no idea yet who we’re related to who owned the island, though.
Posted at 3:22:15 PM
