Michigan

On the Canadian border and only fifty-odd miles from Chatham, Ontario, Detroit drew many whose families left the United States for Canada in the early to mid-nineteenth century. The facts surrounding each decision to settle in Detroit differed; the proximity to family members who remained in Canada certainly provided added incentive.

When Maurice and Gertie Meehan Brown left Maywood, they resettled permanently in Detroit, with several of their children settling in surrounding Detroit communities. Detroit was an easy commute to reach the many Brown family members in the Chatham area.

Anderson family descendant, Tom Smith, lived in Detroit before moving to Chicago. His brother, Dr. Garret Smith, received his doctor’s degree from the Detroit College of Medicine in 1910. His 1949 obituary read, “With the passing of Dr. Smith, Rondeau lost one of the most successful sons of one of its most illustrious pioneers, the late Addison Smith, the first colored settler at the Eau.”  (Newspaper obituary from the collection of Terry Lynn Murphy.)