Fourth in a series of historical lectures on Fort Street's members and their impact on Detroit's history by Tim Moran; funded in part by Detroit 300.

Good afternoon, welcome to our Great Hall series, and Happy Halloween. Perhaps its suitable that today, on this somewhat haunted holiday, we're going to talk about some historical incidents and developments that happened at Fort Street Church. Some of them are hair-raising; some involve death; but it all works out all right in the end - at least so far!

This is the final in a series of four lectures made possible by a grant from the Detroit 300 program, and is part of the celebration of the city's 300th Birthday. The lectures build on historical files compiled by past church elder Ernest Huthwaite, and on church history materials gathered and categorized by many others, particularly Virginia Crilley, wife of former pastor Robert H. Crilley.

Incidentally, there is no way that these lectures, ambitious as they were, can even begin to tell the full story of Fort Street. Together, the texts of these four lectures add up to about 10,000 words, and while that might serve for some churches, I have to remind you that this church is Presbyterian, and wordy, and that Fort Street has more than 150 years of history. That means that these talks could put about 65 words per year into explaining the people of this church. It's just not enough.

You know, the more history happens, the more it seems to repeat itself on broad themes? This year, a tremendous windstorm early in the year damaged Fort Street's towering steeple. I don't want to spoil your enjoyment of the structure, but if you look carefully at the steeple today, you'll be able to see that it has a slightly kinked curve to the east. We just received estimates of what it may cost to repair the steeple, and they run to the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Well, in 1872, another steeple incident led to a brief merging of congregations. That year, the steeple of First Presbyterian Church needed repair, and the congregation moved in with us for worship while the work took place. I cite the incident for a couple of reasons. One, it's important to realize how connected the Detroit congregations were, even inter-denominationally. For example, in June, 1816 when John Monteith, the only protestant clergyman in the city, needed to be "installed" in his pulpit, Father Gabriel Richard loaned what was said to be the only bible in the city. Either it wasn't true, or another bible was swiftly procured, because Monteith's maiden sermon in Detroit was preached over a different bible loaned by Gen. Charles Larned.

1872 was an exciting year for the two congregations. First Presbyterian and Fort Street already went way back together. It was Rev. George Duffield's First Presbyterian session that, in 1849, allowed Rev. Kellogg to split off the "Second Presbyterian Church," which eventually became Fort Street. Duffield was a rule-bender of sorts, and an aggressive man. Before coming to Detroit, he had been tried for - but acquitted of - heresy. He was a Presbyterian "New School" man who wasn't afraid to accept new ways of doing things, and he associated with diverse groups, and he liked to see new things moving along.

In fact, in the Detroit Advertiser of 1853, an article noted: "The members of Dr. Duffield's congregation who are building the stone church on the corner of Fort and Third streets are about joining the Second Presbyterian Church, whose edifice they will occupy until the new church is built. They have procured the services of Rev. Professor E.O. Haven of the University at Ann Arbor to fill the pulpit morning and evening until a pastor is procured."

Though it's not something that happened exactly on this spot, it's important to note that in 1853, when this church was under construction, there was a cholera outbreak in Detroit, possibly as a result of an old cemetery being disturbed for new construction.

Rev. Duffield contracted cholera and was weakened by it in the outbreak. His health never truly recovered, and on June 24, 1868, he was stricken by a "paralytic stroke" while delivering an address of welcome to the delegates of the World's Convention of the Young Men's Christian Association, in which he predicted unification of all Christian churches. Duffield announced to the crowd that all churches would merge, as he said: "into one great Christian galaxy, forgetting every other distinction save that which pertains to the one great Church above and below." The stroke hit him during his remarks, and those were his last words uttered on earth. He died two days later, on June 26.

Four years after his death, when the two congregations met back together for worship, there's no question that they were still missing Duffield's influence. But 1872 also marked the year the Presbyterian General Assembly met in Detroit ˆê at Fort Street, where a $35,000 reconditioning campaign had just been completed the previous year. They put cushions on the newly installed black walnut pews, carpeted the entire sanctuary floor, and installed the "crescent gallery" balcony and an elaborate pulpit and screen.

Detroit was an exciting and vibrant place for the delegates to come to. John Polascek, curator of the Dossin Great Lakes Maritime Museum, describes it as a lively industrial center. He said: "You're talking about huge, eight to ten story buildings. Think about it, in the 1870's, if you saw a ten story building, that's pretty impressive. People didn't build skyscrapers. This was primarily to store grain, and then you could process it here. The same thing with wood; down by (what is now) the Ambassador Bridge was a large ponding area where they could bring in lumber rafts, and then sawmills up and down the river could process them."

Already by 1857, Detroit was to engineering and manufacturing as today's Silicon Valley has been to computers and software. It was such a technologically refined place that they built the first traveling calliope for a circus here. For the General Assembly to meet here then would have been a lot like today's governing body to charge off to San Jose, California, where they might take tour of Adobe's headquarters.

This lecture is meant to be authoritative, but as I was writing it, a vital reference file disappeared into the piles of paper in my office. So I'm not naming names on this one incident, and I'm ready to be corrected. From readings at the Burton Historical Collection came information that, during the General Assembly meeting, a high official - possibly the moderator, possibly the clerk - stood at our pulpit to make his closing remarks.

He summed up his information, and, preparing to hand on his office, declared "I believe that my work is done, and that it is done well." And he collapsed and died, at the center of our dais.

The packed church full of delegates was stunned. Some viewed it as the finger of God in Detroit. The congregation stayed in the sanctuary for hours, softly singing hymns, and the people of the church congregation brought food from their homes to sustain the delegates. Whatever the details of the event, Fort Street was, again, uniquely set apart in the Detroit community.

In the early 1870's, the church building consisted of only the sanctuary and its basement. When Rev. Arthur Tappan Pierson arrived here in 1869, he found a building that had been physically completed, but never truly finished to its original design inside and not completely furnished. The pastor's office was in the tower room in the steeple that is currently occupied by Ed Kingins and the music department. The church basement housed a Sunday School room that could seat more than 400. There was also a modest kitchen facility in the basement, probably tucked back against the alley wall near what is now Dana Hansen's Sunday School office. Incidentally, if you look at the church's outside wall along the alley near the highly scenic dumpsters, you'll see a large metal hitching ring still hanging there, relic of a time when tradesmen's wagons would unload supplies there.

Fire of 1876

Pierson had this to say about Fort Street of the time: "In January (1876) I found myself pastor of a large, wealthy church, with one of the finest and most elegant church buildings in the whole land; with everything to gratify a carnal ambition, and lust of human applause. I had been led by a most singular searching of heart to see that I had been making an idol of literary culture and worldly position; and a few months before, I had solemnly renounced all these things that I might be a holier and more useful man."

For a congregation that had called a pastor based on their wealth and his status, this conversion cannot have been an easy thing to live with. Pierson, already a "deep bible" man, said "For the first time in my life I had a consciousness of real communion - shall I say, contact? with God in prayer."

When a congregation finds its minister actively praying, and saying he's directly in touch with God ˆâ well, it doesn't sound very Presbyterian, does it? I'm surprised they didn't form a committee to investigate.

Pierson's conversion had him especially worried about the walls of the church. He felt that the people who really needed to hear him were outside his wealthy congregation. On March 19, "unusual power was given to me in preaching," Pierson wrote. He told a minister friend after the service: "I felt strongly that the time was very near when God would reveal His right hand, to give me new access to unsaved souls."

Then on Friday, March 24, Pierson met with an evening church prayer meeting.

"I frankly opened my heart to my beloved people. I spoke to them as to the obvious lack of power in the church to reach these neglectors of worship, and I said that our elegant church edifice perhaps tended to repel the poor. I felt that for many months our hearts had been getting wedded in closer sympathy; and that night there was a certain indescribable melting of hearts as though the Spirit were fusing us all together -I knelt among them and we earnestly besought God to remove even a mountain obstacle that might hinder us as a church from effectually reaching the unsaved."

The room was smoky as the prayer meeting closed, but it was a windy day and the people put it down to "the contrary wind driving down the flues." They left for home, locking the church.

On Saturday, March 25, at 15 minutes before 6 a.m., two alarms of fire were rung, almost simultaneously. Five minutes before, Mr. Frost, in his house across Third Street where the Union Depot now stands, was awakened by someone violently ringing his doorbell and shouting "fire, fire!" He immediately sprang from his bed, and being aware of a strong smell of smoke, supposed his own house to be on fire, and running to his district alarm box gave the two alarms. He then for the first time noticed the bright light in the windows of the church across the street, and saw the smoke pouring out in great volumes from all possible points. The fire was visible in every window, from the basement to the top of the church, but thus far had not broken out at any point. In less than two minutes, however, the flames flashed through every window, darted over the roof and sprang up the steeple to a height of 50 feet. At five minutes before six the roof fell in and sank down to the bottom of the basement. The whole inside of the church and the floor of the audience room had apparently been consumed. When the roof gave way, the tall spire settled visibly; and then, just at the stroke of six, plunged downwards with a terrific crash, falling diagonally across Fort Street, in the northwesterly direction which the wind was taking at the time. The wind was blowing a gale; and the cloud of fiery cinders, raised by the falling of the roof and steeple, was carried for half a mile, dropping all along on its course upon the roofs of the houses. Happily no damage was done, for the houses were covered by snow. At half past six the fire was extinguished."

All of Pierson's sermons, a lifetime of work, had been packed into the tower room. That room had acted as a natural chimney, and from the post-fire photos it looks as though nothing could have survived. The study table in the room was destroyed and everything burnable disappeared, except for the manuscripts, which were found "unharmed" in the ruins. Might Pierson have been a religious arsonist? We'll never know. Investigation came up with the theory that a heating stove chimney had ignited wooden lath inside a plaster wall, which had smoldered for hours before bursting out.

"The Martyr Church" was the headline of the Evening News of the day - but as far as Pierson was concerned, there was no martyrdom involved. "I felt this was God's way of opening a door great and effectual to the neglected masses about us, and I was at peace," he said.

By 11 a.m. that day, the trustees had met and decided that the church building would be rebuilt. Trustees J.H. Jones and Robert Hosie had already sought out Mr. Whitney and rented his newly completed Opera House, on the site of what is now the U.S. District Courthouse, for Sunday services.

Pierson would preach there to capacity crowds, with standing room only. It was very difficult to get him back to the restored sanctuary, rebuilt for what today would be $1.2 million dollars. Pierson led a downtown religious revival, and believed he had converted more souls in that one year than in his whole previous ministry. He said: "The extemporaneous preaching of a simple and free gospel for sixteen months in a place of popular amusement somehow drew us to these neglected masses, and drew them to us, and the effect has been to change the relations of that church to the whole community and greatly increase its power for good." Fort Street's history says: "It was with real regret that Dr. Pierson returned to the confines of the reconstructed church auditorium."

Pierson concluded: "From the day of that fire, Fort Street was largely attended by a class of people whom we had found it so difficult to reach before."

Roosevelt visit in 1902

Perhaps Fort Street was reaching out to a new class of people, but it still had significant political clout and connections. In September, 1902, at the invitation of Russell A. Alger, an American President worshipped here.

Theodore Roosevelt had been sworn in as president in 1901, and was in the midst of his first attacks on corporate monopolists, beginning with the railroad trusts and the Northern Securities Company combine run by the most powerful finance capitalists in the nation--J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Edward H. Harriman, and James J. Hill.

The Detroit Free Press reported at the time: "Wall Street is paralyzed at the thought that a President ... would sink so low as to try to enforce the law."

Alger, a Fort Street stalwart, Civil War colonel and then general, and former Governor of Michigan, was serving the administration as Secretary of War at the time. Roosevelt's visit must have been seen as a mixed blessing; on the one hand, his status was high, while on the other hand, his politics must have cut many of Fort Street's oldest families to the quick. Roosevelt in that year took his first pro-labor action, mandating settlement of a national anthracite coal strike and imposing a panel of appointed arbitrators to do it.

Fire of 1914

Time is fleeting, and I want to jump forward to discuss the second time this church burned.

Fort Street had been closed for five weeks for a renovation program. The work included cleaning and maintenance that packed the sanctuary with scaffolding, and at the same time the church was undergoing "electrification." The congregation was torn with dissent over the ornate gas chandeliers in the sanctuary; many felt they should be retained, others said they should be made electric.

Inside the sanctuary, a major part of the cleaning work had been gentle washing of mural decorations on the walls of the sanctuary that had been painted by Robert "Bob" Hopkin, Detroit's first painter of repute and the original organizer of the Scarab Club. Hopkin was renowned for his maritime murals, and for murals and church "decorations." We don't currently have photo documentation of exactly what the Fort Street decorations looked like, but they were valued by the congregation and Hopkin's 1910 death had been mourned as a great loss to the city.

Tinsmiths were working on the Fort Street end of the building in the "watch tower," the square tower that rises over the choir loft. The tinsmiths had knocked off for lunch when electricians installing wiring in the attic discovered fire in that enclosed space.

Smoke was pouring out of the watch tower when the fire department reached the scene, and newspaper reports said: "The crash of falling beams could be heard from blocks away." Despite everything the firefighters could do - and they even received aid from fireboats, which pumped water directly from the river and up hoses laid on third street - the flames ran through the roof section by section over a two-hour span. Thousands of spectators gathered and had to be held back by extensive police lines around the area. Rev. Edward Pence stood by the church on its third-street side, and as he watched the roof gradually disappearing he tried to explain what was being lost to a reporter, but finally was overcome and "showed strong emotion," a code at the time for bursting into tears.

The watch tower structure turned out to have a cast-iron framework, and as the roof fell in, it stayed put, apparently standing on air to the Church trustee John D. McKay was actually in the narthex when the watch tower suddenly gave way, falling back into the church sanctuary. McKay was narrowly missed by the falling debris, and was effectively blown back out of the church door by the rush of air. Firemen ran into the church and poured water from the balcony onto the burning mass of wood below; the controversial gaslight chandeliers had fallen, one by one, bursting through the sanctuary floor and into the basement.

The renovation cost the equivalent of $1.6 million today. Insurance covered only $622,000 of that. But the church was lucky; its pipe organ had been removed from the back balcony pending the installation of the new Swift Memorial Organ, donated by the Alger family. Other objects in the sanctuary, including the eagle lectern and the baptismal font, also escaped unharmed. The building was rededicated on April 11, 1915.

Fort Street has been touched by fire, both literally and figuratively. Some of the pews we sit in may bear charring and scars under their varnish gloss that speak to events that happened here so dramatically over the past 152 years. If the sanctuary walls could talk, they would speak of challenge, and privilege, and sudden death, and the city's changing shape and nature.

More than that, though, they would speak of people - the people this church influenced in the city; the leaders it sent out to the nation and the state; and the effects that have streamed from the corner of Fort and Third to affect a great metropolitan area.

An example of a Hopkin mural, taken from a set of lithographs discovered in Fostoria, Ohio, in 1981. Photo of Robert Hopkin. He was a self-taught artist, and his scene painting began in Detroit with a maritime work painted along the Detroit wharves, where he was employed as a young teenager doing physical work. Hopkin painted the first drop curtain for the Detroit Opera House, and was well known for murals and decorations in churches and public buildings, including a four-panel maritime set in the New Orleans Cotton Exchange. In 1870, he moved from Detroit to Chicago, but the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 forced him back to Detroit. Hopkin was the nucleus for the Hopkin Club, formed by friends, admirers and fellow artists. After his death in 1910, the club reconstituted itself as the Scarab Club, adopting the scarab as a sign of artists' immortality in their work. The club's 1928 building in the Cultural Center area is still a hotbed of artistic activity. Beams in the club lounge have been signed by many internationally famous artists.

© 2001, Tim Moran

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