Samuel Zug - The Man Behind the Island

Samuel Zug

Samuel Zug is thought by some people to have been an industrialist, but that couldn't be further from the truth. He was a devout Presbyterian who took an interest in politics and human rights.

In 1836 at the tender age of twenty-years-old, Samuel Zug came to Detroit, Michigan from Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. Using money he saved as a bookkeeper in the Pittsburgh area, he went into the furniture making business with Marcus Stevenson, a Detroit investor.  

The prospect of endless stands of pine, oak and maple trees as raw material, and convenient access to Eastern markets by way of the Detroit River for their finished products made Detroit an ideal place for a young man to make his fortune. 

But in 1859 after twenty-three years in the furniture business, his partnership with Stevenson was dissolved leaving Samuel Zug a wealthy man to pursue real estate and political ambitions.

In 1859 (or 1876 depending on which source you choose), Samuel Zug purchased 325 acres of land along the Detroit River from Michigan's second Territorial governor, General Lewis B. Cass. Over 250 acres of the parcel was marshland with a sulfur spring bubbling up 1,200 barrels of mineral water a day.

The marshy peninsula of land was a part of Ecorse Township before it became the city of River Rouge. In unrecorded time, the land was rumored to be an ancient burial site for a number of native American tribes known to inhabit the area.

Samuel Zug and his wife Anna built a home on the island, but after ten years they decided that the marshland and natural sulfur spring on the site proved too much for them to endure. The Zugs surrendered the land to the red fox, water fowl, muskrats, and mosquitoes. The croaking frogs and singing insects were left to serenade the damp night air because the island was virtually uninhabitable.

In 1888, Samuel Zug authorized the River Rouge River Improvement Company to cut a small canal at the south end of his land. Known by locals as Mud Run, it was dredged out sixty feet wide and eight feet deep. 

Short Cut Canal at bottom of map was Mud Run.

The Zug family peninsula became a man-made island overnight separating it from the north end of Ecorse Township. The channel improved the flow of the Rouge River into the Detroit River, but it did little to circulate water around the newly formed island, leaving a slow-moving backwater.

On December 26, 1889, Samuel Zug died leaving his holdings to his wife, Anne, who died on June 10th,1891. It has been reported wrongly that Mr. Zug died in 1896. My source for the correct date of Zug's death comes from his tombstone in Detroit's Elmwood Cemetery.

The Zug heirs sold the island for $300,000 to George Brady and Charles Noble, who wanted to use the site for an industrial dumping ground. The island was diked with interlocking steel panels and back-filled with construction rubble and dredging waste to raise the ground above the water table and reclaim the land from its natural state.

Heavy industry was about to move onto the island but Mr. Zug never lived to see it. The island's namesake was "Waiting for the Coming of Our Lord" as the inscription on his grave marker proclaims.

In addition to being a bookkeeper and the owner of a successful furniture manufacturing company, Samuel Zug also is credited with being one of the founding members of the Republican Party, which was considered to be the progressive party of the day. Their first official meeting took place on July 6, 1854, in Jackson, Michigan.

The Republicans were an abolitionist party that came to national attention when they won 33% of the presidential vote from the Democrats and the Whigs in 1856. Four years later in 1860, they broke through the two-party system and elected Abraham Lincoln to the White House.

Samuel Zug was an anti-slavery advocate long before Lincoln was elected and The Civil War began. He bought and set aside a parcel of land for refugee slaves in the city of Amherstburg, Ontario, Canada, a destination of the Underground Railroad. What other support he gave to the Abolitionist Movement is shrouded in the dim history of time and whispers of the unrecorded past.

At the time of his death, Samuel Zug was unaware of the mighty industrial complex his soggy marshland would become. He would never know the history Zug Island would make possible or the long-term environmental impact the steel industry would have on the area and its people.

In Detroit's Elmwood Cemetery

Zug Island closes its steel-making operations in April, 2020.            

The Long-Awaited Ambassador Bridge Connects Detroit with Windsor

Ambassador Bridge Announcement--Detroit Free Press

When the automobile business took off early in the twentieth century, the need for an international bridge connecting Detroit with Windsor to expand the auto industry and increase international commerce became apparent, but securing government funding for the bridge project was a hard sell fraught with political red tape and delay. The highest-profile person supporting the bridge project was automobile magnate Henry Ford. "The only way to get things done today is by private business," Ford said.

A team of Detroit business leaders incorporated the Detroit Bridge Company and sought out a former Detroiter, successful New York City banker Joseph A. Bower. Bower sold securities to finance the project and was able to raise $23.5 million in privately financed funds, including his own investment.

The project details were presented to the Detroit Common Council and approved unanimously. But one dissenting voice vetoed the project, Mayor John W. Smith. In additional to several ambiguities in the project's prospectus, including revenue for the city of Detroit, Smith was rightly concerned that the bridge deck would only be 135' above the Detroit River.

Mayor Smith, mindful of the future, realized that 135' would limit future navigation of larger freighters. The project engineers went back to the drafting table and re-engineered the bridge to be 152' above the water.

Recognizing the long-term value of the bridge and the threat any further delays might pose to the overall project and his substantial investment, Bower assumed the $50,000 cost of a referendum in a special election supporting bridge construction. The referendum passed by an eight to one margin on June 28, 1927. The next month, McClintic-Marshall engineering firm was awarded the bridge contact which ran from August 16, 1927 until August 16, 1930.

The penalty for late completion would require the firm to pay the interest on the securities until the bridge could generate revenue. If they finished construction early, they would be entitled to half of the bridge's revenue until the official end of the original contract. The newly christened Ambassador Bridge opened six months ahead of schedule despite having to change out the original suspension cables which were found to become brittle in freezing weather. They were quickly replaced with cables spun with stronger cold-roll steel. Still, the bridge cost came in 1% under the original budget allocation.

When finished, the Ambassador Bridge was 1.5 miles long, requiring 21,000 tons of steel. The clearance from the Detroit River was 152' but the bridge's roadway never rises above a gentle 5% grade. The four-lane roadbed (two coming and two going) was 47' wide with an 8' wide pedestrian sidewalk on the west side of the bridge. The bridge was anchored on the American side on West Jefferson and 21st Street. On the Canadian side, the anchorage touched down on London St and Huron Line Road in Sandwich, Ontario.

Opening day ceremonies coincided with Armistice Day (Veteran's Day) Monday, November 11, 1929. An estimated 100,000 from both sides of the Ambassador Bridge were on hand to cheer the ceremonial opening. With much pomp and circumstance, dignitaries from both countries held cermonies on their respective sides of the bridge. At 3:15 pm, Canadian bands played patriotic selections such as "God Save the King" and "Oh Canada," while at the same time, American bands on their side played tunes like "America" and "The National Anthem."

Following the musical programs, speeches were made by dignitaries on both sides of the bridge. Then, bronze "Friendship Tablets" designed by New York sculptor Jonathan M. Swanson were unveiled on the anchorages on both sides of the bridge. The plaques celebrated more than 115 years of friendship between the United States and Canada. The ceremony ended when dignitaries met at the exact international boundry. They shook hands and cut a white, silk ribbon. Then in concord, sirens and fog horns of river craft sounded continuous acclamation while many airplanes soared and circled above the bridge.

The bridge was originally scheduled to open in 1930 which is what the plaques reflect.

In what only can be described as a loosely controlled riot, joyous crowds on both ends of the bridge swarmed the deck. When the roadbed became so crowded that people could not move, some of the braver revellers climbed the construction catwalks on each side of the bridge to the top of the piers. It took well into the night before the bridge was cleared and secured again.

Photo from Windsor Star.

Four days later, the Ambassador Bridge opened for business. The opening was signaled by the passage of two cars filled with dignitaries from each country that left simultaneously from each side of the bridge. They honked in friendship as they passed at the center of the bridge and a signal cannon boomed to officially open the bridge to the toll-paying public. Cheers and applause broke out on both ends of the bridge.

The Ambassador Bridge was now officially open. An estimated 235,000 persons crossed the bridge the first day--35,000 of them were pedestrians. Traffic was backed up almost two miles on each bridge approach with people wanting to claim bragging rights that they had crossed on the first day.

On opening day, American customs officials reported that eleven quarts of whiskey were seized in three separate incidents. Prohibition was still in effect on the American side. At 8 pm, a man carrying four quarts, and at 9:15 pm, a woman carrying six quarts were detained by customs inspectors. Both people used the same excuse, they needed the whiskey to make holiday fruit cake." Just after 11 pm, a single quart was found tucked under the back seat of a car.

It was determined by customs agents that none of the instances was a commercial violation. The smuggled Canadian liquor was confiscated and the offenders were released after paying a $5 fine for each quart.

The Ambassador Bridge had the misfortune of opening just twenty-one days before the Great Depression struck. To compound the misery of the bridge's investors, the new Detroit-Windsor Tunnel opened downtown the following year charging lower automobile tolls. One factor remained in the bridge's favor though, the Detroit Bridge Company held a monopoly as the only Michigan international crossing for the commercial truck business.

When World War II broke out just over a decade later, American gas rationing dramatically cut automobile bridge traffic, but commercial truck traffic increased due to the war effort. In 1944, two years into the United States entry into the war, the Ambassador Bridge became profitable for the first time. Investors were paid 75 cents per share which began an unbroken stream of dividends every year since.

Gordie Howe International Bridge 

A Brief History of the Gordie Howe International Bridge

 

With the installation of final edge girders on the Gordie Howe International Bridge on June 14, 2024, the long-awaited connection between the Canadian and United States sides of the Detroit River transpired.

This momentous occasion was the culmination of a nineteen year journey which began on June 15, 2005, when the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) announced that a new international bridge was being proposed by a bi-national partnership between the United States Federal Highway Commission and Canada’s Ontario Ministry of Transportation. Its mission was to address “border crossing needs in Southeastern Michigan and Southwestern Ontario.”

Highway traffic research on both sides of the border indicated that the present Ambassador Bridge, which went into service over ninety years ago in 1929, was inadequate to meet the region’s future needs. The new bridge project originally known as the Detroit River International Crossing (DRIC) would have six lanes with an additional twelve foot wide pedestrian and bike lane, rather than the four lanes of the current Ambassador Bridge.

The cable-stayed bridge would have a 138’ clearance from the river and a total length of 8,202’ (1.5 miles). At its highest point of 722’, the bridge would rival the height of Detroit’s Renaissance Center. Two-hundred, sixteen spun steel cables will support the roadway and bear the traffic weight loads. The bridge will be illuminated at night with high-powered LED lighting.

The bridge plazas will have 24 primary inspection lanes and 16 toll booths. The port of entry and border inspection facilities on the United States side will have dedicated exit lanes to connect with Interstate 75, while the Canadian port of entry’s border inspection facilities and toll collection booths will directly connect to Ontario Highway 401.

Artist's rendering of Gordie Howe Bridge lit up at night.

Arguments in favor of the DRIC bridge were:

·       It would improve global trade between the two countries.

·       It would create an estimated 10,000 constructions jobs and 3,350 permanent jobs.

·       It would ease the daily traffic jams and border delays on both sides of the Detroit River.

·       It would save fuel, reduce air pollution, and minimize time lost, especially on the Canadian side where semi-trucks could avoid the gauntlet of city traffic lights leading to the Ambassador Bridge.

***

Major opposition to the DRIC bridge proposal came from the billionaire owner of the Ambassador Bridge, Manuel “Matty” Moroun, who made his fortune in the trucking industry and from collecting tolls on both ends of the bridge, including owning the Duty-Free shops.

The Ambassador Bridge is one of the few international, privately owned toll bridges in North America. While the Detroit/Windsor Tunnel downtown allowed passenger cars and buses through its crossing, the Ambassador Bridge became the only way commercial truck traffic could cross the Detroit River for almost 100 years, except for slow, obsolete ferry service. Matty Moroun purchased the Ambassador Bridge from the Joseph A. Bower family in 1979 and enjoyed its monopolistic status for over thirty years. Now, the DRIC threatened it.

Ambassador Bridge art deco plaque installed midspan.

Moroun used every legal delay his lawyers could devise and argued in the courts that his bridge had “exclusivity rights” granted to him by the previous owners. The courts summarily shut down that argument. In desperation, Moroun offered to build a six-lane twin span and use the old Ambassador Bridge for foot traffic and special events saying that his proposed project would be less expensive to build. The Canadians argued successfully that Mouron’s project would not solve the underlying traffic problems in the Windsor metropolitan area.

Moroun switched from the court battles to the political arena after losing a lawsuit brought by the MDOT in 2009 for his failure to construct new ramps to connect the Ambassador Bridge directly to Interstate 75 in violation of a previously negotiated contact. Michigan Republicans began voicing their support for Mouron and opposition to the DRIC bridge project.

Manuel "Matty" Moroun

In 2010, Moroun’s opposition to the new bridge prompted the Canadian government to offer to pay Michigan’s portion for the new span in exchange for collecting all tolls from the bridge for the next fifty years to reimburse Canada. Michigan Senator Alan Cropsey, Republican from DeWitt County, remained opposed to the Canadian offer. “The new bridge is unnecessary, and it would put an American businessman (Moroun) out of business. Is this some kind of foreign aid?”

Dan Stampler, president of Moroun’s Detroit International Bridge Company, warned that jobs created for the DRIC would go to Canadians casting doubt on Michigan’s Governor Jennifer Granholm’s loyalty as a Canadian born United States citizen for supporting the Canadian funding proposal. “She has offered to sell the Michigan border to Canada,” Stampler said.

Governor Granholm quickly refuted the broadside charge as “Totally absurd! When it comes to jobs and expansion on both sides of the border, this is the only game in town.” The political battle raged on.

In 2011, the Michigan Senate rejected a bill that would have allowed the state to accept a $550 million cash advance to fund the United States portion of the bridge construction. United States special interest politics interfered with the bill’s passage. The new Michigan Republican Governor Rick Snyder threw his support behind the DRIC bridge bill in his State of the State address telling his party that economic growth was his top priority. “It is time to solve problems,” he said.

In a last-ditch effort to enforce his will, Moroun promoted a proposal for an amendment to the Michigan Constitution requiring approval for the new bridge construction by not only Detroit voters, but also Michigan voters at large in statewide elections. The ballot proposal was defeated by a wide 60% to 40% margin. Mouron’s aggressive lobbying and litigating had worn thin with Michigan voters paving the way for the project to proceed.

***

On May 14, 2015 in a ceremony along the Detroit River on the Canadian side, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and Gordie Howe’s son Murray Howe jointly announced that the publicly owned DRIC bridge would be renamed the Gordie Howe International Bridge, after a native Canadian who played hockey for the Detroit Red Wings leading them to four Stanley Cup victories. Because of his prowess on the ice, Howe earned the nickname “Mr. Hockey.” In his remarks at the naming ceremony, Prime Minister Harper said, “Gordie Howe was a proud Canadian who built extraordinary goodwill between the two countries.”

On October 26, 2014, Howe had a stroke while at his daughter’s home. At the time of the naming ceremony announcement, Gordie Howe suffered from dementia and could not attend. His son told him about the honor bestowed upon him. Howe said, “That sounds pretty good to me.” Thirteen months later on June 19, 2016, he died at his son’s home in Sylvania, Ohio of undisclosed causes at the age of eighty-eight, two years before groundbreaking on the bridge began.

Howe’s casket was brought to the Joe Louis Arena for public visitation. The following day, his funeral was held at Detroit’s Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament. Acting as pallbearers were hockey great Wayne Gretsky, winningest NHL coach Scotty Bowman, and Detroit Tiger legend Al Kaline. Howe’s remains were returned to Canada and interred in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.

Mr. Hockey--Gordie Howe

***

Construction officially began on the Gordie Howe International Bridge in 2018, but the completion and opening have been delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The long-awaited bridge opening is now scheduled for the fall of 2025 once the bridge plazas, signage, and traffic lights are installed. People on both sides of the Detroit River look forward with anticipation to the ribbon cutting ceremony marking the end of a twenty year odyssey.

Ambassador Bridge Opening Day Ceremony 

Willie O'Ree--National Hockey League Pioneer

Willie and his family with Canadian Prime Mister Justin Trudeau.

I can not express how happy I am that my friend Willie O'Ree was inducted into the National Hockey League Hall of Fame in 2018. As if that wasn't enough, Willie was also awarded the Order of Canada medal by Prime Minister Trudeau. And now, a documentary about him is premiering April 29th at the 2019 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival in Toronto. An article and the trailer for the documentary is linked below.

Commemorative Hockey Puck

Willie and I met not on the ice but through our wives who were friends. Willie's wife is from Duncan, British Columbia; he is from Fredericton, New Brunswick; my wife is from Tucson, Arizona; and I'm from Detroit, Michigan. How we came together in time and space is one of those happy coincidences that seldom occur in life. When Sue and I married, Willie and Deljeet stood up for us at our ceremony along with my daughter Nicole and Sue's father Frank.

September 2007

Willie told me that when he was a kid, his baseball team won a Canadian Little League championship and he got to meet Jackie Robinson. Robinson shook Willie's hand in a "meet and greet" in New York City. Robinson asked him if baseball was his favorite sport.

Souvenir from Willie O'Ree Night at recent San Diego Gulls game.

Willie said, "No, it's hockey."

Robinson was surprised and replied, "Black people don't play hockey."

Willie responded, "We do in Canada." 

As an adult, Willie and Robinson met again in a celebrity pro/am golf tournament and Jackie remembered Willie as a kid. Since 1998, Willie has been the NHL Diversity Ambassador. The impression Willie leaves with people who meet him is they are in the presence of an unforgettable, outstanding human being.

Willie O'Ree documentary trailer

Canadian Prohibition Loophole Fuels Roaring Twenties in United States

Model T stake truck breaks through Detroit River ice with overload of Canadian liquor

During the United States Prohibition period, the majority of liquor passing through Windsor, Ontario and the Border Cities into the United States came across the Detroit River. The United States Customs Department estimates that 80% of all illegal spirits brought into the country during Prohibition originated in Canada--our neighbor to the North. This "Detroit Funnel" as it became known in the press supplied liquor to Chicago, Lansing, Toledo, Cleveland, St. Louis, Kansas City and all points in between.

When Ontario passed the Ontario Temperance Act in 1916, the province closed the bars, clubs, and liquor stores until the end of World War I. The government needed the grain for the war effort. But with the end of the war, the Canadian government repealed wartime Prohibition and liquor began to flow again in the Dominion.

Meanwhile, the United States Congress passed the 18th Amendment--otherwise known as the Volstead Act--on October 28, 1919. The act banned the manufacture, transport, sale, import, export, and delivery of alcohol spirits within its borders. The bootlegger, rum runner, and flapper were born. The easy market and close access to Detroit became the focal point for shipping illegal booze into the United States from Canada. Historians labeled the age The Roaring Twenties--when organized crime flourished on both sides of the International Border.

Under pressure from vocal Temperence groups on both sides of the International Border, Ottawa passed Bill 26 decreeing that each province could prevent the importation of liquor by holding a referendum vote. The rest of Canada voted dry leaving Ontario to stand alone. The province did vote to approve the Sandy Bill on July 19, 1921 which disallowed the movement of liquor within Ontario without an order of the Board of License Commissioners.

Jim Cooper--Belle River and Walkerville roadhouse owner and illicit liquor dealer--figured out that if he set up an export business in Detroit, he could circumvent the Ontario law. Canadians would place an order through a Detroit telephone number. The purchased goods were not imported into Ontario. The liquor was already in Windsor and Walkerville warehouses. Because the purchase was made out of the country, it was perfectly legal to be delivered within Ontario.  

During Prohibition, six distilleries and twenty-nine brewers operated within Ontario all licensed by the federal government. It is estimated that forty million dollars of booze illegally crossed the border every year. At first, there was a lot of small-time suitcase smuggling for personal use. All manner of devices were contrived to conceal bottles. Some people strapped bottles under their clothing, pints were slid into high boots, and cars were fitted with hidden compartments.

After organized crime wrestled control of the river from small-time operators, much of the liquor was smuggled in by the boat load. In the winter, old jalopies, trucks, and sleds scurried across the frozen river to engage in the illegal trade. When the U.S. Coast Guard built up their fleet with 200 h.p. patrol boats hoping to dominate the river traffic, the Purple Gang's Little Jewish Navy bought specially outfitted speed boats and mounted small cannons on their bows with Tommy Gun-toting crews to harass the authorities leveling the playing field. The Purple Gang laid claim to the Detroit River as their territory. Any freelance bootleggers unlucky enough to be caught smuggling by the gang lost their booty and often their lives. The Purple Gang alone is credited by police with the murder of over 500 people during their bloody reign of the Detroit underworld.

Earning the big money became possible because of a gaping loophole in the Canadian law. Large quantities of liquor could be bought from Canadian distilleries for export purposes if purchasers or their agents carried a Canadian Customs B-13 export clearance document certifying that the buyer was exporting liquor anywhere but a country where Prohibition was the law. Shipments were marked for Europe, Cuba, and South America. But once a boat left the loading dock, the Canadian government was unconcerned where it actually moored and unloaded. The burden of enforcing this American law fell squarely upon the United States, and the Dominion felt no obligation to enforce the laws of their sovereign neighbor.

The boxes and barrels of liquor were distributed to Ontario Border City export docks strung out along the length of the Detroit River. Rum runners from Detroit would cruise across, load up their boats, and make their river runs--mostly at night. In the winter, the shipments were loaded on the frozen Canadian river bank awaiting their mass exodus across the International Border.

Some of the diverted illegal liquor stayed in Canada by sailing directly into slips behind Ontatio's chain of roadhouses stretching from Windsor to Niagara Falls offering dining, drinking, dancing, gambling, and adult entertainment. Americans flocked to Ontario to patronize the Border Cities thriving vice economies.

For its part, the Canadian Government levied a nine dollar tax per gallon on all liquor sales. This export tax was returned when the customs department received a certificated receipt from the country where the shipment was imported. Since most of the liquor landed in America, those receipts were never redeemed. By 1928, Canada earned up to thirty-million dollars per year this way.

With the New York stock market crash on October 29, 1929 and the onset of the Great Depression, many people lost everything. Jobs were scarce and money was tight. The drunken revel was all but over. Then on December 5, 1933, the United States government passed the 21st Amendment repealing Prohibition. The bill landed on President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's desk and he signed it. The boom times of Prohibition ended on both sides of the international border. It would take another World War to turn the economies around for both countries.

The Rise and Fall of the Purple Gang: 
https://fornology.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-rise-and-fall-of-detroits-purple.html

John Norman Collins Canadian Connection

When I speak to people about the Washtenaw County murders of the late 1960s, I am usually asked, "Have you been in contact with any of John Norman Collins's family?" My answer is always, "I've made several attempts without success."

JNC's older brother and his late sister were steadfast in their silence about their notorious younger brother. Neither of John's siblings bear any responsibility for what their brother did; regardless, they both paid a heavy personal price and are victims of the collateral damage from the very public and court case. They chose not to comment--well within their rights.

John Norman Collins (13), his brother (16), and sister (15) - December 30th, 1960.

The Collins' family wall of silence is a legacy from their mother, Loretta--the family matriarch. She was the sole ruler and spokesperson for the family during her son's trial and afterward. Not even John was allowed to speak in his own defense. Now that Loretta is gone, no one speaks for the family. I had just about given up establishing contact with anyone in the Collins clan when I received an unexpected email from a surprising source.

"My name is John (Philip) Chapman; I am John Norman Collins's Canadian cousin. I've been in contact with my cousin since 1981, thirty-two years now--and I have some interesting information I would be willing to share with you pertaining to John's family history and facts he has revealed to me. 

"I normally would never get involved, however, after reading your blog post--Treading on the Grief of Others in the John Norman Collins Case--I agree a debt is owed to history that must be paid.

"My heart truly goes out to those young women and their families who had their daughters taken away from them too soon. If there is anything I can share with you to help, I would be happy to do so."

John Philip Chapman appeared exactly when we needed him most. My researcher Ryan M. Place and I had worked for three years to get someone from the Collins family to speak with us about John's early family history.

Richard Chapman in 1944 on motorcycle seen with his friend Fred Higgins who saved his life.

"John's father--my Uncle Rich--was a light-infantry officer and an explosives/demolition expert in His Majesty's Canadian Services. He lost his left leg in 1944 during the Second World War. After his injury, he spent weeks in a military hospital recovering from battle fatigue and physical complications before being shipped home to Canada. He was on medication for the rest of his life. My uncle lived until 1988.

"I want to correct a public inaccuracy. Uncle Richard was never abusive towards his children or my Aunt Marjorie (Loretta went by her middle name in Canada). He never abandoned his children and never would. My aunt divorced my uncle for alleged 'extreme mental cruelty.' Uncle Rich loved his children very much, however, due (to) the amount of lies Aunt Marjorie put in their heads, they didn't want to be bothered with him. Hoping to avoid dragging their children through a bitter divorce, my uncle gave Aunt Marjorie what she wanted--full custody. My cousin Gail learned the truth shortly before her Dad passed away."

According to Chapman, "My Aunt Marjorie's family felt Uncle Rich was not good enough for their daughter. He wasn't Catholic. Her parents didn't like their son-in-law and offered him money to disappear.... I know for a fact that my Uncle Rich never took the money."

John Philip Chapman

John Philip explained that he had been writing his cousin John (Collins) in prison since he (Chapman) was seven or eight years old. "(Collins) is twenty-five years older than me and has always been like a big brother. In our letters, he refers to me as 'Little Brother'." John Philip Chapman explained that he was an only child and found comfort in the attention from his older American cousin who became a virtual 'Big Brother' for him.

Somehow, Chapman managed to remain ignorant of his older cousin's crimes. Over the years, Chapman maintained a "Don't ask - Don't tell" policy regarding his cousin's imprisonment. After all, Collins had insisted he was innocent of the Karen Sue Beineman murder. Collins also complained in his letters that he was victimized by a rogue cop (Sheriff Douglas Harvey), an overzealous prosecutor (William Delhey), and a corrupt legal system looking for a scapegoat. Now forty-one years old, Chapman's personal search for knowledge about his cousin was making him confront his deepest fears.

John Philip Chapman asked if I would be interested in receiving some of his cousin's prison letters. Chapman had noticed a change in tone and intensity in the letters of late, and he wanted me to look at them. Then, Chapman volunteered something unexpected. He offered to see what other information he could find out from his cousin about his crimes. 

Without JNC's knowledge, over the next four months we received a total of nine prison letters from Collins to his cousin. The letters average seven pages and cover a range of subjects, but one theme became more and more prevalent as time went on. Collins was pressing for an international prisoner exchange with Canada. This was Chapman's original motivation for contacting me. He wanted to know if he and his mother had anything to fear from Collins. I told Chapman that I wouldn't feel comfortable with Collins in my house or my neighborhood.

Chapman told me that Collins tried unsuccessfully to get an international prisoner exchange with Canada in 1981. Canada has more liberal sentencing provisions than the United States, so Collins saw parole as a very real possibility. The basis for his repatriation claim was he was born in Canada and held dual citizenship. He claimed he had relatives and a support system there.

But both JNC's father and his uncle refused to offer their sponsorship to Collins after being contacted by authorities on both sides of the Detroit River informing them of the particulars of Collins's crimes. When the Detroit Free Press ran an article about the possible transfer acting on a tip from a Marquette prison inmate, the Michigan Department of Corrections summarily revoked Collins's application for the international prisoner exchange.

John Norman Collins

Thirty-two years later, Collins summoned up the courage to ask his younger cousin--his last Canadian blood relative--to sponsor him for another prisoner transfer attempt in hopes of receiving dispensation for timed served in Michigan. To Collins's way of thinking, all he needed was a relative and a place to stay; then, he could be assigned to a work release program in Canada and be free of his Michigan prison cell and his jailers. Now, it became clear to Chapman what JNC had been driving at for months--the chicken hawk wanted to come home to roost.

Link to the above mentioned blog post:
http://fornology.blogspot.com/2013/06/treading-on-grief-of-others-in-john.html

"Kosher Nostra"--Detroit's Purple Gang Origins

Russian immigrants waiting on Ellis Island.

Detroit's slums were the breeding ground for crime and violence when waves of European immigrants settled in the city between 1881 and 1914. The Purple Gang members were second-generation Jewish-Americans of Russian and Polish descent. Their Hastings Street neighborhood was on Detroit's Lower East Side known as Black Bottom. These young men were born into poverty and received little education barring them from desirable jobs. Mob life offered them everything but respectability.

Street punks waiting for some action.

Before they were known as the Purple Gang, they were part of a neighborhood mob of delinquent youths who became thieves, pickpockets, and shakedown artists primarily in the Eastern Market area just north of their home turf. Under the mentorship of older neighborhood gangsters--Charles Leiter and Henry Shorr--the Purples began to commit armed robbery, hijacking, bootlegging, loan sharking, kidnapping, extortion, and murder for hire. Soon, gang members ran gambling rings, speakeasies, and a numbers racket (lottery) among Detroit's black population.

Purple Gang members avoiding a press photograph at the 13th Precinct police station.

The Purple Gang was exceptionally violent and ruled the Detroit underworld from 1927 until 1935. Authorities estimate that the gang murdered over 500 members of rival bootlegging gangs during Detroit's bloody turf wars. They were virtually immune to police interference because of payoffs to city officials and local beat cops. When known Purple Gang associates were arrested, witnesses were terrified to testify against them.

The Purples came about through the merging of two groups--Oakland County's Sugar House Gang led by Leiter and Shorr, and a mob of Jewish street hoods led at that time by nineteen-year-old Sammy Coen, who assumed the alias Sammy Purple. Detroit detective Henry Gavin claimed the gang was named after Sammy. Once the police tagged the group as the Purple Gang, the press took up the drum beat. Gang members hated the label. There are several urban legends about how the gang's name came about, but Henry Gavin's explanation is the most credible.

Canadian liquor being smuggled on the Detroit River.

The gang grew into manhood with the emergence of Prohibition. Three years before the Volstead Act and national Prohibition became the law of the land, Michigan passed the Damon Act in 1917 prohibiting the sale of liquor within the state. Henry Ford supported and financed the movement because he wanted a sober workforce, but the Damon Act was declared unconstitutional in 1919.

By the time the whole country entered Prohibition with the Volstead Act in 1920, Detroit was already a haven for bootleggers and hijackers of Canadian liquor shipments. Detroit was the gateway for the illegal distribution of alcohol to larger cities like New York, Chicago, and St. Louis. By the mid-1920s, Detroit was home to an estimated 25,000 illegal drinking establishments called speakeasies which were full-service bars. For people who couldn't afford cafe society, blind pigs developed which sold liquor by the shot in private homes and after-hour businesses.

Legend has it that a church in Walkerville, Ontario installed a neon cross on their steeple to signal bootleggers that a shipment of booze was coming across. The neon beacon could be seen through the fog which was when the boats would leave. Pint bottles were developed so they would sink in case bootleggers had to ditch them in the Detroit River. Fifth-sized bottles would often wash up along the shoreline.

The four Kaminski brothers grew up in Delray on Thaddeus Street. They would hang out along the river and watch the rumrunners try to outrun the Coast Guard. If a shipment was in danger of being seized, the "Little Jewish Navy"--as they were called--would throw the booze overboard to ditch the evidence. The brothers knew the river currents and would dive in to retrieve as much product as possible--then sell it. Seems like virtually everyone in Detroit was in the liquor business.

Boats were used on the water, and trucks were used on the ice to transport booze.

Seventy-five percent of the liquor smuggled into the United States during Prohibition passed through Detroit. The Purple Gang's liquor, gambling, and drug trade netted the gang hundreds of millions of dollars annually providing the "grease" to make hefty payouts to city officials and police who agreed to look the other way. Turf wars were inevitable, and it wasn't long before Detroit streets ran with the blood of would-be rivals. The Purples became overextended and began to import hoods from New York and St. Louis to work as "muscle" for the gang.

Unlike the Italian-American gangs who pioneered organized crime, the Purples were a loosely structured gang with shifting allegiances that came together and drifted apart when the need arose. After Sammy Purple's leadership, Raymond Bernstein ruled the gang until his murder conviction. Ray's soft-spoken brother Abe became the boss thereafter.

Author Robert A. Rockaway wrote in Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies (2001), "Italian gangsters tended to involve (cross-generational) family members in their criminal activities. With the Jews, it was that one generation, the children of immigrants, and it ended with them." As a postscript, the Purple Gang reigned over Detroit's underworld for only five years. Most of the gang were either gunned down or died in prison.

My next post will cover the rise and fall of the Purples in Detroit.

*** 

Part Two: https://fornology.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-rise-and-fall-of-detroits-purple.html 

Montreal's Canadian Expo 67, a Souvenir Medallion Necklace, and John Norman Collins

Remembered as a source of Canadian national pride, the Montreal Exposition 67 was Canada's first world's fair. It also marked its centennial year as a confederation. The exposition's motto was "Man and His World/Terre Des Hommes." Expo 67 became known as one of the most successful world's fairs of the twentieth century but not without overcoming many obstacles.

First, the Soviets were awarded the fair by the Bureau International des Expositions (BIA) on May 5, 1960. The Cold War was heating up and Moscow cited financial and security concerns, bowing out as the host country in April 1962. Six months later on November 13, the BIA changed the location of the World Exhibition to Canada. Despite an Ottawa government report showing the likely failure of such a project, Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau convinced lawmakers that it was possible to prepare for the expo and have its grounds ready for the scheduled opening day.

It was Drapeau's idea to create two new islands in the St. Lawrence River and enlarge the existing Ile Sainte-Helene. The result would prevent wholesale land speculation which could rock the Montreal economy if the exposition was built on the northern reaches of the city as others had advised. The mayor's plan seemed far fetched at first, but it started to make more sense the closer Canadian ministers took a look at it. 

United States Pavilion - Buckminster Fuller's geodesic dome.

Montreal was already in the midst of a huge public works project, the expansion of their Metro system. The rubble and excavations from that project would become back fill for the man-made islands. The first batch of twenty-five million cubic tons needed to create the islands was ceremoniously dropped on August 13, 1963.

Working around the clock, a legion of dump truck drivers and heavy equipment operators finished the job on time. The newly graded grounds were turned over to the Expo 67 Corporation by the City of Montreal on June 20, 1964. This left 1,042 days to have everything else built and functioning by opening day on April 27, 1967.

Expo 67 was politically and culturally seen as a landmark moment in Canadian history. In the six months it was open, the official attendance tally was 50,306,648 despite a thirty day transit strike in September. The exposition set the single-day attendance record for a world's fair of 569,500 visitors on its third day.

The Canadian Exposition was projected to have a deficit shared by the federal, provincial, and municipal governments, but the exposition performed better financially than expected. In 1967 Canadian dollars, Expo 67 took in revenues of $221,239,872 with costs of $431,904,683. That left a deficit of $210,664,811 for the Canadian taxpayers to pick up. In return, Montreal got some new public land and improved infrastructure, and Canada received unprecedented global media exposure, a boost in international prestige, and a feeling of national pride for a job well-done.

***

Nineteen year old Mary Terese Fleszar convinced her parents to allow her to drive the family station wagon to the Montreal Expo 67 with her sister and two friends. Mary had planned out the trip in great detail. She knew how far Montreal was from Willis, Michigan, how much gasoline it would take to get there, and all the costs they might likely incur. Her mother and father had confidence in Mary's judgement and wished the girls well as they left on Thursday, June 1. Mary had even planned to beat the weekend traffic.

While on their visit, Mary purchased an Expo 67 medallion necklace with the logo of the exposition on it. The logo for the exposition was designed by Montreal artist Julien Hebert. The basic unit of the design was a pictogram of two "ancient men" linked together in friendship. This basic icon is repeated in a circular fashion eight times representing "friendship around the world."

If the viewer looks carefully at the symbol to the right, an M for Montreal can be seen in each icon. The rest of the icon looks like a W, perhaps representing the World. The fair's logo did not enjoy unanimous support from Canadians who felt it was too vague and cryptic. The design didn't include the name of the event or any reference to Canada or Montreal. But a nationwide contest was held by a group of Canadian intellectuals, and they choose Hebert's design.

After Mary Fleszar's return from her successful excursion to Canada, she sublet an apartment in Ypsilanti to be near her job at Eastern Michigan University. At about 9:00 PM on July 9th, Mary was last seen taking an evening walk by two people sitting on their front porch. The man and woman reported to police that she had been harassed twice on Ballard St. by someone driving a blue-grey Chevy. She waved the guy off a second time and then turned the corner on Washtenaw Ave leading to her apartment building. She was never seen alive again.

Mary's family believes she was abducted from the parking lot in front of her apartment building. One month later, her body was found by two teenagers among the weeds near the barn of an abandoned farm on Geddes Rd, one-third of a mile from LeForge Rd.

Early in the investigation, police asked Mrs. Fleszar to take an inventory of Mary's things to see if anything was missing from her apartment. Mary's purse and wallet were there, but her keys were missing and her light-blue Comet automobile was parked across the lot from Mary's assigned spot. Mrs. Fleszar thought that was very odd.

Mr. Fleszar removed the ignition switch for evidence before selling the car in case a set of matching keys was ever recovered. The front door lock to Mary's apartment was also removed and turned over to police as potential evidence for the same reason.

In addition to her keys, there was one other missing item. The Montreal Expo 67 medallion necklace Mary had purchased at the fair a month earlier. It was conspicuous by its absence. As a piece of jewelry, it had no value beyond a keepsake souvenir.

Two years later, after John Norman Collins was arrested for the sex-slaying of Karen Sue Beineman on July 31, 1969, Michigan State Police had probable cause to obtain a bench warrant to search his room. Found on top of his dresser was an Expo 67 medallion necklace that was entered as evidence with about one hundred other items collected by police from Collins' room and Oldsmobile Cutlass.

Items not directly related to the Beineman case were returned to the Collins family. The only item they refused to accept on John's instructions was the Expo 67 medallion. Collins denied owning or having any knowledge of the medallion and accused the police of planting it as evidence against him. The necklace was placed in an envelope and stored in an evidence vault in East Lansing, Michigan where it presumably lies today.

For more information about Expo 67, check out the following link:
http://www.cbc.ca/history/EPISCONTENTSE1EP16CH1PA3LE.html