Woodward Plan Part II: Dawn of the Radial City

This article is the second of a three-part series. Click here to read part one.

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"The Woodward Plan" by Kati Belz.

"An Adjustment of Titles"

Governor William Hull and Justice Augustus Woodward left Detroit for Washington in October 1805, seeking approval from Congress for their plan to lay out a new town. They issued a report on the situation in Detroit to President Thomas Jefferson, who delivered it to Congress himself on December 23. Hull and Woodward evidently showed Jefferson the new plan of Detroit, actualized by surveyor Thomas Smith. According to Smith, the plan met Jefferson's personal approval.

Thanks to Woodward's lobbying, Congress passed "An act to provide for the adjustment of titles of land in the town of Detroit and Territory of Michigan, and for other purposes" on April 21, 1806. This law authorized the territorial government to:

• Establish a new plan for Detroit, including not just the incorporated town, but also 10,000 acres of adjacent federal land.
• Grant up to 5,000 square feet of property on the new plan to every U.S. citizen over the age of seventeen who lived in the Town of Detroit on the day of the fire.
• Sell the remainder of the land to fund the construction of a courthouse and jail.

Exempted from territorial control was the fort and surrounding area, known as the Military Reserve. Its boundaries were yet to be finalized.

Hull returned to Detroit June 7, 1806, followed by Woodward and John Griffin, a new judge appointed by Jefferson to fill a vacancy on the court. Justice Frederick Bates had remained in Detroit. The reassembled governor and judges were ready enact legislation under the new powers granted to them by Congress.

"The Bases of the Town"

On September 13, 1806 the governor and judges passed "An Act concerning the town of Detroit," which codified the Woodward Plan, more formally known as the Governor and Judges Plan:

The bases of the town of Detroit shall be an equilateral triangle, having each side of the length of four thousand feet, and having every angle bisected by a perpendicular line upon the opposite side...

As the settlement grew beyond the confines of the first 4,000-foot triangle, all that town planners had to do was simply add more triangles. This was the main point of the plan--it wasn't simply a decorative arrangement of streets, but a system designed to accommodate growth indefinitely and in an orderly fashion.


Exempted from this pattern were areas close to the Detroit River or where "other unavoidable circumstances may require partial deviation," according to the law. Due to this exemption, the area south of present-day Jefferson Avenue was divided into ordinary rectangular blocks.

The six segments into which each 4,000-foot triangle was divided were simply called "sections." This legislation defined the boundaries of Section 1, beginning at the intersection of Woodward and Jefferson Avenues:

The town shall commence at a stake, distant eighty-four feet ten inches and one fourth of an inch, from the most northern and western corner of the house of Charles Curry, and shall run thence on the course north, sixty degrees east, two thousand feet; thence on a course due west two thousand three hundred nine feet, thence on the course south, thirty degrees east, one thousand one hundred fifty-four feet and six inches, to the beginning ; with such public squares, or spaces of ground, and such avenues, streets, and lanes, as may from time to time be directed by competent authority. The said figure shall be denominated a section, and shall be numbered section one...

There was nothing special about the house of Charles Curry other than it happened to be the first building standing at the corner of Woodward and Jefferson Avenues. Also, the governor and judges' calculations for Section 1 are slightly off. The approximate lengths of the sides should be, counterclockwise from the bottom: 2,000 feet; 2,309 feet, 4.81 inches; and 1,154 feet, 8.41 inches.

More sections were added, each receiving its number by the order in which they were surveyed. The known numbered sections are as follows:


On the same day that the law codifying the Woodward Plan was enacted, the governor and judges passed "An Act concerning the city of Detroit," which stated that the land "laid off, surveyed and numbered" under the preceding law "shall be a city." The Town of Detroit was now the City of Detroit. (Detroit's status would waver between town and city a few more times until its final incorporation in 1824.)

Anatomy of a Section

There is no one "true" version of the Woodward Plan. In fact, disparity among the work of several surveyors (often a result of Woodward's own meddling) created a significant amount of confusion that took years to resolve. Yet some principles have remained constant. Woodward described his plan as having been laid out

with squares, circuses, and other open spaces of ground where six avenues, and where twelve avenues intersect; with all the six sections comprising the triangle uniformly and regularly divided into lots of about five thousand square feet; with an alley or lane coming to the rear of every lot; with subordinate streets of about sixty feet width; with a fine internal space of ground for education and other purposes, with...avenues of one hundred and twenty feet width..."

The broad thoroughfare running along the border of each section was called an avenue. Where twelve avenues came together, a large circular plaza was created (e.g. Grand Circus Park). Six avenues coming together created a smaller rectangular plaza (e.g. Campus Martius). These open spaces were made by clipping off the acute angles of each section, preventing a multitude of narrow and undevelopable lots. There was also a triangular public space reserved at the center of each section. Legislation passed in 1807 directed that this area should be reserved for open spaces or public institutions, such as markets, churches, schools, fire stations, and other government buildings. This law also mandated ten-foot sidewalks and set strict, detailed standards for the planting of street trees--city planning concepts that would meet the approval of New Urbanists of the twenty-first-century.

What follows is a breakdown of how a "section" in the Woodward Plan, once outlined, was generally subdivided. Some details differed between the several versions of the plan, such as the widths of the lots and the exact placements of side streets.


The sections closest to the river were mostly subdivided into lots measuring fifty feet wide by 100 feet deep, because 5,000 square feet was the maximum allowance to be granted according to the 1806 act of Congress. Farther away from the river, the standard rectangular lot was about sixty feet wide, but would vary greatly in width in order to maintain regularity in the street network. Odd widths of 61 feet, 65.65 feet, 62.046 feet, etc. can be seen.

Place Names

The governor and judges originally envisioned the court house for the Supreme Court of Michigan located at the center of the grand circular plaza now referred to as Grand Circus Park. Such a mandate was included in the 1806 law codifying the Woodward Plan, and early documents refer to this area as the Court House Circus. The road leading from the river to the Court House Circus was called Court House Avenue. This road was of course renamed Woodward Avenue, probably around the time an 1815 law repealed the directive to locate a court house in the Grand Circus.

The rectangular plaza where the Point of Origin was set was called the Military Square because it was adjacent to the Military Reserve. The square was renamed Campus Martius, perhaps in imitation of Marietta, Ohio (once the capital of the Northwest Territory) or of ancient Rome, both of which had public squares with the same name.

In some early records, Michigan Avenue was originally referred to as West Street because it ran west out of Campus Martius. Cadillac Square used to be East Street. The center of commercial activity was Main Street, later renamed for Woodward's idol, Thomas Jefferson.

Abijah Hull

The governor and judges created the office of Surveyor of Michigan by a law passed on September 14, 1806. One of the chief duties of this official was to "lay out, survey, mete and bound the Town of Detroit...and all lands, lots, sections, avenues, streets, lanes, squares, and public spaces of ground within the same."

One month later, the governor and judges selected Abijah Hull, a cousin of Governor William Hull, to fill the position. This was much to the chagrin of Stanley Griswold and James Abbott, commissioners of the Detroit Land Office who had favored Aaron Greeley for the job. Griswold, Abbott, and Greeley--together with John Gentle, the British Detroiter who publicly mocked Woodward's Plan--comprised a faction against Governor Hull and his allies. Surveyor James McCloskey claimed that these men were "Constant associates ... frequently seen ... walking the Streets of Detroit together by night." Griswold was Secretary of the Territory, a position he hated, and he conspired to overthrow Governor Hull and take his place.

Within several weeks of his appointment, Abijah Hull completed a new draft of the Woodward Plan. The governor and judges sent it to Congress with a letter dated December 12, 1806, stating, "We have the honor to report ... that we have laid out a town or city, of which a plan accompanies this report, and have made progress in the adjustment of titles and the distribution of the donations ... and expect shortly to complete the same." Hull's drawing is the oldest surviving rendition of the Plan of Detroit.


Abijah Hall, "A Plan of the City of Detroit," (1807).
Image courtesy Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library. (Source.)

Section No. 2 of the Governor & Judges Plan of Detroit, early version.
Abijah Hall, "A Plan of One Section of Detroit," (1807).
Image courtesy Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library. (Source.)
Notice that the lots on the left hand side of the lower image do not have rear alleys. This is the only known version of the plan with this omission. The circular plaza at the bottom left is also smaller than subsequent versions, having a radius of only 400 feet rather than 500 feet.

The most significant aspect of Abijah Hull's plan is the variation in the widths of avenues. Apparently, in Thomas Smith's version, all avenues were a uniform 120 feet wide. But by this point, Woodward had instructed Abijah Hull to broaden the avenues that ran north-south or east-west to an extremely generous width of 200 feet. These were referred to as "grand avenues." Smith objected to this change, saying, "The Plan is practicable but it will not admit Innovation without destroying its mathematical beauty and symmetry, and therefore, I was always adverse to the 200 foot streets."

Perhaps Smith never fully appreciated Woodward's grand design, which is easier to see when Abijah Hull's diagram is oriented to true north and the 200-foot grand avenues are highlighted. This creates a grid of rectangular areas each containing 159.05 acres--almost exactly one quarter of a square mile. Had Woodward's plan been fully carried out, this grid would have grounded an otherwise intimidating web of diagonal thoroughfares within a recognizable and familiar framework. Only a few small segments of Woodward's grand avenues were ever built: Washington Boulevard, Madison Avenue, and Cadillac Square. Michigan Avenue runs due west from Campus Martius, but it is only the north half of a grand avenue.


Abijah Hull and Woodward continued to tinker with the plan, eventually producing plats of the first twelve sections of the city, approved by the governor and judges between April 7-27, 1807. In this incarnation, every lot has alley access. Section 2 of this version is below.



Courtesy of the Archives of Michigan.
This is more or less the plan that was finally implemented. On December 12, 1848 the Detroit City Council ordered that copies of Hull's 1807 plan be recorded by the Wayne County Register as a subdivision plat. Sections 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 8 were recorded in liber 34, pages 543-550 in the county's book of plats on December 23, 1848. Sections 5, 9, 10, 11, and 12 were recorded on pages 551-555 of the same book on May 30, 1849. Cyanotypes of these pages were made July 6-10, 1916 for the State of Michigan, and can now be found in the Record of County Plats in the Archives of Michigan, volume 118, plat 8019. An online version is available here. Sections 13 and 14 were not recorded, and may never have been fully surveyed. They appear only on Philus E. Judd's famous "Plan of Detroit," drawn in 1824.


The new alley recesses seen in Hull's 1807 plan were criticized by Smith, who called this "theoretical improvement" a "deformity and a nuisance" to his original plan. He also believed that no churches, schools, or other buildings should be constructed in the center of the sections. In an 1831 letter to John R. Williams, he wrote that originally, these spaces "were for gardens and gravel walks, places of deposit in the event of fires and circulation of air," but that Woodward "caused (them) to be filled up with lots ... and obliged subsequent Surveyors to perform his whimsical schemes.... The Plan in its original form drew the attention of scientific persons, and from its novelty, it is to be regretted it was not continued."

"The Satisfaction Due to a Gentleman"

In addition to surveying the city, Abijah Hull was also supposed to mete and bound the private land claims around Detroit, a necessary step in confirming the new government's recognition of their ownership. On August 1, 1807, commissioners of the Detroit Land Office--Stanley Griswold, James Abbott, and Peter Audrain--wrote to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin to complain that Abijah Hull had not surveyed a single land claim because he was too busy laying out the new City of Detroit. Word of this complaint got back to Hull, who alleged that he had asked the commissioners for instructions and for the names of the farmers whose land was to be surveyed on multiple occasions, but was ignored.

Hull confronted the commissioners on at least three occasions, demanding to see a copy of the letter they sent to Gallatin. At one point he was promised a copy, but the commissioners later changed their minds. Hull furiously drew up a public denunciation of Griswold and Abbott and nailed it up at some conspicuous location in the city on November 6, 1807. "To act openly and expose villains is the duty of every honest man," it began, "for the roguery of Rogues ought ever to be made public." Hull went on to explain all that had happened up until that point, and closed with the following remarks:

"Therefore the subscriber [Hull] told Stanly Griswold and James Abbott to their faces, that their writing in that way was a damm'd rascally piece of business, and that they were damm'd Rascals for doing it, and that Stanly Griswold was a liar."

Detail from Abijah Hull's notice posted November 6, 1807.
Courtesy of the Archives of Michigan.
James Abbott shot back with his own public notice:

In a scurrilous piece published this day by Abijah Hull relative to Stanly Griswold Esq. and myself, I observe several falsehoods, consequently think it necessary to inform the public that the said Abijah Hull is not only a liar, but a Perjured Villain and as such he will be treated by
                                                                                          James Abbott.

With his mind already agitated by the hours of trigonometric calculations demanded by the Woodward Plan, Hull snapped. The following day, he challenged Stanley Griswold, the Secretary of the Territory of Michigan, to a duel via the following note:

Stanley Griswold, Esq.:
Sir--For reasons which must readily suggest themselves to you, I request that you will meet me as a gentleman this afternoon, at 4 of the clock, below the windmill at the Petite Cote, on the Canada side.
                                                                                          Abijah Hull.

La Petite Côte--the "Little Coast"--was in present-day Windsor, Ontario, about three miles downstream from Detroit. Griswold never showed up, prompting Hull to address the other land commissioner who had so gravely insulted him:

James Abbott, Esq.:
Sir--The language which you used respecting me in your publication of Saturday last imperiously demands satisfaction. As I conceive that no legal redress can give adequate compensation to injured character and insulted honor, I shall expect you to give me the satisfaction due to a gentleman by meeting me at 11 o'clock tomorrow morning at the windmill on the Petite Cote, on the other side of the Detroit river.
                                                                                          Abijah Hull.

Abbott, too, failed to meet his challenger. Hull was reportedly arrested for this behavior, but then bailed out by Elijah Brush.

Not ready to give up, Abijah Hull publicly posted a final notice on November 11, 1807. A surviving but badly torn copy reads:

Whereas Stanly Griswold, and James Abbott, under the cloak of their official duty as Commissioners, have complained to the Honorable, the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, of me, in remissness of duty, as Surveyor for this District previous to my being authorized to proceed on the Surveys for the Claimants; and those very Honorable commissioners, having refused me a copy of the letter, altho' repeatedly called on both by myself and a friend, and having uttered and published base, malicious and villainous falsehoods, touching my Cha[racter] as a Citizen and a public officer, and [having] denied me that satisfaction due to [one] who feels himself aggrieved—— For [these rea]sons, the Subscriber feels it a du[ty to brand] them as Liars, Rascals, Scoundrels [who are] all destitute of manly courage, dastardly Cowards, beneath [the notice of] any Gentleman, and they will [be treated] as such by
                                                                                          Abijah Hull

Abijah Hull's notice published November 11, 1807.
Courtesy of the Archives of Michigan.

The Aaron Greeley Affair

Griswold and Abbott wrote to the U.S. Surveyor General Jared Mansfield and his superior, Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin, asking them to remove Abijah Hull and appoint Greeley in his place. Meanwhile, Griswold sent Greeley to Washington, D.C. to deliver a petition for the removal of Governor Hull and Justice Woodward. Gallatin acknowledged that the territory needed a surveyor who would "act in concert" with the land commissioners, but rather than remove Abijah Hull, Mansfield made Greeley an additional deputy surveyor in January 1808. Greeley, however, would not return to Michigan until the following May.

The troubles with Griswold finally ended when Thomas Jefferson removed him from office in March 1808. Still, Abijah Hull told Mansfield that he and McCloskey were only ready to continue surveying "provided we have nothing to do with Greely in the business." Mansfield declined to remove Greeley, simply making McCloskey yet another deputy surveyor that April. Hull complained to Mansfield again in May: "Since you informed me that Mr Greely was appointed to Survey the Claims I have declined acting altogether." Abijah Hull ultimately resigned on August 2, 1808.

Perhaps doubting McCloskey's abilities to continue work on the Woodward Plan, Governor Hull asked Thomas Smith to return to Detroit in October 1808, but Smith declined. McCloskey worked mostly in the city and in surveying a road to Ohio, while Greeley chiefly focused on the private claims. Greeley did however draw up his own rendition of the city plan, but it has not survived.


The subtle but important differences between versions of the plan become apparent in a side-by-side comparison of a sample section.
CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL SIZED VERSION OF THIS IMAGE.

The McCloskey Plan

In late 1808 and early 1809, Woodward was away in Washington, D.C. In his absence, McCloskey proposed that the Woodward Plan be abandoned. At a meeting of the governor and judges on November 21, 1808, McCloskey presented a sketch of an entirely new street layout in an ordinary gridiron pattern. Governor Hull liked the idea and proposed that a full and proper plan be drawn up. The motion passed, with Justice James Witherell voting for and and Justice John Griffin voting against it.

William Flannagan, a friend of Woodward's, immediately informed him of what had happened. "The mighty complex city of Detroit is to be reduced down to a plain scale," he wrote. Flannagan claimed that Governor Hull and Justice Witherell hired McCloskey "in their individual capacities, because the subject has never been agitated in the board, and moreover Mack [McCloskey] told me yesterday, when he produced me his new plan, that he had been requested to keep the matter secret for the present, that the governor and Judge Witherell had promised to see him well paid, and were sanguine in what they had undertaken."

On November 29, a meeting of about thirty citizens was held to discuss this change. Of all who attended, only a single individual, William Scott, spoke in favor of the McCloskey plan. As Flannagan reported, "After the matter was thoroughly discussed a motion was made for the meeting to disperse; it did so without taking any question. The commissioners are now pursuing the old plan, and they promised to make thorough work."

Although the Woodward Plan was safe for the moment, Governor Hull had grown to hate it. He was mortified when Woodward, dismissing fears of an Indian attack, proposed that the fortifications surrounding the city be removed. Woodward's suggestion could only have arisen "from his devotion to his darling child, the plan of the City of Detroit," Hull wrote just after McCloskey's plan failed to garner support.

It is deeply to be regretted that [Woodward] ever had influence sufficient to have brought that plan into existence—It is certainly the most unfortunate act of the administration of this Government—In experiment it is found to be illy adapted to the situation and circumstances of the town.

Several weeks later, with Woodward yet to return, the governor and judges repealed the act incorporating Detroit into a city ("An act concerning the city of Detroit") on February 24, 1809, reverting it back to township status, as if to send the message that Detroit's top priority was military protection, not city planning. Nevertheless, the law which codified the Woodward Plan, "An act concerning the town of Detroit," was not repealed.


The Military Reserve and surrounding parcels in 1809, shown encroaching
upon Section 2 and obstructing Section 5 completely. (Source.)

Thomas Smith Returns

Detroit's urban planning activities weren't merely interrupted by the War of 1812, they were thrown into complete disarray when the occupying British officers destroyed or confiscated many territorial documents, including plans of the city. The situation was so bad when Michigan's new governor, Lewis Cass, took office in 1813, the government found it was unable to continue selling lots or issuing deeds until its land records were straightened out.

The only person capable of restoring order to the confusion was Thomas Smith, the original surveyor of the Woodward Plan. He returned to Detroit and began drawing up yet another master plan in 1816, based on his own knowledge in addition to whatever documents could be cobbled together. In assessing the "irregularities which have crept into the survey of the city," even before the war, he reported that his original plan

fell into the hands of Mr. [Abijah] Hull, (surveyor,) who drew from it several other plans, different from the original, and also differing with each other, as well in the measurement as in the numbers of lots. Deeds were issued upon all those plans, and no regular record was kept, so it became impossible to know what lots were granted or ungranted.

Subsequently the original plan fell into the hands of Aaron Greely (Surveyor) in whose House it was seen in A broken window keeping out the weather, and in whose hands it disappeared.

Smith found inconsistencies in the method of numbering of lots within a section, which led to some lots being granted to more than one owner. Some deeds described lots wider or narrower than they appeared on the plan, while others inadvertently included portions of streets and alleys. Smith also reported that many lots were measured using a surveyor's chain that was too short!


This 1831 plat by John Farmer outlines discrepancies with dotted lines. (Source.)
Smith ably completed his task, albeit with much difficulty. Among his more unusual solutions in reconciling the conflicting lot numbering systems was to assign the ungranted lots two numbers. "That is of no consequence," he reported to the governor and judges, "as it is as easy to describe a lot with two numbers, as one." He also recommended that the 200 foot streets be narrowed, that the streets inside the sections be closed, and that the excess land be attached to the adjacent lots, but it doesn't appear that these suggestions were ever seriously considered.

After the years of work that went into repairing the plan, only a very small part of the city was platted accordingly. How it came to be that way will be explored in part three of this article.


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Architectural Legacy of the Woodard Plan

Special thanks to Michelle and Chris Gerard, who very generously provided all of the following photographs. Click on any image to see a larger version.

The David Whitney Building - Lots 20-23, Section 8.
Photo courtesy Michelle and Chris Gerard.
Although most of the lots in the Woodward Plan are ordinary rectangles, it is the plan's irregular parcels and unusually angled streets that give the center of the city its distinct character. Historian Silas Farmer put it best:

No one who studies the original plan can avoid wishing that it could have been adhered to. The portions of the city of which we are most proud and which are most admired by strangers, our main avenues, the Campus Martius, the Grand Circus, and the smaller public squares, are all parts of Judge Woodward's plan. His diagonal streets and avenues have produced several locations of special prominence which afforded exceptional opportunities for architectural display. Peculiar and pleasing vistas result in many places from the triangular intersection of streets arranged for in his plan.
—Silas Farmer, The History of Detroit and Michigan. (1884)

Metropolitan Building (rear) - Lot 67, Section 7.
Photo courtesy Michelle and Chris Gerard.

Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue - Lot 65, Section 8.
Photo courtesy Michelle and Chris Gerard.

Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue - Lot 65, Section 8.
Photo courtesy Michelle and Chris Gerard.
The genius of the Woodward Plan is that it satisfies seemingly opposite human needs--of grand, open places on the one hand, and of close and intimate urban spaces on the other--or the desires for both novelty and uniformity. Somehow they're all included, in just the right proportions, within a unified, repeatable system, still relatable two centuries after its creation.


Looking toward the interior of Section 8 from Grand River Ave. and Woodward.
Photo courtesy Michelle and Chris Gerard.

Louie's Lounge - Lot 82, Section 8.
Photo courtesy Michelle and Chris Gerard.

Urban Bean Company - Part of Lot 63, Section 8.
Photo courtesy Michelle and Chris Gerard.
The triangular lots at the center of each section remain public spaces just as Judge Woodward envisioned.


The Skillman Branch Library - Center of Section 7.
Photo courtesy Michelle and Chris Gerard.

The Skillman Branch Library - Center of Section 7.
Photo courtesy Michelle and Chris Gerard.

Rosa Parks Transit Center - Center of Section 10.
Photo courtesy Michelle and Chris Gerard.

Rosa Parks Transit Center - Center of Section 10.
Photo courtesy Michelle and Chris Gerard.

Capitol Park - Center of Section 8.
Photo courtesy Michelle and Chris Gerard.

Capitol Park - Center of Section 8.
Photo courtesy Michelle and Chris Gerard.

Harmonie Park - Center of Section 9.
Photo courtesy Michelle and Chris Gerard.

Harmonie Park - Center of Section 9.
Photo courtesy Michelle and Chris Gerard.

The Detroit Water Board Building - Center of Section 6.
Photo courtesy Michelle and Chris Gerard.

"Are cities built in a day? Can you throw them down, when your ground-plan is found contracted and inconvenient, and erect new ones on a better ground-plan, among the ruins of the old? ... No, cities are the work of time, of a generation, of a succession of generations. ... A proper and prudent foresight can alone give to a great city its fair development. Order, regularity, beauty, must characterize its original ground-plan."
                                                     —Augustus Woodward

The David Whitney Building - Lots 20-23, Section 8.
The shape of this skylight is dictated by the Woodward Plan.
Photo courtesy Michelle and Chris Gerard.

Grand Circus Park.
Photo courtesy Michelle and Chris Gerard.

Grand Circus Park.
Photo courtesy Michelle and Chris Gerard.

The Henry Clay Hotel, aka The Ashley - Lots 68 & 69, Section 9.
Photo courtesy Michelle and Chris Gerard.

The Henry Clay Hotel, aka The Ashley - Lots 68 & 69, Section 9.
Photo courtesy Michelle and Chris Gerard.

One Campus Martius - Lots 40-49 & 79-81, Section 7. Like the David Whitney building, the shape of the lobby and skylight reflects the block on which it stands.
Photo courtesy Michelle and Chris Gerard.

One Campus Martius - Lots 40-49 & 79-81, Section 7.
Photo courtesy Michelle and Chris Gerard.

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Click here to continue to The Woodward Plan Part III: Interruptions.

The Woodward Plan Part I: Origins

"I respect [Augustus Woodward] as a scientific man; and he may be useful where he cannot take the lead. He may suggest many brilliant things, which after being pruned, and qualified, may be useful. His Misfortune is that he cannot level his mind to the common—ordinary occurrences of life. The experience of past times is no lesson to him, and his ambition appears to be to surprise mankind by the singularity and novelty of his schemes."—William Hull to Thomas Jefferson, March 12, 1808

Philu E. Judd. "Plan of Detroit," (1824).
Image courtesy Clark Library, University of Michigan. (Source.)
This article is the first of a three-part series on Augustus Woodward's Plan of Detroit. Although there has been plenty written on this subject, I hope to offer a concise and detailed timeline of how exactly the plan came to be and why so little of it was ever implemented, and to bring to light a few lesser known facts about its history.

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For the first century of its existence, Detroit was an unorganized community centered around a military outpost. On January 18, 1802, the Legislature of the Northwest Territory granted it township status, effective February 1 of that year. The new Town of Detroit was finally an incorporated municipality, able to elect its own board of trustees and write its own laws. Geographically, it included the cluster of about 300 buildings on the site of the old French fort, a newer British-built fort, the "Commons" (the public land surrounding the fort), and the two farms closest to the center of the settlement. The rear border of the town was two miles inland, parallel to the river.


On March 3, 1803, the portion of the Northwest Territory that included Detroit became part of Indiana Territory. Then on January 11, 1805, the U.S. Congress passed legislation creating the Territory of Michigan and making the Town of Detroit its capital. This law was to take effect June 30 of that year.

The new territorial government consisted of a governor, a secretary, and three judges. According to the law, the governor and judges also acted as the territory's only legislature. President Thomas Jefferson made the following appointments, all of which were confirmed by the Senate on March 1, 1805:

• Governor: General William Hull of Massachusetts
• Secretary: Stanley Griswold of Connecticut
• Judge: Augustus Brevoort Woodward of Washington, D.C.
• Judge: Frederick Bates of Detroit
• Judge: Samuel Harrington of Ohio, who declined the position

The Governor and Judges of the Michigan Territory. From left to right: Governor William Hull, Judge Augustus Woodward, Judge Frederick Bates. The portrait of Woodward is a caricature made after his death, based on descriptions.
You already know where this is going, so let's just get to it.

The Fire of 1805

Robert Thom, "The Detroit Fire: June 11, 1805," (ca. 1965).
Image courtesy Detroit Historical Society. (Source.)
On June 11, 1805, just days before Michigan officially became a territory, every building in Detroit except one burned to the ground. The town covered only two or three acres, but was very densely built. Incredibly, no lives were lost in the fire.

Judge Bates had already been living in Detroit at the time. Judge Woodward arrived June 29, followed by Governor Hull and Secretary Griswold on July 1. At a meeting of the newly assembled territorial government two days later, the following resolution was passed:

[T]hat a committee be appointed to take into consideration the present distressed and confused situation of Detroit, and to report to this body what measures may be incumbent on this Government in consequence thereof. ORDERED that the said Committee consist of one, and that Judge Woodward be the said Committee.

At the meeting of the governor and judges on July 5, Woodward reported that "it will be proper to adopt a law constituting Detroit a city, and providing for the rebuilding and future regulation of the same in such manner as to prevent a similar calamity." Woodward's suggestions were approved, and he was ordered to "do and report conformably" to them.

He would devise a plan intended to prevent the rapid spread of fire, with large building lots and unusually broad avenues. But it would be no simple gridiron system, like Philadelphia or New York, but an entirely new design unlike any the world had ever seen.

Augustus Brevoort Woodward

Woodward was not exactly a wizened old judge when he arrived at Detroit, being just thirty-one when he received his appointment. He was, however, a man of some education and experience. He enrolled at Columbia College of New York at fifteen and earned his Bachelor of Arts degree by nineteen. In 1795, he befriended Thomas Jefferson, a fellow lawyer with whom he shared a love of science, literature, and civic affairs. Two years later, Woodward moved to the District of Columbia, where he established the territory's first law practice. He was active in influencing public opinion on how D.C. was to be governed, writing a series of pamphlets under the pseudonym Epaminondas. When the City of Washington was granted a municipal government, he served on its first city council.


Portrait of Augustus B. Woodward by Robert Maniscalco.
Woodward was infamous for his eccentricity. His birth name was Elias, but like the Roman Emperor Octavius, renamed himself Augustus. In 1801 he published Considerations on the Substance of the Sun, which concluded that the sun was composed of "electron." [sic] "He was tall," according to one historian, "about six feet three or four, lean and stooped." Another wrote: "His personal habits were slovenly, and his room was conspicuous for disorder."

In Detroit, Woodward was a founding member of one of the first public school systems in the United States, which he named the "Catholepistemiad" and organized according to his book, A System of Universal Science. It was to have thirteen didaxiae (professorships) given titles in a mish-mosh of Greek and Latin that Woodward made up, including physiosophica (natural philosophy), iatrica (medicine), polemitactica (military science), and so on. This institution still exists, but it is now called the University of Michigan. Woodward was stubborn, argumentative, and erratic, but he was also a dreamer and an idealist. He was exactly the sort of person who would come up with something like the Plan of Detroit.

Possible Influences

It was in the City of Washington that Woodward met Pierre L'Enfant, the French-born architect who drew the first plan for that municipality. Much is made of the apparent similarities between Washington and Detroit, with an assumption that Woodward copied L'Enfant's design. Both plans make use of broad, diagonal avenues that terminate in public circles and grand squares, but there are fundamental differences between them. Washington is simply a gridiron pattern with diagonal avenues cutting through it, while Woodward's plan is a patterned, unified system. The diagonals in Woodward's plan are integral to it, rather than forced upon it. The uniformity of Woodward's plan yields a symmetry that L'Enfant's plan lacks.


Early plans for Washington, D.C. and Detroit.
Washington, D.C. was not the first planned city to utilize grand public circles and diagonal thoroughfares. After the London fire of 1666, Christopher Wren and John Evelyn both proposed new street designs that included these elements, but few of their ideas were implemented. Francis Nicholson had more success with his 1695 plan of Annapolis, which used public circles and diagonals on a much more modest scale.


Left: Wren's plan of London (1666); right: Nicholson's plan of Annapolis (1695).
While L'Enfant's plan was an improvement on its predecessors, Woodward's system was the first to take these promising elements of urban design and develop them to their full potential. These crude ideas were perfected at last.

The Survey

Although Woodward had a vision, he lacked the tools and training necessary to make it a reality. The governor and judges required the services of a land surveyor. "We immediately fixed on a plan," wrote Hull to Secretary of State James Madison on August 3, 1805, "and employed the best Surveyor we could find in the Country to lay out the Streets, Squares and lots."

That surveyor was Thomas Smith, a native of Wales and a former resident of Detroit. He remained a British subject after the U.S. took over Detroit, and moved to the Canadian side of the river. Although he was a foreigner, he was familiar with the land and no American surveyor was available. Woodward hired him to both perfect the plan on paper and stake it out on the ground. Smith would later write that the survey was executed "according to an idea suggested by Mr. Justice Woodward which required more than ordinary pains to be rendered practicable." Although Smith never took credit for the basis of the plan, he did state that he "had no little share in its construction, deduced from the ideas of Mr. Justice Woodward."

Before the groundwork could begin, Smith had to establish a meridian--i.e., to determine true north. Magnetic north was useless for such a project. Finding a meridian required astronomical observations. Detroiter John Gentle, who had a personal vendetta against Woodward after losing a court battle, mocked him in a sarcastic account of the survey published two years later in the Aurora General Advertiser of Philadelphia:

After a few days spent in preparing their apparatus, the judge began his operations on a height contiguous to the fort. There he placed his instruments, astronomical and astrological, on the summit of a huge stone, which stone shall ever remain a monument of his indefatigable perseverance.

For the space of thirty days and thirty nights he viewed the diurnal evolutions of the planets, visible and invisible, and calculated the course and rapidity of the blazing meteors. To his profound observations of the heavenly regions the world is indebted for the discovery of the streets, alleys, circles, angles, and squares of this magnificent city,—in theory equal in magnitude and splendor to any on the earth.

Woodward addressed this criticism in a letter to Madison:

"It is true that I assisted [Smith] in taking a meridian line, and in adjusting his survey, both on paper, and on the ground. It is not true that thirty days and thirty nights were employed in taking observations. A meridian line, from which all the others were run, was taken from one solar observation, and one sidereal observation on the night of the same day, within fourteen or fifteen hours from the first."

What was the nature of Smith and Woodward's observations? Finding true north is more complicated than simply pointing to Polaris, the North Star, because it does not always indicate true north. This star actually circles the North Celestial Pole once every 23 hours, 56 minutes, and 4 seconds.


Polaris only indicates true north "P" when in positions "A" and "C." (Source.)
Smith could have measured Polaris' circular path in order to pinpoint true north. But as I learned from surveyor Joseph Fenicle, geodesists of that time had a shortcut. When Polaris reached culmination, it happened to be on a vertical plane with the North Celestial Pole and Alioth, a star in the handle of the Big Dipper. A surveyor could have suspended a plumb bob with a length of string or wire and then waited for the stars to rotate into position so that both Polaris and Alioth were exactly behind the line. At that instant, the line between the viewer and the string or wire was a true meridian. Smith, viewing the alignment with his theodolite (the "apparatus" mentioned by Gentle) would have known the exact deviation between true north and magnetic north.

If Smith and Woodward used this method, then I believe it happened in late August or early September for two reasons. First, Woodward mentioned a delay in finding a surveyor, and Hull reported in early August that that one had been hired. Smith likely would have perfected the plan on paper before staking out the Commons, so it's possible the groundwork did not begin until late August. Second, the Polaris-Alitoth-North Celestial Pole alignment occurred at a different time each day, and was not even visible throughout most of the year. Woodward stated that the astral sighting occurred "fourteen or fifteen hours" after solar noon. This alignment occurred between those hours from about August 19 to September 3 in 1805. On August 27, for example, the sighting would have been made fourteen hours and twenty-seven minutes after solar noon.


Detroit's northern sky, Aug. 27, 1805, 14:27 after solar noon.
The blue cross marks the North Celestial Pole.
Image generated by Your Horizon.
Due to axial precession, the vertical alignment of Polaris and Alioth no longer indicates an accurate meridian. In the 1890s, surveyors were able to use a similar method involving Mizar, another star in the handle of the Big Dipper, but this too is no longer useful.

Smith wrote to Judge Bates in October 1805 that he would accept a lot "on the Main Street" (Jefferson Avenue) or "half land & half money" as payment for his services. Smith said that he would be happy to continue working in Detroit "as it would be a pleasure to me to see the progress of the Town."

The Boulder

The "huge stone" mentioned in Gentle's account, where Smith and Woodward set up their base of operations, was a familiar landmark in old Detroit, located in what is now Campus Martius. In 1901, John C. Sabine recalled that James Witherell, who lived on the north side of Campus Martius, used to sit on this boulder. According to Sabine, it was located where the east side of Woodward Avenue met the north side of Monroe Avenue, and it measured three feet wide by three and a half feet long. Robert Leete, born in 1849, remembered the boulder from his childhood, estimating that it measured five feet across.

This mysterious granite stone became entangled with local legends. According to one account, Colonel Lewis Cass broke his sword over this boulder in August 1812 rather than surrender it to the British. It was also said that the stone was used as the foundation of the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument. There is no historical evidence to support either myth.

At an unknown date, city planners wanted the boulder cleared from Campus Martius. Rather than attempt to haul it away, workers simply dug a hole next to it and rolled it in. When Mayor William C. Maybury learned about this buried boulder on the eve of Detroit's bicentennial, he declared, "I shall take immediate steps to locate the exact resting place of so interesting a relic... If it is discovered I promise you it will be raised and it will form yet another object of interest to associate with historical Detroit." ("Dig Up Famous Landmark." Detroit Free Press, May 20, 1901.) Despite the mayor's initial enthusiasm, it doesn't appear that these plans were carried out, or that the boulder's final resting place has even been discovered at all.

The Point of Origin

All surveys require a "point of beginning"--a precise reference point marked by a permanent physical monument or other landmark. For his survey, Smith established his point of beginning--commonly referred to as Detroit's Point of Origin--about 120 feet south of the boulder mentioned in Gentle's remarks. Originally this point was most likely marked by a large cedar stake. Although the stone itself was not the survey's point of beginning, it might have served as a useful landmark in helping to find the true Point of Origin on the grassy commons.

The idea of the town spreading as far as today's Campus Martius and Grand Circus Park was considered ridiculous by some residents. Several months after Gentle's attack in the Philadelphia Aurora, he wrote directly to President Jefferson, complaining that Hull and Woodward were wasting money by "digging wells and erecting pumps on the Commons, near half a mile behind the town of Detroit, where in our opinion no town will ever exist"!


The Woodward Plan's Point of Origin, indicated on an 1835 map.
Image courtesy Clark Library, University of Michigan. (Source.)
The original Point of Origin was eventually replaced by a six-foot granite pillar placed vertically underground, likely as a result of this resolution of the governor and judges, dated June 8, 1819:

Resolved, that the surveyor of the Territory shall cause to be ascertained, by astronomical observations, a true meridian on the public space of ground, commonly called and known by the name of the Military Square in the City of Detroit, and shall cause the same to be denoted by substantial and permanent objects, fixed in the ground.

The granite monument was unearthed on May 19, 2003 during the construction of Campus Martius Park. News reports claimed that a bulldozer broke off the top eighteen inches of the pillar, but the contractors, Posen Construction, insist that no such accident occurred, and that it was found to have been broken into several pieces before it was uncovered.


Image courtesy James Foster, City of Detroit.


Image courtesy James Foster, City of Detroit.


Image courtesy James Foster, City of Detroit.


Image courtesy James Foster, City of Detroit.


Image courtesy James Foster, City of Detroit.
The location of the Point of Origin was carefully recorded using modern surveying equipment before removal. The restored marker was placed in a protective underground chamber at its original location in 2004.


Detroit's Point of Origin monument, returning to the center of the city.
Image courtesy Rosh Sillars. (Source.)
The completed park includes decorative granite pavers marking the location of Detroit's Point of Origin.


In a way, this is not the only point of origin in Woodward's plan. When the plan was legally codified in 1806, it was described as beginning at a stake planted in the middle of the intersection of Woodward and Jefferson Avenues. In 1821, Smith submitted a requisition to the governor and judges for a "stone of a foot square to be set in the line of Jefferson Avenue at the angle of the principal base, 5 or 6 feet in length." The requisition included a sketch of what the marker should look like:


Proposed marker to be placed at Jefferson and Woodward Avenues. (Source.)
It is not known if this marker now lies (or ever lied) beneath Jefferson Avenue.

When surveyor Hervey Parke traveled through Detroit in 1821, he described other markers in the vicinity of the Grand Circus:

About a half-mile from the present opera house stood a building appearing like a common barn on the farm of General J. R. Williams; from this point to the northwest no buildings were to be seen. In the vicinity of the barn before mentioned I observed four upright large stones of quarried granite, placed in form of a square, five or six rods (82.5 to 99 feet) from each other, said to be for the purpose of starting points for measurements on the angle for the streets.

He probably saw some combination of monuments that marked the northern ends of several sections that converged near the intersections of Woodward and Adams Avenues.


Likely marker locations indicated on an 1835 map.
Image courtesy Clark Library, University of Michigan. (Source.)

The First Roads

Most of the new town fell within the Commons, which had been property of the U.S. government since 1796. Even as Smith labored over the survey in the late summer and early fall of 1805, the governor and judges were well aware they had no authority to divide, sell, or grant a square foot of federal land. Getting permission to do so was going to take several months that the people of Detroit simply didn't have. Although the territorial government couldn't issue deeds to the land, nothing prevented them from establishing roads.

On September 18, 1805, the governor and judges passed An Act Concerning Highways and Roads. This law laid out two of the Woodward Plan's 120-foot-wide thoroughfares: six miles of today's Jefferson Avenue (from about Cobo Hall to Conner Street), and just over one mile of today's Woodward Avenue (from the river to what is now Sibley Street). Only small segments of these roads were actually cleared in 1805. Neither road was named at the time, but people soon began to refer to today's Jefferson Avenue as "Main Street."


Not only did this loophole help show the inhabitants where rebuilding should begin if the governor and judges' plan was approved--a few citizens didn't even wait for the law to be passed before constructing buildings. This legislation even uses two new houses as landmarks: that of Charles Curry, which stood at the southwest corner of the two new avenues; and the home of James Abbott, built on the north side of Main Street near the west end of the Commons.

Exchanged "Foot for Foot"

With the new town plan more or less settled, the governor and judges faced their next challenge: distributing property in a manner agreeable to everyone.

According to Hull's and Woodward's report to Congress, owners of lots in the old town exchanged their property for lots on the new plan "foot for foot," only paying for the additional square footage at auction. The prices they paid were used to determine the value of the land, which guided the sale of lots to renters who lost their homes in the fire. No money actually changed hands because the governor and judges openly acknowledged that they had no authority to sell land.

Hull and Woodward left for Washington that October, hoping to obtain congressional approval for all that they had done. They brought with them copies of Smith's rendering of the new plan. Not one copy of Smith's original plan survives today. Careless record keeping and alterations to the plan, both intentional and accidental, created a bureaucratic nightmare that would not be resolved for decades.

Smith continued his fieldwork after Hull and Woodward left. The people who built new houses along Main Street trusted that permission to do so would be granted after the fact. As winter set in, the people waited to learn the fate of their town.

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Click here to continue to The Woodward Plan Part II: Dawn of the Radial City.