Buildings at Griswold and Atwater

Clapboard and brick buildings on paved road, with streetcar track curving in front. Car parked on next block. Signs include: Hotel, D.A. Munger Elevator Co., and Baier Transfer and Storage Co. Typed on label on photograph back: "This old frame building stands at the northwest corner of Griswold and Atwater streets. It was erected in 1836 by James H. Hanmer for a hotel and was conducted by him as Hanmer's Hotel for several years. Later he leased it to B.S. Farnsworth who changed the name to The Mansion House. The original Mansion House on the bluff near Cass street facing the river was torn down in 1836 to permit the grading down of the bluff at the water front and the filling in of the river front for a distance of about 150 feet from the original shore. In 1837 and 38 it was one of the meeting places of the patriots of the Canadian Rebellion and their American sympathizers. For many years it was a favorite boarding place for the officers and sailors of the merchant marine of the Great Lakes. / During the 1870s it became known as 'The Seaman's Home,' and many sailors and longshoremen lived in it during the winter months. When it was built Woodbridge street, one block north, was the main thoroughfare of Detroit with the leading business houses and hotels between First and Randolph streets. The ground on which it stands was once part of the garden of James Abbott who lived at the southwest corner of Woodward and Woodbridge street. In that garden the first tomatoes grown in Detroit were visited by hundreds of people who called them 'love apples' and regarded them as 'rank pizen.' The seed business of Michigan had its beginning in that garden at the hands of Mr. Abbott. In 1836 the river ran within 30 feet of the front door of the tavern. There was a wide, pebbly beach where canoes landed in the shelter of Wing's Wharf and where men who speared whitefish, pike, and pickerel in the water which swarmed with fish used to sell their catch, large fist at 5 cents each and strings of them for 25 cents. It is still a hotel of the Nth class."