Buildings at Griswold and Clifford

Men grouped around entrance and side of batten-and-board building in front of woodpile and cart. Signs for L. Peocock's Wood-yard, Coal and O.H. Voigt's Carriage & Wagon Manufactory. Typed on label on photograph back: "Corner of Clifford & Griswold streets, southeast. / Office of Leister Peocock, wood & coal dealer, wholesale & retail, in the early 1880s when Detroit was still a large user of cordwood for fuel and coal was gradually displacing it. Standing in the doorway, William H. Wetherbee, bookkeeper and chief clerk (at the right) and George L. Peocock, son of the proprietor (at the left). Sometimes the woodpile at the lower end of the lot reached clear up to the sign of Oswald H. Voigt on the brick building. Mr. Peocock had a dock at the foot of Griswold street for landing his supplies from lake boats. / Oswald H. Voigt was a wagonmaker whose shop was at 230 Griswold Street east side. Just below it, on Griswold, was a block of stores at the corner of Grand River. That corner was afterward purchased by the Y.M.C.A. and a new building erected there and occupied until the association built at the corner of Witherell & Adams Avenue. The old Y.M.C.A. building was remodeled into the Bowles Building. / On the west side of Griswold Street at the northwest corner of Grand River Avenue stood the Goodman House Hotel and back of it the Goodman House barn. Both sites are now covered by the Griswold Hotel, remodelled [sic] from the old Goodman. North of the Goodman House barn Martin J. Dunn had a horse-shoeing blacksmith shop at 237 Griswold, old numbering. / The photo was taken from the north side of Clifford Street pointing down the alley between Woodward Avenue and Griswold Street. Griswold Street north of Michigan Avenue gradually verges toward Woodward and at the upper end of Peocock's building is narrowed nearly to a point. Because of this narrowing the first lot south of Clifford on the west side of Griswold (lot 66 of section 8, surveyed plan of Detroit) was made about two and one half times as wide on Griswold street as the other lots--about 140 feet. Voigt's wagon shop was on lot 67 and the Bowles Building is on lot 68. / On Clifford Street facing down Griswold, was a kite-shaped lot on which an engine house for Phoenix Company, number 5, of the old Volunteer Fire Department was built in 1846 (?). This building was afterward damaged by fire and a new and larger engine house was built on the site. The site of the Goodman House was formerly occupied by the Grand River House, kept by Marvin Salter in 1846 and by S. & J. French in 1850. In 1862 A. Goodman became the proprietor and he built the Goodman House on the site. William H. Wetherbee was employed in Peocock's Wood & Coal Yard from 1879 to 1891. During that time he studied law and was admitted to the bar. In the later years, after the death of Leister Peocock, he managed the business. George L. Peocock was afterward one of the firm of Pittmans, Dean & Co., ice and coal dealers." Typescript torn on edges.