Time Line - 1830's Overview and before

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• 1668: Father Jacques Marquette, a French Jesuit priest establishes the first mission in the region with permanent structures in the eastern Upper Peninsula.  [HIM]

• 1679: August 6. The Griffon, the first recorded lake ship, sailed from the Niagara River. [HIM]

• 1701: Fort Detroit, also known as Fort Pontchartrain du Detroit, was established on the west bank of the Detroit River by the French. This was followed by French colonial settlements on both sides of the river based on the fur trade, missions and ribbon farms. [Wiki]

• 1760: Fort Detroit is taken over by the British. It was held by the British until the Revolutionary War. [Wiki]

• 1779: The British build Fort Lernoult to the north of Fort Detroit, along the river. It was later renamed Fort Shelby and was abandoned by the U.S. military in the 1820's. Fort Shelby was demolished by the City of Detroit in 1827. [Wiki]

• 1795: The first road of rails in the United States is said to have been a short inclined track used as early as 1795 in Boston.

• 1804. The first steam engine to pull loaded cars over a road of rails was built and operated by Richard Trrevithick in England. Another British inventor, George Stephenson made great improvements in engines and built the first practical "Iron Horse". [AARQJ]

• 1825. The first steam engine to run on rails in America, an experimental model, was built by John Stevens and operated on his estate in Hoboken, New Jersey. [AARQJ]

• 1826: The first railway company to build and operate a railroad in the United States was the Granite Railway Company, incorporated in Massachusetts in 1826. The cars were drawn by horses.

• 1829. An engine, built in England and named the Stourbridge Lion, was tried out by Horatio Allen on the tracks of the Delaware & Hudson Canal Company (later the Delaware & Hudson railroad) on August 8, 1829. In September of that same year, the engine Tom Thumb, built by Peter Cooper of New York, was given a trial run on the Baltimore & Ohio. It became the first American-built locomotive to be operated on a railroad in this country. [AAAQJ]

• 1830: Railroads begin in Michigan.

• The long tradition of naming locomotives, rather than numbering them, begins.  [AAD]

• 1830’s: The Detroit and Shelby Railroad operates between what is later called Milwaukee Jct. and Shelby. It is s horse drawn route which transported farm products. In the 1870’s, the Detroit and Bay City uses this right of way. [CRP1]