now through June 30, 2013!

Drawing on Sunday, June 30, 2013 at LOG CABIN DAY at about 3:30 pm. You do not need to be present to win.

Raffle #1:

Shinola Bixby bicycle (worth about $2,000; men or women’s style)! Tickets are $5 each or 5 tickets for $20. You can read about this amazing bicycle, generously donated by Shinola, here.

To purchase individual tickets ($5 each; $10 for 2; $15 for 3; etc.) for the Shinola bike, click the paypal logo.

To purchase groups of 5 tickets (for $20 each), click the paypal logo.

Raffle #2:

Pair of VIP tickets to the US Open Tennis Championship, President’s Suite, Courtside Box for Thurs. Aug 29 (worth more than $1,000 or priceless to some!). See complete details below.

To purchase tennis tickets, $20 each, click the paypal button. 

Tickets on sale at all PFPP events (yoga, bike rides, tai chi, tennis classes) and at Log Cabin Day (when the winners will be picked). Also here at our website. Lee King will be Tennis & Golf Co. on Saturday, May 18, and most Saturdays through June 30, selling tickets from about 11 am – 2 pm. Address is: 30211 Woodward Ave, Royal Oak, MI 48073

US Open Tennis Championship Raffle Info & Rules: 

Winner will receive 2 invitations to US Open Presidents Suite on Thursday, August 29.  Invitations are non-transferable and may not be resold.  Guests in President’s Suite must be 12 years of age or older.  Travel and lodging to/from the event are not provided. 

The package includes:

Once it was an ancient Native American sacred center. In the 1800s, it was a rural retreat for senators, mystics, and early Detroit leaders and philanthropists.

Treasured as a public park for more than 125 years, it has been the site for magical memories, stories and experiences for children, who played and explored there, and their families. Once it was thriving and beautifully maintained — with waterfalls, wishing wells, lakes, a 1908 million dollar marble fountain, hiking trails, ponds for fishing and ice skating, orchards, flower gardens, wildlife, casino and log cabin from the 1800s — but fewer and fewer remember those days, as the park has suffered from neglect and lack of city funds to maintain it.

WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER? Share your memories on this page by writing in the comment section and help us capture those experiences. If you are willing to be interviewed in person, please let us know because we hope to have an oral history project spin off from this. We want memories of the Park from elders and youngsters of all ages so we can collect your stories to help guide and inspire us as we restore, revitalize and re-create Palmer Park.  

To read the Log Cabin Express newspaper, created for Log Cabin Day, click here.

Our inaugural Log Cabin Day in 2012 exceeded our expectations and is our new favorite holiday! We couldn’t have pulled it off without the many volunteers, sponsors, and attendees! Our organization and all event planning and implantation were an entirely volunteer effort. We look forward to the second annual Log Cabin Day on Sunday, June 30, 2013, from 1 – 4 pm. 

The 2012 event helped to raise $4,225, a good start for funds to replace the roof, but we have a ways to go. 

A special thank you to our partners in revitalizing Palmer Park, the City of Detroit Recreation Department and City of Detroit General Services Department for helping us get the park ready for the event. We are very appreciative of our event sponsors – Guernsey Dairy, an anonymous private foundation, Historical Courtyards and Gardens, Compuware, Log Cabin Society of Michigan, The Detroit Repertory Theatre, WSU Theatre Department, Barefield Design Works, Sandy’s Land Face Painting, Kyla Dorsey photography, Peacock Room, Bernadine Vida (costume designer), Fiddlers Restrung, T.C. Richardson and Square Dance Instruction, Fabulii (Amy Lebowsky), and Amy Elliott Bragg (nighttraintodetroit.com)

The log cabin needed a lot of work to get it presentable for Log Cabin Day. Thank you to Jason Fligger for leading the cleanup effort of the cabin, which included vacuuming, mopping, building ramps, weeding, planting flowers, and more.  Thank you to Historical Courtyard and Gardens for donating flowers and plants.

Our entertainment at the event was outstanding – Fiddlers Restrung, an incredibly talented group of high school fiddlers from Saline, TC Richardson and the Motor City Square Dancers, Project Daydream and their youth cast, Amy Elliott Bragg of Night Train: Detroit.

PHOTOS of the event are posted on our facebook page, or you can view photos here and more here. Download our Log Cabin Day Express to read more about our sponsors and entertainment, the vision for the Log Cabin, history of the cabin, upcoming events, and more.

Our marketing team did a fabulous job of getting promotion and publicity of the event. Check out some of the media coverage of the day of the event below:

Detroit’s Last Remaining Log Cabin In Palmer Park Opens To Public …
Huffington Post

1885 log cabin opens for tours in Palmer Park
Detroit Free Press

Closed for 30 years, Palmer Park log cabin to become community …
The Detroit News

We are already excited for next year’s Log Cabin Day, and hope you will join us again!

The Palmer Log Cabin was built in 1885.  The architects were George D. Mason and Zachariah Rice who later mentored famed Detroit Architect Albert Kahn.  Rice eventually married Thomas Palmer’s adopted daughter, Grace. 

The cabin is basically a balloon framed Victorian house wrapped in a log veneer.  It is said that Mrs. Palmer asked her husband to build her a log house since she had lived in brick, stone and sided houses but had never lived in a log home.  

According to a September 24, 1887 Detroit Free Press article, the Palmer Log Cabin was originally known as “Font Hill Log House.”  Mr. and Mrs. Palmer were  not ostentatious people, who enjoyed sharing their log house with their neighbors as well as friends and acquaintances from all over the nation.  

There was a guest book kept in the front hall and many important politicians and businessmen had signed this book.  

There was also a row of trees flanking the drive that led to the cabin (then called Surprise Avenue).  When asked under what circumstances the trees were planted, Senator Palmer said:  “Oh, whenever we caught a senator here, we made him plant a tree. 

One guest, was Senator William Mahone of Virginia, a democrat, and confederate soldier.  After the civil war, he helped to form the Readjuster party from a coalition of former slaves, conservative democrats and republicans.  Mahone and the Readjuster party secured funds for an african American Teacher’s school and collegiate institute that eventually became known as Virginia State University.  Another guest, Senator John Henniger Reagan of Texas (a moderate Democrat) had resigned from the US House of Rep. when Texas seceded from the Union at the commencement of the Civil war.  During the war, he served in the cabinet of Confederate President, Jefferson Davis, as postmaster of the confederacy.  Following the war, Reagan was imprisoned for two years in in Boston before being released and allowed to resume his political career. 

Probably the most familiar name associated with the famous row of trees is that of Senator Justin Smith Morrill of Vermont.  Morrill was a republican and it was his Morill Act of 1862 that allowed Michigan Agricultural College (now Michigan State University) to become the nation’s pioneer Land Grant Institution.

During a typical visit, Senator Palmer would show his guests his prized Percheron horses (50-60 in number) and the famous high-tech barn (with silo and steam power) that housed his Jersey cows.  In the fall, after seeing the orchards, visitors were brought to the stoop of the cabin where several barrels of freshly-made cider stood.  One of the barrels would be tapped for their enjoyment.

Inside the log house, there were many objects that recalled the “old days”.  A tall clock on the stair landing, old-fashioned chairs and bedsteads, bureaus, lounges, settees, a set of tongs as well as a  shovel and bellows to complement the large fireplaces.  There was a spinning wheel, candle moulds, oil lamps, flatiron holders, a flintlock musket with powder horn, a horse pistol, decanters, a sword and a family bible.  There was a rag carpet on the floor and numberless bunches of aromatic and medicinal herbs, as well as faux wooden hams, suspended from poles at the ceiling.  Other effects included a birch bark canoe, an Indian buffalo rob and the antlers of a deer.  

Before dinner, songs were sung, usually with accompaniment by the Piano.  Two songs that have specifically been mentioned include “I’m the son of a Gambolier” and “The Old Oaken Bucket”.  

Dinners were served in the dining room (also known as the “Keeping” room) with a blazing wood fire on the hearth and bright candles on the table.  After supper, there were cigars and a bonfire outside the cabin near the lake.  Senator Palmer enjoyed hosting parties late into the evening and he thoroughly enjoyed gathering around a large bonfire with his guests on the grounds in the vicinity of the cabin. 

He once asked the question of his guests: “I wonder if a man ever gets too old to enjoy a bonfire — I’m sure I shall never grow too old for this sort of enjoyment.” “Avoid the man who takes no interest in bonfires as you would a contagion — he has no soul in him.” “By the way, what a splendid place that would be — say 20 feet above those flames-to roast one’s political enemies.”

Finally, when the bonfire had burned to embers, the senator and his guests would retreat to  his parlor for more discussion before either departing or going upstairs to bed. 

SOLD OUT!
Help Restore the Log Cabin
Raise the Roof Party
Saturday, Sept. 8 • 4-7 pm

Michigan Log Cabin Day was a great success — some 800 people joined us at the Park to Tour Palmer Park’s Historic Log Cabin this summer. Now we need to continue the momentum to raise funds to restore the cabin!

RAISE (& Replace) THE ROOF PARTY

• WE NEED TO RAISE funds to renovate and preserve the cabin, including a new foundation on the bottom and roof on the top.
• You can help restore the cabin by making a tax deductible donation: click here or on the paypal link above. Or you may write a check made payable to People for Palmer Park with “log cabin” on the memo line and mail to: P.O. Box 02545, Detroit, MI 48202-2545
  

• Please donate what you can afford to help us restore this historically and ­architecturally significant structure so it can be reopened and the public can enjoy it as a center for education, ­history, ­nature, ­cultural enrichment and celebrations.

To read more about Log Cabin Day 2012, read below and also click here for links to photos and media coverage.
To read the Log Cabin Express newspaper, created for Log Cabin Day, click here.

LOG CABIN DAY 2012:
After many days of cleaning the cabin  inside and out, clearing beds and planting flowers, People for Palmer Park held its first Log Cabin Day celebration on Sunday, June 24.  Free Ice Cream was donated by Guernsey Farms; guided tours of the main floor of the Cabin were held throughout the event — rarely seen since it closed over 30 years ago! Actors and volunteers in period costumes set a festive mood and visitors got really creative as well and dressed up in 1880’s attire! We had Square Dancing, live music, and activities for children of all ages! Families, brought blankets and picnics. It was a great Detroit party!

Thomas W. Palmer has come to be considered one of the most significant figures in Detroit history, and he considered his celebrated log cabin to be “more beautiful than any castle in Spain.”

More than 125 years ago, he and his wife Lizzie hired the firm of George Mason and Zachariah Rice, designers of Detroit’s Masonic Temple, to design and build a log cabin at his farm. At the time, it was a knoll near Woodward Avenue overlooking a small pond fed by one of the many natural springs in the area. The cabin, its rustic log bridge, a lighthouse, and a larger pond named Lake Frances after Palmer’s wife’s mother, were completed in 1885, the year that Mason and Rice hired Albert Kahn as a new apprentice. The lake, log cabin and lighthouse still stand today, but the cabin has been closed for some 30 years, is rapidly deteriorating and must be restored.

The log cabin was constructed with logs from the farm and was filled with antiques and collectibles, mostly from the Palmer family farm in Connecticut. Senator Palmer enjoyed taking dignitaries and politicians to the farm by horse cart from downtown Detroit for picnics and fireworks displays. All his events were open to the public.

Thank you to our sponsors:

City of Detroit General Services Dept.
City of Detroit Recreation Dept.
Compuware: Compuware, the technology performance company, is rooted deeply in the heart of Detroit and proudly joins the revitalization of ­historic Palmer Park.
Guernsey Farms Dairy
Log Cabin Society of MI
Detroit Repertory Theatre
Bernadine Vida, Costume Designer
T.C. Richardson Square Dance Instruction
Fiddlers Restrung
Face Painting by Sandy’s Land
Project Day Dream (Willy Wonka theatrical presentation)
Fabulii (Amy Lebowsky)
Amy Elliott Bragg, nighttraintodetroit.com
Wayne State University Theatre Dept.
The Peacock Room

Presented by People for Palmer Park with support from the U.S. Tennis Association

The 10 & Under Program: A ten week session June 18- Aug. 20, 2013. Tuesdays: 6 – 7 pm. 

Cost: $20.00 sign up fee for entire ten week session.  Rackets and balls are provided.  Tennis shoes are required.

Location:  Palmer Park Tennis Courts – Woodward Avenue, between Six Mile and Seven Mile Roads.

Click here for the registration form and more info.

PPTA CONTACT: Leonora King:  (313) 685-1972
Head Instructor:  Melvin Foreman • Assistant Instructors:  Brooke Ellis, Jesse Cleary, Leonora King

Adult Tennis, Wednesdays, June 19-Aug. 14, 6-7 pm.  Adult registration: www.StartPlayingTennis.com

Youth take up tennis in Palmer Park

Free lessons will lead to coordination, fun, tournaments

From Family Farm to
Community Park

Excerpted from the tour guide script, from the First Annual Palmer Park and Palmer Park Historic Apartment District Architectural Tour, written by Gregory Piazza, with updating by Jim Meyers and PFPP

Our story begins in 1832 when Judge James Witherell (1759-1838) purchased 80 acres of land between what are now Hamilton Avenue, Fairway Drive, Six Mile and Seven Mile. Judge Witherell built a small log cabin on the north side of what is now Six Mile and Log Cabin Street. This area had been historically used as an Native American camping site.  Log Cabin Street is so named because it was the trail from downtown that ended at Witherell’s log cabin. Witherell was a judge of the Third Michigan Territorial Court and contemporary of Judge Augustus Woodward. In 1838 with Witherell’s death, the acreage was left to his daughter Mary Palmer. It passed to Mary’s son, Thomas (1830-1913) in 1874.

Thomas expanded the family’s holdings, eventually owning some 640 acres. This is roughly the area from Woodward and Six Mile to Woodward and Eight Mile, Six Mile to Fairway, up to Eight Mile and to Woodward. Palmer developed a farm where he raised prize Percheron horses. In 1855 Palmer married Elizabeth (Lizzie) Pitts Merrill (1837-1916), daughter of Charles Merrill a noted businessman with large holdings in lumber. The Palmers would adopt four children: Harold (aka Higinio, Hidalgo), Betita, Lizzie and Gail. Read more about the Palmers.

THE LOG CABIN
 The park’s most identifiable feature is the Log Cabin which sits on a small knoll steps from Woodward Avenue and overlooking Lake Frances. There is a story that the Palmers often came out to the farm to picnic. After a Fourth of July party at the farm, Mrs. Palmer is reputed to have said: “I’ve lived in a brick house, a stone house and a wooden house. But never in a log cabin.”

In 1885 Senator Palmer contracted with architects George Mason and Zachariah Rice to build a log cabin. The cabin was built from trees harvested in the area and furnished with Palmer antiques including a large canoe suspended from the sitting room ceiling. At its feet was spring-fed Lake Frances named for Mrs. Palmer’s mother. There was a rustic bridge on the north side of this Lake and a lighthouse (which still stands) on one of the islands. 

George Mason was a prominent architect who partnered with Zachariah Rice in 1878. Together they designed the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, the Ponchartrain Hotel (1907) and the Detroit Yacht Club (1923) and many other notable structures. Mason’s crowning achievement was the immense Masonic Temple (1926) at Temple and Cass. It is the largest Masonic temple in the world with nearly 1,000 rooms. Rice would later marry Gail Palmer.  From 1884 to 1896, Albert Kahn worked for the firm which closed in 1898. Kahn worked on several projects with Mason before Mason’s death in 1948. Read more about the Log Cabin at HistoricDetroit.org and at nighttraintodetroit.com.

According to Crocket McElroy in Souvenir History of Palmer Park: “About 110 acres of this this land was laid out into a park by Olmstead & Elliot, celebrated landscape gardeners of Boston, Mass., under the general directions of Mrs. Palmer. The plan includes two lakes, several islands, pathways and between five and six miles of roads. Mrs. Palmer designed the Log Cabin and caused it to be built. She then furnished it with ‘olden time’ furniture.” (The City of Detroit has stored furniture from the cabin at Fort Wayne. In the future, we hope to return some of it to the cabin.)

In 1894 the Senator donated the first 120 acres that would become Palmer Park. The Palmers wanted it named Log Cabin Park but the City called it Palmer Park. By 1897 Palmer had donated the majority of the land we know as the Park. A portion of the Log Cabin farm was sold and became the Detroit Golf Club at the end of the 19th century.

“In 1895 Mr. Palmer presented the city with one hundred and forty acres of his beloved farm to be used as a pleasure park for the people of the City of Detroit, with only one stipulation, that none of the virgin forest should be wantonly destroyed.”

— Thomas W. Palmer, by M. Agnes Burton,
Michigan Historical Commission, A State Department of History and Archives
Source

Other lakes and features at Palmer Park: In addition to Lake Francis, another lake was dug behind what is now the swimming pool and used as a fish breeding pond. Beyond it to the west, was Lake Harold with an island called Inselruh and a waterfall called Pontiac Cascade. Some believe that the great Chief Pontiac was buried roughly where the cascade waterfall once stood. The lake was filled in with earth excavated from the construction of the Lodge freeway during the mid-20th century, which suppressed this beautiful flow of water to the burial grounds area. There was also a large white wooden casino (Rodgers & MacFarlane), which burned down in May of 1945.

Other attractions in the park included extensive gardens filled with plants grown in the park’s greenhouses; a huge spruce log hollowed out at one end, forming furniture in a little room. The opposite end was hollowed out and had bars to contain the lions and tigers that once inhabited it. It was originally at the 1904 World’s Fair and was given to the Senator. There were also walking and riding trails and a wooden wishing well.

The Forest: “The trees are in great variety, there being more than seventy kinds. There are seven kinds of oak, eleven kinds of willow, five kinds of thorn and the trees common to this section of the country, such as elm, maple, beech, hickory, ash, basswood, tamarack and birch. Among the rarer trees are sassafras, walnut, butternut,balm of gilead. Slippery-elm, plum and cherry. There is claimed to be a greater variety of Trees in Palmer Park indigenous to the soil than there is in the whole of Europe with its millions of acre of forests. At a convention of park Comissioners  held at the park a few years ago, it was agreed that there was no other such a primeval park, as Palmer Park, within thirty miles of anv city in the United States.” — “Souvenir History of Palmer Park and Sketch of Hon. Thomas W. Palmer, Sage of Log Cabin Farm” by Crocket McElroy, 1908

THE SPANISH BELL
Near the western entrance to the Log Cabin is a large bell hanging — originally in a rustic wooden frame. This bell was designed and cast by Paula Gomez in Spain in 1793 (an inscription is engrave in the bell to  this effect). It was taken to Mexico more than 200 years ago. The late William A. Moore, and the late Senator McMillan and a few other friends raised a fund, bought the bell, and presented it to Senator Palmer, who gave it to the City of Detroit. The weight of this bell is 1015 pounds.

THE MERRILL PALMER FOUNTAIN
In 1904, Mrs. Palmer donated this marble masterpiece to the City in memory of her father Charles Merrill. Designed by the New York firm of Carrere and Hastings, the fountain was placed in front of the Detroit Opera House on the exact center of Campus Martius. It was built in the classical style and cost $1 million. The photo at below is the one of the few photos of the fountain in its original location and of it functioning. In 1923 the fountain was moved to the Park to prevent it from being damaged by increased traffic downtown.  The fountain functioned for one season in the Park and then pipes broke. It has not functioned since then. PFPP hopes to be able to fix the fountain in the future. Read more about the fountain.

The fountain in its original downtown Detroit location, c. 1920.

To read more about the history of the park in the 1908 book “Souvenir History of Palmer Park and Sketch of Hon. Thomas W. Palmer, Sage of Log Cabin Farm” by Crocket McElroy, click here.

Excerpted from the 2011 guide book for the Tour of Palmer Park and Historic Palmer Park Apartment District
by Gregory C. Piazza

Senator Thomas W. Palmer, above and Lizzie Merrill Palmer, below. Photos courtesy of the Freer House, Merrill-Palmer Audio-Visual Archive, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

In 1832 Judge James Witherell (1759-1838), grandfather of Thomas W. Palmer (1830-1913) and the third Michigan Territorial judge, bought 80 acres of then-country land that ran from Hamilton Avenue to Fairway Drive. Witherell built a summer log cabin at what is now McNichols (Six Mile) and Log Cabin Street, named after the trail ending at Witherell’s cabin (not the cabin that is currently in Palmer Park). Witherell left the 80 acres to his daughter Mary Palmer when he died in 1838, and Mary, in turn, passed it on to her son Thomas W. Palmer in 1874.

Palmer expanded his inherited acreage to some 640 acres extending from what is now McNichols (Six Mile) to Eight Mile and Woodward Avenue to Fairway Drive. On this land, Palmer built a large farm and raised prize Percheron and Arabian horses.

Thomas W. Palmer has come to be considered one of the most significant figures in Detroit history. He was born in Detroit, educated at Thompson’s Academy in St. Clair, Mich., and studied at University of Michigan for a year. Palmer worked in the real estate business in Detroit before becoming involved in lumbering and agriculture.

In 1855 he married Elizabeth (Lizzie) Pitts Merrill (1837-1916), the daughter of one of his business partners, Charles Merrill, who was a noted businessman with large holdings in lumber. The Palmers would adopt four children: Harold (aka Higinio, Hidalgo), Betita, Lizzie and Gail.

Palmer served on the first board of directors and was first president of the Michigan Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (now Michigan Humane Society). He served on the Detroit Board of Estimates in 1873, was a member of the Michigan Senate from 1879 to 1880, and served on the U.S. Senate from 1883 to 1889.

While in Congress, Palmer was known as an advocate for women’s suffrage, immigration restrictions, and homesteader rights. His motto was “equal rights for all, special privileges to none.” On Feb. 6, 1885 he delivered a speech arguing in favor of a Constitutional amendment granting women’s suffrage. Palmer was appointed Minister to Spain in 1889 by President Benjamin Harrison and served until 1890. Palmer was president of the National Commission on the World’s Columbian Exposition from 1890 to 1893.

Both of the Palmers were among the major benefactors of the Michigan Soldiers and Sailors monument in Campus Martius. They were also among the first founders of the Detroit Museum of Art (now the Detroit Institute of Arts, DIA) and the Senator was its first president.

In 1864 the Palmers built a grand house on Woodward and Farnsworth, where the south wing of the DIA is today.  That house burned in 1893. The land was later donated to the Art Museum. For a time the Palmers lived in the Log Cabin which was a fully functional house. Senator Palmer contracted with Mason and Rice in 1893 again to build Walnut Lane at what is now Whitmore and Second, where Unity Institute of Holistic Living stands today.

In her final years, Sen. Palmer retired to their Detroit farm, and Lizzie Merrill Palmer retired to their estate in Great Neck, New York. Senator Palmer died in 1913 from injuries incurred in a car accident. Mrs. Palmer died in 1916 in Great Neck. Lizzie Merrill Palmer’s estate was estimated to be worth $5 million, with a substantial portion (including land that is now the apartment district) designated for the establishment of the Merrill Palmer Institute for Motherhood and Home Training. Now known as Merrill Palmer Skillman Institute, it is part of Wayne State University.

By Jim Meyers

Mr. Palmer was a Modern Day Mystic, a known Mason who early on in life transcended to the 33rd degree by successfully passing the ‘Stone Block Test’ in the lodge room of his Order. He was bestowed the title of ‘Honorary Guardian of the Light’ by the House of Masonry, which still serves in Quebec City. Known as “The Sage of the Log Cabin,” numerous narrative reports can be found of the mystic discussions and ceremonies that were once held at the Log Cabin that still stands today.

One of my favorite historic quotes about the man is as follows:

“Senator Palmer holds the view that Heaven is on earth to all who know how to make a Heaven of the earthly life. He thinks that a man’s spiritual life is progressive and continues to grow after it passes out of the animal body, and that the further advanced it is when transition takes place the higher will be its starting point in the spirit world. Hence it follows that the time spent in cultivating and building up the spiritual life while on earth will not be lost.”

Souvenir History of Palmer Park, Detroit, Michigan, and Sketch of Hon.Thomas W. Palmer, Sage of Log Cabin Farm, by Crocket McElroy, 1908.

“Asked what his motive was in donating Palmer Park to the people of Detroit,” writes author Crocket McElroy in the Souvenir History of Palmer Park, “His answer was: ‘The good of everybody.’”

Palmer is an inspiration and thus an important motive for working to transform Palmer Park and the City of Detroit.