Pleasant Walks and Drives About Ann Arbor
Drive "F" or Huron St. Drive
Go west on Huron street, taking the left hand road where it branches near the city limits, about two miles until you reach the small lake or pond on the left, then turn to the right on the next road crossing this after you pass the lake. Go north on this road about two miles and a half until you strike the Miller avenue road and return to Ann Arbor. This is about a six mile drive.
Drive "G" or Liberty Street Drive
Go west on W. Liberty street about a mile and a half, turn to the left on the first road going south, go south on this road one mile, then turn to the left and go east a mile and a half until you strike the Ann Arbor and Saline gravel road go north on this road to Ann Arbor. This is about a four-mile drive.
Drive "H" or the Triangle
This drive takes you from Ann Arbor to Lodi Plains, Lodi Plains to Saline village, Saline village to Ypsilanti and from Ypsilanti to Ann Arbor, and is known among students and bicycle riders as the Triangle. You start from Ann Arbor on Main street, go south and southwest on what is known as the gravel road until you strike Lodi Plains, then cross Lodi Plains on the main road south and southeast until you come to Saline village. The route from Saline village to Ypsilanti runs northeast on what is known as the Ypsilanti and Saline gravel road. From Ypsilanti to Ann Arbor the bicycle riders usually take what is known as the south road or the electric line road. The roads on this triangle are for the most part well gravelled and good bicycle and carriage roads. From Ann Arbor to Lodi Plains is somewhat hilly, enough so to make it interesting traveling for those using a bicycle or carriage. The rest of the distance for the most part is comparatively level. This road passes through a very fine and productive farming section and is bordered by good farm buildings and well cultivated farms.
There are some interesting places on this route. Just before you come to the cemetery on Lodi Plains on the right hand going south, you will notice a fine, large farm house and large barns with a farm connected consisting of several hundred acres. This farm used to belong to John Lowry, and he was a noted abolitionist and undergroun railroad man before the war. He was considered by many to be at least a very eccentric character, but as history has shown since, it was the entire nation American nation that was more eccentric than good, old John Lowry. Mr. Lowry's house was one of the stations to the underground railroad and he assisted a great many slaves on their way to Canada. I have been told by one of the old settlers, who used to live in that neighborhood, that he had a large sign hung up in the trees in front of his house with the figure of a stalwart negro painted on each end, and on the sign was written, "Liberty to the Fugitive, Captive and Oppressed Over all the Earth, Both Male and Female of all Colors." Mr. Sellick Wood, lately deceased, of our city, told me that when he was a young man he drove a number of loads of fleeing negro slaves from Mr. Lowry's home to the Detroit river and saw that they were safely carried across to Canada. It is also narrated that Mr. Lowry went down to Washington to see President Polk during his administration and warned him that the nation was in danger if the slaves were not freed. President Polk treated him kindly, smiled at his good advice, and undoubtedly perpetrated a good many jokes at the expense of the rabid Michigan abolitionist when it would have been much wiser to have paid some heed to the predictions that came true in '61.
Just south of the cemetery on this route and across the street, being on the left as you are going toward Saline is located the school building of the somewhat noted preparatory school of Dr. Russ Nutting. Only a part of the old school building and the dwelling house of Dr. Nutting remains. This school was established by Dr. Nutting in the 40's to prepare students for the University. During the life of the school there were in attendance from fifty to one hundred and fifty students each year, and the students boarded in the farm houses on the roads branching out from these four corners of Lodi Plains. Dr. Nutting was a fine Latin and Greek scholar, agood mathematician, and such scholars were not very numerous in the west at that time. His school acquired a reputation for thoroughness in scholarship and discipline and made it very prominent as a preparatory school in those days. Lodi Plains up to the time of the civil war was one of the educational centers of Michigan. Many of the men who have since become quite prominent in professional and educational matters in this state graduated from this school. This old preparatory school had a large share in the development of our grand educational system that now has a fine reputation at home and abroad.
The village of Saline is about two miles from Dr. Nutting's old school building. This village was named Saline because the salt measures of Michigan outcrop here and form a salt spring near the village. The road from Saline to Ypsilanti passes through a very fine farming section as does also the road from Ypsilanti to Ann Arbor. If a person does not wish to go as far as Ypsilanti, any of the roads going north from Saline and Ypsilant road will reach Ann Arbor. The best of these roads is probably what is known as the State street road, and turns north about two miles and a half from Saline. This drive is about twenty-five miles.