Solomon Sibley

01 / The Detroit story

The Detroit story

Solomon Sibley, a Brown University graduate from Massachusetts, moved to Detroit in 1797, a year after the British handed over the fort, and was one of only two lawyers in town. In 1798 he won the first election held in Michigan under American rule, taking a seat in the Northwest Territory legislature, and he pushed through the 1802 act incorporating Detroit as a town. He chaired its board of trustees and, under the 1806 charter he drafted, became Detroit's first mayor, though he soon resigned because the post had no real power. During the War of 1812 he led a company of riflemen before Hull's surrender. He was later the first U.S. attorney for Michigan Territory, its delegate to Congress, a negotiator of the 1821 Treaty of Chicago and chief justice of the territorial supreme court until deafness forced him out in 1837. He died in Detroit in 1846 and is buried at Elmwood.

Highlights

1. First mayor of Detroit under the 1806 charter
2. Won Michigan's first election under U.S. rule (1798)
3. Delegate to Congress from Michigan Territory, 1820–1823
4. Chief justice of the Michigan Territorial Supreme Court, 1827–1837
5. Father of Minnesota's first governor, Henry Hastings Sibley