History Spotlight

Elizabeth Denison

William Tucker, the first English-speaking landowner in Macomb County, brought a family of slaves from Virginia with the surname of Denison to aid in clearing the land. His will of 1805 granted the elder Denisons their freedom after a year of service to Elijah Brush. However, their children remained slaves. With the help of Brush, the children petitioned the Territory of Michigan’s Supreme Court in Denison vs. Tucker of 1807 for their freedom, but Judge Augustus Woodward remanded the family back to the custody of the Tucker family. Shortly after, the family escaped to Canada. Soon after, Michigan ruled that all slaves in the territory were free. Judge Woodward then ruled that the territory had no obligation to return fugitive slaves from Canada and that our government would protect them.

A notable woman of Macomb County was Elizabeth Denison who was one of the children born in Macomb County in 1787 as a slave. She secured freedom around 1812 through her escape to Canada and the subsequent ruling of Judge Woodward’s court case. Returning to the Detroit area, she purchased 48.5 acres of land in Pontiac in 1825, becoming the first black property owner in Oakland County (and probably in the state of Michigan). She amassed a great deal of wealth through stock and real estate. She could speak Native American and helped mediate between the Native Americans and the white settlers.

Employed by the Biddle family from 1830 through the 1860s, she used her inheritance from them to build the St. James Chapel on Grosse Ile. Built in 1867, the chapel was completed with supplemental funds from the Biddle family.

Elizabeth died in 1867 after spending the last 10 years of her life living as a free woman in Detroit. She was buried in Detroit’s Elmwood Cemetery. Two Michigan State Historical markers honor her; one in Pontiac’s Oak Hill Cemetery, which is on her former land, and one by the St. James Episcopal Chapel on Grosse Ile.

Written by Cindy Donahue.

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