Posted on Thursday, February 07, 2008 - 3:46 pm:

quote:

Another important feature of today's landscape, the University of Detroit, was gradually moved during the 1920's from its original downtown site to the present campus in Fitzgerald. The campus occupied land once owned by Gildersleeve Hurd, but most recently by the Horkey family. The Horkeys had several farmhouses, one, the oldest, on Livernois and three on Six Mile. Their land, partially boggy at first, had gradually been improved and agricultural production had intensified with the coming of truck farming. The Horkeys had gone in for green onions in a big way, and had prospered. Except for the elder Horkey's anti-theism, the family was highly conservative.

When Father McNichols, who led the move of the University to its present campus, came to purchase the property, the assembled Horkeys insisted on payment in one dollar bills. Father McNichols was stunned, but evidently retained his practicality, for he and his aides dutifully marched off to the bank and returned with an enormous was of one dollar bills, which the Horkeys counted carefully. After the papers had been signed and the Father had departed, the Horkey family carefully divided the money into small piles, rushed out to the hen house, and placed the piles under various nesting hens. There were enough country slickers around so that the farmers were afraid of robbery, and the entire male contingent of the Horkey clan stood armed guard in the hen house all night, waiting for the bank to open in the morning.