In the long shadows of late afternoon, a cool breeze jangles a wind chime and rustles the faded American flags that mark the graves of veterans. On this April day I’m at St. Mary’s Cemetery in Pinckney, Michigan. At the spigot a man in his sixties fills a water bucket. He’s wearing a blue service station shirt with “Steve” stitched in white on a patch above his left pocket. I figure he’s a local.
“Is this the old mill pond?”
He looks up at the placid, marshy body of water beyond us.
“Yep, that’s it,” he says.
While not visible from Main Street, the pond dominates the landscape of Pinckney. On the north side it borders the school grounds and a city cemetery. On the west it sidles alongside Cedar Lake Road, and here, to the south, it edges up to the Catholic cemetery.
“I hear there’s a deep sinkhole out there.”
He shrugs. “I don’t know about that,” he says.
I’m trying to be nonchalant with my questions.
“Where’s Nash Bridge?”
“Never heard of it,” he says.
He turns off the spigot.
“How about Silas Coleman?”
“Who?”
“Coleman. Silas Coleman?”
“Is he buried here?”
“Nah, he died in the marsh years ago.”
He shakes his head and excuses himself. I don’t mention the six or seven bodies that were supposedly dumped in the pond.
Pinckney sits twenty miles northwest of Ann Arbor in a region speckled with lakes and ponds. Some carry the names of long-ago property owners, like Gallagher, Zukey, Winans, and Rush. A couple, Oneida and Mohican, honor tribes. Others—Strawberry Lake, Triangle Lake, Half-Moon Lake, and, in three uninspired cases, Crooked Lake—attest to geographic shapes. And then there are Buck, Bass, Pickerel, Gosling, Wild Goose, and Coon, all evoking the wildlife that once drew vacationers like Harvey Davis and Dayton Dean to the log cabins and cinderblock cottages that have mostly been replaced by large, modern homes. In 1925 the Pinckney Dispatch counted fifty-five lakes in a tourism-minded survey. Among them was Nigger Lake, where blacks vacationed. That one, thankfully, is no longer on the map, not by that slur anyway.
Within the village limits only one body of water really matters: Mill Pond—or as old-timers call it, Ford Mill Pond, for Henry Ford. Now a shadow of its earlier self (the dam broke decades ago and later a housing development encroached), the pond begins a fraction of a mile from the town square with its war memorial, commemorative gazebo, and senior center. A hawk’s-eye mural of the village, featuring the body of water, decorates the exterior of the center.
The Black Legion did not slip instantly from the public consciousness. In the 1930s it spawned works of art: novels, plays, and at least two movies, one a major release starring Humphrey Bogart. It reverberated for years after the Silas Coleman and Charles Poole murder trials. It surfaced in news reports of court appeals and parole requests. It flared occasionally in accusations during legislative hearings and political campaigns. Its taint hounded some of those who had been muddied by allegations. In December 1936 a Pontiac fire captain who had grown tired of being teased after his name appeared in a grand jury report shot the co-worker who had been harassing him. He then took his own life.
What became of those who appear on these pages?
Major-General Bert Effinger tried to reorganize his secret society under a new name, the Patriotic Legion of America. He invited American-born Catholics to join his crusade against blacks, Jews, and communists. The organization did not survive. But Effinger did—into his eighties, never serving a day in prison.
State commander Arthur Lupp was paroled in 1938 just before Christmas. He also lived to be an old man. Urban Lipps and Ervin Lee saw their sentences commuted in the 1960s. Gangly Harvey Davis did not. He died in prison.
Rebecca Poole, fearful of the legion’s reach, sent her daughters to Tennessee to be raised by her mother. After five or six years, they reunited in Michigan, where some of her descendants still live.
No record of Silas Coleman’s family could be found.
Attorney Maurice Sugar rose to become legal counsel of the United Auto Workers, serving into 1946. His and his wife’s names have been carried forward through the work of the Maurice and Jane Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice.
Highland Parker publisher Art Kingsley died before all of the legion’s legal cases concluded. He perished in a 1937 fire, likely the result of his own smoking. Employees purchased his newspaper company and continued publishing for decades.
Ecorse mayor William Voisine had a colorful career in politics—both before and after his prison sentence on corruption charges. “Sure, I stole a little in those days,” he admitted. “I took from the rich and gave to the poor.” The evidence showed he gave handsomely to himself as well.
Prosecutor Duncan McCrea also served time in prison for malfeasance. The man who ran against him (and lost) in 1936 prosecuted the case. Col. Heinrich Pickert served as police commissioner until 1939. He remained active in public life. When he died, city flags flew at half-staff.
Former governor Wilber Brucker, who had spoken to the Wolverine Republican League, defeated Senator James Couzens in the primary but was beaten in the general election in a Roosevelt-led Democratic landslide. In 1955 Brucker became secretary of the army under President Dwight Eisenhower. Mickey Cochrane’s friend Emmett “Rosie” O’Donnell soared to the rank of four-star general and commander of the Pacific Air Forces.
Malcolm Bingay and Harry Salsinger remained active journalists until their deaths in the 1950s. Salsinger was posthumously given the Baseball Hall of Fame’s Spink Award, the sport’s highest honor for writers. Bingay died at his desk while composing his final “Good Morning” column. During pennant races the Free Press sometimes resurrects Iffy the Dopester, using the original line drawing that accompanied Bingay’s contributions.
Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan, of course, became presidents of the United States; Ernie Harwell, a radio legend.
Father Solanus Casey, thirty-eight years after his death, was declared “venerable” by Pope John Paul II. It is the second of three steps toward sainthood in the Catholic Church.
Father Charles Coughlin’s reputation has, justifiably, fared less well. He stayed on the air into 1942 until his increasingly strident views during World War II prompted his bishop to silence him. Coughlin disappeared from the radio, suddenly resuming more humble duties as the ordinary parish priest of the Shrine of the Little Flower. The church still stands along Woodward Avenue.
Henry Ford outlived his son Edsel, who succumbed to cancer in 1943 at age forty-nine. Edsel’s death allowed Harry Bennett to strengthen his grip on the Ford Motor Company—until the Ford family rallied around Edsel’s oldest son, Henry II. “Hank the Deuce” became president in 1945 and fired Bennett, who moved to the West Coast and lived a mostly quiet retirement painting seascapes.
Hank Greenberg and Charlie Gehringer had brilliant careers in the major leagues, both ascending to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Gehringer skipped his induction; he got married instead. In June 1983 the Tigers retired their numbers on the same day. They both returned to the ballpark for the honor.
Schoolboy Rowe played for fifteen years professionally, often plagued by arm troubles. At fifty he died of a heart attack. He was still writing love notes to his Edna, who kept them in a box with his good-luck charms. She never remarried.
Detective Jack Harvill was recognized as National Police Officer of the Year in 1936 for his work in breaking the Black Legion case. He eventually became superintendent of the Detroit Police. In 1942 Captain Ira Marmon retired from the Michigan State Police, the first man to do so.
The Red Wings won the Stanley Cup again in 1937, but the Tigers wouldn’t capture another World Series title until 1945 and the Lions would come up empty until the 1950s. Though other sports towns have tried to claim the mantle of City of Champions, none has ever matched Detroit’s achievement of three major professional sports titles within one season.
Detroit emerged from the Great Depression as strong as ever. During World War II it earned the designation “Arsenal of Democracy” for its contributions to the war effort. The automotive industry rebounded and flourished and the city’s population continued to grow, peaking at more than 1.8 million in the 1950s. Then the decline began, leaving Detroit a half-century later with fewer than 700,000 residents and stretches of landscape pocked by vacant lots and abandoned homes and factories. More recently signs of a revival have appeared downtown and in other nearby areas.
Olympia Arena is gone. So is the Little Stone Chapel. The neighborhoods of Black Bottom and Paradise Valley have mostly disappeared. The Brewster Center, where Joe Louis first trained, is closed and deteriorating, but plans have been put forward to save it.
Navin Field became Briggs Stadium, which became Tiger Stadium. The last season of baseball was played there in 1999. Elden Auker threw out the ceremonial first pitch at the final game. The ballpark has since been demolished, but its field remains, with visitors coming daily to pay homage. Some park along Cochrane Road. The diamond is maintained by a group of volunteers who call themselves the Navin Field Grounds Crew.
At Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Southfield, two bronze tiger statues, green with age, stand guard over a family mausoleum. It is there that Frank Navin rests. In peace, one presumes—his dream eternally realized.
And what of Joe Louis, Mickey Cochrane, and Dayton Dean?
Joe Louis went on to become the world heavyweight champion, holding the title longer than anyone, nearly twelve years. After the loss to Max Schmeling, he won his next thirty-four bouts, including their rematch. A tribute to him—a massive statue of his fist—hovers above a patch of cement in the middle of an intersection in downtown Detroit.
Mickey Cochrane returned as the player-manager of the Detroit Tigers. The following season he was struck in the head with a pitched ball. Players did not wear helmets in 1937 and the impact nearly killed him. He managed again but was never the same. A year later Walter O. Briggs fired Cochrane. The darkest moment of Cochrane’s life, however, was yet to come. In 1945 his son, Gordon Jr., died in military action while serving as a US private in Holland. In the years after, Cochrane worked a variety of jobs, some in baseball. He eventually bought a ranch in Wyoming and escaped to it when time allowed.
Dayton Dean tried to have his conviction overturned but never succeeded. He regretted ever having heard of the Black Legion, lamenting that he had been a dupe, a goat, and a pawn in someone’s else plan. He died in prison in 1960. By then he had surrendered to one of the legion’s dreaded “isms”: Catholicism. He had converted.
At the library, at the town hall, in and around Pinckney, I asked strangers about the Ford Mill Pond, the sinkhole, Nash Bridge, and the Black Legion. No one could answer my questions. Their voices and their expressions revealed not a hint of familiarity. They didn’t know of what I spoke. Why would they? It’s been eighty years since Silas Coleman’s bullet-pierced body was found on the edge of the pond. Generations have come and gone.
I am in the cemetery now. Following a snowy Michigan winter, it remains dotted with evergreen blankets from last Christmas. But signs of spring abound. Dozens of birds are chirping, twittering, and cooing and the trees have finally begun to bud. The rods of loosestrife are already bright purple. The Canada geese have returned as well. Two honk loudly, wings thrashing, as they splash-land on the pond. Dayton Dean’s claim of a watery burial ground, like much surrounding the Black Legion, was never fully investigated. It long ago descended into its own murkiness.
On this day the pond looks more placid and serene than it ought, given the secrets it may still hold.