Grosse Ile sits in the lower Detroit River between the Downriver communities of Wayne County and Canada. Native populations inhabited the island for thousands of years before French explorers arrived in the 17th century and gave the island its name.

On July 6, 1776, two days after the Second Continental Congress ratified the Declaration of Independence, 18 Potawatomi chiefs signed a deed transferring ownership of Grosse Ile to brothers Alexander and William Macomb. The British fur traders became the first Europeans to lay claim to the island.

Grosse Ile residents celebrate the 250th anniversary of that signing on July 6, 2026. Residents can view the original deed at the Grosse Ile Township Hall from July 6-8.

Tony Krukowski is the vice president of the Grosse Ile Historical Society. He met WDET’s Pat Batcheller at the island’s history museum.

Krukowski says the Potawatomi chiefs likely viewed the deed transfer differently than the Macomb brothers. 

The following interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Tony Krukowski: To the Potawatomi, it probably meant that they were just sharing the property, just like you couldn’t own the sky and the moon and the air. They felt like it was something that would be jointly enjoyed by both the Potawatomi and the British colonists that were coming here to settle.

Pat Batcheller: It sounds like that didn’t quite happen that way.

TK: Well, in the minds of a European person, somebody from Britain, there was a strong sense of ownership of property, so that was a different concept. The Potawatomi couldn’t quite appreciate what William and Alexander Macomb were attempting to do, and vice versa; they didn’t understand what the Native Americans felt about property.

PB: Who were the Macomb brothers?

TK: Well, they came to this area primarily as traders. They would trade materials in this area to the British and whoever else wanted to buy things. It’s kind of interesting that William Macomb was considered to be a neo-American, but he was also a member of the Canadian Parliament. So, he kind of played both sides, whichever seemed to work best for him financially.

Editor’s note: Alexander Macomb’s son Alexander was the commanding general of the U.S. Army from 1828 to 1841. Macomb County is named for the general.

PB: I looked it up and found that both brothers had enslaved people. Do you know whether any of them were here on Grosse Ile?

TK: We believe that there may have been at least one enslaved person who was maintaining the mansion that was built by William Macomb.

PB: What happened to the Potawatomi after that?

TK: Well, they probably moved farther west. Different tribes would come in and out of this area, depending on whether they were seeking food to eat. They might meet here with other tribes. It was a pretty fluid movement among the Native Americans in this area.

PB: When did Grosse Ile officially become American territory?

TK: It wasn’t until after the American Revolutionary War, and even years after that, the British still had control of this area. We have a picture of a fort that was built here in 1815 because there was still concern about the British and some Native American tribes coming over from Canada and burning some of the homes and the farms.

PB: What has the museum done to preserve or share the Potawatomi history? Do you have artifacts here, for example?

TK: We do have artifacts, and we have tried to get more and more information on Native Americans in this area. They were here for probably at least 25,000 years, so they have quite a story to tell as well.

PB: How did the island evolve after the Macomb brothers arrived?

TK: There were some French residents that came in here, and there was a concept of what they called ribbon farms, where the farms were long and narrow. And access to the river was a lifeline for the people who lived here.

PB: What is Grosse Ile like today?

TK: It’s still a very small community. We have a little over 10,000 people. It’s very rural, but we have the advantages of being close to Detroit. If we want to go to any kind of events and things, that’s available to us. But if you live on the island, what you’re going to sense is you’re surrounded by forest, and we have bike paths, access to the water. It’s really a beautiful place to live.

PB: Do you guide historical tours?

TK: One of the things we’re doing now is we’re going into the second grade at least two or three times a year to talk to the students there about the history of Grosse Ile. If somebody calls us and says, ‘we’d like to come to the museum,’ we’ll try to work some time out that’s convenient for them. We have our lighthouse tour in September, where we actually take people by bus over to the lighthouse, take them out to the lighthouse, go up to the top, and tell them about some of the reasons why we have a lighthouse and some of the history behind Grosse Ile.

PB: When you talk to the kids, or when somebody comes here to the museum, what is the most common question they ask, and how do you respond?

TK: It depends on where their interests lie. Say an engineer comes in, he’s very interested in the invention of the outboard motor. We have kids come in, they’re very interested in Native Americans and look at some of the arrowheads. Some of the people who are really into railroads are very interested in that this building that we’re operating out of used to be the railroad depot and that we have a customs house just about 100 feet away.

PB: The railroad depot is important because there used to be rail traffic that came across the island.

TK: Exactly. There used to be a railroad track where current road, Grosse Ile Parkway, runs to the free bridge. That free bridge used to be a trestle, and the road used to be a railroad track, and the railroad track ran across to Stony Island, which is just to the east of us. And then between Stony Island and Canada, there was a ferry service that ran that would carry railroad cars over to Stony Island, where they would be coupled and then brought to Grosse Ile and beyond.

PB: Are there still remnants of that bridge over here?

TK: Yes, if you go across the road and down the steps at what we call Sunrise Park, and turn to your left, you can still see some of the stone abutments. And then in low water times, you can still see parts of the supports for the for the trestle that used to run the Stony Island.

PB: Anything that we didn’t talk about that you’d like to mention?

TK: I think it’s really important that this was where the ZMC-2, the only all metal-clad dirigible was launched. Orville Wright actually came to the island to see the launching of that. We also have a hotel registry that shows that President Calvin Coolidge and his wife came here, probably to negotiate with Henry Ford about having support on his campaign.

The Grosse Ile History Museum is open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Thursdays and 1-4 p.m. Sundays.