Parks & Recreation
Colonial cannons from Detroit River help solve historical mysteries
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By ERIC FREEDMAN
Capital News Service
LANSING – The latest research about six 19th century British cannons recovered from the Detroit River is shedding new light on colonial-era militarization of the Great Lakes region, from the Straits of Mackinac to Indiana. It’s also an opportunity to solve at least three mysteries that date to when Detroit still belonged to the British, even after the American Revolution. In 1984, divers recovered the first cannon from a ridge called “Chicken Bone Reef” in the Detroit River just offshore from Cobo Hall. Others were found in 1984 and 1987. A Detroit police diving team discovered the sixth during a 2011 training exercise in the same location.