Politics / Military / Business & brands
John Biddle
1792–1859 · army officer, mayor of Detroit, territorial delegate
Philadelphia-born officer who commanded Fort Shelby, served as Detroit's mayor in 1827–1828 and founded the estate that became the city of Wyandotte.
- Born
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania- Died
White Sulphur Springs, Virginia (now West Virginia)
aged 67- Detroit years
- 1817–1859
- Field
- Politics, Military, Business & brands
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
John Biddle, of the prominent Philadelphia Biddle family, fought in the War of 1812 on General Winfield Scott's staff and afterward commanded Fort Shelby in Detroit. He stayed on as register of the federal land office from 1823 to 1837 and as a commissioner settling old French-era land claims across the Great Lakes. Elected mayor of Detroit in 1827 and 1828, he then served as Michigan Territory's delegate to Congress and presided over the 1835 convention that wrote Michigan's first state constitution, even though his Whig party was in the minority. He was president of the Michigan Central Railroad and the Farmers' and Mechanics' Bank and a leader of the Historical Society of Michigan and the Detroit Athenaeum. His downriver summer estate, which he named 'Wyandotte,' was sold in 1853 to Eber Brock Ward and grew into the city of Wyandotte, where Biddle Avenue recalls him. He is buried at Elmwood.
Highlights
- Mayor of Detroit, 1827–1828
- Delegate to Congress from Michigan Territory, 1829–1831
- President of Michigan's 1835 constitutional convention
- His estate became the city of Wyandotte; Biddle Avenue there bears his name
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 2
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Buried here · 1859
Elmwood Cemetery
He is interred at Elmwood Cemetery.
Memorial
Biddle Avenue, Wyandotte
Wyandotte's main street (the local stretch of Jefferson Avenue) is named Biddle Avenue after him; his house stood where the George P. MacNichol House is now.