History of Michigan, / by Charles Moore. [Vol. 3]

1288

HISTORY OF MICHIGAN

newspaper of that city. In May, 1831, while a resident of Philadelphia,
he received from President Jackson appointment to the office of postmaster of Detroit, Michigan, and he and his family soon left for the
west.
Upon his arrival in Detroit Mr. Norvell immediately paid his respects
to James Abbott, who was serving as postmaster and who had been
appointed to this office in I806. Courteously raising his hat, Mr. Norvell
said to Mr. Abbott, "I am John Norvell; do you know that I am your
successor?" The reply of Mr. Abbott was: "Yes, I have heard of you,
d-n you, and I wish you were on Grampian Hills, feeding your father's
flocks!" Mr. Norvell's first work as postmaster was to remove the postoffice to a small brick building on the south side of Jefferson avenue,
just west of Wayne street. In the following September he removed the
office to the northeast corner of Jefferson avenue and Shelby street, and
in 1834 removed it to the south side of Jefferson avenue, near Cass
street.
Mr. Norvell was a man of active temperament, and at once identified himself with the interests and politics of the territory. He took a
prominent part in the complications incidental to the so-called "Patriot
war," and in the Michigan statehood movement. He was a delegate to
the constitutional convention of 1835, held at Ann Arbor, and in this
convention was chairman of the committee on elective franchises, the
committee on the Ohio controversy, the committee on the prohibition
of slavery, and five other committees, besides which he was a member
of several other committees. He was a dominating and valued member
of this important convention, which ordered the election of governor and
a legislature, and he was largely instrumental in bringing about the election of Stevens T. Mason as the first governor of the new state. The
first legislative assembly elected Mr. Norvell and Lucius Lyons as the
first representatives of the commonwealth in the United States senate,
Mr. Norvell being given the long term. When congress objected to
Michigan's claim that Toledo should be included within its borders and
jurisdiction, and for this reason delayed the admission of the territory
to statehood, the two Michigan senators succeeded in effecting a settlement of the border controversy with Ohio and in saving to Michigan its
upper peninsula, including the Lake Superior region, with its wealth of
minerals. This addition to the state was granted in compensation for
the loss of the small portion of Ohio that was in dispute. In 1837
Michigan was admitted to the Union.
The most important questions touching Michigan that came up
during Mr. Norvell's service in the United States senate were those incidental to the panic of I837 and the Canadian rebellion of 1837-8. In the
former Mr. Norvell was totally opposed to the doctrine that was
advanced and that, many years later, was adopted by the Greenback
party. He believed that paper was paper and not coin or value, and that
promises to pay were only promises. The Canadian insurrection known
as the Patriot war met with Mr. Norvell's warm sympathy, but while he
would have liked to see Canada freed from the yoke of the "family
compact," he did not believe that the United States should be made a
base of military operations while the nation was at peace with England.
In I84I, upon the expiration of his term in the United States senate,
Mr. Norvell engaged in the active practice of law in Detroit, and was
soon afterward elected a representative of Wayne county in the state
legislature, Detroit being still the capital of the state. In I845 he was
appointed United States district attorney for Michigan, and served until
I849. He supported the administration of President Polk in the prosecution of the war with Mexico, and three of his sons were gallant