GENERAL YPSILANTI 1823 MEDAL

trk5capt

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Found this info on the internet...very interesting find! WTG!....

Ypsilanti is located where an old Indian trail crossed the Huron River and long before the coming of the white man, was the camping and burial ground for several native American tribes.

In 1809 three French explorers built a log structure on the west bank of an Indian trading post and was one of the earliest structures in the vast, sparsely populated Michigan territory whose citizens, including forts, numbered just 4,762.

Gabriel Godfrey, proprietor of the trading post, was followed in 1823 by Benjamin Woodruff who, along with several companions, established a small settlement on the river a mile south of the post and named it Woodruff's Grove, the first settlement in Washtenaw County.

In 1824, Father Gabriel Richard, Representative in Congress for the Michigan Territory, urged the building of a federal highway from Detroit to Chicago, to be known as the Chicago Road. The surveying crew, following the Sauk Indian Trail, put the crossing of the Huron River nearly a mile north of Woodruff's Grove.

In 1825, three prominent settlers, Judge Augustus Woodward, John Stewart and William Harwood, combined portions of their own land to form the original plat for a new settlement at the crossing. This new settlement was named for the Greek Patriot General Demetrius Ypsilanti.

In the struggle of the Greek people against Turkish tyranny appeared an outstanding heroic figure, Demetrius Ypsilanti. With three hundred men he held the Citadel of Argos for three days against an army of thirty thousand. Having exhausted his provisions, he escaped one night beyond the enemy lines with his entire command, and having lost not a single man. He was admired by Americans for his part in a struggle for freedom so like their own.
 

Great find! AHEPA is the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association, an organization for Americans of Greek heritage. That, of course, would explain why your badge drop or fob (not sure which) bears the image of their famed patriot and national hero, General Demetrius Ypsilanti. Here's a link to the AHEPA homepage:

http://www.ahepa.org/ahepa/Home.aspx?d=1&rd=19682599&f=-1&rf=0&m=-1&rm=0&l=1
 

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