The name Annarbour appears on a map of the village on the banks of the Huron River filed in 1825 in Detroit, the capital of the Michigan Territory, by founders John Allen and Elisha Rumsey. Each founder’s wife had an Ann in her full name. My great-grandfather Joel Ball came to the Michigan Territory in 1832 to become the first settler in what is now the town of Britton. The University of Michigan was founded in Detroit in 1817 and was moved to Ann Arbor in 1835 the year that Michigan became a state. I did graduate work there and for the last twenty years have had the pleasure of dancing with the Scottish Dance group in Ann Arbor when I am working on the farm. This dance is inscribed to Catherine Graham, Robin Warner, Helen Welford and all the others who have made it such a pleasure.
On Saturday afternoons in autumn, more than 100,000 people gather in the Stadium hoping to hear many playings of “The Victors”, a song written in 1898 by Louis Elbel. It would be a nice touch if a band playing music for this dance would work in at least a few phrases in jig time from this song beginning "Hail to the victors valiant … "