By Laura Weber, Michigan Public Radio Network
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkar/local-wkar-931595.mp3
DETROIT –
Michigan's first governor, Stevens T. Mason, was interred for the fourth time Wednesday. His remains have been on the move since he died in 1843.
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Mason's casket is lifted into the tomb underneath a statue of his likeness in Capitol Park in Detroit. Aside from the city moving around the small plot of land, and a man in a top hat selling t-shirts with screen prints of Mason that read "The Boy Governor," it is a fairly quiet ceremony. This for the man who was a key figure in getting Michigan Territory admitted into the Union, who called for development of the University of Michigan, and who was the youngest governor in America at age 24.
Kerry Chartkoff is the Michigan State Capitol building historian. She says reinterring Mason allows people to celebrate his impact.
"So if he's moved I see it as an opportunity and not necessarily a tragedy," she says.
Mason was originally buried in New York, and was moved to Michigan's former Capitol site in Detroit many years later with support from his surviving family.