Eber Brock Ward’s Grave

Detroit’s first millionaire made his fortune on the water and used part of it to free people. Eber Brock Ward built a Great Lakes shipping and steel empire — his Eureka Iron Works produced some of the first Bessemer steel in America — but he was also an abolitionist who bankrolled the Underground Railroad and carried freedom seekers to Canada aboard his own ships.

He rests at Elmwood, proof that some of the era’s wealth was pointed toward the right side of history — one of the cemetery’s many ties to the Underground Railroad. On our list.