Martin Kundig

This site bears the name of Father Martin Kundig, Wayne County’s first superintendent of the poor. Born in 1805 in Switzerland, Kundig was educated in Rome, and served in the Swiss Papal Guard, before coming to work in the Diocese of Detroit in 1833. A year later, a cholera epidemic broke out in the city, and the Catholic Female Association, organized by Kundig, assumed the burden of nursing, burying the dead, and caring for the orphans. Kundig’s medical skill, administrative ability, and compassion was recognized, and in 1834 the county board of supervisors appointed him superintendent of the poor. Kundig organized the German Catholic School, helped build St. Mary’s Church, and was appointed a regent of the state university. In 1846 he moved to Wisconsin, where he died in 1879.