A History of Northern Michigan and Its People, Volume I, Part 23

Author: Perry F. Powers
Publication date: 1912
Publisher: Lewis Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 597


USA > Michigan > A History of Northern Michigan and Its People, Volume I > Part 23


Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).


Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57


The stations and postoffices along the 113 miles of the Ann Arbor Railroad which runs within the territory covered by this work, are as follows: Clare, Farwell, Lake George, Clarence and Temple, Clare county ; Summit, Grand Traverse county; Marion and Park Lake, Os- ceola county ; McBain and Lucas, Missaukee county; Cadillac, Boon, Harrietta, Yuma, Mesick and Bagnall, Wexford county; Harlan, Po- mona and Copemish, Manistee county; Thompsonville, Beulah, South Frankfort and Frankfort, Benzie county.


The details of the building of the Ann Arbor line from Mt. Pleasant, Isabella county, to Frankfort, Benzie, are given in Wheeler's "History of Wexford County." "During the winter of 1883-4," says that pub- lication, "the surveyors of the Chicago & West Michigan Railroad vis- ited Northern Michigan, taking observations as to the most desirable route for the extension of their road. They visited Sherman, Wexford county, looked over the approaches to the Manistee river from the north and south, and expressed themselves as well satisfied with the feasibility of crossing at that point and following the valley of the Wheeler creek northward, running a little east of Wexford corners and then dropping over into the Boardman river valley, thus making an easy grade into Traverse City. The people in the western part of the county were greatly elated over the prospects of having a railroad near their farms, but railroads have queer ways and their building is accompanied often with vexatious delays, and so it happened that when the Chicago & West Michigan Railroad was built several years later it took an entirely new route and did not touch Wexford county; in fact, it was run so far west as to be of very little practical benefit to the farmers of the county.


"In the meantime the Toledo, Ann Arbor & North Michigan Rail- road Company had been organized and had started in to build a road to some points on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. The projectors of this undertaking were the Ashleys, of Toledo-father and two sons,


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Harry and James, or 'Jim,' as he was called. Neither of these parties had much money of their own, but they had enterprise and push. es- pecially 'Jim,' who could overcome more difficulties and surmount more obstacles than a half a dozen ordinary business men; and it was largely through these qualities that the road was completed, though its building covered a period of several years, and more than once it was said 'The Ashleys have got to the end of their rope and the road will never go any farther;' but still the next year would witness an- other extension, and so little by little the work progressed. In the summer of 1886, through the promise of thirty-five thousand dollars on the part of the city of Cadillac, the work of extending the road from Mt. Pleasant, Isabella county, its then terminus, to Cadillac was under- taken. A large force of men were put to work at various points along the line and before September the laying of rails was commenced. This work progressed from both ends of this section, the rails being brought to Cadillac over the Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad to use in laying the northern end of the section. Winter set in before the last rail was laid, and some of the grading and several miles of track laying was done when the snow covered the ground to a depth of sev- eral inches. But notwithstanding the cold and the snow the first train over the new extension reached Cadillac within the time agreed upon, January 1, 1887, and its arrival marked a new era in the county's history.


"To fittingly celebrate this event the railroad company gave a free excursion to Alma (its junction with the Pere Marquette in Gratiot county ) and a free dinner at the celebrated Wright Hotel of that place, inviting many of the prominent men of the city and the county at large, and the city arranged for a grand banquet at the Hotel McKin- non when the party, including railroad officials and the railroad com- missioner of the state, should return in the evening.


"During the summer of 1887 the road was completed as far as Harrietta and graded some distance west of that place, and the follow- ing year it passed on through Wexford county, reaching Frankfort in the fall of 1889. The Ashleys bought a piece of land and platted the village of Harrietta in 1888, the name being a combination made from Harry Ashley and the name of his intended wife, Harrietta Burt. The village of Boon was platted about the same time, and the next year witnessed the platting of the village of Mesick. A year or two after this the village of Yuma was platted. making four villages as the direct result of the building of the Toledo, Ann Arbor and Northern Michi- gan Railroad, as it was called, but now known as the Ann Arbor Rail road. This road, penetrating as it did one of the best farming sec- tions of the county, gave a new impetus to the farming industry ard since its coming a marked and steady growth of that industry has been noticeable. Not only did it open up a more direct and less ex- pensive market for the shipment of farm products, but it stimulated the lumbering business to such an extent that the demand for the prod- ucts of the farm for the mills and camps greatly increased the home market and correspondingly the prices received for such products. The lumbering operations growing out of the building of this road being


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ENGINE AND TRAIN ON THE FIRST LOGGING RAILROAD OF THE WORLD [Logging locomotive built by Porter, Bell & Company, builders of light locomotives, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. ] [ Lake George & Muskegon River R R .. W S Geinsh, Manager, near Farwell, Michigan ]


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largely confined to the hardwood of the county, resulted in causing the clearing of thousands of acres of land and transforming them into productive farms, as every acre of hardwood land, when once cleared, makes food-farming land."


FIRST LOGGING RAILROAD IN THE WORLD


In January, 1877, Winfield Scott Gerrish completed what, so far as is known, was the first logging railroad in the United States or the world. It was about six miles in length and ran from Lake George on the main line of what is now the Ann Arbor Railroad to the headwa- ters of the Muskegon river. Both by training, and perhaps by inherit- ance, Mr. Gerrish was the proper man to have achieved this distinc- tion. His father, Nathaniel L. Gerrish, was a native of Maine, in which state he spent the first thirty-seven years of his life, working in its pineries and on its farms. Both kinds of work were calculated to harden him into a stalwart man. As such, in 1857, he moved with his family to Werner, Wisconsin, where he continued lumbering until 1861, when the household located at Croton, Newaygo county, and remained there for eight years, or until the pine was nearly exhausted in that section of the Muskegon valley. Mr. Gerrish then settled in Hersey, Osceola county. further up the valley, and is still remembered by the pioneers of that region as a large hearted, strong minded and enterprising lum- berman and citizen. In 1875-6 he represented the Mecosta district in the legislature and continued his logging and lumbering operations at Hersey until 1881, when chronic rheumatism forced him to withdraw from one of the most active and commendable careers known among Northern Michigan lumbermen. In that year he became a citizen of Cadillac, Wexford county, where he became interested in the planing mill business, as a member of the firm of Cummer & Gerrish. After some years he retired from all business. His death, at the home of his daughter, Mrs. D. F. Higgins, of Cadillac, on the 13th of October, 1895. removed from the community a splendid man of usefulness and high honor-a worthy father of Winfield Scott Gerrish.


The son was also born in the Pine Tree state, and spent his life . from the age of twelve to twenty-four in the region near Croton, on the Muskegon river, in the southeastern part of Newaygo county. He commenced log driving when he was eighteen, and in the autumn of 1873. when in his twenty-fifth year, made his first large logging con- tract. From this point on, let the American Lumberman tell the story of how the first logging railroad was built and operated in the United States: "The timber was to be banked on the Dock and Tom creek, and delivered in the Muskegon. The following spring (1874) found him with his logging done in good time, and preparations completed for the drive. Driving was presently begun and vigorously prosecuted, but this treacherous stream, the terror of log drivers of the Muskegon district, soon shrunk to a rivulet, while the drive was not finished. In those days the 'State of Mainers,' as the Maine lumbermen were famil- iarly called, knew everything, so to speak; this possibly was a mild illusion, yet they were quite free with their advice to the green Michi-


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gan boys. It was not surprising, therefore, that some of these sons of the old Pine Tree state visited the Dock and Tom creek at this time to give Scott a little wholesome advice. The stream being carefully examined, and a council thereafter duly held, the young logger was most emphatically advised to abandon the drive, but he happened to be of a contrary opinion. 'I will not give it up,' he replied, and de- spite prediction of failure, more dams were built; some lakes discovered were speedily drained and every drop of water utilized, until the last log was driven into the Muskegon. Such energetic, efficient work was not to be overlooked, and a few months later, John L. Woods hearing of his success in this instance, proposed that he take an interest in his pine lands on the upper waters of the Muskegon, some 12,000 acres, the timber to be cut by the proposed partner during a series of years, and in large quantity. The proposition being accepted, a much larger field was now before him.


"In 1874, in connection with E. H. Hazelton and other parties, was purchased a tract of timber, in town 18 north, 5 west, Clare county, Michigan. Not a tree had been cut in this township. There were at this time few, if any, townships in the state so heavily timbered, but being remote from water from six to ten miles, the pine was not avail- able, and therefore of little value. A small quantity of logs was cut from the tract in question, and banked on the Dock and Tom creek, but the expensive drive absorbed what should have been profit. Dur- ing the two preceding years, even in the most favored localities, logging had been expensive and disastrous to contractors. Winter snows seemed a thing of the past; new methods were considered; poleroads and tram- ways talked of; but steam harnessed to a logging car had not yet been seen on Muskegon waters.


"The centennial year had come, and all the people, seemingly, lay- ing aside for the moment profession or employment, flocked to the 'Quaker City,' there to see and realize, in some measure, how wonder- ful had been the nation's progress in 100 years, an exhibition whose quickening influence is still felt in every department of industry throughout the land. With the multitude went Scott Gerrish, his lovely wife and beautiful boy. Those were busy, pleasant days. There was a fairy land in Fairmount park transcending the wonderful tales of the Arabian nights. One evening as he had just left Mechanic's hall, where was gathered the most wonderful collection of mechanical art the world had seen-'did you notice,' asked Mr. Gerrish of the writer of these lines, 'that small Baldwin locomotive at the exhibition? Just the kind of a horse to haul logs without snow!'


"This was a germ idea. A few days later, returning to Michigan, plans were matured to build a steam railroad for logging purposes with light rail and equipment, connecting Lake George in town 18-5, with the Muskegon river, six miles distant. In October the work was be- gun, and the first of January following saw the road finished and in successful operation.


"Of course the croakers, never silent when new methods are to be tried, predicted a failure of the enterprise, and ruin for the owners, yet a few months later some of these same men, riding over the road


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and witnessing its successful operation, were loudest in their approval, and their repetition of the exasperating 'I told you so' was as glibly constant as if it had applied to failure instead of success. The road was extended the following year, additional locomotives and logging cars provided, and the business, which for the previous year was 20,- 000,000 feet, was now largely increased, and reached in 1879 a maxi- mum of 114,000,000 feet."


Mr. Gerrish afterward became largely interested in various Muske- gon mills, part owner of the Saginaw Bay & Northwestern logging railroad, and prior to his death May 19, 1882, was probably the largest individual logger in the world, his highest annual contribution to Mus- kegon river being 130,000,000 feet in 1879. While making plans for an extension of his operations into the Georgian bay country, Louisiana and Georgia, he was stricken with sudden and mortal illness, at the home of a sister in Evart. He was only a little past thirty-three at the time of his death, which was caused by an affection of the spine and acute inflammation of the kidneys.


The late Austin W. Mitchell, of Cadillac, was another leading lum- berman and manufacturer who was largely identified with the building of logging railroads in Northern Michigan, especially in Wexford and Missaukee counties. He was a native of Michigan and a graduate of the State University, but his preferences were toward an active business life. After serving in the internal revenue department for several years, in 1879, then twenty-seven years of age, he bought a section of pine land at Jennings, Cedar Creek township, Wexford county, six miles north of Cadillac, and in March of the following year began the manufacture of lumber at Bond's mill. He afterward became asso- ciated with his brother, William W., both in the purchase of timber lands in Michigan and New Mexico and the manufacture of pine prod- ucts, maple flooring, handles and other articles which are made from soft and hard woods. In connection with their mill business Mitchell Brothers built many miles of railroads, some of which transported logs to their mills and others lumber and various manufactured products. A. W. Mitchell, the pioneer and founder of all these operations, died in 1902, while on his way to Japan in a vain search for restored health, being still a man of middle age.


LUDINGTON RAILROADS


The Grand Rapids & Northwestern Railroad is a line projected from Ludington to Grand Rapids, ninety-eight miles. It was chartered Feb- ruary 1, 1908, under the laws of Michigan. The project is for the relocation and extension into Ludington and Grand Rapids of the Ma- son & Oceana railroad, and for the establishment of a line of car ferries with terminals in Milwaukee and Manitowoc. The company owns the entire west shore of Ludington harbor where car ferry slips and trans- fer docks and warehouses will be built. It will occupy the Bridge street terminal at Grand Rapids in conjunction with the Grand Trunk. The company owns all the capital stock of the Mason & Oceana rail- road, which it has completed from Ludington to Cobmoosa, Michigan,


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thirty-five miles, and newly graded the section from Ludington to Crystal valley, twenty miles.


The Mason & Oceana Railroad was originally organized in 1886, and has been used primarily for the logging operations of the Butters Salt and Lumber Company of Ludington. Its equipment is practically worn out, and the burning of the lumber company's plant put the narrow gauge railroad out of business, as that corporation gave the road ninety per cent of its earnings.


The 'Epworth League Railroad Company was organized March 9, 1895, chartered for thirty years on April 1st and opened May 30th of that year for the purpose of accommodating summer tourists to sum- mer resorts north of Ludington. In July, 1901, the name was changed to the Ludington & Northern.


MANISTEE RAILROADS


The Manistee & Luther Railroad, whose southeast line is from East- lake to Eleanor, thirty-three miles, was chartered March 26, 1886, chiefly for logging purposes to which it is still virtually confined.


The Manistee & North-Eastern Railroad, from Manistee to Traverse City, is over seventy miles long (with branches 183 miles) and was opened in sections between January 14, 1889, and July 1, 1892; branches opened at various subsequent dates. It was originally chartered Jan- uary 7, 1887.


The stations and postoffices on the main line and branches of the Manistee & North-Eastern which traverse Northern Michigan are as follows: Main line-Manistee, Norwalk, Kaleva and Copemish, Man- istee county ; Grayling, Crawford county; Nessen City, Lake Ann and Cedar Run, Benzie county; Karlin, Interlochen and Traverse City, Grand Traverse county.


River branch-Kaleva and Marilla, Manistee county; Buckley, Wexford county; Walton, Grand Traverse county; Grayling, Craw- ford county.


Platte river branch-Honor, Benzie county.


Omena branch-Schomberg and Provemont, Leelanau county.


The Traverse City, Leelanau & Manistique Railway's main line is from Hatchs to Northport, Leelanau county, and is a virtual continu- ation of the Manistee & North-Eastern. It is about twenty-four miles in length, and the controlling company was organized under state laws September 19, 1908, as successor to the Traverse City, Leelanau & Manistique Railroad Company whose property was sold under fore- closure April 17, 1907. Its main stations are Traverse City, Grand Traverse county, and Keswick, Sutton's Bay, Omena and Northport, Leelanau county.


The Manistee & Grand Rapids Railroad was chartered November 17, 1889, under state laws, and the line completed from Manistee to Marion (Osceola county), (seventy-two miles) and from Dighton to Hartwick (Osceola county), (five miles) on May 1, 1893. As is evi- dent from the name, the line, as projected, will be 116 miles in length -from Manistee to Grand Rapids. The principal stations on the Man-


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istee & Grand Rapids are Manistee and Filer City, Manistee county ; Millerton, Mason county; and Peacock, Luther and Edgetts, Lake county. The people of Manistee take just pride in this road, which is purely a home concern; or to quote a local print: " The Manistee and Grand Rapids Railroad is distinctively a Manistee enterprise, organ- ized in November, 1889, and financed entirely by local capital. Pro- jected originally as a logging road to bring to our home mills great bodies of timber held by local lumbermen, this road at present op- erates over some seventy miles of track, extending in a southeasterly direction from Manistee, traversing the southwestern portion of Man- istee county ; the northeastern section of Mason county; from west to east entirely across the central part of Lake county; and into the rich farming lands of Osceola county, crossing the northern extension of the Pere Marquette Railroad at Peacock, the Grand Rapids and In- diana Railroad at Tustin, and connecting with the Ann Arbor Rail- road at Marion, the eastern terminal of the line, and is fast becoming a very important factor in the freight and passenger business between Manistee and the outside world. By the construction of this railroad there was opened for settlement one of the most promising sections of Western Michigan, in the cities, villages and on the farms of whose great fruit belt, are already to be found a full half million of inhab- itants, with land and opportunities awaiting four times as many more."


The Empire & Southeastern Railroad is a line eleven miles in length which runs through the southwestern corner of Leelanau county into Benzie county. where it connects with a spur of the Pere Marquette system.


THE DETROIT & MACKINAC*


What is so well known as the Detroit & Mackinac Railway Company has extended its lines into northeastern Michigan by way of Jackson, Lansing and Saginaw. The old Jackson & Lansing was organized February 23, 1864, and in the following year the name changed to the Jackson, Lansing & Saginaw. Its line was completed to Mason in 1865, to Lansing in 1866 and to Wenona, on Saginaw bay, December 6, 1867.


In 1871 the Detroit & Lansing Railroad was organized under the general law and built through to Lansing. In 1876 it was consolidated with the Ionia & Lansing and still later with the Detroit, Lansing & Northern. In the same year the Detroit & Bay City was organized, and quickly extended to both Saginaw and Bay City, and now consti- tutes a portion of the Detroit & Mackinac system. These two roads were built largely by those interested in the Michigan Central Company.


The originator of the present Detroit & Mackinac Railway was the Detroit, Bay City & Alpena Railroad, which was projected by C. D. Hale, of Tawas City, as a logging road. In 1878 the Lake Huron & Southwestern Railway Company was organized with Mr. Hale as man- ager. Under his direction the road was built in the summer of 1878,


* The map of the Detroit & Mackinac railway is published in this chapter because it is the only one of the large transportation systems mentioned which lies almost entirely in Northern Michigan.


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from the Hale mill, at Tawas City, to township 21 north, of range 4 east, in Ogemaw county, a distance of twenty-one miles, at a cost of $90,000. Mr. Hale continued manager of the company until Febru- ary, 1879, when the pressure of private business made it necessary for him to resign.


In the spring of 1879 the company made an assignment, and in


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October of that year the road was purchased by C. H. Prescott, of Bay City, who had a short time previous purchased an extensive mill property at Tawas City. Mr. Prescott operated the road alone for several months, and then organized it under the name of the Tawas & Bay County Railroad.


This road was mentioned in 1880, as follows: "Not the least among the enterprises which are at present of benefit to the place, and bid


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fair to be the means of its future wealth, is the Tawas & Bay County Railroad. On Monday a party of ladies and gentlemen, composed of Mr. Prescott, the president of the road, with his wife; Superintendent Clark and wife; Mrs. John McKay and her mother; Mrs. Johnson, of Bay City, and the writer, took possession of the only palace car on the line, and started for the western terminus of the road, drawn by a powerful little six wheeled freight engine, which has done duty for two years without a repair, other than what has been made in a coun- try blacksmith shop, which fact speaks to the credit of the builders and the care of those having it in charge. This road penetrates the pineries for a distance of twenty-five miles, its western terminus being in the southwestern corner of section 14 of town 21, range 4 east, or about twelve miles from Summit, on the Mackinaw division of the Michigan Central. The extreme western portion is newly laid, and not yet bal- lasted, but by far the greater portion is as well ballasted as any road in the state. The superintendent, Henry Clark, is an experienced rail- road constructor and bridge builder and he has worked the road-bed as systematically and skilfully as though intended for passenger traffic. That he has been successful is fully proven by riding over the road, as did our party, on an ordinary log truck without springs, and the softest seat being a pine plank covered with a blanket. This fifty mile ride was made without fatigue even to the ladies in the party. The ballast is of superior quality, easily handled and forming a solid and impervious bed. Cross ties instead of stringers are used, and are placed nearly twice as close as ordinarily, thus compensating for light iron which, when so tied, is fully adequate to the service of a narrow gauge road-three feet, two inches-and costs much less.


"There are now two engines in use, one being used for making up the trains, and the other for hauling, running two trips each way every day. Another engine is being negotiated for, and will be on the track by the close of navigation, when the trips will be increased to four. Beside hauling logs to the mills, all the lumber sawed at McIver's mill, and the product of a large shingle mill is transported to the lake. Set- tlers, to a large number, have already taken advantage of the traveling facility afforded and taken up farms along its line. Thirty or forty men are constantly employed either in extension of the main line, of branches to skidways, or in improving the road-bed. The entire work, from beginning to end. gives evidence that the managers contemplate not only permanency, but a great degree of service."




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