A History of Northern Michigan and Its People, Volume I, Part 26

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


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he can get some idea of the vast wealth in the pine forests in Wexford county at that early day."


LAST BIG ROLLWAY ON THE CEDAR


Still later (1906), from the columns of the Gladwin Record: "Ross Brothers have been the only large operators in timber on the Cedar and Tobacco rivers during the last fifteen years.


"Their output of lumber for a number of years was not far from the 10,000,000 mark, besides large products of shingles and ties. For the last few years, however, this record has been cut about half, and this year will be some 6,000,000 feet of logs on the Cedar and Tobacco rivers.


"The Ross brothers are a family of lumbermen. Their honored father, Donald Ross, the founder of Beaverton, was one of the first to manufacture sapless-paving from cedar. The four sons are engaged in lumbering extensively; Ronald and William being the firm of Ross Bros. at Beaverton, and George and Donald G. being heavy operators in the upper peninsula. The first-named are also large stockholders in the LaClede Lumber Co., having a large mill and big timber hold- ings at LaClede, Idaho.


"The past eight years Ross Bros. have been fortunate in having S. A. Price for their superintendent of work in the woods. Mr. Price has had an experience of 30 years in the lumberwoods. He attends strictly to business, having very little time for recreation, and some- times few hours for rest. To make the rounds of the camps, buy and scale logs, bolts and ties gives him a round of work for which few men would have the endurance. Mr. Price is one of those whole-souled men so typical of woods-life, and is popular with all.


"During the past two years, Martin Price of Merrill, Saginaw county, a brother of Superintendent S. A. Price, has had charge of one set of camps of Ross Bros. on the Cedar, seven miles north of Gladwin. He has had an experience of 30 years lumbering, the greater part of the time foreman of camps, 20 years in Michigan and 10 years in Florida, Idaho and Washington. He is a hale fellow well met with all. Notwithstanding the bad winter for logging he has banked his quota of logs, the last season's work at these camps. As a woods fore- man he has few equals.


"It was the good fortune of the writer to be included in a recent party of visitors to these camps, and to enjoy the hospitality of Messrs. Price. In the party were Alex Graham, Guy E. Smith, M. H. Aitkin, Grover Goodrum, M. E. Baker, Harry Robinson, D. G. Fraser and Eugene Foster. A dinner in camp is one to satisfy the appetite, and the dinner that day included all that could be desired. The boys will look forward with pleasure to their next annual visit to the camps.


"Ross Bros. expect to have 4,000,000 feet of logs on the Cedar this year, of which Martin Price has banked 1,000,000 feet; Peter Ladd,


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jobber, will put in 1,000,000 feet; John Sharkey, logs and cedar; W. R. Looker, 150,000 pieces of cedar. F. J. Reithel's mills will saw 500,- 000 feet, and a mill near Meredith about the same, to be shipped from Gladwin. On the Tobacco A. P. Clark will have 200,000 feet, and John Reagle 200,000 feet. Besides a large amount of logs, etc., have been bought on bank and at small mills.


"A few years 'picking-up' and lumbering on these streams will be completed, after over forty years operations, and an output reaching perhaps 500,000,000 feet or more from the Cedar and several times as much from Tobacco and branches.


"According to the recollection of E. C. Diffin, the first lumbering on the Cedar was done in 1866 by 'Bill' VanWay, who had camps just east of the present site of the city cemetery. Among the heavy oper- ators have been Moore, Smith & Co., Tiff Jerome, Butman & Rust, Hamilton, McClure & Co., J. F. Rust & Co., D. W. Rust & Son, Lane & Busch, Rust Bros., and Ross Bros.


"Perhaps the largest camp in lower Michigan is being operated by Grimore & Son at Winegar's, and this will be the last big camp in these parts. They are getting out several million feet of logs which are being shipped by rail to Bousfield & Co. and Ross & Wentworth at Bay City. They will have another winter's work there."


These pictures drawn of the status of lumbering in Wexford and Gladwin counties are but illustrative of the waning of the pine indus- tries of Northern Michigan. But the fruit raiser is close upon the retreating lumberman of the pineries, and even in certain sections of the hardwood country the farmer follows that class of lumberman so closely that what was this year a solid forest will next year be cleared and planted to potatoes or rye or wheat.


The wonderful results that have been accomplished in the manufar- ture of lumber, as well as the wasteful devastation of the pine forests, are due not alone to improved machinery, but to improved systems of labor, as well. In no other business are the systems and methods of labor more thoroughly organized and adhered to. From the time the towering pine in the forest is noted in the minutes of the land hunter, until in the form of lumber, lath and shingles, it is piled upon the vessel or car, there is no deviation from carefully devised plans of action. The logging operations form a distinct business by themselves and during the winter months create a new world which drains the manufactures centres of quite a considerable part of their population. Thousands of people observe sawmills in operation, devouring logs with marvelous rapidity, without having any conception of the meth- ods employed to obtain the logs. The logging camp, and the process of converting the tree into logs and placing them in the streams, are interesting factors of the lumber business, but these methods have been so often described that space will not be devoted to the narrative here.


Machinery, method and fires have nearly swept away the once noble pineries of Northern Michigan. The fires have cleared away square


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miles of brush and debris, and left much land free and as it can be purchased by the farmer at low prices these conflagrations, which have sometimes raged even at the cost of human life, will prove to be evils not unmixed with good.


PRESENT STATUS OF LUMBERING


According to the bulletin issued by the national Bureau of the Census May 19,1911, Michigan now ranks tenth of the states in the


COUNTRY IN THE TRANSITION STATE


production of lumber, which amounts to 1,889,724,000 feet, manufac- tured by 1,323 mills.


In all the states bordering on the Great Lakes a marked decrease is shown as compared with the figures of 1899. In the latter year Michigan's output was 3,018,338,000 feet. The marked decreased in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, is attributed solely to the dimin- ishing supply of white pine.


Yellow pine has ranked first in quantity of product since the out- put of white pine began to fall off decidedly in the middle nineties, and in 1909 the yellow-pine output amounted to 36,6 per cent of the total, or three and one-half times as much as its nearest competition, Douglas fir. Oak holds third place, with 9.9 per cent of the total pro- duction, while white pine has dropped to fourth place, and hemlock to fifth. Spruce and western pine ranked, respectively, sixth and sev- enth in both years. In 1909, for the first time, a production of more than one billion feet of maple was recorded. The eight woods named furnished 82.8 per cent of the country's lumber product in 1909.


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Michigan now ranks first in the production of maple lumber, her 961 active mills turning out 543,214,000 feet valued at $8,664,263. This was over fifty-nine per cent of the total production in the United States.


She also leads in the output of beech lumber, with 111,340,000 feet, or more than twenty-one per cent of the total manufacture of the United States.


In basswood products Michigan's output is only exceeded by that of Wisconsin, the two states cutting one-half of the total, of which the Wolverine state is credited with more than seventeen per cent. Michi- gan is also second in elm and birch products, Wisconsin again being her only competitor.


Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, in the order named, now supply about two-thirds of the hemlock lumber produced in the United States. There is little difference in their comparative importance as producers, each having an output of over twenty per cent. Michigan has nearly 800 mills in operation, manufacturing 614,622,000 feet val- ued at $7,289,417.


In 1909 Wisconsin and Michigan together cut one-half of the total output of basswood lumber, and the balance was contributed by twen- ty-six states, none of which cut large quantities.


Elm is another hardwood in the production of which Wisconsin leads. Of the total cut of 347,456,000 feet in 1909, reported by thirty- four states, Wisconsin furnished 21.7 per cent. Michigan ranked sec- ond, with 16.8 per cent, and Indiana third, with 11.6 per cent of the total. Although elms are very widely distributed throughout the east- ern half of the United States, no large quantity of elm lumber was cut in any state other than the three above mentioned, which together supplied one-half of the total production. As a whole, the production of elm lumber is decreasing, the heaviest decreases within the decade being in Michigan and Ohio. These two states produced 202,856,000 feet of elm lumber in 1899 and only 45.1 per cent as much in 1909. The production of elm lumber in Wisconsin has remained at prac- tically the same level for the past ten years.


Michigan stands fourth both in the production of cedar and ash lumber, although she stands low in the percentages of cedar manufac- ture as compared with Washington, which now puts out fifty-three per cent of the total. Michigan's quota is a trifle over five per cent. The manufacture of ash lumber is widely and quite evenly distributed, Arkansas leading with 11.4 per cent of the total product and Michigan being fourth with 8.5 per cent.


Northern Michigan is making rapid strides in the manufacture of veneers, so that the following from the census of 1911 will especially interest that part of the state: "The consumption of logs in veneer manufacture in 1909 occurred principally in Illinois, Michigan, Flor- ida, Wisconsin, Indiana, Tennessee, Missouri, and Arkansas, ranking in the order named. Each of these eight states reported a consump- tion of over 25,000,000 feet, log scale, and together reported 249,658,- 000, or 57.2 per cent of the total consumption. Of the twenty-nine states reported separately, both in 1908 and 1909, twelve showed de-


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creases in the amount of wood consumed in the latter year. The prin- cipal gains in quantity consumed in 1909 were in Michigan, Arkansas, Virginia, and New York, all of which states report gains of over 8,000,- 000 feet. Maple was used principally in Michigan and in New York, and formed 45.9 per cent of the total quantity of wood consumed in the former state and 31.6 per cent in the latter.


"Michigan used 457,362 cords, or 39.8 per cent of the total wood consumed in hardwood distillation in 1909. This quantity, reported by fourteen establishments, was 146,452 cords more than that con- sumed by the Michigan establishments in 1908. The consumption per establishment, moreover, was greater by over 4,400 cords in 1909 than in 1908, and the average cost per cord was 55 cents higher."


Only within the last few years has any considerable quantity of Wisconsin and Michigan twenty-nine and twenty-eight per cent re- tamarack lumber been sawed. It is cut almost entirely in the Lake states, Minnesota supplying approximately two-fifths of the total, and spectively.


Hemlock bark, which in 1909 had the lowest average cost of any of the barks used for tanning, was used principally in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, West Virginia, and New York, these five states, ranking in the order named, consuming 620,693 tons, valued at $5,- 680,044, which represented 88.9 per cent of the total quantity and 88.3 per cent of the total value. Michigan produced 100,285 tons of tanbark and tanning extract, valued at $1,225,655.


Michigan is seventh in pulp-wood consumption, and 43.8 per cent of the wood used is hemlock.


The foregoing figures apply to Michigan as a state, but, although Northern Michigan is a term, the statistics and general statements as to the status of lumbering and lumber manufactures are closely significant of conditions in that section of the state.


THE SALT INDUSTRY


Northern Michigan is one of the greatest producers of salt in the world, and much of that article of prime necessity comes from the territory covered by this history. The historical part of the subject has been so well traced by S. G. Higgins in the 1902 "Proceedings of the Michigan Political Science Association" that liberal extracts are taken from his paper.


"During the last forty years," he says, "upwards of 85,000,000 barrels of salt have been manufactured in the state of Michigan. Be- ginning in 1860, with a production of 4,000 barrels, it has steadily increased from year to year, with a total of over 600,000 barrels in 1890 and 4,000,000 barrels in 1898. In 1866 the manufacturers re- ceived an average price of $1.80 per barrel, including the cost of the barrel. The price steadily declined until in 1896 it reached 35 cents per barrel, containing 280 pounds of salt, and the manufacturer paid out of this price the cost of the barrel, 15 cents. At the present time Michigan manufactures about one-quarter the total salt production of the United States.


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"Probably no other state in the Union has developed so many valu- able mineral resources as the state of Michigan. We have iron, cop- per, salt, coal, gypsum, limestone, sandstone, marble, silica and many other minerals in great abundance, and the prosperous condition of the state is largely due to the development of these mineral industries, although much of our wealth has come from the pine forests, which, unfortunately, have been principally cut off and sawed into lumber. The manufacture of salt with the exhaust steam of the lumber mills and the cheap fuel accessible at these mills in the form of stabs and sawdust have enabled the manufacturers of Michigan to produce salt at the exceedingly low prices which have prevailed for a number of years. What the conditions will be when the lumber is exhausted yet remains to be seen.


"It was known during the earliest settlement of the country that the Indians formerly supplied themselves with salt from springs in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, but the development of our salt industry begins with the report of the state geologist, Dr. Houghton, in 1838. In his report Dr. Houghton says: 'On the Tittabawassee river in Midland county numerous indications of the existence of brine springs were noticed, extending from the mouth of the Chippewa river, as far as I ascended the former stream, being a few miles above the mouth of Salt river. Upon either side of the Tittabawassee river, between the points noted, small pools of brackish water were observed, as also, occasionally, springs discharging a similar water in small quantities ; and although an examination showed the waters to contain large quantities of the salts of lime and occasionally of iron they were never destitute of more or less salt.


" 'Springs of a more decided character occur in the vicinity of the mouth of Salt river. The first observed occurs in the stream near the right bank of the Tittabawassee, a little below Salt river, and at the time of my visit was covered by some two to two and a half feet of water. The spring was found by actual measurement to discharge about seventy gallons of water per hour. Nearly a mile above this spring upon the same bank and elevated from eight to ten feet above the water of the river, is a second spring discharging a somewhat larger quantity of water. Near by, but at a greater elevation, several small springs of brackish water were seen issuing from the sloping bank, which upon examination were found to contain a notable quan- tity of salt.


" 'The quantity of water discharged from these springs is small, but when considered in connection with those already noticed they become matters of considerable interest, since they serve to show that the salines are not confined to one or two springs, but are dispersed over a large district of country. Brine springs are known to exist near the mouths of Flint and Cass rivers, in Saginaw county, and also in Sanilac county, but as they occur in a flat section of country the un- favorable season compelled me to defer examining them until some future time.' "'


From 1838 to 1859 the state of Michigan, through its legislatures, governors and geologists, devoted itself to the encouragement of the


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salt industries of the Saginaw valley, locations being selected and wells sunk under the patronage of the commonwealth. After the expendi- ture of many thousands of dollars, under state appropriations, the practical results were scarcely tangible, and then private enterprise took up the enterprise; and the promoters of the first salt manufac- turing company in Michigan, East Saginaw Salt Manufacturing Com- pany, requested the legislature to pass an act granting a bounty of ten cents per barrel on salt produced from Michigan brine. The manu- facture was regarded with so much doubt that one of the legislators offered an amendment that the bounty be fixed at ten cents per bushel, instead of ten cents per barrel; the amendment was promptly adopted, rather as a joke, and the bounty was thus made fifty cents per barrel. Not long afterwards, sober second thought came to the members of the legislature and the original amendment, fixing the bounty at ten cents per barrel, was adopted.


The first successful salt well in Michigan was sunk to a depth of 647 by the East Saginaw Company, in 1859-60, on land in that city belonging to Jesse Hoyt. The first salt was made from this well under the personal superintendence of Dr. H. C. Potter, afterward vice- president and general manager of the Flint & Pere Marquette Rail- road Company, 4,000 barrels of salt being manufactured the first year.


"The success of this first well," continues Mr. Higgins, "together with the bounty offered by the state, caused great excitement through- out the Saginaw valley and thousands of dollars were invested in sink- ing additional wells. The state refused to pay the bounty earned by the East Saginaw Salt Manufacturing Company and a mandamus was asked against the board of state auditors to require them to audit the accounts for bounties due under the act of February 15, 1859.


"It has been popularly understood that the Supreme court at that time declared this bounty law to be unconstitutional. On the contrary the court sustained the bounty law and held that the Salt Company had acquired a vested right to the bounty upon all the salt manufac- tured up to the time a change in the law took effect by the enactment of a subsequent statute and that the company could not be deprived thereof by the passage of the subsequent act. There is no doubt but the passage of this bounty law by the state legislature had a very large influence in turning the attention of private capital to the enterprise, similarly to the manner in which a subsequent bounty law has induced the investment of nearly $5,000,000 in sugar factories in this state during the last two years. It is to be regretted that the state, after receiving such generous response from investors in the salt and sugar industries, should have treated them in such an unsatisfactory manner. Admitting that the bounties were too high, the state, to be just, should have promptly made such appropriations as would have given some compensation, in both these instances, to the pioneers who invested in these enterprises, relying upon the solemn promise of the state to pay the bounty. How long the state of Michigan might have waited for the development of its salt and sugar industries had it not been for these bounty laws, no one can tell, but it is certain that they very decidedly hastened the investment of capital.


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"While the writer would not be understood as favoring the bounty system as a rule, it is certainly a very remarkable inducement to the development of a new industry, and if such a proposition should here- after arise for the encouragement of any other line of business it is to be hoped that the bounty will be made moderate and that the pledge of the state will not be lightly disregarded after the investor has put his money into the enterprise. Such a practice as the state has fol- lowed in these two instances, if adopted in private business, would brand any firm or company with dishonor. The constitution does not prohibit the payment of such bounties, and the legislature has the authority to do as it sees fit in making the appropriation."


The group of rocks which form the lower peninsula has been graph- ically compared to four oblong saucers, one within the other, depressed in the center of the state and cropping out at the edges. The upper saucer is known to geoligists as the "Waverly group" and is formed of the salt-bearing sand rock which is the source of the Saginaw brine. "It is a sea-shore rock. Prints of seaweeds are found in it and shark's teeth, some of enormous size; and also the remains of enormous reed trees are found, testifying to the proximity of land. Hence we can infer that the waves of the Devonian sea, whose rocky bottom was far below, here dashed against the shore and deposited their briny burden for our use.


"Let us understand that the formation which gives the most valu- able salty brines in the Saginaw valley (and in the districts to the north) is named the Waverly group by Dr. Rominger, formerly state geologist, and consists of a series of sandstones and blue and red shales amounting to from 1,000 to 1,200 feet in thickness. This formation commences at the bottom of the gypsum formation and extends down- ward to the black shales as seen at Sulphur island, Thunder bay. In- dications of rock salt have never been found in any of the salt wells of Saginaw valley; but the outcrop of this Waverly group on the eastern shores of Lake Michigan is composed of sand-drift, some six hundred feet in thickness, which has long ago been deprived of its salt. Borings at Manistee, in the northwestern part of the state, passed through six hundred feet of sand, then into the limestones of Hamilton group and lastly of the Helderberg group, striking at the distance of 1,950 feet from the surface, the rock salt of the old De- vonian ocean, and corresponding, in all probability, to the rock salt of Wayne county and Goderich. In making these borings brines of various strengths were found at different depths, but all below 1,400 feet.


"Salt wells in Wayne, Manistee and Mason counties reach the solid salt beds, and fresh water is pumped into the wells, where it becomes saturated with the salt, and it is then pumped to the surface and evaporated. In recent years the vacuum pan process has been in- troduced in a number of salt works in Bay, Manistee, Mason, St. Clair and Wayne counties, the remainder of the salt being principally manu- factured by open steam evaporation. The vacuum pan salt, however, cakes more than the other and sells for a lower price. There is only a small amount of solar salt manufactured in the state."


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All the salt in Michigan is inspected under a state system, pursuant to an act of the legislature passed in 1869 and amendments since adopted. This insures good quality and uniformity. The state is divided into eight inspection districts, of which Iosco county forms the fourth; Manistee county, the sixth and Mason county, the seventh.


AGRICULTURE AND AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES


With the clearing away of the forests by lumbermen and fires, hor- ticulturists and agriculturists have come to occupy the land. Until Northern Michigan was pretty thoroughly denuded of its pineries, the cultivation of fruit and the standard crops did not make rapid ad- vances. But within the past fifteen years its productiveness in these lines has been thoroughly demonstrated, and has been set forth in a previous chapter.


The standard crops of Northern Michigan are hay and forage, po- tatoes and seeds. In actual value ($36,037,000) the first named was the leading crop in the state, and the following figures may be largely credited to that part of Michigan-the statistics given being for the year 1911.


Hay and forage showed an increase of 386,803 acres, or 16.6 per cent between 1899 and 1909. From 1,245,441 acres in 1879, hay and forage increased to 2,024,736 in 1889; to 2,328,498 in 1899; and again to 2,715,301 in 1909. The total yield in 1909 was 3,632,919 tons, valued at $36,037,000, over 50 per cent of which was "timothy and clover mixed." The average yield per acre for all hay and forage was 1.3 tons; the average value per acre $13.30.




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