USA > Michigan > A history of the northern peninsula of Michigan and its people, its mining, lumber and agricultural industries, Volume I > Part 45
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Another great industry is promised to the place in the proposed es- tablishment of a large iron furnace to be erected by Charles H. Schaffer, of Marquette.
As a municipality Gladstone is divided into four wards, whose pop- ulation is thus distributed : First ward, 930; Second, 775; Third, 1,557, and Fourth, 947. It has a thoroughly equipped electric light plant. whose supply comes through the Escanaba Traction Company, and water works which were installed at a cost of some $40,000. Two banks, sev- eral substantial stores, two newspapers, ten churches, a good public school, and all the other typical accessories of an intelligent and wide- awake community, are placed to the credit of Gladstone, the largest cen- ter of population in Delta county outside of Escanaba.
Ford River has long been the center of a large lumber industry. As carly as 1844 Silas Billings, George Richards and David Bliss, pioneers of Delta county, erected a small saw mill a short distance up the stream from the village, utilizing the natural power furnished by the river. In 1850 Joseph Levare purchased the claim and the mill of Mr. Billings, and erected a small steam mill at the mouth of the river. This plant was destroyed by the spring freshets of 1860, and Mr. Levare erected a second mill which he operated until 1866. He then transferred his in- terests to Capt. Me Donald, who, with others, established the Ford River Lumber Company, which is therefore forty-five years of age.
The Ford River Lumber Company occupies sixty acres of ground, seven miles west of Escanaba. upon which it operates a saw mill, shingle mill and lath mill. The mills are operated from one large fire proof power house, which also supplies electric lighting. In the manufacture of 12,000,000 feet of Inmber, 36,000,000 shingles and 5,000,000 laths, as well as 600,000 ties and poles and over 3.000 cords of wood for pulp and chemical purposes, the mills employ 300 men seven months in the year. while 800 men are kept in the logging camps all winter. The company's
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LUDINGTON STREET, ESCANABA, LOOKING EAST
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main customer for hemlock ties is the Chicago & Northwestern Railway which calls for an average of 200,000 each spring. Around and upon these industries has been built a prosperous and neat village. For its employees the company operates a large boarding house and general store.
WELLS
Wells, sitnated just north of the county seat and south of the Es- canaba river, is the principal mill town of Delta county because it is the center of the operations of the I. Stephenson Company.
The immense hardwood flooring mill of the I. Stephenson Company is at Wells, its varions holdings, as is well known, covering Delta, Me- nominee, Dickinson, Iron and Marquette counties. It manufactures all kinds of lumber and timber products, and the local concern turns ont daily 250,000 feet of lumber and 50,000 feet of its "Ideal" rock maple flooring. This corporation has, as allied companies, the Ford River Lum- ber Company, the Mashek Chemical & Iron Company and the Escanaba & Lake Superior Railroad Company, the aggregate pay rolls of these concerns being $75,000 monthly. Senator Stephenson acquired his first interest in the great firm which bears his name in 1850, at which time the mill produced about 10,000,000 feet of white pine lumber annually ; but it was then the largest mill west of the Hudson river. Since 1888, when another mill was built at the mouth of the Escanaba river, the company has been known under its present name. In 1899 the company con- structed the Escanaba & Lake Superior railway, and in the following year erected the great hardwood and flooring mill. During the same year the Ford Lumber Company was purchased, and the I. Stephenson Company thereby secured access to a tract of 300,000 acres of timber lands (approximately five miles wide) running in a northwesterly direc- tion through the peninsula.
Since 1908 Wells has been the naval station of the second battalion of the Michigan Naval Brigade. This was formed in Hancock, Michigan, in February, 1906. Division I was mustered in under command of J. C. Gannon in the summer of 1907. The first battalion, with headquarters at Detroit, secured from the navy department the U. S. S. "Don Juan de Austria" and turned over the U. S. S. "Yantie" to the second battalion. In April, 1908, the second division was mustered in at Escanaba under conunand of Lieut. G. T. Stephenson. The total complement on the "Yantie" during the annnal maneuvers of 1910 was one hundred and sixty-six officers and men. This boat has a real history. It was built in 1864 and saw service during the latter part of the Civil war. She is a sister ship of the U. S. S. "Nipsic," which was destroyed by a tornado in the Samoan islands, and made a cruise to the Arctic regions under command of Admiral Schley for the relief of the Greely expedition. She was for a long time on Asiatie station and has seen service in all parts of the world. The annual cruise each year is under the super- vision of the United States navy; the regular navy ship on the great
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Jakes is usually the flag ship. and the fleet is under command of an officer detailed for that purpose by the navy department. The entire naval reserve force of the great lakes takes part in the manenvers each year which last about two weeks. Aside from these annual manenvers each ship takes several short cruises for target practice and other work.
Present officers of the battalion are as follows: Lieut. Commander H. G, Goodell. commanding U. S. S. "Yantie"; Lieut. G. T. Stephenson, executive officer ; Lieut. Allen F. Rees, navigating and ordinance officer; Lieut. G. M. Mashek, senior engineer officer; Lient. Henry Hecker; Lieut. C. D. Mason, Lient. (J. G.) Forest Wells, and Lient. (J. G.) Chas. W. MacDougall : Ensign Clyde Hnghitt, Ensign C. Raymond, Ensign James T. Ryan, and Ensign W. B. Embs; Passed Assistant Surgeon Rees and Assistant Paymaster Henry Baer.
OTHER TOWNS IN THE COUNTY
Nahma is quite a settlement which has gathered around and near the plant of the Bay de Noquet Lumber Company, its location being on the northwest shore of the Big Bay. Incorporated in 1881 the company has gone steadily forward. Its holdings comprise 125,000 acres of timber land, and operates six large camps. In 1902 it built the Nalumna & North- ern Railroad, the main track of which is forty miles in length, with nu- merons side spurs; so that its sources of supply are readily accessible and transportation to its mill at Nahma greatly facilitated. Among the other features of its holdings are a good hotel for transients, a comfort- able boarding house for its men, neat dwellings for those with families, and a large general store. The sawmill now in operation was built in 1889, to replace the one erected that year.
On the eastern shore of Big Bay de Noquet is Van's Harbor, the scene of operations of Van's Harbor Land & Lumber Company. The land in this section is fertile and much is being taken up for fruit culture. A mile back of the bay and farther north lies the thriving little village of Garden, with a beautiful and fertile country all around it and a popula- tion of about five hundred. The drive connecting these pretty places is a good illustration of the benefits conferred upon the county by the county road system.
Other noticeable settlements in the county may include Masonville. the home of the Escanaba Lumber Company; Rapid River. another Im- bering village; Stonington, a pretty agrienftural community surrounded by a delightful territory and traversed by good roads: Fayette, with a fine natural harbor and already a favorite summer resort ; and Kipling. the site of one of the Cleveland Cliffs Iron Company's furnaces.
Both Masonville and Fayette have histories. The former has already been noted as one of the oldest towns in the county, and its original seat of justice. Previous to the laying out and establishment of the village of Escanaba on a sound basis, Masonville was an important port on the old Green Bay & Marquette steamboat line, and one of the earliest him- ber ports navigated in the county. It was also the stage and mail station
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on the overland route between these points, and coaches passed regularly through it until superseded by the cars of the Chicago & Northwestern Railway. The first saw mill was built by Fargeson & Williamson, the pioneers of the town in 1850, and was operated by them until 1852, when it passed into the hands of Richard Mason & Son, of Chicago, who en- larged the plant and conducted it with success for nearly thirty years. The Peacock mill followed, and other concerns were started in the vicin- ity, but Masonville as a village is virtually extinet. The surrounding country has bright agricultural prospects, however, and Masonville may have a revival.
Fayette, on the east shore of Big Bay de Noqnet, originally standing in the midst of a dense forest of hardwood, was four decades ago, and for many years thereafter, virtually owned by the Jackson Iron Com- pany. It was named by the early explorers Snail Shell Harbor, and promised for some twenty years to be a thriving point for the manufac- ture of iron. The company inaugurated its enterprise there in May, 1867, soon after the completion of the Northwestern line to Negaunee. From its mine at the latter place the ore was shipped over that road to Fayette, where, within the following few years quite a large blast fur- nace was established. The harbor at Fayette offered the best advantages both for receiving the ore, via Escanaba, und for shipping the smelted prodnet. In the eighties the Jackson Company was smelting nearly a hundred tons of iron daily ; was making its own charcoal from a tract of 16,000 acres of hard wood which it owned; was operating a tug and schooner in the condnet of its industry; employed 200 men, and had founded quite a village. But this is now past history, and Fayette, as stated, is but a promising summer resort with an attractive harbor and pretty adjacent scenery as its chief assets.
AGRICULTURE AND GOOD ROADS
It is only within the past few years that the people of Delta county have commenced to serionsly consider the ngrienltural, hortienltural and livestock possibilities of their section. Heretofore the call of the forest and the mine had been too strenuous and profitable, but now that the country has been fairly settled by those who have been promoting such industries and that the lands have been largely cleared of timber, the call for a closer contact with the soil has been heeded. The case, as it intimately concerns Delta county, has been well presented in the follow- ing extract : "One thing which must be taken into consideration is the fact that in no section of the country are the agricultural opportunities greater than in the section surrounding Escanaba, This fact is due as has been stated, to the prevailing influence of other ocenpations which robbed the soil of men who would have tilled it 'under ordinary condi- tions. The country is not over populated as in both lower Michigan and Wisconsin, neither is it extremely sparsely settled, but an excellent me- dimu is struck, one which leaves lands for thousands of farmers and growers to settle upon.
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"There is one peculiarity concerning this section of the country which can be found nowhere else in the United States, for here it is that rich farming lands in a section surrounded and crossed by railroads, watered by streams and lakes, and within an extremely short radius of a thoroughly modern eity, can be purchased at the same price the home- steader would be compelled to pay in the west where perhaps he is lo- cated at such a distance from all communications that a goodly portion of his profits are lost in hauling his goods to the market."
The soil of Delta county, especially in its eastern sections and inelud- ing the peninsula between Big de Noquet bay and Lake Michigan, is
PORTION OF COUNTY ROAD, DELTA COUNTY
nicely adapted to the raising of small fruits, berries and vegetables, and the time is near at hand when the county will also be valued as a dairy and livestock country. Climate and water make it healthful for man and beast, and the thousands of tourists and health seekers who are com- ing into these parts will spread abroad their practical advantages as promoters of homes and a permanent population.
Of the many influenees which are working for the development of Delta county none is of greater importance than the good-roads move- ment, or the establishment and promotion of the so-called County Road System. In this movement Delta county is a banner distriet, and no one
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has done more to practically further it than County Surveyor D. A. Brotherton, who furnishes the following on this all-important subject : "The county road system was adopted by Delta county in 1896. The first board of county road commissioners was composed of five members- James Doherty. Jules Edoin, Frederick J. Merriam, Peter Groos and John Gunderson. After a careful examination of the topography of the county and due deliberation, the board resolved to adopt certain town and state roads then in use and to lay out and improve others, thereby creating a system of county highways traversing the county in all direc- tions, and connecting the principal cities, villages and farming settle- ments. This plan called for 166 miles of road and an expenditure of $175.000.
"Twice the board of road commissioners asked the board of super- visors to submit the question of bonding the county for that amount to the electors of the county, and hoth times the proposition was turned down. After the second failure to get the funds they deemed necessary to properly carry out their plans, four of the commissioners resigned.
"The next year (1898) the board of county road commissioners was composed of the following five members: Noel Bissonette, John D. Col- burn. Jules Edoin, Mr. Jerome and Mr. Kuntson. The work of this board was limited to adopting a few stretches of town roads and the lay- ing out and improving of some new roads, all work being done so as to conform with and form a part of the general system as adopted by the former board.
"Since 1901 there have been but three members on the board of . county rond commissioners. In that year it was made up of Lonis Jep- son, John Gasman and Bazilio Lenzi. The members of the present board are John Gasman, of Bark River, and Erick Anderson and HI. W. Rende of Escanaba.
"There have been levied since 1901 from $16,000 to $18.000 each year for county road purposes. The amounts collected on this were used in opening up, draining, grading, graveling and macadamizing roads des- tined to be important thoroughfares of the county and in keeping those roads in repair. In 1906 the board of county road commissioners, in- fineneed more or less by the expectation of receiving a part of the State Reward moneys, built one and a half miles of macadam, receiving the state reward in the same. They asked the board of supervisors to snb- mit to the electors of the county, a proposition for bonding the county for $25,000, bnt. the supervisors refused to do so. Nothing was done in 1907 in mneadamizing. the county road moneys for that year being spent for repairs, culverts, ete. At their October meeting in 1907, the board of supervisors resolved to submit to the electors the question of bonding for $25,000 and the question was duly carried.
"Delta connty has (November. 1910) under the supervision of the board of county road commissioners, 101 miles of county road, of which 72 miles are gravel and 17 miles macadam. There are also 161/2 miles of macadam roads built by the different townships. Deltu county has re- ceived $13,961 as State Reward on macadam ronds.
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"The system of county roads in this county is designed to connect all the principal towns and farming districts with the cities of Escanaba and Gladstone by the most direct routes. County roads now furnish a direct macadam route from the Menominee county line to Escanaba and thence along the bay shore to Gladstone. The Cornell road is to connect Escanaba with the settlements and villages to the northwest along the Escanaba and Lake Superior Railroad. The Marquette county road runs from the city of Gladstone northwesterly through Brampton, Per- kins, Trombly, Maple Ridge and Lathrop to the Marquette county line. One mile of this road is macadamized and applications for State Reward have been filed covering the entire route. The Masonville County Road is to connect Gladstone and Rapid River, passing through Kipling and Masonville. The Rapid River County Road furnishes a direct ronte from Rapid River north to the line of Alger county. The Portage county road traverses the peninsula between Little and Big Bay de Noc, and when completed will connect on the north with the road running from Rapid River east to the Nahma road. The Nahma, Garden, and Fair- banks county roads follow around Big Bay de Noe through St. Jacques, Nahma, Isabella, Garden and Fayette, to Fairport."
INCREASE IN POPULATION
The increase in the population of Delta county, as shown by the United States census for the years conelnding the various decades, has been as follows: 1860, 1,172; 1870, 2,542; 1880, 6,812; 1890, 15,330; 1900, 23,881; 1910, 30,108.
The comparison siner and including 1890, by townships, cities and villages, is as below :
COUNTY DIVISION
1910
1900
1890
Baldwin township
753
862
385
Bark River township
1,269
1,075
706
Bay de Noe township
550
469
478
Brampton township
516
Bornell township
444
Escanaba City
13,194
9,549
6,808
Escanaba township
640
792
724
Fairbanks township
531
298
740
Ford River township
1,148
1.386
837
Garden township, including Garden village
1,268
1,234
1,267
Garden village
497
465
458
Gladstone City
4,211
3,380
1,337
Maple Ridge township
753
653
241
Masonville township
2,109
2,203
924
Nahma township
1,256
967
697
Wells township
1,466
828
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CHAPTER XX ALGER AND LUCE COUNTIES
ALGER COUNTY-EAST OR OLD MUNISING-ONOTA-NEW MUNISING- THE CLEVELAND CLIFFS IRON COMPANY-THE PICTURED ROCKS-AG- RICULTURE AND THE EXPERIMENT STATION-GROWTH IN POPULATION -LUCE COUNTY AND NEWBERRY-UPPER PENINSULA HOSPITAL FOR THE INSANE-LAKE SUPERIOR IRON AND CHEMICAL COMPANY-MINOR POINTS AND POPULATION.
Alger and Luce are two of the newer connties of the Upper Penin- sula, but are rapidly advancing to the front, and are coming into special notice as most promising agricultural territory. Very wisely they are also giving elose attention to the subject of good roads, which means so much to the settler either of the present or the future.
ALGER COUNTY
Alger is one of the modern counties to be organized in the Upper Peninsula, being set off from Schooleraft in 1885, and Munising, the county seat, a prosperous village of three thousand people, was a dense forest tract fifteen years ago. It snuggles in a picturesque, large and sheltered harbor at the foot of Munising bay, Lake Superior being almost hidden from view by Grand Island, a rocky, rugged and striking body which extends from across a narrow strait eight miles into the lake. It averages abont four in width, contains nearly 14,000 aeres, and is prac- tically a continuation of the famed Pictured Rocks, stretching fantastic- ally along the mainland to the east from Grand Portal to Castle Point. Tront and Murray bays are deep indentations of the southeastern por- tion of Grand Island which have fashioned it into a grotesquely shaped peninsula, resembling an arrow head, or an ancient battle axe of stone. Murray's bay is the northern extension of Munising harbor or bay, which is thirty miles in cirenmference; has two seenre entrances; is four miles long by two and a half wide; from forty to two hundred feet deep, and so completely land-locked that neither breakwater nor other artificial protection seems desirable.
The beacon light of the harbor on the eastern or outer surface of the
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arrow head is four miles from the village, the light house, at the broad Lake Superior entrance being planted on one of the two northernmost points of the island. A short distance west are Wood and Williams islands, also gems of Superior, every foot of Alger county's coast lines and adjacent waters being a joy to the lover of the beautiful, as well as fantastic, in nature. But of such attractions, more hereafter.
As the writer observed, when he was carried out of the historie track by the charms of these localities. although Alger, as a county, and the Munising of today, at the foot, are of youthful age, there are several points which have a record extending back more than half a century; and these, as far as the average communities in Alger county go, con- stitute ancient history.
EAST OR OLD MUNISING
What is now known as East Munising, or Old Munising, is situated on the east shore of the bay, and is a composite of the past and the pres- ent ; representative of old Munising are the ruins of the furnace of the iron company which collapsed more than thirty years ago, while the Munising railway and the large plant of the Munising Leather Company, with new buildings grouping themselves conveniently, stand for revival and future progress. The locality was a favorite camping ground of the Ojibways, and two miles from Old Munising is an ancient Indian ceme- tery in which, among other braves, is known to be buried Chief Nah-ben- ay-ash.
The real founding of the white man's town commenced in 1850, when the Munising Company, with Thomas Sparks, of Philadelphia, as presi- dent, became owners of a tract of land bordering on the bay. Shortly afterwards the company laid out the plat of Munising, extending two and a half miles along the eastern shores, and had the further enter- prise to build an excellent wagon road across the entire peninsula to Little Bay de Noquet, Lake Michigan. But its landable plans miscarried for lack of means, the Philadelphia concern was absorbed by the Grand Island Iron Ore Company, which, in 1855, disposed of its interests to the Schoolcraft Iron Company. The property finally came into possession of Peter White, of Marquette.
In 1867 Mr. White built a large blast furnace for the manufacture of charcoal iron at Old Munising, and after being operated under his own- ership for some time was sold to the Munising Iron Company, which failed in 1877. It is the ruins of this furnace which are still to be seen, with several charcoal kilns and dilapidated buildings of the old iron plant of which so much was expected. The period of its operation was Munising's era of prosperity, the population of the place being then between five and six hundred. The brick school building, still in use, was erected during that time nt a cost of $10,000, and several churches were also built.
At that time the nearest railway station was Marquette, the whole interior country between Marquette and St. Ignace being almost an un-
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broken wilderness, the haunt of bears, wolves, lynx, wildcats, and other wild animals. A stage line was run between Marquette and Munising, making trips summer and winter, and in winter the stage was the only means of communication with the outside world. The only shipping was by water, and both freight and passenger boats touched here regularly. In 1870 Schooleraft county was organized and Munising was temporarily the county seat, one term of circuit court being held here, the second Hoor of the school-house being used as the court room.
But with the shutting down of the iron works in 1877, Old Munising gradually declined until the building of the Munising railway in 1895 and the more recent establishment of the large tannery of the Munising Leather Company. These two events have caused a new town to spring up from the ruins of the old.
This is a description of the place penned in 1882: "Munising lies forty miles northwest of Manistique court house, forty miles east of Mar- quette, one hundred and thirty west of Sault de Ste. Marie and four hundred and eighty miles from Detroit by water route. The location of the village east of Grand Island cannot be surpassed in beauty. It is in the neighborhood of the Pictured Rocks, the Caseade Faees and other spots of interest to the lover of the picturesque. There the blast furnaces of the Munising Iron Company are located, while the lum- bering operations in the vicinity render it a center of trade in the Upper Peninsula. In 1881 the population was about four hundred. The Detroit, Mackinac & Marquette railroad was completed in that year and a foundation laid for that prosperity which is promised the place."
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