USA > Michigan > A history of the northern peninsula of Michigan and its people, its mining, lumber and agricultural industries, Volume I > Part 47
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The Newberry school building is a fine looking structure, modern in every respect. Its physical and chemical laboratories are especially complete. The free text-book system is in vogne. "As long as the pop- ulation of a town remains more or less the same, as that of Newberry does," says II. D. Hughes, principal of the high school, "the attendance in the lower grades must remain fairly constant, and the increased school enrollment imust be in the upper grades and the high school. In the fall of 1908 onr high school enrollment was 50; last year it was 65; this year it is 80. In other words, the high school enrollment has in- creased sixty per cent in two years.
"When we consider the fact that Newberry is not sitnated in a thickly settled agricultural community that can send a great many non- resident pupils to the town school, we find that our high school enroll- ment is larger in proportion to the population than that of any other high school in Michigan of which we know. Not the least nmusual thing about the enrollment is that the number of boys exceeds that of the girls."
The high standing of the Newberry school has earned it a place in the niversity list ; that is, those who have completed its conrse are ad- mitted without examination to any college in Michigan. It has earned quite unusual honors in declamation and oratory, and the lower grades have also excelled in spelling and the fundamental branches, as evi- denced in contests with the classes of neighboring eities like Mnnising and Grand Marais.
To the world at large. Newberry is best known as the home of the Superior Iron and Chemical Company and of the Upper Peninsula Hos- pital for the Insane.
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NEWBERRY PUBLIC SCHOOLS
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UPPER PENINSULA HOSPITAL, FOR THE INSANE, NEWBERRY
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UPPER PENINSULA INSANE HOSPITAL
About a mile and a half south of Newberry is the imposing collec- tion of buildings which stands for the Upper Peninsula Hospital for the Insane and is the only institution of the kind in the state built on the cottage plan. Its administration building is large and imposing in its simplicity, as is shown in the illustration, and, with the fourteen cot- tages in which the patients find their homes, almost forms a large quad- rangle; the figure will be complete, as noted beneath the view given, when the original plan has been perfected.
The buildings, farm and unimproved lands owned by the state and devoted to this purpose, now cover an area of 680 acres, or forty acres more than a square mile. The interior of the quadrangle around which the administration building. anmsement hall and cottages are built is perhaps 300 by 500 feet, and the structures are connected by a long porch, so that the visitor may visit every room in the hospital withont going out of doors,
The lofty, picturesque site of the hospital is ideal. It is far enough removed from all city noises as to be a place of quiet and rest; the air is pure and bracing and patients are supplied with the purest of arte- sian water. A macadamized road leads from Newberry to the institu- tion, and the roads about the hospital are well kept, and the grounds ad- jacent to the buildings are tastefully planted with rose bushes, hedges, plants and shrubbery.
Eight of the cottages are occupied by the male patients (484 in number) and six by the women (340). In pleasant weather, all pa- tients not incapacitated are taken for exercise, a walk of a mile or two daily being found sufficient to keep them in good health. In inelement weather the connecting porches are used for promenades.
Many amusements are provided. The men have their billiard tables, checker boards and other games; the women, phonographs, music boxes, ete. Each week the hospital band gives a concert ; weekly dances are also held; and occasionally a theatrical tronpe gives a performance for their benefit.
The well cultivated hospital farm prodnees the vegetables used by the patients, as well as the hay. grain and fodder for the large herd of Holstein cattle and drove of hogs, which the hospital maintains for milk and meat. The hogs are kept in a cement building and the cattle barns have cement Hoors and troughs; so that their quarters are cleaner than many honses. The milkers don white clothes and keep them under lock and key when not in use.
As many patients as are physically fit are given employment on the farm and about the barns and laundry. experience having proven that this is conducive to better health. keeps them contented and aids their recovery. An observer faretionsly adds: "Many of them are good workers, and others give evidence of their sanity by shirking all the labor possible."
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There is a conservatory which provides plants for the flower beds about the grounds in summer; also a deer park, with a herd of deer, that is a source of great delight to the patients.
It is needless to say that this splendid institution, which has the care of these eight hundred unfortunates, does not rim itself, and. without mentioning names, too much cannot be said in commendation of the faithfulness and skill of the administration officers and the fine corps of attending physicians and trained nurses. Abont $140,000 are annally expended in the maintenance of the hospital, and the value of the prop- erty is about $600,000.
The state legislatme of 1893 fixed upon the location of the Upper Hospital near Newberry, and in 1894 the erection of the buildings was commeneed on a 560-acre tract donated by the Peninsula Land Con- pany and the people of Ince county. The institution was opened for patients November 1, 1895. the first to be received being transferred from the hospital at Traverse City.
LAKE SUPERIOR IRON AND CHEMICAL COMPANY
The Lake Superior Iron and Chemical Company is one of the larg- est producers of charcoal, iron and wood alcohol in the United States. It is capitalized at $10,000,000 and owns furnaces and chemical plants located at Newberry, Manistique, Chocolay, Boyne City, Elk Rapids and Ashland, Wisconsin. The Newberry plant, which is one of the larg- est and most modern of the six establishments mentioned, cost about $300,000 and employs some 500 men. The new company took over the holdings of the old concern in July, 1910, the most important addition to the buildings being the mammoth retort, 70 feet by 400 feet, ground for the structure being broken in December, 1910.
A distinet departure and advance from the old methods were par- tieularly noted in the operation of the new saw and wood mill, which is 40 feet by 150 feet, not including the annex which contains the ma- chinery. Under the old wasteful methods of handling the wood for the furnace, timber worth $40 per thousand. if manufactured into lumber, was converted into charcoal. The new mill has always been operated by electricity, furnished from the central power plant, capacity 60,000 feet daily. There is a large artificial pond constructed of cement into which the logs are dumped on their arrival at the mill. The central power plant is contained in a large building of brick and cement which will compare favorably with the best metropolitan plants used in the operation of street railways, for lighting purposes, etc.
The plant is one of the best illustrations in the county showing the advantages of the retort system over the old and almost obsolete kiln method, the latter wasting great quantities of alcohol and acetate of lime. The Newberry retort is said to be the largest in the country, its twenty ovens daily converting 200 cords of four-foot wood into char- coal. The wood is loaded into steel ears before being placed in the re- torts and when the charring process is completed is then run into cool- ing houses where it is allowed to remain another twenty-four hours.
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Under the retort system a much greater yield of alcohol is secured from a cord of wood than under the kiln method, and a considerable saving is effected in cost of handling the charcoal. Under the kiln method about four gallons of wood alcohol is secured from a cord of wood, and from no acetate of lime to 80 pounds per cord. Under the retort system the yield is 12 gallons of alcohol and from 180 to 220 pounds of lime to the cord of wood. In fact. the so-called bi-products now form a very important item in the operation of the furnace properties, and their value is far greater than that of the charcoal pig iron, whose annual
PLANT OF LAKE SUPERIOR IRON AND CHEMICAL COMPANY, NEWBERRY
output is about 200,000 tons. The output of wood alcohol is about 3,- 400,000 gallons annually and of acetate of lime, 61,500,000 pounds. The estimated net earnings of the entire group, after making all allowances, amount to $1.380,000 yearly.
From five to six miles of trackage are operated in the yards of the plant. The artesian wells which furnish the water supply have a ca- pacity of 40,000 gallons per minute. The monthly payroll of the New- berry plant is about $25,000 which means quite a little to local trade.
It is said that the company has at its command over 300,000 acres of hardwood lands from which to draw for raw material, and owns about thirty-five miles of railway branches and spurs, as well as a lease of the Yale mine at Bessemer, in which 570,000 tons of ore are blocked out. The head offices of the company are at Detroit, Michigan.
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About two miles northeast of Newberry is the loention of one of the most prominent colonization schemes of the Western Securities Land Company, of St. Paul, formerly the Union Pacific Land Company. Their operations include 720,000 acres in Muekinae, Chippewa, School- craft and Ince counties, and aim especially to bring settlers to the east- ern sections of the Upper Peninsula who are qualified to cultivate the lands, raise the products to which they are so well adapted, and estab- lish thereon permanent homes. This naturally leads to a consideration of the agricultural outlook of Ince county.
AGRICULTURAL OUTLOOK
In general terms, it may be said that, with few exceptions (mostly in connection with the cereals) any crop that enn be grown further south also flourishes in this part of the Peninsula. The county is datted with small lakes and streams, wild grasses grow in grent profusion. making conditions ideal for stock raising and dairying purposes. In faet, this is naturally a grass country and there is no such thing known as winter killing of meadows, as in other regions, beenuse the ground is protected with a heavy blanket of snow. And as soon as the snow leaves the ground in the spring it is ready for the plow.
All residents of the eastern sections of the Northern Peninsula will be interested in learning that the government's plant burean is engaged in domesticating the blueberry, thousands of bushels of which are har- vested each year and find a ready sale in the Chicago and Milwaukee markets. The secret of previous failures in this and similar lines of horticultural experiments, the government experts Imve found out, is the difficulty in providing just that sort of peaty underground mixture that the blueberry needs in order to thrive, but now that its require- ments are more fully understood this can be accomplished by trenching and similar methods. "The blueberry thrives only in peat, whether in bog or upland," according to Mr. Bach who has secured his information from data gathered for a forthcoming government bulletin on blue- berry culture. "That is to say, in a soil composed of vegetable matter which has undergone partial decomposition, and the further decay which is arrested by the presence of water, as in a swamp, or by underlying stratum of sand. Inasmuch as the sand does not contain those bacteria which attnek vegetable substances, it preserves to a certain extent the overlying partly derayed material. This material contains so much acid that the cultivated plants of our fields will not grow in it at all. It is poisonous to them ; but it is just what the blueberry requires."
This, and anything else relating to the cultivation of berries, is of practical concern to the farmers of Lnee county, as they realize that their soils and climate are finely adapted to the raising of all small fruits. Likewise, their potatoes are vastly superior to those grown fur- ther south, being free of "cores" and dry rot; solid, smooth and pal- ntable. They are in demand in Chicago and other Inrge cities. City purchasers, however, do not like to buy mixed varieties and, accord-
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ingly, the wholesale purchasers are urging upon growers the advisa- bility of planting the pure seed and keeping the varieties separated.
MINOR POINTS AND POPULATION
Soo Junction, where connections are made with the Soo to the east, and St. Ignace and Mackinac to the southeast; and Dollarville and Mc- Millan, just west of Newberry, are other stations worthy of mention on the Duluth, South Shore and Atlantic. In the early eighties, when the line had but lately been completed as the Detroit, Marquette & Mack- inac, McMillan was considered a very promising settlement. At this point the road skirted the hard land, and between it and Lake Michi- gan was and is a belt of beautiful farming land. Even then the country was being settled largely by farmers and, as enthusiastically noted by an observer of that period, "all kinds of vegetables grow in luxuriant abundance." It was thought that McMillan would permanently ben- efit by the productiveness of the adjacent country. Dollarville, two miles west of Newberry, was named after a Mr. Dollar, general man- ager of the American Lumber Company, which commenced business at that point in July, 1882.
The first national census taken after the organization of Luce county was that of 1890, which indicated her population to be 2,455; this had increased to 2,983 in 1900 and 4,004 in 1910. The comparative figures by townships and Newberry village are as follows:
COUNTY DIVISIONS
1910
1900
1890
Columbia Township
411
204
Lakefield Township
454
297
159
MeMillan Twp., including Newberry Village.
1,811
1,857
1,949
Pentland Township
1,328
625
347
Newberry Village
1,182
1,015
1,115
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CHAPTER XXI MARQUETTE AND BARAGA COUNTIES
MARQUETTE COUNTY ORGANIZED-IRON ORE DISCOVERED-MARQUETTE CITY FOUNDED-PETER WHITE COMES-IRON MOUNTAIN RAILROAD- ORE PIERS BUILT-GREAT FIRE OF 1868-ORE TRAFFIC AND OTHER BUSINESS-VILLAGE AND CITY-HARBOR AND WATER POWER-PUBLIC BUILDINGS AND MARQUETTE STATUE-PRESQUE ISLE-UPPER PENIN- SULA STATE PRISON-NORTHERN STATE NORMAL SCHOOL-NEGAUNEE- ISHPEMING-OLIVER . IRON MINING COMPANY-CLEVELAND-CLIFFS IRON MINING COMPANY-EARLY OUTSIDE MINING CENTERS-MINING SUMMARY-MODEL DAIRY FARM-INCREASE IN POPULATION-BARAGA COUNTY-BARAGA MISSION AND VILLAGE-THE METHODIST MISSION- VILLAGE OF L'ANSE-PETER CREBASSA-OTHER VILLAGES-INCREASE IN POPULATION.
By the legislative act of March 9. 1843, the Upper Peninsula was di- vided into the counties of Marquette, Delta, Chippewa, Mackinac, School- craft and Ontonagon-Marquette including parts of Iron and Dickinson, besides its present territory. Iron was set off in 1885 and Dickinson in 1891. thus cutting old Marquette county to its present area.
MARQUETTE COUNTY ORGANIZED
The original bounds of Marquette county ineluded that portion of state between the lines between ranges 23 and 24 west. the north bound- ary of township 41. the line between ranges 37 and 38 west and Lake Superior, such territory to be attached to Chippewa county for judicial purposes. The act of March 19, 1845, was of a re-organic character, amending the act of 1843. The first general election for Marquette county was held November 4, 1851, when the following vote was re- corded: For governor. Robert MeClellan, 53, and T. E. Gridley, 8; lieutenant governor, Calvin Britain, 53, and George H. Hazleton, 8; judge of probate court, Philo M. Everett, 62; sheriff, James D. Watt, 62; register, Peter White, 62; clerk. John S. Livermore, 62; treasurer, Charles Johnson, 62; surveyor, John Burt, 61.
Marquette township was established under authority of the legisla-
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MARQUETTE COUNTY COURT HOUSE
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tive aet of March 16, 1847, and included all the territory previously set off as the county of Marquette. The first meeting was ordered to be held at the house of Lucius M. Thayer in June, 1847, although there is no record of a township meeting being held until July 15, 1850, when the following officers were chosen: A. R. Harlow, supervisor; R. J. Gra- veraet, clerk; A. R. Harlow and E. C. Rogers, school inspectors; R. J. Graveraet, treasurer; Joshua Hodgkins, director of poor; Samuel . Moody, Charles Johnson and A. R. Harlow, road commissioners; Sam- uel Moody, N. E. Eddy, Czar Jones, justices, and A. N. Barney, A. H. Mitchell and Charles Johnson, constables.
IRON ORE DISCOVERED
It should be plainly understood that the organization of Marquette county in 1843 was purely a political matter, since several years were to transpire before there were any permanent settlers in her territory. The survey of the country was made by William R. Burt, deputy under Dr. Houghton, in the summer and fall of 1844. On the 18th of Septem- ber one of his parties was encamped at the east end of Teal lake. Jacob Houghton, a member of the party, gives the following account of the first discovery of iron ore in the Upper Peninsula: "On the morning of the 19th of September, 1844, we started to run the line south between ranges 26 and 27. As soon as we reached the hill to the south of the lake, the compassman began to notice the fluctuation in the variation of the magnetic needle. We were, of course, using the solar compass, of which Mr. Burt was the inventor, and I shall never forget the excitement of the old gentleman when viewing the changes of the variation -- the needle not actually traversing alike in any two places. He kept changing his position to take observations, all the time saying: 'How would they survey this country without my compass? What could be done here without my compass!' It was the full and complete realization of what he had foreseen when struggling through the first stages of his invention. At length, the compassman called for us all to 'come and see a variation which will beat them all.' As we looked at the instrument, to our as- tonishment the north end of the needle was traversing a few degrees to the south of west. Mr. Burt called out, 'Boys, look around and see what you can find.' We all left the line, some going to the east, some going to the west, and all of us returned with specimens of iron ore, mostly gathered from outerops. This was along the first mile from Teal lake. We carried all the specimens we could conveniently."
MARQUETTE CITY FOUNDED
The Jackson Mining Company, organized at Jackson, Michigan, by P. M. Everett, afterward of Marquette, became owner of the property which developed into the Jackson mine, at Negaunce, as a result of the discoveries of ore by the Burt surveyors in 1844. He arrived in the field during the following year, and is credited with being the county's first permanent white settler. When he arrived at the future site of
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Marquette, an Indian encampment was located where the Mackinac depot now stands. The chief of this band of red men was Manjigeezek, or "Moving Day ;" the coming of Mr. Everett was soon followed by the arrival of another even more important party of settlers. All of which certainly meant "moving day" for poor Manjigeezek and his dusky braves. In 1846 ground was first broken for actual mining and in 1847 the Jackson Mining Company built the old forge on the Carp river, three miles east of Negaunee, which, like all other forges in the early days of Marquette county, steadily lost money for its owners and les- sees, until it was finally abandoned in 1857. The first iron turned out of the first Jackson forge was sold to the well known Capt. E. B. Ward, of Detroit, and made into a walking beam for his steamboat "Ocean."
The Burt reports of the mineral richness of the Upper Peninsula threw the settled northwest into a tumult, only to be compared to the excitement caused later by the gold discoveries on the Pacific coast. This fever of anticipation reached its culmination in 1846, and carried on the first wave of migration to Marquette county was Peter White, then a lad in his seventeenth year, who, within the succeeding half cen- tury and a decade, was to become the father of the city and more of its institutions than any man who ever cast his fortunes in the country. Not only was the city of Marquette to become immeasureably indebted to him, but other prosperous communities in the county and peninsula.
PETER WHITE COMES
Peter White was a Rome (New York) boy, who when a motherless lad of twelve years wandered to Green Bay, Wisconsin, and thence to the island of Mackinaw, Michigan. There, in his sixteenth year, he be- came one of the boat's crew which was part of the corps of Capt. Au- gustus Canfield, U. S. A .. who had charge of the surveying work in the region of the straits of Mackinac and St. Mary's river, but more partic- ularly of the building of the lighthouse at Waugoshanee. The construc- tion camp was on the north side of the straits, and in building the erib for the lighthouse foundation Captain Canfield extended his explora- tions for stone for some distance up the St. Mary's river. Young White was one of the "pulling" crew on these trips, and he was wont to testify that he got plenty of exercise.
On one of the occasions when the crew was waiting on the beach un- til the captain should return from one of his inland tramps, looking for stone quarries, the hardy, and always mischievous, youth from New York had nothing better to do than to cover the smooth beach for a long stretch with well-executed chirography in six-inch letters, which ran thus: "Captain Augustus Canfield, Engineer Corps, U. S. A., in charge of the work of building Waugoshanee lighthouse, straits of Mackinac, Michigan : U. S. Topographical Engineers, Detroit, Michigan; Captain Canfield, Fourth Artillery, U. S. A;" and so on, repeated, until the youth tired of his occupation. The crew warned him he was in- fringing on the dignity of Capt. Canfield, but Peter White laughed,
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did not take the trouble to erase his high-sounding records, und took his nap with the others until the explorers returned. Instead of being disciplined. as was expected, Captain Canfield was so pleased with the writing on the sand that he soon promoted the bright young scamp to a good clerkship.
Peter White got the mineral excitement and it broke ont so badly in 1846 that in April of that year he joined the party headed by Rob- ert J. Graveraet, which was bound for the future site of the city of Marquette. How that party of teu laid the foundation of that fine umnicipality has been described in the general history, and record after record of the large part taken in its development by Peter White will be given in this narrative, his splendid achievements for his city, county and state being stayed only by his lamented death June 7, 1908.
Perhaps the leading mile-stones in the story of the county's devel- opment, after the founding of Marquette, were the establishment of Negaunce as a mining town in 1846: the creation of Ishpeming in 1856: the completion of the Iron Mountain Railroad in 1857; the founding of Forsyth and Champion, in 1863, of Humboldt in 1864 and Michigamme in 1872-all leading centers of iron mining; and the completion of the Detroit, Mackinac and Marquette railroad in Decem- ber, 1881. The last named then furnished the only line of railway couunnunication between the Upper and Lower peninsulas of Michigan.
The comity seat obtained its start as a shipping point for the Jack- son mine, operations there being much quickened in 1854, by the build- ing of a plauk road from Marquette to the mine. Then the company began the construction of the first ore dock at Marquette, which it completed in 1856, and also introduced mules, mule drivers and n street railway into the country.
IRON MOUNTAIN RAILROAD
In 1855 the Iron Mountain Railroad was begun and completed in 1857-the first iron way in the Upper Peninsula. In 1852, the Elys, of Marquette-Heman B., Sammel P., George H., John F. and Hervey -projected a railroad through the wilderness of Marquette county. At that time there were a few houses on the site of Marquette ent and a few cabins at the Jackson mine: these were about the only evidences of civilization to be seen along the proposed route of the railroad. Peter White thus describes the Marquette of this period: "A few honses, a stumpy road winding along the lake shore, a forge which burnt up after impoverishing its first owners; a trail westard just passable for wagons leading to another forge (still more unfortunate, in that it did not burn np) and to the undeveloped iron hills beyond; a few hundred people, uncertain of the future; these were all there was of Marquette in 1851-52."
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